24 Aug 2009 at 12:07 - 9
First of all, i like very much your idea of designing a party healing dervish..i hope this discussion will produce some good build^^
Here's my thoughts:
Like others said, it's better if you design a build which can work well without the need of another healing dervish..in this way you have more flexibility while choosing professions for the other party members (that's to say that your healing backline could be a dervish and a monk, or a dervish and an elementalist, or a dervish and a ritualist..lots of fun testing out various things)
The first problem i see is the energy management. Let's see three skill that can accomplish this task: Arcane Zeal[E], Pious Renewal[E], and Selfless Spirit.
Arcane Zeal: Elite Enchantment Spell. For 10 seconds, whenever you cast a spell, you gain 1 Energy for each enchantment on you (maximum 1...6 Energy). Mysticism. 10e, 1c, 5r.
Pious Renewal: Elite Enchantment Spell. For 8 seconds, whenever an enchantment ends on you, you gain 0...2 Energy and 0...8 Health. Mysticism. 5e, 1/4c, 3r.
Selfless Spirit: Enchantment Spell. For 15...19 seconds, spells you cast that target another ally cost 3 less Energy. Allegiance Title. 5e, 1/4c, 15r.
The first one is useful when you have a lot of long-lasting enchantments (because if they are long-lasting, you spend less energy to maintain them) on yourself, and gives you energy every time you cast a spell.
The second one is useful when you have a lot of cheap and short-lasting enchantments (because they end with high frequency, giving you back a lot of energy) and has good sinergy with Mysticism (both give you energy when an enchantment ends).
The third one is useful when you have a lot of spells that target other allies (party heals don't target anyone, so they don't make SS trigger).
To decide which to choose, it's better to see what other skills we want to bring on our bar:
Mystic Healing: Spell. For each enchantment on you, one party member is healed for 5...53 Health (the same party member cannot be healed more than once). Wind Prayers. 5e, 1c, 2r.
Imbue Health: Spell. Target other ally is healed for 5...41% of your current Health (maximum 300 Health). Mysticism. 10e, 1/4c, 10r.
Watchful Intervention: Enchantment Spell. For 60 seconds, the next time damage drops target ally's Health below 25%, that ally is healed for 50...170 Health. Mysticism. 10e, 1c, 15r.
Faithful Intervention: Enchantment Spell. If damage drops your Health below 50%, Faithful Intervention ends. When Faithful Intervention ends, you are healed for 30...126 Health. Mysticism. 5e, 2c, 20r.
Aegis: Enchantment Spell. For 5...10 seconds, all party members within earshot have a 50% chance to block attacks. Protection Prayers. 10e, 2c, 30r.
These are somehow our "required" skills. Up to now, we can say that our dervish has got at least 3 enchantments (at least one of those for energy management, plus Watchful and Faithful), but they can be 4 with Aegis on. Mystic Healing can be considered a party heal (heals 3-4 party members, and it's spammable). Imbue Health works like an Infuse (can't self-target). Watchful and Faithful are "protection" skills, but they are a bit against the bar-compression principle, because they do similar things.
So, up to now we have choose 6 skills: the previous 5 plus at least one of those for energy management. Let's return now on the energy management question. We have got only two skills that target an ally, that are Watchful Intervention and Imbue Health, and they both aren't "spammable", which means that you will use those two skills not so often. For this reason, i think that Selfless Spirit won't help us much: it will reduce by 3 energy two skills used a bit rarely, so in the end the total energy reduction will be small, not worth a skill slot IMHO.
Regarding Pious Renewal, most of our enchantments are long-lasting, so i don't see a good sinergy with this skill (nor with Mysticism i can say..).
So, i would prefer to use Arcan Zeal, because it works with every spell we cast, being it an enchantment rather than a plain spell, and we've got Mystic Healing which is a cheap and spammable spell.
Our build is now:
Arcane Zeal, Mystic Healing, Imbue Health, Watchful Intervention, Faithful Intervention, Aegis.
This build can: heal party (Mystic Healing), heal single non-self target (Imbue Health), protect/anti-spike (Watchful and Faithful), protect party (Aegis). Maybe we need some stronger single target protection, so we can think about Protective Spirit/Shield of Asborption/Shielding Hands (all of them can power Arcane Zeal). We may also need a self-heal, like Dwayna's Touch. You can also add some Hex/Condition removal from the Protection Prayers line if you need it.
Let me say a word now about Faithful Intervention: this skill is useful because it increases the number of enchantments on the dervish, but his task (correct me if i'm wrong) is accomplished by Watchful Intervention too. So, for reasons of bar-compressing, it would be better not to use Faithful, and bring in something useful, maybe another long lasting enchantment like Prot Spirit.
So, these are my thoughts about this build. This is only theory, i never tested this build in practice, so i don't know if Arcane Zeal plus those enchantments can manage energy properly.
However, i hope we will go on discussing this interesting build^^
/N_Arcane_Orders_Dervish
