Curse

Malician · Feb 16, 2010, 08:20 PM // 20:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoyon456

Ele's cannot bond, they don't have blessed signet* and their attributes are too low. You're way off here. They can ether renewal infuse, but other than that without Divine Favor Ele's don't have strong enough heals.

Is this a troll? I'll give you the attributes when talking about maintaining both protective and smiting bonds, but why would an Elementalist even want blessed signet when their own e-management is so far superior?

What heals do you need other than ether renewal infuse? A sole Ele may have trouble with heavy party-wide degen, but a heal party monk or second Ele fixes that issue up nicely.

Cuilan · Feb 16, 2010, 08:37 PM // 20:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoyon456

Except that Ele's do much more damage compared to Mesmers and nowadays Ele's don't go for the longer casting time spells, and when they do, they use cons and Mindbender to make it matter little.

Without running out of energy?

Assassins have amazing energy management and a way to increase damage all in the same attribute line. They have skills with the same attribute to raise chances of a critical hit if a build requires it. Expertise alone doesn't increase damage and you don't have an option to use minor, major, or superior runes.

reaper with no name · Feb 16, 2010, 11:08 PM // 23:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by MagmaRed

Ritualist needs as big a change as Dervish then.

6) Ranger can spam spirits better than a Rit due to Expertise.
7) Necro can spam spirits better than a Rit due to Soul Reaping.

Before the spirit buff, you were right, they needed help. In fact, I considered them even more underpowered than dervishes, and I'm pretty sure that on at least one occasion I mentioned that they needed help. I never made suggestions for them because I didn't know anything about rits back then (and even now, I only really know anything about spirits). However, ritualists are in fact better with spirits than any other profession. Yes, their primary attribute leaves something to be desired, but the runes make the difference.

I forget where, but I did some calculations comparing a spirit spamming ritualist versus an N/Rt or R/Rt, under the worst case scenario for the ritualist (I assumed that 6 SR or Expertise could fuel all the spirits just fine without energy management, but that a rit would have to take spirit siphon, thereby giving the N/Rt or R/Rt another spirit). The Ritualist still won out in damage, despite having one fewer spirit. And if you have anything in your build other than spirits and painful bond, it only gets worse for the non-rit, because then SoS becomes a larger and larger proportion of the damage (and it's one of the places where Rits have the biggest advantage due to higher channeling).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Desert Rose

@MagmaRed: Again, you haven't understand the problem, and why your old and your new examples are mostly beside the point. There's nothing wrong if another profession can use one aspect of a profession better than the original profession. There's also nothing wrong if every single aspect of a profession can be used better by other professions.
It becomes a problem though if every combintion of aspects a single profession can use can be better used by another single character of another profession.

THIS. OH GOD THIS.

This is why I consider the dervish the most underpowered profession. Rangers and Mesmers are very close, but even they have a couple of things that they can do better than other classes (Rangers can use Barrage and SY! together better than any other profession and Mesmers have their sin summon spam, for example). The dervish does not. If it did have something akin to those two things, I'd quit griping.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xsiriss

Just a lame idea,needs something like 1% ench duration increase per rank (doesn't matter if it's OP,dervish are a second rate class).

Tried that already. Along with most of the other obvious solutions (tying AoHM to mysticism, etc).

See why I come up with weird crap like this now?

Quote:

Originally Posted by shoyon456

-Detailing problems with dervish-

A meaningful change to Mysticism would be elminating the negligent and pointless health gain and adding a 1-2% holy damage with weapons per rank of Mysticism or adding a 1-2 holy damage to adjacent foes when an enchantment ends.

Thank you. It's so nice to have someone else explain it. I'm getting tired of re-doing the calculations.

The minimal AoE thing I thought of once before, but that was for the enchantment spam suggestion that was doomed to failure from the beginning. Haven't thought of adding holy damage to weapons via mysticism, though. Might work, since the damage difference between a zealous vow dervish and enduring scythe is something like 10% if I recall correctly. However, I think that such an idea would have to be PvE-only, because I can't see a 10% damage increase not having a huge effect on PvP balance (or rather, kicking it down the stairs and stealing it's lunch money).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

Just improve the energy (and/or heath) gain if it needs buffing.

What if it gained additional, but much less, energy and health for enchantments ending on adjacent creatures (or just allies)?

Improving the energy gain I think has been tried before, and either way, it's just asking for abuse, because if you're getting more out of enchantments than you put in...

Increasing the health gain is an idea I've toyed with, but it too is open to abuse, because of things like Protective Spirit and Protective Bond. What would happen if you could gain, say, 30 hp from an enchantment ending on you and you combined it with Protective Bond and Mystic Vigor?

Like my suggestions or not, I do usually try to make sure they're not overpowered, unless I'm trying to make a point.

Having Mysticism sort-of trigger on adjacent allies would probably be useless or overpowered, depending on whether you were near allies or not.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Desert Rose

Your ideas are getting shot down because of at least one of the following reasons:
- Your suggestions are just bad.
- You only explain, if at all, very briefly what's wrong with the current situation with dervishes, what's the general goal you want to achieve, and how your specific changes would work toward that goal; anyone without a good knowledge about game mechanics, current balance situation and theoretical balancing cannot follow your thoughts.
- You present your ideas as they are the only way to fix the problem, you don't encourage others to bring in their input.
- You post way too many suggestions; instead of posting every idea that just popped into your head elaborate one idea and post it when it's finished.

*takes out notebook*

Ok, "explain the problems with the dervish each and every time, no matter how annoying it is to do so", "remember to invite others to submit ideas, don't think it is implied", and "wait more time between suggestions". Hey, I just did that last one!

Kaleban · Feb 18, 2010, 06:37 PM // 18:37

The problem with the Dervish boils down to "other classes do it better."

This is especially glaring with W/D and A/D using Scythes with AoHM.

The reason is that Mysticism for a melee-centric class is much less useful than the energy gain of CS for example, especially considering that like the Sin, a Derv's attacks are all energy based.

A couple of simple fixes IMHO:

1. Make AoHM dependent on Mysticism, just like Critical Agility is on CS
2. Make a Scythe's AOE ability dependent on Mysticism, sort of a "dual-req" weapon. Damage is based on Scythe Mastery, but the number of adjacent foes depends on Mysticism. Something like: If Mysticism is less than 4, Scythe only hits one target, at 4 or above, Scythe hits 2 adjacent targets in addition to the main target.

If someone complains about the "roleplay" factor (WHY lol), it could be said that a Dervish uses his "third eye" to weave his scythe in and out of groups of enemies or some such malarkey. Other professions that use the Scythe would only ever be able to hit one target at a time.

Those two fixes alone would make the Dervish the primary user of the Scythe again. As to Mysticism's "passive" bonuses, there are many more possible changes.

First, I'd get rid of the laughable health gain entirely, its too small to matter in most cases.

I would also change the energy gain from being on ending, to on casting. Frequently, Dervishes run out of energy because they front load enchants, and have to wait for energy regen to allow them to start attacking. Having energy gain be on casting might not be a great benefit with a full e-bar, but once you start loading up 5 or 6 enchants, the energy gain on casting acts as sort of "e-damage" mitigation. Coupled with 4 pips of regen, this would allow for a more robust energy based melee combatant. Plus, if a monk is casting RoF on you constantly, it would help fuel your attacks better, and would open up some interesting builds with Max Mysticism and 5E enchant heals and prots.

In addition to the above front loaded energy gain, or in place of it, Mysticism could grant an additional pip of energy regen for a specific amount of time when each enchantment ends, say 1 second per rank of Mysticism, so at 12 Mysticism you'd get 4 energy back. This would allow the concept of "enchant cycling" something I thought the Dervish was supposed to depend on, and fit the idea of Mysticism being a connection to the gods or whatever. Also, you'd have less wasted energy when "enchant bombing" or getting stripped, for example 5 enchants end on you, you'd get back 20 energy over 12 seconds over and above your natural 4 pip regen, allowing you to get back in the fight much quicker an re-establish your enchant baseline.

Alter the recharges on most if not all the "initial effect - end effect" enchants. Take HoHF for example, holy damage initial, then burning end. With a very short (or even zero recharge), a Dervish could charge into a group, and start casting this spell doing the initial damage, then on recharge cast again, doing the initial damage from the second cast plus inflicting the burning condition from the ending of the first cast. The "Pulse Bomber" build lol. A Dervish COULD leave it up for 30 seconds gaining the Holy Damage modifier to weapons, but would have the option of cycling enchants to gain energy and deal damage.

So between the changes to the Scythe mechanics as detailed above, and changing Mysticism to really supercharge e-management, the Dervish would be a much more formidable and solid melee combatant. I figure that the Dervish's Mysticism should parallel in one sense a Warrior's Adrenaline gain, and having the e-gain be on cast plus regen on end of enchants would definitely up a Dervishes ability in front line combat.

J I L T · Feb 18, 2010, 07:34 PM // 19:34

I kind of like the mysticism buff but I think simply changing derv enchantments slightly would be better. Enchantments that have multiple functions like vital boon, staggering force etc should apply multiple enchantments in pve. Vital boon would have give 2 one that increases your hp and another that heals you when it ends. This would make it easier to cover enchantments and make use of derv skills that are fueled by enchantments without relying on teammates to enchant you or having a bar filled with enchantments.

MagmaRed · Feb 18, 2010, 07:38 PM // 19:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by J I L T

I kind of like the mysticism buff but I think simply changing derv enchantments slightly would be better. Enchantments that have multiple functions like vital boon, staggering force etc should apply multiple enchantments in pve. Vital boon would have give 2 one that increases your hp and another that heals you when it ends. This would make it easier to cover enchantments and make use of derv skills that are fueled by enchantments without relying on teammates to enchant you or having a bar filled with enchantments.

Even if possible (I doubt it is though) it would cause major changes to a lot of skills. Mystic Regeneration is top of the list, but any skill the Derv has that removes enchants would also need to be adjusted, as well as several removal skills like Strip/Rip/Shatter.

Del · Feb 18, 2010, 07:40 PM // 19:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by J I L T

I kind of like the mysticism buff but I think simply changing derv enchantments slightly would be better. Enchantments that have multiple functions like vital boon, staggering force etc should apply multiple enchantments in pve. Vital boon would have give 2 one that increases your hp and another that heals you when it ends. This would make it easier to cover enchantments and make use of derv skills that are fueled by enchantments without relying on teammates to enchant you or having a bar filled with enchantments.

No. making self covering enchantments makes playing derv even more brainless than it already is. and stuff like signet of pious light would be OP seeing as how you could easily double your enchants and spam heals mwithout bothering to enchant yourself twice as much.

king swift · Feb 18, 2010, 09:43 PM // 21:43

Awesome idea...too bad anet probably doesnt give a darn

Desert Rose · Feb 18, 2010, 11:29 PM // 23:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by J I L T

I kind of like the mysticism buff but I think simply changing derv enchantments slightly would be better. (...)

While I don't like your concrete suggestion I agree this is the right course. Instead of turning Mysticism into a melee attribute I would rather see enchantments and skills related to enchantments buffed so that Mysticism in its current form becomes useful.
I may provide a few concrete suggestions tomorrow, I'm just to tired at the moment.

J I L T · Feb 19, 2010, 12:16 AM // 00:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by MagmaRed

Even if possible (I doubt it is though) it would cause major changes to a lot of skills. Mystic Regeneration is top of the list, but any skill the Derv has that removes enchants would also need to be adjusted, as well as several removal skills like Strip/Rip/Shatter.

Actually it wouldn't cause major changes to anything aside from the actual enchantments that got buffed. It would make mystic regeneration and really any skill that benefits from being enchant better but that's not a major change it simply makes those skills more desirable and most of those skills have some kind of enchantment limit to them anyway. No removal skills wouldn't need to be changed at all

Quote:

Originally Posted by Del

No. making self covering enchantments makes playing derv even more brainless than it already is. and stuff like signet of pious light would be OP seeing as how you could easily double your enchants and spam heals mwithout bothering to enchant yourself twice as much.

None of the classes really take that much thought to begin with. Plus making it easier to use the class is the point anyway so saying it's more brainless is a just a negative way of stating the purpose of buffs in general. Even if those skills did become too good it would be by a pretty small margin dervs already have so many healing skills that one really good signet heal won't matter much especially in pve.

Ugh · Feb 19, 2010, 01:26 AM // 01:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaleban

First, I'd get rid of the laughable health gain entirely, its too small to matter in most cases.

I would also change the energy gain from being on ending, to on casting....

In addition to the above front loaded energy gain, or in place of it, Mysticism could grant an additional pip of energy regen for a specific amount of time when each enchantment ends, say 1 second per rank of Mysticism, so at 12 Mysticism you'd get 4 energy back.

I like this idea.

Quote:

Originally Posted by J I L T

[Plus making it easier to use the class is the point anyway so saying it's more brainless is a just a negative way of stating the purpose of buffs in general.

Dervs don't suck becuase they're too hard to use, they suck because they suck.

And, buffing stuff by making it brainless results in shit like R/As.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Desert Rose

Instead of turning Mysticism into a melee attribute I would rather see enchantments and skills related to enchantments buffed so that Mysticism in its current form becomes useful.

This would be good, too. I would also make Pious Assault recharge instantly if an enchantment is stripped (and probably either reduce the +damage or make the DW conditional so it's not OP again) to encourage enchantment juggling.

And I would weaken PvP avatars and make them more maintainable to encourage mysticism usage.

Del · Feb 19, 2010, 01:52 AM // 01:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by J I L T

None of the classes really take that much thought to begin with. Plus making it easier to use the class is the point anyway so saying it's more brainless is a just a negative way of stating the purpose of buffs in general. Even if those skills did become too good it would be by a pretty small margin dervs already have so many healing skills that one really good signet heal won't matter much especially in pve.

classes don't take much thought? how come it's so easy to spot a good player from a bad player? because obviously, playing takes some amount of skill. Devishes problem isn't mysticism, it's the lack of utility, as is, myst is an excellent energy management, and most classes primary is simply energy management. but making skills produce multiple enchantments is just asinine.

tealspikes · Feb 19, 2010, 03:13 AM // 03:13

Pious Assault kinda represented in a nutshell the intended play-style of the dervish. If enchantment juggling is the direction we want to move, then reverting PA would be the first step, even before any mysticism/enchant buff.

J I L T · Feb 19, 2010, 05:55 AM // 05:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Del

classes don't take much thought? how come it's so easy to spot a good player from a bad player? because obviously, playing takes some amount of skill. Devishes problem isn't mysticism, it's the lack of utility, as is, myst is an excellent energy management, and most classes primary is simply energy management. but making skills produce multiple enchantments is just asinine.

Thought doesn't equal skill knowledge definitely helps but it certainly isn't required. And I didn't say they took no skill just any class can be pretty brainless. It's easy to distinguish between a bad and good player because they're exact opposites of each other you'd have to be lobotomized to not spot the difference. Dervs have a reasonable amount of utility they're pretty good at snaring, removing enchantment and spreading conditions. Plus we already have utility heavy classes there's no reason to have another one. The idea isn't asinine it would compliment a lot of derv skills nicely, compress skill bars, make mysticism more useful and it could easily backfire so it wouldn't be overpowered. Why don't you say what makes it asinine instead of making vague statements.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ugh

Dervs don't suck becuase they're too hard to use, they suck because they suck.

And, buffing stuff by making it brainless results in shit like R/As.

Never said dervs were hard to use but any and every buff to a skill makes it easier to use and therefore dumbs down the class. An instant cover enchantment isn't even that huge of a buff to make dervs a 1-2-3-1-2-3 class. I'm only suggesting it for a few enchantments not all of them and I said that the buff would be for pve and there are way more overpowered things out there than a few two for the price of one enchantments. Also "they suck because they suck" is just a stupid thing to say in fact you really don't say anything at all with statements like that.

Del · Feb 19, 2010, 06:39 AM // 06:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by J I L T

The idea isn't asinine it would compliment a lot of derv skills nicely, compress skill bars, make mysticism more useful and it could easily backfire so it wouldn't be overpowered. Why don't you say what makes it asinine instead of making vague statements.

You honestly need to be told why getting two enchants from one skill is a bad idea? first off, there is nothing wrong with mysticism except for your inability to put the effort into making a build that effectively utilizes it. skills producing multiple enchants so that they have the inherent ability to cover themselves has no drawback whatsoever, and it would make skills like arcane zeal more powerful than they already are, as well as serve no other purpose than to produce a bunch of enchants with little or no effort, basically, make it so brainlessly simple to play, solve no problem with why dervs are bad, and give them a little bit of superficial strength, while they remain a mediocre frontliner when compared to a warrior. the only real way to fix dervs is to give them better skill synergy. making derv skills produce multiple enchantments isn't going to solve anything and make dervs more viable to see play.

also, if one enchant skill makes two enchantments, and the two enchantments are put in order they appear in the description, then the oh so convenient to remove ending effect would conveniently cover the benefit. Which sounds pretty broken IMO.

Quote:

Originally Posted by J I L T

Thought doesn't equal skill knowledge definitely helps but it certainly isn't required. And I didn't say they took no skill just any class can be pretty brainless. It's easy to distinguish between a bad and good player because they're exact opposites of each other you'd have to be lobotomized to not spot the difference.

Congratulations, you can split hairs, and also miss my point by a few miles. A brainless class is essentially is a class that requires little to know skill to function properly, therefore allowing bad players to function as well as a good player. like assassins with their 1>2>3>4>5 combos that even a single celled organism can use.

reaper with no name · Feb 19, 2010, 07:18 AM // 07:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by tealspikes

Pious Assault kinda represented in a nutshell the intended play-style of the dervish. If enchantment juggling is the direction we want to move, then reverting PA would be the first step, even before any mysticism/enchant buff.

Even if dervishes were given back all the power they had at the beginning of nightfall, it would still be meaningless, because due to the power creep, the good dervish builds of today are significantly more effective than the dervish was at the start of nightfall.

Most of the utility effects of dervish enchantments are minor at best. The best they can offer is self-heals (lol) and weakness (which is inferior to SY). The only other thing enchantment juggling can offer is damage, and, well...see for yourself.

Anything less than that, and the damage would not be enough for enchantment juggling to be meaningful (it would be nothing but an inferior MSDB, minus the insane single-target damage MSDB offers). In fact, in hindsight, that idea didn't go far enough, because I didn't know about aftercast delays back then. So the damage on all of those spells would have to be even higher in order for it to be a viable damage mechanic. And yet, despite that, it would amount to a total rework of the class (as well as some skills from other classes).

The point is, enchantment juggling as a viable mechanic is a horrible idea. There are much easier ways of fixing the class that are also far less likely to have unintended side-effects.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaleban

stuff

Holy father of 13,251 pig mutants, we actually agreed on something.

The first two ideas have been proposed before, along with variations thereof (such as tying number of targets to scythe mastery, with a breakpoint at 13). The other ideas are intiguing though, particularly the idea of changing mysticism to provide energy immediately when an enchantment is cast on you. It goes against the self-stripping the dervish was meant to do, but at this point that entire concept has been thrown out the window. Not sure it'd be enough, though, even with the last idea.

Ugh · Feb 19, 2010, 12:32 PM // 12:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by J I L T

Never said dervs were hard to use but any and every buff to a skill makes it easier to use and therefore dumbs down the class.

Not every buff dumbs down a class. How would raising the damage of Power Attack by 10 make it any easier to use? How did changing Melandru's Shot from this:

Elite Bow Attack. Deals +10...30...35 damage. You gain 15 energy if target foe is enchanted.

to its current function make it brainless? Buffing stuff by making it brainless is just the bad, lazy way to do it.

Quote:

Never said dervs were hard to use

I got that impression when you said they needed to be made easier to play.

Quote:

I'm only suggesting it for a few enchantments not all of them and I said that the buff would be for pve and there are way more overpowered things out there than a few two for the price of one enchantments.

If it's only for PvE, then it only solves half the problem. And, just because there's more OP shit running around doesn't mean we should just pile more on top of it.

Quote:

Also "they suck because they suck" is just a stupid thing to say in fact you really don't say anything at all with statements like that.

Read as: "Dervs don't suck because they're too hard to use, they suck due to their skillset and basic mechanics."

But, the point I was making was irrelevant because I thought you thought dervs were neglected due to being overly complicated.

Also, insulting your audience is an overall bad arguing strategy.

And, you know what? Your idea is stupid. Boom.

superraptors · Feb 19, 2010, 01:34 PM // 13:34

what i find annoying bout dervs is constantly putting up enchs

maybe every lvl or mysticism increase enchantments on you for an additonal 2%-3% would be good in addition to its effect

Cuilan · Feb 21, 2010, 01:56 AM // 01:56

Quote:

I must agree with this. Many skills may seem nice by themselves, but not in the same build. Some skills seem like they're in the wrong attribute, too. I don't think the primary attribute needs any sort of buff at all. Another player and I were discussing how neat it would be to have more attributes that weren't based on giving energy.

I posted this in another thread, but it is relevant also to this thread.

Recasting things is an issue, but it doesn't have to mean less damage. Having to stand and cast something is just one aspect of the whole picture.

MagmaRed · Feb 21, 2010, 02:47 AM // 02:47

"Another player and I were discussing how neat it would be to have more attributes that weren't based on giving energy."

Not sure what you mean, there aren't that many in the first place. I'll even be generous and include some that don't fit the quoted description, but could be similar enough to be what you mean.

Strength
Axe Mastery
Hammer Mastery
Swordsmanship
Tactics

Expertise
Beast Mastery
Marksmanship
Wilderness Survival

Divine Favor
Healing Prayers
Protection Prayers
Smiting Prayers

Fast Casting
Domination Magic
Illusion Magic
Inspiration Magic

Energy Storage
Air Magic
Earth Magic
Fire Magic
Water Magic

Soul Reaping
Blood Magic
Curses
Death Magic

Spawning Power
Channeling Magic
Communing
Restoration Magic

Critical Strikes
Dagger Mastery
Deadly Arts
Shadow Magic

Mysticism
Earth Prayers
Scythe Mastery
Wind Prayers

Leadership
Command
Motivation
Spear Mastery

Not all classes have an attribute that provides energy, and even come of the classes do, the attribute isn't SOLELY about energy. Inspiration, for example, has a lot of enegry gain skills, but it also has hexes that deny energy, stances that reduce damage, and self healing. Expertise doesn't even give energy, it just reduces the energy needed for specific skills. You could argue that we need more, so each class has some energy management options without relying on a secondary.

And that doesn't even include skills outside of those attributes that are based on energy management. Guilt, Glowstone, Golden Lotus, etc. are all in attributes VERY few people would say were based on energy, and yet they provide nice options for energy management.