Guild Wars 2

For PvE, Dungeons, and WvW which set (which stat distribution) would you pick?

Exotics can be pretty expensive and I’m trying to pick a gear set and build that will be well rounded in most situations.

I didn’t get it yet but I am working on a prec, healing, vitality stat set which is sold by karma vendors of orr.

I might be a bit odd, but I believe a run a combination of Valkyrie and Knight.

Maybe some Carrion if I feel like using a Condition Damage build (or Rampager, if you want).

Personally, I use toughness+vitality+power gear.
It may not be optimal for most roles, but is versatile as hell.

You almost never get 1shotted when you use that gear and the damage reduction isn’t that great.
For PvE I recommend using tough+vit+power.

I do have power+precision+crit dmg gear as well, but I prefer the extra survilability.
Of course, if you’re using grenades on PvE, you might as well try to maximize your damage output.

Which stats you want to focus on depend as much on your build as the situation (if not more so) imo.

For instance: if you’re building for elixirs and/or Elixir Gun, conditions shouldn’t worry you much so toughness will trump vitality.
Do you spec for vigor on speed (1 trait in Alchemy)? You can dodge a lot more so passive defense from toughness matters less.

That said; Power/toughness/vitality pieces are fairly easy to get (many ways to get them) and are ok with most builds although not perfect imo.
If you’re not yet entirely sure what you want to do/be as an engineer though, that’s the set I’d start with.

Zerkers without a doubt. Damage simply scales much better then any other stat.
Ruby exquisite jewels are also mathematically superior to any other option. place them in your trinkets, with no exceptions. (They seriously, need a nerf, or everything else buffed.)

However, Gearing up on a budget.

Lets say you JUST hit level 80. what to get?
Well, you probably can’t afford the 20-35g for a full set of zerkers off the AH right?
But you can buy a level 80 rare(yellow) set for like 2g, or 40s each.
Explorers. power/prec/Mf damage and better drops while farming for your full exotic set. This should be your first step, likely.

CoF has a power/prec/crit damage set. Doing some dungeon runs will let you get some pieces. And cash to buy more.

Karma. you probably have alot of karma and nothing to buy with it.
Orr has 2 sets of exotics that you can buy 42k karma for each peice. prec/tough/cond, and power/tough/vit. Neither is an IDEAL offense set. but, you have nothing else to get with karma, and a full exotic power/tough/vit is better then 76 greens.
May just want a tank set for whatever too.
Getting orr power/tough/vit, and then buying ruby ori of the zerker rings, amu, earrings first would be very good progression path. Then doing dungeons, and buying a set of zerkers.

Thanks for the replies all.

Lately I’ve been running a bursty build with Rifle / Nades / ToolKit / Rifle Turret (30/20/0/0/20) and enjoying it quite a bit. I swap out Rifle Turret for Elixir Gun during dungeons.

I know this kind of build is complemented best by a Berserker’s set. But I did want to try being more defensive, supportive and well rounded. Maybe I need to consider another build with a Power/Vit/Tough gear setup.

Well, again. If you have the inventory space/bank space. Get multiple sets.

I have a prec/tough/cond karma set. First one I bought, before I did the math, and swapped to zerkers.
My zerkers is half crafted, half CoF.
Have a shamans set as well, prec/tough/healing, iirc. Not very effective. wanted it for EG. clerics will probably be better. Or mix/match.
Will build a power/tough/vit set next. have 300k karma. waiting for ascended first. to make sure.
Kindof the same, have 2k+ badges from wvw.

No reason to not mix and match either.
Runes have set bonuses, Armor does not.
head/chest power/tough/vit, rest zerkers if you want.

Cleric’s/Zho’s is my main pick for Fractals. Passing out healing is a big part of the reasion to bring Engineers into FotM so getting high healing power is useful. Having Super Elixir fields ticking for around 600 healing on top of huge water zone combos and high Regen ticks contently spread really adds to any group.

i use knight’s/invader’s exotic pieces with superior runes of the engineer. long fights are long.

I personally just got an Apothecary’s set, thinking I woudl be using my pistol/shield more with my healing setup. Turns out I should have gone clerics since I mostly use my healing bombs and super elixir. I rarely use my pistol. So the damage boost to Bombs would allow me to deal bette rdamage along with my high heals.

though I do have healing → power conversion, and toughness → power, so I am not too miffed. Also bombs apply conditions. Though my accessories will be clerics. That will help. just need to save up the mats to make all the stuff.

There is also an amazing oil that gives 6% of toughness as power, and 4% of vit as power.

I like Cleric’s. Tough as nails and Elixir Gun 5 is godlike.

There’s something to all the Clerics/healing + defense stat + power buffing. Could any of you suggesting this type of gear setup provide an example of a Trait/Utility setup to support it?

I use to run knight / berzerker

or carrion / rampager for condition specs

But I have found that I just use either full carrion for condi or full valkyrie for power.

The crit loss is not that big thanks to crit from fury / trait setups. I can also get a lot via runes if I want.

I also haven’t found toughness to be that useful. If a boss is going to one shot you, toughness doesn’t help. Nor does it help with the GC thieves that do huge BS crits in WvW.

Being crit for 7k with a 16k HP pool versus being crit for 8k with a 24k HP pool.

Thriceblinded.9126:

There’s something to all the Clerics/healing + defense stat + power buffing. Could any of you suggesting this type of gear setup provide an example of a Trait/Utility setup to support it?

This is somewhat what i run: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqelsp6ZX3SdF17ISoHSogpWiUgZU2HFyVbB;T4AgzymEMJZS1kiJKbM2IsxajzGpNjNmlA

Though I made the mistake of taking the Apothecary set, mostly because it was cheap with the Karka shells (going for 60 copper when I bought 180), vs 15 silver for elaborate totems which you need 40 of. 6-8g vs 1g.

Otherwise the primary is to use Bombs to heal, and the Elixir gun Super Elixir. Fumigate if you need extra condition removal. Any elixir usages removes conditions from you with Cleansing Formula. All the Conversions let you keep your damage up. Toughness -> Power, Healing -> Power, and Vitality → Condition Damage. You can also get oils for Vitality and Toughness -> Power

This lets you do decent damage with bombs (radius + 10% in traits) while healing, removing conditions, and being an all around unkillable kitten.

Thanks for the advice guys! I have an Exotic Rampger’s set for future Condition builds… and after all your replies I think I’m going to build a Berserker’s set and a Cleric’s/Zho’s set.

Thanks Daegalus for the build advice, I’m going to try this out. PS The Zho set is really cheap on the TP right now… must be people selling it from the rewards of the Event yesterday.

I run with Condition damage/toughness/precision gear and do great in pve content.
For wvw, burst damage is more popular and useful, but i still do allright with what i’ve got.

I’m looking to run a mix of Knights and Beserkers, zerkers on the weapons/some trinkets, Knights on the armour and the remaining trinkets. Just need a great deal more Armoured Scales, which, have gone up in price by an extortionate amount recently…

I like the vitality buffer more than the actual armor-toughness. Toughness effectiveness varies depending the damage on you and the actual amount of armor. You add toughness on the amount of defence and most of the time toughness is much smaller than defence. Damage migitation of armor diminish with the increasing amount of armor so more toughness means a waste for me. I just try to keep a decent toughness with high hp buffer, so additional healing will be more beneficial for vit than thoughness.

I run condition damage so Vatlaaw’s is amazing and incredibly cheap!

I run a mix of berzerker and PVT personally. I would love to be able to fit in more ‘zerker but I also like suvivability, its a tough choice between massive damage and survivability. Then again, I don’t try to solo and I only do wvw. For me, being able to sustain damage and live is more important than blowing my load and dying.

I run a mine support build and I am currently collecting full clerics. I was considering mixing half with prec/vit/healing but i’m not sure the math works out (bombs have one of the best power coefficient scaling with 1.25 damage per power). If I had my druthers I would find a way to trade out some toughness for vitality to deal with annoying condition damage in Pve/pvp.

I’m running a grenadier/bomber build (30, 0, 25, 5, 10) … which used to be a bomber/grenadier build (25, 0, 30, 5, 10)

My current armor setup is:
Two pieces with Pow/Tough/Vit (shoulders, boots)
Two pieces with Pow/Prec/Tough (gloves, helmet)
Two pieces with Pow/Prec/Crit dmg (chest, leggings)

My trinket setup is a mess at the moment with a mixed bag of exotic, rare and mastercrafted items.

Carrion as an all arounder for dmg. Dunno what to buy next. If i finish my monthly (almost done) i will have ~220k karma to spend.

Casia.4281:

Zerkers without a doubt. Damage simply scales much better then any other stat.
Ruby exquisite jewels are also mathematically superior to any other option. place them in your trinkets, with no exceptions. (They seriously, need a nerf, or everything else buffed.)

Completely agree, bleed and poison hardly does anything anymore. They need to buff cond again something went wrong in the math the last time they nerfed it and it’s been useless ever since.

Lewis Burnell.2493:

I run condition damage so Vatlaaw’s is amazing and incredibly cheap!

I have Vatlaaw set as well.

I like con dmg/toughness/precision armor………tougness/con dmg runes (undead I think) and con dmg/vitality/pow jewelry.