What needs to be done to fix dervishes?

No , dont compare it to a caster , D's are not casters even thou they have spells , same applies to Sins.
Energy is all Eles need to nuke and EStorage ALWAYS gives you energy per rank , not when an ench ends or when you use X spells or something.
Soul Reaping suits necromancer name perfectly , they are not Damage Dealers but gain benefit of foe's death , now is X every some seconds but used to be ALWAYS ( and even now , is op at pve ).
You keep talking of D's as a melee casters , soz but thats your opinion and the true is that they are melee damage dealers that rely (or not )on enchants , as well sins are melee damage dealers that rely ( or not ) on hexes and/or enchants.

Rangers are not damage dealers , neither paragons are , you cant compare them to D's either. They are supporters , they have to do a lot of things and their MAIN att DIRECTLY affects that. Take out Leadership and hello , Paragons = 0 energy. Take out expertise and 10 secs later Ranger can only autoattack. But now , take out mysticism of a Scythe D ..... something happens ? erm yeah , but isnt as bad as the other profs. Why ? because its MAIN att is not as good as the other profs , thats why.

Im not arguing about Mysticism being not as good as e-management as some profs main att ( lol , its pretty clear , doesnt need to be discussed ), and im not saying that it MUST be reworked ENTIRELY ( i thought at this point you did realize it ) im saying that Mysticism should do something that DIRECTLY affects D's damage done with scythes. Not help "in some way" to e-management that "in some way" helps to use more enchants/spells that "in some way" boosts D's damage.

Making Mysticism increase scythe damage might work.

Yes, because Mesmers, Monks, Ritualists, Necromancers, and Paragons know that the only way to be useful is to get big numbers showing up every skill click.

As I said, you won't fix the Dervish by making its E-peen comparable to a Warriors.

See, I think Dervishes actually come at it from the other side of assassins, instead of from the same side.

Assassins are melee attackers that have some spells to support their role.

Dervishes, on the other hand, are melee spellcasters who have a melee weapon and some attack skills to support their role.

Now, if they were to be doing the same thing... well, you'd expect to find that one ends up doing it better and is favoured as a result, wouldn't you? This is why the Dervish needs to do its own thing, otherwise it'll either muscle out or be muscled out by whatever it's trying to compete with.

As for Rangers - they're as much damage dealers as Dervishes are. Barrage says hi. Trappers also. Oldschool Pious Assault dervish says "Look at all these lovely conditions I'm spreading around!"

Are you blind or something ? think before write and read the sentences you are quoting. Heres a hint ; keyword : melee .


Well thats the way YOU see it pal , but you got to understand that there are many other ppl that dont think so , check A and D :
- Both melee , both have spells to support dmg and debuff foes , both have same armor level , both have 2 handed weapons .... too much coincidence but if you think they cant be compared , go ahead , not my prob.

Pretty stupid to give a melee spellcaster a Scythe mastery , i dont see any other caster having a staff mastery ( and if you say "they are fighting at melee range , you are back on my side ^^ ).


Again , thats what you think and at this point i dont think it would imply "something to be done to FIX dervishes" , that would imply an almost complete rework of the entire char and skills ..... not gonna happen.


Skills description says hi ! my damage is conditional unlike any other damage dealer around !. Please dont be mistaken , a mesmer can cop the hell out of a bunch 12 foes on Urgoz like a Ranger can Splinter Barrage them but still they are not DD's . I know you see a melee using enchants and think they are casters ( like you say D are ) but they are not.
Nuker ( DD ) = Ele or a Me/E illusion sig whatever
Phys Hitter ( DD ) = W, A , D
Phys supporters = Paragon , Ranger
You wanna rework D entirely to be a supporter or a FULL melee caster ? great , good for me but as i said before , at this point , it wont be a "fix" it would be an almost complete rework.

Here's another keyword for you hybrid. Just because you are swayed by the initial marketing of dervish as a martial character through its gimmick skills does not bog down the fact it remains the only profession to be able to remove her own enchantments as an offensive means to spread AOE effects and further pressure them with scythe's damage. Having a scythe mastery does not equates dervish being a true martial profession. The same rule applies to ritualist; restoration does not mean they are in the same supportive role as monks do.

The amount of work takes to add in a few additional clauses to some dervish skills to promote premature removal of enchantments is much lesser as compared to revamping mysticism and reworking the whole enchantments. Tying dervish skills to mysticism attribute ranks is not going to help the profession either; all it does is make the profession secular as a secondary profession.

Like I said, the only feasible way is to take advantage the dervish's niche ability of self removal of enchantments, give bonuses for enchantments removed prematurely (e.g. shorter recharge of skills), tweak the end effects of short recharge enchantments (e.g. AOE knockdown).

There's just one teensy little problem with the idea of the Dervish being a PBAoE class.

Warriors do it better.

No, really. There is no synergy between mysticism and enchantments other than the fact that you get energy out of them. Guess what? Warriors with WE don't have to worry about energy. They can spam Aura of Thorns or Mirage Cloak or any other enchantment you give them more than a dervish could ever hope to. The dervish will get maybe 2 more sec of blindness out of dust cloak via runes, while the Warrior will still have his +30 or so dps. So, even under this interpretation of the dervish, there still need to be huge changes.

No matter how you slice it, dervishes suck, and until I start hearing monks saying that they want all their skills nerfed until rits can outheal them (and eles wanting their nukes nerfed so that everyone else can outnuke them and whatnot) then there's really no way to argue that changes don't need to be made regarding dervs. Like it or not, the profession exists. It should be good at something.

Otherwise, we should start talking about nerfing whatever your favorite class is, just because class balance apparently doesn't matter. Heck, while we're at it let's leave SF and ER as-is. It doesn't matter if sins are invulnerable and eles can outheal monks, since it doesn't matter if classes are balanced, right? Until dervishes have something they can do better than other professions, there will never be any such thing as class balance in GW.

By reading your post i can give you a perfect keyword ,misunderstanding .
Have a melee weap ? that weap mastery ? most skills related to a close range combat ? thats all. White liquid ? comes from a cow ? yeah , pretty obvious soz.

Dont be mistaken , you cant use the word "hybrid" here because GW is about versatile skill bars and almost every prof can go 2 or more roles :
- Omg earth ele with wards ! protection from damage , slowing foes , preventing KD , giving extra AL against some kind of damage ... hybrid class !
- Smitters ?! a monk dealing damage and killing mobs ! hybrid class !
- Ritualists can heal very well too but deal lots of damage ? damage dealers ? supporters ? healers ? nooooooo hybrid class !.
I guess i dont have to continue right ?

That is what you think , some other ppl like me dont. If you add something o rework a little mysticism you dont have to rework all D enchants , i dunno where did you get that.

True , but AoHM should be .

It wont make a great change , you are seeing it as the current way of playing of the D's , but try to make a change thinking about its lack of damage with scythe compared to others melee . Others melee main att helps them dealing damage with ANY weapon and Myst should do something like that , not help with energy to help using more ench to help boosting dmg.

No matter how many times you say it , it wont make it true , Dervish are a melee class , scythe wielders that use enchs to deal damage and weak foes ( not "weak" condition ). If you boost something related to enchants , you are going the wrong way.

Its about efficiency. It is only about efficiency. There is no reason to use a dervish over (other damage dealer). Buff dervishes and it could very well become 'There is no reason to use (other damage dealer) over a dervish.'

With 10 professions and over 1,300 skills there is always going to be a "There is no reason to use X over Y." If there are ideas that will give the dervish a niche without forcing something else out, then I'm listening, but a change that will just swap up the X and Y will ultimately end the class struggle in the exact same situation and with a degree of upset among the community.

Again, efficiency. But then again you wanted to balance everything by :

You have a terrible philosophy behind what and how to balance. You have a terrible attitude. You are very hostile and overexaggerate. You have an obvious personal agenda. You do not properly address anyone, preferring to give a passing comment followed by a rant. You are the worst kind of person to have around for any type of actual discussion. I would personally be grateful if you did not return to this thread.

Then fix them right. Anet has proved they CAN fix a class right (Ritualits)

I don't thing anyone is asking for a "Buff" in a sense of the word. One idea I can fully get behind is tieing AoHM to mysticism. this effectively knocks Warriors and Sins down a peg, without ruining the build.

I think Mysticism itself is fine, and that most people don't know what they are doing when they can just take a good hero with Patient Spirit and micro a quick spam to gain 4/5 energy. However I would not mind if they took out the health gain aspect (it is WEAK), and replaced it with something more worthwhile, but not broken.

Avatar of Balthazar has been asking for a buff for a LONG time, and I think it's about time they did it. I don't think it's too much to ask for Dervishes forms be maintainable at high ranks of Mysticism without Eternal Aura either.

Enchantment juggling was/is not a broken concept as it was poorly implemented, but if they reverted Pious Assault, shredded recharge off of skills that function like Heart of Holy Flame (you know the ones), and nerf the damage a bit, I think it would work well.

IMO, and follow me here... The damage done by a dervish with the enchantment itself should not surpass the average damage the dervish could have done in that time by just attacking. Arguably it should be lower, considering the end effects of the enchantments and the larger AoE nature of the enchantment.

I'm a huge fan of Dervishes, but I don't want them buffed with broken concepts that will make them the king of melee AoE or something, Just like Ritualist fans only wanted to be more viable at their own skills (spirits, weapon spells)

That particular example is bad, yes, but I stated it because it's preferable to the current system.

My personal agenda is that I want my dervish to not suck. That is all. If that makes me come off as hostile, I'm sorry. It's just frustrating to learn that your profession sucks and that no amount of clever building will fix that and (worse yet) that almost no one cares or is willing to change it (in fact, many such as yourself are telling me that my class should suck, which I find unacceptable; every class is supposed to be useful).

There is a very easy way to make dervishes good without making anyone else suck by comparison. Link AoHM to mysticism. Dervs would be the best melee AoE, and Warriors would still be better tanks, and assassins would still be better dagger-users. So, no, there does not always have to be a "there is no reason to use X because Y does it better".

I'm not going to comment on your opinion about my usefulness in a discussion. It's yours, and we'll just have to disagree on it.

The reason Dervishes dont do the close range enchantment spamming is because of the 1 second casting times of most of the enchantments, and their high energy costs. My fix would be to reduce these casting times to 1/4 or 1/2, and also buff Mysticism (as stated earlier in the thread) to allow for better energy management

The whole dervish design shows just how little the development team really understands their own game. The dervish was set up to be a melee/caster hybrid, from the lore and skills I really cannot see how it the original design could be anything else. Unfortunatley in Guild Wars casting and melee are fairly exclusive, you cannot effectively do both; or perhaps I should say, speccing to do only one will end up more powerful than any versatility from being lackluster at both.

The most powerful primary attributes have always dealt with energy management: Soul Reaping, Expertise, Critical Strikes. Why they would try to design another (mysticism, but this would also apply to leadership) is really beyond me. Also the clusterRED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO that was open beta should have been a huge wakeup that the conceptual design of the dervish is a poor design for the Guild Wars landscape.

On a balance standpoint, the enchantment stack/removing is terrible for the dervish. With the huge scythe criticals the dervish is already a spiky character. Adding in extra damage or effects triggered on attack skills further supports the dervish as a spike-only character. The only time this ever really saw any play was back during that avatar balth, grenth's aura spike meta, but it was quickly nerfed out. Even at other times the dervish has played a role only as a spike character, never has it been successfully used in pressure.

While a change to AoHM certainly seems acceptable, there are a couple of confounds. First there are many skills that need to be toned down, or somehow have their current form removed. Second, the general community behaves like kids and will pitch a tantrum whenever any of their toys are removed.

This is the threat. They ARE too easily compared, and if you have both trying to do the same thing, naturally one is going to be better than the other.

They are fighting in melee range - but with PBAOEs being the primary weapon and the scythe being the secondary weapon, just like a PBAOE-specialised elementalist might fight in melee range without a melee weapon at all. Nothing wrong with giving a caster a melee weapon if they're fighting in melee, and since every other physical damage dealer has a weapon mastery line, why not give them one too? Doesn't mean it's their primary role...

...just like, to use one of your own examples, the fact that Paragons have a spear mastery line doesn't mean dishing out damage with a spear is their primary function. The Paragon certainly can dish out a reasonable amount of damage with a spear, just like the Dervish can dish out a decent amount of damage with a scythe - but is it necessarily a bad thing if they can't compete with those professions whose primary role is dishing out damage with a physical weapon if that's not actually their purpose?

Either way, the Dervish needs something to be buffed - on that, I completely agree. However, I think buffing it so that it works well in its niche will be better both for the game in general and for the Dervish in the long run than buffing it in a way where it might kick something else out of their niche.

I guess you are the one who has a misunderstanding here. Dervish is a hybrid by its mechanics and functions, not skill builds. My monk can go ROJ for damage but does that define monks as a hybrid profession? No, because its underlying mechanics still proves that it is a support profession. The only profession comparable to dervish in terms of similar mechanics is ranger.

If you think reworking a primary attribute is a lighter workload then you obviously have a huge oversight that people are not going to play as a 'stacker' and abuse it till its broken. Mysticism is fine as it is, the skills are just too mediocre for any synergy with mysticism to be seen.

The only reason why 'casting and attacking' play style seemingly impossible because given the current skills, the only enchantments used are the supplementary ones (e.g. HoF, Attacker's Insight). People just successively cast their enchantments before attacking in order to fully utilise the enchantments' duration. If there are specific bonuses for removing certain enchantments prematurely, a definite change of playing style will be seen as they will start using a mix of both complimentary (e.g. Dust Cloak) and supplementary enchantments; intervals between each cast will be spread out.

Basically, in the current Dervish meta you can either use buffs that you want to keep up for as long as possible (AoHM, Heart of Fury) or play the PBAOE enchant-strip-enchant game. The... adjustment of Pious Assault nerfed the second form pretty thoroughly. (I say "adjustment" because ANet honestly thought it was a buff - they thought they were improving the Dervish by providing another option for non-elite Deep Wound and apparently missed the effect it had on other builds.) You could try running a hybrid between the two strategies, but that requires a degree of care and skill (especially when there's the possibility of receiving enchantments from an external source as well) that just isn't sufficiently rewarded in the end result.

If some of those enchantments that you'd otherwise want lasting their full duration had at least granted better benefits (or less harsh drawbacks) for stripping them off, maybe mixing the strategies would be more viable.

spellcasting mechanics is much clunkier than physical mechanics. this is why a character based on casting enchantments, and then forcing them to end with attack skills, will be inefficient. too much time would be lost in the casting, recasting, and aftercast times, that they'll always lose their targets due to simple kiting.

it would be nice for mysticism to actually do something useful. the energy/health gain is quite pathetic atm. Also the main gimmick :spamming enchants is not very useful when there are many enchant stripping mobs (like some high end pve areas) and can even make you die faster...

Wrong , you still lack perspective , did i ever say roj ? man monks have a WHOLE att line ded to damage ( and do damage while doing other things like prevent them ) wich is smitting prayers. Dont make same mistakes again no one said BUILDS , i said WHOLE ATTS .
For gods sake read yourself , compare Dervishes to Rangers ? in what world pal ? same armor and ..... nothing else ! . A hybrid here would be 50/50 and D's are nowhere near that , if D's are hybrid , Paragons , Assassins , Ritualists , Monks , Elementalists and Mesmers are too . Read meaning of Hybrid , a Support can be also a Hybrid Support , it has nothing to do with the functions you see on the paper , it has to do with the things they do ( whole attrib lines ) ingame and the WAY they do it ( builds and skills ) because THAT is reality.

Mysticism would be fine FOR YOU as it is but many other ppl dont think that , can YOU understand that ? . The fact is that no matter what you say , D's now need a boost and is NOT because their enchants dont do damage , is NOT because they dont have e-management .... is because COMPARED to the profs you have to compare them with ( the other 2 melees , yes wake up ) they LACK DPS . Whatever the damage it comes from , it doesnt matter and another fact , if YOU say that Mysticism is right then enchs dmg now are right ( because boosting PbaoE damage would be stupid ) the ONLY way to buff them ( and not the other scythe wielders too ) is BOOSTING in some way their main att by affecting damage done with Scythe at melee.

Yeah , we know how dervish work , now READ moriz and stormx . The thing is that no one is saying here D's should die , instead they are bringing up their flaws and trying to make them less bad or a little better , but DENIAL ....... that doesnt help pal , not at all.

Not in my (PvE) experience... when you could use Pious Assault. If you're forced to use something like Signet Of Pious Light, however... yeah, your target is probably gone by the time the signet is done unless they want to melee you.

This is probably where effect-on-end enchantments would come into play as cover enchantments - make it so that stripping enchantments from the Dervish is actually dangerous. An improvement to Mysticism - that is, improving it in its current form rather than reworking it - could further serve to keep a Dervish laughing in the face of enchantment-strippers.