Guild Wars 2

Hello

This question problably has been answered in the past but it is with a twist this time!

Basically I want to focus on the D/P playstyle, and with the upcomming patch the meta doesnt seem too changed. With that In mind I need to decide what armor type I want to go with, be it pure zerker or valkyrie. My goals will be a mix of PvX but possibly a little more towards WvW. My asc weapons currently are valkyrie, while most offsets are zerker. My main 6 armor set pieces are currently zerker exotics.
As you know Valkyrie provides the health, but us thieves only truly excel when we avoid those crucial hits, so in the end you kinda want zerker for the full output? (on the other side my hp is really low..)

If I were to go for full zerker ascended on my 6 main armor set, would those stat gains be substantial enough to make a difference? The latter is subjective but feel free you voice opinions and numbers/%. Also would this be rather costly?
For runes I was thinking travelers as the 25% runspeed is very nifty for the QoL, but I guess Ogre provides power one shouldnt lose out on?

Thanks again for your time

If you go traveler runes you will need crit chance from somewhere so probably should consider to make zerker armor, at least most of the pieces. 50% crit chance is good number, below that feels like huge dmg loss.

Ogre runes have good stats but i am personally not big fan of those because dog gives out your position and it is probably last thing you want in wvw.

Play around with http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/

Traveler and ogre runes are not only runes you can use, i been using runes of the eagle for example. But really it is a personal choice thing. Every rune set opens posibility for other armor stats other than zerker.

Simple answer: don’t go for ascended armor, it’s not worth it.

Some numbers to back the claim.

1) The gain in stats is absolutely absymal – the primary stat gets boosted by +14, while the secondaries by +11 (for a full set armor, ofc). This means that, on a naked toon (i.e.: just the armor equipped and nothing else, not even traited), the primary stat gets boosted by a mere 1.14% (from 1231 to 1245), the secondaries by 0.96% (from 1140 to 1151). If you start to add weapons/trinkets/traits at the picture, the gain % in stat is just… well, I said it, absymal.

2) The gain in armor rating: absymal too. If you have a toon which doesn’t use Though anywhere on the equip (which is your case, except for the 300 in SA trait line), you go from 1980 armor to 2034, +54, which is a +2.72% boost in the armor rating. If you add the 300 thougness coming from the SA line, you go from 2280 to 2334, so a gain of +2.37%.

Now, if you compare the cost of a full ascended armor to its effectiveness, you can easily see that it’s not worth it. First of all, for the price in itself, second of all because when you put runes in it you know that they’ll be “lost forever” if you want to change them in the future (no one will ever salvage an asc armor just to get back the runes).
And about the cost: just the cost of damask to make the 6 insignias required is about 18×14.5g=261g. Throw in the rest of mats, and you’ll spend at least 400-500g to make a full asc armor set (if anyone wants to chime in with the exact cost atm, pls do ).

So, tldr: stick with exotic armors, and just get ascended trinkets/weapons.

Asc armor is if you want to feel your best, but this game is more on skills/traits/decisions than your armor. Even if you had rare armor you could outplay someone depending on their build and skill level.

Ascended trinkets and weapons are fairly easy to make, armor is just a big waste imho. I don’t mind the miniscule stat increase but at least make em purty ; ;

I crafted one set of full ascended armor. It only really worth it if you play a lot of different toons that can use medium armor and change your builds a lot. It also handy if you have those dungeon Runes and want to try them out on different characters that use medium armor.

If you are just looking for in game effectiveness its too time consuming and expensive.

From my own perspective that one set enough and as far as ascended goes I will stick to weapons/trinkets.