Guild Wars 2

Its seems everyone says get beserker armor on these forums. My concern is will I be to squishy? I only play pve and do a lot of dungeons. So fighting other players isnt a concern. Are there skills I should be using to bring up my survivability? Right now i use staff for dungeons and s/f for solo pve. I use cantrips a lot also.

Yep, you will need to use dodge

For open PvE having another armor to switch, e.g. Soldier, to be less squishy is very handy, however in dungeons Berserker is the best option. Find a somewhat decent group that take the time to explain a few things to you, though.

or just swap out a few for cleric trinkets. Or knights, or Valkyrie or even rampager since we have some condi damage too.
I still prefer dagger mainhand though.

I would generally say yes for staff. But at the very least you will need celestial acc. save for the backpack which is zerker.

And grab some tasty strength runes while u are at it.

I run full exotic zerker with runes of scholar and normally S/D or S/F for dungeons. Stack Might, summon LH and away you go.

We are a bit squishy but once you know the path it’s fine. It’s just about knowing how to dodge and usually have a decent guardian helps. If you’re really struggling you can put Arcane Shield on as well which comes in handy when stacking, etc.

You’ll do a lot of damage and probably die a lot too.

When I started playing, I was what some people would call “a noob”

First I was playing staff (6/6/0/0/2). I had this weapon because it was easier to level up with it due to loot, or so it seemed at the time (I was wrong). I quickly understood that in order to deal damage I would have to go for full zerker. I was at range so there was only little danger. I was not doing Arah nor fractals though. When I started facing more challenging content I noticed that I required more defense because I was not able to dodge everything. Please pay close attention to this: this only reason why I was not good enough at dodging is because I had played at range the whole time; if I had played in melee I would have learned how to dodge. So I looked at what I could do to improve my survivability. I quickly understood that it was “cheaper” in terms of efficiency to use defensive traits rather than defensive gear. So I used the famous 0/2/0/6/6 build (Evasive Arcana was op at that time). Then I understood that going at range will almost always be less efficient than being in melee. There is a reason for this: being at range is passive defense, this must be compensated in order for the game to be balanced, so melee will almost always be more productive. This is when I switched to d/d. As I became better I changed my traits to 0/6/0/6/2 (No fresh air yet). Still full zerker. This is the set up in which my gameplay progressed the most: I was melee so I could learn how to dodge, I had defensive traits to heal my mistakes. This is how to went to do fractals 80. While having great fun in this now removed part of the game (never forget) I understood that defensive traits are less potent than active defense. In fact healing is almost passive defense since it is re-active instead of pro-active. So I grabbed a focus and dropped my water points. This is when Fresh Air and Persisting Flames where introduced. The rest is in my sticky at the top of this forum

Point of the story being: if you want to progress go melee, don’t use passive defense, but you may invest in healing capabilities in order to be able to learn. The key to being efficient with any class is mastering the art of dodging.

Wow thanks guys!! You have been very helpfull!! I a couple questions. The dungeon beserker armor (inquest) I am wanting has runes already and the more pieces you have the better the stats. Do I switch these runes out for health runes? Is that even a possibility? I will get trinkets for health and toughness. That’s a good idea. I believe i am good at dodging. That’s not an issue. Have dodge set to a mouse button for convenience.

RavenRecoil.6103:

Wow thanks guys!! You have been very helpfull!! I a couple questions. The dungeon beserker armor (inquest) I am wanting has runes already and the more pieces you have the better the stats. Do I switch these runes out for health runes? Is that even a possibility? I will get trinkets for health and toughness. That’s a good idea. I believe i am good at dodging. That’s not an issue. Have dodge set to a mouse button for convenience.

Trust me dodging is always an issue!

Just a couple things.

You don’t need any toughness or vitality on your gear. The best options is full zerker gear (armor and all 6 trinkets) and scholar runes (for dps) or runes of strength (if you give might). Usually scholar for staff and strength for S/X. For D/F (or D/D) strength or scholar do the job depending on if you might stack a lot of not, its more of a middle ground so you can go both way.

Now, that the best gear you can get. That doesn’t mean that you should run that, but you should try to get toward that goal. But that’s a really squishy. I play full zerker, with scholar runes, I use LH so I stay in really close range, my have zero defensive utilities (arcane wave, signet of fire and LH) and I mainly use my healing skill to blast might not to heal myself. So ya its possible to survive. Its hard as kitten and its ALL about movement and position, but you can do it.

You should use a defensive rune, because there is a lot of really good rune. Damage modifier like in Rune of Strength, Scholar or if you don’t have the gold Rune of Ogre or Rune of Flame Legion (only if you do a good amount of burning) can do the job better than stats. So you better stay with good runes and take some soldier or knight piece of gear than go full zerker with some defensive runes.

Get the balance you need after that so you don’t get down too much.

You have given me a lot to think about. Thank you! So I’m thinking of doing knights armor with rune of scholar. Couple questions. Sorry feel like such a noob for someone who has played guild wars for years.
Can I replace the rune on a dungeon piece of armor? And how much are superior runes of scholar going for? At work and no game access.

A question that seems to fit in this thread well enough that I’ll ask here, rather than create a separate thread:

If one is still learning proper situation awareness and dodging (noobs-r-us), would Soldiers, Knights, or Valkyrie armor pieces be better to improve survivability?

Also, would it be the same recommendation for PvE material and event farming, versus Dungeon runs?

Thank you!

RavenRecoil.6103:

You have given me a lot to think about. Thank you! So I’m thinking of doing knights armor with rune of scholar. Couple questions. Sorry feel like such a noob for someone who has played guild wars for years.
Can I replace the rune on a dungeon piece of armor? And how much are superior runes of scholar going for? At work and no game access.

You can replace the rune, but that will destroy the original rune. Not big deal if that rune is cheap, but that can be sad if that cost is higher. Runes of Scholar are about 4 gold each so, a full set will cost you 24-25 Gold. You can put those in your knight gear, but if you later decide to change for zerker gear, you better buy a new set of armor, salvage with a BL salvage kit you old armor to retrieve the Runes of Scholar and put those in the new armor. It will also cost you a transmutation charge to change the look on the new armor.

Raven Twospirit.9342:

If one is still learning proper situation awareness and dodging (noobs-r-us), would Soldiers, Knights, or Valkyrie armor pieces be better to improve survivability?

Also, would it be the same recommendation for PvE material and event farming, versus Dungeon runs?

Thank you!

I wouldn’t recommend Valkyrie because you need to craft it or buy them on the TP. Each armor piece cost about 4 Gold and the weapons are more about 15+ Gold each.

Soldier or Knight? It depend. Knight is more dps than Soldier, but Knight give you a lot of toughness, so after 3 piece of those, you start to aggro stuff on you if you are with a group of full Zerker guys. So watch out for that. So if you are good with 3 pieces of knight and the rest zerker, then that’s the best choice. If that’s not enough for you? Then go for Soldier.

PvE is PvE. The same apply roughly the same with some exception. You don’t crit on some world boss so zerker or soldier will do the same amount of DMG on them. Also, some event could be a kittenaotic so soldier gear can help you survive in those situation, but most time you still better with zerker gear. Boss Blitz for exemple, a lot of ppl come with uplevel character or level 80 with soldier gear. If everybody play like that, they will never be Gold reward, so by going on these event with tanky soldier gear, you actually put more pressure on zerker guys, while relaxing with your high survivability. Not all events are like that, you can’t crit on some world boss. But on things like Gold Boss Blitz or Triple Wurm, then ya it make a big difference.

Thaddeus.4891:

Not all events are like that, you can’t crit on some world boss. But on things like Gold Boss Blitz or Triple Wurm, then ya it make a big difference.

And if you lie down dead you do deal a lot of dmg.

I aggree that in 95% Berserker Gear ist totally sufficient. But its not that Dramatic, last time i did boss blitz (was a month ago) I had a “Gold” Team there, and since I do mostly world bosses recently(cause I dont have time for dungeon runs the entire day etc) I have Soldier Gear. In this Group the Bosses still died 3 minutes before Gold reward ended, and my team always had to wait for the other ones cause we dealt most dmg to the boss just saying.

The undenieable problem of berserker gear is that there are certain bosses that can kill a zerker Elementalist instant (one shot them) and there I wouldnt risk to go zerker, cause even if you are good, sometimes you have a lag whatever and miss your dodge and you shouldnt die instant there.
But those are only some bosses, as for the rest of the game berserker gear is just sufficient

The rune doesn’t matter what armor it is on for the bonuses as long as it is the same rune correct? Example, I could have 3 pieces of beserker and 3 pieces of knight and still get all 6 tiers of rune stacking. Or 4- 2 or 5 – 1. Is this a good option? Would this help with not dying? Or am I crippling my stats by doing this? It looks like a viable option to me.

RavenRecoil.6103:

The rune doesn’t matter what armor it is on for the bonuses as long as it is the same rune correct? Example, I could have 3 pieces of beserker and 3 pieces of knight and still get all 6 tiers of rune stacking. Or 4- 2 or 5 – 1. Is this a good option? Would this help with not dying? Or am I crippling my stats by doing this? It looks like a viable option to me.

I’m pretty sure you are correct there. The runes don’t look at what “type” of armor they are on, just how many slots have the same rune.

Duran.3196:

And if you lie down dead you do deal a lot of dmg.

I aggree that in 95% Berserker Gear ist totally sufficient. But its not that Dramatic, last time i did boss blitz (was a month ago) I had a “Gold” Team there, and since I do mostly world bosses recently(cause I dont have time for dungeon runs the entire day etc) I have Soldier Gear. In this Group the Bosses still died 3 minutes before Gold reward ended, and my team always had to wait for the other ones cause we dealt most dmg to the boss just saying.

The undenieable problem of berserker gear is that there are certain bosses that can kill a zerker Elementalist instant (one shot them) and there I wouldnt risk to go zerker, cause even if you are good, sometimes you have a lag whatever and miss your dodge and you shouldnt die instant there.
But those are only some bosses, as for the rest of the game berserker gear is just sufficient

Ya zerker is high risk/high reward. That’s pretty much the point. I go full zerker because I can manage and so can a good bunch of ppl. If you can’t manage it, ya go for a more defensive gear. But that doesn’t mean ’’oh ya so lets just go full Soldier and AH build because now you went to far and you are just a tanky dude. Its not a off and no switch, its a gradient of how more defensive vs offensive you have.

RavenRecoil.6103:

The rune doesn’t matter what armor it is on for the bonuses as long as it is the same rune correct? Example, I could have 3 pieces of beserker and 3 pieces of knight and still get all 6 tiers of rune stacking. Or 4- 2 or 5 – 1. Is this a good option? Would this help with not dying? Or am I crippling my stats by doing this? It looks like a viable option to me.

The gear won’t matter there for the runes. Make the balance that you prefer. You can go 5 knight – 1 Zerker and a bit latter try to change 1 knight for zerker and see how it go.

Okay. Perfect! Thank you all for the help. I know what I want to do know. I will do beserker and depending on how squishy I feel add another type of armor. Thinking like 3/3 ratio for a start.

Once you get used to it full berserker isn’t hard, especially on a class with as good healing as ele.

Thaddeus.4891:

Ya zerker is high risk/high reward. That’s pretty much the point. I go full zerker because I can manage and so can a good bunch of ppl. If you can’t manage it, ya go for a more defensive gear. But that doesn’t mean ’’oh ya so lets just go full Soldier and AH build because now you went to far and you are just a tanky dude. Its not a off and no switch, its a gradient of how more defensive vs offensive you have.

Well I play Ele since release and Im good at it.
And I think your statement is insulting because you basically do as if I couldnt dodge,
well I can.
And still there are Bosses where I wouldnt Risk to be oneshotted once the dodge is wrecked up(may it be a lag or whatever).

Duran.3196:

Thaddeus.4891:

Ya zerker is high risk/high reward. That’s pretty much the point. I go full zerker because I can manage and so can a good bunch of ppl. If you can’t manage it, ya go for a more defensive gear. But that doesn’t mean ’’oh ya so lets just go full Soldier and AH build because now you went to far and you are just a tanky dude. Its not a off and no switch, its a gradient of how more defensive vs offensive you have.

Well I play Ele since release and Im good at it.
And I think your statement is insulting because you basically do as if I couldnt dodge,
well I can.
And still there are Bosses where I wouldnt Risk to be oneshotted once the dodge is wrecked up(may it be a lag or whatever).

If you feel insulted i’m sorry. If you need defensive gear on your Ele, then I got no problem with it. But I prefer to go full zerker and I don’t have much problem staying alive with that, I won’t apologize for that part.

Definitely go with zerker trinkets and back since those give the biggest boost. Then you can sub in different armor pieces with zerker as you get more comfortable. I forgot the rank of importance for armor but I think it was helm, gloves, shoulders, boots, chest, pants. Regardless though, always go with full zerker trinkets for PVE.

The main thing about stats with ele is that due to the way the skills are setup, you’ll benefit from any stat. Be it extra raw damage, conditions, extra defense or healing, they’re all useful in some way. So while berserker is certainly good, other gear sets work for eles too. On my own ele, I run some celestial pieces, some berserker pieces, and a seeker staff. That’s mainly because I feel that in order to make the ele truly shine, you need to make use of all of their abilities including heals, or you’ll just have half a profession.

When my team is good, me not having full berserker slows them down just a little bit. When my team is less skilled, the extra heals and tanking sometimes allow me to finish fights that they cannot.

So it’s a matter of preference really.

Sauzo.6821:

Definitely go with zerker trinkets and back since those give the biggest boost. Then you can sub in different armor pieces with zerker as you get more comfortable. I forgot the rank of importance for armor but I think it was helm, gloves, shoulders, boots, chest, pants. Regardless though, always go with full zerker trinkets for PVE.

That’s not true anymore. Since the introduction of ferocity, all pieces of equipement are equal in term of efficiency.

ThiBash.5634:

The main thing about stats with ele is that due to the way the skills are setup, you’ll benefit from any stat. Be it extra raw damage, conditions, extra defense or healing, they’re all useful in some way. So while berserker is certainly good, other gear sets work for eles too. On my own ele, I run some celestial pieces, some berserker pieces, and a seeker staff. That’s mainly because I feel that in order to make the ele truly shine, you need to make use of all of their abilities including heals, or you’ll just have half a profession.

When my team is good, me not having full berserker slows them down just a little bit. When my team is less skilled, the extra heals and tanking sometimes allow me to finish fights that they cannot.

So it’s a matter of preference really.

Zerker will give you a better return. That doesn’t mean that other stats are useless, they give you something. But, it will only allow you to survive much. Healing Power don’t boost much your basic healing capability, while toughness/vitality only give yourself survivability. For condition it depend on your build, but for normal PvE build, that give you such a small return, that you really shouldn’t take any of that. Condition dmg is never a good idea on a direct dmg build.

You should only get the minimal amount of defensive stats to not down each 10sec and be comfortable with your survivability. Nothing more or you get useless stats and nothing less or your die too much to be useful to your team.

Thaddeus.4891:

Zerker will give you a better return.

That depends on how much you value direct damage. :-)

Healing Power don’t boost much your basic healing capability

Not per skill maybe, but all those little bits add up with the huge number of aoe healing effects the ele has (both weapon and traits).

For condition it depend on your build, but for normal PvE build, that give you such a small return, that you really shouldn’t take any of that. Condition dmg is never a good idea on a direct dmg build.

True, but I can see a dedicated condition build work for eles. Or maybe a mix of damage and condition damage, to add pressure.

ThiBash.5634:

Thaddeus.4891:

Zerker will give you a better return.

That depends on how much you value direct damage. :-)

Healing Power don’t boost much your basic healing capability

Not per skill maybe, but all those little bits add up with the huge number of aoe healing effects the ele has (both weapon and traits).

For condition it depend on your build, but for normal PvE build, that give you such a small return, that you really shouldn’t take any of that. Condition dmg is never a good idea on a direct dmg build.

True, but I can see a dedicated condition build work for eles. Or maybe a mix of damage and condition damage, to add pressure.

Zerker will give you a better return. Now if you prefer to play with something else for fun that another story. What you value is personal and differ for every person, what is more efficient and powerful in a game is not.

The number of skills that it affect is not relevant here. 1 Power will affect all my direct dmg skills like 1 Healing Power will affect all my healing skills. If anything that is point in favor of zerker since for every profession and any build will have more skills affected by Zerker than by any Healing Power gear set.

Ya it can work, but not in dungeon right now. Condition build are great for solo, ppl form Condition damage team to get care of the Husk for Teq, in sPvP and Roaming they are part of some of the best build in the game, etc. Its a shame really that the current system in the game kitten things up for condition build in most group content.

Thaddeus.4891:

Zerker will give you a better return.

That is your opinion. Repeating it does not make it a fact.

You prepare for fast dungeon clears and that’s fine. I prepare for the worst, because if it’s not the worst, the 10% extra damage I would deal doesn’t matter much. And if it does get worse, at least I have enough defense to solo the boss if needed. Zerker is all fine and dandy, but 75% zerker is plenty to keep up with the meta.

A zerker/celestial mix gives me a better return because it allows me to compensate better for the groups I’m usually playing with.

The number of skills that it affect is not relevant here. 1 Power will affect all my direct dmg skills like 1 Healing Power will affect all my healing skills.

It is very relevant. If you can only use one skill every 20 seconds, you’ll get less return compared to being able to use a skill every 5 seconds.