Guild Wars 2

I’m looking for something like PvP Valk gear with power primary and a bit of toughness, healing power, and crit damage. Basically, something to round out my damage and sustained durability.

What would be the best answer to this? Perhaps Cleric’s with Cavalier’s accessories or some strange combination of Knight’s, Cleric’s, Cavalier’s, and/or Berserker’s?

In PvE you should go full Berserker gear. The system is balanced around Berserker gear and so you’re better off killing mobs before they kill you.

Neko.9021:

In PvE you should go full Berserker gear. The system is balanced around Berserker gear and so you’re better off killing mobs before they kill you.

I prefer a more balanced set. I’m intentionally avoiding glass cannon, as I also intend to use the same gear for WvW.

I have one set of gear for WvW and one for PvE. That would be my honest suggestion to you.

For WvW, it depends on what you want to do, and what your build is. For instance, many Eles like Knights Armor with Berserker Trinkets in WvW, I find. I like to go full Soldiers gear and roam with a high DPS character by my side.

full berserker all day

I’d go with full Celestial if you want a mix. Daphoenix has a post where he shows that it’s the best stats if you want to have a mix of offense and defense.

For PvE I got (assuming raw damage):

Zerker/Ruby Armor
PVT/2 Sup Water, 2 Sup Monk, 2 Maj Monk Armor
PVT/Divinity Armor

Emerald/Charged Quartz Jewelry
Ascended Zerker Jewelry
Ascended Zerker Back

Zerker Staff/Fire
Zerker Scepter/Force
Zerker Scepter/Bloodlust
Zerker Dagger/Battle
Knight Dagger/Force
Knight Dagger/Battle

Mix and match as needed. If survivability isn’t an issue I gradually add more and more Zerker in. If I am sucking or my group is sucking or I want it I add in more defensive stats and gear. For WvW I tend to roll with my PVT/Divinity, Emerald/Charged Quartz and Zerker weapons giving me crazy mix of Power, Crit, Crit Dmg, Toughness, Hitpoints and all around survivability on a 0/30/0/20/20 spec which also works great for PvE (which I tend to run more Zerker jewelry).

full berserker….or almost full berserker…no way out from it in PvE it makes the game easier and faster.

Actually Zerker does not make PvE easier, just faster.
Acutally if you think of it it is hard to play with zerker. You can have much smoother runs with some vitality, conditions and healing power factored in your group.
I have been experimenting with some friends and we tried high level fractals with only two people in full zerker while the rest had odd stat combinations designed specifically for that group set up. We owned that fractal. It didn’t take a short time, but it was not much longer than the usual zerker run. We enjoyed it a lot!
Zerker is the way to go at first, but then as Anet releases harder content people will find that it may be more optimal to go for the other stats as well.

For fractals like dredges or ascalon, having engy and necro with epidemic makes those two almost faceroll. Condition damage has its uses and zerker builds are punished by some mobs/bosses who have protection.

Zelyhn.8069:

Actually Zerker does not make PvE easier,

no i’ll explain for the 10.000th time.

1) downed and rally….PvT are just DEAD while zerker can actually rally
2) when stuff hits for 20.000 per normal hit with no teling….you don t really need PvT.
3) given the fact you can t survive any direct hit anyway, Killing your target fast expose you to less Attacks and thus chances to be downed.
4) you have to pass frequent DPS checks and strong regen, that the brilliant PvE balancing team have put all around dungeons/fractals.

You need active defenses in PvE (mistform, arcane shield etc) , while passive are just useless.

That is the actual reason why zerker warriors are still the best build in fotm 48.

Also Ele don t have a reliable condition build afaik so the only thing left is zerker.

@LordByron
I know all this .. but
When downed you deal no damage anyway, just tagging.
With protection up, a decent amount of hp and armor, as well as the new weakness, there is not much that can one-shoot you until 49+
What dps checks?

And now like I said, zerker does not make PvE easier but faster. So yes you kill your targets faster so you are exposed for less time, but it does not make it easier to be exposed.

Don’t get nervous!

Zelyhn.8069:

@LordByron
I know all this .. but
When downed you deal no damage anyway, just tagging.
With protection up, a decent amount of hp and armor, as well as the new weakness, there is not much that can one-shoot you until 49+

iff things don t oneshots you they 2 shots you…and considering you are not pplaying a 1VS1 but usually a 30VS5 where 30 focus on 1 you don t need PVT for sure.

Also an ascalon mage at 20 <=== hits with 0 telling for 11.000 and you have them in Groups of 6-8 mixed with other stuff.

In zerker you can actually rally of mobs with 10-15% HP…..that means you can afford to use opening bursts with less risk….considering the aoe nature of an ele you will probably find a nearly dead target to rally off.

What dps checks?

Ascalon fractal
Dredge fractal
Old Tom
Lava veteran grawls
Lava elementals
Arah 4
CoF1 boss
etc etc etc

LordByron.8369:

iff things don t oneshots you they 2 shots you…and considering you are not pplaying a 1VS1 but usually a 30VS5 where 30 focus on 1 you don t need PVT for sure.

Also an ascalon mage at 20 <=== hits with 0 telling for 11.000 and you have them in Groups of 6-8 mixed with other stuff.

In zerker you can actually rally of mobs with 10-15% HP…..that means you can afford to use opening bursts with less risk….considering the aoe nature of an ele you will probably find a nearly dead target to rally off.

Ascalon mages have a tell.

Ascalon fractal

That’s cc+dps check.

Dredge fractal

Promotes boon removal and condition damage dealers.

Old Tom

I’ve seen people using guardian tanking with a tome. Personally, I use earth elemental.

Lava veteran grawls

That’s cc+dps check.

Lava elementals

You need projectile defense or mass blinds and those don’t come free with zerker set

Arah 4

One vast jumping puzzle. But please don’t tell me simin is dps check.

I have to say I agree with Haviz
The veteran Grawls are much easier dealt with by lots of CC (even 0 dps after the first two) and rock hunting. I have managed to get that chest many times in high level fractals when I ran with people who knew how to CC.

Old Tom is a DPS check, ok, because no one can tank him forever. But that’s the only one I can think of in Fractals! Edit: actually maybe with a nice rotation of players tanking him it could be possible to do that.

As for CoF 1, let’s be serious.
Arah 4, arguably … but it is completely bugged anyway.

haviz.1340:

Ascalon mages have a tell.

Usual “i can see the code”…answer….or l2p.

Ascalon mages have no tell.
You can t say who they are targeting (you? your party?, a charr npc?)
You can t react at 1200 range properly online also.

For the rest i ll just say CC+DPS check is still a DPS check and CC is not mandatory while DPS is.

Earth golem doesn t help when you run out of crystals at old tom for ex.
And PVT tends to have that issue.

@zelyhnn do you ever pug with people in cof1?
if yes you should understand that while easy, you can t kill boss with a PVT party.

Mages have animation and a rather distinguished sound effect.

You can’t facetank and 100b mobs without cc at higher levels. They’ll kill you before you even make a dent on them.

LordByron, full PVT is not the only alternative to full Zerker
Besides, you are really telling me that you can run high level fractals as an elem with full zerker and no defensive traits? So you do it with 10k hp?

If you are a PvE Elem you want to use Lightning Hammer everytime you can (it doesnt mean you have to spec for it). That means Zerk gear.

When you cant use Hammer it may be a slight dps gain to switch for Rampager on hight priced crit damage slots (legs, 2hands, chest).

You can do good as full rampager/condition build but it requieres you to team up with low bleed/burn teamates to shine.

I cannot agree with you Innocent Ouarior.
In my signature I have a link to my guide, in which I explain that LH is situational.
Swicthing the pieces that have a bad ratio to rampager is not a dps gain, because if you want to use that extra condition damage you need to apply bleed, which makes you use a suboptimal auto-attack.

Zelyhn.8069:

LordByron, full PVT is not the only alternative to full Zerker
Besides, you are really telling me that you can run high level fractals as an elem with full zerker and no defensive traits? So you do it with 10k hp?

I run 20 or 30 in water as anyone…
I started with knight……but i saw it was not enough so i switched al i could to zerker.
Except the backpack because i don t use ele that much recently due to unfun nerfs.
And backpack costs 250 ecto.

i still suggest people to go the full zerker route that is what everyone uses on any class.

Even most guards go zerker.

But there are people who are willing to sacrifice damage for some passive defense. Not everyone wants or even needs to play as damage optimal as possible. I think I’ve only done the “optimal” group for CoF1 once…and it was just not fun.

At the end of the day we can min/max all we want, but the most important part of any game is to have fun. Some people have fun running zerker builds in max damage specs. Others will run viable alternatives. If someone doesn’t want to run a zerker build, then they shouldn’t. From my experience with raid leading, if people run the builds they like, they will perform better than builds they don’t. Practical DPS >>>>> Theoretical DPS.

So you agree that a certain amount of defensive stats is required.
My point is that it could be an interesting play to go for more defensive/supportive/alternative stats.

Zelyhn.8069:

I cannot agree with you Innocent Ouarior.
In my signature I have a link to my guide, in which I explain that LH is situational.
Swicthing the pieces that have a bad ratio to rampager is not a dps gain, because if you want to use that extra condition damage you need to apply bleed, which makes you use a suboptimal auto-attack.

LH is situational. It should be used in the situation when you can use it because it increases your dps.

Rampager depends on the weapon use. However nearly every non-FA rotations have condition component and the dps gain from zerker legs/2h is extremely low.

(edit: tu prétends que les armes invoquées t’empèchent de bénificier des changements d’affinités et de discharge?! Depuis quand?)

Let me just translate your edit question for the community: “How can you argue that conjures prevent you from swapping attunements and benefiting from Electric Discharge?”

My response to this is in one of the posts in the discussion in my build’s thread: using conjures such as LH does not prevent you from swapping attunements, but doing so actually results in a substantial dps loss, compared to staying in water for the + 20% damage to vulnerable targets. So in effect, it is what we call a soft lock.
Edit: this result is not true for all builds, this calculation was made with my build in mind. You could give me your build and I would tell you if it is more optimal to swap attunements or to stay in water.

Edit2: I only just understood what you call an FA rotation: fresh air. You could be right about this, but again it is very dependant on the build.
For example, before fresh air I used to run a 0/30/0/30/10 D/D and switching the bad ratio zerker pieces (legs=head>chest>2h>1h in priority) to rampager would definitely result in an awful dps loss.

my pve build is dungeon based for example for shaman 48+ i use knight armor (i feel more sure) for rest use a mix of zerker valkirie (15k hp is enought for anything), the hammer build (trait and armor) isnt easy to use and you need a good guardian and cant be used in any dungeon

d\d hammer 30/20/0/20/0
d\d easymode 0/20/0/20/30
s\d full dps 30/20/0/0/20

this is the build i normal use