Guild Wars 2

For equipment, the first word in the name of a piece of gear tells you what stats it will increase. For example, a “Soldier’s Helm” will give a lot of Power and a moderate amount of Vitality and Toughness.

For DPS, I’d recommend armor that has:

• A high bonus to a damage stat
• at least one moderate bonus to a secondary stat

Berserker’s gear has Power (high), Precision (moderate), Critical Damage (moderate) – this is generally the highest damage gear for direct (non-condition) DPS. You can get Berserker’s gear in all 6 armor slots, the weapon slot, and all trinket slots (backpiece, accessories/earrings, rings, and necklace).

However, note that the “Critical Damage” stat is a percentage, not a double-digit value like Power or Precision. Because of the way stats are distributed (jewelry gives lower stats but the % bonuses are about the same), you get more Critical Damage value from Berserker’s jewelry than from Berserker’s armor. You can also get a whopping 9% critical damage from a 2h weapon.

If you don’t want to completely ignore health or armor, you can opt for a type of gear that has one defensive stat and two offensive ones. Valkyrie’s armor trades the Precision for Vitality (health), but warriors already have a lot of health compared to other classes, so this isn’t too popular.

Toughness is a better defensive stat than Vitality in my opinion. Cavalier’s armor gives Power (high), Critical Damage (moderate), and Toughness (moderate) instead of Precision. It’s impossible to craft Cavalier’s armor normally, though, so it may be harder to get than Berserker’s.

A lot of people also like to mix in a few pieces of Knight’s armor for extra durability. Knight’s armor has Toughness (high), power (moderate), and precision (moderate). Because power is not the main stat on Knight’s armor, you will see a lower base damage if you wear a lot of Knight’s armor, but because Toughness is primary, you can get away with only a few pieces of Knight’s gear to buff up your armor.

For upgrade slots (“sockets”), you can put runes in your 6 armor slots, jewels in your trinket slots, and sigils in your weapons. You can also put gems or crests instead of the other types almost anywhere.

Ruby Orbs are basically “Berserker’s Gems” and can go in your armor and trinkets for cheap.
Runes are more expensive but can be slighty better or give cool procs when you have a set of them. Superior Runes of Divinity are expensive but provide a lot of stats and critical damage. Superior Runes of the Ogre and Superior Runes of Rage are high-damage runes, too, but reports indicate that they may be bugged and not working properly.

Weapons should always have a sigil, and a few good choices for a DPS warrior are:
Superior Sigil of Strength – gives might stacks on crit, synergizes well with greatsword
Superior Sigil of Accuracy – gives 5% critical chance
Superior Sigil of Fire – can proc a weapon-scaling AOE on crit
Superior Sigil of Air – can proc a single-target attack on crit
Superior Sigil of Bloodlust – stacks power on kills, resets if you are downed

Fire is almost as high damage as Air and is AoE. Strength is very good but if you already reach maximum might (25 stacks), it’s not very useful.

If you like to optimize everything, you can get a second weapon with Bloodlust and build your stacks, then swap it with another weapon. The stacks will stay even if you remove the weapon. However, changing zones or being downed will reset the stacks.

Of the trait trees for warriors, Strength, Arms, and Discipline are directly damage-increasing. Arms and Discipline work well together, because Arms boosts Precision and Discipline boosts Critical Damage. Strength boosts Power.

Some of the Popular Major and Minor Traits to get for a greatsword DPS warrior include:

Strength
Berserker’s Power
Slashing Power

Arms
Rending Strikes
Forceful Greatsword
Attack of Opportunity

Discipline
Heightened Focus