Guild Wars 2

So yeah, I’ll admit it, I’m not a superstar. My dodges can be late, I can be slow to react. I’m getting older. And honestly, I don’t know if Berserker armor is the right thing for me. I have a suit of exotic Berserker and a suit of exotic Knight, and I fall back on the Knight crutch most of the time because I’m generally taking too much damage.

I’m wondering if this is something a lot of others are struggling with. I’m also wondering if there’s a mix of armor that might work: Berserker + Celestial, Knight + Celestial, Berserker + Knight, that will make things somewhat more survivable while not sacrificing too much. Or does it really matter?

I ran AH build for the longest time, recently switch to the popular Hammer & Sword/Focus build.

You’re not the only person in the game that isn’t a pro player, despite how easy some people will tell you it is to avoid damage. The bottom line is that the stat jump from exotic to ascended armor isn’t even really worth the trouble anyways.

Speaking as someone trying to craft Ascended armor: Don’t. It’s a nightmare. It’s expensive, and it’s expensive, and it’s a pain in the kittens to make, and it’s expensive,

Time gating along is keeping me away from ascended gears.

The making of the gear isn’t an issue. What else am i going to do in the game? I’ll probably just go Berserker and try to improve my play.

Krom.8754:

The making of the gear isn’t an issue. What else am i going to do in the game? I’ll probably just go Berserker and try to improve my play.

Just gonna throw this in there, Knight’s armor is not for less skilled players. Defense is not a crutch, it’s just a playstyle. It’s impossible to avoid every big hit, if it was possible then everyone would go full glass cannon. It doesn’t matter how skilled you are, if you’re out of dodges/blocks/damage mitigation and your opponent still has one big attack left, you’re screwed. The point of berserker gear is to take down your opponent before they can land that attack, and the point of knight’s gear is to be able to take that big attack head on. It’s a matter of preference, and you seem to prefer knight’s.

As for Ascended gear, I agree with everyone else that it’s just too much work right now, but if you really want it, that’s cool too.

honestly the stats aren’t half as impressive as i’d hoped, so the ascended gear is almost a waste of time.
if you wanna do it that’s fine but I wouldn’t burn money on it because they are very very minor improvements over exotic and for the effort involved. personally its something I will do as and when I can be bothered and have spare materials lieing around.
I’m not gonna waste too much time for a stat increase that doesn’t make any overall difference to my current build.
not only are the stats a bit plop but the skins look stinking on asura

Donut.6914:

Just gonna throw this in there, Knight’s armor is not for less skilled players. Defense is not a crutch, it’s just a playstyle. It’s impossible to avoid every big hit, if it was possible then everyone would go full glass cannon.

Since the OP seems to be talking about PvE, it is perfectly possible to avoid every big hit and defense from gear is a crutch.

CptAurellian.9537:

Donut.6914:

Just gonna throw this in there, Knight’s armor is not for less skilled players. Defense is not a crutch, it’s just a playstyle. It’s impossible to avoid every big hit, if it was possible then everyone would go full glass cannon.

Since the OP seems to be talking about PvE, it is perfectly possible to avoid every big hit and defense from gear is a crutch.

I also say that I’m old and should be on crutches, haha.

Find the exotic gear that works best for you first, and once you are happy then think about ascended – the amount of effort involved vs the marginal in-game stat benefit will most likely leave you disappointed unless you are 100% happy with your current build.

DON’T BOTHER WITH ASCENDED ARMOR!!!
The stat difference between exotic and ascended is laughable. unless you have too much gold to spend or you are into high level fractals.

nothing wrong with wearing knight armor, if you do pug alot like me, you will realize wearing berserker pulls lots of aggro/damage if you are in the party full of cleric/valkyrie etc.
that is why i have both knight and berserker set in my bag. depends on the party, i will either wear full zerk, half zerk, or full knight.

Don’t go full knight’s. Mix and match soldier’s and berserker’s gear to get far better stats.

I wanted to put my two cents to this. I had recently finish making my Celestial gear which takes 30 days to make. Including weapons. Now I am a Armorsmith and Weaponsmith. I was Cleric for a while but wanted a different play style. So I use many different sets, builds, weapons combo etkittenil I landed Celestial which was more of my play style even if others don’t like it.

My main point here is, I would advice you to find your playstyle using exotic gear and weapon combos. Once you are set with something that is your playstyle start thinking about Ascended Armor and Weapon. I have dumped about 40gold to it with lots of mats i have now and still at 461 Armorsmith however I have been building slowly the mats to make any Ascended armor. The reason I took that path over max leveling armorsmith is because even with Exotic Celestial gear and playstyle I am finding that I might not be set on this 100% yet. Before I start building an Ascended gear I have to be 100% ready to stick with it. Like other mention here it is very, very, expensive.

I had a combo set that I ran which was base on Knight and Cleric was amazing until I replace it all with Celestial.

My advice is try to limit your cost with just exotikittenil you find your dream combo of gear, weapon, build etc.. Before investing in Ascended armor. =) I am almost thinking that I would be better of going Legendary before going Ascended armor but I cannot make up my mind yet as to what style I want to focus on.

Good Luck sorry for the long write just helping others from making a mistake were they dump to much gold into something they might not like or want later on. Is hard to make gold in this game unless you put enough game play time.

If it’s just PvE, then I would not want to devote so much gold and effort to subpar gear.

I’d say go zerker, work best for PvE and if you want to hop in WvW, use knight/soldier trinket with different trait. Even in WvW having a couple zerker gear is very nice, and with the trinket/trait, you can still get 3k armor and 18k health.

Trice.4598:

I’d say go zerker, work best for PvE and if you want to hop in WvW, use knight/soldier trinket with different trait. Even in WvW having a couple zerker gear is very nice, and with the trinket/trait, you can still get 3k armor and 18k health.

If i may, Is there a significant difference between full zerker armor with knight/soldier trinkets vs knight/soldier armor and zerker trinkets?

i have been a pvt/AH guard for about 5 months while learning the class and learning all the dungeons on him, and taking him into fractals, and i am contemplating some of the other builds i’ve seen now that i feel i am ready. I haven’t picked up either of the ascended recipes for the armor, but i am not sure which to commit to. I saw how the jump to zerker gear improved my warrior, and i’m not questioning that, but in my eyes, the guard is a different class and should be approached differently because of this.

Jewomie.3986:

Trice.4598:

I’d say go zerker, work best for PvE and if you want to hop in WvW, use knight/soldier trinket with different trait. Even in WvW having a couple zerker gear is very nice, and with the trinket/trait, you can still get 3k armor and 18k health.

If i may, Is there a significant difference between full zerker armor with knight/soldier trinkets vs knight/soldier armor and zerker trinkets?

i have been a pvt/AH guard for about 5 months while learning the class and learning all the dungeons on him, and taking him into fractals, and i am contemplating some of the other builds i’ve seen now that i feel i am ready. I haven’t picked up either of the ascended recipes for the armor, but i am not sure which to commit to. I saw how the jump to zerker gear improved my warrior, and i’m not questioning that, but in my eyes, the guard is a different class and should be approached differently because of this.

To answer that question you need to first understand stat budgets. Each rarity of each piece of gear has a different stat budget. For instance, your chestpiece has more stat points allotted to it than your helm or legs. You can determine the stat budget by adding all of the stats on a piece of armor together. In the case of a chestpiece, the number of stat points is equal to 101+72+72 = 245. However, in the case of berserker gear, you don’t gain 72% crit damage, do you? You gain only 5%. This means that, for each point of crit damage gained, you use up 14.4 stat points. Turns out that this ratio differs from piece-to-piece. What this means is that, if you’re thinking of using a mix involving berserker’s gear, you choose the cheapest pieces first.

Here’s an incomplete list of crit damage values per piece. It’s missing ascended armor and rune values, but it’s still valid. Note that (A) means ascended, while its absence means the piece is exotic.

Jewel – 5.00
Back (A) – 7.00
Ring (A) – 8.50
Earring (A) – 8.57
Amulet (A) – 9.44
Boots/Gloves/Shoulder – 12.00
Amulet – 12.80
1h – 12.80
Earrings – 13.33
1h (A) – 13.40
2h (A) – 13.40
2h – 14.22
Chest – 14.40
Helm/Pants/Ring/Back – 16.00

rainynoble.6531:

DON’T BOTHER WITH ASCENDED ARMOR!!!
The stat difference between exotic and ascended is laughable. unless you have too much gold to spend or you are into high level fractals.

nothing wrong with wearing knight armor, if you do pug alot like me, you will realize wearing berserker pulls lots of aggro/damage if you are in the party full of cleric/valkyrie etc.
that is why i have both knight and berserker set in my bag. depends on the party, i will either wear full zerk, half zerk, or full knight.

Actually the difference is noticeable if you consider the infusion slots. Each infusion slot can grant +5 stats of the chosen infusion on top of the natural difference is stats.

Weren’t the 5+ stats infusions ridiculously overpriced?

DeathPanel.8362:

rainynoble.6531:

DON’T BOTHER WITH ASCENDED ARMOR!!!
The stat difference between exotic and ascended is laughable. unless you have too much gold to spend or you are into high level fractals.

nothing wrong with wearing knight armor, if you do pug alot like me, you will realize wearing berserker pulls lots of aggro/damage if you are in the party full of cleric/valkyrie etc.
that is why i have both knight and berserker set in my bag. depends on the party, i will either wear full zerk, half zerk, or full knight.

Actually the difference is noticeable if you consider the infusion slots. Each infusion slot can grant +5 stats of the chosen infusion on top of the natural difference is stats.

Yea that is why i mention having lots of gold to spend.

I know i am not spending that much for little gain.

Even with +5 stats for a choose stat … It’s pretty weak. Think about what 30 of anything gets you for the cost. 30 precision is going to raise your crit chance 1% for example.

CptAurellian.9537:

Weren’t the 5+ stats infusions ridiculously overpriced?

Yes they are. All the recipes for them are 250 of a t6 mat plus some other things ofc. Or you can spend five laurels which is also a rip off.

I found a very happy medium that works for me and my AH build. Soldier armor with divinity runes, and berserk weapon, berserk accessories(ascended) Berserk trinkets generally get better bang for your buck with crit dam . I end up with 17.5k hp, 2700 armor, 2400 power, 38 crit chance, and +95 crit damage. Best of both worlds for me.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|2.1g.h1b.0.0.0|0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0.0|1c.71j.1c.71j.1c.71j.1c.71j.1c.71j.1c.71j|4s.d1d.2s.d1d.3s.d16.2s.d1c.3s.d16.2s.d1c|a2.0.u65b.u28a.0|2e.1|0.0.0.0.0|e