Guild Wars 2

I’m loving this thing. Been playing a crit heavy power build with assassin amulet and on maps where there is little space on points my daggers are wrecking face!

So something positive in this patch after all

why assassin? I’m pretty sure zerker and assassin are very close dps wise while the zerker amulet gives extr vitality.

Mainly because I’m experimenting with life siphons and various on crit sigils. Also since I’m melee range I cannot rely on getting a constant stream of DPS on my target, So I find it somehow better to crit more reliably when I get in range.

Life siphon ain’t worth it.

I assume its PvP, in which assassin is a significant DPS boost. Its something like 14% crit chance added, plus some extra ferocity. So you crit more often for bigger crits.

I have been experimenting with dagger/war horn positioning effects. Both weapons are traited for reduced CD. At the same time, I am experimenting with Path of Midnight and Near to Death to re-evaluate using DS as frequently as possible. I am trying to avoid staff for crowd control. Any thoughts in this?

I keep hearing that assassin is more DPS, but doesn’t it have less overall stats? Zerker has that nice extra vitality.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Item_Nomenclature

It all depends upon actual critical hit rate. Once you hit most of the maximum, more precision is a wasted stat.

PS: normal attacks do not have a cool down for proc’ing a critical hit but traits, sigils, and runes have internal cool downs wherein a crit does not proc the effect until the CD has expired.

Someone in the pvp forums did some dps testing with assasins and trying to figure out what the highest dps he could get I think assassin’s with ogre runes was at the top

Roe.3679:

I keep hearing that assassin is more DPS, but doesn’t it have less overall stats? Zerker has that nice extra vitality.

Yes/no. Assassin has less overall stats, this is correct, its somewhat like how celestial has bonus stats because it is mixed. However two things are important.
1) Crit chance is better than power in most situations, as far as DPS goes
2) Assassin has 100% of its stats as offensive stats. Berserker has 2033 offensive stats, whereas Assassin has 2232 offensive stats

The first is true up until you hit 100% crit chance. This means if you are able to hit 100% crit chance on the important attacks (warrior with proper traiting, backstab thief with trait, DP necro) without Assassin’s precision, then it is wasted. However if you’re just looking at DPS over time, Assassin will out DPS Berserker, because it has more raw offensive stats, and those stats scale better in the circumstances we are talking about. On a side note, the reason Berserker is preferred in PvE is because you generally want to hit exactly 100% crit chance with no wasted stats, and Berserker gives you the most flexibility without wasting stats.

The second is due to Berserker’s vitality. It means for raw offensive Assassin ends up better. However, if you don’t need to squeeze that tiny bit of extra offense, zerker ends up being better in PvP because it gives you some survivability, and the damage loss often isn’t worth dying faster.

Also something to note is that Assassin matters more with more attacks. The more chances you take advantage of its extra crit chance/ferocity the better it makes itself. If you focus all your burst into one attack (say, BS thief) then it might not be worth it due to RNG.

TL;DR Zerker has slightly higher overall stats, and is often in practice due to it having some vitality at no huge loss of offense, however Assassin has more pure offensive stats, and so has higher DPS.

^ Berserker has no vitality. There is not much difference between Assassin’s and Berserker’s gear, just a trade of precision and power. If your trait distribution is low in Curses, Assassin’s is better, I think, so that you can crit more often but it is still just as squishy a set of armor as Berserker’s.

Carrion and Valkyrie are less squishy and contain vitality. Carrion is for conditionmancers. Valkyrie is for a hybrid power/condi build because it practically requires a bunch of precision from stats and trinkets.

Anchoku.8142:

^ Berserker has no vitality. There is not much difference between Assassin’s and Berserker’s gear, just a trade of precision and power. If your trait distribution is low in Curses, Assassin’s is better, I think, so that you can crit more often but it is still just as squishy a set of armor as Berserker’s.

Carrion and Valkyrie are less squishy and contain vitality. Carrion is for conditionmancers. Valkyrie is for a hybrid power/condi build because it practically requires a bunch of precision from stats and trinkets.

He is referring to the sPvP trinket. Berserker has vitality.. you didnt read the post. :P

IMO cleave(and pierce) with all weapons must work like 100% dmg to main target(or first) and less dmg(70% or 50% or 30%) to other targets.
gs = 5 targets; sword = 3; dagger = 2 etc