Dervish Skill Update (8/6/09)

Quote: Originally Posted by H-lord

BTW in my opinion just make sand shard armor ignoring like it use to be cuz the new one just lame. 1-7 damage in HM is too lame. It doesn't say earth damage in the skill description, so maybe they did intend it to be armor ignoring...doubtful though =P

I hope this is just dip in the ocean, and a-net will change more dervish skills for the better. they are such a drag to play these days, moreso in PvE...

I want to see something added to mystism something like "for every 3 ranks in mystism you hit 1 additional foe" or "when ever a enchantment ends on you all adjence foes take 1...15 damage"

All this update really did was make some skills better for dervishes, but mostly better for dervish secondaries. It was good, but it didn't address some of the issues I would have hoped.

Axel hit the nail on the head.

At first glance, it may seem like dervishes got a buff this update, but in reality dervishes are just as useless now as they were before it.

Why?

Because W/Ds and A/Ds (our mortal enemies) can use these newly buffed skills better than we can.

Think about it. What synergy does the dervish class have with enchantments? Mysticism. That's it. What does mysticism do? It gives us a small amount of energy (less than the cost of the enchantment) and a negligible amount of health when an enchantment ends on us. So, basically, it doesn't actually make enchantments any more effective; it just gives us energy.

Guess what? A/Ds and W/Ds have more energy than they know what to do with. They can spam enchantments until the cows come home (something we true dervishes can't do). And this superior energy management of theirs far outweighs the tiny benefits that runes give to the effects of enchantments (who cares if the weakness from that AoE I cast lasts one more second when the W/D can spam an entire new enchantment that I don't have the energy for?).

Buffing earth and wind prayers is meaningless. There are only 3 ways to make dervishes useful:

1) Buff primary (and ONLY primary) dervishes so that they are better at using enchantments/scythes/whatever than A/Ds and W/Ds

2) Nerf every other user of the above so that primary dervishes are better at those things than they are

3) Give primary dervishes (and ONLY primary dervishes) more unique utility skills in the same vein as AoM and AoD

Any other "buffs" to the dervish class will only make the W/Ds and A/Ds that much more powerful.

Suggestions:

Sand Shards: Do NOT make it armor ignoring. It hits all NEARBY foes... which would be a balance concern for a 10 second long, 20 armor ignoring damage per sec skill. If you want it to be armor-ignoring, change the AoE to adjacent.

Instead, double the damage of Sand Shards and make it "ends early if you use a scythe attack" to balance it out a bit.

Aura Slicer: Drop to 6 recharge

Meditation: 1/2 cast

Overall, a very good update for dervs in the sense that we HARDLY ever get any skills substantially changed. I look forward to seeing more critical examination of derv skills (hopefully this will be a pattern, instead of a one shot thing).

Alright I first want to start off with this. This may be my first post, but i have been playing guildwars since it came out, so please keep the flaming low if you could lol.

Anyway ontopic. What the dervish needs is a skill like critical agility. Make it depend on the rank of mystisim. It could be classified as a skill, and it can renew itself every time an enchantment ends on the dervish. So it fits the idea of the dervish, gives them a dedicated non enchantment ias, and gives them something only they can use.

Basic a rough idea of the skill would be something like this

10e 0c 30r
Sunspearskill: Mystic Agility: (skill) for 4 seconds (+1 second for every 2 ranks of mystisism) you attack 33% faster. This skill is renewed everytime an enchantment ends on you.

that way dervish get their own special skill that only they can take advantage of. Also most dervish run at least 12 mystisism so that would give a 10 second duration, plenty of time for it to be renewed.

Thats just what I have been thinking anyway lol.

Axel is right, even with the buffs the just made dervish an even more favorable secondary.

I personally love the conviction, i think it's even too powerful, you can easily maintain gaurdain that gives extra armor. Thats any melees dream, i'd consider taking 6-7 points into earth on my sins to be truely invincible with Critical agility. Critical Defense is better, but the duration is much shorter and in case of enchant strip or blind you're still oke.

The other buffs are also very nice but still mysticism didn't get enough love for me to consider making a dervish again.

As for Sand Shards, they should make the damage earth as it's relation to sand no?

What they need to do is make an ias just for dervishes that only they can maintain. And although wind prayers got better it should get some sort of IAS so that Zealous Vow is worth to invest in.

And finally, if they would make AoHM to be like Critical agility depended on Mysticism would mean an already immense advantage towards dervishes.

Ok...from a pvp standpoint...

Sand shards is fine,balanced, usable, etc. i think it should possibly have different damage scaling throughout the levels..just so we stop seeing hammer wars running it with 0 earth prayers without much of a drawback. ---Maybe it isnt awesome in hard mode pve, but QQ most skills dont do much damage in hard mode...considering how ridiculous some of the pve-only skills are, dont expect a pvp/pve skill to instantly work in every area of pve.

Armor of sanctity is wildly overpowered. period. It was already a strong skill, now it is maybe the most spammable weakness in the game, and very strong prot..i just hope when they nerf the skill it doesnt get destroyed.

Vow of Piety...overpowered. needs a scaling change on duration or armor bonus. im not sure why they did this the way they did...but its basically a conviction clone except it also grants regen, and requires absolutely no investment in wind prayers to maintain (assuming you have an enchant ending every 20 sec..never need to recast it). < talking about pvp here. ofc conviction is better in pve now that they buffed it, but in pvp vow of piety needs to be adjusted to be more along the lines of conviction. it isnt fair that any profession can take the skill with any enchant ending every 20 sec or less, and get permanent 24 armor,+1-4 regen with absolutely no points in wind.

First thing I thought when I saw the buffs: "ooh, my monk can use that."

Anyone else think earth prayers is the best defensive line in the game?

I think SS got a nice buff, makes Earth prayers more viable in PvE now, I actually like to pair it with crippling sweep, or twin moon sweep.

Quote: Originally Posted by smilingscar

First thing I thought when I saw the buffs: "ooh, my monk can use that."

Anyone else think earth prayers is the best defensive line in the game? Yes. Conviction + Armor of Sanctity can pretty much make any character invulnerable in a group setting.

Quote: Originally Posted by smilingscar

First thing I thought when I saw the buffs: "ooh, my monk can use that."

Anyone else think earth prayers is the best defensive line in the game? earth prayers is quite unique in that: it offers amazing personal protection, a powerful target heal, huge burst aoe damage (and now a persistent aoe with sand shards), conditions (cripple,blind,weakness,bleed), attack enhancement via Vow of Strength, and the list goes on... earth prayers has been my favorite attribute ever since nightfall first came out. i just hope in the future it doesnt get nerfed too hard after skills from this attribute see abuse in the meta.

side note: dwaynas touch nerf- i think its sad to see yet another skill nerfed because of abuse by elementalist primaries. recently restoration magic took a hard hit..now dwaynas touch..we'll see what they use next.

I'm with celtus - I love Earth Prayers. The sheer variety offered in that single attribute line is amazing. A lot of the stuff is fairly situational, yes, but I just love the number of different things you can do just by speccing into one attribute when normally you'd probably need to spread between several attributes from both professions to do that sort of thing.

I've always loved the caster/melee hybrid that Dervishes are, so I've always leaned heavily towards using Earth Prayers. And the more I look over the skills from this update, the more I've been playing around with my builds in my mind.

Conviction is officially viable in UW Ecto farming!

They should of buffed Mysticism because its absolutely a horrible primary attribute, the worst in the game imo.

Guys, does sand shards scatter? Its nearby range makes me worry for PvE.

Quote: Originally Posted by Kain Fz

Guys, does sand shards scatter? Its nearby range makes me worry for PvE. I would imagine it has same effect on aggro as any other static aoe...many which the eles have. sandstorm, breath of fire, teinai's heat, unsteady ground, fire storm etc. sorry not a great answer but i just assume theyre the same.

As far as sand shards scattering players in PvP. it doesnt happen as much as i expected, lol. btw sand shard users - try to lay down 2 or 3 sand shards storms at a time for the uber damage..while you continue to deal damage with other spells or attacks.

Quote: Originally Posted by shoyon456

Suggestions:

Sand Shards: Do NOT make it armor ignoring. It hits all NEARBY foes... which would be a balance concern for a 10 second long, 20 armor ignoring damage per sec skill. If you want it to be armor-ignoring, change the AoE to adjacent.

Instead, double the damage of Sand Shards and make it "ends early if you use a scythe attack" to balance it out a bit.

Aura Slicer: Drop to 6 recharge

Meditation: 1/2 cast

Overall, a very good update for dervs in the sense that we HARDLY ever get any skills substantially changed. I look forward to seeing more critical examination of derv skills (hopefully this will be a pattern, instead of a one shot thing). agree with that, also alot of derv skills should lower recharge time too

Quote: Originally Posted by Celtus

I would imagine it has same effect on aggro as any other static aoe...many which the eles have. sandstorm, breath of fire, teinai's heat, unsteady ground, fire storm etc. sorry not a great answer but i just assume theyre the same.

As far as sand shards scattering players in PvP. it doesnt happen as much as i expected, lol. btw sand shard users - try to lay down 2 or 3 sand shards storms at a time for the uber damage..while you continue to deal damage with other spells or attacks. Don't forget to cripple ;O


Anyways, any use for sand shards in PvE? Is it good? So far I'm already pleased with it in PvP (But anet NEEDS to revert pious assault)

I love how Dervishes got a stance that grants 24 armor and 50% chance to block for like 30 seconds for 5 mana (they have 4 pips of energy regeneration) while warrior's (2 pips of energy regeneration) equivalent barely lasts 5 seconds and have major drawbacks like ending when attacking or moving or using a skill. I hope that in the next upgrades they will fix that pathetic tactics line because it is ridiculous how bad it is.

Quote: Originally Posted by citizensmith1001

21 damage per second at 16 Earth prayers, yeah very ''decent'' .______. , I'd rather be able to continue farming on my current character and not have to go through the nonsense of creating a new character and running it through the whole game in order to be able to farm thanks. While I agree that ruining Dervishes' raptor farm isn't a good idea by A-Net but I suggest you farm something more profitable because the raptor farm isn't really that profitable to begin with. A small suggestion is to H/H glint's challenge. 5k for the cloth of brotherhood + an average of 4 destroyer cores a run in 20 mins is better than overly common skins and assassin tomes I do it easily with my warrior so I think a Dervish could do it as well if not better.