Guild Wars 2

Hello I have not played gw2 for quite awhile and while overlooking the traits for berserker I saw one called “blood reaction” and if my guessing goes right, wouldn’t traiting this while having assassin stats give more dps than berserker? Since having more precision will net me more ferocity.

Omega Zoa.3859:

Hello I have not played gw2 for quite awhile and while overlooking the traits for berserker I saw one called “blood reaction” and if my guessing goes right, wouldn’t traiting this while having assassin stats give more dps than berserker? Since having more precision will net me more ferocity.

No because power determines how hard you hit where’as ferocity is the damage multiplier for crits. That and also each class has various ways to augment both their stats and damage output. So if you can maintain 100% crit chance without assassins gear, it’d be better to distribute your stats into other areas (such as power).

Ross Biddle.2367:

Omega Zoa.3859:

Hello I have not played gw2 for quite awhile and while overlooking the traits for berserker I saw one called “blood reaction” and if my guessing goes right, wouldn’t traiting this while having assassin stats give more dps than berserker? Since having more precision will net me more ferocity.

No because power determines how hard you hit where’as ferocity is the damage multiplier for crits. That and also each class has various ways to augment both their stats and damage output. So if you can maintain 100% crit chance without assassins gear, it’d be better to distribute your stats into other areas (such as power).

Yes, i know what precision, power etc means, but with more precision and combined with the blood reaction trait you will get more ferocity because you get 7%-14% ferocity from your current precision and from assassin’s you get a good handful, and since your multiplier will be higher than the current berserker stats would that not net more dps? since you at this point rely on crit dmg than regular dmg.

Investment in power still comes out ahead by my calculations.

Keep in mind that the extra 300 precision you’ll get from an Assassin amulet works out to an extra 14% crit chance and a mere +1.4% crit damage (2.8% in Primal State) by way of Blood Reckoning vs a Berserker Amulet. This comes at the cost of 300 power, which feeds into both crits and non-crits.

Bottom line, the benefit of Blood Reckoning isn’t enough of a damage buff to favour Assassin over Berserker.

Actually he is right.

Going Full Assassin Armor + a few trinkets to reach 100% crit chance is better in a Berserk mode than going full zerk.

Juba.8406:

Actually he is right.

Going Full Assassin Armor + a few trinkets to reach 100% crit chance is better in a Berserk mode than going full zerk.

But you can reach 100% crit chance with berserker ammy XD

^^^

i never said full Assassin for everything, just the armor + few assassin trinkets , zerk ammy is staying

The advice I recommend in my guide is to wear enough Assassins pieces in order to reach 93% crit chance without food.

This way, when you have a Druid in your group with spotter you can use Power food, you won’t have any wasted precision. if you don’t have a druid in your group, you can use food with Precision in it.

This is the way that will result in the least waste in all scenarios.

Assassins is ok if it is only on like 1 ring or 1 accessory in order to min max your maximum crit chance. Choosing assassin over berserker on other pieces of equipment is a waste of power.

This is only really optimal on certain builds also. A build with arms and signet mastery probably doesn’t need any assassins at all. Where as a build without it could use a piece or 2 to be optimal

That trait blood reaction doesn’t scale well enough to make what little extra precision you get from assassins to give you more damage from crits than what you would get with berserker meaning power still is better.

It’s not that its a bad trait its that assassins isn’t better than berserker on a warrior.

NikeEU.7690:

The advice I recommend in my guide is to wear enough Assassins pieces in order to reach 93% crit chance without food.

This way, when you have a Druid in your group with spotter you can use Power food, you won’t have any wasted precision. if you don’t have a druid in your group, you can use food with Precision in it.

This is the way that will result in the least waste in all scenarios.

Nike, can you link your guide? Not that I doubt you since you always seem to provide the math, but 93% crit seems like the cost for that much investment in Precision would be way too high.

I gots to see those numbers!

Also, I think a few of us are operating on different assumptions. I presume Ross’ (and my) comment were about pvp (that ammy, where there is no other gear). But it seems Juba and Nike are talking about wvw/pve. Might make a difference.

EDIT: For example, I found this old chart from someone who put in more work than I want to atm, and it indicates that sort of investment in crit chance would very rarely be worth it, at least on straight weapon damage.

Two things to note:

1. I don’t know if his math is right, I haven’t checked it
2. The horizontal axis is the crit damage multiplier, and 50% refers to the +50% over base. Anet later changed how this modifier is presented, so interpret it to mean 150% crit damage. Realistically, nobody is going to get past the 140% shown on the chart, which equals 240% crit damage as it’s presented now in game.

In wvw, I run full zerk gear, power food, and I might stack like a boss. Iirc, my pre-might power is around 2700, crit chance is 50% (before fury), and crit damage is 220% (120% on the chart).

That means I’m short 100 power, not precision (breakpoint is 2800 power), until I get 3-4 might. But then once Fury kicks in, I have to have 17 stacks of might before I’m over invested in power. Granted, I routinely hit 25 stacks but I don’t spend most of my time there.

Things that would push power over the edge would be additional buffs, bloodlust stacks (which I don’t personally rely on as a roaming warrior), and Blood Reckoning, which would push up the crit damage making precision more valuable than the chart shows, but not by a tonne.

So I guess I could see how a well oiled pve death squad could make the Assassins worthwhile, I can’t see it being the optimal choice in pvp or wvw, personally. Unless the chart’s math is wrong.

93 is not bcuz we are talking about PVE meta builds, that take signet mastery. You are getting 100 Precision for doing things like poping healing sig and free signet of might pops below 50%. So thats like 200 free precision right there.

your not going to get that in wvw and PVP becasue you don’t generally run arms and you don’t do stuff like pop healing sig just to get precision.
The reason why NIKE and some others are saying to get or as high as possible is becasue you don’t get fury from arcing slice in berserk mode and people use headbut instead of SoR.

Couple things,

Thanks to Assassins Presence and to a greater extent Blood Reaction the optimal crit chance in PvE with full buffs is 100%. It is worth trading Power for Precision on a 1:1 basis until you hit 100%.

Now, the reason this is true is because you can assume 25 Might, EA, Banner of strength and Bountiful sharpening Stone. This makes you power over 3700+.

If you want to test it, plug a fully buffed warrior into an effective power calculator and start trading power and precision 1:1 and see which gives you a higher EP.

93% is ideal, as I said, because you won’t be able to predict a Druid in your group. If you have a Druid, you’ll hit 100% crit chance and you can take Power food.

If you DONT have a druid, you can eat Precision food and get to 96% and be <1% worse than perfectly optimal 100% damage. the benefits of being at exactly with a Druid outweigh the loss of being minisculy suboptimal without one.

Just to clear things up you are 93% with buffs and boons. This is also assuming you are getting fury from someplace. Maybe it would be better to say what your precsion should be without fury and stacking precision buffs.

You want to be at 65% crit chance from your gear and signet of Fury. Banner of Discipline and Fury will get you to 93%.

Think lot of people ignored my main question; which is, by going full assassin is the ferocity boost (gained from blood reaction trait) gain you any dps boost? as for my crit chance currently in berserker gear i have no problem maintaining 90%+. So far from what i gathered its worth in investing in both gears?

Just in terms of the ferocity gain, you’re looking at roughly 1% added to your crit damage multiplier while in Primal state for every 100 precision you manage to invest. Half that outside of Primal state.

The other stuff is relevant to your question though. Precision doesn’t only feed Blood Reckoning, it also affects how often you’ll take advantage of the ferocity, in addition to the other things affecting your crit chance. This sits in opposition to the benefit you would have lost to make the investment.

I never see the conditions Nike’s talking about to make that worthwhile, given the opportunity cost. But that has a lot to do with where and with whom I play.

What’s your precision, power, and ferocity at now, and is Nike’s description at all similar to how/where you’re playing the game?

Shouldn’t we consider sigil or accuracy instead of sigil of air when there is no druid ?
This would ensure 100% crit chance and allow us to stay with power food.

MrHarses.6801:

Shouldn’t we consider sigil or accuracy instead of sigil of air when there is no druid ?
This would ensure 100% crit chance and allow us to stay with power food.

And then what do you do when you have a druid? carry a second ascended GS? That seems like way more trouble than just carrying two foods. Food is way easier to swap than gear IMO.

The question was more about the 7% more crit chance (93% vs 100%) being better than sigil of air damage…

+ and you can run full zerk and get about 70 power more

EdIt : Well ok this mean swapping a weapon and trinket and food… ><

the big problem with Sigil of Accuracy is that it gives 7% crit chance and not 147 Precision. If it gave 147 precision, the favorable interaction with Blood Reaction would make it pretty great. Unfortunately, the interaction isn’t like that, and you end up with a good deal lower DPS than I recommend.

Edit: 147 precision = 7%

Ok, thanks for your opinion on that.

Omega Zoa.3859:

Think lot of people ignored my main question; which is, by going full assassin is the ferocity boost (gained from blood reaction trait) gain you any dps boost? as for my crit chance currently in berserker gear i have no problem maintaining 90%+. So far from what i gathered its worth in investing in both gears?

Unlikely, since the amount of precision you have more in assassins over berserker is not that much. To lazy for the exact math, but it basically boils down to this:

Full Berserker Gear (old school):
- still has precision as secondary so he misses about 33% precision from gear only
- might also not hit crit cap, not sure what the math on warriors was
→ probably the most difference you are going to get.

Berserker with splash Assassins (current optimal):
- hits crit cap in a group enviroment
- has slightly less precision than full assassins
→ ideal nothing more to say

Full Assassins (more solo oriented than group content):
- takes a hit as cap power goes (a nono)
- has over cap precision resulting in wasted stats (a very big nono)
- gains the most from blood reaction (which is negligable since you gain back about 7-14% of stats you are over caped on precision with)
→ maybe intersting for soloing, but even here with all the boons flying around and warriors easy access to self ferocity very likely to heavy on precision

The only real gain you have in assassins over berserker is the higher precision, which if overdone leads to a lot of overcap useless stat points (can’t go over 100% crit). The small gain of 7-14% ferocity does not really cover that.

As I said, to lazy for the exact math, but I highly doubt the result would vary. It seems like common sense that if you enter wasted stat point areas, that would result in worse performance.

so, in an attempt to summarize and see if my understandings are correct:

Full Berserker with Precision Food and Utility hits with all buffs
without spotter around 95% Crit chance, meaning spotter will overcap crit chance by 2%
With Power Food/Utility you will have a gap of 13,6% crit chance, with spotter around 6,4%

This seems undesirable in every sitation but a dps signet warrior.

Berserker Weapons, Armor and Trinkets but with Assassins earrings
with Power Food and Utility will hit about 89% crit chance without spotter,
96% with spotter, gap of 4%
with Preci Food and Utility sans spotter for 99,3%, gap of 0,7%

This is fine for a non druid setup, otherwise it will overcap. however it is easier to replace earrings on the fly back to berserkers, but leaving the huge gaps still with spotter in the team.

Berserker Weapons and Trinkets with full Assasins Armor will hit
without spotter for 92,3% chance and Power Food/Utility
and with for about 99,5% leaving a gap of 0,5%
without Spotter and and Precision Food/Utility it will hit around 101,8% crit chance overcapping by 1,8%

It seems to me, that the setup of assasins armor and the rest berserker will leave you with the most flexible and most optimal setup depending on spotter availability or not. You can change food and utility easily, leaving you with the smallest gaps. The only drawback to this seems to be the inability to play a DPS warrior with signet mastery as it is not feasiable to carry around a berserker set and an assassins set. However in my mind this could only be a problem for dungeons and fractals, but seeing as in raids power warriors are not a desireable option, this seems like a trade i am willing to do.

Please notice that i did these calculations without the omni infusions of precision as i dont think it is an realistic option for most players as it is around 90g per slots, 14 slots total to be filled, to reach an extra 3,3% crit chance. in that case assasins earrings would be optimal, otherwise it is assasins armor.

Is this about right or did i miss something?

Ok, I spend some time to do the math myself. But at some points I got a little confused.

First of all if we do not have a spotter, which means 150 missing precision, we want to fill this gap by using food (which I assume best is food and utility).
Food and utility could give us 170 precision (100 out of utility and 70 from food).
I also believe Nike did his math without utility.

I assume Alex Eternity did his math with 100 precision from food.
But first, since there is no precision(100)/power(70) food but only precision(100)/ferocity(70) I would rather use power(100)/ precision(70) food because power is a lot more useful than ferocity.
And second with 70 precision from food + 100 from utility we only get to 170 precision instead of 200 which is giving us a smaller gap to the 150 precision from spotter.

Now with 65% crit chance from gear and signet of Fury and with +150 precision from spotter and no food/ utility we will hit 100.19% crit chance.
And with +170 precision from food/ utility and no spotter we will hit 101.143% crit chance.
This is why I believe Nike did his math without utility buffs, since 101.14% crit chance is a lot better than 96%.
Please, if I am wrong there correct me.

The next thing is about how to get to the 65% crit chance from your gear and signet of Fury.
I am reading a lot about only switching out the two accessories. But switching out the accessories will provide us only 72 precision. But we need 140 precision instead (maybe a little bit less in order to not over cap the 100% with the food/ utility scenario).

With that I would use Berserker Weapons and Trinkets with full Assasins Armor (like Alex).
So we get to 99.43% crit chance with spotter and no food/ utility.
And to 100.38% crit chance without spotter but food and utility instead.

Again if you find any mistake or things that could be made better, feel free to correct me.

Thanks for the clarification firefly.

The input on the food is good. Power obviously makes more sense and ultimately helps achive better stats as in not overcapping.

And to put in simply what you found out, here is the food combination that is optimally as i guess you used it:

No Spotter in the team and Assasins Armor:
- Plate of Truffle Steak (100 Power, 70 Precision)
- Maintanance Oil (100 Precision)

For 100,38% crit chance.

With Spotter and Assasins Armor:
- Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup (100 Power, 70 Ferocity)
- Sharpening Stone (100 Power)

For 99,5% crit chance.

I used gw2power.com to find the Effective Power values for different gear setups, this is what I came up with: http://bit.ly/1NeF9xU
What it shows:

With a druid in your party you should run:
Assassins Armor
+Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup
+Bountiful Sharpening Stone
(Column 3, EP: 23027)

Without a druid in your party you run:
Assassins Armor and Assassins Earrings or Weapon
+Truffle Steak
+Bountiful Sharpening Stone
(Column 4, EP: 22178)

Column 1&2 show, that Full Zerk+Assassins Earrings is still almost the same as using Assassins Armor. If you’re not affected by spotter using Bountiful Maintenance Oil instead of Sharpening Stone will make the difference between Zerk and Assassins almost negligible.
Column 5 is your suggestion for running without spotter, which is worse than my suggestion in Column 4.

Conclusion: Switch to Assassins Armor to be optimal, keep using Zerk if you don’t care about being <1% worse. With Zerk you also only have to carry Bountiful Maintenance Oil instead of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup and a 2nd set of earrings/2nd GS.

this is a great site, didnt even know it existed so thanks for the tip.

i played a little around with it, trying to optimize it now that is goes that easy and fast.

My goal was to reach exactly 64,8% crit chance before any buffs, so that with banner, fury and spotter we reach exactly 100% so we dont waste any statpoint on precision.

To reach that goal Full Berserker with Chest & Legs in assassins is optimal.
This way we will achieve maxmum dps on a ps warrior with spotter.

Another thing that came to mind is that the sweet and spicy butternut soup is nothing but holding you back as it sacrifices ultimately power for ferocity (food and gear swap) and since the hierarchy is pretty much power>precision>ferocity until you reach very high lvls of power that is not what we want.

Truffle steak is now also the all time food.

http://bit.ly/1Q8fqvF

Colum 4 & 5 are the results of that.

With Spotter that build will hit maximum unbuffed (tho thats a meaningless stat imo) and buffed effective power (6223 & 23044) with a crit chance of 100%

Without Spotter it will hit maximum spotterless unbuffed EP and second highest buffed EP (6205 & 22155) with a crit chance of 97,7%

RealCheesus Spotterless build with full assasins armor and earrings will still be slightly better in buffed scenario (22178). (It can be topped by Berserker trinkets, weapons and helmet, rest of the armor assasins ==>22184, highest dps for non spotter teams) However i think it is reasonable to settle for one combination otherwise we would need whole sets and weapons for different situations and that is getting out of hand.

We have made some pretty good progress so far and i think we found the build for maximum effective power possible with spotter and without close behind.

But who knows? any further input?

That seems like it’s the best setup, at least I can’t think of a different one.
Personally I’ll probably still use full Zerk armor+Assassins Trinkets, since I share my scholar set with my revenant, but for pure warrior mains I don’t see a reason not to go with Assassins Chest+Legs.