[MERGED] Balancing Dervish Profession

Before the weekend event, I never played PvE before so my comments are going to be totally neutral. So many emotional posts here. A little objectivity is needed

I played in the Random Arena only. Not sure how many matches but it was in the hundreds. I spent about half the weekend playing my regular PvE characters (modified a little for PvP): Mo/me, r/mo, e/mo, w/mo.....The rest of the time I played the dervish premades with a few modifications as I earned faction and unlocked skills.

It took a few matches to get used to the speed of PvP. Things happen very very fast in PvP compared with PvE. You have to be quick or you die. Also energy management for the monk and ele was a huge problem in PvP...as was the constant pressure from enemy warriors, rangers, and mesmers. Eventually, I got the feeling for PvP.

I have to admit, I did much better with the dervish than I did with my regular old characters that I have been playing for months. After 3 or 4 matches, I got the hang of how to make mysticism work. After the first day, I never lost to an enemy warrior or even a couple warriors when I was separated from the rest of my group. By Sunday I felt very confident and powerful whereas my own warrior got destroyed in seconds by enemy dervishes.

Two general comments: (1) For some reason, even though I played the dervish prolly over 200 matches, I never saw Well of the Profane used to counter us. (2) I was interrupted 2 or 3 while trying to put on an avatar. Usually, tho, I had no trouble activating avatar whenever it was ready to go. By Sunday, most groups in the Random Arena were at least two dervishes and interrupters were practically non-existent.

Based on my observations, I rate the Dervish as follows:

Survival ability: A+ (like a bonded warrior, only better)
Damage (spike): B (honestly, just an average spiker; assassin is better)
Damage (over time): B+ (hmm, not quite as good as warrior but decent)
Energy Management: A+ (ok, this is where they really shine!)

Overall Grade: B+/A-

To be honest, I thought the dervish was only an average spiker; although she can be very dangerous in tandem with one or two other dervishes. I think the dervish is a wonderful profession and I can't wait to try her in PvE, particularly in the challenge missions!

You don't say....

As far as I know, they can cast enchantments in well of profane, only their current stack gets stripped, which is no biggie.

As you readily admit, you played against noobs. Any time any imbalance is mentioned, always someone pops in and says "OMG guys, we beat a team like this", like that kind of empirical argument matters.

Well of profane is shit counter simply because they can counter it as well.
They can interrupt it, or they can bring putrid/consume corpse/necrotic and you are screwed. You also have to have death necro on your team, they can have 0 spec necro secondary somewhere on their team and still deny your corpses.

The word 'slight' was intended somewhat ironically, but this suggestion is intended to drive home the point that CoP is intended for Monk primaries. I actually wasn't aware there were a lot of Assassins going Monk secondary, but fine. I'm certainly open to debate, but I think if your Sin had to find another skill to use, or even another secondary, no biggie. My Sin is happy as a /Me or /Ri or /Ne. The only difference between how your Sin uses CoP and how a Dervish uses it is that the Dervish WANTS the Enchantments to end. Frankly, this is not something I want to change about them.

Precisely my point. If you can't beat them - Join them! It will still take some skill to manage the relatively tiny Energy pool and any Exhaustion, but I have faith that upon release there will be some good Dervish primaries that make good Elementalists.

Um... Thanks. Geez, the folks who agree with me.

/applause

anshin made it quite obvious in the post of complete lack of understanding as to why the dervish used CoP. The ignorance is obvious and twicky_kid was pointing it out. anshin wants the dervish to be kept as it is, so that it can be used to dominate PvE. Seriously though, if A-net ever gave mobs a complete list of 8 skills they would maul most PvE players and a group of AI dervish with grenth's fingers, heart of holy flame and self enchantment removal skills would cause the majority PvE players to ragequit guildwars. The other possibility for PvE would be the only accepted group being 6 dervish and two monks OR 8 dervish.

For someone who never played PvP before this weekend, this is quite a good overall assessment assuming the damage is applied to just one player on the opposing team. When you start hitting 2 or 3 or more players (which is probable due to their snaring ability and speed buff) with the damaging enchantments, the damage becomes A+. Also, it left out snaring ability which I would rate as A- and resistance to shutdown which I would rate as an A.

Stupid question:

Is the D/Mo is the stupid Reversal Of Fortune spam build?

you dont even need reversal of fortune.

U are doing a whole mess with this....

Some people are really worried about the "too powerfull dervish", hey, im
an honest monk, and im really fed up with the "too-powerfull-auto-playable-pvp-warriors"...... U say theres no point in playing dervish (Too easy to play u say).... i fail to see why no one complains about the warriors there.... Aha.... I think i know. U play warriors .... U simply are worried cause there is competence in town.

Dont kill CoP!!!, pls, if it needs to be nerf FOR (and only for) dervish.... ok, but dont nerf it for the monks... we need it sometimes, really. (I was thinking in something like "Only works on monk's enchantments").

Let Anet work, thats why the did the Beta for.... BUT, they should try not to balance them too much... and kill them in the process.

I know, some people out there thinks the only real class is Wa and the rest are there for the killing, but the pvp enviroment should evolve so that every class could have a place there. And the new classes too. (And the eles... xD).

P.D: Hey, its my first post here... Hurray!. I hope my english its not too old... im learning german right now and im a bit confused sometimes, i hope its understeandable .

Agreed.

They need to do small tweaks and change some skills. Already posted else where http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ferrerid=92302

CoP will not help a monk by only removing monk enchants. MoR needs to be removed at times as well. Like it or not but boon is going to stay at 10 or >. That reason alone hurts the boon prot. You can make CoP remove 1....8 enchantments linking it to divine favor. That way it still removes all enchantments but only a monk can make it more than 1.

That would make this skill balanced for a ?/Mo.

An easy tweak to the Dervish would be to scale down the amount of health gain from enchantments ending. Have it be the same as energy gain, in that for every two ranks in mysticism, you gain 3 health when an enchantment fails. With this and a few minor tweaks to some of the skills should bring the Dervish more inbalanced with the rest of the class without nuetering it.

I got tired of reading this thread after about the first 4 pages, so if someone has already mentioned this please forgive the repeat.
Also:
1.I didn't play the dervish or paragon in the weekend pvp.
2.These are general statements meant for Long Term Balance.

As I know someone has mentioned, The dervish needs to be tweaked not nerfed. The problem is not that they're too powerful, they just haven't had all the kinks worked out as to how they react to other classes, hence the test weekend.

Another poster mentioned that they enjoyed pitting their warrior against a dervish, and I believe a majority of the problems come from people unwilling to attempt to do so. Heres the point to what I'm saying: Don't nerf it, stop complaining and realize what Anet is trying to do. They are attempting to raise the level of the game, rather than lower each class to be worthless.
When ritualists first appeared i'm sure many thought them useless, or worse complained that they encroached on the healing turf of monks. Instead they simply expanded your options when looking for healing. I did a mission with a ritualist on a team, and that ritualist was placing her spirits so well that I didn't need to heal the team unless she was being distracted by some monster chasing her.
What I think is the root of this problem is that Warriors are seeing their territory encroached upon, and they are undeniably peeved. Do Monks complain that Rangers can use Troll Ungeunt to heal themselves?No.Now before you get worked up over that, think about the longer term effect.

If we keep getting new classes every 6 months or so, how many do you think we'll have soon? Lets say its 10-15 okay? If Anet can keep the game balanced and not overnerf during these early stages of new expansions it will radically alter the game and allow it to self balance.
Once you have a plethora of classes to choose from, you will no longer be able to walk into pvp with a build to counter only a single "overpowered" enemy. It will force the balance of pvp teams in that manner. PvE will balance with the new skills that come for the core classes in each expansion.
Since the Dervish and what not are considered so powerful, they will need new skills less often, only enough to keep them even with the core classes, so that the core classes don't become "godly". Thats why they seem so self-reliant now, so its easier to let their skills fall behind during expansions, with only occasional upgrades.
What people are failing to realize is that once there is a greater diversity in class structure within the game, it will be much more difficult to create a combo able to eat their way through the competition with apparent ease. Because no matter whom you're up against, odds will be that they'll have a counter somewhere in the opposing party.
To sum this all up-Dervishes should be seen as a challenge and a helpful addition to the "tank" category, just as Ritualists were to the Healer/spirit category.

hense the need for tweeking an a second test weekend.lol

A tweak that reduces their power is what we call a nerf.
Bullshit.
Again bullshit. People are pissed off because dervish has insane energy engine, great passive healing, great active healing abilities(signet of piety), strong melee presence, incredible counters resistance(hexes and conditions don't stick), about 10 times better pbaoes than ele, in general all their damage is aoe and all these abilities are incredibly synergetic in class.
This makes them able to be incredible damage dealers which also don't require any support at all, making teams able to cram 6 of such offensive characters on one team, easily overwhelming any defense of any team of COMPARABLE skill level. All you need is 2 monks to help vs focused damage.

Warriors on the other hand require characters to continuously pull conditions off them and hexes off them, you can lower their DPM with wards and aegis etc. You can't do that vs dervish. Pure fact, that they can gain 3 en by RoFing themselves and gaining HP on top of that, says it all.

Assassins are completely pathetic compared to them.

A tweak, in my opinion, refers to the character as a whole. "Tweaking" is to not just lower one particular skill to make the class weaker, but rather to lower one skill to make them weaker in one particular area(hex removal/self healing/etc) and to raise another area to compensate. Thats the way warriors are. They can't remove their own hexes, but this is compensated by their ability to recieve and deal damage. Thats why its called balancing, not nerfing which is what everybody seems to want.
Someone else has already mentioned that dervishes are like any other class: they depend upon the player behind the wheel and the situation they are in. If their abilities are so great, maybe you need a change in tactics. I've read plenty of posts about people beating dervishes because of the situation. So use tactics to create that situations.
Like I said, I don't know much about pvp, so I don't really know what to say to this. Try waiting till the game comes out with the final edition of the dervish. Enough changes will probably have been made to deal with that problem.

/edit Btw, I don't think Assassins are pathetic. They are simply discriminated against because of all the people who don't have the skill to play them properly. End Edit/
Thats why you don't tank with Assassins, like not tanking monks. Assassins are not meant to absorb damage and so have to be played differently. Assassins are like certain builds which require precise timing to work: it requires skill and practice. Just like a Smite monk(not 55) it takes a certain style of play or situation to make them show how strong they are.

Why don't we wait to see the final product before we summarily nerf a class to the point where its only thought to be worthless or useful in 1 kind of situation?

Well, I can totally understand why a PvE player would want the Dervish to enter the game unaltered upon release. Monsters don't camp in Wells of the Profane, or kite, or do any of the other things that are supposed to shut a Dervish down. D/Mos and D/Es and D/whatevers will simply dominate in any PvE scenario.

But it surprises me that _some_ PvP players can't see the problem with this profession. They say that traps, and wells of the profane, and interupts, and stuff like that will counter them.

Actually, these kinds of things can be used to slow everyone down, and they don't hit the Dervish harder than any other class. In fact, these counters (except for well) are already widely in use in PvP, and if anything the Derv deals with em better than most professions. Let me illustrate with an analogy.

PvP is analogous to a golf tournament, with your character's skills being your bag of golf clubs. But here's the twist: the tournament officials, in order to create diversity and interest, have decided to limit each player to bringing along only 8 golf clubs of any kind. Sure, you can bring 8 different irons into the tournament if you want, but if do that you won't have room for that putter....etc....

This is balanced and fair, as everyone is equally likely to be be missing something he may need.

Then comes along the Dervish, with his cool passive healing and built-in energy management; the almost equally cool AOE intrinsic to his weapon of choice; the amazing secondary effects (conditions, self-healing) attached to his attack enchantment spells. You add it all up, and you realize the Dervish isn't limited to 8 clubs. He has 16 (and Tiger Woods is his caddy).

Now we come to my main point. Counters like Muddy Terrain and Wells of the Profane are like sandtraps and water hazards. Everyone playing the course has got to deal with them. They don't exist for the Dervish and then cease to exist for everyone else. Get my drift?

In other words, counters that can be used against everyone emphasize, rather than diminish, the Dervish's built-in advantage over you. They add a few strokes to everyone's score, not just his. If anything, he's able to deal with them better than you because his big bag of clubs gives him greater flexibility when it comes to negotiating various obstacles.

Dervish apologists....please think about it.

EasyG

Those teams that bring Muddy Terrain probably know how to play with it, its like playing hide and seek at your home. Muddy Terrain is to slow them down so that they cant remove it. Muddy itself is not a counter. It have to combine with Well of profone or natural renewal and quicken spirit and interupt where many class can do. The overpower Dervish build is a spamming enchantment build, the counter is to make them cant spam it, either using shutdown, interupt, etc, they are frontline spellcaster, which make mesmer job easier because they can sit at backline.

Well of profance can make the boon protect monk in the team cant spam enchantment on him too, you might want to bring a pet just to spam well of profane, keep ressing it and let it die near them.

Dervish energy pool is very small, those enchantment they cast is about 2/5 of their mana pool. They cant gain enegy if you interupt them and prevent enchantment to be put on them.

Dont treat them as warrior, treat them as both warrior AND caster.

yeah the D/MO needs the repair.

Also their is a difference between tweaking and nerfing. tweaking is a slight adjustment... nerfing is what ANET usualy does which is over adjusting and waiting 2 months after release to rectify the situation.

And sins are a good class they just need to fix the mobility and the way they take dmg. it doesn't match any other 70 armor class requardless of dmg type,... they just get hit harder then they should.