Guild Wars 2

I want to take advantage of “Decimate Defense” and “Death Perception” (as well as fury from outside sources) which means I won’t need much precision on my gear. I’m thinking full Valkyrie might be able to provide me with a lot of tankyness while doing similar damage to full zerker gear.

Thoughts? Worth getting a Cavalier/Soldier piece or two? Anyone tried full Valkyrie on reaper?

I have been using Valkyrei armor plus berserker everything else. Seems to be ok. You need to remember that it heavily nerfs your damage outside shroud though.

I have soldiers/Knights/Valk right now and it’s doing pretty well…

although I also have 92% crit rate while in shroud without fury.
which is 42% outside of shroud without fury…so 62% with fury….

and that’s without any food or outside things effecting me.

I do like the idea of more valk to mix in with the soldiers/knights, I think it can work really well….could push the HP up to like 28k which is godly with all the sustain and bruisery fighting tactics.

I’ve been using full Valkyrie armor & trinkets alongside berserker weapons & Eagle runes to get enough base precision that Decimate Defenses alone gives you a usable crit chance outside of shroud. So far it’s been great.

If you’re filling in the DPS role, you’d need at least 30% critical chance while outside of Shroud (assuming there is no Spotter Ranger in the party). That would give you 100% critical chance with Fury while outside of Shroud.

Valkyrie Weapon(s), Valkyrie Armors, [Berserker+Valkyrie] Ascended Trinkets should be fine. That + Master Maintenance Oil should give you about 27% critical hit chance.

Thanks for the responses guys. I decided I’m going to use All Valkryrie + 3-4 zerker trinkets.

I really, really wish there was a Power toughness ferocity stat set, if there were I’d go half that and half valk with a zerk piece or two. (Cavaliers but with with power instead of toughness as main stat)

Cam Ron.4170:

I want to take advantage of “Decimate Defense” and “Death Perception” (as well as fury from outside sources) which means I won’t need much precision on my gear. I’m thinking full Valkyrie might be able to provide me with a lot of tankyness while doing similar damage to full zerker gear.

Thoughts? Worth getting a Cavalier/Soldier piece or two? Anyone tried full Valkyrie on reaper?

I’ve played Valkyrie for a while…what I find seems to work best is using berserker trinkets (since I couldn’t find ascended valkyrie ones) with a couple crit chance booster (sigil of accuracy, precision food/maintenance, etc.) you can get close enough to 100% crit with just decimate defenses that you can swap deathly perception to dhuumfire, which raises your damage quite a bit when using shroud 1.

As it currently stands Berserker’s/Sinister’s gear can put out more more damage (Sinister’s especially with Dhuumfire and a lot of shroud usage) but you do gain a lot of survivability without losing too much damage comparing outside of shroud. In the end, if comes down too preference and your survival ability. If you feel you want to worry/die less than zerker but don’t want to go soldier, valkyrie is a very good middle-ground

you have no idea how much I wish there was power+toughness+Ferocity.

I want it so bad

I want it like I want bacon,
or ice cream
or love.

Cam Ron.4170:

Thanks for the responses guys. I decided I’m going to use All Valkryrie + 3-4 zerker trinkets.

I really, really wish there was a Power toughness ferocity stat set, if there were I’d go half that and half valk with a zerk piece or two. (Cavaliers but with with power instead of toughness as main stat)

Power, Toughness, and Ferocity probably wouldn’t work. Most boss/mob will target you if you have too much Toughness. Your goal is to stay in Shroud for as long as possible, so no Toughness.

Halcyon.5340:

Cam Ron.4170:

Thanks for the responses guys. I decided I’m going to use All Valkryrie + 3-4 zerker trinkets.

I really, really wish there was a Power toughness ferocity stat set, if there were I’d go half that and half valk with a zerk piece or two. (Cavaliers but with with power instead of toughness as main stat)

Power, Toughness, and Ferocity probably wouldn’t work. Most boss/mob will target you if you have too much Toughness. Your goal is to stay in Shroud for as long as possible, so no Toughness.

Interesting, I didn’t know toughness helps determine aggro…. But I was thinking for WvW pruposes, it would allow us greater EHP and more efficient healing to mix it with Valkyrie with our high Base HP

I don’t think Toughness actually effects aggro, not enough. it has no proof.

the enemies always seem to go for the zerker characters first whenever I’m in a group, even when I’m in melee.

I’m in Valkyrie armor + Berserker Weapons + Half Zerk Half Marauder trinkets

Power nearly 2600 (around 2588?)
Base Crit of 40% (RAW)
Crit Damage of arooouund 220%

Pretty kitten good if you ask me, I’d wear these over full zerk any day.

Cam Ron.4170:

Interesting, I didn’t know toughness helps determine aggro…. But I was thinking for WvW pruposes, it would allow us greater EHP and more efficient healing to mix it with Valkyrie with our high Base HP

As a Reaper with little access to blocks and evades, you would often find yourself face tanking a lot of the incoming damage. I think Reaper is best if you build like a bruiser, so I don’t recommend going glass if your aim is WvW. You’re better off with Sentinel armors + Soldier Trinkets.

vanderwolf.7084:

I don’t think Toughness actually effects aggro, not enough. it has no proof.

the enemies always seem to go for the zerker characters first whenever I’m in a group, even when I’m in melee.

The thing is – we do know what determines aggro on certain bosses. They will usually aggro based on one of the following:

1. Highest Toughness (NOT armor)
2. Lowest Health pool
3. Greatest number of hits

The first boss in the first Raid wing went for the character with the highest Toughness. If there is no “tank” in the group, the boss will go for whoever has the highest toughness.

Some bosses/mobs in dungeons go for the character with the lowest health pool (e.g. they usually aggro on Berserker Elementalists).

vanderwolf.7084:

you have no idea how much I wish there was power+toughness+Ferocity.

I want it so bad

I want it like I want bacon,
or ice cream
or love.

Crusader is the closest thing. I’m rocking a full set of it right now. It’s pretty nice.

I have been getting along with straight berserker everything but ran Soldier-Hoelbrak with Berserker trinkets last night. It seemed fine, too.

I think you can run anything you want but watch for tricky hard CC and self-destructs in HoT. When taking on multiple mobs with these skills, spending as much time as possible in DS helps a lot. Scholar runes were not that useful.

I build for Shroud, condition removal, and defense that does not reduce dps too much; E.g., minions or Spectral. Shouts are much safer to use when with a group than they are solo because Necro is so susceptible to hard CC.

And what about a full pvt reaper with trooper runes, bb, spite/soul reaping/reaper? Quite less damage but nice group support, noce damage and awesome tankiness.
Or maybe a full cavalier choice, for max bb incoming healing.

I personally would never go full valk cuz its such a huge dps loss, but meh whatever works.

I was going to run valk but decided on zerker anyway. The problem with valk is you are stuck with death perception and decimate defenses. If you don’t go the valk route you can take dhuumfire which ends up being like a 2.3k burn tick on top of your other power damage. It’s pretty insane.

Zalavaaris.5329:

I was going to run valk but decided on zerker anyway. The problem with valk is you are stuck with death perception and decimate defenses. If you don’t go the valk route you can take dhuumfire which ends up being like a 2.3k burn tick on top of your other power damage. It’s pretty insane.

True you get stuck with those traits but in return you get to free up a ton of stats for something other than precision. I don’t know how much precision it takes to get 50% crit but its a lot. With zerk trinkets and valk armor + weapons I have almost 30% cirt and ~28k HP and 220% crit damage. Full zerk you’d have more crit out of shroud, less crit in shroud, and free up the GM trait slot. Basically it comes down to whether you value the HP from Valkyrie or the traits. The vit scales with Shroud too (though its nto as dramatic as on your normal health bar)

Zalavaaris.5329:

I was going to run valk but decided on zerker anyway. The problem with valk is you are stuck with death perception and decimate defenses. If you don’t go the valk route you can take dhuumfire which ends up being like a 2.3k burn tick on top of your other power damage. It’s pretty insane.

I mixed them up and still get solid 90% crit, which still allows me to get dhummfire.. The 10% almost never happens anyway.

But for general purposed where I am alone, I take the stability shroud trait anyway, since it’s a stunbreak.

Cam Ron.4170:

True you get stuck with those traits but in return you get to free up a ton of stats for something other than precision. I don’t know how much precision it takes to get 50% crit but its a lot. With zerk trinkets and valk armor + weapons I have almost 30% cirt and ~28k HP and 220% crit damage. Full zerk you’d have more crit out of shroud, less crit in shroud, and free up the GM trait slot. Basically it comes down to whether you value the HP from Valkyrie or the traits. The vit scales with Shroud too (though its nto as dramatic as on your normal health bar)

It’s possible to get 40% base with that mix!

Stand The Wall.6987:

I personally would never go full valk cuz its such a huge dps loss, but meh whatever works.

Where does the huge dps loss come from? You don’t give up any crit or ferocity for it, the only thing is that is forces you to take Decimate Defenses, but the other two traits in that tier aren’t even that good.

I got full Valk armour, all the rest is zerk (so weapons and trinkets and such) with Scholar Runes and I must say this is the perfect balance for me atm. Speaking from PvE-perspective.

I played full Zerker in HoT till halfway Auric Basin and then I made the switch and I see more better and pleasurable results.

You lose damage but gain survivability… it’s up to you if you want to make that trade but it seems grossly unnecessary.

Drekor.5217:

You lose damage but gain survivability… it’s up to you if you want to make that trade but it seems grossly unnecessary.

If you have a mix you don’t really loose any damage but you gain a whole bunch of HP and shroud. Very useful. In a party you still end up at 100% ctit chance various ways and because of the extra vit utility food scales better for you so you end up doing more damage overall.

Drekor.5217:

You lose damage but gain survivability… it’s up to you if you want to make that trade but it seems grossly unnecessary.

Same Power, still 100% crit chance, same or higher ferocity, where’s the damage loss?

Zerker + Valk is better than full valk imo. Full zerker you are way too thin hp wise, and you have too much crit %, some go to waste. Full Valk I feel the crit % is too low and you would need to rely on Decimate Defense. Mixing Zerker + Valk, you can have best of both worlds. Same amount of power & ferocity as going either/or, while you have plenty of crit % to be critting pretty much all the time.

I run this in both PvE & WvW ZvZ, lots of big numbers, and always get a chuckle when I get a 20k gravedigger crit. Added valk pads the hp & lifeforce. Note that you’re very much paper going this route so know your place

Okay, so. I keep seeing people talking about how the shroud based reaper is subpar outside of shroud. And if you want to take decimate defences you have to give up the best way the reaper has to maintain shroud with Chilling victory(not to mention a really good source of might). But in all this I’ve not seen anyone consider the possibility of abusing Unholy sanctuary in the death magic line. The reaper’s biggest weakness is the shroud cooldown, but Unholy negates that and gives a bit of regen inside of shroud. This means that a reaper can have a steady cycle of RS>Your Souls are mine(+any other instant shout)>"die">RS. You only need to be in RS long enough to get YSAM off cooldown(which is pretty easy if you’ve got the toughness). So, if you go full bore on this ferocity with minimal precision(i’ve aimed for 30% and fallen just a hair short) you can get something a bit Hybrid, but theoretically the same damage.

Heres my shot at it: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNBIhF6kZTo4GscTwdTgeTssOUS579Wpxvf+//UBwBkmA-TVCBABVcEAw4QAY+JAQLlfopE8T1fA4BAQz+D5pPgUAsLMC-w

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQJARWnMbCtbil2AW2As3glfBL+IGFviQJtAwHgKL8FCWA

Here’s the build I’m recently rocking, and it works fairly well. Previously I was running Death Magic in place of Spite, which was very durable. I was looking for ways to up the damage a bit and this seems to be working, without turning me into a paper bag. Bear in mind, I recently came back to the game, but with all the HOT changes, I feel like ever since I changed my build, and strayed away from Zerker Gear, I spend less time on the floor and more in the action.

I’m running all Cav armor currently, a friend of mine runs half Valk/Cav and said that works fairly well also. I’m trying to work on a set of Ossa’s currently.

I have a few pieces that need some changing around, my GS has Valk stats, along with most of my accessories. I’m currently running Grenth runes, as I wasn’t sure what else I could possibly use, though now I have access to the reaper rune set, which I’ll probably throw in when I complete Ossa’s armor set. I enjoy being sturdy, while putting out reasonable damage as well, getting stacks of Might and Vulnerability up quickly.