Avatar of Balthazar

Burst Cancel

Burst Cancel

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Dec 2006

Domain of Broken Game Mechanics

You missed my point about Critical Agility. I was saying that your comparison doesn't really teach us anything, because Critical Agility isn't elite, whereas AoB is. Given that the 'elite' status is exactly the heart of the problem, it's important to make this distinction.

Any skill that sees use must necessarily be the best option in some subset of realistic situations. If that were not the case, you'd just take whatever better skill there was instead. Therefore, any buff to AoB that didn't make it the best skill to use at least some of the time would be utterly meaningless - there would still be no reason to use it.

It's fun to use when you just want to look like Balty, but otherwise ...

Mickey

Mickey

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Feb 2006

Eternal Insight

D/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burst Cancel
You missed my point about Critical Agility. I was saying that your comparison doesn't really teach us anything, because Critical Agility isn't elite, whereas AoB is. Given that the 'elite' status is exactly the heart of the problem, it's important to make this distinction.

Any skill that sees use must necessarily be the best option in some subset of realistic situations. If that were not the case, you'd just take whatever better skill there was instead. Therefore, any buff to AoB that didn't make it the best skill to use at least some of the time would be utterly meaningless - there would still be no reason to use it.

It's fun to use when you just want to look like Balty, but otherwise ... And I am saying that the reason Critical Agility is not elite is because it is a PvE-only skill, you miss my point.

Darkside

Darkside

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Dec 2006

Chantry of Secrets

[Angl]

D/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burst Cancel
I'm not lucky - I just don't PuG.

Defense and healing is fine if you can fit it, but you'll notice that the AoB benefits have basically boiled down to, "well, it gives a permanent +40AL", which is completely inconsequential with a monk behind you and a total waste of the elite slot. Traditional warrior defense elites are nubflags for similar reasons.

In my experience (I'm primarily a monk player), self-healing and defense tends to be either unnecessary or insufficient. With few exceptions, if we're being smashed despite PS, SB, SoA, Aegis, LoD, etc., the small heals and slight armor buffs just aren't going to make a significant difference. The main exceptions are things like Watch Yourself, Shields Up, etc., which are party-wide and can be maintained indefinitely with one or two characters. But single-target stuff like Conviction, Mystic Regen, Healing Signet, etc. just doesn't matter. All the big damage is caught by preprotting, and diffuse damage gets mopped up by LoD. I have to disagree...mystic regen in combination with great dwarven armor or conviction keep the damage way down.

The other day I was playing with a monk from my guild and after the mission she went on to tell me how she enjoys playing in a group with a good dervish because they are so low maintenance. Not requiring much healing since they can do it themselves.

Str0b0

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Feb 2006

North Carolina

N/Me

Whenever I play my preferred builds I never need monk support. I do need a party most of the time just to keep the mobs from all aggroing on me but in a party the monk can usually pay attention to the other chars. I am able to do this and still maintain a helacious damage output. So single target stuff like conviction amd Mystic Regen along with self healing scythe skills like Victorious sweep or reap impurities can mean the difference between a party wipe in a high pressure situation or your monk being able to heal more people because you're not being an energy drain on the monk. I've been complimented by the party monk several times and usually it is a variation of the same thing." Wow. I never had to heal you at all." Then again I usually run EDA or AOM or AOL. EDA pretty much never takes significant damage since all melee is blind. AOM with victorious sweep pretty much heals itself since conditions can't affect you. AoL just kills so damned fast you barely need any defensive enchants at all.

Burst Cancel

Burst Cancel

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Dec 2006

Domain of Broken Game Mechanics

Quote:
Originally Posted by Darkside
I have to disagree...mystic regen in combination with great dwarven armor or conviction keep the damage way down.

The other day I was playing with a monk from my guild and after the mission she went on to tell me how she enjoys playing in a group with a good dervish because they are so low maintenance. Not requiring much healing since they can do it themselves. Get a better monk. Here's something to think about: if your monk is sitting around doing nothing most of the time, why are you even taking a monk?

Mystic Regen serves the same function as LoD - mopping up random damage - except LoD is party wide, spammable, and costs next to nothing. It will not save you from 300+ damage boss fireballs, and that's really the only kind of thing LoD and RoF can't keep up with. Guess what does save you from a 300+ boss fireball: Prot Spirit - yeah, another monk skill.

Conviction means you're giving up an IAS stance. Mystic Regen is just self-targeted Healing Breeze. Both take skill slots that could be used for damage. I'm not sure what builds you guys are running, but on my Dervish builds I can barely squeeze in a res, nevermind defense.

Trust me, I'm a primary monk. Single-target defense doesn't really amount to anything unless you're running a straight-up tank build for something like DoA. Rather than Conviction, how about you bring Watch Yourself! instead?

Str0b0

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Feb 2006

North Carolina

N/Me

The point is not to have a monk sitting around doing nothing it is to be less of a burden on the monk so they can focus their attention elsewhere, you know like characters with little to no ability to self heal or protect.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burst Cancel
Mystic Regen is just self-targeted Healing Breeze. Are you high? With Mystic regen and the right point allotments I can have up to +15 pips of regen at once and still maintain a healthy damage output. What does healing breeze top out at 8? So for 10 energy you get 8 pips of regen for 10 seconds while for the same cost you can get up to 15 if you go heavy on enchants but usually a minimum of 12 with the right point allotments and it lasts twice as long. The extra pips offset degen from bleeding burning and hexes. As for 300 damage boss fireballs? It's called Victorious Sweep and knowing how to herd mobs. Ohh 300 damage fireball, Victorious Sweep on a clustered group that's +240 health and with the Mystic Regen kicking in that's called negligible damage. I don't need a monk the rest of the party does. I had a monk take offense at that once in Ring of Fire once so they stopped healing me and proting me. It didn't bother me one iota.

Don't get huffy because we say we can function without you. Be glad you have a more or less self sufficient party member so you can focus on the squishies and the warriors.

~ Dan ~

Forge Runner

Join Date: Dec 2006

D/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burst Cancel
Conviction means you're giving up an IAS stance. Mystic Regen is just self-targeted Healing Breeze. Both take skill slots that could be used for damage. Heart Of Fury + conviction = stance + enchant = IAS + armour. Ok? And comparing mystic regen with healing breeze has gota be a joke, right?

Refer to the post above this for why self heal is good

blurmedia

Banned

Join Date: Sep 2007

UNCONTROLLABLE RAGE [moko]

I use it for exploring noob islands

Darkside

Darkside

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Dec 2006

Chantry of Secrets

[Angl]

D/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burst Cancel
Get a better monk. Here's something to think about: if your monk is sitting around doing nothing most of the time, why are you even taking a monk?

Mystic Regen serves the same function as LoD - mopping up random damage - except LoD is party wide, spammable, and costs next to nothing. It will not save you from 300+ damage boss fireballs, and that's really the only kind of thing LoD and RoF can't keep up with. Guess what does save you from a 300+ boss fireball: Prot Spirit - yeah, another monk skill.

Conviction means you're giving up an IAS stance. Mystic Regen is just self-targeted Healing Breeze. Both take skill slots that could be used for damage. I'm not sure what builds you guys are running, but on my Dervish builds I can barely squeeze in a res, nevermind defense.

Trust me, I'm a primary monk. Single-target defense doesn't really amount to anything unless you're running a straight-up tank build for something like DoA. Rather than Conviction, how about you bring Watch Yourself! instead? I don't even know where to start with that post. First of all I don't have to sacrifice anything to use a couple defensive skills. I run quite a few enchantments so I get a lot of healing from mystic regeneration. Of course I'm still gonna want a monk behind me for heavy spike damage. I never claimed those two skills made you invincible. Also just wanna say I dunno how you can compare healing breeze to mystic regen...epic fail.

I've been playing my dervish for a long time and it's my main character. I have good survivability and do very good damage. There have been a lot of instances where my entire party wiped and I've was the last one standing. I enjoy being self sufficient...personally I think I run a pretty balanced character. Good damage output to kill and good self healing to keep myself alive. I don't see how that's bad thing.

thor thunder

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Sep 2007

Mass

Cellestial Guard

W/E

BoA IS terrible, Thread closed.
looks are ok but AoG>Balthazar anyday =D
as for its buffs.. you gata be jokeing.. there not even worth talking about.

AoG / AoL <3 =D

Coloneh

Coloneh

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Nov 2006

D/W

AoG is to overnerfed to be useful. it is and always will be useless in pve. and for pvp it dosnt last long without without eternal aura. dont try to argue that one one.....

wsmcasey

wsmcasey

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jul 2005

Right behind you.

HeRo

W/Rt

its good for running in pve, so its not completely useless.

Burst Cancel

Burst Cancel

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Dec 2006

Domain of Broken Game Mechanics

I don't think you guys realize what makes Healing Breeze bad - it has nothing to do with how much it heals, but rather *how* it heals. Specifically, it's an enchantment that gives regen. You know why regen is useless? Because the only thing it's good for is healing small damage and topping off bars - something a monk can do for 5e with LoD. And nevermind the fact that you can't control its healing - sitting at full health with 10 pips of regen is completely meaningless, and sitting at 5 health with 10 pips of regen is completely meaningless. Healing Breeze could be +30 pips and it wouldn't make any difference - and that's the only real strength that Mystic Regen has.

You're missing the fact that if you just got hit with a 300-point fireball, you probably don't have enough health to benefit from the healing boost of Victorious Sweep. You're also ignoring the fact that the 300-point fireball might have killed you if you weren't at full health. Not to mention that plenty of HM enemies in late-game PvE have more health than you to begin with.

Heart of Fury is sub-par due to its low duration/recharge ratio, and the fact that it's an enchantment that a) takes time to cast and b) can be stripped easily. I'd much rather be able to hit an IAS stance while doing something else.

If you think I'm angry that people "don't need me", you've missed the point. Taking a monk allows you to focus your bar more heavily on offense. If you're taking enough defense that you don't even need the monk, then you should take the monk out and put in someone who does damage. Allowing the monk to ignore you isn't nearly the boon you think it is, due to smart usage of prots and party-wide healing from LoD. And again, Watch Yourself is categorically better then Conviction.

The main point here is that your defense and self-heal only works on yourself, and it's only a minor boost. Thus, it only helps when the situation isn't critical to begin with - which is exactly when the monk doesn't need your help. When the shit really hits the fan, neither Conviction nor Mystic Regen are going to make a significant difference over the prot and healing your backline is already pumping out.

Something to think about: outside of real tanking setups, competent warriors haven't taken defense or self-heal to PvE for a while. You'd think they'd bother to slot Endure Pain or Healing Sig, but few good warriors ever do - there's a good reason for that.

Final thing: your individual survivability is meaningless. Healing Hands + Dolyak Sig + Endure Pain warriors are often the last guys standing also, so what? The only thing that ever matters in PvE team play is the team - and your self-heal/defense just doesn't make a significant difference for the team.

Whiskeyjack

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jan 2006

KOFU

Quote:
Final thing: your individual survivability is meaningless. Healing Hands + Dolyak Sig + Endure Pain warriors are often the last guys standing also, so what? The only thing that ever matters in PvE team play is the team - and your self-heal/defense just doesn't make a significant difference for the team. QFT.

I think you are going to have a hard time convincing a lot of people though as some are unreasonably attached to mystic regen and its ilk. I would much rather take a dervish that was geared primarily as a dmg dealer and packing save yourselves! over a derv that loads up on what i call selfish defense(i.e Mystic regen), in my book party defence>individual defence/healing.

Mickey

Mickey

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Feb 2006

Eternal Insight

D/

Let's stop talking about Healing Breeze, and let's continue talking about possible buffs to AoB.

~ Dan ~

Forge Runner

Join Date: Dec 2006

D/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burst Cancel
I don't think you guys realize what makes Healing Breeze bad..
I don't think you know what you're talking about..

Quote: .. - it has nothing to do with how much it heals, but rather *how* it heals. Specifically, it's an enchantment that gives regen. You know why regen is useless? Because the only thing it's good for is healing small damage and topping off bars - something a monk can do for 5e with LoD. And nevermind the fact that you can't control its healing - sitting at full health with 10 pips of regen is completely meaningless, and sitting at 5 health with 10 pips of regen is completely meaningless. Healing Breeze could be +30 pips and it wouldn't make any difference - and that's the only real strength that Mystic Regen has. If you reduce the damage by quite a bit (+ armour, veil + armor of sancitity or whatever way..) then the regen does well for mopping up excess / niggly damage. Saves the monk alot of work, actually. You'll be surpised how much health is healed by 10pips of regen every 5 secs.

Quote: You're missing the fact that if you just got hit with a 300-point fireball, you probably don't have enough health to benefit from the healing boost of Victorious Sweep. You're also ignoring the fact that the 300-point fireball might have killed you if you weren't at full health. Not to mention that plenty of HM enemies in late-game PvE have more health than you to begin with. Yes obviously Victorious wouldn't be used to counter a 300 fireball hit. But you have to make extreme examples just to show a monk is needed. We all know that a bit of self heal won't stop something as powerful as an ele boss and that a monk would be needed, so just stop argueing that.

Quote: Heart of Fury is sub-par due to its low duration/recharge ratio, and the fact that it's an enchantment that a) takes time to cast and b) can be stripped easily. I'd much rather be able to hit an IAS stance while doing something else. - It lasts 24 / 30 seconds. Hardly sub-par.
- 3/4 sec is not a long time to stand still, ya know.
- Eternal Aura can be used to keep it up almost all the time.
- Stripped easily? Maybe if you played a dervish you would know about covering enchants. Seeing as your a monk it's quite surprising how you would think it's stripped so easily.

Quote: If you think I'm angry that people "don't need me", you've missed the point. Taking a monk allows you to focus your bar more heavily on offense. If you're taking enough defense that you don't even need the monk, then you should take the monk out and put in someone who does damage. No, you are missing the point it seems. A bit of self heal does not damage your DPS at all, tbh.. But it does a great job of easing the monk's job.

Quote:
The main point here is that your defense and self-heal only works on yourself, and it's only a minor boost. I wouldn't call it minor, but whatever. The main point is the dervish is frontline. The main point is the fact he'll be taking all the aggro. The main point is that he needs to stay alive moreso than the squishies out of harms way.

Quote:
Something to think about: outside of real tanking setups, competent warriors haven't taken defense or self-heal to PvE for a while. You'd think they'd bother to slot Endure Pain or Healing Sig, but few good warriors ever do - there's a good reason for that. That they have higher base AL, etc? There's also a reason why Dervish and Warrior playstyles are different, about time you realise that.

Quote:
The only thing that ever matters in PvE team play is the team - and your self-heal/defense just doesn't make a significant difference for the team. Yes it does, but you have to compare it to a HM ele boss fireball in order to show its negligible.

Please stop posting now and go back to your monk forum, because as mickey stated, it's gone way off topic. Thanks bb.

Whiskeyjack

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jan 2006

KOFU

Quote:
I don't think you know what you're talking about..
He/she looks lie they know what they are talking about to me. Burst canclel made a reasonably detailed post on why these type's of skills are bad, if you disagree with the reasoning as to why, I am sure many would be interested to hear your counter argument.

Quote:
If you reduce the damage by quite a bit (+ armour, veil + armor of sancitity or whatever way..) then the regen does well for mopping up excess / niggly damage. Saves the monk alot of work, actually. You'll be surpised how much health is healed by 10pips of regen every 5 secs. But that would be a tanking build and tanking fails. If your monk does not suck the dmg you will take will be negligible, so all Mystic regen will do is overheal, so basically its 10e and a skill slot wasted. While it may save the monk a bit of work as you put it, it creates additional work for the rest of the team as they need to produce additional damage becasue the frontliner is not pulling his weight.

I pretty much agree with your points on Victorious sweep and HoF though, both are fine.

Quote:
I wouldn't call it minor, but whatever. The main point is the dervish is frontline. The main point is the fact he'll be taking all the aggro. The main point is that he needs to stay alive moreso than the squishies out of harms way. Your job as frontliner should be to bodyblock and deal dmg, any attempt at "tanking" is misguided. If you want to support your party take SY! which can be easily spammed on a derv. If the rest of the party is taking significantly reduced dmg then the monk will have an easier time Prot/healing you.

Don't take this as a personnal attack on you please it is not intended as such.

Darkside

Darkside

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Dec 2006

Chantry of Secrets

[Angl]

D/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Whiskeyjack
He/she looks lie they know what they are talking about to me. Burst canclel made a reasonably detailed post on why these type's of skills are bad, if you disagree with the reasoning as to why, I am sure many would be interested to hear your counter argument.



But that would be a tanking build and tanking fails. If your monk does not suck the dmg you will take will be negligible, so all Mystic regen will do is overheal, so basically its 10e and a skill slot wasted. While it may save the monk a bit of work as you put it, it creates additional work for the rest of the team as they need to produce additional damage becasue the frontliner is not pulling his weight.

I pretty much agree with your points on Victorious sweep and HoF though, both are fine.



Your job as frontliner should be to bodyblock and deal dmg, any attempt at "tanking" is misguided. If you want to support your party take SY! which can be easily spammed on a derv. If the rest of the party is taking significantly reduced dmg then the monk will have an easier time Prot/healing you.

Don't take this as a personnal attack on you please it is not intended as such. I won't comment on your entire post but I will say this...I use mystic regen on my build. I haven't taken it off my skill bar since I got it. I still have plenty of room to take any attack skills I need. My dps does not suffer because of this. I do pretty wild damage in fact. So why not bring the extra armor and self heal if you can still do a lot of damage? I'd call that a balanced build. I don't understand how you can think taking two skills (conviction+mystic regen) would ruin your dps.

Whiskeyjack

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jan 2006

KOFU

I am not going to criticize your build, though i do feel that skill slot could be better used with SY! Regardless of that the poster i responded to listed 4 skills,conviction/veil/sanctity/mystic regen+I would assume a res. Thats a considerable investment of attribute points and skill slots for no real purpose.

Burst cancel already explained why regen is bad so i won't bother trying to convince you further. As long as you have 14 scythe, DW, Ias and decent attacks you will do fine.

Str0b0

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Feb 2006

North Carolina

N/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burst Cancel
I don't think you guys realize what makes Healing Breeze bad - it has nothing to do with how much it heals, but rather *how* it heals. Specifically, it's an enchantment that gives regen. You know why regen is useless? Because the only thing it's good for is healing small damage and topping off bars - something a monk can do for 5e with LoD. And nevermind the fact that you can't control its healing - sitting at full health with 10 pips of regen is completely meaningless, and sitting at 5 health with 10 pips of regen is completely meaningless. Healing Breeze could be +30 pips and it wouldn't make any difference - and that's the only real strength that Mystic Regen has.
Ok You, like so many other people, seem to have this impression that dervish players slap on Mystic Regen and say "Okie Dokie I'm healin' now." That isn't how it works. We use other self healing skills to augment the impressive regen from Mystic Regen. Now when you effectively do not have to worry about degen effects sapping your health, self healing, even with just a +80 gain every 4 seconds not to mention the health gain from Mysticism which is a constant with dervishes. Hell put vital boon and a stripping attack on and you get a much more significant heal. The point is arguing against Mystic Regen as if it is the only avenue a good dervish player uses to self heal is pointless since that NEVER happens with a competent dervish player.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burst Cancel You're missing the fact that if you just got hit with a 300-point fireball, you probably don't have enough health to benefit from the healing boost of Victorious Sweep. You're also ignoring the fact that the 300-point fireball might have killed you if you weren't at full health. Not to mention that plenty of HM enemies in late-game PvE have more health than you to begin with.
Once again you aren't allowing for the more or less constant flow of self healing a dervish is able to generate. I have 400 some odd health on my dervish, not sure of the exact amount. My bar barely fluctuates during HM combat. I take hits, even running EDA, but the more or less constant influx of health from my skills heals it almost as soon as it happens. Whether I use victorious, yes it works even in HM if your leading attacks are strong enough, or reap impurities with my EDA build the end result is the same, they die I barely notice the onslaught.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burst Cancel Heart of Fury is sub-par due to its low duration/recharge ratio, and the fact that it's an enchantment that a) takes time to cast and b) can be stripped easily. I'd much rather be able to hit an IAS stance while doing something else.
A) A Competent Dervish precasts
B) As a monk you should know all about enchant covering and stacking. I know as a dervish player I know all about it and remain constantly aware of my enchant order. With Mysticism even mass strips are barely more than an annoyance since you can recast, even mid combat, your vital enchants.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burst Cancel If you think I'm angry that people "don't need me", you've missed the point. Taking a monk allows you to focus your bar more heavily on offense. If you're taking enough defense that you don't even need the monk, then you should take the monk out and put in someone who does damage. Allowing the monk to ignore you isn't nearly the boon you think it is, due to smart usage of prots and party-wide healing from LoD. And again, Watch Yourself is categorically better then Conviction. The entire tone of your post came off as hostile and wounded. A Dervish does not have to make that decision. A dervish can be an unstoppable killing machine and a damage sponge at the same time. You mention prots and healing but as I've said I've had monks ignore me before in end game areas and in HM and it didn't bother me one iota. As long as there is a party to keep the aggro from focusing solely on me then I can function without support.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burst Cancel
The main point here is that your defense and self-heal only works on yourself, and it's only a minor boost. Thus, it only helps when the situation isn't critical to begin with - which is exactly when the monk doesn't need your help. When the shit really hits the fan, neither Conviction nor Mystic Regen are going to make a significant difference over the prot and healing your backline is already pumping out. Calling the dervish self heals minor is an understatement. Vital boon and signet of pious light, two commonly used dervish self heals, are cheap and just as effective as most commonly used none elite monk heals. If the last part of your statement were true then logically in a party wipe situation as soon as the healing back line fell then any dervish that was surviving by virtue of that back line's healing and support would die. This is patently not the case. Dervishes are usually the last one standing and, as is often the case with my derv, can often finish off the enemy group and then res the party.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burst Cancel
Something to think about: outside of real tanking setups, competent warriors haven't taken defense or self-heal to PvE for a while. You'd think they'd bother to slot Endure Pain or Healing Sig, but few good warriors ever do - there's a good reason for that. Flawed argument. Warriors don't take those things because warriors have the highest natural AL in the game. Dervish natural AL is 70 that is close to a 50% increase in damage that dervishes take naturally that warrior armor soaks.

Quote: I thought i did provide my counter argument to his / her points..

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burst Cancel
Final thing: your individual survivability is meaningless. Healing Hands + Dolyak Sig + Endure Pain warriors are often the last guys standing also, so what? The only thing that ever matters in PvE team play is the team - and your self-heal/defense just doesn't make a significant difference for the team. Again if I'm the last one standing with a res how does that make my survivability unimportant to the team? I cannot count the number of times I have been in that situation. I am the last one standing after the rest of the frontline fails. The backline collapses and I have to finish off the enemy group and then res the monk so they can get everyone else. Seems to me my personal survivability aids the party by preventing failed missions. Once again you miss my point. I'm not saying that a dervish in the party means no monks allowed. I am saying that I as a dervish player do not need you to bother with me. Save your energy for someone that needs it. A Dervishes job is not to be party support. If I choose to selfishly self heal, thus improving my personal survivability and giving you one more strong link in the frontline, which is all that is keeping you, the monk from a nasty axe-borne death, then let me. Your job is party support and buffs. My job is to kill things.

~ Dan ~

Forge Runner

Join Date: Dec 2006

D/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Whiskeyjack
He/she looks lie they know what they are talking about to me. Burst canclel made a reasonably detailed post on why these type's of skills are bad, if you disagree with the reasoning as to why, I am sure many would be interested to hear your counter argument.
But that would be a tanking build and tanking fails. If your monk does not suck the dmg you will take will be negligible, so all Mystic regen will do is overheal, so basically its 10e and a skill slot wasted. While it may save the monk a bit of work as you put it, it creates additional work for the rest of the team as they need to produce additional damage becasue the frontliner is not pulling his weight. No, it wouldn't. I'm talking maybe armour of sanctity + veil of thorns + mystic regen. That's just 3 slots, that's not a tank. But you get mass snaring / 15+ damage reduction / 9+ regen pips, without much earth spec. A nice way to spend 3 slots if you ask me.

Whiskeyjack

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jan 2006

KOFU

You also listed conviction, and i assume a rez(if i am wrong correct me). Thats 5(maybe 4) skills. Now you need and ias which is important for a frontliner, so that leaves you 2 slots free. Anyway if you really want to discuss this further open a thread, we are kind of derailing this one.

Burst Cancel

Burst Cancel

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Dec 2006

Domain of Broken Game Mechanics

There's too much here to reply to with quote-wars, and most of my counterargument is going to be reiterating points you guys glossed over, so I'm going to try and keep this short with bullet form:

- In non-critical situations, the monk doesn't need your help with healing. Regen is generally only meaningful in non-critical situations. Therefore, regen is meaningless.
- Due to LoD, healing extra people is literally no burden. Whether one person is below 80% or all 8 people are below 80% doesn't make any difference to me. Therefore, being able to heal yourself doesn't significantly reduce the monk's burden.
- Bosses consistently do hundreds of damage that your regen simply isn't going to account for. The reason I bring it up is, if you can't deal with that kind of damage on your own, the monk doesn't care. Small damage doesn't take the monk any effort to heal. If you still need the monk for big damage, you're not actually helping your monk.
- If you're bringing more healing to 'supplement' Mystic Regen, you're using more skill slots.
- Heart of Fury actually only lasts 18s (http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Heart_of_Fury) at 13 attribute, with +20% if you swap to an enchanting weapon to cast. Eternal Aura is a good argument here, but using Aura to power Fury takes another skill slot as well as devoting more time to simply cast enchantments, which forces you to stop moving or attacking. It's not a bad trade if you're using an Avatar, since you need Aura anyway, but it's still strictly worse than an IAS stance, which can be activated at any time and is less likely to be removed.
- Cover enchantments isn't a persuasive argument, because enchantment removal rarely comes solo. It's more typical that you run into several enemies that have enchantment removal.
- Again, I don't know what bars you guys use, but I rarely have space for defense.
- I don't know where you got "hostile and wounded". Again, I don't PuG, so I don't care if the average party 'needs me' or not, and I'm all for making parties with the most effectiveness, rather than being a nice person. If I sound frustrated it's because I've argued issues very similar to the stuff I'm seeing in this thread in the past, and it feels like shouting at a brick wall to have to argue the same things again.
- The AL difference isn't the reason - Warriors started taking significant damage with the advent of HM, and yet they still don't take defense or self-heal in those areas. As I stated above, it simply doesn't make enough of a difference. The monk doesn't really care if only one person out of 8 is slightly harder to kill, and things like Prot Spirit and Spirit Bond make armor level less of an issue when used correctly.
- I don't bother accounting for party wiping, for two reasons: 1) it should never happen in the first place (and rarely does), and 2) you can avoid party wiping by running away when you realize the wipe is going to happen. If you can't tell you're going to party wipe until several players are down and you're out of sigs, the problem is your battlefield awareness rather than any lack of defense.

I will say this much - if my team was 6 dervishes and 2 monks, you could make an argument for every Dervish taking Mystic Regen and Conviction, because making the whole team harder to kill is significant. That's why Paragons are so good. For instance, rather than Conviction you could just run something like Watch Yourself, which only takes one character and already affects the whole party. Wait, I've said that, what, 3 times now?

Str0b0

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Feb 2006

North Carolina

N/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burst Cancel
- Again, I don't know what bars you guys use, but I rarely have space for defense. Ok this is the bar I run.

[skill]Wild Blow[/skill] or Zealous Sweep depends on the area,[skill]Reap Impurities[/skill],[skill]Victorious Sweep[/skill]or[skill]Chilling Victory[/skill],[skill]Heart of Fury[/skill],[skill]Ebon Dust Aura[/skill],[skill]Mystic Regeneration[/skill],[skill]Aura of Thorns[/skill], Insert res of choice here.

Sometimes I swap out Aura of Thorns for [skill]Vital Boon[/skill] and if I do that then instead of Victorious or Chilling I take [skill]Pious Assault[/skill]

I use this same build both in NM and HM and that is why I do not need a monk. It is simplicity itself. I do not have to worry about melee at all. They are all blind. So the only damage I sweat is caster damage. I pretty much have a constant 12 pips of regen so degen effects from hexes or burning or bleeding or poison is easy to shrug off. I always carry one scythe attack that has bonus damage and a self heal thus keeping my influx of health at a more or less constant level. Now with melee blinded I can forget about them most of the time and let them futilely try to take out my backline allowing me to focus on the casters. I take out ele's, then rits, then monks then finish off any mesmers or necros before returning to the melee and helping to mop them up. I am constantly blinding the casters which provides no damage reduction benefit but makes them easy prey for reap impurities. Because even boss casters still have paper armor they rarely take more than one attack sequence to completely destroy and one attack sequence rarely gives them more than one opportunity to cast a damaging spell. So yes I can take a 300 damage fireball, go kill the damn guy and shrug it off easily because he will not get a chance to finish me off before I kill him. So as you can see I have no need for a monk to help me at all. Like it or not there is nothing you can do for me except augment my already near impervious defense and frankly that would be like putting a pad lock on Fort Knox and saying you made a bigger contribution to the security of it than the walls and turrets and soldiers. Whether your points are technically or theoretically correct is immaterial when I know for a fact, by virtue of playing the game and seeing the results, that I can function within a party without monk support and be completely and totally effective. I have noticed that a couple other respected and competent dervish players on this forum have corroborated my observations through their own in game experiences.

Now you say you play a dervish and I assume it is your experiences as a dervish and a monk that shape your view. The way I see it as a monk you are used to having people depend on you in the party. Perhaps you are grouping with sub-par people? Or perhaps the people you group with just feel more comfortable relying on the monk for their survival than I do? In my experience I'd rather not leave it up to the monk. In my experience a monk is unable to significantly help my survivability in any way if I am relying solely on them for defensive support and healing. So in order to keep me from having to consistently put monks that failed on my ignore list I chose to create a build that gives me a perfect balance of defensive and offensive capabilities. As a dervish you say you rarely have room for defense. You are either extremely lucky in your groupings with monks or you run a lot of hero monks because in my experience a dervish specced for full on offense is going to die pretty quick. It's like a ranger running to the front line without an avoidance stance on. You have 70 armor you think that is supposed to be your defense? In HM? Riiiiight. Protection spells are generally too short in duration for my tastes but then again I hate taking on piddly groups. I'd rather combine two or three groups on a map and take them all at once as opposed to the tedious "pull and run" strategies often employed by groups. With H/H teams I consistently do this but with real humans I tend not to be so reckless since they may or may not share my enthusiasm and aptitude for mass combat.

Now I am sure you will attempt to pick apart my build and my strategy but allow me to say one thing. It works. Any point you may make will be overshadowed by the fact that I know it works. I play it all the time. I've seen it work without monk support consistently in end game areas and HM,you may have noticed that I tend to be a little abrasive with monks. That being said have you ever tried not healing or protting the dervish on your team? I doubt that you have. If you did and they died that still doesn't prove that all dervishes need monk support or are better with monk support it simply proves that that player is incapable of playing one without monk support.

~ Dan ~

Forge Runner

Join Date: Dec 2006

D/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Whiskeyjack
You also listed conviction, and i assume a rez(if i am wrong correct me). Thats 5(maybe 4) skills. Now you need and ias which is important for a frontliner, so that leaves you 2 slots free. Anyway if you really want to discuss this further open a thread, we are kind of derailing this one. I mean either / or. Conviction + Mystic Regen OR Mystic Regen + veil and sanctity. I hardly use conviction, and rarely all 3 of the other option all at once. But it was an example for giving decent self heal. Anyhow, say you have conviction + mystic regen, and res. That's 3 slots, not 5. Add ias, 2 attack skills and you have 2 free slots.

Just thought i'd clear that up for you.

I won't bother argueing Burst Cancel's points as 1) (s)he does not listen 2) (s)he clearly has no experience with dervish 3) (s)he has said nothing towards the topic in this thread.

Burst Cancel

Burst Cancel

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Dec 2006

Domain of Broken Game Mechanics

Re Str0b0: I can see by your post that you continue to miss the point. You are incredibly concerned about whether you 'need a monk or not'. Furthermore, by your statement, "whether you like it or not", I gather that you still believe, despite all of my statements to the contrary, that I hold some kind of resentment that I am 'not needed', and that people can play without me. Other statements, such as, "The way I see it as a monk you are used to having people depend on you in the party", support this.

I am going to state this for the last time: I do not, nor have I ever, cared if anyone needed a monk. My primary field of play is/was GvG, and all of my PvE is done with H/H or friends. Whether anyone needs me or not has absolutely no bearing on my arguments or my disposition. It is simply a complete non-issue.

I have stated, I think twice now, that if you don't need a monk, don't take one. You have nothing further to contribute to the argument, because this argument simply doesn't concern people who are trying to survive without a monk. Rather, the argument is predicated on the assumption that you are using a balanced team that includes a standard frontline/midline/backline configuration. If you have arranged your own build such that one of these character types is no longer necessary, then the argument is obviously no longer relevant to you.

That said, there are several things you would like to point out:
- Ebon Dust Aura is a defensive elite, and the sacrifice in offensive power is not trivial when you consider what you could have replaced it with.
- Prot Spirit makes your 70AL irrelevant. Particularly against HM enemies, it is unlikely that additional AL would reduce damage significantly below PS's threshold.
- Your assertion that monks do not improve your survivability is simply not credible, when you consider the type and number of tools they have that are solely devoted to that purpose. Furthermore, if monks did not improve survivability, you would not see anyone playing them, nor would anyone group with one, and they would not be staples in all forms of PvP. Either the monks you play with are plainly incompetent, or you are simply being disingenuous and argumentative.
- On my Dervish I run henchmen monks, actually, because I like using my hero slots for offense (e.g., Elementalists).
- 'It works' is a meritless argument. I can H/H with an empty skillbar - it works, so it must be good, right? Clearly, Healing Hands wammo bars 'work' also, but you don't see any competent players running that. I won't speak on the merits of your build, because your post suggests that you are very proud of it and therefore would be sensitive to criticism (to the point where you are even trying to preempt criticism ...), but I am forced to point out that 'It works' is not a valid defense.

Re dan-the-noob: contrary to 'not listening', I have refuted your points twice now without a persuasive counter-argument from you.

Str0b0

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Feb 2006

North Carolina

N/Me

I'm sorry I thought the entire point of this was whether I could function as effectively with a monk as without so whether or not it works is, in fact, the crux of the argument. Comparing my skill bar to an empty one or a wammo with HH doesn't really support your point because H/H and an empty bar still implies the inclusion of a monk and take away the monk support from a HH wammo and they fail. My point is that a monk can't do anything for me. The fact that a monk cannot improve my survivability is credible and is supported by my first hand observations when a monk decided to stop supporting me because I got ill with them. As for whether anyone else needs them I have said time and time again that the rest of the party does, hence why people play them and play with them.

As for the merits of my build you could pick it apart but I've vanquished all of NF and half of Prophecies with it. I've done many many many groups with it and no one has ever had anything detrimental to say about it. I don't deny the fact that I could have used an offensive elite but then again that wasn't the purpose of the build to begin with. The purpose was to neutralize melee and let me focus on the big guns. To that end it works just fine since you hardly need an uber offense elite to take down squishies. Protective spirit doesn't last long enough for me to even consider it to be effective regardless of spammability. I have yet to meet a monk that can maintain it adequately between a multi member front line. In other words if you can't keep it on me at all times without fail then you fail, especially in HM. So rather than deal with that glaring inadequacy I opted to instead be solely responsible for my own survivability. Whether you like me or not, whether you like my build or not, or whether you think I'm right or not the whole argument was based on whether or not a dervish could function effectively in a party without monk support. I can. I do often. Maybe I'm the exception and not the rule, but even if that is the case if one person can learn to do it then anyone can which means that yes they can and it also means I'm right.

I am finished with this argument. You can't convince me you are correct and I am not. I know I'm right because I do exactly what you are telling me I shouldn't or can't do all the time and it doesn't make any significant difference.I don't know what evidence you could possibly present to me to change my mind on this matter when I have seen with my own eyes my effectiveness in game and been complimented by other people in game about my build and it's usefulness in party. Outside of presenting me with documentation of me dieing consistently without monk support there is nothing you can say to prove your point to me.

draxynnic

draxynnic

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Nov 2005

[CRFH]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burst Cancel
- Heart of Fury actually only lasts 18s (http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Heart_of_Fury) at 13 attribute, with +20% if you swap to an enchanting weapon to cast. Eternal Aura is a good argument here, but using Aura to power Fury takes another skill slot as well as devoting more time to simply cast enchantments, which forces you to stop moving or attacking. It's not a bad trade if you're using an Avatar, since you need Aura anyway, but it's still strictly worse than an IAS stance, which can be activated at any time and is less likely to be removed. I just had to nitpick this point.

First, none of the Dervish IAS stances are better - they all have longer recharge than duration. You can get past this by taking a secondary such as Warrior with IAS stances that can be kept up continuously, but they also have their own downsides as well as removing the option to have something else as your secondary.

Second, while the enchantments do take time to put up - Eternal Aura has a nifty side-effect of dealing 88 armour-ignoring damage to all nearby foes when it's applied. I'll happily take that over half a swing with a scythe. Heart of Fury also has the 3 seconds of burning when it comes off, which unless the targets are already on fire - or immune - seems a decent trade for less than half of a swing. In other words, while they do take up slots, using them isn't taking away time from dealing damage - they deal damage directly as well as through augmenting your build.

~ Dan ~

Forge Runner

Join Date: Dec 2006

D/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burst Cancel
Re dan-the-noob: contrary to 'not listening', I have refuted your points twice now without a persuasive counter-argument from you. I have provided cuonter arguments but you just will not listen, therefore anymore would just be a waste of my time.

Magikarp

Magikarp

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2007

[HAWK]

im new to this forum, and theres a lot of "debating", but AoB is tripe. play melandru or ob flesh if you want real results......

or just play a warrior..

Tyla

Emo Goth Italics

Join Date: Sep 2006

Quote:
Originally Posted by Magikarp
im new to this forum, and theres a lot of "debating", but AoB is tripe. play melandru or ob flesh if you want real results......

or just play a warrior.. warrior playstyles are different to a derv though:P

but on subject.
may have been said before
but AoB's buffs are weak,never needed and can be witnessed in non elite skills
kthx

Whiskeyjack

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jan 2006

KOFU

Quote:
Originally Posted by dan-the-noob
I mean either / or. Conviction + Mystic Regen OR Mystic Regen + veil and sanctity. I hardly use conviction, and rarely all 3 of the other option all at once. But it was an example for giving decent self heal. Anyhow, say you have conviction + mystic regen, and res. That's 3 slots, not 5. Add ias, 2 attack skills and you have 2 free slots.

Just thought i'd clear that up for you.

I won't bother argueing Burst Cancel's points as 1) (s)he does not listen 2) (s)he clearly has no experience with dervish 3) (s)he has said nothing towards the topic in this thread. Ok last off topic post from me. Burst cancel has explained why Regen is bad, lets take the example of the 300 dmg fireball ( i guess the monk most have fallen asleep), it will take mystic regen 15 seconds to recover that health-so it fails versus large dmg packets. What therefore is it's purpose, lot's of small dmg packets can easily be stopped by prot or mopped up by LoD, so in reality mystic regen doesnt do anything for you. Now consider SY! in that slot, its easily spammed by a derv and provides an 82.5% dmg reduction for ALL party members in earshot. Which do you think is going to make your monk's life easier?

Strobo seem' to have his head in the sand so there seems little point in responding to his post's

On Topic: I doubt AoB will ever get the rework it needs so i guess it will remain one of those trash elites that every profession has to put up with.

Magikarp

Magikarp

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2007

[HAWK]

Quote:
Originally Posted by tyla salanari
warrior playstyles are different to a derv though:P

but on subject.
may have been said before
but AoB's buffs are weak,never needed and can be witnessed in non elite skills
kthx only if you want it to be that way. it seems as though AoB players believe they are warriors deep down inside.

ob flesh is still better than anything else, hm, elite zone, or just tanking in general. melandru is the only other thing in the game worth considering next, and i'd take mist form or shadow form before i took AoB.

Whiskeyjack

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jan 2006

KOFU

"ob flesh is still better than anything else"

Better than what? OF tank's are trash, please don't recommend it someone who doesnt know any better might decide to run it.

Magikarp

Magikarp

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2007

[HAWK]

are you serious? OF tanks are fantastic and always have been.. what game do you play?

~ Dan ~

Forge Runner

Join Date: Dec 2006

D/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Magikarp
are you serious? OF tanks are fantastic and always have been.. what game do you play? God knows. Apparently the same game where the best Dervish skill is considered useless

Magikarp

Magikarp

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Nov 2007

[HAWK]

the best derv skills are AoM, VoS, and EDA.

Epic Monkey Battle

Epic Monkey Battle

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Nov 2006

Warrior's Isle

Fat Kids Are Hard To Kid [Nap]

Mo/

The only way I can see all those defensive enchantments making the monks life easier is for a nice bonus from Dwayna's Kiss.

I would personally rather see a derv run out there and use all his massive AoE attacks to kill the groups, because essentially what makes the monk's life the easiest is dead mobs... not you lasting in them while everyone else dies.

Burst Cancel

Burst Cancel

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Dec 2006

Domain of Broken Game Mechanics

Re Str0b0: As I've said twice now, you're arguing something completely different from what I'm arguing. The topics aren't even related: I'm talking about builds in a balanced team, you're building for self-sufficiency. Apples and oranges; ergo, the entire discussion was a waste of time.

You spend a lot of time trying to defend your ability to play without a monk; completely unnecessary, given the circumstances, as nobody is trying to challenge that ability. This is now the fourth time that I'm going to say this: if you don't need a monk, don't take one. Nothing wrong with that. Problem solved, argument over.

However, your assertion that Prot Spirit has a low duration is plainly false, given that it lasts 17s+20% at a mere 10 attribute (http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Protective_Spirit). As such, it has similar durations to Heart of Fury (at 12 attribute) and Mystic Regen, neither of which you seem to have any problems with.

Re Draxynnic: In terms of an IAS, Heart of Fury is sub-par overall simply due to the recharge - and let's be honest here, the burning is hardly worth mentioning given it's 42 total damage over 3 seconds, on a 30s timer. I concede that it's the best Dervish option, so if your secondary doesn't allow an IAS stance, it's the best choice. However, not taking an IAS stance *just* to take Conviction is a bad trade, which was my original point.

Eternal Aura is a good skill, and I've said nothing to the contrary - however, I wouldn't run it unless I needed that recharge for an Avatar or something. The damage on its own simply isn't good enough on a 30s timer.

My problem with casts on a frontline characters is that it forces them to stop whatever they're already doing - whether chasing a target or attacking one - to put up an enchantment at a pretty much set interval. This gets pretty disruptive over time, even with fast-casting enchantments (see, for instance, Vow of Strength builds running in excess of 3~4 constantly re-casted enchantments). And again, there's much more enchantment removal in the game than stance removal.

Ultimately, my final point in this has always been: in a balanced team (i.e., with monk backline), there is no reason to sacrifice offensive strength for self-only healing/defense. If you're going to bring defense, make it party wide or leave it at home; it just doesn't make enough of a difference otherwise. The exception is more-or-less pure tanking builds in areas such as DoA.

And I hope that's the last I have to say on the whole matter.

In any event, have a good weekend guys.

Darkside

Darkside

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Dec 2006

Chantry of Secrets

[Angl]

D/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Burst Cancel
in a balanced team (i.e., with monk backline), there is no reason to sacrifice offensive strength for self-only healing/defense. That's just the point I made earlier adding a couple defensive skills doesn't hurt the offensive strength of most dervish builds! I can still maintain high dps despite the fact that I'm using Great Dwarf Armor + Mystic Regeneration. Removing those two skills and adding two attack skills won't be improving my damage output.