Guild Wars 2

If you run Bers weapons and Accessories, wouldn’t it be more beneficial to run Valkyrie armor? It’s ~2000 health for ~10% crit chance. I mean, that’s just preference, but I don’t see the downfall, and you get to hop off the “LOLOMGHIGHDAMAGES” train without giving up the high damage…

With berz accessories and weapons (and the obligatory 20 points in dueling) you’ll have 40% crit chance, not including runes/orbs. If you run full Bers, you get a total of 50% crit chance (not including runes/orbs). I honestly would rather have 2k health as 40% crit chance seems to be enough and the 2k health would bring you to ~16-17k.

If you haven’t already looked, scroll down on this page:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical_hit
It has a very nice table on there that shows the difference between all the additional damage you deal based on crit chance and crit damage.

At any rate, it depends on your playstyle. If you feel the 2k health is going to save you more than the small chunks of potential bonus damage each hit, then it’s definitely worth going with Valkyrie. It is a more careful approach with only a tiny loss in damage, so if it helps you survive, it’s a good bonus. Dead players deal no damage, after all.

Based on that chart, it’s a 15% (of base, not the large numbers you see) difference in damage. Assuming you have my stats, that means you’re doing 160% or 175% damage depending on which you wear.

Also, the 2000 health is ~15% health, so it’s literally a % health for % damage tradeoff here (again, assuming you’re running full Bers).

Always keep in mind that conditions based on %maxHP (i.e. Agony) will worsen with higher maxHP. The difference isn’t that high since the initial hit usually compensates that, but in the boss fractal you get Agony without an attack so having less HP here, would be better.

But sure, it’s always personal preferance to go either defensive or offensive build. Personally, I’m going for 33% direct dmg, 33% condition damage and 33% healing with my mesmer and stay ranged.

Or run zerk in all but trinkets and valk there. Balance it out a tad

Losing 15% of my damage for 2k health is a funny prospect, no thanks. I run full zerker, and use no agony resist and i have no issue in fractals, in fact, im usually the last one standing if there is a wipe.