User talk:Raine Valen/Musings/Dervish Rebalance/Scythe Mastery

General

Discuss here, please. Raine - talk 20:38, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Crippling Sweep: You want to give Dervishes a non-elite aoe Crippling Slash?

Eremite's Attack: Doesn't need a buff.

Farmer's Sweep/Aura Slicer/Rending Sweep: You don't need to make spiking with Dervishes even more ridiculous. The meta is destroying prot at the moment anyway, this is not something that should be encouraged.

Lyssa's Assault: Dervishes do big damage, that is why they don't have access to disruption. If you give them both they become too powerful. Also adding 1/2 second scythe attacks is ill-advised.

Reaper's Sweep: Oh my god. Don't encourage power creep, that is getting ridiculous.

Wearying Strike: Weakness was more appropriate as a limiting factor. Adding Exhaustion gives an effective 30 second recharge which isn't worth it for a skill you will want on every spike.

Wounding Strike: Scythes do big crit damage, you can't give them as much bonus damage as an axe skill with an unconditional deep wound. As a side note, you have actually given it more bonus damage than Decapitate, look at the disadvantages on that skill. You also made the deep wound covered at the same time.

This list is not exhaustive, it's just the problems I found easiest to explain. Remember with your balance suggestions that people will always run 12 or 14 Scythe Mastery depending on whether they are a primary or secondary Dervish. At the moment you don't seem to be "rebalancing", you are mostly just buffing everything. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Misery (talk). 21:04, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

As far as AoE, that point is largely moot because it is extremely rare to hit more than one target in PvP. Sure, it's possible but not nearly as much of an advantage as it is made out to be. Crippling Slash is different in that the Cripple is covered for its entire duration (and then some); Crippling Sweep is covered for 3-4 seconds, at most, conditionally.

Eremite's Attack deals, typically, +10 damage (except in HA; "adjacent" is an easier requirement there. Even still, +10-20 is typical); for an attack that's supposed to be akin to Mystic Sweep, the condition was always a lot harder to meet. This skill would become somewhat nightmarish in HA, as would Sand Shards, and several other things that wouldn't be a problem in the arena which I designed around: GvG. HA has different rules, and its own inherent design needs to be adjusted before any amount of skill change can balance it.

With the exception of Aura Slicer, those skills do no additional damage at all. Sure, they'd be good choices for spike prepping, but not necessarily for the spike itself. Also, Farmer's Scythe would be a much more pressure-oriented skill due to the energy loss (energy bombing before a spike is bad for spiking). In all honesty, I think Banishing Strike would be the most powerful enchant removal skill in the line, and even that accomplishes little in the hands of an unskilled player.

Most of the "big damage" skills have been changed into utility skills; I was aiming to make Scythe Mastery into more than Attack Spam Mindlessness. Though some skills would still exist with the capacity to do big damage, like Mystic Sweep, Chilling Victory, and Wounding Strike, most of the mindless damage would be replaced with skills that reward thought. Furthermore, all of the big damage skills have been made conditional, some more so than others. Even with the removal of massive mindless damage, disruption is one of the things that separate skilled players from unskilled ones: dervishes lacking any form of disruption has always set a low bar for maximum potential. Lyssa's Assault itself has a strong effect on interrupt; a Dervish using it for its activation time as a spike skill would be losing a lot of potential use.

Reaper's Sweep would become an extremely powerful spike skill, agreed. I believe lowering the 50% border to 20...32...35% would be reasonable. As it is now, it's too easy to use for such a great effect. There would be less, "Darn, I missed my Reaper's!" with a 50% cap.

Would that exhaustion scaled; 5 exhaustion would be reasonable. What I do like about exhausting skills and high-energy skills with low recharges is that they allow the player to make a decision, where long-recharge skills don't. Using them too frequently hurts you in the long run, but having them available when you need them allows smart usage to shine. Ride the Lightning is my favorite shadow step for that reason (pity that it eats up your elite slot); prudence dictates against spamming. Protective Spirit has a recharge much shorter than its energy cost allows for; prudence dictates against spamming. IMO, any skill that is most effective when spammed should be reworked. The reason why I don't like Weakness on this skill is that it makes it terrible for spiking with; the 66% damage reduction can incapacitate a spike (and pressure, for that matter) pretty easily.

Wounding Strike should be a 10e attack; I'll change that. Even with that cost, it is better than Eviscerate and Decapitate. Why? Well, axe warriors take less than 2/3 of the (armor mitigated) damage that scythe dervishes do (unconditionally), and just about 1/2 damage with proper shield swaps. Two-handed weapons should be stronger than one-handed weapons because they do not allow for shields. Also, the 10e cost will hurt a Dervish a lot more than Evisc's 8 adrenaline cost hurts a Warrior because Energy bars all use the same pool, while Adrenal skills each have their own pool. Because of this, Evisc doesn't hamper the Warrior (beyond the 1a loss, which is regained on hit) on use, while WS will hamper the dervish. On an unrelated note, Decapitate is generally regarded as a bad skill.

Almost every skill has been "buffed" in that they reward better play more, agreed. Most of them have had conditional utility added (like Mystic Sweep), or have been made into pure utility skills (like Banishing Strike). Proper use of utility is the mark of a good player; as it is now, there are very, very few skills with which a Dervish player can make that mark. Raine - talk 09:08, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

If you want to give Dervishes utility you first have to address the fact that their autoattacks do a million damage. You cannot just increase effectiveness across the board without reducing effectiveness at all on a class that is already judged to have too powerful an effect for too little effort. The point about doing more damage than Decaptitate shows how insane the extra damage is compared to the skill you are trying to buff it in comparison to, Eviscerate, is. With no comment about how you are going to address Attacker's Insight, any increase in energy cost of attack skills to rebalance them is totally irrelevant unless you make them cost 20 energy or something. Eremite's is run for the activation time, not the bonus damage. Lyssa's will see similar use because killing someone is always better than an interrupt. You also made the bonus damage conditional on NOT interrupting something. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:Misery (talk). 11:57, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Dervish autoattacks have a pretty nasty drawback (well, in addition to the fact that they can do 9 damage, which can really mess up a spike =/): the crits trigger SB, and PS just about halves your damage. Good protting hurts a dervish a lot more than it hurts an axe warrior.

Elite Axe Attack. Eviscerate target foe, then deal an additional 22 damage and inflict a 5-second Cripple. For having this skill on your bar, you have -26 (or -36, if you would have shield swaps) AL for the entirety of the match.

Would axe wars run that?

Eremite's being run for the activation time was bad. It fell into the "Attack Spam Mindlessness" category, because it allowed you to mindlessly attack even faster. But it was never run over Mystic Sweep because Mystic did the same thing, plus more damage in more cases. Of course, a Dervish could still go for lots of mindless damages after these changes, but they'd be losing the same thing that other attack spammers lose: skills that are more rewarding when used properly.

For a Dervish running multiple, short enchantments (especially in Wind Prayers), Attacker's Insight was pretty much a necessity. Without it, said dervishes would often lose energy per cycle, and not have enough to refresh their enchantments. There, it was fine. Where it became a problem was in builds that didn't need the energy, and just used Insight to save energy on attack skills, which they would use for more attack skills. On conjure dervishes, it was just stupid. As such, I think it needs a complete rework, so as not to foster Post-update Attack Spam Mindlessness.

You're right, Lyssa's does need a rework; interrupts shouldn't be viable spike skills (Savage Shot makes me sad). I'll get on that. Raine - talk 19:04, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Eremite's and Mystic Sweep are always going to be broken spike skills until you double their cost or remove the quick activation.

Eremite's Attack

I originally had the second proposition for Eremite's with the same E/A/R as the first one, and it didn't seem like a problem. After crunching the numbers, I found out that it could potentially do 180 AoE damage, if you hit 3 foes and there were two more nearby. That's very, very, very, very very very veryveryveryvery imba for a 5/1/4 skill. As such, it has been changed. Raine - talk 22:53, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

It's not really 'rebalance', but imbalancing further

Scythes are OP weapons, because they deal mad damage with criticals and hit up to three foes at once. Compared to any other weapon, scythes get most users from ("caster spears" do not count, as casters do not deal damage with them), not only Dervish, but also other professions(W, A, R, and others too). This automatically makes Dervish profession somewhat broken. In my own opinion, damage range of scythe should be more limited, or max damage reduced. Anyhow. Thus, your title of "Dervish Rebalance" fails in two ways. Firstly, Dervishes were never balanced, and secondly, you are not balancing them with your propositions, but just making them PURE IMBA and against their original design! Most of them also have too complex effect in GW norms. Comparing your Irresistible Sweep to Irresistible Blow, or your Reaper's Sweep to Final Thrust is just mindless.

Scythe causing knockdowns? Bleeding on every other (currently) viable attack skill? And, damn, there is no skills in GW that remove random hexes from foes. Only Mesmers can do that, and it only works on Mesmer hexes, and thus they have quite limited usage. And the worst thing One of the worst things is, that you're making Dervishes enchantment removal machines. That is NOT the original idea of Dervish profession. Necromancers and Mesmers are for that. I won't bother to say a thing about attack skills that cause exhaustion.

Your comments on the proposed versions are, while amusing, also infuriating. "It is now another spike skill", "This attack has been made into another spike-oriented skill", "This skill was another one of those skills known for the big damages, while offering nothing else." I'd like to say words not fitting on this wiki, and thus I will spare them from you all.

Seriously...

"However, because a scythe rarely hits more than one foe "

I lol'd on that one.

I also quickly eyed your other subpages of "Dervish Rebalance", and I agree with you that certain skills of Dervish indeed need reworking, but not in this way. If ANet implemented any of your proposions as skill update... Well, no. Even ANet couldn't do something like that. <.< Mediggo 22:53, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Scythes are OP and Dervishes are bad. Originally, I'd think, ANet thought that giving a weak class a strong weapon would make the class stronger. What they seemingly didn't take into consideration was that stronger classes could take up a strong weapon and become... Well, Escape Scythe, Crit Scythe, or Endurance Scythe. "This automatically makes Dervish profession somewhat broken" doesn't follow from scythes being broken on other professions. Damage range of scythe should be more limited, or max damage reduced. That would allow Dervishes to have decent skills without being pushed into imba range because of their base damage.

"Firstly, Dervishes were never balanced." No, Dervishes have always been sub-par. Because of this, "making them against their original [bad] design" isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Comparing iSweep to iBlow is bad, agreed. iBlow is typically called things ranging from "bad" to "terrible"; comparing anything to it makes it look grossly overpowered. Saying that Reaper's has a function like that of Final is not incorrect when they share a mechanic; saying that they are the same is incorrect. I don't believe I said that, but I'll check to be sure, and reword my statement if that is the case.

Scythes causing knockdowns is bad because...? Oh, because removing a player from the game for 12 seconds is something that should be reserved for a class that also has more survivability.

"there is no skills in GW that remove random hexes from foes." "There are no other skills in Guild Wars that disable skills for a minute." "There are no other skills in Guild Wars that cause burning on spells that target foes." "There are no other skills in Guild Wars that mitigate Exhaustion." "There are no other skills in Guild Wars that give a maintainable 33% IAS and 25% IMS to two characters with no drawback." "There are no other skills in Guild Wars that reduce the maximum damage that a player can take to 10% of their maximum health." Why is this a problem?

"One of the worst things is, that you're making Dervishes enchantment removal machines. That is NOT the original idea of Dervish profession. Necromancers and Mesmers are for that." Firstly, I've already commented on the "original design". Secondly, you say that a class shouldn't do something that another class does, then list two classes that do that thing. "Paragons shouldn't have interrupts; Rangers and Mesmers and Warriors are for that."

Why shouldn't an attack skill cause Exhaustion? No other attack skill causes Weakness on the user, either. "But Raine, there are attack skills that cause Weakness on foes, too!" "But you, this!"

"It is now another spike skill", "This attack has been made into another spike-oriented skill", "This skill was another one of those skills known for the big damages, while offering nothing else." The difference between a spike skill and mindless, spammable damage is that a spike skill has (1) a limitation that prevents spamming, be it cost, recharge, or some other drawback, and (2) supports damage compression by either increasing the effectiveness of other skills intended for use in the same window or by taking advantage of another skill that provides the previous function (Eviscerate and Executioner's Strike, for example).

Scythes aren't AoE effective against players that understand good positioning, except for in rare circumstances which are largely the result of luck or mistakes by the opposition. No one's talking about PvE, PvE, or PvE with Vent spikes.

Your comments are, while somewhat arguable and partially valid, also rude and tactless.

Thank you for your feedback, though. Try more constructive in the future, thanks. Raine - talk 23:54, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Problematic Synergies

As I looked over this list, I humored myself by coming up with different bars, or parts of bars. As I did so, I saw a lot of really strong combinations that could make strong spikes, but some skills just worked a little too well together.
Then, on the other hand, I saw some bars that could just get stupid. And so, I'd like some help documenting things so that I can make revisions.
I only took Scythe Mastery skills into account, but there are a lot of non-scythe mastery skills out there, and I'm sure that some of them could become problematic.
So what I'm going to do is create two sections; I'd appreciate any help in filling them out. Raine - talk 01:25, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Abusive Synergy

These skills become much stronger used in combination with one another than was intended with the design of either skill.

• Wounding Strike + Crippling Victory
  • Covered DW, Cripple, Knock Down, and tons of damage, all in a two-hit combo.

Mindlessness

These skills, in combination, can provide very favorable return with little effort.

• Reaper's Sweep + Banishing Strike + Irresistible Sweep + Aura Slicer + Rending Sweep
  • Attack-spam equivalent to OOA, with no drawback.

Wounding Strike

Uhm, I don't think an energy Decapitate with Cripple without a downside on a Dervish is a good idea. Dark Morphon(contribs) 14:33, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Downside: "You have -26...38...41 armor while this skill is equipped."

That's the downside of being a derv and not an axe warrior.

Also, Decapitate is bad, which is why no one uses it. Comparing a skill to a bad skill makes it look OP; that's why I compare to Eviscerate. Raine - talk 17:04, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Axe warriors are pressure, they aren't really comparable to a raw power class which the Dervish is and remains after your changes. Decapitate is only a bad skill because of it's very big downside. This is a skill with practically no downside on a weapon that already does incredible damage. Dark Morphon(contribs) 12:32, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Scythe DWs in general.

I'd say if anything bump the recharges and then balance around those.

Pious Assault 1020 -- Melee Attack. Lose 1 Enchantment. You deal +5...17...20 damage and if you lost an enchantment in this way, inflict a Deep Wound for 5...17...20 seconds. If you hit a foe under 50% health, you gain 0...2...2 energy.

Reaper's Sweep 58 -- Elite Scythe Attack. If this attack hits, you deal +10...34...40 damage. If your target was below 50% Health, you also inflict a Deep Wound for 5...17...20 seconds.

Wearying Strike 1020 -- Scythe Attack. If this attack hits, you deal +5...17...20 damage and inflict a Deep Wound for 3...9...10 seconds. Lose 5...3...2 energy if you hit a foe under 50% health

Wounding Strike -- 512 -- Elite Scythe Attack. If this attack hits, target foe suffers from Bleeding for 5...17...20 seconds. If you are under the effects of an enchantment, target foe also suffers from a Deep Wound for 5...17...20 seconds.

Yea, Nay? --Riddle 14:32, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

To be honest I think Dervish DWs should just be adrenaline-based and Mysticism should give one strike of adrenaline on an ending enchantment. That would at least make it take somewhat skill to take, or so I hope. Dark Morphon(contribs) 14:25, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

o_O Misery 14:30, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Obviously that's everything we will hear from Misery. Become less predictable please. Dark Morphon(contribs) 16:45, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually I think that's the only time I've ever done that. Your statement completely boggled me. You want to implement a completely untested mechanic? How the hell do you balance a class that gets free adrenaline and three adrenaline per swing of their weapon? Misery 16:47, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Adrenaline means the Dervish has to charge up his skills, meaning that they can't just use it anytime. Adrenaline gain could be balanced like how Balthazar's spirit is being balanced, giving points rather than strikes. It's just an idea. Dark Morphon(contribs) 14:59, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

An idea that I consider to be steeped in madness that doesn't really solve the problems involved at all. You could feed the dervish enchantments to give them adrenaline on demand anyway. Deep wounds were supposed to be difficult to apply and conditional for every weapon except axes, they just forgot that at some point. Misery 15:01, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

So why give axes such an advantage? Dark Morphon(contribs) 16:41, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Because every other weapon has a different advantage over axes. Do you think swords should be able to apply a deep wound without bleeding? Hammers apply deep wounds to foes that aren't knocked down? Misery 17:01, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

"If target foe is not Enchanted, that foe suffers a Deep Wound." That's a harder pre-requisite, and it makes sense with some of the enchantment-removing scythe attacks. Raine - talk 17:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Right line of thought, but I don't like that specific conditional though as it encourages the rend and spike style of gameplay. Misery 17:11, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Is bleeding really that much of an advantage over DW? In my opinion, it's nawt. Perhaps DWs from dervs should be only applied when losing an enchantment? Dark Morphon(contribs) 14:04, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Lol, bleeding isn't the advantage of swords, it's the disadvantage. Swords are actually a tad underpowered at the moment (except for Hundred Blades which is dumb), but their advantage used to be Final Thrust giving a viable spike without an elite and the utility provided by sword skills such as energy based interrupts. Misery 14:07, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

So why should axes of all weapons be the one that is so uberproawesome? Or is it just biasedness supported by nostalgia of how the game was in the Prophecies era? Xhata 17:46, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

orite, because no one uses hammers at all? Swords are currently underpowered, they need a buff, unconditional deep wound is not the correct buff. Hundred Blades was not the correct buff. Misery 17:52, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

What is supposed to should be the sword's specialty? The only one I can think of without being redundant (Cripple + other conditions=bow;Spikes=Daggers;etc.) is Cracked Armor. --Riddle 18:04, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Utility. Disarm, Savage Slash and later Crippling Slash was buffed (also lol Hamstring). Also before things like Agonizing Chop, Dismember/Executioners was the axe non-elite spike and before pew pew rangers you needed more damage on your warriors to spike someone down that just Dismember/Executioners, so if you took an elite like Charge you would likely take a sword. Condipressure is another role filled by swords. Swords should be adjusted to fill this role better as at the moment it isn't worth the hit to damage. Misery 18:08, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

So the bow of melees? --Riddle 18:11, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Back when bows didn't do more damage than swords, yes. Cover conditions used to actually matter too. Misery 18:15, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, I missed the revision of your earlier comment. They need stronger condi-pressure because anti-condipressure is so strong and probably need a buff to their core skills and utility skills. Misery 18:20, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Wow wounding strike x:

+55 damage, deepwound and cripple, madness! Mine update is bettehr. --Super Igor flame my shove sin bar! 17:23, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Since your update changes nothing and this update adds more breaking to the game, yes. Xhata 11:51, 16 February 2009 (UTC)