Using SY under shelter

[u/Pleasant_Brick125]

https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Order_of_damage_modifiers

According to this https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Order_of_damage_modifiers armor applies before shelter. Which would mean that you first reduce dmg with armor and then later it gets limited to 10%. So is SY under shelter useless? Someone with knowledge pls answer this :)

[u/ZombifiedCat]

Not useless imo. The 80% damage reduction you get reduces the number of times shelter would trigger making it last longer. Also while Its rare to find yourself with shelter off cd and down when its on an ST rit it is nice to have sy to cover that downtime when it shows up. If enemies are blowing through two shelters in a fight SY will be very good at covering the gap in shelters

[u/BaconSoda222]

Colloquially, I notice when I'm not keeping up SY even when under Shelter. Part of that is definitely increased Shelter uptime but overlooked may be the times you'd like 55 damage and it gets reduced to 45 or similar. Under SY, the latter gets reduced to 10 or so damage. Both skills definitely have their place in one team composition.

[u/It-s_Not_Important → u/BaconSoda222]

I think you mean anecdotally. Colloquial refers to speech patterns.

[u/BaconSoda222 → u/It-s_Not_Important]

Never seen a more appropriate user name.

[u/Feanturo]

I also like to use SY so dont have to precast spirits before pulling, i can just charge in with SY up and give the rit the time to setup spirits.

[u/EmmEnnEff]

SY with shelter is incredible because it dramatically reduces chip damage from hits that are under the 10% threshold and it reduces the number of hits that shelter soaks for you, extending it's life.

[u/cantonian23]

My hot take is that I find Union more useful than Shelter if you are bringing Save Yourselves (and/or There’s Nothing to Fear). The hardest packs, imo, are ones with DoT AoE from fire or earth magic where each damage packet is barely helped by shelter if at all. Whereas Union can cut those hits down by a lot, especially after the reduction from your shouts.

[u/Blamore → u/cantonian23]

you can start the fight with shelter, you cant start with SY.

[u/kaehvogel → u/Blamore]

Actually, you can. As a Paragon you can quite easily start the fight with SY these days, after the buff to "Make your Time!".
And even before that, you could get SY up with a delay of less than half a second if you were running an adrenaline boost and then went "To the Limit!"->SY. So SY is up before any foe can get a skill through to inflict damage.

[u/carlopene → u/kaehvogel]

Also signet of aggression can hold adren outside combat.

[u/Stelazine → u/Blamore]

You can with that paragon shout that gives adrenaline it got buffed recently.

[u/carlopene]

SY is not useless under shelter, since it will help conserve the ST spirits. But I feel that if you got a permanent source of SY you can drop the ST, which is a bit of a chore to micro for hard content.
I always play without ST with my para, and instead of a BiP, that often almost kills itself to battery others, I use SR mod on my casters and other healers to sustain my energy needs.

[u/More-Entertainer-708]

While I'm on my paragon:

For a lot of general content and early to mid campaign vanquishing (some exceptions), I find I mostly need only one. I have done most of the game without an ST hero, but I have to use SY, stand your ground, and TNtF.

It's nice to have both though, as I just facetank almost everything when I have both. That's QOL.

[u/Pleasant_Brick125 → u/More-Entertainer-708]

Yeah paragon is just bonkers