Help: Dervish Blues

I've just completed Factions using a Sin. While it took me a while to learn the ropes, in the end Sins are lots of fun and do a pretty good job.

Now I thought I might try Dervish for Nightfall. I am having a boat load of problems. I've read up on the Dervish Guide. I'm lvl 8 with starter armour and stuck at the cliffs. Harpies are just 2 hit killing me...

Build:
1. Aura of Thorns 2. Mystic Vigour 3. Vital Boon 4. Pious Assault 5. Mystic Sweep 6. Eremites Attack 7. Chilling Victory 8. Eternal Aura

1. Usually die to ranged attack before I can even get near enough to do any damage. Hexes and Enchantments are the biggest killer, especially the ones that slow you down, which seem to be the ones that are spammed by the AI constantly.

2. Usually get 2 hit by Harpie melee and die.

3. How the hell do enchantments like AoT, Eternal Aura work? Do I cast them before I aggro the monsters or do I have to be within melee range for it to work.

4. Is it a good idea to get any kind of armour thats better than the starting before I start questing, or should I save up for +70 armour.

5. Thus far I'm finding Dervish are very very slow in movement and attack without any real armour to compensate. Worst of all they seem to get blocked very easily and stop attacking all together. Micro-management is a real nightmare...

Any help greatly appreciated. For all the trolls: yes I suck and I'm a noob

At this stage ofthe game you won't have access to many skills; have you completed NF with another character yet?

If you have, or at least gotten very far into it (ie. mouth of torment far) use that character to unlock some high end skills to then buy on your dervish. Alternativly, use Baltahzar faction to unlock them...

...start off by unlocking:
Victorious Sweep (Health on hit)
Conviction (Get your armour on a par with a warrior)
Zealous Renewal (Energy management)
Mystic Regeneration (Wheee!)
Mystic Vigo (MORE health on hit)

I'm sure you can easily combine those to change from a 2-hit wonder, to a nigh immortal wall of regeneration, from there you can play with builds and decide which you like the most.

As for playstyle, dervish is about as simple as it gets, cast your main buffs from just outside aggro range, walk up to people, hit them until dead. recast buffs just as they end. Like Paragons and Sins dervuish suffer a bit at low levels as Mysticism won't return squat all energy from your buffs to help upkeep them

#1:
Buy the midgrade armor at Kamadan (35 I think for a Dervish). It's a HUGE difference in your durability. Only upgrade when it's a big difference (15 to 35, 35 to 50, 50 to 70 for example, 35-41 isn't that big a deal), but it's not a waste of money in general, and makes a HUGE difference in your durrability (Like cut damage you take in half or more the moment). Don't use any health detrimental armor enchantments at a low level either.

#2: Many Dervish Enchantments have an initial effect (often some offensive or defensive effect), some have an effect for the duration, and most have an effect when they end.

Eternal Aura for example, initialy does damage to nearby foes (Foes within melee range), and when it ends, recharges your skills. So, any skill that ends an enchantment (Like Pious Assault), will engage the end effect.

Now, I've not brought a Dervish that far, but I've played a bit with the Hero Dervish, and had success with her and had little trouble with my dervish.

Suggestions on skills and attributes:
1) Usually I only use 3 sets of attributes. Spreading out to 4 can be rough. However, for a young Dervish, that may be hard.
2) Multiples of 3 in Mysticism are your friend, due to energy recharging when enchantments end. You should be able to keep it easily at 3 to start.

Skills I've used and liked:
Mysticism:
[skill]Heart of Holy Flame[/skill] - Good vs Undead especialy, and things vulnerable to fire, and a Mysticism skill

Wind Prayers:
[skill]Grenth's Fingers[/skill] - Good vs Cold Vulnerable creatures, and the cripple at the end is nice as well.
[skill]Whirling Charge[/skill] - Increases speed and attack speed, but requires you to be enchanted (fairly easy to do)

Earth Prayers: (Tried doing without these, but this one is highly usefull, even with low levels of Earth Prayers)
[skill]Vital Boon[/skill] - Extra max health for survivability, and healing when it's over so you don't die if your health is too low. Also, it's easy to cover it so you always have an enchantment, or use it to cover one of the other two enchantments listed if you need to do cold or holy damage.

Scythe Mastery: (Pick any 3)
[skill]Crippling Sweep[/skill] - Good for crippling, but can be replaced with other skills that cause crippling. Dervishes are highly useful to casters as tanks due to being able to cripple and let casters flee melee attackers.
[skill]Chilling Victory[/skill] - Very good cold and potential area damage.
[skill]Mystic Sweep[/skill] - Cheep, recharges fairly quickly, and you should usually have at least 1 enchantment on you.
[skill]Pious Assault[/skill] - Good for ending enchantments, and deep wounds are very useful to prevent healing and a good first strike.

Other:
Res Signet (Use the Sunspear version of this if your Sunspear rank is 3 or better)

Those are all skills you can get now without having to unlock them. That build has worked fairly well for me. Vital Boon is Vital though, and highly usefull.

Alterinitively, you could swap out the Wind Prayer skills and replace them with:
[skill]Aura of Thorns[/skill] - You already have it, and it causes crippling and bleeding. A good enchantment to cycle with Pious Assault.
And maybe [skill]Zealous Renewal[/skill], Eternal Aura, a 4th attack or other Earth skill.

You won't move or attack as fast, but you'll be survivable, cause multiple conditions, have 3 enchantments to swap between/pile on, 3 attacks to swap between, a utility skill (or other attack/enchant), and a res.

In general, the above (3/3/1/1) is a good guideline for a general build for my experience. Less enchantments results in you not always having at least 1, less attacks means you're waiting for recharges, and more attacks can lead to energy issues.

Also, make sure you have a healer. Healer enchantments that get piled on you have some additional functionality for you.

Now, I'll admit this is more henchmen functionality, but with the above build, my dervish is perhaps my most durable henchman.

What I think you should do is from Kamadan, look for a ferry to Consulate Docks (often shortened to ferry). What they do is take you to the mission Consulate Docks, where you can have max armor crafted. A ferry costs anywhere from 200g-700g. Then, as RyuujinZERO said, unlock a few skill via Balth Faction (yay Alliance Battles) or by buying them on another character. Skills I like are Mystic Regen, Mystic Vigor, Heart of Fury (definitely get this one), Mystic Sweep, and Eremite's Attack (a few of the ones I named can be gotten at the skill trainer in Kamadan already, I think).

Quote: Originally Posted by Ju-On

Thks for all the help everyone its appriecated. I guess I might use my Sin to farm for the gold to get max armour and then thumb a ride to the docks.

what are the recommended runes and inscriptions for armour?

Minor Scythe, Minor Mysticism, Superior Vigor. All Vitae (or whatever) except maybe chest and legs, and maybe a Clarity.

At that stage of the game, the harpies are quite a bit stronger than you. Do other missions, go to whatever other towns you can, and get more missions from them. Come back to the harpies once you're level 10+ and it'll be much easier. You can also try starting out in one of the other towns, where the henchmen are a bit higher in level, and bringing them along. IIRC, there's that one swamp town where the party size it 6 - that will also help greatly...

You can be excused for getting a Major Mysticism rune if it helps you hit 12 myst for your build. On the other hand, before your build is finalised I wouldn't recommend doing this because you don't know your attribute point spread - and many good Dervish builds end up being Scythe Mastery/Mysticism only.

I'm planning on spreading Att. points between Sycthe Mastery/Mysticism/Earth Prayer. Is there an ideal spread for these three, can I get any bonuses for getting a particular skill to 13 eg: 3 eng bonus to 13 critical strike on a Sin, or is this skill dependent?

mystic regen this is like the no.1 dervish skill
also avatar of balth aint that good perfer lyssa more dmg but not until you can cap it
also save for max armour on your sin he shold be able to solo farm some bosses to get cash for the istan or sunspear max armour

have you read the sticky. it helped me out quite a bit when i was still on istan.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...php?t=10244740

One other note:

Make sure you take a healer with you. Particularly for the Harpy mission, it's good to have (and it keeps the diggers alive). A paragon henchmen goes well with a dervish and Koss character/hero combo too.

Quote: Originally Posted by Bront

Quote: Originally Posted by Celestial Beaver

Quote: Originally Posted by Ju-On

Quote: Originally Posted by Ju-On