Guild Wars 2

Dear Thieves,

I’ve recently acquired all the materials to craft a full set of Ascended armour. However, I’m holding off on the crafting of it as I’m not 100% sure of which stat-combination to take. Here are the facts as they stand:

1. I partake in all aspects of the game bar sPvP. PvE, Dungeons, Fractals and WvW are all enjoyed on a regular basis.

2. My Ascended weapons and trinkets are already Berserker stats. This isn’t open to change as I’ve 7 other level 80s that need gearing. Needs must an’ all.

3. While I experience success in all aspects of the game, I am by no means a ‘pro’ Thief. I occasionally miss a dodge, miss a CnD or sometimes go ‘full idiot’ and bring the wrong heal skill to the situation. Mistakes do happen and will continue to happen, and I’m cool with that.

In light of the above, and the fact Ascended armour is a large investment that cannot be repeated numerous times, which stat combination would you be most happy with? All advice greatly received and welcome!

Regards,

Phil

Wait until all the patches are out.

I would suggest Berserker or Valkyrie depending on what kind of builds you run outside of dungeons (where Berserker > everything). However, the big patch might shake some things up, so just save mats until then.

Yeah I’ve been pondering this issue too but there’s no obvious or easy answer in sight.

I don’t think the upcoming nerf to Crit-damage will change much about that either. I mean it will be significant but I have no doubt that Berserker gear will still be the best DPS gear by far and the appeal of it won’t change much until PvE encounters are reworked.

I went ahead and crafted Ascended Berserker gear since my main-set was still Valkyrie.

As I see it:

For PvE the appeal of Berserker gear won’t change much. DPS will still matter more than anything else and encounters will still be just as easy in full Berserker gear as they are in tankier setups.

For WvW it’s harder to predict as new builds may evolve. One could argue that due to the Crit-Damage nerf we’re less likely to get bursted down, hence we should stack more damage (Pro Berserker) or you could argue that fights will last longer and thus survivability will matter more (Pro Valkyrie/Soldier). Both make sense in their own way and we’ll have to wait and see.

3 PTV / 3 Zerk. With the upcoming change to Ferocity, there won’t be different percentage tradeoffs per piece so I’d take the PTV in the highest stat slots, so Chest/Legs/whatever.

That gives just a pinch of survivability for WvW and works with every power based build out there.

You can use the set in PvE, though the real issue isn’t what stats are on the armor, it’s what runes you are using. Anything but scholar and it’s a noticeable difference in DPS, and scholar isn’t ideal for a general purpose power sustain WvW build (see: traveler/divinity/speed/etc).

TLDR; Without changing runesets each time you go pve → wvw, you are screwed from a min/max perspective. Just bite the bullet and make 2 sets. It’ll still be cheaper than 1 set of light ascended armor!

Just do the same stuff in this thread, but ascended.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Building-a-better-D-D-thief/first

purgatoryz.6038:

3 PTV / 3 Zerk. With the upcoming change to Ferocity, there won’t be different percentage tradeoffs per piece so I’d take the PTV in the highest stat slots, so Chest/Legs/whatever.

That gives just a pinch of survivability for WvW and works with every power based build out there.

You can use the set in PvE, though the real issue isn’t what stats are on the armor, it’s what runes you are using. Anything but scholar and it’s a noticeable difference in DPS, and scholar isn’t ideal for a general purpose power sustain WvW build (see: traveler/divinity/speed/etc).

TLDR; Without changing runesets each time you go pve -> wvw, you are screwed from a min/max perspective. Just bite the bullet and make 2 sets. It’ll still be cheaper than 1 set of light ascended armor!

To make matters worse, there are rune changes too in the upcoming patch (or whenever the 10% nerf and 2 sigils on 2handers comes)… who knows how that will turn out (buff for 2handers… wait we only got 1 … )…

:/ The problem that OP is facing is exactly why I dislike how (or even why) ascended has been implemented… (I could pull out that famous quote by chris… but… I don’t they that matters or they care about that either).

Gonna talk a bit about my Ascended experience as a WvW focused player.

One thing to consider for Ascended Armor is that it has a higher base defense, which means you can usually swap out of PVT when going ascended, if you are confident on your survival skills.

As exotic I used the 3 PVT/3 Zerker setup and it was enjoyable. When going ascended you can mix Valk+Zerker with only a loss of 100 or so defense over exotic PVT.

This is the setup I’m using right now: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAoY4alUmiPHdy9E/5Ey2jeqCJKuHOVS1UaFoJA-jkCBYfFRjmgAioYZ0UBA5mFRjtMsIas6aYKXER1WzDRziO1A-w

(This calculator does not show the +5 infusions for armor, I put six +5 Vit there for 15k HP unbuffed.)

For reference, this is the exotic setup: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fYAQRAoY4alUmiPHdy9E/5Ey2jeqCJKuHOVS1UaFoJA-j0CBYfFRjmgAioYZ0UBAJPKrZPCilhFRjVXDT5iIq2aWRziO1A-w

On the Ascended setup, you can swap Chest and Legs for Zerker and get 50% critical chance, which I opted not to due to my playstyle. With this setup I can achieve peak damage on Backstab while having a decent survival as an advantage over pure Zerker. The stats gain over exotic PVT/Zerker aren’t much, which is why I went for Critical Damage in every piece of armor (to see big numbers!). For PvE I swap to full zerker exotic with scholar runes.

Ascended as a pure stat increase over the same setup is not really worth it right now, maybe we’ll squeeze a few % more Critical Damage than exotic after Ferocity patch hits.

Thanks for all the feedback, folks; it’s certainly food for thought.

Considering what’s been said, I think I’m going to sit on these materials for a while and re-visit the issue once the Ferocity/Rune/Sigil changes are in place.

At the moment I’m leaning slightly towards a Valk Ascended set and keeping my Exotic Berserker, Soldier and Dire sets in store when needed. You never know, I might even have the cash for a 2nd Ascended set while waiting for the changes to settle!

With the upcoming crit changes is wait, but for now if I were to make a set it would be Soldiers Helm Valk body shoulders and legs and Knights or Cavs gloves/boots. Of course my build will have runes of resistance and a 20/30/0/20/0 spec so that’s why I chose this setup. My trinkets are all ascended Cavs Backpiece Berserk+Valk rings/amulet with soldiers earrings. I suggest playing with a build editor and looking at your numbers.