Should dervish be generic attack spammers?

Cuilan

Cuilan

Forge Runner

Join Date: Mar 2008

Me/

Zealous Vow SY builds are basically spam the attacks as much as you can. Kinda like many of the good dagger builds as A/W. Is this really the way you want dervish buffed? An assassin that can strike multiple foes?

*Edit: In PvE

Karate Jesus

Karate Jesus

Forge Runner

Join Date: Apr 2008

Texas

Reign of Judgment [RoJ]

Me/

In PvE? Um....it's fine.

Dervs still do less damage than Hammer Warriors, Sins, and pretty much every other profession. They definitely need a buff for PvE.

Oh, even D/N orders is now outclassed by E/N orders.

Chthon

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Apr 2007

Are you posing a find-the-optimal-build question or a game design question?

If the former, then yes, you should run that build; It's definitely the best thing dervs have going for them under the current skill balance.

If the latter, then no; That's a totally redundant role.

Karate Jesus

Karate Jesus

Forge Runner

Join Date: Apr 2008

Texas

Reign of Judgment [RoJ]

Me/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chthon View Post
If the former, then yes, you should run that build; It's definitely the best thing dervs have going for them under the current skill balance. Actually, this build is pretty awesome too.

Kopa The Demon King

Kopa The Demon King

Academy Page

Join Date: Mar 2010

Forever Knights

D/

Dervish need a buff in terms of damage output in any way because otherwise they fall under the bar set by wariors in tanking, and under the bar set by sins in damage output.

The dervish needs a good station in which it can set its foot down, and zealous vow though a strong skill is not how i want things to go...It may be good but i mean Dervs when they get buffed or nerfed they are left with ONE choice, and leaves the dervish useless in all other forms of combat. the derv is a well rounded class but it doesnt take advantage of ANYTHING it can do, thanks to A-net nerfing it to hell. It needs something, and if zealous vow is it then zealous vow it shale be.

I think a dervish should be set as a Condition inflicting DPS class based in a Midline format to back up the tank.

Grim Aragorn

Grim Aragorn

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Oct 2005

A/

tbh soldiers stance builds are total trash on dervish, sure the blocking is nice but if u stock up on fast activation time skills u dont really need an IAS, and even with a zealous scythe/zealous sweep you wont be able to keep energy up enough to spam a-scan and attacks

Z-vow is much better in the long run, even if it gets stripped it has a fast cooldown. Use a vamp scythe and go to town (Strength and Honor+Aura+AsuraScan+Iats=lol pve)

Valkyrie250

Valkyrie250

Academy Page

Join Date: Oct 2008

Classified

None

D/

I want dervishes to be more like tanks. Right now dervishes are more like slightly squishy enchanters who are DPS. I want to see the DPS stay but I also want to see the dervish play more a role in PvE. Most people look on the dervish in the meta of PvE as more of a downer than an asset. I dont like that. I really want some buffs for PvE dervish.

_Nihilist_

_Nihilist_

Will Bull's Strike for $!

Join Date: Apr 2006

Isle of the Dead

/notsigned for the Tank idea. If you want Tanks, go play one of the many MMO's that can only function with Tank n Spank, there are better ways to experience GW.

Yuna Matsumarui

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Mar 2009

Me/

I think the derv was meant to be juggling with enchantments, to receive bonusses. as in the effect of
-AoE bleed
- Damage (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Mirage_Cloak
) (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Sand_Shards) (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Mystic_Sandstorm)
- Conditons (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Staggering_Force) (http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Aura_of_Thorns)

these effects ofcourse don't take place when you want them, so they've added skills who let you control your effects taking place. (Pious Assault-Twin Moon Sweep-Signet of Pious Light)

these skills ofcourse add effects to themselves as well.

so let's say your running a derv with 12 Mysticism, 9 Scythe Mastery, and 9 Earth Prayers.
you use Aura of Thorns, Adjacent Foes are Crippled, then you use Twin Moon Sweep. you gain 38 +12 health, and 4 energy.

this whole combo cost you 6 energy (4 if you were using a zealous scythe, and hitting 1 foe) , crippled, added bleeding dealth double dmg and healed you for 50 health.

I don't see what's wrong with that, though because this PvE Meta revolves around dealing dmg, or supporting your partymembers dervishes have no role. (ofcourse one could argue that the wind prayers line has party support, such as Dwayna's Touch for healing a fellow frontliner that's in danger, or Mystic Healing for some quick support on your backline.

I believe that this was the who dervish idea, bring dmg and support. however, since we focus on either healing or dmg (who sees warriors bringing self heals these days, prot spirit + spirit bond and ur good to go) dervishes are outderv't by other classes.

NO! dervishes are outscythed by other classes (WE Scythe, Critscythe), and the dervish has disappeared, because the other options just give better options to deal damage.

so you bring Zealous Vow you say?

still autocrits and Armor Penetration > Mysticism.

the dervish is imo only preferred as a tank over a warrior in Pve in areas where there are no enchantment removal skills, which are pretty rare - especially in high end Pve.

Arrogant Bastard

Arrogant Bastard

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Aug 2009

Your mom's house

E/

With prots (PB or PS) and cons, there is almost no difference between scythe dervs, sins, and wars (except A/D can't use SY).

Therefore, in difficult/elite areas where ER bonders and essence is used, it doesn't matter which are taken for damage.

If comparing all melee builds, then wars and sins will be better with certain teams:
-Dagger sins can trigger buffs faster and more often
-100b wars have the best synergy with MoP

Axel Zinfandel

Axel Zinfandel

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Sep 2007

Northeastern Ohio

LaZy

P/W

Way back when, Pious Assault used THIS function, and some of the enchantments that functioned like Grenth's Fingers (begin effect, 20 seconds, end effect) had bigger damage and lower recharge, which made Dervishes effective enchantment jugglers by casting the enchantments, using Pious to cancel it, ect.

Now however, Pious has been changed completely, the enchantments nerfed, and even if they brought it back, the overall damage expectancy of melee characters have skyrocketed since then. That along with HM in general, the build still wouldn't hold it's ground. It was however very cool and interesting to play.

So, the answer is no, they shouldn't, but Anet made them that way anyway, sadly.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Arrogant Bastard View Post
With prots (PB or PS) and cons, there is almost no difference between scythe dervs, sins, and wars (except A/D can't use SY).

Therefore, in difficult/elite areas where ER bonders and essence is used, it doesn't matter which are taken for damage. Except Sins blast through enemies using crits, which the scythe is awesome with, and Warriors have Strength to abuse.

Dervs have none of these, so they will always come in third when using the weapon they were designed to use :/

FoxBat

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Apr 2006

Amazon Basin [AB]

Mo/Me

The "solution" has always been damn simple. Rework Aura of Holy Might like so:

Enchantment spell, 10e, 25r. 5 seconds + 3 for every rank of mysticism. When you cast, does X holy damage to nearby foes. Your deal x% damage with a weapon and your dervish enchantments recharge twice as fast. (Does not convert damage type.)

Doesn't mess up orders or even conjure, doesn't work on secondaries, doesn't screw up PvP, lets you perma heart of fury or have fun cycling enchantments. Scythe is a plenty powerful weapon in PvE, just nerf it on sins/wars and people will shut up.

Chthon

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Apr 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by FoxBat View Post
The "solution" has always been damn simple. Rework Aura of Holy Might like so:

Enchantment spell, 10e, 25r. 5 seconds + 3 for every rank of mysticism. When you cast, does X holy damage to nearby foes. Your deal x% damage with a weapon and your dervish enchantments recharge twice as fast. (Does not convert damage type.)

Doesn't mess up orders or even conjure, doesn't work on secondaries, doesn't screw up PvP, lets you perma heart of fury or have fun cycling enchantments. Scythe is a plenty powerful weapon in PvE, just nerf it on sins/wars and people will shut up.
I agree. Take the stupid damage type conversion off AoHM (and the avatars for that matter) and dervishes become a LOT more viable.

Quote: Originally Posted by Grim Aragorn View Post Use a vamp scythe and go to town (Strength and Honor+Aura+AsuraScan+Iats=lol pve) AoHM is not advisable for all the reasons I explained in the other thread. Unless it's a H+H team or a no-synergy PUG, use EBSoH instead.

Quote: Originally Posted by Karate Jesus View Post
Actually, this build is pretty awesome too. That build appears to have huge energy problems.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenomortis View Post
If I was making a team I wouldn't mind a Warrior, Sin or Derv - they all adequately fulfill the "kill shit now" role. I generally disfavor PUG dervs on the grounds that there is basically ONE good derv build out there now, and the odds are very high that any given PUG derv does not have the skills for it. Add to that the fact that bad derv builds tend to be a lot worse than bad war or sin builds, and it's still not a class I'd go anywhere near unless I know the person running it.

Quote: The correct comparison is AoHM vs Orders + EBSoH, since I'm advocating a switch from AoHM to EBSoH. (And I think it's legitimate to assume that you will not have a copy of EBSoH up on the front line unless you give it to a ZV or WE guy.) The result is that AoHM does more damage on a Scanned target (and sometimes the off targets depending on their armor), but not so much more that the AoE buff on EBSoH doesn't outweigh it if you've got a couple other allies in the ward.

Quote:
The only time I may object is when I really want to use Mark of Pain, but then I can just tell the derv not to bring AoHM Given how awesome the new Blood Bond is, especially with scythe's mini-AoE, and that Orders fits well with Blond Bond, I'm pretty much inclined to not run AoHM any time I have enough control over the team to fit an Orders-SoH hero in.

Xenomortis

Xenomortis

Tea Powered

Join Date: May 2008

UK

N/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chthon View Post
Given how awesome the new Blood Bond is, especially with scythe's mini-AoE, and that Orders fits well with Blond Bond, I'm pretty much inclined to not run AoHM any time I have enough control over the team to fit an Orders-SoH hero in. AoHM adds more damage than Orders does (generally anyway). http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...6&postcount=48
I might have taken screenshots at the time, but I have a mess of folders and I don't feel like looking.
It's easy to check though.

With the way AoHM currently works, removing the damage conversion would make it insanely over powered. Already it's the single greatest damage buff, but comes with the restriction that few other buffs work with it.

The conversion on the Avatars is annoying, but they're seldom used and typically with AoHM anyway. However if Avatar of Grenth didn't convert to Cold damage you'd get a pretty good damage boost using it under Orders (AoG + OotV + BB would give a pretty durable frontliner too).

But Orders synergise with Dervs in another way. It's one of the few times a Derv's primary attribute is worthwhile. If OotV is being spammed on recharge then with 9 in Mysticism the Dervish essentially has 1.5 extra pips of regeneration (6 sec duration enchantment, 3 energy gain on expiration, reapplied immediately after it expires) and 2 pips with 12. With a Zealous Scythe you should be coming onto par with Zealous Vow (although you might need the occasional Zealous Sweep). That frees up your elite slot (although there isn't much that's very exciting for a Dervish).


As for PuG dervs; well I don't much like PuG sins or warriors either.
If I see their build is shit I ping what I want them to run and if they can run it, fine, if they can't they go. Fortunately I'm generally not the person trying to organise everything.

Chthon

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Apr 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by Xenomortis View Post
AoHM adds more damage than Orders does (generally anyway). http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...6&postcount=48
But Orders synergise with Dervs in another way. It's one of the few times a Derv's primary attribute is worthwhile. If OotV is being spammed on recharge then with 9 in Mysticism the Dervish essentially has 1.5 extra pips of regeneration (6 sec duration enchantment, 3 energy gain on expiration, reapplied immediately after it expires) and 2 pips with 12. With a Zealous Scythe you should be coming onto par with Zealous Vow (although you might need the occasional Zealous Sweep). That frees up your elite slot (although there isn't much that's very exciting for a Dervish). Many people seem fond of the DW elites. If avatars were fixed to not convert damage type, then they would be excellent candidates for a freed elite slot, particularly Grenth.

reaper with no name

reaper with no name

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Apr 2009

FaZ

D/

I apologize for not getting to this thread sooner.

As we all know, once upon a time dervishes spammed enchantments and stripped them with powerful attacks. This got nerfed, then power creep created things even more powerful.

That's what the dervish was supposed to do. Unfortunately, at this point, without a major rework, even if it were brought back, such builds would still be inferior to what dervishes already have. And if they were made more powerful than attack skill spam, well, they'd probably be overpowered.

So, the short answer is, all dervishes have that they can be good at is the scythe. They need buffs for that. It would be nice if they were made to do what they originally were meant to, but at the same time it would probably be either useless or overpowered, so it might be better not to go that way.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Grim Aragorn View Post
tbh soldiers stance builds are total trash on dervish, sure the blocking is nice but if u stock up on fast activation time skills u dont really need an IAS, and even with a zealous scythe/zealous sweep you wont be able to keep energy up enough to spam a-scan and attacks

Z-vow is much better in the long run, even if it gets stripped it has a fast cooldown. Use a vamp scythe and go to town (Strength and Honor+Aura+AsuraScan+Iats=lol pve) I agree with all of that except the part about IAS. You still want that even on a ZV build, because not only does it affect your attack skills, but even with them you are still going to be autoattacking a lot, so you still need an IAS. Oddly enough, if HoF didn't suck so much and could be maintained (I mean seriously, unmaintainable AND located in a useless attribute line? Give me a break; when was the last time anyone even paid ATTENTION to Flail's downside in PvE?), the dervish would be able to outscythe the warrior.

reaper with no name

reaper with no name

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Apr 2009

FaZ

D/

Whirling Charge? You must be joking. That doesn't last nearly long enough to be of use.

The best case scenario damage-wise for a zealous vow dervish that doesn't use an IAS or Fear Me (which requires a speccing of it's own, which I have not bothered doing the math for) is to take Victorious Sweep, and according to my math the damage is close, but not quite there. HoF is just barely better.

However, this does give me reason to check out some other possibilities. I'll look into what happens when you throw Fear Me in there instead of an IAS, but considering what happened when I did that with enduring scythe (the loss of the attack skill and the couple points of strength was greater than the damage boost, and with an IAS attack skills contribute less to the overall damage, since their recharge times don't change), I don't have high hopes.

EDIT: Nope, that lowers damage too. At 12 tactics, it's very slightly worse than Victorious Sweep.

Bloody Dominator

Bloody Dominator

Academy Page

Join Date: Jun 2009

Belgium

Sent Fromhell [SFH]

D/

Actually with ZV i like to run Whirling Charge to, i do use it in combination with the Deldrimor skill "Dwarven Stability" so i can keep it up 24/7.

reaper with no name

reaper with no name

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Apr 2009

FaZ

D/

That's two skill slots (one of them PvE) for an IAS that is slightly worse than HoF. Not sure why you'd want to do that, but ok.

Franksalot

Franksalot

Academy Page

Join Date: May 2009

CROW

D/

you can easily keep heart of fury up 24/7 with eternal aura, yeah it's still 2 slots but 100 armor ignoring damage to all nearby foes is quite nice

Dervish Kid

Dervish Kid

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Aug 2007

Florida

D/

After reading the 1st page of this thread.. I think A-Net needs to see this and hurry up with a dervish update.

NerfHerder

NerfHerder

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Apr 2010

Regarding the OP, no I dont think they should be 123 spam bots. Thats what an Assassin is for, and even Warrior to a lesser degree. With the current skill balance Dervishes are not capable of fulfilling the niche they were created for in the first place. It is possible to juggle enchantments and cause quite a few conditions in the process. But it's just not that effective when the mechanics of the game are geared toward DPS.

Why would you need an IAS with the Zealous Vow builds? All 3 attack skills have activation times, so the 3 skills your spamming wont be effected. And whenever your not spamming your attack skills your recasting other skills. With out an IAS you already get in one hit before your attack skills recharge. So with an IAS you might get 2 hits. Not that effective given the high energy cost and short time its effective. Only bonus with Whirling Charge to me would be the IMS to move to foes faster. Im putting my money on Conviction for that slot. With only 6 points in earth its maintainable cost 5nrg, you get +24ar and 50% block.

104ar +50% block > 80ar 1 extra hit ever 5sec and/or recieving double damage

Neky

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Nov 2009

Incredible Edible Bookah [YUM]

D/W

Dervish bar without Conviction in HM is kinda pointless if you ask me.

Cuilan

Cuilan

Forge Runner

Join Date: Mar 2008

Me/

I'd kill for a non-ZV build. There was a PvE bomber build, but it's clumsy and has a lot of heavy downtime. Damage wasn't even that hot either. Physical buff dervish were gaining momentum, but then people just went N/Mo, Rt/Mo, or E/N heroes.

Mintha Syl

Mintha Syl

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Apr 2010

No, dervishes should instead stop being generic attack spammers and find theyr niche in something useful warrior and sin don't do, IMO.
I'm using a Lyssa's avatar build, and for now it works greatly, but I still didn't do HM and general difficul things with it, and I really feel it's gonna be a bad one there. Just spamming attacks with some energy and health management + some burning...I would really want something more "intelligence-side" . I even gave up on conditions as cripple and deep wound for the stupid energy cost.
Still, I may have missed something since it's not much I'm playing this class, but this is my feeling.

Red_Dragon56

Red_Dragon56

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Oct 2006

N/D

Ursans blessing, in PvE, makes any class a skill-spam class. And it's fairly powerful. So...

Bandwagon

Bandwagon

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Jan 2010

D/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Red_Dragon56 View Post
Ursans blessing, in PvE, makes any class a skill-spam class. And it's fairly powerful. So...
Thats nice, might want to stay on topic though.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cuilan View Post
.....I'd kill for a non-ZV build........ Same here mate, the build is even more mind draining than a 1-2-3 sin (never mind the fact your shatter bait when there is chant removal). Hopefully A net changes / updates enough D-skills so there might be actual synergy between the skills and Mysticism.