ANET Nerfed the Dervish for PvP

@up
Yes, thats true. But ohwait, skills like Insidious parasite are able to counter every melee like you say. Speaking about utility/survival: last time i remember, that template had some enchantments like [skill]mystic regeneration[/skill] or [skill]mystic vigor[/skill]. That is some form of survival. Yes, that might be not enough, but who brings more selfheal even to low pvp arenas like Ra/JQ/Fa/AB?
But i need to agree that theres no room for utility, and its painful. Snare, kd or something like that would be very useful. But instead of it, you got unblockable sin chain, 33 % ias, +20 energy from avatar, and additional damage.

Dervishes still get used from my understanding, but they're not a mainstay. You don't really need to rely on enchantments (or at least, keeping them) to do damage - it's just that it tends to help. Stripping an assassin or elementalist will probably debuff them of a few important things as well (considering a lot of elementalists rely quite a bit on attunements to manage their energy).

Though I'm probably thinking of builds other than the typical wounding strike + conjure cookie-cutter. If you rip the enchantments off that it isn't even going to be landing deep wound properly.

look...yes some dervish skills have been nerfed and changed..off the top of my head, mystic regen, pious assault, mystic sweep, eremites sweep, chilling vic, mystic healing, av of grenth.

BUT. every profession has faced nerfs and adjustments, good players learn how to adapt to the state of the game, and the build gurus have no problem doing this and continually stay on top of their game.

Theres always good builds to be had with the professions, you just need to think, pvxwiki.com is just the tip of the iceberg in most cases. Just because dervishes have a weak showing on that site, build wise.. it doesnt mean there arent any great derv builds to be had.

Many dervishes try to mimic the playstyle of a warrior or assassin, or monk ( if youre running a full heal build). The truth is, dervishes are a professional which can and should transcend the traditional rock/paper/scissors situation. The dervish is like a combination of a warrior/elementalist and monk. You have the tools to be an effective support healer, an effective aoe damage dealer, with your scythe (most powerful weapon in the game), and with your spells.

A dervish shouldnt be a pushover profession as it is being played, it should be something that scares the hell out of people when its in melee range because of the amount of havoc you can unleash on everyone.

Some people need to go back to basics..our profession description:

"Serving the gods as holy warriors, dervishes stand confidently in the whirlwind of conflict. Martial techniques perfected in the deserts of Elona allow a Dervish’s scythe to lash out quickly at multiple opponents, surrounding the holy warrior with a swath of destruction. Initiates often learn spells of self-protection, prayers that rush a combatant into battle, and invocations that empower attacks with elemental fury. Masters of the profession can assume the form of a god, enacting divine will with holy blessings. Keenly aware of the conditions of a fight, a Dervish can reap great benefits by using multiple Enchantments. Wandering the savannahs and deserts of Elona, the faithful Dervish chants prayers to the earth and wind... and the fury of the sandstorm answers in response. "

Im sorry to give such a lengthy reply, im just upset at how much this profession is misunderstood. Maybe someday ill post some of my builds on here, but keep exploring the profession and hopefully youll find it rewarding. Note: if you dont like whoring and learning to manage enchantments, this profession isnt for you.

There's a reason so many people attempt to play dervishes as straight melee; it's the best way for them to contribute (at least in PvE; I really don't know that much about PvP).

If you try to be a gish as a dervish, there comes the question of "why bother?". Dervishes aren't great casters, and they aren't great at melee. Sure, you can bring a hybrid build, but in general you can't nuke/heal/melee all at once. That's why the AoM + Draw Conditions build doesn't work well in practice. So if you can only do one at any given time, why waste skill slots and attribute points on other things? And out of the three, melee is the best choice for the dervish, because at least there it has a few gimmicks that can give it some edge (however small) over the competition.

That's not to say that the dervish can't do other things (quite the contrary; I myself run a RoJ derv at the JQ and love it), but it's not optimal, and when people come here looking for builds, that's generally what they want.

You can't take the quarries or guard posts in JQ as a melee dervish. No matter how much self-healing you take you're dead before you can even kill one guy. If you're lucky you might hit one guy before you fall, but one hit won't kill.

I believe the OP is referring to how the old wearying strike + Melandru's build was nerfed into nonexistence, the Avatar of Grenth nerf (from removing enchants to being unblockable to enchanted foes), and the grenth's aura build was torn apart, and how anet has had to "nerf" certain skills of the dervish to prevent other skills abusing them. One example was Rangers using Chilling Victory. Its like an all mens club that doesn't want any scythe-wielding, ROBE wearing guys in it, and Anet has taken steps to insure that.

Yes, wounding strike is a powerful build indeed... and Rangers, Sins, and Warriors can run it as effectively if not better. This is a problem with most scythe attacks. The second problem with this is that ONLY ONE dervish build is considered "effective" in PvP, and its still not effective enough to make it into high-end PvP with other classes' builds and elite skills.

Oh, and to those that say that the ability of scythes to hit 3 enemies at once is a reason to nerf them... only idiots in PvP would fall to that. Its not that hard to spread out unless you really have no idea what you're doing, in which case you shouldn't be in PvP. Of course we all know PvE hasn't mattered since PvE only skills.

Barely anything on dervs has been nerfed. Maybe you just suck. BtW PVX WIKI IS THE DEVIL COME TO DESTROY ALL ARENA FIGHTS.

The WS build from PvXwiki is actually pretty good but i would take dark escape for IMS since it also reduces damage by 25%