Curse

Divineshadows · Dec 27, 2006, 09:42 PM // 21:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grizmor

You guys seriously don't think this game has not been dumbed down compared to what pvp was back during prohecies era? The game used to be be about skill, but now its more about what skills you bring.

Not really. I agree that the gap in power between the bad skills and the good skills has widened since the time you reference. However, good teams know which skills are good and, when two good teams are pitted against each other, the matches still come down to which team communicates better and has better player skill by in large. The wider gap between skills power at the moment though would make it quite difficult for a player used to only PvE attempting to enter the PvP realm.

Ensign · Dec 27, 2006, 10:04 PM // 22:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grizmor

You guys seriously don't think this game has not been dumbed down compared to what pvp was back during prohecies era? The game used to be be about skill, but now its more about what skills you bring.

I think that's the opposite of the case. The game used to have a much higher discrepency in skill because everyone was so bad at it. People could outplay people with terrible bars because their opponents had terrible bars as well, etc. Now it's tighter, faster, and mistakes are punished more harshly at every level.

Also Build Wars was very relevant back then as well, even moreso than now. Remember the old broken EDrains and Quickening Zephyrs? There are several overpowered skills in the game right now, but nothing approaching those beasts.

Peace,
-CxE

Seltack · Dec 27, 2006, 11:09 PM // 23:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by JR-

The worries about there being 'too much new stuff to counter' were largely unfounded, in my opinion.

But when there are a core few skills you'd have to be stupid not to bring due to their strenght in relation to other skills (RaO, Searing, Spiritual Pain, Avatar of Grenth) its not like there is a huge variety of skills actually used to have to worry about countering.

If the game ever reaches the stage of "balance" where in there are no longer a number of skills everyone brings atleast a few of from a list (and hence no gimmics) then people will have to worry about there being too much to counter. As there are usually several skills which are more powerful than others a metagame always evolves based around variations on a small number of builds and so this lack of variety in the meta game makes the number of skills largely irrelevent. Someone will occasionally find something that it new and strong and have short lived success with it (for instance the new drunken blow varriation of IWAY was beating some good/reasonable teams before everyone worked out how to beat it) indicating that there is the potential for the problem to really emerge but due to the unorginality of the majority of guilds/builds it will take a much larger volume of skills for it to happen (if this produces a larger number of particularly strong skills at one time and hence more variety of strong builds/gimmics to actually worry about facing)

Sinful Doom · Dec 27, 2006, 11:43 PM // 23:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grizmor

You guys seriously don't think this game has not been dumbed down compared to what pvp was back during prohecies era? The game used to be be about skill, but now its more about what skills you bring.

B-I-N-G-O hit that one right on the head. IMO if they had a prohecies only tourny you would see what guilds/people truely played with skill and which wormed their way in with imbalanced skills/builds. PVP at the moment, as far as gvg goes, has turned into a massive coin flip of what garbage skills/tactic's you will face.

twicky_kid · Dec 28, 2006, 01:47 AM // 01:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Seltack

But when there are a core few skills you'd have to be stupid not to bring due to their strenght in relation to other skills (RaO, Searing, Spiritual Pain, Avatar of Grenth) its not like there is a huge variety of skills actually used to have to worry about countering.

What are you talking about? There is 8 skills per bar how much variety do you expect to have. When you create a build you assign each slot a job to do. Then you decide what profession combinations can do that job the best. Then you fill in the most effective and efficient skills on the bar. Having a specific job to accomplish leaves little room for variety.

First off RaO is not even close to be unblanced. Wow, I get a speed boost and IAS in 1 skill. I also have to take a pet, put at least 10+ points into beast to make it last 20 seconds, make sure my pet is alive to use it, energy cost is huge even under expertise, not usable by non-primary rangers. When the pet dies I'm blacked out and he gets dp making him even easier to kill. So I counted 2 benefits and 6 draw backs. Seems really unbalanced, huh?

I have to laugh at ZB being overpowered. In Ra/Ta its great but I've never seen a skill balance before it was overpowered in Ra/Ta. Other than that the ONLY reason its even used is because spike builds are everywhere and infusers are being ran to counter. Take us back to a pressure environment and Blight will take back over (like it every left).

You have to be smart now compared to prophecies. Its not hard to drain a monk's energy with 8 e-drains hitting for 15+ energy each. Really hard to steamroll a team when you gale lock a monk while you bash the other one to death. There are so many new threats in the game that skills alone are not going to save you like they used to. You need to know when to split, when to gank, what to send back with a plethora of scrimmage builds killing your NPCs, planning for a faster VoD. You have more things to worry about and less time to work with now. Now way is the game dumber.

Lordhelmos · Dec 28, 2006, 05:49 AM // 05:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Vengal

I think the OPs concerns are more then just about skill balances. We all should know by now that when it comes to imba skills, ANet always gets around to fixing them. And theyve been doing better in recent updates, not really nerfing the absolute hell out of some skills (remember Ether Renewal). But the real frustration a lot of people who have been around for a while are getting tired about are those little things he mentioned that have yet to see any mention to resolve them at all. Some people of course are gonna defend such things as absuing running skills in RA or TA saying there are counters. But RA is such a mixed bag, and you cant realistically bring a skill to counter absolutely every ridiculous greif build you come across in there. Other wise, youd have no skill slots left to do anything useful. And why should it be ok for people to take absoutely all the fun out of the game for everyone like that? More importantly, why has it been able to go on for so damn long with out an answer or even an acknowledgment from ANet?

Thank you this is my entire point nicely summed up. I am aware that Anet does its best to solve skill balances. However, the griefer builds and ongoing leeching problems are driving me insane. The entire point isnt just skill balances, I just summarized them to point out where the problems are at. Of course this is from personal virtue. Yes skills we be fixed, but what about leeching, griefers in 4v4, the sorry state of HA, and the works? Imba skills are expected as a pointed out. And yes if you have read, I have voiced my option on several threads regarding these skills. I just want to point out that yes PVP is in trouble.

I play all aspects of the game and yes I am NOT a hardcore pvper, but don't you think the PvP experience should be enjoyable from players of all levels? The entire reason pvp is hard to get into as ensign said, the gap between high level PvP and the usual PvP is extremely large. Some of us have jobs, balance college, or actual lives outside of the game. The curve that is required to reach enjoyable PvP in guild wars is extremely rigid, requiring an insane amount of play time, a TS program, and an accepting high level guild willing to accept and train someone that wants to learn.

With that given not everyone can make it to enjoyable pvp. Outside of high level GvG games we all watch on observe and tightly knit HA matches done by well trained guild teams, the PVP experience is absolute garbage to the average player and to me thats not right. At least something should be done or an effort should be maybe to increase the enjoyability of PvP. Its not like many players new to the PvP experience will want to put in the dedicated time and hours to actually get into high level pvp if they encounter such garbage as griefer teams in 4v4/RA or half a team of leechers in PvP.

Yes high level pvp is very good and from my point of view on the spectrum I have no right to say ALL pvp is bad. However from an entry level PvP players, the first exposure you get from PvP is absolute trash. This to me poses a problem. A giant problem.

Who's seriously going to get into hardcore pvp if there is no way there. It seems to me like the bridge has been burned between the average player willing to learn PvP and those already in the R9+. The entire reason PvP is like a "rotting corpse" is because older players do leave the game and have lives and those players at the bottom of the chain with bad experiences arent going to have the enthusiam to make friends and climb the pvp ladder after being exposed to the cesspool of crap a R0 player is faced with right off the bat.

We play to get enjoyment out of the game. And yes I'm sure more than one person can agree that the low rank experience is most possibly the worst guildwars experience for a new player. It's not fair to cater towards nothing but a select elite handful of hardcore players while taking into the account that the MAJORITY of the guildwars community is made up of casual players.

What I was trying to say through all the frustration of my first post is that something needs to be done to improve the overall value of the pvp experience all across the board, the soften the curve, and to allow PvP to be enjoyed by players of all backgrounds.

If this means more arenas need to created to bridge the elites from new players so be it. But something needs to be done. Because average players are losing interesting in PvP because of its rigid constrictions. Not every player starts the game with the infinite knowledge of how every build functions and what skills synergize well with others.

For the average level player being introduced to PvP, you are almost required to know all this right off the bat. Most new players are thrust into a web of frustration and deal with griefers in RA and TA wins until HA is unlocked, that way they can spend the majority of their time being free fame for a higher ranking guilds.

Simple for you to say "just join a high ranking guild." And how do you suppose the average player is going to get all that fame for R3 just to enjoy pvp. As a new player is all the work needed just to be accepted into the PvP community worth it? Its alot of damn fame, and glad points arent free either.

PvP is way to hard to get into for the average player. Some divisions need to be drawn between elite players and players fresh to the pvp environment that are trying to learn and enjoy the game.

Venus was her name · Dec 28, 2006, 11:28 AM // 11:28

having looked into avatar of grenth more.....(and mystic regeneration)

had a bit of a play in RA as De/N grenth build..with mystic regen

mystic regen needs to be swapped to mysticism limiting its use for 2ndary dervishes.

avatar of grenth IS NOT overpowered. its just the concept of a charcater that can control enchants like a dervish does is unfamiliar in gw.

in the past we've had enchant removals, as a side thought quasi role on mesmers and necros. Dervishes can choose to specialise in enchant removal and control, like a mesmer can choose to control hexes (removal and application). and a monk conditions. dervishes..with avatar of grenth beat a mesmer or necro hands down in enchant removal potential, due to fact they are combining it with melee setups (a necro/mesmer with similar enchant removal build would be useless vs anything without enchants a derv isnt)

a monk using aegis and gaurdian is harder to overcome, and those are 2 VERY VERY common skills.

when facing a monk using lots of evade/block enchants i tend to just plug away and wait for his/her energy to die from spamming aegis and gaurdian.

only then does my mighty scythe cleave his/her head from their shoulders.

Seltack · Dec 28, 2006, 02:33 PM // 14:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

What are you talking about? There is 8 skills per bar how much variety do you expect to have. When you create a build you assign each slot a job to do. Then you decide what profession combinations can do that job the best. Then you fill in the most effective and efficient skills on the bar. Having a specific job to accomplish leaves little room for variety.

First off RaO is not even close to be unblanced. Wow, I get a speed boost and IAS in 1 skill. I also have to take a pet, put at least 10+ points into beast to make it last 20 seconds, make sure my pet is alive to use it, energy cost is huge even under expertise, not usable by non-primary rangers. When the pet dies I'm blacked out and he gets dp making him even easier to kill. So I counted 2 benefits and 6 draw backs. Seems really unbalanced, huh?

Ok, 1. I avoided the use of term unbalanced, just strong, and it gets/has gotten a large amount of play. If you don't like the term strong, how about "sucks less than skull crack". The point was those skills aren't broken just that they are better and used more than others (the list was less than exhaustive I know, but there are a few skills that are obviously v.good) so you know largely what you are going to face at a given time from a narrow list of builds a.k.a the meta game. For most of the game eviscerate was used by the vast majority of warriors and probably every axe warrior. It took a change of tournament rules to stop that seeing play by the top teams along with introduction of a nice spike elite in shadow prison. It wasn't overpowered, but it was better than any other warrior elite for spiking and was the best skills for an axe warrior by a long, long way. When this is expanded to all classes you know roughly what everyone is going to be running from a small list.

Wtf am I talking about?

My point was that if there is a very limitted meta game with a small number of variations on balanced builds using a small number of skills and a small amount of gimmics run due the comparitive strength of certain skills then of course there is never going to be a situation where you can't bring enough counters. Lets see, lots of searing eles, so lets not play a ward camping based build, lots of avatar of grenth so lets not run a build that relies on bonds, plenty of splitting so ideally want to be able to split. And that's about it.

If at the same time as these builds occuring there were several other options to run, for instance pre nerf gale/exhaustion mehcanics, low recharge ranger spike, fc air spike still viable, zealots/smite hadn't been owned, then you'd have to worry about a lot more and bring some extra/different hard counters or different utility skills making it more likely that you wouldn't be able to counter everything you face. However as there aren't that many different builds run at any time then this isn't a problem.

As for your comments about "zomg 64 skills of course all builds ever are the same you noob" I can think of many, many builds that have been played by different guilds through out the game but are no longer played due to nerfs/new skills. My point is if the game was balanced better so there aren't a core few skills that are obviously better than others then there would be a great number of builds and variety so countering a lot of different builds would be more difficult with one build. Whether or not this state of balance is desirbable or possible is another matter but unless it exists then there won't be a problem with not enough counters.

I presume your rant about ZB was directed at someone else as I made no mention of it.

Divineshadows · Dec 28, 2006, 05:07 PM // 17:07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Venus was her name

a monk using aegis and gaurdian is harder to overcome, and those are 2 VERY VERY common skills.

when facing a monk using lots of evade/block enchants i tend to just plug away and wait for his/her energy to die from spamming aegis and gaurdian.

Watch observer mode. You'd see that avatar of grenth dervishes are D/W specifically so they can use wild blow. Wild blow ensures that those enchants you mention get removed. Not only that it will end any stance based defenses. This limits the opposition to countering you with blind, a hex stack, and/or ward v melee (which you can still hit through with wild blow every 5 seconds).

TheOneMephisto · Dec 28, 2006, 07:42 PM // 19:42

I always lol when people suggest running a prophecies only campaign. And what will you use as monks after all the nerfs?

Eonwe · Dec 28, 2006, 08:31 PM // 20:31

Although I did not read most of your post, I do personally agree that Avatar of Grenth and Feigned neutrality are straight up retarded and need to be fixed. Spiritual Pain will most likely be getting nerfed as well. As for the other skills you listed, meh.

Thomas.knbk · Dec 28, 2006, 10:13 PM // 22:13

Feigned Neutrality is good, but only overpowered in combination with Deadly Paradox. It could be fixed by scaling DP's recharge-reduction with its attribute, and perhaps a slight upping to the recharge

lilnate22 · Dec 28, 2006, 10:34 PM // 22:34

ok OP..u started smoking sum weed after stonefllesh... all of those skills mentioned AFTER is perfectly fine.. ROA is an ilite bub.. and is 25e! so wut if u can knock it cdown to 15e? u gota spend that amount on expertise then

u think grenth is over powerd??!? ahahaha u make a great comedian.. all it does is remove enchants.. so wut?
spiritual pane?? dont make me laugh it has hight recharge.

lilnate22 · Dec 28, 2006, 10:42 PM // 22:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

What are you talking about? There is 8 skills per bar how much variety do you expect to have. When you create a build you assign each slot a job to do. Then you decide what profession combinations can do that job the best. Then you fill in the most effective and efficient skills on the bar. Having a specific job to accomplish leaves little room for variety.

First off RaO is not even close to be unblanced. Wow, I get a speed boost and IAS in 1 skill. I also have to take a pet, put at least 10+ points into beast to make it last 20 seconds, make sure my pet is alive to use it, energy cost is huge even under expertise, not usable by non-primary rangers. When the pet dies I'm blacked out and he gets dp making him even easier to kill. So I counted 2 benefits and 6 draw backs. Seems really unbalanced, huh?

I have to laugh at ZB being overpowered. In Ra/Ta its great but I've never seen a skill balance before it was overpowered in Ra/Ta. Other than that the ONLY reason its even used is because spike builds are everywhere and infusers are being ran to counter. Take us back to a pressure environment and Blight will take back over (like it every left).

You have to be smart now compared to prophecies. Its not hard to drain a monk's energy with 8 e-drains hitting for 15+ energy each. Really hard to steamroll a team when you gale lock a monk while you bash the other one to death. There are so many new threats in the game that skills alone are not going to save you like they used to. You need to know when to split, when to gank, what to send back with a plethora of scrimmage builds killing your NPCs, planning for a faster VoD. You have more things to worry about and less time to work with now. Now way is the game dumber.

yep this is SOOOOO true... i think oly few skills ie searing flames needs to be "fixed" other than that.. i think ppl are complaining more becuse they actualy have to use this thing called a brain now.. u no longer can steam roll away there are no "leet" builds like iway u actualy have to use ur brain... wow.. who would have guessed?

Sinful Doom · Dec 29, 2006, 01:25 AM // 01:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by twicky_kid

First off RaO is not even close to be unblanced. Wow, I get a speed boost and IAS in 1 skill. I also have to take a pet, put at least 10+ points into beast to make it last 20 seconds, make sure my pet is alive to use it, energy cost is huge even under expertise, not usable by non-primary rangers. When the pet dies I'm blacked out and he gets dp making him even easier to kill. So I counted 2 benefits and 6 draw backs. Seems really unbalanced, huh?

R O F L If you honestly think this skill isint imballanced you need to set back from your computer and reflect a little. Ask yourself this, were thumpers effective before RoA and did they have the same conditional effects/needs as well? You had to invest attribute points in Beast to get at least a 9 sec Tigers fury. You were still blacked out for 10 sec when the pet died. Who cares if no other class can use this (warrior to be specific) because of its energy cost. People ran thumpers prior to RoA because the extra pip of energy regen alloud them to spam skills like Irristable Blow/Crushing more often than a hammer warrior could. Hammer Bash becomes very spammable with a Thumper. No warrior is going to run it since you lose all adren but who cares on a thumper, its their only adren skill.

You say "Wow, I get a speed boost and IAS in 1 skill" like that is nothing special... Now not only are you under a constant speed/IAS boost but your pet is as well. Have you ever had to monk vs this while taking damage from not just one but two sources (thumper and pet)?

Quote:

Originally Posted by lilnate22

u think grenth is over powerd??!? ahahaha u make a great comedian.. all it does is remove enchants.. so wut? spiritual pane?? dont make me laugh it has hight recharge.

O.o Enchantment removal at any level is pretty significant. With no Grenth dervish a mesmer or necro has to be intellegent about thier ench removal because of many factors, skill recharge/energy cost/removal of specific ench's etc. Grenth ench removal occurs through normal gameplay, attacking targets... Lemme give you a scenario. Mesmer is taking damage from a Grenth Dervish. Monk Prot Spirits mes, ench is immediatly removed. Other monk Spirit Bonds mes, ench is immediatly removed. Monk Guardians mes, ench is immediatly removed. Shield of Absorbtion is used, ench is immediatly removed. Both monks now have to stop protting mes and power heal it. How much energy was just burned away for nothing because the Dervish had to expend no skills, energy or tallent removing those enchants?

Your argument is "then the monks shouldnt use ench's on the mes and not waste energy". I say this is exactly why the skill is imbalanced, monks cant protect the player in an intellegent or skillful fashion.

And yes, spiritual pain is overpowered. Through domination mesmers not only have an incredible ability to "shutdown" but can also inflict massive damage extreemly fast with Wastrel's Demise/Spiritual Pain. This makes them unlike any other character in the game now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheOneMephisto

I always lol when people suggest running a prophecies only campaign. And what will you use as monks after all the nerfs?

I'd love to see a prohecies only tourny sometime down the road. It would be entertaning to see warriors actually have to be skillful at moving on adren spikes and not teleport all over. To see an ele have to be mindfull in the use of blinding flash on ranger's or warrior's because of the high energy cost unlike now with Bsurge which is spamable. To see gankers actually have to have skill entering and killing in a base and not be saved by SoH and Feigned neutrality. To see guilds not enter match's with 4 Seering Flames ele hero's dropping loads of mindless damage spam. The list goes on...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Divineshadows

Watch observer mode. You'd see that avatar of grenth dervishes are D/W specifically so they can use wild blow. Wild blow ensures that those enchants you mention get removed. Not only that it will end any stance based defenses. This limits the opposition to countering you with blind, a hex stack, and/or ward v melee (which you can still hit through with wild blow every 5 seconds).

Personally I think this skill is now imbalanced with the addition of Dervishes to the game. First lets get the definition of Wild Blow.

Melee Attack. Lose all adrenaline. If it hits, this attack will result in a critical hit and any Stance being used by your target ends. This attack cannot be "blocked" or "evaded." 5 energy 5 second recharge

Before dervishes this skill had a huge "cost factor" to it that I feel kept it in balance. Lose all adrenaline. Even with the low energy cost and recharge this kept it in check. Now with dervishes it can be spammed at literally no cost factor. I'm not sure what the exact numbers are but a critical hit with a scythe is huge. Being able to use this every 5 seconds and knowing it is going to hit everytime is rediculous. For this very reason I would like to see it moved into the Strength attribute and have the skill modified like gale/well of profane etc where there is a 50% chance of failure without a set amount of points added to the attribute.

That is all I have to say for now, let the flame'n begin.

DreamRunner · Dec 29, 2006, 01:38 AM // 01:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by chosenbygod

Totally agreed, this is the reason why 95% of Black Crescent and other American guilds on the ladder have left this game for WoW. The quality of pvp in the game has drastically fallen.

For WoW? A game that has worse skill imbalance, gear balance and overall worse pvp system. Its the most rip off money game that ive known. But hell pay for your $60 for the expanstion and $20 a month as well. And see how they go.

Sinful Doom · Dec 29, 2006, 01:51 AM // 01:51

Hey, dont get me wrong. I think Anet does an incredible job considering this game is free online play. I also know it is impossible to satisfy everyone. I guess we all just feel the need to RAGE from time to time.

twicky_kid · Dec 29, 2006, 02:05 AM // 02:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sinful Doom

R O F L If you honestly think this skill isint imballanced you need to set back from your computer and reflect a little. Ask yourself this, were thumpers effective before RoA and did they have the same conditional effects/needs as well?

After the nerf to the thumpers no they were not. RoA is what brought them back. Compared to the old thumpers I'd rather have the old thumper bar. Its much less conditional and has a lot of energy. Most people ran 10 in beast and 8 and expertise with the old thumper. You now have to run a 12/10/11 spread to make RoA energy mangable.

With RoA I run out of energy many times and have to wait to recharge. This in effect reduces the pressure I can exert. The old thumper could spam skills forever and not run out of energy. RoA can't do that.

The run buff is nice but its not going to matter vs snares you'll still be too slow to catch anything.

Without RoA the thumper would not exist in serious play. Even with RoA its on the tipping point. Anything to nerf this skill anymore and you might as well run a hammer war or a KD spamming paragon (its not popular yet but every 2 hit KD will be very popular when pressure returns to the meta). If neither one of those choices suit you a dervish will put out more pressure than both.

The meta game is not what is limited people its the number of skills you can take into the match. It doesn't matter if we have 1000 skills to choose from you still only have 64 skill slots to fill. As long as the skill bars stay at 8 there will be only 2-3 builds that dominate the meta after each release and skill balance.

griffinz · Dec 29, 2006, 02:33 AM // 02:33

I miss Tombs of the Premevil Kings.

Some skills are definately imbalanced, namely Searing Flames, Rampage as One.

As for other skills, they actually take skill to use. Such as Zealous Benediction, if you want a good energy management, you must heal a target whose health is below 50. It sometimes* is hard to catch.

For skills like spiritual pain, I like it because it means Mesmers can finally do AoE damage. But I understand it's quite deadly.

With the heroes in HA, and 6 vs 6. 3 words: Me no like. It ruins the originality of Tournament Matches. And IMO, Hall of Heroes should at least be 6 minutes. 4 minutes is way too short, this goes the same for Broken tower, waiting for a second spawn of a ressurection orb is pretty much pointless, since the game ends in 30 seconds..

Hero Battles, with title come out, dice rolling is lame.

Team Arenas, unbalanced skills.

Random Arenas, unbalanced skills.

GvG, it's still good, as it always was, but Victory or Death seems way too near.

Alliance Battles, Snowball Fights, Fort Aspenwood, leechers leechers leechers.

Dragon Arenas = fun.

Jade Quarry = abanddoned.

=\

Is that all? Obviously we need more pvp types. As for Heroes Ascent, I really really want 8 vs 8 again. As for that double fame weekend several months ago? That was plain stupid. Fame Farmers everywhere, ruined the point of it.

6 vs 6? Why Heroes Ascent/Tombs, do a new PvP type.

And the last thing I would say is, PvP is still competitant, keep learning, and good luck. As for the types of pvp in guild wars, they need more variety, more balance.

Relambrien · Dec 29, 2006, 02:37 AM // 02:37

Just like to add my little tidbit and get away from this thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sinful Doom

To see an ele have to be mindfull in the use of blinding flash on ranger's or warrior's because of the high energy cost unlike now with Bsurge which is spamable.

They still wouldn't have to be mindful, with Ether Prodigy they can spam B-flash as much as they could with B-surge. And they can have more utility with 15E spells like Heal Party and Aegis.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sinful Doom

To see gankers actually have to have skill entering and killing in a base and not be saved by SoH and Feigned neutrality.

You wouldn't see too many solo gankers, since Assassins wouldn't exist at all, and you don't have YAA and Mending Touch as a Warrior. You don't get Burning Arrow either. It's still doable, but a 5-3 or a 4-4 split would be safer and more beneficial. Not to mention Warriors would be the only profession who could ever do it. Right now we have Warriors, Assassins, Elementalists, and Rangers who can easily solo (YAA, SoH/Feigned, E/D tank, and Burning Arrow, respectively) a base. With Prophecies only, you'd only have one profession with any solo survivability, and that would be the Warrior.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sinful Doom

I'm not sure what the exact numbers are but a critical hit with a scythe is huge.

A critical hit takes your current attribute for the weapon (in this case, Scythe Mastery), adds 4 attribute levels to it (so from 16 Scythe Mastery to 20 Scythe Mastery, for example), and deals the maximum amount of damage possible at that level (based on armor mitigation vs. the increased damage from higher weapon mastery). Just FYI ^^

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sinful Doom

How much energy was just burned away for nothing because the Dervish had to expend no skills, energy or tallent removing those enchants?

Grenth enchant removals only occur upon an attack SKILL connecting. So four skills would have to be used, but with short recharge it's pretty negligible anyway.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sinful Doom

Before dervishes this skill had a huge "cost factor" to it that I feel kept it in balance. Lose all adrenaline.

Before dervishes, the huge "cost factor" made the skill totally unplayable by Warriors. It still is (in a PvP setting). The skill is absolutely AWFUL for Warriors (since it is outclassed by things like Critical Chop, Final Thrust, etc which have better rewards for the same or less cost), but heaven for Dervishes. Hard to balance out, isn't it? :P

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sinful Doom

You say "Wow, I get a speed boost and IAS in 1 skill" like that is nothing special... Now not only are you under a constant speed/IAS boost but your pet is as well. Have you ever had to monk vs this while taking damage from not just one but two sources (thumper and pet)?

Yes, I have. And let me tell you, Shield of Absorption > thumpers. Guardian > thumpers. Aegis > thumpers. Of course, enchants < Grenth Dervish.

Without a grenth dervish, it isn't exactly difficult to survive against one thumper and its pet. But I concede that keeping others alive is a bit of a chore :P

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sinful Doom

That is all I have to say for now, let the flame'n begin.

That's what made me want to post this in the first place. You invited comments on your post, so I made them. I avoid flaming though. Less flaming tends to be key.