Ahh, I can see it now (Dervish farming)

[ubermancer]

Signet of Midnight
Twin Moon Strike
Sand Shards

~50 armor ignoring pbaoe damage per foe (-10%). Get a dozen enemies together, and they will basically gib. Can you picture that at the start of Urgoz or some other place with a huge pull? Add in Vow of Silence and you can dodge most of the enchant removal stuff, especially if your in a party. Pious Concentration to help with interupts... Yeah, anyone thinking Trolls?

Oh, your 70 AL a bit weak? Armor of Sanctity, anyone? 21 points of damage reduction - 21! And its a sexy 5/.25/4, couple that with one of the scythe attacks that applys a condition (remember its aoe, right?) and your good to go. Mirage Cloak is similiarly sexy, and adds AOE damage (with very tasty spike capabilities). Conviction is handy because it helps reduce damage by a percentage, before Armor of Sanctity cuts off a static number.

Mystic Vigor is, what, 25*number of foes heal per swing, more or less? Um yeah I dont think I have to justify why I think thats good. Same thing with Dwayna's Touch, but double.

Slightly unrelated, Balthazar's Rage should allow for theoretically open-ended healing under test conditions. ie, an IWAY team letting themselves get hit for like an hour (Heal Area) by a Dervish... thats 16 hits per stroke, ~30 strokes a minute, 60 minutes an hour, 10 health per hit... 296,000 point heal anyone?

Mystic Regeneration might just be the new Healing Breeze for low hp farming monks... thats like +16 health regeneration with just 3 points in Earth Prayers. Unfortunately, it is 15 energy, but lasts a base of 20 seconds and has a 1/4 second cast. Watchful Intervention might have a place here too.

I cant wait, it looks like Dervish farming will be more popular then Whammo farming ever was... and theres so many good skills, itd require such a major reworking of the class that I think its safe to say -

The Dervish is the new melee farming class.

[Thom Bangalter]

/agree

I'll wait for the builds, but yeah, they'll pwn.

[ubermancer]

Proof of concept:

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/729/sandshardproofofconceptfw2.png

[Riceboi]

My prediction is that the Dervish will see the nerf bat, and it won't be pretty when Nightfall comes out.:(

[RuPee]

from what im seeing in pvp, the dervish nerf, which is sure to come, is going to make many people cry. especially those farmers who have high hopes with the dervish class.

but imagine if they left the dervish the way it is now... muahahaha!!! farmer heaven.

[RebelHero]

Thats almost the build I posted on Guildwiki yesterday. I even had Armor of sanctity in it, but took it out because in PvP the main enemy will be blinded anyway.

And Mystic Vigor will only heal 25*3 since a scythe can hit up to 3 enemies at once. Its not a permanent cyclone axe ;) But it should be obvious that Vigorous Spirit and Live Vicariously will be very powerfull in the hands of a dervish. While using no skills, and just attacking. He could gain 150 hp each swing while using mystic vigor, live vicariously and vigorous spirit. So thats 112 hp/sec, or a regen of 11. if you add Mystic Regeneration you can easily achieve a 10 hp regen with that. Adding to an effective regen of +21. With just 4 skills... With twin moon strike you can get an extra health boost. and with some area damage enchantments it should be no problem to tank entire groups and kill them.

EDIT:
Epidemic could work well in the build with sand shards + Signet of Midnight.

[Makubex]

Proof of concept:

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/729/sandshardproofofconceptfw2.png

PHOTOSHOPPED! lol JK :D

[ubermancer]

Can we got confirmation that it only hits 3 people? I know it only hits people in the forward 1/4 arc, but Ive seen nothing to indicate a 3 person limit so far.

EDIT: Tested, confirmed. 3 hit max per attack. This means you will face, instead, ~150 aoe damage per Twin Moon Strike. And ~75 elsewise. Still that equates to killing them far faster then with an I Monk.

[Ezekiel Prophet]

My prediction is that the Dervish will see the nerf bat, and it won't be pretty when Nightfall comes out.:(

In place of ugly tree, I shall say nerf tree.
I can see the Dervish being thrown off the nerf tree and hitting every branch on the way down.
Seriously, I cannot PvP at all with these new classes just thrown in. It's so unbalanced it makes me want to cry. I was in a PvP mood for this weekend, but it was ruined.

But yes, I could see the Dervish as an awesome farmer.
Hello mobs, would you like some pwncakes?

[kielus]

uhm wasn't sand shards nerfed between friday and saturday night??

[Evilsod]

uhm wasn't sand shards nerfed between friday and saturday night??

No... it was fixed. And it was made scythe attacks only, hence why the OP is talking about Scythe attacks.

Could you imagine the farming before it was fixed? A/D could solo farm practically everything in the game if they had no enchantment removal.

[LamerFlamer]

With the sand shard build, yes. It only works on SCYTHE attacks. What are we using in this concept? A scythe.

Edit: That's what I get for not refreshing. >.> Dervishes should be able to farm really well.

[Charqus]

Yes I agree Dervishes will be abused and nerfed quickly.

[!!!nexus!!!]

The dervish ruined PvP this weekend...so i'm simply not getting nightfall

/100% Agreed they should be nerfed!

[foody]

they need to be nerfed they suck in pvp. solo farming is going to get the nerfing of a life time they hate us solo farmers cause newbs suck to much to solo farm and group farming farming is a bunch of crap. theres always one newb who runs n aggros so much. when nightfall comes im done with gw when it comes the solo farming will be done. there going to fix it so that when u pull a boss everything comes with.

[Llednar]

Whenever A Net nerfs something the people think up something else.

Dervishes will be nerfed right off the bat no doubt, but people will think and will keep thinking...look at the 55, the invinci monk concept started well over a year ago and is STILL around.