Curse

Superdink · Aug 21, 2009, 08:11 PM // 20:11

Alright, first off, I believe the problem with the dervishes as they are right now is that they can do a lot of things just fine, but don't excel at anything.
They can scythe things, aoe things, and inflict conditions on things, but they aren't very good at any of them.

I'd like to propose a few things. 1 = a change to mysticism, 2 = a new kind of dervish "enchantment" type spell, 3 = rework earth and wind prayers to allow pbaoe's and also maintained enchants.

1. Mysticism

Currently, the problem with mysticism is that it doesn't buff dmg at all, nor does it give enough energy to support casting. This causes a problem because dervish primaries can't support enchant spamming (nor have any reason given the quality of most dervish spells) nor can they effectively melee things compared to other classes.

I personally don't believe that mysticism should buff scythe dmg, because the strength of a dervish should come through his enchants. Mysticism's job should be providing enough energy to keep the enchants flowing. If the piddly health bonus were removed from mysticism and the attribute instead gave the bonus energy when an enchantment ended AND when it was cast, it would give just enough energy to keep a dervish casting.

Keep in mind the energy levels might need to be changed, because with 5E whenever you casted an enchantment and 5E when it ended, this could be abused badly.

2. New Enchantment Types

This might get flamed because it has the potential to cause some OPness in the dervishes, but things can always be tweaked. I'm just talking about main concepts here.

I think that GW should introduce a new type of buff unique to dervishes. These could be called auras. These skills would be the dervishes source of pbaoe's and they would replace the current pbaoe's (because right now, the fact that they have both start and end effects make them very impractical to use). It would work like this.

The skill would enchant you for 5 seconds, when it ended, you would be effected by "Aura of __" Auras would last a long time, but would only have end effects and would not be able to be stripped by other players. (This is why they would take 5 seconds to affect the player. It gives the enemies time to strip the enchantment and also creates at least a 5 second window between spikes. Purely for balance).

Dervishes would be able to stack these auras, which would last for a decent amount of time (say 30 seconds) and then would be able to remove them and unleash all their effects.

3. Earth/Wind Prayers

At the moment, earth prayers are all about staying alive/inflicting conditions and wind prayers are all about healing/controlling move speed. These attributes need to be more defined. If earth was narrowed down to dmg/conditions and wind was changed to healing/team support, the dervish would be more versatile and also more useful.

Both attributes would be given auras as well as maintainable enchantments.
Earth auras would have things such as "when this aura ends, enemies in the area are crippled and begin bleeding for X seconds" or "when this aura ends, enemies in the area are knocked down."
Wind, on the other had, would be more like "when this aura ends, you and allies in the area are healed for X health." or "when this aura ends you and allies in the area are cured of X hexes."

The maintainable enchants would be left in the game, auras would just a part of it. You would still have earth enchants that gave health regen and you would still have enchants/spells that increased move speed and such in wind prayers.

To wrap all of this up, the focus of each attribute would be made unique. Mysticism skills would be focused on melee dps and energy management. Earth prayers would be focused on sudden spikes of conditions and causing chaos. Wind prayers would be focused on healing allies and taking some pressure off backliners. And scythe mastery would be focused on actually being useful to a dervish primary.

And if you managed to read this far, please don't post negative comments without reasons or constructive criticism because I think that these changes would help dervishes finally be welcome in groups and actually fun to play.

silavor · Aug 21, 2009, 09:23 PM // 21:23

I'd like to see a description example of what an aura skill would look like before really giving it a fair assessment. But the whole notion of refining earth and wind prayers has really been needed since day 1, and the skill balancers have finally started trying to do that recently.

sosycpsycho · Aug 21, 2009, 09:46 PM // 21:46

Yeah I have faith that dervish is getting a heavy looking over based on the changes I have seen to other jobs fitting the same bill such as Ritualist. Hopefully they will do good changes.
but in all honesty I think what would be great for this game (allthough too late I fear) is just to lock weapons to certain professions. That would really shake things up.

the only problems with the idea I see is Mysticism would buff many skills that really don't need it if the whole trait got an overhaul.

I'm with you on earth and wind prayers I seem to have found better uses for them as a ranger than as a dervish. I still like derv I run several good builds but what it always goes back to for me is I have a warrior and a sin that can use a scythe with more brutal results from strength and critical trait lines.

Dervish needs some boost that will effect only them to fix this and that's a hard idea to come up with a answer for.

**Marty Silverblade** · Aug 21, 2009, 10:15 PM // 22:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by sosycpsycho

but in all honesty I think what would be great for this game (allthough too late I fear) is just to lock weapons to certain professions. That would really shake things up.

That would suck. Not only would it remove many viable builds (need some variation in PvE, not to mention the problem isn't that Wars/Assassins/whoever is overpowered with the scythe) but it would remove a lot of weapon swapping strategy like spear/shield sets for Monks.

cognophile · Aug 21, 2009, 10:44 PM // 22:44

I'm not convinced the dervish class is underpowered, especially for PvE. For lots of casting energy, there is arcane zeal, which is linked to mysticism so it's only useful to dervish primaries. For damage boosting, the dervish has skills like vow of strength, aura of holy might, and avatar of grenth. Dervishes also have good self-enchants and other skills for defense, increased attack speed, and increased movement speed.

mathiastemplar · Aug 21, 2009, 11:36 PM // 23:36

I like your ideas, good thinking

Although... too late:/ - won't happen.. No suggestions like this will ever be implemented.
Look at the "split WTB and WTS" thread.. Even that, won't happen >.<

Swahnee · Aug 22, 2009, 12:41 PM // 12:41

I find a little annoying to cast enchantments while attacking. When i play an attacking profession, i usually try to maximize my DPS, increasing the attack speed.

With a Dervish, i often have to stop fighting to recast enchantments, and this lowers my DPS.

So i think that with Dervish they're trying to mix up two things that don't stay well together IMHO: the use of a weapon to deal damage (so the need to maximize DPS), and the use of enchantments to deal damage/support (so the need to stop fighting to cast).

If you make the Dervish an "enchantment-spam" class, this would go against his attacking nature, you are trying to do two completely different things at the same time..

so i would prefer long lasting (and maybe also short-casting) enchantments, so to be able to attack more and cast less.

On the other hand, you could design a set of spammable enchantments to use while i choose not to attack..so when i use a dervish i can choose to perform either an attacking role, or a casting one (something like the racway's order)..but not the two things in the same build IMHO.

Cuilan · Aug 22, 2009, 03:08 PM // 15:08

I have no problem casting enchantments that cause damage or help me deal more damage. Same for skills that keep my character...not dead.

Superdink · Aug 22, 2009, 05:53 PM // 17:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swahnee

I find a little annoying to cast enchantments while attacking. When i play an attacking profession, i usually try to maximize my DPS, increasing the attack speed.

With a Dervish, i often have to stop fighting to recast enchantments, and this lowers my DPS.

So i think that with Dervish they're trying to mix up two things that don't stay well together IMHO: the use of a weapon to deal damage (so the need to maximize DPS), and the use of enchantments to deal damage/support (so the need to stop fighting to cast).

If you make the Dervish an "enchantment-spam" class, this would go against his attacking nature, you are trying to do two completely different things at the same time..

so i would prefer long lasting (and maybe also short-casting) enchantments, so to be able to attack more and cast less.

On the other hand, you could design a set of spammable enchantments to use while i choose not to attack..so when i use a dervish i can choose to perform either an attacking role, or a casting one (something like the racway's order)..but not the two things in the same build IMHO.

That was the point I was trying to address with mysticism. If they were to add skills to mysticism that boosted your dps with a scythe I don't think the dervishes would feel so gimmicky. The "enchantment-spam" was for the pbaoe's. You would spam enchantments as your primary form of damage. Not to support scythe damage.

If the MAINTAINABLE enchantments all had casting times under 1 second and lasted for 20~ seconds, you would have no problem buffing yourself, getting in a good 10 swings and then having to rebuff. If you have a good 1-2 damage boosting enchants on you, that would be fine.

If the dev team changed the maintainable enchants to have very small casting times and relatively long durations and then made the pbaoe's the ones that required a lot of casting and setup time, the dervish would be a force to be reckoned with; and not something that my water ele can kill without even glancing at his health bar. (This is evidence that the dervishes are underpowered... they use the most damage-dealing weapon in the game, and yet when I play pvp, they are the only melee class I don't have to worry about in the slightest. I could have three of them wailing on me, and I could still go after the monk without worrying about hp. This is very wrong my friends, very wrong.)

Quote:

Originally Posted by silavor

I'd like to see a description example of what an aura skill would look like before really giving it a fair assessment. But the whole notion of refining earth and wind prayers has really been needed since day 1, and the skill balancers have finally started trying to do that recently.

Here is an example. I will use the current Staggering Force as a start point of how the enchants could be changed.

"Aura of Force" Aura Spell. For 5 seconds, nothing happens. After 5 seconds, you are affected by Aura of Force. For 45 seconds, this aura does nothing. When this aura ends, all foes in the area take 15-50 damage and are weakened for 5-17 seconds.

The auras have a 5 second, interrupt/spike delay window and then they affect the player. During the 45 seconds, they can't be removed and just sit on the player waiting for him to strip them. When he does, their effects take hold. Also, the damage might have to be tweaked in order to prevent teams in TA making unstoppable spikes.

You would use a certain skill to strip them and here would be an example of that.

"Divine Combustion" Spell. Lose all auras. All foes in the area begin burning for 3-5 seconds and an additional 3-5 seconds for every aura you lost. You begin burning for 3-5 seconds.

Reverend Dr · Aug 22, 2009, 07:51 PM // 19:51

How many dervish threads do we need?

Quote:

Originally Posted by cognophile

I'm not convinced the dervish class is underpowered, especially for PvE.

Truth. Ritualists were flat out underpowered. The communing line had seen many nerfs due to its effects in the faction GvG meta to the point that communing, especially the communing spirits, became garbage. Without spirits to use Spawning Power became garbage. Channeling has taken several hits and only a small handful remain worth bringing. Restoration has even taken a few hits. Rits needed something to be viable in PvE. Dervs still deal great damage with a scythe, if only slightly less damage than other optimized scythe builds.

Lishy · Aug 22, 2009, 11:51 PM // 23:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

How many dervish threads do we need?

Hundreds until Anet fixes them <____<
Also, if you think Dervishes aren't underpowered, explain why nobody uses them?

Kattar · Aug 23, 2009, 01:54 AM // 01:54

Quote:

How many dervish threads do we need?

Pretty much. In the future, please add to one of the existing threads instead of posting a new one.

Closed.