Curse

~ Dan ~ · Oct 31, 2007, 08:36 PM // 20:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Whiskeyjack

He/she looks lie they know what they are talking about to me. Burst canclel made a reasonably detailed post on why these type's of skills are bad, if you disagree with the reasoning as to why, I am sure many would be interested to hear your counter argument.

I thought i did provide my counter argument to his / her points..

Quote:

But that would be a tanking build and tanking fails. If your monk does not suck the dmg you will take will be negligible, so all Mystic regen will do is overheal, so basically its 10e and a skill slot wasted. While it may save the monk a bit of work as you put it, it creates additional work for the rest of the team as they need to produce additional damage becasue the frontliner is not pulling his weight.

No, it wouldn't. I'm talking maybe armour of sanctity + veil of thorns + mystic regen. That's just 3 slots, that's not a tank. But you get mass snaring / 15+ damage reduction / 9+ regen pips, without much earth spec. A nice way to spend 3 slots if you ask me.

Whiskeyjack · Oct 31, 2007, 09:08 PM // 21:08

You also listed conviction, and i assume a rez(if i am wrong correct me). Thats 5(maybe 4) skills. Now you need and ias which is important for a frontliner, so that leaves you 2 slots free. Anyway if you really want to discuss this further open a thread, we are kind of derailing this one.

Burst Cancel · Oct 31, 2007, 11:55 PM // 23:55

There's too much here to reply to with quote-wars, and most of my counterargument is going to be reiterating points you guys glossed over, so I'm going to try and keep this short with bullet form:

- In non-critical situations, the monk doesn't need your help with healing. Regen is generally only meaningful in non-critical situations. Therefore, regen is meaningless.
- Due to LoD, healing extra people is literally no burden. Whether one person is below 80% or all 8 people are below 80% doesn't make any difference to me. Therefore, being able to heal yourself doesn't significantly reduce the monk's burden.
- Bosses consistently do hundreds of damage that your regen simply isn't going to account for. The reason I bring it up is, if you can't deal with that kind of damage on your own, the monk doesn't care. Small damage doesn't take the monk any effort to heal. If you still need the monk for big damage, you're not actually helping your monk.
- If you're bringing more healing to 'supplement' Mystic Regen, you're using more skill slots.
- Heart of Fury actually only lasts 18s (http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Heart_of_Fury) at 13 attribute, with +20% if you swap to an enchanting weapon to cast. Eternal Aura is a good argument here, but using Aura to power Fury takes another skill slot as well as devoting more time to simply cast enchantments, which forces you to stop moving or attacking. It's not a bad trade if you're using an Avatar, since you need Aura anyway, but it's still strictly worse than an IAS stance, which can be activated at any time and is less likely to be removed.
- Cover enchantments isn't a persuasive argument, because enchantment removal rarely comes solo. It's more typical that you run into several enemies that have enchantment removal.
- Again, I don't know what bars you guys use, but I rarely have space for defense.
- I don't know where you got "hostile and wounded". Again, I don't PuG, so I don't care if the average party 'needs me' or not, and I'm all for making parties with the most effectiveness, rather than being a nice person. If I sound frustrated it's because I've argued issues very similar to the stuff I'm seeing in this thread in the past, and it feels like shouting at a brick wall to have to argue the same things again.
- The AL difference isn't the reason - Warriors started taking significant damage with the advent of HM, and yet they still don't take defense or self-heal in those areas. As I stated above, it simply doesn't make enough of a difference. The monk doesn't really care if only one person out of 8 is slightly harder to kill, and things like Prot Spirit and Spirit Bond make armor level less of an issue when used correctly.
- I don't bother accounting for party wiping, for two reasons: 1) it should never happen in the first place (and rarely does), and 2) you can avoid party wiping by running away when you realize the wipe is going to happen. If you can't tell you're going to party wipe until several players are down and you're out of sigs, the problem is your battlefield awareness rather than any lack of defense.

I will say this much - if my team was 6 dervishes and 2 monks, you could make an argument for every Dervish taking Mystic Regen and Conviction, because making the whole team harder to kill is significant. That's why Paragons are so good. For instance, rather than Conviction you could just run something like Watch Yourself, which only takes one character and already affects the whole party. Wait, I've said that, what, 3 times now?

Str0b0 · Nov 01, 2007, 03:20 AM // 03:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

- Again, I don't know what bars you guys use, but I rarely have space for defense.

Ok this is the bar I run.

[skill]Wild Blow[/skill] or Zealous Sweep depends on the area,[skill]Reap Impurities[/skill],[skill]Victorious Sweep[/skill]or[skill]Chilling Victory[/skill],[skill]Heart of Fury[/skill],[skill]Ebon Dust Aura[/skill],[skill]Mystic Regeneration[/skill],[skill]Aura of Thorns[/skill], Insert res of choice here.

Sometimes I swap out Aura of Thorns for [skill]Vital Boon[/skill] and if I do that then instead of Victorious or Chilling I take [skill]Pious Assault[/skill]

I use this same build both in NM and HM and that is why I do not need a monk. It is simplicity itself. I do not have to worry about melee at all. They are all blind. So the only damage I sweat is caster damage. I pretty much have a constant 12 pips of regen so degen effects from hexes or burning or bleeding or poison is easy to shrug off. I always carry one scythe attack that has bonus damage and a self heal thus keeping my influx of health at a more or less constant level. Now with melee blinded I can forget about them most of the time and let them futilely try to take out my backline allowing me to focus on the casters. I take out ele's, then rits, then monks then finish off any mesmers or necros before returning to the melee and helping to mop them up. I am constantly blinding the casters which provides no damage reduction benefit but makes them easy prey for reap impurities. Because even boss casters still have paper armor they rarely take more than one attack sequence to completely destroy and one attack sequence rarely gives them more than one opportunity to cast a damaging spell. So yes I can take a 300 damage fireball, go kill the damn guy and shrug it off easily because he will not get a chance to finish me off before I kill him. So as you can see I have no need for a monk to help me at all. Like it or not there is nothing you can do for me except augment my already near impervious defense and frankly that would be like putting a pad lock on Fort Knox and saying you made a bigger contribution to the security of it than the walls and turrets and soldiers. Whether your points are technically or theoretically correct is immaterial when I know for a fact, by virtue of playing the game and seeing the results, that I can function within a party without monk support and be completely and totally effective. I have noticed that a couple other respected and competent dervish players on this forum have corroborated my observations through their own in game experiences.

Now you say you play a dervish and I assume it is your experiences as a dervish and a monk that shape your view. The way I see it as a monk you are used to having people depend on you in the party. Perhaps you are grouping with sub-par people? Or perhaps the people you group with just feel more comfortable relying on the monk for their survival than I do? In my experience I'd rather not leave it up to the monk. In my experience a monk is unable to significantly help my survivability in any way if I am relying solely on them for defensive support and healing. So in order to keep me from having to consistently put monks that failed on my ignore list I chose to create a build that gives me a perfect balance of defensive and offensive capabilities. As a dervish you say you rarely have room for defense. You are either extremely lucky in your groupings with monks or you run a lot of hero monks because in my experience a dervish specced for full on offense is going to die pretty quick. It's like a ranger running to the front line without an avoidance stance on. You have 70 armor you think that is supposed to be your defense? In HM? Riiiiight. Protection spells are generally too short in duration for my tastes but then again I hate taking on piddly groups. I'd rather combine two or three groups on a map and take them all at once as opposed to the tedious "pull and run" strategies often employed by groups. With H/H teams I consistently do this but with real humans I tend not to be so reckless since they may or may not share my enthusiasm and aptitude for mass combat.

Now I am sure you will attempt to pick apart my build and my strategy but allow me to say one thing. It works. Any point you may make will be overshadowed by the fact that I know it works. I play it all the time. I've seen it work without monk support consistently in end game areas and HM,you may have noticed that I tend to be a little abrasive with monks. That being said have you ever tried not healing or protting the dervish on your team? I doubt that you have. If you did and they died that still doesn't prove that all dervishes need monk support or are better with monk support it simply proves that that player is incapable of playing one without monk support.

~ Dan ~ · Nov 01, 2007, 11:27 AM // 11:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Whiskeyjack

You also listed conviction, and i assume a rez(if i am wrong correct me). Thats 5(maybe 4) skills. Now you need and ias which is important for a frontliner, so that leaves you 2 slots free. Anyway if you really want to discuss this further open a thread, we are kind of derailing this one.

I mean either / or. Conviction + Mystic Regen OR Mystic Regen + veil and sanctity. I hardly use conviction, and rarely all 3 of the other option all at once. But it was an example for giving decent self heal. Anyhow, say you have conviction + mystic regen, and res. That's 3 slots, not 5. Add ias, 2 attack skills and you have 2 free slots.

Just thought i'd clear that up for you.

I won't bother argueing Burst Cancel's points as 1) (s)he does not listen 2) (s)he clearly has no experience with dervish 3) (s)he has said nothing towards the topic in this thread.

Burst Cancel · Nov 01, 2007, 11:43 PM // 23:43

Re Str0b0: I can see by your post that you continue to miss the point. You are incredibly concerned about whether you 'need a monk or not'. Furthermore, by your statement, "whether you like it or not", I gather that you still believe, despite all of my statements to the contrary, that I hold some kind of resentment that I am 'not needed', and that people can play without me. Other statements, such as, "The way I see it as a monk you are used to having people depend on you in the party", support this.

I am going to state this for the last time: I do not, nor have I ever, cared if anyone needed a monk. My primary field of play is/was GvG, and all of my PvE is done with H/H or friends. Whether anyone needs me or not has absolutely no bearing on my arguments or my disposition. It is simply a complete non-issue.

I have stated, I think twice now, that if you don't need a monk, don't take one. You have nothing further to contribute to the argument, because this argument simply doesn't concern people who are trying to survive without a monk. Rather, the argument is predicated on the assumption that you are using a balanced team that includes a standard frontline/midline/backline configuration. If you have arranged your own build such that one of these character types is no longer necessary, then the argument is obviously no longer relevant to you.

That said, there are several things you would like to point out:
- Ebon Dust Aura is a defensive elite, and the sacrifice in offensive power is not trivial when you consider what you could have replaced it with.
- Prot Spirit makes your 70AL irrelevant. Particularly against HM enemies, it is unlikely that additional AL would reduce damage significantly below PS's threshold.
- Your assertion that monks do not improve your survivability is simply not credible, when you consider the type and number of tools they have that are solely devoted to that purpose. Furthermore, if monks did not improve survivability, you would not see anyone playing them, nor would anyone group with one, and they would not be staples in all forms of PvP. Either the monks you play with are plainly incompetent, or you are simply being disingenuous and argumentative.
- On my Dervish I run henchmen monks, actually, because I like using my hero slots for offense (e.g., Elementalists).
- 'It works' is a meritless argument. I can H/H with an empty skillbar - it works, so it must be good, right? Clearly, Healing Hands wammo bars 'work' also, but you don't see any competent players running that. I won't speak on the merits of your build, because your post suggests that you are very proud of it and therefore would be sensitive to criticism (to the point where you are even trying to preempt criticism ...), but I am forced to point out that 'It works' is not a valid defense.

Re dan-the-noob: contrary to 'not listening', I have refuted your points twice now without a persuasive counter-argument from you.

Str0b0 · Nov 02, 2007, 02:58 AM // 02:58

I'm sorry I thought the entire point of this was whether I could function as effectively with a monk as without so whether or not it works is, in fact, the crux of the argument. Comparing my skill bar to an empty one or a wammo with HH doesn't really support your point because H/H and an empty bar still implies the inclusion of a monk and take away the monk support from a HH wammo and they fail. My point is that a monk can't do anything for me. The fact that a monk cannot improve my survivability is credible and is supported by my first hand observations when a monk decided to stop supporting me because I got ill with them. As for whether anyone else needs them I have said time and time again that the rest of the party does, hence why people play them and play with them.

As for the merits of my build you could pick it apart but I've vanquished all of NF and half of Prophecies with it. I've done many many many groups with it and no one has ever had anything detrimental to say about it. I don't deny the fact that I could have used an offensive elite but then again that wasn't the purpose of the build to begin with. The purpose was to neutralize melee and let me focus on the big guns. To that end it works just fine since you hardly need an uber offense elite to take down squishies. Protective spirit doesn't last long enough for me to even consider it to be effective regardless of spammability. I have yet to meet a monk that can maintain it adequately between a multi member front line. In other words if you can't keep it on me at all times without fail then you fail, especially in HM. So rather than deal with that glaring inadequacy I opted to instead be solely responsible for my own survivability. Whether you like me or not, whether you like my build or not, or whether you think I'm right or not the whole argument was based on whether or not a dervish could function effectively in a party without monk support. I can. I do often. Maybe I'm the exception and not the rule, but even if that is the case if one person can learn to do it then anyone can which means that yes they can and it also means I'm right.

I am finished with this argument. You can't convince me you are correct and I am not. I know I'm right because I do exactly what you are telling me I shouldn't or can't do all the time and it doesn't make any significant difference.I don't know what evidence you could possibly present to me to change my mind on this matter when I have seen with my own eyes my effectiveness in game and been complimented by other people in game about my build and it's usefulness in party. Outside of presenting me with documentation of me dieing consistently without monk support there is nothing you can say to prove your point to me.

draxynnic · Nov 02, 2007, 05:43 AM // 05:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

- Heart of Fury actually only lasts 18s (http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Heart_of_Fury) at 13 attribute, with +20% if you swap to an enchanting weapon to cast. Eternal Aura is a good argument here, but using Aura to power Fury takes another skill slot as well as devoting more time to simply cast enchantments, which forces you to stop moving or attacking. It's not a bad trade if you're using an Avatar, since you need Aura anyway, but it's still strictly worse than an IAS stance, which can be activated at any time and is less likely to be removed.

I just had to nitpick this point.

First, none of the Dervish IAS stances are better - they all have longer recharge than duration. You can get past this by taking a secondary such as Warrior with IAS stances that can be kept up continuously, but they also have their own downsides as well as removing the option to have something else as your secondary.

Second, while the enchantments do take time to put up - Eternal Aura has a nifty side-effect of dealing 88 armour-ignoring damage to all nearby foes when it's applied. I'll happily take that over half a swing with a scythe. Heart of Fury also has the 3 seconds of burning when it comes off, which unless the targets are already on fire - or immune - seems a decent trade for less than half of a swing. In other words, while they do take up slots, using them isn't taking away time from dealing damage - they deal damage directly as well as through augmenting your build.

~ Dan ~ · Nov 02, 2007, 09:24 AM // 09:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

Re dan-the-noob: contrary to 'not listening', I have refuted your points twice now without a persuasive counter-argument from you.

I have provided cuonter arguments but you just will not listen, therefore anymore would just be a waste of my time.

Magikarp · Nov 02, 2007, 02:11 PM // 14:11

im new to this forum, and theres a lot of "debating", but AoB is tripe. play melandru or ob flesh if you want real results......

or just play a warrior..

Tyla · Nov 02, 2007, 02:15 PM // 14:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magikarp

im new to this forum, and theres a lot of "debating", but AoB is tripe. play melandru or ob flesh if you want real results......

or just play a warrior..

warrior playstyles are different to a derv though:P

but on subject.
may have been said before

but AoB's buffs are weak,never needed and can be witnessed in non elite skills
kthx

Whiskeyjack · Nov 02, 2007, 04:53 PM // 16:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by dan-the-noob

I mean either / or. Conviction + Mystic Regen OR Mystic Regen + veil and sanctity. I hardly use conviction, and rarely all 3 of the other option all at once. But it was an example for giving decent self heal. Anyhow, say you have conviction + mystic regen, and res. That's 3 slots, not 5. Add ias, 2 attack skills and you have 2 free slots.

Just thought i'd clear that up for you.

I won't bother argueing Burst Cancel's points as 1) (s)he does not listen 2) (s)he clearly has no experience with dervish 3) (s)he has said nothing towards the topic in this thread.

Ok last off topic post from me. Burst cancel has explained why Regen is bad, lets take the example of the 300 dmg fireball ( i guess the monk most have fallen asleep), it will take mystic regen 15 seconds to recover that health-so it fails versus large dmg packets. What therefore is it's purpose, lot's of small dmg packets can easily be stopped by prot or mopped up by LoD, so in reality mystic regen doesnt do anything for you. Now consider SY! in that slot, its easily spammed by a derv and provides an 82.5% dmg reduction for ALL party members in earshot. Which do you think is going to make your monk's life easier?

Strobo seem' to have his head in the sand so there seems little point in responding to his post's

On Topic: I doubt AoB will ever get the rework it needs so i guess it will remain one of those trash elites that every profession has to put up with.

Magikarp · Nov 02, 2007, 05:04 PM // 17:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by tyla salanari

warrior playstyles are different to a derv though:P

but on subject.
may have been said before

but AoB's buffs are weak,never needed and can be witnessed in non elite skills
kthx

only if you want it to be that way. it seems as though AoB players believe they are warriors deep down inside.

ob flesh is still better than anything else, hm, elite zone, or just tanking in general. melandru is the only other thing in the game worth considering next, and i'd take mist form or shadow form before i took AoB.

Whiskeyjack · Nov 02, 2007, 05:37 PM // 17:37

"ob flesh is still better than anything else"

Better than what? OF tank's are trash, please don't recommend it someone who doesnt know any better might decide to run it.

Magikarp · Nov 02, 2007, 06:59 PM // 18:59

are you serious? OF tanks are fantastic and always have been.. what game do you play?

~ Dan ~ · Nov 02, 2007, 10:51 PM // 22:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Magikarp

are you serious? OF tanks are fantastic and always have been.. what game do you play?

God knows. Apparently the same game where the best Dervish skill is considered useless

Magikarp · Nov 03, 2007, 01:02 AM // 01:02

the best derv skills are AoM, VoS, and EDA.

Epic Monkey Battle · Nov 03, 2007, 01:35 AM // 01:35

The only way I can see all those defensive enchantments making the monks life easier is for a nice bonus from Dwayna's Kiss.

I would personally rather see a derv run out there and use all his massive AoE attacks to kill the groups, because essentially what makes the monk's life the easiest is dead mobs... not you lasting in them while everyone else dies.

Burst Cancel · Nov 03, 2007, 01:53 AM // 01:53

Re Str0b0: As I've said twice now, you're arguing something completely different from what I'm arguing. The topics aren't even related: I'm talking about builds in a balanced team, you're building for self-sufficiency. Apples and oranges; ergo, the entire discussion was a waste of time.

You spend a lot of time trying to defend your ability to play without a monk; completely unnecessary, given the circumstances, as nobody is trying to challenge that ability. This is now the fourth time that I'm going to say this: if you don't need a monk, don't take one. Nothing wrong with that. Problem solved, argument over.

However, your assertion that Prot Spirit has a low duration is plainly false, given that it lasts 17s+20% at a mere 10 attribute (http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Protective_Spirit). As such, it has similar durations to Heart of Fury (at 12 attribute) and Mystic Regen, neither of which you seem to have any problems with.

Re Draxynnic: In terms of an IAS, Heart of Fury is sub-par overall simply due to the recharge - and let's be honest here, the burning is hardly worth mentioning given it's 42 total damage over 3 seconds, on a 30s timer. I concede that it's the best Dervish option, so if your secondary doesn't allow an IAS stance, it's the best choice. However, not taking an IAS stance *just* to take Conviction is a bad trade, which was my original point.

Eternal Aura is a good skill, and I've said nothing to the contrary - however, I wouldn't run it unless I needed that recharge for an Avatar or something. The damage on its own simply isn't good enough on a 30s timer.

My problem with casts on a frontline characters is that it forces them to stop whatever they're already doing - whether chasing a target or attacking one - to put up an enchantment at a pretty much set interval. This gets pretty disruptive over time, even with fast-casting enchantments (see, for instance, Vow of Strength builds running in excess of 3~4 constantly re-casted enchantments). And again, there's much more enchantment removal in the game than stance removal.

Ultimately, my final point in this has always been: in a balanced team (i.e., with monk backline), there is no reason to sacrifice offensive strength for self-only healing/defense. If you're going to bring defense, make it party wide or leave it at home; it just doesn't make enough of a difference otherwise. The exception is more-or-less pure tanking builds in areas such as DoA.

And I hope that's the last I have to say on the whole matter.

In any event, have a good weekend guys.

Darkside · Nov 03, 2007, 02:35 AM // 02:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

in a balanced team (i.e., with monk backline), there is no reason to sacrifice offensive strength for self-only healing/defense.

That's just the point I made earlier adding a couple defensive skills doesn't hurt the offensive strength of most dervish builds! I can still maintain high dps despite the fact that I'm using Great Dwarf Armor + Mystic Regeneration. Removing those two skills and adding two attack skills won't be improving my damage output.