Guild Wars 2

Hi folks,
I’m looking to craft a set of ascended armor for my guardian; however, i’m in a conundrum as to what to craft. Playstyle includes a lot of open world, a bit of dungeon/fractaling and mix of Zerg WvW and roaming.

I know for WvW group meta, soldier is the supposed way to go; however, i’m looking to craft a set that ideally, I could use in more than just group wvw. For those of you who play multiple playstyles and have crafted ascended armor, is there a particular set you made that worked? E.g., mix of knight, etc. Any comments are greatly appreciated, thanks!

Mix n´ match. No one is forcing you to make all pieces the same stats.

Wvw zerging as a guard, solder/knight might be useful. Soldier is also great fro Tequatal and other bosses you can’t crit. Berserker is best for dungeons/fractals and wvw havoc squad/solo roaming.

berserker armor (scholar or traveler rune)?

berserker is meta for pve. And you can play medi guard for roaming which also use berserker armor.

I dont’ know how big the zerg is for your server. Unless your server have constant large zerg battle, you might as well go medi guard, which is decent in roaming, small fight.

Not a lot of people will agree with me, but I mix 4 pieces of cele, 2 soldier, and the rest zerker. It seems odd, but it works in every game mode for me.

Ascended armor is useful for agony resistance, so you probably want to craft pve stats for it.

Maelwro.7562:

Hi folks,
I’m looking to craft a set of ascended armor for my guardian; however, i’m in a conundrum as to what to craft. Playstyle includes a lot of open world, a bit of dungeon/fractaling and mix of Zerg WvW and roaming.

I know for WvW group meta, soldier is the supposed way to go; however, i’m looking to craft a set that ideally, I could use in more than just group wvw. For those of you who play multiple playstyles and have crafted ascended armor, is there a particular set you made that worked? E.g., mix of knight, etc. Any comments are greatly appreciated, thanks!

My advice: full celestial stats for the armor. Runer up: full berserker armor.

I did finish my first full ascended armor a month ago, it cost me ~350-400 gold coins and took me 30 days to craft just due the celestial quartz daily cap. The material cost can be reduced farming the stuff, but I had no time for farming so I went buying most of the materials in the BL market.

As in your case, I wanted a set viable for PvE (dungeons, fractals, bosses…) and WvW roaming. Must be said that WvW raid ascendad stats aren’t as crucial due fighting in a clan the raid coordination and skills matters a lot more that your stats. You can raid with exotics as fine as with ascended gear; as long as you follow the melee pack, stack with the leader, use your evades, shouts, empowerments, etc… Timming & coordination >> stats in WvW raid. And you can get build up cheap exotic armors for WvW raid as long as you want.

A second aspect important for my choice in my first ascended armor was the possibility of being used for both my guardian(s) and warrior(s). So let’s talk about the stats:

1) Condition-based stats (carrion, dire, etc.) can be good for some roaming/dueling builds from hybrid guadians and warriors, but must be said that full zerk warriors outperform condition warriors in roaming/small skirmishes, and condition builds are crap in PvE. Leave them.

2) Cleric/Nomad/Apothecary stats are useless for warriors; can be useful for some niche builds in guardian roamers, so forget about them.

3) Soldier/Knight/Cavalier stats are strong in WvW raids, but usually they underperform in roaming and PvE. Can be a good choice if WvW raiding or guild vs guild is your main game mode.

4) Celestial stats are just wonderfull as well rounded choice. They provide more stat points that any other combo, and the overall stats in your character can be adjusted in a large extent just replacing your amulet, ring and earrings (which can be easily afforded with laurels). PvE? Celestial armor + full zerk trinkets & weapons. WvW raids? Celestial armor + a soldier/knight/cavalier mixture in trinkets & weapons. The same with roaming/duel builds. Celestial is also one of the best stats for warriors in small roam teams (hambow, shoutbow).

5) Berserker stas (along with Assassin’s, Valkirie…) are the best in most of the PvE content and in dueling/roaming; they are usually too squishy for a WvW raid frontliner, but you can adjust your sustain changing your weapons and trinkets.

So, overall, celestial and berserker provides the larger amount of usefullness at multi tasking (performing in different game modes) and flexibility (being viable for the current two heavy armor users)..

oxtred.7658:

Ascended armor is useful for agony resistance, so you probably want to craft pve stats for it.

Pretty much this, full zerk is your best bet for ascended armour from an optimal perspective. It is the best for instanced pve and it can be used in pretty much every other facet of the game.

If you want to frontline zerg, just get an exotic set for that (extremely cheap) as exos are more than good enough for zerging about.

For me, having more than one set is better than trying to cover all bases in one set. Given ascended is of more use in instanced pve than zerging, then it is probably best to go for ascended zerk whilst having exotic gear to cover other options like front lining wvw etc.

thanks for the replies folks, much appreciated!

Berserker 100% for PvE. A mix of whatever works best for you in WvW.

For argument’s sake, you could get a Knights set and that is quite good for every game mode when paired with the right accessories

craft ascended berserker, it has use in all pve, it is a good investment
craft different exotic soldier sets for wvw, with different runes and use an outfit on the char

Since the primary use of ascended armor is to more cheaply reach 70 AR for Fractals level 50, and because armor is only about 1/3rd of your total stat alotment; make Berserkers.

For WvW, it’s better to swap out your rings, amulet, and accessories since they’re all much cheaper than crafting a set of armor, and make much more of a difference in your total stats. Swap into some mixture of Knights, Cavaliers, or Soldiers in order to get the desired health and armor you want for the task you’re doing in WvW.

I haven’t done any dungeons , our guild only has 3 active members ,and until recently I hadn’t done much wvw mostly because I came from lineage 2 and the pvp there seemed based on gear and player skill and sadly even though nc soft tries to eliminate botters and cheaters , if you had enough money you could buy gear, any way I had dreamed of a Guardian Tank , I know Arena net didn’t want to have tanks and healers etc but some one has to take the damage so I built as close to a tank as you can hope for a guardian , I seem to do really well in pve I use Ahmids ascended armor, with superior earth runes and resilient infusions the traits are zeal 2 V , valor 6 VI , IX , XII
and honor 6 VI ,X, XIII , the weapon sets I use are a great sword using Beigarth’s Ascended with a superior sigil of doom and a superior sigil of Incapacitation with mighty and precise infusions or a mace and shield using Beigarth’s , the mace has an precise infusion , the shield has an mighty infusion , if I want a ranged attack I use a non ascended Scepter with the power precision and toughness theme that Beigarth’s follows, I know its allot of work to perform a test but you can try that if you want.