Still waiting for ranger and dervish buff

Mysticsm does need a rework. Its too caster based. Look at the other primary atts of the other melee classes. They are all linked to doing more damage.

I'm sure if you get used to letting the enchantment end, no not reapplying it as its going to run out, you will love mysticsm.

But the problem is, there is no way easy way for energy management without mysticsm except for Zealous Vow but that takes an elite slot. No Wounding Strike

The assassin can relentlessly swing the scythe for 100+ damage cause the crit hit chance is like close to 100%. Warriors have no other elite to use cause strength uber buffs their damage anyway so they use Warrior's Endurance. They also have power strike for filler. AND FLAIL. That's another thing, dervishes have no maintainable non pve-only IAS that doesn't lock in their secondary proffesion. Sure you can use drunken master but that takes a pve-only slot.

Its not what the assassin or warrior can do that's better than the dervish, it is what the dervish can't.

my main toon is a derv... and I completely agree. I scrutinize the skills my derv and the secondary to see which skills work well with each other.

people aren't doing that and as a result are asking to be buffed.
(just like Del said)

Once a player actually sits down and thinks about how the derv skills can Synergize with one another as well as with the secondary prof skills, and make builds accordingly, they'll make builds that are both very energy efficient and DPS strong.

but that goes for any class in general.

my only irritation is that i see more players playing derv, not because of the skills or anything but because of "1t l00k5 l337." "scy7h3 pwn5 n008s"

its saddening.

I dont even use mysticism on my derv, i realize it's a failed mechanic. lol

You said that the reason dervs are inferior is because people don't think of good builds, but then you admit that the derv's primary is utter trash when compared to Crit Strikes/Strength/etc... and that it's a failed mechanic. Those two do not compute. You cannot be against a derv buff, but then admit that their primary isn't even worth using most of the time.

EDIT: Most of us are not asking for a dervish "buff." Just a Mysticism att rework, tying AoHM to Mysticism potentially, and looking at some of the almost universally useless or limited synergetic skills like Arcane Zeal, Pious Renewal, and Vow of Strength (because if you don't have condits in PvP, its a fail, and you can't control condition spam in PvE).

EDIT2: At the very least, we're hoping that Anet does something to the effect that the Derv can be outdone in the Scythe by Sins/Wars/Rangers/even Rits.

i never said i was against a derv buff. i only said that people dont use the derv to it's full potential then as result, due to the players inadequacy and inabilty to create a sufficient derv build, cry for a buff. (a buff for all the wrong reasons)

True mysticism is broken, but i have a derv that is fine without it. 12+1+2 scythe 12+2 earth 2+3 wind. it has done well very well against critscythe sins, and scythe using warriors.

The point i am trying to make is that, i'm not opposed to a buff, however i wouldnt be disappointed if it never happened. My build doesnt use mysticism and i am doing quite well without it so, it doesnt really affect me.

It would be cool if they buffed traps alot and made them viable. Maybe made them less interruptible and have a bit more of AOE. It would create alot of diversity in the already versatile ranger class.

IMO

Dervishes need a energy management buff. A mild one for PvP, and a generous one for PvE. I actually don't even have a derv. Not even a PvP character derv. It seems the majority of Scythe builds are better played by an Assassin or Ranger.


Rangers need an update to bow attacks. I think rangers are fine but a lot of the bow attack skills are just utter shit. Hell, part of the reason you see so many R/D and R/A in PvP is because bows just arent that good. Bows are great for conditions and rupts which gives them a place, but those are limited to a few very good bow attacks making it viable. If it wasn't for dshot and savage shot, no one would ever use Ranger for bows. Power shot, Splinter shot, to name a couple are skills I will never put on my bar. Those skills are shit.

Herp derp derp.

Necro primary...how can they heal redbar their team good, cast bloodbond and hope they kill em?

Not secondaries.

Ways of making the Ranger more awesome? Three possibilities.

1) More pure Skills, not stances and preps. Ranger buffs come in only two forms, and you can only have one of each at a time. By converting some of these into pure skills, it would allow the ranger to boost his damage, particularly from barrage, without having to rely on other professions or PvE skills.

Read the Wind: Move to Expertise, becomes an untyped skill, not a prep.
Crossfire: Change functionality to deal more damage if the target is near an ally, make an untyped skill with duration, not a single attack.
Expert Focus: Becomes an untyped skill, not a prep.
Marksman's Wager: Becomes an untyped skill, not a prep.
Seeking Arrows: Becomes an untyped skill, not a prep.

More dakka. Expertise gets a direct buff, allowing primaries to launch major attacks. Some of the skills might need tweaking, but they should be effective and helpful, similar to how Critical Eye is extremely good for sins while still being maintainable and balanced.

2) Barrage is wonderful. Barrage is better when used on a primary Rit. That's bad, because pure rangers should be better with their own supreme skill. The damage boosts listed above should help, but there is one other thing that would help, and help a lot.

Barrage: Make it remove preparations AFTER the attack hits.

Wilderness Survival is back on the bar, baby. This change would allow Rangers to use one of their core means of buffing, preparations, AND bring Barrage at the same time without power problems. It means an opening volley; a massive dose of poison, an AoE interrupt like Cry of Frustration, or just a big old bomb from Ignite Arrows. A Ranger might even bring two or three preps so as to deliver multiple AoE attacks through them, making the profession more intricate rather than mere Barrage spam through the use of another attribute line.

Excuse me if I'm wrong, but when a class is so screwed up that most people find its better not to spec in its' primary, isn't that the definition of broken? Maybe I'm crazy here, but the point of only Derv primaries having access to Mysticism was so they could use it effectively...

This is the reason that R/D, A/D, W/D can use the scythe better, because their primary actually provides reason for use.

Again, I state that Emanagement is not the primary problem with Mysticism. The primary issue with Mysticism is that it does not provide any melee damage advantage to the Derv, and the health gain from it is insignificant at best.

It would be nice to see Punishing Shot get a little buff possibly remove the half cast.It is the best Elite before you cap Crip Shot in Prophecies.

That's because the dervish wasn't designed to be a (pure) melee class.
The problem is his casting abilities cannot compensate the lack of his melee capabilites and are therefor unable to hold a candle to warrior or sin as a frontline character. If you don't fix this problem you just shift the preferences between warrior, sin and dervish.

Bad suggestions. Bows aren't meant for (direct) damage, it's a far better idea to increase the damage capabilites of beast mastery like Ugh suggested.

Barrage is mediocre unless run in a specific team build, and it's utterly trash on a primary rit unless it's for a solo farming build; you know, you can simply cast weapon spells on your allies.

That is an interesing change, but I reckon it would be hard to code.

For the Dervish, a possible change to mysticism that would make them more appealing would be to make it when an enchantment is cast on you, that is when you gain energy, when it ends is when you gain health, and while you are under the effects of an enchantment you attack faster. This would not up the maximium damage a dervish could do in one hit, but increase the dps that the dervish can output on par with what a sin, ranger, or warrior can using a scythe while still maintaining the unique flavor that the dervish has. Maybe have the numbers be "for every 1 rank in mysticism, you attack +2% faster while under the effects of an enchantment"

If Anet went this way both Onslaught and Heart of Fury would need to be reworked to remove the IAS from them and change it to some other functionality other wise it would be redundant.

Yeah, been thinking about that one. Would be nice if it were a 5E interrupt, but make the bonus damage conditional - that would make it look good compared to Savage Shot and worthy of the elite slot.

Or maybe remove the bonus damage and have it steal energy on a successful interrupt.

I completely agree with you there. I don't know what the debate between you and I is...

lol

I said the derv was broken, but I also said I can effectively use it w/o it's main attribute... therefore a buff is not Paramount for my derv, or for his advancement (in either pvp or pve, i still dominate, and from time to time have a hard time against Earth Ele's or knockdown-warriors)

I also pointed out that the people I've seen are crying for buffs for all the wrong reasons, and not the ones that they should be using:

*Mysticism is a broken mechanic or the fact that other professions could POTENTIALLY make use of a scythe better than a derv*

so i never disagreed with anything you said, save the fact that you claimed i didn't want a buff, which was not true. I am apathetic to any change because this handicap hasn't had any real effect on me. I have adapted to it's shortcomings and compensated for them in full.

Do i think other dervish players will benefit from a buff? Yes. I'm sure of it.
Do i think the derv is underpowered in most normal situations? yes.
(but has it jeopardized the effectiveness of my derv and the way I play in pvp or otherwise? No.)

Do I want the buff on account of myself? No. (I neither need it nor do i find it appealing for my personal dervish)

I see no discernible difference in effectiveness between what I play and what a critscythe sin will play. It's just personal preference.

that's all... preference.

If that is the case, then most Bow Attacks need a rework, because a lot of them are just +damage.

In fact, that would actually be a decent suggestion; use chained conditions kind of like the paragon and warrior. The attack skills to be changed to things like "if the target is crippled, inflicts cracked armor" or "if the target is bleeding, inflicts weakness". This would give rangers better condition mastery AND change a lot of useless skills.


Edit: As long as we are talking PvE balance, can we talk about Elementalists and Monks?

ER infuse healers outdoing monks is kind of ridiculous. RoJ smiters being better nukers than the nuke profession is equally absurd.

Can we have ER only effect elementalist spells, and give monks some better energy management (make Divine Spirit slightly less effective, but increase duration and decrease recharge, for example). In turn, can eles get a little love in the armor penetration department? For example, make Intensity supply armor penetration instead and have a duration based on ES, have Glyph of Elemental Power provide armor pen, and Glyph of Essence make your next spell ignore armor in exchange for losing all energy.

I could live that.

Damage inferiority is not of Mysticism's fault but the lackluster effects chosen for majority of dervish skills. Due to the PbAOE of these effects, whenever an enchantment ends, they are often watered down to enforce balance.

What I am thinking is that to have offense oriented enchantments (e.g. grenth's grasp) active and upon cast effects reduced in exchange for bonuses to its end effects should it be stripped before self expiration so as to reward people actively uses Mysticism. For balance sake, certain control measures such as losing 1 or 2 active dervish enchantments upon cast can be used to avoid stacking of such enchantments for a "bomb" effect when stripped or stacked covering powerful enchantments cast by support professions. Additionally, I suggest limiting the self removal of enchantments effect to only scythe attack skills as to not only compliment the style of "enchantment juggling" but also limits other professions from using scythes efficiently without a comprehensive team set up as they run risk of removing supportive enchantments (e.g. prot spirit) without a cover enchantment as dervish have.

A Necro primary can do the smartest thing ever:

Go with a Monk secondary or a Ritualist secondary and win PvE.

Because, you know... GW is still a game where you get the most out of a character by using both professions.

Oh no, my X doesn't have broken PvE skills like other professions do! Let's break my X with retarded skills as well!

You PvE-ers are so ridiculous.

Ok, I admit I haven't read half the posts in this thread, but I did notice people suggesting ways to fix dervs. So, to save time, I'll just address some of the common fixes for that class that people have suggested over time which will likely not work:

Enchantment length: Doesn't help. The dervish is only potentially useful for two things: the scythe and enchantment juggling. Neither is significantly benefitted by longer enchantment durations.

Enchantment juggling: Sucks. Seriously. All it offers are self-heals, utility, and damage, and in none of these categories is it useful. This would require an insane buff to be worthwhile. Remember, we're talking about damage to rival scythes, so you need to consider damage, cast times, removal times, energy costs, aftercast delays, HM armor, and recharges. At the end of it all, you'd be looking at maybe over a hundred damage post-armor for one PBAoE just to have enough dps to come close to a scythe (assuming you have the ability to spam it). Is it possible to make this work, somehow? Perhaps, and if someone can do it, I'd love it. But it's not likely.

More energy on enchantments ending: This would either not be useful or overpowered. If you're using, say, a zealous vow build (the closest thing to a useful dervish build), an energy buff on mysticism will not be enough to replace zealous vow. But on other builds that don't focus on melee...I shudder to think of the overpowered implications (especially in PvP).

Buff the avatars: The only way you could really buff these to be useful without adding to their damage (and even if you did that, I'm not sure it would be worthwhile), would be to make their effects party-wide. Some extra armor and an IMS that only affects you is not going to be very useful no matter how much it is. Neither is condition immunity, + max health, self-heals, hex-removal, or extra max energy.

Now, some dervish fixes that could work.

Better IAS: Every 33% IAS has one significant weakness (Flail has a movement penalty, Frenzy makes you take double damage, etc). HoF is the only one that has two. It can only be kept up 2/3 of the time at high mysticism, and it requires you to put nearly half your attribute points into an otherwise useless attribute. If HoF were maintainable, however, dervishes would actually be worthwhile as a scythe user. Scythe sins would be able to beat them in pure dps, but scythe sins can't bring SY.

Linking AoHM to mysticism: There are various ways one could do this (linking duration or damage to it, or adding a damage bonus for each rank, for example). But either way, this would work.

Some other innate effect of mysticism (% chance for spell immunity, for example), could also work, because it would provide some unique advantage to being a dervish over another profession. However, these tend to carry their own unique issues.

As for rangers, I'm not even sure they should be buffed. Are they weak? Certainly. But they aren't useless. Splinter Barrage is done better by Ritualists (and that's really the only thing I'd change), but every other Barrage-based build is done best by Rangers. It can be combined with SY or Go For the Eyes, for example. It's a very versatile elite.

Barrage is not strong without additional phys-buffs, neither it's own damage, nor the AoE or particularly good. Interrupts are mostly useless in HM, where casters are on steroids. What's left is bringing party-buffs. Yay.

Au contraire, rangers are pretty much the best class for interrupts in HM, just because of BHA. I went through most of my vanquishes and such pre-EotN running BHA just because most mobs will crumble if you just daze one key caster and pound the crap out of it.

Now with technobabble BHA is useless. A waste of an elite slot.

BHA was always useless. Just poor rangers fooling themselves into thinking they were good when it was their heroes doing all the work.

BHA is about the worst ranger skill going, mostly because people try to use it!

I think this is one of the inherent problems with this game. By the time you get to the high end elite areas in HM, a lot of professions do kind of drop off the table because of the level of damage and armor that is being dealt with. The problem is that in NORMAL MODE, PvE play, the ranger is actually pretty kick ass IMO with AoE damage that is indeed significant. You start buffing the ranger too much, you are going to be making the experience for newer players even easier to the point where the game isn't really going to offer much of a challenge at all. Seriously, an ignite arrows, conjure flame, barrage would pretty much clear everything in a ranger's path.

I kind of like the idea of Celestial skills in factions. High end, broken skills that are only offered on certain missions.

<---derv pl;ayer here and this is JUST the problem everyone has...everybody has the hatefest of dervish because A DERVISH may be good at what he does but He DOESNT DO THE JOB AS WELL AS OTHER CLASSES....nor does he use the scythe to the extent that say a sin or a warior does...and this is where it starts to piss me off, because a dervish should be usefull in combat, and it should be good at what it does, nobody takes them because they arent the top at their game....HOWEVERCLOSE it may be people look for efficiency, and they will NEVER take a dervish over a warior, or a sin unless Dervishes get a serious buff.

Rangers are also under the same mentality, they are GOOD at what they do just not GOOD ENOUGH so they dont get picked.

But not equally. A Melandru Dervish who's silly enough to be playing without some form of energy-booster is basically locked out of their elite as soon as they pick up some DP. Even without that, a lot of the more viable Dervish builds - at least in my experience - are rather "spiky" in their energy use - they drop a bunch of enchantments in quick succession (AoHM, Heart of Fury, Eternal Aura, sometimes with some other skills as well) to be recast after they expire. A little bit of DP can be the difference between getting them all down and not, slowing them down in the crucial early moments of an engagement, while an Elementalist, or for that matter any build with a more gradual usage of energy may only notice a loss of energy due to DP as the battle is winding down.

Mind you, this clearly isn't the main problem, especially since in the current version of the game DP removal is fairly cheap and easy.

Actually, the bigger problem is that if these casting abilities did become useful, you'll just see Assassins and WE Warriors continuing to use them more effectively than primary Dervishes because they have better energy management. Dervishes don't just need a role, they need a good reason to use primary Dervishes in that role.

i got a decent working scythe build for derv, using scythe, air prayers and pve skills. a scythe sin or war however, both deal more damage and have better energy management. the scythe ranger is also better imo because of expertise. scythe ele (lots of energy) and rit (spirits strength) might be better also, but i haven't tried.

i finally beefed up my ranger and tried splinter barrage with ebon battle standard of honor and all that jazz. i was all excited, but it turned out pretty pathetic, and this was pve NM. considering all other ranger elites are pretty bleh, i just turned him into r/rt SoS like any good ranger would do.

Ranger/hunter often equals DPS because the character has elite skills with a bow, what they call markmanship. In GW however he needs to be toned down a bit or otherwise other classes would just stand by and watch the ranger kill the targets fast before they even realise it.

I do however think the class could be more interesting and play a role as 'sniper' too, but no fast recharge skills then ofcourse. More in the line of an elite that does 800 dmg (40-80% chance depending on points in markmanship), 1/4 casting time and for example 45 secs recharge. It's just an example you know to give an idea, nothing serious.

I dont play dervish much but this is the problems I notice:

1) IAS, half of the time its Heart of fury. 10en, 30rc, comparing to warrior's stances, sin's agility, stopping every 30secs to cast a IAS seems ridiculous to me.

2) energy, while mysticism requires enchants to function, u need to stop to cast them, which again greatly reduces the DPS.

Yes, that's another problem that needs to be solved. An idea would be to change Mysticism to give additional energy when a dervish enchanment ends.

Or you can turn him into a R/A (dagger), R/D (scythe) or if you want to stay at range into a R/P (spear).

Seriously , ppl mentioning Barrage or BHA to say that "rangers are fine" are totally clueless. If those are your best arguments , its pretty clear that Rangers need a buff.
However , the buffs that Rangers need are not from marksmanship line .... most are for Wilderness survival. Dear god traps and spirits ? even an attack att line like Smitting prayers have decent damage and use .... and its from the top healing class pffff.

Well, I got the pretty title, armor and weapon on my derv but when i'd do high-end PvE, I had to switch to any other profession. If the required role was a scythe user, I'd just use Sin or War...

I guess that is self-explanatory about what I think on dervs getting buffed...

just do one thing... change Vow of Silence so that you can cast spells and allies can cast spells on you. Make the avatars stronger. Change mysticism to not give a health boost but just energy.

Make it so that it now give 3 energy for every 2 ranks you have in mysticism. Make Eremite's Zeal a skill and not a spell please.

Is that to get through particular enchantments to block spells but not skills?

BTW, back to the ranger. I really don't see why expertise lowers the cost of BINDING rituals (ritualist stuff) but not a ranger's own NATURE rituals.

i'll be happy enough if they increase the energy gain from mysticism. +1 e for every 2 ranks or something like that. And make it take effect on casting, not when enchant ends. I don't find damage output a problem, what i hate is running out of energy (even with a 35 energy pool) unless i put in something silly like lyssa's attack or zealous renewal. or they can make zealous renewal 5e and shorten the duration and recharge time so that it can be spammed.

I see rangers pretty good as they are. If any buff is to be made, i`d vote for armor piercing or armor ignoring attacks or whatever. Pretty logical, isn`t it? I mean, an arrow can pierce a bulletproof vest that would normally stop 357 bullet.. Much more mass is concentrated to that tiny spot in case of an arrow and voila - armor gets pierced like paper.

you know after some thought it wouldnt matter. I was somehow thinking of taking off enchants like Balthazar's Rage or vital boon as great self heals but VoS would be going ontop of it and would still prevent self casting. RRRGGHH

Dervish changes needed for PvE:

Dervish self-enchant-removal skills only remove Dervish enchants (most of the time, they currently remove Monk enchants, draining the Monks energy since they have to cast more spells on you)

Make the PBAoE spells less pathetic. You are better off just autoattacking rather than doing 70 earth damage. For example...Dust Cloak...bump the recharge to 30.

"Every 5 seconds for 20 seconds, adjacent foes are struck for 10...42...50 earth damage and are Blinded for 0...2...3 seconds. If ended prematurely, nearby foes take 1...4...5 earth damage and are blinded for 0...1...1 second for each second that Dust Cloak was active."

Another change, which may be overkill, is allow Mysticism to increase the duration of enchants cast on yourself.