I dueled a Thrust Saracen Mercenary and outdamaged them by a ton on my Slash Half Ogre Mercenary.

Austerim wrote:I dueled a Thrust Saracen Mercenary and outdamaged them by a ton on my Slash Half Ogre Mercenary.

let us make a duel next time we see each other

Sausage?

Austerim wrote:I dueled a Thrust Saracen Mercenary and outdamaged them by a ton on my Slash Half Ogre Mercenary.

if both of you were unbuffed that's not a surprise, thrust is much weaker without buffs since you need 2 stats for full dmg instead of one.

As a merc you should be hitting casters/bards/healers more often than druids/zerks/wardens which is why I prefer crush over slash. Pick thrust if you are saracen.
Splitspec is always an option at mid-high rr. Keep in mind that half ogre/highlander deals more dmg with slash/crush than with thrust.

We were fully buffed by a full buff Cleric.

HulkGris wrote:

Falken wrote:Even as a HO since slash is all str? What is the reasoning behind saying crush or thrust? Nearly everyone I have talked to says that as a HO going slash is best, and being split spec doesn't make a big difference to switch from slash weapons to thrust weapons as far as damage is concerned since its str+dex/2 rather then just str.

For usual target that you meet in RvR group :
Crush : malus on druid (and warden/hero but don't care), while bonus on bard/BM. All others neutral
Slash : malus on shaman/healer, while bonus on zerk only. All others neutral.
Not a huge difference, but crush seems to be a little better.
Anyway, some mercs says that slash is better because they duel at Castle Sauvage against crush merc and wins more often, since slash is neutral on Alb chain, whil crush has malus.

For style choice, DW has better damage (spec higher, better GR).
But they have two drabacks :
- no to-hit bonus (anytime/side) or low only (behind), which means more "miss your target"
- higher endurance cost

The no +hit is a pretty big trade-off, but I can't imagine NOT using flank, but rather knowing when to use it (following up a slam) rather then trying to flank a moving target. The drawbacks you mentioned are somewhat big, but as you said if their damage is truely superior (I would love to know if this has actually been tested and if so by who/where is the data?) to that of a base spec line then it seems to balance out in the end. Mercs are a dps class and their focus should be on maximizing their damage output, which is what I am trying to do with this thread here. I appreciate any/all feedback whether positive or negative, because I strive to be the best @ what I play, and right now that is Merc.

I was told fairly early on in my leveling path to not worry about using the back style chain as the debuff is next to useless in the chain and I am better off using other styles. This is really where my dilemma lies. I am trying to narrow down the styles that I should focus on mastering and so far I know my list should contain: Flank, Shadow's Rain, Amethyst Strike, Slam. What about Shadow's Edge + Penumbra (I figure this over eclipse due to +high hit)?

So as it appears now in a perfect world I typically Slam > Flank > Shadow's Rain > Flank > Shadow's Rain > /stick > spam amy strike > hope they die OR

Slam > Flank > Shadow's Rain > Flank > Shadow's Rain > /stick > Shadow's Edge w/ backup amy strike > Penumbra or Shadow's Edge w/ amy strike backup

at this point they are either getting heals or they are not in which case their life is dropping low enough to be a kill target or I should look around and reassess the situation to possibly help on a different target or switch to a non stun immuned target to repeat the process. I am speaking from ZERO experience in emain of course and just speculating. I am sure that organized 8v8 rarely happens and people are zerging frequently and adding all the time because they are greedy RP whores, but pretend this is a perfect world where people have respect for one another

Well real misses don't occur very often in PvP. I don't know what is the base miss rate. If a merc could log 2 hours of RvR and gives the stats of miss rate of style, it could be nice
You can realize it in PvE, where Flank miss really often while anytime from crush line hit almost every time.

Austerim wrote:I dueled a Thrust Saracen Mercenary and outdamaged them by a ton on my Slash Half Ogre Mercenary.

Your slash mercenary outdamaged some thrust saracen mercenary.
It doesn't mean than slash outdamage thrust. It means that in duel, you outdamage some merc. Maybe it's because slash is better, maybe it's because they suck in duel, maybe because you have a better stuff, better proc, better luck, etc
84 vs 74, they have a 13,5% damage bonus.

Thanks to those of you stayed on track in the thread and contributed . I appreciate all the input and have redone all my quickbinds to incorporate amy strike as my any along with the back style chain, flank chain and slam, and duel shadows for those targets who are slam/mez immune for an extended period of time so that bleed won't break it, so basically 7 styles I have to focus on, which is more than I have seen on most mercs bars in videos, but just cause they can make a video doesn't mean they are good or doing it correctly. All I can do now is practice and get faster at swapping my offhand back after I slam so that I don't have to use an amy in between my slam and flank ><

Thanks again to all who contributed to the thread, I have a pretty good aim at what I should be doing and will head down that road for now, and readjust later if I should find my own experiences proving differently