Guild Wars 2

Exotic armor set. Just about to get my first one. I’ve decided I really like small party / roaming in WvW and I have a 10 / 30 / 0 / 0 / 30 shatter dps build set up. My rares are currently full berserker and I feel a tad squishy so I’m thinking my exotics will be 3 Berserker, 2 Knights and 1 Valkyrie.

Is this a wise move? Should I go even tankier? Less tanky?

It really depends on your preference. Additionally, the type of tanky armor depends on preference too. Valk is good for health, while cavaliers is good for toughness. Since you’re going 10/30, you’ll have very good crit chance, so I’d actually recommend against knights, and for either valk or cav.

In WvW, is Health or Toughness worth more? I like health because I can -see- it and I’m not running overmuch condition cleansing so Vitality is probably going to be worth more to me.

Either way, should I go 3 Berserkers pieces and 3 Valk/Cav?

Septave.8042:

In WvW, is Health or Toughness worth more? I like health because I can -see- it and I’m not running overmuch condition cleansing so Vitality is probably going to be worth more to me.

Either way, should I go 3 Berserkers pieces and 3 Valk/Cav?

Health and toughness are different forms of defense, and it really just comes down to what you prefer. I personally like to have about 20k hp in my builds, but that’s personal preference, I know some people like to focus on toughness or more on vitality. You’ll need to play around a bit and see what fits for you.

(playing around costs money)

Haha, okay. I think I’ll go for Vit for now.

I hope I’m not too late.
You should consider buying temple armor (karma, not gold.) The Soldier’s stats are available (Power primary, Vitality and Toughness secondaries.) Grenth has the exotic soldiers back, the others are in various temples.

Advantages for WvW players:
1. Saves your gold for trinkets
2. To play WvW, you’ll need some base vitality to deal with conditions, and toughness to deal with bursts. Soldier’s karma armor sets up your base vitality and toughness, so you can pick your runes and trinkets based on your build needs.
3. Phantasm and Shatter mesmers need power.

Regards

Mm. I’d go more tanky if I felt that I was going to be zerging a lot. The Soldier spec looks a little underwhelming for small-group encounters when I could raise my critical damage with Valkyrie.

Is that a fair evaluation?

Septave.8042:

(playing around costs money)

The way I deal with this is yellow armor, when possible. You can break it down and get globs of ectoplasm that sell for around the same cost as the armor went, assuming average luck with salvage kits. Unfortunately this only works with some types of armor but it’s a good way of testing some stuff out on the cheap.

Since mesmers got a good amount of active defense, it is even possible to go full Berserker and still regain a decent amount of survivability.

Since i’m using both Sword and Torch for defense (although i’m using GS in the other set which lacks defense) i tend to aim for ~2400 armor and 17k hp and do quite good. As a shatter, my best defense consists in applying a lot of pressure so there is little space for my opponent to actually go for me.

Well, my build is currently (only rare trinkets at the moment) sitting at 16.8k health and 2,200 armor and almost 3k attack. Seems fair solid enough for a shatter mesmer.

Might grab a Soldier’s ascended trinket to tick my health up to 17k and get Cavalier for the rest.

I’m rolling at 15,800 full zerk, your stats are very nice around 3k attack. Wondering what you guys are doing for this.