Guild Wars 2

So there hasn’t been much to talk about recently PvP wise; until I noticed that there are now 3 builds listed on metabattle with a great tag for conquest.

Disregarding that they are all variations of the same basic core selection of build options, I haven’t really seen the discussion over amulets, and there hasn’t really been a discussion as to why which build is using which amulet.

So I’m curious, what do people actually think Menders versus Paladins on these builds.

Personally I play Paladins; I find that against the power based meta builds, the moment a smart/skilled player realizes that you’re in Menders gear, the match becomes infinitely more difficult since you begin to get focused, but at the same time, I definitely miss the healing power when I run Paladins.

Paladins I find to be my choice just geared towards surviving the meta builds better so that I can deal better damage than the Menders build, and only really lose out in the heal category, though if we talk about marginal benefits, you are benefiting more often from investing in the other stats than in healing power since healing power affects less skills (relative to the investment, only a few skills are even worth mentioning with healing power scaling) in less situations.

But that’s just my personal opinion and reasoning on my selection; I’d really like to hear what other people have to say about it, and I think this is a good and informative discussion to be had.

Thoughts?

Paladin’s is default, I use mender’s when the enemy condi users are 4 or 5 (VERY common), and marauder’s or even berserker’s if I’m against something like 2 druids and a tempest.

Adjusting for my own comp as well, of course.

Fluffball.8307:

Paladin’s is default, I use mender’s when the enemy condi users are 4 or 5 (VERY common), and marauder’s or even berserker’s if I’m against something like 2 druids and a tempest.

Adjusting for my own comp as well, of course.

This.

Fluffball.8307:

Paladin’s is default, I use mender’s when the enemy condi users are 4 or 5 (VERY common), and marauder’s or even berserker’s if I’m against something like 2 druids and a tempest.

Adjusting for my own comp as well, of course.

Oh definitely, adjusting builds to counterplay as well as to work with your own team composition is the most important.

The debate between Menders and Paladins is actually a very intensive theory debate imo.

In theory, Menders could be equal to if not better than Paladins at sustaining, by instead of reducing the incoming damage, countering the incoming damage by outhealing it.

However, because it isn’t a case of “haves and have-nots” with healing power, aka, you still have healing if you don’t spec for it, it seems to me that on the personal level, Paladins nets you a better ratio of reduction and recovery than Menders. BUT, that is only factoring in playing at an individual level. When other people get involved, the recovery provided by Menders multiplies by every person it affects, and while again, it isn’t as though Paladins would lack recovery, in a multiple person scenario, it becomes a lot more difficult to evaluate Menders vs Paladins by their marginal benefit in this way, especially without proper in game meters to be able to gain metrics to show exactly how much more beneficial you are being for your team by running Menders to evaluate it against Paladins.

So because all of that and because of the mentioned lack of metrics, we have to do the next best thing and just evaluate community opinion and have a discussion about it lol.

jcbroe.4329:

In theory, Menders could be equal to if not better than Paladins at sustaining, by instead of reducing the incoming damage, countering the incoming damage by outhealing it.

Probably, but paladin is my default for several reasons.

• Healing means you’re not doing damage; paladin’s is passive defense.
• Paladin’s has 2 major offensive stats vs 1 for mender’s and also triggers more on-crit procs.
• I use lb/staff and only hop on point if it’s crucial to the team fight (which is often, granted, but it’s not the #1 choice for where I am.) So sustain is less important than damage. And this combos with
• Lb/staff damage is not that exciting, and we come with sustain whether we want it or not.

If your goal is to stand on point, I’d probably go with mender’s (or maybe clerics, I haven’t thought about it that much.)

Fluffball.8307:

jcbroe.4329:

In theory, Menders could be equal to if not better than Paladins at sustaining, by instead of reducing the incoming damage, countering the incoming damage by outhealing it.

Probably, but paladin is my default for several reasons.

• Healing means you’re not doing damage; paladin’s is passive defense.
• Paladin’s has 2 major offensive stats vs 1 for mender’s and also triggers more on-crit procs.
• I use lb/staff and only hop on point if it’s crucial to the team fight (which is often, granted, but it’s not the #1 choice for where I am.) So sustain is less important than damage. And this combos with
• Lb/staff damage is not that exciting, and we come with sustain whether we want it or not.

If your goal is to stand on point, I’d probably go with mender’s (or maybe clerics, I haven’t thought about it that much.)

You know I agree with you haha, I’m really hoping somebody has actually chosen primarily to play with Menders and has thought through this topic though (my main reason for posting) so that they can counter reason with you (us).

I mean….. I see 2 builds on Metabuild rated as great and having Menders as the default, and I honestly have no idea if people are actually thinking through which amulet would give them more performance mileage, so I thought it’d be interesting to have this discussion in a public forum, since the metabattle pages don’t say anything about why Menders is defaulted (typically a defaulted amulet should be the one that’s optimal in the most situations, and I don’t think that Menders is that amulet).

I think Menders is better due to condi meta and the fact that good burst classes (thief/rev) can kill you in Paladins anyway. Also you all just talked about self defense but Menders actually means the survivability of your whole team goes up.

Dojo.1867:

Also you all just talked about self defense but Menders actually means the survivability of your whole team goes up.

If your team doesn’t have a tempest, I agree I would definitely take menders.

But if it does (and I’d estimate close to 100% do because someone better than me at multi-classing swaps), then mender’s isn’t needed. A druid in any amulet + tempest means nothing is dying in a team fight. And a druid in any amulet plus a reasonably tanky class like rev or scrapper means nothing dies in a 2v2.

The defense on paladins makes a surprisingly big difference compared to mauraders. A thief* is a tough fight, but rev and definitely scrapper you’re better off in paladin’s IMO. I’m mostly concerned with the bigger offense than mender’s though.

*I think marauder’s is the best for fighting thieves.

Dojo.1867:

I think Menders is better due to condi meta and the fact that good burst classes (thief/rev) can kill you in Paladins anyway. Also you all just talked about self defense but Menders actually means the survivability of your whole team goes up.

I don’t necessarily think it’s an argument of avoiding death; since in a perfect world the only time you should die using ANY Druid build is if you are in an outnumbered fight or you are focused down (aka you shouldn’t be dying in 1v1s).

Actually, you just gave me an interesting way of looking at it. Paladins allows you to make more mistakes, but won’t necessarily help your team as much as a Menders build would; where a Menders build would require you to play with a lot less mistakes on your own end, but it would do more for a team.

Hmmmm. I just end up really wishing we could quantify builds better. Clearly, Paladins will have a higher damage output and a more inherent survivability, but how much? Clearly, Menders has stronger (I chose the word stronger specifically because “more” implies a larger quantity, where as that would not be the case) support, but how much, and how often would it be important/significant (just like how in the raids, people started with healing power druids and discovered that the more perfectly a group can play, the less the healing power is needed so that it can be specced for other things)?

Even though I have a preference, I don’t honestly know that one is better than the other, and I play with both. I just legitimately never have any moments where I go “if I had paladins right now, this would or wouldn’t have happened” or like with Menders, I’ve never gone “darn, if I had that healing power right now, this wouldn’t have happened.”

My gut tells me that Paladins is more of a generalist choice, and that’s really the only reason I go with it, but that’s exactly why I want to have this conversation; having this thought/opinion doesn’t make it right lol.

jcbroe.4329:

My gut tells me that Paladins is more of a generalist choice,

I guess we could list:

• Surviving against power
• Surviving against condi
• Supporting Healing team
• Doing damage

Paladin’s and mender’s split that 50/50. That’s probably why 3/5 of the people who have posted in this thread mentioned swapping amulets regularly (and a 4th didn’t state one way or the other.)

They are … different. To pick one as just say “I’m using this” I think is the wrong answer, and the best answer is probably just to use what you think will be useful in this match.

Fluffball.8307:

jcbroe.4329:

My gut tells me that Paladins is more of a generalist choice,

I guess we could list:

• Surviving against power
• Surviving against condi
• Supporting Healing team
• Doing damage

Paladin’s and mender’s split that 50/50. That’s probably why 3/5 of the people who have posted in this thread mentioned swapping amulets regularly (and a 4th didn’t state one way or the other.)

They are … different. To pick one as just say “I’m using this” I think is the wrong answer, and the best answer is probably just to use what you think will be useful in this match.

Oh definitely. I only made the topic because I got extra irritated with metabattle when I saw 3 different builds that are nearly identical but are running different amulets with no explanation as to why the amulet was chosen.

Was it preference, was it team support, was it self sustain? I mean, maybe I’m crazy to think that amulets are build defining in some ways and there should be an explanation saying why one was chosen over others, especially over potentially viable others.

Also, the one “lol worthy” point neither of us mentioned is that using paladins means lesser heals, which means more potential astral force gain haha.

I just slap on my Clerics and pray to god that my #2 skill in avatar state actually goes off so i can deal with condis (instead of me casting it, but no seed actually appearing like it has before). I’ve tried Menders, and i’ve tried paladin and both seemed very lacking to me, at least with how i play.

Durzlla.6295:

I just slap on my Clerics and pray to god that my #2 skill in avatar state actually goes off so i can deal with condis (instead of me casting it, but no seed actually appearing like it has before). I’ve tried Menders, and i’ve tried paladin and both seemed very lacking to me, at least with how i play.

Does only 1 seed appear per “pustule pop” no matter how many you cast or something? I don’t use it that often except when I’m in the middle of 5 necros and it seems like it never works. I mostly stick to the last 3 skills.

Personally I don’t feel like Mender’s is worth it.

The biggest reason for me is that base heals are still quite high on Druid. On top of that your mitigation and damage are much higher with Paladin’s vs Mender’s. I think that Paladin’s ammy allows you to fill more roles on the same build with less effort than the Mender’s ammy.

I played with Mender’s since I came back a couple days ago. If you kite well and know what you are doing, I don’t feel like Paladin is needed. If I know I am perfectly capable of staying alive and contribute more in terms of healing, then I’ll gladly do it.

Then again I’m not yet at Legend division, but I know Eura plays with Mender aswell.

Skullface.7293:

I don’t feel like Paladin is needed.

Isn’t that backwards? Paladin’s is the more offense-oriented amulet, which is why I take it. If you are ok to do more damage, go paladin’s, if your team lacks sustain, go menders’.

I also use 4 on-crit sigils, leeching, air, and generosity.

Depends on the rest of your build ofcourse, but I actually use Marauders the most often.

Skullface.7293:

I played with Mender’s since I came back a couple days ago. If you kite well and know what you are doing, I don’t feel like Paladin is needed. If I know I am perfectly capable of staying alive and contribute more in terms of healing, then I’ll gladly do it.

Then again I’m not yet at Legend division, but I know Eura plays with Mender aswell.

That absolutely makes sense to me logically, I’m just having trouble quantifying the actual benefit of the healing power investment, not because it isn’t valuable, but because you can definitely be overinvested and be overhealing, which makes a lot of that stat investment a waste.

It comes back to my raid comparison, where the best groups in the game realized they didn’t need a healing invested Druid to survive at all. Theoretically to me, that translates to PvP as well, where the less “carried” a team needs to be, the more beneficial running an alternate amulet would be.

I mean, I could have the wrong perspective definitely lol, I’d just like know that.

The only reason I’m not personally running Maurader/Zerk is because it’s no longer necessary to run in order to kill people, which freed up the stat selection.

jcbroe.4329:

That absolutely makes sense to me logically, I’m just having trouble quantifying the actual benefit of the healing power investment, not because it isn’t valuable, but because you can definitely be overinvested and be overhealing, which makes a lot of that stat investment a waste.

It comes back to my raid comparison, where the best groups in the game realized they didn’t need a healing invested Druid to survive at all. Theoretically to me, that translates to PvP as well, where the less “carried” a team needs to be, the more beneficial running an alternate amulet would be.

I mean, I could have the wrong perspective definitely lol, I’d just like know that.

The only reason I’m not personally running Maurader/Zerk is because it’s no longer necessary to run in order to kill people, which freed up the stat selection.

In the end of the day it just depends if your team can support themselves well enough with or without your druid. If you see 2 eles in your team then running Paladin would make perfect sense. It’s also a good choice if you want to survive better versus thieves and dragonhunters for example.

I’m a very aggressive player, so Paladin might be a good amulet for me I guess. I still need to try stuff out since I haven’t played the game for so long haha.

Fluffball.8307:

Durzlla.6295:

I just slap on my Clerics and pray to god that my #2 skill in avatar state actually goes off so i can deal with condis (instead of me casting it, but no seed actually appearing like it has before). I’ve tried Menders, and i’ve tried paladin and both seemed very lacking to me, at least with how i play.

Does only 1 seed appear per “pustule pop” no matter how many you cast or something? I don’t use it that often except when I’m in the middle of 5 necros and it seems like it never works. I mostly stick to the last 3 skills.

I think you can get 2 seeds going at once, but the way the CDs work i normally throw the 2 down and then 3 into the seed aura to give aoe retal + a daze to help mitigate damage and punish attackers. Not to mention i run Guard, so i can make the enemy team take 2x the retal damage per target by forcing them to hit my meat shield of a bear too.

Skullface.7293:

jcbroe.4329:

That absolutely makes sense to me logically, I’m just having trouble quantifying the actual benefit of the healing power investment, not because it isn’t valuable, but because you can definitely be overinvested and be overhealing, which makes a lot of that stat investment a waste.

It comes back to my raid comparison, where the best groups in the game realized they didn’t need a healing invested Druid to survive at all. Theoretically to me, that translates to PvP as well, where the less “carried” a team needs to be, the more beneficial running an alternate amulet would be.

I mean, I could have the wrong perspective definitely lol, I’d just like know that.

The only reason I’m not personally running Maurader/Zerk is because it’s no longer necessary to run in order to kill people, which freed up the stat selection.

In the end of the day it just depends if your team can support themselves well enough with or without your druid. If you see 2 eles in your team then running Paladin would make perfect sense. It’s also a good choice if you want to survive better versus thieves and dragonhunters for example.

I’m a very aggressive player, so Paladin might be a good amulet for me I guess. I still need to try stuff out since I haven’t played the game for so long haha.

I definitely haven’t been playing dedicatedly either lol. I’ve been enjoying Blade and Soul much more than GW2, as well as playing The Division a lot.

It seems to be just like Fluffball mentioned; the amulets share 3 of the same stats and play so similarly its hard to establish optimal usage situations without in game quantifiers (dps meters).

99% of the time, I don’t think I even notice if I’m running one amulet over the other.

I’ve been using ROMs Menders build for quite some time because it is good for holding a point and has decent melee damage. I find it more useful and less risky than the LB/St version.

As much as I like LB, the meta uses it untraited, which is a bit lackluster. Especially when your arrows get body-blocked by minions, clones, and tempests scooting around your target. Why not camp Staff and use SW/D when someone gets close. The DPS on 1h Sw is nice.

One final point, the healing is too low otherwise. I want to be able to pop CA and heal up quickly. It takes the full cycle to heal up with little to no healing power, and that is just too long when you are under pressure. At least, it is for me!

Just wanted to add another little thought. Seems like everyone agrees that if your team mates are more self sufficient then less healing is needed. I think duration of fight is fairly important as well.

As a broad sweeping generalization fights in the current meta resolve much faster. The shorter the fight, the less damage you and you team take, the less healing is required to begin with.

jewishjoyride.4693:

Just wanted to add another little thought. Seems like everyone agrees that if your team mates are more self sufficient then less healing is needed. I think duration of fight is fairly important as well.

As a broad sweeping generalization fights in the current meta resolve much faster. The shorter the fight, the less damage you and you team take, the less healing is required to begin with.

Yeah, I run mercenaries build with Sw/t sometimes. It’s not Meta by a longshot but has really high damage output when healing is not really needed (there is a tempest and engie)

Archon.6480:

Yeah, I run mercenaries build with Sw/t sometimes. It’s not Meta by a longshot but has really high damage output when healing is not really needed (there is a tempest and engie)

This.

If healing is not needed – Condi build will crush any Power Oriented one in it’s efficiency of pressure.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Archon.6480:

Yeah, I run mercenaries build with Sw/t sometimes. It’s not Meta by a longshot but has really high damage output when healing is not really needed (there is a tempest and engie)

This.

If healing is not needed – Condi build will crush any Power Oriented one in it’s efficiency of pressure.

Evaluating it from the players output alone, then definitely.

The strength of power based builds isn’t really the players damage though, its the ability to setup CC for pet damage, and having played both Mercenary and Paladin based builds, I think that they just play entirely different from each other.

Ultimately, I stopped playing Mercenary builds because of the sheer volume of necros making playing a condi build more work with their passive and active transfers, not to mention how ineffective personal condi output feels against engis and eles. Maybe if I didn’t have to memorize tons of cooldown timers, both active and passive, but when the other build only makes you count dodges and defensive skills before you unload your damage, you just end up feeling less exhausted at the end of each match, which to me is a deal breaker lol.

its comes down to playstyle honestly. I like menders cuz I can support my team better with the heals, as well as the “soft” vitality I gain through condi pressure. Condi spam worries me more than physical dps

Someone said it earlier. If you are healing you aren’t doing damage. That’s why menders is better. Less time healing because you get back to safe health pools easier.

Eurantien.4632:

Someone said it earlier. If you are healing you aren’t doing damage. That’s why menders is better. Less time healing because you get back to safe health pools easier.

The main point is that Ranger will never have the pressure of other classes (even in full berserker).
And the only pressure we have doesn’t have anything in common with stats since pet is our significant Direct Pressure. If you intend to go offensive, there’s no way you’ll get there through pure stats like other classes. Difference in damage of Mender and berserker is roughly 20%. The difference of survival and utility is like night and day difference.

Which naturally means we scale better from Healing Power. Why? Because we need time in order to deal that damage and nothing helps us achieve that as Healing and Pet at this part of the moment.
Or going condi bomber sacrificing most of our utility for offense. That works, too.

Yes, ranger has much weaker scaling due to pet. Up to 40% of our damage comes from our pet. This does not mean you shouldn’t max out the remaining 60% though because even if offensive stats aren’t as impactful as on other classes you wont kill anything with just the pets 40%.

It is a close call and versus certain enemy teams there might be better options than mending. Still think with this small edge of toughness from Signet of Stone (180) and runes (175) mending will perform better more frequently. This is almost the toughness you would get from an Amulet.

Eurantien.4632:

Someone said it earlier. If you are healing you aren’t doing damage. That’s why menders is better. Less time healing because you get back to safe health pools easier.

You’re a bit out of context with the comment you’re referencing Eura lol.

The comment was made in regards to why Paladins would be better than Menders; because in Paladins the damage mitigation is passively handled by stats which means less time taken to have to actively heal to mitigate damage done to you, where Menders you’d take more damage and spend more time having to heal because of it.

Dojo.1867:

Yes, ranger has much weaker scaling due to pet. Up to 40% of our damage comes from our pet. This does not mean you shouldn’t max out the remaining 60% though because even if offensive stats aren’t as impactful as on other classes you wont kill anything with just the pets 40%.

That’s why you take Mender that goes for 50% offensive stats which include the main spike of any Ranger’s there ever has been. Sigil of Air and Fire (High Power and enough Crit).
Yep, it has never been Rapid Fire that did the trick. It was the Sigils that couldn’t be negated due to lots of attacks with high crit chance. Even if people dodged 60% of Rapid Fire, they could never escape the 2-3K spike from sigils.

It’s always about the results. And if I have to choose between boosting my offense by 25 units or my survival and utility both by 40 units while still boosting my offense by 10 units – then it’s a clear choice.
If I really wanted to go for offense – I’d pick condi that boosts offense by 50 units unlike Paladin/Berserker/Marauder. Once I pick a Power Weapon – I already forced myself a utility route, not offense.
(numbers are naturally made up. they were picked for demonstration, not as data, you probably know what I have in mind, though)

jcbroe.4329:

Eurantien.4632:

Someone said it earlier. If you are healing you aren’t doing damage. That’s why menders is better. Less time healing because you get back to safe health pools easier.

You’re a bit out of context with the comment you’re referencing Eura lol.

The comment was made in regards to why Paladins would be better than Menders; because in Paladins the damage mitigation is passively handled by stats which means less time taken to have to actively heal to mitigate damage done to you, where Menders you’d take more damage and spend more time having to heal because of it.

The way I see it is that regardless of the amulet, you are still taking some damage. That 500 toughness really doesn’t mitigate a whole lot of damage. Sure it passively reduces your damage but since you probably have regen, the healing power is also passively healing you. That’s not my point though. The point is that you will take damage and get to a point where you will want to heal back to a comfortable health pool. Since you have to do that with both amulets then you actually end up spending more time healing in Paladins than in Menders because you don’t have healing power in the former. For example, you take 4K damage in Menders to get back to full hp you go into CF. lunar blast them and yourself, then you leave and you are at full hp. If you have Paladins and let’s say that toughness makes that 4K hit a 3k hit (overestimation on the effectiveness of toughness) and you go into CF and lunar blast, you don’t heal up that hp difference, you end up a few hundred under max, so you Cf 4 to get a tick or two before you leave CF.t That means you just spent more time healing because of less healing power.

Eurantien.4632:

jcbroe.4329:

Eurantien.4632:

Someone said it earlier. If you are healing you aren’t doing damage. That’s why menders is better. Less time healing because you get back to safe health pools easier.

You’re a bit out of context with the comment you’re referencing Eura lol.

The comment was made in regards to why Paladins would be better than Menders; because in Paladins the damage mitigation is passively handled by stats which means less time taken to have to actively heal to mitigate damage done to you, where Menders you’d take more damage and spend more time having to heal because of it.

The way I see it is that regardless of the amulet, you are still taking some damage. That 500 toughness really doesn’t mitigate a whole lot of damage. Sure it passively reduces your damage but since you probably have regen, the healing power is also passively healing you. That’s not my point though. The point is that you will take damage and get to a point where you will want to heal back to a comfortable health pool. Since you have to do that with both amulets then you actually end up spending more time healing in Paladins than in Menders because you don’t have healing power in the former. For example, you take 4K damage in Menders to get back to full hp you go into CF. lunar blast them and yourself, then you leave and you are at full hp. If you have Paladins and let’s say that toughness makes that 4K hit a 3k hit (overestimation on the effectiveness of toughness) and you go into CF and lunar blast, you don’t heal up that hp difference, you end up a few hundred under max, so you Cf 4 to get a tick or two before you leave CF.t That means you just spent more time healing because of less healing power.

Sorry that you typed all of this out (though for people that needed the explanation this is welcomed, I’m sure).

I was literally just trying to point out what was taken out of context and semi-summarize it lol.

The build you ran on stream (and its 99% similar variation available to view on metabattle) is really just completely different from what I expected to see. Mender’s, especially at high level, organized VoIP games makes lots of sense, and I guess with the stat split, the Sw/D set ends up becoming the overall most logical choice. The vigor on pet swap over Evasive Purity eludes me though.

At the end of the day I’d probably end up with the meta tagged build on metabattle, but with Evasive Purity and GS being swapped in every other match instead of sw/d after I miss the chain CC and bristleback burst setups too much.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Dojo.1867:

Yes, ranger has much weaker scaling due to pet. Up to 40% of our damage comes from our pet. This does not mean you shouldn’t max out the remaining 60% though because even if offensive stats aren’t as impactful as on other classes you wont kill anything with just the pets 40%.

That’s why you take Mender that goes for 50% offensive stats which include the main spike of any Ranger’s there ever has been. Sigil of Air and Fire (High Power and enough Crit).
Yep, it has never been Rapid Fire that did the trick. It was the Sigils that couldn’t be negated due to lots of attacks with high crit chance. Even if people dodged 60% of Rapid Fire, they could never escape the 2-3K spike from sigils.

It’s always about the results. And if I have to choose between boosting my offense by 25 units or my survival and utility both by 40 units while still boosting my offense by 10 units – then it’s a clear choice.
If I really wanted to go for offense – I’d pick condi that boosts offense by 50 units unlike Paladin/Berserker/Marauder. Once I pick a Power Weapon – I already forced myself a utility route, not offense.
(numbers are naturally made up. they were picked for demonstration, not as data, you probably know what I have in mind, though)

The thing with offense is that you have to reach a certain point to kill anything in 1on1 before their heal rotations etc are up again. If you fail to reach that point then you can “more efficiently” invest in defensive stats all you want, you will still end up being useless given that druid role usually indeed includes frequent 1on1 skirmishing.

Concerning Eurantiens point:

I totally observe the effect he is talking about. I ironically DO spend more time healing in Paladin. However I would say that the slightly more offensive stats make up for it. In the end offensively both amulets are on the same level. The question people should ask is: can I reliably survive direct dmg burst? Eurantien already said on stream that the build is vulnerable to Rev/Thief and Mender is definitely the culprit here. If you constantly die to those the Paladin switch can be worth it.

There are too many intangibles to rely on pure numbers like “Difference in damage of Mender and berserker is roughly 20%.” Example, if you do a quickdrawed RF twice on someone in menders, they continue doing damage to you. If you do it in berserkers, they have to respond in someone way (or you just straight up killed them, ha) preventing damage to you by you being more offensive. I.e., to switch it up from before, if your opponent is healing they’re not doing damage. Maybe you hit that sweet damage spot where they have to use an invuln, and then your teammate is able to kill them after, something you couldn’t accomplish in menders.

There are too many factors to play this out on paper. All you can do is present points, but it’s WAY too situational and complicated to make absolute sweeping statements… which is again why most people are swapping amulets based on your team and enemy team comps.

Well, naturally, there’s way too many things to account for.
But I think mentioning every factor is only a plus. People searching for advice might get a grasp of pros and cons and then decide for themselves.

After all, I’ve been playing a stealth Zerk build for a nice time just because I really felt like playing one – which became my play-style. And anyone could prove me otherwise, I had better results with it than meta builds because I was so bored with them that I literally couldn’t force myself to care.

This game is to be enjoyed, after all. If people can bring results with what they play – anything is fine. It’s just that Paladin’s Amulet does a completely different job and has a different role than Mender’s so it’s hard to evaluate.

with Menders on I can (running my own variation of shoutranger) run into mid and support the team while dealing decent damage with my pet and staff. If i notice us being overwhelmed or that ppl are starting to die I will switch into CAF and attempt to burst heal as much of the team as possible.

There are times when this turns the tide at mid and we control the rest of the game. I’ve tried to do the same using Paladins and Marauders for a more offensive build but I didn’t feel like I was getting the same results on my heals. Plus, the healing from regen using the shoutbuild is so much better with HP.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Well, naturally, there’s way too many things to account for.
But I think mentioning every factor is only a plus. People searching for advice might get a grasp of pros and cons and then decide for themselves.

After all, I’ve been playing a stealth Zerk build for a nice time just because I really felt like playing one – which became my play-style. And anyone could prove me otherwise, I had better results with it than meta builds because I was so bored with them that I literally couldn’t force myself to care.

This game is to be enjoyed, after all. If people can bring results with what they play – anything is fine. It’s just that Paladin’s Amulet does a completely different job and has a different role than Mender’s so it’s hard to evaluate.

I was just playing around on a build site and saw that you might be able to stack around 20s of stealth using trapper runes and Celestial Shadow, have you tried something like that??

Prophet.1584:

I was just playing around on a build site and saw that you might be able to stack around 20s of stealth using trapper runes and Celestial Shadow, have you tried something like that??

I actually used Healing Spring and Ice Trap only. WH in off-hand, Smoke Scale as pet. Yup, it was something similar, but it was rather lots of different types of re-applications than 1 long Stealth.
Berserker that cannot be tracked is a viable form of competitive game-play. For a few days at least – it was a great fun.

I started with marauders, then tried paladins amulet but I felt I couldn’t support my team well enough so I switched to menders, ended up sticking with it all the way to legendary. I ran staff/GS and played similarly as how Prophet descriped his playstyle. I didn’t find LB druids/rangers a threat at all :x

FrouFrou.4958:

I started with marauders, then tried paladins amulet but I felt I couldn’t support my team well enough so I switched to menders, ended up sticking with it all the way to legendary. I ran staff/GS and played similarly as how Prophet descriped his playstyle. I didn’t find LB druids/rangers a threat at all :x

And the GS has been working for you with Menders?

Just asking because the visible consensus seems to be to run sword/dagger and staff (by visible I mean the players on the weekly streams), and while it may have a bit more survival, it just doesn’t seem to have as good of a “feel” as GS does, especially because the GS can win you 1v1s that would take an annoying long time to win otherwise, which is invaluable if you push/defend sidepoints.

I’ve been less open to experimenting with my builds as I climbed higher in the divisions, so I’d definitely appreciate hearing your thoughts on this.

jcbroe.4329:

FrouFrou.4958:

I started with marauders, then tried paladins amulet but I felt I couldn’t support my team well enough so I switched to menders, ended up sticking with it all the way to legendary. I ran staff/GS and played similarly as how Prophet descriped his playstyle. I didn’t find LB druids/rangers a threat at all :x

And the GS has been working for you with Menders?

Just asking because the visible consensus seems to be to run sword/dagger and staff (by visible I mean the players on the weekly streams), and while it may have a bit more survival, it just doesn’t seem to have as good of a “feel” as GS does, especially because the GS can win you 1v1s that would take an annoying long time to win otherwise, which is invaluable if you push/defend sidepoints.

I’ve been less open to experimenting with my builds as I climbed higher in the divisions, so I’d definitely appreciate hearing your thoughts on this.

With the amount of torment i’ve seen flooding PvP i would not touch Sword/Dagger with a 30ft poll as my defensive option. GS is very good at defense (i’d say better than S/D), and has done me well in both Menders and Clerics, and i can use it to throw people off of points/get onto points quicker/rotate quicker.

S/D in this meta is a “Lets make your 1-4 skills make you take significantly more damage just by using them!” and don’t give me nearly as much overall survivability, they just help against burst since you have more on demand evades, which as a druid doesn’t matter as much because we can vomit our health bar back in no time.

Just to chime in on the s/d vs gs discussion. After queuing on my core ranger and just LOVING greatsword, it is the one ranger weapon where I really feel I can outplay other players the most, I thought that if might be a superior option for me personally than s/d. I did some duels vs my teammates zeromis/supcutie, and although GS could often quickly win me the fight with good CC chains, when I swapped back to s/d It was clear how much more of an advantage I had.

@ Durzlla, I would argue that with all the torment you have seen I would say s/d is clearly the better option. If you avoid getting hit by the shatters altogether, you have no torment to worry about in the first place.

jcbroe.4329:

FrouFrou.4958:

I started with marauders, then tried paladins amulet but I felt I couldn’t support my team well enough so I switched to menders, ended up sticking with it all the way to legendary. I ran staff/GS and played similarly as how Prophet descriped his playstyle. I didn’t find LB druids/rangers a threat at all :x

And the GS has been working for you with Menders?

Just asking because the visible consensus seems to be to run sword/dagger and staff (by visible I mean the players on the weekly streams), and while it may have a bit more survival, it just doesn’t seem to have as good of a “feel” as GS does, especially because the GS can win you 1v1s that would take an annoying long time to win otherwise, which is invaluable if you push/defend sidepoints.

I’ve been less open to experimenting with my builds as I climbed higher in the divisions, so I’d definitely appreciate hearing your thoughts on this.

It has worked for me personally and I haven’t felt any need to switching away from it at all while going through the divisions. As much as I love s+d, I feel like GS has more to offer in sPvP. I have more control with it due the block and CC but Maul’s extra “oomph” is a nice add as well. I know I could use sword skills for movement, but it takes extra effort. Now I can just hit #3 for closing gaps or escapes, no matter which weapon set it is. No extra energy needs to be put in that so I can focus on other things like positioning myself with just pressing 1 button for pulling a downed friendly with SnR, if that makes sense? The only thing I struggle against is condi chrono, but that’s a personal thing more than fault of the weapons I have chosen. Mesmers have always been my weak spot :<

Eurantien.4632:

Just to chime in on the s/d vs gs discussion. After queuing on my core ranger and just LOVING greatsword, it is the one ranger weapon where I really feel I can outplay other players the most, I thought that if might be a superior option for me personally than s/d. I did some duels vs my teammates zeromis/supcutie, and although GS could often quickly win me the fight with good CC chains, when I swapped back to s/d It was clear how much more of an advantage I had.

@ Durzlla, I would argue that with all the torment you have seen I would say s/d is clearly the better option. If you avoid getting hit by the shatters altogether, you have no torment to worry about in the first place.

The thing is it doesn’t seem to be mesmers applying it to me, and i’m trying to figure out the source but can’t and it’s irritating the kitten out of me -_-

That being said, I run neither S/D or GS, which does hurt my defense (absolutely no argument there), but i just haven’t needed it, i have enough healing output, and dodges and damage mitigation as is that I’ve taken axe/axe for a more utility based weapon set, it works well with my group of players and their builds.

That being said, if I do run into the need of more defenses I’ll probably swap between GS and S/D until i find one i prefer more, i’d probably lean more towards GS because of the utility. S/D is a set i prefer to use when i simply can’t afford to be hit by bursts, where GS certainly gives me more overall coverage, which is what i’d look for since i mainly bunker.

Durzlla.6295:

The thing is it doesn’t seem to be mesmers applying it to me, and i’m trying to figure out the source but can’t and it’s irritating the kitten out of me -_-

Necro scepter 3? 100% of all players in 100% of matches are playing necro, so I assume it’s a necro applying it to you.

Fluffball.8307:

Durzlla.6295:

The thing is it doesn’t seem to be mesmers applying it to me, and i’m trying to figure out the source but can’t and it’s irritating the kitten out of me -_-

Necro scepter 3? 100% of all players in 100% of matches are playing necro, so I assume it’s a necro applying it to you.

I assumed it was a necro too, but i couldn’t think of a way they would apply it other than deathshroud, but they’re all reapers so they don’t have the same skill…

Durzlla.6295:

I assumed it was a necro too, but i couldn’t think of a way they would apply it other than deathshroud, but they’re all reapers so they don’t have the same skill…

Ya scepter is what almost all of them are running now, it was probably that. I am pretty sure there is a way for them to get crit chance without investing in precision as well for agony sigil, but I don’t really play necro.

Durzlla.6295:

The thing is it doesn’t seem to be mesmers applying it to me, and i’m trying to figure out the source but can’t and it’s irritating the kitten out of me -_-

Condi revs maybe? They’re not as common as before, but you still do see one every once in a while.