Mysticism...Um...

That's not entirely clear (in particular, it doesn't say what enchantments it applies to). But any plausible way I can think to read it, this seems to mean you can use low-cost enchantments on yourself (e.g. Reversal of Fortune) and regain at least their entire energy cost when they end (plus bonus healing in amounts similar to Divine Favor). If it applies to enchantments on anyone near you, this suggests you could have a D/Mo that can spam Reversal of Fortune, Guardian, Vigorous Spirit, etc. and gain energy in the process (admittedly, you lose Divine Favor).

Does that seem just a little over-powered? Is anyone seeing a more sensible way to read this description?

well your right, this is sorta overpowering but they also have a huge down fall then. If u can get rid of the enchantments mysticism wont really help. but yea i think the are very strong. o yea was anyone guees they were going to be sorta mo/w/e. that was a socker to me!

Source of this?

Source: http://www.guildwars.com/events/inga...pvppreview.php

And it says when enchantments end, not when they expire, which suggests to me you still get the bonus if they're removed (this would be consistent with the wording on skills like Illusion of Weakness and Mantra of Recall). In fact, this looks like it might be specifically designed to counter enchantment removal, since it suggests that when an opponent strips your enchant, he also gives you enough energy to recast it. One would expect you'd need to block the enchantments entirely with something like Shadow Shroud or Well of the Profane.

If you "got rid" of the enchantment, the enchantment would end, and the player would still get the hp+en, anyway.

Ed: felbryn beat me to it :P
oh, and it's nice to see that list, thanks for the link.

Ed2: and it's got environment screenshots too, cool!
ah, and it's a pity spear mastery is a Para primary... would be cool to spear around with other classes. Even tho I know nothing about balance in the game, I'm already saying: they should swap it around for that leadership thing as primary, just for variety sake (spear rangers ftw or something) :P

They're probably gonna change it soon.

You might aswell rename Protection Prayers to 'Dervish Energy Source'. Aegis...a potential of 8 energy for each character nearby, so in a normal 8man team thats 64 energy gained. RoF spamming... there is no way this is gonna be affect by all enchantments. You could just run a Dervish/Monk and spam RoF/Guardian till your face turns blue.

It's actually very much breaking the standard pattern for them to make the weapon skill primary, and the one with the general passive effect not primary. One wonders if that wasn't a typographical error of some sort, although one would think they'd be pretty careful when posting class details for the first time. But that's another topic.

I think it's a cool idea. It's only enchantments cast on the dervish, and only he gets the heals. I think it's like, he get's boonprotted, and he gets a double divine favor heal, as well as more energy to keep himself alive(guessing on that one). Original means of making them easier to heal, and a cool way to manage energy.

What? Paragon's primary attribute is Spear Mastery. I mean like wth? axe mastery, markmanship, dagger mastery etc are not primary attributes, why this should be primary? There is no unique bonus for being paragon and perhaps this is the only mastery that rangers cant take advantage of.

ah yes, the mysticism bonus is most likely only for self-enchantments. And it makes sense, since the dervies will rely on them for protection.

One thing I didn't like much... earth prayers and wind prayers, they kind of kill the point of making a D/E.

I agree, I think Leadership should be the primary because of the potential abuse of it. But then again neither of us can see the skills or effectiveness of ANYTHING related to these yet so who are we to judge? Wait for the 28th before you start criticizing.

Yeah, because im sure they'll give Dervishes the skill shock.

Personally, I think that it is an interesting move to make spear mastery the primary for paragons, this way it frees up the supporting skills to be able to be used by everyone. And I can't wait to try out a D/Mo smiter, almost reminds me of the good old days of ether renewal emo smiting.

Probably not, and that's why I said it KIND OF (and not TOTALLY) kills the point of D/E. However, "shock" does not integrate well with the skillset of a melee fighter who relies a lot on enchantments to survive (the only point of carrying such a thing would be the knockdown, but the exhaustion would likely make defense very difficult to keep up; besides we don't even know if the scythe will have any skills which benefit from KD).

The Ele skills which would compliment well such a character would be armor-enhancing (armor of earth, magnetic armor, armor of mists), or PBAoE spells, which would overlap with the stuff the Dervish will already get by itself, which in turn -kinda- kills the point of having a D/E, as I said. You might still want to make one to use Conjure spells, but that'd be about it for the effective uses of D/E.

Anyway, this is all based on judging skills we already know. Who knows, perhaps there will be some point in combining earth magic and earth prayers, for example, but right now it seems unlikely.

That is one possible way of reading it. It still suggests that a D/Mo is going to have absolutely stunning self-healing and energy management capabilities, and quite possibly any Dervish-primary will, since they're supposed to get self-enchantments.

Even if it's only on yourself, with high Mysticism you get a net gain of 3 energy for every 5-en enchantment you put on yourself, so it could be used to fuel spells targeted at other people. Consider, for example, a D/Mo who can keep himself alive and generate energy by constantly casting Reversal of Fortune and Guardian on himself, and who uses the extra energy to cast spells like Heal Other / Jamei's Gaze, Infuse Health, etc. and act as a decent dedicated healer for his party.

Just imagine the Mysticism + Contemplation of Purity abuse...

And since the description doesn't actually say anything like "cast on you" or "cast by you," there's no guarantee it even has that limit.

hmm maybe they'll change it so that it only applies to "dervish enchantments" ended. that might cut a lot of the exploiting.

Goodbye Monk/X smiter, Hello D/Mo Smiter! Yay!... -_-

man, they really did co*k it up bigtime

You have no idea how a Dervish will be played so you really can't make those assumptions.

Yeah, the e managment for D/P would be insane. They would basically be invincible. Shouts + enchants could potentially give you back more e then you could possible spend (specially if aegis applied). Which reminds me alot of the book trick (ess bonding aggro tank), which typically gives a monk unlimited e.

The spear thing sounds like a serious mistake, that would be equal to making a ranger's primary attribute marksmanship instead of expertise!

We don't know exactly how they're gonna be played, and that's why I said "who knows...".

However, we DO have a good idea of how Dervish will be played, based on anet's description of them, and their list of attributes. They are fighters who will be "at the heart of the battle" (akin to warriors and assassins); they will be "capable of striking at multiple targets simultaneously with their wicked scythes" (that is, PBAoE). "Dervishes can also cast spells on themselves that aid in their assault, and the profession has various healing and protection abilities as well" (spells which will probably come in the form of enchantments, given their primary attribute). Oh, and there's the god transformation thing, too.

As you can see, this is far from having "no idea" how they will be played. We know where they will be (frontline), we know how they'll attack (multi-hitting melee), we know how they'll defend (prot enchantments and healing magic). The only thing missing are the details, which should be out this weekend.

Good points, guess we'll have to see how it's played. I personally don't think it'll be a huge deal.

A KD is of extreme importance on a melee fighter. Sword or axe warriors don't bring anything that directly benifits from a KD, but they have shock 8 times out of 10. If you just imagine that shock has, say, a 15-20 second recharge, you should be fine.

In any case, there are alot of class combos that are useless, this isn't anything new.

I can't stop thinking about this and Contemplation of Purity.

This all sounds to me like it would be a method to give the Dervish enough armor to stay in the battle.

They wear robes, so I imagine them having Assassin-like AL, and we knew that enchantments would provide most of their armor so they could stay in the battle. However, everyone was worried that Enchantment removals would all-too-easily counteract this, and Dervishes would be uselss.

Looks like a way to keep those enchantments up most of the time to me.

Actually, it's 10 sec recharge, and exhaustion might make things ugly for the dervish, since they sound like they'll be quite energy-dependant. Anyway; this wasn't the point I was making; I was talking about overlapping in defensive enchantments and PBAoE.

Well yea, that's true (Rit/Mo, for instance, overlap a lot, in the same way as D/E will), but it isn't something to be happy about... IMO, anet should make it so that it always made some sense to combine "flavor" classes with any of the core classes. I will probably try my hand at a conjure frost D/E, tho. could be nice

Yea, thats what I think, too.

Exactly. If this is held true, I think Dervishes will be subject to a ton of abuse...I know I'd reconsider making my W/Mo into a D/Mo, for this benefit alone.

Where's this? Possibly PvE, but PvP is very unlikely. Smiting is most effective when you do it off someone else, who can move to keep in melee range of another character.

Perhaps I could see a Monk smiting OFF a Dervish, using their enchantments to fuel the Dervish's energy (and additional health) engine, while the Dervish uses an energy intensive build.


Of existing professions, at the moment, the only professions with enchantments are Assassin, Elementalist, Monk, Necromancer, Ritualist and Mesmer packing the few rare enchantments which you could list on both hands.
All of the below goes off the assumption the ability means activates for one's self.


Assassin - Heart of Shadow, Shadow Form, Shadow Refuge, Shroud of Distress, Way of Perfection, Way of the Fox, Way of the Empty Palm, Aura of Displacement, Recall [Does not include Critical Strikes linked enchantments]

While you might make a build out of Shadow Arts, using the cheap, short enchantments (Heart ends when you're struck, and Refuge has a 4 second duration) to generate ~100 heals fairly often, I don't think Assassin is conducive to broken combos.


Elementalist - Burning Speed, Conjure Flame, Fire Attunement, Armor of Earth, Earth Attunement, Kinetic Armor, Magnetic Aura, Obsidian Flesh, Sliver Armor, Armor of Frost, Armor of Mist, Conjure Frost, Mist Form, Swirling Aura, Water Attunement, Air Attunement, Conjure Lightning, Windborne Speed

A fairly good selection of enchantments, but the bulk of them are priced at 10, and have a minimum of 10 seconds recharge, with most being 20-30-60, barring Burning Speed, which has no recharge at all.


Mesmer - Sympathetic Visage and its Copy (Ancestor's Visage), Illusion of Weakness, Channeling, Mantra of Recall, Illusion of Haste, and Auspicious Incantation

Not really an enchanting cast here, and nothing that'll fuel an infinite combo. Well, in melee range, I could see Channeling doing a decent job, but not because it ends to give you energy. Just because in PvE, melee-ers are often near a lot. It's just that unless you're a caster, it's not going to help.


Monk - Pass for now.


Necromancer - Awaken the Blood, Blood Bond (only on other ally), Blood Renewal, Blood Ritual (only on other ally), Cultist's Fervour, Demonic Flesh, , Dark Bond, Order of Pain, Order of the Vampire, Vampiric Spirit, Order of Apostasy, Aura of the Lich, Dark Aura, Death Nova, Infuse Condition, Tainted Flesh

Not really an enchanter profession, Necromancers prefer to hex foes, mostly. Though, of their few enchantments, there's actually an interesting synergy with Order of Pain/the Vampire + Mysticism.
2 Energy cost, and nullify much of the health sac? Why yes, thank you! However, the loss of the necromancer damage bonus, and the half casting time + useful skills of a Mesmer are not so appealing. Also, no Soul Reaping for PvE


Ritualist - Not an enchanter. Their buffs are primarily weapon spells and spirits, and their enchantments are all linked to Spawning.


Warrior + Ranger - No enchantments.


Monk (going to do them by attribute):
Healing Prayers - Dwayna's Sorrow, Healing Breeze, Healing Hands, Healing Seed (only on other ally), Vigorous Spirit, Mending+LiveVicariously Maintained Enchants

10 seconds is the shortest duration Healing monk enchantment you can cast on yourself. However, combined with Mysticism, they can heal about as much as they would with Divine Favour, and return energy to boot. Also, Maintained Enchantments act like Mantra of Recall. You cast them on yourself, and let them end when you need the health and energy. Batteries, of sorts.

Protection Prayers - Aegis, Air of Enchantment (only on other ally), Guardian, Life Sheath, Mark of Protection, Protective Spirit, Reversal, Reverse Hex, Shield Guardian, Shield of Deflection, Shield of Regeneration, Shielding Hands, Spirit Bond, Vital Blessing+LifeAttunement+ProtectiveBond+(other ally only: Life Bond and Life Barrier)

Guardian and Reversal are the only ones that are truly spammable, and result in a net gain of Energy. The rest, well, aren't, though you could dabble and use them when necessary. See Healing for my opinion on Maintaineds.

Smiting Prayers - Balthazar's Aura, Judge's Insight, Zealot's Fire, StrengthOfHonour+Retribution+HolyWrath+Balthazar's Spirit

Umm, yay? <_<


That is a summation of enchantments from the Dervish's perspective alone, and once again, under the assumption that it only gives you energy and health when the enchantments end.

There is nothing I can see that makes a really worthwhile infinite health and energy engine, or breaks Dervish from that perspective alone.



However, I do feel that if someone figures out a way to break Mysticism, it'll be through enchantments being cast on the Dervish from an ally, such as a smiter, and the Dervish using the energy to break skills with drawbacks of energy cost.


Until someone creates such a build, I think calls of broken-ness are unnecessary. For now, at least.

Or maybe I'm missing something blindingly obvious x_X


Now, if a Dervish gets energy for every enchantment period, it's definitely insanely broken <_<
If a Dervish gets energy for all enchantments it casts, then you may very well have problems with Smiting Dervishes and such, though with Zealot's Fire nerfed, 29 adjacent fire damage isn't something to write home about.

Maybe, but I could totally see the ele's attunements work on certain dervish elemental spells as well, just think of the possibilities...

Although we really don't know much about the D at this point, having him be low-armored but extremely monk-friendly or at least self dependant through his primary skill sounds cool to me.

Well, we are theorizing, which can be fun...

I can see the synergy with orders, aegis, rof, gaurdian, br, bip, holy vial, MoR, hexbreaker and so on... There are just tons of enchmments really and if it isn't limted to self-ench, then we know it's potential is definately overpowered.

I personally would be thankful to see monks e managment boosted for a change. The br bip boost alone would make being mo/d or d/mo insane.

Mercury Angel:

That's a very long time to say nothing very interesting. Your analysis is fundamentally flawed: this attribute doesn't need to combine excpetionally well with the "typical" build or the "average" build of another class in order to be broken, there just needs to be one build where it can be abused, and everyone will flock to that build. If you can get two or three spells on one class (even not all on the same attribute) that you can spam, that's all you need. It doesn't matter whether most of the enchantments cost too much--players will use the ones that don't.

I'm thinking where the God-transformation skills would be at. Probably Mysticism, so they would be Derv-exclusives, and the name also fits it best... or maybe they'd be distributed around the skills (ie. Avatar of Balthazar in Scythe Mast., Grenth in Wind Pray., Melandru in Earth Pray., etc.). What about the self-healing skills they're supposed to have? Mysticism too? that would make it pretty much essential for any Derv to have a lot of points there...

What about wind mastery... Increase in movement (probably running speed AND evading)... might make the Derv a good runner (and flagrunner) class. Ah, and being WIND and all, it might also have a knockdown spell/skill or two, or an interrupt at least. Sounds like a pretty versatile profession.

I'm perfectly aware of that. However, I feel very strongly that for a Dervish, at this time, under the assumption that it's only enchantments ending on the Dervish, doesn't have a really broken combo going for it.

As a single character, I can't see a thing that would really warrant the label broken. Yes, a Dervish can turn itself into an infinite energy engine, probably through methods other than just Monk secondary.

However, infinite energy is only half the combo. A build that creates a lot of energy must also have an outlet for using it, and that's where it falls apart from the single character's perspective.


It's in a group, which is, admittedly, the only type of play there is, that Dervish gains that potential, working under the same assumptions. 2 enchantments that can be recast and ended every 15 seconds would already be the equivalent of granting an elite energy management.

Throw in group enchantments, and you're getting even more.

And all of this takes nothing more than investment of attribute points, leaving your skill slots open to find ways to consume your vastly enhanced energy.

The question then becomes whether or not the Dervish itself will have anything that can be broken with the enhanced energy management, or if there are any secondary skills from another profession that are strong enough to perform at reduced attribute, or provide useful enough effects to warrant such a build.


E/Mo smiters saw play because Zealot's dealt good AoE sustained damage, they had the energy engine to fuel it, and they also provided healing, support, and kept their party's warriors clean (Smite Hex + Draw Conditions).

Elementalists already have a method of acquiring 10 pips of Energy regeneration, and a large battery to store it in. Yet their energy alone hasn't resulted in their replacement of any portion of a build.



I do think it has the potential to carve out a common build, like Blood Spike, though. Party enchantments like Order of Pain/the Vampire and Aegis already have nice effects, without having half of your party regain Health and Energy because of them, much the same way Ritualist spirits are already useful, without fueling Soul Reaping.

Just maintaining Orders and Aegis, you're looking at about 8 triggers of Mysticism on each Dervish every 30 seconds.

Even just 8 ranks of Mysticism turns that into 32 energy, and 192 health, or about 3 pips of Energy regeneration, and a Mending for everyone.


In any case, I suppose it just returns back to wait and see. I think it'll rely heavily on what the Dervish itself brings to the table skill-wise.

55 Dervishes w/ 16 in mysticism = 48 health heal + 8 Energy For recasting Protective Spirit

i think we can predict a mauling from a near hammer this time already

Even worse - the 8 man dervish party-wide enchantment exploiting team.

2x D/Nec

one with order of apostasy and 16 mysticism

one with order of pain + dark fury

D/Mos

rof, shield guardian, spirit bond, aegis, life sheath, etc.



Entire team has approx 10.5 extra pips of energy regen, given 12 Mysticism on all but the OoA d/nec. The OoA d/nec can feed the 25 en per OoA easily - OoP, dark fury, and OoA end each time he needs to cast OoA. Thats 24 energy - add it random RoFs, Aegis, natural regen, its more than enough energy.

Mysticism is about to get hit with a devastating nerfhammer.

Mysticism will be..interresting.

As for D/Mo's.."I will save the D/Mo's!"A Tilde to the person who knows what game this quotation is from..props to the same person if they can tell me wh oactually says it.

What if
a)Mysticism sucks or/and doesn't have any skills linked to it
b)Dervishes don't have any other energy management
c)Dervishes can't benefit in an overpowered way from infinite energy
d)Mysticism only works on targeted enchantments(Orders, Aegis, Boon, MoR and such wouldn't work)
e)Dervishes suck some other way
?

Even though it's easy to say that it's overpowered by looking at it now, we don't exactly know much about the class.

Spear Mastery isn't a primary attubute for the paragon, Leadership is

this was taken from the website

Paragon Attributes

Leadership (PRIMARY ATTRIBUTE)
You gain 1 Energy for each ally affected by one of your Shouts or Chants (maximum 1 Energy for every 3 ranks).

Spear Mastery
Spear Mastery increases the damage you do with spears and your chance to inflict a critical hit when using a spear. Many skills, especially spear attack skills, become more effective with higher Spear Mastery.

Command
No inherent effect. Many Paragon skills, especially those that protect your allies or increase your tactical position on the battlefield, become more effective with higher Command.

Motivation
No inherent effect. Many Paragon skills, especially those related to Energy management or that inspire your allies, become more effective with higher Motivation.

they'd be the perfect orders necro... sorta.

I think there's a catch, and we'll see come friday.

@Xasew:

Everyone has two classes, not one; in Guild Wars, you can't achieve balance by making a class good in one respect and bad in another unless both of those traits are irrevocably tied to it being the primary class (for example, how Warriors get good armor and poor energy, but only if they're primary warriors).

If a, b, and c are all true, that doesn't in any way impact the above discussion. In fact, I would tend to assume that Mysticism will have few or no skills associated with it, like Soul Reaping (the only other energy-generating attribute) or Fast Casting. If d is true, that impacts only a small part of it (and if you include self-only in targeted, which seems eminently reasonable, Divine Boon is targeted). E is too general to comment, but it would pretty much need to be "their armor sucks."

Giving the dervishes a maximum of, say, 30 armor would probably make them suck enough to make Mysticism pretty much worthless. It would also make the profession worthless in general, and wouldn't make any sense.

On further reflection, I suppose it's plausible they'll have ranger-like armor, with slightly improved defense and lower mana regeneration compared to a dedicated caster, with Mysticism to help make up for the missing energy.

However, Expertise is designed so that it can't be used effectively by most other classes, since it doesn't affect spells; and because it reduces cost rather than giving bonus energy, it can't be used to generate energy to fuel other skills.

And most of the analysis done here assumes that Mysticism's effect is about as restricted as one could possibly hope from that description. One worries why the limitations we're assuming aren't more explicit.


@BenO_Under:

In the original announcement, Spear Mastery was listed as primary, not Leadership. They have since changed it; one presumes the original listing was a mistake.