Curse

Amity and Truth · Jan 09, 2007, 11:59 AM // 11:59

Seriously, a single skill being > a complete branch of skills is overpowered. The last time this happened it became so bad you didn't even have to bring this skill because you could be 100% sure the other team would do so. Yes, i'm talking about the old Nature's Renewal.

Grenths Avatar is completely annihilating a branch of skills. And due to Wild Blow being one of THE dervish skills (no drawbacks, stance removal, guaranteed critical), they kick stances as well. So you suddenly have one character that can take out two complete skill branches without any drawback while dealing serious damage to the target at the same time.
And to top that off, he still has a few skillslots left.

And Melandrus is just more of the same. Complete immunity to conditions plus you're unspikeable due to your high Hitpoints. Ouch.

My nerf suggestions?
Grenths Avatar - +Every time you remove an enchantment in this way, you lose x energy.
This one seriously needs a drawback with every remove it does. It can still be powerful but it just won't be the enchantment removal factory it is now.

Wild Blow - +When you are under the effect of a Formspell, this skill costs an additional 5 Energy to use.
It's fine for warriors, they suffer from the drawbacks of losing their Adrenaline. The Dervish seriously doesn't care about the Adrenaline Drawback and thus this is one seriously powerful skill for them. My suggestion is to introduce additional skillcosts when this is used in a form.

Melandrus Avatar - -Remove the hitpoint Bonus and introduce an armor penalty.
They have complete immunity to conditions, they need a draw back. Remove the Spike Protection and introduce Armor Penalties so it becomes easier to take them out with some dedicated effort.

Scythe itself: Everytime you fail to hit the target, your attack skills become unavailable for 4 seconds.
Once again, i'm comparing the class to the other melee classes. When an Assassin misses a single Attack, his chain is broken. If a warrior misses a single attack, his chain is broken too. If a dervish misses... like hell, who cares? He waits until the blind is off and then just spams his skills again. This is why the scythe should get a penalty for misses.
This way, blind would penalize them in the same way as the other classes. Break their combo chain and make it more worthwhile to actually blind them.

glountz · Jan 09, 2007, 03:13 PM // 15:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amity and Truth

Grenths Avatar is completely annihilating a branch of skills. And due to Wild Blow being one of THE dervish skills (no drawbacks, stance removal, guaranteed critical), they kick stances as well.

But that's melee enchant removal on attack SKILLS. If you snare your grenth, he becomes a lot more "handle-able".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amity and Truth

And Melandrus is just more of the same. Complete immunity to conditions plus you're unspikeable due to your high Hitpoints. Ouch.

Yes but it costs 25. DPS hurts Melandrus dervishes. And you have no such thing like expertise against this.

My nerf suggestions?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amity and Truth

Grenths Avatar - +Every time you remove an enchantment in this way, you lose x energy.
This one seriously needs a drawback with every remove it does. It can still be powerful but it just won't be the enchantment removal factory it is now.

Just bring a snare or two. Yes monks will remove them from time to time, but kiting will delay a lot the effectiveness of your Grenth Dervish.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amity and Truth

Wild Blow - +When you are under the effect of a Formspell, this skill costs an additional 5 Energy to use.
It's fine for warriors, they suffer from the drawbacks of losing their Adrenaline. The Dervish seriously doesn't care about the Adrenaline Drawback and thus this is one seriously powerful skill for them. My suggestion is to introduce additional skillcosts when this is used in a form.

Wild blow should not remove adren. Only warriors don't use it, and that's a warrior skill. However, I would agree to put its recharge to 15.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amity and Truth

Melandrus Avatar - -Remove the hitpoint Bonus and introduce an armor penalty.
They have complete immunity to conditions, they need a draw back. Remove the Spike Protection and introduce Armor Penalties so it becomes easier to take them out with some dedicated effort.

No, it costs really high energy, which can't be reduced. And Dervishes haven't that much armor anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amity and Truth

Scythe itself: Everytime you fail to hit the target, your attack skills become unavailable for 4 seconds.
Once again, i'm comparing the class to the other melee classes. When an Assassin misses a single Attack, his chain is broken. If a warrior misses a single attack, his chain is broken too. If a dervish misses... like hell, who cares? He waits until the blind is off and then just spams his skills again. This is why the scythe should get a penalty for misses.
This way, blind would penalize them in the same way as the other classes. Break their combo chain and make it more worthwhile to actually blind them.

Dervishes have limited spike capaibilities (compared to sins). A sin can actually kill a target if left untouched in less than 5 seconds. That's why their melee chain is so fragile.
If you're positionning right, their AoE is pretty limited too (except for some situations gathering people at the same spots). Dervishes are powerful sure, but overpowered? hmmm no.

Mourne · Jan 09, 2007, 07:15 PM // 19:15

We haven't been running a Dervish :/
All you come up against in GvG atm is 2 Dervish Frontline or Eurospike.
The Dervishes create so much pressure it's not even funny, Grenth's has to be called everytime, blinded atleast. Thank god we don't rely heavily on blind.

Divineshadows · Jan 09, 2007, 09:12 PM // 21:12

The amount of +damage and low recharge on some of the attack skills for dervishes does seem quite a bit out of whack. Specifically, the +damage and recharge are too good on wearying strike and victorious sweep. The recharge also seems a bit too low on mystic sweep, eremite's attack, and crippling sweep.

However, the dervish offers absolutely no disruptive utility (best utility dervishes offer seem to be cripple, avatar of grenth, and avatar of melandru) to your team at all aside from raw damage. Some dervish skill bars are better suited to pressure, while others are better suited to spike. In both cases, though, after you get through adding a run speed buff, an increased attack speed skill, and possibly a snare skill such as harrier's grasp you find that the whole rest of your bar needs to be filled with attack skills.

Warriors and rampage thumpers have more room for utility on their skill bar to fit in knockdowns and interrupts, since they can effective pressure with fewer attack skills on their bar. The extra utility that these templates can pack only have them played instead of a dervish when the damage differential is not overwhelming enough, because at some point the extra damage or the enchantment removal that grenth's can offer just have good teams take a pass on the potential knockdowns or interrupts.

Everytime I've played a dervish I have noticed very good damage numbers, but I have been longing for the knockdowns or interrupts that simply are not there.

s w o r d y · Jan 09, 2007, 09:16 PM // 21:16

I'd be happy if Grenths removed enchants on critical hits only, similar to the restriction put on assassins ('cept shattering assault of course but even this has requirements). Drop the requirement for attack skills removing enchants, and then it becomes slightly more randon and the build isn't nerfed out of usefulness. "go for the eyes"! support could then be a nice buff but it would need the buff character. I think that would be more nicely balanced for the way the monk line is set up.

Wearying strike is the one thing that really needs a look at. Eviscerate every 2 seconds is crazy. The drawback being weakness can be so readilyremoved, and with melandru's up it's so ridiculous.

Thomas.knbk · Jan 09, 2007, 09:23 PM // 21:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by s w o r d y

I'd be happy if Grenths removed enchants on critical hits only

wildblowgg..

s w o r d y · Jan 09, 2007, 09:28 PM // 21:28

wild blow, of course, but at least that's every 6 secs and not every 2, which is more in line with the ability of monks not to get creamed by 1 guy

what i'm suggesting can give Grenth equivalent power to what it has now but it would need a buff, and only slightly diluted what it does now

Wasteland Squidget · Jan 09, 2007, 11:05 PM // 23:05

The best suggestion I've heard for Grenth is a health sac every time it removes an enchantment. That remains thematic and gives the skill a big enough drawback that enchantment stacks would actually stand a chance against it.

Energy loss doesn't really work because the grenth would just sit at low energy and ride the recharges, spamming an attack skill every time they get 5 energy. That way they really don't lose anything, since energy losses don't bring energy below negative.

Melandru could lose the health gain entirely and still be pretty good, though whether you still ran it would depend on the nerfs to other options.

shardfenix · Jan 10, 2007, 02:01 AM // 02:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaaKotka

I think scythes aoe, damage and attack speed is pretty much balanced. That aoe is so small that if you put even a small thought in you positionig it shouldn't be problem. I really don't know where you get those numbers on dervish attacks having constant 100+ damage on softies.

Try using the attack skills that add 40 damage + deep wound, or wild blow, which does an automatic 80 damage. Twin moon and chilling reach up to 160 each. Dervish easily have the highest DPS of any class. In balanced games, a caster who melee's higher than a warrior is a classic no-no. Too bad GW isnt a balanced game.

Thom Bangalter · Jan 10, 2007, 06:39 AM // 06:39

Shard, since when are dervishes casters? scythe mastery much?

I do like the health loss on enchantment removal, it'll be hilarious to see your own infuser infusing a teammate during a spike because he sacs 3/4 of his health to kill a guy.

Seamus Finn · Jan 10, 2007, 09:13 AM // 09:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amity and Truth

Wild Blow - +When you are under the effect of a Formspell, this skill costs an additional 5 Energy to use.
It's fine for warriors, they suffer from the drawbacks of losing their Adrenaline. The Dervish seriously doesn't care about the Adrenaline Drawback and thus this is one seriously powerful skill for them. My suggestion is to introduce additional skillcosts when this is used in a form.

Melandrus Avatar - -Remove the hitpoint Bonus and introduce an armor penalty.
They have complete immunity to conditions, they need a draw back. Remove the Spike Protection and introduce Armor Penalties so it becomes easier to take them out with some dedicated effort.

Scythe itself: Everytime you fail to hit the target, your attack skills become unavailable for 4 seconds.
Once again, i'm comparing the class to the other melee classes. When an Assassin misses a single Attack, his chain is broken. If a warrior misses a single attack, his chain is broken too. If a dervish misses... like hell, who cares? He waits until the blind is off and then just spams his skills again. This is why the scythe should get a penalty for misses.
This way, blind would penalize them in the same way as the other classes. Break their combo chain and make it more worthwhile to actually blind them.

Ok, Dervs are not balanced right now, but these suggestions are hilarious. Clearly having never monked for a dervish, you might not realize that as it stands when grenth goes up, you have to heal through the most savage spike the enemy team can pull on him. I have thrown like 1k healing on a grenth and it still didn't live because dervs are pretty easy spike targets. Losing the HPs on the Melandrus at 25E is an overnerf, in my opinion. Lower the energy and we can talk. The form only grants immunity to one target that isn't even that strong unless paired with a Grenth(otherwise is Spirit Bond ftw) or supported in a skirmish. Since grenth will be taking a beating from the nerf stick, I really don't think melandru's will be as commonplace even as it is now. Furthermore, no conditions means you can rage on the monks without being crippled and blinded. Armor penatly means you sit back with the monks... how again would this skill be at all viable?
Love the scythe nerf too! Let's make scythes even WORSE than the dagger line. Since they have a few conditions, BIG damage and NO UTILiTY , let's make them even more fragile at dealing damage then a sin combo. Ageis=blackout for dervs... yeah that's not an overnerf.

Remember when people were asking for a viable option besides warriors for melee pressure? Let's not forget that before we suggest a total raping of this class.

Squirrelly · Jan 10, 2007, 10:05 PM // 22:05

Dervishes need to be nerfed imo, but that doesn't really matter so I would just like to make two really quick points.

1) 25e for a form is kind of a who gives a shit thing when any non retard knows that his max energy is only going to be between 25-32 so they bring a weapon set with +30e so they can still put this up with DP...

2) You can't look at ONE aspect of a class and say it is imbalanced here but not here, but if you look at it this way, blah blah blah. For example: Is smiting broken? Would anyone in this thread say that it is? I wouldn't. I like what it adds to the game. Is swinging for 120+ every 1.75 seconds while simultaneously crippling someone causing them to stay in your balths' aura+ZF....yea probably. Oh yea, we can't forget that the RoF every two seconds also helps maintain energy and the draw likewise keeps us free from conditions and does dmg whether we're blind or not.

Would it be a big deal if you could say, just toss a prot spirit or spirit bond or SoA on yourself? Not really. So the grenth form requires an attack skill...does it really matter when none have a recharge longer than 5 seconds and there are generally 3+ on the bar? Also prot monks will always be dominant in GvG because dmg prevention is always better than just healing dmg because your monks run out of energy in almost no time at all, but that's an entirely different matter. However, I feel it does pertain to the power of the grenth dervish since it sort of negates the entire line.

SL_Sky · Jan 11, 2007, 12:12 PM // 12:12

I think they only need to remove the casting time on the two main spike skills...
If they don't come out at interrupt speed, the spike won't have that much of an impact becouse of the scythes attack speed...
And ppl need to learn to stop running like there's no tomorrow when someone's hitting them...
An auto-crit will hurt no matter who's hitting you(max dmg eviscerate anyone?)...

Patrograd · Jan 11, 2007, 02:41 PM // 14:41

The link between extend enchantments and balthazar's aura needs a serious looking at too imo.

Starting to see alot of these dervish that get smite - extend enchants, grenth and sight beyond sight (which with extend enchants gives you 16 out of 20 seconds blind immunity at 0 spawning). So an unblindable, enchant removal bot, carrying almost permanent PBAOE that does similar base damage to a hammer warrior and can spam deep wounds at will. overpowered? I should say so

Patccmoi · Jan 11, 2007, 05:38 PM // 17:38

Atm i think that Grenth Dervishes are too strong and Melandru is really borderline (maybe give +10..130..170 max health? Wouldn't be a big hit, but i don't think they need a big one). And Harrier's Grasp, that thing is truly too good, i'd like to see cripple duration 1..4 or 5..17 duration so that windprayer investment is actually required.

But i don't want to see Derv overnerfed either. I mean, Derv pressures more than a warrior? Why is that actually bad? They're a melee class too with the same general counters overall but they have much lower AL and are slightly worse at spiking (unless you get a lucky crits sequence cause 2-3 crits from Scythe is gonna do a huge spike). And Derv will usually lack KD/interrupt if they wanna go high damage pressure, which balances them.

If Dervs advantages are lowered too much, then it's just gonna be warrior domination again. Atm both classes have different strong points that make them viable primary melee and that should be kept. If additional classes are to be useful, they need to bring something that core classes can't do as well.

And i like the Life Sac idea on Grenth i think. Something like 10% sac would be good imo. It's not huge, but if you just removed 5 enchants i mean there should be some price to pay for it. Grenth doesn't just limit defensive options atm. A lot of enchants are also offense-based or emanagement for casters and they're just as hard to use with Grenths running around in 3/4 teams you face. And for those who might say life sac would kill the skill, keep in mind how many incredible self-heals Dervs have too. They have a buffed self-Vigorous Spirit in Mysticism, Dwayna's Touch that is just incredible in Wind Prayers, etc. Make a monk buff them with Vigorous Spirit and have them use their own (Mystic Vigor i think) and they can gain 40+ health per swing, which would cover for it alone. But they need to make some build sacrifice to have something as powerful as Grenth running around.

ss1986v2 · Jan 11, 2007, 06:27 PM // 18:27

my ideas for the derv:

grenth: boost to 15 energy, add 13% health sac per enchant removed (like a mini OoA), make the derv pick and chose a bit more with what he removes.

melandru: i agree with patccmoi, make the health scaling, 10..130..170 seems fine, still give them great survivability, they just have to invest more to get it.

lyssa: dont touch it! i could live with a bump to 10 energy, but just dont touch the dmg.

dwayna: i say make the hex removal scaling as well. have it 1..2..2, with the breakpoint somewhere between 10-12, helps move dwayna up the playability ladder, if only for pve.

balthz: this is the tough one. rly dont know where to go with this one. more armor, IAS, armor penetration, i just dont know. if nothing else drop it to 10 energy.

mystic regen: just move it to mysticism and solve the abuse by stoneflesh/SF eles, maybe even raise the breakpoints a little, like to 9 or 10.

extend enchants: make it only work on dervish enchants.

victorious sweep: even though i dont like to say it (its one of my fav skills), it needs a debuff. take it from 30..70..83 health gain to 20..49..68. maybe increase the recharge to 6 secs. or leave the the recharge, and reduce the dmg to 1..20..28. dont touch the energy though.

wounding strike: needs something, just not sure what.

harrier's grasp: increase the crip to 6..17..20, and scale the duration, 6..20..24.

think that covers everything i can think of...

Rururrur · Jan 11, 2007, 09:31 PM // 21:31

Although the Dervish is powerful, I do not believe it is overpowered. I think it's a useful character in changing the metagame. I"m tired of seeing the same monk builds, same mid lines, blah blah blah.

The Dervish is still a relativley new character and as such is going to take some time to come up with effective counters. I'm sure in time, we'll see more addaptive builds, especially monks that rely more on healing (or Zealous Benediction) than damage prevention through enchantments to counter Grenth.

I"ve found that using a Mesmer with Mantra of Recovery paired with Diversion can be an effective deterent against Grenth. The decreased recharge time on spells from this elite allows a mesmer to maintain Diversion on a target. If the Dervish is not observant, it's not difficult to disable 2 attack skills before it even realizes what's going on (gotta love spam happy players). I'm able to maintain e-denial on priority targets as well.

urania · Jan 11, 2007, 09:38 PM // 21:38

i can only say this..nerf scythe damage.

saw an unsmited derv (not using any of their special forms) dealing over 230 damage with wild low in some gvg match (before VoD...).

quite crazy =p

Neo-LD · Jan 11, 2007, 09:44 PM // 21:44

Just saw this thread, read through the whole thing... so theres some things in this post that kinda relate to things from all over this thread, not just things said recently.

If this is a discussion about Dervishes being overpowered, then Dervishes have to be overpowered relative to something else, right? Since the whole concept of game balance is that all (or at least many) options are reasonably viable compared to eachother. Anyways, I assume that although no one has come out and said it plainly, everyone is comparing dervishes to warriors in the pre-NF metagame. In pressure builds it is fairly clear that Dervishes are superior to warriors... but why?

1) Blind. Blind became incredibly strong after NF released, mainly because of one devious skill - Blinding Surge. Such spammable, often AoE Blinds were so strong that for a time pressure builds almost ceased to be seen at all. However, once people began to see that Dervishes thrived where warriors faltered against such spammable blind, pressure builds returned, riding the power of these dervishes. Whether its through Avatar of Melandru, Featherfoot Grace, or Extend Enchantments + Sight Beyond Sight, Dervishes can slice right through the most powerful and popular melee hate of the time: Blind. And warriors cant.

2) Attack Skills. Dervish attack recharge very quickly, and they are very powerful. A Melandru Dervish can be ready for a Wearying Strike -> Mystic Sweep spike every 4 seconds!!! An insane refire time for such a powerful spike! By contrast, it takes an axe warrior at least 10 seconds to be ready for Eviscerate -> Critical Chop - probably much more considering how long it takes to build adrenaline in the blind-saturated meta.... even though both spikes deal similar damage! There are other examples as well, but all trace the roots of their extreme power to the fact that Dervishes can use their attacks every time they recharge, becauseall the important ones cost 5e, and Dervishes have 4 pips of energy regeneration. And I havent even begun to take into account possible energy gain from Mysticism.

Now, what are the supposed weakpoints of these Dervishes? You know, the things that are supposed to balance them out so all those strenghts are acceptable? Well lets see... they often have no interupts, knockdowns, or teleports... they often have less solo-ability than a properly built warrior... and thats about all I can think of. Now, believe me, all of those put together, particularly the part about no interupts or knockdowns, would normally be enough to balance these suckers out... if not for....

3) Avatar of Grenth. I am actually ok with all things related to Dervish.. except this. At least with all other forms of dervish, you can deal with them by realizing that all they are, are large-packet damage machines. Spirit Bond, Prot Spirit, plus Kiting and your usually fine. But then theres grenth.... which renders all of those solutions useless. Now, if the things that are supposed to counter large-packet damage actually countered the most dangerous large-packet damage dealers in the game, then we'd be in business. But wtf is this? You cant prot the guy at all? Against a barrage of rapid-fire 100+ damage attacks? Insane.

Seamus Finn · Jan 11, 2007, 09:51 PM // 21:51

I would just say that with the nerf to the grenths should come a boost to other enchant removing options(bring drain back?). Grenth is certainly strong, but as Squidget said earlier, with only shatter as the other viable enchant removal(which is costly and preferred for spikes), Grenth becomes almost necessary.