Guild Wars 2

Hey!

I’m running full berserker gear on my power necro. I’m focused on Axe/focus with alot of DS time.
I feel like I need to get an alternate defensive set for the higher fractals or simply for fights where it’s really hard not to take dmg. I was thinking Valkyrie or Cavalier but I don’t know which one to choose. I’m thinking those 2 cause they give critical dmg which my build is sort of focused on. With the 50% more crit chance in DS trait I feel it’s still viable even without the precision, I will also still use my ascended berserker trinkets.

So can anyone help me to decide on the defensive set, with an explanation as to why a well

I agree with you on going for Valkyrie or Cavalier, depending on if you’d prefer vitality or toughness.

While I like having a lot of health, effective health is what is – you guessed it – effective. I would go for Cavalier since it’s fairly easy to heal and maintain the health bar on a necro. The toughness will also work in DS (or so I’ve assumed & heard) so I think the choice isn’t really hard.

Edit: Since you can’t buy Cavalier armor, a few pieces of Soldier could be worth looking into since you can buy them with karma = free armor. The only problem is that you lose crit but maybe you can get some Soldier for a lot of survivability and keep some Berserker to keep crit.

Or maybe Cavalier trinkets with Valkyrie armor?

You want to keep power as your primary stat so go with valkyrie. In the high level fractals survivability wont help at all as you will still be 1shot. But you can still achieve better dps with a deathly perception DS build with valkyrie and sharpening stones so its not a bad choice.

spoj.9672:

You want to keep power as your primary stat so go with valkyrie. In the high level fractals survivability wont help at all as you will still be 1shot. But you can still achieve better dps with a deathly perception DS build with valkyrie and sharpening stones so its not a bad choice.

Sure, you want power as the primary stat but won’t going vitality without toughness give you a big health pool which will drop fast? You can take 1 round of bursts but you can’t maintain a high health for as long as you would with toughness. If you go for toughness, your heal will be worth more.

What are your thoughts on that?

Thanks for the replies!

I was thinking the same spoj, valkyrie has power as primary while cavalier has toughness. I was also thinking that with too much toughness you get more aggro as this is how it’s supposedly works. Was also thinking as Bajenalex that with only vit you drop fast anyway that’s why I have a hard time choosing.

I’ve seen people mention that vitality boosts your DS as well somehow but I have a hard time seeing this. Is it true?

Bajenalex.3405:

spoj.9672:

You want to keep power as your primary stat so go with valkyrie. In the high level fractals survivability wont help at all as you will still be 1shot. But you can still achieve better dps with a deathly perception DS build with valkyrie and sharpening stones so its not a bad choice.

Sure, you want power as the primary stat but won’t going vitality without toughness give you a big health pool which will drop fast? You can take 1 round of bursts but you can’t maintain a high health for as long as you would with toughness. If you go for toughness, your heal will be worth more.

What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah toughness is better than vit due to heal scaling and damage mitigation. But the valk gear allows you to survive a bit more burst even if you cant heal it back up efficiently. In high fractals survivability isnt worth it as ive said already. The best form of survivability is to kill things as fast as possible. If you go Valkyrie with some Soldier trinkets then that should be enough. Although Id personally never go into that much survivability.

Hope that helps. :>

Xhean.3452:

Thanks for the replies!

I was thinking the same spoj, valkyrie has power as primary while cavalier has toughness. I was also thinking that with too much toughness you get more aggro as this is how it’s supposedly works. Was also thinking as Bajenalex that with only vit you drop fast anyway that’s why I have a hard time choosing.

I’ve seen people mention that vitality boosts your DS as well somehow but I have a hard time seeing this. Is it true?

Vitality boosts your lifeforce pool. Which is why so many necro’s think they should stack vitality. The thing is you still lose effective healing. But toughness also scales in DS (reduces damage in both DS and base hp). So toughness will always be better unless you need to absorb large amounts of burst and arent worried about efficient healing.

spoj.9672:

Bajenalex.3405:

spoj.9672:

You want to keep power as your primary stat so go with valkyrie. In the high level fractals survivability wont help at all as you will still be 1shot. But you can still achieve better dps with a deathly perception DS build with valkyrie and sharpening stones so its not a bad choice.

Sure, you want power as the primary stat but won’t going vitality without toughness give you a big health pool which will drop fast? You can take 1 round of bursts but you can’t maintain a high health for as long as you would with toughness. If you go for toughness, your heal will be worth more.

What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah toughness is better than vit due to heal scaling and damage mitigation. But the valk gear allows you to survive a bit more burst even if you cant heal it back up efficiently. In high fractals survivability isnt worth it as ive said already. The best form of survivability is to kill things as fast as possible. If you go Valkyrie with some Soldier trinkets then that should be enough. Although Id personally never go into that much survivability.

Hope that helps. :>

Yeah ofc, what we want is gear with Power as main and then Toughness + Crit dmg but the gods of Tyria haven’t been that nice to us. I think my powermancer will go for Berserker armor and Cavalier trinkets since we do a lot of damage outside DS and crit is needed there too. The toughness from the trinkets will have to be enough survivability.

okey, this helps alot. I’m not to worried about the healing, I got ways to get back up the thing is I don’t want to be oneshotted as soon as I miss a dodge, the mossman always tend to target me and if he hits me with his attack I go down . Looks like I’ll be getting Valkyrie gear and stick with my zerk trinkets as I don’t want to miss out on too much damage. I do survive pretty well as a berserker so I think this will be enough.
Glad to get confirmed that vit boosts LF

might stick 1 piece of cavalier somewhere just for the heck of it :P

Xhean.3452:

might stick 1 piece of cavalier somewhere just for the heck of it :P

Yeah just remember that you lose a lot of precision in valkyrie gear and adding cavalier trinkets will lower your crit chance further. Even in DS it’s nice to have guaranteed crits and without Fury it becomes hard without precision gear.

It’s all about your preference of course. ^^

Bajenalex.3405:

Yeah just remember that you lose a lot of precision in valkyrie gear and adding cavalier trinkets will lower your crit chance further. Even in DS it’s nice to have guaranteed crits and without Fury it becomes hard without precision gear.

It’s all about your preference of course. ^^

The trinkets will not be touched, still zerker, it’s true can’t loose too much crit chance. The food will have to give precision as well to make up for it.

Xhean.3452:

Bajenalex.3405:

Yeah just remember that you lose a lot of precision in valkyrie gear and adding cavalier trinkets will lower your crit chance further. Even in DS it’s nice to have guaranteed crits and without Fury it becomes hard without precision gear.

It’s all about your preference of course. ^^

The trinkets will not be touched, still zerker, it’s true can’t loose too much crit chance. The food will have to give precision as well to make up for it.

Yeah, Butternut Squash Soup is awesome. The problem is that there is no Cavalier armor except from loot in fractals. You can buy weapons on the TP if you wish though but Valkyries + Berserker will serve you well if you choose the HP path.

Valk armor + Superior Rune of the Eagle + Zerk trinkets = 50% crit rate without using food. Being tied to one food to make a build work seems like a recipe for failure. You should be able to change your food to suit the need at hand (power, regen, condition mitigation, vitality, crit damage, whatever).

okey, gonna check out the runes. thanks for the tip Berner