Guild Wars 2

What works better for a zerker mes?

I’m certain someone has done the math a thousand times so, I don’t really need a big explination on why one is betetr than they other. Just let me know what works best and where (PvP, PvE, WvW)

Thank you so much

Err… Neither?

Zerkers dont have any added vitality or toughness except when given by the traits.

If you want a hybrid, just go for a little bit of both.

Toughness if you want something.

Vitality. You got no condi clear as zerker unless you go for mender’s purity and use mantra heal.

You’re kitten out of luck if you get caught either way with or without toughness.

Shinoobi.1259:

Vitality. You got no condi clear as zerker unless you go for mender’s purity and use mantra heal.

Since when does your gear dictate your utilities? Can’t you take some condi-removal if you’re using zerker-gear? Oh, and this trait works with all healing skills… it’s just that the mantra can trigger it with the highest frequency. However, most zerker-builds either don’t go into Inspiration (WvW), or they take other traits (PvE). An exception might be PvP-phantasm builds, which might chose to use this trait.

Toughness will reduce physical, and physical only, damage. Vitality will let you eat up more condition damage, and.. physical damage. The physical damage will be higher as a result of not having Toughness though. Regardless, since you are pretty squishy with Berserker equipment at any rate, I’d say Vitality is probably the better bet. Protect yourself a bit against conditions.

I use the Berserker+Valkyrie Ascended trinkets myself (Power, Vitality, Precision, Ferocity), to get a little bit more health. It does drop the Precision from the pure Berserker trinkets, but I aim for 50% Critical Chance, and hit that comfortably with food buffs regardless.

Absconditus.6804:

I use the Berserker+Valkyrie Ascended trinkets myself (Power, Vitality, Precision, Ferocity), to get a little bit more health. It does drop the Precision from the pure Berserker trinkets, but I aim for 50% Critical Chance, and hit that comfortably with food buffs regardless.

If you aim for just 50% crit chance, you can stack pretty much anything you want. 40-50% should get you comfortably to around 2K in 3 major stats when passivly buffed. Power/prec/tough or power/prec/vit or whatever. Or if you want to balance, ~1500 tough/vit.

if u already done thiusands of math what re u asking for?
U tried to ask metas in various environments?

Depends on the build really.

Some Phantasm (even zerker) spec into Inspiration which has some vitality. They can also get away with Mender Purity

Shatter is far more strict. To actually have good and reliable burst, it’s 4/4/0/0/6 or the occasional (but less viable) 2/6/0/0/6 shatter. Also utilities are kind of inelastic.

For PvE I run a phantasm Mesmer, and use a full Berserker set, or if I’m not confident, use mostly berserker armor with some Soldier gear in it (like gloves and boots) followed by full berserker Accessory.

For sPvP, I roll an Elementalist now, but if you really want to be a masochist, a shatter full berserker is always good, but there is no room for putting in some vitality and toughness (zerker amulet does have innate vitality though)

I don’t run any WvW anymore so I can’t help you with that.

Vitality is always useful for Mesmer considering conditions are our weakness unless we spec for it. Toughness doesn’t really go with (anets) philosophy for the Mesmer though because they think our clones would be taking the hits for us.

I always chose toughness over vitality. Conditions can become a problem though. And a little added vitality won’t help you that much either imho. The thing why I chose toughness is simple. When you get caught by surprise, you can survive even a backstab. On my WvW roaming mesmer I have 2.2k toughness. That is enough for me. I usually spec 2 in Inspiration for menders purity and often take one additional condition cleanse, either null field or the condi cleanse mantra. This way you get anyway some vitality, but you lose further offensive potential. My WvW shatter is 2/4/0/2/6. It lets me fight condition classes quite well, however, I have to suck it up if my target is overloaded with boons…

I was one day running the usual 4/4/0/0/6 shatter build and actually fought some condi builds. But on this day I was on top of my game and managed to outplay them easily and spike them down before they got me with enough conditions loaded. But that happened only once. Usually with such a setup, if you’re roaming alone, you will get destroyed by conditions with this setup… that is at least my experience.

toughness,cause of thieves mostly and cause Cavalier and knight are great stats!

I’d go with toughness in WvW because guard stacks are a thing.

I run some esoteric mix of valk, zerker, knights, and cav since I don’t want to veil and die.

You start with low armor and medium health, which points to Toughness as the stat you need more.

Also, mesmers don’t really overheal. So having a lot of Vitality gives you a buffer against condition damage, sure, but it’s kind of a once-per-fight thing. In my experience, you still need condition clearing to survive.

Also, you can, indeed, get a lot of Vitality from guard stacks.

(I run 5/6 Knight and a Soldier chestpiece. ~2.2k armor (~2.5k if traiting Chaos), ~17.5k hp when the rest of your gear is zerk. Not the most durable in the world but you can survive a lot of bursts that kill full glass.)

Toughness…with guard stacks, no extra vitality is usually ok. If you’re not sustaining well against condis, the extra vitality is usually not going to do anything besides delay the inevitable for a few more seconds.

I still think of vitality with a GW1 mindset. You want enough to survive against damage spikes and not be spike bait after taking some pressure damage, and no more than that.

If you play gurdian, thief, or elementalist. Go vitality otherwise toughness is fine.

Keep in mind your illusions benefit from toughness and not from vitality.