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Originally Posted by Axel Zinfandel
No, Flail is not overpowered, or at least it is nowhere near the top of the list in terms of importance, and especially not so considering a skill like SY! which is absolutely ridiculous any way you swing things. And I am aware, and show a lack of care, that messing with SY messes with everyone else because that is the point. I'm not saying 'smiter's boon' the thing, but it needs toned down a LOT.
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Clearly, our priorities on this issue are different, so we'll just have to disagree on it and move on.
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Originally Posted by Axel Zinfandel
Again, you are assuming that the balance of dervishes soully depend on SY!, which is not true.
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No, that's not what I was saying. This is what I was trying to get across:
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Originally Posted by Axel Zinfandel
On a basic level, Assassins are/were designed to be somewhat squishier, but more powerful as a result, therefor I think the problem is not that Assassins wield the scythe better then the dervish, so much as they do so without any downside. In fact, they have MORE armor then a dervish, and permanent IAS with ONE SKILL. In fact, looking at plain dagger wielders, I think Critical Agility could use a little nerf. Getting rid of the armor bonus is a definite way to knock them back a peg without ruining them outright. So, in short, yes, I do think nerfing assassins is necessary, and if not necessary, a very good course of action.
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But you already understand that, so, no repetition needed.
I was speaking from the hypothetical standpoint of what it would take
if the assassin were not nerfed. If we assume the opposite, the whole ballgame changes.
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Originally Posted by Axel Zinfandel
Balancing dervishes boils down to a few ways to do things, in order to make them the 'best' scythe weilder, compared to all other classes. You can either nerf the classes who do it better, buff the dervish itself, or a bit of both to find some sort of middle ground. The one way I do not agree with is -just- buffing the dervish. Things to not need to become more powerful in order for the class to become viable.
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I agree. However, in the absence of other factors (such as "buffing A without nerfing B would make A overpowered!"), I prefer not to nerf unnecessarily. However, one can make the argument that my example just now is exactly the current situation.
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Originally Posted by Axel Zinfandel
For one, why would PA need a shorter activation, when it already has +damage that rivals all other scythe attacks, AND instant recharge? You can't have your cake AND eat it too...
The point of either making the PBAoE damage armor ignoring, or at least higher in general, is so that the damage of it AFTER taking into account cast time, and aftercast, is viable enough to compensate for the dervish not being able to attack during that time. Casting time and after cast ONLY cuts into DPS if the damage being done by the spell is undesirable compared to the damage you would do simply be continuing attacking, which a few exceptions of course (weapon effects like mods, for example), hence why I also suggested lowering the cast time of the PBAoE enchantments to 1/2 (1.25 with aftercast) or 1/4 (1s with aftercast) to better mesh with the attack speed of scythes (and in fact quicker)
And it wouldn't necessarily have to beat out the AoE damage of the scythe, because:
1) you're not casting ALL the time.
2) You are using the enchantments to fuel PA.
3) AoE of enchantments have no limits, whereas the AoE of scythe DOES, and is in fact less than adjacent.
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In order to allow enchantment juggling to compete. I'm taking into account the fact that you aren't always casting.
Let me give you an idea of what's been going on in my head. Now, I mentioned above that a scythe sin can expect 130 primary target dps and 90 AoE dps, and unless the dervish can either exceed one or both of these numbers or offer something that the scythe sin cannot (this is why I brought up SY back then; it's an example of something useful a scythe sin cannot do that a primary dervish can), then it will not be useful.
Now, assuming no nerfs to the assassin, let's take a look at some back of the envelope ideas for buffs I had (not that I would seriously suggest them, mind you; it's just to get a feel for the numbers in this little thought experiment):
Mysticism
Whenever a dervish enchantment ends on you, gain 1 energy per 2 ranks
Dust Cloak (PvE)
5 en, 1/4 act, 10 rchg, AoE deals 30-80 damage, damage ignores armor
Staggering Force (PvE)
5 en, 1/4 act, 5 rchg, AoE deals 30-80 damage, damage ignores armor
Mirage Cloak (PvE)
10 en, 1/4 act, AoE deals 30-80 damage, damage ignores armor
Grenth's Fingers (PvE)
5 en, 1/4 act, 5 rchg, AoE deals 30-80 damage, damage ignores armor
Grenth's Aura (PvE)
10 en, 1/4 act, 5 rchg, AoE deals 30-80 damage, damage ignores armor
Heart of Holy Flame (PvE)
5 en, 1/4 act, 5 rchg, AoE deals 30-80 damage
Pious Assault (PvE)
5 en, 1 act, 12 rchg, Lose 1 dervish enchantment, +10...50 dmg, Removal effect: Instant recharge
Twin Moon Sweep (PvE)
5 en, 1 act, 3 rchg, Only removes dervish enchantments
What kind of dps can we expect from these sorts of (overpowered) buffs? Well, it would take 1 second to cast a PBAoE enchantment (due to the aftercast) and 1 more second to remove it with Pious Assault. We'll assume a lvl 30 target with asuran scan and AoHM up.
Primary Target: (80 + (37+50)*1.75)/2 = 116.125
Secondary Targets: (80+37+50)/2 = 83.5
Now do you see what I'm talking about when I say that huge buffs would be required for enchantment juggling to compete with scythes (as they are right now)? Even with all this overpowering, it's still significantly less than a scythe sin can put out (though to be fair, this particular setup would allow for weakness and blind spam too; assuming the monsters don't run away first).
Of course, this all applies
only if we decide not to nerf assassins and warriors with the scythe. If that happens, the necessary buffs aren't nearly as large. It does, however, need to do at least enough damage that people will look at it and go "yeah, that does enough damage to be meaningful".
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Originally Posted by Axel Zinfandel
I like it, however it's not something Anet seems to take into consideration with dervishes. Maybe they assume that Dervishes are so good at protecting themselves with Earth prayers, that the fact that they can remove monk enchantments isn't a risk?
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I sure
hope not!
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Originally Posted by Axel Zinfandel
AoE damage that causes scatter runs the risk of scatter, and if you don't snare you're making the entire build less effective. Same with Elementalists. It's generally stupid to slap some skills like Firestorm on without a snare in late game/HM and expect to do good damage, so you either snare, or don't use them.
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Yes, but, the need for a snare is an additional drawback. In other words, if a scythe does X damage and enchantment juggling does X damage, but enchantment juggling causes scatter and scythes do not, then there's not much point in using enchantment juggling, now is there?
Of course, in reality there are other factors (scythes are capped at three enemies, enchantment juggling makes you less vulnerable to anti-melee since less of the damage comes from direct melee, but scythes are not vulnerable to caster hate, etc). I'm just saying all of this has to be considered.
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Originally Posted by Axel Zinfandel
The problem of scatter generally doesn't exist with PBAoE enchantments because they don't do enough ticks of damage in a short enough period of time to cause scatter, and with an enchantment juggling build, Pious Assault is usually your only, or one of your only attack skills, filling the rest of the slots with PBAoE enchants and protection.
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And if you're using them as much as I think we're talking about here...
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Originally Posted by Axel Zinfandel
Well, All those changes are Ideal. the bringing back of Enchantment Juggling, and change to AoHM and perhaps a better IAS alone would certainly do wonders, while only changing and handful of skills. If decided to nerf WE and Critical Agility (or something of the nature), it would be even more useful. Changes to Mysticism, though it would be awesome, probably require too much work and thought.
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You'd also have to hit zealous vow with the nerfbat, or they'd just turn around and use that. And I don't think a nerf to critical agility alone would be enough (though an AoHM change like we all would like would help immensely). And changes to mysticism (or some improvement in energy management that only dervishes can effectively use) would be a requirement in order to prevent the abuse of enchantment juggling by other professions.
I think the main thing keeping mysticism sucking so much is that right now it is triggered by any enchantment. That means that unless you build your team specifically to trigger it a lot, it won't give much energy. However, this also means that, were mysticism buffed, such a team would be able to give a dervish ridiculous amounts of energy (which may or may not be worth the cost of building the party around it, but you never know...). Two potential ways of solving this problem include buffing it but putting a cap on the amount of times it can be triggered in a given interval (like SR), or making it only trigger on dervish enchantments. I find I prefer the latter, because it is more conducive to enchantment juggling.
The question is how much energy? The answer, obviously, depends on how expensive enchantments and their removals are. Ideally, mysticism should give you enough energy to fuel them, but only just, while leaving enough attribute points for the 3-way split that would be necessary for enchantment juggling.
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Originally Posted by Axel Zinfandel
Attacker's Insight. Zealous Vow just promotes haphazard spamming. Attacker's Insight is, realistically, 2 free attack skills and a trigger of mysticism (and energy regen during that time), which is enough to keep dervishes going alongside of your occasional monk enchant/orders flying around. I ran into absolutely no problem running Attackers insight in a spamming build with WS and some other skills.
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That haphazard spamming is what gets you the most dps. And AI is not able to handle it because of it's recharge time.
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Also, "losing dps" and "WS" in the same sentence is foreign to me. WS is an on demand, slightly AoE Deep Wound. Deep Wound of course, ideally doing a slightly artificial 100 damage
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That's 100 damage that you can only apply once per enemy. So over, say, 6 seconds, the DW has only increased your dps by 17. And the longer the enemy lives, the less the DW adds dps-wise. The bleeding also has to be considered, of course, but that's just 6 dps.
The extra damage you get from the deep wound of WS gets eclipsed by the dps of zealous vow builds within a few seconds. Think of it this way: WS is a spike, followed by a period of non-spiking. Zealous Vow is like a never-ending spike.
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Originally Posted by Axel Zinfandel
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I doubt that has the dps of a zealous vow dervish. Energy-wise, the dervish is just as well off as you are with leadership. He also has a third quick-activation attack skill, a slightly better IAS (a 2/3 maintainable 33% IAS is slightly better than a maintainable 25% one), and higher scythe mastery. The only offensive boon the paragon gets is a higher crit rate every few attacks. It may be able to out-dps it sometimes (if hitting enough enemies), but not consistently.
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Originally Posted by Axel Zinfandel
But on the note, I don't expect Anet to do anything anymore, I just suggest and hope for the best lol
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I hear you. At least we're getting some useful dialogue going, though.