Curse

Burst Cancel · Oct 29, 2007, 12:57 AM // 00:57

You missed my point about Critical Agility. I was saying that your comparison doesn't really teach us anything, because Critical Agility isn't elite, whereas AoB is. Given that the 'elite' status is exactly the heart of the problem, it's important to make this distinction.

Any skill that sees use must necessarily be the best option in some subset of realistic situations. If that were not the case, you'd just take whatever better skill there was instead. Therefore, any buff to AoB that didn't make it the best skill to use at least some of the time would be utterly meaningless - there would still be no reason to use it.

It's fun to use when you just want to look like Balty, but otherwise ...

Mickey · Oct 29, 2007, 01:27 AM // 01:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

You missed my point about Critical Agility. I was saying that your comparison doesn't really teach us anything, because Critical Agility isn't elite, whereas AoB is. Given that the 'elite' status is exactly the heart of the problem, it's important to make this distinction.

Any skill that sees use must necessarily be the best option in some subset of realistic situations. If that were not the case, you'd just take whatever better skill there was instead. Therefore, any buff to AoB that didn't make it the best skill to use at least some of the time would be utterly meaningless - there would still be no reason to use it.

It's fun to use when you just want to look like Balty, but otherwise ...

And I am saying that the reason Critical Agility is not elite is because it is a PvE-only skill, you miss my point.

Darkside · Oct 29, 2007, 04:52 AM // 04:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

I'm not lucky - I just don't PuG.

Defense and healing is fine if you can fit it, but you'll notice that the AoB benefits have basically boiled down to, "well, it gives a permanent +40AL", which is completely inconsequential with a monk behind you and a total waste of the elite slot. Traditional warrior defense elites are nubflags for similar reasons.

In my experience (I'm primarily a monk player), self-healing and defense tends to be either unnecessary or insufficient. With few exceptions, if we're being smashed despite PS, SB, SoA, Aegis, LoD, etc., the small heals and slight armor buffs just aren't going to make a significant difference. The main exceptions are things like Watch Yourself, Shields Up, etc., which are party-wide and can be maintained indefinitely with one or two characters. But single-target stuff like Conviction, Mystic Regen, Healing Signet, etc. just doesn't matter. All the big damage is caught by preprotting, and diffuse damage gets mopped up by LoD.

I have to disagree...mystic regen in combination with great dwarven armor or conviction keep the damage way down.

The other day I was playing with a monk from my guild and after the mission she went on to tell me how she enjoys playing in a group with a good dervish because they are so low maintenance. Not requiring much healing since they can do it themselves.

Str0b0 · Oct 29, 2007, 06:20 AM // 06:20

Whenever I play my preferred builds I never need monk support. I do need a party most of the time just to keep the mobs from all aggroing on me but in a party the monk can usually pay attention to the other chars. I am able to do this and still maintain a helacious damage output. So single target stuff like conviction amd Mystic Regen along with self healing scythe skills like Victorious sweep or reap impurities can mean the difference between a party wipe in a high pressure situation or your monk being able to heal more people because you're not being an energy drain on the monk. I've been complimented by the party monk several times and usually it is a variation of the same thing." Wow. I never had to heal you at all." Then again I usually run EDA or AOM or AOL. EDA pretty much never takes significant damage since all melee is blind. AOM with victorious sweep pretty much heals itself since conditions can't affect you. AoL just kills so damned fast you barely need any defensive enchants at all.

Burst Cancel · Oct 30, 2007, 02:35 AM // 02:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darkside

I have to disagree...mystic regen in combination with great dwarven armor or conviction keep the damage way down.

The other day I was playing with a monk from my guild and after the mission she went on to tell me how she enjoys playing in a group with a good dervish because they are so low maintenance. Not requiring much healing since they can do it themselves.

Get a better monk. Here's something to think about: if your monk is sitting around doing nothing most of the time, why are you even taking a monk?

Mystic Regen serves the same function as LoD - mopping up random damage - except LoD is party wide, spammable, and costs next to nothing. It will not save you from 300+ damage boss fireballs, and that's really the only kind of thing LoD and RoF can't keep up with. Guess what does save you from a 300+ boss fireball: Prot Spirit - yeah, another monk skill.

Conviction means you're giving up an IAS stance. Mystic Regen is just self-targeted Healing Breeze. Both take skill slots that could be used for damage. I'm not sure what builds you guys are running, but on my Dervish builds I can barely squeeze in a res, nevermind defense.

Trust me, I'm a primary monk. Single-target defense doesn't really amount to anything unless you're running a straight-up tank build for something like DoA. Rather than Conviction, how about you bring Watch Yourself! instead?

Str0b0 · Oct 30, 2007, 05:34 AM // 05:34

The point is not to have a monk sitting around doing nothing it is to be less of a burden on the monk so they can focus their attention elsewhere, you know like characters with little to no ability to self heal or protect.

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Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

Mystic Regen is just self-targeted Healing Breeze.

Are you high? With Mystic regen and the right point allotments I can have up to +15 pips of regen at once and still maintain a healthy damage output. What does healing breeze top out at 8? So for 10 energy you get 8 pips of regen for 10 seconds while for the same cost you can get up to 15 if you go heavy on enchants but usually a minimum of 12 with the right point allotments and it lasts twice as long. The extra pips offset degen from bleeding burning and hexes. As for 300 damage boss fireballs? It's called Victorious Sweep and knowing how to herd mobs. Ohh 300 damage fireball, Victorious Sweep on a clustered group that's +240 health and with the Mystic Regen kicking in that's called negligible damage. I don't need a monk the rest of the party does. I had a monk take offense at that once in Ring of Fire once so they stopped healing me and proting me. It didn't bother me one iota.

Don't get huffy because we say we can function without you. Be glad you have a more or less self sufficient party member so you can focus on the squishies and the warriors.

~ Dan ~ · Oct 30, 2007, 08:50 AM // 08:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

Conviction means you're giving up an IAS stance. Mystic Regen is just self-targeted Healing Breeze. Both take skill slots that could be used for damage.

Heart Of Fury + conviction = stance + enchant = IAS + armour. Ok? And comparing mystic regen with healing breeze has gota be a joke, right?

Refer to the post above this for why self heal is good

blurmedia · Oct 30, 2007, 09:19 AM // 09:19

I use it for exploring noob islands

Darkside · Oct 30, 2007, 02:02 PM // 14:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

Get a better monk. Here's something to think about: if your monk is sitting around doing nothing most of the time, why are you even taking a monk?

Mystic Regen serves the same function as LoD - mopping up random damage - except LoD is party wide, spammable, and costs next to nothing. It will not save you from 300+ damage boss fireballs, and that's really the only kind of thing LoD and RoF can't keep up with. Guess what does save you from a 300+ boss fireball: Prot Spirit - yeah, another monk skill.

Conviction means you're giving up an IAS stance. Mystic Regen is just self-targeted Healing Breeze. Both take skill slots that could be used for damage. I'm not sure what builds you guys are running, but on my Dervish builds I can barely squeeze in a res, nevermind defense.

Trust me, I'm a primary monk. Single-target defense doesn't really amount to anything unless you're running a straight-up tank build for something like DoA. Rather than Conviction, how about you bring Watch Yourself! instead?

I don't even know where to start with that post. First of all I don't have to sacrifice anything to use a couple defensive skills. I run quite a few enchantments so I get a lot of healing from mystic regeneration. Of course I'm still gonna want a monk behind me for heavy spike damage. I never claimed those two skills made you invincible. Also just wanna say I dunno how you can compare healing breeze to mystic regen...epic fail.

I've been playing my dervish for a long time and it's my main character. I have good survivability and do very good damage. There have been a lot of instances where my entire party wiped and I've was the last one standing. I enjoy being self sufficient...personally I think I run a pretty balanced character. Good damage output to kill and good self healing to keep myself alive. I don't see how that's bad thing.

thor thunder · Oct 30, 2007, 03:47 PM // 15:47

BoA IS terrible, Thread closed.
looks are ok but AoG>Balthazar anyday =D
as for its buffs.. you gata be jokeing.. there not even worth talking about.

AoG / AoL <3 =D

Coloneh · Oct 30, 2007, 09:07 PM // 21:07

AoG is to overnerfed to be useful. it is and always will be useless in pve. and for pvp it dosnt last long without without eternal aura. dont try to argue that one one.....

wsmcasey · Oct 30, 2007, 09:54 PM // 21:54

its good for running in pve, so its not completely useless.

Burst Cancel · Oct 30, 2007, 11:16 PM // 23:16

I don't think you guys realize what makes Healing Breeze bad - it has nothing to do with how much it heals, but rather *how* it heals. Specifically, it's an enchantment that gives regen. You know why regen is useless? Because the only thing it's good for is healing small damage and topping off bars - something a monk can do for 5e with LoD. And nevermind the fact that you can't control its healing - sitting at full health with 10 pips of regen is completely meaningless, and sitting at 5 health with 10 pips of regen is completely meaningless. Healing Breeze could be +30 pips and it wouldn't make any difference - and that's the only real strength that Mystic Regen has.

You're missing the fact that if you just got hit with a 300-point fireball, you probably don't have enough health to benefit from the healing boost of Victorious Sweep. You're also ignoring the fact that the 300-point fireball might have killed you if you weren't at full health. Not to mention that plenty of HM enemies in late-game PvE have more health than you to begin with.

Heart of Fury is sub-par due to its low duration/recharge ratio, and the fact that it's an enchantment that a) takes time to cast and b) can be stripped easily. I'd much rather be able to hit an IAS stance while doing something else.

If you think I'm angry that people "don't need me", you've missed the point. Taking a monk allows you to focus your bar more heavily on offense. If you're taking enough defense that you don't even need the monk, then you should take the monk out and put in someone who does damage. Allowing the monk to ignore you isn't nearly the boon you think it is, due to smart usage of prots and party-wide healing from LoD. And again, Watch Yourself is categorically better then Conviction.

The main point here is that your defense and self-heal only works on yourself, and it's only a minor boost. Thus, it only helps when the situation isn't critical to begin with - which is exactly when the monk doesn't need your help. When the shit really hits the fan, neither Conviction nor Mystic Regen are going to make a significant difference over the prot and healing your backline is already pumping out.

Something to think about: outside of real tanking setups, competent warriors haven't taken defense or self-heal to PvE for a while. You'd think they'd bother to slot Endure Pain or Healing Sig, but few good warriors ever do - there's a good reason for that.

Final thing: your individual survivability is meaningless. Healing Hands + Dolyak Sig + Endure Pain warriors are often the last guys standing also, so what? The only thing that ever matters in PvE team play is the team - and your self-heal/defense just doesn't make a significant difference for the team.

Whiskeyjack · Oct 30, 2007, 11:36 PM // 23:36

Quote:

Final thing: your individual survivability is meaningless. Healing Hands + Dolyak Sig + Endure Pain warriors are often the last guys standing also, so what? The only thing that ever matters in PvE team play is the team - and your self-heal/defense just doesn't make a significant difference for the team.

QFT.

I think you are going to have a hard time convincing a lot of people though as some are unreasonably attached to mystic regen and its ilk. I would much rather take a dervish that was geared primarily as a dmg dealer and packing save yourselves! over a derv that loads up on what i call selfish defense(i.e Mystic regen), in my book party defence>individual defence/healing.

Mickey · Oct 31, 2007, 04:31 AM // 04:31

Let's stop talking about Healing Breeze, and let's continue talking about possible buffs to AoB.

~ Dan ~ · Oct 31, 2007, 09:33 AM // 09:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

I don't think you guys realize what makes Healing Breeze bad..

I don't think you know what you're talking about..

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.. - it has nothing to do with how much it heals, but rather *how* it heals. Specifically, it's an enchantment that gives regen. You know why regen is useless? Because the only thing it's good for is healing small damage and topping off bars - something a monk can do for 5e with LoD. And nevermind the fact that you can't control its healing - sitting at full health with 10 pips of regen is completely meaningless, and sitting at 5 health with 10 pips of regen is completely meaningless. Healing Breeze could be +30 pips and it wouldn't make any difference - and that's the only real strength that Mystic Regen has.

If you reduce the damage by quite a bit (+ armour, veil + armor of sancitity or whatever way..) then the regen does well for mopping up excess / niggly damage. Saves the monk alot of work, actually. You'll be surpised how much health is healed by 10pips of regen every 5 secs.

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You're missing the fact that if you just got hit with a 300-point fireball, you probably don't have enough health to benefit from the healing boost of Victorious Sweep. You're also ignoring the fact that the 300-point fireball might have killed you if you weren't at full health. Not to mention that plenty of HM enemies in late-game PvE have more health than you to begin with.

Yes obviously Victorious wouldn't be used to counter a 300 fireball hit. But you have to make extreme examples just to show a monk is needed. We all know that a bit of self heal won't stop something as powerful as an ele boss and that a monk would be needed, so just stop argueing that.

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Heart of Fury is sub-par due to its low duration/recharge ratio, and the fact that it's an enchantment that a) takes time to cast and b) can be stripped easily. I'd much rather be able to hit an IAS stance while doing something else.

- It lasts 24 / 30 seconds. Hardly sub-par.
- 3/4 sec is not a long time to stand still, ya know.
- Eternal Aura can be used to keep it up almost all the time.
- Stripped easily? Maybe if you played a dervish you would know about covering enchants. Seeing as your a monk it's quite surprising how you would think it's stripped so easily.

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If you think I'm angry that people "don't need me", you've missed the point. Taking a monk allows you to focus your bar more heavily on offense. If you're taking enough defense that you don't even need the monk, then you should take the monk out and put in someone who does damage.

No, you are missing the point it seems. A bit of self heal does not damage your DPS at all, tbh.. But it does a great job of easing the monk's job.

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The main point here is that your defense and self-heal only works on yourself, and it's only a minor boost.

I wouldn't call it minor, but whatever. The main point is the dervish is frontline. The main point is the fact he'll be taking all the aggro. The main point is that he needs to stay alive moreso than the squishies out of harms way.

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Something to think about: outside of real tanking setups, competent warriors haven't taken defense or self-heal to PvE for a while. You'd think they'd bother to slot Endure Pain or Healing Sig, but few good warriors ever do - there's a good reason for that.

That they have higher base AL, etc? There's also a reason why Dervish and Warrior playstyles are different, about time you realise that.

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The only thing that ever matters in PvE team play is the team - and your self-heal/defense just doesn't make a significant difference for the team.

Yes it does, but you have to compare it to a HM ele boss fireball in order to show its negligible.

Please stop posting now and go back to your monk forum, because as mickey stated, it's gone way off topic. Thanks bb.

Whiskeyjack · Oct 31, 2007, 02:18 PM // 14:18

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I don't think you know what you're talking about..

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.

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If you reduce the damage by quite a bit (+ armour, veil + armor of sancitity or whatever way..) then the regen does well for mopping up excess / niggly damage. Saves the monk alot of work, actually. You'll be surpised how much health is healed by 10pips of regen every 5 secs.

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.

I pretty much agree with your points on Victorious sweep and HoF though, both are fine.

Quote:

I wouldn't call it minor, but whatever. The main point is the dervish is frontline. The main point is the fact he'll be taking all the aggro. The main point is that he needs to stay alive moreso than the squishies out of harms way.

Your job as frontliner should be to bodyblock and deal dmg, any attempt at "tanking" is misguided. If you want to support your party take SY! which can be easily spammed on a derv. If the rest of the party is taking significantly reduced dmg then the monk will have an easier time Prot/healing you.

Don't take this as a personnal attack on you please it is not intended as such.

Darkside · Oct 31, 2007, 04:10 PM // 16:10

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.

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.

I pretty much agree with your points on Victorious sweep and HoF though, both are fine.

Your job as frontliner should be to bodyblock and deal dmg, any attempt at "tanking" is misguided. If you want to support your party take SY! which can be easily spammed on a derv. If the rest of the party is taking significantly reduced dmg then the monk will have an easier time Prot/healing you.

Don't take this as a personnal attack on you please it is not intended as such.

I won't comment on your entire post but I will say this...I use mystic regen on my build. I haven't taken it off my skill bar since I got it. I still have plenty of room to take any attack skills I need. My dps does not suffer because of this. I do pretty wild damage in fact. So why not bring the extra armor and self heal if you can still do a lot of damage? I'd call that a balanced build. I don't understand how you can think taking two skills (conviction+mystic regen) would ruin your dps.

Whiskeyjack · Oct 31, 2007, 04:19 PM // 16:19

I am not going to criticize your build, though i do feel that skill slot could be better used with SY! Regardless of that the poster i responded to listed 4 skills,conviction/veil/sanctity/mystic regen+I would assume a res. Thats a considerable investment of attribute points and skill slots for no real purpose.

Burst cancel already explained why regen is bad so i won't bother trying to convince you further. As long as you have 14 scythe, DW, Ias and decent attacks you will do fine.

Str0b0 · Oct 31, 2007, 04:33 PM // 16:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

I don't think you guys realize what makes Healing Breeze bad - it has nothing to do with how much it heals, but rather *how* it heals. Specifically, it's an enchantment that gives regen. You know why regen is useless? Because the only thing it's good for is healing small damage and topping off bars - something a monk can do for 5e with LoD. And nevermind the fact that you can't control its healing - sitting at full health with 10 pips of regen is completely meaningless, and sitting at 5 health with 10 pips of regen is completely meaningless. Healing Breeze could be +30 pips and it wouldn't make any difference - and that's the only real strength that Mystic Regen has.

Ok You, like so many other people, seem to have this impression that dervish players slap on Mystic Regen and say "Okie Dokie I'm healin' now." That isn't how it works. We use other self healing skills to augment the impressive regen from Mystic Regen. Now when you effectively do not have to worry about degen effects sapping your health, self healing, even with just a +80 gain every 4 seconds not to mention the health gain from Mysticism which is a constant with dervishes. Hell put vital boon and a stripping attack on and you get a much more significant heal. The point is arguing against Mystic Regen as if it is the only avenue a good dervish player uses to self heal is pointless since that NEVER happens with a competent dervish player.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

You're missing the fact that if you just got hit with a 300-point fireball, you probably don't have enough health to benefit from the healing boost of Victorious Sweep. You're also ignoring the fact that the 300-point fireball might have killed you if you weren't at full health. Not to mention that plenty of HM enemies in late-game PvE have more health than you to begin with.

Once again you aren't allowing for the more or less constant flow of self healing a dervish is able to generate. I have 400 some odd health on my dervish, not sure of the exact amount. My bar barely fluctuates during HM combat. I take hits, even running EDA, but the more or less constant influx of health from my skills heals it almost as soon as it happens. Whether I use victorious, yes it works even in HM if your leading attacks are strong enough, or reap impurities with my EDA build the end result is the same, they die I barely notice the onslaught.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

Heart of Fury is sub-par due to its low duration/recharge ratio, and the fact that it's an enchantment that a) takes time to cast and b) can be stripped easily. I'd much rather be able to hit an IAS stance while doing something else.

A) A Competent Dervish precasts
B) As a monk you should know all about enchant covering and stacking. I know as a dervish player I know all about it and remain constantly aware of my enchant order. With Mysticism even mass strips are barely more than an annoyance since you can recast, even mid combat, your vital enchants.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

If you think I'm angry that people "don't need me", you've missed the point. Taking a monk allows you to focus your bar more heavily on offense. If you're taking enough defense that you don't even need the monk, then you should take the monk out and put in someone who does damage. Allowing the monk to ignore you isn't nearly the boon you think it is, due to smart usage of prots and party-wide healing from LoD. And again, Watch Yourself is categorically better then Conviction.

The entire tone of your post came off as hostile and wounded. A Dervish does not have to make that decision. A dervish can be an unstoppable killing machine and a damage sponge at the same time. You mention prots and healing but as I've said I've had monks ignore me before in end game areas and in HM and it didn't bother me one iota. As long as there is a party to keep the aggro from focusing solely on me then I can function without support.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

The main point here is that your defense and self-heal only works on yourself, and it's only a minor boost. Thus, it only helps when the situation isn't critical to begin with - which is exactly when the monk doesn't need your help. When the shit really hits the fan, neither Conviction nor Mystic Regen are going to make a significant difference over the prot and healing your backline is already pumping out.

Calling the dervish self heals minor is an understatement. Vital boon and signet of pious light, two commonly used dervish self heals, are cheap and just as effective as most commonly used none elite monk heals. If the last part of your statement were true then logically in a party wipe situation as soon as the healing back line fell then any dervish that was surviving by virtue of that back line's healing and support would die. This is patently not the case. Dervishes are usually the last one standing and, as is often the case with my derv, can often finish off the enemy group and then res the party.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

Something to think about: outside of real tanking setups, competent warriors haven't taken defense or self-heal to PvE for a while. You'd think they'd bother to slot Endure Pain or Healing Sig, but few good warriors ever do - there's a good reason for that.

Flawed argument. Warriors don't take those things because warriors have the highest natural AL in the game. Dervish natural AL is 70 that is close to a 50% increase in damage that dervishes take naturally that warrior armor soaks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Burst Cancel

Final thing: your individual survivability is meaningless. Healing Hands + Dolyak Sig + Endure Pain warriors are often the last guys standing also, so what? The only thing that ever matters in PvE team play is the team - and your self-heal/defense just doesn't make a significant difference for the team.

Again if I'm the last one standing with a res how does that make my survivability unimportant to the team? I cannot count the number of times I have been in that situation. I am the last one standing after the rest of the frontline fails. The backline collapses and I have to finish off the enemy group and then res the monk so they can get everyone else. Seems to me my personal survivability aids the party by preventing failed missions. Once again you miss my point. I'm not saying that a dervish in the party means no monks allowed. I am saying that I as a dervish player do not need you to bother with me. Save your energy for someone that needs it. A Dervishes job is not to be party support. If I choose to selfishly self heal, thus improving my personal survivability and giving you one more strong link in the frontline, which is all that is keeping you, the monk from a nasty axe-borne death, then let me. Your job is party support and buffs. My job is to kill things.