Dervish Theorys

the Dervish. alot has been said about these Scythe weilding paladins. I Personly believe These will be a cross breed of W/Mo - N/W.

'WHY NECRO!' you ask....well

simply, they weild a scythe...and they are paladins, the symbolism of the scythe in most cult like states of mind - is Death aspected - it symbolises the reaping of a harvest of souls. so seeing as there is no FACT on what these Dervishes will be like - except the fact they use a scythe - then this would be the only basis u can work on that can make sence.

ALSO



Look Familiar?

check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zasalamel

i think ArenaNet have been playing it abit sly on the whole character stealing front lol

NONE THE LESS. I will defenatly be playing as a dervish...for sure!

This 'physical embodiement of a God' sounds interesting.

Elite skills that enhance your related skills, i.e elite embodiement of Grenth boosts all your hexes etc?

Personally I hope they bring alot of tactical skills to the frontline of combat, as opposed to the assassin who brings alot of pain. Being able to suddenly switch your build from general damage to say hex heavy offence, would add some variation to the usual melee adren spike. Instead of just unleashing physical pain, you could perhaps unleash elemental damage or hexes enmasse from the front.

The one thing usually missing from front lines in my experiance is the ability to constantly negate enchants, inflict interrupts, energy deny etc.

No one wants them to be melee mesmers, but bringing some usual support abilities to the frontline, or having something other than just pure melee damage in your frontline, would be interesting.

I think Anet realized their mistakes when they made the Assassin and Ritualist so they decided to make characters that are really unmatched. It should truely change the gameplay. Ritualist was probably the better of the 2 Faction additons because it allowed a "Area Prot Spirit" as well as an individual spiker. IMO Assassins work only as condition dealers. These new characters will introduce completely new spells. (I dont call spirits "new" spells, however the urns were neat). But i think the dervish will become the new assassin. And the warrior will become a total tank, seeing that the assassin or dervish will be dealing damage and the paragon will be providing shouts (which I completely love the idea of "chants"). So Wammos get ready, cause your ability to stay alive forever will finally show its promise. As for assassins, if your not a good one yet.. you might wanna wait a few months.

These are only my thoughts

what about weapon spells? (btw, spirits are technically not spells, they're rituals)

ALSO



Look familiar?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grim_reaper

Yeah I was just going to point that out. Big robeb man with face covered and a giant Scythe dealing punishment and reaping souls. Well we've got death rigt on our doorstep. Now once you dye the armour black....

I seriously doubt Dervishes are going to become 'damage dealers' so that warriors can devote all their attention to tanking.

This may be how the game plays in PvE, but never forget that the game is balanced and developed with PvP as the core concern.

With the Assassin and the warrior, there doesnt appear to be any room nor need for another character who's main combat strength is physical damage.

I think the Dervish will be more of a melee range caster, like the Touch Necro. Im not sure what kind of roles it would play, but it would seem likely that area of effect spells/skills, debuffs, denial, interrupts would play a major role.

Things like shouts or skills and spells that knockdown conditioned foes, spread hexes, area of effect energy denial/interrupts, perhaps spike buffs etc.

What the game lacks is a character who can be involved and last like a warrior, and dictate like a necro or mesmer. The Dervish might be that guy who excels in removing all those gaurdians, and putting down aoe snares, and being able to buff melee combat at the exact second of an adren spike. A front line crowd controller/debuffer.

This would be an excellant counter / partner to the Ritualist, and vice versa.

that scythe looks nice

make the gold parts kinda black(like obsidian shards)
and it'll look great for dervish(would fit the dark armor and "evil" look of it better)

in my opinion i believe that the Dervish will become a physical damage dealer like the warrior. while the warrior has Strength and Tactics the Dervish could have attributes such as Holy Zeal. People believe that a Dervish could not be an alternative to the warrior because he wheres robes, but when you have the power of the gods on your side could you not easily imbue those robes with heavenly protection. Also people say we cant add another warrior class because we already have a warrior class, but with the addition of 2 new classes that brings the total to ten. And in my opinion when you only really have one class that is a TRUE melee character things will get a bit stagnant.

I'm torn between ideas:

Either Dervish will not be able to tank enough and i'll make a D/A with return and charge

...They will have +4 regen and the scythe gives +10 energy or something and go /E or /N to use the spikes for far away and take out the scythe if they get close

OR just do D/P for a new skill run... But i really wanna see a Rt/P, communing, spawning and spears? I could defineatly see that, especially after seeing how drunk a rit looks with a simple sword

i definantly thought zasalemel when i saw teh prase scythe weilding and that charictorisitc hood. but deverish is definantly gonna be cool.

the cool weapon type(guild wars was missing a polearm class) and the hood thingy , i just like it.

the deverish will probbably have a greater melee range and mainly use spells and skills to augment his combat abilities. while boosting party resistance to curses and hexes. i assume he'll be somethign of an anti caster, able to interupt and (again having a longer melee range) keep a target imobilized while melee counterparts or spikers can finish it off.

anywho, it would suck very mush if he became just another caster. and in response t oteh person who said that we dont need another melee class so its likely taht the deverish will be another caster, i cant say i agree. if you've got a big a** scythe.. why not use it? it would be horrible if the deverish just casted from behind the lines or was (god forbid) a class based on being a touch ranger.

Everyone needs to shut up about that....EVERY GAME "steals" EVERY THING from other sources...

Soul Calibur 3 didnt COME UP with the idea of a Middle-Eastern warrior...

Well everyone, we got 1 week to find out, of course that also conserding that after the beta testing, well have another beta testing to balaince things, which will let us test out story line, possibly. Then the game comes out which could also change things. We will just have to wait and see how things go.

This leads me to believe that perhaps assassins and ritualists won't be available for character creation in Nightfall...

Personally I see the Dervish to be a more defensive melee class. Assassins are overly offensive, Warriors can be either. Maybe that would explain why they wear robes as they prevent a lot of damage to themselves. I see skills like riposte that use the opponents attacks against them. Not to mention the self heals and God Aspects.

Now I remember reading somewhere that the Paragon is supposed to be the buff/debuffing class, so I doubt that the Dervish would impose on this too much.

But of course, you don't even know what Dervishes are in real life.

So, you just assume they must have death-related skills since they have a scythe.

WRONG.

The word Dervish, especially in European languages, refers to members of Sufi Muslim ascetic religious fraternities, known for their extreme poverty and austerity, similar to mendicant friars.

The term comes from the Persian word Darwīsh (درویش), which usually refers to a mendicant ascetic. This latter word is also used to refer to an unflappable or ascetic temperament (as in the Urdu phrase darwaishana thabiyath for an ascetic temperament); that is, for an attitude that is indifferent to material possessions and the like.

As Sufi practitioners, dervishes were known as a source of wisdom, medicine, poetry, enlightment, and witticisms. For example, Mollah Nasr-ad-Din (Mulla Nasrudin, Hoja Nasrudin) had become a legend in the Near East and the Indian subcontinent, not only among the Muslims.


Religious practice
Many of the dervishes are mendicant ascetics who have taken the vow of poverty. Though some of them are beggars by choice, others work in common professions; Egyptian Qadiriyya – known in Turkey as Kadiri – for example, are fishermen.

There are also various dervish fraternities (Sufi orders), almost all of whom trace their origins from various Muslim saints and teachers, especially Ali and Abu Bakr. They live in monastic conditions, superficially similar to Christian monk fraternities. Various orders and suborders have appeared and disappeared over the centuries.

Whirling dance, which is the practice of the Mevlevi Order in Turkey, is just one of the physical methods to try to reach religious ecstasy (majdhb, fana). Mevlevi comes from a Persian poet whose shrine is in Turkey and who was a Dervish himself. After reaching Fana, they are unaware of the world around them, and have made a connection with Allah. Rifa'is, also called the "howling dervishes", pierce themselves with knives, handle red-hot iron and eat hot coals or live serpents, depending on the subsect.

Other groups include the Bektashis, connected to the janissaries, and Senussi, who are rather orthodox in their beliefs. Other fraternities and subgroups chant verses of the Qur'an, play drums or dance vigorously in groups, all according to their specific traditions. Some practise quiet meditation, as is the case with most of the Sufi orders in South Asia, many of whom owe allegiance to, or were influenced by, the Chishti order. Each fraternity uses its own garb and methods of acceptance and initiation, some of them which may be rather severe.

Whirling dervish dances have also become a tourist attraction, particularly in Turkey (home of the Mevlevi order), and some are organized solely for that purpose.

Popular culture
In the computer roleplaying game Exile/Avernum by Spiderweb Software, Dervishs are the elite soldiers of the Empire. They usually take officer and commander roles and in battle are incredibly strong. They are considered the best of the best, and most consider fighting them as suicide.

The term Dervish is used throughout Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games such as Everquest 2, World of Warcraft, and Star Wars Galaxies. The exact reference to the word Dervish is unknown, yet frequently used in the games. The dervish is also used as a prestige class in Dungeons & Dragons (DND). Guild Wars: Nightfall features the Dervish as a new class, described as "a scythe-wielding holy warrior." The Whirling Dervish is also a creature card in the game Magic: The Gathering. It's attributes are to gain strength with each successful attack. It is also used for the name of Dervish Grady in Darren Shan's Demonata series.

The term dervish is also used to suggest general frantic or energetic behaviour.


Thar ya go.
Wikipedia - I love you so.

Honestly I am thinking that the scythe weapon is going to be a low damage weapon like the assassin knives, but it is going to either be full time AoE, or have some sort of weird proc, like the assassin knives, where it does AoE dmg.

The whole god aspect thing is insteresting though. My thoughts on it are, becoming the incarnation of a god is going to make you ridiculous, but it is going to be very conditional when you do it. IE become the incarnation of Lyssa when you are suffering from at least 4-2 hexes, gain uber buff for 10 seconds. Of course there has to be un-elite versions of godhood, but i am guessing that the elite versions are going to be easier to pull off or ever more powerful then the non elite version.

Why is there multiple threads on dervish and almost none for paragons?

hmmn nice finding guys

Good Point.

I tink i might make one now - dont count on it though.

first thing....ur right...i dont know what dervishes are...all i kno is that its an turkish/egyption muslim dance.

second thing. in this game they are Avatars (embodyments of god)...this follows suit that they became this through rebirth. in order to 'Rebirth', it comes from incarnation AFTER death. this added to the symbolism of a scythe...yes it is safe to asume they could be death aspected. and at this moment in time...all we can do IS assume.

so. RIGHT!

this is a theory page after all.

stop ur negativity

ALSO!

alas...i dont find these as interesting....as they look like white-mantel.

by the looks of it all...these embodyments of gods (dervishes) and these Gaurdian angels (Paragons) i expect this chapter to be a rather different take on the whole guild wars dimension...taking us to more places in the underworld perhaps?

it was a joke.
shut up.
miserable sod

also. i dont reckon the scythe will be low damage. i reckon it will be high damage....simply becouse its a massive polearm, and its two handed.

i reckon this will be there selling point...and there armour will be low becouse there attack will be good...karma alas...if they had a kikass weopon...and kikass armour....then they would be unstopable if they had kikass magic.

i reckon armour will be there weakness in all this...and perhaps longer spell casting times. which perhaps will be like the ranger preperation skills...as in they must cast these skills while they are out of aggro before they move in for the attack

This is without doubt going to be the case!

Assasins and Ritualists will be Factions classes, Dervish and Paragon will be Nightfall classes.. and it will go on like this.

You cant make an assasin and have it start in Tyria for example.. just as you wont be able to make an assasin and have it start in Elona (rumord name of the continent) even if you do have your accounts merged.

I am still on the boat of low damage because of the AoE. If one Dervish can do 100+ AoE dmg with the scythe then there is no reason to bring in Eles anymore since 2 - 3 Dervishes could probably out AoE and spike 4-5 Eles

I kinda agree with the idea of the Scyth being mid to high dmg with low armor. This may be a good reason to have more protective spells (think warrior/prot monk). The dervish are sounding more and more like a Monk with high physical dmg.

i dont think the 'holy warrior' thing is going to make them like monks at all.

This is my theory on their skills:

1.Transformation (primary): assume the form of the gods for varied effects (i expect this skillset to be a small one. like fast casting- only a few spells)

2.Scythe: their weapon skills- you know u wanna be a 2ndry Derv! Id like to see the damage be comparable to hammers, although slightly faster since they have less armor (presumably)

3.Defenses: stances, mixed somewhere between assassin/ranger/warrior also with anti-nuker anti-hex stances. think whirling defense.

(4th skill set?) - any help? this might be the 'magic' set of skills.

****what I DONT expect: shouts for dervs, heavy condition application, also I dont expect dervishes to buff/debuff party like the paragon will.

I reckon they would at very least have bleed and deep wound-applying skills.

ok, first of, SATOP COMPARING NON CORE TO CORE, they are unique CLASSES, that really aggravates me.

Also, the reason there are little to no Paragon threads, is because the dervish is noob friendly and since noobs are on the dervish threads so are the nice people who try to help the noobs grow. Paragon are definitely going to be a hard class to micro manage.

Finally, my opinion on the scythes is mid to high also, due to the fact that the dervish is going to be dropping like a fly once it's enchants run out, especially since it will likely be inside a swath of monsters swinging away when the enchant runs out. I like how the dervish is looking though, it looks like an easily "noobed" class, BUT it will definitely shine when in the hands of a professional, I inten to perfect this class, like I have the percievedly weak assassin. Hmm this also gives me an idea for farming, D/Mo Smite Farmer, walk into a crowd of farmers, activate Shield of Judgement along with other enchants, swing away.

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."

Guess who said that

he died in 1955 around march or april...liked his cardigans....and he was dyslexic....and he created the theory of relativity

Albert Einstien anyone?

I think scythes will be high dmg but slow attack speed, not unlike hammers (the other two-handed melee weapon). It's main advantage would be that your melee attacks automatically swing at foes Adjacent to your target, or your (single) attacks have a range of Nearby instead of Adjacent.

Also like hammer I doubt that scythes will inflict many conditions, instead relying on pure dmg.

Dervish AL will probably be 70 + X while enchanted/stanced. They will likely have a fair few 75% evade stances as well given that they supposedly rely on agility rather than armour for defence.

On a related note, I think it would be cool to see some two-handed swords and axes that do about 1.5x the dmg range of their existing one-handed versions but use the existing attack skills.

Actually what it is is all the noobs are starting to persecute and hate on the Dervish before it's even released, and all the non-noob people (those who have come to the realization that the wammo syndrome for the most part ended a LONG time ago.) are attempting to defend a class they too, know nothing about.

If the pararnoid "wammo" noobs had picked on the Paragon, we'd all be discussing the Paragon.

As for any class being noob friendly, their all noob friendly, they all have legitimate starter skills and tactics that are broadly used, the assumption that one class in noob friendly is lousy at best.

(Seperate off-topic thing)

Oh and by the way, the reason it seems like the wammo syndrome is still around is because melee players like melee, so when a new melee class is released they try it. However, since it's new they play it relatively poorly at first. This causes the appearance that these people learn nothing over time and remain stupid, hence the assumption that all melee are still morons. Furthermore, since it's fashionable to blame the melee in this game, the perception is die hard and it is almost impossible to convince anyone otherwise.

It's a lie, get over it, stop pretending.

Somewhere on this forum I remember reading that Dervishes were supposed to use evasion instead of armor to avoid damage. If that is the case, and the evasion is attribute linked, then that attribute would need to be the class primary (as primaries are the only attributes that provide passive non-weapon bonuses, for balance reasons). A while ago I proposed a class that gained energy when damage failed to be applied to it due to an avoidance mechanism ... I could see something similar here, where either an elite skill in the attribute line or the line itself would grant a small passive energy gain for blows avoided just as an assassin does for criticals acheived. Obviously, one of the attributes needs to be Scythe Mastery. Another attribute could exist containing the god transformations and related minor abilities such as Communing does for a Ritualist, perhaps called divine channeling or some such. The last attribute line is up in the air, but may be a defensive one like a warrior's tactics line. That pretty much sums up my theory on dervishes.

Where?
Where?
Where?

lol. All those people who say "Guild Wars should have oringal classes only and not do anything any one else does" must be loving us getting a paladin looking like a char from Soul Calibur, and an Amazon Bard. The Assassin is the Prince from Prince of Persia and the Ritualist is a toned down version of wow's Shaman.

Good job on comparing classes you have no idea about how they work to vague sterotypes.
The Assassin is definalty the Price from PoP because... uhmmm, they dual wield?

Lol, ^ you lot should stay on-topic

I doubt the Dervish will end up being the evasive king/queen, considering Rangers can have a constant +75% evade/block and still spam conditions. Plus a res.

Hopefully there will be a new skill type (auras or something), then mesmers can get a new way to abuse others.

Negate Aura:Hex Spell, Foes aura is negated and they have -2...-6 health degen for whatever, I duno

Dervish looks fun. Maybe combined with inferno and phoenix it could be good. Getting a good melee class is always hard, because there aren't that many ways you can hit people with a piece of metal are there?

Hmmmm, I guess you could always switch to wood.