Feedback talk:Game updates/20110721

Shadow Walk nerf

Derv nerf has been a long time coming, but does anyone know why shadow walk was changed? Not like bombers care if it lasts more than 5 seconds. 69.183.64.210 22:11, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

omg! dervs nerfed, FA rits using shelter and whatnot can't distract the turtle anymore and JQ is finally balanced for both sides! 90.198.74.53 22:17, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

shadow walk has recently been abused for DoA to achieve sub 20 full runs... Also pls start new categories at the bottom -- 94.171.243.108 23:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I'd be curious to know how that worked. --ஸ Kyoshi 23:37, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Part of its use is in veil. Shadow walk->pull a patrol in the trenches somewhere else->cancel shadow walk. 98.207.35.105 23:47, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

A Trenchway nerf wich allowed DoA to be completed in 1 conset, Glaiveway and Frostway remained untouched (yay!). Da Mystic Reaper 23:59, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Except for the part where you can do a non shadow walk trench and still go fast enough to get sub 20s. The nerf wont stop 17 minute tactics from working. If anet gave half a flying fuck about DoA SC they could have done hundreds of things to break the current tactics used there

ArenaNet are just happy people are clearing DoA. Before Ursan it was never completed by the vast majority of the community. After Ursan and now DwG it's accessible to pretty much anyone. The terrible skill balance for PvE resulting it incredibly gimmicked end game tactics (PvE gameplay should have looked like PvP gameplay, but the devs kept adding more mobs instead of better ones removing the need to control them and pushing people towards massive AoE) is what creates the situation where SC builds are a good thing. PvE end game balanced failed badly a long time ago, just giving players ways to complete these areas is the compromise. 122.111.161.167 05:26, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Shadow walk trench is still fine for record tactics, 15sec is long enough. It is annoying for casual farm runs now, one particular pull at the monk lord is harder to do now. -- 94.171.243.108 15:54, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Mysticism

So now dervishes not only deal less damage than assassins, but have less armor as well? How nice...--71.107.187.184 22:22, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

They weren't meant to have high armor in the first place and damage is mostly done in there spells--184.8.127.161 22:36, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

The damage source of the dervish is the teardown mechanic wich involves spells not only spells. True that it had some painful nerfs in the past for pvp they can still deal a large ammount of damage and inflict multiple AoE conditions with ease. As for the armor well there wasn't a dervish that didn't had 100+ armor in pvp and combined with defensive skills like Armor of Sanctity, Shield of Force and Vow of Piety i can understand why the split. Da Mystic Reaper 22:46, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Different classes function differently and have different strengths & weaknesses? Wow, this is astonishing news. Pjwned 22:55, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

+1 internet 69.121.219.6 23:00, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

About time the Warrior regained what was supposed to be one of it's inherant advantages over the Dervish...being tougher. Don't think it's enough to stop Dervishes being preferred though, it's other strengths still outweigh those of the PvP Warrior. 82.11.227.226 23:19, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I misread the update first time I looked at it, thought the energy adjustment was pve-only, wanted to rage and never touch my Dervish again. The +1 armor being pve only doesn't bother me, though. I was running a dervish build the other day, normal damage and condition output for a dervish, but with 115 AL on regular set. With defensive, it'd be 123, which is just retarded, I admit. I'm fine with having a "measily" 104 now.--Gerroh 23:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Now that mysticism has been changed so that it doesn't benefit from divine boon, can divine boon have 0 recharge again? plz 68.202.246.39

Siege Turtle's cannon now ignores shit like walls?

As if Luxons aren't already favored by Anet...71.194.87.164 22:32, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

They'll probably nerf the damage later. It was balanced for collision before, but with stalling tactics keeping turtles in place forever this is a decent solution. --ஸ Kyoshi 23:11, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

It wasn't balanced, Kurz side is retardedly easy. It still won't be balanced after this, but whatever, it's FA. Though it's funny that just a few weeks ago I told a friend of mine to tell her Anet friend to do exactly this to the turtles.--Gerroh 23:28, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Stalling still works though, it's just that you need a little healing (approximately 40 damage a hit) and not rely on enchantments now. udas 02:59, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

So absolutely nothings changed, the turtle still has to get in range to use it, its the same dmg as before, the only differance is anet feels luxons need help breaking in, as if a single seige turtle attack will stop my tripple monks+4mesmers+some noob spamming spirits. 69.131.243.53 12:28, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

After this change, does Siege Attack still launch a projectile, or is it just fire-and-hit? elix Omni 12:32, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

It's still a projectile (visually). -- FreedomBound 14:58, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

69, you don't always get a perfect team. FA forms teams (mostly) randomly. You could end up with 4 noobs spamming spirits and 3 paragons. S___ happens. I've actually seen it, though only once. Funniest FA ever. Anyway, this change probably won't effect me enough to be noticed. Let's be pessimistic and say I suck at either of them/both/PvP/GW/life/whatever. I still win slightly more often than I lose while on either side. A win is a win, a loss is a loss. Changing something like collision mechanics for an NPC may affect my victory in some way, but if it affects me enough for long enough that I actually notice a difference then I'd be relying way too heavily on assets beyond my control. I would then undoubtedly suck at PvP. The only people who should even notice this change are dedicated stallers and turtle nannies. If you're not, you should be experienced enough in dealing with siege turtles to not care. Same thing for JQ NPCs. You should know what to do when s___ goes wrong. Turtles in FA are still getting stuck at the gates even without an enemy in sight. What do? Cut your loss and move on. Try to be a little less dependent on nonessential NPCs. They're useful, but not perfect. You can lose with them and win without them. Don't let such a minor change ruin your day. 76.106.245.213 18:07, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Shadow Walk

WTF? That's just annoying and stupid -- 94.171.243.108 22:54, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Not stupid at all, this skill made it so that a split character could always be wherever the flagger wasnt. It also had little draw back and almost always guranteed safe return. I dunno if you gvg at all much but if you do, you should know this is quite a nice update for the skill. 113.96.118.87 11:24, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Been waitiing a long time for this one

Can't wait to see how they changed the AI and shrine placement. Anyone seen it yet? --ஸ Kyoshi 23:13, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I haven't seen it yet, but I assume the placement issue was the Luxon guard caravan on yellow being placed such that their arrows hit the ground rather than Juggernauts. Manifold 23:18, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Now that you mention it, that does make sense (though in actuality, I thought the guard was just out of range generally). --ஸ Kyoshi 23:26, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

Yeah and it only took 6 years. Better late than never :/ 72.79.212.183 23:39, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

6 years ago there was no JQ. Because there was no Factions expansion.--Sharkinu 07:02, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

If it was the Luxon Longbows at the Yellow Quarry that had its location adjusted, then the bug note concerning it in the Notes section of The Jade Quarry should be removed. --Silver Edge 19:50, 22 July 2011 (UTC) Nevermind, the note was removed just now. --Silver Edge 19:58, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Little to no impact on how OP dervs are?

I really don't see this changing anything at all in PvP. First of all, the mysticism nerf doesn't do anything. Going from 114 armor to 105 armor doesn't change much. The pious fury nerf helps a little bit, but not much. You can still have IAS up for 1/2 the time instead of 2/3 - whoop de doo. The attack speed alone was never the main issue anyway. The problem is their massive amounts of utility, without having to sacrifice anything. Let's look at the standard AoB bar:

• It's base damage rivals a warrior
• Increased adrenaline gain
• Increase movement speed
• Increased attack speed
• Anti-KD
• Cripple
• Deep Wound
• Cracked Armor
• Bleeding
• Burning
• 90 Armor, plus armor/item mods (with windwalkers or blessed insignias you can easily ramp up your armor)
• Unblockable Attack
• Self Heal
• And let's not forget, almost everything is AoE

There isn't a single other bar in the game that has that much utility. To make an equivalent bar out of warrior skills... Cripslash, Gash, Sun&Moon, Body Blow, Primal Rage without taking double damage, instant activation healsig, and a never-ending "Watch Yourself!" That's probably be a pretty even bar in terms of effectiveness against a single target - it doesn't have the adren bonus, but the longer IAS and IMS would even it out. So, you'd just need to have 2 elites, with one of them having its draw back removed. They you'd need to make it so healsig doesn't make you stop attacking, and finally unnerf "Watch Yourself!" Then your single-target damage would be about even. Of course... There's still the little fact that everything the derv does is AoE... --Atanna Charta 04:53, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

You damn well need the increased adrenalin gain, unless your opponents are moronic enough to all stand in the AoE of the scythe (and the AoE of the spells is less than that of ele spells, and less easily directed). You get a 25% IMS about half the time, unless it's used to prevent KD. Oh, and a warrior isn't as vulnerable to soul barbs or pain of disenchantment or rend, and is completely unaffected by backfire and soul leech. And has easier access to KD. You seem to be overlooking some of the drawbacks of dervishes in your rant about them.--71.107.187.184 05:41, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Oh, and what do you mean by saying that the warriors need watch yourselves? Dervishes with AoB, windwalkers and 4 enchants have 110 against physical, 90 against anything else. Warriors get 116 and 96 respectively...PLUS insignias AND possible shield inscription. And the possibility of getting more health with less drawback, thanks to having a shield and main hand weapon and never needing an enchantment mod.--71.107.187.184 05:48, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

You are forgetting that all Dervish armor has an inherent HP bonus...and Warrior is 100 vs physical, 80 vs everything else, not 90. You'd need runes for that. 82.11.227.226 06:09, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Warriors have shields. -- Hong 06:10, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Not with a Hammer. Scythe has just as much utility as Hammer, even if it doesn't take the form if knockdowns.82.11.227.226 06:12, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

The nerf on pious means dervs will have less of everything. Lower DPS, less chance to teardown their enchants which means less conditions and utility since all their utility came from conditions. This is big for dervishes since the main reason you ran dervishes was the just dominate when you want to pressure. Sure the scythe itself is still op but id rather they nerfed the constant IAS with no drawback whatsoever than nothing at all. 113.96.118.87 11:19, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with Dervishes being versatile like that. The problem is the other professions not being versatile enough. Professions being versatile like Dervishes and GW2 professions is always better than specialization. MithTalk 15:00, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

That's how we got into this mess to begin with! Warriors + assassins vastly outclassed dervishes in terms of mobility, utility, and straight damage. Instead of bringing dervishes up to their level, things were vastly overshot and dervishes were made super OP. Instead of bringing then back down to levels that aare comparable to other physical classes, you want to buff everything else??? Powercreep is what caused most of the problems in GW1 pvp, it's never going to be a solution.--Four Year Strong 15:29, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Apparently 82.11 thinks that 3 seconds of being completely helpless is of no better utility than a couple seconds of burning or moderate duration bleeding. As for the inherent health bonus of dervish armor, so what? Warriors don't need enchanting mods (which I said earlier) and can go for the one-handed weapon to get +60 health (which I also said earlier). Anyways, with the nerf to scythe damage I'll bet that axes at least are comparable to scythes as far as DPS, and likely better against heavy armor.--71.107.187.184 20:04, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

With a Sword/Axe + Shield a Warrior has 60 extra HP over base. With just a Scythe the Dervish has 55 extra HP over base (30 from Scythe, 25 inherant armor bonus), far better than the Hammer Warrior's 30HP over base. Of course, there's nothing stopping a Dervish going /Wa or /Pa and having a total of 85HP over base if they want either. As already pointed out by others, their Armor Level is quite comparable to that of a Warrior, even after this update. And yes, 3 seconds of disabling one foe is nice, but Hammer knockdowns aren't as spammable as Dervish conditions are, and I'd say applying pretty much all conditions in the game very easily to many, many targets, and still being able to spike for high damage, is quite comparable to a 3-second knockdown. And it goes without saying Dervishes are far harder to shutdown than Warriors.

Now, I'm not saying Warriors are bad, they aren't. Infact, they are pretty much perfectly fine for the most part. But Dervishes are stronger than Warriors, and this does need to be addressed. As has already be pointed out a gazillion times...power creep is of course the cause of this. --184.164.148.90 21:39, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I just mentioned that dervishes often have to carry a +20% enchanting and therefore only get the +25, not +55 (which you failed to address). If a dervish goes /W or /P, they aren't really as effective because their teardowns often need scythe attacks, and their damage is less due to the lack of runes. I just pointed out how their armor WITH insignias is lower than a warrior's WITHOUT insignias, even with AoB, and that their armor level is easy to drop down to a squishy 70 (rend or gaze of contempt, among other things). I also noted that only against opponents with poor positioning can you apply your conditions to several targets at once. I noted that dervishes are easier to shutdown, and gave you several examples of skills that will shut down or kill a dervish (BACKFIRE) but which have no effect on warriors. You ignored this as well. You might also note that warriors get more than twice as much armor-ignoring damage from their attack skills as dervishes do, and that hammers critical for much higher than scythes now (and with a good attack skill, I'll bet axes do as well). Why don't you actually point out examples to support your opinions next time?--71.107.187.184 22:09, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

71.107.187.184 This IP. Those examples of existing counters to dervishes are moot, they saw little use and less effectiveness due to their passive nature. These counters mentioned are hexes or enchant strips that frankly are easily countered. No one cares about 1v1 situations, and if in fact the hexes do see use in team matches it's just bad gameplay to focus those skills' usage on a dervish. The disenchant is countered by relatively low recharge times of flash enchants, and the plus to a dervish drawing strips is that a Monk's prots are available to counter spikes and Elementalists get to be happy. Also any points made about comparisons between the different utilities are moot. Obviously the pressure exerted by dervishes combined with it's AoE to go wall busting out matches the warrior in team play. That's why Derv frontlines are seen so much, because their usefulness is greater than that of the warrior.

What actually matters are what has changed. We see what changed. A skill and Mysticism. The armor redux means the dervish's base armor is reduced from 80 to 70 meaning it takes about 14% more damage in PvP than PvE. For insignia users I'm just going to hit the happy medium for two triggers of windwalker and blessed users, redux from 90 to 80 means these derv builds will now take about 11% more dmg until a monk enchants you against spike further increasing your armor. 70 AL takes ~84% of normal dmg and 80 AL takes ~71% of normal damage. Hammer warriors have 80 AL, the same as dervishes. Sword/Axe wars have 96 AL, yet take a shot or two before canceling frenzy from a spike. So warriors will take slightly more dmg from a spike, while a dervish will take slightly less due to extra armor from enchants and obviously there's the warrior's frenzy. Pious Fury's recharge means the dervish's IAS is down 53% of the time instead of 80%, that's a 27% difference. How significant is this? Not as much as you'd think. In terms of attacks landed, before this nerf using Pious Fury a dervish could land 25 and a third attacks in 30 seconds. That Number is now reduced to 23 and a half attacks in 30 seconds. It's more signficant on crippling as you have to wait 5 more seconds before being able to strip Thorns. Overall the nerf is less of a big deal than people think.

Here's the summary. Net changes are dervs take 11% more dmg, they have to wait 5 more seconds to strip an enchant, and in 30 seconds they land 1.8 less attacks (not even 2, 23.53 attacks instead of 25.33). A nerf? Yes. Significance? Minimal. ANet is just trying to find the happy land where they see people frequently using 1 dervish and 1 warrior in the fontline. -- 76.181.167.16 01:18, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

clap 113.96.151.105 15:38, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

The one skill nerf has no bearing on builds which don't use it, though with Heart of Fury already having been nerfed, Dervs now have a significantly reduced IAS capability. The armour nerf was also significant in that dervs are no longer the tough powerhouses they were; once again they trade raw strength for the ability to use cool enchants and get AoE attacks etc, rather than having both. Is it enough? There are still a lot of very powerful derv skills out there. I daresay dervs will keep being used. However, this should keep them a bit more in line, even if they are still quite powerful. To be honest, I'd rather they nerfed them slowly than downed them to a worse state than they were before the big derv update. 86.29.53.201 00:31, 2 August 2011 (UTC)