Guild Wars 2

Hi there.

First time poster here. I’m not a very good player, and what I’ve done so far hasn’t been worked out at all with reference to builds and so on.

However, now I have finally got a character to level 80 I would like to try and customise my weapons and armour into the best form possible.

My character is a human rifle warrior with a greatsword as backup to fight mobs of enemies in melee. It’s probably not the best build…but I’ve had fun with it.

My traits are:
30 Arms – Deep Cuts/Crack Shot/Forceful Greatsword
20 Defence – Embrace the Pain/Last Stand
20 Tactics – Leg Specialist/Shrug it Off

My question is, what type of Draconic armour should I use?
Initially I was drawn to Carrion or Cleric, but I’m not sure what stats to prioritise.
For level 80 weapon I’m planning on getting the Seraph Rifle.

I am working towards getting the full 400 in armoursmithing as my only real crafting profession.

I’m a very casual player, usually only 1-2 hours a night due to work etc, so getting Tier 3 armour or legendary weapons is a bit beyond me.

Thanks in advance for your help!

For warrior there is pretty much only two choices. Knights or berserkers. If you want more survivability go for knights. If you want more damage go for berserkers. You can always mix and match to get the best of both worlds, too.

Is toughness better than vitality? I’ve always been a bit confused because I could never tell how much it made a difference.

Knights does look good though.

Are there any better weapons than the Seraph stat wise which isn’t too expensive?

Toughness won’t help against conditions but it will help against everything else. Vitality will help against conditions because you have more health but doesn’t do anything to actually mitigate damage.

By Seraph do you mean the tier 3 cultural weapon or what? If so that’s only rare and anything exotic will have more stat points.

Ashantai.4387:

Hi there.

First time poster here. I’m not a very good player, and what I’ve done so far hasn’t been worked out at all with reference to builds and so on.

However, now I have finally got a character to level 80 I would like to try and customise my weapons and armour into the best form possible.

My character is a human rifle warrior with a greatsword as backup to fight mobs of enemies in melee. It’s probably not the best build…but I’ve had fun with it.

My traits are:
30 Arms – Deep Cuts/Crack Shot/Forceful Greatsword
20 Defence – Embrace the Pain/Last Stand
20 Tactics – Leg Specialist/Shrug it Off

My question is, what type of Draconic armour should I use?
Initially I was drawn to Carrion or Cleric, but I’m not sure what stats to prioritise.
For level 80 weapon I’m planning on getting the Seraph Rifle.

I am working towards getting the full 400 in armoursmithing as my only real crafting profession.

I’m a very casual player, usually only 1-2 hours a night due to work etc, so getting Tier 3 armour or legendary weapons is a bit beyond me.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Toughness > Vitality for warriors.
You already have a high base HP pool so toughness raises your EHP (Effective Hit Points).

You play primarily rifle, correct?
Full berserker w/ ruby. Upgrade to scholar when you can afford to do so (but I wouldn’t until you have EVERYTHING else lol)
Also, I would advise either getting a good Rifle/GS build (most seem to be GS/Rifle though) or else just drop the GS and pick up a longbow.

If you want to go melee again later, then go for it, but since you are new to end-game, stick with ranged as it is FAR easier to survive and dish out max DPS. Realistically speaking, unless you are a skilled gamer and run dungeons hundreds of times into boredom and beyond, you will wipe at least once per run and/or you will waste a ton of DPS with dodging and poorly timed execution.

If you are adamant on being melee, I would highly recommend axe/shield as you can dish out more DPS than a GS (once again, being realistic… no one can stand rooted using a Full HB in most of end-game content) and the 3s block is absolutely amazing. Really a life saver as you learn the dungeons.

If you do take my advice and go ranged, change your build. I put up a Rifle/LB build, but if you don’t like that, there are about 5~6 pretty good rifle builds that I found looking through these forums. You NEED to spec towards critical % and critical damage. Survivability is much higher as you will stay ranged, but you want to learn how to stay within the area of effect for boons/heals/shouts and roll back to safe range when you think danger might approach. Also, lining up with piercing is AMAZING as it lets you hit 5 targets at once. Longbow… is just amazing. Pretty hard to mess up with a longbow.

Thanks so much for your detailed answer!

Yes, rifle is my primary.

I really only kept a melee option because I needed some crowd control. Rifle’s not good at that. Is longbow better in that area?

Axe and shield does sound good if not.

So berserker armour gives power, precision and critical damage – is that good for ranged? Will I have enough armour etc to absorb damage?

To be honest I don’t see myself playing much PVP or WVW for a while, so it’s mainly just PVE and probably dungeons too for now.

Thanks again!

Ashantai.4387:

Thanks so much for your detailed answer!

Yes, rifle is my primary.

I really only kept a melee option because I needed some crowd control. Rifle’s not good at that. Is longbow better in that area?

Axe and shield does sound good if not.

So berserker armour gives power, precision and critical damage – is that good for ranged? Will I have enough armour etc to absorb damage?

To be honest I don’t see myself playing much PVP or WVW for a while, so it’s mainly just PVE and probably dungeons too for now.

Thanks again!

I delve primarily in PvE as well. I do PvP and WvWvW, but I’ve always been a PvE player at heart haha
Power, Precision, Critical Damage is what EVERY warrior should ultimately get (PvE).
Once you are able to run dungeons well, it’s best to have the highest DPS potential possible. The only reason people mix in Knight’s is during the stage when they are learning end-game dungeons. I honestly would rather take an axe/shield and use stance if I end up in a sticky situation.

Longbow is actually quite amazing for CC. #3 does massive damage in an area (Although you have to target the ground). Also, you’re burst skill on LB is an absolutely beast skill in terms of multiple target DPS (although not as much as a good burst from Rifle with targets lined up).

Try it out with a cheap 80 bow and see how you like it. For dungeons, definitely a must, but for roaming around maps solo, axe/shield, axe/mace, or axe/warhorn are all viable. I personally go axe/warhorn for the extra move speed.

In my opinion, the ranged build has the highest overall DPS end-game realistically.
Just remember that ranged is EXTREMELY Reliant on criticals.

Back to builds though…
Check out my build. However, for dungeon play, try taking out 10 points from Discipline and putting it into Tactics. I have yet to test this in end-game dungeons, but it seems like it could be just as viable, if not better.

By doing so, you sacrifice 10% critical damage and 1% burst damage in order to gain 100 vitality and 10% boon duration (which could be ideal once you learn to stay within boon range). Also, you sacrifice 10s might on weapon swap + 2s less burst CD for a useless trait AND Stronger Bowstrings (increases range). I personally don’t think it would be worth it… BUT.. someone told me that Stronger Bowstrings has a hidden effect in which almost all your bow attacks become combo finishers… I’ll test it out and keep you updated.

Okay, just looked it up on Wiki. Apparently, the Stronger Bowstring trait makes your #1 and #2 (err, I think) 100% combo finishers. Normally it was 20%. HOWEVER, it is confirmed that this is a bug and is not the intended effect. It might be decent to use while it lasts, but I probably won’t go near it lol.

Just wanted to post a follow up here and say I did as CookMETEnder suggested.

I got a full suit of Berserker armour, Mystic Rifle, soldier runes, and a mix of ruby and emerald trinkets.

The results have been astonishing! Complete reversal of fortunes, now I’m smacking PVE enemies around in a way I couldn’t before.

Thanks!

Thank you also to everyone else who posted, it helped me a lot!