Guild Wars 2

I like the survival of Valkyries, but it seems like the damage drop off is immense when outside of shroud? What’s nice about Berserker’s is once your mobs are half health you can drop out of shroud and gravedigger for 13-15k without outside help. While Valkyries really does help maintain shroud and keep you alive longer; the chance to miss a crit with gravedigger just seems too steep.

What do you guys think? I just started playing again so I just don’t have the knowledge to back up claims more than this and would like more collective help!

I’d like to hear some higher level thought on this too. I run Valk currently because of Death Perception, but now the crit matters outside of DS. And with the way RS is being eaten up so fast, i feel like I need the extra vit.

I didn’t notice a lot of difference between zerk and valk damage wise but with the extra vit it let me stay in RS longer. Even with valk though my grave diggers were hitting for 15k with the occasional 11k thrown in. In zerk gear my numbers outside of shroud were too similar to give up the extra vit. The zerker gear saw some serious diminishing returns for what you’re giving up.

During my Valkyrie testing I was running with Decimate Defenses which gives you a 50% crit rate at the full 25 stacks of vuln. If you take the Unyielding Blast trait from SR, then often when you drop out of shroud and use GS3 your target will have the 25 stacks of vuln on it to have a 50/50 shot at critting it. Seems like it’s been working ok and in group content you can pretty much always bet on there being 25 stacks of vulnerablity on a given target.

I’m planning on Valk armor/weapons with Berserker’s trinkets, both because there are no ascended Valkyrie trinkets, and because putting zerk there lets me get enough crit that I can skip Death Perception in favor of Dhuumfire, while not giving up all my tankiness.

Well its not that simple.
Berserk gear will reliably increase your DPS outside of shroud hands down. When using Berserker gear you also dont have to rely on Decimate defenses, giving you the chance to trait Chilling Victory which equals more sustain trough more lifeforce, and a great synergy with Blighters Boon.

Valk or Cavaliers gear will increase your base surviveability, but almost forces you into taking Decimate Defenses for a good crit chance outside of DS. While you can maintain that vuln stacks you wont notice much of a different, but its highly unlikely that you can maintain these stacks reliable outside of PVE. In DS its a lot easier, but then again you can get flat 50% crit chance in DS.

You have to build specifically to stack vulnerability in order for the valk set to be near equivalent damage to zerker. Otherwise there isn’t much difference.

I’d definitely go with spite (bitter chill, rending shroud, other trait), soul reaping (unyielding blast, deathly perception, other trait), reaper (decimate defenses) if you plan to run valk. That setup should give enough vulnerability to sustain decimate defenses high enough outside of shroud.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

You have to build specifically to stack vulnerability in order for the valk set to be near equivalent damage to zerker. Otherwise there isn’t much difference.

I’d definitely go with spite (bitter chill, rending shroud, other trait), soul reaping (unyielding blast, deathly perception, other trait), reaper (decimate defenses) if you plan to run valk. That setup should give enough vulnerability to sustain decimate defenses high enough outside of shroud.

That’s also the best build with Berserker stats, too, though.

If you already have ~50% crit just from gear, sigils and runes you are not pigeonholed into taking both decimate defenses and death perception. Thus you end up having have more trait flexibility by gearing for more precision.

From a PVE perspective, I’m running Valk armor+weapon, and Zerker trinkets.

Spite, Soul Reaping, Reaper. Greatsword+Staff (only using the staff when I absolutely cannot melee)

Decimate Defenses coupled with Reaper’s insane ability to solo-stack vulnerability gives 50% crit chance, the Zerker trinkets give me another ~22%, and then if a party member happens to toss Fury my way, I’m operating at over 90% crit chance in or out of shroud. This lets me take Dhuumfire, which actually does decent damage even on a zero-condition-damage build just from might stacks and the rapid application from RS1.

If I were to swap out, say, the chest Valk piece for a ’Zerker chest (and possibly made the jump from Exotics to Ascended) that would probably sit me at or near an even 100% crit rate once vuln was fully stacked on the target.

I’m just sad that there are no Valk ascended trinkets…

My experiance was similar considering pve atleast, you either take more defensive gear and slot offensive traits of more offensive gear and slot support traits.
Personally with cavalier/valkyrie i tend to poke arund stuff to get lifeforce and then swap to shroud for dmg while i had no that sort of issue with zerk so i guess it depends on your playstyle?

Dhuumfire actually isnt bad now since it triggers on every hit of shroud AA and not just final.

Only problem that i have is, i wont say synergy of Reaper and SR but rather junkie dependency on it.

For me, I was running both. I have both so it depends. Berserker is going to be higher damage. Hands down, we knew this going in. However! The high survivability and high damage from Valkyrie can easily make it out preform Berserker in allot of situations. While running Valkyrie I took Spite, Soul reaping and Reaper. Decimated Defenses and Death perception are required. I took blighter’s boon. You can easily fill your life force without any issue with that, reducing your total time out of reaper’s shroud.

I sat down in the mists and tested this because I too was curious. I tested switching between Death Perception and Dhuumfire. Only Reaper Shroud’s auto-attack was used on the invulnerable golems in the mist. Before timing, I achieved 25 stacks of both Might and Vulnerability. The following stat combinations were tested with approximate times (to half-seconds):

• Name: Dhuumfire (Death Perception if applicable)
• Berserker: 13 seconds
• Carrion: 17 seconds
• Celestial: 16 seconds (23 seconds)
• Rampager: 15.5 seconds
• Soldier: 18.5 seconds (22.5 seconds)
• Valkyrie: 16 seconds (17 seconds)

For the stat combinations I did not use Death Perception for, it would have been redundant. Either the critical hit chance would far exceed 100% or the amulet was tested for Condition Damage. I was using was Spite 3/2/2, Soul Reaping 1/2/X, and Reaper 2/3/3 with Runes of Strength, Sigil of Force, and full Bloodlust (as a handicap for the Condition Damage from Might). Since the Soul Reaping grandmasters are the traits in question here, Soul Reaping (and Reaper, of course) are mandatory. Spite is your primary method of stacking might which makes Burning’s damage worth it without Condition Damage gear, so I don’t see anyone dropping this out another specialization.

Ultimately, Berserker with Dhuumfire is unrivaled damage. You’ll have almost a full 100% critical hit chance and applying between 4 – 5 stacks of Burning. If you need the extra survivability, Valkyrie is a good choice as you’ll have almost 50% more health and Life Force, but you’ll deal approximately 19% less damage. As a bonus, I then tested Runes of the Flame Legion with Berserker and saved 0.5 seconds. This bonus, however, will mean less while not in Reaper Shroud.

TL;DR Dhuumfire is better than Death Perception as long as you have Decimate Defenses. As such, Berserker deals more damage than Valkyrie. The trade-off is health and Life Force which will affect the upkeep of your Reaper Shroud and overall DPS in longer fights. I will be running Valkyrie with Dhuumfire as losing Reaper Shroud lowers the abiltiy to stack Might, Vulnerability, and Burning (heavily affecting your damage).

They need to add Power Ferocity Condi Dmg gear :P that’s what I need

Something that worked really well for me was to use Valkyrie on Chest and Legs and use Berserker-Gear everywhere else. With the Reaper-Traits and a little bit of soul-reaping, one can easily stack vulnerabilty on enemies, which in turn gives crit-chance without the need of Dexterity. Sure, more dex = even more crit-chance, but I like to have a pool of roughly 40k Health if I combine Shroud and regular HP. Makes me feel even more like a monster. Kind of ustoppable, wading through hordes of enemies without stopping or dropping

In any group any mob has 25 stacks of vuln and heralds stack minutes of fury, so you end up having 70% crit rate even with 0 precision in a group. In reaper shroud way over 100%. Precision is useless on reaper.

Any calc and test on golems is done only with reaper’a vulnerability, so it doesn’t matter. In a group everyone stacks vuln

ronpierce.2760:

They need to add Power Ferocity Condi Dmg gear :P that’s what I need

So much THIS!!!!! I want that so badly. What I decided to try today was Dire armor and Carrion everything else. I used Scholar runes. I’m still playing with sigils. I thought I’d give the Axe/Focus combo a try. I usually do D/WH or D/D, and staff, but I switched out the staff for the GS. The GS seems better this time around, but I’m still not thrilled with the timing. I can be really fast with a staff, even though it might not do as much damage per hit..it hits more often, plus marks.

I’ve got SR: 1/2/3 (because FIRE) but would I be better off with Death Perception?
Spite is: 3/3/3
Reaper is: 2/3/2

I do mainly PvE

The question’s answer varies on whether you are worried about solo or group performance. For solo you’ll still likely want berserker. For a group I can see valkyrie with some zerk/assassins accessories being good.

Personally I’m staying zerker because I share my ascended set with my mesmer, and the mesmer doesn’t have the luxury of decimate defenses.

Zerk is still the best. Even If you take Valk with decimate defenses you’ll fall short with crit, now you can take food/sigil to make up for it but you’ll end up losing out in damage in the end when you go to execute phase with gravedigger.

This is not meant to be offensive but living in this game is a learn to play issue. If you are taking hits too often It’s mainly because you are standing in something or face tanking. Even against the new mobs in VB I had little issue staying alive with the Reaper. Thus there is little reason to use Valk.

Of course this is all from a filthy elitist standpoint!

Kitty La Boom Boom.4065:

ronpierce.2760:

They need to add Power Ferocity Condi Dmg gear :P that’s what I need

So much THIS!!!!! I want that so badly. What I decided to try today was Dire armor and Carrion everything else. I used Scholar runes. I’m still playing with sigils. I thought I’d give the Axe/Focus combo a try. I usually do D/WH or D/D, and staff, but I switched out the staff for the GS. The GS seems better this time around, but I’m still not thrilled with the timing. I can be really fast with a staff, even though it might not do as much damage per hit..it hits more often, plus marks.

I’ve got SR: 1/2/3 (because FIRE) but would I be better off with Death Perception?
Spite is: 3/3/3
Reaper is: 2/3/2

I do mainly PvE

I tested both Dhuumfire and DP. DP is pointless in my opinion, while in RS you can sustain 25 vuln easy thus doing what DP does already. Dhuumfire on the other hand, you can reach up to 7 burst stacks (About 5 or 6 sustain) without Time Warp or Feel My Wrath which came up to 1000 damage+ per tick without condition damage.

So yeah, Dhuumfire seems the best choice. The only reason this works at all though is because burning is so powerful. I plan to fool around with going into condition damage a bit and trying a hybrid for kicks, I seriously doubt it will be that great but I enjoy testing.

Personally, Zerkers suit me just fine as a Reaper because he would have his own natural survivability with the Reaper Shroud alone.

why not go valk armor and weapons and rest zerk? wouldn’t that give you the balance between more reaper shroud and dmg

I run a mix of zerk + valk yeah, seems to be best of both worlds. I slot enough valk to reach roughly 20k lifeforce, as extra lifeforce is needed when running Reaper. And I still have over 30% crit. You don’t need to be using either/or, mixing both and achieving a comfortable stats set is likely your best bet.