Did Dervish spells trigger AoE scatter?

I was just running through my mental list - well after the fact, you'll notice - of things I meant to test during the Nightfall PvE event. Now, I got quite a lot done at the time, mainly to do with hero AI, but I've just remembered one major concern I'd forgotten:

Do Dervish area spells trigger the scatter effect in mobs if used too rapidly?

As every good farming Geomancer (or touch Pyro!) knows, firing off area damage spells like Shockwave, Aftershock or Crystal Wave in direct succession will cause the monsters adjacent to you to run for the hills, just as if they were caught in a Firestorm. The same holds true for some miscelaneous skills - most notably Zealot's Fire, but not Sliver Armour or Vengeful Was Khanhei!

Now, this scatter effect is a huge problem in PvE - it's the reason no fire ele henchmen are playable, for instance. The issue isn't the inconvenience of having to chase mobs down (although the possibility of a chain aggro can be worrysome), but rather with the aggro reset that happens when monsters retreat like that - which usually leads to them refocussing on whoever your lowest armoured teammate is.

...Which in turn could be a serious hindrance to Dervishes. Unlike Assassins, Dervishes are meant to be on the frontlines at all times. While not pure tanks in their own right, it still seems reasonable that it'll be part of their job to hold monsters away from the 'squishies' in the backline. The threat of AoE scatter could seriously reduce their ability to do damage via spells (as opposed to 80%-scythe builds) without putting the rest of their party at risk.

So, did anyone try this out? Does chaining Balthazar's Rage into Heart of Holy Flame into Grenth's Fingers with less than three seconds cooldown between them cause mobs to scatter?

They didn't run expect when their health was low.

Nope it doesnt, I was doing that the entire time during the WPE.

But its because of that I stopped using AOE all together, running mobs are to much of a hassle. Vengeful was Kanahei and Vengeful weapon are much more useful, especially when you echo Kanahei. (also Kanahei is technically not aoe which is why there is no scatter)

but during the preview we were on a starter isle, maybe later on in the game they'll start to scatter from it, just like firestorm being fine up to a certain point in the game.

I ve heard people saying that the dervish might be the new 55, but you never know, if they become to power Anet will make them AoE .

dervish is gonna be super farmer, thats all their is to it. Prot spirit + mystic regen and your good, that leaves 6 spots for enchants and damage. Only thing that bothers me is you won't get to use scythe! Have to make room for the offhand so you can't use like pious assault spam to get full effect of your enchants.

I would be very surprised if they didn't run to be honest, but you have to hit with AE successively within 1 second I don't think you can do that with any dervish enchants.

not room for scythe ? Spirit bound anyone ?

This is true, I definately will be keeping my starter armor for spirit bond but I personally think arcane zeal enchant spammer 55 will work better. Mystic regen for +20 regen of your degen can't hurt me!

Just use mystic vigor and go with a 105 instead.

Well theres no AoE in pre....so is Itan=pre?

EDIT: Technically incorrect, see below.

To the above poster:

Go use Zealots FIre, and spam spells on yourself. Then tell me it doesn't cause scatter.

I think if you could spam skills fast enough, AoE would cause scatter. I don't think that it's possible at the moment though...but I never played as a dervish.

Zinger, obviously you've never tried to farm the Zaishen IWAYers with an earth ele build. If you spam Whirlwind, aftershock, crystal wave, they will run away after either the aftershock or the crystal wave. However, they don't run after you ONLY USE ONE, at least as far as I know, and that might have been what you were trying to say.

Well, duh. How many people realistically do that?

Alright, rethinking it, I think the AoE scatter triggers after 3 AoE Damage sources in 3 seconds. (From what I could tell from Zealot's Fire).

A Dervish spamming 3 or more AoE spells is impractical anyways due to the god-awful recharge. So that shouldn't be a problem.

Playing a Dervish, I never noticed any kind of AoE scatter.

Its two seconds, use cyclone axe / triple chop in succession with 33% ias, they are slightly more than a second apart but close enough that they round.

For those of you who've never tried it, it's any two area casts within two seconds (no, it doesn't require three). Test it on Elona Reach minos - Shockwave into Aftershock does it, as both have <1second casts.

...Most of the Dervish damage AoEs have a 3/4second casts, so given that precedent they should trigger. It's a question of whether Anet makes an exception for them - or re-jiggs the AI to keep the new class from being less useful (a bit like they did with held items and Ritualists).
However, for most of them you'll be wanting to get them up as soon as possible so you can benefit from the enchant-ending bonus. So if you have three on the bar you'd want to charge in, fire all three off, then scythe while you wait.

Sliver Armor doesn't trigger AoE scatter because it's not an AoE spell. Sliver Armor doesn't let you know this in it's description, but it will target the same enemy until the enchantment runs out or the specific enemy dies. Also, Sliver Armor is dependant on enemy actions in order to trigger it, just like Spiteful Spirit. So no AoE scatter.

Vengeful Was Khannei doesn't trigger AoE scatter for 2 reasons as well. Vengeful was Khanhei is dependant on enemy actions in order for it to trigger just like Sliver Armor and Spiteful Spirit, so no scatter. Unlike Sliver Armor and Spiteful Spirit, though, it acts more like Gladiator's Defense and triggers on anyone making an attack. The second reason it doesn't trigger AoE scatter is because it doesn't do any damage. It steals health. Health stealing will never trigger the scatter. Ever.

For the AoE scatter to take effect, the enemies have to take damage from 1 person using non-attack skills once every 2 seconds or faster, more than 2 times.
-- This means, a warrior under the effects of an increased attack speed buff won't trigger the scatter because all he uses are attack skills (and usually doesn't cause AoE).
-- This means life stealing effects won't cause scatter no matter how fast you use them because they don't deal damage.
-- This means Air Spike won't cause scatter no matter how fast you cast them because 95% of Air Magic doesn't cause AoE damage, only specific target damage.
-- This means that 3 separate Elementalists alternating castings of Earthquake so that the enemies take damage more often than once every 2 seconds won't cause AoE scatter, because the damage didn't come from 1 caster.
-- This means that 1 Elementalist who casts Tainei's Crystals and then immendiately follows up with Crystal Wave will not cause scatter unless he immediately follows up with another spell within 1 second.
-- This means that Meteor Shower will never cause AoE scatter because it only strikes once every 3 seconds, just out of the 2 second time bracket.

This means that most of the time, the dervish won't cause AoE scatter because:
a) Most of the time, when a dervish removes an enchantment that does damage, he's removing it with an attack skill like Pious Assault thus interrupting the detection system. -or-
b) The dervish doesn't cast enough spells and/or enchantments that do damage when activated in order to trigger the AoE. You'd have to put up Balthazar's Rage, Heart of Holy Flame, and Dust Cloak in rapid succession in order to trigger the scatter. (or Raging Renewal or Grenth's Fingers)

Seems to me, dervishes would really have to try hard in order to trigger AoE scatter, just like elementalists have to try hard to trigger it when only using non-damage over time spells.

Tell that to my henchies

Actually, are you sure a frenzy xxx cannot trigger it? Whirling Defense is also dependant on the ennemies actions and still can trigger AoE scatter. If it doesn't I'd say it's either because the ennemy has a too slow attack, or because it's not an AoE skill (only the attacker takes damage, not his mates around) or because it's a vampiric skill (you technically don't cause damage but steal health from your ennemy).

Whirling defense is slightly different. Whirling defense actually has an Aoe effect in that all mobs around you take damage when a projectile comes your way. As the Sir Mad said, Vengefull was Khanhei exclusively hits the person dealing the damage. Technically Vengefull isn't an AoE because it only effects the one target but multiples of 'one target' can exist


I dont think dervish skills will trigger the AoE effect because when you unleash the enchantment (or cast depending on that enchantment) it has 1 effect and thats it. Its like starburst, instant aoe damage, but the damage/danger doesn't continue to exist in the area like rain of fire/lava font etc etc so the mobs have no reason to run away.

actually the last time i used my ele was to help a friend through raisu palace.... well when team was busy, i casted meteor shower (ONLY) on some mobs and one time one a boss on its own... and they moved out of it... totally pissed me off

i still hate eoa nerf it really blows

...Yeah, unfortunately I was planning on a build like that. Ah well, no biggie, I've got at least two others I want to try out.

And yes, I understand the mechanics behind the AoE scatter. I mentioned Sliver Armour and VwK because they serve effectively the same purpose (SS being the other obvious example) while using a different formal mechanic - I only mentioned them as contrasts, in other words.
...Er, what? MS is notorious for its scatter-inducing properties. It's just that the knockdowns keep the mobs from running as readily, and give the tanks a window to attack them and regain their aggro.

<tests quickly, just in case>

Yup, the minos ran.
Anecdotally, I've seen plenty of situations where two pyromancers on a team have caused scatter by casting Fireball more or less simultaneously. I'm not sure your assertion that the damage has to be done by one player alone holds water...


@Shoitaan, it doesn't work like that. Take a closer look at the conditions listed in this thread.
I think it's necessary, actually. My problem with it is that they didn't make the AI sophisticated enough when recalculating aggro. Re-jigg it so that they give a higher priority to enemies attacking them in melee (or who are physically closer), and we'll be fine.

Attacks that inflict one wave of AoE damage will not trigger scatter by themself, however, if you stack them it might. 3-4 seconds in between damage seems to be the golden number from my experience using Z's Fire while farming.

55 Mesmer IW with Scythe FTW. So far i do not se ehte scythe causing AOE scatter, though i do see it causing AOE pwnage.

*blink*

OMG.

I had completely not thought of using my 55 IW mesmer with a scythe!

BWHAHAHHA!!!