Dervish Update

probably. I dont like playing dervs anyway but this is one of the main reasons i do(splinter+ scythe+ increased attack speed=ftw). How is damaging 3 enemies at once /w splinter + scythe + ias any more overpowered than, let's say a ranger with barrage + splinter + ias?

The derv is already the most underpowered class to make use of the scythe, any nefs will probably be aimed at the warrior and sin.

as far as scythe dmg goes i wouldn't mind seeing the max dmg fall and the minimum dmg raise, so while crits wouldn't be as epic you generally get higher or at least medium dmg possibly so their simialr to hammers dmg no more 9's. How would that balance the Dervish against Assassins or Warriors using scythes?

How would that balance the Dervish against Assassins or Warriors using scythes? It would balance criticals, the scythe sin is all about using the high damage of the scythe to do high criticals all the time with a weapon designed to do a spread of high to low damage.

Dervishes weren't designed for attack spamming, if they were why would most of their skills be enchantments? Neither were sins, they were designed to be a fragile, hit-and-run spike profession with instagib powers "balanced" by high skill recharges. You can see how well that turned out in the end.

Neither were sins, they were designed to be a fragile, hit-and-run spike profession with instagib powers "balanced" by high skill recharges. You can see how well that turned out in the end. like you said, the recharge on sin attack skills were due to pvp, like derv enchantments, in the end it's a BALANCING issue for PVP and not pve. The primary attribute of the sin,war,ran were clearly designed to synergize with attack skills, while para with shouts and derv with enchantments. so I don't know what you're talking about.

like you said, the recharge on sin attack skills were due to pvp No, they were designed to be a SPIKE profession in all modes. That's why dagger base damage is crap. This was to differentiate them from warriors that had consistent damage output. Shadowstep in, unload your combo on a key caster, shadowstep out before your squishy butt gets squashed. End result was they were utterly ignored in PvE until they gained the ability to tank and spam without stepping at all.

Critical agility is a notable skill because, much like summon spirits, it completely negates intentional and intrinsic class weaknesses. So does eternal aura, if only avatars were worth using.

There is no reasonable way self-enchant cycling can be made worthwhile in PvE next to the sheer power of buffed physicals in guild wars. Even if wars/sins do it better, scythe is still the vehicle for delivering a tremendous amount of damage that mesmers, monks, and eles can only dream of. Any time you spend casting enchantments is time you aren't blowing things up with scythes.

No, they were designed to be a SPIKE profession in all modes. That's why dagger base damage is crap. This was to differentiate them from warriors that had consistent damage output. Shadowstep in, unload your combo on a key caster, shadowstep out before your squishy butt gets squashed. End result was they were utterly ignored in PvE until they gained the ability to tank and spam without stepping at all.

Critical agility is a notable skill because, much like summon spirits, it completely negates intentional and intrinsic class weaknesses. So does eternal aura, if only avatars were worth using.

There is no reasonable way self-enchant cycling can be made worthwhile in PvE next to the sheer power of buffed physicals in guild wars. Even if wars/sins do it better, scythe is still the vehicle for delivering a tremendous amount of damage that mesmers, monks, and eles can only dream of. Any time you spend casting enchantments is time you aren't blowing things up with scythes. Sorry only hear instagib in pvp qq forums. So have you noticed that pvp and pve got spilt yet? You know why they did that? Maybe because balancing classes in pvp and pve are 2 completely different things? Also did you notice that warriors can use daggers and assassins can use axes, strange isn't it? Assassins are noticeably more squishy than warriors, as critically agility gets stripped often and you find your self retreating and attacking a lot, what it gives is a larger window in which you can do your dmg before retreating, unless you have an ER bonder covering you, in that case CA becomes moot doesn't it. It would be great if they could implement shadowsteps in pve but they'd have to give more buffs that just move you, because position isn't as important in pve(another difference from pvp), maybe rolling CA and AoD together lol, one could only hope. You are again talking about a balancing issue and not class mechanics. I can reduce all assassin skills recharge to 1 second and the class will still play the same way(1234 rinse and repeat), the difference is the amount of time I'd spend playing and doing nothing and balancing issues, while the class mechanics is still the same. Summon Spirits did not fundamentally change what spirit spammers did, it gave them mobility with is needed in pve but op in pvp. Don't even talk about mesmers lacking damage they can deal out +100s of aoe armor ignoring dmg and shut downs on extremely short cool downs. Weren't they only supposed to only shutdown single targets and do no dmg, obviously balancing pvp and pve are different things. And notice what they did was class tweaking, changing recharge times, dmg and utility, they did not change class mechanic but enhanced it for pve.

You obviously did not even read what people suggesting on how to make enchantment juggling viable. let me give you an example on a tweak,"Heart of Holy Flame- 10e cost, 1/4s casting, 10s recharge- All adjacent foes take 15...51 holy damage are blinded for 1....6 seconds. For 10 seconds, your attacks deal holy damage. When this enchantment ends, all adjacent foes take 15...51 holy damage and set on fire for 1...3 seconds." A few enchantments like this combined with a reverted Pious Assault and the buff i suggested for mysticism("For every 2 ranks of mysticism, you gain 1 energy whenever an enchantment on you cast by you ends, for each rank of mysticism, the energy cost and recharge time of your dervish enchantments are decreased by 4%.") you can generated a lot of Armor ignoring PBAoE dmg and conditions for what? Casting and stripping enchantments. The only problem with this that it makes the dervish immune to the traditional melee counters(ie-DwG builds), that can be solved by having attacks skills that self-strips dervish enchantments on hit and enchantments only do the bonus aoe if it's stripped by a dervish attack. All this is playing to the strength of the dervish class mechanics i.e how their primary attribute works with other skills, you get it? I am talking about how with some tweaking, classes can get the most out of their primary attributes for pve, ie spamming as much attacks as possible for ran/sin/war, spamming shouts for para, enchants for derv, summons for rits, spells for mes/ele/nec, heals for monks. The primary attribute for dervs is for juggling enchantments if you don't think that's what they should do, guess what there are already 3 classes with primaries for spamming attacks you can play anyone of those rather than having another one that does the same thing.

::snip:: Personally, I think the Dervish does awesome damage with a scythe. Only problem is that other classes can do better or just as good. I know I sound like a broken record, but tying Aura of Holy Might to Mysticism will work wonders for scythe balancing. Asuran Scan improves damage on top of the AoHM buff. Making a scythe, AoHM, and Asuran Scan a deadly combo on whatever profession you play on. Take away AoHM, and Warriors/Assassins would be on a much more level playing field. Mystic Sweep could be triggered by dervish enchantments on you or Mysticism attribute. Basically, I think the Dervish fix/balance is more simple than alot of us think it will be. What your suggesting is closer to a mechanics change. I think it can be done with skill changes.

Although, I would like to see a change in the primary attribute Mysticism. Some thing like, change the energy/health gain when an enchantment begins not ends, and or a nice buff from where it is now. I would also like to see a clever buff to the Dervish enchantments that deal PBAoE. And a better IAS. And Avatar Buffs. See, simple!

Ultimately they need to make the dervish more viable for high-end PvE. When was the alst time you saw a dervish, using a dervish build (so DwG doesn't count, nor does Ursan etc.) Go into DoA, UW, FoW, Urgoz, The Deep?

When they first came out.

Dervs need to be made stronger in PvE, they don't have enough skills that give them a unique and powerful roll. Personally, just using enchantments the whole time feels pointless, it's just adding plenty of buffs and we might as well play a Sin.

The dervish needs more additions for high end, plain and simple. Perhaps something like this:

Sycthe Mastery: <insert current description> If Dervish is your primary class, all attacks have +1 damage and +2% chance for critical for every rank in Scythe Mastery.
That means that at R9 Scythe master, for a dervish, we gain +9 damage for EVERY ATTACK and +18% chance for a critical. Let's do the math. Your bass damage is 9-41 for a max damage scythe. your avaerage is Q9. An assasin would be doing 9 - 41 damage. A DERVISH would be doing 18 - 50 damage. Now add your +18% critical.
Do your math if you get a 33% attack speed that's aproximately 1 Attack per Second.
1 attack per second with your atrib set to 9 is 18 - 50 damage per second.
Now add you're +18% for a critical. Then another skill that increases your chance to hit for a critical hit by say... oh 12%.

That is 18 - 50 DPS +30% chance for a critical hit. JUST using Q9 Scythe Master on a dervish, and 2 skills. You have another whole 6 skills to use.

I believe with a balance such as this the dervish could be a viable profession in both PvE AND PvP. It wouldn't OP it though. keep in mind, without a 33% damage boost it's about 18 - 50 damage every 2 seconds (1.75, but it's easier with 2 seconds for the math). That's only about 9 - 25 every second. About the average as a caster. So all that would be required is some enchantment removals, even still.

Think of it, it doesn't make it TOO overpowered, but it makes it viable to bring into UW and HA with a dervish build.

Just my thoughts on it, Tell me what you think. Seems like too much powercreep to me. I dont think scythes need a buff to damage at all. Rather, i would like to see the strength attribute only affect warrior attack skills, the critical strikes attribute to only affect attacking while using daggers, and a slight buff to the damage + giving some armor penetration to the damaging enchantments like staggering force, mystic sandstorm, and mystic twister.