Guild Wars 2

so im 80 and got cof zerker set. its been a while and i realize i die a lot in fractals(now im doing 30+ and it hurts), more than i should i guess(i always get agro too) and there are no regular rangers on my guild so i dont know where to ask. What armor is viable for good damage and a bit of defense? also, wich armor do u recomend for wvw?

depends, the most defensive and close to berserker i can think of would be knighs.

Knight’s gear is Toughness / Precision / Power, so it offers more protection than zerker, at the expense of power and critical damage. You could also try to mix Knight with Valkyrie’s, sacrificing some of the precision, but gaining vitality and critical damage.

Or you could try mixing your current gear with a bit of Knight, Valkyrie, Soldier, Sentinel or even Cleric. A lot depends on your current build, and whether you want to continue using it, or consider tweaking it towards better survivability.

If you know how to optimize your gear stats, I recommend Knight/Valk. If not, PVT is always good (and sees a lot of use in wvw).

Knights armor and cavalier weapons and trinkets .

I’ve been playing around with the numbers on these. Knight’s is your best choice (gain the most survivability per DPS given up). Then Soldier’s. Valkyrie’s is a distant third. (There is no Cavalier’s armor.)

This is based on some simple assumptions though (raw DPS, base stats, no condition damage). If you’re facing condition damage, you’ll want the increased hp of Soldier’s. If you want more consistent damage (higher crit rate), you’ll want the precision on Knight’s. Likewise if you have a lot of +precision buffs then the extra precision from Knight’s won’t be as useful (it’s an inverse curve – 20% crit chance is twice as good as 10% crit chance, but 90% is almost indistinguishable from 80%, despite there being a flat 10% difference in both these cases).

Also, instead of going for a complete set of different armor, I’d just start with a few pieces (helm, chest, and leggings give you the most stat points per crit damage given up from Berserker’s, so swap those first). If the full berserker’s makes you too squishy, swap in a Knight/Soldier chest. If you’re still too squishy, swap in the legs. If you still need more, swap in the helm. That way you’re able to fine-tune your offense and defense based on the situation you’re facing, not going completely from one extreme to another. (And it’ll be cheaper since you won’t need a completely new outfit.)

People say knights all too often. Yeah it’s good on pow Necros probably and a few other off the beaten path builds but I think Valk’s just makes so much more sense for Rangers with our ability to have perma Fury. There’s a lot of debate right now on what’s better, tough or vit…. when it comes to surviving on high levels of regeneration. But all encounters are not nearly that Linear. And Warriors wouldn’t be nearly as ‘Meta’ as they are right now if there wasn’t something really …“easy mode”… about having higher base Vitality by default.

And don’t forget that there’s also Karma armor/trinket variants like Settler, Cavalier, Soldier(aka: PVT), & even Shaman’s. And keep an eye on Wayfarer’s once Anet replaces the MF stat with something else. It might end up being something really good for Ranger.

Debate on Toughness versus Vitality? Toughness reduces all damage, except condition damage, while Vitality is utterly useless and only provides more health to soak up a larger burst. Runes of Melandru and condition reduction food are valid answers to condition damage, but Toughness is the answer to all direct damage. Throw in some Healing Power if you want to get fancy and heal more, but Vitality is never the answer.

Can give a nod to Knights Gear + Cavalier Trinkets.

I am running that with a spirit build in high level fracs.