How to Use a Dervish in Guild Wars

The Dervish is a very unique class of its own. It has its own style of fighting and defence. But can you control the unique skills of a Dervish?

A Dervish's skills are mainly based on Enchantments. If you have no enchantments in your skill bar and you're a Dervish, you may as well play a Mesmer with no hexes. Enchantments are the Dervish's survival and boosting skills.

To play as a Dervish, it is best to choose one of its attribute skills.

You can play as an Earth Dervish, whose main points of fighting are: Defence, Regeneration, Blindness and brute Strength. Blindness is mainly used because the opponent inflicted with this condition has only 10% chance to hit the target. It is very rare for someone to hit something while the blindness condition is inflicted on them.

Wind Dervish, they are less favoured because they are not tough at fighting at all, the Wind Dervish's main uses are for: Speeding enhancement, Energy Saving and Crippling. These are fairly useless in Player vs. Player or even Player vs. Environment themselves. A Wind Dervish is usually associated with the Assassin class and used for Running.

Mysticism Dervish, this is fairly common for most Dervish's to use because of the elite form they are able to use. They can choose from taking the form of: Balthazar, Dwayna, Grenth, Lyssa and Melandru. All of which have their own unique abilities. Balthazar gains speed, armour and deals holy damage, which is very highly prized in Player vs. Player. Dwayna allowed you to gain health and lose a hex whenever you use a skill; this is very helpful when you are against an opponent that will inflict a hex on you every now and then. Grenth will allow the player to be un-blockable against foes that have an enchantment on them. This is really helpful against Dervish's that might have inflicted blindness on you. Then your last form, Melandru, you gain 100 maximum health and you are immune to conditions, this means, Blindness, Cripple, Bleeding and all other conditions are totally useless on you.

When using a Dervish, the preferred weapon is the Scythe. If you have seen the Grim Reaper and the weapon he bears, you have seen the prime weapon of a Dervish. The scythe has the highest maximum damage in the game, but the down side is that, the minimum is very low. You may look like you're whacking the day lights out of the opponent, but you have an equal chance of hitting a 20 or less. This MUST be avoided at all costs in Player vs. Player. To evade the low damage, max the Scythe Mastery attribute. This way, you are guaranteed you will hit about a 70 - 80 on average, but this may as well depend on your opponent.

Once you have selected your other attribute you with to master, you have to know how to use it. A simple and effective Dervish might want to add some self healing skills, one or two attack skills, Condition appliers and removers and enchantments. This way, you are balanced out on what you want to do.