Guild Wars 2

Hey everyone!

After being 80 for a few weeks I decided to finally start working on my main gearset for WvW (basically the only thing I enjoy doing at 80) but I’m sort of unsure about the stats I should aim for..

The build I use is the following: http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgAQNAsdhkwzIrJJOzI6LHlCs7dSFUd5D4G I did not list my utilities since those change alot depending on the situation I’m in.

With this build I know that my main damage stats are Power, Precision and Crit Damage. My main question is related to the survivability perspective though.

In short: How much Health and Armor (not toughness) do you think I should have before I start focussing on my DPS stats? I’m looking for a balance between nice damage and survivability. Enough health and armor to survive, but not so much that I start hitting like a wet noodle.

I was thinking of around 21K-23K health and 2000 armor? Is this enough to survive in WvW, and will I still have enough DPS stats available for doing some decent damage?

If anyone has an idea for decent values to shoot for, feel free to post them here!

For WvW I like to have 0 Vit, 0 Toughness.

For power gearing, I would basically start with a baseline of full Berserker, and I would switch out slots to Valkyrie (Pow, Vit, crit dmg if I recall correctly) until you find the balance you want.

EasymodeX.4062:

For WvW I like to have 0 Vit, 0 Toughness.

For power gearing, I would basically start with a baseline of full Berserker, and I would switch out slots to Valkyrie (Pow, Vit, crit dmg if I recall correctly) until you find the balance you want.

Doesn’t that turn you into a glass cannon that tends to die alot though? With the huge runs back to where I was when I died this is sort of something that worries me..

You only die if you get hit! Haha.

That’s the thing though, in WvW you cannot count on not being hit because of the sheer amount of damaging skills flying around :p

Does anyone else have some suggestions btw?

No, pure power/crit wins the game here. Even without toughness/vitality you’ll still do fine. You have to rely on your other skills like stealth’s, distortion, stun breakers, etc to keep yourself alive. Besides a player with 2k toughness will die just as fast to the zerg as a glass cannon. The beauty of our class isn’t the fighting power. It’s the ability to throw down reflections, combo fields, portal large groups of people safely into a keep that needs defense, stealth portal from a keep wall to an enemy artillery piece and pour 20 defenders on it, with an egress portal back to safety, etc. People say we are weak in large scale fights… I just don’t think they realize our potential… Had a mesmer freaking MoA me in a zerg on zerg fight yesterday and I thought “what an idiot…” he could of easily thrown down a time warp and actually helped his team, but he moa’d me and now were lolling face smashing them.

Well based on your build I would say focus on Power/Crit because you’re heavily spec’d for DPS. However I would argue that your build isn’t going to be great for WvW.

You’re build is based on Phantasms but you don’t have a lot of ways to summon them and the ones you do have are all melee range so they will get destroyed very fast in WvW no matter how much +HP you give them.

Don’t get me wrong both Berserker and Warden can be awesome WvW situations especially for taking down siege but they are going to die fast and applying bleeds when you have no condition dmg and can’t bleed a ram won’t be great.

Personally for WvW I don’t like glass cannon builds. Though we can put out respectable DPS our strength in WvW is our utility and you can’t do that when dead. Plus I tend to like to run in a small skirmish force and having lots of toughness/vit can help you survive being greatly outnumbered until backup can arrive.

In large battles if you get caught out of position tough/vit combined with smart use of decoy, blink, temporal curtain can get you to safety so you can continue to provide pressure rather then get downed and wait for a revive or run back. A person with 2K tough will not die just as fast as a glass cannon in a zerg. I’m currently only lvl 56 and I’ve survived things because of tough/Vit that there is no way I should have so I can just imagine how much tougher I will be when I have access to lvl 80 gear stats. Thats time that I was able to draw attention away from my team from getting killed and continue to apply DPS. A dead Mesmer provides 0 DPS.

A lot depends on what you are wanting to do. If you plan to only run with the zerg then you can get by fine with a glass cannon build. If you plan to skirmish or solo flip control points you want a survival build so you can fight the 3 or 4 guys that beat you to the control point and are attacking it.

I play with the zerg and roam with my guildies. Playing both aspects as a glass cannon I really don’t feel any pressure. Last night I forgot my WvW gear and took my magic find set into WvW. My GS 1 attacks were still getting 4k crits and of 200+ kills I had 4 deaths, one of which was from underestimating a cliff drop… Granted that’s a 6 hour session and healthy mix of zerging & roaming in a small party of 4.

I’m pretty sure your GS1 was not critting for 4k :P.

Put up 4 mantras with empowering mantras and utilize compounding power. You’d be surprised how hard it can hit… This is WvW as well not SPvP with amulets.

So you were doing up to 8000 damage per second using the Greatsword autoattack?

Third hit, 1st and 2nd tic don’t hit has hard. Coupled with (not sure off the top of my head 40-50%) crit rate, yea… GS is beast.

Edit: I’d like to note its a 30 dom/ 30 duel build.

I have to admit I’d be shocked to see a 4k crit on spatial surge. My current gear is pretty bad (and actually not optimized for power at all), but I only crit up to like 650-700 with that exact build.

Edit: I never noticed a difference in damage on the third hit; I’ll have to pay more attention.

Thats really low tbh, and with exotic power/precision gear, weapons, jewellery (even though traveler gear isn’t optimal) you’ll get much much higher.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fgEQNAR8Kl4zionRTkekAVBsT6hqT9qL9g33W2A

I’ve mainly run with this build simply because it’s my event farming build and I don’t feel like changing it up 3-4 times a day. Luckily mesmer roles change with ease in just a few inventory weapon swaps.

I was running basically that exact build yesterday and the day before, and I was critting for 650-800 on mobs, max.

Just to clarify, you are talking about Greatsword’s first “autoattack” ability that hits 3 separate times / not accumulated with “flurry” UI display mechanics and can be spammed every second right?

Because based on that I would expect your iBerserker and Blurred Frenzy to crit in the 12,000 damage range, each.

Kind of lost me, I’m not on tonight but I can get some footage tomorrow night. Yes I’m talking about GS 1 auto ability which does three tics in a cycle (even makes that whomwhomwhom noise). Even though it says 3x 252 at max range, the damage seems to scale up with each tic (theres no way those 3 tics of damage can fit into 1 second). I don’t really pay attention in PvE I mainly use the GS for Ibeserker and MB there.

That damage “scaling up each tick” is actually a cumulative total of one use of a channeled ability.

If you go into the combat log you’ll see how much actual damage each tick is doing.

i tend to 2v1 3v1 in WvW with full phantasm build not 1 point in vit. or tough.
1 v 1 i usually finish untouched
i use decoy mirror image and blink with mass inv. as elite.
My gear is all Power and precision
oh and i am lvl 63
For weapons its GS / Scepter – pistol
And i almost never die . Even in 3v1 i usually kill one and manage to get away if things aint going my way.

Kodiak.3281:

That damage “scaling up each tick” is actually a cumulative total of one use of a channeled ability.

If you go into the combat log you’ll see how much actual damage each tick is doing.

That’s it, thanks I never really payed attention to the combat log, the shinies on my screen are too entertaining.

That’s odd, I didn’t think the Spatial Surge ticks accumulated since they are (or were) slower. Suppose I’ll have to look tonight.

Sidenote: your 4k damage number makes a hell of a lot more sense if you’re talking about 3x 1.3k crits. Like I said my gear is horribad (for a power build) and I expect that I’ll double my damage with real gear, so that would make sense.

EasymodeX.4062:

That’s odd, I didn’t think the Spatial Surge ticks accumulated since they are (or were) slower. Suppose I’ll have to look tonight.

Sidenote: your 4k damage number makes a hell of a lot more sense if you’re talking about 3x 1.3k crits. Like I said my gear is horribad (for a power build) and I expect that I’ll double my damage with real gear, so that would make sense.

They do accumulate, I found out when I noticed that the third “tick” always was the sum of the first and the second(unless the third crit). This insinuates that the number you see at the end is indeed the total of the entire attack, and that each tick hits for an equal amount unless it crits.

Cingen, while I don’t have much to add about stats I noticed in your build you take both 15% damage talents to our illusions ( one in domination and the other in inspiration.) The last time I checked our bug post, people have stated they do not stack correctly right now. Perhaps not even at all. I read through it again and I didn’t see a post stating it was fixed or that others did their math incorrectly so you may want to make a trip to the mists to ensure that you’re gaining something for having both those traits.

In general I’ve found that relying on phantasm-based builds isn’t really going to do much for the entire wvw effort. The stuff already slotted onto your weapons is fine to use obviously (especially berserker for putting small dents in siege you wouldn’t reach otherwise every now and again), but you don’t really need to buff it up any with traits since it really shouldn’t be the crux of your build.

Making your stealth last longer, improving your clone (normal clone) health, and reducing recharge on your glamour are effective for, in my opinion, some of the coolest things you can do as a mesmer in wvw. But, you wouldn’t go wrong with trying to max out your buff duration, the number of buffs on you at once and use that signet to give them to everybody around you. Can be a -very- effective AoE buffer that way, though the trade-offs of such a thing are arguably not so great in more general cases where you won’t always be around the huge zerg to make it most effective. But if being in huge zergs is your thing might be fun.

As somebody has been mentioning, if you just want to cause a ton of damage using the trait that increases power for each mantra you have on the ready, that’s viable enough too. Using a greatsword with that is likely your best bet for all of the AoE you’d have. And, you’d still fair better damage-wise than your current illusion damage+ build, I’d think, given how fast phantasms go down.

Aero.4829:

Besides a player with 2k toughness will die just as fast to the zerg as a glass cannon.

The problem for most people in WvW – who end up having their team driven off – is that they think exactly this, and hence forego defensive stats.

The problem is, collectively (as a large group), you don’t lose due to each individual player going down in split-seconds to a coordinated 40+ people assist-train.
You go down due to the absurd amount of “fringe” damage flying out, softening everyone up. Every little bit this affects you less is more “wall-ness” your group as a whole exhibits, as you don’t fall back to gain range or distance. If too many of your group withdraw a few metres, the group as a whole gets pushed back as the remaining front ranks die in seconds.

Hence, defensive stats are extremely important in WvW. Not for your individual survival, true. And only you having them won’t make a difference, true. Everyone having more defensive stats is a pretty guaranteed upper hand in any major stand off.
Plus it makes attacking material easier since each player can stay in the arrow hail longer.

Carighan.6758:

Aero.4829:

Besides a player with 2k toughness will die just as fast to the zerg as a glass cannon.

The problem for most people in WvW – who end up having their team driven off – is that they think exactly this, and hence forego defensive stats.

The problem is, collectively (as a large group), you don’t lose due to each individual player going down in split-seconds to a coordinated 40+ people assist-train.
You go down due to the absurd amount of “fringe” damage flying out, softening everyone up. Every little bit this affects you less is more “wall-ness” your group as a whole exhibits, as you don’t fall back to gain range or distance. If too many of your group withdraw a few metres, the group as a whole gets pushed back as the remaining front ranks die in seconds.

Hence, defensive stats are extremely important in WvW. Not for your individual survival, true. And only you having them won’t make a difference, true. Everyone having more defensive stats is a pretty guaranteed upper hand in any major stand off.
Plus it makes attacking material easier since each player can stay in the arrow hail longer.

That’s my point exactly. Hence my question, how much Armor/Health should I aim for before I start focussing on more DPS orientated stats :p

I don’t get hit by fringe damage because I was trained by Neo!

^ Feedback helps.

Im running prec/pwr/crit gear,while im by no means the best mesmer,i am running into alot of prblems due to low health. I tend to roam solo more,so i was wondering if i should be focusing more on tough/vit/pwr instead. thoughts?

If you’re running solo, you need to have personal durability. Particularly in WvW where you have a high chance of additional aggro (other enemy players or NPCs). Glass cannoning is for when you can exploit other tactical factors like:

- Having a keep at your back to hide in.
- Dodging around your group/team/zerg.

If you’re soloing and your target is not terrible, it is inevitable that you will take some damage, and you just have a high risk of random bad things happening to you. An extra chunk of Vitality helps tremendously for these events.

Guess ill aquire a second set of gear to see what a little vit/toughness does for me. This easymode from warhammer?

Yeah, Badlands. Wassup.

Also: unless you have a specific strategy for Toughness, Vit is generally more useful.

Toughness is good when:

- You want to counter direct damage, and
- You have some form of heal synergy / advanced healing, and
- You already counter condition damage “ok”

Edit:

That is to say you may wish to swap 1-2 item slots at a time from “Berserker” (POW/prec/critdmg) to “Valkyrie” (POW/critdmg/vit) until you find the balance you want.

Edit2: I think the PvE version of “Knight” was POW/prec/vit if I recall correctly. Also an option.

LOL

Its circuit/kushing! whats up man.

Most gear comes with vit/tough together though i thought..

Sup circuit! What server you on?

As far as gear, no. Some does some doesn’t, stats are all mixed. Gear with vit AND tough are pretty tanky sets. Gear does not cover all combinations of stats though (malice/vit/precision is notorious), and some combos are not easily acquirable in PvE exotics (rabid: malice/precision/toughness).

This is a useful gear guide that has some of the stat combo info: http://www.guildwars2junkies.com/2012/08/23/guide-weapon-and-armor-stats-explained/

2/3s of the way down is an explanation of the different stat combos.

sweet,ill check it out. Im on sorrows furnace,you? who you playing with?

I’m on Jade Quarry and mostly solo. Guilded with some ex-DAOC folks casually.

I think some of DDOW is on JQ (seen Bus and Atzu and a few others, but not recently — wonder if they xferred due to queues). scratches chin

As with my Guardian, I like a nice mix to balance out stats. I’m thinking of Knight’s (Power, Precision & ToughnesS) for Coat & Leggings, and then Carrion (Power, Vitality & Condition Damage) for the Mask, Shoulders, Gloves & Boots. Since you’re going Sword/Focus & Greatsword you’re leaving off most of the Condition Damage, so you might want to go Knight’s & Valkyrie (Power, Vitality & Crit Damage).

As for weapons, well, with Sword & Focus I might go again with Knight’s for one & Valkyrie for the other. Greatsword should be ranged so you could go Berserker’s or Rampager’s with that since you’ll be taking less damage.

Jewelry could be used to cover up any gaps. Again, with my set up I’m looking at Knight’s & Carrion, so I’m considering Undead Runes for extra Toughness for the close range and condition damage, but my backup is usually staff for conditions.

I have to admit I’d be shocked to see a 4k crit on spatial surge. My current gear is pretty bad (and actually not optimized for power at all), but I only crit up to like 650-700 with that exact build.

I tried the mantra build in the Mists running with pure glass cannon setup (berserker, scholar runes, but no sigil) and with charged mantras and 3 active illusions the maximum damage from Spatial Surge was 3441 which is 1147 per tick on the light training dummy.

Note: 3rd tick on the was doing exactly same damage as previous two.

So it should be possible to get 4k+ cumulative damage in WvW when we add into equation boons and conditions and undergeared target. No 4k single crits though.