Let's buff the Warrior to Dervish levels!

I know what you think it is, but the topic was made for PvE players to see and to be baited into making certain responses.

doubtful, i suspect the thread starter made it for anet to see

Both really, it always give good lulz to read replies from people who take it serious.
While the OP is not serious at all, it is a serious issue we're talking about here.
The dervish update took all the fun out of pvp there was left for me.
All I play is some GvG and RA nowadays, but both are completely wrecked so i'm just going to stop GW till they destroy dervishes in pvp.

This is quite possibly the greatest read I have had on this forum in a few years. Kudos to Deluxe. He expressed the problems with Dervishes in a very funny and witty manner, which has led to many funny posts taking the joke suggestions seriously. Much love.

Lemming sums it up pretty frankly.

But also please refer to my earlier posts:
Even my last post already mentions: "All warrior skills come with a cost. Dervish skills have no procc and no drawbacks for bashing your head on your keyboard."

So CLEARLY the answer everyone is trying to explain is a way to balance this issue is by creating drawbacks and sacrifices for enabling this pressure (such as the pressure of a warrior increasing his IAS 33% - double damage received). There's nothing wrong with creating a new viable frontline, but at the moment, no other profession gets a chance at producing the amount of pressure that a Dervish exhumes (RELEASES... @Cuilan). I'm sorry if my command of English forgoes your higher cognitive abilities.

Azazello, you're also taking the term "nerf" too literally. Maybe others would like to see Dervishes stricken down to the ground but most will agree, along with the OP, that there is balance required between the frontline professions. The OP shows a stark contrast (the difference... @Cuilan) between the pressure dealt from a warrior and from a Dervish.

Anet might have had different gameplay styles in mind, but the new Dervish builds *Here's the humdinger of the argument can provide increased pressure without any hindrance to their performance. This (@Cuilan) is where the specific skill and tactics of a good warrior comes in where they're capable of creating opportunities through Dchop/Bulls/Shock or even Frenzy. If you think there is no skill involved in leading a team to victory (also known as killing people) through exploiting the correct windows of opportunity (@Cuilan, also known when prot monks are spamming because they are low on energy = guaranteed dchop) then you're playing the wrong game.

Even though Deluxe has already explained, I just want to add that the post was to show the stark difference between different frontline professions. Simply put, it's illogical to create such a Dervish in comparison to a warrior and still pass it off as a viable balance. And unless you've never experienced balance gameplay (Even Quake's asymmetrical balanced gameplay), The idea of PvP in Guild Wars has already gone over your head and I suggest you Observe more.

The update created great new gameplay but it also paved a way for epic lunacy to run rampant. To simply compare the difference between warriors and Dervishes makes it clear and also makes you wonder whether the brains of the development team were left locked up or whether they realised at all how inconsistent this update has become.

Warriors have awesome armor + shields, and killer blocking skills. You are comparing apples and oranges, and wanting the triple attack hits that dervs get... I guess something like that might be barely fair for mauls, but then warriors are awesome for KD...

Since when does a warrior use blocking skills? AoB+Mysticism=~100AL and no shield sets work against holy damage.

Avatar damage conversion is much better than letting grenth avatars and the like cover conjure with enchant spam.

The derv IAS just need a big drawback, or else chopped down to 15% or so. If you're going to make the teardown + enchant effects this good (and nerfing near all of them won't be easy), the raw scythe DPS has to come down, including IASing while IMSing. Not that this will fix wounding strike, but at least that's one skill.

Tbh I could care less if anything is done...nice to see dervs in the limelight for the time being no matter how many ppl with war mains are upset by it.

Non sequitur?

@Fate Crusher, you're making more sense than anyone I've seen discussing this issue, although you should be aware that your apparent need to belittle people says quite a lot more about you than the person you direct those comments toward.

I like what you're saying about warriors having to watch their ability use while dervs just spam, although I think you're possibly exaggerating slightly when you say 'all', and that doesn't do your arguments credibility any favours. For example, how is dismember a more skill intensive ability than wearying strike?

Bulls is not a good example at all either, saying it requires skill to use well doesn't change the fact that it's an extremely strong warrior ability. To be fair though, if I were to look a little deeper, some of the reason dervs aren't bringing bulls isn't simply due to a lack of space on the bar, but due to the fact that both the opportunity to use it and some of the utility it brings are reduced by being able to maintain both an ias and ims while crippling everyone nearby.

So I definitely see what you mean, frenzy for example doesn't simply come with the double damage drawback, but the drawback of no IMS stance being available while IASing, KDs are more challenging to use well than 'herp... damage', etc.

Seems like a lot of the issues you're highlighting are caused by the low energy cost (relative to derv regen) of many flash enchantments with a few points in mysticism. Obviously heart of fury is a fair bit over the top (in fact it seems a little silly to introduce such a strong ability tied to one class by being quite bad without points in that classes primary attribute... although everyone was happy to see flail restricted to warrior only after assassins started using it to see some play), but frenzied warriors under harrier's haste would be no joke either, it's just that they can't maintain an IAS+IMS nearly as well, or more to the point, that dervs don't have to watch their resources at all in order to do so.

So the basic problem is that dervs can just spam shit and win? What are the main culprits, ability wise? Is it partially due to mysticism and 4 pips of regen? What changes would you recommend?

Being realistic, bringing a neutral, unbiased view, avoiding exaggeration, knowing the answers to the obvious questions that your comments raise... in short, presenting a real argument and showing that you've actually put some thought into your words, is far more likely to get you taken seriously. Seems like a lot of bandwagoneering going on when it's so difficult to encourage anyone to do so.

It's not about ppl with war mains being upset. It's about a lack of balance in PvP and the fact that Dervish's are insanely overpowered and can do pretty much everything at a high standard.

AoB means you get adrenaline very quickly and coupled with a perma-IAS allows you to have wearying charged up in half the time dismember takes. Also, because it causes teardown and the availability of teardowns you not only get the deep wound but the secondary teardown effect and burning all on one target.

Frenzied warrior's under Harrier's Haste have to invest in Wind Prayers, go Dervish secondary instead of Elementalist and taking Shock, use 10 energy which stretches the Warrior's energy pool and if the guy is perma-frenzied accomplish nothing by being dead all the time. How is Bull's irrelevant? Because it is strong it has a drawback meaning you have to use it effectively; actually land Bull's to get the effect. If you spam it and hit a stationary foe all you've done is waste energy and removed the possibility of using it again for another 10 seconds. Dervishes don't bring Bull's because a) you have to invest in Strength b) they only KD for 2 secs c) it is irrelevant when you can perma-cripple.

I would like to ask one thing. Have you/do you PvP? If you don't, stop, make a warrior and dervish, go to gwpvx, grab either the Cripslash bar or Eviscerate bar and Avatar of Balthazar bar. Go into something like RA and play a few matches with both bars. Compare efficacy, resolve questions.

Pinkey, most of what you're saying goes both ways. Some of it actually works counter to the point of view you're trying to present. I don't even really know where or how to begin discussing it with you in light of that. Dervs are stronger than warriors because they can only KD for 2secs?

The derv>warrior=bad thing isn't going to fly either, unless you can highlight a pre update post of yours complaining about warrior>derv? Devs are probably finding the playerbases sudden urgent need to balance frontline classes more humorous than anything else.

What are you talking about? You said, "some of the reason dervs aren't bringing bulls isn't simply due to a lack of space on the bar, but due to the fact that both the opportunity to use it and some of the utility it brings are reduced by being able to maintain both an ias and ims while crippling everyone nearby." I said they don't bring Bull's because dervs only KD for 2 seconds compared to Warrior's being able to KD for 3 seconds in addition to other reasons.

Why would I post about warriors>dervs from before? Warriors were balanced. I should complain about a balanced profession? The argument is about balance not power although by being stupidly powerful dervishes are being shown to be unbalanced. A profession should fit a specific role but currently dervishes pretty much do everything a warrior does and more.

Again, have you/do you play PvP? If you don't, follow my last statement in my previous post then talk.

Yes, some of the reason. The point of the statement however was that saying 'bulls requires skill' is irrelevant in light of the fact that it's such a strong ability, skill required or no. The OP uses much better examples, strong abilities that are completely outclassed by dervish abilities. Dervs don't have bulls, to me, that looks like a point in favour of warriors.

Highlighting reasons why dervs aren't bringing bulls simply makes warriors look even better, which doesn't seem to be your aim. Not a good example.

The statements about balance with no reference point still aren't helping btw. Warriors were balanced relative to what? Certainly not other frontline professions.

Bull's is weak without skill. If you read the description it inflicts +dmg and KD if you hit a moving foe. Thus the warrior must anticipate when the target will move and position himself in a way that will allow him to maximize the chances of landing Bull's on a moving target.

I'm not trying to convince anyone. I don't want to sound like an arrogant prat but if you don't know how/why dervishes are unbalanced and overpowered you a) don't PvP, b) are a dervish, or c) are just moronic.

Warriors are balanced because they had weaknesses that could be exploited, had a specific role, had a mechanism that rewarded skilful play and punished or at least weakened unskilful play.

Again, if you don't play PvP, roll a warrior with either Criplash or Eviscerate and dervish with AoB. Play a few matches in RA. Compare efficacy, resolve questions)

I remember when Order of the Vampire got nerfed and now no longer has effect if you're under another Nercomancer enchantment. They could do the same for Avatars--remove their relationship with enchantments and nullify their abilities if under a Dervish enchantment.

See this is the issue. The two statements don't follow. You're talking about two separate things. Derv>war isn't relevant to warrior having weaknesses, particularly when talking about things like bulls, which dervs have no equivalent to. If elementalists had a 'win target match' ability that was very difficult to use, they would be OP, no matter how hard it was to use.

I think we're actually on the same page in that regard, proposing that dervish gameplay needs to be deepened, basically that the recharge and resource costs associated with dervish abilities are not sufficient to promote decision making, that the best decision is always 'use it now'.

This is why I started asking questions. Screaming 'dervs are op' is just noise. It's useless. You need to define OP. In this case, we seem to be talking about dervish gameplay not rewarding skill, or sufficiently punishing a lack thereof. I've suggested a few other definitions but no one seems to think they apply. Personally I think that dervs are strong enough right now that they are restricting team builds to 'teams with 2-3 frontliners' and 'bad teams', but no one really seems to be validating that, so perhaps I'm wrong.

How is Bull's Strike a win button? Your example with the elementalist is horrible because no skill would ever be purposely introduced that allowed you to simply win. Dervishes>warriors because they've all but removed sword and axe warriors from the game.

OP=overpowered. In this case being able to do apply insane amounts of pressure with a skillset that allows it to play recklessly and not be punished for it as well as lacking traditional weaknesses through their own condition removal that also doubles as perma-cripple.

sorry, but you are an arrogant prat. whatever that means. every post i see you post at the end it says if u dont pvp ur an idiot....basically. being mean to pve'ers gets you off? pm me and our guilds can pvp it out on the battlefield. we'll put u in ur place.

I keep making assumptions that I shouldn't I see. I am saying that if class 1 has a very strong ability that class 2 can not use well, strong enough that it goes on 95% of skillbars no matter how difficult it may be to use correctly, that makes class 1 look stronger than class 2 in at least one way. I extended it absurdly (to it's logical conclusion as they say) to demonstrate what I am talking about more clearly.

The corresponding example would be heart of fury. Warriors are unable to use it well, it's very strong, it's exactly the sort of thing people are talking about. The difference lies in the fact that it requires no timing or awareness to use well. Alone though, bulls strike is a counterproductive example to use, as it's simply a great ability that dervs can't use as effectively as warriors.

I really wanted to note though, that teams being divided into 'teams running 2-3 frontline' and 'bad teams' isn't an unusual situation for guild wars to be in. It hasn't always been the case, but for 80% of the games life to date, it has. 'Balanced' teams have always been entirely built around capitalising on frontline pressure while denying the other side the opportunity to do so, and have usually been the strongest teams around. 80% may even be understating the case. When it boils down, the only argument that seems to be holding any validity is that dervs in their current state require little decision making, and that's bad for the game. Although I suppose part of that is the lack of need to actually capitalise, being able to eventually just pressure the other team out of the game.

If you don't know what an arrogant prat is you cannot call them that although the word "arrogant" should suffice in telling you what it means. I do not get off on being mean to PvE'ers, what I am saying is if someone does not PvP they should not really be commenting on this because they do not understand what the ideas of the discussion are about; get some experience and see first-hand how dervishes and warriors are played and how you are rewarded for playing in a certain style. Only a select few people cannot understand how a dervish is unbalanced and those are generally people that PvE because PvE doesn't require balance or skill, to an extent.

What guild are you in, incidentally?

To be fair, you've asked me to stop talking if I don't pvp several times, and I'm still talking. A reasonable person would have drawn the appropriate conclusion and shut up about it a couple of posts ago

Firstly, anyone can continue posting it's not like I have hidden commands that prevent you from posting if you don't do what I tell you to. Secondly, if you PvP I struggle to see how you can continue talking about balance in the way that you do at the moment.

Well, I'm not rooting for the 'nerf dervish randomly' team I guess. Ad hominem is never a strong position, I would always hesitate to align myself with anyone who thinks it is valid at all, and several of those in favour of dervish nerfs seem to think it's not only valid, but should conclude any debate. What is it exactly about my statements that would lead you to wonder about it anyway? Or is it the questions that bother you? As I've said, they're simply a method to attempt to get some of you to express a point of view that has a sound logical basis. Signal to noise ratio is pretty poor when the word 'dervish' comes up lately.

No-one wants dervishes to be nerfed into oblivion but there is such a plethora of skills that are unbalanced in the dervish skill line that it isn't hard to see which ones need nerfing. It's not just about nerfing what is overpowered now but using foresight to look at what is unbalanced at the moment but no-one uses and nerfing that as well (for example, Onslaught is primal rage with no penalties are yet no-one uses it).

What arguments have not had a sound logical basis? I wonder if Anet have adopted your kind of mentality coupled with the size of their team and as a result have failed to address dervishes.

Mods: Maybe it was time this thread was sunk.

However, the no drawback prage is available to warriors too. It simply goes back to what I was saying before, it does have a moderate drawback for warriors. Onslaught without mysticism and with 2 pips of regen is not nearly as strong as it is for dervs. I see what you're saying though, and agree that if some skills are overshadowing a no drawback prage, there's definitely an issue.

I'm simply trying to determine exactly what the issue is. Like I keep saying, the whole 'derv op, nerf plx' 'argument' is pointless. You want them balanced to diversify frontlines? To me, that's silly. No one cared about diverse frontlines for 6 years. You want them balanced with respect to melee counters and healing? How long should a match last in that case?

The conclusions I'm drawing from what I think has been a fairly one sided discussion is that the ability to pressure teams out is fine if the other team can build to counter it without opening themselves up too far to being spiked out, but dervs need to have more decision making added to their play in some way. Example: wearying strike strips an enchantment for +dmg, causes deep wound if no enchantment is stripped. It's actually a big buff, but it causes the derv to have to think about whether he wants to teardown or spike right now. In exchange for the buff, you modify the adrenaline cost. Several derv abilities need costs addressed anyway, and at least one or two do need strong nerfs.

After spending the last 10 minutes reading this thread, people still seem to be failing to understand very basic concepts, amazing really.

Since everyone is fully aware of the pros of warriors and dervishes (i hope) let me quickly summarise the cons of each of the two professions.

Warriors: Take double damage whilst in frenzy. Cannot use IAS + IMS together. ALL KD skills are conditional or have drawbacks (shock gives exhaustion, bull strike target must be moving etc), the "good" warrior skills generally cost 5-8 adrenaline so cannot be spammed. warriors only have +2 energy regen. Interupt skills (d chop etc) must actually hit a target to function, they can be blocked.

Dervishes: none.

I am not opposed to dervishes whatsoever, I think its great that there is a frontline profession which essentially outputs "pressure" rather than just raw damage. Unfortunately dervishes in their present form output too much damage alongside this pressure, and they also need far more negative effects to using their skills, hitting buttons in order is not necessarily fun for most people. Its nice to have to select an appropriate skill for a desired effect, and then use it at the correct time, and if you mis time it, there is no/minimal effect - ie, skillful play.

I also do not understand this idea of "warrior is ur main so ur butt hurt". Sorry but in pvp you do not have a "main". You play frontline, this could be warrior, dervish, or assasin, (or paragon and ranger in some builds). It just so happens that some of these professions require more thought to operate the bars correctly than dervishes do at present. Most frontliners i know do not dislike dervish as a profession, what they are opposed to though is being forced to switch from bars which require mental thought to operate correctly, to brainless spam bars.

^^this

Floor, I was fumbling through overly verbose explanations, and you summarized it all very succinctly. I commend you.

Thank you Floor... If any of you read this or any of my posts (which really shouldn't be that hard to understand), this is ultimately what us logical PvPers would like to see addressed.

Azazello, you're still only creating arguments out of the sake of arguments. Firstly, with the exception of Onslaught, Warriors cannot split their attributes enough to benefit greatly from using skills from other professions unless it's for healing. For a warrior to use a weapon, they need at least 9 in that attribute; so logically you should use the skills in that attribute line, rather than split attributes even more. Conjure is another story (45second skill...). It's called bar compression. A warrior can't run Frenzy + Harrier's Haste. At all. Simple. Why? You also need a cancel stance for Frenzy, and HH is 10 energy, on top of 5 energy for Frenzy, you're already running low on petrol.

I also don't understand how you can't grasp the mentality of Bull's Strike rewarding skill... It was a simple example to show how a warrior has skills that reward a player for using them correctly (an effective KD+dmg). And then to counter with "Dervs don't bring it because they need to spec into Strength"... A.) Dervs can't spec into Strength. B.) That's not the point at all. The point is that there are no Dervish skills that require more than just punching your keyboard.

You may feel like my personality comes out in my posts, but I'm not here to give a completely objective argument. I feel strongly towards balanced Guild Wars circa 2005/06, where there was no such thing as spam. Also, everything I've posted has made complete sense to those who have seen/observed the Dervish. All my posts have also backed the original post to prove that Warrior skills have drawbacks and promote smarter gameplay, whilst a Derv can let his pet play with the numberpad and probably get a kill. To be honest, the way you're commenting can come across as extremely inexperienced or even playing the wrong game.

Now then, If you yet again complain that we haven't given you a definitive answer, allow me to refer you to Floor's post/Pinkeyflower's posts/my posts/OPs posts/and Lemmings frank but true post: Balance the Derv's skills so that they promote smarter gameplay by creating drawbacks. I will not give or explain examples; everyone knows which skills need to be changed.

and @ Floor: if you're doing the AT this month, good luck <3

I can't believe this has spawned 150 replies, half of them trying to explain things to Azazello.

Troll successful.

im glad people found my post useful. The amount of junk people were coming up with was really quite alarming

@fate: ye i guess we will do the mat, so thanks ^^

This is the prefect sums. Nothing else to say apart /Agree. Even a almost-always-PvEer like me understood there's something very wrong around atm.

Here's what I say.

Strength: For every point in this attribute you place, you win. The end.

Agree that warriors should have some of their skills "un-nerfed" because a lot of them are too weak compared to the skills of other classes.

But this thread is kind of silly in general, because assassins can pump out just as much aoe damage as dervishes can (and possibly more) if you know how to use them.

Dervs aren't THAT strong compared to other professions. Ok, maybe a bit, because of the condition spam. But otherwise, no. They're fine and don't need to be brutally nerfed.

So what if they are OP? Mesmers are very overpowered compared to eles, but nobody whines and complains about that.

A lot of people around here just seem to hate the new kid on the block... the dervish that doesn't suck.



Ok... they may be a bit annoying in pvp, but don't ruin everyones pve dervish because of that. If you're going to lobby for this nerfing, you should at least have the courtesy to say that it should be a PVP ONLY thing. Can you people at least do that?

Edit: maybe instead of beating dervs into the ground, they could just give some other classes some skills to counter them? Maybe a skill to strip their forms, maybe buff smite condition to remove multiple conditions and do damage for each one... there's plenty of other options here.

This is almost what you should have been doing to begin with. It's honestly surprising that it takes so much effort to get anyone to examine the problem and point out what could be done to fix it. Five or six pages in and people still couldn't answer very simple questions regarding what they felt was wrong with dervs.

Only in the last two pages has anyone been able to point out that the issue is really with derv skills not requiring any decision making. It's actually a little sad that people feel that they should share opinions they haven't thought all the way through. Thank you for taking the time to summarise anyway. As I said earlier, I also agree that they are a little too capable of pressuring the other team out with giant damage, but the main problem is really the lack of decision making involved in playing one. Also as I've been pointing out all along, that's something that can be resolved without nerfs if you use your head at all, although one or two are probably a good idea anyway.

Goes back to my question on page four or five 'how is nerfing dervishes the solution to a lack of depth in their gameplay?'. It isn't, but introducing some depth into their gameplay might seem like a nerf to people who just want to spam abilities and win. To clarify my point about both this and bulls, giving dervs a 3s bulls would be a pretty big buff, but it would inarguably add depth to their gameplay and make it easier for a skilled derv to distinguish himself from your average faceroller. The problem, as I pointed out originally (although apparently not clearly enough), is that some of their abilities are so strong that bulls might not even get run. Bulls allows you to create situations that overcome a standard melee weakness that dervs simply don't have. It does more than that of course, but perhaps not enough more that it would see use.

The reason that Assassins and mesmers for that matter are not overpowered to anywhere near the same extent can basically be summarised as "armour". Sins and mesmers have absolutely no armor, and the insignias available to them such are basically a joke. In 8v8 play which is where they see most play in pvp, they die like a sack of **** to any half decently coordinated spike. thus makes them balanced because u can actually kill them. Dervishes on the other hand, over 100 armour and simply do not die....

sins will never be anywhere near dervishes in 8v8 play due to the fact that in every match where a sin attempts to play the same role as a dervish, that assasin ends up with 60DP, rather quickly too. Sins are primarily a fast moving character with damage in short bursts, particularly useful when ganking or splitting. Comparing them to a dervish is very difficult as they simply were not designed to fulfill the same roll.

Most people wouldn't need that information spoon-fed to them.

I don't think that the suggestion was for dervishes to use bulls strike. I think the suggestion was to make dervish skills require skillful play and include risk/reward for their most powerful skills. I will spoon-feed you, if bull's strike did not require a moving foe, then it would be on par with current dervish skills.

Providing counters to something completely fails to address the underlying issue of how broken it really is. They could spare a lot of player grief and their own time simply by nerfing the problem skills rather than attempting to create halfass workarounds.

There's a pretty clear difference between spoon feeding and being unable to answer simple questions in order to clearly present your point of view. Continuing with the ad hominem line doesn't imply that you belong in the former camp, for reference.