Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone, I’m running the typical D/D build going 0/10/0/30/30 and I had a couple questions about the armor/runes and sigils I should be wearing (I’m currently decked out in Knight’s armor that have the rarity of “green” lol)

As a D/D glass cannon set, should I go for Berserkers for every trinket/armor/weapon slot or should I go for Rampagers? I feel that the latter may be more useful and do more damage with the increased bleed and burn damage but I’m not quite sure.

What armor type should I run for a more tanky D/D armor set? Clerics? I personally really like Knight’s armor because I love my Toughness over vitality but I’ve never experimented with anything else.

And finally, what sigils should I run on my daggers? I was thinking Sigil of Battle + Sigil of Force but I’ve also heard good things about sigil of fire and sigil of bloodlust.

Thanks everyone! I’m a bit of an amateur when it comes to this class :P

Edit: Any suggestions for runes btw?

If you’re going glass cannon then that means you’d want your target to go down sooner rather than later. With that in mind, going for precision/critical damage seems more logical than condition damage (spike vs damage over time).

With your defensive set, clerics does pretty well because it combines reducing incoming damage with stronger heals. That means you will get less damage per hit and also fill up your health more quickly, making it relatively easy to keep yourself alive during longer fights. Vitality on the other hand, helps preventing spikes to take you down instantly (and is much more powerful than toughness in that respect).

As for the sigils, keep in mind that any sigil with a cooldown shares that cooldown with other sigils (regardless of the type of cooldown). Which unfirtunately, severly limits the amount of possible combinations. :-)

I currently run either a 0/20/0/30/20 or the usual 0/10/0/30/30. I recently changed to 30 Arcana to spec into EA. I’ve only been playing like this for a week or so, so I’m still unsure as to if I prefer it, but I’m almost probably not using it at full efficiency.
I would also strongly recommend not building for glass cannon, yes you deal big numbers, but you receive them as well and being on the floor isn’t fun.

My gear setup is as follows:

Armor and Weapons – PVT (Soldiers)
Jewels – Emerald
Sigils – Battle
Bloodlust
Runes – 2x Sup. Monk
2x Sup. Water
2x Maj. Sanctuary/ Sup Strength or Fire —-— PvE-WvW/sPvP
(If using Sanctuary they MUST be Major, Superior runes do NOT have the boon bonus)

/edit
For slot skills I run Ether Renewal (get SAFE when you’re using this..), triple cantrip (Mist Form, Light Flash, Armor of Earth) because I find the extra survivability is more suited to me than running some arcane, but thats just me, I might change. Elite is ele glyph.

Reasoning:

Armor & Weapons
PVT gear is great, though not as damaged oriented as other gear sets, this is what I find the ele needs. Power to bring up the raw damage, Vitality to increase the base health pool, and toughness brings up the EHP, making that Vit go farther.

Jewelry
Main stat Toughness and then Power, Prec on the actual item, and the socket will be Main stat Prec with Power and Tough minor. I like these because it gives the build more raw damage, more armor – increasing EHP and giving you a much better boost to survivability then stacking more life. The precision here really makes up for the lack of it elsewhere, especially in the armor stats. This should land you around 30% or so, I don’t really remember, but that’s fine because fury will kick that up to 50% and just over which is more than respectable in my opinion. Your Fury uptime will be near constant due to Increased boon duration from Traits and Runes, and the Boon itself is generated through your two auras and changing attunements.

Sigils
Battle – I find this Sigil much to powerful to be ignored on any build. 3 Stacks of might on every attunement switch? Those build up fast and stick around for a LONG time with all the extra boon duration. This more than makes up for your more defensively stat oriented armor. In my opinion this should be mandatory.

Bloodlust – this is where there is room for a little change up. I like Power stacks. You might like Precision stacks or effects on crit. Up to you. I run stacks because they’re a constant bonus and I don’t find myself being downed too often. I also like Power (if you hadn’t noticed) for reasons already stated.

Runes
Water and Monk together net you 30% boon duration. This really increases damage potential and mobility through Might, Fury and Swiftness. The 1st tier of both give you Healing Power. Great! We don’t have any of that, we have more than enough Toughness, and it’s far better than Vit at this point.

3rd Rune Selection changes a bit for me

In SPvP I use runes that give me 20% increased might duration since I don’t have access to Minor Sanctuary for overall boon duration and I have Might coming out of my ears from Sigils.

Currently in wvw I use the minor sanctuary, but will probably change to my spvp setup. I have plenty of uptime on fury and swiftness as it is, I think I can take the hit of 10% to all boons and gain an extra 10 on might.

How to Get It

-Armor&Weapons – AC runs, and the armor comes with monk runes, great! The skin is horrid though, reskin or risk hearing about it constantly from all your guildies.
-Jewelry – Craft or buy it.
-Sigils – Find and salvage, or buy. Majors are fine placeholders until you can afford superiors or happen to come by some.
-Runes – Monks are taken care of in armor, Water can be crafted with a 400 tailor or bought and if i remember right are pretty cheap. Sanctuary are bought from the HotW dungeon token merchant.

This is what works for me, and I feel like it’s a decent starting position, but your build is yours, play how you like it.

Muppet.6485:

I currently run either a 0/20/0/30/20 or the usual 0/10/0/30/30. I recently changed to 30 Arcana to spec into EA. I’ve only been playing like this for a week or so, so I’m still unsure as to if I prefer it, but I’m almost probably not using it at full efficiency.
I would also strongly recommend not building for glass cannon, yes you deal big numbers, but you receive them as well and being on the floor isn’t fun.

My gear setup is as follows:

Armor and Weapons – PVT (Soldiers)
Jewels – Emerald
Sigils – Battle
Bloodlust
Runes – 2x Sup. Monk
2x Sup. Water
2x Maj. Sanctuary/ Sup Strength or Fire —-— PvE-WvW/sPvP
(If using Sanctuary they MUST be Major, Superior runes do NOT have the boon bonus)

/edit
For slot skills I run Ether Renewal (get SAFE when you’re using this..), triple cantrip (Mist Form, Light Flash, Armor of Earth) because I find the extra survivability is more suited to me than running some arcane, but thats just me, I might change. Elite is ele glyph.

Reasoning:

Armor & Weapons
PVT gear is great, though not as damaged oriented as other gear sets, this is what I find the ele needs. Power to bring up the raw damage, Vitality to increase the base health pool, and toughness brings up the EHP, making that Vit go farther.

Jewelry
Main stat Toughness and then Power, Prec on the actual item, and the socket will be Main stat Prec with Power and Tough minor. I like these because it gives the build more raw damage, more armor – increasing EHP and giving you a much better boost to survivability then stacking more life. The precision here really makes up for the lack of it elsewhere, especially in the armor stats. This should land you around 30% or so, I don’t really remember, but that’s fine because fury will kick that up to 50% and just over which is more than respectable in my opinion. Your Fury uptime will be near constant due to Increased boon duration from Traits and Runes, and the Boon itself is generated through your two auras and changing attunements.

Sigils
Battle – I find this Sigil much to powerful to be ignored on any build. 3 Stacks of might on every attunement switch? Those build up fast and stick around for a LONG time with all the extra boon duration. This more than makes up for your more defensively stat oriented armor. In my opinion this should be mandatory.

Bloodlust – this is where there is room for a little change up. I like Power stacks. You might like Precision stacks or effects on crit. Up to you. I run stacks because they’re a constant bonus and I don’t find myself being downed too often. I also like Power (if you hadn’t noticed) for reasons already stated.

Runes
Water and Monk together net you 30% boon duration. This really increases damage potential and mobility through Might, Fury and Swiftness. The 1st tier of both give you Healing Power. Great! We don’t have any of that, we have more than enough Toughness, and it’s far better than Vit at this point.

3rd Rune Selection changes a bit for me

In SPvP I use runes that give me 20% increased might duration since I don’t have access to Minor Sanctuary for overall boon duration and I have Might coming out of my ears from Sigils.

Currently in wvw I use the minor sanctuary, but will probably change to my spvp setup. I have plenty of uptime on fury and swiftness as it is, I think I can take the hit of 10% to all boons and gain an extra 10 on might.

How to Get It

-Armor&Weapons – AC runs, and the armor comes with monk runes, great! The skin is horrid though, reskin or risk hearing about it constantly from all your guildies.
-Jewelry – Craft or buy it.
-Sigils – Find and salvage, or buy. Majors are fine placeholders until you can afford superiors or happen to come by some.
-Runes – Monks are taken care of in armor, Water can be crafted with a 400 tailor or bought and if i remember right are pretty cheap. Sanctuary are bought from the HotW dungeon token merchant.

This is what works for me, and I feel like it’s a decent starting position, but your build is yours, play how you like it.

This is a very good post.

If I may add, though, I use a Major Rune of Water instead of Sanctuary and 2 Cleric’s rings for a bit more healing power.