Curse

fr.aodhan · Sep 01, 2010, 03:42 PM // 15:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nechrond

Well, you could give each enchantment 0.2 * Myst rank "extra lives", so to speak

I like this better. You don't have to calculate any infinite series just to see what will usually happen, so the players will have an instant grasp of different levels of Mysticism. The player can juggle without worrying that a bird will fly by and snatch one of his enchantments out of the air.

It would reduce our average cast time and make us less spike dependent; alternatively, we'd be able to spike more often. We'll be able to set up long lists of enchantment effects, a little like creating Assassin chains.

Quote:

but I myself prefer the idea of pushing your luck and seeing what you end up with. Pushing your luck is not the same as blindly trusting it, it is making calculated risks, and enforces spur-of-the-moment decisions, which adds excitement.

Non-elite enchantment removal is strong enough to provide an element of risk without too frequently punishing the Dervish, as I believe it does now. A Curses Necro could eat us even more easily than before.

Burjis · Sep 01, 2010, 04:12 PM // 16:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Verene

And quite frankly, I don't see why people think you have to have 12 points in an attribute to make it worth using. You really don't. Just find the breakpoint you want for the skills you use and go with that - I only run Wind Prayers at 9 because that's the breakpoint on getting 5 energy back per hit on Zealous Vow.

That's the problem with Mysticism. Most of the good skills in that category require your mysticism to be as high as possible. HoF is one example. As for avatars, in PvP, you need your Mysticism as high as possible in order to have a lower down time.
Speaking of Mysticism skills, they need more buff than the attribute itself.

I'm not sure how the re-application of enchantments would work in practice but that surely has a good consistency with the idea of Mysticism.

fr.aodhan · Sep 01, 2010, 04:41 PM // 16:41

I think I would walk around with

Arcane Zeal
Sand Shards (+20 earth per second)
Heart of Holy Flame (+60 holy, +4 seconds fire)
AoHM (+50 holy on Sandstorm, +50 holy on reenchant)
Zealous Renewal (+60 holy)
Eternal Aura (+100 holy on reenchant)
Arcane Echo (+130 earth for extra)
Mystic Sandstorm (+130 earth)

If you only manage to get two Sandstorms off, that's 2x320 armor ignoring damage, plus at least four seconds of fire. Add to that the shards and +260 earth damage.

Maybe probabilities aren't a bad idea.

Edit: Because of Eternal Aura, you won't need an echo. Mirage Cloak?

Desert Rose · Sep 01, 2010, 09:12 PM // 21:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by fr.aodhan

I think this idea is already well-established in the game, though, and we've managed not to drown in angst. We have a number of block probability skills which can, for instance, completely muss up an assassin's attack chain, but in general, the assassin understands that you win some, lose some. If they cling at block probabilities and get angry, they would have done so anyway.

Then you properly haven't roamed through the PvP sub-forums of GW fan-sites or talked to PvP players much; block and HCT/HRT are by far the most controversial discussed core mechanics of the game.
A long time ago the block system was revised and all block skills got an fixed, "high" chance of blocking, recently HCT was revised.

Quote:

This would be fantastic, especially if they were to fix the way in which Mystic Sandstorm removes enchantments seemingly out of order.

In my experience Mystic Sandstorm removes enchantments in the order that's the most beneficially for the player, i.e. Pious Renewal always get removed last.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burjis

I would agree with this statement when we're talking about general PvE. In elite areas, the Dervish is underutilized.

Well, how important is hardcore endgame PvE? Should PvE balance really consider something only a very, very small margin of the player base does? Can even more than 4-5 different classes participate in hardcore endgame PvE at once? Does it really matters that a party with a Dervish is a few percents slower than a party without one?

fr.aodhan · Sep 02, 2010, 11:30 AM // 11:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Desert Rose

In my experience Mystic Sandstorm removes enchantments in the order that's the most beneficially for the player, i.e. Pious Renewal always get removed last.

This isn't the case as far as I can tell. For instance, if I cast Pious Renewal then Sand Shards, then Mystic Sandstorm, I only see one +2 but two +5s. The same is true if I cast the enchantments in the opposite order. However, if I cast Pious Renewal and Aura of Thorns, I see the correct number of +2s, no matter what my cast order. I'm not convinced this is to the player's benefit.

Aura of Holy Might - no.
Aura of Thorns - yes.
Dust Cloak -yes.
Eternal Aura - no.
Heart of Holy Flame - no.
Sand Shards - no.
etc.

There's really no reason it shouldn't treat the stack as LIFO. As it stands, it's a little incoherent. How do we know when Mystic Corruption gets stripped, for instance? Edit: It turns out that a user has done a lot of research already. Glad we don't have to.

Crimson Robes · Sep 02, 2010, 12:52 PM // 12:52

Quote:

Balthazar's Rage
5 energy, 1/4 activation, 15 recharge
All adjacent foes take 15...51 holy damage. For 20 seconds, each time you are healed, all adjacent foes take 5...17 holy damage.

This in PvE with seed of life around? No thanks.
Even healing seed and vigorous spirit would make this way too good.
(Also note divine favor means u get 2 seperate heals, etc)

Ranger Jaap · Sep 02, 2010, 01:54 PM // 13:54

I hope the update will make dervishes harder to play.

Hong Kong Evil · Sep 02, 2010, 03:29 PM // 15:29

i have a crazy suggestion that change some of wind prayer skills and earth prayer skills to be spell damage skills that have normal spell range, or even make those spell damage that based on weapon damage

reaper with no name · Sep 03, 2010, 03:07 AM // 03:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crimson Robes

This in PvE with seed of life around? No thanks.
Even healing seed and vigorous spirit would make this way too good.
(Also note divine favor means u get 2 seperate heals, etc)

You clearly haven't seen what critscythe can pump out.

OMFGimCUTE · Sep 03, 2010, 03:30 AM // 03:30

the only things they need to do is add a +% attack speed on mysticism so they're not at a disadvantage over the other melee classes, and change something useless like irresistible sweep to a knock down or an interrupt. other than that dervs are fine.

saint666 · Sep 03, 2010, 03:34 AM // 03:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crimson Robes

This in PvE with seed of life around? No thanks.
Even healing seed and vigorous spirit would make this way too good.
(Also note divine favor means u get 2 seperate heals, etc)

It'd be crazy with a sf tank in scs, lol. Awesome spike, maybe too awesome for sure.

reaper with no name · Sep 03, 2010, 03:40 AM // 03:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by OMFGimCUTE

the only things they need to do is add a +% attack speed on mysticism so they're not at a disadvantage over the other melee classes, and change something useless like irresistible sweep to a knock down or an interrupt. other than that dervs are fine.

Why do people feel the need to repeat my ideas?

In any case, this would give dervs an edge over warriors, but assassins would remain frustratingly out of reach.

saint666 · Sep 03, 2010, 04:08 AM // 04:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by OMFGimCUTE

the only things they need to do is add a +% attack speed on mysticism so they're not at a disadvantage over the other melee classes, and change something useless like irresistible sweep to a knock down or an interrupt. other than that dervs are fine.

well you could easily solve the problem by giving the dervish an enchantment that gives it high criticals and armor penetration. You can do it this way, this will "fix" the dervish by making it an imitation of the assassin and warrior but it doesn't really distinguish it as a unique class, with a unique gameplay experience. Not to mention it doesn't really do anything to make the useless skills less usless, not saying that all skills trees needs to be utilized, but at least half would be nice. Personally, I'd find it redundant to update a class just so it can do the same thing the same way that 2 other classes that have been doing forever, you might as well just stick to those 2.

Crimson Robes · Sep 03, 2010, 06:01 AM // 06:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by reaper with no name

You clearly haven't seen what critscythe can pump out.

I have seen what critscythe pumps out...Its about 20% more damage than my derv, big deal. 17 PBAoE damage per heal with seed of life, healing seed and vig spirit is just way too much of a buff.

Im afraid dervs are going to be buffed to retard strength, and then nerfed back again to a worse state.

reaper with no name · Sep 03, 2010, 06:44 AM // 06:44

20%? That's barely more than a warrior gets. No, it's more like almost double.

belshazaarswrath · Sep 03, 2010, 01:40 PM // 13:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Crimson Robes

I have seen what critscythe pumps out...Its about 20% more damage than my derv, big deal. 17 PBAoE damage per heal with seed of life, healing seed and vig spirit is just way too much of a buff.

Im afraid dervs are going to be buffed to retard strength, and then nerfed back again to a worse state.

20%? More like 300%

Assassins can pump out (in normal mode at least) around 300-400 per hit if you're doing it right. A Dervish will be pumping around 80-100 per hit.

Cuilan · Sep 03, 2010, 05:04 PM // 17:04

I would love to see a dervish build that can do 20% less damage than a scythe assassin, as I agree it's much worse.

fr.aodhan · Sep 03, 2010, 06:42 PM // 18:42

Regardless of what critscythe can do, a spell that deals damage every time you are healed can and will produce ridiculously powerful combinations. Perhaps not the sort of 8 Dervish apocalypse I originally led with, but I can think of 4 Derv h/h teams which are just as painful. It wouldn't be hard to load up MOX, Melonni, and Kahmu in such a way that you could casually heal each with Mysticism and Wind Prayers until everything in range is dead.

saint666 · Sep 03, 2010, 09:53 PM // 21:53

Okay instead of pulling numbers out of thin air, I did a little test.

My derv does about 100 dps on MoD, my sin does about 140 dps on him. That a 40% difference. What I've also noticed is that my derv crits higher but my sin crits more often.

Xenomortis · Sep 03, 2010, 10:19 PM // 22:19

Kill Way of the Master. Make it a stance or hit the numbers hard.
Hit Critical Eye in some way - my suggestion is to make it only affect dagger attacks.
Revert Warrior's Endurance back to it's stance form or simply halve the duration.

Only when you have done those and observed the result should you start suggesting straight up buffs to the Dervish. The Dervish's problems extend beyond simple skill issues; they go right back to it's poor design and concept and the nature of Guild Wars. I could write a very long post on the Dervish (and I might) and why any number of symptomatic skill changes will either do nothing or break him further as well as fuel more degenerate power creep.