Guide:Dervish

Dervishes, along with their more heavily armored counterparts, the Warriors, form the frontline of any well balanced party. The Dervish's weapon of choice is the scythe, a two-handed item with a rather slow attack rate of one swing every 1.75 seconds, but can hit up to 2 adjacent enemies other than the target. Dervishes have 4 pips of energy regeneration and their armor has a natural health boost of 25 health.

Mysticism

 * "Mysticism, the Dervish's primary attribute, reduces the cost of your Dervish enchantments by 4%. It also gives +1 armor per rank of Mysticism while you are enchanted in PvE."

In addition to the stated effect, skills related to Mysticism also receive a hefty bonus from it. It is a primary attribute and the home of the popular Avatars of the gods.

Earth Prayers

 * "No inherent effect. Many Dervish Spells, especially those dealing with defense or Earth damage, become more effective with higher Earth Prayers."

Most of the Dervish's self-survival comes from this branch of the Dervish's repertoire. Most of this survivability comes in the form of enchantments that, when combined with Mysticism, can give some passable energy management and potent self-survivability. This potent self-survivability makes the dervish a popular choice as a secondary class.

Scythe Mastery

 * "Scythe Mastery increases the damage you do with scythes and your chance to inflict a critical hit when using a scythe. Many skills, especially scythe attack skills, become more effective with higher Scythe Mastery."

This attribute is very straightforward: it contains all of the Dervish's scythe attacks (with one exception in PvP, see Wind Prayers below) along with a good helping of melee attacks that can be used with any weapon type. Like all weapon mastery attributes, investing in Scythe Mastery is a necessary choice in order to accomplish any meaningful damage when wielding a scythe (even if your build doesn't use any of the attack skills linked to the attribute).

Wind Prayers

 * "No inherent effect. Many Dervish Spells, especially those dealing with movement or cold damage, become more effective with higher Wind Prayers."

A more esoteric, support-oriented attribute with potent anti-kiting abilities. Skills of this attribute are often used when running or healing other team members. Also contains some energy management and IAS, although this is usually dwarfed by what Mysticism already offers on top of its primary benefit. Note that on PvP bars, Wind Prayers is also the home of Chilling Victory.

Tank
The tank is synonymous with Warriors in PvE (and is the standard PvE gameplay for Warriors) but a Dervish can still skillfully tank. Unlike their brethren, the Warriors, Dervish tanks focus around beefing up their armor and defenses with enchantments (such as Mirage Cloak or Armor of Sanctity) and perhaps stances, then using numerous regenerative spells (such as Mystic Regeneration or Mystic Vigor) to out-heal enemy damage. Note that this is only effective in PvE, where the AI can be successfully manipulated into attacking well-defended targets; in PvP, obviously-durable targets will usually be dutifully ignored and avoided. Note also that a Dervish tank will be hard-pressed to function properly in situations with heavy or constant enchantment removal.

Frontliner (Avatar)
Avatars of the gods (also known as Forms) are used to bolster the defensive or offensive capabilities of a Dervish to evade standard anti-melee counters such as Blindness or anti-melee hexes. One of the most popular forms is the Avatar of Melandru due to its resistance to popular PvP skills such as Blinding Surge but in both PvP and PvE, several Forms see use due to their ability to dish out high damage or counter specific enemies.

Frontliner (Non-Avatar)
Zealous Vow provides excellent energy management, while Wounding Strike and Reaper's Sweep is often used in non-avatar builds to provide spammable Deep Wound, and is very popular.

Tactics

 * playing style
 * important rules to follow when trying to accomplish such objective

Attack Skills
Attack skills are bread and butter of the art of killing people.

Scythe Mastery

 * These are quite commonly used. Their additional damage is quite easy to come by and they have very quick activation times making them useful for spikes in PvP.


 * Powerful single target and AoE damage. This skill is linked to Scythe Mastery in PvE only.


 * A skill that is frequently used in combination of AoM (Avatar of Melandru)

Wind Prayers

 * Chilling Victory is linked to Wind Prayers in PvP. In situations where a moderately high Wind Prayers attribute is desired (because of skills such as whirling charge or attacker's insight) this skill makes a Dervish's spike stronger.

Avatars/Forms
These skills are often used for specific purpose and in specific situations to further increase the potency of other skills in a skill set. All avatar skills are elites and change the appearance of a character to one resembling a God specified in the forms name.


 * Grants the Dervish a +40 armor bonus, which can be used to deal with the aggro of monsters in PvE. The unstrippable IMS is also of very good use in PvP.


 * Most commonly used as a counter hex mechanism in Dervish builds.


 * In PvP this can be used to counter popular enchantments such as guardian. Both the PvP and PvE versions feature life stealing on attack.


 * Used to aid in pressuring foes. AoL also has synergy with radiant scythe.


 * A commonly used form due to its condition-counter mechanism. Also has synergy with skills that benefit from high max health.

Increase Attack Speed

 * This skill is an IAS tied to an attribute that is commonly used by Dervishes.

Increase Movement Speed
An IMS is used to prevent foes from kiting in PvP and move from target to target quicker in PvE.


 * An IMS that sees use in builds that have free attribute points for use in Wind Prayers.

Snares
These skills are also used to prevent kiting.


 * An attack skill providing a snare.

Self-Heals
Useful for splits in GvG.


 * Provides a decent heal for a minimal attribute investment. For example, at a spec of 6 (common in a 12-11-6 spread) this skill heals for 98.