Guild Wars 2

Hello,

I’m a fresh level 80 guardian and I’m trying to decide what exotic weapons, armors, and trinkets to get. I play mostly PVE, and I’m thinking of getting a full set of berserker’s plus some knight’s pieces to swap in when I want to be tankier.

My question is: what pieces give me the best bank for the buck, if I don’t want to buy a full set of knight’s?

It appears that exotic weapons are less than 2g, whereas armor pieces are all 5g-6g. For trinkets, I can buy ascended pieces with laurels.

My current plan is to buy knight’s weapons and breastplates, since they seem to be the cheapest and contribute the most to stats.

I personally hate Knight’s. I find it to be totally lackluster.

Here’s an example of a build with Berserker/Soldier mixed and here is that same build with full Knight’s. Here it is again with Knights replacing the Soldier pieces from the first.

The important thing to look at is the EHP and Effective Power. Berserker/Soldier has the highest EHP and comparatively close Effective Power. Full Knight’s has the lowest Effective Power and second lowest EHP. Knight/Berserker mix has the highest Effective Power and the lowest EHP.

If you compare the most extreme set in terms of damage with the most extreme set in terms of EHP, you trade a 30% increase in EHP for a 6% decrease in damage. I find that to be more than equitable.

Take-home message: If you want survivability and to maintain your damage, mixing in Soldier’s gear with your DPS gear is the way to do it. You’ll get a ton of EHP for the very minor sacrifice in damage.

Edited to add: Your higher base power with a full Power-Primary gear set means you get a bigger benefit from the Fury boon as well, by the way. The damage difference with Fury active changes in the above scenario to a meager 4.5%.

Yeah, start out with buying knights. It’ll help you adjust to a more offensive set. Then you can run CoF for your berserker’s gear. You wont look original but you’ll have what you need. Get them as you can, though shoulders, chest, and legs offer the best stats. It’s probably not worth saving up the tokens to get them first, but if it costs the same in gold those are the ones you should prioritize.

I would suggest that for PVE, you already have it figured out …

Full zerk when you want the most damage and some combination of knights/zerk when you want to be tankier. As to WHAT pieces to get, I’m less knowledgeable. There is something that people have referred to where certain pieces give you better stats return. I’m not sure what criteria they use to determine it and it seems to change a bit depending on … things. Someone else can comment on that.

Personally, I have full ascended Zerker trinkets and I just swap knights/zerker armor as I see fit for PVE.

foofad.5162:

I personally hate Knight’s. I find it to be totally lackluster.

Here’s an example of a build with Berserker/Soldier mixed and here is that same build with full Knight’s. Here it is again with Knights replacing the Soldier pieces from the first.

The important thing to look at is the EHP and Effective Power. Berserker/Soldier has the highest EHP and comparatively close Effective Power. Full Knight’s has the lowest Effective Power and second lowest EHP. Knight/Berserker mix has the highest Effective Power and the lowest EHP.

If you compare the most extreme set in terms of damage with the most extreme set in terms of EHP, you trade a 30% increase in EHP for a 6% decrease in damage. I find that to be more than equitable.

Take-home message: If you want survivability and to maintain your damage, mixing in Soldier’s gear with your DPS gear is the way to do it. You’ll get a ton of EHP for the very minor sacrifice in damage.

Edited to add: Your higher base power with a full Power-Primary gear set means you get a bigger benefit from the Fury boon as well, by the way. The damage difference with Fury active changes in the above scenario to a meager 4.5%.

Thanks for all the answers!

For knight’s vs. soldier’s… the knight’s would obviously give more crits if you’ve got a build with crit effects, so could that be worth the much lower EHP? Not sure if on-crit effects are awesome or mediocre at high level.

For armor upgrades, I notice that the builds you link all have rubies instead of runes. Is that widely considered “best”? I see a lot of superior runes that look pretty good on paper.

foofad.5162:

The important thing to look at is the EHP and Effective Power. Berserker/Soldier has the highest EHP and comparatively close Effective Power. Full Knight’s has the lowest Effective Power and second lowest EHP. Knight/Berserker mix has the highest Effective Power and the lowest EHP.

You are forgetting importance of crit chace for guardian “on crit” effects. We have many of them.

foofad.5162:

Edited to add: Your higher base power with a full Power-Primary gear set means you get a bigger benefit from the Fury boon as well, by the way. The damage difference with Fury active changes in the above scenario to a meager 4.5%.

Someone who is asking what gear to get probably doesn’t have organised and optimised party for perma fury stacking.

intently.4502:

For armor upgrades, I notice that the builds you link all have rubies instead of runes. Is that widely considered “best”? I see a lot of superior runes that look pretty good on paper.

Rubies are second best DPS upgrade for armor, after Scholar runes (if you can stay over 90% Health for at least 24% of fight).

Personally for starting DPS gear I would go with Knight/Berserker weapon, Knight armor with Beryls and Berserker trinkets.

For switching gear: chest, helm and pants have worst stats → crit damage ratio, so they should be changed to Berserker as last pieces. Start with weapons, gloves, shoulders and boots.

Daerian.6523:

foofad.5162:

The important thing to look at is the EHP and Effective Power. Berserker/Soldier has the highest EHP and comparatively close Effective Power. Full Knight’s has the lowest Effective Power and second lowest EHP. Knight/Berserker mix has the highest Effective Power and the lowest EHP.

You are forgetting importance of crit chace for guardian “on crit” effects. We have many of them.

foofad.5162:

Edited to add: Your higher base power with a full Power-Primary gear set means you get a bigger benefit from the Fury boon as well, by the way. The damage difference with Fury active changes in the above scenario to a meager 4.5%.

Someone who is asking what gear to get probably doesn’t have organised and optimised party for perma fury.

I’m not forgetting it. The Berserker/Soldier mix has about 35%, which is way more than enough to proc EM and Vigor, especially on weapons with AoE or multihit attacks.

As for Fury, I didn’t say anything about needing permanent Fury. Berserker/Soldier gets more benefit in terms of %damage increase while Fury is active than the other mix of gear. That’s a true statement regardless of the uptime.

intently.4502:

My question is: what pieces give me the best bank for the buck, if I don’t want to buy a full set of knight’s?

I don’t remember the full list, but simply have a look at the crit damage and the precision on the Zerker pieces and then calculate how much precision you pay for 1% crit. iirc, chest, legs and weapons all have pretty bad conversions, so you are on a good way with them.