Dervish vs Warrior in PVP - pros and cons, Let's debate

Since dervishes are my new love (after monks) I was tempted to start a discussion on the place of Scythe Dervishes in PvP, as compared to warriors. In PvE there is no question...Scythe dervishes are way more deadly than any sort of warrior. However, in PvP......

The top level GvG teams I've watched were still using the classical warriors, adrenaline spikers, sometimes with teleporting abilities. They must know something.


Anyway lets compare.

Raw Damage:
Average Attack speed DPS
Scythe 9-41 25 1.75 14.3
Axe 6-28 17 1.33 12.8
Sword 15-22 18.5 1.33 13.9
Hammer 19-35 27 1.75 15.4

The hammer has a higher average DPS. However, as for axes, scythes have a higher maximum so they can benefit more from criticals. Assuming a 20% crit chance from weapon mastery (at about 14-15) thats 1 crit every 5 swings, the average DPS goes:

Scythe: 20,8
Axe: 18.6
Sword: 17.7
Hammer: 20.3

Sidenote...Scythes can make better use of Wild blow that warriors: 0 specced unblockable critical every 4 secs that removes stances and loses all adrenaline. I never leave town (in PvE) without it.


Damage skills.

I won't discuss the warrior ones, however Dervishes have some great damage adding skills, including my favourite, Reaper's sweep - a buffed version of Eviscerate: + 42 damage and 20 sec deep wound, 8 sec recharge.If the target is under 50% health and you manage to chain Reaper's + chilling victory - thats 77+ 46 + 63 + deep wound. A critical on Reapers means 163 damage + deep wound ...that's a ton of damage - only similar to Decapitate without the drawbacks. A critical on executioner is only 140.
My standard combination of scythe attacks include Reaper's, Chilling victory, Victorious sweep (good damage, fast recharge) and Wild Blow. Those can pretty much be chained with short pauses, if energy allows it. Compared to adrenal based skills, scythe skills can be fired way more often, making for a potentially higher DPS.

Attack speed.

Well, here scythes suck The probable reason scythers are not more prominent in PvP is that they have trouble spiking. They have the attack speed of hammers, while not having the KD bonus. Dervishes have 2 class attack buffs (Heart of Fury and Whirling Charge) that are both linked to enchants therefore vulnerable. However, the main attack speed buff warriors use is available to a D/W too, that is Frenzy, while also have possible canceling stances (conviction would be adequate for this).

Added bonuses

One bonus I particularly like in dervishes is Avatar of Grenth's ability to remove enchants, since the basic defence against warrior spike is enchant based. You could also go Avatar of Lyssa for added damage (if you trust your monks - a wild blow at 12 Myst Lyssa is a certain 164 damage) or Avatar of Melandru (if you don't ). The others (Ebon dust aura, Grenth's grasp, harrier grasp etc..) are also available to warriors as secondaries.

Armor / squishiness

Dervishes have base 70 AL compared to 80 AL for the warriors. Scythes prevents the use of a shield. They have health bonuses on armor and many protective enchants/stances, like conviction, mirage cloak (even unspecced...costly though), armor of sanctity and some of the best self healing skills for a non monk (the watchful/signet of pious light combo or mystic regeneration). Would they do better that warriors for, say, ganking enemy NPCs in the opposite guild hall ? I personally think so yet I'm not an expert.

Running boosts...they are at least as good as warriors. Pious haste is better than sprint and lets not even talk about the avatar of balthazar (not that I'd take it in PvP).

The Dervishes dependence on energy is both good (they can chain attack skills continuously, without waiting for adrenaline recharge) and bad (vulnerable to edrain ).


You may have noticed that I have not mentioned the scythe AoE attacks (and chilling victory AoE). While those are the reason that make a scythe Dervish damager outclass any other Warrior damage build, they are highly irrelevant in organized PvP.

My personal conclusion is that damage Dervishes can output more damage on the enemy team than warriors can, however, they are less efficient spikers and a little harder to keep alive. I'd love to try a DervWay build with 4 RaO Damage dervishes and an Order of Vampire necro + aegis. Order of the vampire would not only add to damage but also fuel enchant based effects (like mystic regeneration) and bring energy. A 6 sec OoV on a dervish under mystic regen, at 12 mysticism and 8 earth would mean an additional 36 HP and 4 energy

So...open for comments.


Edit: math errors corrected http://www.theamazonbasin.com/gw/forums/index.php?showtopic=7007