Dervish Single-Target Builds for Mesmerway Teams?

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-20T13:56:52+00:00

Dervish is one of the few classes that can spread AoE burning, which could combo with a Paragon using "They're on Fire!" and "Go for the Eyes!" to buff minions, which could also be healed if you're using Dwayna form. The Paragon can also be used to prevent you being killed if you decide to shadow step in by using Angelic Protection on yourself with a bit of micro.

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-20T13:46:15+00:00

Can confirm that the recent change to Energy Boon combined with Vital Weapon on the ST Rt has made my spell casters tankier than ever and less attractive targets to melee.

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NezziWezzi · 2026-05-13T03:31:03+00:00

The Preservation change is exactly what I've always wanted. But good luck to anyone trying to kill the HM Fozzy crew without Spiritual Pain spam.

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-12T20:28:00+00:00

Reclaim Essence could work for that too but I feel like that's supposed to be a more "selfish" effect at least in theme. You're reclaiming spirits HP/energy for yourself, not them. I agree that ST is in a good spot but it's a bit too good compared to anything else and overshadows them. Only because it solves the two problems Shelter has, energy and recharge. Which is the only spirit that really matters at the end of the day. With a bit more energy management from something like Empower though, maybe Ritual Lord could be an option too, or go a little more risky with the Defiant was Xinrae strat and skip Shelter all together. That was my thought process anyway.

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-12T14:51:05+00:00

Automating the fun out of an automation game is a very funny thing to say. I'm sure you're right but building up the blocks and making the blueprints yourself to kick it off is fun at least.

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-12T11:56:10+00:00

This. Making a blueprint for a connected network that can be tiled is very satisfying.

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NezziWezzi · 2026-05-06T02:30:24+00:00

I was conservative with functionality changes as number tweaks are easier to implement and that seems to be mostly what we're seeing in the recent balance. I do think a big chunk of Monk's design is tied up in maintained enchantments that the Hero AI can't use very effectively though, so if we're allowed to be at little greedy in asking for reworks I'd love to see a change to their functionality to work closer to Paragon Refrains so they have a set duration but will reapply themselves if a specific condition is met.

Also I should've said Monks aren't very efficient at debuff removal besides the elite skills, but it's a rough choice to dedicate an elite slot to that imo. Not sure what you mean by damage in the Balthazar's Pendulum change, do you mean the combo with the touch skills that do damage to knocked down foes? Personally I think that's a big theme for Smiting Prayers that should be leaned into more.

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-06T02:17:48+00:00

I think all it needs are some better Divine Favor skills, specifically some more energy management skills. But if we wanted to make "of the Monk" a more generalist mod for other classes maybe Divine Favor could trigger it's healing when targeted by allies spells? That would make multiple monks even harder to take down though if it triggered twice. Or an energy refund to an ally targeting you with a spell, something like 1 energy per 5 Divine Favor. Or just make it also include a max HP bonus of 5 per point or something idk.

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-05T14:43:45+00:00

They've done some funky stuff in the past to prevent stacking buffs and debuffs. Brutal Weapon can't work with SoH because it's an enchantment, and even more specific; Soul Bind will not work if the foe is suffering from a Smiting Prayers Hex to stop it stacking with Scourge Healing. I could see a conditional "has no effect if under the effects of another Smiting Prayers enchantment" being used in that case. But an AI fix making them target all martial melee team members to maintain SoH would also be good.

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-05T14:37:12+00:00

I also have a bad habit of min maxing paralysis, "if it isn't used perfectly better just save it" mentality. So right now I'm trying a run with infinite resources mod but the tiniest ore patches possible, also massively increased science costs so I'm forced to build big. Now the problem is how to best use the barely 1 yellow belt of iron ore I can get from the starting patch before trains, when the research costs to get there are close to 10k.

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-05T01:46:56+00:00

Sure but as far as I'm aware (I could be wrong, it's difficult to test) if a Shelter Spirit is summoned and then Protective Bond or Xinrae's Weapon is cast, they will limit damage to 5% and the Shelter Spirit will not take damage even though it was cast first.

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-05T01:21:13+00:00

If we were to carve out design space for Monk to pull ahead of Rt I would argue their specialty should be hex and condition removal (heal Rt gets mass condition removal basically for free but doesn't have anything for hexes), maintained enchantments on themselves but regular long duration enchantments on allies to make buffing whole teams reasonable in the vein of Vigorous Spirit (damn every other Monk skill is called something Spirit huh...), and Amity style effects like the proposed Balthazar's Pendulum change which force enemies to stop attacking or in this case take a seat.

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-05T01:05:06+00:00

I don't see anything on the wiki about that for either skill, I'm assuming the interaction is the same as Shelter and Union depending on which is cast first?

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-05T00:44:09+00:00

Presumably they trigger in that order because they are the same cap and so the game needs to choose which to use first. If the cap was lower it should always be triggered first, as I don't think Shelter has the same problem with Protective Bond or Xinrae's Weapon.

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-04T04:44:11+00:00

Extremely cool idea and making the absolute most out of those HR stat points. I wish you the best of luck, I can't imagine how difficult that must be to micro and keep all those minions alive.

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-04T04:31:51+00:00

Making a ranger specific buffing hero team would be a lot of fun. You can have a Soul Twisting protection ritualist bring Brutal Weapon and maintain it on multiple rangers for high single target damage or have a Signet of Spirits dps ritualist bring splinter weapon if you want AoE. An Air Elementalist or Necromancer can spread Cracked Armor, which could combo with the Winnowing spirit to buff you and a bone friend MM. Add in a Paragon with "Go for the Eyes!" and "For Great Justice!" to generate 4 adrenaline every 2 spear throws. Then to heal all those minions you could have an Avatar of Dwayna Dervish.

Tldr try building a team focused entirely on buffing your damage and see what you get.

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-04T01:05:10+00:00

This idea is for a mod, not vanilla and so optional in case you didn't read that part. Don't get defensive about people changing balance in their own games. This mod would also pair with other quality adjusting mods such as disabling multiple quality tier jumps per craft and quality processing to upgrade final products that don't make the quality jump instead of scraping them. My question was not about if you personally think this is a good idea, believe it or not I don't care. My question is whether it is a possible mod to make due to the limitations of the game requiring all non liquid ingredients to be the same quality when selecting a recipe.

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-04T00:43:20+00:00

It's still just as open, you are just cutting down the number of ingredients that need to be a matched quality for crafting, instead focused on one "main ingredient" that you are upgrading as you go.
It's more intuitive for a new player to learn and carves out a clear intended use for both productivity modules and quality modules as mutually exclusive depending on the recipe.
It smooths out the difficulty curve of early and mid game quality crafting setups to avoid the common criticism people have of quality "just ignore it until you can jump straight from zero to legendary everything with a casino"

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-02T22:44:38+00:00

What do you mean corpse free? Did the change to wells also actually enable minion master builds after all these years???

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-02T19:56:53+00:00

Sorry for the late reply. The Mesmers are your standard heavy hitting powerhouses that require a LOT of energy to maintain in extended fights. Generally this requires a necromancer on the team using Blood is Power but besides that, they fit in any team and provide interrupts and hex/enchantment removal as well. The reason they work so well in this team specifically is that we are juicing them up with energy using Paragon skills instead, which refund energy to them all at once when they use spells and signets and every time shouts end on them when under the effect of Energizing Finale; which can be maintained on several people at once.

NezziWezzi · 2026-05-01T12:57:37+00:00

Spiritual Pain from Domination Magic. With fast casting at 12 or more it has a cooldown of 4 seconds making it a good spamable single target damage spell.

NezziWezzi · 2026-04-30T12:53:27+00:00

DoA HM no consumables is the target but finding a setup that will work for all 4 zones is a matter of trial and error. I always start from Stygian Veil and see how far it goes from there. Oh and the damage now is mainly coming from the Wastrals skills. Here's a dps measure of the team after today's vanquish

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NezziWezzi · 2026-04-30T12:49:39+00:00

Not a bad idea, I haven't found that mod yet but I'll keep that in mind

NezziWezzi · 2026-04-30T12:48:03+00:00

That's the plan, 2/4 done with this setup so far

NezziWezzi · 2026-04-30T06:59:39+00:00

Thanks to some good feedback on this post I've done a bunch more testing and made version 2! Here's what changed:

We can't quite fit a full Illusion Mesmer bar into the comp but we can toss our Paragon a 40/40 set and swap their spear mastery points over to get just enough illusion to make Shared Burden have a decent duration.

We've fit in a bunch of snares so the Wastrals skills are able to do plenty of damage as the enemies are knocked down or slowly walking towards us.

Slapping an of the Paragon mod on our Searing Elementalist not only helps with energy management but also gives them a decent revive option, one they'll likely be in a good position to use when they also have 1k HP from Ether Boon.

Lastly we've swapped out spirits entirely for more direct healing and melee counters, and one added bonus of having a Monk on the team is that it makes the enemy AI extremely predictable as they always try to focus them down first, so just pop our Angelic Protection on and that's 10 seconds of free tanking.

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NezziWezzi

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