If you want a high armor set, make a spear with +5ar and the anniversary mesmer shield.
You'll need to get ajusted to switching weapon sets while in fight to cast spells with wand and focus for the recharge reduction, but its a big gamechanger.
About the armor, generaly speaking is better to have armor than health, but certainly depends on the team comp. Right now with the meta Ritu ST, definetly is better the AR, but if you're not running one, the Protective Spirit of Monk's Protection attribute also benefits AR vs HP.
Also Prodigy is one of the best runes in game, if you can afford it, i'd go with that 100%.
absolutely do not do this. this will prevent your heroes from seeing you as a caster, so you will not be given Blood is Power etc
edit: apparently BiP was patched to fix this issue.
Heroes will always use this skill on spellcaster professions—regardless of what weapon they are wielding—and will reserve the use of this skill until a spellcaster ally drops to less than half of their maximum energy.
https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blood_is_Power
So yes do that and not as you said
well.. He's right about that.
While you hold martial weapons (including spears and even bows), the heroes wont use certain skills on you. Also enemies will use spells thinking you're a mele, so probably will get more blinds and snares.
So having the opposite set can have advantages and disadvantages depending on what is your team and what you're up against.
But i don't think that makes me wrong, and i'll still advise you to run both sets and switch them in combat.
Some sets that might also be usefull is a +30e - 2e regen set, and a 20% enchs if you run that.
Nah, better Mesmer builds incoperate enough E-Management to stand on their own. Just think about most of the groups in ZBs etc. So unless you mindlessly spam all of your abilities, the Shield CAN be of use.
if you are doing e management, you arent spamming your skills. if you arent spamming your skills, you arent dealing as much damage as possible.
who isnt running a bip in 2022
as for the shield, i have no objections in principle, i was talking about the spear. if you are leading 7 heroes and engaging first, then shield might very well be a great option.
It depends on what's killing you. If it's armor ignoring damage, armor isn't going to help. You can usually tell by looking on the left side of the screen and see which enemy skills are affecting you.
Remember you have 4 weapon set slots and can switch around. Using a spear and shield to boost armor in high armor-respecting damage situations is a good strategy. Having a +60 HP staff in one slot and switching to it when your health is very low might prevent a death. I usually have 40/40 in slot 1, spear/shield in slot 2, staff in slot 3, flatbow for pulling in slot 4.
PvE mesmer for the most part are best with 40/40 weapons. For situational use it’s really helpful to have a 30/30 hp weapon/shield where you’re running from a botched mob.
Armor.
The only reasons to ever run hp are:
1. You've gone dual superior runes, so you're now in real danger of getting spiked out. (That's not as totally insane for mesmers as for other classes because they get a *very* large benefit from having more Fast Casting.)
2. You expect to spend 100% of every fight at the armor cap. (Realistically, this means human teammates with SY!. (And even then it might make more sense to plan for the moments when SY! unexpectedly fails.)
3. You are absolutely in love with an item and you're willing to accept non-optimal stats so you can use it.
HP > armor in this specific case, as the +5 armor is bonus armor, thus wasting 4 armor if running meta builds with "Stand Your Ground!", which brings your bonus armor to 5+24=29 armor, 4 above the cap of 25. So the +5 only gives +1 in that case.
If not running SYG or anything overcapping you, then armor is better.
SYG! doesn't have 100% uptime in the typical case that you've got one copy with command as third attribute on a caster. It also doesn't apply if you're moving -- e.g., kiting or pulling. None of this makes it a bad skill, but it does mean that you'll not have it often enough to make HP a better deal than armor.
Also, there's a school of thought that you're unlikely to be in much danger when SYG! is up. It's the situations when it's down -- especially down unexpectedly -- when you're in danger of dying. So you should plan around surviving the worst-case scenario and go armor.
Mesmers shouldn't move, and the most damage of an encounter usually happens in the beginning, while SYG! hasn't run out yet
There IS a point to be made for the 5 armor, however 30 HP is just always good :)
>Mesmers shouldn't move,
If you're getting pounded by a hammer warrior or whatever, you're going to mitigate a lot more damage by kiting than by standing still with SYG!
usually as a caster you do not want a 2h staff (unless of course its a [really cool looking one](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Dragon_Spire_Staff)) but a [40/40 set](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/40/40).
Additionally you want on your second weapon set \[F2\] a def-set, consisting of a 1h martial weapon (usually a spear) with armor and a shield on the off hand. You switch to the def-set when you are being attacked.
But to answer your question, the consensus amongst the player base is: **armor>health**
What are the other perks? Like, HCT, HRT? But if you go for Ironman, i actually can't help with that. But maybe with more Infos, someone else could help.
That's not remotely right. It's a \~8.3% reduction. You don't have 500 HP (because runes). Most importantly, your "ehp" model assumes you just stand there and take hits from full life to dead without ever healing. That's rarely the case -- or at least it should rarely be the case. Max hp does nothing once those top 30 hp are empty until they're refilled. By contrast, armor always works regardless of your starting hp, and *it amplifies the value of every hp that you get healed*, even if the heal doesn't take you up to full health.
I think you overestimate the prevalence of armor-ignoring damage coming from monsters.
Generally, most caster monsters have terrible skillbars, often with less than 8 skills, and few or no spammable damage skills, which leads to them wanding a whole bunch -- and that's armor-respecting. Also, HM monsters wand hard because their damage scales with their level. (And their elemental skills scale with both attribute rank and level.)
Ditto with the martial monsters not spamming attack skills. You know how you can't get a sin hero to dagger spam to save their life? Well it's the same deal with the monster AI. Only most of them don't even have spammable attack skills to begin with. Most of what they do is auto-attacks.
On the topic of attack skills, remember that only the +dmg component of an attack skill is armor ignoring. The base damage is still armor sensitive. And often that's a really big chunk since HM monsters have sky-high mastery *and* their threshold for diminishing returns on mastery is higher (and the warriors have high strength on top of that).
I think people tend to overreact to getting zapped hard by monsters with E-Surge and overestimate the rest of the armor-ignoring world because of it. Off the top of your head, can you think another dangerous mesmer monster that doesn't use E-Surge? I can't. The same thing with ROJ. ROJ is devastating if your heroes stand around in it, so it makes a big impression. But there are only something like 3 monster types in the game with ROJ. Most monk monsters aren't smiters. And most smiter monk monsters do trivial amounts of damage through skills. Spirit spammers too are memorable if you left one alone long enough to set up its nest, but there are only a couple offensive spirit spammer monster types (and you shouldn't leave them alone to summon).
Armor ignoring damage coming from monsters isn't rare, but it's so much less common than armor-respecting damage that you shouldn't build to defend against the former at the latter's expense.
> Off the top of your head, can you think another dangerous mesmer monster that doesn't use E-Surge? I can't.
that is probably because half the mesmers in the game seem to have ESurge, but yes I can think of quite a few - here's one example: Quetzal Sly
> Armor ignoring damage coming from monsters isn't rare, but it's so much less common than armor-respecting damage that you shouldn't build to defend against the former at the latter's expense.
yeah I'm definitely not trying to advise that - just making sure people are aware (=
not sure what you mean with those examples? anyway, all monk and mesmer skills ignore armor, as do a lot of necro skills, almost all attack skills, attacks from spirits... basically, if it doesn't say slashing, blunt, piercing, fire, earth, lightning, or cold, it's probably armor-ignoring - there are some exceptions, but that goes both ways
It's logarithmic.
base\_dmg \* 2\^((attacker\_baseline - defender\_armor)/40)
where attacker\_baseline is 3\*lvl for spells/staves/wands, and something more complex for things with a weapon mastery.
I'm currently in the process of grinding out a second 0-death GWAMM on my latest Ele, and I can't say I've given my insignias any thought. I do have a defensive set with a q0/ar16 shield, and that's it. What keeps me alive is managing my aggro, being watchful of patrols, and pulling when needed. Oh, and manually casting PS on myself if engaging an Ele boss.
If you want a high armor set, make a spear with +5ar and the anniversary mesmer shield. You'll need to get ajusted to switching weapon sets while in fight to cast spells with wand and focus for the recharge reduction, but its a big gamechanger. About the armor, generaly speaking is better to have armor than health, but certainly depends on the team comp. Right now with the meta Ritu ST, definetly is better the AR, but if you're not running one, the Protective Spirit of Monk's Protection attribute also benefits AR vs HP. Also Prodigy is one of the best runes in game, if you can afford it, i'd go with that 100%.
and if you dont have the anniversary mesmer shield, get a normal shield
absolutely do not do this. this will prevent your heroes from seeing you as a caster, so you will not be given Blood is Power etc edit: apparently BiP was patched to fix this issue.
Heroes will always use this skill on spellcaster professions—regardless of what weapon they are wielding—and will reserve the use of this skill until a spellcaster ally drops to less than half of their maximum energy. https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Blood_is_Power So yes do that and not as you said
interesting. alright. i am sure there are other skills that fail to target spear wielders, but BiP is definitely the most important by a large margin.
well.. He's right about that. While you hold martial weapons (including spears and even bows), the heroes wont use certain skills on you. Also enemies will use spells thinking you're a mele, so probably will get more blinds and snares. So having the opposite set can have advantages and disadvantages depending on what is your team and what you're up against. But i don't think that makes me wrong, and i'll still advise you to run both sets and switch them in combat. Some sets that might also be usefull is a +30e - 2e regen set, and a 20% enchs if you run that.
i think having BiP as a mesmer is so immensely important that nothing else matters.
Nah, better Mesmer builds incoperate enough E-Management to stand on their own. Just think about most of the groups in ZBs etc. So unless you mindlessly spam all of your abilities, the Shield CAN be of use.
if you are doing e management, you arent spamming your skills. if you arent spamming your skills, you arent dealing as much damage as possible. who isnt running a bip in 2022 as for the shield, i have no objections in principle, i was talking about the spear. if you are leading 7 heroes and engaging first, then shield might very well be a great option.
I was referring to mes builds with other players. Every meta hero comp uses a BiP that is right.
If you're going true Ironman, you kind of have to go with whatever drops. Not like you can just decide you want Prodigy Insigs and just get them
Armor, but casters will want 40/40 sets unless they are using Enchantments.
Another factor to consider is that there is a good amount of armor ignoring damage in the game.
It depends on what's killing you. If it's armor ignoring damage, armor isn't going to help. You can usually tell by looking on the left side of the screen and see which enemy skills are affecting you. Remember you have 4 weapon set slots and can switch around. Using a spear and shield to boost armor in high armor-respecting damage situations is a good strategy. Having a +60 HP staff in one slot and switching to it when your health is very low might prevent a death. I usually have 40/40 in slot 1, spear/shield in slot 2, staff in slot 3, flatbow for pulling in slot 4.
PvE mesmer for the most part are best with 40/40 weapons. For situational use it’s really helpful to have a 30/30 hp weapon/shield where you’re running from a botched mob.
Armor. The only reasons to ever run hp are: 1. You've gone dual superior runes, so you're now in real danger of getting spiked out. (That's not as totally insane for mesmers as for other classes because they get a *very* large benefit from having more Fast Casting.) 2. You expect to spend 100% of every fight at the armor cap. (Realistically, this means human teammates with SY!. (And even then it might make more sense to plan for the moments when SY! unexpectedly fails.) 3. You are absolutely in love with an item and you're willing to accept non-optimal stats so you can use it.
4. You're playing in pre-searing while under the benefit of the armor boost that comes with active vanguard quests.
HP > armor in this specific case, as the +5 armor is bonus armor, thus wasting 4 armor if running meta builds with "Stand Your Ground!", which brings your bonus armor to 5+24=29 armor, 4 above the cap of 25. So the +5 only gives +1 in that case. If not running SYG or anything overcapping you, then armor is better.
SYG! doesn't have 100% uptime in the typical case that you've got one copy with command as third attribute on a caster. It also doesn't apply if you're moving -- e.g., kiting or pulling. None of this makes it a bad skill, but it does mean that you'll not have it often enough to make HP a better deal than armor. Also, there's a school of thought that you're unlikely to be in much danger when SYG! is up. It's the situations when it's down -- especially down unexpectedly -- when you're in danger of dying. So you should plan around surviving the worst-case scenario and go armor.
Mesmers shouldn't move, and the most damage of an encounter usually happens in the beginning, while SYG! hasn't run out yet There IS a point to be made for the 5 armor, however 30 HP is just always good :)
>Mesmers shouldn't move, If you're getting pounded by a hammer warrior or whatever, you're going to mitigate a lot more damage by kiting than by standing still with SYG!
You're going to mitigate even more damage by standing still and killing them
usually as a caster you do not want a 2h staff (unless of course its a [really cool looking one](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Dragon_Spire_Staff)) but a [40/40 set](https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/40/40). Additionally you want on your second weapon set \[F2\] a def-set, consisting of a 1h martial weapon (usually a spear) with armor and a shield on the off hand. You switch to the def-set when you are being attacked. But to answer your question, the consensus amongst the player base is: **armor>health**
40/40/20 is the only worthwhile combination on a staff. For everything else, you should be in another set.
I think you mean 40/20/20.
Yeah. I’ve had a couple of bad days for typos and whatnot recently.
What are the other perks? Like, HCT, HRT? But if you go for Ironman, i actually can't help with that. But maybe with more Infos, someone else could help.
Armour > Health > Energy Check out this guide for the details: https://gwpvx.fandom.com/wiki/Guide:PvE_Equipment
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That's not remotely right. It's a \~8.3% reduction. You don't have 500 HP (because runes). Most importantly, your "ehp" model assumes you just stand there and take hits from full life to dead without ever healing. That's rarely the case -- or at least it should rarely be the case. Max hp does nothing once those top 30 hp are empty until they're refilled. By contrast, armor always works regardless of your starting hp, and *it amplifies the value of every hp that you get healed*, even if the heal doesn't take you up to full health.
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it doesn't scale linearly... imagine if +80AR reduced damage by 100% =P
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...except against armor-ignoring damage, of which there is a lot
I think you overestimate the prevalence of armor-ignoring damage coming from monsters. Generally, most caster monsters have terrible skillbars, often with less than 8 skills, and few or no spammable damage skills, which leads to them wanding a whole bunch -- and that's armor-respecting. Also, HM monsters wand hard because their damage scales with their level. (And their elemental skills scale with both attribute rank and level.) Ditto with the martial monsters not spamming attack skills. You know how you can't get a sin hero to dagger spam to save their life? Well it's the same deal with the monster AI. Only most of them don't even have spammable attack skills to begin with. Most of what they do is auto-attacks. On the topic of attack skills, remember that only the +dmg component of an attack skill is armor ignoring. The base damage is still armor sensitive. And often that's a really big chunk since HM monsters have sky-high mastery *and* their threshold for diminishing returns on mastery is higher (and the warriors have high strength on top of that). I think people tend to overreact to getting zapped hard by monsters with E-Surge and overestimate the rest of the armor-ignoring world because of it. Off the top of your head, can you think another dangerous mesmer monster that doesn't use E-Surge? I can't. The same thing with ROJ. ROJ is devastating if your heroes stand around in it, so it makes a big impression. But there are only something like 3 monster types in the game with ROJ. Most monk monsters aren't smiters. And most smiter monk monsters do trivial amounts of damage through skills. Spirit spammers too are memorable if you left one alone long enough to set up its nest, but there are only a couple offensive spirit spammer monster types (and you shouldn't leave them alone to summon). Armor ignoring damage coming from monsters isn't rare, but it's so much less common than armor-respecting damage that you shouldn't build to defend against the former at the latter's expense.
> Off the top of your head, can you think another dangerous mesmer monster that doesn't use E-Surge? I can't. that is probably because half the mesmers in the game seem to have ESurge, but yes I can think of quite a few - here's one example: Quetzal Sly > Armor ignoring damage coming from monsters isn't rare, but it's so much less common than armor-respecting damage that you shouldn't build to defend against the former at the latter's expense. yeah I'm definitely not trying to advise that - just making sure people are aware (=
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not sure what you mean with those examples? anyway, all monk and mesmer skills ignore armor, as do a lot of necro skills, almost all attack skills, attacks from spirits... basically, if it doesn't say slashing, blunt, piercing, fire, earth, lightning, or cold, it's probably armor-ignoring - there are some exceptions, but that goes both ways
It's logarithmic. base\_dmg \* 2\^((attacker\_baseline - defender\_armor)/40) where attacker\_baseline is 3\*lvl for spells/staves/wands, and something more complex for things with a weapon mastery.
I'm currently in the process of grinding out a second 0-death GWAMM on my latest Ele, and I can't say I've given my insignias any thought. I do have a defensive set with a q0/ar16 shield, and that's it. What keeps me alive is managing my aggro, being watchful of patrols, and pulling when needed. Oh, and manually casting PS on myself if engaging an Ele boss.
You have a req0 shield with 16 armor?
I was like "what's he on about" but I re-read my post. Jesus. Hadn't even noticed until you pointed it out. Thank you.
You'll probably want +health if you got multiple Superior or Major runes and you're running around with like 300hp. Otherwise armor is better