Curse

Killed u man · Feb 08, 2010, 02:44 PM // 14:44

To mods: Thanks for re-opening it, but in the meanwhile, I've already posted it in Sardelac. (Something I rather didn't do, because of the many "PvE'ers posting there who dont understand how useless these classes truly are in PvP). If I had to pick one sub-forum, I'dd rather post it here, despite the many TL;DR I'm going to get, because people here will atleast understand the problems with assassins and dervishes. If you have the abilitity to do so, you can always lock/delete the thread in Sardelac, or otherwise I'll delete it.

TL;DR (Don't bother to reply if you're only going to read this. If you're intrigued, be it positive or negative, read the intire thread. I know the thread is long, but I made it so that no mis-understanding can exist. I'm basicly reworking the Sin and Dervish classes, and you can't just write that down in 5 sentences. Thanks.)

If you want sins and dervishes to have a roll into PvP at all, you need to rework the classes so they become viable as a replacement for the Warrior. Despite their initial design being a one way street (Sin = gank, Derv = wammo), they have potential to be a useable class, albeit with some modifications.

How can you replace something that already has everything and more, aka the Warrior? You can't... Instead, what they need to do is take away certain abilities of the Warrior, and add those to sins and dervishes, always as implement new effects to these classes.

And before you start reading, I ask you to get rid of the "Sin is gank, and derv is wammo, they already have their roles" mentality. These classes exist, and deserve a fair chance in 8v8 PvP scenarios. Right now, the ONLY way sins see play is either in a Backbreakerway, or as a byob variant for GvG. Dervishes only see play in hexways, and that's it. I think it's safe to say neither of them is taken too serious, and I don't to, I admit. But that's the thing I want to change. I want you to shake off the "Dervs and Sins are bad for the game" mentality, and open up for the posibilities at hand, with only retouching no more than 3 attribute lines, aswell as 1 inherent mechanic.

I believe that there is a difference between a good warrior and a bad one. I do not believe that being a decent warrior is all that hard. At the end of the day, simply smashing your spacebar as a Warrior will gain you 40-50 DPS, whereas a sin, or dervish, will always have to be using attack skills in order to come anywhere close.

So what I'm getting at is that people need to stop praising the warrior as the only viable, skillfull way of playing frontline. The adrenaline concept is great, and I love it, but it's by no means the only "skillfull" way to play frontline, and that's exactly the idea that many people have.

The truth is, and you can't deny it, that killing is as easy as it gets on a Warrior. And if you wish to take on this statement, roll your standard GvG balanced, and replace your warriors with any incarnation of a sin or dervish. Given, their low armors do not allow for them to frontline, but this is a mistake Anet made 3 years ago, and can be fixed simply by giving sins or dervishes 80AL, primary attribute armor related buffs (every rank in critical strikes gives you +1.5 armor), or even a Vow Of Piety like permanent buff.
The point is, you won't kill anything. The sins are too easy to prot, because they can't apply pressure. With the recent additions of Jagged Strike, sins now CAN change targets fast, but they still don't have any decent offhand/dual attacks. Dervishes might get a spike off every now and then, but they're going to have to rely on their lucky crits, aswell as the enemy Monks being asleep.

So I'm trying to bring Sins and Dervishes on par with Warriors, aswell as Visa Verca. I want to tome the warrior down a bit, similar to prophecies days with Charge Warriors, yet at the same time give Sins and Dervishes some of those aspects a Warrior will have to give in on, so they become a viable frontline.

Now don't get me wrong: I'm not in favor of "walking tree way" all over again, or sinsplit. I want to redesign both classes so they add a new dimension to 8v8 PvP battles.

Warrior
So what exactly do I mean with: "Tome the Warrior down a bit"

For starters: Shock and Bull's strike. Both these skills carry a warrior in such a way they render the enemy defence useless for a 3 full seconds, aswell as putting them in the position to allow for easy interrupts/quarter rupts.
Neither sins or dervishes have anything remotely close. Yes, they can both sacrifice their secondaries, and take bull's strike aswell, but they'll still only get 2 seconds of KD, aswell as no "big damage" and again loosing out on their secondary.

I believe Bull's strike and shock should get nerfed, though not destroyed. Change Shock to the following:

Quote:

Shock 10E 3/4C 15R
Skill. Target touched foe is knocked down and struck for 10...50 lightning damage and suffers from Cracked Armor for 5...20 seconds. This skill causes Exhaustion.

If a warrior wants to go at it, he can still bring it, but it's now a better skill to use for eles.

Bull's Strike is something completely different. The skill promotes anticipating enemy movement, and should therefore be embraced, but the problem lies in the fact that it's a dual sided die with one side meaning "win" and the other one "try again in 10 seconds".
Now, I don't want this skill to punish a warrior for being unlucky, but how often do you see people making fun of other people because they can't hit a single bull's? So I want to make it so that when you do miss it, you get a small punishment that will make you think twice about using it next time:

Quote:

Bull's Strike 5E 10R
Melee Attack. If target foe was moving, that foe is knocked down and struck for +5...30 damage. If he wasn't moving, all your adrenaline stances are disabled for 1 second.

In short: Punish a warrior on missing a bull's by not allowing him to frenzy/PR, or atleast do so at his own risk. It will still by a viable skill on Hammer Warriors, which aren't a problem, but Primal/Frenzy happy warriors will have to understand the consequences of spamming Bull's strike.

Then, I think both other professions should have an equivalent of what is the warrior's powerhouse. People who say Horns of the Ox, or trampling is a sin's bull's clearly haven't played sin yet. Neither Dervishes or Sins can afford Shock in the manner a Warrior can, because their build relies on all energy skills. A warrior can simply high-set out Shock if needed, and still activate his energy stances on that high set, and then swap back to martial weapon to keep doing the damage he always does...

Shroud Of Silence showed what it meant for sins to have a similar skill. Too bad it lasted 10 seconds (way too long), was an elite spell AND a hex. But atleast it has proven that sins, even in 8v8 scenarios, were capable of killing stuff given the right tools, albeit those tools being condionless spells.

The 1/2 s activation skills for sins were a start, but still doesn't put them anywhere close to warriors. People often complain that sins have no decent IAS, but I don't think that's needed, because sins auto-attack do nearly no damage anyways, and attack skills rely on recharge. So an IAS is only going to do very little for a sin, and therefor isn't necessary to pressure.

Combo mechanics

The combo mechanic in GW is really weak. There only is a handfull of combo's to start with, and the recharge really kills it. The true reason why the combo sin is bad, is because of the recharge times. A warrior gets shutdown aswell, but you don't see people calling them bad? This is because a simple spacebar warrior attack can be viewed as a +damage attack skill from the sin. But if we then lower the recharge of some of these attack skills (The old death blossom), it becomes clear how easy to use they really are, and even when shutdown, they can simply restart their combo. They got one aspect right with those updates, though, which is the fast recharge.

For a few weeks, sins (In the form of R/A's) were viable. The main problem lied in the fact that there was no real punishment, as unlike a Warrior they could brainlessly spam all day and night, disregard any form of shutdown. So I would like to see "Jagged-Foxfangs-Deathblossom" similar kinda chains, WITH a penalty if they get spammed when shutdown.

Shadowstep mechanics

Then the shadowstep mechanic. Many people deem this to be a "bad mechanic" based on the fact that it takes away all movement control. Reality, however, showed that shadowsteps dind't get abused at all but for a couple of builds, and these were always some kind of spike build. A/D spikes, W/A spikes aswell as single full-sin combo spikes. And with most of the "frontline" teleport spikes, the main problem wasn't necessarily the teleporting sin, but rather the large packets of midline damage. I would even go as far as saying that completely unnerfing the shadowsteps nowdays wouldn't create a complete metashift back to A/x or x/A teleport spikes, as the main problem always was the midline damage. (Which got tomed down a bit)

I would like shadowsteps to get re-introduced in their intital state (no aftercast), but rather for daggerbuilds only, aswell as conditional. Teleports should only work as a punishment for the enemy team for over-extending, and not as a "I'm too bad to fake out prots, so I teleport to whoever I want". As an added change, every shadowstep should get increased to a 3/4 second cast time, to give monk a glimpse of reaction time, or atleast make it viable for the enemy team to interrupt it through the aid of mesmer interrupts. *Or a ranger with REALLY low ping and flight time*
Thus, the following 2 clauses should be added to every shadowstep: "This spell disables all non-dagger attack skills" and "If target foe isn't within area of an ally" to create a safe barrier which will guarantee them not to get abused by pure spike builds.

New mechanic: Momentum Effect

Then, to make sins an actual treat on the battlefield, they should have a new inherent mechanic called momentum. Add it to critical strikes, or as a "dagger" effect, but in order for sins to compete with Warriors, they need to become a treat on the battlefield. Something you have to actively deal with, before it overcomes you.

Every succesfull combo (so every dual attack that hits) should buff the sin a little bit. Be it with a 1-2% damage increase or speed/IAS buff. As a counter to this mechanic, every unsuccesfull hit (Be it blind or block) should give sins a penalty, yet this penalty can not reduce them beyond the intital damage (So they can go above 100% damage, but not below).

In essence, this means that sins will start out as sub-par Warriors, capable of inflicting some low numbers through the aid of fast recharging combos, aswell as mini spikes, but as the battle prolongs, each succesfull combo the sin gets off, will give him "momentum" bonus. This means that his NEXT combo (Lead, offhand and Dual) will do more damage. So unlike a sin now, your bsurge can't ignore it, and blind it every now and then. The sin becomes a potent damage dealer which has got to be kept at bay from the start, before he starts gaining too much momentum and overcomes you. *Pretty much like the Primal Pain Train that exists now. Once a team starts taking pressure, Warriors can just camp their Primal and totally steamroll over the enemy team*

If you tweak the numbers just right, you can make it so sins are a reasonable treat on the battle field, without outclassing Warriors, but as the battle prolongs, they become more and more dangerous, and eventually outclassing a Warrior if not dealt with.
So depending on your shutdown, they become better and better.

This is obviously a rough, yet effective, example which requires some hard-coding. And it's the only thing I can understand a : "Too much work" reaction from. So I won't work this out any more.

Dervishes

I've thought less about this class, mainly because they got introduced later, and are even more "unnecessary" than sins. But to give you a rough idea of what I believe Dervishes should have been like all along, or atleast what Anet made them sound to be when they first mentioned them:

A protection like frontliner which benefits from well placed enchantments as personal, or team, buffs.

In shorter words, A smite warrior on crack.

A Dervish right now only gets abused for Wounding Strike Spam and Auto-Crit A/D's. The reasons here are once again the same as with the sin: It's too easy to shutdown, and they don't do any real pressure.

It's safe that say that a Dervish without enchantments can be left ignored. He might inflict a couple of 100 damage packets every 10-15 seconds, but in overal is no real treat. There reason here is that a Dervish RELIES on enchantments, rather than get buffed by them.

A Dervish nowdays can be compared to a conjure warrior that when stripped becomes much less than a warrior. As long as they got their enchantments flowing, I'll agree that a Dervish comes close to a Warrior, but solely relying on wounding Strike that is.

Wind Prayer and Mysticism

What I want to see changed here is the Wind Prayers and Mysticism attribute line. In short, move all the IAS, IMS, energy and health management skills to the Mysticism lines. Next, change the intire Wind Prayer line to a self/party buffing line which requires active prots, with effect similar to conjures and orders.

These "buffs" become unstripable once in effect, but the enchantments supplying the "juice" can be stripped. So these dervish enchantments will show up as an enchantment spell for the target Ally, but as a spell/skill for yourself or your party.

The spells will all follow a similar structure, which is following: "If target ally XX, you/your party does xx", with again: An enchantment duration for that ally and a different spell/skill duration on the other members who benefit from it. As a result of this, I would change ALL Scythe Attacks to "ignore" any effect, including these wind prayers, on them. So Wind Prayers will greatly buff a dervishes "auto-attack" options, without giving them redicilous +damage numbers on singled out spikes through attack skills.

Examples

So what I want sins to have is the following:

Quote:

Black Mantis Trust 5E 1/2C 10R
Lead Attack. Target foe takes +5...10 damage. If target foe was moving, he takes +10...25 damage and is knocked down.

Very similar to Bull's Strike, tough with a 2 seconds KD, and no "negative" effect yet. I don't believe we should start toming skills down before we see them in practical application. But I'm leaving open space for a possible: "If target foe wasn't moving, you suffer from XX" clause.

What I want dervishes to have is the following:

Quote:

Irresistible Sweep 5E 12R
Scythe Attack. If you are enchanted and target foe was moving, he takes +5...10 damage and is knocked down for 3 seconds. If target foe wasn't moving, you loose all enchantments and stances.

Again, and obvious equivalent, but since Dervishes are already semi-viable I believe that the negative clause wouldn't hurt to keep the skill in line.

Then both sins and dervishes need to have a viable way of inflicting DW, which is non-elite, for more than 1 build to exist. (Aka the Wounding Strike dervish)

What I want Golden Fang Strike to look like:

Quote:

Golden Fang Strike 5E 1/2C 4R
Offhand Attack. Target foe takes +5...25 damage. If target foe is knocked down or moving, he suffers from deep wound for 5...20 seconds. If this attack misses, it is disabled for 8 seconds and counts as an offhand attack.

If it is blocked, used out of chain, or simply missed, it gets disabled for 10 seconds, BUT it still allowed you to finish your combo. This would allow sins to still do some pressure, even if getting camped by shutdown, similar to what a warrior could do.

As for Wearying Strike:

Quote:

Wearying Strike 5E 10R
Scythe Attack. Target foe suffers from DW for 5...20 seconds. If you're not enchanted, you suffer from weakness for 10...3 seconds.

Basic DW skill, with a smaller set-back in case you're not enchanted. No +damage because that comes from the active "protection" skills.

And last but not least, they all need some "finishers", similar to the warrior's bodyblow/executioners.

Quote:

Death Blossom 5E 1C 4R
Dual Attack, target foe takes +5...20 damage. If this attack misses, it is disabled for 8 seconds and you loose all conditions.

This would give the sin a nice +40 damage skill follow up. If it misses, you get punished for using it while under blind (1 Cast Time), but it resets you so you can start with a new combo again.

Some examples of what shadowsteps should have been all along:

Quote:

Dark Prison 5E 3/4A 20R
Spell. If target foe isn't within area of an ally, you shadowstep to target foe. If that foe was moving, he moves 50% slower for 3...8 seconds. All your non-dagger attack skills are disabled for 5 seconds.

Quote:

Death's Charge 5E 3/4A 15R
Spell. If target foe isn't within area of an ally, you shadowstep to target foe and that foe takes 30...70 damage. All your non-dagger attack skills are disabled for 5 seconds.

As for dervishes, the many skills will be available in a state similar as they are now, only will ALL damage get reduced to a maximum of +15, aswell as increased crit chances.

The + damage will come from the Wind Prayers attribute line.

Quote:

Test of Faith 5E 1/4A 20R
Enchantment Spell. For 3...6 seconds, every time target foe takes over 60 damage, you deal +1...5 damage (maximum 30 damage) for 20 seconds.

So this skill would create 2 effects: It would create a "spell" on your screen, with a set 20 seconds duration (from the second you activate it), and an enchantment spell on target ally. The fast cast time and short duration gurantees it has to be used as one would use a protection prayer spell. And as a result, you deal +1...5 damage each time he takes over 60 damage, so after 6 succesfull packets (So when you caught a spike) you will deal +30 damage on attacks.

All in All, this leaves 3 different, but effective in their own way, frontliners, each with a different playstyle. Each will have advantages and disadvantages, but most importantly, each will be viable.

Nearly all of the things I've suggested is no more than "rewriting" existing skills with effects that are seen in other skills. (Copy paste from different profession if you will) And the "Momentum Effect" is the only thing that would require a couple of changes in the mechanics...

Final Note: R/A's, aswell as crit axe/hammer/bow/scythe are a completely different topic. I don't approve of the R/A, and I believe Rangers shouldn't be able to use sin attack skills at only 2 energy per attack.

deluxe · Feb 08, 2010, 03:08 PM // 15:08

Warrior is a 8v8 character, Assassin is a split character. There nothing more to it.

For the rest: tl;dr, because its you.

Killed u man · Feb 08, 2010, 03:35 PM // 15:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by deluxe

Warrior is a 8v8 character, Assassin is a split character. Theres nothing more to it.

For the rest: tl;dr, because its you.

And this is why GvG is stale, and 99% of the community left... *And I mean the good part, the people who actually were half decent at the game*

deluxe · Feb 08, 2010, 03:58 PM // 15:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

And this is why GvG is stale, and 99% of the community left... *And I mean the good part, the people who actually were half decent at the game*

What do you know about the GvG community? I'm not saying the gvg community hasnt shrunk, but afaik you've only done tombs for the last 5 years.

own age myname · Feb 08, 2010, 04:06 PM // 16:06

No. Shock and Bull's, imo, are one of the most balanced skills in the game. Skill:reward ratio.

Killed u man · Feb 08, 2010, 04:40 PM // 16:40

Thats why everyone runs the same builds? What is there to know about the GvG community? All I see is nowadays is people complaining about how bad the game has become, not realizing it's THEIR mentality which got the game in such a state.

People are complaining about the game not being as balanced as in the good old prophecies days (when all of you guys were still farming charr), yet you can't see some obvious problem skills such as Bull's Strike and Shock.

There are more professions now, and instead of completely denying them to exist, and even further limiting the amount of viable builds, you should try and come up with decent ideas instead of going: "Lulz, wut do you know about GvG. You know nothing, lulz tombzor".

And the reason I don't GvG is because it's so shit. And thats also the reason the majority left, aside from real prizes being discontinued.

@ the above:

So wounding strike is also a balanced skill? Skill:reward ration: hitting stuff while enchanted gets you great results, if you're not, you won't get results.
The effects of Bull's and Shock greatly outweigh any skills sins or dervs have to offer, and are in general overpowered. Also, you can just spam them, (Bull's anyway) so there is no penalty for missing it.

Using Bull's strike is throwing a 2 faced dice where one side means "win" and the other one "try again".

Bobby2 · Feb 08, 2010, 04:47 PM // 16:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

Obviously I'm just throwing out random ideas, but I think something needs to change nontheless. GvG has become a joke, partially because there is so few options left to run, aswell as that those options are always gimmicky related bullshit.

And your solution is to make Assassins viable

hurr durr

Killed u man · Feb 08, 2010, 04:57 PM // 16:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobby2

and your solution is to make assassins viable

hurr durr

Quote:

warrior dominance, rit defence and warrior stances on monks are all part of that problem. I'm trying to tackle on 1 of these...

1234657788986

Corporeal Ghost · Feb 08, 2010, 04:58 PM // 16:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

Also, you can just spam them, (Bull's anyway) so there is no penalty for missing it.[/I]

How about the fact that it takes up (slightly more than) 80% of your energy to do this?

Xsiriss · Feb 08, 2010, 05:01 PM // 17:01

The reason why peopel tend to run the same warrior builds is because those are the consistent and effective ones,that also suffer the least nerfs because warriors are one of the most balanced classes. Anet generally got/get the whole pvp thing wrong and change their midn about it alot.

kedde · Feb 08, 2010, 05:08 PM // 17:08

How about, using bull's strike, apart from when in the retarded primal express, is equal to flipping a coin where you and your entire team gets to influence and therefore predict which side it'll land on.

Killed u man · Feb 08, 2010, 05:13 PM // 17:13

It's not like the warrior has much better uses for his energy. Zealous set and you can litterly spam Bull's on recharge.

Aside from a diverson on the Monk to prevent him from using a block skill, I fail to see how Bull's strike is a team skill. I would argue that skills such as Aegis were, because they required some coordinatio, but bull's?

FoxBat · Feb 08, 2010, 05:14 PM // 17:14

It's almost as overpowered as dshot, we know.

jaximus · Feb 08, 2010, 05:15 PM // 17:15

someone once said something along the lines of... until you realize that guild wars is balanced around warriors and adrenaline, you wont understand guild wars...

that is pretty true. and bulls strike is extremely balanced. if you feel that dervs/sins need a version, go /w?

as for the fast activation skills being a step in the right direction?? that couldnt be more wrong. they were the exact opposite of what the game needed. because sins are based on energy and have their skills on demand(no adrenal charge), they need the fragile chain in order to not be watered down warriors. if anything, they should have made dual attacks more powerful. this way the chain would actually have some meaning. with skills like palm strike and jagged/fox combo, people are able to get to the dual attacks way too quickly and easily (horns, trampling, twisting).

dervs were created for a pve wammo type class, and their relience on enchants, the foundation of their profession, makes them not a very transferable to large scale pvp usage.

Killed u man · Feb 08, 2010, 05:24 PM // 17:24

Increase damage on dual attacks? This would simply make combo sins (BB, Palm strike) more imbalanced than they already are. *In the single target spike damage aspect* (Tough BBsins are getting nerfed I have been told)

Sins don't need more spike damage, they need more DPS. Rite now, a sin on the battlefield is like a fire ele. Sure, it can pump some damage, and occasionally spike, but it's nowhere near a treat as a Warrior. You can pretty much just redbar a sin's damage, and ignore him alltogether.

Having their DPS increase over time (and far outrising a warrior) if they are left ignored is a good way to balance them. The numbers can easily be tweaked, and the mechanic leaves for some leeway either side. You can ignore the sin, and focus on pressuring, allowing the sin to do more damage at the risk of him overcomming you, or you can shut him down from the start, just like a bsurge camps a warrior now, at which he can still get small spikes out. (Like a warrior which only needs a small window to dismember/evisc/body block).

Having a reasonable offhand DW attack would be nice, preferably with a condion.

Some rough examples:

Black Mantis Trust: 5E 1/2A 12R
Lead Attack, target foe takes +5...10 damage. If target foe was moving, he takes +10...25 damage and is knocked down.

Golden Fang Strike: 5E 1/2A 4R
Offhand Attack, target foe takes +5...15 damage. If target foe is KD'd, he suffers from a DW for 5...17 seconds. If this attack misses, it is disabled for 10 seconds and still counts as an offhand attack.

Death Blossom: 5E 1A 4R
Dual Attack, target foe takes +10...25 damage. If this attack misses, it is disabled for 10 seconds and you loose all conditions. (Blind)

Instead of singled out gimmicky "big damage" combos (Blades of steel, blossom), we want low damage (Pretty much on par with axe) fast recharge attack skills which only work with "smart" spamming. A sin spamming his bar empty will get his skills disabled soon enough, yet can still apply some pressure.

deluxe · Feb 08, 2010, 05:32 PM // 17:32

Sins don't need more dps. Warriors and dervishes already fulfill that job.
They're a split character and should stay that way, just like a paragon is only useful on 8v8's.

own age myname · Feb 08, 2010, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

Thats why everyone runs the same builds? What is there to know about the GvG community? All I see is nowadays is people complaining about how bad the game has become, not realizing it's THEIR mentality which got the game in such a state.

People are complaining about the game not being as balanced as in the good old prophecies days (when all of you guys were still farming charr), yet you can't see some obvious problem skills such as Bull's Strike and Shock.

There are more professions now, and instead of completely denying them to exist, and even further limiting the amount of viable builds, you should try and come up with decent ideas instead of going: "Lulz, wut do you know about GvG. You know nothing, lulz tombzor".

And the reason I don't GvG is because it's so shit. And thats also the reason the majority left, aside from real prizes being discontinued.

@ the above:

So wounding strike is also a balanced skill? Skill:reward ration: hitting stuff while enchanted gets you great results, if you're not, you won't get results.
The effects of Bull's and Shock greatly outweigh any skills sins or dervs have to offer, and are in general overpowered. Also, you can just spam them, (Bull's anyway) so there is no penalty for missing it.

Using Bull's strike is throwing a 2 faced dice where one side means "win" and the other one "try again".

You don't get it. Just because Dervs and Sins are underpowered doesn't mean Warriors are OPed.

Dragongoesforumtroll · Feb 08, 2010, 05:44 PM // 17:44

Saying bulls is overpowered outside of primal express is one of the most retarded things i have ever heard. OP cleary has never sucessfully dodged a bulls in his life.

Earth · Feb 09, 2010, 05:28 PM // 17:28

Reopened. Enjoy.

EDIT: If you want to rage/tell me why the thread should remain locked, PM me. Thanks.

Killed u man · Feb 09, 2010, 07:22 PM // 19:22

I already posted it in sardelac, but I'll gladly post it here, as this is from a pure PvP (GvG) perspective. It's however you mods want it.

Thanks for re-opening.