Curse

Manfred · Jan 28, 2007, 02:33 AM // 02:33

rotten, the dervish attacks are 2 seconds long. Diversion only activates when the skill completes, not when it starts. That's why you hold off a bit from recharges. If they fall for it once, that's still a minute of shutdown, and if they don't fall for it twice, that's only 6 seconds of shutdown. In my experience, pretty much every dervish above rank 50 doesn't watch before spamming skills. they're like even worse versions of thumpers.

Chilly Ress · Jan 29, 2007, 04:43 AM // 04:43

As trains are very popular these days, I think we have all come up against our fair share. The best way we (my guild) has found to slow (you cannot shutdown a train completely) is to simply kite like a madman and in the best care scenario split. When you split, you catch them off guard first of all (sometimes) and force their train to split up. Then, if your monks are good enough and aveu enough support the now fissured train shouldn't be a problem.

Also, one more thing. If you are forced to fight straight up 8v8 for whatever reasoning, kiting far, far back works as well. Since trains normally don't have a telly spike, you should not have to worry about getting someone else spiked down in the process.

Hope it helps.

~Chill from [Fin]

sir lockt · Jan 30, 2007, 09:56 AM // 09:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by horta

How to stop a Derv Train??

Dont stand in front of the train?

Seriously some good advice is given above. Trains have the tendency to squeez you...so dont get caught by them.

Aggression is an important tool.. yes you might lose the battle even faster with it, but you also might crumble them. Spike the grenths, rapidly and randomly. Force them to go in the defense or play conservative.

Splitting works excellent as well. if you play in a hall with a lot of "depth" use this terrain, accept morale losses, even if it recharges forms, but try to give offensive split the room to stop their runner and clear the base.

and of course the tip of the day:

Quote:

Originally Posted by RaZoO

You don't. You just cry and wait for a nerf.

horta · Jan 30, 2007, 02:22 PM // 14:22

Tnx for the tips...they have been much helpfull for us!

Nadine · Jan 30, 2007, 03:39 PM // 15:39

And you shuold not be afraid of these trains either. If your monks are running low on energy as soon as they see the grenth going up, it is not helping u to deal with them. And your whole offence sitting on the grenth is just an another way for them to win the battle. When u are backlining, do it fast and effective. If grenth goes down or retreats even for a sec then u shuold push everything u can find on enemy backline becouse u will not get many chances to be offensive.

Maiyn · Jan 31, 2007, 05:12 AM // 05:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Warskull

If you kite the dervishes, you need perfect kiting.

Yes, yes, yes! PLEASE

Suddenly things like water emo and foes are things i am desperate for against dervishes

Weird hybrid heal monks can help a bit as well. I do kinda feel they are a bit overpowered, it will be interesting to see how they buff them over the next little bit.

That advice about kiting way far back is pretty good too, cause that is true no super surprise spikes to punish poor positioning.

Very useful thread

Apple · Jan 31, 2007, 05:24 AM // 05:24

From what i've seen, dual teleport mo/a seem to work well too (return/death's retreat). They stop anyone from just sitting on you, that's for sure.

The Chimpster · Jan 31, 2007, 10:20 AM // 10:20

I'm sick of dervish trains too although our solution to the problem is a little bit different. We're switching to nomad isle and using loads of e denial spirits combined with wards. Dervish energy balance is always very delicate, certainly more so than warriors anyway. The cost of avatar of melandru isn't to be sneezed at - 25 energy can be a lot to find on a melee character in normal circumstances. Now add the fact that every time they attack they lose 2 energy due to the default GH effect + quicksand as well as an additional 30% cost of spells and good ole natures renewal/tranquility combo.

Then our adren based warriors can pressure the rest of the team without having to worry about the mid-backline so much :P

Lets see you get that frigging avatar up now you gits :P

deadmonkey4u · Jan 31, 2007, 05:16 PM // 17:16

1) Hexes- Referring to both hex builds with faint as well as other more common builds that may run freezing gust maybe deep freeze/ice spikes or something.

2) Wards- these are pretty damn effective against trains; however, you can't always have it at the right place at the right time but they do negate their damage alot.

3) Linebacker

4) Split

5) Spike out their grenths

6) Not all grenths use sight beyond sight. We all know your running a skill about as broken as mels and grenths called b-surge

and finally 7) Kiting helps to a degree just make sure your not crippled and exposing yourself to crits.

Cirian · Jan 31, 2007, 06:45 PM // 18:45

There's also the Me/Rt rezmer with Weapon of Warding possibility... fairly sure that currently stacks with an Aegis chain for 100% block. I imagine the Grenths has to land a hit to strip the Aegis off you, so until the Wild Blow lands you'll be ok.

Farin · Jan 31, 2007, 08:28 PM // 20:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cirian

There's also the Me/Rt rezmer with Weapon of Warding possibility... fairly sure that currently stacks with an Aegis chain for 100% block. I imagine the Grenths has to land a hit to strip the Aegis off you, so until the Wild Blow lands you'll be ok.

Actually, as far as I know, the game doesn't add up block/evade percentages. Instead the game evaluates every skill differently. For example, say your target has Aegis and Guardian on. The game will go Aegis and decide wheter the attack is blocked or goes through. If the attack isn't blocked it will move onto Guardian and will repeat the same process, and so on.

Again, I'm not positive on this but it makes a lot more sense than block mechanincs adding up.

Apple · Feb 01, 2007, 06:16 AM // 06:16

Ermm, I heard that the way it works is each block chance applies after the next one, so it's 50% + 50% = 75%

Bankai · Feb 01, 2007, 07:41 AM // 07:41

Yup, that's how it works.

Personally, I think spiking the grenth's and hexes work best. Hexes are awesome since they also work on melandru's. If you're going to spike the grenth's, first spike their monks a few times, and when they're not suspecting it suddenly pull back and kill the grenth's while it's out of range.

leguma · Feb 01, 2007, 07:53 AM // 07:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by RaZoO

Actually, as far as I know, the game doesn't add up block/evade percentages. Instead the game evaluates every skill differently. For example, say your target has Aegis and Guardian on. The game will go Aegis and decide wheter the attack is blocked or goes through. If the attack isn't blocked it will move onto Guardian and will repeat the same process, and so on.

Jup there are two things you can do with percentages. You can either reduce things or increase things.

Things such as Block/Evade or Shortening the duration of conditions which fall under the reuction category will give diminishng returns on your investment the more % you stack. Take for Example something like Blind duration. you have a 10 second blind, a spirit of recovery (50%) reduction, a rune of clarity (20%) reduction and a "I can see clearly now" shield inscription. The spirit would cut the blind down to 50% or 5 seconds. Then the rune will cur the blind down by 20% of the duration when it comes into play so 20% of 5 seconds or 1 second. Then the shield inscription will give you another 20% reduction of the remaining 4 seconds. At this point, rounding comes into play, and for this there is no hard and fast rule beyond experimenting.

On the other hand, when you are increasing things, such as healing gain, if you take a 50% more life attunement, and a 50% more Aura of faith and a 100 Hp Heal Area, you will get 225 HP from it. 50% of 100 is 50 so you have 150, and another 50% of that is 75 so you get 225.

Then there are some skills that ignore the aformentioned mechanics entirely and simply so not interact with eachother at all, such as Migrane + Arcane Connundrum + Frustration, which do not add up, each increasing the cast time looking at the base value only (100+100+50=250%).

Skuld · Feb 01, 2007, 09:56 AM // 09:56

Most things are capped now; healing reduction, cast increase, loss of max health from deep wound, speed boosts, IAS to name a few.

Legendary Battousai · Feb 01, 2007, 04:15 PM // 16:15

snares, heal monks and more offense than they have are all viable methods for countering derv trains. The best method imo is splitting, but thats just me. So try maybe... 2 hammer warriors, 2 mesmers, water emo, flagger with snares and 1 prot, 1 lod monk. if the pressure it too much, lineback them; your mesmers should have gale or blinding surge for when the forms are down, and snare them whenever possible.

Mystic- · Feb 01, 2007, 04:34 PM // 16:34

hmm, 50 matches or so won in a row... everytime I see a grenth dervish I just call a spike on it, I run a warrior with 2 teleports, one which doesn't apply a hex so they never see the spike coming. But this is just the way I deal with it, I guess with other builds such as heavy offence, you can just get 1 character (thumper?) to lineback the derv while pressuring the backline. But overall, I'd say the best shutdown is hexover load by far. u dont die if u take no damage.

s w o r d y · Feb 01, 2007, 11:01 PM // 23:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Legendary Battousai

snares, heal monks and more offense than they have are all viable methods for countering derv trains. The best method imo is splitting, but thats just me. So try maybe... 2 hammer warriors, 2 mesmers, water emo, flagger with snares and 1 prot, 1 lod monk. if the pressure it too much, lineback them; your mesmers should have gale or blinding surge for when the forms are down, and snare them whenever possible.

paragons have more than enough to minimise the hurt of a derv every day of the week

Suedars · Feb 02, 2007, 12:23 AM // 00:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by s w o r d y

paragons have more than enough to minimise the hurt of a derv every day of the week

A paragon can't even come close to minimizing the damage output of a melandru dervish, especially if the dervish has a smiter giving him near infinite energy.

s w o r d y · Feb 02, 2007, 01:12 AM // 01:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Suedars

A paragon can't even come close to minimizing the damage output of a melandru dervish, especially if the dervish has a smiter giving him near infinite energy.

even on sundays