Guild Wars 2

Forum bug 15/char

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.

I went ahead and swapped to playing a Mender’s build with S/D myself for the last division climb I did to see what it was all about and I basically came to the same conclusion.

I feel like, while I did lose damage potential and kill ability from losing the CC particularly, I gained a lot of sustain, in teamfights especially, that I just didn’t have before. S/D has definitely allowed me to survive situations I was getting focused and reset, and coupled with Mender’s, I’ve definitely clutched fights with a lot less effort by just dropping a single CF3 into CF5 combo and outright winning those situations.

I use Menders most often, for several reasons:

- Healing power also benefits the whole team and druid really needs that to be useful in teamfights.
- Paladin’s amu has higher offensive stats, but tons of dps comes from the pet anyways – no healing comes from the pet though….
- The very high precision-stats on paladins aren’t as good as they seem, cuz you have no added ferocity, so the ~500 stat-points in precision net you a ~12% dmg increase, depending on which on-cit procs you use, 30% crit-chance will often be enough to use them effectively (1.25s for 3 pulses on solar beam = 1 crit, which means 1 proc every 2.5 seonds, so just spamming Staff1, you have enough crit-chance to proc air every 3 seconds).
- Dolyak runes are by far the best on druid (astral force every 1s), gives toughness.(good way to make up for the lack of toughness on the amu)
- Signet of Stone, which is very strong to survive in teamfights, also gives toughness. (another good way to make up for the lack of toughness on the amu)
- The current meta features many condi-builds.
- The added healing and teamsupport actually gives the druid a more defined role as a strong support, if you use paladin, you might as well not play a druid at all.

I was strongly in favour of paladins at first and was confused to see every1 use menders, but after extensively testing it, I have to agree it’s the better option more often than not.

I like Mender’s paired with sigil of transference on staff. Off the principle that teammates can’t do damage while dead healing power’s importance is apparent. It’s still important to dish out some meaningful damage so Mender’s seems ideal. Also we have to remember that weapon swapping has a cooldown so swapping between attack and healing has a window that must be accounting for. CA form also isn’t just good for healing and cleansing (although it’s still great) but for cleaving downed and rezzers with CA 1, 4, and 5.

Fluffball.8307:

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.

there’s actually 2 traits that can provide precision that can get necros to 100% crit chance with 0 investment. between the sigil and scepter AA there’s a lot of torment floating about.

Just thought I’d chime in. I’ve been using Sw/D and Menders as well. Depending on the enemy team composition, I’ll cheat and swap out dagger for Warhorn and windborn notes as well as drop dolyak rune for altruism. This way, outgoing support is higher and pets deal more damage, with max might stacks being pretty much permanent.

Of course, you should run Dolyack and Dagger for 1v1 against really good players and their dueling specs (Rev/Mesmer), so I’d say that configuration is superior against skilled opponents and balanced enemy team compositions. If the enemy has a bunch of bunker classes, or is not that skilled, the might stacking variation works better for me. Higher damage, kill things faster.

I feel that Mercenary and Paladin just don’t have enough healing to justify. They waste too much of what Druid offers. Sage works better than mercenary, for me, but is a bit squishy against skilled players.

theres also the fact that paladins will help you out in 1v1s a lot more, as healing powers effectiveness scales proportionately with the number of allies effected.

Stand The Wall.6987:

theres also the fact that paladins will help you out in 1v1s a lot more, as healing powers effectiveness scales proportionately with the number of allies effected.

And that’s where we should be IMO. Someone always swaps to tempest and they can anchor the big fights better than us. We have the better mobility (on any build via staff, GS, or the “mobility” of LB range) to decap or +1. Any amulet will let you sustain in a 2v2 just because all the meta classes are literally impossible to kill in small fights… herald, scrapper, necro… it takes virtually nothing to keep your buddy alive.

This is a great thread, I’m really loving the discussion here. I was wondering what you guys think about Sages amulet? I was thinking Sages with torch and geo sigils to up the condi pressure.

skipping a bit in the thread cus im a bit too lazy to read every single post here, but if you play mender you cannot bunk on the point directly in a teamfight. the amulets are a kind of playstyle choice too. if you play mender you are forced to stay back and heal allies and CC etc. etc. cus you have 0 toughness and if youre in the middle of a teamfight, then youre going to get CC’d yourself… and.. that means you cant heal.. whereas on paladin you will still have that extra toughness to help you survive even while youre being stunlocked.. most of the time i think i would go with paladin to make it worth using your offensive abilities too, instead of just standing there waiting for someoen to lose their health so you can heal them.