Balancing the Dervish is impossible right now.

[Sable Phoenix]

Why? Because it's not in the game yet. All this shouting for nerfing the Dervish and suggestions for balancing come from three days of playing a profession with incomplete skill sets. Heck, Factions has been out how long? And people haven't even explored the limits of the two professions native to that chapter. You really think you can get a handle on a completely new, unfinished profession in three days and figure out exactly how it needs to be balanced?

All this whining about how overpowered the Dervish is will only result in the Dervish being nerf-nuked until it's in as bad a shape as the Assassin currently is; too weak in PVE, and undesired in PVP.

I don't know why I bother; I'm just one voice among the myriad screams of "nerf". But I play PVE exclusively, I really liked the way the Dervish played when I tried it out, and I don't want to see it killed before it even gets a chance. I wanted to like the Assassin too, but Assassins in PVE are basically cannon fodder. So knock it off before the same happens to the Dervish. You can't figure out the counters to an incomplete class in three days, let alone know how to balance it.

[critical vengeance]

we can all speculate, nothing wrong with suggestion and pondering ideas so the whole apocalyse maybe doesn't happen lol

[Goldfish God]

Well, it works like this... we know what the current classes and skills can do, we know what the dervish did during the beta preview (their concept building around enchantments etc, the CoP "exploit/overpower"), we assume that Nightfall will not introduce any new skills drastically different from anything that we've already seen (including dervish/paragon stuff from beta), so we can come up with ideas which may or may not inspire the devs when they try to integrate the new classes into the preexiting content. :wink:

[Spoil of War]

I agree with the OP to a certain degree. It's all very well offering ideas in the hope that the devs read it, but threads like "Is CoP exploit the end of GW?" is completely overreacting.

What we had during the NPvP weekend was a build that nobody can even say for definite was overpowered. Merely that we hadn't seen anything like it before and so there were no counters. perhaps it was overpowered, but it's not like it made Dervishes into the game unbalancing class the panickers would have everyone believe.

Personally I think the Dervish needs tweaking before it's rolled out in it's final form. but that's what we were doing really. These events are as much an open beta as they are a preview.

The Dervish, in the form we saw in the NPvP was powerful. I just hope the devs dont see all the headless-chicken posts and take it too far in the other direction. I want the Dervish to be a melee class that's actually strong in PvE. Not another Assassin.

[Bobross]

All people are saying is that these are their impressions of the class as it was presented...people expect changes, they just want to make sure they go in the right direction, and are trying to give some feedback as to how to fix things.

I agree that its silly to say that the class spells the end of GW as it hasn't even been released yet, but its just as silly to post anything about your great Dervish build, as things will likely be different when it comes out. Either way, its people caring, and talking about the game, so I doubt Arena Net is complaining. And even in the silliest post, there's useful information that Dev's can use, even if its only, "wow, a lot of dumb people play this game!" -at least then they can try to market it to dumb people;).

[Foradasthar]

People are free to express whatever opinion they may have. As long as they do so in a civilized manner, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's the dev's job to see to how seriously they take their criticism and what they're going to do about it.

Stating the obvious, that you can't judge a class as though as if it was ready based on a simple 3-day "beta" test (of sorts) is hardly needed. If nobody said some feature was overpowered, responding only with a silent nod or somesuch, you can bet there'd be some major issues once the final version would come out.

[Ghosties]

Well you have a class thats primary has a passive self heal and gives energy everytime an enchantment ends... I mean if OoB got a nerf from how it used to be then how did mysticism even make it to the event... el oh el...

[Smoke of the Night]

There is one thing that gives me hope that the dervish won't be nerfed into uselessness thanks to all the whining. That is touch rangers a build that is fully balanced but not easily countered by the standard builds many player feel should be able to beat whatever gets in their way with, with any luck the devs will realize the initial reaction to the dervish is much the same thing and weaken it only slightly. While i agree the dervish is slightly over powered at this point i don't think its anywehre near the lvl the outcry after 3 days of pvp beta makes it sound. My suggestion to bring the derv in line with other classes is mabey slightly decrease the dmg of the aoe enchants that are currently used in the cop spammin builds and alter cop with an increase in energy cost or recharge time. I don't feel the the primary dervish attribute needs a change however given the way the class is designed to play.

[Furinto]

I agree with Sable, but on the other hand the purpose of these preview events is to let the public test the new characters and see how they would work in general play, not just some private tests. It's to collect opinions and feedback from the people playing the game in order to make everything the best they can.

I think a single post or poll discussing the flaws and overpowerness of the Dervish would be sufficient. But every other person adding to the forum with a similar complaining thread is just out of hand.

[Gordon Michael]

Why? Because it's not in the game yet. All this shouting for nerfing the Dervish and suggestions for balancing come from three days of playing a profession with incomplete skill sets. Heck, Factions has been out how long? And people haven't even explored the limits of the two professions native to that chapter. You really think you can get a handle on a completely new, unfinished profession in three days and figure out exactly how it needs to be balanced?

All this whining about how overpowered the Dervish is will only result in the Dervish being nerf-nuked until it's in as bad a shape as the Assassin currently is; too weak in PVE, and undesired in PVP.

I don't know why I bother; I'm just one voice among the myriad screams of "nerf". But I play PVE exclusively, I really liked the way the Dervish played when I tried it out, and I don't want to see it killed before it even gets a chance. I wanted to like the Assassin too, but Assassins in PVE are basically cannon fodder. So knock it off before the same happens to the Dervish. You can't figure out the counters to an incomplete class in three days, let alone know how to balance it.
Sure you can.

Anti-Dervish skills:
Defile Enchantments, Desecrate Enchantments, Soul Barbs, Spiteful Spirit, Backfire Shatter Enchantment, Feedback, Diversion, Scourge Healing, Spinal Shivers, Broadhead Arrow, Concussion Shot, Disrupting Chop, Distracting Shot, knockdown

Ant-Paragon skills:
Soothing Images, Spirit Shackles, Rust

I figured those ones out on day one and mentioned the anti-Dervish ones in-game whenever someon ementioned Dervishes being overpowered.

Properly balancing is a much more complicated matter that depends on all sorts of complicated skill synergies that haven't been discovered yet, but finding working (although not necessarily ideal) counters is usuall fairly simple.

[HonshuHigamori]

Why? Because it's not in the game yet. All this shouting for nerfing the Dervish and suggestions for balancing come from three days of playing a profession with incomplete skill sets. Heck, Factions has been out how long? And people haven't even explored the limits of the two professions native to that chapter. You really think you can get a handle on a completely new, unfinished profession in three days and figure out exactly how it needs to be balanced?

All this whining about how overpowered the Dervish is will only result in the Dervish being nerf-nuked until it's in as bad a shape as the Assassin currently is; too weak in PVE, and undesired in PVP.

I don't know why I bother; I'm just one voice among the myriad screams of "nerf". But I play PVE exclusively, I really liked the way the Dervish played when I tried it out, and I don't want to see it killed before it even gets a chance. I wanted to like the Assassin too, but Assassins in PVE are basically cannon fodder. So knock it off before the same happens to the Dervish. You can't figure out the counters to an incomplete class in three days, let alone know how to balance it.

You are awesome.

[Nanashi]

Only a fool states a sin being weak. I dominate in pve man, dunno what kind of build you run around with but my worst enemies thus far have ben the Earth Wardens.

Never the less, I agree with you entirely. We cannot truely start creating a balanced system for the new classes until we see how they work in PVE combat. It'll be comeing up soon so all you whinners can complain after that's over. Otherwise, start playing you anti caster classes and try to figure out how to keep those Dervs in check, strategise people... strategise.