the truth about the dervish

[Rainman]

ok when i 1st got nightfall i made a dervish but whenever i wanted a party for a mission no1 wanted me. today i asked every1 why the hates dervish'. they all replied with they are weak and defensless like assasins. i was shocked that some people would think that!

for 1 thing assasins are strong and defenseful but saying dervish are like assasin??? the only think in common is the armour defense (70 AL).
dervish have loads of skills to do amazing damage and protect themselves. i could go right now stick a few skills together and it would turn out a good build. the problem with guild wars is that it is inhabited by idiots that think because we have 10 AL less than warriors we cant tqank or take damage at all! they treat dervish' like they are casters! i am very tired of them saying this and not letting me into a party JUST BECAUSE IM A DERVISH. i mean you have got to agree that dervish are not being treated as well as they should.

it seems that almost everyone hates them! the worse part is that the nf missions are hard to do with heroes. well anyway this is my thread about people treating dervish wrong.

thanks

[Psycho^]

Yeh same here,
When I first made my dervish it was almost impossible to get in a party.
For every mission I spent lik 40-50 mins looking for a groud.
But now that I finished the game and decided to start PvP, its much easier to get into a party in TA and HA if you're a Dervish.

[knives]

I don't think its that no one wants them, is that they are a relatively new class, and many new things come with being a new class.

1. Everybody has one. Meaning, they are in abundant supply and demand is low.
2. Not everyone knows how to play one. You have good dervishes and bad dervishes, but mostly bad ones.
3. People don't know what the dervish has to offer. Most know the gist of what some classes can do, but the majority can't really tell you what each specifically does.

[Skuld]

And of course, there is the same bunch who make every melee character and add healing prayers :p

[Guardian of the Light]

Dervishs do get a tough time but I wouldn't say their bad as assassin. If you have a decent you can tank bery well sometimes better then a tank.

If your playing a dervish the best way to get more attension is to advertise your build a little and say a few basic skills in it (like Conviction dervish tank).

Only problem is that there is a lot of dervishs and a lot of noobs playing them so even though their well equiped to deal with damage the sterotype still exists.

The situation the dervish the dervish is in is more like the W/Mo in the 1st GW chapter then the assassin.

[crucifix]

i have to be honest in saying that dervs dont have much of an application in pve. They do decent damage, but when you really think about pve, the damage tanking capabilities of dervs are severly hindered. we all know that grenth dervs are invaluable in PvP largely because of the mods of said form, however the advantages of a non existent metagame in pve kinda screw the pooch on that one. by the time that toons reach the later missions in the game, dervishes become somewhat more of a liability than a help. one thing that needs to be understood about armor comparisons is that much like an assasin, dervs have 70 armor ONLY. now it can be increased through skills like conviction and an enchant, along with the balthazar form, however forms are quite conditional. for the ~70 seconds of a form, you are left with another 100 or so seconds of vulnerability. back to the armor issue. dervishes and assasins are the only frontline characters with bonus-less armor. ill use a ranger for comparison here. A ranger has 70 armor against physical damage. this means that if a ranger is hit with physical damage, they only get that 70 armor reduction bonus, HOWEVER, if they are hit with elemental damage ( depending on the armor choice) they gain the 100 armor bonus vs that type of attack. dervishes and assasin are left with no bonus, and therefore end up with the shit end of the stick.

Now, i wouldn't write this pseudo derv bash unless i had played one throughout the entirety of the nightfall PvE. i will admit that in earlier missions, they are quite useful. however as soon as you end up in the vortex, those wonderful dervs get shot quite to hell. I would rather a warrior frontlining for a party any day over a derv.

[dargon]

i have to be honest in saying that dervs dont have much of an application in pve.

Out of curiosity, have you actually played a dervish? Cause if you haven't, then you have zero ability to comment on their usefulness in pve. At a minimum, dervish are tied for the best class at giving off conditions with rangers, in fact, there are only 3 conditions in the game that dervish can't give out without resorting to a secondary class, poison, disease, dazed, lets take a look here now.

Warrior: bleeding, weakness, dazed, deep wound, crippled
Ranger: bleeding, poison, dazed, blindness, deep wound (with a pet), and burning
Monk: n/a
Elementalist: weakness, blindness, burning
Necro: bleeding, poison, disease, weakness
Mesmer: deep wound
Ritualist: n/a
Assassin: poison, bleeding, deep wound, crippled, blindness, dazed
Paragon: burning, bleeding, crippled, deep wound, dazed
Dervish: burning, bleeding, crippled, deep wound, blind, weakness

As you can see, make your secondary necro or ranger, and a dervish can now dish out every single condition in the game with the exception of dazed if necro, or disease if ranger.

Not to mention that with the right build, a dervish can tank as well as, if not better than a warrior, with the added bonus of hitting multiple targets at once if the mobs are positioned correctly.

So, please tell me again how dervishes really aren't that good for pve?

[Kijik Oni Hanryuu]

both of the classes are extremely powerful in the right hands... Anyone who denies you to accompany the party, is a fool and is most obviously weak themselves, don't let them get you down.

[Lord Oranos]

I dont really understand how anyone that has merely glanced at the skills in earth prayers can say that the dervish is as weak as an assassin...

[Jadzaea]

I dont really understand how anyone that has merely glanced at the skills in earth prayers can say that the dervish is as weak as an assassin...

Assassins aren't weak--they're actually very powerful in the right hands. My favorite character is my sin and she's the only one I've beaten either of the campaigns with.

But any class is powerful if you know how to use it. Any player should realize that and it's stupid that Dervishes aren't let into parties just because of their class. I know what it's like. Like I said, I have a sin. :p

[strcpy]

Crucifix said he played one in PvE at least to the torment stages.

However, I still have to vehemently disagree with him. It has been one of the most survivable classes I have played. Other than the standard prot spells for front line characters the healers rarely ever cast anything one me (and yes, this is in the Torment realms also).

*shrug* that is why there are different classes. Different people play differently, even with the same build. I do not know what crucifix used as a build, I do not know what he/she is comparing it too, and I do not know the team build he/she prefers.

Right now a big chunk of the builds I see are slightly modified warrior builds shoved onto a dervish, or a dervish played like a warrior and they do very poorly in the later games (in that respect very similar to an assassin). I can not speak for PvP (I rather dislike PvP) - maybe they work well there. It's really hard to screw up a dervish early to mid game, end game gets to be quite a bit harder. I know I had to really adjust my build and my tactics.

Reading stuff like this is just like seeing how you can not possibly do a mission with an AI party when I go to my map screen and see two swords and a spear on that mission icon (hey, even done with my dervish in Torment missions and finished with no death penalty - yep dies all the time).

Not that I am some great player or anything (I rather think I am not), but the hench AI doesn't seem to have much of an issue either. Thus I tend to think that the Dervish is quite capable in PvE - lets face it, at one time Rangers were considered useless in PvE also. The discussion was very similar to this - proclamations of "Rangers are useless in PvE because of blah blah blah" when there were quite a few rangers who knew better. Eh, I have my Dervish, I'm happy. If someone else wants to miss out that's just fine.

[Thom Bangalter]

Issue: any melee profession has a ton of people playing it that suck at the game. So playing a new profession likely isn't going to help your cause because there are too many other scrubs out there that will make you look bad

Personally, I think the dervish is nearly indestructable, but that's dependent on your build, and a lot of people aren't running optimized builds.

[Menzoberranzan]

Its typical of every new expansion set if there is a new damage-dealing class. Too many people choose them, newbie/noob players take them coz they produce high numbers when hitting enemies, good players play the game with heroes and henchies to avoid lousy PuG problems (All the missions are henchable in Elona, only the last few missions are a bit tricky but still henchable). The newbie/noob players can't do that obviously and end up going for PuGs. Since its still a new class and builds are still being worked out, they can't copy any posted build. They end up dying easily in the missions or being useless. Monks and other core classes get fed up and there you go, the "No Dervishes coz they're weak" attitude. You have to admit, thats how things go.

[Lord Oranos]

Assassins aren't weak--they're actually very powerful in the right hands. My favorite character is my sin and she's the only one I've beaten either of the campaigns with.

But any class is powerful if you know how to use it. Any player should realize that and it's stupid that Dervishes aren't let into parties just because of their class. I know what it's like. Like I said, I have a sin. :p

I meant the self healing capabilities, the dervish kinda dwarfs the assassin in that aspect.

[bungusmaximus]

Brrr, Ive seen dervish/eles in AB yesterday, the earth armor enchants are a good addition to the dervish arsenal. Imagine a dervish with sliver armor and stoneflesh aura, thats what i met. With melee weapons he was a very tough nut to crack. Dervishes love enchants and there are a few very useful ones in the earth line that add very decent defense. I was lucky to have a mesmer on the team that slapped backfire/empathy on him, because that was the only way we could successfully counter him (MAN dervishes HATE backfire, all they do is spam enchant spells). I couldn't do much good with my lightning spikes neither could the warrior with his sword.

[crucifix]

i really wish people would start to read. The reason i hate dervs is because the entire class is based solely on enchants. its too conditional for my liking and i like to have a bit of a backup for a class instead of just having one lifeline. what happens when a dervs enchants fall? they die.

[Clemtiger007]

i really wish people would start to read. The reason i hate dervs is because the entire class is based solely on enchants. its too conditional for my liking and i like to have a bit of a backup for a class instead of just having one lifeline. what happens when a dervs enchants fall? they die.

When Derv enchants fall they gain 1-5 E and 3-15 health for each that falls, and usually some other effect triggers that gives them more health, gives them more energy, or does further damage to an opponent. With this boon of energy, the dervish is free to re-apply the enchantments in the preferred order.

It totally is about using the right builds.

[Arkantos]

I never thought people would attempt to compare dervish to assassin.

[I The General I]

I agree that dervishes are amazingly balanced, and that comparing them to assassins is completely idiotic

it just depends on what suits you the most. I prefer warriors and rangers, so thats what i tend to go for. I find dervishes are not as good as tanking, but its a matter of opinion

[Thom Bangalter]

If you've found you can't tank with a dervish than you have no idea how to play them.

[Progor]

The true power of a Dervish lies in its versatility.

No other class in the game boasts all of these in one package:


incredible damage

the scythe is the highest damage weapon in the game AND AoE on every swing
Heart of Fury is one of the best IAS's in the game, outclassed only by flail and frenzy when you can work around their drawbacks

incredible defense

Armor of Sanctity is one of only 3 damage absorption skills in the game, and combines perfectly with veil of thorns to meet it's condition
Conviction is one of the few defensive stances that can be kept up permanently
Mystic Regeneration has replaced Troll Unguent as one of the premier self-heals in the game
Mystic Vigor - W/Mo's have to invest 10 points in Healing Prayers and take 2 enchantments to match it's health per swing, and can't touch it if you hit multiple foes
multiple attacks that have a side effect of healing you
Vow of Silence is the only spell shield in the game that can be kept up constantly on its own
Mirage Cloak - if your build can afford it, a constant 50% evade is a boon
Windwalker's Armor - all defensive dervishes should have enough enchantments to keep this at it's 15 bonus armor rating.
4 pips of energy regen make all these defenses much easier to sustain

incredible utility

dargon already covered it's condition spreading power.
Mystic Healing is the best party heal in the game
Pious Restoration provides the only self hex removal on a melee class
Multiple enchantment removal skills
Everything you need for running (Dervishes can even make the Droks run)

And they just look darn cool


Of course, you can't get all that functionality in one build, but the power of the Dervish lies in the fact that you can mix-n-match. If you want to fully capitalize on that high damage scythe, take relatively few enchantments, max out your Scythe Mastery, and take several attacks with you. You will be a lot like an assassin, but with a more constant damage output that doesn't rely on criticals and double hits to keep it's DPS up.

On the other hand, you can load up on the enchantments, cover them all with a Vow of Silence to stop most of the enchantment removal skills out there, and stand on the front lines and tank with the Dolyak Signet warriors (without the huge mobility hit). You might not have the points for more than 9 or so points for Scythe Mastery, but you'll be practically invulnerable.

But more than likely, you'll want to combine these two extremes take a few skills from the defensive side and a few from the offensive side and make a character that is about as tough as a warrior, but has better damage potential, especially when the targets line up. Then throw in a skill or two from your utility toolbox to help out your team, and you have one of the best all-around characters in the game.

[ACreator]

comparing a devish to an assassin is completly idiotic!!


dervishes are as good as any profession. They got weakenesses and they have also strong points.

as for those who say that assassins are weak they should met they good but also rare ones.


A good assassin can pwn a monk or any class before they knew what happened.´

Like in everything, there are good players and bad players and everything floats arround that.

In profecies, ppl used to say that mesmers suked and were totaly uselless...

then some ppl found out that 1 mesmer took hole teams of 4 alone!

and they weren't spellcasters.

the mesmer was great? no. just as good as any class well played... the other monks, necros and warriors suked..

[Str0b0]

I don't get the whole AL argument against dervishes. How many armor buffs and self heals do they have? The Interventions alone make their armor a non issue, stack that with Balthazar or any number of earth prayers and their armor is no longer a sticking point. Their damage is not only incredibly consistent, considering the wide range it covers, but there are also ungodly damage buffs that only require you to have enchantments on you to get the bonus or sometimes none at all. Almost every scythe attack comes with nasty bonus damage. With the right armor mods you can boost dervish armor to insane degrees, I know there is one that gives you up to +45 armor for having three enchantments on you. I maintain three enchantments on my dervish pretty much constantly. So if you want to get technical my build, properly played, walks around with 115 AL and if I decide to toss Balth form in there I'm walking around with 195 AL. How is that not a viable tank even with the long cool down of the Balth form? Dervishes are incredibly viable as tanks, even in the later missions, and with the proper skills they also are more self sufficient than any WAMMO, without tapping into their secondary at that.

The dervish is also more effective at crowd control than any warrior will ever be. Yes I'm aware of cyclone axe and hundred blades, but a dervish's normal attacks will hit multiple enemies. That factor alone makes them invaluable. They can hold aggro and help do mass damage rather than focusing primarily on a single target and only occassionally hitting the other mobs. I just have to disagree with the assessment of many that the dervish is more or less useless PvE

[Arkantos]

^

The insigna gives +5 armor per enchantment (Maximum 15 armor) and AoB adds 40 armor, not 80.

[Str0b0]

thanks for the corrections. I'm a little addled right now. LoL. Still the fact remains that AL is not really a viable reason to discount dervishes.

[Etrik]

It's simple.. people don't know what they're talking about. They made a dervish, put only offensive skills on him, then thought 'why am I dieing????????? I'm Rambo!!!!!!!'. Same as sins when they first came out.

Heroway the game till people chill and realize the potential of dervishes. We're imba :)

Quick note: Tank using Dervish-only skills = Conviction + AoB + Armor of Sanctity + Veil of Thorns + Mirage Cloak + Mystic Regen + Staggering Force + Twin Moon Sweep = 134 Armor, 50% Evade, 21 damage mitigation, 16 HP Regen, Constant Weakness on Foes.

Beat that, warriors. And don't get me started on godly Dwayna tanks. Seriously.

[Nanood]

I'm usually the last or second last standing if things go bad. And its not because i've run away :)

[Vex]

I have a level 20 Dervish and I tank better then most. I am using a build that I saw on here because I am still pretty new to getting into the statistics of each skill and what they can do.

Now Im pretty sure, out of what I just wrote, The only thing that sunk into peoples brains is the phrase "I am still pretty new". So how can I know what a good tank is. Well I have partyed with many people and seen many tanks that do an awesome job even in FoW. Well I can go into FoW and pretty much go in and take on herds of crap with a good monk to keep some healing spells on me.

Either way I have herd with the right build a 3 man dervish team can solo FoW so they cant be all that bad.

[immolatus]

i really wish people would start to read. The reason i hate dervs is because the entire class is based solely on enchants. its too conditional for my liking and i like to have a bit of a backup for a class instead of just having one lifeline. what happens when a dervs enchants fall? they die.

what happens when a monks enchants fall? they die.

[samurai snack]

Armour of Earth @ 40 AL + Conviction + (+10 AL while enchanted) insignias + 70AL = 144 AL and 6 skill slots left that can tank better than most warriors ive seen and still have energy for damage dealing

[drupal]

I always get a group but I can also understand people that they don't want a 5-man dervish and monk team ;)

The comparison dervish to sins is stupid. I learned to love my dervish ^^

[geekling]

so they cant be all that bad.

Of course not, no class is all bad.

Unfortunably the Dervish does not have 'built in' high armour but require the player to bring skills to boost their armour. There are way too many players out there that won't 'waste slots on stupid defensive skills.' Right now, they all seem seduced by the shiney new class the Dervish. (and if it really needs to be said. No this does not imply that this mindset applies to all, or even a majority of Dervish players out there. Just enough of them to be noticable.)

No doupt with time this will change with time. Well I can hope. :)

[BigDave]

When i set up my dervish for PvE she is damn near impossible to kill. Monks hardly ever need to heal me and i can dish out some serious damage.

Trouble is with so many dervishes running about there's no room for them in a party, so i went to Tyria where there aren't many dervishes and had very little trouble getting into a group.

I can run from LA to Sanctum with absolute ease and certainty, and my health won't drop below 80% for the entire trip (with the exception of one part where it can go down as far as 50%, oh-no!). And i can do it very, very quickly.

I can solo run to the seer in the Iron Mines mission faster and easier than anything else i've seen. Even all the KD, armour ignoring damage from the Azure Shadows is a breeze.

I even got my protector of tyria title without dying even once (and very quickly too). Tanking the titans was a doddle.

Yeah, dervishes are weak............ :confused:

[Kijik Oni Hanryuu]

WOW big dave, you handed tyria it's A** on a silver platter didn't you? GG man GG.

[Riotgear]

I never thought people would attempt to compare dervish to assassin.
Medium-armored high-offense melee class. Of course they're comparing them. My first prediction of Nightfall was that "Dervish would be the new Assassin."

In terms of player quality, I was correct. Unfortunately, the terrific synergy of the class's abilities and the simple fact that Signet of Pious Light is hands-down the best self-heal in the game (aside from perhaps divine booned reversal of fortune) has preventing player crappiness from manifesting the way it did with assassins. :P

[strcpy]

i really wish people would start to read. The reason i hate dervs is because the entire class is based solely on enchants. its too conditional for my liking and i like to have a bit of a backup for a class instead of just having one lifeline. what happens when a dervs enchants fall? they die.

I got the jist of what you said, and even with your "clarifiaction" I find it totally off base. For one, you explicitly stated that in the Terment area they are more a liability than anything - of which many of us find to be totally untrue.

Since most of the enchants cost 5e and have a quick recharge it isn't that hard to put them back up, too many enchant removals have too long of a recharge to shut one down for long. Of all the classes I've played it has been one of the most survivable when enchants start getting ripped, it is A LOT better than a stance warrior or ranger hitting a few mobs with a wild attack - all gone in one go and usually a long recharge.

Really, the PvE hate to the dervish tend to be anti-caster: backfire, diversion, etc (interrupts aren't that a big of a deal as you have most enchants at 3/4 second or faster). Even worse is that because they are a melee caster a general purpose mesmer totally shuts one down. Now, stripping enchants *really* hurts when added with the above, but just the stripping by itself is usually just ignored. But then, pretty much any class out there dies almost instantly under those conditions - I do not see them being any worse.

Again, the hench Dervish doesn't seem to suffer the problems you describe. As such I would probably go back and look over your build or tactics. The hench shouldn't ever do that (well, except with their instant interrupts).

[Xaero Gouki Kriegor]

I assume your having trouble finding groups in PvE. Only answer, f**k humans, Use henchies/Heros, GG Problem Solved. . . . .

I find that humans bring only grief and agitation to PvE. Thus I pledged to never group with humans again unless I know them or Guild with them.

Heros/Henchies arent stereotype agaisnt your profession, they follow orders, they are arranged like you want them, and they are always there.

Learn to use your Heros and Henchies, and PvE will no longer plague you when you are denied party invitations.


As for PvP, your group should already know what you do and what your purpose is.

[Hidden Prayers]

As much as I love the Dervish, I honestly wouldn't want more than two in a party, although this pretty much goes for every class in most situations.

And generally, when I can't find a party I make one :D .

[ogami_ito]

As much as I love the Dervish, I honestly wouldn't want more than two in a party, although this pretty much goes for every class in most situations.

And generally, when I can't find a party I make one :D .

I once did a Shiverpeak uhh...whats it called? That area with the friggin dwarves sort of elite place... with a PUG party of 6 dumb warriors and 2 henchy priests because all the other teams were looking for something called B/P ranger farmers. Anyway...we kicked butt. (I was there to cap Eviscerate ... don't like farming that much )

Now... Dervs have enchants. There are two extreamly efficient monk spells for healing enchanted allies - Dwana's kiss and Healing Light. Add in some protection like Aegis and RoF...not so much for its affect but because it they are cheap enchants and group-effect enchant. Mo/Me, with 5 points in inspiration and one interupt skill is better.

Add a MM Necro with that blood skill...also forgot what its called (short term memory problems because I smoke out too much I guess). That area-effect enchant that adds +12 damage to attacks for 5 seconds and the necro sacrifices 17% health.

Now add 1 Paragon with Anthem of Flame, and Zealous Anthem, and anything else.

Now add in FOUR Dervs, each with an avatar, with Mystic Regen, Vital Boom, and either that healing signet, or that wind prayer spell that heals and strips a hex. At least two of these Dervs are actually D/P, with just 5 points in Command, and the skill "Go for The Eyes".

Now proceed to destroy the internet!

[Skuld]

IWAY noob! :p

[Giga Strike]

I think of dervishes as close range AoE spikers so i will use them in my groups. as for using them, no. im not a good dervish user. my energy always runs out quickly and i cant seem to balance casting and attacking very well.

also, im astonished that ppl would compare dervishes to assassins. they arnt the same, not close. though they are both spikers the way you use them is completely different.

[Guardian of the Light]

The true power of a Dervish lies in its versatility.

No other class in the game boasts all of these in one package:


incredible damage

the scythe is the highest damage weapon in the game AND AoE on every swing
Heart of Fury is one of the best IAS's in the game, outclassed only by flail and frenzy when you can work around their drawbacks

incredible defense

Armor of Sanctity is one of only 3 damage absorption skills in the game, and combines perfectly with veil of thorns to meet it's condition
Conviction is one of the few defensive stances that can be kept up permanently
Mystic Regeneration has replaced Troll Unguent as one of the premier self-heals in the game
Mystic Vigor - W/Mo's have to invest 10 points in Healing Prayers and take 2 enchantments to match it's health per swing, and can't touch it if you hit multiple foes
multiple attacks that have a side effect of healing you
Vow of Silence is the only spell shield in the game that can be kept up constantly on its own
Mirage Cloak - if your build can afford it, a constant 50% evade is a boon
Windwalker's Armor - all defensive dervishes should have enough enchantments to keep this at it's 15 bonus armor rating.
4 pips of energy regen make all these defenses much easier to sustain

incredible utility

dargon already covered it's condition spreading power.
Mystic Healing is the best party heal in the game
Pious Restoration provides the only self hex removal on a melee class
Multiple enchantment removal skills
Everything you need for running (Dervishes can even make the Droks run)

And they just look darn cool


Of course, you can't get all that functionality in one build, but the power of the Dervish lies in the fact that you can mix-n-match. If you want to fully capitalize on that high damage scythe, take relatively few enchantments, max out your Scythe Mastery, and take several attacks with you. You will be a lot like an assassin, but with a more constant damage output that doesn't rely on criticals and double hits to keep it's DPS up.

On the other hand, you can load up on the enchantments, cover them all with a Vow of Silence to stop most of the enchantment removal skills out there, and stand on the front lines and tank with the Dolyak Signet warriors (without the huge mobility hit). You might not have the points for more than 9 or so points for Scythe Mastery, but you'll be practically invulnerable.

But more than likely, you'll want to combine these two extremes take a few skills from the defensive side and a few from the offensive side and make a character that is about as tough as a warrior, but has better damage potential, especially when the targets line up. Then throw in a skill or two from your utility toolbox to help out your team, and you have one of the best all-around characters in the game.

For defense you can added the Vital Boon + Signet of Poius Light. One of the best self heals in the game.

[fashion07]

Dervish is pertty good ,if u know how to play well. man
other ppl who said Dervish is weak becasue they don't know about Dervish ^^ forgive them !

[Priest Of Sin]

#1: assassins have some very good defensive skills (vipers def+heart of shadow, anyone?)

#2: Dervish, in the right hands, outdamages and outdefends a warrior.

#3: you can solo anything in NF (except perhaps teh Shiro mission) with heroes+henchies, ignore the morons.

[Str0b0]

I found that Dwayna makes for a hellacious tank, Well Dwayna or Melandru, unless you get fragility on you with the latter then it sucks. I rarely have to use the Avatar form though. When I do it is in hex heavy mobs and then all I have to do is throw on Dwayna, spam my scythe attacks and bam no more hexes and I get healed for 41 points of damage every time. I use Mirage Cloak, Vital boon, and Heart of fury plus Faithful intervention and I'm pretty much unstoppable. I maintain at least 3 enchants at all times so there is another 15 AL, plus the health swell from Vital boon, plus the 50% avoid from mirage and I rarely take significant damage. Dervishes are infinitely more survivable than Assassins. The only thing that is somewhat troublesome is managing your enchants and layering them properly. Once you get that down then you are golden. I haven't gotten Mystic regeneration yet but that's going in there too. I'm also thinking of building an ebon Dust build for the blinding. I've already got an Ebon snathe picked out for a new scythe.

[Skuld]

#1: assassins have some very good defensive skills (vipers def+heart of shadow, anyone?)

#2: Dervish, in the right hands, outdamages and outdefends a warrior.

#3: you can solo anything in NF (except perhaps teh Shiro mission) with heroes+henchies, ignore the morons.

1) Feigned Neutraility and Dark Escape..

2) They are different classes, don't compare them.

3) 8 party member solo? :)

[Family Draconis]

I definitely agree with you. I also am disgusted at the fact that people don't like Dervishes. I love my dervish and I have a build made specifically to keep up with the tanking power of any warrior, yet whenever I try to defend myself, no one wants to take the chance that I'm right. We need to start getting the word out there, just as with assassins in factions, that the Dervish can do the job as well. After all, the whole idea around making the dervishes was to have a second class that could keep up with warriors in both damage and tanking ability.

Not saying that assassins also can't do that job, but in reality, assassins by nature should be shadowed damage, or hit and run. They should be the first ones in, then meld back into the fray and attack from a flanking position, unlike a dervish or a warrior who should get in ASAP and just stay there. Anyway, I'm getting off topic. In conclusion, Dervish is a good tanking class when build right, just like any other class.

[Stemnin]

This is why I used heroes and henchies for all of nightfall with my new dervish, I can't blame ppl, when I started going through NF with my monk, seen a few dervs in missions with me, they really really really sucked, I wouldve prefered to take ANY sin. I think they were the same peeps ive seen just using sever artery and saying thats not the only skill they have, but the only one they use. I prefer not to bring a dervish because of this.

I played only dervish during the preview events in RA trying out builds, with most of the skills unlocked, so going through NF was incredibly easy with hench.

[Str0b0]

1) Feigned Neutraility and Dark Escape..

2) They are different classes, don't compare them.

3) 8 party member solo? :)


Actually I think it is a perfectly valid and legitimate comparison to make. While they are indeed different classes the role is very very similar. Just look at the way the dervish is designed. All your attacks hit multiple foes, the survival and armor boosting skills. Dervishes are obviously meant to be front line damage dealers and tanks just the same as warriors. The only difference is the warrior accomplishes this through high AL the dervish uses enchants. That's the only significant difference. The methodology is different the task is the same.

Granted Dervishes have a sort of jack of all trades thing going on like rangers but I think at their core they are designed to be front line tanks with the ability to play different roles while still performing that function. For example the Dervish's ability to put multiple conditions on foes is unmatched by any other class but they still have to be up front, tanking the enemies they want to drop those conditions on. Warrior Dervish comparisons are going to happen and they are much more valid than making Dervish Assassin comparisons.

[The Last Preacher]

I dissagree. Like assassins everyone had to make one in the new chapter. The majority of dervishes sucks. Not saying the profession sucks but the crowds of kids who fell for the scythes and hoods.

[Feathers]

I would have to say after playing a Dervish myself that they can handle the job just as good as any warrior. Granted a warrior can absorb the damage better just due to their armor lvl but if a player has the correct set up and knows how to balance their enchantments then there is no reason a Dervish can not tank. I feel like a lot of you though in that many players simply do not yet know what they're doing with this class. It requires a little more thought then UGH ! the big warrior that smashes things. Once mine is set up I will probably delete my own warrior in favor of the Dervish. The versitility and damage out put of the class alone has the warrior beat hands down.

[Dutch Masterr]

where do you all get off saying dervish is "better" than assassin and that assassin is "weak"

yes, assassin armor is basically paper....that doesnt matter.

assassins have speed and power..but in a different way that other classes. they are designed to kill a single target alone and effiently before their target even has time to react. in fact, ive never done mroe spike damage with any other class than assassin. one skill chain can single handedly kill a target. ive killed many dervish, including ones with avatar of melandru/balthazar with sins.

dervish are "simmilar" to mo/w. they have crap armor like assassin, but have many enchantments for offense and defense at the same time. they can throw out many conditions, and then gain benifits off of those conditions that are thrown out...something very unique. they can, if played right, be effective tanks...they can even replace warriors in a group, pve or pvp.

[Rainman]

iv came up with a build to show that dervish can out defend warriors.

think of a dervish/assasin with avatar of balthazar conviction extend enchantments and feigned neutrality for defense skills 1 res sig 2 scythe attacks (lyssas assault seems good) 1 enchantment that never ends i forgot what its called (whenever you go under 50% health this spell ends and heals you for ___) the result 174 defense for up to 24 seconds

[Skuld]

Fiegned Neutrality ends if you use a skill, or attack.

[Darkpower Alchemist]

where do you all get off saying dervish is "better" than assassin and that assassin is "weak"

yes, assassin armor is basically paper....that doesnt matter.

assassins have speed and power..but in a different way that other classes. they are designed to kill a single target alone and effiently before their target even has time to react. in fact, ive never done mroe spike damage with any other class than assassin. one skill chain can single handedly kill a target. ive killed many dervish, including ones with avatar of melandru/balthazar with sins.

If you, with your sin, kill a Dervish using Avatar of Balthazar, then he was a poor Dervish to start.I like the sin's ability, but The Avatars can truely outpower and overpower any sin build you can think of. I tanked through warriors and sins with my Dervish, not saying that they don't need some effort to get the job done against a warrior, but the sin is truely outmatched in a blow for blow. Now,2 sins...that may end differently.

BTW, don't sins and dervish have the same base max armor rating?

[Extreme Measures]

ok when i 1st got nightfall i made a dervish but whenever i wanted a party for a mission no1 wanted me. today i asked every1 why the hates dervish'. they all replied with they are weak and defensless like assasins. i was shocked that some people would think that!

for 1 thing assasins are strong and defenseful but saying dervish are like assasin??? the only think in common is the armour defense (70 AL).
dervish have loads of skills to do amazing damage and protect themselves. i could go right now stick a few skills together and it would turn out a good build. the problem with guild wars is that it is inhabited by idiots that think because we have 10 AL less than warriors we cant tqank or take damage at all! they treat dervish' like they are casters! i am very tired of them saying this and not letting me into a party JUST BECAUSE IM A DERVISH. i mean you have got to agree that dervish are not being treated as well as they should.

it seems that almost everyone hates them! the worse part is that the nf missions are hard to do with heroes. well anyway this is my thread about people treating dervish wrong.

thanks

You said: the worse part is that the nf missions are hard to do with heroes.

Im a mesmer, and I could care less about the prima donna jerkoffs in the game today. I have beat the entire game using only heros, +hench... and beating abbadon at the end with heros was about the easiest mission in the game.
You are right however, the game is full of people whom are full of themselves, and I dont even bother trying to get into groups anymore, but you might try something if you are interested in playing with a live party. Make your own group. There are always people in the zone LFGing for a mission run. Just make your own group, and you will be on your way.
Hope this helps.

[Tingi]

Dervishes are so awsome. One of my favourite profs so far i think. Their defensive skills are brilliant in PvE with skills such as vital boon + mystic regenration and conviction. And some really nice attack skills and IAS skill. I think Anet did a very good job thinking over the Dervish prof.

[Dzus]

If you've found you can't tank with a dervish than you have no idea how to play them.

If you find you can't do much of anything with a Dervish, you're obviously playing the wrong class.

Though, I never really bothered tanking. I have my warriors for that. I rolled a Dervish so I wouldn't be expected to tank and still have a melee class.

I love the versitility of this class, it's not quite a Swiss Army knife, but it is a clever balance of casting and hard-hitting melee.

[drupal]

Dervish tanks work actually pretty well, their weakness are mesmers or necros :(

[jesh]

If you, with your sin, kill a Dervish using Avatar of Balthazar, then he was a poor Dervish to start.I like the sin's ability, but The Avatars can truely outpower and overpower any sin build you can think of. I tanked through warriors and sins with my Dervish, not saying that they don't need some effort to get the job done against a warrior, but the sin is truely outmatched in a blow for blow. Now,2 sins...that may end differently.

BTW, don't sins and dervish have the same base max armor rating?
A *spike* from a dervish will always be slower due to attack speed differences. Dervishes have nowhere close the mobility of the assassin class, and that is why assassins still have their role. If there is any role that the dervish class encroaches on, I feel it is the warrior, not the assassin.

Dervish tanks work actually pretty well, their weakness are mesmers or necros :(
Uh.. I think the same goes for pretty much any melee class, unless you have a build especially designed to counter this type of hate. After all, this is what the necro curses line and mesmer skills were made to do.

My feelings on the Dervish class.. *sigh*
Honestly, I think that an average player can do much better on a dervish than a warrior. Coupled with the self heals that are so rampant in the class, and you have every person with little to no skill flocking to them. Not to mention the scythes and hoods. You can argue with me, but every day I see more people that think they are real badasses because they can do 20ish damage and tank your entire team. Why this class isn't as hated as the paladin preset of old, I still have no clue.

[Dutch Masterr]

If you, with your sin, kill a Dervish using Avatar of Balthazar, then he was a poor Dervish to start.I like the sin's ability, but The Avatars can truely outpower and overpower any sin build you can think of. I tanked through warriors and sins with my Dervish, not saying that they don't need some effort to get the job done against a warrior, but the sin is truely outmatched in a blow for blow. Now,2 sins...that may end differently.

BTW, don't sins and dervish have the same base max armor rating?

dont be so ignorant, dervish dont outmatch anything, any class, including monk, has the ability to kill any other class....most assassins truly suck, but it isnt dificult to kill a derv with a sin...ive killed plenty of dervish with balthazar and melandru easily...im not saying i kill every one i come across, but if you use your build right it isnt hard. sure you can make a build specificaly to kill a tank or assassin (like most do =P) and use it with great effectivenes, but that also leaves you vulnerable to other builds....as with any character. im not putting dervish down, i may hate playing as them, but they are indeed a great class.

[Dzus]

Not saying the profession sucks but the crowds of kids who fell for the scythes and hoods.

I fell for the hoods, but not because I'm a grenth/reaper wannabe.

The Dervish armor consists of robes, which include bracers for the hands and hoods which symbolize their humility to the gods.

Now that's a damned cool bit if you ask me.

[ogami_ito]

I hate scythes and robes. Its like some 13 year old teenage heavy-medal dirt-bag from 1984 concept of cool. I wish they could have japanese style polearms or something. But anyway, Dervs are cool, they can tank, they can DPS, they can spike...in short, Dervs kick butt

[jesh]

Hey.. there's nothing wrong with heavy metal, man. :evil:

[Ivan Darklord]

ok when i 1st got nightfall i made a dervish but whenever i wanted a party for a mission no1 wanted me. today i asked every1 why the hates dervish'. they all replied with they are weak and defensless like assasins. i was shocked that some people would think that!

for 1 thing assasins are strong and defenseful but saying dervish are like assasin??? the only think in common is the armour defense (70 AL).
dervish have loads of skills to do amazing damage and protect themselves. i could go right now stick a few skills together and it would turn out a good build. the problem with guild wars is that it is inhabited by idiots that think because we have 10 AL less than warriors we cant tqank or take damage at all! they treat dervish' like they are casters! i am very tired of them saying this and not letting me into a party JUST BECAUSE IM A DERVISH. i mean you have got to agree that dervish are not being treated as well as they should.

it seems that almost everyone hates them!

Heres the problem, well oftenly new players (noobs) dont have a clue which profession is the best, so they just pick the ones that look cool (I.E Assassins and Dervs) and then go to play in missions and have no idea what they are doing. Same thing happened in Factions, when Sins first came out, no one wanted them cuz there were too many and die easily. Those 2 characters are misused by newbie players. I have a sin and derv, they deal a great damage output, but to get a group in those 2 misused characters just simply start one of your own, just like I do.Oh, I got Legendary Survivor and protecter title of cantha on my sin :cool: , trust me it aint easy..

[Dutch Masterr]

If you find you can't do much of anything with a Dervish, you're obviously playing the wrong class.

Though, I never really bothered tanking. I have my warriors for that. I rolled a Dervish so I wouldn't be expected to tank and still have a melee class.

I love the versitility of this class, it's not quite a Swiss Army knife, but it is a clever balance of casting and hard-hitting melee.

well like any other class, it requires practice to get the right feel for the class. like me, i can play any class except dervish, paragon and ritualist, mostly because i havent played them much. im currently unlocking derv skills for pvp to test them out to see if should make a pve one.

[fleshvirus]

Assassins are naturaly weak but they got a limited powerfull blow that can instant kill you.

as for dervish, they can own you if it is a professional player using it

[Cold]

Let's not get carried away with a dervish tank. Warriors will always be better at pure tanking, at 16 in strength you get:
Defy Pain: +20 armor, +314hp
Dolyak Signet: +42 armor
Endure Pain: +314hp
Signet of Stamina: +317hp

All that is not removable, cannot be interrupted and are skills or signets, so you can add some stances on top. Overall you get +62 armor and +945hp.

[ogami_ito]

^^^ I a little it disagree.

I believe PURE TANK Warriors WILL always be a better tank than a PURe TANK Derv. I believe Dervs CAN be pretty good tanks and can in most cases take on the same tank role as warriors. But I feel that there is alot missin in this analysis.

First of all, of these skills you mentioned:

Defy Pain: +20 armor, +314hp
Endure Pain: +314hp
Signet of Stamina: +317hp

Defy Pain is an elite…and if the goal is to be the ultimate tank…well…I would not pick it. And these two skills are NOT very good in PUGs for a very important reason… as its ending, you lose a lot of hp. That means you have to have a pretty good monk who realizes this and will heal you, or…your dead.

Dolyak Signet: +42 armor
OK. But now most mobs run around and kite. Still…this is, in my opinion, the BEST warrior tank skill and the main reason why warriors may be better tanks. This, and stances.

Whats more, there is a lot of armor ignoring damage and conditions in this game that do a lot of damage to tanks.

A Derv tank can easily have +24 armor with a stance, and 50% of the time have at total of +64 armor. And with common Derv insignias and enchants – which Dervs always have on – the Derv has another +15 armor.

The Derv class has mana to spam self-condition removal. They have an elite form that adds +200HP, and makes immune to conditions. When that form wears off, the Derv's self heals compensate quickly. And, the hallmark of the class…massive amounts of self-heal.

[Cold]

Tell it to ppl tanking in Domain of Anguish :) And btw, tanks do not run after kiting mobs, they stay in one place and try to survive.

On top of what was already mentioned warriors have:
Defensive Stance - +24 armor, 75% evade attacks and arrows
Disciplined Stance - +24 armor, 75% block attacks
Wary Stance - 100% block attacks
"Watch yourself!" - +22 armor (13 in tactics)

So let's combine it all together:
+100 armor (sentinel)
+16 armor (shield)
+5 armor (sword)
+42 armor (Dolyak Signet)
+20 armor (Defy Pain)
+24 armor (Stance)
+22 amor ("watch yourself)
Overall 229 armor.

-3 dmg (rune)
-2 dmg (shield in stance)

480 initial health
-75 superior stregth
+50 superior vigor
+45 (shield)
+314 (Defy Pain)
+314 (Endure Pain)
+317 (Signet of Stamina)
Overall 1445hp.

+75-100% evade/block attacks.
And again, the only thing that can be stripped is stance that can me recast immmediately.
And nothing can be interrupted. You can cast all of that (except signets) even if you are knocked down. But you won't since you have Dolyak Signet :)

So pls be serious, or someone will bring up earth eles, 55 monks and Shadow Form assassins :D

[ogami_ito]

^^^ Well, I did say a PURE warrior tank will be much better than a pure derv tank. I think it would be very boring to play what you have described up there though.

Here is a question though...can you really actually "tank"? I have never done that in GW. Well...I tanked in The Deep with experienced players. In PUGs, just no way. Now, with mobs kiting and often running off, is it really possible to "tank"...meaning...absorb all the agro.

[Tarkin]

Dervish in pve = trash, ever crip, or ever slowdown is a second class tank...
Dervish in pvp = a bit better because people dont carry skills for strip
enchants or crip them...

And how i can say that? because i finish the game with the 10 classes, dervish was the worst, mesmer... rit... sin... monk... i get better results, just to say i finish the game with all classes in warmachine mode... just run get the quest make the quest make the mission... 12 <> 15 hours to finish the game with everyclass... (less paragorn and dervish you need more game time to finish) and put in party the my low level heros ever to levelup them...

I finish the game easily with 9 classes, fast and with no stress just with henchs and heros...

Dervish make me repeat easy mission a lot of times, need to put my high level heros, put elite builds... dervish in pve are #$%#^^%$&%&%^&%&^$^%# of @!@$%%%^%*&*&&.

Any class > dervish in pve.

[Tarkin]

Funny i see good potential for a heal party build with dervish :) like elemental heal party, but much better :)...
The future of the big warrior... will be stay hide fight just heling the party lol lol lol lol lol lol

[Tingi]

Dervish in pve = trash, ever crip, or ever slowdown is a second class tank...
Dervish in pvp = a bit better because people dont carry skills for strip
enchants or crip them...

And how i can say that? because i finish the game with the 10 classes, dervish was the worst, mesmer... rit... sin... monk... i get better results, just to say i finish the game with all classes in warmachine mode... just run get the quest make the quest make the mission... 12 <> 15 hours to finish the game with everyclass... (less paragorn and dervish you need more game time to finish) and put in party the my low level heros ever to levelup them...

I finish the game easily with 9 classes, fast and with no stress just with henchs and heros...

Dervish make me repeat easy mission a lot of times, need to put my high level heros, put elite builds... dervish in pve are #$%#^^%$&%&%^&%&^$^%# of @!@$%%%^%*&*&&.

Any class > dervish in pve.

I understand that is YOUR OPPINION, but IMO what you just wrote I don't ENTIRELY agree with. For me, the dervish in PvE is very good. The ability to tank, inflict heavy dmg, and act as support are good roles indeed. Now im not sayin that the dervish is a good a tank/dmg dealer as a warrior or as good as support as the Paragon, but what I am saying is that I never had any trouble getting into a group with my Dervish and when I did I rarely had any trouble inflicting dmg or dying.

However, I do see your point for the PvE aspect of playing a Dervish. Dervishes obviousyl rely heavily on enchants too help them survive/inflict dmg etc - and so if you ever come across a large mob of mesmers it can be quite frustrating trying to recast of of your enchant because they have all been stripped. But for me, the Dervish good bits outmatches the bad bits. :).

[no damage tank]

yeah i totally agree with the origonal post m8, dervs and sins arent like as much as they should do, they deal gd dmg, i personally love the derv, its like a w/mo in 1 but they look soo kool!! ive always wanted a grim reaping holy fighter type!

[Crom The Pale]

I've played both wars(since GW presale) and dervish(since nightfall came out) so ive a good feel for both.

As for tanking they can both be effective, but they use diffent styles.

A War can bost his armor for a short time thus allowing him to charge into a mob and deal some damage or inflict a condtion then get back to his monks for some healing. He can instantly bost his armor to deal with most spikes but for most pays a price in mobilitly.

A dervish using the right enchants can sustain perment healing and raise his armor allowing him sustained tanking. Mostly at the expence of having to maintian enchants and cutting down on his offence.

Now im talking about primary classes only here, when you start adding in secondarys the whole thing spirals out of control as both are very adept at using other classes skills to efficiently bost themselves.

Both classes can utilize either a high damage build or a high defencive build.

As for those that fear the use of enchantments vow of silence gives some nice protection, not complete, but will keep most of your enchantments safe.

As for damage output I would have to say the Dervish can dish out more damage faster, but at the expence of lots of energy.
A war can dish out a non-stop supply of damage with adrenaline skills, given time, that will inflict mass damage.

The biggest diffence that I found from playing both of this is that Wars have interupts, Dervish do not. Dervish deal out conditions faster and easier than wars and more of them.

I have yet to find more than a handfull of times when a Dervish could not fill the spot of a War.

I love both classes and with the right skills either can be a terror on any battlefield!
:)

[XvArchonvX]

Personally I think Dervishes are a strong class, but there will always be some idiot out there that will make the class look bad due to pure stupidity in it's use. I had a derv in my group once that kept getting spiked horribly. I found out that the reason he kept getting slaughtered was because he had no defensive skills and used no enchantments. Pretty sad really.

Tell it to ppl tanking in Domain of Anguish :) And btw, tanks do not run after kiting mobs, they stay in one place and try to survive.

On top of what was already mentioned warriors have:
Defensive Stance - +24 armor, 75% evade attacks and arrows
Disciplined Stance - +24 armor, 75% block attacks
Wary Stance - 100% block attacks
"Watch yourself!" - +22 armor (13 in tactics)

So let's combine it all together:
+100 armor (sentinel)
+16 armor (shield)
+5 armor (sword)
+42 armor (Dolyak Signet)
+20 armor (Defy Pain)
+24 armor (Stance)
+22 amor ("watch yourself)
Overall 229 armor.

-3 dmg (rune)
-2 dmg (shield in stance)

480 initial health
-75 superior stregth
+50 superior vigor
+45 (shield)
+314 (Defy Pain)
+314 (Endure Pain)
+317 (Signet of Stamina)
Overall 1445hp.

+75-100% evade/block attacks.
And again, the only thing that can be stripped is stance that can me recast immmediately.
And nothing can be interrupted. You can cast all of that (except signets) even if you are knocked down. But you won't since you have Dolyak Signet :)

So pls be serious, or someone will bring up earth eles, 55 monks and Shadow Form assassins :D
First of all, Wary Stance only blocks attack SKILLS, not attacks. I really have to question your knowledge of anything in GW if you think a warrior can ever have a 100% chance to evade attacks with the skills you list.

[ogami_ito]

Again...my question...have you actually seen anyone actually "tank" recently? And by tank, I mean purposefully absorb all the agro. (and no...solo farming builds don't count.)

[drupal]

Again...my question...have you actually seen anyone actually "tank" recently? And by tank, I mean purposefully absorb all the agro. (and no...solo farming builds don't count.)
This isn't possible neither for a warrior nor for a dervish. You always need a bit healing support if your enemies are strong. That's the reason why I love my dervish, he can combine selfhealing with a nice defense.

But I don't have a problem with ppl saying that a dervish is weak against enchantment removal, it's just true.

[Dutch Masterr]

i was sitting in ab waiting to join a game, as usual, and im watching this kid say how dervish are too underpowered and assassins are way overpowered. he kept saying dervish need to be improved and made stronger and assassins need to be nerfed......now im reading this in extreme disbelief on how someone can possibly say that about either class...imagine if the made dervish any stronger. they would dominate every other class. imagine if they made assassin weaker. they would be 100% useless. just thought i should post this here =P. somepeople truly amaze me...

[Crom The Pale]

It's not possible to hold agro on any mob anymore, but a Dervish can cripple all adjacent foes with one 5energy skill, thats as close to tanking as you really can get unless your solo.

[Dutch Masterr]

It's not possible to hold agro on any mob anymore, but a Dervish can cripple all adjacent foes with one 5energy skill, thats as close to tanking as you really can get unless your solo.

well, 3 adjacent foes, but its still a good ability to have.

[ogami_ito]

^^^
1. You ae thinking just about Crippling Sweep? You CAN cripple all adjacent mobs...Aura of Thorns. Better IMHO than Crippling Sweep because it adds an enchant (better for energy management, powering Mystic Sweep, etc), and because when it goes, adjacent mobs are also bleeding.

2. I know if the group is VERY good...better than 99% of all PUGs... and every one of these good players is fully paying attention to what they are doing, you can still somewhat "tank". But for everyone else, that's just not the case. No Warrior or Derv keeps agro when party members move into agro range and attack. So what does TANK mean in this context?

It seems to me that when people talk about TANKs, all they are really saying is that the toon can take agro while requireing less monk-maintenance. From that perspective, Dervishes are MUCH better than warriors. A monk casts Reversal of Fortune on a Derv, and that Derv gains (on average) 150 NET hit-points and 4 energy (+33hp for Divine, up to 50 or so for the RoF itself & up to 50 damage negated, and 12hp and 4e for mysticism). The monks can skip over certain spells too. For example, the Monks own Healing Breaze gives +8 regen to the Derv tank, plus 33 hp from Divine...all for 10e. The Dervs Mystic Regen usually gives minimum +9 (and often +12,+15) regen for 20 seconds, not including a +20% enchant mod, which extends it another 5 seconds. And then there is Healing Light... Monks cast this powerfull heal on Dervs (followed up with Dwana's Kiss) for 5e every 4 seconds, and get back 4e after every cast.

I have decided...Dervs probably "tank" better than warriors for most groups. I say this because for most groups, a pure tank is worthless. If mobs don't attack the tank, you have a meat shield that does little damage but is not taking agro. I'm pretty sure that the Dervs single-target damage output is close or equals a warriors. Maybe not the DPS of a Dragon Slash warrior...but definitely more than an Evicerate warrior. A "Defensive" Derv absolutely out-damages a defensive warrior. And when you add in multiple-target damage, and lower monk maintenance, I see Dervs comming out ahead.

[Crom The Pale]

I believe the role of a war from the start of GW in my mind was more of an interupter than a true tank. They have the ability to charge into enemy fire and reach a caster where they can unleash skills like Savage slash, distruptingh chop or distracting swipe.

The new AI changes actually make wars better at this since they dont face the complete damage output of a mob, but only a portion will pay attention to them.

I see the Dervish tank as a class that will charge in first, maybe with vow of silence up, and force the enemy to waste skills/spells on him that wont kill him. He cant hold the agro but even by making them waste a couple of high dmg skills that would need to recharge can give the party a fast advantage in a battle.

After initial contact the dervish would seek out the largest group of adjacent foes and start swinging. By causing AoE damage with his scythe and skills he forces the monks to spread out there healing and they become less effective.

I see a well balanced team with both a Warrior and a Dervish. The Dervish moves in and causes havok while the Warrior seeks out and deals with high priority targets. As the Warrior sets up one target for a spike the Dervish softens up as many of the others as possible so subsiquent spikes are faster and kills mount up quick.

The Dervish is here to stay and he has earned a place next to any Warrior on a well organized team!
:)

[jesh]

Defy Pain is an elite…and if the goal is to be the ultimate tank…well…I would not pick it. And these two skills are NOT very good in PUGs for a very important reason… as its ending, you lose a lot of hp. That means you have to have a pretty good monk who realizes this and will heal you, or…your dead.

Defy Pain is elite, and it can easily be kept up constantly due to the duration and adrenaline cost. If your goal is to have higher survivability, it's OK. Why you would EVER take a "tank" in a party is beyond me.

Warrior as an interrupter since the start of GW.. *sigh* OK, let's count all the interrupt skills that warriors have.

1. Critical Chop (conditional)
2. Disrupting Chop - normal attack speed
3. Savage Slash (unusable with current recharge)
4. Distracting Blow (nice skill actually, but just as usable to a warrior secondary)
5. Skull Crack (elite)

So let's see, 5 interrupts for an entire class? Yeah, they sure look like interrupters to me. Yes, knockdowns interrupt, and you could count those, but warriors as a whole were not meant to interrupt anymore than rangers were meant to use pets.


A War can bost his armor for a short time thus allowing him to charge into a mob and deal some damage or inflict a condtion then get back to his monks for some healing. He can instantly bost his armor to deal with most spikes but for most pays a price in mobilitly.

A dervish using the right enchants can sustain perment healing and raise his armor allowing him sustained tanking. Mostly at the expence of having to maintian enchants and cutting down on his offence.

Now im talking about primary classes only here, when you start adding in secondarys the whole thing spirals out of control as both are very adept at using other classes skills to efficiently bost themselves.
1. A warrior can keep constant armor - skills like Watch Yourself! and Defy Pain can be kept up indefinetely, as can stances with the help of On Your Knees!.
2. A dervish has lower base AL to start, and none of the absorbtion abilities that a warrior has against physical damage. Relying on enchants in itself is a weakness when you fight in areas with heavy enchant removal.
3. Neither Dervish nor Warrior have very good second class synergy, most look for skills that can be used with 0 point investment.



As for those that fear the use of enchantments vow of silence gives some nice protection, not complete, but will keep most of your enchantments safe.
For 5...9 seconds, you cannot be the target of Spells, and you cannot cast Spells.


I say this because for most groups, a pure tank is worthless. If mobs don't attack the tank, you have a meat shield that does little damage but is not taking agro. I'm pretty sure that the Dervs single-target damage output is close or equals a warriors. Maybe not the DPS of a Dragon Slash warrior...but definitely more than an Evicerate warrior. A "Defensive" Derv absolutely out-damages a defensive warrior. And when you add in multiple-target damage, and lower monk maintenance, I see Dervs comming out ahead.
QFT. This is why I don't like dervishes as they are, it seems like they can play the defensive role too easily, while still maintaining damage. Do I have one? Of course, I have to try one before they get the nerf bat.

[ogami_ito]

So let's see, 5 interrupts for an entire class? Yeah, they sure look like interrupters to me. Yes, knockdowns interrupt, and you could count those, but warriors as a whole were not meant to interrupt anymore than rangers were meant to use pets. .

So here...are you complaining / lamenting warriors don't have enough skills do the job of interrupter, which you believe is the primary role for the class? I have never heard this before. Interesting point of view though.

2. A dervish has lower base AL to start, and none of the absorbtion abilities that a warrior has against physical damage. Relying on enchants in itself is a weakness when you fight in areas with heavy enchant removal. .

I don’t think this is that big of a huge weakness for most areas and for most groups. It can be a weakness when fighting against combinations of melee + enchant removals, without good backup. And that weakness comes from exposure to increased physical damage. Quite a few of these enchants would harm enemies when they are removed though. On the other hand, to effectively keep a warrior healed against elemental damage still usually requires monks place some enchants on them. So when those enchants get stripped, there are fewer covering enchants and protections (accept the warriors has his own damage-reduction skills to help). It comes down to this: what’s more important, beneficial enchants or beneficial stances / shouts.

3. Neither Dervish nor Warrior have very good second class synergy, most look for skills that can be used with 0 point investment skills .

I think when a class mainly relies on second-class synergy, it means the class has more weaknesses. Dervishes make great use of 0-investment skills like wild-blow, Mending Touch (not a zero-point skill, but good anyway), some sin skills, etc. But I would say that it makes it less interesting.

QFT. This is why I don't like dervishes as they are, it seems like they can play the defensive role too easily, while still maintaining damage. Do I have one? Of course, I have to try one before they get the nerf bat.

Wait a minute… you are saying you don’t like them because they take the defensive role too easily while still outputting big damage? It sounds like you are saying they are too good and therefore will be nerfed. Is that what you mean?

[Crom The Pale]

Ok let me count the ranger interupts....

Distracting shot,
Savage shot,
Broadhead arrow,

so I guess you dont count rangers as inteupters either?

Here is a simple formula for a war interupter:

Savage slash + Distracting swipe + Flourish.

If you dont think this works.....
http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/7661/glintsdeath1ug.jpg

That was this build + 7 hench, I was kicked out of a party after telling them my build :ninja:

As for vow of silence it has a 10 second recharge and since most all other enchants a dervish uses last 20-30seconds you can recast duiring the window when its down and then recast vow of silence, it works ive done it.

As for secondarys there is an infinite combination of skills that work for both dervish and wars.
My Dervish runs both a Kinetic armor build and a 'Go for the eyes' build.
My Warrior runs both Apply poison and Meteor shower builds.

Ive run many other builds with both and can say for a fact that ive never run into a problem finding a good use for any secondary for either of these.

While a war can use shouts to keep his armor up, the new nerf not withstanding, his stances are as easily removed as any enchant.

As I belive many have stated a Dervish absorbs damage with massive self healing much like a monk would rather than mitigating the damage with high armor. A war has relitively poor self heals, both having negative aspects to balance them.

If your arument is based on armor that can be maintained then an Elementalist out classes a war as a tank. Armor of earh + Silver Armor + Kinetic Armor + Obsidian Flesh, and with some good energy management this can be maintained almost indefinately....


As stated before, they do not tank in the same manner and do not serve the same purpose in parties. The builds ive listed are not meant to be the only way these can be used just a small handfull of the many ways they are used with great effectiveness. I've run a war as a degen using virolence and a dervish as a party healer with wind prayers.

The possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

[Guardian of the Light]

When it comes to tankage dervishes and warriors are pretty tied

I would suggest bringing one of each for each situation. That is of course if you take 2 melee characters anyway.

[ogami_ito]

^^^BTW I put Go For The Eyes on my derv hero. I usually have it on at least two heros to power derv crits and MM-Army crits. Works great on the derv hero.

[Grandmaster]

warrior:

low self heal
high armor
fast, one target offense
capability to interrupt
minor condition spreading

dervish

HUGE self heal
low to decent armor (70+24 if using conviction)
slower, multi-target offense
cannot interrupt
massive condition spreading

where before a team would take 2 warriors for the frontlines, I believe it should now be one warrior and one dervish. Both have their benefits and drawbacks, but both will be able to survive the front lines.

[whobitz]

Ok let me count the ranger interupts....

Distracting shot,
Savage shot,
Broadhead arrow,

so I guess you dont count rangers as inteupters either?

Hold up, lets look at this again...
Distracting Shot, Savage Shot, Magebane Shot {E}, Punishing Shot {E}, Broad Head Arrow {E} (indirectly), Disrutping Lunge, and Concussion Shot are regular attack skills that interrupt. Incendiary Arrows and Choking Gas are preps that cause interruption. Along the lines of BHA with dazed, you could even go as far as Smoke Trap or Bestial Mauling (though that gets into KDs and would have to include warrior KDs and even stuff like Spike Trap). So that's 8 skills, 9 with BHA (10 with Smoke Trap) that interrupt for Rangers. I guess warriors have 6 or 7 (adding to jesh's list with Agonizing Chop and Dwarven Battle Stance). Granted, Disrupting Lunge isn't always great, and Incendiary Arrows can't be kept up, but Savage Slash is 10 energy with a 20 sec. recharge, Critical Chop and Agonizing Chop are both conditional, the latter having normal attack speed, just like Disrupting Chop. Rangers also have 3 elites dedicated to interupting, warriors have 1 that costs 9 adrenaline and Dwarven Battle Stance. All in all, ranger interrupts are just better. See here (http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Interrupt_skills_quick_reference) for a not really complete list.

Well that was fun, but back on topic, it's not amazingly hard for a Dervish to maintain 109 armor with ~17 damage reduction from foes with conditions (try using Veil of Thorns (http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Veil_of_Thorns) for that cripple mentioned earlier) and 9+ regen. On the other hand, it's not hard for a warrior to maintain 170+ armor, 300 or even 600+ hp (900+ for a period of time), and have no KDs. The difference is armor vs. self heals (though imo Warriors will always win when facing enough enchantment removal until a good Vow of Silence tank build is made). Those examples are both in a highly tanking sense, and that's probably only useful somewhere like DoA; otherwise, the "tanks" should have some defense with some offense (seems to be the popular opinion) whether they be warrior or dervish.

[jesh]

So here...are you complaining / lamenting warriors don't have enough skills do the job of interrupter, which you believe is the primary role for the class? I have never heard this before. Interesting point of view though.


Wait a minute… you are saying you don’t like them because they take the defensive role too easily while still outputting big damage? It sounds like you are saying they are too good and therefore will be nerfed. Is that what you mean?

Yes.
And the interrupter thing was someone else's point of view, not mine.
Crom The Pale, look at the recharge on Savage Slash and try not to laugh. Then look at Savage Shot.
If you seriously use those skills on a warrior.. well let's just say there's better things you could be doing. Virulence warriors and Wind Prayers healers are at least *decent* builds, unlike hamstorm.

While a war can use shouts to keep his armor up, the new nerf not withstanding, his stances are as easily removed as any enchant.
OK, the only stances that you should be using are Sprint and Frenzy, unless you're using Flail and Enraging in PvE. The only way these get removed is Wild Blow/Throw. I don't think there are any monsters that use Wild Strike.

whobits: somehow those slipped past me, I swear I looked through all my skills. Does Disrupting Accuracy count for rangers? =P
I've always wanted to try that with 2 or more GftE spammers.
Anyways.. I agree with whobits on the warrior tank thing.

[Crom The Pale]

I wasn't trying to say that Warrior made better interupters than Rangers, just that you really don't require a skill bar full of interupts to get the job done.

As for the recharge on Savage Slash youll note I paired it with Flurish for instant recharging.

Its not the quality of the skills that matter in the end its the skill of the player. If you can't time your attacks then even the best ranger interupts are worthless.

And as we've all stated many times now tanking is not just about armor. The best a war can do is mitigate damage with high armor, but he still takes damage and with poor healing hes just prolonging his death if he doesnt get out and find his monk.

A Dervish can boost his armor with inscriptions up to 85 + conviction 24 and Armor of Sanctity to reduce damage from foes with conditions by another 17 points. PLUSS a Dervish has massive self heals so any damage not mitigated is healed and he can continue to attack.

Yes in an enchantment striping battle the Dervish is at a disadvantage, but when was the last time you took a Warrior into the Tomb of Kings?

As for Warrior builds I was in no way suggesting that interuption was the ONLY build a war can run. If you read my whole post you'll note a named two other builds my Warrior runs, and those are just a very small handfull of all the diffent builds that I use.

For both the Dervish and the Warrior his build should reflect the teams balance. In some cases that means a war needs to use interupts in others it means he has to take lots of self heals from his secondary proff. A dervish my require fewer enchants and more damage skills if the monks have him coverd or he may need to take more condition spreading skills to put pressure on enemy monks to lift them.


In the end it all boils down to both the Dervish and the Warrior having many diffent builds and each being able to play as a tank under certain conditions.

IMO the biggest problem facing Dervish's is not there ability to tank, its a total lack of any interupts.

[Celestial Beaver]

ok when i 1st got nightfall i made a dervish but whenever i wanted a party for a mission no1 wanted me. today i asked every1 why the hates dervish'. they all replied with they are weak and defensless like assasins. i was shocked that some people would think that!

for 1 thing assasins are strong and defenseful but saying dervish are like assasin??? the only think in common is the armour defense (70 AL).
dervish have loads of skills to do amazing damage and protect themselves. i could go right now stick a few skills together and it would turn out a good build. the problem with guild wars is that it is inhabited by idiots that think because we have 10 AL less than warriors we cant tqank or take damage at all! they treat dervish' like they are casters! i am very tired of them saying this and not letting me into a party JUST BECAUSE IM A DERVISH. i mean you have got to agree that dervish are not being treated as well as they should.

it seems that almost everyone hates them! the worse part is that the nf missions are hard to do with heroes. well anyway this is my thread about people treating dervish wrong.

thanks

Just to clarify - I've not read the rest of this thread I'm only responding to this.

I used to feel this way...As soon as I saw the armor level of dervishes I thought "Yup, the Nightfall Sin". I wont say I was totally wrong because you still get some morons who cannot play them and die in 2 seconds but I am pleasantly surprised at how good they are. On the odd occaision I decide to go with a human group I don't mind having one in my group. THe only thing I don't like is when I'm invited into a group by someone who then proceeds to invite 5 dervishes...it's not dervish hate - it's just not a balanced team :p

I reckon when I've finished off my other characters I may try Dervish for myself. I still can't stand Assassins though :p The one thing which may annoy me though is the enchantments. Have you ever noticed the Margonite Dervishes? They spend about 30 seconds applying enchantments...if you ever want to kill an AI dervish just have someone sat next to them echoing Chilblains....they wont fight then...they'll just keep putting their enchants back on! :D

[ogami_ito]

I think 5 Dervishes on a team could work well. Heck, I did a great run in Sorrow's Furnish with 6 warriors and 2 henchy monks (all the other humans were dumb barrage rangers who would not invite warriors into the group). 5 dervs, (with two goining D/P with Go for The Eyes!, 1 going Melandru/Wearying, 1 Balthazar, and 1 Ebon Dusk user) coupled with 2 monks (one Healing Light / Dwana's Kiss , the other spams Aegis and Reversal of Fortune )and an MM / orders of pain necro would absolutely kick butt...and do well even against enchant removing mobs.

[Isil`Zha]

i really wish people would start to read. The reason i hate dervs is because the entire class is based solely on enchants. its too conditional for my liking and i like to have a bit of a backup for a class instead of just having one lifeline. what happens when a dervs enchants fall? they die.

Wrong - first, they can be reapplied fairly quickly, and secondly - when it comes to Mesmers or other enchantment stripping classes, I simply change my tactics to use their stripping in my favor.

As mentioned, losing enchants gives energy back for a Dervish - and then, almost every Dervish enchantment either is beneficial to the Dervish when ended, or does harm to adjacent/nearby foes when ended.

[Fallen Hunter]

Well, the dervish is probably my favourite class. I have finished the game with my dervish. I did have trouble getting into groups, but it was usually because they already had one rather than their prejudice against them. I have out-tanked warriors with my dervish. Using enough enchantments, you can be nearly invincible! I don't see what the problem is. I mean, comparing them to an assassin? I have an assassin, and i know what they mean - in the wrong hands (namely mine :P) they are squishy as hell. Even in the right hands if you can take their initial attacks you can usually kill them easily. However, the dervish is capable of absorbing a lot of damage, perhaps even more than a warrior with the right build. With the right build you can do A LOT more damage than a warrior, and dervishes are unmatched for inflicting conditions. And even teams with too many dervishes can be good - I got shiro down to 1/4 health in gate of madness in a team with 5 dervishes.

[Cold]

Soul Barbs anyone? Just kidding :D

Dervish is a bad tank, if you want a tank on enchantments take earth ele:
Obsidian Flesh, +20 armor
Kinetic Armor, +92 armor
Armor of Earth, +67 armor
Stoneflesh Aura, -37 dmg reduction
Sliver Armor, 55% block, +41dmg for each attack or spell
Stone Daggers - for Kinetic Armor
Glyph of Elemental Power
Channeling - for energy

Now we talking. This IS a TANK that takes 0 dmg even from lvl28 mobs. Plus it's a killing machine with Sliver Armor on.

And here is my warrior, just one interrupt. Try it with dervish and post here the picture ;)

http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/945/gw448pr0.jpg

[Etrik]

Hold up, lets look at this again...
Distracting Shot, Savage Shot, Magebane Shot {E}, Punishing Shot {E}, Broad Head Arrow {E} (indirectly), Disrutping Lunge, and Concussion Shot are regular attack skills that interrupt. Incendiary Arrows and Choking Gas are preps that cause interruption. Along the lines of BHA with dazed, you could even go as far as Smoke Trap or Bestial Mauling (though that gets into KDs and would have to include warrior KDs and even stuff like Spike Trap). So that's 8 skills, 9 with BHA (10 with Smoke Trap) that interrupt for Rangers. I guess warriors have 6 or 7 (adding to jesh's list with Agonizing Chop and Dwarven Battle Stance). Granted, Disrupting Lunge isn't always great, and Incendiary Arrows can't be kept up, but Savage Slash is 10 energy with a 20 sec. recharge, Critical Chop and Agonizing Chop are both conditional, the latter having normal attack speed, just like Disrupting Chop. Rangers also have 3 elites dedicated to interupting, warriors have 1 that costs 9 adrenaline and Dwarven Battle Stance. All in all, ranger interrupts are just better. See here (http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Interrupt_skills_quick_reference) for a not really complete list.

Well that was fun, but back on topic, it's not amazingly hard for a Dervish to maintain 109 armor with ~17 damage reduction from foes with conditions (try using Veil of Thorns (http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Veil_of_Thorns) for that cripple mentioned earlier) and 9+ regen. On the other hand, it's not hard for a warrior to maintain 170+ armor, 300 or even 600+ hp (900+ for a period of time), and have no KDs. The difference is armor vs. self heals (though imo Warriors will always win when facing enough enchantment removal until a good Vow of Silence tank build is made). Those examples are both in a highly tanking sense, and that's probably only useful somewhere like DoA; otherwise, the "tanks" should have some defense with some offense (seems to be the popular opinion) whether they be warrior or dervish.
There will never be a good VoS tank, because VoS means your monks can't heal you. It's highly conditional and - imho - limited to 1v1 skirmishes against casters. You can pwn them then, however.

[jesh]

I wasn't trying to say that Warrior made better interupters than Rangers, just that you really don't require a skill bar full of interupts to get the job done.

As for the recharge on Savage Slash youll note I paired it with Flurish for instant recharging.
....................

As for Warrior builds I was in no way suggesting that interuption was the ONLY build a war can run. If you read my whole post you'll note a named two other builds my Warrior runs, and those are just a very small handfull of all the diffent builds that I use.
You don't need a skillbar full, but apparently you need an elite. A ranger with Savage Shot can do the same as your whole skillbar, most likely - and without using up their elite.
I did read your whole post, and I did see the other warrior builds you mentioned. If you read my post, you would know what I think of them.
Anyways, if you're taking a D/W, you can just as easily use Distracting Blow as a warrior can.

[Crom The Pale]

Yes I can and do use D/W for distracting blow, but what happens when I use D/ranger or D/Necro or D/Elemental or D/Monk?

Warriors do have an Elite interupt, Skull Crack that causes dazed. Yes it needs adren to work so its not as good as broad head arrow.

You can doubt my builds(of which ive only listed a miniscule part not even all my skills or how they work) all you like, but ive proven over and over again that they work if you understand how to use the skills.

Lasty as for my Dervish being able to solo Glint with the aid of hench -
and the help of a war interupt....
http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/2477/gw331ef1.png

Had to work a lot this week and then there was getting to the desert and ascending but I managed to get the job done.

Thats one nasty skill Glint has that causes exhastion...nearly did me in, but as you can see..10% bonus and no dp!

:ninja:

[jesh]

Crom, I UNDERSTAND your skill builds, I just think they are very very sub optimal.
Beating Glint? Whoopdeedoo. She doesn't even have 10k hp anymore. You could probably beat her with nothing but a res on your bar. It's PVE! Anything works!
My little brother beat the game on his monk without using a skill once.
There's a difference between what works, and what works best.

[Crom The Pale]

Beating Glint was just an answer to a challenge in this thread, not meant to prove anything.

As for my builds everyone has there own play style, mine work for me. They may not work for you. Same holds true for your builds.

The 'best' build is the one you can use to have the most fun.

I often find that Meteor Shower + Glyph of Essence + StoneFist gauntlets and a skill bar full of adren axe attacks on my Warrior gives me 'optimal' crowd control, knockdowns, interupts and damage.

For my Dervish i've not found a 'optimal' build I can use anywhere but I've found that it is very versitile and can run many diffent builds with equal sucess.

The build I used against Glint was actually a bad build to be honest, VoS is useless against her/him? due to Glints attacks being skills not spells. However for a nice VoS build I do swap in "Watch Yourself!" and Lions Comfort for the two war attacks.

To complete the thought this thread began with...

The truth about the Dervish is that it can mold itself to many diffent roles in an organized team. Be it as a high armor tank with elemental or war secondary skills or for condition spreading using ranger/necro skills or even back up healing with some monk/rit skills. All of these are complimented nicely by the existing Dervish skills and make it a very versitle profession.

[LifeInfusion]

Th eproblem isn't that Dervishes are weak. There are just too many of them!

[Van vincing]

If ppl fink dervishes are based on enchancement then they shud try removal their any of their enhancement and see wht happens (vital boon, stagger force, better to keep their enchancement on than off dun u fink??? :D )

[mirokumatt]

If ppl fink dervishes are based on enchancement then they shud try removal their any of their enhancement and see wht happens (vital boon, stagger force, better to keep their enchancement on than off dun u fink??? :D )

Grammer just went out the window...Dervishes are good with enchantment manipulation is what i think he is trying to say. Rending vital boon and staggering force can be very beneficial and we all know there are some great enchant rending skills on the dervish, this screams "manipulate your enchants when you play a dervish..."

[Van vincing]

LOL the answer to why ppl dun want u is probably because they already have like 3 dervishes in their team.

Sum players knw wht dervishes can do (heal, dmg, tank) so if they already have a dervish healer they re probaly lookin for a pure monk healer, dervishes can become other classes, except they wont be exactly like those classes (pure tanker, pure healer) but their ability with avatars and other skills can easily take over other class skills (like heart of fury, every melee class want it) or even the avatars (Im sure casters and rangers wud love to have lyssa)

So dun worry, dervishes are one of the strongest class there'll ever be

PS: u have no idea how many monks are dyin to be able to get avatar of dwyna and how many warriors wud luv to see wht happens if they can use avatar of balthazar

[Xiaxhou of Trinity]

Yeh same here,
When I first made my dervish it was almost impossible to get in a party.
For every mission I spent lik 40-50 mins looking for a groud.
But now that I finished the game and decided to start PvP, its much easier to get into a party in TA and HA if you're a Dervish.

Well welcome to the club. The thing is that, like in HA and GvG, there is always a "meta", or build/class combo that seems to "dominate" and is popular. A while back, people used to think that only a N/Mo could MM, and anything else was nooby. They woudln't take warriors unless they were whammos. Mesmers were shunned by PvE. Only a few people actually saw through this stereotyping, hence the mesmers that have survived since then (just one example). Recently, with new updates and etc, groups seem to be taking anything and everything (though I suppose assassins and dervishes are being resented). Paragons sometimes have trouble finding groups too, since they say "oh monks can heal better than them" or "just get a ranger". Something the GW PvE community experiences, but I see is slowly dying away. One problem I see with PvE atm is finding groups, since people are becoming spread out through the campaigns. Soon many outposts and missions will be near empty with all the new campaigns (solution?)

[RVallant]

Well I rolled with a dervish (still do it's my new main class) and the survivability is there, considering I almost got Survivor with him. I rolled with him all the way up through the second mission without dieing in starter armour. I'm convinced if I had bothered to upgrade the armour then he wouldn't have been killed at the end-of-mission boss, but I digress it's not too difficult with a dervish thus far, also it wasn't as if I was even trying to survive in the first place it just happened to be there.

Also while the Dervish's strength AND weakness happens to be enchantment based it's other strength lies in it's versatility. You don't have to run an enchantment heavy Dervish and in situations where enchantment stripping is common place then targetting and taking out said enemies is usually the way to go.

Considering a monk or any other class being stripped of enchantments that it relies on will usually result in severe difficulties I think a Dervish doesn't get impacted so much seeing how when an enchantment is stripped off a Dervish they're getting healed and free energy into the mix, often enough health and energy (unless you're skimping on Mysticism in which case, why are you bothering here?) that you're being given an early-warning/free buff up to take out said enchantment removing enemies.

The only time an enchant stripping area will wipe you is if you happen to solo with an enchant heavy build. GW is a team game so your henchmen and partymembers should be aware and there to make up for your shortcomings there in the same way that you would for them (i.e. Chilblains enemies are always a priority interupting target for Jin).

In regards to versatility, running a scythe build is another alternative to running an enchant build so it's a moot point anyway and I really don't see the arguement for it. Ok fair enough I may be new to the class and still getting to grips with it but I don't struggle with enchantment stripping thus far and I know that to run around like a moron with an enchant-heavy build in danger areas is going to get me in trouble so I don't do it :P

[strcpy]

The only time enchant stripping really gets tough is if there is a lot of it - every once in a while you will get a spawn that has 4-6 necro's with Chilblains that decide you are an easy target - you better have an alternate way to survive or just leave the fray for a moment and let a couple get killed.

The thing I like about it is that where we are weak warriors are strong, where warriors are weak we are strong, and most of the game we are about equal. So it meshes well to have one Dervish and one Warrior for tanks.

[ArKaiN]

The only time enchant stripping really gets tough is if there is a lot of it - every once in a while you will get a spawn that has 4-6 necro's with Chilblains that decide you are an easy target - you better have an alternate way to survive or just leave the fray for a moment and let a couple get killed.

The thing I like about it is that where we are weak warriors are strong, where warriors are weak we are strong, and most of the game we are about equal. So it meshes well to have one Dervish and one Warrior for tanks.
I'm sorry, but is this really what happens?
In my experience, unless you have like 12 mysticism(even then, actually. it`s not like 4 energy's a lot), and mystic vigor and/or regeneration gets stripped in the middle of a big battle, I either have no energy to recast it (because I mistakingly spent it spamming attacks) or I just die from my low armor combined with no regen. People keep harping about how we have 4 pips of regen and mystic regeneration, but lets face it, thing aren't always ideal, and when they aren't, warriors are still sitting behind that huge armor. Derishes CAN be built around being a good tank, but given the same player skill, I do belive warriors are better suited for this purpouse. It's a trade really, we get worse tankability but we get high damage+aoe.

[Age]

This is what I think of the Dervs yes they are a lot like the Sins with 70al armour and being in melee range as with Sins they can do thier hit and runs shadow fo haste.Dervs don't do nearly as much dmge as a Warrior can.The only real problem is putting a balanced group together and when I was playing my Monk through game they were clicking on me left right and centre even worse than Sins in Factions.You must not forget those few Mesmers over in cornor that need to get through the game and can be very usefull especially in the Gates of Madness.

Balanced groups is the real proplem lets hope Anet doesn't make these type of char agian or none at all.There just isn't enough of us Monks to go around.

[CagedinSanity]

I think I have missed something entirely. I never had much of a problem finding a group (got NF on December), untill I get to certain areas where there's like, 5 people. Can't get a group there!

[Perfected Shadow]

The truth about Dervishes? They kick ass, it's the only prof I managed to reach Legendary Survivor with. Only the master difficulty quests gave me large trouble and I haven't finished all those yet ><. I played through Factions and NF, almost always being the only melee char in every quest/mission. It helps a being the only tank because Earth enchantments + Monk Prot enchantments + solid Monk healing makes you quite unbreakable.

[Divine Soldier]

I'm new but with only basic spells and level 13 i hit extremely well rivaling my friend's level 20 W/Mo. I am a Scythe master and I dont have he best armor or the best scythe, bt you know what? I still don't suck i can kill 4 level 11 Skales in one hit. Also i have non trouble finiding a group, in fact people want to group with me.

[RVallant]

I'm sorry, but is this really what happens?
In my experience, unless you have like 12 mysticism(even then, actually. it`s not like 4 energy's a lot), and mystic vigor and/or regeneration gets stripped in the middle of a big battle, I either have no energy to recast it (because I mistakingly spent it spamming attacks) or I just die from my low armor combined with no regen. People keep harping about how we have 4 pips of regen and mystic regeneration, but lets face it, thing aren't always ideal, and when they aren't, warriors are still sitting behind that huge armor. Derishes CAN be built around being a good tank, but given the same player skill, I do belive warriors are better suited for this purpouse. It's a trade really, we get worse tankability but we get high damage+aoe.

It's not like Dervishes have a lot of energy in the first place anyway, 25 energy, 4 pips of regen, you're gaining four per enchantment stripped with the regen on and hey presto you've got 5 energy right there which, as you should know is what most of the low-end enchantments/attacks/whatever cost to cast (Avatar of Dwayna being a plain on wild self-healing hex breaker for that 5 energy too.)

I understand things aren't always ideal in the battlefield, but then why are you spamming skills/attacks/enchants rather than taking into account what's going on before you do so? You should never really be out of energy with a dervish peroid even if you only use two or three enchantments that's 12 energy back right there when they've gone down, enough to either wipe out the threat or re-apply important enchantments (heck by the time you've put on Mystic Regen, you've got the energy for mystic vigour) and let's not forget Signet of Pious Light or Vital Boon, the former can end whatever you have left in your favor while vital boon is a 5e heal right there.

Still, I do agree Warriors have more viable tanking options and Dervishes can be a tempermental class in the wrong situations (what class isn't though?)

[Dross]

I've found that dervishes are very good at staying alive, if u know how to play them. And dervishes are the highest dmg melee class out there: crits will regularly go over 100 dmg, sometimes into the 200s. Also, why do people say dervs are an energy black hole for monks? maybe the stupid ones are, but ive never found that dervishes need constant healing when i monk. Take this situation for example: My melandru dervish was in a group with another dervish, 2 mesmers, a ranger, an ele, and a monk. This is in a PuG. We didn't have a single death (except for pets), and the monk didn't complain once (which typically happens even in really balanced groups). So much for being a black hole on healing.

And whats this about sins? theres no similarity between dervs and sins except 70 armor. Contrary to most people's belief, the purpose of the sin is not to frontline: its to ASSASSINATE. Why do u think sins are so popular in PvP? the best role of a sin is to shadow step in, kill the important casters, and then shadow step out. Don't compare dervs to sins: they are almost NOTHING alike.

As for real tanking: the warrior definitely wins in this category. But where do u need to REALLY tank? DoA and maybe UW. I would certainly take my warrior to wither ofthese places. But the fact of the matter is that neither of these places is worth the time (IMO) to actually tank in and clear the place.

Farming: yes, a warrior is probly a better farmer. Whoopdedoo. Invincimonks are better than warriors at farming. Depending on what ur farming, an earth tank ele is better than an invincimonk. Farming doesn't matter. I know no one has brought this up yet, but someone will.

All in all, warriors are good. So are dervishes. If you like to sit behind walls of armor, go for a warrior. If you like to do high dmg and manage enchants go for a dervish. Just don't bash good dervishes because of the noobs who like scythes and hoods.

[strcpy]

I'm sorry, but is this really what happens?
In my experience, unless you have like 12 mysticism(even then, actually. it`s not like 4 energy's a lot), and mystic vigor and/or regeneration gets stripped in the middle of a big battle, I either have no energy to recast it (because I mistakingly spent it spamming attacks) or I just die from my low armor combined with no regen. People keep harping about how we have 4 pips of regen and mystic regeneration, but lets face it, thing aren't always ideal, and when they aren't, warriors are still sitting behind that huge armor. Derishes CAN be built around being a good tank, but given the same player skill, I do belive warriors are better suited for this purpouse. It's a trade really, we get worse tankability but we get high damage+aoe.

I'll put it this way - I have beaten all three games, cleared Sorrows Furnace and Tombs of the Primevel Kings with a group of hench/heroes as the primary tank. Much easier time than with my warrior.

Let me tell you the problem: "because I mistakingly spent it spamming attacks" - Bingo! You can not simply spam skills with a Dervish and expect to live - just watch what enchant is going off and use skills accordingly. Quit spamming a few seconds before mystic regen goes off and you will do fine in most areas. If you are in enchant stripping heavy areas the order they go on matters or you can cast a cheap crappy one to get them to trigger their enchant strip then put on the good one (see cover enchants and how people solo farm the UW - that build is even harder with enchant strippers and they get by - use the same tactics).

A warrior isn't a better tank - a warrior is an *easier* tank.

[Age]

I've found that dervishes are very good at staying alive, if u know how to play them. And dervishes are the highest dmg melee class out there: crits will regularly go over 100 dmg, sometimes into the 200s. Also, why do people say dervs are an energy black hole for monks? maybe the stupid ones are, but ive never found that dervishes need constant healing when i monk. Take this situation for example: My melandru dervish was in a group with another dervish, 2 mesmers, a ranger, an ele, and a monk. This is in a PuG. We didn't have a single death (except for pets), and the monk didn't complain once (which typically happens even in really balanced groups). So much for being a black hole on healing.

And whats this about sins? theres no similarity between dervs and sins except 70 armor. Contrary to most people's belief, the purpose of the sin is not to frontline: its to ASSASSINATE. Why do u think sins are so popular in PvP? the best role of a sin is to shadow step in, kill the important casters, and then shadow step out. Don't compare dervs to sins: they are almost NOTHING alike.

As for real tanking: the warrior definitely wins in this category. But where do u need to REALLY tank? DoA and maybe UW. I would certainly take my warrior to wither ofthese places. But the fact of the matter is that neither of these places is worth the time (IMO) to actually tank in and clear the place.

Farming: yes, a warrior is probly a better farmer. Whoopdedoo. Invincimonks are better than warriors at farming. Depending on what ur farming, an earth tank ele is better than an invincimonk. Farming doesn't matter. I know no one has brought this up yet, but someone will.

All in all, warriors are good. So are dervishes. If you like to sit behind walls of armor, go for a warrior. If you like to do high dmg and manage enchants go for a dervish. Just don't bash good dervishes because of the noobs who like scythes and hoods. That maybe so but Dervs. can't still out put out as Much dmge as a adrenal warrior can as they don't require energy.I am talking about a good spiker or pressure build here.

[strcpy]

That maybe so but Dervs. can't still out put out as Much dmge as a adrenal warrior can as they don't require energy.I am talking about a good spiker or pressure build here.

And an adrenal warrior can not even come close to matching a Dervish's damage with adjacent enemies - the dervish doesn't need energy *or* adrenaline to spread the love. Of course, that may very well be because an adrenal warrior is supposed to spike and a dervish is supposed to spread damage/conditions so I'm not really sure what that point is supposed to mean. They also do not heal, nuke, raise minions, hex, or a ton of other things other classes do well.

I had thought that by now most understood that playing a dervish li