Dervish secondary for healing/support

Greetings!

I'm just about the start Guild Wars and thinking about starting with a Dervish.
But my concern is;
even though it is mentioned everywhere that Dervish has very decent healing/self healing abilites, I failed to see them.. Besides some +regen abilities, I found only Vital Boon as a direct self heal.

What I want to have is to be quite capable of healing my self and healing allies when needed. Which secondary prof. would you suggest me and which ability would you suggest particularly? I'm still a very stranger to the game but looks like I won't be able to invest much into the secondary prof. and will have probably only 1 skill from that prof.

Any helpful reply would be appreciated, thank you!

Sounds more like you want to be a primary monk or ritualist. Dervishes do have some support healing capabilities but primarily they are for themselves.

What primary are you looking at playing?

Hello,

I guess I expressed myself kind of false.. Dervish will be my primary, what I want to know is, which secondary should I get in order to be more capable of healing and supporting.

Dervish healing abilities looked kinda weak to me, even for only self healing.

Most classes have... meh... self-healing. Just be happy you ain't an assassin. The Dervish's self-heals kick total ass by comparison.

Anyho... Vital Boon, combined with signet of Pious Light, is a pretty effective self-heal - however, it takes 2 skills...

The best bet is to take a bunch of enchantments (Heart of Fury's a good one) and use Mystic Regeneration (if running Earth Prayers) or Dwayna's Touch (if running Wind Prayers), or even Mystic Vigor. A few of the scythe attacks even heal you, under the right conditions.

As you are new to the game, it sounds like you are trying to run a self-sufficient character - that's not what GW is about (that kind of thinking breeds mending wammo tanks... ), it's a team game. Try to maximize the damage you can do, use a couple of defensive skills, and let the healers on your team worry about healing you.

Btw... Despite the name, Healing Prayers are not particularly good for self-healing. Every time I see a D/Mo use Heal Breeze or Mending, God kills a puppy.

yep, thats about right.

Dervishes can sustain themselves fairly well. Vital boon + signet of pious light is good especially because it instantly recharges the signet so u can use again if u need to. I personally don't use it while i PvE, i let my monks heal me and I worry about damage.. I only use 3 enchants, vital boon, faithful intervention(my weap is +15% while enchanted so thsi helps immensely), and mystic regen. I sometimes throw in heart of fury or mystic vigor. I use conviction for more armor, +24 while enchanted. I use wounding strike, chilling victory, wild blow, and victorius sweep as my attacks. This build got me through pve with no problems, of course all my heroes are uber in my eyes which helps a lot. Good heroes can get u thru most missions. Dunk as boon monk talk as mark of prot healer(or straight prot w/shield of regen). Margrid as Broad Head/interrupter with saushali's bow(lengthen dazed pwns rotscale btw), MoW as MM, Olias as SS or SV when needed, Koss as hundred blades war, Goren as knockdown, Jin as B/P w/black moa, Sousuke as SF ele all burning spells, Zhed as water hexer, Norgu with Ineptitude and melee neutralizing, Melonni w/EDA, Morgahn as motivation (changing him to angelic bond atm) Don't really use zenmai and don't have razah atm.

I made it my goal to make my heroes godly because I hate having to tell people what skills to bring, i'd rather bring the ones i think are good and at least i know what to expect. I have also become pretty good at macro managing my heroes so they hit who i want em to hit.

Back on topic, I rely on my heroes to do the things i can't do, very well at least, like dazing/interrupting, healing, and protecting. Dervish is just like any other character class, bring one or 2(tops) self heals/dmg red skills and rely on the monks to do their job. This game is all about teamwork adn you gotta rely on other to do thigns you can't do, don't try to do everything yourself, unless of course your trying to develope a build to do so. In which case, good luck.

Thank you for the replies!

And I have a final question..
Should I start caring for the skills and start making me some builds even before I start the game, or I should leave it to the flow, and get the skills whenever I level and make builds from the skills I gathered without "aiming" the skills to get..
Long story short; should I worry/plan about builds/which skills to get by now, or only after I reach a certain level.?

Don't try to make a solo character since it will work in some cases and in others it wont. The dervish self heals are very good for healing you just enough so the monk isn't under too much pressure or getting you out of bad situations but at some point, you'll have to rely on healers to survive. There are a few solo builds for dervishes, but these work only under certain circumstances and if you try to use them in the wrong places, you'll be dead before you can realize what's happened to you.

Signet of Pious light is useful, mystic regen and mystic vigor are quite useful too. There are some other that are good self heals too. Also as stated previously, healing prayers for a secondary monk aren't that useful since they require you to put attribute points in healing prayers and they are better spent elsewhere.

EDIT: There are goods skills lists on http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Main_Page and here also are lists of builds. Don't worry too much about making builds before you start since not all the skills are available to you wen you start. Also don't be shy to try combos you think will work, it's a great way to learn how skills can work together since the descriptions might give the impression that some skills are very effective when in fact, they aren't that effective for you.

This was the build i started out with as a Dervish... Completed Prophicies and a large chunk of nightfall with it and i didn't die that often... Infact when it came to wipeouts i was usually one of the last standing amongst the Warriors corpses. So it can't be that bad! :P

Dervish/Necromancer
[skill]Chilling Victory[/skill][skill]Eremite's Attack[/skill][skill]Faithful Intervention[/skill][skill]Vital Boon[/skill][skill]Signet of Pious Light[/skill][skill]Conviction[/skill][skill]Plague Touch[/skill][skill]Sunspear Rebirth Signet[/skill]

Trick is to keep conviction up as much as possible... Aswell as keeping up Faithful intervention. Not only is it uber amazing if your weilding a 15% whilst enchanted scythe... But it's a great back up heal with Signet of Pious Light if your vital boon is still recharging. Never use Signet of Pious light on it's own... Try to use it whilst Vital Boon is active as you will be able to heal for over 200 health every 8 seconds. As i said previously if your Vital boon is recharging still you can use the Signet of Pious Light with Faithful, by then Vital Boon should be ready to be cast upon you again.

From my expierences Dervish isn't a support character... Just Raw damage dealer with the ability to look after itself in the defense front.

However a class that has the ability to aid it's allies aswell deal some incredible damage is the Necromancer, especially in the often over looked blood attribute.

dervishes have amazing self healing. if you want to heal others be a monk. a dervish can heal himself pretty well, sure youll need a little monk help every once in awhile, but who dosnt?

OK I'm thinking for someone just starting the game? That may be TMI.

^^this is true.

You don't, a dervish job isn't to heal, a Dervish job is to pressure targets with brainless skills like Avatar of Grenth and overpowered attack skills.