the truth about the dervish

ok when i 1st got nightfall i made a dervish but whenever i wanted a party for a mission no1 wanted me. today i asked every1 why the hates dervish'. they all replied with they are weak and defensless like assasins. i was shocked that some people would think that!

for 1 thing assasins are strong and defenseful but saying dervish are like assasin??? the only think in common is the armour defense (70 AL).
dervish have loads of skills to do amazing damage and protect themselves. i could go right now stick a few skills together and it would turn out a good build. the problem with guild wars is that it is inhabited by idiots that think because we have 10 AL less than warriors we cant tqank or take damage at all! they treat dervish' like they are casters! i am very tired of them saying this and not letting me into a party JUST BECAUSE IM A DERVISH. i mean you have got to agree that dervish are not being treated as well as they should.

it seems that almost everyone hates them! the worse part is that the nf missions are hard to do with heroes. well anyway this is my thread about people treating dervish wrong.

thanks

Yeh same here,
When I first made my dervish it was almost impossible to get in a party.
For every mission I spent lik 40-50 mins looking for a groud.
But now that I finished the game and decided to start PvP, its much easier to get into a party in TA and HA if you're a Dervish.

I don't think its that no one wants them, is that they are a relatively new class, and many new things come with being a new class.

1. Everybody has one. Meaning, they are in abundant supply and demand is low.
2. Not everyone knows how to play one. You have good dervishes and bad dervishes, but mostly bad ones.
3. People don't know what the dervish has to offer. Most know the gist of what some classes can do, but the majority can't really tell you what each specifically does.

And of course, there is the same bunch who make every melee character and add healing prayers

Dervishs do get a tough time but I wouldn't say their bad as assassin. If you have a decent you can tank bery well sometimes better then a tank.

If your playing a dervish the best way to get more attension is to advertise your build a little and say a few basic skills in it (like Conviction dervish tank).

Only problem is that there is a lot of dervishs and a lot of noobs playing them so even though their well equiped to deal with damage the sterotype still exists.

The situation the dervish the dervish is in is more like the W/Mo in the 1st GW chapter then the assassin.

i have to be honest in saying that dervs dont have much of an application in pve. They do decent damage, but when you really think about pve, the damage tanking capabilities of dervs are severly hindered. we all know that grenth dervs are invaluable in PvP largely because of the mods of said form, however the advantages of a non existent metagame in pve kinda screw the pooch on that one. by the time that toons reach the later missions in the game, dervishes become somewhat more of a liability than a help. one thing that needs to be understood about armor comparisons is that much like an assasin, dervs have 70 armor ONLY. now it can be increased through skills like conviction and an enchant, along with the balthazar form, however forms are quite conditional. for the ~70 seconds of a form, you are left with another 100 or so seconds of vulnerability. back to the armor issue. dervishes and assasins are the only frontline characters with bonus-less armor. ill use a ranger for comparison here. A ranger has 70 armor against physical damage. this means that if a ranger is hit with physical damage, they only get that 70 armor reduction bonus, HOWEVER, if they are hit with elemental damage ( depending on the armor choice) they gain the 100 armor bonus vs that type of attack. dervishes and assasin are left with no bonus, and therefore end up with the shit end of the stick.

Now, i wouldn't write this pseudo derv bash unless i had played one throughout the entirety of the nightfall PvE. i will admit that in earlier missions, they are quite useful. however as soon as you end up in the vortex, those wonderful dervs get shot quite to hell. I would rather a warrior frontlining for a party any day over a derv.

Quote: Originally Posted by crucifix

both of the classes are extremely powerful in the right hands... Anyone who denies you to accompany the party, is a fool and is most obviously weak themselves, don't let them get you down.

I dont really understand how anyone that has merely glanced at the skills in earth prayers can say that the dervish is as weak as an assassin...

Quote: Originally Posted by Lord Oranos

Crucifix said he played one in PvE at least to the torment stages.

However, I still have to vehemently disagree with him. It has been one of the most survivable classes I have played. Other than the standard prot spells for front line characters the healers rarely ever cast anything one me (and yes, this is in the Torment realms also).

*shrug* that is why there are different classes. Different people play differently, even with the same build. I do not know what crucifix used as a build, I do not know what he/she is comparing it too, and I do not know the team build he/she prefers.

Right now a big chunk of the builds I see are slightly modified warrior builds shoved onto a dervish, or a dervish played like a warrior and they do very poorly in the later games (in that respect very similar to an assassin). I can not speak for PvP (I rather dislike PvP) - maybe they work well there. It's really hard to screw up a dervish early to mid game, end game gets to be quite a bit harder. I know I had to really adjust my build and my tactics.

Reading stuff like this is just like seeing how you can not possibly do a mission with an AI party when I go to my map screen and see two swords and a spear on that mission icon (hey, even done with my dervish in Torment missions and finished with no death penalty - yep dies all the time).

Not that I am some great player or anything (I rather think I am not), but the hench AI doesn't seem to have much of an issue either. Thus I tend to think that the Dervish is quite capable in PvE - lets face it, at one time Rangers were considered useless in PvE also. The discussion was very similar to this - proclamations of "Rangers are useless in PvE because of blah blah blah" when there were quite a few rangers who knew better. Eh, I have my Dervish, I'm happy. If someone else wants to miss out that's just fine.

Issue: any melee profession has a ton of people playing it that suck at the game. So playing a new profession likely isn't going to help your cause because there are too many other scrubs out there that will make you look bad

Personally, I think the dervish is nearly indestructable, but that's dependent on your build, and a lot of people aren't running optimized builds.

Its typical of every new expansion set if there is a new damage-dealing class. Too many people choose them, newbie/noob players take them coz they produce high numbers when hitting enemies, good players play the game with heroes and henchies to avoid lousy PuG problems (All the missions are henchable in Elona, only the last few missions are a bit tricky but still henchable). The newbie/noob players can't do that obviously and end up going for PuGs. Since its still a new class and builds are still being worked out, they can't copy any posted build. They end up dying easily in the missions or being useless. Monks and other core classes get fed up and there you go, the "No Dervishes coz they're weak" attitude. You have to admit, thats how things go.

Quote: Originally Posted by Jadzaea

Brrr, Ive seen dervish/eles in AB yesterday, the earth armor enchants are a good addition to the dervish arsenal. Imagine a dervish with sliver armor and stoneflesh aura, thats what i met. With melee weapons he was a very tough nut to crack. Dervishes love enchants and there are a few very useful ones in the earth line that add very decent defense. I was lucky to have a mesmer on the team that slapped backfire/empathy on him, because that was the only way we could successfully counter him (MAN dervishes HATE backfire, all they do is spam enchant spells). I couldn't do much good with my lightning spikes neither could the warrior with his sword.

i really wish people would start to read. The reason i hate dervs is because the entire class is based solely on enchants. its too conditional for my liking and i like to have a bit of a backup for a class instead of just having one lifeline. what happens when a dervs enchants fall? they die.

Quote: Originally Posted by crucifix

I never thought people would attempt to compare dervish to assassin.

I agree that dervishes are amazingly balanced, and that comparing them to assassins is completely idiotic

it just depends on what suits you the most. I prefer warriors and rangers, so thats what i tend to go for. I find dervishes are not as good as tanking, but its a matter of opinion

If you've found you can't tank with a dervish than you have no idea how to play them.