Interview with Guild Wars Live Team | KillTenRats

There's only two types of healing: single target heals and party heals. Infuse spam is better than all other single target heals, and only elementalists can pull it off. Monks do win at party healing, though, and if that's what you were saying, then I'm sorry.

Could we just agree that ST rits are better at prot than monks as long as their spirits remain alive? The fact that they can be killed is what compensates for their additional effectiveness.

Restoration also has soothing memories and wielder's boon, both very good healing skills if the conditions (which are easy to meet) are met. That makes 4 good single target heals, which is plenty. Then, rits also have access to powerful weapon spells like WoW, Resilient Weapon, and xinrai's weapon or spirit light weapon. I also don't think you give life enough credit. When laid down at the beginning of an extended battle, it typically activates at a point in time when you at least somewhat need it too. Plus, the fact that it heals allies and not just party members is good for the minions in your party. Even in short skirmishes, it can refresh your minions enough that they don't die on the way to the next mob.

The defensive spirits (shelter and union in particular) arnt really all that unreliable. They can be maintained pretty easily with AoU and summon spirits, and if one catches the aggro of an enemy (which shouldn't be often if they are placed smartly), then summon spirits almost always breaks the aggro. Ill give it to you that displacement usually isn't as permanant but compared to aegis, their upkeep times are pretty similar (assuming the use of soul twisting), and displacement gives a 75% block rate.

These weapon spells are not powerful. Weapon of Warding is basically a 10e guardian with some regen, Resilient isn't useful and Xinrae's is a slightly more powerful Vengeful with limited use. The only nice one is Spirit Light Weapon but that takes my elite. Although the elite choice for Restoration Magic is rather poor, it's either Weapon of Remedy, Xinrae's Weapon or Spirit Light Weapon. It's usually SLW or if I'm running N/Rt, Wail of Doom.
The only upshot to these weapon spells is that they're in the same line as the healing skills. This necessitates that they're weaker than the comparable skills the Monk has.

lolumad?

Anet added Grind to this effing game after saying they wouldn't.
Tank & Spank fixes that.

... I even Hand Delievered them a sprawling and well thought out suggestion to balance out player reputation based on work Ethic & build creativity OVER stupid ass Meta farming but they rejected it or turned it into the Z-Coin system we have now instead.

So now I join tank & spankers & SCers even tho it means I never get to play my Derv.
I didn't want it that way, they made the choice for us.

WoW is also removeable and last far longer than guardian. Blocking is very useful and while I would agree that guardian is slightly better due to the energy cost, they are both very good skills. Resilient definitely is useful in an environment where monsters constantly toss around near-useless hexes or small packets of degeneration or other conditions. Resilient's effect is good and it is very easy to activate in PvE. I really like Weapon of Remedy/Xinrai's Weapon (maybe b/c i use RoF and Life sheath so much as a monk...) but i would agree that Spirit Light Weapon is the best choice. That said, SLW is powerful and definitely worthy of an elite spot. Rits have their spike heals with their non-elites, so they don't have to occupy their elite spot to get spike heals like monks usually do by running WoH or UA/HB.

For PvE, I disagree. There is no need for either and they both fall way behind when compared to Aegis.
PvP is another issue altogether but I would push for Guardian simply due to the energy cost.

Hey, guess what, you can grind without tank and spank. Really not sure what gave you the impression that tank and spank was the only method in this game with there are countless other people saying that it isn't required. Your guild has a weird thing where they can't look past it and try other things. Like that you don't need a BIP for the Deep...

...Am I the only person who sees no real problem with dervishes as they currently are? Now that I'm done title hunting on my warrior main, I started playing my dervish, and he is having at least as easy a time of it as my warrior did. Sure, his secondary is pretty much locked as /w for SY! which limits his flexibility somewhat, but the yellow numbers are more or less as silly as they were on the warrior. Ele needs much more help in pve insofar as I'm concerned, but it doesn't look like any update will be made in that direction before at least another year.... Which is absurd considering all they really need to do is add some +armor penetration to one of the pve skills and problem solved.

And the reason most people including myself sometimes use resto rits over N/rt or E/mo or Mo/x is for the flexibility. Once you've specced 12 in resto the rest of your points are basically free, so you can go w channeling for SoS + splinter weapon + spirit siphon for infinite energy and some decent DPS, or communing for the protective spirits, or spawning for soul twisting to fuel rejuv/recup/life spam, or go for a three-way split, and still keep your basic effectiveness. E/mo is extremely inflexible, N/rt need a large investment in soul reaping to be effective, and Mo/x tends to be stretched thin over three or four attributes so they lack that jack-of-all-trades multitasking flair.

Being locked into one build isn't a problem? Other professions (assassin) hit far better than you no matter what build you use not a problem? Many dervish spells aren't armor ignoring either, but elementalists can make builds to deal somewhat with hard mode. Almost every skill and everything about the primary attribute is trash and all the dervish has left is attack spam.

Many other threads covered this in much detail.

Agreed; mysticism needs a rework. I tend to see the predominance of critscythe as an issue with the assassin, though, not the dervish. A primary attribute (critical strikes) that significantly raises your damage with every single weapon in the game AND functions as an infinite energy engine AND is linked to the best ias in the game (critical agility) is begging for a nerf.