Guild Wars 2

I just crafted a set of ascended armor for my guardian and went with Marauder’s for a sort of multi purpose set, which I can use both in WvW and PvE, so I went Marauder’s with Strength Runes. Will I be gimping myself too much by not going full zerker? Should I spare the gold and change my stats? I did the math, and this way i’ll lose about 3% DPS in exchange of 2k more health.

I plan on doing both fractals/raids and WvW, thx in advance.

I go marauder’s on my necro in T4 fractals and have no issues with pugs. You also have to keep in mind if you’re downed, your DPS level tanks.

Raids are a different beast because you’re not all that responsible for your own survivability, so the added vitality isn’t so important. But I don’t think anyone would scream bloody murder if you know what you’re doing.

That said, exotic berserker’s gear is dirt cheap from wvw vendors.

Depends on what you want to do in PvE with this character and gear.

If it’s open world, then you’ll be fine.

Fractals and Dungeons are forgiving enough that there are enough players open for non-meta builds and gear sets that you should have no problem finding a group right away to do the content.

If it’s raids, unless you’ve already got a group you raid with, you may find it harder to find groups willing to not take meta than with fractals and dungeons, especially if you don’t have any proof that you’ve done raids tons of times and/or if you raid off peak hours.

Hesacon.8735:

That said, exotic berserker’s gear is dirt cheap from wvw vendors.

Amusingly, exotic Berserker’s and ascended Marauder’s armor have practically identical effective power – Marauder has a touch less with full raid buffs but a touch more with.

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To the OP’s question, a bit of Marauder gear isn’t going to decrease DPS by a noticeable amount, and until you are very experienced with a raid the extra health will matter and will prevent being downed now and again.

Most of the talk of ‘gimping’ your damage is from people who have not done the math and just assume any gear that isn’t meta will be terrible.

The big issue with marauders is that the class that would benefit the most from it (elementalists) are one of the few for which it is a significant damage loss due to their traits pushing their crit chance over 100% with high precision gear.

It’s reasonable for thieves, but only if you’re able to consistently stay at high hp in order so that the bonus crit damage when above 90%hp trait is better than the bonus crit chance. If you do use the bonus crit chance, marauder’s becomes a problem again.

It’s not a noticable damage loss for the other classes, but already have the base hp (or in the guardian’s case virtues/protection/armour) that it shouldn’t be particularly scary.

I use some marauders with my zerk on ele. Have had no issues.

It may be a difference in case of classes that depend on critting for other effects than just pure dps. Check if you’re not using any traits/on crit sigils like that.

I think you lose more damage from not using scholar runes than using marauder armor

lucadiro.4519:

I think you lose more damage from not using scholar runes than using marauder armor

Average player is likely not going to qualify for the 6th set bonus most of the time.
Though you have a point, loss from not having dps runes will likely be significant.

lucadiro.4519:

I think you lose more damage from not using scholar runes than using marauder armor

Full marauder ele is like 12% less dps than berserker.

Flame legion runes are like 3% worse than scholar assuming 70% scholar uptime

NikeEU.7690:

lucadiro.4519:

I think you lose more damage from not using scholar runes than using marauder armor

Full marauder ele is like 12% less dps than berserker.

Flame legion runes are like 3% worse than scholar assuming 70% scholar uptime

What about strength runes (on a guard, hopefully hammer user), the ones OP mentioned?

NikeEU.7690:

lucadiro.4519:

I think you lose more damage from not using scholar runes than using marauder armor

Full marauder ele is like 12% less dps than berserker.

Flame legion runes are like 3% worse than scholar assuming 70% scholar uptime

???
If I’m not wrong the op is talking about Guardian, and also he is talking about Just marauder armor not full set
(Assuming the rest is zerk)

Astralporing.1957:

NikeEU.7690:

lucadiro.4519:

I think you lose more damage from not using scholar runes than using marauder armor

Full marauder ele is like 12% less dps than berserker.

Flame legion runes are like 3% worse than scholar assuming 70% scholar uptime

What about strength runes (on a guard, hopefully hammer user), the ones OP mentioned?

Flame Legion would be much more dps than Strength for a Guardian, since they have decent burns. Strength is ok for symbol might generation, but when you play Radiance guard you lose out a bit compared to Flame Legion.

When you go down in raids then usually it’s because of bad positioning, failing a mechanic, or not dodging crucial attacks. In those situations the extra durability from Marauder’s armor isn’t going to make much of a difference. If you’re doing say, no updraft Gorseval and you fail to position properly during his break bar phase and don’t get heals, you’re gonna go down whether you’re wearing Berserkers or Marauders. If you fail to dodge Shake against Slothasor, you’re going to go down regardless of your armor. There’s only a couple fights that I can think of where having a bit more health would be useful, really just Matthias.