cop spike - the end of gw as we know it?

[don gudo]

Since the beginning of the preview, questions have been raised like "are dervishes overpowered?" or "What bugs will be found using the new classes to abuse pvp?" but I think no one imagined the sheer stupidity of the contemplation of purity (CoP) spike that is taking heroes' ascent by storm. In my opinion and the opinion of many others, something must be immediately done to nerf this build, just like sand shards. Heroes' ascent just isn't fun when an unblockable irresistable area effect damage spike that cannot be averted with hexes or conditions is used constantly. People said iway was taking the fun out of the game - but I think iway would be a huge step in the right direction from this.

Agree, disagree?

[MrRock]

No I totally agree... I just personally experienced the sheer stupidity of this build.

IMO - Time for a new update.

[MaximumSquid]

I'd have to say that this is a good time to be patient and wait for the new skills for all the classes to be released before jumping to conclusions.

I mean chances are there is going to be a better combo / setup to run once the game is fully released.

[don gudo]

I'd have to say that this is a good time to be patient and wait for the new skills for all the classes to be released before jumping to conclusions.

I mean chances are there is going to be a better combo / setup to run once the game is fully released.

Maximum, I think this very lucid point scares me most of all. Factions skills aren't really better than prophecies ones, they're just different, and in some cases, only slightly so. If new skills must be released just so that this HA build is beatable, will players who don't purchase nightfall be able to reasonably compete come the fall, or is GW turning over a new leaf here and making one expansion better than the others? I think I'm going to hope for a swift nerf, and not for your prediction :cutie:

[lavenbb]

Well, isnt it nice? Out of ALL monk skills, the one that facilitates the spike is none other than contemplation of purity!

One would think the horrid expressionless blue baby face had given that away long time ago!

[takplayer]

CoP should just cost more and heal less. The removing is fine. 10 energy and half its current heal would be nice.

[Inner Salbat]

so what's the build so we can see what this CoP is.

[Furinto]

Contemplation of Purity spikes damage? Wha?

[monx]

it's all over the GW observer mode.

[Inner Salbat]

Contemplation of Purity spikes damage? Wha?

Umm okay, CoP when used strips all enchantments coursing them to "end", there are certain actions that happen when Dervish skills are ended which course dmg, thus enchant yourself to the max, which has 0 effect on your bits, walk right in to the enermy, press CoP, they all end massive dmg everywhere.

At least that's my understanding of it without looking at anything.

As to what skills to use, uhmm;

Heart Of Holy Flame
Grenth's Fingers

Is about all I can come up with off the top of my head.

[Furinto]

Why can't somebody just post the skill combination in question?

Usually people hide uber builds for fear of being nerfed, but it sounds like you guys WANT this to be nerfed, so...

CoP when used strips all enchantments coursing them to "end"Ahh okay I gotcha. But don't the majority of Dervish enchantments which have benefits when they end simply inflict conditions? I might have to go reread some of the skills, but it sounds like all that would happen is the surrounding enemies would become blinded, crippled, and bleeding. This is still powerful, but I wouldn't call that a spike.

[don gudo]

There are several variations, but here's an idea of how it works.

7 to 8 D/Mo's are used with the skill contemplation of purity.

CoP
Spell. Lose all enchantments. For each one lost, you gain 6...65 health, lose one hex, and lose one condition. 5 1/4 10

Then, the dervish uses 5 or 6 enchantments on himself like these:

Balthazar's Rage
Spell. All nearby foes take 40...88 holy damage. For 20 seconds, this Enchantment does nothing. When this Enchantment ends, you gain 4...9 Health for each successful hit while under the effects of this Enchantment. 10 3/4 5

When these skills are applied, usually done with a countdown, a tremendous amount of area effect damage results from a very quick spellcast. After all of these have been used, contemplation is used to release the enchantments, healing the dervish, giving him energy (due to mysticism), removing all attempted hexes and conditions on him, attaching degeneration via conditions to his opponents, and by this time, due to very short recharges, his enchantments are ready to go again and repeat.

This is then combined with an avatar elite form, such as...

Avatar of Dwayna
Elite Form. For 1...48 seconds, whenever you use a skill, you gain 5...41 Health and lose one Hex. This skill is disabled for 120 seconds. 10 2 5

Provides even more healing and invulnerability to the dervish.

That's a basic rundown of how this spike works.

[Icy Spicy]

stack up on the enchantments, COP, death to the enemy... really fast...

this is what happens when anet make special effects after enchantment ends... it would be interesting to see how they plan to fix this... they created a class with super tanking ability, very good energy management, high dmg AoE and condition spam, with the ability to turn into avatars and be invulnerably to things... its like a monster lol

[Mhordin]

Since the beginning of the preview, questions have been raised like "are dervishes overpowered?" or "What bugs will be found using the new classes to abuse pvp?" but I think no one imagined the sheer stupidity of the contemplation of purity (CoP) spike that is taking heroes' ascent by storm. In my opinion and the opinion of many others, something must be immediately done to nerf this build, just like sand shards. Heroes' ascent just isn't fun when an unblockable irresistable area effect damage spike that cannot be averted with hexes or conditions is used constantly. People said iway was taking the fun out of the game - but I think iway would be a huge step in the right direction from this.

Agree, disagree?
Agreed, HA isn't fun anymore, nothing beats CoP spike. IWAY gets rolled, vim gets rolled, bspike gets rolled, sbspike gets rolled, balance gets rolled, rspike gets rolled. It's just stupid, it's like areanet took rock, papper, scissors and threw in apache helicopters. There might be a build specifically designed for CoP spike that can beat it, but I haven't seen it... =/

Also the concept of dervishes is pretty retarded, areanet: "Hey I know, let's make a new class that is dependent on enchantments but gets a boost when they go away!". There aren't any counters to their avatars either...

[lavenbb]

I usually use Balthazar's Rage, Heart of Holy Flames, Grenth's Finger when near people (thats 3 nuke, 2 of which irresistable) then use I think its called Wounding Strike, the one that causes deep wound, then CoP, which will refund the energy and heal you plus condition people around you, then wait a little bit and repeat the combo, you don't need many combos to kill people. One or Two, at most Three, unless you're against heavily protected people. In that case, more devishes executing the combo will kill them anyway..

Viable (or not so viable) Nerf: (50% chance to fail with Divine Favor 4 or less)

[Archegonia Mnium]

While I haven't witnessed any fights with CoP, I've got to agree that the exploitive potential of the Dervish's enchantment ending bonuses is absolutely ridiculous. The moment I heard that they benefit from enchantments ending I thought "enchantments on = good; enchantment stripping = better"; it's a win-win situation for the Dervish.

That would be like if a ranger or warrior actually benefited from being crippled somehow.

[Premium]

And when D/A sand shard spam was pretty funky already...

>_> amazing at what the testers miss

[Shallowrain]

In their defense, I doubt that anybody woke up that morning and said 'hey, what if I wanted to horribly fail with my attacks?'

I usually view it that one million people given ten minutes will find more wacky things then ten people given one million minutes.

[lavenbb]

That would be like if a ranger or warrior actually benefited from being crippled somehow.


That's archievable.. Resilient Weapon..
I think the idea is nice, just one or two skills being out of line, thats all.

[Alexia of Durham]

this is what happens when anet make special effects after enchantment ends... it would be interesting to see how they plan to fix this... they created a class with super tanking ability, very good energy management, high dmg AoE and condition spam, with the ability to turn into avatars and be invulnerably to things... its like a monster lol

has any of you realized this is a preview ??

You can be sure they will avoid one particular build to become über .As for CoP being overpowered :I never heard anyone say this before the dervish appeared .Anyone having played GvG ( only play there ,no other PvP) against heavy spike or degen will tell you CoP in itself will not avoid defeat from those spike-teams .

And this dervish is a brief glance a things to come and by no means the final "deal" .

Viable (or not so viable) Nerf: (50% chance to fail with Divine Favor 4 or less)

that would pretty much solve it .

[maxxfury]

Maybe if they changed the skills so they only fired the aoe damage IF the skill ends naturally OR if its removed by force by the enemy?

..eg enchant reaches its alloted time of 30 seconds or is shattered/drained/rended ect

[Icy Spicy]

has any of you realized this is a preview ??

You can be sure they will avoid one particular build to become über .As for CoP being overpowered :I never heard anyone say this before the dervish appeared .Anyone having played GvG ( only play there ,no other PvP) against heavy spike or degen will tell you CoP in itself will not avoid defeat from those spike-teams .

And this dervish is a brief glance a things to come and by no means the final "deal" .


well this brief glance tells you alot, its not a bug with one or two spells, but instead, its the problem with the entire class... problem with balancing...

it doesnt take a genius to figure out that Anet wanted enchants to work that way... all im saying is if that is not going to work, what are they ganna do? redesign the entire class?

[galad]

well this brief glance tells you alot, its not a bug with one or two spells, but instead, its the problem with the entire class... problem with balancing...

it doesnt take a genius to figure out that Anet wanted enchants to work that way... all im saying is if that is not going to work, what are they ganna do? redesign the entire class?

They pretty much have to give whole class a massive overhaul. Dervish is not balanced atm, at all.

[Alexia of Durham]

well this brief glance tells you alot, its not a bug with one or two spells, but instead, its the problem with the entire class... problem with balancing...

No,because if you tweak CoP to have a DF requirement in order for it to work ( say >4 or even higher so it'll only work as intended ) that problem is gone.

It's far too ealry to tell - from a preview - how things will be in the end.They could even decide CoP won't work on dervish enchantments ,that would be the end to those builds ( but don't take away its usefulness with mantra of recall,pretty please :grin: )

I remember the exact same discussion was going on about assasins and ritualists and that worked out fine ,so let's just wait and see.

[Patccmoi]

has any of you realized this is a preview ??

You can be sure they will avoid one particular build to become über .As for CoP being overpowered :I never heard anyone say this before the dervish appeared .Anyone having played GvG ( only play there ,no other PvP) against heavy spike or degen will tell you CoP in itself will not avoid defeat from those spike-teams .

And this dervish is a brief glance a things to come and by no means the final "deal" .



that would pretty much solve it .

Actually, before the CoP nerf to 10 sec it was quite a bit overpowered... but that's beside the point and let's not argue on this.

This build is badly overpowered clearly, but i don't really understand why people talk as if it's the effect on enchant ending that matters. It's not. The effect on enchant ending are VERY minor and hardly kill anything (some burning, cripple... compared to 300 nearby AOE damage from applying the enchants, 200 of which is Holy... it's NOTHING).

I posted the D/Mo build last night after owning in RA/TA most of the day with it in the 'Are Dervish Overpowered' thread. It was very close to unbeatable, and no one else i faced used it atm so we just roled over everything.

Went in HA tonight and that's all there is, small variations of the exact same mass D/Mo fight.

The problem with CoP ending enchant is absolutely not the effect of the enchants ending. It's that it heals you full (42-45 health PER ENCHANT, usually 4-5), and recharges all your energy (+7-8E per enchant...), and with the short recycle of the damage enchants, you can just cycle them over and over, CoP, restart. You never lack energy, you get rid of any hex or condition making any kind of shutdown nearly unthinkable, and it becomes a huge self-heal.

RoF is also what allows Dervish to stay alive, it gives them a huge health and energy boost when it ends so they can just keep cycling through their stuff alternating with a RoF in the middle.

Personally i think CoP is fine. But here's what i think would be good changes for Dervish atm to prevent the D/Mo from totally destroying HA and also all arenas (3 D/Mos with RoF-CoP and different utility + boon-prot is quite devastating in TA... if you lose, you just screwed bad... or face other D/Mos)

1) Health gained from an enchant ending reduced to 2 per level. It's stupid that CoPing your enchants gives you something like 200-250 health when you can recast them in seconds. Even 1 health per level would be acceptable imo, but if they want Dervish to be steady melee and not assassin-like, 2 might be required, hard to say without testing.

2) Mysticism only works on Dervish enchantments. It's WAY WAY WAY too good with RoF. It just is. You gain energy from using RoF, get healed more because of enchant ending, so you can just recast it every 2 sec with no cost at all (it's actually emanagement...). Otherwise it could be something like benefit from Mysticism is halved for other classes enchants. But it's just stupid as it is now, badly so. I don't think it needs a nerf related to Dervish Enchantments though, because with their energy cost, recharge, effects, etc. Mysticism as it is is kinda needed. But it does surclass even Expertise as a primary imo, and that's scary.

3) Holy damage needs to be GREATLY toned down, or changed type. Balthazar's Rage + Heart of Holy Fire are simply broken, and make warriors totally pointless. Warriors can do nothing but run if there's a Dervish spamming it around them. Frenzy is extremely funny too, 200 damage per enchant cast... too good. Seriously just compare to Smiting holy damage, it's not even close. Balthazar's Rage does the same as a full Symbol of Wrath in instant, in a bigger AOE, casting much faster, recharging much faster. Balanced? Right.

4) CoP 50% fail with DF 4 or less isn't a bad idea for Dervish balancing, but i kinda hope it's not necessary if the rest is changed. But atm it does make Dervish all but pointless to hex or condition, they have so many enchants, they can just CoP everything.

[Alexia of Durham]

Actually, before the CoP nerf to 10 sec it was quite a bit overpowered... but that's beside the point and let's not argue on this.

This build is badly overpowered clearly, but i don't really understand why people talk as if it's the effect on enchant ending that matters. It's not. The effect on enchant ending are VERY minor and hardly kill anything (some burning, cripple... compared to 300 nearby AOE damage from applying the enchants, 200 of which is Holy... it's NOTHING).

I posted the D/Mo build last night after owning in RA/TA most of the day with it in the 'Are Dervish Overpowered' thread. It was very close to unbeatable, and no one else i faced used it atm so we just roled over everything.

Went in HA tonight and that's all there is, small variations of the exact same mass D/Mo fight.

The problem with CoP ending enchant is absolutely not the effect of the enchants ending. It's that it heals you full (42-45 health PER ENCHANT, usually 4-5), and recharges all your energy (+7-8E per enchant...), and with the short recycle of the damage enchants, you can just cycle them over and over, CoP, restart. You never lack energy, you get rid of any hex or condition making any kind of shutdown nearly unthinkable, and it becomes a huge self-heal.

RoF is also what allows Dervish to stay alive, it gives them a huge health and energy boost when it ends so they can just keep cycling through their stuff alternating with a RoF in the middle.

Personally i think CoP is fine. But here's what i think would be good changes for Dervish atm to prevent the D/Mo from totally destroying HA and also all arenas (3 D/Mos with RoF-CoP and different utility + boon-prot is quite devastating in TA... if you lose, you just screwed bad... or face other D/Mos)

1) Health gained from an enchant ending reduced to 2 per level. It's stupid that CoPing your enchants gives you something like 200-250 health when you can recast them in seconds. Even 1 health per level would be acceptable imo, but if they want Dervish to be steady melee and not assassin-like, 2 might be required, hard to say without testing.

2) Mysticism only works on Dervish enchantments. It's WAY WAY WAY too good with RoF. It just is. You gain energy from using RoF, get healed more because of enchant ending, so you can just recast it every 2 sec with no cost at all (it's actually emanagement...). Otherwise it could be something like benefit from Mysticism is halved for other classes enchants. But it's just stupid as it is now, badly so. I don't think it needs a nerf related to Dervish Enchantments though, because with their energy cost, recharge, effects, etc. Mysticism as it is is kinda needed. But it does surclass even Expertise as a primary imo, and that's scary.

3) Holy damage needs to be GREATLY toned down, or changed type. Balthazar's Rage + Heart of Holy Fire are simply broken, and make warriors totally pointless. Warriors can do nothing but run if there's a Dervish spamming it around them. Frenzy is extremely funny too, 200 damage per enchant cast... too good. Seriously just compare to Smiting holy damage, it's not even close. Balthazar's Rage does the same as a full Symbol of Wrath in instant, in a bigger AOE, casting much faster, recharging much faster. Balanced? Right.

4) CoP 50% fail with DF 4 or less isn't a bad idea for Dervish balancing, but i kinda hope it's not necessary if the rest is changed. But atm it does make Dervish all but pointless to hex or condition, they have so many enchants, they can just CoP everything.



Finally the voice of reason :)

[Benovolent Zephyr]

4) CoP 50% fail with DF 4 or less isn't a bad idea for Dervish balancing, but i kinda hope it's not necessary if the rest is changed. But atm it does make Dervish all but pointless to hex or condition, they have so many enchants, they can just CoP everything.


I like that idea the best, then again who knows when the game acctually does come out perhaps there are a few surprises waiting for us.

[suikoden]

Easy fix... make it work on monk enchants only or even better make it work on everything expect dervish enchants lol

[BunnyLord]

I'm not too worried about this, I'm sure ANET will fix this problem before GW:N comes out.

[Erasculio]

The funny thing is, if the Dervishes weren't as good as they are, people would likely dismiss them as "just another failed melee profession, like the Assassin". With the way things are right now, you can rub on people's face how useful a Dervish is to a team. No more "if it's not a Wa/Mo tank, a nuker or a Monk healer it's useless" comments.

I'm afraid they are going to be overnerfed, but...There are two Dervish skills that remove all enchantments, one of them being Mystic Sandstorms (that also does AoE damage when removing said enchantments). If nerfing CoP would solve the problem, I think those could stay as they are, but...

Erasculio

[Arctus Redryn]

The funny thing is, if the Dervishes weren't as good as they are, people would likely dismiss them as "just another failed melee profession, like the Assassin". With the way things are right now, you can rub on people's face how useful a Dervish is to a team. No more "if it's not a Wa/Mo tank, a nuker or a Monk healer it's useless" comments.

I'm afraid they are going to be overnerfed, but...There are two Dervish skills that remove all enchantments, one of them being Mystic Sandstorms (that also does AoE damage when removing said enchantments). If nerfing CoP would solve the problem, I think those could stay as they are, but...

Erasculio

No, the main problem is Mysticism and some of the enchantment spells. Those enchantment spells are too damaging for their energy, recharge, and cast time, and Mysticism allows you to use those spells. As you said, there are other ways of removing all enchantments...of course, Contemplation of Purity is still better because it is a skill, requires less energy, and removes Conditions and Hexes, but I do not think only changing Contemplation to have the Divine Favor requirement would be enough.

[Patccmoi]

No, the main problem is Mysticism and some of the enchantment spells. Those enchantment spells are too damaging for their energy, recharge, and cast time, and Mysticism allows you to use those spells. As you said, there are other ways of removing all enchantments...of course, Contemplation of Purity is still better because it is a skill, requires less energy, and removes Conditions and Hexes, but I do not think only changing Contemplation to have the Divine Favor requirement would be enough.

Really not. In the changes i consider needed, this one imo is the most 'accessory' one.

As long as they can deal 100s of Holy Damage in Nearby AOE every 5-10 sec, they're just going to be overpowered. It's far, far too strong.

[Arctus Redryn]

Really not. In the changes i consider needed, this one imo is the most 'accessory' one.

As long as they can deal 100s of Holy Damage in Nearby AOE every 5-10 sec, they're just going to be overpowered. It's far, far too strong.

That is what I said, right?

Contemplation of Purity is not the main problem.

[Apok Omni]

Off-Topic: I am soo glad to hear possible nerfs to Dervish coming from one source; the people who played them.

On-Topic: Anet, if you are paying attention to this thread, I suggest that you nerf CoP the way it is mentioned. Dervish are way too overpowered.

[Arctus Redryn]

On-Topic: Anet, if you are paying attention to this thread, I suggest that you nerf CoP the way it is mentioned. Dervish are way too overpowered.

Main problem is still with Mysticism and some of the Enchantments (Balthazar's Rage and Heart of Holy Flame...).

I was actually looking at Mystic Sandstorm as a replacement for Contemplation, as it can inflict quite a bit of damage.

[Hates]

No more "if it's not a Wa/Mo tank, a nuker or a Monk healer it's useless" comments.

Who says this? Why do you listen to these people?

Anyway, I've stayed away from a lot of PvP this weekend because of these mega damage things the Dervishes do. I don't have enjoy dealing with imbalance.

[mrankh]

Welcome to a BETA weekend. Did u know that in the factions weekend there were unbeleviably powerful builds, all of which got swiftly nerfed, some of which werent even mentioned on the update page. I have no worries that gw will remain balanced. the reason they have these weekends is to find the overpowered skills, and portion them to size with the other chapters and skills. The skills will remain useable, but there sheer power will be reduced, im sure of it. So stop your worrying and play the BETA!!!

[El Cerouni]

The funny thing is, Anet realised there was going to be Smiting Dervishes, it's why they nerfed balthazar's Aura and Zealots Fire.

Well done on the CoP find to those who found it though, I had a build exactly like that but couldn't figure out the enchant needed to drop all those 30 second enchants.

Although, Even if they nerf CoP a Dervish Smiter still works.
This was my build when I couldn't find a decent enchant removal (Didn't think of CoP :/), I basically just used the skills they nerfed and made a smiter.

Prot: 6
Smiting: 12
Mysticism: 11 + 4

1: Pious Renewal
2: Zealot's Fire
3: Balthazar's Aura
4: RoF
5: Guardian
6: Life Sheath {E}
7: Balthazar's Rage
8: Zealot's Fire

Edit: Quick Brainstorm of Counters:
Nature's Renewal maybe, or Dazed, if they can't get the enchants on in the first place, then they can't CoP them back off.
Also, Kiting is key, I remember that the problem was that once you got near and tried to cast a spell, by the time the spell finished they were too far away for the spell's effect to work, which made it quite frustrating.
Deep Freeze and Frozen Spikes can also work wonders as They tend to travel in packs.
You also probably don't want a warrior initiating the strike. I liked the All caster Rainbow Spike Capita Ceberi Ran during the Extra slot Season. It began with a mesmer's Phantom Pain and Shatter Delusions, I'm not sure if the Phantom Pain's Deep Wound stays on if the Phantom Pain gets CoPed off though.

[lavenbb]

By shutting dervishes from CoP, it opens up a lot of ways to kill them though. Keep in mind that the current spikes are pbaoe, dervishes are easily kited if hex / condition work on them.

Slow hex on melandru dervs, cripple on dwayna dervs, muddy terrain or cripple or slow hex vs balth dervs..

Though I agree, their nukes (especially the 2 holy ones) will probably not last to release in its current form. Making them DoTs would work (think balth aura), so at least the damage aren't spikes, and can at least be countered. That will make them PvE unfriendly.. however..

If the two classes are built with PvE in mind, that is not viable.. Well.. who knows

[Unknown Kaos]

This entire weekend has almost seemed like a horrible joke gone wrong. I know Anet is just trying to use the best tools for finding bugs like this, which is the entire GW population (And dont get me wrong, people need to exploit these things now so they will be nerfed later), but the fact that its on an open ladder season is rediculous. There have been so many gimic builds to farm with, those guilds of ours that actualy try to run real balanced builds get completely screwed over. And when we do seem to play a respectable team, we have had 1, 2, or more people error7 due to the overloaded servers caused by the event.

What has been done in HA can't really be reverted, but my guilds rating has suffered greatly just because we wished to keep gvging instead of either sitting out the entire weekend, or resorting to using these...dare I say...noob, overpowered, gimic builds.

I have noticed many guilds have been effected by this, good and bad, but I personaly think it would be in the best interest of the GW community (Or at least the GW community that participates in GvG) to revert the individual guild ratings back to what they were before the friday update, when everything seemed to start going wrong. And I'm sure the only people that would dissagree are those who have used these gimic builds to gain hundreds or more rating this weekend alone.

[I XM]

2) Mysticism only works on Dervish enchantments. It's WAY WAY WAY too good with RoF. It just is. You gain energy from using RoF, get healed more because of enchant ending, so you can just recast it every 2 sec with no cost at all (it's actually emanagement...). Otherwise it could be something like benefit from Mysticism is halved for other classes enchants. But it's just stupid as it is now, badly so. I don't think it needs a nerf related to Dervish Enchantments though, because with their energy cost, recharge, effects, etc. Mysticism as it is is kinda needed. But it does surclass even Expertise as a primary imo, and that's scary.


I agree with most of what you said except this. If Mysticism only works on Dervish enchants, then Expertise should only work on Ranger skills. The whole reason (I am guessing) that the last 3 attack/caster hybrids (assassins, dervishes and paragons) have had energy management primaries is to counter expertise and make R/X not the default for any X that's an attacking class.

The issue is that the more classes and attributes they add, the more combinations will be possible. Already you see existing skills being changed for this reason, like Arcane Mimicry. And it will get worse with each chapter. But since they can't use a subscription model, (by choice mostly, but also because the game isn't close enough to an MMO for people to accept paying monthly for it) it means they need to keep releasing new chapters or funds for running the servers and keeping a live team to update the game will dry out.

These new classes are the furthest they have gone in the fighter/mage direction (or fighter/bard for the Paragon) so far and there's bound to be imbalances when the class in and of itself can do things that previously required mixing 2 classes to make a hybrid. If you look at the attribute trees, it's more like you have 3-class chracter after you've added a secondary, comapred to the core and faction classses.

My guess is Dervishes will get nerfed real bad. The AoE spells will deal a lot less damage and have longer cooldowns/cast time, maybe. Some of the more overpowered skills might even get completely changed or nerfed to the point of being mostly useless (c.f Shadow Refuge and Temple Strike, from preview weekends to the final versions). Nerfing is the only thing they can do as they add more skills and attributes, boosting other skills becomes more and more complicated for balancing, because boosting something is more likely to lead to an imlabance than nerfing something popular until people stop using it.

By the 5th chapter (if any) this game will be unplayable.

[Darris]

The main problem I see with CoP is the condition/hex removal. I was thinking about the 4> or a 50% failure but that leaves every other class with a 50% failure as well. So instead of a complete failure all-together, what about "You lose 1...10 enchantsments. For each enchantment removed this way you gain 6...70 health (forgot the exact numbers) lose one condition, lose one hex." This keeps the skill useful for other classes for an emergency hex/condition removal but keeps it handy for monk primaries.

There are still other skills that remove all dervish enchants like Release Enchants which has a 5 second recharge and gives the party a tiny heal and Sandstorm which does nice aoe damage to enemy parties. So the complete removal isn't a huge issue aside from the massive energy gain, it's the hex/condition/doubleheal removal that makes the Dirvish all but unstopable.

I love the Dervish class and the design behind them. They're a fun class to play and they fit their description to the letter. I just find myself playing the paragon more and more lately. There's a lot of depth to that class that I find lacking in the Dervish skill line.

[Shim Sham a Shoola]

Hm... CoP spike. Sounds like a job for mesmers.

Let's give this build time to have a counter built against it. Just because it's rediculously easy to cause damage with it doesn't mean there isn't a way to make it too risky or impractical to use.

There is an assassin skill that prevents a target from getting enchantments. Use that on any dervish you see. Use mesmers for e-denial and spike the monks. Mesmers and assassins shouldn't be overlooked so much.

Agreed, HA isn't fun anymore, nothing beats CoP spike. IWAY gets rolled, vim gets rolled, bspike gets rolled, sbspike gets rolled, balance gets rolled, rspike gets rolled.
Maybe it's time to move away from cookie cutter builds then, eh?:wink:

[Arctus Redryn]

By shutting dervishes from CoP, it opens up a lot of ways to kill them though. Keep in mind that the current spikes are pbaoe, dervishes are easily kited if hex / condition work on them.

Slow hex on melandru dervs, cripple on dwayna dervs, muddy terrain or cripple or slow hex vs balth dervs..

Though I agree, their nukes (especially the 2 holy ones) will probably not last to release in its current form. Making them DoTs would work (think balth aura), so at least the damage aren't spikes, and can at least be countered. That will make them PvE unfriendly.. however..

If the two classes are built with PvE in mind, that is not viable.. Well.. who knows

Which is what we want, of course, a counter to Dervishes. However, there was a Dervish skill that removed an enchantment and removed 3 Hexes at 12 Wind Prayers (I think). Forgot the name. Melandru form with this skill might work.

[Slygar]

CoP was the first thign I wanted to try with Dervish. Guess I got beat to it :(

Although Dervish itself is one thing that obviously needs to be reworked, I still think CoP needs a nerf as well (as someone said earlier.) Right along with Healing Hands.. those 2 spells are just too spammable.

[Darris]

Hm... CoP spike. Sounds like a job for mesmers.

Let's give this build time to have a counter built against it. Just because it's rediculously easy to cause damage with it doesn't mean there isn't a way to make it too risky or impractical to use.

There is an assassin skill that prevents a target from getting enchantments. Use that on any dervish you see. Use mesmers for e-denial and spike the monks. Mesmers and assassins shouldn't be overlooked so much.




Indeed shadow shroud does prevent someone from being the target of enchantments. However, it's a hex and CoP takes care of that with no sweat. Edenial is a no brainer as well. Any self-respecting D/Mo takes a -5 energy or +15 energy item to "hide" their energy reserves in case of e-denial. When fully drained, just switch to that "hidden" source of energy and CoP. Full energy in 1/4 of a second with the click of a button. I can deffinatly understand the current frustration of players wracking their brains for a counter to this uber-class.

The only ways I can think of that are a fool-proof enchant strip is either Well of the Profane (again, which any self-respecting player wont "stand" in that well for very long) and chillblains/rend enchants, one which carries a heavy price (omg, poison for how long?) and one which you better not use while standing next to said Dervish, and leaves 5 other D/Mos hitting "T" to assist train your soon-to-be corpse.

[don gudo]

Hm... CoP spike. Sounds like a job for mesmers.

Let's give this build time to have a counter built against it. Just because it's rediculously easy to cause damage with it doesn't mean there isn't a way to make it too risky or impractical to use.

There is an assassin skill that prevents a target from getting enchantments. Use that on any dervish you see. Use mesmers for e-denial and spike the monks. Mesmers and assassins shouldn't be overlooked so much.


As nice as this would be, I think it comes from a blissful ignorance of the real situation in heroes' ascent with this build. The assasin skills doesn't last long enough and can't do squat when there are 7 (count em, 7) dervishes on the opposing team, e denial is a joke when dervishes have 4 pips and gain energy from just about anything (and nothing) done to them, and monks aren't even needed in these spikes, because everything they do heals themselves.

I don't mean that so much as an argument against what you said as a call for people to not dismiss this as "the new build" that nobody knows how to beat. When a class can do more pbaoe damage than any other, while healing itself at a tremendous rate, and any sensical attacks against it (think, enchant strip?) actually HELP it more, then, as we have with dervish, we start to see a problem with balance =/.

Nerf please.

[lavenbb]

Well, The matches I've observed so far (all at halls) the D/Mos gets owned.

It seems like there is very little they can do when against an experienced FoC spike team.

[Darris]

Well, The matches I've observed so far (all at halls) the D/Mos gets owned.

It seems like there is very little they can do when against an experienced FoC spike team.

I'm seeing a good deal of counters as well to this now. Mordred Knight's team consisting of all N/Mos and one Rit, one Oath Shot ranger, and one heal Monk are charging the halls and holding it there before anyone else has a chance to take it. Very well-organized team, and it tickles me pink :heart: to see someone work their way around the D/Mo zerg in progress.

Edit: They are doing well against unorganized D/Mo teams, I wonder how balanced GvG is against D/Mo's.

[ShadowCeiling]

I don't think it's the End of Guild Wars, in fact it's more like a rebirth, cause in essence, the metagame is radically changing. This change in Metagame its seriously needed. Yeah, D/Mo isn't that hard to get through, with enough degen and spikes you go done in less than a minute. I'm sure black out and other skill/spell stopping builds could stop this. Also, remember, they haven't given any skills to the core classes to even seriously counter a lot these new mechanics they put in. There isn't shout removal, or form removal (I seriously hope they had a form shutdown mechanism or something, make it an elite, I don't care.... cause three Derv's in god form seriously is too overpowering, something needs to be done about it.) So I'd wait a bit before coming to the conclusion that it's the end of it all... And there will be nerfing soon, I'm guaranteeing it.

[Darris]

I don't think it's the End of Guild Wars, in fact it's more like a rebirth, cause in essence, the metagame is radically changing. This change in Metagame its seriously needed. Yeah, D/Mo isn't that hard to get through, with enough degen and spikes you go done in less than a minute. I'm sure black out and other skill/spell stopping builds could stop this. Also, remember, they haven't given any skills to the core classes to even seriously counter a lot these new mechanics they put in. There isn't shout removal, or form removal (I seriously hope they had a form shutdown mechanism or something, make it an elite, I don't care.... cause three Derv's in god form seriously is too overpowering, something needs to be done about it.) So I'd wait a bit before coming to the conclusion that it's the end of it all... And there will be nerfing soon, I'm guaranteeing it.


Looks like a nay'sayer to theh impendin' guildpocolypse. We's gonna need ourselves an angry mob to deal wit' tha like of 'im. :angry2:

(On a side-note, this is prolly my last troll post for the night. Sorry :embarassed: )

[tarutaru]

I think I'll just throw in my two cents here (seeing as I was on Pat's team in TA for a good portion of the time that we were rolling). Everything he said was completely true. We never lost to any other team other than a team of D/Mo's, and even those had a difficult time conquering us.

Anyway, I personally see a VERY easy fix to all this on Anet's part, as it would not take much effort at all. I envision them changing Mysticism's mechanics so that the ending enchantment has to end NATURALLY, ala Mantra of Recall style. With that Mantra, if it is stripped early, you don't get its benefit. The same should go with Mysticism. If the enchantment comes off prematurely, you don't gain any beneft from the primary attribute. Simple as that, as that would completely curb the ability for the Dervish to continually recast the AoE dmg enchants with their now-infinite energy pool.

[Psychotic]

Try this out:
Balthazars Rage - 92 AoE Holy.
Heart of Holy Flame - 76 AoE Holy. On fire for 3 sec when ends
Dust Cloak - 80 AoE Earth. Blind for 4 sec when ends
Staggering Force - 80 AoE Earth. Weakness for 8 seconds when ends
Aura of Thorns - 8 seconds of cripple when cast, 12 seconds of bleeding when ends
Mystic Sandstorm - Lose all enchants, all nearby foes take 27 damage for each enchant you lose this way, max at 130.
"Victory is Mine!" - gain 41 health and 5 energy for each condition suffered by a foe in earshot.
Res Sig

Attributes:
8 Tactics
9 Wind Prayers (8+1)
10 Earth (9+1) (i don't have minor earth unlocked, or this would be 11)
12 Mysticism (11+1)

I used a +15/-1 weapon and focus to get me to 58 max energy, which is enough to run the combo.
Run through all 5 enchants, than drop them all with mystic standstorm. Thats 458 damage AoE, plus you get healed for 180 and gain 30 energy back(you use 55 energy). Your foes are suffering from bleeding, weakness, blindness, burning, and cripple. Activate ViM. For each foe, you will gain +20 Net Energy, and 205 health.
This puts you at full health and energy normally. Once your skills are recharged, go at it again.

[lavenbb]

I think I'll just throw in my two cents here (seeing as I was on Pat's team in TA for a good portion of the time that we were rolling). Everything he said was completely true. We never lost to any other team other than a team of D/Mo's, and even those had a difficult time conquering us.

Anyway, I personally see a VERY easy fix to all this on Anet's part, as it would not take much effort at all. I envision them changing Mysticism's mechanics so that the ending enchantment has to end NATURALLY, ala Mantra of Recall style. With that Mantra, if it is stripped early, you don't get its benefit. The same should go with Mysticism. If the enchantment comes off prematurely, you don't gain any beneft from the primary attribute. Simple as that, as that would completely curb the ability for the Dervish to continually recast the AoE dmg enchants with their now-infinite energy pool.


I believe that would be what others refer to as an "over-nerf"...

They're almost completely reliant on enchants being removed, even if it is by themselves. That is the new mechanics introduced, along with an AoE attack weapon (can't believe I guessed that one right btw XD)

[takplayer]

I think I'll just throw in my two cents here (seeing as I was on Pat's team in TA for a good portion of the time that we were rolling). Everything he said was completely true. We never lost to any other team other than a team of D/Mo's, and even those had a difficult time conquering us.

Anyway, I personally see a VERY easy fix to all this on Anet's part, as it would not take much effort at all. I envision them changing Mysticism's mechanics so that the ending enchantment has to end NATURALLY, ala Mantra of Recall style. With that Mantra, if it is stripped early, you don't get its benefit. The same should go with Mysticism. If the enchantment comes off prematurely, you don't gain any beneft from the primary attribute. Simple as that, as that would completely curb the ability for the Dervish to continually recast the AoE dmg enchants with their now-infinite energy pool.

You still gain the energy from Mantra of Recall if it ends early...

You might be thinking of Wastrel's Worry, in which you don't get the damage if it ends early?

[Ashin]

For me its pretty clear that the demo phenomenon is totally out of hand.

a.net was quoted in some interview as stating that they have a pretty good sense of game balance now and can get things pretty close to right on the first try. This weekend seems to indicate the contrary. :sealed:

[tarutaru]

You still gain the energy from Mantra of Recall if it ends early...

You might be thinking of Wastrel's Worry, in which you don't get the damage if it ends early?

Yep, that's it. I really should stop posting past midnight. My brain stops functioning correctly somewhere around 11pm...

[galad]

I believe that would be what others refer to as an "over-nerf"...

They're almost completely reliant on enchants being removed, even if it is by themselves. That is the new mechanics introduced, along with an AoE attack weapon (can't believe I guessed that one right btw XD)

That mechanic isn't working. Changing mysticism to work like that would be viable fix, then enchant removals would actually hurt dervish. For now it's "nice remove more of my enchants".

[lavenbb]

That mechanic isn't working. Changing mysticism to work like that would be viable fix, then enchant removals would actually hurt dervish. For now it's "nice remove more of my enchants".

That's why you need other ways to deal with them, and people already found out how. People still don't get how to deal with enchants without removing them, even though the tools are already littered at their feet. Watch more HA battles. Apparently the fotm FoC spike has no problem dealing with them. Ritual lord balanced team also has no problem dealing with them. I really don't think a complete overhaul with mysticism is needed. For one, IWAY was never nerfed to the point where the build is unusable. Fix the broken derv skills and CoP and its good.

[LongFo]

D/Mo´s doesnt seam to be the "uber supreme super team" some of you seam to think. I havn´t played with or against them myself but I´ve watched alot of HA fights now and I´ve not seen any D/Mo team win at all yet...

... but go ahead and nerf away the Dervish and lets see a new class being ignored when trying to get into groups in both PvE and PvP.

I can´t say I´ve done to much research on this build but if this is so overpowered and easy why isn´t any of the D/Mo teams winning favor ?

[Servant of Kali]

I can´t say I´ve done to much research on this build but if this is so overpowered and easy why isn´t any of the D/Mo teams winning favor ?

What on earth are you talking about, DMo teams were almost the only ones winning favor whole day yesterday, along with winning GvG battles. Havent you seen ANY? GvG battles end in 1:30-2:00 minutes!

When i woke up now HA is a bit different cause one guild has nice holding build... but still so many DMo's in HoH. They r getting owned by seed and bond monks..

[Alexia of Durham]

Easy fix... make it work on monk enchants only or even better make it work on everything expect dervish enchants lol

exactly . This isn't a complicated fix .Do this and it's solved .Make CoP work on all but dervish-enchantments and the problem is gone .There's no need to nerf CoP for this ,just change the way the skill works (i.e. : on all but dervish enchantments ) .

[Nanashi]

Everybody should know it's gunna get nerfed before release. It's inevitable. The sins dominated for quite some time in PVP during their PVP weekend and I can tell you right now they're very little as to what they were when we first got our hands on them. So like Max said earlier, don't jump to conclusions. When we get the FPE, they'll be changed.

[xFallenAngel]

*Sarcasm on*
Ever fought a Boon Prot Monk?
It's basically exactly the same, get your enchants running and then CoP them to get rid of conditions/hexes and get major health and energy(MoR), with extra health from DF on every Monk spell(which especacially makes RoF worthwhile...again the same as with Dervishes basically who get extra health from RoF too).
Recast, rinse, repeat.
I guess that means Boon Prot Monks are utterly invincible too...and they can even heal others! OMFG!
Better tell them quick in case they don't notice themselves that they are invincible and can heal other classes to boot.
*Sarcasm off*

It really isn't as bad as some people make it out to be.
GW has a long history of Fotm builds taking the Hall/Ascent in storm and crushing everyone to tiny bits until people have had some time to get used to it and realize what's actually happening.

Two observations if I may:

1. Outside of like 3 different Dervish builds(including the "CoP Spike") that actually work nicely, all other Dervishs out there get slaughtered in about 10 seconds flat. 15 with Melandru's Avatar :P
Been there done that, left countless Dervish corpses behind me this weekend, the ones using one of the builds mentioned above actually take some effort to kill, but that's how it should be, I don't enjoy steamrolling helpless professions.
Do a knee-jerk reaction nerfing to the few things Dervishs can do well and we have a useless class due to overnerf and a class forum full of people complaining all the time.

2. Ever encountered one or two of those CoP Spikers in Random?
They tend to do jack nothing, what with everyone running about like headless chickens and their AoE enchants only hitting air all the time.
Thing is, the more "organized" it's supposed to get(from RA to TA to Ascent/GVG), the more people tend to instinctively bunch together and get owned by area effects.
Focus Trap Rangers, Aoe Smite, EQ-AS and countless other builds simply pulverize teams that stick *too* closely together.
CoP spike is just another notch on that list.

Or as I like to say, the weak complain, the strong just shrug it off and win next time :P
If it was really overpowered, I'd be for nerfing it too, but as it stands I say give it more time and let people get used to it. Several teams have already started to win regularly against it, it's obviously not as bad as some people make it out to be.

[Abrupt]

What I don't understand is why everyone is calling for a nerf/change for CoP. Even if it was changed, there are plenty of other ways for a dervish to disenchant themselves. Here's what I would suggest to fix this situation:


1. Dust Cloak, Grenth's Fingers, Heart of Holy Flame, Balthazar's Rage, Staggering Force and possibly Aura of Thorns need to have their recharges increased to around 25 seconds.

2. Mysticism should only trigger when a Dervish enchantment ends.

[Xunlai Agent]

I was on Pat and Taru's team too and I think they have both made quite valid points. I would like to use my post to respond to the people that this is a preview and that it has no real effect on anything. Have any of you watched Obs TV? The ladder was completely broken by this and so was HA. Guild Rank and Fame were just about free and the damage could be considered devastating to all the guilds that didn't use the weekend to rush the ladder. This is a huge problem and it makes the current ratings pretty invalid considering the amount of guilds that used the Dervish/Monks and the Sand Shards builds...

[Nanashi]

*Sarcasm on*
Ever fought a Boon Prot Monk?
It's basically exactly the same, get your enchants running and then CoP them to get rid of conditions/hexes and get major health and energy(MoR), with extra health from DF on every Monk spell(which especacially makes RoF worthwhile...again the same as with Dervishes basically who get extra health from RoF too).
Recast, rinse, repeat.
I guess that means Boon Prot Monks are utterly invincible too...and they can even heal others! OMFG!
Better tell them quick in case they don't notice themselves that they are invincible and can heal other classes to boot.
*Sarcasm off*

It really isn't as bad as some people make it out to be.
GW has a long history of Fotm builds taking the Hall/Ascent in storm and crushing everyone to tiny bits until people have had some time to get used to it and realize what's actually happening.

Two observations if I may:

1. Outside of like 3 different Dervish builds(including the "CoP Spike") that actually work nicely, all other Dervishs out there get slaughtered in about 10 seconds flat. 15 with Melandru's Avatar :P
Been there done that, left countless Dervish corpses behind me this weekend, the ones using one of the builds mentioned above actually take some effort to kill, but that's how it should be, I don't enjoy steamrolling helpless professions.
Do a knee-jerk reaction nerfing to the few things Dervishs can do well and we have a useless class due to overnerf and a class forum full of people complaining all the time.

2. Ever encountered one or two of those CoP Spikers in Random?
They tend to do jack nothing, what with everyone running about like headless chickens and their AoE enchants only hitting air all the time.
Thing is, the more "organized" it's supposed to get(from RA to TA to Ascent/GVG), the more people tend to instinctively bunch together and get owned by area effects.
Focus Trap Rangers, Aoe Smite, EQ-AS and countless other builds simply pulverize teams that stick *too* closely together.
CoP spike is just another notch on that list.

Or as I like to say, the weak complain, the strong just shrug it off and win next time :P
If it was really overpowered, I'd be for nerfing it too, but as it stands I say give it more time and let people get used to it. Several teams have already started to win regularly against it, it's obviously not as bad as some people make it out to be.

Sins got the same complaints when they first came out. It's only natural. People see something they can't beat just by a first confrontation thus complain instead of thinking of a strat to do something. Enchantments alone are crucial for the Dervs, dispell them you hinder their damage by a few.

Other than that, nerfs will come that's why they are letting us play a little way before it's release. We're beta testing the role in which this class will play during PVP.

[diox]

[...]
Attributes:
8 Tactics
9 Wind Prayers (8+1)
10 Earth (9+1) (i don't have minor earth unlocked, or this would be 11)
12 Mysticism (11+1)

I used a +15/-1 weapon and focus to get me to 58 max energy, which is enough to run the combo. [...]


Ahem, you are telling us that you ran a 3 professions build?

Edit: got it, thanks for clarifying :-) That's the problem when you can't access GW in a preview event :\

[Akirai Annuvil]

I agree that Mysticism needs to be nerfed at least a bit (less energy gain per rank could also solve the problem I think... 1 Energy per 4 ranks maybe then you only gain 3 energy per enchantment on you when they end while they cost 10 to cast which isn't really overpowered in my opinion).

Besides the whole idea about their enchantments having an effect when they end was that they wouldn't be stripped all the time; then the Dervishes would be useless. Well of the Profane is GREAT against them. ESPECIALLY if they don't stand in the Well, because then you can blast them from afar.

Please think before making silly replies... they're no harder to beat than other PBAoE Teams. They're only REAL power is their holy damage; but in both cases it's logical if that would be changed to fire (Balthazar=God of flames and fire ele's and Heart of Holy FLAME!!) so no more *irressistible* 200 damage every 9 seconds :)

@Diox: With Earth the guy(/girl) means Earth Prayers NOT Earth Magic ;)

[Karmakin]

Playing in RA last night, it was full of D/Mo builds. Our guild group went better than 50% against them (yay), but I still think there's something wrong there, namely in that we had to VASTLY outplay the other team to beat them. One mistake and boom, it was over.

So let's talk about nerfing.

CoP:Ha. No. The "CoP spike" alone only does a few conditions. It's annoying, but to be honest, it's overcomable. The healing is substantial, but it's the same as an infuse.

The attack enchantments:. I like these things, to be honest.

The problem is the power of mysticism itself which powers the energy requirements of the build. Cut the energy gain in half, make it one energy for every 4 ranks of mysticism...the build can spike..carefully, and it'll still be around, but it'll be downgraded enough to make it in line with everything else.

[Rastapopolous]

Ahem, you are telling us that you ran a 3 professions build?
Earth prayers is a derwish attribute

[Nanashi]

Ahem, you are telling us that you ran a 3 professions build?

Edit: got it, thanks for clarifying :-) That's the problem when you can't access GW in a preview event :\

Yeah I think the Earth is an ability for dervs which is where you may get confused. He was useing a Derv/Warrior ^_^

[xFallenAngel]

I agree that Mysticism needs to be nerfed at least a bit (less energy gain per rank could also solve the problem I think... 1 Energy per 4 ranks maybe then you only gain 3 energy per enchantment on you when they end while they cost 10 to cast which isn't really overpowered in my opinion).

Besides the whole idea about their enchantments having an effect when they end was that they wouldn't be stripped all the time; then the Dervishes would be useless. Well of the Profane is GREAT against them. ESPECIALLY if they don't stand in the Well, because then you can blast them from afar.

Please think before making silly replies... they're no harder to beat than other PBAoE Teams. They're only REAL power is their holy damage; but in both cases it's logical if that would be changed to fire (Balthazar=God of flames and fire ele's and Heart of Holy FLAME!!) so no more *irressistible* 200 damage every 9 seconds :)

@Diox: With Earth the guy(/girl) means Earth Prayers NOT Earth Magic ;)

I could see Heart of Holy Flame getting changed to Fire(Holy damage + burning is a bit much), but Balthazar's Rage should stay as it is.
Baltha is better known for Holy than for fire damage damage(Balthazar's Aura anyone? The Fire dude is Rodgort and he's not a god) and by changing one of the 2 you already prevent Holy Spam.

[eowen]

I mean great idea lets remove cop, that way monks can never remove dazzed or backfire from themselves and are uterly useless. Instead of asking for skills to be "nerfed" find a way to resist cop spike. I dunno maybe you can use natures renewal or something. or maybe the paragon has some skills that can help avoid or minimise this dmg.

[WeaselChops]

I think there's alsoa case for linking the number of enchants removed by CoP to the Divine Favour attribute.
i.e remove 1 at DF 0, and maybe peak at 5 with DF at 16.

It'd lessen the problem, but you might then get hordes of Mo/D's.

[Archenine Paranoia]

I could see Heart of Holy Flame getting changed to Fire(Holy damage + burning is a bit much), but Balthazar's Rage should stay as it is.
Baltha is better known for Holy than for fire damage damage(Balthazar's Aura anyone? The Fire dude is Rodgort and he's not a god) and by changing one of the 2 you already prevent Holy Spam.

Balthazar is the god of fire and war. Rodgort is, at best, an elementalist who made a few spells. Or, possibly, Trogdor backwards.

[Paul Pluto]

Omfg its trogdor the burninator !!!

Anet just went up in the humour stakes again, I feel stupid for never noticing this.

The nightfall description says something about some evil god being all evil to people, but it must mean they need to make a new god, but with no class I'd assume.

[xFallenAngel]

Balthazar is the god of fire and war. Rodgort is, at best, an elementalist who made a few spells. Or, possibly, Trogdor backwards.

I know who Rodgort is -_-
Name a few skills with Balthazar in their name that do fire damage please.
On the other hand, name skills with Balthazar in their name that do holy damage:
Balthazar's Aura
Balthazar's Rage
Balthazar's swift kick in the nuts

I think I see a pattern here.

[Nanashi]

I mean great idea lets remove cop, that way monks can never remove dazzed or backfire from themselves and are uterly useless. Instead of asking for skills to be "nerfed" find a way to resist cop spike. I dunno maybe you can use natures renewal or something. or maybe the paragon has some skills that can help avoid or minimise this dmg.

[Sarcasm on]
Who would do such a thing?! :shocked:
[Sarcasm off]

That seems to be the problem. People don't think in this game. Sins had the same problem during their PVP weekend and they all complained more than acted. I say bring a bottle of water and jump into the fire. xP

[Akirai Annuvil]

Lol alright alright they may leave balthazars rage (maybe a slight cooldown increase though 5 sec is awfully low), but you have to admit that balthazar is the God of FLAMES not Holy so changing it to fire is sorta logical :p (yes, I AM a sore loser and bad at admitting my mistakes ><)

EDIT: I agree with the upping of the cooldown to at least 10 seconds :) I'm going to play my Dervish now I've been away from her to long :(

[xFallenAngel]

XD
Yeah, I could see a recharge increase, although not of the magnitude some people were suggesting, like 25 seconds. That's just make them utterly useless.
8 or maybe 10 seconds would be acceptable.

[Archenine Paranoia]

I know who Rodgort is -_-
Name a few skills with Balthazar in their name that do fire damage please.
On the other hand, name skills with Balthazar in their name that do holy damage:
Balthazar's Aura
Balthazar's Rage
Balthazar's swift kick in the nuts

I think I see a pattern here.

Way off topic, but read your lore. Anyway, last I'll say about the subject. Back on topic now.

[xFallenAngel]

Way off topic, but read your lore. Anyway, last I'll say about the subject. Back on topic now.

I read all Lore ever made available for the game since I'm a fan of it's history. Balth being the god of War and Fire still doesn't mean there's a single Balth skill dealing fire damage and keeping in line with Balth's Aura, holy damage is his trademark ingame. Lore and Gameplay are two different animals =)

[richo]

avatar of grenth for enchant stripping = bb dervish

and doesnt iway own pressure/spike dervish builds due OoA?

[Akirai Annuvil]

I'd love to see a Warrior remove my Cloak of Thorn or Staggering Force... Weakened and Crippled I'll just run away. Or kill them using my overpowered holy spam moves... *sarcasm* so yes warriors please do not remove my enchants what a hellish thing to do >.> *end sarcasm*

OoA doesnt work well against them at least as far as I've seen (observer mode for GvG/HoH and personal experience for the rest, except TA. I suck at TA.) and enchant strippin does not work against most dervish builds (except possibly Melandru's Prophet who is reliant on enchants for increased damage).

And stop the lore discussion...

[fizzie jiggs]

i pretty much stay away from pvp over these weekends. dont get all freaked out about it, im sure it will be changed before the game is actually released.

[sajtkocka]

I personnaly met this build in team arenas (3-4 D/mo + something) and i was pretty annoyed by it. i think its pathetic. i already thought about it as the new iway when i created my first dervish, but i did Not ask my guildmates to create a dervishteam because i like combining/synchronizing multiple classes and not relying on some (yet) unballanced build.
for example in team arenas we used a paragon as a support character for the meelee characters and the monk. we managed to get 8 consecutive wins when got beaten by a dervishteam. i dont say they are über/invincible/overpowered but i think its not right that they need a complete anti-build to be countered -if played right-.

if the people who play this build find it fun, then be it, but i think it requires less skills than the touchrangers....

[xFallenAngel]

Less skill than pressing 1,2,1,2,1,2,3,1,2?
I hope you're kidding ; )

[Bozo69PD]

I agree that obviously since this is the PVP beta they just wanted to see what people would do with their current state of the game. The game doesn't actually come out til Nov. after all. While CoP does need a nerf because of this it needs to be done in a way that doesn't nerf boon prot anymore than it already has been. Someone mentioned requiring divine favor lvl 4 or less gets 50% chance of failure. That would work, still allowing monks to use it as an actual skill, I'd rather they didn't nerf the timer into a oh $@^! ability.

I think the fact that all those enchantment nukes are pretty much instant cast is a little crazy. Eles can't even do that and all they are really designed to do is nuke.

[ShadowCeiling]

Personally, I'll agree to nerfing mysticism a bit to give energy per 4 ranks, changing the cool down time to maybe 7 seconds for a few of the enchant bombs, and changing heart of the holy flames to fire damage rather than holy. I still don't see any reason to nerf CoP. The worst part of the Derv is they have 60 armor, and with runes, not that much health, all in all, they're squishies. the easiest way to kill a derv is daze, degen, and range. I still hate that there's no real counter to the Forms except running away or multi person degen or something, my only complaint would be the lack of something to take off the Form prematurely. Think about how you would get those forms in PvE... You'd literally have to kill gods.

[Bozo69PD]

It would be easy to kill those forms in pve. SS + backfire and empathy for all except dwayna. conditions daze and interupts for dwayna. you would have to spec towards killing them tho.

the cool thing about the forms is the 48 seconds of power. if you could strip it somehow it would be the most worthless elites in the game because it has a 2 minute cool down.

[Buddah]

Agreed, HA isn't fun anymore, nothing beats CoP spike.
Odd. I swore I rolled 4 of these teams in flawless victories in HA yesterday using modified packhunters.


Went in HA tonight and that's all there is, small variations of the exact same mass D/Mo fight.I saw just as much IWAY and VIM, and even more bloodspike at that same time.

4) CoP 50% fail with DF 4 or less isn't a bad idea for Dervish balancing, but i kinda hope it's not necessary if the rest is changed. But atm it does make Dervish all but pointless to hex or condition, they have so many enchants, they can just CoP everything.This is a just bad fix. Might look good now, but it really hurts other classes that occasionally makes use of CoP.

What on earth are you talking about, DMo teams were almost the only ones winning favor whole day yesterday, along with winning GvG battles. Havent you seen ANY? GvG battles end in 1:30-2:00 minutes!
I watch the Spearmen using CoP spike, eventually lose to Evil. And it was close at several times where Spearmen almost did get the Guild Lord. The emptiest I ever saw Evil's guild hall. Infact Spearmen almost won it not by the power of the Dervish, but by tactical moves that body blocked the bulk of Evil between them and their own guild hall allowing 2 Dervishes in Avatar form to race to the Evil hall.


Good counters for dervish.
--Inflicting Daze after CoP. No more enchantments means CoP is useless, Mystism is useless as well.
--Diversion. With all the skills being spammed you better be able to get one or two here and there on a single target
--Natures Renewal. Slow down their enchantments and make it easier to interupt RoF and the rest of their prized enchants. Yes they'll kill it, but you should be able to do some serious damage in that time.
--Migraine, Arcane Cundrum, Arcane Langour, Stolen Speed, Blackout, Choking Gas, Knockdowns any of these can slow down or stop the enchant spam in different ways.
--Kite them. How friggen obvious.

Countering Dervish groups.
--Spread out. Force them to go for one person at at time.
--Kill their monk and/or Orders. DP them out and force all the rez sigs to be used on these two if possible.
--Time your hexing/condition dealing to follow up CoP. Dervishes have a 10 second window in which you can really do them in. If done right, they'll never get an enchant up.
--If using Daze (Broadhead Arrow or Stunning Strike) condition stack to bury it. Three or four conditions deep will be tough for a Dazed Dervish to CoP off.
--Interupt Ranger or mesmer. Make use of Natures Renewal.

[Bozo69PD]

Odd. I swore I rolled 4 of these teams in flawless victories in HA yesterday using modified packhunters.

I saw just as much IWAY and VIM, and even more bloodspike at that same time.

This is a just bad fix. Might look good now, but it really hurts other classes that occasionally makes use of CoP.

I watch the Spearmen using CoP spike, eventually lose to Evil. And it was close at several times where Spearmen almost did get the Guild Lord. The emptiest I ever saw Evil's guild hall. Infact Spearmen almost won it not by the power of the Dervish, but by tactical moves that body blocked the bulk of Evil between them and their own guild hall allowing 2 Dervishes in Avatar form to race to the Evil hall.


Good counters for dervish.
--Inflicting Daze after CoP. No more enchantments means CoP is useless, Mystism is useless as well.
--Diversion. With all the skills being spammed you better be able to get one or two here and there on a single target
--Natures Renewal. Slow down their enchantments and make it easier to interupt RoF and the rest of their prized enchants. Yes they'll kill it, but you should be able to do some serious damage in that time.
--Migraine, Arcane Cundrum, Arcane Langour, Stolen Speed, Blackout, Choking Gas, Knockdowns any of these can slow down or stop the enchant spam in different ways.
--Kite them. How friggen obvious.

Countering Dervish groups.
--Spread out. Force them to go for one person at at time.
--Kill their monk and/or Orders. DP them out and force all the rez sigs to be used on these two if possible.
--Time your hexing/condition dealing to follow up CoP. Dervishes have a 10 second window in which you can really do them in. If done right, they'll never get an enchant up.
--If using Daze (Broadhead Arrow or Stunning Strike) condition stack to bury it. Three or four conditions deep will be tough for a Dazed Dervish to CoP off.
--Interupt Ranger or mesmer. Make use of Natures Renewal.

Those are some great tips, I'm just wondering are you implying to leave dervishes as is?

[WingspanTT]

If it is such a problem, just make CoP have a maximum # of enchants removed for the rank of DF.

[Light Cleric]

Well, I'm not ready to call it the of the game since this is a BETA EVENT. I didn't see anyone saying it was the Apocalypse in the Factions PvP weekend preview where there was no cap on identical spirits, and a group in HoH made about 100 Spirits of Pain using Pain and Anguished was Lingwah.

However, the D/Mo is rather overpowered. I doubt ANet meant for the Dervish to be able to do such massive AoE damage with basically no restrictions. But it was rather fun in RA with a team of 2 D/Mo CoP'ers, a D/Mo Prot, and a Cripshot Ranger. Got all the way to TA and beat this guild group of 4 Touch Rangers after they talked a bunch of smack to us. So yeah, any class that can beat the Touch Ranger is good in my book, but Nightfall is at least 3 months down the road, people. It's a beta, the more stuff that happens like this NOW, the less that will happen after Nightfall's release.

[Bobross]

so I understand why they use cop for hex/condition removal...but why not use that other dervish skill that strips all enchantments and does 120 dmg to all nearby foes...wouldn't that be a better spike?

[Dark Green]

Mystic Sandstorm costs 10 energy, and after spamming all those PBAOEs, it can be hard to get the energy for it. CoP only costs 5... maybe if it got increased to 10, with the same effects as it is now?

[Slygar]

CoP and healing hands both ought to have a longer recharge IMNSHO.

[xFallenAngel]

Something that would really help in my opinion:
Give all those damage enchants a noticeable animation.
The only one you can really see right now is Grenth's Fingers(shoots blue projectiles outwards in a circle shaped area), the others...just happen without any real visible effect.

Since most people are:

A) Far too lazy to actually read the info next to the damage numbers to find out what hit them

and

B) Probably won't know what the skill does anyway if they read the name, since the classes are so new

I think a visible effect would help those people a lot, it's something you can easily recognize after 2 or 3 times.

[Arctus Redryn]

CoP and healing hands both ought to have a longer recharge IMNSHO.

Straying from topic, but why do you have Healing Hands in there? :huh:

[elavro]

I think those dervish attack enchants shouldn't stack. only 1 attack enchant can be on at 1 time, that way cop looses alot of effect. Secondly, make the enchants only last 5-10 seconds,but they should end normal to gain energy, give them a higher energy cost, now they cost 10 energy, make that 15 and dervish is alot more balanced

[cranialfluids]

Dervish is overpowered, simple fact that with the enchantments it has, it has a high spike dmg and with the conditions more pressure than any other team has. I spent 6 hours last night playing against this. I tried nr/tranq, pressure balanced, and OoA barrage. nothing really works well. mostly because like many people have already pointed out, it's not the after effects of the enchantments, it's the unreasonable amount of high aoe dmg that the enchantments do in such a fast time.

Anyone who says the D/mo builds (Dervway, if you will, CoP spike is sort of a misnomer as the actual spike happens prior to CoP) aren't broken and unbalanced is fooling themself.

-CranialFluids (ign - Another Rose)

[Bickety Bam]

Dervish is overpowered, simple fact that with the enchantments it has, it has a high spike dmg and with the conditions more pressure than any other team has. I spent 6 hours last night playing against this. I tried nr/tranq, pressure balanced, and OoA barrage. nothing really works well. mostly because like many people have already pointed out, it's not the after effects of the enchantments, it's the unreasonable amount of high aoe dmg that the enchantments do in such a fast time.

Anyone who says the D/mo builds (Dervway, if you will, CoP spike is sort of a misnomer as the actual spike happens prior to CoP) aren't broken and unbalanced is fooling themself.

-CranialFluids (ign - Another Rose)

HAven't read the whole thread but what should stop this is Well of the Profane. But it doesn't. I consider this a bug. It should allow the damage to trigger.

If this type of attack is being introduced IMO the cost of WotP should be reduced from 25 to 15 to achieve some balance. Oh and obviously fix the skill.

[don gudo]

HAven't read the whole thread but what should stop this is Well of the Profane. But it doesn't. I consider this a bug. It should allow the damage to trigger.

If this type of attack is being introduced IMO the cost of WotP should be reduced from 25 to 15 to achieve some balance. Oh and obviously fix the skill.

The biggest problem I have with the build (and probably its most overpowered aspect) is that everything one thinks of as a counter...NR...well of the profane...maelstrom...most of them targetted in a small area of effect and easy to dodge, even if they are not, don't really "beat" the group, they basically just slow the inevitable. There is nothing, even tailored to beat dervway, that will consistently, if the dervs aren't noobs.

Oh yeah, and wotp can't be used until you have a dead party member, and as all their damage is aoe...well, I think you'll have 8 wotp's up as soon as you'll have 1, if you get my drift :cry:

[Arctus Redryn]

Would Ranger spike with Melandru's Arrows and Nature's Renewal work?

Also, I noticed Savage Shot inflicts +(some damage) if it interrupts a skill...is this new? I seem to remember Savage Shot inflicts (some damage) if it interrupts a skill, as with Distracting Shot.

[Bravo]

Reduce the range of the initial spike to 'adjacent'

That way people intending to use one or other of the skills on a scythe dervish can still inflict the damage on their target, but people intending to do just those skill will find it hitting air a lot more often.

[Fying wizzard]

What about changing the skill discription of CoP to:

Skill. Loose 1 enchantment for every attribute point in divine favour. For each one lost you gain... health, loose 1 hex and loose 1 condition.

If the discription is like this the change wont hurt this skill for boon prot monks since they always have plenty of pioints in divine. So the only nerf is that you have to be monk primairy so you can use CoP. The dervish can't use the "remove all enchantement (with cop )spike" annymore. Problem solved ^_^

[CanthanPeasant]

You do realize the Dervish has a small energy pool to begin with, much smaller than the Paragon. By doing everything you just described, the Dervish would use up all it's NRG in two enchantment casts, unable to regain enough in time for other spells.

I think those dervish attack enchants shouldn't stack. only 1 attack enchant can be on at 1 time, that way cop looses alot of effect. Secondly, make the enchants only last 5-10 seconds,but they should end normal to gain energy, give them a higher energy cost, now they cost 10 energy, make that 15 and dervish is alot more balanced

[Erasculio]

I think those dervish attack enchants shouldn't stack. only 1 attack enchant can be on at 1 time, that way cop looses alot of effect. Secondly, make the enchants only last 5-10 seconds,but they should end normal to gain energy, give them a higher energy cost, now they cost 10 energy, make that 15 and dervish is alot more balanced
I believe that's what's going to happen with the Dervishes - they'll be overnerfed to the point of being almost useless. Let's hope Arena Net knows how to deal with all the "OMG! NERF!" comments.

Erasculio

[gwchi]

Actually, before the CoP nerf to 10 sec it was quite a bit overpowered... but that's beside the point and let's not argue on this.

This build is badly overpowered clearly, but i don't really understand why people talk as if it's the effect on enchant ending that matters. It's not. The effect on enchant ending are VERY minor and hardly kill anything (some burning, cripple... compared to 300 nearby AOE damage from applying the enchants, 200 of which is Holy... it's NOTHING).

I posted the D/Mo build last night after owning in RA/TA most of the day with it in the 'Are Dervish Overpowered' thread. It was very close to unbeatable, and no one else i faced used it atm so we just roled over everything.

Went in HA tonight and that's all there is, small variations of the exact same mass D/Mo fight.

The problem with CoP ending enchant is absolutely not the effect of the enchants ending. It's that it heals you full (42-45 health PER ENCHANT, usually 4-5), and recharges all your energy (+7-8E per enchant...), and with the short recycle of the damage enchants, you can just cycle them over and over, CoP, restart. You never lack energy, you get rid of any hex or condition making any kind of shutdown nearly unthinkable, and it becomes a huge self-heal.

RoF is also what allows Dervish to stay alive, it gives them a huge health and energy boost when it ends so they can just keep cycling through their stuff alternating with a RoF in the middle.

Personally i think CoP is fine. But here's what i think would be good changes for Dervish atm to prevent the D/Mo from totally destroying HA and also all arenas (3 D/Mos with RoF-CoP and different utility + boon-prot is quite devastating in TA... if you lose, you just screwed bad... or face other D/Mos)

1) Health gained from an enchant ending reduced to 2 per level. It's stupid that CoPing your enchants gives you something like 200-250 health when you can recast them in seconds. Even 1 health per level would be acceptable imo, but if they want Dervish to be steady melee and not assassin-like, 2 might be required, hard to say without testing.

2) Mysticism only works on Dervish enchantments. It's WAY WAY WAY too good with RoF. It just is. You gain energy from using RoF, get healed more because of enchant ending, so you can just recast it every 2 sec with no cost at all (it's actually emanagement...). Otherwise it could be something like benefit from Mysticism is halved for other classes enchants. But it's just stupid as it is now, badly so. I don't think it needs a nerf related to Dervish Enchantments though, because with their energy cost, recharge, effects, etc. Mysticism as it is is kinda needed. But it does surclass even Expertise as a primary imo, and that's scary.

3) Holy damage needs to be GREATLY toned down, or changed type. Balthazar's Rage + Heart of Holy Fire are simply broken, and make warriors totally pointless. Warriors can do nothing but run if there's a Dervish spamming it around them. Frenzy is extremely funny too, 200 damage per enchant cast... too good. Seriously just compare to Smiting holy damage, it's not even close. Balthazar's Rage does the same as a full Symbol of Wrath in instant, in a bigger AOE, casting much faster, recharging much faster. Balanced? Right.

4) CoP 50% fail with DF 4 or less isn't a bad idea for Dervish balancing, but i kinda hope it's not necessary if the rest is changed. But atm it does make Dervish all but pointless to hex or condition, they have so many enchants, they can just CoP everything.

Pat, Anet should kick whoever is currently responsible for skill balancing and sit you in his seat.

[Bobross]

So when people were on forums a while ago, posting complaints about touch rangers, they were always met with common easy to use counters, and tactics...like "snare em and run away!"

On here, I see very specific skills suggested as ways of countering dervish builds, that in addition to not working all the time, also require considerable skill and coordination to use properly.

Anyone notice a difference? *gestures at the nerf bat*

Another observation I've made (correct me if I'm wrong) -Dervish skills work extremely well on a dervish primary: in addition, mysticism has a lot of synergy with most secondaries...on the other hand, I can't imagine effectively using wind or earth prayers on a dervish secondary...scythe mastery, maybe. It just seems wrong to me that a class should be so dependent on its primary attribute line for its skills to be good: they should stand alone, and the primary should enhance them. I've noticed very few X/Ds around, and I really can't see that changing with the skills and mysticism balanced the way they are now.

[halfthought]

I don't think it's the End of Guild Wars, in fact it's more like a rebirth, cause in essence, the metagame is radically changing. This change in Metagame its seriously needed. Yeah, D/Mo isn't that hard to get through, with enough degen and spikes you go done in less than a minute. I'm sure black out and other skill/spell stopping builds could stop this. Also, remember, they haven't given any skills to the core classes to even seriously counter a lot these new mechanics they put in. There isn't shout removal, or form removal (I seriously hope they had a form shutdown mechanism or something, make it an elite, I don't care.... cause three Derv's in god form seriously is too overpowering, something needs to be done about it.) So I'd wait a bit before coming to the conclusion that it's the end of it all... And there will be nerfing soon, I'm guaranteeing it.


wow, exactly my point, though I have to say, this ones more civil then the one in the .... "communtity discussion"

[tarutaru]

Pat, Anet should kick whoever is currently responsible for skill balancing and sit you in his seat.

/SIGNED

Anet, just give it up and hire Pat already. He knows alot more about this game then some of you, I can guarentee.

[Kjentei]

@ Patccmoi's suggestion. I hope ArenaNET at least do #4! #1 and #2 are also very good suggestions.

[Buddah]

Those are some great tips, I'm just wondering are you implying to leave dervishes as is?
Slight tweaks, not the crushing nerfs the would be real PvPer's are crying for. Since they're being taken out of their confort zone they really are flipping out and aren't so rational.

Fact is I spent a day slowly wittling these CoP spike teams down in HA for a second day. I even had a bunch unranked players behind me believing in themselves to the point that CoP spike was getting flawlessed frequently. Just like IWAY, kill the support. Then work on the dmg output.

/SIGNED

Anet, just give it up and hire Pat already. He knows alot more about this game then some of you, I can guarentee.
Actually this would be the end of GW as we know it.

[ijack]

No,because if you tweak CoP to have a DF requirement in order for it to work ( say >4 or even higher so it'll only work as intended ) that problem is gone.

It's far too ealry to tell - from a preview - how things will be in the end.They could even decide CoP won't work on dervish enchantments ,that would be the end to those builds ( but don't take away its usefulness with mantra of recall,pretty please :grin: )

I remember the exact same discussion was going on about assasins and ritualists and that worked out fine ,so let's just wait and see.

I think the mass enchant ending is intended as they have mystic sandstorm in there, cop just trade off 120 dmg against better healing and hex/condition removal. I think the cast time and recharge of these aoe spell need rebalanced, that's all, overall, I like how everything work with mystic sandstorm atm.

[Inner Salbat]

To be honest, I think people complaining there over powered is a bit of a "wah wah crying fit" because you can't counter them easierly.

And for those that think enchantments ending is no big deal I don't think so, take Grenth's Fingers for example, that ends your crippeled you can't walk away as fast from a mob of 4, and by the time you've got 2 feet away your dead.

Perfect balance, why? because Dervishs are a sort of cross between a warrior/elementalist, we're supposed to have a high dmg out put, so politely put go get a build to combat us, and stop moaning because you have to change your skill bar around for the weekend.

For example touch rangers, completely own us.

[ijack]

For example touch rangers, completely own us.

1v1 may be, 2v2 or above touch rangers already would get their dirty hands burnt in balthazar's rage.

[Inner Salbat]

1v1 may be, 2v2 or above touch rangers already would get their dirty hands burnt in balthazar's rage.

I don't quite understand what your saying here, I've seen 2 touch rangers in RA thankfully we was on there side, basically we just sat down and let them too it, the other 2 in the team where dervishs, there wasn't any point in leaving the gate, by the time we go near the enermy they where dead already.

If you want to whine about balance, whine about touch rangers.

[ShadowCeiling]

Making Mysticism work only for Derv enchants is like saying expertise should only work on ranger skills or strength should only work on warriors. And that's a NO. It destroys the versatility of the game. I do agree that some of the damage being holy is a bit tough, and needs to be toned down or switched to fire so that it's not armor ignoring... though in reality, a lot of these cries for nerf would seriously destroy the class integerity, making it unplayable in either PvP or PvE. This new class is really changing out how the game plays, cause I bet you're used to people clumping up or being clumped up, now you know that clumping ain't such a grand idea. At this point, it seems that placement is now really important to the fight, as it didn't really matter as much before. Like I said earlier, it's a rebirth of the metagame, and you should change your paradigm.

[MaximumSquid]

Well something has to give.

THe weekend is pretty well over, but near the end I was making dervish builds for Ra that didn't have res sigs.

They didn't have res sigs because I was just soloing the entire other team regularly. . .

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/9450/ggdervishne1.jpg

After litterally dragging my team to round 17 I died to a team that litereally spammed gale on me more than a dozen times in a row while their entire team was beating on me.

In a game based on balances and counters it's really hitting rock bottom. :cry:

[Sekia]

Yeah..I hope Anet does all this better when Nightfall actually comes out, Which im sure they will there pretty good at it even if complainers say they make the skills completely useless. Its normally for the good of the whole game

[don gudo]

I don't quite understand what your saying here, I've seen 2 touch rangers in RA thankfully we was on there side, basically we just sat down and let them too it, the other 2 in the team where dervishs, there wasn't any point in leaving the gate, by the time we go near the enermy they where dead already.

If you want to whine about balance, whine about touch rangers.

I'm not sure if I just need to reference you to the screen shot maximum posted above, or if I should state this fact (and I mean this more of a point of revelation for readers than for anything mocking of you):

When was the last time you saw nearly every single group in heroes' ascent be a touchway (7 touchers, or 6, or whatever)? Maybe that's because they're beatable. Reasonably, easily, beatable. Now, when 4/5 HoH battles are 3 of the same build (derv spike!), then I think it's clear we have a problem...touchers are not what's in need of nerfing in this picture. :huh:

[cranialfluids]

For anyone who said Dervish doesn't need a nerf, that the hardcore PvPers are just complaining about being taken out of our comfort zone, please know that as soon as one build demands you design your own around defeating that one particular build, then that build has become a significant problem. what happens then, is we have a rock, paper, scissors contest in PvP.

rock: Dervway
paper: Dervway counter
scissors: counter to Dervway's counter

Rock beats Scissors, Scissors beats Paper, Paper beats Rock. this results from an unbalanced issue where one element defines the metagame. The shining point of the GW PvP has always been the variety of builds you can run.

So please, before you start accusing PvPers of being "stuck in a rut" please review the build progressions of pre-Factions PvP builds, and post-Factions PvP builds. There have been quita a bit of changes. We're not stuck in a rut, by any means. Dervish needs a nerf, if you don't think so it's clear you don't understand game balance.

-CranialFluids (ign - Another Rose)

[Ifer]

My guess is that they deliberately overpowered it to convince people to buy it, and then nerf it.

[DarkZeal]

My guess is they never did any testing and just asked people with no game design experiance and have never played Guildwars to make skills based on enchantments ending. Then shoved this crap out for us to test it for them.

[JSummers]

Reduce the range of the initial spike to 'adjacent'

That way people intending to use one or other of the skills on a scythe dervish can still inflict the damage on their target, but people intending to do just those skill will find it hitting air a lot more often.

I think this is a fair nerf. Consider the comparable class, earth ele for PB AoE (crystals, shockwave,etc) are all adjacent, and also more recharge. That should be a benchmark for the new stats for these skills.

[ijack]

I don't quite understand what your saying here, I've seen 2 touch rangers in RA thankfully we was on there side, basically we just sat down and let them too it, the other 2 in the team where dervishs, there wasn't any point in leaving the gate, by the time we go near the enermy they where dead already.

If you want to whine about balance, whine about touch rangers.

The fact is 1 devish can dish out the following damage in 5 seconds:

Mystic Sandstorm (120) + Mystic Cloak (64) + Bleeding from aura of thorn-> Balthazar's rage (88) -> Staggering Force (88) -> Dust Cloak (88)

448 damage

if you are doing 1 toucher v 1 Devish, then you would be in equal footing with him, if 2 devish take advantage of their aoe, toucher have no chance

I agree toucher is simpler to use, but it doesn't make them better

[ijack]

My guess is they never did any testing and just asked people with no game design experiance and have never played Guildwars to make skills based on enchantments ending. Then shoved this crap out for us to test it for them.

I doubt that, they have more data / experience / game mechanic information then any of us.

Having a overpowered devish in the preview have the following advantage to anet:

1) More people try out devish at this period of time and give ANET more information to work on from this point on

2) Hype things up so ppl think Devish is closer to god then their god form, so people buy nightfall

[suikoden]

My guess is they never did any testing and just asked people with no game design experiance and have never played Guildwars to make skills based on enchantments ending. Then shoved this crap out for us to test it for them.

Well this was sopposed to be a beta test pvp weekend , but by the looks of it they didnt even alpha test it :grin:

So it's really an alpha test , a really early build of whats to come.

[Ravensclaw]

Well they still have 4-5 months till it comes out so hopefully they will sort this out.

[daftman]

Hmm has anyone every thought about the skill
Defile enchantment or Dessecrate Enchantment?
AOE 49 Damage + 17 Damager per enchantment without removing the enchantment.
For a Dervish with 3 enchantments - that's 100 shadow damage AOE.
Two Necro with echo can deal out 400 damage to the whole group of Dervish Bomber before they even get close.
Probably after that you might get Shatter Enchantment from a Mesmer to remove and deal additional damage.
All these are prophesies skills.

If you have both prophesies and faction that's about 900 damage with echo, defile enchantment + desecrate enchantment for 2 necro.

[Inner Salbat]

I'm not sure if I just need to reference you to the screen shot maximum posted above, or if I should state this fact (and I mean this more of a point of revelation for readers than for anything mocking of you):

When was the last time you saw nearly every single group in heroes' ascent be a touchway (7 touchers, or 6, or whatever)? Maybe that's because they're beatable. Reasonably, easily, beatable. Now, when 4/5 HoH battles are 3 of the same build (derv spike!), then I think it's clear we have a problem...touchers are not what's in need of nerfing in this picture. :huh:

Maybe we have different preseptions, if we'd played the same match ups, with the same tactics, movement in each, you might have the same opinuion as me, but in that regards, the matchs I've played in the dervishs where taken care off quite well, degen, condisions, all the normal stuff you use on a daily basis where working just fine to take us out, the only time a dervish d/mo actually did any real dmg and won, is when tactically we grouped together attacked the same target together, and used the same skills relitively at the same time, and even then 3 x d/mo with those tactics I've seen take 4 wins in a row, and be taken out by the simple matter of the other team got lucky and got a good monk on there side, even with all 3 of us ganking the monk, one monk I bumped into brought along SoJ that was a suprise I wasn't expecting.

So I don't see they need much of a nerf, however the skill called "Players Brains" might need a bit of a buff!.

And as for the screenshot above, he got lucky and bumped in to leavers/weak teams, all the way to 17 I'd bet, hell that's how I got my 1st glad point this weekend, by most of the groups from 0-10 being either leaver, weak, or no tactical brains at all, however once TA came around, we was swiftly dispatched after the 3rd match.

And I've met those so called indistructable dervishs many times, of course now I can't drag you into 1v1 because they've just been taken out the game, but either they wasn't using them right, or lag who can say, but while they took a little longer than normal it didn't take much for them to drop.

Again as I said before, we both have different matchs that we've played so our experances will be different.

To play the devils advocate, I think they need a buff, like I don't know HoHF doing 1000dmg per second, and 6 years of flame at ending. :) j/k

[ijack]

Maybe we have different preseptions, if we'd played the same match ups, with the same tactics, movement in each, you might have the same opinuion as me, but in that regards, the matchs I've played in the dervishs where taken care off quite well, degen, condisions, all the normal stuff you use on a daily basis where working just fine to take us out, the only time a dervish d/mo actually did any real dmg and won, is when tactically we grouped together attacked the same target together, and used the same skills relitively at the same time, and even then 3 x d/mo with those tactics I've seen take 4 wins in a row, and be taken out by the simple matter of the other team got lucky and got a good monk on there side, even with all 3 of us ganking the monk, one monk I bumped into brought along SoJ that was a suprise I wasn't expecting.

So I don't see they need much of a nerf, however the skill called "Players Brains" might need a bit of a buff!.

And as for the screenshot above, he got lucky and bumped in to leavers/weak teams, all the way to 17 I'd bet, hell that's how I got my 1st glad point this weekend, by most of the groups from 0-10 being either leaver, weak, or no tactical brains at all, however once TA came around, we was swiftly dispatched after the 3rd match.

And I've met those so called indistructable dervishs many times, of course now I can't drag you into 1v1 because they've just been taken out the game, but either they wasn't using them right, or lag who can say, but while they took a little longer than normal it didn't take much for them to drop.

Again as I said before, we both have different matchs that we've played so our experances will be different.

To play the devils advocate, I think they need a buff, like I don't know HoHF doing 1000dmg per second, and 6 years of flame at ending. :) j/k

Since when random and TA are considered to be a real success to any experienced player?

6 toucher with their single target touch dmg would never be in par with 6 AOE self-healing spammer in HA.

[Inner Salbat]

Since when random and TA are considered to be a real success to any experienced player?

6 toucher with their single target touch dmg would never be in par with 6 AOE self-healing spammer in HA.

What?, was that some kind of knee jerk reply or what?

Okay, well umm I GvG for fun, I did RA/TA (only because I got there from RA) because of the medalions, because it both unlocked skills from faction gained by the fight, and gave me some gold to store away, if they keep those medalions in I might invest more time in RA/TA to UAX myself, other wise I'll keep away from those 2 places as I've done in the past, I don't as general rule HA because I hate the place, I hate the people in there, 99% of the time there all a pack of elitest skum bags that if they where to GvG would get completely roasted, that's not to say that all people in there are like that, but from my time in there that's been my only experance of the place, when I go, I go with my guild.

[cranialfluids]

Hmm has anyone every thought about the skill
Defile enchantment or Dessecrate Enchantment?
AOE 49 Damage + 17 Damager per enchantment without removing the enchantment.
For a Dervish with 3 enchantments - that's 100 shadow damage AOE.
Two Necro with echo can deal out 400 damage to the whole group of Dervish Bomber before they even get close.
Probably after that you might get Shatter Enchantment from a Mesmer to remove and deal additional damage.
All these are prophesies skills.

If you have both prophesies and faction that's about 900 damage with echo, defile enchantment + desecrate enchantment for 2 necro.

You do realize that a good portion of the problem with the dervish is Mysticism? Whenever an enchantment ends of them they are being healed, so the amount of dmg you're dealing when you strip these enchants is dramatically reduced, not to mention CoP functions as a self-infuse health.

There's no arguing with the fact that the dervish is broken. It has the most efficient nrg management in the game, better self heal/condition removal/hex removal than a monk, has an insanely high dps, and tanks dmg better than a warrior. good game, anet.

oh, and btw, even the members of EvIL are high ranked HA players. want a screen shot to prove it? or do you just want to take my word on it? HA players are not "talentless" by any stretch of the imagination.

[Nanashi]

Well they still have 4-5 months till it comes out so hopefully they will sort this out.

That's why the whole PVP weekend idea came to mind. They were testing the versatility during PVP, they'll do the same for PVE when we get the FPE. There's no doubt they'll be fiddled here and there, both the dervs and the Paragons, not a single beta has stayed the same after the release. Anywho, there'll be some form of alteration you can bet on that.

There's no arguing with the fact that the dervish is broken. It has the most efficient nrg management in the game, better self heal/condition removal/hex removal than a monk, has an insanely high dps, and tanks dmg better than a warrior. good game, anet.

Ohhh quit acting so ignorant jeesos. They're not broken, they're just new. People just managed to group a bunch of skills together to make them more versatile than the classes you mentioned. The fact is, because they're new, nobody knows how to stop them because well it's bluntly obvious... we've never encountered them before.

So they're going to be fiddled with and nerfed, there's no doubt about it. How that's going to happen, who knows. I just hope the other classes don't get screwed over in the proccess.

[Inner Salbat]

oh, and btw, even the members of EvIL are high ranked HA players. want a screen shot to prove it? or do you just want to take my word on it? HA players are not "talentless" by any stretch of the imagination.

If I recall from words I've heard from the wind, they wasn't even ranked when the first won the GWWC, so it shows where there priorities are, not in some skum bag elitist wanna be place, I'd say they went/go for the little emote, and for some free faction.