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

I'll just talk about the attributes that I or most people think they're weak.

Tactics
Decent. All healing and defensive skills are good enough and some are even interesting to use (Steady Stance, Soldier's Stance, Soldier's Strike, Victory is Mine!).

Beast Mastery
Good. Rampage as One and Edge of Extinction are probably the most popular skills, but I also like Heal as One, Call of Protection, Otyugh's Cry, Run As One, Feral Aggression, Enraged Lunge (in PvP, it's always funny when people lose 100-150 health and don't notice that it came from a little rat; since it doesn't show up in the damage screen ), and I know some builds that make use of Symbiosis, Fertile Season, Poisonous Bite, and Bestial Mauling.

Illusion Magic
Kinda Bad. Other than Signet of Illusions, Wandering Eye, and Clumsiness, most skills are pretty useless compared to skills from other professions. Illusionary Weaponry still has sucky DPS... but I guess Arcane Conundrum and Air of Disenchantment may be useful in some cases. But, overall, it's still "meh".

Water Magic
Decent. Generally, this is only useful against fiery creatures (Winter is a pain to use and can be killed too easily) but it does have a few interesting skills like Blurred Vision, Deep Freeze, Maelstrom, Rust, Water Trident, and Ward Against Harm.

Air Magic
Bad. All of the skills, except Blinding Surge, suck against foes from HM or Elite Areas since Discord/Necrosis does more DPS and the Curses line has better skills to spread weakness and cracked armor.

Communing
Decent. Anguish, Pain and Shadowsong are good DPS spirits with some help from Signet of Ghostly Might. Shelter, Union, and Weapon of Quickening are also quite fun to use.

Motivation
Almost Decent. The party healing is still pretty bad but it has good condition removal skills and I still like Mending Refrain for its ease of use.

Oh, and I think scythes are fine the way they are since Dervishes have the Avatar Forms. I'm not going to bother explaining why Hammer Mastery is good enough already >_>

So the only attributes, that I think need to be buffed, are Illusion Magic, Air Magic, and Motivation.

Imo, Anet has to reconsider skills in a PvE point of view if they want to make PvE versions.

In PvE, fighting a group is rarely longer than 30 seconds (a lot shorter in low-end pve), so things that do not have a significant effect fast enough are not very useful.

There are some classes and specializations that I find quite boring to play, but it's only personal opinion. They should reasonably buff some elites for PvE, some that are under used, to make them better than PvE skills.

For example, eviscerate, and other unused warrior elites, they should give them something that norn or other PvE skills can't do.


And once again, to all those who want "Anet to nerf things to force others to play balanced", you are 100% wrong on how to handle a community of players. Give players more options, and freedom to chose as long as it has no impact on others gameplay.

WHAT DO YOU THINK A SF (or anything else) NERF WILL CHANGE IN A 4+ YEARS OLD GAME ?

If you have a non negative IQ, and some experience about this game, you should realize that a nerf in PvE can never be quite as good as a buff. Who cares about the price of ectos or armbraces ?

The problem is, shadow form isn't giving more options. Nerfing it will give players more options.

It will stop the completion of high-end/elite hard mode areas in under 30 minutes. If you have a non negative IQ, you'll see how that's a good thing.

Also, are you trying to say that instead of nerfing overpowered skills such as shadow form, ANet should buff other skills to the same level? Sure, it would give players more options, but where's the fun in running mega overpowered builds to easily roll through any PvE area over and over and over again for gold?

There are X options now.
You remove SF.
That means that there are now X-1 options.
Less.
This applies to players.


When it comes to farming - there is currently ONE option.
SF.
You remove it and either a new SINGULAR option pops-up or farming ends.


Nerfing removes options.
The end.

I'd like to see some pve versions of dervish skills, like lowering the cost and increasing the duration of some of the avatars. Something simple like the binding ritual change that just makes things a little easier in pve, because I'm a lolcasual scrub.

So what you're saying is that without shadow form, there are less options? With shadow form, there is one option. Without, there will be more than 1. I fail to see your logic here.

You just said it, there is currently ONE option. Without it, there will be these: W/E tank, E/W tank (oh look, there's 2 already), or, possibly, another good tank build will arise. Look at that, that's warrior, elementalist, and possibly another profession with options. Or, maybe, people will realize that having a full out defensive tank is dumb! (Shocking, I know).

Nerfing overpowered skills like shadow form brings in options. Shadow form is vastly superior to any single tank in the game. With shadow form gone, you wouldn't be able to say that about any other tank build in the game.

You're also forgetting that nerfing shadow form isn't just to bring in more options. It's also to kill speed clears. You don't honestly think 2 assassins should be able to duo the entire UW HM in 33 minutes, do you? You're entitled to your opinion, but if you say yes, then I'm going to stop taking you seriously.

Back to the hammer discussion...

In terms of game balance, there should be a balanced trade-off between using a 1-handed weapon + shield/focus vs. a 2-handed weapon. Currently, the game mechanics for weapon mods on 1-handed and 2-handed martial weapons is the same. Each can have just 1 prefix, 1 suffix and an inscription. As a result, with the one-hand weapon plus shield/focus options, you wind up getting more AL/energy, and the benefit of 2 extra item mods. Also, with the exception of Daggers, 1-handed weapons attack faster than 2-handed weapons. To balance all of this, the benefit for using 2-handed weapons should offset that somehow.

Daggers - have opportunity to double-strike
Scythe - has opportunity to hit multiple foes
Bow - has benefit of range
Hammer - ???

I would say Hammer has the benefit of more damage, but it deals less than a Scythe so that is not the case. Not factoring in any skills, hammers appear rather gimped compared to the other martial weapons.

Hence, it would seem that addressing hammers should start with balancing of the weapon itself, before any skills are considered. The hammer could provide built-in armor penetration or some other bonus.

The thing is, hammers are already powerful enough without a bonus. Add a bonus and they'll become too powerful. Really, hammers are fine as they are.

Technically those are options already, but everyone logically chooses what is easiest to play.

I'm not sure whether nerfing it will severly cut elite time completions though for the higher end (and i said this about CoP a longggg time ago and was correct) - it will just cause bad teams to get worse. Some frenchies in our alliance recently did DoA HM in under an hour using obsidian flesh eles and [agro] showed a while ago that the deep was possible in 18minutes without pve skills or shadow form. FoW splits with obsidian flesh tanks were practiced long before SF, as were some in UW.

What is broken is that at least 80% of dungeons can be completed and therefore run by a 600/smite variant.

That's exactly my point. With SF around, there's absolutely no reason to run anything else. With it gone, you have at least 3 different viable options.

Honestly, a skill like SF doesn't belong in this game, and I hope they kill it. I don't know what skills were used for the DoA run, but they're most likely other stupidly overpowered stuff that needs to be nerfed (not killed, just toned down but still usable). As for deep, it's a pretty screwy elite mission. The mission itself is the problem, not the skills. Yes, FoW/UW splits were practiced with obsidian flesh tanks, but I'm sure they weren't as fast as SF.

I agree that 600/smite being able to run the majority of dungeons is broken, but not as broken as SF.

SF is a stupid skill. Case in point: 2 man 33 minute HM UW clear.

When it comes to playing PvE there are a ton of options. Shitty ones.
Plus SF.
When it comes to farming PvE - there is one option. The SINGLE best one.
SF.
As soon as you bring in "fun" (unless fun=completing the area in the fastest time possible, in which case you are farming PvE rather than playing it) - you are talking about playing PvE. And as I have already said - you have multiple options on how to play PvE. Regargless of how poor they are compared to SF.
And if you nerf SF, that means that is one less option for playing PvE. There is NO way that there will be more options.

Does that mean that SF should have a place in this game in the current form?
No. It just means that if you nerf SF there will be less options. And it's insane to state otherwise.

So lets stop selling "more options for PvE by nerfing!"
It doesn't add up.

As I said (and as you just clearly proved), if you nerf SF, a number of other viable options arise. You probably don't realize it, but thanks for proving my point.

You say I'm insane, yet your logic makes no sense. With SF, all other options are not viable. If you nerf SF, all the non-viable options become viable, because there is no SF. This creates more viable options. I cannot make it any clearer, so I'm just going to stop replying to you.

Viable ≠ Desirable

All the other options that are not currently used, but may be if SF was to be removed, are just as viable now as they would be then. The only difference being is that people wouldn't want to run them as it means you're not running SF - hence they are currently undesirable.

Their viability doesn't change, but their desirability does.

What I'm basically saying, is replace the word viable with desirable in your statement and it'll be true.

Look up "farming PvE" vs. "playing PvE".

When it comes to farming PvE - there is only one single best option. So by nerfing SF there won't be 3 or 5 or 10 new options.
There will be ONE new option to rule them all.
And if that option won't be fast enough to justify doing the area in question - people will move on.
So if you nerf SF either a new cookie to rule them all will pop-up (and then we'll bitch about that one) OR people will stop playing that area.

When it comes to playing PvE - ANYTHING that gets you through the area of choice is viable. And SF is just one of those options. You remove SF, and the number of options goes down. It simply can NOT go up. Because you still have the SAME options you had before minus SF.

If that is true, then we should see a balanced mix of hammer, sword and axe warriors in the game. We don't. Hence there is either an extremely overwhelming warrior player bias toward sword & axe or there is a balance issue with hammers. Out of all the millions of GW players with PvE warrior toons, I find it extremely hard to fathom why 99+% of them would avoid using hammers unless there was something fundamentally underpowered with that weapon or its skills.

If your enemy can be knocked down, a hammer is the best melee weapon in the game hands down. Being able to keep your target knock locked on the ground is more effective then anything else. Not only does it completely shut down your enemy, but it does massive amounts of damage and prevents that target from kiting AoE damage.

If 99% of people are avoiding using hammers they are dumb. I've completed everything in this game PvE and PvP using a hammer warrior and it is far more effective then sword and axe in most pve situations. The only time it isn't more effective is when you are fighting things that can not be knocked down.

There is nothing wrong with hammers. The only way hammers suck is if the person using them sucks. But that is the case with everything.

A Shadow Form nerf increases the number of desirable options, there is no way around it. Yes, we have the choice to run anything we want at the moment, there are plenty of options to clear any of the hard mode areas. However, there is not one sane group out there who will want to take a slower, less efficient method for clearing an area. Because Shadow Form trumps all other forms of tanking in elite areas, it has effectively made us discard all other viable options. There is only one desirable method of tanking at the moment, and a Shadow Form nerf will actually bring about more diversity.

Our friend above mentioned the W/E and E/W tanks (not to mention different forms of OF Tanks, stance tanks, and others) as viable, though not currently desirable options to the Shadow Form tank should SF be nerfed. The beauty about these tanks is that one form isn't necessarily heads and shoulders above the rest of the field. Our guild, for example, ran both R/W and W/E tanks in Urgoz to great effect; it didn't matter which we brought to the table. We've ran E/W, D/E, and W/E tanks in DoA. Reasonable, logical groups would have a plethora of NEARLY EQUIVALENT alternatives should Shadow Form bite the bullet. I think this is the point that Arkantos was hinting toward throughout this thread but never really said it explicitly.

In summary, reasonable, logical groups only have Shadow Form tanks to rely on at the moment. With a nerf, reasonable, logical groups would have several nearly equivalent options to tank an elite area, no one tank seriously outperforms the others in all fields.

If there are so many people wanting to play elite areas using balanced I don't see the problem. Stop posting and go organize a balanced run instead, since I don't see this happen I will dismiss arguments as QQ. No offense, I do not even play a sin, but I can't see the problem in having people run with eternal blades and shit, they don't break my game experience at all. Clearly the so wanted SF nerf in favour of a balanced is a call from people who can't deal with the fact that "elite" areas are meant to be played and not stay there for the leet nerds.


Anyway

Motivation = Cuts recharge time, increase effects. Remove clone skills, unneded in pve.
Ritualists= unnerf, and please give communing defensive spirits at least 1/10 of Imbagon's efficiency. Oh, don't forget the majority of useless skills still there, lamentation says hi.
Tactics= Revert to 2 years ago
Elementalist= this would need a rework of Hard mode and damage mechanic best way would be to boost intensity so that it adds more damage +armor penetration. Water magic was meant for pvp anyway.

Dervish: Add bonus damage to aura of holy might, linked to mysticism
Make eternal aura a renewing on enchant ending IAS (there is no overpowered in pve)


Illusion: Make some of the hexes aoe, cut recharge

BM: Don't know, honestly I don't see how a single pet would be efficient in pve outside of some limited scenario


SF,55,600: Who cares, as long as the people have fun.

The state of PvE is easy mode. Do you really need it to be easier?

Are we going to be at the point where every skill has a "PvE version", so the transition from PvE into PvP is a rocky road with cliffs and rockslides?

ok, after reading almost all of these comments this just clicked into my head, not saying it's good or bad or anything, just saying it's a thought that popped into my head.

add to mysticism: for every 2 points in myst. you have a 1% chance to cause a random condition on a struck target.

thoughts? doesn't even have to be THAT mechanic, maybe even for every 2 points you get 1% chance to steal 5e? again, i'm just brainstorming here. another option would be to make dervish enchantments "skills" so they have no activation time in combat? that way you can manage your enchants without sacking DPS?

The best way to buff an attribute is by making its skills viable.
Therefore, what do dervishes have that warriors and sin cannot?
Myticism. What are supposed to be the trait skills? Avatars. Make avatars decent and you got your dervish buff.
By the way dervish don't suck in pve eh? It's not that they are like ritualists or like paragons (forced to 1-2 builds), the main concern is about warriors and sins being more effective than them.

I just finished a nostalgia return to WoW and started a hunter and ran him up to level 70 in three weeks, so this power trip may color my views a bit.

Does the Water attribute need improvement?

Yes, in PvE water needs not only a slowing effect but a solid freeze for 2 or three seconds. Anet acts like they are afraid of water, but to me it seems as important as fire if not more so.

Is Beast Mastery lacking, overall?

Beast Mastery needs complete revision for PvE. And has needed it since the retail introduction of Prophecies. BM should not require attribute points at all. There should be a separate pet bar that allows you to mount, say, two or three BM skills that can be put on autocast plus the usual pet controls. This would not be hard to do, the pet would simply be hero number 4 and a full party member. You could then have a pet and be a full up MM, or Wilderness Survival Ranger; and still have the pet out there.

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?

My Dervish finished Nightfall and did Factions, and I think Prophecies, don't remember for sure. Now he is parked, just doesn't seem to have any reason to play him rather than anything else after all the nerfs. If I could ask for one thing, it would be faster scythe. Right now it feels like trying to fight with a plastic snow shovel.

Do Nature Spirits need a twist?

A twist of lemon, and some gin! I need some reason other than occult farming to put them on the bar.

Hammer much? No, really, how is it?

My warrior uses hammer a lot. Especially carry along Devona and a hammer hero and keep everything flat on the ground. Great fun. What the warrior needs is also two handed axe, two handed sword, and polearm.

I like the "derv-enchantments=skill" idea but it sounds a bit overpowered, the others are a bit meh...
I think the best thing i have read about dervs is making the aoe of scythe tied to mysticism as well as AoHM...(+small buff HoF)

To SF and elite areas,right now:
There are X ways to tank.. People (most of them) use 1 (SF)
Let's say Anet nerfs SF:
There are X-1 ways to tank.. People use Y (Y being vastly greater than 1)
So IMO yeah nerfing SF is the right thing to do...

As for 600/dungeon-runs all there is to be done is to modify the foe-monks to not kill themselves with auto-attack... Or give Holy Wrath the same trigger effect as Protective bond (lose X energy every time it triggers or the spell ends)... (just a question here: is holy wrath used in any "balanced" build??)

55 is pretty much dead... It only works in 3-5 areas

Hammers have a lot of KDs..

BM... never really played BM or have seen anyone seriously use it so no comment

Water Eles are a bit meh (at least PvEwise) slowing hexes are good but it needs something more than just slowing foes down.. Maybe wards or some dmg skills?

yeah i agree my other brainstorm ideas were "meh", but then again most brainstorm ideas are like that. i do agree though with the avatar buffs, that was the main reason i started a derv in the first place. and i like whoever said 25%IAU for balth, unblockable for grenth (added onto the life steal, which only seems right for the GOD OF JUSTICE ffs), dwayna i think is ok but add on -1 hex as well, and NOW we're talkin, Lyssa's extra dmg and energy are good as they are but maybe some interrupts when using attack skills? melandru should have some kind of health regen, 2 maybe?

there's some more brainstorming. have at it!

* Does the Water attribute need improvement?
It could use some change. In PvE you run out of energy and have to wait for recharges much more often than with other elementalist attribute lines.
Snaring is not very effective in HM with all those monsters having natural 30..50% speed increase. So in PvE, speed decrease should be stronger against monsters. Maybe by making the speed decrease related to the caster speed: "Characters moves 66% slower than you". That would also have the advantage of good synergy with skills that have the downside of slowing you down.

* Is Beast Mastery lacking, overall?
When beast mastery is used in PvE only for EoE, if used at all, then there is a problem with it. Hm... let's see...
** Beast mastery acts mainly as a 'support' attribute, but we have only 8 skill slots. If you bring skills for your pet, you don't bring own skills. You must choose between spreading attributes and skills and having two mediocre characters, or being the escort of your pet and follow it around while just activating skills and dealing almost no damage with you bow. I'd rather be able to 'possess' the pet and directly control it instead, that just following around a dumb henchman.
** Controlling the pet is annoying. They will run to target to target even when you lock a target. You must wait for one attack to be performed to activate another one, and the usual stuck problems affect pets too. Like a chest in the way.
** There are many skills that affect other allies controlled creatures. But only one affect allied pets.
** There is almost no synergy with other professions. Since they are allies and not party members, many skills won't work on them. They are something 'extra' trying to work as part of the party.
Beast mastery needs an entire overhaul.

* 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?
When improving something for a profession would make it too strong, what you do to make that profession better with it is making it worse for the rest (i.e.: Weapon spells).
Daggers have a 'special' feature: they can deal double strikes. This feature is increased with the rank of the attribute. But scythe's special feature: Hit multiple enemies, is fixed.
If you link that to Scythe mastery, you ensure that only dervishes can hit 3..5 enemies with a scythe swing, and the rest are stuck with 1..2.

"Scythe Mastery increases the damage you do with scythes and your chance to inflict a critical hit when using a scythe. Many skills, especially scythe attack skills, become more effective with higher Scythe Mastery. When attacking you will hit 1 additional foe at ranks 8 and above, 2 foes at ranks 13 and above, 3 foes at rank 15 and above and 4 at ranks 16 and avobe."
That way, if you don't have scythe mastery 13, you don't hit 3 enemies, and if you have scythe mastery 16, you hit 5.
Is not much, but it's a start.

Do Nature Spirits need a twist?
Well, they are a double edged weapon. Their use is VERY specific, much more than other skills. You can kill a fire-resistant enemy with fire magic, but you don't bring a nature ritual unless you are actively needing it.
I won't mind a PvE ritualist skill functionality change to allow control over allied nature ritual effects: Cast once, affect foes, cast again, affect allies, another cast, affects all again... but spirit dies sooner.
Other that that... what could you do for them? Since they affect both enemy and ally, if you increase their power too much, they become even more specific, if you decrease it, you make them useless... they are a weird feature that works great if you know how to use it, but, again, too specific so they always require you to bring them only when you know exactly what are you going to face, and all allied skills. Not much versatility there.

Hammer much? No, really, how is it?
Hammer is fine.

well the main disadvantage of dervs IMO is not their lack of powerful skills but the fact that they cannot use the weapon that was designed for them better than other classes... Buffing Avatars would for sure power-up only dervs but wouldn't solve the scythe problem...


Most of the time with the scythe u strike 2-3 foes so it's not that big a buff for the derv but as already stated it's a start!

So what you're saying is a W/E obsidian flesh tank is as viable as a A/E shadow form tank?

Pulling numbers out of your ass isn't good for a discussion. I don't know why you think swords and axes are so much more used, because they aren't. Any decent player will tell you how strong an earth shaker warrior is. If anything, the only weapon mastery line that needs a buff is axe.

No.
I am saying that the viability of a W/E obsidian tank will remain unchanged if SF was to be killed, but it's desirability will potentially increase (if it's the next best option).


I'm going to do something stupid and apply absolute values for "viability".

Let's say an A/E SF tank has a viability rating of 6 for a given area.
Let's also say a W/E OF tank has a viability rating of 4 for the same area.

SF is killed (reducing it's viability to 0), the next best alternative is OF (assuming nothing was inbetween it and SF). Suddenly OF is the most desirable option, it's desirability has increased.

I admit, I've stretched the definition of the word viable here, but whatever. What I really mean is effectiveness, but that stretch was made before I arrived.

What was one of the main tanks used before SF? Obsidian flesh tanks.

The only reason they aren't viable anymore is because compared to shadow form tanks, they're shit. Nerf shadow form, and they aren't shit.

So yeah, it's a mix of viable and desirable, really.

But I'm saying it's just as viable now as it was then.
Relatively speaking, then no, it isn't - that is if things are "measured" relative to the best option.

How much something is used or desired is no measure of viability, especially when it comes to farming.

It was a small thing I brought up.

Avatar of Melandru should have its cost cut for PVE, since the cost makes it hard to maintain and do other things at the same time...

At the very least, it should be 15e like Grenth (which, iirc, it what it cost when Nightfall came out).

Lyssa shouldn't be about brute strength. Possibly switch the IAS between Lyssa and give the conditionless bonus damage to Balthazar (who should be about brute strength, and who can then combine with HoF). Or perhaps Lyssa can have a chance to interrupt enemies when hitting.

Dwayna is all about 'I'll shrug off whatever you throw', so maybe an inbuilt Mystic Vigor effect can be thrown in for even more survivability. Melandru... probably just needs a cost cut in PvE as Hyper Cutter advocates, and maybe a restoration to granting +200 health instead of +100.

EDIT: Been thinking on the Illusion issue, and while there are probably other decent skills in Illusion apart from Clumsiness and Wandering Eye, they're pretty much entirely non-elite - there's no real 'general purpose' elite in Illusion worthy of the name.

Consider:
Air of Disenchantment: A good, but situational, elite. Can be a lifesaver against enemies that rely a lot on enchantments for their effectiveness, nearly useless otherwise.

Crippling Anguish: Decent, if you want a slowdown, but the token degen and lower recharge (compared to Imagined Burden) aren't really worth the elite status in PvE.

Fevered Dreams: Another good but situational elite, but in this case it relies on your allies more than your enemies.

Illusionary Weaponry: Other people have probably expressed this better than I have. Haven't seriously tried it myself...

Ineptitude: Completely outclassed by Blinding Surge, which a) affects multiple targets and b) can maintain a Blind. To compete, Ineptitude probably needs to either have a low enough recharge to maintain the Blind, or have an area-of-effect. Since the current recharge has come from nerfs in the past, an area effect (like Clumsiness) is possibly the change less likely to result in a split.

Migraine: Realistically, the token degen is not what you'd be casting this for, making it essentially a weaker form of Arcane Conundrum. An area effect would still leave it moderately situational, but at least worthy of the elite label.

Recurring Insecurity: Long-lasting, single target, minor degen is possibly the last thing you want in PvE.

Shared Burden: Okay, I'll have to admit I hadn't registered that it affects attack and casting speeds now. Probably the best contender for a 'general-purpose' Illusion elite, as long as the team isn't relying on reactive hexes for damage.

Signet of Illusions: A gimmick skill - really, if you're using Sig of Illusions, you probably aren't really using an illusion build...

I'm pretty sure that, 4 years into the game, pretty much everyone who wants to "transition" from PvE into PvP has done so. If not, they're screwed anyway by lack of rank (I read in another thread, someone mentioning low ranked players, who was promptly responded to with "If you finally want to get into HA now, you shouldn't even be playing").

"PvE to PvP transition" really seems to be a non-issue anymore. Most PvErs couldn't care less about PvP, and the PvP community doesn't want us anyway.

The thing with mesmers is that they are the best class shutting down... single targets.
Yeah, there are quite some AoE skills with that nice armor ignoring damage, but only HM monsters can use them with real effectiveness thanks to them being seemingly under Chimera of Intensity.

The long recharge times and the big downsides of the energy recover options for mesmers (require interruption, use up elite slot, long recharges, little amounts of energy gain, even longer recharges...) make PvE gameplay a bit frustrating excepting with a small and limited number of options.

Auspicious Incantation seems to be the only real good way to recover energy for mesmers in PvE.

Also good points. It's no coincidence that two of my suggestions for improving Illusion elites are... making them affect multiple targets.

And it's sad how the Mesmer has gone from the profession others specced into for their energy management... to the profession that almost always specs into some other profession for its own.