Dervish update effects on GW

Never used my Dervish for much other than farming events itmes on the Plains of Jarin It has totally changed my way of thinking, but so be it, I can adapt.

Looked like took little bit of every profession applied to Dervish. Mystic Sandstorm is non-elite version to Sandstorm, VoS is 100B, Reaper's Sweep is PvP Elite that conbined BB+Devasting Hammer, Healing Wind Spells like Monk.

One thing, finally there class ingame that resembles the Bear Form of WoW, Avatar of Melrandu is Dire Bear Form replica for GW, with right skills be stamina tank. Using this with like vicious, Reaping Inpurities for god like status cause pretty much every mob will have less hp than you execpt for bosses.

Neither did I.

You tought over-reacted to my observations - VoS being well worth using even on secondaries, and it sure is, thanks to the low cost and easy mantainability.

And you dragged the conversation away from the IAS debate due to knowing you're wrong but don't want to admit it.

As to VoS being used by secondaries, that remains to be seen. It probably will form the backbone for new farming builds, at least ones not requiring spell immunity, however its an Elite. Without access to reliable energy management and the lowering of critical strike chance on scythes, both Warriors and Sins will be less prone to using it.

Just because you want to ignore the facts doesn't mean they don't exist.

I'm not joking and dont call me Shirley.

I dont like the AScan change but its for the better. AScan was alot of fun! But, realistically, it was too OP to keep going. The DPS role physicals currently have, seems to be grooming for a more traditional Tank/Control MMO role. Its not a bad thing, as it will be easier to balance all professions accordingly with out huge skill changes. That way all professions can contribute to DPS(and I say this loosely) about the same amount while still filling support/control roles, dependent on specific builds. In GW we only have DPS and Healing/Prot. It makes control almost useless(debatable). The new changes bring GW closer having three roles again.

The dervish changes really sucked at first imo. But, now that I have practiced with some builds and now that AScan is gone, it seems pretty balanced. Once I get used to the flash enchantments, I might like it. But, right now it seems too many attack skills remove enchantments. It's still too soon to make an honest opinion about the changes w/o a few weeks of practice. Now we just wait to see what people smarter than me come up with to exploit the new skills.

I have came up with wacky builds soo far. I do have in mind for god like builds in party wide and character.

Wrong about what?

Are you trying to deny that 33% > 25%?

When it comes to skills like VoS attack speed and frequency of hits is important.

So I might have worded it poorly defining other IASes "better" than HoF through and through, but that's about it.

Assassins will have little to no energy concerns.

Adrenaline is not that hard to manage. Secondaries won't be using PBAoE under VoS. Adrenaline skills like, say, Whirlwind Attack work great with VoS. VoS can effectively replace 100b for a Warrior, with little changes to the average 100b build.

Dervishes might be playing VoS differently, with PBAoE or no attack skills at all. That's another matter alltogether. I still feel it's paradoxical for VoS to be better than 100b even on a Warrior.

EDIT - It's not the chance of critical hits that's been reduced, but rather:

So Critical Strikes works just fine for e-management.

You're telling me?

What facts am I ignoring, just for my information?

Math and logic must not be your strong suit.

If, as in our examples, Flail had no negative, then yes you'd be right. Flail has a negative. So you're wrong.

The faster a weapon is, the less effect incremental percentage increases in attack speed will affect it. Which means an 8% difference will have less effect on a 1.5 Scythe than a 1.75 Scythe.

In terms of DPS in PvE, you also must take into account mob AI switching targets along with prioritization. If you just used your cancel stance, and the mob you're whacking decides to make an end-run and go whale on your casters, well your DPS is now zero because you can't intercept due to Flail's negative. There's a reason that IMS exists in the game, because movement contributes to damage too.

If you can't hit your target, you're doing nothing to help.

Finally, and let me know if I need to explain marginal utility to you, you have to realize you have 8 skills to work with. If your build needs IAS, then you have seven skills left over.

Flail handicaps you because you need a cancel stance that is directly related to helping reduce the negative of the skill itself. let me put it simply:

Flail: +1 for IAS, -0.5 for DMS
Enraging Charge: +1 for IMS, +0.5 for adrenaline gain, -1 for 20s recharge (which you specifically indicated as cancel stance)

Total: +1 benefit, divided by two because of the need for two skills, so 0.5

Heart of Fury: +1 for IAS

Total: +1 benefit

So in this example, HoF is twice as good as your dual skill setup. Take into account that in your earlier post, you mentioned FGJ!, which a D/W can also take. So that's a wash.

Now you could say that HoF should only be +0.75 due to its being 25% vs. Flail's 33%, but as I said before the marginal utility in a game like this of 8% more IAS is extremely low, especially now that the base speed of the Scythe is faster. And HoF would STILL be more valuable at 0.75 vs. 0.5 for Flail.

One aspect that I didn't even account for is that on the HoF side, a Derv can take literally ANY other skill to provide even more utility, and is not handicapped by having to take a cancel stance.

I'm sure most would agree, for example, that HoF plus SY! is better than Flail+Enraging. Of course, you'll say, "why not add SY!?" to the Warrior? To which I say, then you have to add another skill to the Derv side to balance things out, which could mean ANY other skill.

The TL;DR version is, HoF is a better, more versatile IAS than Flail in EVERY way, whether its inherent TOTAL effects of solely the skill itself, or in combination with a number of other skills or even the whole build itself.

I await your out of context quote that ignores vital facts.

Choosing your words carefully is kind of important on a forum. And HoF IS better, as shown.

True, but the incentive to use the scythe is less because the critical damage multiplier is less. Death Blossom rejoices!

Again, you seem to not understand marginal utility. A Dervish, with its e-management, can use VoS, use attack skills, auto attack AND do other things, whereas other classes are limited to the first three. And with the mechanics changes of the Dervish class, the ability to add in potent PBAoE on top of what a Warrior or Sin could do with a Scythe is an elegant way of making Dervs take center stage for a bit.

Many profession skills work better on other than their primaries, usually due to the skill not benefitting as much from super high attributes and/or taking heavy advantage of different primaries. As an example one need look no further than Discordway or Sabway, Rit skills being used on primary necros for superior energy management. And some skills are just better! I know, a shocker.

You're oversimplifying things and missing the salient points of the discussion. You've tried to claim Flail is better than HoF. Its not. You've tried to claim that VoS will be abused by other classes. Probably, powerful skills usually are, but the kicker is that FINALLY the Dervish is more powerful and versatile with its own skills than those other professions.

If Flail's downside had any meaning whatsoever, the dervish would not have been considered underpowered, because the dervish would have had an advantage over the warrior.

Therefore, we can conclude that Flail's downside has no meaning in PvE.

Moreover, how can HoF be better than Flail post-update when

A) Flail used to be better than HoF
B) Flail remains the same after the update
C) HoF gets a slight nerf

?

Monster runs or switches target, you can't catch em. End result, Flail's downside IS a negative. Even just the fact that it has a downside indicates its reduced utility.

I fail to see how turning HoF into a permanently maintainable stance with no downside and no energy cost is a nerf of any sort? I've tried a couple of builds, and after about one or two swings, HoF is ready to go, and from then on its easy to keep up.

Not to mention that if the old HoF got removed, it was a while before you could re-activate it. If the new HoF gets removed, one swing usually sees it able to be re-applied.

So maybe our idea of what a nerf is differs? I understand "nerf" as making something worse, which is pointedly NOT what has happened.

What about Strength being better than old mysticism?
What about Warrior starting with higher armor than the old dervish?
What about the fact you couldn't maintain hof and it cost 10e?

How come
4a +33% ias -33% ms > than old HoF but
4a +25% ias worse than old HoF?

Are you telling me that 8% ias make all the difference?

The difference boils down to 0.120 seconds with a 1.5s recharge weapon. You need to do more than 10 attacks to notice a difference. But I bet that you will have a chance of an extra hit due no ms penalty to at least level it, if not making it outright superior.

And yet, despite that, the dervish was still considered useless compared to the warrior. Therefore, it happens so infrequently that it doesn't matter.

For a class with decent energy regen, energy-based stuff is better than adrenaline based stuff when all else is equal because energy stuff is front-loaded, whereas adrenaline stuff is back-loaded. You have to attack a few times at the beginning of the fight before you can apply the new HoF. Worse yet, 25% IAS all the time is not quite as good as 33% IAS 2/3 of the time. That part is a nerf no matter how you look at it.

In a team with 2 humans E/Mo, Frenzy is clearly superior to Flail. If -ms wasn't a penalty than frenzy would never be superior, regardless of the ability to mitigate the double damage.

The warrior was superior to the dervish by a multitude of factors -dealing more damage, having higher survivability, power attack being an excellent attack, dervish having to split points between wind/mysticism/scythe vs warrior stg/scythe or lack energy to spam as much as warrior - and not only flail being better than hof.

That's due to class design. Old Mysticism was a terrible primary, and the Warrior was better designed from the outset. This update has changed the field, but we have yet to see how significantly.

And yet, adrenaline represents a constant ability to do damage with skills as long as you're in battle, whereas solely energy based builds can "run dry" if not managed well. The Dervish new design exemplifies this synergy, Mysticism deals with front loaded energy based skills, and provides extra armor to survive longer to load up adrenaline to make use of that resource.

For ANY class with access to adrenaline based skills, its simply more efficient to mix because you then have access to two different resource pools, instead of being limited to one. It would be silly and foolish to forego one or the other.

Flail and HoF both have the need to build up adrenaline. So that's a wash. As Improvavel pointed out, the number of attacks required before Flail starts to show gains is rather high, and in most situations the enemy will be dead before then, requiring the player to acquire a new target, where the movement debuff of Flail and the extended recharge of a "cancel" stance like EC shows its true weakness.

You and Gill seem to have this need to ignore the very real downsides of your pet skill. You can't judge skills by how well they defeat target dummies, what counts is how it does against mobile, target switching mobs. As Bruce Lee would say, "Boards... don't hit back." The fact of the matter is, HoF, once you get the first 4 Adrenaline (which is rediculously easy) is a much more versatile skill that lasts the whole battle no matter how long that battle takes to finish. Contrast that to the old HoF and other IAS which weren't maintainable, had a cast time, or have very real negatives that regardless of your dismissive attitudes have a very real effect on gameplay.

[edit] I'll see if I can't do the math, but it seems to me that 10 seconds out of every 30 at normal attack speed with the old HoF is somewhat inferior to constant 25% IAS.

Guys, the dervish is an incredibly fun and powerful class to play in PvE.

The simple reality you are going to have to accept (and old dervish players are going to struggle with) is that the dervish has a very strong incentive to use tear down skills with flash enchantments. Most scythe attacks that don't strip an enchantment do a lot less damage. If you can come up with a good tear down build you will see how powerful the dervish can now be.

The class is new and different, the whole point of it is that it won't play like it used to.

Having just spent some time tinkering around with my Dervish to see what I could do, I whole-heartedly agree with this. Just playing around with tossing VoS, HoF, some random flash enchants, and a couple attack skills on my bar made for some absolutely ridiculous damage and a great deal of fun. And my test was going out and doing a NF vanquish. 35 minutes for a vanquish in Vabbi is pretty awesome. There's just something really fun about casting flash enchants in whatever order you want and then peeling them off one by one and watching everything just fall over.

Also, with the change to scythe speed, the new Heart of Fury is superior to the previous in every way. Yes, it's a 25% IAS now. However, as scythe attacks are faster now, even with it being 25% as opposed to 33%, you're attacking faster. You're not wasting time with it being down beyond that first hit or two to get the adrenaline needed (if you're having that much trouble getting 4 adrenaline...stop sucking. Or slap Dark Fury on a hero), and you don't have to waste time or energy to cast it. Very cheap, maintainable, and no downside. It only looks to have had any sort of nerf if you don't take into account the change on scythe attack speeds.

Agreed...This debating is getting really really stupid. Old HoF (33%) with a slower scythe swing versus New HoF (25%) with a faster scythe swing is practically the same. The difference is so bloody small it's not even funny. As a matter of fact. With the scythe attacking inherently faster now coupled with it's ability to hit up to 3 foes at once, if HoF had retained it's original speed (33%) the scythe would be imbalanced and way too powerful. It makes perfect sense.

1)Buff inherent Scythe swing speed 1.75 -->1.5s?
2)Reduce IAS 33 --> 25%
3)win

HoF>Flail (why does this even need explaining at all? really)

1.75s (old scythe) - 33% (Old HoF) = 1.17 Attack Rate

1.5 (new scythe) - 25% (new HoF) = 1.125 Attack Rate

Not to mention:
A) Old HoF was not maintainable
B) Old HoF had a cast time
C) Old HoF was an enchantment, thus more fragile/removable
D) Old HoF had energy cost

frakkin math. how does it work?

The use of teardowns really depends on builds. We have 2 category now:
1)builds that exploits multiple flashments that give benefit/damage on ends. Use a couple of teardowns skills and you'll be fine.
2)builds that have enchantements w/o advantage at end, so avoid teardowns.

In other words, you shouldn't use twin moon sweep when running VoS, cause you wont remove it. And obviously, is pointless carry things like balthazar's aura if you can't strip it whenever you need.

And about the fun, i think that now is the fact that there are sooo many possible builds untested that is really fun.

Because some people, no matter how many facts, how much logic, and how reasonable you try to be, are just so pigheaded and stubborn that they wouldn't know reality if it sat on their face.

Others just like being contentious for the sake of it.

Personally, I am all excited to try out new builds. What I really like is that unlike the old Derv, which needed very narrow builds and everything to work in tandem and was very vulnerable to enchant stripping due to recharges and such, the new Derv is much more customizable, fluid, and FUN.

Not to mention that almost every skill now actually has a unique use. I can now have a AoE Blindbot for example lol.

you know, some people argue for the sake of trolling. let idiots be idiots anyone with half a brain realizes you were right so it doesn't really matter.

Whenver I go with my elementalists, If I have to chose between a warrior and a dervish, I'll go dervish all the way.

The dervish has become the perfect servant pet of any elementalist.

Why? Well, they can spread Cracked Armor like crazy, but not only that. Many other conditions too, including Burning.

Bring Searing Flames, and a dervish will cripple the enemies so they don't get away, burn them, and add cracked armor to the mix, to make them soft and easy to kill to the point that you need just one or two searing flames to kill them. It's almost an abuse.... in NM XD.

In HM it's just below OK. Since they have the shackle of the low effectiveness of elemental damage in HM.
HM intensify with air magic is nice, but it's still kind of slow, so in HM I still stick to support with blindness, weakness, dazing, snares, knockdowns, wards, etc..

Honestly, without the teardowns and AoHM synergy, some skills are really lame.

30 duration Staggering Force, Dust Cloak, Aura of Thorns, Grenth's Fingers, Rending aura for example. Mystic Corruption is outright terrible most of the time even with the enchant teardowns.

20 duration Balthazar's Rage and 30s Heart of Holy Flame also fall into this category, albeit they are holy damage. If Balthazar's Rage didn't give 2 adrenaline it'd be rather bad.

Ebon Dust Aura is barely usable now as utility, it's an Earth conjure more or less. Grenth's Grasp on the other hand got a fairly large buff by adding condition transfer.

Mystic healing got hit IMO since everyone needs to be enchanted (orders).

There's no reason to use regular enchantments on a Dervish with a scythe due to aftercast. Even if it's the fastest cast speed (1/4) you still have 3/4 aftercast, which makes it no different than a 1second disable on an instant cast flash enchant.

I find the possibility to blind foes and remove blind from yourself almost as relevant. For PvE I don't know, but it's quite helpful for pvp IMO.

Step into JQ or FA and see what the derv has become now. Looks like I aint using my monk or mesmer or ele there anymore.

Carry a enchant or two (flash or regular) that has an 'on end' effect you like and pay attention to your effects monitor. I was using VoS with Twin Moon last night while playing around and I didn't accidentally remove it once.

Good, about time Derv got some speed clearing love.

It's not exactly a good thing for the already shaky balance of those two arenas anymore sadly.

balance in FA or JQ? is this thread from 2006?

oh woops!

i was talking about mount qinqai or whatever XD i had it all mixed up

Not exactly considering JQ and FA are still a mess....4 years later.


No prob.

Been tryin out new builds after having the same build on this guy for a while so its kinda fun doin it again. I tried the Vow of Strength explosion build...Very fun when theres a lot of enemies lol

In my opinion, the update made dervish a lot more interesting. I find it much funnier to play than before. And it's not even difficult to create new, effective builds. This is just my opinion though...

Ebon dust aura and ebon daggers is a fun combo mixed a nice sin combo

I for one welcome our new Pious Overlords.

Also, A scan is super awesome for the average Pug Sin, won't anyone ever think of the pugs for once??

All I can thing when it comes to the scan is that I no longer have problems with those pesky skeleton elementalists and their collection of blinding skills.

Anyone else notice that Dervs can now have a higher base armor than warriors?

Warrior: 100 vs all (Sentinel's insignia with high strength)
Dervish: 106 vs all (Windwalker's insignia +16 armor from Mysticism

Realistically it's going to be 9-13 Mysticism unless you're running a superior and forgoing 14 scythe.

Warrior have 116 actually unless they are running hammer, dagger, scythe, or for some random reason a bow or staff. (who uses bow on a warrior other than for pulling?)

70+15+10 (Mysticism) makes them equal. Vow of Piety (not mediocre Avatar of Balthazar) makes them broken (70+15+10+24=119>116 warrior with shield) but not really since SY! doesn't stack with that.

I'd say D/W is the best SY! spammer now. All you need is 3 hits, 2 hits under FGJ! or Avatar of Balth. Unlike Dragonslash, you have little downtime since 3 hits without FGJ! is about 3-4 seconds, whereas Dragonslash absolutely needs Enraging Charge/To the Limit!+FGJ! (or FGJ!+whirlwind with 4 foes). Also, you don't need to cancel stance your IAS (Flail) because Pious Fury and Heart of Fury don't make you move 33% slower.

Dervs can run shields as well. I wasn't considering it for practical usage, just pointing out an amusing turn of events. If my Derv needs more than 95 from blessed + mysticism then I'm calling down the prot spirit.