Guild Wars 2

How do you guys think berserker gear will do on a reaper for WvW roaming? I know the great sword is insanely slow, but I am committed to making it work. I’ll probably run gs and d/w or staff.

For Roaming you’ll probably aim more for soldier or valkyrie, since you can get strong crit chance on Reaper in other ways. If anything you’ll just mix in a little crit chance from other sources, but I think it is more important to be alive to deal damage, and Reaper will be more of a bruiser spec than a glass cannon.

I think it will be fine
Take traveler runes + Spectral grasp
Staff+GS → OpieOP

The new WvW stuff may make me play it. I will definitely be only using berserker. I feel like glassy bruiser is the way to go. Especially if we engage with frost armour and putrid defence. As Bhawb said valkyrie is probably the safer bet in WvW.

For me theres no way im going to craft a different set just for WvW.

Damage wise its similar since the amount of power and ferocity is the same.

It’s just the difference between more reliable high damage and not taking decimate defences and taking chilling force or soul ester or decimate defences 9k HP and 7k life force.

Just a note reapers lf generationis huge and since its % based the more you have the easier it’s gained.

Tl;dr
More reliable damage and different traits vs decimate defences 9k HP and 7k life force.

I think berserker will work but i don’t think berserker and spite trait line should be mixed. Ofcourse there are probably a few who have already decided to do this but it shouldn’t come as a surprise when they suddenly get one shotted by Dragon hunter trueshot with +50% damage.

Ragion.2831:

I think berserker will work but i don’t think berserker and spite trait line should be mixed. Ofcourse there are probably a few who have already decided to do this but it shouldn’t come as a surprise when they suddenly get one shotted by Dragon hunter trueshot with +50% damage.

Why does the spite trait line have any relevance to that?

spoj.9672:

Ragion.2831:

I think berserker will work but i don’t think berserker and spite trait line should be mixed. Ofcourse there are probably a few who have already decided to do this but it shouldn’t come as a surprise when they suddenly get one shotted by Dragon hunter trueshot with +50% damage.

Why does the spite trait line have any relevance to that?

Sounds like he thinks you’ll die if you don’t trait defensively in zerker. You’ll still lack active defense and mobility in roaming though. Might as well kill as fast as you can before you get outnumbered.

Ragion.2831:

I think berserker will work but i don’t think berserker and spite trait line should be mixed. Ofcourse there are probably a few who have already decided to do this but it shouldn’t come as a surprise when they suddenly get one shotted by Dragon hunter trueshot with +50% damage.

Spite : stack vulnerability and has ways to increase your damage
Zerker : all about doing damage

how do they NOT mix?

Also you would need to be on fire, crippled, tethered with justice spear, max vulnerability, standing in a symbol, your enemy to have aegis an not be chilled or yourself in reaper shroud and have no investment in armour to be hit for a 14k crit. Also means they have to have zeal, vitures and dh specced. no meditation traits = less sustain → easier to finish off.

If you are in shroud, they are chilled and you have frost armour or protection then the damage drops drastically up to a max of 75% with standard power set up down to 3.5k. I dont see anyone being one shot by that skill at all..

You also have 3 specs so you can go defensive with the 3rd one. Spite, Reaper and then death/blood magic.

Depending on the traits there isn’t really any point to running zerker with reaper. You might as well run a valk/cav combo and be tanky enough to sustain in heavy damage situations.

Its super easy to reach 100% crit chance with reaper after all.

Knights set for me, why precision u ask ? Iam not gonna take Decimate defences so…

Zerker with Greatsword Dagger/Focus. Basically the current power necro except with a greatsword and burningesque chills.

D/w greatsword zerk. Chill the and cripple All over the place with a leap.

NeXeD.3042:

D/w greatsword zerk. Chill the and cripple All over the place with a leap.

Depending on if they do any changes to weapons you can replace horn with focus for boon removal, more chill and the spike combo combining dagger #3 , focus #4 and RS#5. rip.

Sigmoid.7082:

NeXeD.3042:

D/w greatsword zerk. Chill the and cripple All over the place with a leap.

Depending on if they do any changes to weapons you can replace horn with focus for boon removal, more chill and the spike combo combining dagger #3 , focus #4 and RS#5. rip.

I could. BUT then I’m losing my only real scaleable defense, and an unblockable interupt.

Unless they drastically reduce the cast times on focus it’s still poop for pvp as far as I’m concerned.

I would never ever allow anyone to pull that combo off on me.

I’d sooner go cavalier until about 2600 to 3000 armor and the rest in Valkyrie for the above stated reason of you getting crit chance off vuln and assuming you’re going soul reaper for 50% crit in shroud. Full cav armor and trinkets will only set you back about 250 power and you will get 2600ish armor and maintain the high crit dmg.

I’d also go Melandru or Hoelbrak depending on how you feel about damage vs toughness. This will give you tons of condi removal to help offset everyone running condi duration food.

Mess around with the character builder some and find what works for you. 2600 is the magic number though as that’s what character tooltips and the wiki are based on.

NeXeD.3042:

Sigmoid.7082:

NeXeD.3042:

D/w greatsword zerk. Chill the and cripple All over the place with a leap.

Depending on if they do any changes to weapons you can replace horn with focus for boon removal, more chill and the spike combo combining dagger #3 , focus #4 and RS#5. rip.

I could. BUT then I’m losing my only real scaleable defense, and an unblockable interupt.

Unless they drastically reduce the cast times on focus it’s still poop for pvp as far as I’m concerned.

I would never ever allow anyone to pull that combo off on me.

Got enough life force regen only thing missing would be the aoe daze.Sustain vs damage really. Though horn would put you way OTT on lifeforce generation/ healing combined with certain reaper traits coughblightersboonandchillingforcecough.

Its actually not that hard a combo to land, just got to time it right but it would finish pretty much anyone. Especially since reaper has the tools to do so much easier than base necro atm. Weakness and chill make for a great combo at stopping evasive maneuvers.

Atherakhia.4086:

I’d sooner go cavalier until about 2600 to 3000 armor and the rest in Valkyrie for the above stated reason of you getting crit chance off vuln and assuming you’re going soul reaper for 50% crit in shroud. Full cav armor and trinkets will only set you back about 250 power and you will get 2600ish armor and maintain the high crit dmg.

Because of skills we have for damage mitigation and it being a flat % vit is better than armour due to it scaling life force and that being generated as a . You can easily net 72 damage reduction is shroud. So the more of it you have the better. Valk would have higher effective hp than cavalier.

I’d rather have an pseudo invincibility considering I’m going to be full glass. No amount lifeforce is ever enough in ranked pvp as a necro.

I was unaware focus had weakness.

Try using focus in ranked. I bet you manage to pull of 4 maybe 3 or 4 times per match and I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t land a single focus 5.

NeXeD.3042:

I’d rather have an pseudo invincibility considering I’m going to be full glass. No amount lifeforce is ever enough in ranked pvp as a necro.

I was unaware focus had weakness.

Try using focus in ranked. I bet you manage to pull of 4 maybe 3 or 4 times per match and I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t land a single focus 5.

It doesnt just necro in general. Who isnt going to take the stun break shout.
Its not that hard to land. But i do see the merits of horn with more thought to it.

i like he give stability so now in pvp can stomp or revive its terrible when in 60-70% win fight lose beacause you cannot quick stomp like other class and must almost all downed people kill with AA

Sigmoid.7082:

NeXeD.3042:

I’d rather have an pseudo invincibility considering I’m going to be full glass. No amount lifeforce is ever enough in ranked pvp as a necro.

I was unaware focus had weakness.

Try using focus in ranked. I bet you manage to pull of 4 maybe 3 or 4 times per match and I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t land a single focus 5.

It doesnt just necro in general. Who isnt going to take the stun break shout.
Its not that hard to land. But i do see the merits of horn with more thought to it.

I probably not taking any of the shouts. I plaN on wells all day everyday.

NeXeD.3042:

Sigmoid.7082:

NeXeD.3042:

I’d rather have an pseudo invincibility considering I’m going to be full glass. No amount lifeforce is ever enough in ranked pvp as a necro.

I was unaware focus had weakness.

Try using focus in ranked. I bet you manage to pull of 4 maybe 3 or 4 times per match and I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t land a single focus 5.

It doesnt just necro in general. Who isnt going to take the stun break shout.
Its not that hard to land. But i do see the merits of horn with more thought to it.

I probably not taking any of the shouts. I plaN on wells all day everyday.

double well spectral armour / you’re all weaklings. or some mix depending on match up. 25s stun break that brants might and causes weakness is also extremely good. It also does damage so can proc onhit/crit effects.

Sigmoid.7082:

Atherakhia.4086:

I’d sooner go cavalier until about 2600 to 3000 armor and the rest in Valkyrie for the above stated reason of you getting crit chance off vuln and assuming you’re going soul reaper for 50% crit in shroud. Full cav armor and trinkets will only set you back about 250 power and you will get 2600ish armor and maintain the high crit dmg.

Because of skills we have for damage mitigation and it being a flat % vit is better than armour due to it scaling life force and that being generated as a . You can easily net 72 damage reduction is shroud. So the more of it you have the better. Valk would have higher effective hp than cavalier.

I could see a condi build easily stacking that, but power not so much. The only consistent one I see applying is the damage reduction on chill. I doubt people will go death as a power build so that alone knocks out 2 key traits. Even if you did go death, poison isn’t that common. And protection is very reliant on you running Spectral Armor which will be harder to do in a WvW setting now.

And lets not forget that this all relies on the stars to align. In duels and PvP this may be possible, but WvW this will never happen.

Sigmoid.7082:

NeXeD.3042:

Sigmoid.7082:

NeXeD.3042:

I’d rather have an pseudo invincibility considering I’m going to be full glass. No amount lifeforce is ever enough in ranked pvp as a necro.

I was unaware focus had weakness.

Try using focus in ranked. I bet you manage to pull of 4 maybe 3 or 4 times per match and I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t land a single focus 5.

It doesnt just necro in general. Who isnt going to take the stun break shout.
Its not that hard to land. But i do see the merits of horn with more thought to it.

I probably not taking any of the shouts. I plaN on wells all day everyday.

double well spectral armour / you’re all weaklings. or some mix depending on match up. 25s stun break that brants might and causes weakness is also extremely good. It also does damage so can proc onhit/crit effects.

I’m actually going to try and not go SA I have other ideas =)

Atherakhia.4086:

Sigmoid.7082:

Atherakhia.4086:

I’d sooner go cavalier until about 2600 to 3000 armor and the rest in Valkyrie for the above stated reason of you getting crit chance off vuln and assuming you’re going soul reaper for 50% crit in shroud. Full cav armor and trinkets will only set you back about 250 power and you will get 2600ish armor and maintain the high crit dmg.

Because of skills we have for damage mitigation and it being a flat % vit is better than armour due to it scaling life force and that being generated as a . You can easily net 72 damage reduction is shroud. So the more of it you have the better. Valk would have higher effective hp than cavalier.

I could see a condi build easily stacking that, but power not so much. The only consistent one I see applying is the damage reduction on chill. I doubt people will go death as a power build so that alone knocks out 2 key traits. Even if you did go death, poison isn’t that common. And protection is very reliant on you running Spectral Armor which will be harder to do in a WvW setting now.

And lets not forget that this all relies on the stars to align. In duels and PvP this may be possible, but WvW this will never happen.

You do realise that % damage mods are a compound not additive effect. This 72% you could possible get is in a power build, no need for death magic at all.

Using 1000 as arbitrary damage

• in shroud you will take -50% so 500 damage

SO

1. add in chilled you take 15% less so 500*0.85=425 -> ~58% damage reduction. These two are the most common.
2. Shrouded and with protection you would take 33% less damage so 500*0.67=335 -> ~67% damage reduction
3. protection and just chilled: 1000*0.85*0.67 = 570 -> 47% reduction
4. all together you: 1000*0.5*0.67*085=285 damage -> ~72%

This doesn’t even count putrid defence or frost armour which by the end only add another 3% each.

Not to mention as a power build you have spectral armour as a minor trait in soul reaping and its likely its going to be taken as a stun break as it is. In WvW protection is more available since other people will provide it to you all the time. This 72% is extremely attainable in both pvp and wvw. This alone and again lf generation thats is huge: shroud#1, warhorn#5, spectral armour , and chilling force. again lf is % based so the more you have the more you get % wise from a strike. An extra 9k hp and 7k life force would do more for you than having 2700 armour.

And DS’s vitality scaling is getting bumped up to 1.38 base.

Bhawb.7408:

And DS’s vitality scaling is getting bumped up to 1.38 base.

What? But that’s almost double the current scaling. Why? When was this announced?

I mean I’m not complaining since it means you’ll be able to have 33k HP + 45k DS for kittens and giggles if that’s the case. But I fail to see the reasoning behind it.

Bhawb.7408:

And DS’s vitality scaling is getting bumped up to 1.38 base.

Thought the base was up by 15% then traits is another 15%. Compound effect would happen but you would only get an extra few % compared to now

Aktium.9506:

What? But that’s almost double the current scaling. Why? When was this announced?

I mean I’m not complaining since it means you’ll be able to have 33k HP + 45k DS for kittens and giggles if that’s the case. But I fail to see the reasoning behind it.

Because the current scaling is basically a lie, you take half damage while in DS, meaning vitality is effectively double what it says. You would get technically 9% more vitality scaling according to the numbers, but 18% due to half damage taken.

Sigmoid.7082:

Thought the base was up by 15% then traits is another 15%. Compound effect would happen but you would only get an extra few % compared to now

9% by the numbers, 18% with how the LF actually works.

Bhawb.7408:

Aktium.9506:

What? But that’s almost double the current scaling. Why? When was this announced?

I mean I’m not complaining since it means you’ll be able to have 33k HP + 45k DS for kittens and giggles if that’s the case. But I fail to see the reasoning behind it.

Because the current scaling is basically a lie, you take half damage while in DS, meaning vitality is effectively double what it says. You would get technically 9% more vitality scaling according to the numbers, but 18% due to half damage taken.

Sigmoid.7082:

Thought the base was up by 15% then traits is another 15%. Compound effect would happen but you would only get an extra few % compared to now

9% by the numbers, 18% with how the LF actually works.

i still cant see it. can you explain it using 100 base lf as an example??
the way im seeing it lf is 60% of your hp and that gets increased by 15% base to 69% of your hp pool. 15% more from soul reaping #3 minor takes it to 79.4% of your hp converted in to your lf pool

Let’s go with this. You have 167 HP giving you 100 LF, a 60% HP→LF conversion just like live. Now, with the base Soul Reaping changes, you now have 15% increased LF, for 115 LF, which means 167 HP gives you 115 LF, 115/167 = 69% of your HP is your LF pool. However, while you see 115 while in DS, whenever you get hit by direct damage you’ll take half the damage you “should”, so a hit for 100 will only take 50 LF away, making your effective LF against direct damage 230 since you’d have to take a hit of 230 to fully deplete your LF pool, which doubles your actual HP→LF scaling to 138%.

Bhawb.7408:

Let’s go with this. You have 167 HP giving you 100 LF, a 60% HP->LF conversion just like live. Now, with the base Soul Reaping changes, you now have 15% increased LF, for 115 LF, which means 167 HP gives you 115 LF, 115/167 = 69% of your HP is your LF pool. However, while you see 115 while in DS, whenever you get hit by direct damage you’ll take half the damage you “should”, so a hit for 100 will only take 50 LF away, making your effective LF against direct damage 230 since you’d have to take a hit of 230 to fully deplete your LF pool, which doubles your actual HP->LF scaling to 138%.

Just did my own math and got the same thing just had no idea where you were getting the number from. its also ~160% with soul reaping.
By my math having 900vit from gear would mean you would effectively have ~70khp. About 27k hp and effectively 44k LF

Bhawb.7408:

Because the current scaling is basically a lie, you take half damage while in DS, meaning vitality is effectively double what it says. You would get technically 9% more vitality scaling according to the numbers, but 18% due to half damage taken.

Oh you counted the damage reduction as a multiplier. That’s stupid. Everyone already knows about that and it should be counted as a separate effect when you crunch numbers. I literally thought you meant we was getting bumped from 0.78 to 1.38 on top of damage reduction.

Aktium.9506:

Bhawb.7408:

Because the current scaling is basically a lie, you take half damage while in DS, meaning vitality is effectively double what it says. You would get technically 9% more vitality scaling according to the numbers, but 18% due to half damage taken.

Oh you counted the damage reduction as a multiplier. That’s stupid. Everyone already knows about that and it should be counted as a separate effect when you crunch numbers. I literally thought you meant we was getting bumped from 0.78 to 1.38 on top of damage reduction.

But maths with and in terms of effective hp it produces the correct number. Also the reason its 60% hp with -50% damage and not 120% hp like we originally thought before a number was attached to it is due to how lf is regenerated and being % based and how damage interacts with lf over flow.

-Angchu ascended armor (Cavalier: Toughness/Power/Ferocity) with Superior Runes of the Air (75 Ferocity and Increased Swiftness duration) and Superior Sigil of Cruelty (250 Ferocity).
-Trinkets: Cavalier (Toughness/Power/Ferocity).
-Infusions: Resilient WvW Infusions (5 Toughness & -1% Damage Taken from Guards, Lords, and Supervisors).
Mighty WvW Infusions (5 Power & -1% Damage from blah blah).
-Food: Plate of Roasted Cactus (100 Ferocity & 33% Chance to cause might on critical with a 1 second internal cooldown).
-Nourishment: Furious Sharpening Stone (100 Toughness & Gain Ferocity Equal to 10% of Your Toughness).
Backpiece: --—— (LOL, I honestly wear a rare backpiece that I bought off the Trading Post as a “quick fix”.
Weapon: —-—- (Currently using a random exotic)

So far, I have everything except for the Food/Nourishment and the Superior Sigil of Cruelty since I have hit “Account Bound” issues when it comes to these items, meaning I have to craft them instead of buy them. I have zero plans in regards to the backpiece I intend to wear; I hate doing Fractal dungeons. I have yet to work on a weapon.

I mean, I enjoy playing like this as it is, I really don’t seem to mind any handicaps that I come across. I will probably go into WvW with Greatsword and Staff. I prefer to Roam by myself or with another guild mate. I don’t like doing that big Zerg pirate kitten crap.