Nightfall, the third installment in the perennial Guild Wars franchise bears the clever moniker “Never fight alone!” Clever because it is laced with ironic undertones such as the thought of fighting alone in a massively multiplayer online game and especially due to the fact that you can’t fight alone. Seriously.

The Guild Wars franchise has been around the block and has managed to carve a place for itself at the top of the heap with a solid infrastructure, excellent graphic quality and a unique style of gameplay. What stands out, at least in my mind, about Guild Wars is that yes, it can be a massively multiplayer game, there are certainly plenty of opportunities to engage in activities, but a player can choose not to group with friends nor strangers. If you choose the solo route of gameplay, Guild Wars essentially slips into a single player game little different from Dungeon Siege, for example. By now all massively multiplayer online role playing participants are familiar with the term “instance” in relation to a specific quest or specially designated geographic region. An “instance” is merely a singular representation of that region created and maintained for the current character or group of characters. If three characters enter one of these “instances”, a copy of the region is created for each character so they do not have to share the adventure, experience, or rewards. In Guild Wars one could think of the entire world as one big instance specifically created and waiting for them.

Arena.net and NCSoft have done an excellent job of introducing new content by way of expansion packs. Normally I am not a fan of expansion packs but each of the expansions to the Guild Wars franchise has proven to be a worthwhile, if not a ‘must have’, addition to the library of even a passive Guild Wars player.

True to form, Nightfall boasts several significant feature enhancements, not the least of which are a number of new skills for each profession, updated quest system incorporating Collectors and Quartermasters and new arenas, but perhaps most significant are the two new professions of Paragon and Dervish and the ability to recruit Heroes. While all of the additions and enhancements are welcome, it is these last three that bear special attention.

First let us briefly explore the new professions of Nightfall:

The American Heritage Dictionary defines Paragon as a “model of excellence”. Not an easy thing to live up to. In Guild Wars, the Paragon profession is molded into a type of leadership or assault support role. The weapon of choice for the Paragon is the spear, which epitomizes the role of this profession. The spear is primarily a ranged weapon dealing steady and heavy damage between the front line assault forces and the rear line artillery forces, and it is also effective at close range. From this intermediate range, the Paragon uses their unique set of Shout and Command skills to “buff” their teammates. The Paragon model of a true support profession.

Personally I found the characterization of the Dervish profession to be fascinating. Traditionally a Dervish is used in reference to an order or sect of Muslims that express their devotion through a series of highly energetic dances and chants that rarely incorporated any martial aspects. A Dervish has far more in common with a Franciscan or Tibetan Monk than that of the Shao-Lin or a Templar Knight. In any case, the Dervish profession introduced in Nightfall is a type of mystic warrior. Bearing light armor and a Scythe, the Dervish uses sweeping attacks from extreme melee range and a barrage of enchantments to deliver a devastating assault on multiple opponents. As previously mentioned, the Scythe works at the edge of melee range and carries the special ability to hit multiple opponents with each swing. As the primary supplier of melee damage in a group, this can get a but dodgy as the Dervish deals a steady stream of moderate damage to the current target and adjacent foes rather than heaping the damage on a single target. Reciprocally, a group of foes of similar abilities are mowed down like a field of wheat. But what really makes the Dervish a powerhouse are their enchantment skills. Many of the enchantments are designed to bolster their Scythe attacks with such abilities as adding an amount of frost damage with each hit. Additionally, each of these enchantments have a pretty hefty duration from eight to thirty seconds with a bonus when the enchantment ends, such as striking each adjacent foe and rendering them “cripple” for a number of seconds or restoring some health to the Dervish. The trick to the Dervish, and one I have yet to master, is that a round of combat rarely lasts twenty or thirty seconds, so your most powerful enchantment effects never come into play unless you terminate the enchantments, but you have to terminate the right one at the right time. Such as ending a health giving enchantment when you need the boost or a damage dealing enchantment to finish off an opponent.