Guild Wars 2

With the upcoming Raids and so on do you think the Meta/Optimum gear will stay Zerker/Assassin’s or will Mesmers see the use of other stat combos?

As far as I can tell it’s not going anywhere.

What’s your opinion?

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: we’ll have to see what DPS numbers look like in full Viper gear, but, even if Viper’s numbers beat out Zerker, damage ramp-up is an inherent weakness in condi PvE builds that no gear set can address.

I imagine Zerker/Sin will remain “meta” for most Mesmers, unless the tank role becomes a thing. Then maybe we’ll see Mesmer tanks too.

I’m actually curious on how some pieces of marauder’s gear holds up.

It’s slightly less overall offensive stats, but power/precision together are very close to berserker/assassin levels, while the stat being reduced (Ferocity) is the least valuable of the three when taking fencer’s finesse into consideration.

BlaqueFyre.5678:

With the upcoming Raids and so on do you think the Meta/Optimum gear will stay Zerker/Assassin’s

That’s the catch, we don’t know what Raids are. I saw a remark from those who beta tested them that each encounter would have it’s own “meta”. I’m going to assume that simply means some encounters will have hard-counters to specific damage applications, ie having insanely high toughness or being immune to conditions.

If gear is such important investment for you, wait till Raids are actually out. It’s too soon decide on “meta” for raids and best we can currently do is speculate, and basing your investment on speculations as we know is risky business.

Eponet.4829:

I’m actually curious on how some pieces of marauder’s gear holds up.

It’s slightly less overall offensive stats, but power/precision together are very close to berserker/assassin levels, while the stat being reduced (Ferocity) is the least valuable of the three when taking fencer’s finesse into consideration.

Uuuuummmmm, I don’t think it’s that simple. Don’t get me wrong, I’d be completely up for throwing away Ferocity, but we’re often on Reflect duty so Precision and Ferocity are rather important to our class. Though, we run into the same problem of we have no idea what raids are going to look like.

Thus far, we know that Chronos are going to be favored for their buffs primarily. So, we may need to be more defensive geared for survivability since other classes can better fill the role of damage output. That’s not to say that we won’t be contributing damage as well, but we’ll have a more focused primarily role maybe.

Indeed. If it turns out that going full glass means getting one-shot by some raid mechanic then Zerker/Sin definitely won’t be meta. But we simply don’t know yet.

Eponet.4829:

I’m actually curious on how some pieces of marauder’s gear holds up.

It’s slightly less overall offensive stats, but power/precision together are very close to berserker/assassin levels, while the stat being reduced (Ferocity) is the least valuable of the three when taking fencer’s finesse into consideration.

I got intrigued by Marauder’s stats. Sure, it’s a bit lower on power/precision/ferocity compare to berserker/assassin stats, but that vitality can help us not be full glass cannon at least.

Embolism.8106:

Indeed. If it turns out that going full glass means getting one-shot by some raid mechanic then Zerker/Sin definitely won’t be meta. But we simply don’t know yet.

Actually Nike seemed to be saying that it was better to go assassins and air sigil than accuracy and beserker.

Considering a big part of Chronos usefulness in Raids is Quickness swapping to gear with Concentration on will probably be Meta.

That said all gear with concentration on also has toughness and at least some, if not all, of the raid bosses goes after whoever has the highest toughness.

Similarly Runes of the Herald look pretty good for Chrono but also has a lot of toughness.

Levetty.1279:

Considering a big part of Chronos usefulness in Raids is Quickness swapping to gear with Concentration on will probably be Meta.

That said all gear with concentration on also has toughness and at least some, if not all, of the raid bosses goes after whoever has the highest toughness.

Similarly Runes of the Herald look pretty good for Chrono but also has a lot of toughness.

With herald, timewarp, f5, shield 5, and the quickness well, concentration gear will almost definitely not be good in raids. If you really really need more quickness bad, you can run Fried Golden Dumplings.

Yeah, this is the poop end of the spectrum, hopefully raids release soon and we can see what is needed, since I have the gold on Standby to pretty much gear almost full Ascended but if they have different meta for different bosses then I may just hold off and craft legendary armor…….

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Levetty.1279:

Considering a big part of Chronos usefulness in Raids is Quickness swapping to gear with Concentration on will probably be Meta.

That said all gear with concentration on also has toughness and at least some, if not all, of the raid bosses goes after whoever has the highest toughness.

Similarly Runes of the Herald look pretty good for Chrono but also has a lot of toughness.

With herald, timewarp, f5, shield 5, and the quickness well, concentration gear will almost definitely not be good in raids. If you really really need more quickness bad, you can run Fried Golden Dumplings.

Yeah but on the other hand with Concentration, concentration gear will almost definitely might be good in raids. Think about that.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Levetty.1279:

Considering a big part of Chronos usefulness in Raids is Quickness swapping to gear with Concentration on will probably be Meta.

That said all gear with concentration on also has toughness and at least some, if not all, of the raid bosses goes after whoever has the highest toughness.

Similarly Runes of the Herald look pretty good for Chrono but also has a lot of toughness.

With herald, timewarp, f5, shield 5, and the quickness well, concentration gear will almost definitely not be good in raids. If you really really need more quickness bad, you can run Fried Golden Dumplings.

Yeah. Concentration will be more useful for Open World, where you can’t rely on having a Herald around to boost your condition duration.

Levetty.1279:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Levetty.1279:

Considering a big part of Chronos usefulness in Raids is Quickness swapping to gear with Concentration on will probably be Meta.

That said all gear with concentration on also has toughness and at least some, if not all, of the raid bosses goes after whoever has the highest toughness.

Similarly Runes of the Herald look pretty good for Chrono but also has a lot of toughness.

With herald, timewarp, f5, shield 5, and the quickness well, concentration gear will almost definitely not be good in raids. If you really really need more quickness bad, you can run Fried Golden Dumplings.

Yeah but on the other hand with Concentration, concentration gear will almost definitely might be good in raids. Think about that.

Probably not. You will already have enough quickness with other means without losing as much DPS.

As others have mentioned, its tuff to say. Since launch, what I have been finding out from fractals and other pve content is that the mesmer/chronomancer’s role has been changing. It has gone from reflects —> spurt out alacrity and quickness. It also has a major role in removing beaker bars with slow and possibly removing boons in raids (based on the raid beta anyway). Can mesmers do major reflect damage? Yes. However, now that the expansion is out, you can have a herald protect you from projectiles for a kitten ton of time. I have a guardian and herald in my main fractal group now. Most of the time, I don’t need reflects. However, even in the most reflect heavy encounters, I can just switch one of my skills to feedback and only have to use it when there is a short break when the herald and guardian can’t reflect. With this, its easy to have 100% missile protection. While this is going on, you can continue to do what you do best, that no other class can do. You can spert out your alacrity and quickness for the team. Addition: We also didn’t see any uses of reflects in the first raid.

Sorry if it seems if I was getting off topic a little. By this I just mean that precision might not be quite be as strongly important as it was before (but of course, it will still be important). Therefore, Assassins or berserkers will be the best for damage, but not necessarily because of reflects. I believe frifox tested both sets and found that they were both roughly equal in a team setting with no reflects. Therefore, I suppose you still might as well go for Assassins just in case you need a lot of reflects in a future raid.

As for marauder, I believe it will only be used if there is strong bursting damage in raids that zerker/ass chronomancers will not be able to survive but can be negated with the little vitality that marauders offers. You should have a druid in your squad that heals everyone. There are some videos of beta testing the first raid and it appeared that full out damage engis and chronos did fine with a druid. However, they are going to add different raids that might lead to different results.

With Chrono, we actually have more active damage canceling than ever, wih faster recharges on all our distort-giving abilities, Well of Precognition, and blocking out the wazoo with Echo of Memory/Deja Vu. I personally feel we are even SAFER in full zerk than we ever have been before.

Yeah the trinity added order to the chaos and it allowed people to actually feel like they were actually contributing in a worthwhile way in group play.

it’ll depend.

If these bosses actually are difficult, and they do AoE effects and things like this u will prolly die in Zerker gear due to a lack of hp, i can imagine us needing to combine stuff to give us more survivability then we have had to tbh.