What's this Dervish tomfoolery?

Wait, Dervishes use high SPIKE damage, coupled with lots of CONDITIONS and always ENCHANT themselves...

Hmm maybe try; Monk Spamming Protective Spirit/using Protective Bond, Martyr Ritualist (works quite well), and a Necro with Well of the Profane, Desicrate Enchantments and Defile Enchantments.

I'm not sure but I think I used my brain for that one.

You spam enchants on yourself, dealing a bunch of damage. Then CoP it off, dealing even more damage while removing hexes and conditions off yourself, gaining massive healing and energy regen in the process due to Mysticism.

desecrate enchantments ftw?

It's really difficult to interupt a 3/4s cast time (which most Dervish PBAoE spells are). Anyways, if you interupt that, he/she can just spam another one. The real problem is that most D/Mo run CoP which is pretty overpowered. You can stack 3-4 enchantments on yourself, turn into Melandru, and just run up to a guy and make him blind, crippled, burning, all the while doing ~200-300DPS, giving yourself a full energy/health bar and be ready to do it again in ~8 seconds (the recharge on the PBAoE skills).

Someone calculated that a D/Mo using CoP smartly has effectively 40 pips of energy regeneration. Not to mention near infinite health... it's really out of control.

Maybe if you have 3 guys doing it at the same time. Otherwise, it won't do enough to kill. CoPing 3-4 enchantments heals about 250 damage and gives you more than 20 energy. That's not even counting in a dedicated healer.

Dervishes are pretty much self-sufficient. You can literally run 6 D/Mos and not worry about having a lack of healing, a lack of damage, a lack of hex control, a lack of anything. CoP + Mysticism gives you near full energy, full health, removes 3-4 conditions and 3-4 hexes in an instant. And you are literally ready to do the same thing again in 8 seconds.

Heres a fun AB idea: Lingering Curse + Soul Barbs. Throw Soul Barbs on your opponent, let them boon up, then slam 'em with Lingering Curse before they use CoP. When they boon up again, use Lingering Curse again (10 sec recharge, 25 energy but when in AB's, this usually doesn't matter). Conditions on ya now? Plague Touch. Wanna have some more fun? Mailaise + Parasitic Bond. Need Damage? Throw Desecrate Enchantments in there! This is a little more entertaining than Well of the Profane, but not nearly as effective!

As for then, there was really nothing you could do against them. There are tactics to beat em, but when they are unbalanced as is, it becomes difficult. It's like bringing a knife to a gun fight. Let's all be glad this is a BETA TEST!

Vital Boon + Balth's Rage + Cop

you might get them the first time, maybe the 2nd time if you're lucky, then you lose.

Let's not get our panties in a wad guys. As been said many times, this is a beta. Anet will look at this weekend and make the necessary changes. But I have to say I'm very happy to see a new class that I'm excited about. I only played a Derv for a little while (cause I don't PvP), but it was a blast to play. I can't wait to see it in the PvE environment.

The ONE thing i have thought of to mitigate the dmg from these damn D/Mo's is taking someone with a pet cuz they chase the AoE, get a quick corpse from it and put up a profane.. then you just stand in it and theres no dmg to you -.- its kinda ridiculous though that this is what seems to be the most effective counter

Seems to me that necros would be pretty optimally placed to handle clumped dervishes spamming skills.... The necro can shrug off the conditions (plague touch), cause AoE pain of his own(spiteful spirit). Heck drop in SV or AV and the dervishes are losing energy. Add to all of that the fact that necros can easily cause degen and conditions of their own and... well this is all forum/thoery craft, but it seems like dervishes would almost run away from necros.

Spiteful spirit, and other necro hexes wont last long. D/Mos can remove 3/4 hexes per cop there would have to be a lot of cover hexes otherwise, by the cop all the SS dmg would be well negated.

The Real Problem Here is not the dervish, but cop, so how about nerfing cop to say 1...6 enchantments lost based on the divine favor attib ? i think so, that's all the balancing needed.

-Ravi

Hmm... perhaps tie the number of enchantments removed by CoP to the number of hexes/conditions removed? So change the wording up to be "For each hex or condition removed, lose one enchantment." Not sure tho if that would so totally change the skill as to make it useless...

When playing the Dervish, I found that setup was one of the biggest issues I faced. Now, mind you, I didn't use CoP since I took the standard Me secondary, but it seemed the Dervish had plenty of Enchantment/ Hex/ Condition removal without having to go with the obvious.

That being said, there was a period where I wasn't quite so deadly, and I couldn't self-heal as well right after I lost conditions. And since I was relying on Faithful Intervention to prevent spike damage, I didn't want to lose ALL enchantments.

Anything that Cripples or Slows so they can't get up close, anything that removes Enchantments at a distance (of course, only use these when you team is out of range as well), anything that can cause enough damage at range, and you have a dead Dervish.

Follow up your Desecrate with a Rend so their CoP has nothing to fire off of.
Mind Freeze them so they never get in range, and for godsake, don't bunch up on them. Rangers (actual Ranged Rangers that is) absolutely kill this guy. Nature's Renewal makes them interuptable, and adding 20 seconds to the recharge hurts. Melandru doesn't last forever, and it isn't an instant cast.

I don't think this will be such a problem as soon as people get past initial reaction and non-inclusive skill sets.

Well of the Profane > Dervishes

Also maybe use Gaze of Contempt, Rend or LC before they use CoP. Effectively neutralizing CoP.

Also Minions are immune to some conditions, and necros can push them off onto opponents.

Uh...Desecrate Enchants,Backfire, Diversion, Nature's renewal, and that Assasin Elite Shadow Shroud (i think that's what it's called) should take care of the enchants. For this signet i have been hearing about, i beleive this may also be settled with Diversion. However, I see Primal Echoes, water eles, and Panic making a resurgence. What people fail to see in this is that there are counters. However, these counters are very class specific and must be chosen wisely. Who knows - perhaps these will actually make it to PVP...

They could outheal this easily.
And soul leech were equally pointless, because they were too easy to remove.

These did slow down the dervish, as did blackout and k/d skills.

Doesnt work against it and the hex is removable.

i had the chance to join a pack hunter group in tombs last weekend and the group won 3 out of 4 battle against D/Mos.

kiting, good offense and good monks is key

Using the Aoe spells and Armor of thorns for cripple I could chase and pressure a soft target. Vs 1 solo target i almost always won unless he was prepared for my build. (see below)


Um.. ouch, thats all i can say, this actually hurt ALOT more than i expected, yes i could heal it fast but th caster folowed this with the factions one(Defile)and then a few blood "vamp" skills... Was my fastest death th entire weekend.

Especially true with Signet of Piety dervishes. We are usualy quickly alternating between the signet and an AoE, interrupt either and its a 20 second wait for the next signet heal. That usually meant a quick death if the opposition was smart enough to capitalize.


See the Underline: You got that right, timing is everything with a dervish, get it wrong and you have to start over, which leaves you vulnerable, yes u can deal aoe damage while recasting, but aoe damage only hits if youre right by the target. This and similar pattern distracting counters were the main things that caused me difficulty.



Another great idea. I found that there were a few skills that made my life extremely difficult, one was a skill that caused my spells to take ALOT longer to cast, slowing me down significantly. The other which was even more devastating was when i spammed 1/3 of a series and noticed i couldnt cast, i looked down and my energy bar was greyed with exhaustion. Just using a litlle ingenuity is an easy way to remove the entire offence and defence of a dervish.

Bond monks, omg these buys were annoying. It usually took a few of us spamming to kill them OR the monk making a mistake and not being able to counter a series of 2 spikes in time. And ive already mentioned my newfound hatred of Well of profine, desecrate, and defile...

All in all, the dervish is an EXTREMELY effective class, it does its job well. The thing that ruined the weekend was the fact that someone found and posted an IWAY level build for the world to see... (im sorry... see Dwaynas Curse in Guildwiki for more details and the 1st posted Dervish Build). Other classes have the same potential to be devastating and nearly unstopable. Until a counter or 2 or 3 or 4 is found that is. Balanced teams will now require an anti Dervish skill or two on a character.. the same as them requiring anti spike, anti iway and anti touch ranger skills. The biggest problem this weekend was the widespread use of a build of this calibur during teh preview weekend, before anyone had even a chance to find the weaknesses of the profession. By the end of the weekend i no longer saw D/Mo's dominating HoH, it was pretty much back to normal with a D/Mo or 2 in each team. Thats the way any competative and changing game must be played. A powerful combination ois found, exploited, and countered. The RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOer is used, and the Build rush slows. Eventually the build will be around but not nearly as dominating as before. If they are seen as getting too powerful again someone will come back with the counters to stop them. Same as in the MTG tournament scene.

Yeah, I played a Whirling Dervish, and while they are an extremely powerful build, they have weaknesses just like any other. This does not mean they are an overpowered profession, it merely means these weaknesses were not discovered immediately. Should we nerf the hell out of blood magic to stop touch rangers? No. Simply learn how to counter the build.

I'll tell you, I was in a group of 3 D/Ws and a D/Mo. We were doing the Zaishen challenge, and we would cut down any team we went up against within about 90 seconds at the MAX. Except the trapper team. Every single time we went up against them, we got owned. At the very best, it would end up being a looooong stalemate with our D/Mo fighting off all of the rangers simultaneously for a good 15 minutes before finally dying.

So that means Dervishes are not invincible, just like IWAY warriors and touch rangers are not invincible. Same thing in PvE. Necro and mesmer enemies can potentially kill a 55 in seconds.

The reason dervishes seemed invincible, is that people were fighting them like they would fight, say, a warrior. The result of this, at least with a Whirling Dervish, is that they are getting a constant supply of health and energy while simultaneously inflicting huge amounts of damage.

It's all about tactics. the Whirling Dervish is just another build like IWAY or touch rangers: powerful, but not unstoppable. With the right tactics, ANY build goes down easily.