Curse

reaper with no name · Jul 21, 2009, 08:09 PM // 20:09

There are tons of problems with the dervish, but they all come down to the fact that with a couple of exceptions, for any build a dervish could make, some other profession could do it better.

First off, unlike assassins, dervishes were intended to be tough. However, despite having an entire attribute line devoted to tanking, they aren't as good at it as sins (even ignoring SF).

Lack of maintainable IAS really hurts the profession too.

Another problem is that the best scythe attacks for the profession generally don't benefit much from higher scythe mastery (Victorious Sweep is an exception, but a Scythe Warrior with 12 scythe mastery will do +27 damage with Mystic Sweep or Eremite's Attack, while a dervish with 14 will do +30 dmg).

Mysticism also sucks as energy management. Sins with crit strikes get even better energy management while getting a significant combat boost. Mysticism also just plain does not give the dervish enough energy to be worth it. At best, you can break even with a 5 energy enchantment. Too bad you don't get the energy until AFTER you need it. They probably did this to encourage dervishes to use skills that rip away enchantments. However, enchantments fall into 2 categories: ones that are too essential to be stripped, and those that are not. If they're the former, you're not going to strip them away willingly. If they're the latter, then they're not worth putting on your bar in the first place because they're too weak. In order for the whole "rip away enchantments for uber attack" thing to work, then the uber attack has to be AT MINIMUM twice as good as any other attack skill, in order to justify burning two skill slots on it. In practice, though, it would have to be even better than that, since enchantments have their downsides. Then, of course, there's the little detail of enchantments having recharge times that are too long for spammable attack skills that are based on enchantment removal (don't think any of those exist, either).

What mysticism SHOULD do is reduce the cost of enchantments in the same way Expertise does for other skills, in addition to some kind of combat boost (or else, again, the warriors and assassins are still going to out-derv the derv).

As for possible combat boosts that mysticism could provide to make the profession better:

- life-stealing
- health regen or health gain on hit
- innate stackable IAS
- +Dmg per enchantment per rank
- energy stealing (this would, of course, be mutually exclusive with the above suggestion of mysticism reducing enchantment spell cost, but it would be an interesting way of making dervishes useful, since they'd be the bane of all casters)
- significantly buff health gain on enchantment ending

Tying number of foes hit by a scythe to mysticism is a bad idea because it doesn't solve the problem. How often do you hit 3 enemies with a scythe? Not very. Two or one is much more common.

Furthermore, there are several skills that need to be buffed in order for dervishes to compete with warriors, sins, and rangers.

Take Vow of Silence for example. This should be a great skill. If it was, it would go a long way to making dervishes more viable, because it's a mysticisim skill (one problem with buffing stuff in the other attribute lines is that it doesn't just buff the dervish; it also buffs the W/Ds and A/Ds, leaving the dervish in the same boat he was in before). Personally, I really wish the skill was good, because I think it'd be really fun to use. Unfortunately, it's complete crap. Not only does it only last a few seconds, but it prevents you from casting the very enchantments you need to be effective, AND it prevents your own allies from even healing you. This skill hurts you more than it helps you. Compare it to Obsidian Flesh, Spellbreaker, or Shadow Form, and you can see that it is pathetically underpowered. Buff this skill. Remove it's downsides. It's not like the skill could become abusable, because melee can still hit you just as well. Make it a PvE-only buff if that's what it takes.

Then there's the avatars. AoM and AoD are okay, but the other avatars just suck. Why use AoB, when you're still not going to tank any better than a Warrior with any kind of armor-increasing skill whatsoever? Why use AoG when a Warrior or Assassin can still do more damage than you and outlast you? Why use AoL when you're still not going to outdamage the Warrior or sin? They're pointless elite skills that require you to burn one of your PvE only skills just to use them effectively.

Then there's the problem of lack of synergy with other professions. Up until recently, I was a big fan of WS+SY!, because an A/D, R/D, or W/D couldn't pull it off (or so I thought). But then I ran some numbers about a week ago and discovered that a W/D who takes a zealous scythe can in fact pull off WS+SY!, and he'll do it better than the dervish. Once again, my dervish was redundant. Redundant builds are something I hate more than anything else in the game. I spent about a week trying to find a new build that didn't involve AoM, AoD, or Orders (that no other profession could do as well). I looked through every profession with an eye for stuff I could exploit as a dervish. But everywhere I looked, it was the same story: someone else could do it better.

In the end, I ended up with a D/P that was basically a WS build with GftE and Ebon Battle Standard of Honor (it actually works pretty well if you have some MMs, and I imagine it'd be good for physicalways, too). However, the fact that it took almost a week for me to come up just with this speaks volumes about the lack of synergy between dervishes and secondary classes (largely because dervishes often already have their own equivalent versions of most skills that other classes have which could benefit them).

In summary, the dervish is bad because nearly all of his stuff either sucks or can be better utilized by other professions.

Axel Zinfandel · Jul 21, 2009, 08:45 PM // 20:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Racthoh

Eremite's Attack and Mystic Sweep add 50% failure with 4 or less Mysticism.

Holy crap, this. Only it wouldn't solve the whole problem.

Also, to fix A/, I think they should make crit % from skills non-stacking, and nerf the % given by WotM. If sins do not crit as much, suddenly the build becomes a lot less viable :P

R/ is the least problematic of the other two (A/ and W/) because it doesn't abuse damage, only energy management.
The only thing Scythe rangers have is blocking from Lightning Reflexes, but lose one extra PvE slot for Dwarven Stability (Heart of Fury at higher mysticism lasts just as long). Let them have their build, frankly. They don't outperform a decent Dervish.

W/'s overpoweredness lays simply on Warrior's Endurance. We all know we don't want it to be reverted back to a stance, so get rid of the useless "cannot go above X energy" clause and replace it with something more hindering to a warrior.

MithranArkanere · Jul 21, 2009, 08:57 PM // 20:57

Dervishes shine in the middle of many enemies.

Give them a way to draw and hold enemies to their location that no other profession can copy, and Dervishes will shine more than them.

Lishy · Jul 21, 2009, 09:06 PM // 21:06

/notsigned

While I agree dervish is shadowed, they're simply shadowed the same way ritualists were.
A majority of Dervish attributes suck. It's reality. And you have no IAS either.
But truth be told: If their other attributes didn't fail so bad, they would be used so much.
Solution?

Give Dervish a non-elite Critical Agility, for starters, and then the attributes of the professions.
Give them skills that increase crit % and armor penetation. And most importantly: Give them energy management that doesn't suck.

While at it, more dervish skills that deal around +30 damage would be nice.

Not only that, but anything else anet can think of would be nice. Something to give a REASON to be a primary ritualist without nerfing non-dervs with scythes.

If the reason to be a primary dervish is the pure CRAP that is onslaught, consider a dervish the pre-buffed ritualist.

reaper with no name · Jul 21, 2009, 09:12 PM // 21:12

Another thing that just came to mind is removing the diminishing returns on weapon mastery. After 12 in a weapon attribute, the amount it increases your DR goes from 5 to 2. This seems kind of stupid, because to get an attribute that high you need runes (which you can only have so many of, and the more powerful ones lower your max health). Moreover, it makes weapon attribute runes underpowered compared to runes for other attributes.

If Dervishes could have 4/3 of the base damage rating of sins and warriors when it comes to scythes and had a maintainable IAS, it would also help them significantly (not sure if it'd be enough, but it would be a start at the very least).

Racthoh · Jul 21, 2009, 09:55 PM // 21:55

How about...

Heart of Fury 5e 3/4c 20r
For 1...12...15 seconds you attack 33%. Whenever you successfully hit 3 enemies with a Scythe attack this enchantment is renewed.

Work the renewal effect to trigger Mysticism.

IronSheik · Jul 21, 2009, 10:01 PM // 22:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Racthoh

How about...

Heart of Fury 5e 3/4c 20r
For 1...12...15 seconds you attack 33%. Whenever you successfully hit 3 enemies with a Scythe attack this enchantment is renewed.

Work the renewal effect to trigger Mysticism.

Sins will crit more, don't think would work still.

Grim Lich · Jul 21, 2009, 10:47 PM // 22:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kain Fz

/notsigned

Um, there is nothing to sign, so I'm not sure what you're thinking of.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IronSheik

Sins will crit more, don't think would work still.

What do you mean? They will still crit more in general? Or that they will crit more with the skill? I'd say that that skill is a step in the right direction. Maybe a different method of re-application? Like:

Heart of Fury 5e 3/4c 20r
For 1...12...15 seconds you attack 33%. Whenever you lose an enchantment this enchantment is renewed?

That or something else, but setting it up like the new flail is a good idea.

angelsarc · Jul 21, 2009, 10:49 PM // 22:49

Change/Augment Mysticism to add damage to weapons (or maybe just scythes) that do not deal physical damage. I'm not sure how the damage should be added, or how much, but as an example: +1 base damage per two ranks of Mysticism. It's basically half of a unremovable Conjure that requires no secondary or skill slot. It is affected by armor, but also makes bigger critical hits. The effect is a bonus if you are already using Mysticism, and even if you aren't, it doesn't require many points to gain a boost.

It's clear that the OP only cares about the ability of Dervishes to hit things to death with a scythe. I don't think Dervishes will be balanced if they gain more damage, and nerfing scythes in general certainly isn't going to fix anything. You'd have to retool a fair amount of skills to really balance melee classes in terms of desirability.

Racthoh · Jul 21, 2009, 10:51 PM // 22:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by IronSheik

Sins will crit more, don't think would work still.

In addition to the other suggestion I made earlier. It would give Dervishes more energy to work with and restrict the usage of the two skills that allow scythes to bypass their slow speed. Warriors would still have Protector's Strike but with Eremite's and Mystic the Dervish should be able to produce more damage.

DoomFrost · Jul 21, 2009, 11:44 PM // 23:44

Or give a bonus to Mysticism that increases the arc and number of enemies a scythe can hit.

I.E - One additional enemy every 5 ranks if Mysticism. Forward arc hits 0-8 Mysticism and adds left and right arcs at 9-16 Mysticism.

Axel Zinfandel · Jul 21, 2009, 11:54 PM // 23:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kain Fz

/notsigned

While I agree dervish is shadowed, they're simply shadowed the same way ritualists were.
A majority of Dervish attributes suck. It's reality. And you have no IAS either.
But truth be told: If their other attributes didn't fail so bad, they would be used so much.
Solution?

Give Dervish a non-elite Critical Agility, for starters, and then the attributes of the professions.
Give them skills that increase crit % and armor penetation. And most importantly: Give them energy management that doesn't suck.

While at it, more dervish skills that deal around +30 damage would be nice.

Not only that, but anything else anet can think of would be nice. Something to give a REASON to be a primary ritualist without nerfing non-dervs with scythes.

If the reason to be a primary dervish is the pure CRAP that is onslaught, consider a dervish the pre-buffed ritualist.

I actually agree with this more then my previous statement.

I'd like to see Avatar of Balthazar finally seeing a much needed buff. In fact the only elites worthy of general PvE use now is WS/RS and niche avatar builds.

It'd also be nice if the Dervish forms were maintainable in PvE -without- needing another skill (a PvE one at that). just get rid of the disabling for PvE, frankly.

If that is done, Eternal Aura could use a rework to extend enchantments (that either you cast, or cast on you), or some other useful buff.

As for other Elites...

Vow of Strength needs either a revert, or a change. it went from widely used, to barely usable, because conditions are very prominent and helpful in PvE

Vow of Silence is good for running but otherwise useless, because most dervishes NEED to be able to cast spells.

Pious Renewal is crap. Rework.

Arcane Zeal could be buffed a bit. It's good for Orders dervishes, but useless otherwise

Both Grenth's Grasp, Onslaught, and MOST of the wind prayer line needs either buffed or reworked. A lot of the skills are pointless, healing of such skills is mostly minuscule, and the line is only really good for PvP.

Catchphrase · Jul 22, 2009, 03:16 AM // 03:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Mysticism also sucks as energy management. Sins with crit strikes get even better energy management while getting a significant combat boost. Mysticism also just plain does not give the dervish enough energy to be worth it. At best, you can break even with a 5 energy enchantment. Too bad you don't get the energy until AFTER you need it. They probably did this to encourage dervishes to use skills that rip away enchantments. However, enchantments fall into 2 categories: ones that are too essential to be stripped, and those that are not. If they're the former, you're not going to strip them away willingly. If they're the latter, then they're not worth putting on your bar in the first place because they're too weak.
What mysticism SHOULD do is reduce the cost of enchantments in the same way Expertise does for other skills, in addition to some kind of combat boost (or else, again, the warriors and assassins are still going to out-derv the derv).

The irony part is that most of the end effects of the offensive enchantments can be achieved by our attack skills which defeats the purpose of having them in the first place. If however the end effect is something relatively powerful and not achievable by our other skills (e.g. KD, Interrupt, Daze) then I would be stripping it away at every opportunity like we did with Eternal Aura. The problem is that most of the commonly used enchantments' active effects are highly more favorable than its end effects. This enforces us to play a dervish like we would with a elementalist and this is won't work for a frontline profession at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

In order for the whole "rip away enchantments for uber attack" thing to work, then the uber attack has to be AT MINIMUM twice as good as any other attack skill, in order to justify burning two skill slots on it. In practice, though, it would have to be even better than that, since enchantments have their downsides. Then, of course, there's the little detail of enchantments having recharge times that are too long for spammable attack skills that are based on enchantment removal (don't think any of those exist, either).

There used to be a workable Pious Renewal build back when Pious Assault was left untouched but it was unfavored simply because of it being overshadowed by overpowered skills. It does not need to be uber at all nor limited to being an attack skill. For example we take the current Pious Assault and just add in additional clause "recharge 1..3..5 seconds faster if an enchantment is removed", there we have a viable non elite scythe DW skill.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

As for possible combat boosts that mysticism could provide to make the profession better:
.
.
.
Furthermore, there are several skills that need to be buffed in order for dervishes to compete with warriors, sins, and rangers.

In my personal opinion, mysticism didn't fail at what it promise nor is it useless. What fail are the skills which utilizes it. Enchantments which had the right recharge and casting time for us to rip had the useless active / after effects, vice versa and the list goes on.

My solution is simple: for short recharge enchantments like Aura of Thorns, give it some utility after effect not achievable by our other skills (e.g. KD, interrupt, daze, adjacent/nearby foe losing health or energy). Whilst for long recharge enchantments which have desirable active effects like Heart of Fury, give it either a recharge or energy or casting time discount when removed before it self expires.

Lastly a rework on the spells which rips our enchantments and change it into a hex spell which give additional bonus (e.g. lengthen duration, empowered negative effect) when it detects a an enchantment is sacrifaced for its casting.

draxynnic · Jul 22, 2009, 03:26 AM // 03:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

However, enchantments fall into 2 categories: ones that are too essential to be stripped, and those that are not. If they're the former, you're not going to strip them away willingly. If they're the latter, then they're not worth putting on your bar in the first place because they're too weak.

Where do enchantments that have their primary effect WHEN they're discharged fit into your analysis? I've had a lot of fun in the past taking the likes of Dust Cloak and Aura of Holy Flame, then unleashing a storm of PBAOE damage and conditions with the aid of an enchantment-stripper. Unfortunately, Pious Assault no longer grants instant recharge for this use, Pious Light is... fiddly, and Pious Restraint is in a different attribute.

Of course, this style of play is currently sub-par, but that could possibly be fixed simply by buffing the numbers rather than engaging in a significant rework of the profession.

reaper with no name · Jul 22, 2009, 06:31 AM // 06:31

In theory, that could also be a viable way to fix the profession. However, I don't think most dervish players play a dervish for that reason. More importantly, it would be a very different hybrid playstyle that would be very difficult to balance. There are all these questions:

Is it more powerful than normal AoE?
SHOULD it be more powerful than normal AoE?
Is it more powerful than normal melee?
SHOULD it be more powerful than normal melee?
Is this a replacement for the Nuker and Melee character at the same time?

It's a very interesting idea, but this late in the game it's too much to hope for, because it's such an unorthodox playstyle. It's the kind of thing you have to have in mind early on and build the game around, just like they had to do with healing, protting, minions, and hexing. They're not going to rebalance the whole game to fit in this playstyle (and I'm not even convinced they should). I think the best we can hope for is something along the lines of the rit and para buffs.

Lishy · Jul 22, 2009, 06:49 PM // 18:49

I wanna see wind and earth prayers get a total rework. And Pious Assault reverted.

Anyone remember those enchantment juggling builds before the Dervish was nerfed?
I wanna see that brought back. But with a mysticism buff. And more, power fuller AoE damage upon ending of an enchantment.

Thanks to Eternal Aura, it could make an awesome spike similar to AP!

Martin Alvito · Jul 22, 2009, 10:59 PM // 22:59

The basic problem is that energy management primary attributes are fiendishly difficult to balance. In a system this complex, any vibrant equilibrium with lots of plausible builds across formats is going to be fragile indeed.

All of the energy management primary skills except Critical Stricks have been horribly imba at some point during GW's run. (While Energy Storage itself has never been OP, some of the skills that it powers have been the most horrifyingly imba skills in the game's history.) The trouble is that small changes have large impacts on what players can and cannot do with their skill bars, and those changes are almost impossible to predict.

Make Mysticism itself too powerful, and you kill every other spellcasting class in the game. (Sort of like Necros back when Soul Reaping was cheats.) However, if Mysticism is weak, it produces less energy for a melee character than Critical Strikes or Expertise, and so you would never use it for that purpose.

The solution would be to make Earth and Wind Prayers not suck, so that a primary Derv could hold its own as a caster. Unfortunately, that's hard to do without imbalancing the Derv for RA and HB.

An alternative solution would be to ramp up the Forms again with different mechanics, but those skills are so different from every skill in the game that they too are incredibly difficult to balance.

In short, fixing Dervs would be a challenging and time consuming project. You're not likely to see the dev team take that on in depth any time soon.

Lishy · Jul 22, 2009, 11:22 PM // 23:22

As of now, Linsey said she MIGHT be doing the augest update in an unofficial game chat.
I trust her as someone who wants to fix all the problems entirely and refuse dartboard skill updates. So there's a big chance that everything will go well.
And keep in mind that she DOES see your suggestions. She's just not allowed to implement them all the time. But know that threads like this aren't ignored.

My predictions for the balance:
Assassins will be reworked
Dervish will be reworked and overpowered
Big chance Shadow Form will become Koss' bitch or changed in a way to make it overpowered in different ways
Mesmers will be nerfed just for lulz
And distortion will be banished to the distortion world of Pokemon Platinum where it will be tortured to death and raeped in the hole of the ring in the skill icon by Giratina in his origin form and then be forced to watch a furry marathon of hot manaphy sex

Keep in mind that this is UNOFFICIAL, and I'm not a reputable source. But it's just my knowledge of chatting with staff members; Nothing to take seriously, but have hope that next month will be awesome - Not as Awesome as June update, but still awesome!

draxynnic · Jul 23, 2009, 03:41 AM // 03:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

In theory, that could also be a viable way to fix the profession. However, I don't think most dervish players play a dervish for that reason. More importantly, it would be a very different hybrid playstyle that would be very difficult to balance. There are all these questions:

Is it more powerful than normal AoE?
SHOULD it be more powerful than normal AoE?
Is it more powerful than normal melee?
SHOULD it be more powerful than normal melee?
Is this a replacement for the Nuker and Melee character at the same time?

It's a very interesting idea, but this late in the game it's too much to hope for, because it's such an unorthodox playstyle. It's the kind of thing you have to have in mind early on and build the game around, just like they had to do with healing, protting, minions, and hexing. They're not going to rebalance the whole game to fit in this playstyle (and I'm not even convinced they should). I think the best we can hope for is something along the lines of the rit and para buffs.

Actually, it strikes me as something that HAS been in the game from the start. You caould make a W/E, E/W, or just plain E/X specialising in PBAOEs right from the release of Prophecies. When Factions came out, one of the prebuilt PvP characters was an E/A built around shadowstepping in, unleashing a chain of PBAOEs, and getting out. And then Nightfall, of course, had the Dervish, which at first glance appears to be the profession for dealing with multiple opponents in melee, with multi-attack scythes, PBAOE effects, or a combination of both.

So, it's not really new, it's just fallen out of favour. That said, I do run into elementalists who play the PBAOE game in PvE occasionally.

To answer your questions, in order:
1) Not at the moment.
2) Yes. There is an increased risk involved, in that you have to be closer to the target.
3) Not at the moment (normal melee has plenty of methods for dishing out PBAOE damage and disruption, Hundred Blades, Whirlwind Attack and the MS/DB combination being just a few.)
4) Depends on the situation, but I'd say it should be better than normal melee at damaging and disrupting multiple targets and at getting through blocking effects.
5) Yes, but not as good as having conventional melee AND a conventional nuker. On the other hand, it's a party slot you can fill with something else - with ten professions and eight slots in most zones, party composition is a matter of making compromises and/or working with what's available even before you consider that some professions are often desired in multiples.

Axel Zinfandel · Jul 23, 2009, 04:36 AM // 04:36

Dervishes were originally a class to juggle enchantments to fuel energy + attack skills.

Trouble is:
1) You cannot attack while casting enchantments, so DPS goes down and players shy away from using enchantments productively.
2) most derv enchantments to fuel such play are pretty useless in terms of the beginning and end effects, and the recharge is terribly high
3) Only a few attack skills require that an enchantment be lost, and they are generally bad attack skills

One of the other problems with Dervishes is that being a Nightfall class, they have a lot less skills then the core and factions classes. Balancing them should mean making skills generally and widely useful.... unfortunately Earth Prayers is the only line that succeeds in this