Curse

dumimare · Aug 09, 2008, 09:03 PM // 21:03

just recently turned level 20 and got the possibility to change my second profession. along with the option came the dilemma. if up until now i was a D/W, i never actually used anything from the warrior and i mean nothing what-so-ever. all my skills are dervish skills, and all my points are put into mysticism, scythe mastery and then earth prayers.

so i'm doing a bit of reading on the gw wiki, and as dervishes rely so heavily on enchantments, on activating, stripping and juggling enchantments, i am having a really hard time finding any profession with enchantments that would be more useful than the dervish's are. i mean, many of them don't even have an effect when they end or are stripped.

so what i am asking is if there are any drawbacks to having a secondary profession only by name and using only the dervish skills and attributes.

pure dervish, in other words. yay or nay. i'd love to hear your thoughts on this matter.

mllepandora · Aug 09, 2008, 09:28 PM // 21:28

Well, PvE in general is easy, and you can run a pure dervish if you so choose, but the whole point of being able to change your secondary class is to provide the utility skills you might need for harder areas or a specific quest, boss or mob. EDIT: Also, be sure to look at the Dervish's weak points. Having an enchant based-melee character (Aka the Derv) means that things like enchantment removal or even blinding can leave you eating dirt. (and fast) --secondary class skills can help with that.

In the end, you can do more for your fellow players (or h/hench) by not being a purist.

For Example:

Keep getting knocked down? Throw in a warrior stance that avoids K/d.
Fighting Abbadon? You'll find that party wide condition removal, from the monk or paragon lines, will help a ton.
Want to give back that annoying bleeding and crippled? Take the Necro's Plague Touch skill.

At the very least, taking monk or paragon (and later, ritualist) gives you a re-usable resurrection skill, and some nice healing!

in NF, getting "Ascended" (aka, the ability to change into any secondary class at any time) happens relatively quickly, so you won't be locked into the decision for long.

And you can experiment with pure builds all you want, in hero and henchmen land. Trust me, they don't care.

Joe Fierce · Aug 09, 2008, 09:30 PM // 21:30

Your awnser is this, as with any profession utilizing the secondary is always suggested unless you have a really well working build with only primary skills but, when it comes to what profession could benefit you?

[frigid armor] + [conjure frost] used to equal teh lulz back in the day when i used to play a dervish in pve, and there' hasn't been much to change to either of these skills since, so i think it'll still serve you well.

Edited by Celestial Beaver: Removed reference to deleted post.

dumimare · Aug 09, 2008, 09:30 PM // 21:30

that was as helpful as a rash. if you cherish and miss your lost time so much you shouldn't have bothered replying. you lost an extra minute posting that trash. serves you right!

edit: this was a reply to nibbit's post. thank you (mllepandora and Joe Fierce) for your input.

Xsiriss · Aug 09, 2008, 09:43 PM // 21:43

I agree with nibbet,WTF.State the obvious more pl0x?. Its not being mean it helps a person to wake up,use your common sense.

Anyway,PvE is easy enough that you dont need self heas in msot places so yeh sure take off earth prayers and put in stuff for extra dmg such as the conjures, only time you need adjusting is for missions in which case wiki will impart its allknowingness to what to do.
Pure dervs are better easily, aura of holy might>conjure and anythin else to enhance base damage really, only need a 2nd prof for sunspear/luxon skills whihc dont need any extra attributes reset anyways.D/ anyday.

Widowmaker · Aug 09, 2008, 09:59 PM // 21:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by mllepandora

Trust me, they don't care.

I hear that complaining about their builds will be in the next hero AI update.

OP: A secondary class is just that, secondary, you take what you need from it if you need it. If you find your primary can cover what you need, go purely with that class.

dumimare · Aug 09, 2008, 10:01 PM // 22:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xsiriss

I agree with nibbet,WTF.State the obvious more pl0x?. Its not being mean it helps a person to wake up,use your common sense.

Anyway,PvE is easy enough that you dont need self heas in msot places so yeh sure take off earth prayers and put in stuff for extra dmg such as the conjures, only time you need adjusting is for missions in which case wiki will impart its allknowingness to what to do.
Pure dervs are better easily, aura of holy might>conjure and anythin else to enhance base damage really, only need a 2nd prof for sunspear/luxon skills whihc dont need any extra attributes reset anyways.D/ anyday.

while i do appreciate the few minutes of your life you used to offer your thought on the matter, it would be awesome if you used proper grammar, punctuation, and sentence structuring as it's kind of hard to understand what you're saying.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Widowmaker

I hear that complaining about their builds will be in the next hero AI update.

OP: A secondary class is just that, secondary, you take what you need from it if you need it. If you find your primary can cover what you need, go purely with that class.

is there a way i can chose to not display a second profession? like having it show only D in front of my name, instead of D/whatever.

BFG · Aug 09, 2008, 10:28 PM // 22:28

In a word, "no". Once you choose a secondary, you will always have a secondary profession.

MisterB · Aug 09, 2008, 10:30 PM // 22:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by dumimare

is there a way i can chose to not display a second profession? like having it show only D in front of my name, instead of D/whatever.

No. Once you take a secondary profession, you can't go back to a single profession. Note there are torturous and dumb methods to play as single profession only, but you'd have to start over. There's no disadvantage to having a second profession you don't use; quite the contrary. It's always available if/when you choose, and gives you many more options. You might try [[Wild Blow] and [[Whirlwind Attack] on your Dervish.

dumimare · Aug 09, 2008, 11:04 PM // 23:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by MisterB

You might try [[Wild Blow] and [[Whirlwind Attack] on your Dervish.

ahem. one thing i don't get is what's with the adrenalin those two skills use? where is it, and how do i see how much i have?

TheodenKing · Aug 09, 2008, 11:06 PM // 23:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by dumimare

while i do appreciate the few minutes of your life you used to offer your thought on the matter, it would be awesome if you used proper grammar, punctuation, and sentence structuring as it's kind of hard to understand what you're saying.

is there a way i can chose to not display a second profession? like having it show only D in front of my name, instead of D/whatever.

"People in glass houses, shouldn't throw stones."

Regarding your general question: Do whatever you want. You appear to be purely PvE, and the monsters are only going to do a certain number of things to challenge you. Most pugs aren't going to care too much what your derv build is. You are a derv, and they know what they are getting.

But, if you want to grow as a player, spend the 500 gold and try a few builds from wiki. Then spend another 500 gold and try a few more. You'll have some fun, you'll learn a few things, and you'll probably become a stronger player.

MisterB · Aug 09, 2008, 11:12 PM // 23:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by dumimare

ahem. one thing i don't get is what's with the adrenalin those two skills use? where is it, and how do i see how much i have?

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Adrenaline
Wild Blow has no drawback if you have no adrenaline skills, and each adrenaline skill will charge up independently on your skill bar, then "light up" when it is ready for use.

David Wooding · Aug 09, 2008, 11:37 PM // 23:37

I rarely use both of the proffessions on my character's, I take the second profession as a necessity, most of my builds involve primary prof only, there's no drawback to not using your secondary profession, and also, I suggest you look up warrior's a bit... Mainly, adrenal skills. -.-

Baratus · Aug 10, 2008, 04:31 AM // 04:31

I find pure builds with about half of my characters to be VERY effective in both PvE and PvP. This has been the case for years, assuming you have a good team with you. I have soloed NF so far and am at the point of leaving the starting island. I have no deaths and am about 2/3 the way to obtaining the survivor title. The dervish is my new favorite class, trumping my smiter monk from the very beginning. Oh, did I mention he's a pure build?

I chose the mesmer secondary to have three skills, even though they have no points into them. Backfire, which only does 35 damage with no points but lasts the same amount of time and kills casters. Empathy, which is the same as backfire, only for melee classes. And then there's the skill that steals four energy and gives me eight in return, for those tight situations. I have all my points in scythe mastery and mysticism, with the extras being in earth prayers. Works incredibly well. I normally take Koss, Dunkoro, and Tahlkora with me. Warrior, healer, protector. We can take everything at this point, and I have made masters on every mission I have attempted on the first try.

Currently, I only carry the energy-stealing skill of the mesmer, and the rest are scythe-mastery skills, with one mysticism skill and one earth prayers skill. I could probably dump that mesmer skill as well, but it has helped in situations where we're fighting one group and another wanders into the fray, and before we finish them, a third group comes in. So far though, it works.

If that's not enough, how about the smiter monks? They're pure builds and until ANet buffed mesmers up and placed them almost everywhere, they were gods! I have seen a few pure ranger builds that are godly in PvP as well. Not sure about PvE however.

Do what works for you. I love being a pure dervish and am unstoppable in PvE. If deaths in PvP didn't stop the survivor title I'd probably have tested it out in PvP already, but being so close to obtaining it has kept me away from the arenas. Either way, pure builds work for almost every class, if not every class, so try it out. You can always change your setup for free!

joshuarodger · Aug 10, 2008, 04:38 AM // 04:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baratus

I find pure builds with about half of my characters to be VERY effective in both PvE and PvP. This has been the case for years, assuming you have a good team with you. I have soloed NF so far and am at the point of leaving the starting island. I have no deaths and am about 2/3 the way to obtaining the survivor title. The dervish is my new favorite class, trumping my smiter monk from the very beginning. Oh, did I mention he's a pure build?

I chose the mesmer secondary to have three skills, even though they have no points into them. Backfire, which only does 35 damage with no points but lasts the same amount of time and kills casters. Empathy, which is the same as backfire, only for melee classes. And then there's the skill that steals four energy and gives me eight in return, for those tight situations. I have all my points in scythe mastery and mysticism, with the extras being in earth prayers. Works incredibly well. I normally take Koss, Dunkoro, and Tahlkora with me. Warrior, healer, protector. We can take everything at this point, and I have made masters on every mission I have attempted on the first try.

Currently, I only carry the energy-stealing skill of the mesmer, and the rest are scythe-mastery skills, with one mysticism skill and one earth prayers skill. I could probably dump that mesmer skill as well, but it has helped in situations where we're fighting one group and another wanders into the fray, and before we finish them, a third group comes in. So far though, it works.

If that's not enough, how about the smiter monks? They're pure builds and until ANet buffed mesmers up and placed them almost everywhere, they were gods! I have seen a few pure ranger builds that are godly in PvP as well. Not sure about PvE however.

Do what works for you. I love being a pure dervish and am unstoppable in PvE. If deaths in PvP didn't stop the survivor title I'd probably have tested it out in PvP already, but being so close to obtaining it has kept me away from the arenas. Either way, pure builds work for almost every class, if not every class, so try it out. You can always change your setup for free!

pure builds are fine to use. most of the time, i only use derv skills when playing my derv. you only use secondary skills if they synergize with your primary role. on that note you seem to be using too many scythe skills and probably don't have enough points in mysticism to get the full effect of the dervish's primary attribute if you're having energy issues.

btw, anything works on noob island and in NM. get back to us once you've actually done something with your derv.

Sigma Onkoron · Aug 10, 2008, 04:54 AM // 04:54

Look at skills from every class. Then when you find something that might work. Use it. Check pvx wiki to. Conjure derv is good atm.

Gl finding a build

dumimare · Aug 10, 2008, 09:03 AM // 09:03

thanks for all your feedback. appreciated.

Baratus · Aug 11, 2008, 03:57 AM // 03:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by joshuarodger

pure builds are fine to use. most of the time, i only use derv skills when playing my derv. you only use secondary skills if they synergize with your primary role. on that note you seem to be using too many scythe skills and probably don't have enough points in mysticism to get the full effect of the dervish's primary attribute if you're having energy issues.

btw, anything works on noob island and in NM. get back to us once you've actually done something with your derv.

So I guess my other pure builds don't count? I am just saying that this class is very good at what it does, and I use the energy stealing skill only when I am playing without a healer hero, henchmen, or player. I only have three dervish skills I normally use for enchantments. That's holy fire, the one that restores health as you hit, and the one that gives you bonus health and heals when it ends. That allows me to use one of those skills that gives bonus damage per enchant, allowing me to spam it while other, longer skills recharge. If I have a healer of some kind with me, I do not need the skill since I have tones of buffs on me.

I can't recall my exact skills setup, but scythe mastery is around r12, mysticism is around r9, and the rest is in earth prayers. I get nine health and three energy when enchants end. Pious attack also helps when I am buffed out and need health or energy.

One thing to note, however. The holy fire enchantment appears to be broken after the most recent update. One of my favorite low-level things to do was to use the enchant, run into a crowd, and use pious attack to set everybody on fire. I haven't seen it set ANYBODY, including the mob I am fighting, on fire since the patch.

xakia · Aug 11, 2008, 04:16 AM // 04:16

Not sure about that one but the heart of holy flame or whatever does set stuff on fire.

Axel Zinfandel · Aug 11, 2008, 06:18 AM // 06:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by dumimare

while i do appreciate the few minutes of your life you used to offer your thought on the matter, it would be awesome if you used proper grammar, punctuation, and sentence structuring as it's kind of hard to understand what you're saying.

No one appreciates a pretentious douche.

At any rate, the Dervish class is one of the classes that are known for it's self dependability. More often then not, you won't want nor need skills from other professions. I myself have only use warrior for [skill]Wild Blow[/skill] and [skill]Protector's Strike[/skill] in Lyssa builds.