Nightfall Class Preview

[tazelbain]

It started this morning.
You can make PvP Chars with the new classes: Paragon and Dervish.

EDIT: Oh and last night A.net finally ended its streak of clean patches. But it still wasn't that bad by MMOG standards.

[tazelbain]

Not that any of you guys care
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Dervish_skills_quick_reference
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Paragon_skills_quick_reference

Dervishs are going to be a real pain to us Prot Monks.  We were over powered anyway.  Devish class seems pretty clever.  It uses enchanments to fuel abilities and has many enhancements whos effect happen when it ends.

But I am disappointed there is little anti-hex stuff.  Right now there is no answer to hex spike that isn't slow and costly to the point of near uselessness.  Based on the blurb they gave 2 weeks ago, I thought Paragons would be the answer.

[Dren]

I care or will care.  I'll buy the expansion when it comes out and play with it for another 2 months or so like last time.  I still need to get back to Factions and finish it out.  Hopefully, this new one will be as enjoyable as Factions for me.  It was a vast improvement to the game in my opinion.

[Modern Angel]

I like the two new classes. Seem way more fleshed out than the Ritualist and Assassin. Rit brought some functionality but required more battlefield awareness than I could muster. Assassins were  a blast but were so fragile even when played well that they became target number one even over monks on the field; I've been two shotted even when runninig all my survival skills. And good luck getting a group with one.

Bodes well. I liked Factions but there were parts that seemed a bit rushed to me. Just the little snippets of the classes that I'm seeing are very nice.

[Llava]

Look like fun classes.  Scythe melee, weee.

That Banishing Strike is going to completely own any minion masters.  Unless they're quick enough to drop death nova on all their pets, then it'll own both the pets and the Dervish using it.

[Modern Angel]

Brutal A/D exploit build I came across. Take Sand Shards (which does AE damage each time you miss). Then take one attack which will automatically miss (dual or off hand; second or third in their chains automatically miss if not done in order). Spam said auto miss attack. Misses have no recharge. The ony problem is that you need a big bunch of enemies and a monk because they figure out what's going on REAL quick.

[geldonyetich]

I'm surprised the wiki got its hands on the skill set already.  Did they lift it from beta?

But yeah, new classes look neat.  Only gripe is I'd have to use a Spear or Scythe to exploit 100% of the new skills.  As of Nightfall rolling live, we've now got four melee classes: Warrior, Assassin, Dervish, and Paragon.

[tazelbain]

Played both at lunch.
Derv was fun as hell.  Paragon, not so much.  I don't think Random Arena is probably not the best place to show Paragon off.  Spear's range is like aggro range. They are like are support rangers.

> Only gripe is I'd have to use a Spear or Scythe to exploit 100% of the new skills.
Hmm, I don't this an more true for these weapon skills than the pervious ones.  Certainly much better than daggers.

My purchase hinges more their support of casual PvP than then the classes.

[tazelbain]

Brutal A/D exploit build I came across.

Apparently, these builds are taking the RA by Storm

I assumed that the part of the purpose of these events is to beta the the new classes.  Clearly failed chains should be a new failure message, in addition to block, obscured, dodge, and miss.  Better than nerfing Sandstorm because of this cheese tactic.

[pxib]

If sand shards isn't an elite (the wiki is down) you could do the same thing by blinding yourself with Signet of Midnight.

[tazelbain]

Hmm, its just slow for me.
That'd still be more palatable than the above build.  They should make each aoe from a miss draw a bit of energy.  Same with Empty Palm in the build.  Things that are free tend to be broken.

[Modern Angel]

It's not an elite and blinding yourself and then missing is exactly the sort of devilish game mechanic that I love about the game. Deliberately exploiting something I doubt the devs intended is a bit different. It wasn't terribly effective, anyway. I think you'd need high level runes and good healing to do it properly.

[Llava]

Also, there are ways to counter an opponent who intentionally blinds himself.  There are a number of abilities that inflict damage and remove conditions from enemies- or inflict more damage because said enemy has a condition.  A build like that opens itself up to Virulence without any effort  on the part of the Necromancer using it.

I had no idea this event was going on.  Played around with the character art, Paragons look completely badass.  Nice touch with the eyes.

[geldonyetich]

From reading that D/A Sand Storm build, it's qued for deletion because Sand Shards is getting nerfed.

Was Sand Shards really that much worse than Mark Of Pain?

[Llava]

Well, I played for a few minutes last night.  I'll miss most of this event cause I'll be out of town, but I actually had more fun with the Paragon than with the Dervish.  I'm glad to see another class using Adrenaline, always seemed silly to  me that only Warrior abilities used it when they try to treat it like such a major part of the game.  Those Adrenaline buffing/debuffing skills will be much more useful now.

Unfortunately, the Paragon builds they have in there aren't really great.  The anti-caster one works good against casters, but you need a team to pick up from there with damage and such.  Random Arenas aren't really going to see that sort of thing.

I think that the Paragon will be really useful in PvE, though, and, once it gets figured out, PvP.

[tazelbain]

From reading that D/A Sand Storm build, it's qued for deletion because Sand Shards is getting nerfed.

Was Sand Shards really that much worse than Mark Of Pain?

SS by itself wasn't the probrem, it was combo with the assassin's ability to create massive amounts of misses in a short period.