Curse

Neo-LD · Jan 18, 2007, 03:13 AM // 03:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kenagalaz

wards, spirits, hex, stance, skill, echo, shout, chant, weapon spell, mesmer, kd, tele, ...

All of the possible counters that you mention, while they may work to some degree, are often like trying to break a tsunami with a wall of popsicle sticks. With most of them, you must ask yourself, if they are so effective at stopping dervishes, why dont people use them? Are top guilds just dumb?

Spirits are much weaker than they used to be, and cannot fit into any modern builds. Almost all hexes can only be used by dedicated hex builds, which eliminates every other build archtype. Stances are ineffective by wild blow which is commonplace in almost every dervish build. There are very few shouts which actually work effectively against dervishes, and even fewer builds that can actually fit a paragon into their build. Teles and KDs are good counters and can stall for a while, but as I've said so many times in this thread before, just because there are feeble counters, doesnt mean that it is balanced.

Lainalil · Jan 18, 2007, 03:28 AM // 03:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

I can agree that BSurge is also imba, but all this means to me is that BSurge and Avatar of Grenth are the first two skills on the chopping block because they are so incredibly ridiculous. Other than that, I cannot agree with anything in your post, Lainalil. I believe that you defend dervishes only because they are one of the sole reasons for your guild's success this season. This is not to say that my guild doesnt abuse broken things as well - indeed, our current build features eurospike, feigned neutrality splitters, and blinding surge, and we are doing quite well with it - but at least Im willing to say what is plainly obvious: I wish to god that those elements of the game did not exist, even the very ones I use, because the metagame right now is incredibly stale, skilless, and repetitive. I will elaborate:

Dervishes do not inflict conditions? Harriers Grasp. Wearying Strike. Maybe you've heard of them. The simple fact is that dervishes spam the two most important offensive conditions at an out-of-control pace, all while dealing incredible damage on every swing, with no attack speed problems in sight due to 3/4s attacks.

Well, Dervishes do inflict some conditions but nowhere near the scale of assassins (Bleeding, poison, deep wound, crippled, dazed, etc.) and warriors (who can do all of the above minus poison?). They are not condition machines and their condition skills generally come at a cost. You have to stop the pressure to bring up an enchant for say harriers grasp which often is VERY bad and that enchant can be easily removed. Also, deep wound is abuse, I don't deny that on wearying strike HOWEVER. It's ONLY useful when in Melandru form. Otherwise the weakness just adds an irritance your monsk can't maintain at higher level guild battles. dervishes also have two scythe skills that-- yes you are correct, they are 3/4 second cast times but in order to make a dervish effective you have to have enchants and the form itself. Now you've sacrificed at least 2-3 slots for those. Let's not forget our rez sig and if you're grentha nd you feel like running it-- sight beyond sight. now you're left with 3 attack slots. One should be a good energy management but damage attack like lyssas assault and then you can fit in 1-2 more attack skills. Based on the damage of both mystic sweep and ermite's assault, neither are abundantly powerful, just helpful. In fact, they're not really any better than protectors strike or critical chop IMHO (maybe slightly better than crit chop). Dervishes are NOT condition machines like an assassin or a warrior. Bottom line. The ability to put two conditions on a target is not a condition machine (I will also add that some of their enchants, when ending, add some burning)

Quote:

First of all, assasins are definately NOT meant for the frontline. Secondly, while Dervishes are spikeable, this is hardly more true for them than it is for warriors, since the majority of damage in modern spikes is armor-ignoring. Just because there is a (feeble) counter for something, it does not make it balanced. Think of Blinding Surge. I could use nothing but Extend Enchantments + Sight Beyond Sight Dervishes and BSurge would be completely worthless against me. That is a completely legitimate strategy anyone could use right now if they wanted to. Does that make BSurge balanced?

Maybe I mis-state my believe on the assassin frontline comment. I meant to say they're melee. The only way for them to do anything is to move up front. They're soft targets. If you truly believe that dervishes are not spikable you haven't been a grenth facing a eurospike or bloodspike or even obs spike team. They'll take you down in a second. In fact, we almost lost to a spike the other day against the rank 9 (at the time) guild who kept spiking our GRENTH down. Furthermore, you're talking about using extend enchantments + sight beyond sight. Sure, that would give you up to 18 secs based on +20% enchant mod also out of 20 secs recast but at what cost? you're losing either your cripple or your increase of attack speed or one of your THREE attack skills for extend enchantments. Now, the biggset problem is that the good teams seem to be smart enough to watch our grenth and the second he puts up sight beyond sight they shatter or drain the enchant and it's gone for 20 secs. You should try it sometime. Don't complain that sight beyond sight is overpowered 'cause it won't ever take any hit as far as 8 seconds... that's completely ignorent. Play smart. Shatter the enchant, drain it, remove it. It will all have the same effect.[/quote]

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I already said that just because something has a counter, it does not make it balanced. But the larger problem with the argument I just quoted is that it fails to acknowledge the larger picture. The complaint against Dervishes as a whole is: Once a train is on someone, you cant blind them, cripple them, prot their target, or kite them. Meanwhile, their target is being nuked by about 5 players. The only option left is to just try to match the damage point for point with healing, which is impossible to do for very long against such overwhelming, unmitigated damage. Almost every single defense that works against warriors does not work against dervishes. DONT tell me that Dervishes are balanced because hexes work on them. Again, just because there is a feeble counter, doesnt mean that its balanced.

I did agree that there were some imba concerns about grenth IMHO. They will take a nerf. It won't be huge but they will take a nerf. Does everyone remember when crip shot runners came out? They were pro. Everyone ran one. Then all of a sudden these bflash runners with heal party and ether prod came to town. No one wanted a crip shot runner anymore. It's not that the crip shot wasn't better but the ele worked far better than the crip shot by most means. Not always but in general. How is this different from say OoA to Grenth or even Warrior to Grenth? If it works better, use it. However, I stand by my stance that even with sight beyond sight a good team will always pull off blinds on a grenth (I know, again, personal experience) and even better teams run condition/hex mixes when they want to shut something down. I have often been shutdown by spiteful spirit or spoil victor. There are plenty of counters if you believe grenth is the metagame. You're right, doesn't mean Grenth isn't IMBA but neither are most of the skills going around right now.[/quote]

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Im sorry but this really got my blood moving. Its the whole reason I even bothered replying, really. Look, just about everyone of note knows how to mitigate damage through kiting, protting, conditioning, hexing, warding, etc. Sure there are a few nubs who dont, but who cares about these people in this conversation? The only thing that matters is that virtually NONE of the counters that affect every other physical damage source in the game work effectively against a dervish train, even when employed by top notch players. To imply that the complaints against dervishes are limited to only noobs who dont know what kiting means is a blatant fallacy.

Further, I believe that exactly the opposite is true. To be specific, anyone that supports dervishes in their current form does so only because they are "overly inept" at executing a pressure offense in a metagame devoid of Avatar of Grenth and Melandru, and dont want to lose them. Before Nightfall, pressure was a rare talent; reserved only exceptional teams with exceptional players. Im talking KGYU Physical/Degen. QQ E-denial. Things like that. Worse teams trying to emulate their builds would falter and just hammer away pointlessly for 25 minutes, but really good teams would wipe teams brutally and make it look easy.

Pre-nightfall pressure required incredible timing, awareness, reflexes, and mind-reading... summed up, it required talent. But now look. Anybody with half of a brain can just line up some dervishes and just about anything else that deals damage, and fire away at the same target until it drops. As you can see, this strategy is quite a bit more simple than the complicated workings of previous pressure schemes - and consequently, just about everyone understands how to do it, whereas very few people understand how to use previous pressure builds. By all accounts, such a basic and almost childish strategy as 'lets just hit the same guy over and over until he dies' shouldnt work. But it does, because almost nothing can stop it right now.

Now, dont take this as an attack upon what you choose to run right now. Play to win, run whatever you think gives you the best chance. Dervish train is certainly a strong option right now. But for the love of kittens, dont try to delusion yourself or others that Dervishes ought to stay as they are.

I didn't have time to read the last little bit of that I will ask you this though... What do you think they're going to do to DERVISHES? Not just Grenth. Grenth will probably take some kinda' life drawback for condition removal however that won't be the end of Grenth I believe. I'm asking, Dervishes as a whole? Melandru's? Their Scythe? Do you really think anet is going to nerf everything about them? What did they do when IWAY was all anyone spoke of in HA? They didn't nerf IWAY by very much. It took a minor hit, enough to make it still feasable but not completely IMBA. I think you're one of the people who are going to be in for a real shock when the balance comes.

Matafleur · Jan 18, 2007, 03:41 AM // 03:41

I use a dervish as my main character. They are very powerful under the right situations, a little too powerful sometimes. I can agree there. But By playing the dervish so much, I've found several things that will totally overwhelm the dervish.

1. A good old fashion mob.

I really enjoy a good PvP match. One thing I've noticed is that as derv, I'm usually the last one standing for my team. When the opposing team focuses all the attacks on the dervish, it goes down, fast. The dervish is NOT meant to be a soloing character, and I firmly believe that a good mob pwns all dervishes.

2. Fighting fire with fire.

One other thing that can swiftly take down a derv is another derv. you can very easily design a derv build that's meant to take down other dervishes swiftly, and chances are they won't be ready for it. Grenth will destroy the enchantments, while Melandru's health and condition prevention can really aid an anti-derv dervish.

3. Disenchanting.

For the most part, dervish skills focus around the enchantments on a derv. Having a good disenchanter can very easily cripple an otherwise invincible opponent. Most derv enchantments are energy consuming with a fairly lengthy recharge time. Yes, most will have a side effect when removed, but removing them quickly can almost negate the effect.

Mad Punisher · Jan 18, 2007, 03:44 AM // 03:44

imo just increase energy cost of grenth form make it like mellandrus

bilwit · Jan 18, 2007, 03:59 AM // 03:59

I demand a spammable enchantment removal skill.

Kenagalaz · Jan 18, 2007, 04:34 AM // 04:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by bilwit

I demand a spammable enchantment removal skill.

like diversion, distracting shot, distracting blow, etc?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Spirits are much weaker than they used to be, and cannot fit into any modern builds. Almost all hexes can only be used by dedicated hex builds, which eliminates every other build archtype. Stances are ineffective by wild blow which is commonplace in almost every dervish build. There are very few shouts which actually work effectively against dervishes, and even fewer builds that can actually fit a paragon into their build. Teles and KDs are good counters and can stall for a while, but as I've said so many times in this thread before, just because there are feeble counters, doesnt mean that it is balanced.

"There are very few shouts which actually work effectively against dervishes, and even fewer builds that can actually fit a paragon into their build." That is the most strangest excuse, that's part of building build. It's a common misconception that paragons are useless, but people just aren't looking at the skills. You take out something and put in something more useful. Builds can't fit everything you want into it. Part of deciding what you need to keep is part of skill. and part of making up skills you gave up with player skills is even more important.

Quote:

All of the possible counters that you mention, while they may work to some degree, are often like trying to break a tsunami with a wall of popsicle sticks. With most of them, you must ask yourself, if they are so effective at stopping dervishes, why dont people use them? Are top guilds just dumb?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kenagalaz

then copy the build an run it? you did that with QQ's build didn't u? if it's so simple, why aren't all the top guilds running it?

Let me know when you get to the top with our build.

PS- what especially makes me laugh is that most of the people complaining about the "3D C-space nubs" are people running SF and Bsurge. anyway, let me know how that goes

Neo-LD · Jan 18, 2007, 05:46 AM // 05:46

Lain and Ken: (your both saying basically the same thing so I'll lump you two together)

Basically what is happening here is that I am presenting clear and undeniable fact as to why dervishes are overpowered and need to be toned down. And you two are getting all defensive because you happen to be from a guild that benifits from the dervishes in their present state.

I have stated plainly and simply, and with ample evidence, that dervish trains are virtually immune to all forms of mitigation. Teams have to go to great lengths, often devoting an entire character or two to babysitting a grenth dervish, just so that they can barely survive. Dervishes are not auto-win, but Avatar of Grenth (and Melandru, to a lesser extent) is just not something that Guild Wars is meant to handle. Thats my main beef with dervishes, really - those two avatars, especially grenth. If it werent for Grenth the whole thing wouldnt be imba at all because PS/SB would actually work.

And Ken, specifically:

There is no need to lecture me on playing to win or not being ashamed to run broken shit. I do it all the time - right now we are running a Eurosplit which mercilessly abuses Blinding Surge, Feigned Neutrality, and Spiritual Pain. So Im completely on board with the 'if its so powerful, use it yourself' thing, I just happen to be abusing different powerful shit. The difference between you and me is that I am willingly admitting that what I am abusing is not balanced and should be toned down, where-as you are clinging to your stuff because you are desperate not to lose it.

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Let me know when you get to the top with our build.

We had a run in with a certain pug containing several of your members tonight, running exactly 'your build'. We won, but it was a good game. Both builds were, as expected, completely imba, but I saw nothing that made me want to switch and get top with 'your build'.

Skill updates cant come soon enough.

Kenagalaz · Jan 18, 2007, 06:56 AM // 06:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

And Ken, specifically:

There is no need to lecture me on playing to win or not being ashamed to run broken shit. I do it all the time - right now we are running a Eurosplit which mercilessly abuses Blinding Surge, Feigned Neutrality, and Spiritual Pain. So Im completely on board with the 'if its so powerful, use it yourself' thing, I just happen to be abusing different powerful shit. The difference between you and me is that I am willingly admitting that what I am abusing is not balanced and should be toned down, where-as you are clinging to your stuff because you are desperate not to lose it.

We had a run in with a certain pug containing several of your members tonight, running exactly 'your build'. We won, but it was a good game. Both builds were, as expected, completely imba, but I saw nothing that made me want to switch and get top with 'your build'.

Skill updates cant come soon enough.

And I'm just saying that alot of people run SF, eurospike, eurosplit. espeically at the top end of the spectrum. If the 3D C space nub build is so over powered and imba above all other builds like you suggest it is, wouldn't you expect more 3Ds than eurosplit in the top... say even 50s? I'm not really getting defensive, I'm just pointing to the data.

Sure, I think Dervish are leet, they've got great offensive pressure like warriors but great defensive skills like casters. I love them cuz I personally dislike the blandness of warriors. even after they get balanced, chances are i'll still like them over other melee classes.

rebalance will always occur and new skills will keep getting added to the game. skills of players rely on adaptability not people who cry or rage quit because they can't keep up with the flow of change. and it's only speculation of who's capable and who's not until it occurs. and it's a challenge that not only sounds fun but has in the past been fun and one that i can't wait for.

Anyway, my ultimate point was, if it's such a noob build, everyone and their mother should be running it, and it should become a FoTM and everyone at the top should be running it. And personally to me, being a contributer to creating a FoTM build alone would be meaningful as making it to rank 6, granted, there are still good guilds working their way up. We've come 150+ matches and we've only come across one guild running our exact same build and we rolled them before the 5 minute mark. I am openly inviting guilds to run our build. the build went through many losses, itterations, and modifications. we weren't so leet as to say, "this is the perfect build" from day one. Don't get me wrong, our build's great now, the build has all major basis and counters covered: it can beat hex builds, spirit builds, ward builds, split builds, spike builds. but until we keep getting repeatedly raped by people running our build or we really do fall to rank 1000+, i see no reason to believe the "you guys are rank 1000+ skilled, it must be the build" comments. Does that mean I believe we should always and forever be rank 6? no, teams rise, teams fall, teams disband and reassemble, skills change or get added and the flow of the game changes and like wise the flow of guilds go up and down; that's why the game is so fun, if you just stayed at the top when you got there, no one would be playing this game. Either way, you are in fact still entitled to your own opinion and you are still free to say it wherever, whenever, and however many times you want to your hearts content, i give you my permission.

PS- I am glad you were able to beat our copycats. it should be a fun match if we get to play each other. =) otherwise we'll have to wait for XoO to get to rank 6 with our build to prove a point.

Seamus Finn · Jan 18, 2007, 07:30 AM // 07:30

Yeah I can imagine the copycat match, two dervish chains simultaneously playing hide and seek with the opposing team's flaggers... Then scrambling to pick up flags as both flaggers inevitably die and the forms start to wear out with no morale boost in sight!

Patrograd · Jan 18, 2007, 09:25 AM // 09:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Now, dont take this as an attack upon what you choose to run right now. Play to win, run whatever you think gives you the best chance. Dervish train is certainly a strong option right now. But for the love of kittens, dont try to delusion yourself or others that Dervishes ought to stay as they are.

Personally I think this sums up the argument pretty neatly, and really encapsulates the issues with the game that hopefully (please for the love of God!) will be sorted out this weekend.

We run a grenth dervish, hell you'd be nuts not to, and smite off him (ditto)and we run a blinding surge mesmer (ditto) and a searing flames (ditto) and we win games, but I dont think anyone on our team believes it is terribly clever, it is just what you need to do to keep your head reasonably above water. Its no fun losing all the time after all, but to be brutally honest, its not much more fun winning when you know you are doing it with broken skills.

Patrograd · Jan 18, 2007, 09:37 AM // 09:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kenagalaz

. It's a common misconception that paragons are useless, but people just aren't looking at the skills. You take out something and put in something more useful. Builds can't fit everything you want into it. Part of deciding what you need to keep is part of skill. and part of making up skills you gave up with player skills is even more important.

last night we faced a team with 3 fear me spam warriors, a motivation paragon (mending, finale of restoration, ballad of restoration), an ele with draw and heal other, an RC monk an infuser and a water ele runner with HP and lots of hex snares. Was awesome actually at completely killing our pressure dead and had quite a bit of pressure of their own. No matter which target we pounded, they just got healed up much faster than we could damage. Watching the game afterwards in obs mode, the monks were just getting ridiculous heals from the paragon and the ele. We tried spiking, we tried splitting onto different targets, we tried to move them around a little, but they were just perfectly built for dealing with dervish based pressure.

Couldnt really split because of the map (and our build) and basically we were just screwed by their build. I think we got 2 kills in the whole fight, which considering their rank (250ish) was really surprising.

Even that though, for me, isnt an argument for saying that you can build against it so its OK, because I imagine that counter dervish build would have serious issues on a split map or against a team that wasnt running the thing they were countering, which probably explains their rank.

Just as an aside, I dont say this to knock [pink]. I know Lain and have played with him quite a bit, and he's a long way from being a noob imo, but Lain mate, I think you do have to accept that the game would be better without this stuff.

JR · Jan 18, 2007, 03:10 PM // 15:10

Less trash talking, please.

JR · Jan 18, 2007, 05:56 PM // 17:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by mike1480

Someone please tell me the difference between an adren spike, a rainbow spike, a dervish spike, an ele spike, and a necro spike? Some seem to be generally fine, others are considered "lame."

Isn't it all the same dam thing? 321 put alot of pressure on one target at once? Why do people get their panties in a ruffle over it? That's what INFUSE is for! Or ZB. Or WORD OF HEALING.

/imo
/ps, sorry for trolling.

To use your examples, let me explain. An Adren spike does not require particularly specific characters or skills, allowing you to pack in a lot of utility and flexbility into your team build. This means you can effectively out play opponents with simple player skill and strategy. Something like a Necro spike doesn't. You require very static bars, and have a very set style of play. It is so one dimensional that it becomes very hard to out play teams that use strategy such as splitting to beat you.

In short: Some builds can be flexible enough to allow you to beat opponents through skill, some are mindless enough that you don't need skill to beat the average opponent. The latter is the weaker choice against better opponents by a significant margin.

s w o r d y · Jan 18, 2007, 11:05 PM // 23:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

I have stated plainly and simply, and with ample evidence, that dervish trains are virtually immune to all forms of mitigation.

.

That is rubbish. For one, 2 angelic bonds with 1 soa in your build is more than enough to absord the typical dervish train out there. People would rather just float with the meta instead of building against it. And oh yeah, keep complaining against it.

Though I do agree grenth needs a little hit as well as SF/G gaze combo and spiritual pain. That's about it.

Wasteland Squidget · Jan 18, 2007, 11:34 PM // 23:34

It always makes me roll my eyes when people come into threads like this proposing obvious counters as if they were something new or amazing. You're telling me that Blind-spam makes it harder for a melee to do his job? Wow, that's brilliant. Spirit Shackles hurts dervishes now? Wonderful, tell me more!

If you want to talk about why a counter is effective and why it balances the skill, fine. Coming into this thread and saying "HAY GUYS LRN2COUNTER LOL" is pointless and doesn't help anyone. Something that can only be countered through one or two specific skills is generally bad anyway.

As for Grenth - I outlined some dervish issues earlier in this thread, but Grenth is obviously the biggest. Really, it's one of those skills that you only have to point at to make the problems abundantly clear. I'm of the opinion that anyone defending Dervishes as they are isn't interested in game balance - they enjoy rolling teams with T+ Space and having a ridiculously high rank and they don't want that to change.

Neo-LD · Jan 19, 2007, 12:15 AM // 00:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wasteland Squidget

I anyone defending Dervishes as they are isn't interested in game balance - they enjoy rolling teams with T+ Space and having a ridiculously high rank and they don't want that to change.

Precisely.

Skill balances now pls.

ensoriki · Jan 19, 2007, 12:34 AM // 00:34

Dervish isnt overpowered
As a whole dervish arent that bad, what most of you are saying is about 2-4 builds/skills that make them SOOO broken -_-
Avatar of grenth combined with sight beyond sight or Wild blow makes it strong as with either 1 its alot harder to prevent

melandru plus wearying see the combination makes em pretty good but wearying without melandru or plague touch sucks a bag

You can say the same about sins if you want...if a sin packs wild blow stances arent much of a problem , if they pack assault enchantments or shattering assault its virtually the same effect as AoG

however yes they are strong, but so are sins in their own right -_-
saying because someone defends them isnt looking for game balance, the only thing that needs to change is 1-5 skills that remove forms, or turn it into Enchantment form so it counts as an enchant