Mysticism (yes, AGAIN)

Dervs are fine. Mysticism is good. The only change I'd like to see for Dervs is that Mystic Twister be moved to Mysticism.
Also: enchantment stripping does not worry my Derv much. Thanks to Mysticism + all the low cooldowns, casting strips actually costs my opponent more than me. Well of the Profane can be a problem sometimes, but your suggestion wouldn't do much about that.

Just because there's randomness in the game already doesn't mean we should add more.

Also, please note that I said "whether I win or lose shouldn't be left to chance." Hitting through a few blocks, getting an extra 1-2 strikes of adrenaline, or hitting for slightly more on your weapon most likely won't be a deciding factor in you winning or losing a game.

Resisting an enchantment means you're golden until their enchantment removal recharges. (you win)
Not resisting an enchantment means you're screwed until your enchantments recharge. (you lose)
Something to make dervs more effective damage dealers or melee casters would be good, IMO.
No they're not. No it's not. They need a helluva lot more than that.

Dervs are the only class that's used in neither high-end PvP or PvE. Other classes are underpowered as well, but all of those can find a place somewhere.

In 4-man teams, Dervs are often very efficient. You run into Dervs in RA and AB. AB happens to be my favourite PvP mode.

avatar of dwayna in fow just said 'hi'

Now if you were playing Neverwinter Nights, you know, that older game, the one that uses a ruleset that actually works, then you would be quite familiar with 1. Spell resistance 2. Partial or full immunities to spell schools/damage types, etc.

Unfortunately, this is GW, where the ruleset doesn't go far past the fact that it isn't really much of a ruleset at all..

One point to note though, after all the running about and messing around I've done during this years CNY with my derv, I can honestly say that most of the avatar-based solo farm builds (With a bit of tickling) are absolutely great team builds, that can fill quite a few different roles, and tbh, I've been using mine in high end pve for a long time. My build, the "Lyssa's Axe/Swordsman" (No it isn't on PvX, nerrrrrrr!!) is an absolutely insane damage dealer/frontliner for FoW, etc. That being said, I can still see how there are a lot fo grey areas in what exactly they are supposed to do/be..

More of what I've been saying for some time. aNet don't understand their own game, or the "Classes" in it. Perhaps someone should give them an AD&D monstrous compendium and a Dungeon Masters handbook, they might actually learn how things should be done...

/signed, btw

Ritualist needs as big a change as Dervish then.

1) Monk can outheal a Rit due to Divine Favor.
2) Necro can out heal a Rit due to Soul Reaping allowing spell spamming.
3) Elem can out heal a Rit due to Ether Renewal.
4) Necro can out nuke a Rit due to Soul Reaping and spell spamming.
5) Ele can out nuke a Rit due to Energy Storage, head gear bonus, and runes plus a larger selection of spells.
6) Ranger can spam spirits better than a Rit due to Expertise.
7) Necro can spam spirits better than a Rit due to Soul Reaping.
8) Ele can be a better Weapons caster due to Energy Storage.
9) Necro can be a better Weapons caster due to Soul Reaping.

What else is a Rit good for? They spam spirits, but other classes can do it better. THey nuke, but other class can do it better. They heal, but other classes can do it better. They buff, but other class can do it better.

I can use a Dervish with a scythe and have no problems. I can play with other people using a scythe Dervish and have no problem. If you rely on PUGs, then that is your problem, not the Dervish. Yes, the Derv needs some help, but it is not useless, and it has some uses that I would pick a Dervish over any other class for. And since you'll ask me what those uses are....

Avatars. Even with the PvE skill in use, the Derv outclasses all other classes for Mysticism skills. PBAoE spells. Assassin can do decent with them due to the 4 pips of energy regen, but the Warrior can't come close to handling them. And the Assassin will lose out on the Mysticism energy return to make use of some of them effectively. There is more to using a scythe than swinging it at targets.

Your ideas are getting shot down because of at least one of the following reasons:
- Your suggestions are just bad.
- You only explain, if at all, very briefly what's wrong with the current situation with dervishes, what's the general goal you want to achieve, and how your specific changes would work toward that goal; anyone without a good knowledge about game mechanics, current balance situation and theoretical balancing cannot follow your thoughts.
- You present your ideas as they are the only way to fix the problem, you don't encourage others to bring in their input.
- You post way too many suggestions; instead of posting every idea that just popped into your head elaborate one idea and post it when it's finished.

And yes, I've a good idea how much work it would be to make the dervish viable as a PBAoE-caster. A few months ago there was a big discussion on a german board about how the dervish could be made viable in PvE without pushing another profession out of favor.

@MagmaRed: Your analogy with the ritualist is flawed because:
- More than 12 points in a weapon mastery bring a far smaller benefit than the points before; that's not true with spells from a attribute.
- No other profession can beat rts as a spirit spammer.
- Rts have the best party healing energy/skill slot/attribute point-wise.
- While other classes can beat a rt in healing and in damage dealing alone most other classes cannot come up with the same amount of healing and damage in one build.

Just a lame idea,needs something like 1% ench duration increase per rank (doesn't matter if it's OP,dervish are a second rate class).

Incorrect. Weapon Spells cannot be stripped unlike Monk enchants, and Spawning makes them last longer so that they need to spam it less. Due to Boon of Creation, Rits can spam spirits more than Rangers AND give them a higher amount of health and higher level (more damage on hits and greater lifetime).

What you do not fundamentally understand is that Rit has its own unique niches, where as Derv is chucked in between two classes with Avatars being the only thing to speak of that makes it unique/worth taking. And obviously this isn't worth it since as mentioned, the dervish is not found in high-end PvE OR high-end PvP. Don't lie to yourself.

See above. Rits ARE better spirit spammers, and with they ARE dominant in weapon spell buffing.

Well that would be great except that you can't H/H FoW/UW/DoA/Urgoz/Deep unless you have multiple accounts. You CAN play a Derv and "have no problems." But you don't see any problem at all in the fact that 3 other classes can pick up a Derv's native weapon and use it better than them?

1. If avatars were so damn amazing, why does NO PvP guild/team use them in GvG/HA. Hell, winning teams rarely ever even use a Dervish period. Sorry, but take a look at how many of the PBAoE skills are ACTUALLY Mysticism. Most are Earth/Wind, and thus Sins, Rangers, Warriors can do the same thing except...better.

2. Damage>PBAoE. The goal is who can do the most damage effectively, and PBAoE skills have been an epic fail on Anet's part. As for Assassin's not having enough energy, ever heard of Critical Strikes?! It not only gives them Energy return but it makes their scythe attacks wtfpwn. As for saying the warrior can't use scythes, ever hear of Warrior's Endurance?! Combine Nearly unlimited Energy with AL pen from Strength and AGAIN, the Warrior is more effective at using a scythe than the Dervish.

3. Mysticism energy return does NOTHING to make Dervs more effective scythe users when compared to the extra AL pen, high-dmg Strength skills, and constant Erecharge of Warrior's Endurance. It also is pathetic when compared to Sin's higher DPS as a result of simply using their primary which also fuels CONSTANT Ereturn as long as their attacks hit.

The debate should not be on whether the Derv is statistically pointless when compared to other classes, it should be on what to do about it. If you're going to try to compare other classes to the Derv, at least know what you're talking about.

As someone with both a Rit and a Dervish, I have to say Dervish needs help far more then the Rit does.

Rit has its problems sure, I'm not going to say it doesn't, but it not only has a purpose, but it can also fill almost any role this game can throw at it without having to change much, as it has skills ranging from energy regen, to massive energy gain, to massive health and health regen, to spells that even turn melee damage into spikes, heck it even steals spells from the Ranger, and can boost its block to fairly high levels.

Rits can be effective healers, runners, and even spike damage dealers in HA/GvG, and can be very effective healers/aoers/spikers in PvE, when I'm on my Rit, I can find a group in seconds, and even after telling them I'm running a Spirits Strength build they don't care, and tell me its all good cause Rits can keep up.

A Dervish on the other hand has no viable role in PvP, or PvE, nothing they do can't be done ten times better then the other melee classes, a A/D will have better energy regen to spam skills faster, a R/D will have Expertise, a W/D has Warriors Endurance, and a few other nifty tricks, heck, even a Rit/D is better then a Dervish, because I can use Spirits Strength to actually contribute to something.

How so? I don't see how making dervishes immune to enchant stripping will suddenly make them FotM.

No, I don't like it because you are forcing people to stay away from those builds. NO OTHER PRIMARY ATTRIBUTE DOES SO!!!!

Go play against I ninefingers I in RA with his healer build...I assure you it can be very powerful.

How about you actually read the description of mysticism? Your idea would make the primary bonus harder to achieve. Why not just rework the Primary bonus instead of suggesting contradicting side bonuses?

That wouldn't be a major problem if the dervish had another advantage for compensation. For example, warriors, sins and rangers can use the spear better than the paragon himself, but you cannot replace a paragon with any of these professions because they cannot use shouts as efficient as the paragon.

so you want your cake and to eat it too? noted.
/unsigned.

I think its more along the lines of wanting a cake at all.

Every other class has a Primary that either buffs what their class is supposed to do, or buffs skills/elites that are fairly powerful in their own right, Necromancer for example has Soul Reaping, which makes it easier to summon the hefty cost minions faster, Monks can heal better, Warriors can hit harder, and many of their skills in that tree boost their health up, or make them more Warriory, heck, even Spawning Power gives more to the Rit then Mysticism does for a Dervish, because it allows Spirits to survive a bit longer, makes it so 5-20 second weapon skills last longer, and a few of the abilities in their are fairly powerful.

Dervishs have Mysticism, and Avatars, neither of which are very useful in PvP, in fact, nothing in Mysticism helps a Derv in PvP at all, meaning that if you want to PvP as a Derv, you are actually better off going Rit/D, R/D, W/D, or A/D. So how about PvE, well, the Avatars are useful, and are nice in specific situations, but can't compare to lets say, Spirits Strength Derv, or a A/D due to the massive amount of energy gain and crit damage, or a R/D due to expertise, or pretty much any combination of turning a Derv into a secondary.

/sigh

I give up. I was not saying Rit needs a change. I was saying that they show similar issues that the Derv does, and any class can say the same to some degree.

Ranger can use daggers better than Sin.
Mesmer can use long casting time Ele spells better than Ele.
Ele can bond+heal better than a Monk.
Assassin can tank better than a Warrior/Ele/etc.

My point was overlooked, and I'm done caring. Whine and moan about crap that doesn't matter. Learn how to play the game, and you may realize things aren't as bad as you think. Do I think the game is perfect? Hardly, but I don't cry over things that I can live with. I can live with the Dervish as it is.

Except that Sin's critical strikes makes them roughly par to the attack spammin allowed by Rangers' expertise.

Except that Ele's do much more damage compared to Mesmers and nowadays Ele's don't go for the longer casting time spells, and when they do, they use cons and Mindbender to make it matter little.

Ele's cannot bond, they don't have blessed signet* and their attributes are too low. You're way off here. They can ether renewal infuse, but other than that without Divine Favor Ele's don't have strong enough heals.

Assassins with Shadow Form are an abomination, and although their ability to tank isn't the primary reason I believe it needs to be nerfed, it contributes to the problem

The fact is that the Dervish is some combination of caster and melee that is subpar in both.

Mysticism, provides energy return. Emanagement is common to ALL casters, Fast Casting weaknesses aside. Even if they get E return, it doesn't make them able casters because they fall short of other caster's attributes and/or have no casting advantage like Fast Casting provides. Not to mention hardly any Dervish skills were meant to be used in a caster manner.

Mysticism provides no melee bonus, whereas Strength gives armor penetration and attacks such as Power Strike, Critical Strikes provides energy return AND critical hits with weapons, and Expertise cuts down on the base Ecost of attacks to allow attack spam whereas a Derv will have to wait for enchantments to cycle unless he's going to throw away Mysticism and go Zealous Vow. The problem is that the most effective Dervs...aren't running Mysticism because compared overall, it offers nothing to make them more effective at their role than other classes going */D and picking up a scythe.

Not surprising considering your profession is listed as Ranger. But for those of us who actually play with the Dervish primarily, the problems are quite apparent.

What specifically is the role of the dervish?

It was originally meant to be an AoE capable damage dealer that juggles enchantments and uses enchantments to fortify themselves.

Early builds included using Pious Assault to cancel offensive enchantments that function like Grenth's Fingers while recharging Pious instantly. It was effective, fun, and powerful, but Anet deemed it too powerful and nerfed both Pious Assault and the enchantments themselves. They then ran into the problem of Pious Assault too viable a output of Deep Wound.

Rangers use daggers slightly worse/ on par with a sin
Mindbender
I'll give you that
and that

While Rits are an ok example, Dervishes right now can be compared to pre-buff Rits. The Rit changes were awesome, and Anet did an awesome job of it, but right now, Dervishes are pretty much useless. The only thing they do well is using Orders. Other then that, Sins and Warriors are better with a scythe in the same respect that Necros were better then Rits in using their weapon spells.


On the topic at hand, I don't like the idea. Enchantment Stripping resistance is a new mechanic, probably entales re-coding skills that self-remove enchantments, and it's overall not a big enough benefit to bother with...

...especially considering one of the main things that make dervishes appealing is the fact that many times enchantment stripping has a POSITIVE effect for the dervish.

No, dervishes need some other kind of benefit, not this.

Reverting Pious Assault and enchantment juggling is the only real start for dervishes IMO. It makes them unique, and all Anet did be nerfing it to hell was dumb down the entire class itself. I don't know how it was for PvP, but a PvP split to bring back enchantments for dervs would be awesome.

I think it can be universally agreed upon that the energy gain aspect of Mysticism is good. I don't think dervishes particularly need a buff in damage either. The problem isn't that Dervishes are underpowered in damage, it's that Assassins and Warriors are too overpowered in the damage they do with scythes.

Wait a second... isnt PvE easy enough already? Shouldnt we be buffing PvE rather than making it easier?

No. Ritualists and Spawning Power are already finely balanced.

1. Ritualists do not have as much of a variety of heals as monks do but the heals rits do have are very powerful. You dont need variety when you have enough powerful heals anyway.
2. You dont spam heals... of course that is going to run you out of energy. Rits can manage their energy just fine wih smart usage of their heals and possibly either Gole or Energetic was lee sa.
3. This is true, but eles can outheal monks as well. ER is overpowered and needs nerfing.
4 & 5. Rits are meant to nuke? Thats new. Unless you consider splinter as a "nuking" skill, I dont really see how rits are even intended to be nukers.
6. lol... no. Rits can manage their energy just fine with either boon of creation or spirit siphon. Expertise is completely unnecessary.
7. Once again, not even a stupid rit should EVER have trouble managing their energy in a spirit spam build.
8 & 9. Eles and Necros can use GDW better but every other good weapon spell is better used on a rit as they are not energy intensive and can easily be spammed with minimum energy management. Plus, rits get rune bonuses for more damage on splinter, nightmare, or w/e you are using.

Im sorry but your arguements about rits are stupid. They are probably one of the most balanced classes in the game and there is no reason for anet to be focusing on that class when they have underpowered (dervish) and overpowered (necro) primaries to be focusing on.

@MagmaRed: Again, you haven't understand the problem, and why your old and your new examples are mostly beside the point. There's nothing wrong if another profession can use one aspect of a profession better than the original profession. There's also nothing wrong if every single aspect of a profession can be used better by other professions.
It becomes a problem though if every combintion of aspects a single profession can use can be better used by another single character of another profession.

Is this a troll? I'll give you the attributes when talking about maintaining both protective and smiting bonds, but why would an Elementalist even want blessed signet when their own e-management is so far superior?

What heals do you need other than ether renewal infuse? A sole Ele may have trouble with heavy party-wide degen, but a heal party monk or second Ele fixes that issue up nicely.

Without running out of energy?

Assassins have amazing energy management and a way to increase damage all in the same attribute line. They have skills with the same attribute to raise chances of a critical hit if a build requires it. Expertise alone doesn't increase damage and you don't have an option to use minor, major, or superior runes.

Before the spirit buff, you were right, they needed help. In fact, I considered them even more underpowered than dervishes, and I'm pretty sure that on at least one occasion I mentioned that they needed help. I never made suggestions for them because I didn't know anything about rits back then (and even now, I only really know anything about spirits). However, ritualists are in fact better with spirits than any other profession. Yes, their primary attribute leaves something to be desired, but the runes make the difference.

I forget where, but I did some calculations comparing a spirit spamming ritualist versus an N/Rt or R/Rt, under the worst case scenario for the ritualist (I assumed that 6 SR or Expertise could fuel all the spirits just fine without energy management, but that a rit would have to take spirit siphon, thereby giving the N/Rt or R/Rt another spirit). The Ritualist still won out in damage, despite having one fewer spirit. And if you have anything in your build other than spirits and painful bond, it only gets worse for the non-rit, because then SoS becomes a larger and larger proportion of the damage (and it's one of the places where Rits have the biggest advantage due to higher channeling).

THIS. OH GOD THIS.

This is why I consider the dervish the most underpowered profession. Rangers and Mesmers are very close, but even they have a couple of things that they can do better than other classes (Rangers can use Barrage and SY! together better than any other profession and Mesmers have their sin summon spam, for example). The dervish does not. If it did have something akin to those two things, I'd quit griping.

Tried that already. Along with most of the other obvious solutions (tying AoHM to mysticism, etc).

See why I come up with weird crap like this now?

Thank you. It's so nice to have someone else explain it. I'm getting tired of re-doing the calculations.

The minimal AoE thing I thought of once before, but that was for the enchantment spam suggestion that was doomed to failure from the beginning. Haven't thought of adding holy damage to weapons via mysticism, though. Might work, since the damage difference between a zealous vow dervish and enduring scythe is something like 10% if I recall correctly. However, I think that such an idea would have to be PvE-only, because I can't see a 10% damage increase not having a huge effect on PvP balance (or rather, kicking it down the stairs and stealing it's lunch money).

Improving the energy gain I think has been tried before, and either way, it's just asking for abuse, because if you're getting more out of enchantments than you put in...

Increasing the health gain is an idea I've toyed with, but it too is open to abuse, because of things like Protective Spirit and Protective Bond. What would happen if you could gain, say, 30 hp from an enchantment ending on you and you combined it with Protective Bond and Mystic Vigor?

Like my suggestions or not, I do usually try to make sure they're not overpowered, unless I'm trying to make a point.

Having Mysticism sort-of trigger on adjacent allies would probably be useless or overpowered, depending on whether you were near allies or not.

*takes out notebook*

Ok, "explain the problems with the dervish each and every time, no matter how annoying it is to do so", "remember to invite others to submit ideas, don't think it is implied", and "wait more time between suggestions". Hey, I just did that last one!

The problem with the Dervish boils down to "other classes do it better."

This is especially glaring with W/D and A/D using Scythes with AoHM.

The reason is that Mysticism for a melee-centric class is much less useful than the energy gain of CS for example, especially considering that like the Sin, a Derv's attacks are all energy based.

A couple of simple fixes IMHO:

1. Make AoHM dependent on Mysticism, just like Critical Agility is on CS
2. Make a Scythe's AOE ability dependent on Mysticism, sort of a "dual-req" weapon. Damage is based on Scythe Mastery, but the number of adjacent foes depends on Mysticism. Something like: If Mysticism is less than 4, Scythe only hits one target, at 4 or above, Scythe hits 2 adjacent targets in addition to the main target.

If someone complains about the "roleplay" factor (WHY lol), it could be said that a Dervish uses his "third eye" to weave his scythe in and out of groups of enemies or some such malarkey. Other professions that use the Scythe would only ever be able to hit one target at a time.

Those two fixes alone would make the Dervish the primary user of the Scythe again. As to Mysticism's "passive" bonuses, there are many more possible changes.

First, I'd get rid of the laughable health gain entirely, its too small to matter in most cases.

I would also change the energy gain from being on ending, to on casting. Frequently, Dervishes run out of energy because they front load enchants, and have to wait for energy regen to allow them to start attacking. Having energy gain be on casting might not be a great benefit with a full e-bar, but once you start loading up 5 or 6 enchants, the energy gain on casting acts as sort of "e-damage" mitigation. Coupled with 4 pips of regen, this would allow for a more robust energy based melee combatant. Plus, if a monk is casting RoF on you constantly, it would help fuel your attacks better, and would open up some interesting builds with Max Mysticism and 5E enchant heals and prots.

In addition to the above front loaded energy gain, or in place of it, Mysticism could grant an additional pip of energy regen for a specific amount of time when each enchantment ends, say 1 second per rank of Mysticism, so at 12 Mysticism you'd get 4 energy back. This would allow the concept of "enchant cycling" something I thought the Dervish was supposed to depend on, and fit the idea of Mysticism being a connection to the gods or whatever. Also, you'd have less wasted energy when "enchant bombing" or getting stripped, for example 5 enchants end on you, you'd get back 20 energy over 12 seconds over and above your natural 4 pip regen, allowing you to get back in the fight much quicker an re-establish your enchant baseline.

Alter the recharges on most if not all the "initial effect - end effect" enchants. Take HoHF for example, holy damage initial, then burning end. With a very short (or even zero recharge), a Dervish could charge into a group, and start casting this spell doing the initial damage, then on recharge cast again, doing the initial damage from the second cast plus inflicting the burning condition from the ending of the first cast. The "Pulse Bomber" build lol. A Dervish COULD leave it up for 30 seconds gaining the Holy Damage modifier to weapons, but would have the option of cycling enchants to gain energy and deal damage.

So between the changes to the Scythe mechanics as detailed above, and changing Mysticism to really supercharge e-management, the Dervish would be a much more formidable and solid melee combatant. I figure that the Dervish's Mysticism should parallel in one sense a Warrior's Adrenaline gain, and having the e-gain be on cast plus regen on end of enchants would definitely up a Dervishes ability in front line combat.

I kind of like the mysticism buff but I think simply changing derv enchantments slightly would be better. Enchantments that have multiple functions like vital boon, staggering force etc should apply multiple enchantments in pve. Vital boon would have give 2 one that increases your hp and another that heals you when it ends. This would make it easier to cover enchantments and make use of derv skills that are fueled by enchantments without relying on teammates to enchant you or having a bar filled with enchantments.

Even if possible (I doubt it is though) it would cause major changes to a lot of skills. Mystic Regeneration is top of the list, but any skill the Derv has that removes enchants would also need to be adjusted, as well as several removal skills like Strip/Rip/Shatter.

No. making self covering enchantments makes playing derv even more brainless than it already is. and stuff like signet of pious light would be OP seeing as how you could easily double your enchants and spam heals mwithout bothering to enchant yourself twice as much.

Awesome idea...too bad anet probably doesnt give a darn

While I don't like your concrete suggestion I agree this is the right course. Instead of turning Mysticism into a melee attribute I would rather see enchantments and skills related to enchantments buffed so that Mysticism in its current form becomes useful.
I may provide a few concrete suggestions tomorrow, I'm just to tired at the moment.

Actually it wouldn't cause major changes to anything aside from the actual enchantments that got buffed. It would make mystic regeneration and really any skill that benefits from being enchant better but that's not a major change it simply makes those skills more desirable and most of those skills have some kind of enchantment limit to them anyway. No removal skills wouldn't need to be changed at all


None of the classes really take that much thought to begin with. Plus making it easier to use the class is the point anyway so saying it's more brainless is a just a negative way of stating the purpose of buffs in general. Even if those skills did become too good it would be by a pretty small margin dervs already have so many healing skills that one really good signet heal won't matter much especially in pve.

I like this idea.

Dervs don't suck becuase they're too hard to use, they suck because they suck.

And, buffing stuff by making it brainless results in shit like R/As.
This would be good, too. I would also make Pious Assault recharge instantly if an enchantment is stripped (and probably either reduce the +damage or make the DW conditional so it's not OP again) to encourage enchantment juggling.

And I would weaken PvP avatars and make them more maintainable to encourage mysticism usage.

classes don't take much thought? how come it's so easy to spot a good player from a bad player? because obviously, playing takes some amount of skill. Devishes problem isn't mysticism, it's the lack of utility, as is, myst is an excellent energy management, and most classes primary is simply energy management. but making skills produce multiple enchantments is just asinine.

Pious Assault kinda represented in a nutshell the intended play-style of the dervish. If enchantment juggling is the direction we want to move, then reverting PA would be the first step, even before any mysticism/enchant buff.

Thought doesn't equal skill knowledge definitely helps but it certainly isn't required. And I didn't say they took no skill just any class can be pretty brainless. It's easy to distinguish between a bad and good player because they're exact opposites of each other you'd have to be lobotomized to not spot the difference. Dervs have a reasonable amount of utility they're pretty good at snaring, removing enchantment and spreading conditions. Plus we already have utility heavy classes there's no reason to have another one. The idea isn't asinine it would compliment a lot of derv skills nicely, compress skill bars, make mysticism more useful and it could easily backfire so it wouldn't be overpowered. Why don't you say what makes it asinine instead of making vague statements.

Never said dervs were hard to use but any and every buff to a skill makes it easier to use and therefore dumbs down the class. An instant cover enchantment isn't even that huge of a buff to make dervs a 1-2-3-1-2-3 class. I'm only suggesting it for a few enchantments not all of them and I said that the buff would be for pve and there are way more overpowered things out there than a few two for the price of one enchantments. Also "they suck because they suck" is just a stupid thing to say in fact you really don't say anything at all with statements like that.

You honestly need to be told why getting two enchants from one skill is a bad idea? first off, there is nothing wrong with mysticism except for your inability to put the effort into making a build that effectively utilizes it. skills producing multiple enchants so that they have the inherent ability to cover themselves has no drawback whatsoever, and it would make skills like arcane zeal more powerful than they already are, as well as serve no other purpose than to produce a bunch of enchants with little or no effort, basically, make it so brainlessly simple to play, solve no problem with why dervs are bad, and give them a little bit of superficial strength, while they remain a mediocre frontliner when compared to a warrior. the only real way to fix dervs is to give them better skill synergy. making derv skills produce multiple enchantments isn't going to solve anything and make dervs more viable to see play.

also, if one enchant skill makes two enchantments, and the two enchantments are put in order they appear in the description, then the oh so convenient to remove ending effect would conveniently cover the benefit. Which sounds pretty broken IMO.

Congratulations, you can split hairs, and also miss my point by a few miles. A brainless class is essentially is a class that requires little to know skill to function properly, therefore allowing bad players to function as well as a good player. like assassins with their 1>2>3>4>5 combos that even a single celled organism can use.

Even if dervishes were given back all the power they had at the beginning of nightfall, it would still be meaningless, because due to the power creep, the good dervish builds of today are significantly more effective than the dervish was at the start of nightfall.

Most of the utility effects of dervish enchantments are minor at best. The best they can offer is self-heals (lol) and weakness (which is inferior to SY). The only other thing enchantment juggling can offer is damage, and, well...see for yourself.

Anything less than that, and the damage would not be enough for enchantment juggling to be meaningful (it would be nothing but an inferior MSDB, minus the insane single-target damage MSDB offers). In fact, in hindsight, that idea didn't go far enough, because I didn't know about aftercast delays back then. So the damage on all of those spells would have to be even higher in order for it to be a viable damage mechanic. And yet, despite that, it would amount to a total rework of the class (as well as some skills from other classes).

The point is, enchantment juggling as a viable mechanic is a horrible idea. There are much easier ways of fixing the class that are also far less likely to have unintended side-effects.

Holy father of 13,251 pig mutants, we actually agreed on something.

The first two ideas have been proposed before, along with variations thereof (such as tying number of targets to scythe mastery, with a breakpoint at 13). The other ideas are intiguing though, particularly the idea of changing mysticism to provide energy immediately when an enchantment is cast on you. It goes against the self-stripping the dervish was meant to do, but at this point that entire concept has been thrown out the window. Not sure it'd be enough, though, even with the last idea.

Not every buff dumbs down a class. How would raising the damage of Power Attack by 10 make it any easier to use? How did changing Melandru's Shot from this:

Elite Bow Attack. Deals +10...30...35 damage. You gain 15 energy if target foe is enchanted.

to its current function make it brainless? Buffing stuff by making it brainless is just the bad, lazy way to do it.

I got that impression when you said they needed to be made easier to play.

If it's only for PvE, then it only solves half the problem. And, just because there's more OP shit running around doesn't mean we should just pile more on top of it.

Read as: "Dervs don't suck because they're too hard to use, they suck due to their skillset and basic mechanics."

But, the point I was making was irrelevant because I thought you thought dervs were neglected due to being overly complicated.

Also, insulting your audience is an overall bad arguing strategy.

And, you know what? Your idea is stupid. Boom.

what i find annoying bout dervs is constantly putting up enchs

maybe every lvl or mysticism increase enchantments on you for an additonal 2%-3% would be good in addition to its effect

I posted this in another thread, but it is relevant also to this thread.

Recasting things is an issue, but it doesn't have to mean less damage. Having to stand and cast something is just one aspect of the whole picture.

"Another player and I were discussing how neat it would be to have more attributes that weren't based on giving energy."

Not sure what you mean, there aren't that many in the first place. I'll even be generous and include some that don't fit the quoted description, but could be similar enough to be what you mean.

Strength
Axe Mastery
Hammer Mastery
Swordsmanship
Tactics

Expertise
Beast Mastery
Marksmanship
Wilderness Survival

Divine Favor
Healing Prayers
Protection Prayers
Smiting Prayers

Fast Casting
Domination Magic
Illusion Magic
Inspiration Magic

Energy Storage
Air Magic
Earth Magic
Fire Magic
Water Magic

Soul Reaping
Blood Magic
Curses
Death Magic

Spawning Power
Channeling Magic
Communing
Restoration Magic

Critical Strikes
Dagger Mastery
Deadly Arts
Shadow Magic

Mysticism
Earth Prayers
Scythe Mastery
Wind Prayers

Leadership
Command
Motivation
Spear Mastery

Not all classes have an attribute that provides energy, and even come of the classes do, the attribute isn't SOLELY about energy. Inspiration, for example, has a lot of enegry gain skills, but it also has hexes that deny energy, stances that reduce damage, and self healing. Expertise doesn't even give energy, it just reduces the energy needed for specific skills. You could argue that we need more, so each class has some energy management options without relying on a secondary.

And that doesn't even include skills outside of those attributes that are based on energy management. Guilt, Glowstone, Golden Lotus, etc. are all in attributes VERY few people would say were based on energy, and yet they provide nice options for energy management.