Curse

Nechrond · Aug 04, 2010, 08:21 AM // 08:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by G E A R S

Had a cool thought for a buff to dervishes to make them kinda like a frontline off healer

Mystic Healing- Lower Cast time to 1/4 or none and for Pve increase healing a bit
Dwayna's touch- make it aoe and lower healing

just a thought

Mystic Healing is already a valuable skill in AB because of its insane range. It's also highly spammable. This is definitely NOT one of the skills that needs help. Dwayna's Touch's high healing is important, because Imbue Health can't self-target.
AoE touch skills are a nice idea though.

Hey, I just thought of another nice buff to Mysticism. Instead of a fixed 1 energy per 3 ranks, couldn't it give 7% of the ending enchantment's cost per rank? This would keep it equally strong for 5nrg enchants, but far stronger for more expensive enchants. As a consequence, you could make some of the Derv's self-enchants more expensive (making them hard to use for secondary Dervs) but far more powerful. Just as an example, you could make Onslaught 15 energy, but lower the recharge to 10 seconds and give it "Initial effect: Inflicts Cracked Armor (x..y.z seconds) to adjacent foes".
This would mean that with 9 Mysticism, you'd get 63% of the cost back, which is 9 energy - increasing the effective cost by only 4 energy for Dervs (15-9 instead of 5-3), but giving us a very valuable condition.

reaper with no name · Aug 04, 2010, 01:06 PM // 13:06

The idea has been tossed around before.

By me.

Nechrond · Aug 04, 2010, 01:43 PM // 13:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

The idea has been tossed around before.

By me.

Toss it harder this time. We can actually back each other up on this one instead of disagreeing all the time.

reaper with no name · Aug 04, 2010, 03:32 PM // 15:32

The problem is that it wouldn't actually help anything.

Enchantment juggling would still suck, and you'd still need zealous vow to spam scythe attacks (well, unless you can get one enchantment to end on you every second or so, which I don't consider realistic).

belshazaarswrath · Aug 04, 2010, 03:47 PM // 15:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

AoG would only be slightly better than Orders (and require both an elite slot and a PvE slot to boot), most conditions are worthless in PvE, and how many areas will involve the entire party getting stacked with hexes?

Orders is strippable, requires life sac, lasts a short amount of time and is in blood magic...

Here are some ideas I'm having for changes in a few elite skills.

Onslaught 5 1/4 10
Enchatment: For 8...15 seconds you move and attack 50% faster.

Vow of Strength 5 1/4 10
Enchantment: For 20 seconds you deal 5...25% more damage. If your health drops below 25% this enchantment ends and you gain 20...130 health.

or

For 20 seconds your scythe attacks knock down foes for 2 seconds.

Ebon Dust Aura 5 1/4 30
Skill: For 30 seconds whenever an enchantment ends on you all adjacent foes are blinded for 5 seconds and take 10...60 earth damage.

Grenths Grasp 5 1/4 10
Enchantment: For 20 seconds if you have a cold weapon your attack skills deal 5...30% and cause cripple for 5 seconds.

Thoughts?

Hugh Manatee · Aug 04, 2010, 05:39 PM // 17:39

^terrible, way broken. Every thing but the dervish would use those skills... Picture axe warriors with that onslaught or grenth's, and anything with that ebon would make half the classes in the game null.

About the party wide avatar buff, just no. In the past, they've tended to nerf down passive partywide buffs like LoD, OoV ect. They just need to make the effects of the avatars not suck which is hard to thematically do. In PvP you can't have a godlike character running around permabuffed (I remember my old guild used to run dervs in gvg, if you could controll the stand, you could have an almost perma avatar because of the constant morale, we had a good flagger), and you wouldn't blow your elite skill on something that's only up for a minute or so, and in pve there's maybe 2 or 3 of the 5 that are useful to semi-useful, and mostly for farming.

Here's what they do to the cast time/duration/recharge of avatars regardless of the effect/cost, Duration 20 seconds, recharge 25 seconds cast time 3 seconds, all fail with mysticism <8 or something close to that. This way, you get more avatar time, but not the long stretches of uberness followed by a stretch of uselessness(unless you suck enough to try to form up next to a non-stupid ranger with d-shot). You'd have to find a smart place to re-buff. This is more or less what they did to the warrior stances, shorten duration, shorten recharge, overall you get more use if you use it skillfully.

Edit: about the effects, If they do like i put above:

Balthazar: 25% IMS+IAS and 10% armor penetration on attack skills. Pure offense, just like the shrine blessings.
Dwayna: +30 armor, +6 regen, and hexes and condition expire 50% faster(dwayna's the defense form, her shrine bless reflects this)
Lyssa: +30 energy and your attack skills interrupt foes(technically lyssa had the hex reducing shrine bless but this is thematically better and more fun)
Grenth: Steal +10 life when you hit with attack skills, conditions you inflict last 50% longer.(the shrine has conditions expiring, but this works better for the player because of...)
Melandru: gain +150 health and +30 armor vs elemental damage, your attack skills inflict bleeding(and/or maybe poison or crip).

And about the mysticism energy, it's not the refund that's the issue, it's the up front costs of buffs that drain your ammo so you can't attack.

Here's a crazy idea.... what if they made some of the derv enchants and attacks adrenaline based instead of energy based? This could help nerf some derv skills for caster secondaries(like mirage cloak, eles would have to stop and wand if they wanted defense or would have to get pounded first). They might have to re-purpose a few skills as adrenal buffs, but there's lots of stuff that they could do that to. Maybe even tweak mysticism to give adrenaline on enchant end(maybe 1 strike for every 3 points if the costs were just right) . Think about it, heart of fury as an adrenal IAS skill. Maybe they tweak some of the scythe skills away from energy(since that's basically why rangers and sins can spam those skills, it's cause they're free), if Wounding strike cost like 8a, but a derv could somehow get that juice with it's mysticism and adrenal buffing skills that's slow down all the derv secondaries, but not the derv.

belshazaarswrath · Aug 04, 2010, 05:58 PM // 17:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hugh Manatee

^terrible, way broken. Every thing but the dervish would use those skills... Picture axe warriors with that onslaught or grenth's, and anything with that ebon would make half the classes in the game null.

Ok then add Mysticism requirements. Problem solved.

Hugh Manatee · Aug 04, 2010, 06:10 PM // 18:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by belshazaarswrath

Ok then add Mysticism requirements. Problem solved.

still broke, 50% ias is way to much for any weapon especially a scythe, a derv could spam RoF and keep a whole party blinded, the first VoS would make you damn near invincible while dealing way insane damage on a weapon that already has insane damage, the second makes every other KD look redundant, and the grenths wouldn't work for the same reason VoS req #1 wouldn't. And moving any of these to myst or adding myst reqs would a few fun-but-not-broke /D type builds.

belshazaarswrath · Aug 04, 2010, 08:47 PM // 20:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hugh Manatee

still broke, 50% ias is way to much for any weapon especially a scythe, a derv could spam RoF and keep a whole party blinded, the first VoS would make you damn near invincible while dealing way insane damage on a weapon that already has insane damage, the second makes every other KD look redundant, and the grenths wouldn't work for the same reason VoS req #1 wouldn't. And moving any of these to myst or adding myst reqs would a few fun-but-not-broke /D type builds.

I checked wiki and it doesn't seem like IAS skills go that high. So I guess that would have to be 33% regardless. In any case tie that to mysticism and there you go.

By party do you mean balled mob? These changes aren't for PvP if that wasn't obvious. And yea it's a powerful damage mitigator but it'd make enchantment juggling and bombing more effective. Maybe make it an enchant so it can be stripped and then make it so mystic sandstorm ignores it when you use that skill? I dunno. If it's strippable it would be less of a threat but still encouraging people to juggle enchants.

VoS currently deals considerably more damage than I put in there it is just too conditional to be very useful. You could modify the exact amount however you want since no change is set in stone. Also how does it make you invincible? Does faithful intervention make you invincible?

Dervishes as of right now have no KD skills. So what exactly is this skill overshadowing? You certainly can't mean they're overshadowing the KD kings (Warriors). They have earth shaker. And Yeti's smash. And a whole damn attribute line dedicated to knocking things down more or less. But if this skill bothers you so much how bout a conditional? Only knocks down foes with a condition...or with over 50% health?

Grenths Grasp as it is now is totally useless. It is actually outshined by a non elite skill in the same damn line. I don't see my change as being overpowered at all on this one. You have to have a cold weapon to start. It only adds 20% at maximum (which is a little more than a 15% weapon mod and a lot less than AOHM). And it adds cripple for a short period of time. Plus it only works on attack skills.

I'm not saying my changes are perfect. And I'm not an accept my skill just as it is or leave it kind of person. It doesn't have to be static.

I do think that these skills would give the Dervish a competitive edge. And to be honest I think these ideas are a lot less powerful than some suggestions I've been seeing (permanent unstrippable 20 life stealing for the party, constant condition removal for the party ect). I also think that these functionalities fall into what these skills should be like.

G E A R S · Aug 05, 2010, 01:59 AM // 01:59

i like ur idea of Ebon Dust Aura

Dervs are supposed to enchant jungle but other than pious w/e and arcane orders ( i feel i butchered those names) we have nothing that reward us for doing such.

The cost of having like 3+ Enchants in our bar is ridiculous. Right now any enchant worth casting is worth keeping on and not ending it early.

Also give dervs away to tank plz...

G E A R S · Aug 05, 2010, 02:04 AM // 02:04

Had an idea

Grenth's Grasp (PvE)- 5 1/4 15 (enchant)

Ur Next 1-3-5 Attacks cause cripple and heal party members for 15-20-33% of the damage caused

so if u hit 3 targets each for 150 u heal all party members for XX%(150) x3

G E A R S · Aug 05, 2010, 02:05 AM // 02:05

Had an idea

Grenth's Grasp (PvE)- 5 1/4 15 (enchant)

Ur Next 1-3-5 Attacks cause cripple and heal party members for 15-20-33% of the damage caused

so if u hit 3 targets each for 150 u heal all party members for XX%(150) x3

belshazaarswrath · Aug 05, 2010, 02:53 AM // 02:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by G E A R S

i like ur idea of Ebon Dust Aura

Dervs are supposed to enchant jungle but other than pious w/e and arcane orders ( i feel i butchered those names) we have nothing that reward us for doing such.

The cost of having like 3+ Enchants in our bar is ridiculous. Right now any enchant worth casting is worth keeping on and not ending it early.

Also give dervs away to tank plz...

That was my reasoning...and Dervs can already tank. In earth prayers they have some of the most solid defensive skills in game. They just aren't eles or sins so people don't do it.

Nilator · Aug 05, 2010, 03:17 AM // 03:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by belshazaarswrath

Onslaught 5 1/4 10
Enchatment: For 8...15 seconds you move and attack 50% faster.

Thoughts?

lol @ 50% ims and 50% ias in one skill that is maintainable.

belshazaarswrath · Aug 05, 2010, 03:26 AM // 03:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nilator

lol @ 50% ims and 50% ias in one skill that is maintainable.

Cool you didn't read the post after that. A winnar is you!

Nilator · Aug 05, 2010, 03:33 AM // 03:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by belshazaarswrath

Cool you didn't read the post after that. A winnar is you!

Changing it to Mysc doesn't change the fact that your suggestion was a maintainable 50% ims & 50% ais.

belshazaarswrath · Aug 05, 2010, 04:26 AM // 04:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nilator

Changing it to Mysc doesn't change the fact that your suggestion was a maintainable 50% ims & 50% ais.

No that's not what I'm talking about. I should have said posts. There is no such thing as a 50% IAS. It's capped at 33%. I didn't know that until after I posted that. So as of right now that suggestion is pretty much out.

reaper with no name · Aug 05, 2010, 08:37 AM // 08:37

IAS and IMS only go up to 33%. And even if they could go higher, I'd still be dubious of the benefits. Never mind the havoc it would wreak on PvP.

Vow of Strength already does less damage than Zealous Vow (yes, even if the enemy never has a condition...go figure). Reducing the damage further wouldn't help. Plus, the skill is in Earth Prayers, making it easily abusable by dervish secondaries.

Perma blind in PvE would be overshadowed by Sneak Attack, which already does the same thing for a scythe user. In PvP it would be broken.

Knockdowns every two or three seconds are broken.

Bel's Grenth's Grasp change wouldn't be overpowered enough to be useful to the dervish in PvE (snares are generally inferior to direct, concentrated damage). Gears' would technically give the dervish an odd "healing melee" niche (which would certainly be unique), but I think that the profession would still be overshadowed by it's competition, since the skill would be in Wind Prayers.

The avatar suggestions I see are just as useless (and in some cases like that Grenth one, even more useless) than the current ones. Remember, you are sacrificing a ton of damage to take that avatar; the benefits had better damn well be something that the party can't do without. And sadly, the only benefits to the party that I can really think of that would be worth that much damage loss would have to be party-wide. So, for the avatars, it's pretty much either party-wide buffage or uselessness, unless you get every avatar to deal +30 damage or so and offer a utility benefit.

Nechrond · Aug 05, 2010, 12:52 PM // 12:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

The problem is that it wouldn't actually help anything.

Enchantment juggling would still suck, and you'd still need zealous vow to spam scythe attacks (well, unless you can get one enchantment to end on you every second or so, which I don't consider realistic).

Enchantment juggling wouldn't suck if the enchantments actually had big effects. The best way to balance this out would probably be to increase their costs, and if Mysticism scaled with the cost of the enchantment, this would make them spammable on Dervs only.

Of course, there are tons of other options. Some enchantments could simply have an attack as an initial effect (the way Vampiric Spirit has a targeted spell as initial effect) - or, alternatively, some attacks could enchant the user with a minor effect, making them cheaper (through Mysticism) for the Derv than for secondary scythers.

belshazaarswrath · Aug 05, 2010, 02:04 PM // 14:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

IAS and IMS only go up to 33%. And even if they could go higher, I'd still be dubious of the benefits. Never mind the havoc it would wreak on PvP.

None of my suggestions are for PvP. That's just silly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Vow of Strength already does less damage than Zealous Vow (yes, even if the enemy never has a condition...go figure). Reducing the damage further wouldn't help. Plus, the skill is in Earth Prayers, making it easily abusable by dervish secondaries.

Are you comparing them skill to skill? I don't see how that can be. If you stack up AOHM with my Vow of Strength a customized +15% scythe and SoH you'll be dealing extraordinary damage per hit I'm sure. That's without even adding attack skills to the equation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Perma blind in PvE would be overshadowed by Sneak Attack, which already does the same thing for a scythe user. In PvP it would be broken.

Eh? Do you not see what I'm trying to do with this skill? It's for enchant juggling/bombing. Sneak Attack has no place in anything like that and can only blind 3 people at a time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

Knockdowns every two or three seconds are broken.

Then warriors are broken?

Quote:

Bel's Grenth's Grasp change wouldn't be overpowered enough to be useful to the dervish in PvE (snares are generally inferior to direct, concentrated damage).

And this gives you both. It doesn't have to be the best skill in the whole game to be usable. Snare the foe now so you don't have to chase him later.