Guild Wars 2

Hi all

Just wanted to ask the hive mind a few things. I want to slowly make the move to ascended gear starting with accessories. Having tried many different builds on my ranger I always go back to LB S/A spotter with berserker gear. I just have the most fun with that one
However I’d like a bit more durability so was thinking toughness in the accessories. But before I commit the much gold and many laurels: what’s best?
- toughness/precision/power
- toughness/ferocity/power?
On how many pieces? Is it worth it? Is there something that can number crunch these decisions for me? What would you suggest?

Thank you

I’d hold for now.

• Dungeons are destroyed, so those aren’t in the picture.
• Fractals have been horribly mangled by the devs… I suspect they will move back towards zerker away from the current viper/sinister meta simply because only 2 or 3 professions have strong/viable condi builds, and the entire idea of bullet sponge enemies is cancerous to PvE
• No one really has any idea what to expect from raids.

So hold.

Cool thanks for the advice. I’ll focus on exploration for now

Also I am extremely sad about dungeons.

Base toughness= 1000
Medium ascended Armor = 1118
= 21118 armor

6armor*toughness infusions(5)= 30
1 ascended earring toughness infusion= 5
1 ascended ring toughness infusion= 5
2 knight rings= 252
= 292
Is ~10% dmg reduction.

Total = 2410 Armor
I’d try that before going full pvt ;-)
If you do not have ascended Armor its +54 armor over exotics.

Get your ascended zerker Armor as you can. It’s pieces that you will pretty much never change for a power build and cause of rune/infusion costs and is locked to 3 classes. Trinkets you can mix/match all you want cause they cheap and can be used on all 9 classes.

Knight rings = -11.33% crit dmg
Cavalier rings = -8% crit chance

If this formula correct:
f(x)= 1- x0/(x0+x)
x0=current Armor rating
x= addition armor you want to add
f(x)= dmg reduction increase
Then going from exotic armor to ascended with 8 toughness infusions and 2 toughness ascended rings= 14.35% more dmg reduction assuming you don’t have any of the current things I suggested.

Justine.6351:

Base toughness= 1000
Medium ascended Armor = 1118
= 21118 armor

6armor*toughness infusions(5)= 30
1 ascended earring toughness infusion= 5
1 ascended ring toughness infusion= 5
2 knight rings= 252
= 292
Is ~10% dmg reduction.

Total = 2410 Armor
I’d try that before going full pvt ;-)
If you do not have ascended Armor its +54 armor over exotics.

Get your ascended zerker Armor as you can. It’s pieces that you will pretty much never change for a power build and cause of rune/infusion costs and is locked to 3 classes. Trinkets you can mix/match all you want cause they cheap and can be used on all 9 classes.

Knight rings = -11.33% crit dmg
Cavalier rings = -8% crit chance

If this formula correct:
f(x)= 1- x0/(x0+x)
x0=current Armor rating
x= addition armor you want to add
f(x)= dmg reduction increase
Then going from exotic armor to ascended with 8 toughness infusions and 2 toughness ascended rings= 14.35% more dmg reduction assuming you don’t have any of the current things I suggested.

Ah I see. So toughness infusions + 2 rings and everything else zerker is a better option. Okay. Thanks for that! And I appreciate all the maths!
It’s going to take ~400 gold to craft so it might be a while until things come together but I’ll definitely use this advice unless there’s some kind of big game changer :P

Thanks!

I generally use all zerker gear + soldier’s rings on mine, base toughness of ranger is already pretty good, so even with that much zerk you wont feel as squishy as an equally geared thief or so. Throw in a few more defensive trinkets if you prefer, pretty easy to get a good selection of trinkets through Achievements.
You get a few “escape” cards, like signet of stone, or stealth from LB.

You can start gathering mats for the ascended now if you intend to craft, just wait on buying recipes and making insignia’s for now if you want to wait.

I imagine ranger will still take the roll of ranged DPS primarily in Raids, though you can easily drop in Druid spec for additional heals, which can be done using your DPS weaps still, no need to take staff unless you really want to.

Ven Zehn.6573:

I imagine ranger will still take the roll of ranged DPS primarily in Raids

No way this happens, LB by itself is really bad damage and you run into the old dungeon-meta problem of LB rangers not sharing or receiving boons.

If ranged damage is the only way to progress, anet would have designed a pretty terrible fight. I wouldn’t put that past them, but they won’t make an entire raid wing dedicated to people plinking away at range.

Not saying every fight will be, but like some of the HoT mobs where fighting in melee range is incredibly risky (as in you’ll die no matter how tanky you are, and you lose DPS is yer dodging all the time)

As far as the DPS being low? Maybe I’m doing it wrong, but my ranger’s range DPS is nothing to scoff at, even as I compare it to my zerk ele or mes (I “test” this by seeing how fast things die when I focus damage on them, no numbers lol). It might not reach the highest tiers of damage, but long range, piercing, vulnerability, combined with ranged heals of druid and the survivability of a med class sounds good to me.

Take into account also that a lot of ranged dmg for other classes depends on the enemy standing still.

Boon share isn’t necessary for ranger imo, when every other class can, but only a few can put on large stacks of constant Vuln reliably (yes there are other classes that can do so) but we’re talking about what a ranger can offer. Also you get a 1200 range powerful CC every 8s.

Anyway all this is conjecture till we see what Raids have in store for us, I’ll likely be rolling my elem, but I’ve a lot of guildies who love their rangers.

Well, when it comes to ascended gear …
… My guess is waiting as well. The potential gears you’d like are:
~ Cleric (Or expansive Zealot) / Berserker / Viper (or Sinister or Rabid) / …

Not saying to farm them all – but if you stumble over a ring or random piece of equipment of these stats (like doing Story from Dry Top and Silverwastes) – definitely find them a rightful place in your bank.