Guild Wars 2

Hey all, I have a few questions concerning my ranger. Currently I’m running a glass cannon build, but I have reached the point where I know I have to sacrifice some damage for basic survivability. My questions are:

1. What is the point where crit damage and chance become “worthless”…what percent?

2. What is the ideal ratio of vitality to toughness?

Appreciate any help! Any math/facts are even more appreciated!

I reached that same point with my build, where I knew I had to sacrifice some damage to stay alive - after all, some damage is better than no damage.

As to your questions:
1. I was originally over 100% crit damage and have settled for a minimum of 80% with my longbow. Crit chance was originally way over 50% base but I figure I have easy access to fury with weapon swap and warhorn, so I’ve settled for 40% base crit chance (60% with fury). I feel anything between 70-99% crit chance is kinda pointless but that’s just a personal take on it. Crit damage is kinda the same with different numbers.
2. I play mostly wvw and do use applied fortitude to compensate for my lack of base vitality. I feel you want a decent balance of toughness and vitality but I lean more toward toughness (minimum 2800 armor). I’d rather negate as much direct damage as I can while relying on condition cleanses (I know, wrong class for that...) to get rid of conditions that eat at my HP.

It’s not a very min/maxed, theorycrafted way of looking at it but I hope it helps you get going in the right direction.

More crit is always better unless you are going over 100%. If you are dying you drop some zerker/assassin gear for something tankier, like Knights or Valkyrie’s, until you don’t die anymore, then you start phasing out those pieces too until you are full zerker again and never die.

PvE, I’m guessing?

For the second question, there’s some circumstantial reports from people that they feel the more toughness they use the more aggro they receive. So I would bear that in mind when considering your defensive options.

So, the first question is a weee bit harder, because it’s an ‘it depends’.
If you really want to get a sense of how much precision you can dial back on, you kind of need to know what it’s doing for you in the first place. And the only way you really know that is to examine your entire build.

Take for example, Companion’s Might
Let’s just assume for a minute that you have it. You’d think by dialing back on Precision you’d be accepting a certain amount of loss with the trait. But anything that grants your pet might directly is already creating a ceiling. If you have, say, Sword, Rampage as One and Fortifying Bond there’s less value in Precision with this trait and you can afford to dial back without seeing too much of a dent in your ability to stack might on your pet.