Curse

Killed u man · May 19, 2011, 12:23 PM // 12:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by ErrantVenture

You also seem to miss the point I was making that AoG is little better than a conjure. The fact that it is an elite and is essentially as useful as a conjure makes it a poor skill choice.

How can U say such a thing? AoG still is one of the best derv elites to run. The fact that it's already in myticism, aswell as give you +dmg on top of converting your current damage to "armor ignoring" (+specific armor, I know).

I think alot of people here are still under the illusion +adrenaline is the end to all means. You could have a +1000% adrenaline skill, but the effectiveness of adrenaline skill will always be capped by your ability to actually activate them, similar to the cap on spell dps. (Even tough flare can be pumped up to do 80 damage, it'll still never be a "good" skill, because you can only cast so fast 1 flare/1.75 seconds)

The truth is that wearying strike and twin moon sweep, under AoB, recharge to fast for you to being able to hit them as they recharge, because you'll eventually run out of flash enchants, and even earlier be stripping your own IMS. Please don't misquote this as: "AoB is bad", because that's not what I'm saying. AoB is an amazing skill, and can definatly fight up against AoG, but the truth is that AoB effectiveness cap is reached quite quickly. The second you find a couple of people balled up, you'll find that you can use one of your adrenaline skill every second hit, which is way to much for your flash enchants (or your energy) to recharge. So while you have the adrenaline build, it's essentially useless, because you're still stuck to the recharge of your expendable flash enchants and to a lesser extend to your energy.

This is why I always find it amazing people run 2 or even 3 AoB dervishes just because "everyone runs it, so it must be best". Instead, what people should've been forming is a team with a variable derv setup. The matter of fact is that AoB are already naturally capped by their flesh enchants, on top of fact that avatar dervishes get slightly less effective in large packs; The "nearby" condition effects become semi-useless, as one can only suffer from one of the same condition at the same time.

AoB, AoG and an Onslaught derv is the way to go, tbh. A Grenth's derv has way more synergy with an AoB derv than another AoB, and vice versa. After the incomming nerf to AoB, I'll be even more inclined to just say: "Run 2 AoG's" solely because on top of the redicilous derv imbaness, AoG offers redicilous survivability to the extend where an AoG derv can solo the intire lord room (with grenth's aura) with a rit and even a prot monk there, assuming you're capable of balling up both knights on the bodyguard.

Heck, in byob I managed to pump around 4K lord damage in during the first 5 minutes of the game with a Rit, necro (who wasn't even that bad with his strips, but the flash enchants just recharge so fast) and a ranger in their room.

I'm just making such a lengthy post to "defend" AoG to point out the mistakes the balance team is making. Nerfing dervish builds one by one is not only going to take forever (3 months to nerf the 2 most prominent builds, and there are still 10 alternatives orso), it's also just going to push dervishes into oblivion again (like paramogons), which I wouldn't mind, if it wasn't for the fact GW is dead and deleting another profession isn't going to make the game any more fun.

floor · May 19, 2011, 12:29 PM // 12:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by lemming

Playing dervish against monks is so much easier than monking against dervishes at any skill level that this kind of frustrating situation, where a minor error can very easily be exploited by even relatively unskilled frontliners, was extremely common.

sums up the problem perfectly. If bad people can kill good people on a regular basis then something is wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by bhavv

Rank elitism is what single handedly destroys the number of new players in PVE. If there were just a few experienced players who would organize groups for PVP newbies, there would be a lot more people entering and playing PVP.

This is quite simply a lie. Ranks are almost entirely irrelevant. The reason good players do not want to play with terrible players in most cases, is that the bad people do not care about improving. They only care about gaining titles and showing off titles. Most of the "good" players spent months or years playing in completely noob groups, learning the ropes and actually understanding the game. The current generation of new pvp players simply do not have the patience to actually good at the game, they expect to be able to join high ranked good teams immediately and win lots of games. Unfortunately the truth is you must start in low rank noob groups, and eventually climb ur way up. Sadly ppl nowadays lose 1 game and go back to PvE, blaming rank elitism. This honestly saddens me, i spent over a year gvging almost every day, at a non top 1000 level and losing probably 75% of games i played, and only now after gvging for like 4 years straight can i play at a high end level.

People are not willing to put in the required time to learn anymore, losing is a necessary part of learning and people dont realise it, that is the problem. So in the words of lemming:

Quote:

Originally Posted by lemming

Please stop perpetuating this nonsense.

On a slightly more on topic note:
Good update in general. Im not convinced that it entirely deals with the problem, but i think they have done enough to at least keep players happy for now. Hopefully next month they can go one step further and delete dervishes from the game entirely, they dont add anything beneficial or fun.

Arnold Killmachine · May 19, 2011, 03:43 PM // 15:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

The truth is that wearying strike and twin moon sweep, under AoB, recharge to fast for you to being able to hit them as they recharge, because you'll eventually run out of flash enchants, and even earlier be stripping your own IMS.

Allright, what about attack skills that do not require flash enchant to be torn?

Chilling Victory, Crippling Victory, Radiant Scythe. Abusing those with AoB isn't difficult and it overcomes tear-down problem.

deluxe · May 19, 2011, 04:41 PM // 16:41

Everyone I know kind of stopped playing after the dervish update, guildwars is dead to me if I can't play GvG with my friends.

P.S. Onslaught was fun to use on warriors, nerfing the duration only hurts secondaries, not the Dervish itself.

Killed u man · May 19, 2011, 05:05 PM // 17:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arnold Killmachine

Allright, what about attack skills that do not requie flash enchant to be torn?

Chilling Victory, Crippling Victory, Radiant Scythe. Abusing those with AoB isn't difficult and it overcomes tear-down problem.

The other attack skills increase the effectiness of AoB, but the severly decrease the effectiveness of a scythe.

You're either going to have to drop a DW, or twin moon, meaning you'll have to take a lesser effective skill to make up for the lack of flash enchants. So while you are able to use wearying a bit more, you're missing damage where you used to have twin moon.

So then the question still comes to mind: why not run a grenth's derv then and take alone the free 10 hp lifesteal per attack aswell?

reaper with no name · May 19, 2011, 09:51 PM // 21:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by ErrantVenture

You managed to ignore all the points I made in my post and make some completely incorrect claims. Congrats.

Heart of fury was crap before the update. The combination of cast time, medium duration, and long recharge made it clunky to use and easy to shut down. I'm also not sure why you don't understand that a maintainable 25% IAS with no drawback will ALWAYS be better than a 33% IAS which is not maintainable. Dunno where you came up with the idea that elite skills are supposed to be twice as powerful as regular skills. It's a ridiculous notion that's never been anywhere near an accurate description of elites. You also seem to miss the point I was making that AoG is little better than a conjure. The fact that it is an elite and is essentially as useful as a conjure makes it a poor skill choice.

Do the math. Pre-update, HoF was effectively equivalent to a 25% that was always up. Post-update, that's exactly what it was. If HoF is a problem right now, it's not because of the skill itself, but because of other issues around it.

Life steal > conjure. Never mind the disease, which can be used to bypass defenses (oh, you're blocking me? no matter, I'll just keep spamming and pressure you with degen). AoG is no AoB, but it's certainly overpowered.

Elite skills are supposed to be twice as powerful as normal skills (in practice, they aren't, but that's another issue entirely). This was common knowledge last time I checked.

bungusmaximus · May 19, 2011, 09:56 PM // 21:56

I'm certain these nerfs will solve a lot of probs in HA, relicrunning with a harriers grasp derv riding you permanently was a drag. I also like the aura of thorns nerf a lot. I might start using warriors again.

As for other classes:
Unbuff bflash
Make grasping earth 5 ene and make it bad with low spec, so rolling a balanced in tombs might actually be worth it again.

as to anet: dont just look at gvg when balancing skills, there's more to guild wars then gvg.

fowlero · May 19, 2011, 10:13 PM // 22:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Do the math. Pre-update, HoF was effectively equivalent to a 25% that was always up. Post-update, that's exactly what it was. If HoF is a problem right now, it's not because of the skill itself, but because of other issues around it.

You can't compare the two, they're completely different. Sure by pure math they may equate to roughly the same, but with one being half downtime and the other (potentially) always up it makes it irrelevant in actual gameplay.

An upkeepable IAS, regardless of 25% or 33% with no drawback (other than having to take the skill in the first place) is an issue. Not that there aren't others obviously.

Essence Snow · May 19, 2011, 10:29 PM // 22:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by bungusmaximus

as to anet: dont just look at gvg when balancing skills, there's more to guild wars then gvg.

^^This 10 fold. GvG is a sparsely populated format. Seeing many skill updates primarily focused on it is quite saddening.

Shadar · May 19, 2011, 10:37 PM // 22:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Essence Snow

as most know here I have 0-zero interest in pvp

Why are you still in this thread? That is quite saddening.

Our Virus · May 19, 2011, 10:49 PM // 22:49

I think we should make AoB cause kd when you lose an FEnchantment. It isn't strong enough and needs more power so dervs become useful in pvp. And shoulnt AoG automatically make level 20 minions right when you kill something? We should argue over which is better and not nerf either one bc we love being able to kill things with no idea how to pvp.

FoxBat · May 19, 2011, 11:00 PM // 23:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Do the math. Pre-update, HoF was effectively equivalent to a 25% that was always up. Post-update, that's exactly what it was. If HoF is a problem right now, it's not because of the skill itself, but because of other issues around it.

It's because the entire rest of the class sucked. With flash enchants and teardowns, dervs have a lot of good skills now - either all of those, which are fairly balanced with each other, can be nerfed into oblivion, or we can adjust the handful of IAS skills. I'm glad they finally went with the latter approach.

MotorFinger · May 19, 2011, 11:21 PM // 23:21

*Flash enchantments disable other flash enchantments for 5 seconds
*Scythe attack speed same as hammer
*Heart of fury 33% IAS and -20 armor
*Twin moon sweep - blockable
*Wearying Strike - causes weakness even if an enchantment was removed

Shadar · May 19, 2011, 11:28 PM // 23:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike Jack

Can't wait to see those Avatar Dervishes with Conjures instead then.

A simple solution would be to make all Avatars convert to earth dmg. That way there is no conjure abuse and at the same time you lower their dps by using the correct shield.

Another problem is the fact dervishes can apply cracked armor by themselves which is impossible for all other melee classes. The synergy between that, Wounding Strike and 2 elementalist' in spike teams is just insane.
Rending Aura and Staggering Force should get nerfed, they are a bigger problem then +dmg on WS.

Xenomortis · May 20, 2011, 12:08 AM // 00:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by MotorFinger

*Heart of fury 33% IAS and -20 armor

25% or it's still much better than Frenzy.*
And give a drawback to the Avatars or dramatically increase their recharges.

Was there really a need to nerf Wounding Strike? With no +damage there's no point to running it over Wearying - having it fuel off an applier of Cracked Armour is what makes them a little gross.

*
Edit: Unless you meant this to go with the change in the preview.

tealspikes · May 20, 2011, 12:37 AM // 00:37

All damage is already converted into holy/dark/chaos damage depending on the Avatar. Conjure spells don't work, otherwise people would have stacked them on Grenth dervishes day 1.

Maybe they should have made HoF a watered down version of Frenzy.
+25% attack speed, +33% damage taken. Now that dervishes have all this extra armor like a warrior I think it would fit nicely. The biggest problem with drawbacks on stances is that dervishes would be forced to take cancel stances, when their bar is already crowded with flash-enchants.

Xenomortis · May 20, 2011, 12:40 AM // 00:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by tealspikes

The biggest problem with drawbacks on stances is that dervishes would be forced to take cancel stances, when their bar is already crowded with flash-enchants.

This is a problem?

*lemming* · May 20, 2011, 12:58 AM // 00:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Do the math. Pre-update, HoF was effectively equivalent to a 25% that was always up. Post-update, that's exactly what it was. If HoF is a problem right now, it's not because of the skill itself, but because of other issues around it.

Negative. This is a bit of an oversimplification, but against competent healers, the chance of a chain of melee attack skills outside of an IAS stance posing a threat is very limited. When an opportunity opens up, you absolutely need to have an IAS available to take advantage of it and at least threaten a kill, if not get one. The old Heart of Fury basically made dervishes good for nothing more than autoattack damage half the time. Additionally, both cast times and aftercast completely ruin the flow of frontlining - stopping at all when you're chasing someone means that he'll be getting away.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aljasha

That critical mass is not defined, though. Neither in number nor in naming the core players. Who is a core palyer? Somebody who plays top100 for years or months or somebody who plays actively in any range, but knows everything about gvg? I don't know, I've met some top100 players who were clueless of the basic game mechanics and some people say that everyone who plays frequently is top100, anyway.

Can an active player be replaced with someone else? I think so, but the replaced player could return aswell, thus increasing the headcount of the gvg crowd.

Simply put, the number of guilds that have some idea of how the game works but aren't yet in contention for anything has plummeted in Europe and is virtually zero in America.

A few years ago, there was genuine movement through the ranks - entry into higher levels of skill and rating came from less experienced players getting better through playing each other. Relatively recently, though, this trend has come to a standstill - there aren't enough players entering to sustain this system anymore, while players are constantly leaving from the top level, quite a bit of which can be attributed to poor balancing.

Critical mass is easier to see in Heroes' Ascent. Try finding a pug, even in European prime time. See how many no opposing parties you get on an average run.

voyvoy · May 20, 2011, 01:29 AM // 01:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by tealspikes

All damage is already converted into holy/dark/chaos damage depending on the Avatar. Conjure spells don't work, otherwise people would have stacked them on Grenth dervishes day 1.

You can use Conjure Frost with Grenth's Fingers and a Avatar. But ignoring all the physical or ele damage is so much better and you dont have to waste a skill slot and points.

Just change it to physical.

Ka Tet · May 20, 2011, 02:21 AM // 02:21

Doing one of my regular checks. Is it safe to say the game still sucks, and it's not worth returning?