R/ and A/ out-Dervishing the Dervish.

(I searched for any up to date thread on this, got nothing, and made this thread, if one exsists, ignore this.)

Obvious Problem: R/ and D/ use a Scythe much better than a D/ could ever do. In PvE and PvP. Dervishs are practically useless.

Counter-Point: Avatars!
Counter-counter-Point: Half of them are useless in PvE. All of them are useless in PvP('cept AoL)

Possible Solutions?

Two main solutions I've heard are to:
1. Tie the amount of enemies the scythe can hit to the Mysticism Attribute
2. Give the Dervish some form or Permanent IAS.

Problems with those are:
1. Basically changing the Scythe to a hammer? No thanks.
2. That would make the Derv OP with knockdowns.

My Solution? I don't really have one, but I think the whole thing really needs to be brought up and discussed. All I can suggest is that Dervishes in general need to be fixed in a way that they can do their job. Some of you might say **** that, GW2 will come out sooner before that. That might be true. But I want my Dervish to do something other than Solo UW. And I'm sure you guys with Dervish chars you've spent time on do too.

I don't like how scythes can hit multiple enemies, I would like to have that removed.

To fix the ranger problem, the only elite the rangers use is escape, so just make escape end on an attack.

The scythe's ridiculously high damage reach along with an assassin's primary is something you can't fix unless you change scythes or Crit Strikes.

There are several problems with Dervs right now. They are an expansion class, and so they don't have as many skills as the others, and thus less utility, which is compounded by the fact that they lack a lot of things already (maintainable IAS, Energy Management, Knockdown, etc.).Then the skills they do have are often conflicting in nature; some skills benefit by having multiple enchantments while others require enchantment removal, making your already limited choice of skills even more limited. And, of course, they are easily outdamaged with their own weapon.

The problem I see with Dervs is that Mysticism has some nice linked skills, but is arguably useless in and of itself. It is a poor mans amalgamation of soul reaping and divine favor, but nowhere near as efficient as either. I think Mysticism needs a more original spin, something that will fit the theme and maintain effectiveness. For instance, make Mysticism increase scythe damage for each enchantment, or add a percentage of armor ignoring or holy damage on top of base scythe damage, just something so that Dervishes actually have a strong suite, because as of now they are outclassed in every category by some other class.

And I think scythes hitting multiple targets should stay. It provides what is probably the only viable form of energy management (zealous swipe), and provides a little bit of a draw over a warrior for tanking and handling mobs. In PvE it is largely irrelevant, and doesn't even approach the problems with PvE balance that would deserve attention before hand. And if a Derv is hitting multiple targets in PvP, there is something terribly wrong with the people on the receiving end.

The problem here is that Mysticism and its skills are not very useful for a melee, while Expertise, Critical Strikes, and their related skills are.

IMO Warrior's Endurance W/D is better than a Dervish too (at least in PvE purposes).

Reverend also hit the big thing, I like the concept behind Mysticism but it's not really a desirable primary in the long run. The only positive thing about it is when the monks are forced to Patient Spirit your middling armor, you gain energy for it (and can that really be called positive?)

I would have to agree with you, something needs to be done with Mysticism. I would even argue that a simple change of having the effect occure on both enchantment removal and addition would help considerably.

Mysticism seems to lean towards a spellcasting class, instead of a meele one. Though one could argue the Dervish is both, I would say it can't do either class properally.

Dervs are fantastic order-ers.

Lol @ Thinking AoL is useful in Pvp.

Dervs aren't useless in PvE, they may be beaten by other classes, but they can still output their share of damage.

And your counter arguements.

1. If the dervish brings 0 in Mysticism, yeah it's basically a hammer, but then again it hits more enemies at higher levels. <-Bad Solution.
2. A permanent IAS makes a derv OP with knockdowns...I'm entirely confused, dervishes have no KD skills except for fleeting (Self KD). Are you assuming that it has GDW or brings some other class skill?

This is not a solution to the PvP problem but I would like to see aura of holy might linked to Mysticism the way "There is nothing to fear" and critical agility are linked to their primaries. That skill is getting abused on sins, rangers, warriors who, although they cant have as high of scythe mastery, can just drop this enchantment on their bar, and with NO investment (title linked) start doing ridiculous damage.

As for revamping Mysticism, they could make mysticism scale enchantment duration as well, so that, somewhat like weapon spells, you can't reach the good duration without investing in mysticism. Would that be overpowered, I don't know.

Eremite's Attack and Mystic Sweep add 50% failure with 4 or less Mysticism.

@ #2:

As in if Mysticism added IAS, A dervish with a Hammer and W/ skills would own.

Ahh okay, was thinking you meant to make HoF maintainable.

If you make 14+ Mysticism 33% or more it'd be decent I guess...but a free IAS is a bit unfair.

Warriors already have flail which is incredibly easy to activate, dervishes wouldn't be overpowered like that...they wouldn't even do as good as warriors due to armor difference.

Here's a radical thought:
What if you could only put max 9 points in a non-primary weapon attribute?

Escape: 5e 12r
Elite Stance. For 1...7...8 seconds, you move 30...42...45% faster and have a 75% chance to block attacks. This stance ends if you use a skill.
This change would prevent scythe rangers from pwning everyone with their constant 75% chance to block. But, they also get a 1337 speed increase (same as burning speed) so this skill doesn't fall into total disuse.

Then, give a slight buff to Mysticism and some Mysticism skills.

For each rank of Mysticism you can hit an additional 2 adjacent targets with your scythe. (Maximum 2 additional targets).

This change would basically be a slap in the face to everyone that's not a Dervish. Dervs would only need one point in Mysticism to hit 3 targets and 3 targets would still be the max.

I don't play a derv, but I'm sure there are at least a few Mysticism skills that could use a buff.

Let's make WE only affect axes/hammers/swords. I mean it's Warrior's Endurance, after all. Not 100 Armor Scythe Man Endurance. Ok, then let's make Critical Agility only affect daggers, because everyone hates assassins, anyway, right? Yeah, screw them. And then Escape, let's just remove it from the game. I say every ranger elite should be retooled into an interrupt, because that's their goddamn job. They need to know their place.

Wait, what's that? Nobody but dervishes can effectively wield scythes now and still nobody wants you in their group? Oh that's right, because dervishes are useless. Scythes are what people like.

tl;dr: buff dervish skills, particularly in the Mysticism line and maybe they will see some more play.

I have never understood people who think smiter's booning escape would somehow magically stop R/D's. Escape isn't even used on the R/D bar half the time anyways. Now its wounding strike.

But even when the meta was using escape for R/D, the only reason escape was on the bar is because it didn't need any other elite. If escape was nerfed back in the early days of spiritway the only thing you would see is Reapers sweep or Wounding strike subbed for attack1 and natural stride subbed for escape within minutes of the update. Such a nerf would have accomplished absolutely nothing.

/not signed
I got a better solution;
- Give us shorter but more powerful enchantments
- Implement back the original concept of faster recharge of attack skills when we remove enchantments prematurely
- Rework an elite enchantment to have effects of allowing enchantments be cast and recharge faster. (I'm looking at Arcane Zeal)

anet should rework the dervish and make it unique. now it's nothing but a lousy hybrid. i would rework the dervish with more emphasis on the basic orientation of this profession.

in fact, i would alter nearly all offense skill to have a cone-wise effect. for example, a skill which deals a certain % of the last dealt damage on a target to opponents behind it. also, i would increase the cone's range with the level of mysticism.

then i would relate the radii of effect of defensive/support enchants to the level of mysticism (min adjacent, max earshot).

with that in mind, anet might be able to create a lot of ultilities and viable combinations of skills and make the dervish a unique profession.

They can out scythe a dervish, but they can't out dervish a dervish. Dervishes have a lot of unique utility options based off their enchantments that aren't used a lot in PvP, but can be a lot of fun for some gimmicky PvE builds.

As a "hybrid" it runs into the problem that a character cannot attack and cast at the same time. As such optimizing for attacking only or for casting only end up with more powerful characters than a hybrid that is lackluster at both.