Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone.
Just had a quick question regarding gear and builds and what meshes together well.

Working on building out my character, I initially went with Carrion gear as I was running a condition build. I quickly found out that conditions are not so good for PVE.

So, asking around a bit, some folks recommended going with berserker gear. Last night, i crafted my last piece of berserker gear, so now I have two sets of gear.

i wanted to do some testing with my berserker gear and wanted to get some ideas for the following:

-builds to try
-what runes and sigils i should give a spin.
-weapon setups

Lastly, with berserker gear, I am assuming that I can run builds for:

-shatter builds
-phantasm builds

Appreciate the feedback and help

Cheers,

TCG

With zerker gear, you can do any build utilizing power. That’s shatters, phantasms, mantra nukers, some lockdown builds, etc. etc. Try out different builds to see what you prefer.

With carrion gear you can do…nothing. Salvage it and get rabid if you want to use conditions.

What Pyro said.

For Dungeons/Fractals I use:

Full Zerker everything
10/30/0/20/10 (usually) Phantasm build
Sword/Focus and Sword/Sword or Sword/Pistol mostly (you only need 2 swords total)
Greatsword for very rare occasions

Pyroatheist.9031:

With zerker gear, you can do any build utilizing power. That’s shatters, phantasms, mantra nukers, some lockdown builds, etc. etc. Try out different builds to see what you prefer.

With carrion gear you can do…nothing. Salvage it and get rabid if you want to use conditions.

Thanks. Appreciate it. Hmm, mantra nukers..i need to read about that.

Ya, exactly on carrion gear. I realized that and was like, great…

Xavi.6591:

What Pyro said.

For Dungeons/Fractals I use:

Full Zerker everything
10/30/0/20/10 (usually) Phantasm build
Sword/Focus and Sword/Sword or Sword/Pistol mostly (you only need 2 swords total)
Greatsword for very rare occasions

Thanks guys. I will give that a go.
Appreciate it.

yeah carrion is pretty bad for mesmers. i started off with that one, but when i switched to a confusion build, i went to rabid and never looked back. recently i’ve also tried out dire, which is not bad if u are veilbot for a zergbusting guild, but i prefer rabid.

why none mentions Rampager? it synergizes perfectly with sharper images so you get solid direct damage and strong bleeds

korelg.7862:

why none mentions Rampager? it synergizes perfectly with sharper images so you get solid direct damage and strong bleeds

Because it does less damage than either berserker or rabid.

Edit: Well, not less than rabid in a normal PvE build, but FAR less than berserker.

10/30/0/30/0 is also very viable. Use sword/sword or sword/pistol or sword/focus (usually I take focus and swap out the other off-hand).

In general a Phantasm build is the best for PvE, especially fotm.
Viable builds are everthing that’s based on X/20/X/20/X. Those are the must have traits for fotm. Sure it may work otherwise too, but this is the most important for you.

So you really can go:
0/30/0/30/10
0/30/0/20/20
0/20/0/25/25
10/30/0/30/0
10/30/0/20/10
10/20/0/30/10
20/20/0/30/0
20/30/0/20/0
20/20/0/20/10

In general don’t go over 20 in dominon, don’t go over 20 in illusions and don’t go over 0 in chaos Yes there are exceptions

maxinion.8396:

10/30/0/30/0 is also very viable. Use sword/sword or sword/pistol or sword/focus (usually I take focus and swap out the other off-hand).

I used to use 10/30/0/30/0 but I find Compounding Power (3% extra damage/illusion) is stronger than an extra 2 sec on Glamours (Feedback, Null Field) so I switched to 10/30/0/20/10.

Xyonon.3987:

In general a Phantasm build is the best for PvE, especially fotm.
Viable builds are everthing that’s based on X/20/X/20/X. Those are the must have traits for fotm. Sure it may work otherwise too, but this is the most important for you.

So you really can go:
0/30/0/30/10
0/30/0/20/20
0/20/0/25/25
10/30/0/30/0
10/30/0/20/10
10/20/0/30/10
20/20/0/30/0
20/30/0/20/0
20/20/0/20/10

In general don’t go over 20 in dominon, don’t go over 20 in illusions and don’t go over 0 in chaos Yes there are exceptions

20 in domination serves no purpose.

colesy.8490:

Xyonon.3987:

In general a Phantasm build is the best for PvE, especially fotm.
Viable builds are everthing that’s based on X/20/X/20/X. Those are the must have traits for fotm. Sure it may work otherwise too, but this is the most important for you.

So you really can go:
0/30/0/30/10
0/30/0/20/20
0/20/0/25/25
10/30/0/30/0
10/30/0/20/10
10/20/0/30/10
20/20/0/30/0
20/30/0/20/0
20/20/0/20/10

In general don’t go over 20 in dominon, don’t go over 20 in illusions and don’t go over 0 in chaos Yes there are exceptions

20 in domination serves no purpose.

No one say greatsword spec plz.

Xavi.6591:

maxinion.8396:

10/30/0/30/0 is also very viable. Use sword/sword or sword/pistol or sword/focus (usually I take focus and swap out the other off-hand).

I used to use 10/30/0/30/0 but I find Compounding Power (3% extra damage/illusion) is stronger than an extra 2 sec on Glamours (Feedback, Null Field) so I switched to 10/30/0/20/10.

This one is a matter of taste. I think you’re probably right and I should switch it out, but I just <3 feedback so much.

colesy.8490:

Xyonon.3987:

In general a Phantasm build is the best for PvE, especially fotm.
Viable builds are everthing that’s based on X/20/X/20/X. Those are the must have traits for fotm. Sure it may work otherwise too, but this is the most important for you.

So you really can go:
0/30/0/30/10
0/30/0/20/20
0/20/0/25/25
10/30/0/30/0
10/30/0/20/10
10/20/0/30/10
20/20/0/30/0
20/30/0/20/0
20/20/0/20/10

In general don’t go over 20 in dominon, don’t go over 20 in illusions and don’t go over 0 in chaos Yes there are exceptions

20 in domination serves no purpose.

It can actually be sorta nice for the signet recharge if you’re able to run inspiration throughout a full run, and your party has a guardian for empower of something.

The more I played my warrior, the more I began to dislike signet of inspiration. I mean sure, it worked back in the lazy cof p1 days of FGJ x 4 + signet, but considering a single warrior can give a party 15 long might stacks singlehandedly, that means only one other person in the team needs to blast the field and then two others can pick up the two banners and blast again for 24 stacks of might. I mean I was pretty terrible at swapping my weapons back in when we were doing Arah p2 (I think I ended up with something stupid like sword/warhorn + GS which meant I had to camp GS for alphard), but signet of inspiration really …. it’s just meh to me. I think I see it as more of a pug utility skill if they’re not so good at might stacking (I might actually get a torch for my mes purely for the blast finisher so that I don’t have to stand awkwardly while everyone else is spamming finishers :p).

Traiting signets would also mean losing an up to 16%+ damage from empowering mantras, 9%+ from compounding power or 15%+ phantasm damage + trait of your choice which I really don’t think is a very good trade-off.

Empower’s pretty janky too, the 12 second duration just makes the might drop off early in a fight, if it was 6 stacks for 24 seconds then it would make staff amazing to use pre-fight then (via inventory, not just tilde) swapping out for greatsword or hammer, it’s why I really dislike forceful greatsword on warriors too, the short-term stacks blow.

Anyway, I’m just rambling, and I really need to add the 10/30/0/20/10 build to my dungeon thread since it looks superior to 0/20/0/25/25 and 10/30/0/30/0 since it doesn’t really take any redundant traits (phantasmal haste is a bit meh when swordsman is the main DPS phantasm, and illusionist’s celerity probably doesn’t matter so much when you have 10s between weapon swaps and your phantasms are on 16/20s CD, plus the only thing really worth it in inspiration is glamour mastery and possibly focus traiting.

Maybe 20/30/0/10/10 could be the new meta, I dunno. Guardians have reflects covered nicely, have good DPS and can might stack a little better so mesmers need to offer more than “reflect + time warp bot” when slotting in another guard will just compensate in itself for mesmer’s limited practical DPS making time warp irrelevant plus it means full reflect uptime. Mesmer really needs a DPS buff, we’re terribly low on damage modifiers, only having a conditional 9%+ in illusions and a conditional 16%+ in dueling versus guardian’s 5%+ with powerful blades, 10%+ on burning enemies, X%+ from PotV, 20%+ with unscathed contender plus vuln stacking with blind exposure which is far more consistent.

errrr

anyway

OP, it’s probably your best bet to roll 10/30/0/20/10.

After being leveling a warrior… I starting to see it like colesy. the main problem is that swordsman dies too easily whereas you can mantain well positioned duelist all fight long. I will probably try 10/20/0/10/20. I tried but I cannot run with mantras

oh i also leveled an engi. i had great hopes but again dps is low.

What are your thoughts on Full knights for WvW? Gear and trinkets

tyrone.5974:

What are your thoughts on Full knights for WvW? Gear and trinkets

Crit damage is very low. I prefer knights gear and cavaliers trinkets to accomplish that high toughness but keeping some good damage.

Pyroatheist.9031:

With zerker gear, you can do any build utilizing power. That’s shatters, phantasms, mantra nukers, some lockdown builds, etc. etc. Try out different builds to see what you prefer.

With carrion gear you can do…nothing. Salvage it and get rabid if you want to use conditions.

Could you give an example of a mantra nuker? I am interested. If PvP/WvW viable, that is.

Requiem.8769:

Pyroatheist.9031:

With zerker gear, you can do any build utilizing power. That’s shatters, phantasms, mantra nukers, some lockdown builds, etc. etc. Try out different builds to see what you prefer.

With carrion gear you can do…nothing. Salvage it and get rabid if you want to use conditions.

Could you give an example of a mantra nuker? I am interested. If PvP/WvW viable, that is.

It’s not really PvP viable. It’s sorta WvW viable, but you’ll be somewhat fragile, so you have to be careful.

The basis of it is just 30 points in dueling to get empowering mantras, and then fill your bar with mantras and go to town. Bonus points for compounding power and a few dodge clones. With 3 clones and 4 mantras, you end up at a static +25% damage, then you can tack on stuff like sigil of force, sigil of night, or other boosts to get that even higher. Greatsword autos will hit very hard at maximum range, and even your shatters will pack quite a punch.

The downsides are that you’ve got a bar full of mantras. You don’t really have a ton of utility or defensive options that way, and in order to maximize your damage with this, you need zerker gear, and so you end up being very fragile.