State of the PvE, along the same lines as the Rit and Para updates?

Here's a question. Would anyone like to have a conversation about PvE gaming that doesn't involve PvE-only skills, farming builds, and consumables?

The recent changes to the ritualist and paragon, in this one's humble opinion, were nifty, interesting, and actually improved the game quite a bit. Ritualists got a nice boost to one of their core themes, paragons received some nifty tricks that don't involve Imba builds, and a few Hard Mode bosses became quite sinister thanks to the overall buffs. Your mileage may very, but overall, I think they were a major improvement.

So.

I put this question before you, participants of That Which Is Guru. Aside from the hot topics of PvE, how goes your gaming across the continents?

Does the Water attribute need improvement?
Is Beast Mastery lacking, overall?
Do you have any ideas on improving the Dervish's use of the scythe to keep him on par with other classes using his own weapon?
Do Nature Spirits need a twist?
Hammer much? No, really, how is it?

Clarification: These were just questions to start things up, feel free to talk about anything from assassins to shortbows, axes to avatars, inspiration to IAS.

Share your thoughts on bits and pieces of the overall PvE skillset that you think could use some tweaking. Perhaps there is an attribute line about which you would like to complain? Or do you have suggestions that could change a character concept for the better?

Because it would be nice to see a conversation around here that isn't "This single skill is ruining the game because of this one explorable area gets easier", and a little more "I think that something needs to be done to improve the effectiveness of the dervish in day to day fighting" or "Here's an idea about the Tactics attribute to make it more interesting."

When in doubt, brainstorm a bit.

Thoughts?

I say they should buff dervs for pve, dervs in pvp are just fun to play

If Heart of Fury were maintainable, it would go a long way towards making dervishes better with scythes (it wouldn't be enough on it's own, but it would certainly help).

Pet death needs to not disable skills. As it is now, pets are either all or nothing. I feel like pets were meant to be more of an extra, though; something you threw on to fill out a build, rather than be the focal point of it. The pokemon center Anet threw in leads me to believe this to be the case. However, because pets are more of a liability than anything else unless you devote your build to them, no one uses them except dedicated beastmasters.

Does the Water attribute need improvement?

To some degree, yes. Although water is VERY effective in PvP, it offers no benefits in PvE. I mean, sure it's nice to have Blurred Vision on a bar, but it's not any better than other skills. Water needs a big PvE buff to make it more of a shut-down attribute. Currently there is no real need to snare things, so maybe there needs to be a change to the way it works in PvE.


Is Beast Mastery lacking, overall?

Beast Mastery, for a lack of a better word, is shit. There's really no other way to put it. It's a huge waste of attributes, unless you're running Rampage as One, and we all know that RaO doesn't use ANY pet skills. Needs a huge revamp.

Do you have any ideas on improving the Dervish's use of the scythe to keep him on par with other classes using his own weapon?

Not much you can do to change the Dervish without making it overpowered.

Do Nature Spirits need a twist?

Used to be overpowered, then were fixed, then were bad. Couple more updates and they were strong again, then some more updates and bad. They should make them strong. Like the Rit changes. Just buff the hell out of them.

Hammer much? No, really, how is it?

Hammer is good actually. Earthshaker is probably the 2nd best Warrior bar in PvE, behind Dragon Slash. Huge damage, fantastic KDs, does everything you need it to.

Does the Water attribute need improvement?

Water magic is ok in PvP, but it's completely worthless in PvE (as far as I know). A buff for PvE would be nice.

Is Beast Mastery lacking, overall?

I actually think Beast Mastery would be good if some pet mechanics were fixed. For example, if pets would switch targets faster and did not delay their attacks after arriving at a target, they would be more effective. Also, pet attacks should work similarly to other attacks. If I use a pet attack skill, my pet should drop whatever he's doing and attempt to use the attack.

Do you have any ideas on improving the Dervish's use of the scythe to keep him on par with other classes using his own weapon?

Someone in another thread had an idea about scaling the scythe aoe with Mysticism. So, a dervish with points in Mysticism could attack up to 3 foes at once, while other professions could only attack one target.

Do Nature Spirits need a twist?

It would be nice if the casting time of Nature Rituals could be reduced (not as low as binding rituals). And the functionality of useless spirits like Equinox, Primal Echos, Muddy Terrain, Fertile Season, Roaring Winds, and others could be changed.

Hammer much? No, really, how is it?

Hammers are actually pretty effective. I've seen Earth Shaker being used quite a bit.

Making heart of fury maintainable doesn't make dervs better than warrs or sins.

But, what Fenix said.

First of all, I like this thread already.

Water Magic -- Yes, it could use an improvement. In general, I think Elementalists should be buffed so that they play a more central role in team support both offensively and defensively. I would like to see more 12/9/9 or 12/10/8 splits viable in the Elementalist line. I've said this before, but it's worth saying again: buff Water and/or Earth magic to provide more consistent party support without doing insane damage. At the same time, yes, there should be a way to produce better damage in HM as an Elementalist. However, even without that, Eles have some great options for party support that have far too long of a recharge or far too little benefit for the attribute investment or even the investment of an Ele in your party lineup. More skills like Maelstrom with disabling functionalities and more effective snares/debuffs like Blurred Vision would bring Eles back into being useful. Plus, it would encourage skillful play instead of just hammering 5 fire spells on a mob and praying they stay in the hellstorm long enough to die.

Beast Mastery -- Yes, it is lacking, severely. There are several things wrong.

1. Several "use and leave" skills that are too powerful to ignore when using a pet but are incredibly underpowered in the scheme of things and incredibly boring due to the cast on recharge nature of them. They're very cool for buffing pets, but they're skill slots that are ultimately wasted because of...

2. Terrible pet AI. In my opinion, speed buffs and increased attack speeds. When you toss an arrow at an enemy, your pet should be there when the arrow lands (pulling, of course, is an exception). This would allow for much better target swapping instead of pets having the same idiot AI as minions but without the explosions on death or the damage mitigation.

Dervishes and Scythes -- In my opinion (as someone who LOVES playing A/D), the Dervish's weakness is in the Mysticism *line*. Yes, the attribute itself is subpar, but the Avatars are a shining example of a good, diverse, fun skill. They've been nerfed several times due to the temporarily overpowering nature of them in PvP settings, but c'mon, everyone knows Warrior's Endurance and WotM/CritAgil kick the crap out of anything the Dervish can produce. Here's what I suggest (and a lot of areas where I find the Dervish to be weak are bundled up in the changes I would make to the avatars):

Balthazar: Add 25% IAS.
Grenth: Cannot be blocked. Make it function properly with Conjure Frost so that you don't have to bring a Cold weapon to trigger Conjure.
Lyssa: +5...21 damage (not just against foes activating skills, but keep bonus damage to reward for good timing, big hits, etc.), and/or energy stealing on attack.
Melandru and Dwayna also need some work to make them suitable for general PvE.

Nature Spirits -- Are obviously incredibly weak, but I really have little opinion on them as I'm not a big fan of Rangers. Without directly buffing the skills themselves, maybe the best solution would be to make them more mobile, some way to dismiss them when you move to the next group that makes them recharge more quickly. Dunno. That's just a thought.

Hammers -- Are not as bad. Earthshaker is a greeeeat skill in quite a few areas (even on heroes), and you can conjure up a decent skill bar with AoE targeting to make use of the knockdown. Sure, it's no Hundred Blades or D-Slash SY, but it's a good skill for general (and some high-end) use. However, like several attribute lines in the game, it has only a handful of good skills that get boring after several uses. The thing with buffing hammers is that they already have the potential for great damage and most skills include debuffs such as KD or weakness, so there's a careful line between creating IMBA builds and giving multiple playable options.

I look forward to reading this thread, in hopes that there will be many great opinions and ideas tossed around and that the same old crap that's mentioned in every other PvE related thread won't come up ^_^.

Er, quick note to clarify: the above questions were just general starting points, feel free to branch out.

For example, I'd say assassins have two problems I would like to see changed.

1) Shadow Stepping. Positioning is vital in PvP, making this mechanic a deadly element. In PvE, not so much. A lot of the assassin's stepping skills are generally lackluster in PvE because of heavy recharge and simple lack of necessity. You generally don't need them to get around a heavy frontline, you can usually just walk.

I'd like to see their options expanded, firstly in a decrease in energy cost and recharge, allowing more active and mobile characters in PvE. Secondly, however, I'd like a shift in some of the actual text. For example...

Spirit Walk: change target spirit to simply target. Allow this to be your basic, I-Want-To-Go-There shadow step. No special effects, no riders, just a simple mobile mechanic.

Aura of Displacement: allow this skill to target enemies or allies. Rather than having Shadow Meld for allies and Aura for enemies, combine the two in PvE, and allow Shadow Meld to have some unique, nifty effect.

Another possibility: add attack chains into shadow stepping. For example: Beguiling Haze: "You Shadow Step to this foe. Inflicts Dazed condition (3...8...9 seconds). This skill counts as a lead attack." Allows compression of the assassin skill bar, and makes a mobility skill also fit nicely into chaining attacks together.

2) Finally, deadly arts needs love. Specifically, if one of the elites were freed up or changed in functionality, it would be great to have a half-ranged spell that acted as a dual attack. Right now, the only bridge between Mantis Touch's offhand rider and Impale's dual requirement is Vampiric Assault, which is a melee skill. If Vampiric were changed into a half-ranged spell, or an elite half-ranged spell was given the ability to count as a dual attack, it would do wonders for mid-line assassin casting.

Yeah, and again, as a big fan of Assassins in general, but in PvE specifically, I completely agree with the shadow stepping. Death's Charge is one of the most basic and functional steps in the game but 30 second recharge? What benefit is there in keeping that recharge so high? It's not like it would be gamebreaking to lower it and allow Assassins to more quickly navigate the battlefield. Okay, maybe lower the heal amount so that you don't self-heal between targets as well with the spammable step.

I'm not a big fan of Deadly Arts =P. Critical Strikes gives Sins several viable builds... after all there's really no martial weapon they can't use efficiently. Still, there's no disguising that it's a weak line. I'll let everyone else take care of suggestions for it though =P.

Every Elementalist attribute is weak in PvE. Water doesn't do anything that matters in PvE because PvE is super easy.


Well, it's weak, but seriously, how much dumber would the game be if pets were awesome?


Link Aura of Holy Might's duration to Mysticism the same way Critical Agility is linked to Critical Strikes.


No.


Awesome.


There's so much broken stuff that it hardly matters.

And we have a winner..
There are too many BROKEN PvE skills in the game as it currently stands, for anyone..be it a theory crafter, build masher, or wanna- be leet farmer... to even attempt to 'fix'.
Any 'improvement' would mean a complete over haul of all the games mechanics.
And I don't see that ever happening. So slip into your tin foil hats..it's gonna be a wild ride until GW2.

Energy Storage: for every rank in Energy Storage, your elementalist skills have +2-3% armor penetration. Armor cannot be reduced below 60AL in this way. This would help a lot vs all the crap armor mobs have in HM.

For water magic, Blurred Vision could use a larger radius of effect, and maybe Maelstrom could use a lower recharge and no exhaustion?

BM is just bad, there's plenty of suggestions out there already.

Dervs... there's another thread about this already but Mysticism needs to give some better benefits... also Dervs need a permanent IAS.

Says someone who runs Barrage on a Rit. Oh okay.



The main problem isn't that things are seriously underpowered, it's that a few things are far too overpowered. Remove SF, remove PvE skills, remove 55/600 etc, and force people to adapt with balanced builds.

But seriously, Barrage on a Rit? That's just appauling. I mean really, is that a joke?

I would like to see the number of foes you can hit scaled similarly to energy gained via Critical Strikes. Inherently you can hit one foe. At eight Scythe Mastery, you can hit two foes. You can hit three foes at thirteen (Maybe fourteen?) Scythe Mastery and above.

Other classes could get around this with cons, but dervishes wouldn't have to worry about that. Just a thought

I don't think changing how many foes you hit is a good idea, they attack too slow and damage radius is too radical to only hit one foe, and buffing avatars won't do much for scythe damage... mysticism needs something that makes derv more appealing.

^ This.

Problem is how to change it without it becoming the next gimmick OP class...
Energy management could be looked at by itself as a start. If you're going for a DPS build on a Derv chances are you wont have the required no of enchantments for Myst to really be effective enough (only build I've used where Myst seems reasonable is Orders...). If e-management is sorted some attacks (Eremites, Mystic, Victorious etc.) could maybe be tweaked a bit...

Maintainable IAS is also a good idea (and needed!) but that by itself will not be enough to make Dervs the best scythe wielders in the game.

Only if you attempt to cause masses of direct damage. Conditioning builds from Air can be pretty effective if you have enough of an imagination to not run Discordway.

BM will always be either too strong or too weak. The AI of a pet is its main limitation.


I'd like to see a cast time reduction but really... no. I really doubt Natures Renewal or Primal Echoes were ever going to be considered for use in PvE and unless they do something insanely overpowered, they never will be. They have powerful effects, mostly long durations, a large radius of effect and you will generally not have lots of spirits ran at once. The main thing is they work on everyone not just foes OR allies.

I definitely agree that Dervishes need a bit of a boost. I put off doing so for so long, but I gave one of my scythes to my Assassin and...she definitely uses it better, though I don't find it nearly so fun as playing my Derv.

A maintainable IAS would be nice. Heart of Fury is a decent skill as it is, but it needs to be longer and/or have a shorter recharge - perhaps change is so that the length of the enchantment is linked to your rank in Mysticism? Even if it did end up not 100% maintainable, it'd still be better than it having so much downtime.

And something needs to be done to give Mysticism a bit of an extra kick. My Dervish is my main and yes, I do use a lot of enchantments and I run Avatar of Lyssa, so I spec pretty high into Mysticism and the e-management from it is helpful, but it's just...it's not really enough. I don't necessarily agree with the idea of increasing scythe AOE via attribute rank. Linking AoHM to Mysticism could help. But even with that, the actual attribute itself needs something to add some oomph, to give a reason to play a Dervish primary over a secondary, but without overpowering the profession. I'm just not entirely sure what...

You know, I'm actually very pleased with this sudden rush to buff dervs/nerf other scythe users. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Yeah, changing Heart of Fury alone isn't enough to fix the derv (which I did note), but I'm trying to think of ideas for buffing dervs that I haven't voiced already. Half the ideas for dervs in this thread I've mentioned at least once.

Hmmm...how about allowing mysticism to give a small innate IAS boost that stacks past the usual 33%? Like 1% or 2% per rank?

Swap the holy conversion on AoHM for an IAS, and make the enchant duration dependent on mysticism. Wala.