Buff Dervish Skills

NO… not because the derv is weak. But some skills should be buffed so as to increase build diversity. Here are my suggestions.

[And yes… I’m spending too much time thinking about this game]

Scythe Mastery –

Lyssa's Assault – This skill might be worthwhile for a R/D…maybe. But for any derv build I can think of its no good. The energy gain is minimal and damage is weak. Changing the energy cost benefits the R/D more than the derv, so that would not work. How about changing this skill to say 5e, and say “If this skills hits, you steal 1…3…5 of target foes energy”. That would also be more in-tune with what Lyssa (ie God of Mesmers) is about.

Reaper’s Sweep – This skill is extremely outclassed by Eviserate. I know you cannot make a direct comparison between dervs and warriors. But this skill sets up that comparison as it is a “spike-pressure” type attack. I suggest changing this skill to say “If this attack hits, you deal +10...34 damage. If your target was below 25…50…70% Health, you also inflict a Deep Wound for 5...17 seconds.”

Attacker’s Insight and Onslaught – I don’t get it. There are no derv skills and few other attack skills that have more than 10e cost. If, as Guildwiki suggests, this is used with Lyssa’s Assault, then you are using two skill slots to gain a net 7 energy ( assuming Scythe is 16). Given that dervs have a decent energy management through Mysticism, this seems to be of little use. In fact, the derv class has several attack-based energy management skills, including Onslaught, Lyssa’s Assault, and Zealous Vow. These skills seem designed for R/D instead of for dervs. But R/Ds don’t need a lot of energy management skills. How about changing Attacker’s Insight to affect the next two attack skills, making it more usefull for Dervs? And for Onslaught, “Elite Enchantment Spell. For 5...17 seconds, your attack Skills recharge 25% faster and you attack 33% faster”

Pious Renewal – The energy management for this is OK I guess. At 12 Mysticism, you get back 6 energy when the enchant ends. The health gain on this is too little. In 8 seconds, you can cast and remove 4 enchants max ( maybe six if you remove them all at once with say, Mystic Sandstorm). So this elite skill can give around 48hp over 10 seconds, in addition to the 72hp from mysticism. That’s assuming you’re who skill-bar is filled with enchants. That’s pretty low healing for a situational, short-lived enchant. As a remedy, I suggest that the healing amount is upped. OR, better yet, change the skill to be like this: “Elite Enchantment Spell. For 8 seconds, whenever an Enchantment ends on you, you gain 0...2 Energy and 0...8 Health, and adjacent foes take 0-15 holy damage”.
Lyssa's assault - agree with you it makes for a poor e management, with little damage bonus. If you hit three mobs though with the AoE it gets better...Probably a PvE only skill - you have to be sure to hit 2-3 mobs to make it worth it. If you would actually steal the energy from the enemy it would be awesome (and very imbalanced for PvP ..the arenas would ROAR at it )


Reaper`s Sweep has the damage bonus of Executioner, the DW lenght of Eviscerate (double of the wearying strike) and can do AoE....The recharge is a bit long but its great as it is IMO.


Attacker insight is a weird one. It would probably work as a GoLE on attacks, only it would take a 15-25 e attack to make it worth it and there are no such attacks on the scythe line. Would work on other classes attacks but guess what ? other classes like wars or sins dont have 15-25 e attacks either and Concussion shot is much better handled by expertise...except if you take it on a Derv primary which is ....weird.

Onslaught might work on a x/D (war or sin) but it would be tricky to use. No point for a scythe. There are too many good elites for scythes: Reapers Sweep, Wounding Strike, Melandru, even Vow of strenght. And Sins have better elites too.

Pious Renewal is equivalent to a boost of 6 to the Mysticism bonus. It would take very specific build to make it work and it competes with Arcane Zeal which looks a lot better. Your suggestion of holy damage will make Dervs great targets for Smiting on with RoFs and guardians

Dervs are gonna get nerfed... hard.. first my silly reason, they aren't Anets fav touch rangers, blinding flash eles, or mesmers. now for the real reason.. They have become a jack of all trades..more so than the ranger or in some ways, mesmer.. They can go melee hate with ebon dust aura, and shutdown any target they assault, they can go spike using Reaper's Sweep+Chilling Victory, they can go anti caster in some ways using Vow of Silence, also completely anti prot monk using Grenth, can tank better than a warrior using AoB+Mystic Regen+Vital Boon+Conviction+a few other enchants, and above that, their critical strikes are one of the most deadly hits in the game.. They are likely to go the way of fire eles...I hope not, but... it is likely. OK. I don't agree with your silly reasons. But lets look at that first and ask a basic question...why does Anet love those classes (assuming they do?) I think because touch rangers show off the ranger's versatility and shows off how different classes combine well. Mesmer's are just a really unique class to GW and should be loved. Blinding Flash Eles...don't know why they are loved.

Second, just FYI, I think a derv spike is really Avatar of Melandru>Wearying Sweep> (Mystic Sweep and/or Chilling Victory)

Third of all, I believe that dervs are clearly meant to be sort of a Thumper replacement or, in general, a replacement for R/W, E/W, and M/W in what they are capable of. . They have a lot of diversity in builds, but they need to specialize and each specialization is not as good as combinations from other classes in most circumstance (EXCEPT FOR THUMPERS and anti-prot monk builds...Derv dps builds and spike builds are definitly better in performance and utility than Thumper builds). Dervs cannot really tank better than a warrior in DoA. Maybe almost equal in FoW though. They are not as good at anti-melee as mesmers, who can not only blind meleers, but can also cause tremendous armor-ignoring damage. But that's apple's and oranges...Mesmer anti-anything is sort of spikey and reactive. Derv anti-anything builds are more dps oriented.

Derv's are currently the best anti-prot monk class. And if anywhere they get nerfed, it may be here. Or maybe not...maybe Anet wants there to be an anti-prot class in order to encourage other types of healers.