Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone!

I’ve gotten back into GW2 thanks to Season 2 of the Living Story, and the Silverwastes have been a blast to play in. Also, thanks to all the bloodstone dusts, dragonite ore, and empyreal fragments I’ve been picking up, it hit me that Ascended gear is now in reach for me.

However, that means I have to lock myself into my choice of weapons and a set of stats.

So, I could use some help in making these choices. I’ve played around with different stat choices and weapon sets, and here is my starting point for these “upgrades:”

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fhUQNAscRlknpItdoxSN0zRCvxYuBOXKoMniKZA3C-TxDBwA8U/ZgNAaVSIWJiSlQKMhB4EA45IAkV5gKtAhOEAp0Fw4BAMRJoz1HAA-e
(updated after first Ascended weapon acquired)

The gist there is that I’ve been playing a “survivable” Mesmer in the Silverwastes with Exotic Knight’s armor and a lot of Valkyrie-ish upgrades and trinkets. When I was playing a lot more a year ago, the “Zerker meta” was the talk of the town. Nowadays, I see a lot of outdated guides and builds, so I really don’t know whether that has changed.

So, here’s what I’m looking for and not looking for:
- I play open-world PvE 99% of the time, and rarely do dungeons. I wouldn’t mind some dungeons, but I would play them as part of a casual group, and definitely not a speed-clear group.
- I usually play solo, though I play with a couple of close friends pretty often. My party size is 1-3.
- I enjoy challenging content like the Silverwastes, and I don’t get involved in “zergs” or “champ trains.” Rewards are cool, but I don’t like farming.
- I really like taking on tough group events either by myself or with a small group. This is part of why I like the Silverwastes, by the way, because the player-cap forces the players to divide up into smaller groups.

So, I’m looking for an effective balance between offense and survivability. What sorts of Ascended gear selections would help me accomplish these goals? Also, has the “Zerker meta” changed since about a year ago?

Also, I’d be glad to take advice and discuss my current build, and am totally open to experimenting with changes. I’m not locked into what I’m running now; it’s just a starting point for comparison.

Let me know if you guys have any questions.

-Matt

mattastrophic.8201:

Hi everyone!
So, I’m looking for an effective balance between offense and survivability. What sorts of Ascended gear selections would help me accomplish these goals? Also, has the “Zerker meta” changed since about a year ago?

Zerker or assassins armor, cav trinkets for a bit of toughness. Done.

Hi Ross,

Your post has me wondering something. Why Assassin’s gear? The damage formula clearly shows that the Berzerker array yields more damage than the Assassin array, so why are they mentioned in the same breath? The only reasons I can think of are on-crit sigils and the Critical Infusion trait. Are there others I’m not seeing?

-Matt

As far as I can recall, after calculations, a full assassin’s set will slightly out-damage a full zerker set. It’s something minuscule like 1-2% but it’s still there.

At least, that’s the last I’ve heard of it, but this was before they changed crit damage to ferocity, so I’m not sure if that has changed that statistic at all. Either way, zerker and assassins are relatively on par in terms of damage.

If you’re playing open world, it really doesn’t matter what gear you have. I would suggest getting a full zerk or full assassin’s set, however, as since it doesn’t matter what you use in open world anyway, if for some reason you decide to do a speed run dungeon, you will still be able to. This way, you won’t be burning that bridge for yourself.

mattastrophic.8201:

Hi Ross,

Your post has me wondering something. Why Assassin’s gear? The damage formula clearly shows that the Berzerker array yields more damage than the Assassin array, so why are they mentioned in the same breath? The only reasons I can think of are on-crit sigils and the Critical Infusion trait. Are there others I’m not seeing?

-Matt

Mesmer crit traits are an important consideration, but let’s just say you’re wanting to build a more tanky power build, or go for some hybrid. Assassins allows you to maintain higher crit chance while, for example, taking full cavalier trinkets (power, toughness, ferocity).

Another thing is with higher precision from assassins you can get more crit procs off yor phantasms without necessarily needing phantasmal fury (assassins armor, knights trinkets with the precision major stat).

Hybrid build using assassins + rabid benefit from higher crit chance on clones proccing bleeds.

None of this is to say Berzerker doesn’t shine either.

mattastrophic.8201:

Your post has me wondering something. Why Assassin’s gear?

I’ve wondered the same, ever since I levelled my mesmer and watched Brazil’s guide which said to use assassin’s. I think the answer is: dungeon reflects. Dungeon people see mesmers as a combination of utility (portal, veil etc), condition cleaning, Time Warp, and reflects for megabosses like Lupicus. The first three don’t need stats, and reflect damage depends on your crit chance. So they’ll do what it takes to get 100% crit rate (with food and group buffs), hence the assassin’s gear.

It’s a niche thing, but dungeon people write most of the guides, so…

p.s. I’d get berserkers on ascended armour, because it’s account bound and zerks will be useful on any PvE character. If you need more crit chance for a special occasion, use precison food.

No, reflects are not the reason for assassins being meta. With full offensive buffs, direct damage with Assassins gear is better than Berserker by around 1% with reflects being around 4% better. With no buffs, direct damage with Berserker gear is around 2% better than Assassins, at a cost of pretty weak reflects.

Most “meta” parties max out the buffs which makes assassin gear an obvious superior choice. Sick reflect dmg is a nice bonus.

So… what about for a Mesmer who doesn’t do dungeons and plays solo 95% of the time?

-Matt

Use whatever you want, just don’t get rid of any older armor sets you have been using. I have four sets on one of my mesmers and three on the other. I swap them out as I need them.

Here’s a couple of questions for refocusing discussion:

-Soldier v Knight: what are the pros and cons for each on a Mesmer?
-What tends to be the target total armor rating for “tank” builds typically run by members of other professions?

-Matt

Soldier v Knight
Soldier is your standard “tank” armor. The primary stat is power, allowing the wearer to maintain a decent damage output. The secondary stats are vitality and toughness, granting survivability. On a whole, this is a nice set of armor (and whatever else you may want to grab). On the downside, it’s not really meant for mesmer. Most mesmer builds do rely on the ability to crit. Soldier gear strips our precision down to a very bare minimum that the trinkets/weapons will not be able to fully recover on their own. Final verdict: You will gain greater survivability at the cost of damage.

On the other hand, Knight’s gear provides a nice balance. You keep power and precision while only swapping ferocity for toughness. Your damage should remain largely unchanged, though your crits will hit for less damage. (In case you missed it, ferocity replaced the +% crit damage stat that had been on certain stat sets. It still does the same job, but just as number stat rather than a percent.) Final verdict: You will gain some survivability, but will still be lacking vitality-wise; and your damage will take a smaller hit.

As a guardian, the target armor is 3.2k+. This was how my guild lead had us build for WvW, but also works in PvE. However, building “tanky” requires a tremendous sacrifice on damage.

We have blink, decoy, other stealth, portal. IMO there is no need for defense gear, we are already built for it. Being able to judge when to step out of a situation and back in is key. If I get hit with a big condi splash -> blink out and go back in. In silverwaste I like to use IP, very useful to me in that zone, on demand invul,daze, I also like duelist in that zone for the same reason. If your taking the time to make ascended gear go with Zerk or Assassins. For me I’m solo 99% of the time so its zerk all day every day.

Edit: Specific to silverwaste I also run DE, standard shatter really. Silverwaste can be very situational as far as what I need. Boon removal is actually good here, however i swap for the GS cd most of the time. Planning your out is key for me here, always have an exit strategy. My blink is my mouse wheel, so I can double tap and be gone. I also like traited blink 1200 range is a life saver (really though it saves my life everyday) Anyway that is what I use and I’m out there everyday, hit me up!

Hi guys,

As a bit of an update, I realized that I had enough gold and Lumps of Mithrillium to purchase the remaining components needed for my first Ascended weapon. So I double-clicked my Crafting Booster, zoomed to 500, bought a whole bunch of Iron Ore…

And I crafted a Zojja’s Sword. The allure of a Berzerker weapon won the day!

As a sort-of benchmarking test, I tried soloing Caudecus’s Manor, and I was able to pull it off, so I feel like I’m on the right track! The question now is “where to take this build next?” Do I change around my runes or sigils? Or is there a different combination of traits which can pull off what I want to accomplish (I’ve been experimenting with 0/4/3/3/4 and 0/6/0/5/3 lately), but more effectively than my current setup?

My current build:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fhUQNAscRlknpItdoxSN0zRCvxYuBOXKoMniKZA3C-TxDBwA8U/ZgNAaVSIWJiSlQKMhB4EA45IAkV5gKtAhOEAp0Fw4BAMRJoz1HAA-e

What can I do to take this thing to the next level?

-Matt