Is playing a Dervish worth it?

This might be more of a general profession question and has probably been asked often in a similar way, but I have trouble picking a class to stick with. Every different thing you could think of I've tried weighing up to choose one. If I hear a class is worthless end game, or not wanted for groups, it puts me off (Even though I struggle to find groups) . I heard Dervish are outclassed by warrior, but then I hear Assassins are better then Warriors at tanking and also better with scythes, I don't know if the information I'm getting is old either (It probably is).. Then people say it doesn't matter what profession you pick because lol7heroes but then that makes me feel like I'm not even playing the game, the heroes are. How can I know if a class is what I like if I can never keep up with the information and don't know who to believe? And yeah of course, I have tried classes but that doesn't always make everything clear either.

Another thing too, because I'm not very good at making builds, pvx is my only resource and it seems like there are very few builds that "work", according to that site but that's probably just my newbieness showing.

I also get confused with classes and what role they actually play or can play. (Yes I've read the Wiki, etc)

Are warriors actually tanks/useful in general? Who's real dps? Is Elementalist damage bad in HM? Are Assassins only good for speed runs etc?

If anyone could give their opinion and why they think what they think about my rant etc, that'd be great.

To a large extent your heroes pretty much are playing the game for you. If you want to mitigate that some, I would suggest going with a melee type and building your heroes to support you, with the handful of good smiting and channeling skills for the job. Then it will be your job to herd and target effectively so all the hero support skills blow things up and make you shine.

For general/hero-based play wars, sins, dervs are all very strong and roughly on the same tier. You can take other primary classes like ranger and play them as a melee type pretty effectively, but in that case much of your skillbar is warrior/sin/derv skills, so keep that in mind. In terms of effective build diversity I would rank war > derv > sin, that doesn't change that all are about as good, just that there are fewer effective skill bars to change things up when bored. Your best bet may be to just pick whichever one you like the best.

Not that long ago wars and especially sins ran scythe much better than derv, however there was a major update that remade dervishes and put them on top for the weapon. Scythe wars/sins will still blow things up fast and are a decent choice, but the dervish now does it better instead of worse, and with far more options to play around with.

If you consider "endgame" meeting up with pugs to work on the daily zaishen quests then any three is fine, although there is going to be some preference for the tankier warrior that can deal with unreliable pug healers. On the other hand if you are looking for moneymaking speedclears (this games "raids") or farming then I would honestly not worry about which class you are using. The way these optimized builds work is often completely different from general play and the tactics and skills you learn in the latter will not do a whole lot to prep you for the former. There are ways to get max level and the handful of skills/gear you need for a specific speedclear without clearing every campaign, so a character you use for farming/speedclear doesn't have to be a "main" that you put so many hours into. Very easy to build functional alts in this game.

Quote: Originally Posted by Chiliad

Lol! And my Ranger is my primary. But I've got Warrior, Assassin, and Dervish full up and I love all three. And a para, and a mesmer. And an ele; all full up.

First off, pay no attention to what other people say. Pick the one you really like best, go to depth with it; and then "Use the Force, Luke!"

Because in the end the force of your personality manifested as grit and determination can accomplish more than all the spec sheets in the world.

Quote: Originally Posted by Chiliad This might be more of a general profession question and has probably been asked often in a similar way, but I have trouble picking a class to stick with. Every different thing you could think of I've tried weighing up to choose one. If I hear a class is worthless end game, or not wanted for groups, it puts me off (Even though I struggle to find groups) . I heard Dervish are outclassed by warrior, but then I hear Assassins are better then Warriors at tanking and also better with scythes, I don't know if the information I'm getting is old either (It probably is).. Then people say it doesn't matter what profession you pick because lol7heroes but then that makes me feel like I'm not even playing the game, the heroes are. How can I know if a class is what I like if I can never keep up with the information and don't know who to believe? And yeah of course, I have tried classes but that doesn't always make everything clear either. Dervishes are a bit above both warrior and assassin for just about everything. Assassin has shadow form tanking which is just an OP exploit to become invincible and do nothing for SCs, and warrior has a few cool extra gimmicks (Earth shaker knocklocking entire groups and Dragon Slash for single target DPS), but for general PvE Dervish wins out and has a bit more variety than either Assassin or Warrior. Also, Dervs also have the distinction of having the best party healing in the game with Dwanya's form, which I find particularly hilarious.

Dervishes got a major overhaul in their skillset fairly recently. Before then they were horrible, and Sins/Warriors abused scythe to be much better than both Dervs with Scythes and Sins/Warriors with their own natural weapons (300+ damage per swing on crits, shit was insane). Dervs are still a lot rarer class because hardly anyone used to play them, but now most would agree they are the strongest and most versatile melee class. Other than the obsessive compulsive farmers while think the only Assassin elite is shadow form, at least.

Quote:

Another thing too, because I'm not very good at making builds, pvx is my only resource and it seems like there are very few builds that "work", according to that site but that's probably just my newbieness showing. As you said, lol7heroes makes any build work (I have run endgame HM content with an orison of healing warrior just to prove a point before). For the most part though Dervs are easy to make builds around. Out of their elite skills about 20% are ridiculously OP and 60% are pretty decent, compared to most classes where 5% of elites are OP, 20% are decent and the other 75% are junk. So long as you exercise some common sense in choosing what elite to base the build around and play to the strength of that elite, you will have a plenty powerful build. Also, go /W and take Save Yourselves because thats what every physical should do. Quote: I also get confused with classes and what role they actually play or can play. (Yes I've read the Wiki, etc) Are warriors actually tanks/useful in general? Who's real dps? Is Elementalist damage bad in HM? Are Assassins only good for speed runs etc? Tanks are useless in guild wars other than farming runs. The reason being that debuff and protection spells/abilities are far stronger and can be used party wide or cast on an individual player getting ganged up on. Dervs/Warriors/Assassins/Rangers/Paragons all put out high DPS in melee with decent builds because a huge chunk of melee damage generally comes from buffs other players cast for them. Dervs are generally a bit slightly higher overall in DPS while Paragons are lower, but really things die fast no matter what assuming your hits are connecting. Not that you will see paragons do melee, they are married to their imbagon spearchuker builds. Lots of rangers do dagger/pet builds though. Eles have rather bad damage in HM because all of their spells are fully armor scaled or at best have 25% armor penetration. Enemy armor keeps going up with levels, meaning the average lvl 26-30 character takes 30% less damage than normal (bad when heavily armored physicals only took 50% damage to begin with). Other casters generally have ready access to 100% armor ignoring builds. Melee characters don't have that problem because buff damage is armor ignoring and +damage from skills is armor ignoring. The only damage reduction you face is minus 5-10 damage on your base weapon attacks, which is negligible when lol Splinter Weapon just did 200 damage on its own. Ranged characters also put out rather weaker damage because they attack slower, have worse AoE attack abilities (none for paragon and Barrage for Ranger is both elite and makes you attack slower), and are missing an important physical buff (Strength of Honor) that only works on melee, though the most important physical buffs (Splinter Weapon or Great Dwarven Weapon) still work fine. One thing of note is that apparently Anet is planning on an update to address eles in HM and it is expected to reduce armor and let non-armor ignoring builds work better.

Answering your questions...

1) Warriors are the traditional tank, although in my opinion, assassins have them outclassed in that area.

2) Of the three melee, all of them have about the same dps depending on how you play. I would say generally that warriors have slightly lower, but have more ability for utility, (aoe knockdowns).

3) As of right now, elementalist damage is not the best in hard mode. But, as aforementioned, anet will be fixing that shortly, so it could be a good investment in making an elementalist.

4) I am a fan of assassins. I use them for scs, farming, running, general play, and pvp. So, they aren't just good for scs. But you can easily find the same amount of uses for all the professions.

General notes:
Yes derv used to be outclassed by sin with scythe damage, but not anymore. All classes are used in some way in the endgame activities. Elementalist, necro, mesmer, ritualist, assassin for UW; monks and warriors for FoW, Dervs for Fow and UW; para for DoA. So, you won't be left out whatever you choose.

Finally, as many other people have mentioned, just pick the one you like the best, you will find there is much more to do on your character than the rest of the community thinks.

Quote: Originally Posted by ultimak719

Elementalist, necro, mesmer, ritualist, assassin for UW; monks and warriors for FoW, Dervs for Fow and UW; para for DoA. Just so you're not confused, the above is for speed clears. All of the above professions are used in all three of those areas.

Here is the deal. Assassin is the best all-around character, period. It can be an amazing dps melee killer, a tank, an archer or a spearchucker, AS WELL AS a caster. This is a major selling point, considering that there are areas of the game where being a melee character sucks (when you are playing by yourself with heroes, and you have to carry a bundle). Caster's can cast while holding a bundle, but the melee character must keep dropping and picking up the bundle. I don't know about you, but it drives me nuts. Then, there are areas where casting is gimped, such as against Vow of Silence dervish enemies in EotN, where it is much better to be a melee character to deal with those types of enemies.

The Ritualist is amazing for being able to deal dmg (channeling spells in NM, spirit spam in HM), healing, and party-wide protection.

Simply put, Assassin and Ritualist. And if you are willing to invest the time and want to experience Prophecies and Nightfall's campaigns with characters from those campaigns, I would recommend either the Warrior (it is pretty much stuck as melee, which is why I recommend the Assassin), the Mesmer, or the Necromancer. The Ranger, Elementalist, Dervish, Paragon, and Monk and much less versatile.

I would say try the Assassin first as both melee and caster (physicalway and/or Sabway for melee, and Discord for caster) and see which you like. If you decide you don't like melee, then make any additional characters casters.

Definitely worth it, as long as you like the playstyle.

I have to say I don't really enjoy playing one - I find both the Warrior and the Assassin more suitable to my tastes - , yet the Dervish is currently among the best classes available in the game (some would say they're borderline overpowered/broken).

So... well, up to you. Try it. If you like it, you sure won't regret it

Better than warrior and assassin in non-speedclear situations... because you get to fuel Dwayna's kiss super easily (talking 200-300+ heals with only UA)... scythe has innate multihit, flash enchantments are hilarity with Pious assault + Avatars, and Heart of Fury/Pious Fury isn't strippable. It's more flexible in builds due to not needing a cancel stance or lead+offhand+dual chain.

The "usable" skill pool is also bigger as pointed out by Kunder.

For speedclears just make a sin. Most of the time all you will have is crap like Sliver armor.... If you choose to go dagger, your base damage is crap and your only dagger AoE will be Death Blossom+Golden Phoenix Strike/Jungle Strike, so you have 5 non-attack slots if you choose to have AoE.

Quote: Is playing a Dervish worth it? A very vague question. Worth it for what? In what way?
I took my Dervish through all 3 campaigns and EotN and had fun doing it, so it was worth it. However, Dervish is not one of my favourite classes so I don't play it much any more.

If you are simply asking about plowing through the content, then the question is, is it worth playing GW at all in that case?

It depends entirely on what you want to do with your character, if you want to go for 50/50 and gwamm then play whatever you enjoy because you will spend 99% of your time with heroes anyway, if you are looking to join groups for doa/fow/uw etc then check out pvx and see what roles are required for those particular areas and make those characters.

Quote: Originally Posted by Chiliad

I can never keep up with the information and don't know who to believe?

If anyone could give their opinion and why they think what they think about my rant etc, that'd be great. Well.. I used to make the Dervish my nastiest archer.. and burn out the competition with Mystic corruption back when it added % to all your conditions.. then I'd cripple people for like 30 sec and burn them with ranger Elite for like 12 seconds. And with all the extra running skills I couldnt be caught.

Now they got it to wear you cant even try to do that.. But that happened AFTER they nerfed sharpen daggers to wear it didnt effect arrows with barrage and volley.. Or effect the sythe anymore for Faction battles.

I feel so old school now.. In fact I dont even know what the heck to believe anymore. But I do know now you treat all dervishes in PvP as walking AOE attackers.

With all this overpowering of dervishes going on.. I'm wondering if the Dervish main badguy boss in Nightfall is impossible to kill now.. I think ill pay her a visit and see..

I know back then they could Solo run and do almost any situation of PVE now im not sure.. The versitility has moved from enchantment drop survival to.. more of a melee powerhouse..

I guess the proper question is.

"In what situations are dervishes worth playing?" and "Do I even bother making a dervish in PvE or stick to quick customizing PvP character?"

You revived a 3 month old thread and didn't actually say anything?