Guild Wars 2

My main in GW1 for years was a Dervish, and I absolutely love everything about the class. A lot of crazy stuff is going down and there’s some talk about the human gods returning. I’m sure that if they add new classes to the game, Dervish will be one of them. I’ve heard a lot of reasons why people think they won’t come back and here’s my answer to them.

Issue 1: But the human gods aren’t here.
A: If they come back in the plot, perhaps to help in the fight against dragons, or because they’re summoned back in some way, it’s a good time for the Dervishes to come back too.

Issue 2: Dervishes wouldn’t make sense because the other races would never be dervishes because they don’t follow the human gods.
A: The human gods coming back and helping fight the dragons could heavily influence the other races beliefs. Gods coming back and making an impact in the world, I see no better reason for the other races to want to worship them and become dervishes themselves. The Charr think guardians are cowardly…yet you still can make a Charr guardian.

Issue 3: other classes would be put into the game before dervishes.
A: What other classes? Assassins are covered by thieves, paragons and monks by guardians, rits by engis… Dervishes are the only one not covered by another profession already in the game.

These are the only three rebuttals I’ve heard against the return of Dervishes, and they’re pretty easily thrown out of the window because of these reasons. What do you think, return of the Dervishes in the future?

I can see sylvari converting to the faith of the human gods. But why would asura, charr, and norn?

Norn already have their diety-like figures and they don’t question the existence of the Six Gods. They don’t worship anything, but do revere their Spirits of the Wild. They already view the Six Gods as “Spirits of Action” and call them by what they represent: War, Death, Knowledge, etc. rather than by names like Balthazar, Grenth, and Kormir (reason being: names for deities are such quaint, human things – paraphrasing Jeff Grubb). Why would they convert to follow the Six Gods, if they already have powerful beings that guide them and consult with them – and have far longer than the gods – especially when the norn consider the gods to be on par with the Spirits of the Wild?

The charr seek to KILL the Six Gods, on the whole. While there may be some religious charr, they are either Flame Legion (thus seek to bring Gaheron into godhood… or whatever it is they seek now that he’s dead and the Eternal Flame is destroyed), or thought to be Flame Legion by all other charr. They have no reason to worship the Six Gods, and their return would only entice hostility, not converts.

The asura revere something greater than the Six Gods, even if the gods were to show up in front of them they’d still go “yeah, you’re great, but your just a cog in the Eternal Alchemy still, even if a big one. No different than the Elder Dragons in that regard.” Why would asura convert to merely worshiping a piece of what they already worship?

On charr guardians – nothing says they think charr guardians are cowardly. I don’t know where you got that. They don’t trust magic users, and this includes guardians, but I’d imagine guardians to be amongst the most trustworthy, since they watch their warband’s back.

No Walking.6349:

The Charr think guardians are cowardly…yet you still can make a Charr guardian.

Citation needed.

runeblade.7514:

No Walking.6349:

The Charr think guardians are cowardly…yet you still can make a Charr guardian.

Citation needed.

The only Charr NPC guardian is Dinky, and he’s picked on all the time because of being one, this is stated in the Wiki too. The Charr are offensive, and view someone who buffs the party and hides behind spells as weak.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dinky

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I can see sylvari converting to the faith of the human gods. But why would asura, charr, and norn?

Norn already have their diety-like figures and they don’t question the existence of the Six Gods. They don’t worship anything, but do revere their Spirits of the Wild. They already view the Six Gods as “Spirits of Action” and call them by what they represent: War, Death, Knowledge, etc. rather than by names like Balthazar, Grenth, and Kormir (reason being: names for deities are such quaint, human things – paraphrasing Jeff Grubb). Why would they convert to follow the Six Gods, if they already have powerful beings that guide them and consult with them – and have far longer than the gods – especially when the norn consider the gods to be on par with the Spirits of the Wild?

The charr seek to KILL the Six Gods, on the whole. While there may be some religious charr, they are either Flame Legion (thus seek to bring Gaheron into godhood… or whatever it is they seek now that he’s dead and the Eternal Flame is destroyed), or thought to be Flame Legion by all other charr. They have no reason to worship the Six Gods, and their return would only entice hostility, not converts.

The asura revere something greater than the Six Gods, even if the gods were to show up in front of them they’d still go “yeah, you’re great, but your just a cog in the Eternal Alchemy still, even if a big one. No different than the Elder Dragons in that regard.” Why would asura convert to merely worshiping a piece of what they already worship?

On charr guardians – nothing says they think charr guardians are cowardly. I don’t know where you got that. They don’t trust magic users, and this includes guardians, but I’d imagine guardians to be amongst the most trustworthy, since they watch their warband’s back.

If the Norn already see them as spirits, it isn’t too hard to believe there would be those Norn who would follow them

The Charr like you say already have those that are religious despite most of them not being religious. So Charr dervishes are possible.

Asurans could see becoming a Dervish as a means to an end, becoming a dervish to get the power that comes with being one. The gods are part of the eternal alchemy, why not use them to gain power to defeat the dragons? Not any more crazy lore-wise than Asuran warriors or Rangers are.

I feel people are stereotyping the races too much. Why does every member of the legions have to be atheist? Wouldn’t it make more sense if a small faction of them believed in the Spirits of the Wild since the Norn and Charr both share the philosophy of personal growth through combat?

Speaking of which, do the Spirits only watch ovre the Norn? Let’s say an Asuran child was lost in the jungle. Why wouldn’t… say… Monkey take pity on the child and lead them to the nearest Asuran encampment?

If the Eternal Alchemy is a scientific theory then what’s to stop anyone with a scientific mind from believing in it, even if they have religious beliefs as well? Personally I feel that anyone deeply spiritual would have a strong desire to want to know how the universe works. If they believed that one being or eve a subset created it, then the complexity of nature would only strengthen their belief in how strong and skilled their deities are.

I also imagine that anyone enthusiastic about nature would kill for the chance to serve the Pale Tree, even if they weren’t born from it. The Sylvari are one with nature, so much to the point that they literally grow their clothing and tools. I can think of a lot of humans that would love that lifestyle. I imagine quite a few norn would too. You could even toss a few Koda in there for good measure.

Personally I feel it’s well past time we stopped insisting that there are set, cultural differences for the 5 main races. It’s more natural if there was some intermingling and individuals flat out challenging accepted norms. That would make the world feel more connected and alive.

It would also be a good place for drama to arise as there will always be people whom don’t want things and those around them to change.

No Walking.6349:

runeblade.7514:

No Walking.6349:

The Charr think guardians are cowardly…yet you still can make a Charr guardian.

Citation needed.

The only Charr NPC guardian is Dinky,

And Commander Siege Razor.

runeblade.7514:

No Walking.6349:

runeblade.7514:

No Walking.6349:

The Charr think guardians are cowardly…yet you still can make a Charr guardian.

Citation needed.

The only Charr NPC guardian is Dinky,

And Commander Siege Razor.

I’m gonna go out on a ledge and say he doesn’t count, considering he is purely a PvP npc and doesn’t have any involvement in the GW world or lore.

I had a dervish in GW1, and it was definitely one class that I really enjoyed, except for one thing: Their weapon choice. Scythes meant for combat do not have blades perpendicular to the handle, because enemy soldiers are not stalks of wheat. For that reason, I used a scythe with inferior stats all through Nightfall because it had a blade that looked just slightly better.
The issue of the charr rejecting Dervishes, I think, is somewhat overblown, since Dervishes are meant to be in the thick of combat even more so than Guardians.
Other than the weapon issue, I’d love to see dervishes, or rather, a Dervish-inspired class, come to the game. Personally, I say this: Monks, but kung-foo monks with proper polearms.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I can see sylvari converting to the faith of the human gods. But why would asura, charr, and norn?…

The gods have been mostly absent since Nightfall 250 years ago, game time. So it could be said that the dervishes lost their god-derived powers at that point, and learnt how to channel the essence itself without using the gods as intermediaries.

So, for example, a GW2 version of the dervish would become the avatar of life instead of the avatar of melandru, the avatar of death instead of the avatar of grenth, and so on. That way would make as much sense as having an elementalist charr, for example.

Crossplay.2067:

I feel people are stereotyping the races too much. Why does every member of the legions have to be atheist?

there are religious Charr. They are called Flame Legion.

In general, the whole religion thing worked out really well for the species throughout its history. So it completely makes sense any Charr with a semblance of common sense is not to keen on the great beyond.

locoman.1974:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I can see sylvari converting to the faith of the human gods. But why would asura, charr, and norn?…

The gods have been mostly absent since Nightfall 250 years ago, game time. So it could be said that the dervishes lost their god-derived powers at that point, and learnt how to channel the essence itself without using the gods as intermediaries.

So, for example, a GW2 version of the dervish would become the avatar of life instead of the avatar of melandru, the avatar of death instead of the avatar of grenth, and so on. That way would make as much sense as having an elementalist charr, for example.

This actually makes some sense. Also, there were Elementalist Charr in GW1.

Can someone move this to the lore forum where it belongs?

locoman.1974:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I can see sylvari converting to the faith of the human gods. But why would asura, charr, and norn?…

The gods have been mostly absent since Nightfall 250 years ago, game time. So it could be said that the dervishes lost their god-derived powers at that point, and learnt how to channel the essence itself without using the gods as intermediaries.

So, for example, a GW2 version of the dervish would become the avatar of life instead of the avatar of melandru, the avatar of death instead of the avatar of grenth, and so on. That way would make as much sense as having an elementalist charr, for example.

That’s a kitten good point that I hadn’t thought of as well. Good argument for the Dervish coming back without the gods coming back. Although, I feel the gods will come back eventually in GW2’s story-line. Makes no sense to have them disappear unless they’re going to make a big re-entrance.

The main argument against dervs making a return is that they’d have to make a whole new range of weapon skins, including a legendary.

I don’t see that happening.

No Walking.6349:

If the Norn already see them as spirits, it isn’t too hard to believe there would be those Norn who would follow them.

Because they already have spirits that actually communicate them, assist their way of life, and doesn’t favor a different race (humans).

No Walking.6349:

The Charr like you say already have those that are religious despite most of them not being religious. So Charr dervishes are possible.

You realize the existence of religious charr outside of the Flame Legion are just about one in a million, right?

No Walking.6349:

Asurans could see becoming a Dervish as a means to an end, becoming a dervish to get the power that comes with being one. The gods are part of the eternal alchemy, why not use them to gain power to defeat the dragons? Not any more crazy lore-wise than Asuran warriors or Rangers are.

Actually, it is more crazy lore-wise than asuran warriors and rangers. Being a warrior or ranger doesn’t mean you’re not a scientist, and that’s what asura are in the end. And despite common belief, asura warriors were, in fact, the most common profession for asura in Eye of the North.

Crossplay.2067:

I feel people are stereotyping the races too much. Why does every member of the legions have to be atheist? Wouldn’t it make more sense if a small faction of them believed in the Spirits of the Wild since the Norn and Charr both share the philosophy of personal growth through combat?

It’s less that people are stereotyping, and more that is how the game itself presents it. So if anyone’s stereotyping, it’s more or less Anet.

Of course there’d be oddballs from that. Like I said before, there a single mentioned charr that’s religious (though we don’t know who it is) that isn’t Flame Legion.

There could be a small faction that’s religious. But this small faction would be akin to the Soundless. Not for the PC.

locoman.1974:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

I can see sylvari converting to the faith of the human gods. But why would asura, charr, and norn?…

The gods have been mostly absent since Nightfall 250 years ago, game time. So it could be said that the dervishes lost their god-derived powers at that point, and learnt how to channel the essence itself without using the gods as intermediaries.

So, for example, a GW2 version of the dervish would become the avatar of life instead of the avatar of melandru, the avatar of death instead of the avatar of grenth, and so on. That way would make as much sense as having an elementalist charr, for example.

This could actually be feasibly done. But then it’s not really a dervish anymore, from the viewpoint of the lore.

And just like assassins were renamed thieves, and monks/paragons merged into guardians, the profession would no longer be named “dervish” because it is now something different.

In short:

Dervish-like profession, I can see existing.
Dervish profession, I cannot.

At best, you’ll have dervish skills revamped into future human racial skills.

Just out of curiosity. We have plenty of racial skills that are attributed to the respective Gods. We can pray to Dwayna for a heal, Lyssa for a boon, Kormir for a cleanse, summon Balthazar’s hounds, and become an avatar of Grenth and Melandru.

My question is: Are the Gods ‘really’ not here? And if they aren’t, why are we allowed to do the above?

Xae Isareth.1364:

The main argument against dervs making a return is that they’d have to make a whole new range of weapon skins, including a legendary.

I don’t see that happening.

Not necessarily. The signature dervish weapon is the scythe, but we already have two staff skins that look like one (the halloween scythe and final rest), and necromancers make a shadowy scythe blade appear over the staves when casting.

A hypothetical GW2 dervish might use a staff as an AoE melee weapon (like it was used in GW1) by having a magic blade appear on the staff as the swing, maybe made of light to make it the opposite to the necro one. Actually one idea I had was that one of the dervish “thing” could be using magic weapons as melee ones by having magic blades appear on them, so a staff becomes a scythe, a scepter could become a sickle, and so on. All they’d need to do would be to create new animations to swing the scepter (though some of the hammer ones might be recycled there).

Based on what we have seen with the creation of the Guardian and the amalgamation of previous gw1 professions , its entirely possible for the dervish to have evolved in 250 years.

If you take the Necro for example: In GW1 minions could not be raised until a corpse was available, in GW2 minions can be raised as required.

The Dervish in GW2 could be amended to become viable for all races by dropping the references to the gods and making it more generic like wind magic, earth tomes and so on.

Re introducing the Dervish as a profession would be the perfect opportunity to bring back the scythe as an additional weapon of choice, I am sure it would be possible to allow other professions to use it such as necro and potentially Guardian.

I was a big fan of the Dervish in GW1 and would love to see it make a return in one form or another.

We can all agree that the elite skills won`t make a comeback, as they are allready integrated with the human race in general.

If they would go with the gods angle for them as the main focus, then it just wouldn`t make sense.

However a Dervish class would actually be feasable (even though not unique anymore)

The other main strenghts of the Dervish was his ability to hit more than one enemy with his Scythe (something that is now available to everyone) and his skills, which were based about balancing buffs and debuffs.

Now we have the Necromancer who can use some skills to play with the debuffs. Gining them for himself or spreading them, but we have no class that dances with them .

Dervish in mythology was someone (abstract) who goes in a frency on the battlefield and moves like a wild dancer.
A class that manages buffs and debuffs with his attacks, gains short (maybe next attack with might) bursts of power, while handling out different debuffs (though with GW2 very limited) would certainly be interesting.

As for everyone who pines for his transformation I think we have to look somwhere else.
Maybe if we go deeper into elona lore, with it`s djinns and unconventional magic we might find other beings they could channel.

Step 1: Introduce the Scythe as a new weapon type (it could even work as a weapon skin for the greatsword but whatever).
Step 2: Give this scythe as a weapon option to the Guardian.
Step 3: Create a heavy armor set that looks like a robe (complete with a hood, of course) with metal plates underneath it.

Done.

Sorry, I just don’t see a lot of room for the dervish, neither lore-wise nor gameplay-wise.

Jaken.6801:

We can all agree that the elite skills won`t make a comeback, as they are allready integrated with the human race in general.

If they would go with the gods angle for them as the main focus, then it just wouldn`t make sense.

However a Dervish class would actually be feasable (even though not unique anymore)

The other main strenghts of the Dervish was his ability to hit more than one enemy with his Scythe (something that is now available to everyone) and his skills, which were based about balancing buffs and debuffs.

Now we have the Necromancer who can use some skills to play with the debuffs. Gining them for himself or spreading them, but we have no class that dances with them .

Dervish in mythology was someone (abstract) who goes in a frency on the battlefield and moves like a wild dancer.
A class that manages buffs and debuffs with his attacks, gains short (maybe next attack with might) bursts of power, while handling out different debuffs (though with GW2 very limited) would certainly be interesting.

As for everyone who pines for his transformation I think we have to look somwhere else.
Maybe if we go deeper into elona lore, with it`s djinns and unconventional magic we might find other beings they could channel.

Just to clarify; dervishes sacrifice Enchantments to deal damage or heal. If it was translated to GW2 that would be boons. No other class currently sacrifices boons to deal damage or heal the area. The only situation that happens is in Guardian Virtues but even that doesn’t come close to the manipulation of Enchantments that dervishes could manage.

Other than the avatar elites the dervish had no direct connection with the gods so bringing them into the game wouldn’t matter there. The problem is dervish is a medium armored class and in terms of that we need a heavy class to balance.

Valik Shin.9027:

Other than the avatar elites the dervish had no direct connection with the gods so bringing them into the game wouldn’t matter there. The problem is dervish is a medium armored class and in terms of that we need a heavy class to balance.

There doesn’t have to be a balance though. So armor class wouldn’t really matter

Perhaps also the fact that A.net has said no new professions might have something to do with them not adding the Dervish or any other professions(class)?

Really the Gods not being around as much doesn’t have to eliminate the dervish class altogether. That’s like saying God (or insert real world parallel deity here) doesn’t directly intervene on the Earth, therefore, there should be no priests. Why should they be there at all? (I’m kind of reaching out on that analogy. I promise it sounded more relevant in my head) The Dervish can be just as pious as he/she was before. Its not like humans as a whole became atheists. I’d even say it doesn’t have to get rid of the avatar skills. We already HAVE avatar skills for human players. AND we get to summon Balthazaar’s war hounds. We didn’t even get that in GW1 time when the Gods were supposedly more active. The Dervish faith might be tested due to the increased distance of their gods, but any truly pious person would just take it as a test of their faith and may end up being stronger for it. Inversely, you could just go the other route and say they found strength in themselves, but that just doesn’t seem like a Dervish thing to do. Could be neat though. Mechanically, the tear-down enchantment/condition system the Dervishes eventually got in the original game could really be a nice thing to play with in Guild Wars 2.

Regarding other races becoming followers of the gods:

It’s possible, but it essentially represents abandoning their own culture and attempting to adopt someone else’s. There’s an interview floating around where it’s mentioned that, while rare, this certainly happens. However, it is a pretty extreme break with the culture of their own race, and ArenaNet has set up the professions so that while some combinations may be more common than others, no profession requires actively going against the culture of any given race. Charr magic-users, for instance, may not get the same respect that a warrior of similar accomplishment would receive, but they don’t require going against charr culture as a whole like finding religion would.

Truth be told, I’m generally inclined to think that some ‘dervish’ skills were actually simply that dervishes were the first to unlock what were actually human racial skills, but other dervish abilities may not require any connection to the gods. It’s worth noting, for instance, that avatar skills were pretty much limited to humans and servants of the gods (such as Snowmen and Grentches during Wintersday), but dervish abilities as a whole were more widespread. (Konig would say that creatures having the dervish profession was mechanics rather than lore, and in many cases he’d be right – for instance, all those drakes in GW1 weren’t really elementalists. However, it’s demonstration that dervish-like abilities can certainly be achieved without following the gods.) So it would be possible to have a dervish-like profession that fits all races – you’d just need to strip out the avatars and other representations of the gods. Certainly, after switching to GW2, the dervish, while not my main in GW1, is the profession I’ve been finding I’ve been missing most in GW2 – it’s a playstyle which is I think is compatible with the GW2 philosophy, but just isn’t available among the current options on offer.

However, I doubt we’d be likely to see anything like a direct port as a new profession. Diovid’s three-step plan, while snarky, has a certain degree of truth to it, as long as the hypothetical guardian scythe gains some mechanics that makes it dervish-like (such as having a lot of sequence skills on the bar). It could also be shortened to two steps if the scythe was to be given to the Elementalist instead – the dervish had a fairly strong melee elementalist-ish character to begin with, and in GW2 ANet could certainly decide that having two professions with such elemental themes is redundant.

Mind you, this does allow for the possibility of introducing a dervish-esque playstyle with a profession that has substantially different lore and themes. For instance, a profession based off the Mordant Crescent…

draxynnic.3719:

However, I doubt we’d be likely to see anything like a direct port as a new profession. Diovid’s three-step plan, while snarky, has a certain degree of truth to it, as long as the hypothetical guardian scythe gains some mechanics that makes it dervish-like (such as having a lot of sequence skills on the bar). It could also be shortened to two steps if the scythe was to be given to the Elementalist instead – the dervish had a fairly strong melee elementalist-ish character to begin with, and in GW2 ANet could certainly decide that having two professions with such elemental themes is redundant.

This is why I’d wish too see more (if any) progress on the whole “We want all professions to be able to use every type of weapon” front. We might be able to get the whole class, but it would be nice to have some dervish (and ritualist) skills and play styles incorporated into the different professions.

To be honest, I think it’s fitting that certain professions shouldn’t have certain weapons – what’s a warrior going to do with a focus, for instance? Punch someone with it?

However, I think there is quite a bit of room to expand. We’ve had over two years now with no really significant shakeups in skill lineups, and a lot of the current lineups… well, they worked as ‘this is what we have ready for release’ sets, but many professions do have significant holes in their lineup that strike me as being there simply because a weapon to fill that hole has yet to be implemented, not because it was actually part of the profession’s concept to lack those capabilities.

There are multiple scythe’s in the game,. The halloween one which is actually a staff and the primordus one which you can’t obtain but you can preview in the wardrobe bank. And there is another scythe used as a staff cant recall the name but the blade is made out of batwings.

I don’t think you fully understand the depth of the conflict between the human gods and the charr.

The human gods purposely tried to exterminate the charr race. They arrived on Tyria, looked around, and went “Look at this densely populated planet. Once we get rid of the unwanted pests this will be a good home for our humans.” It is because of the human gods that the charr lost Ascalon in the first place.

The animosity isn’t just the charr disliking the idea of gods. The gods tried to KILL them. It’s not a matter of being seen as a coward for relying on someone else, it’s a matter of worshiping entities that see you as a lower life form and that have attempted to commit mass genocide on your entire species at one point.

A charr dervish just wouldn’t work.

What? the humana gods didnt want to exterminate the Charr race. Its true that when they stepped on tyria the first time they chased away the charr living in some areas. Later Melandru (could be dwayna) tried to make peace with the Charrs after they pushed them out on some areas on Tyria but they wanted war. Since then humans and charrs have been at war. NOTHING states that the gods wanted to “exterminate” the charr race.

Both statements are incorrect. It was Balthazar who explicitly urged the humans to go to war with all the other races and rise to power through conquering. He wanted the humans to defeat the Charr (amongst others). And he was fairly successfull in driving the humans towards that, since they spread to every region in Tyria and raised great Kingdoms from the dust. However, we can see the consequences of this in present day.

Melandru urged for peace with the other races from the beginning, while Dwayna was the one to achieve it (well, at least for a time). Thus, it’s not possible to say that ‘the gods’ chased the Charr off or wanted to kill them. They are quite divided when it comes to how to establishing a new home for humanity.

Also, getting back to topic: The avatars of the gods have already been implemented in some part in the human racial skills. The remaining magical abilities of the Dervish are in some way found within the Elementalist, being more melee-focussed in GW2. The only thing that we haven’t got is the scythe.

I’d also like to see Dervishes back, however it’s fairly unlikely to happen. They just don’t fit in for a number of reasons that were already named, and I don’t see much use in twisting the original profession into something that barely resembles what they once were. Though one could say lore-wise that they can still exist.

Can we get a source or reference somewhere Agroman? i would like to believe it

We also don’t really know the full details of how the conflict between the charr and the gods started. We know humans were winning for the first thousand years after they got involved, including the decisive conquest of Ascalon under Doric, and that Balthazar urged humans to wage war on other races…

…but we also know that the charr themselves were expanding, and that their own expansion brought them into conflict with the Forgotten – a race that also had strong ties with the so-called “human” gods – and there is some evidence that their expansion also came at the expense of the dwarves. From the charr perspective, the human invasion of Ascalon seemed to come out of nowhere. From the perspective of the gods and their elder race allies, though, the human invasion of Ascalon may have been a response to earlier charr aggression – a counterattack.

It wouldn’t be the first case of a culture on the receiving end of an unexpected invasion has considered the invaders to be unprovoked, when in fact the invasion was the end result of the first culture’s earlier aggression against a third party that had some ties to the invaders.

Either way, there’s no evidence the gods were looking to wipe out the charr entirely – the initial invasion stopped after carving out a relatively small amount of territory that might have been intended all along as a buffer zone between the charr on the one hand and Deldrimor, Orr, and the Crystal Sea on the other.

Either way, though, a charr is not going to become a devotee of the gods without turning their back on their old society altogether, and I don’t think ArenaNet is going to introduce professions that would require characters to go against their culture to that extent.

GscGunner.2419:

Can we get a source or reference somewhere Agroman? i would like to believe it

Here you go: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Orrian_History_Scrolls#The_Six

_

Also, a very good point, draxynnic. However, I don’t think that it really matters all that much in the present conflict. Everything the Charr and the remaining Ascalonian nationalists truly care about is their own claim, and both sides are relying heavily upon whatever vague clue they can find within old history scrolls.

I always found it somewhat hypocritical that the Charr claim that humans ‘stole’ their land (via conquering it) while they stylize themselves as a superior conquering race.

Edit: By the way, I don’t think the humans were there to strike back at the Charr for what they did in their war against the forgotten. As the history scrolls mention, Balthazar urged them to fight ALL the other races, and the forgotten were… well, forgotten. Most humans didn’t even know of their existence, and if the gods had sent them in order to avenge them, I think Balthazar would have instructed them differently.

Squee.7829:

Mechanically, the tear-down enchantment/condition system the Dervishes eventually got in the original game could really be a nice thing to play with in Guild Wars 2.

Condition tear down would not work very well in GW2, because conditions are so incredibly common. There is a presidence for having unique conditions/boons in GW2 though, if the GW2 Derv could apply their own unique conditions, then tear those down it might work better (otherwise you have too many conditions applied from autoattacks from different classes for this to actually mean much other than yet more “don’t party with condition damage players”). The issue this would raise is that this level of complexity is much higher than the current simplistic GW2 system, and it would be a bit unfair to give one class so much fun stuff and not giving other classes anything.

Sorry. I think I worded that wrong. By tear-down conditions, I was referring to the dervish skills in which the dervish removes enchantments from itself and causes conditions on enemies. Although, I think there were a couple of skills that removed enemy conditions in exchange for some other horrible effect, these were not the skills I was thinking about. Might be neat though. I mean, if condition spammers are really so common, having someone remove a few conditions (5 stacks of bleeding here and there) in exchange for some worse condition or a party buff would be cool.

@Agroman: Yeah, the charr-human enmity has elements of hypocrisy on both sides: “How DARE they do unto us as we have been doing unto others! We’re supposed to be the conquerors imposing our will on the lesser races! It’s not fair for them to fight back effectively!”

This applies to both, but it’s particularly apparent in the charr vilification of Gwen “the Goremonger”. With a race that believes that victory justifies any means, just what could Gwen have done that justifies that title, when the charr destroyed most of the population of Ascalon through the Searing and planned to do the same to Orr before Khilbron beat them to the punch?

Regarding the Forgotten – The Forgotten were, well, largely forgotten at the time of GW1, but their appearance in the Manuscripts in the first place shows they were known to humans at some time. Even if the humans genuinely didn’t know about them, it’s possible that the gods sending a human invasion force into Ascalon was a counterattack from the point of view of the gods, since we know the Forgotten had allied with the gods.

Regarding the History Scrolls, Balthazar urged war against “the other races” not “ALL the other races”. Likely there were exceptions for races that were already allied with the gods, such as the Forgotten and dwarves.

@Squee: I don’t know about enemy conditions, but hexes certainly. Mostly in the Mesmer line, though – I don’t recall dervishes having much that interacted there.

draxynnic.3719:

This applies to both, but it’s particularly apparent in the charr vilification of Gwen “the Goremonger”. With a race that believes that victory justifies any means, just what could Gwen have done that justifies that title, when the charr destroyed most of the population of Ascalon through the Searing and planned to do the same to Orr before Khilbron beat them to the punch?

Given that Gwen was driven by a great deal of personal hatred (largely justified) for the charr, I always got the impression that she did things to captured charr that went above and beyond the “win at any costs” mantra of the legions. Like torturing charr purely for the enjoyment of torturing charr and for no other reason.

That’s just what I always imagined from all that. I don’t believe we ever learn exactly why she has the name Goremonger.

Maybe the dervish could take on another ancient profession, I’ll explain below how I think it could work.

The dervish communed with the gods and took on their aspects along with enchantments and earth/wind prayers to accomplish feats in combat. Communing is something I will expand on later.

The human gods have been absent to the point where I can imagine, lore wise, the dervish as we knew them would not work so well in terms of taking on full avatars etc (also some avatars have been merged into racial human abilities).

Another class that was kind of ‘merged’ or at least part of it merged, was the ritualist.

Now the original ritualism, as a form of ‘magic’, pre-dates the bloodstones and the human gods;

From Guild Wars wiki

“Being unique to Cantha, they have existed long before the Exodus and the gods granting magic to the races. Before magic, the Ritualists relied upon a power similar to magic, granted to them by their powerful ancestors whom maintained a connection to their descendants. Through their spirits, the Ritualists were able to practice magic, or something close to it. When magic was granted by the gods, many of the original abilities were strengthened and merged into their modern form. Though still relying on the power of the dead, their original skills are no longer a visible part of the profession.”

We also know that the dervish are wanderers by nature, taking on very few pupils.

Maybe, Lore-wise, after the fall of Elona, the dervish ended up wandering away to avoid persecution and find alternate sources to magic that they have lost due to the need for their closeness to the human gods.

The ritualists may have also fallen back into their older ways since the absence of the gods to keep their traditions alive, although to a weaker degree.

Both are mystical by nature and rely on communing to some degree with either a god through prayer, or an ancestor.

What if the dervish came upon the ritualists and merged that communing aspect to replace the human gods.

We know that the next class is likely a heavy class so maybe a heavy dervish/ritualist.

Lore for it could be the above, learning to commune with their ancestors rather than the gods to take on aspects of their ancestors?

Skills could work similar to an engineer kit where you basically have a very limited equipped weapon supply (maybe two-handed only) but flesh out their combat versatility with communed weapons, like the ritualists used to do, though I am aware guardians have the spirit weapons too.

So maybe communing ancestor ‘kits’ that work similar to engineers, but ones that give you ‘scythes’, ‘sword and shield’ etc etc

The reason for them using heavy armor could be that they do not have the access to the same level of enchantment based protection they originally had, so they had to armor up.

So maybe the mechanics could be based around ‘communes’ or ‘ashes’ and ‘prayers’ that rely on ancestors rather than the human gods. This could also be a way for some ‘fan service’ by taking on aspects or communing with guild wars 1 characters.

This could open up for other races as it would not tie the class to the human gods (restricting lore somewhat), and every race has ancestors and people from races other than their own who made big changes during the story of GW1, and even more recently in GW2.

Pyriel.4370:

We know that the next class is likely a heavy class so maybe a heavy dervish/ritualist.

not really, i mean the only reson why anyone would assume it has to be heavy is because of this perceived idea that they are going to balance them out. But, taking gw1 as an example, they don’t necessarily have to go for balance. we had 2 heavies, 3 medium and 5 light armored classes (or professions) so i wouldn’t say that having a new profession would be more likley to be heavy.

Also, as a general response to the thread, i don’t have a source because it was said in a video from before launch and i didn’t exactly gather everything in a handy file to reference later, they said that it is more likely that a new race is added than a new profession.

despite that, i really do hope the dervish (and even ritualist) eventually make it back in the game, because i really loved those classes

dsslive.8473:

Pyriel.4370:

We know that the next class is likely a heavy class so maybe a heavy dervish/ritualist.

not really, i mean the only reson why anyone would assume it has to be heavy is because of this perceived idea that they are going to balance them out. But, taking gw1 as an example, they don’t necessarily have to go for balance. we had 2 heavies, 3 medium and 5 light armored classes (or professions) so i wouldn’t say that having a new profession would be more likley to be heavy.

Also, as a general response to the thread, i don’t have a source because it was said in a video from before launch and i didn’t exactly gather everything in a handy file to reference later, they said that it is more likely that a new race is added than a new profession.

despite that, i really do hope the dervish (and even ritualist) eventually make it back in the game, because i really loved those classes

True, a new race is more likely, however what I can imagine this thread is more how the dervish could end up in GW2.

Regarding dervishes that don’t worship the human gods, there are the White Mantle Devotees.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/White_Mantle_Devotee
(Note that the image is inaccurate, and they did indeed wield scythes)

Perhaps they weren’t “true” dervishes, since they didn’t worship the humans gods, but in general, if it worked for them, I think it could work for Charr.
Just secularize the profession a bit.