Guild Wars 2

I’m a warrior starter and a new player of the game and while I understand why full berzerker gear is good and so meta I was wondering if a mix between zerker and valkyrie gear would be viable. While I would love the added vitality I’m asking myself if the lost precision would affect a lot the DPS, I have searched through forums and googled it but nothing really gave me the answer.
So, would it be viable if i mix zerker and valkyrie armor and would that affect greatly the dps output due to the lost precision?

Thanks in advance and sorry for the poor english.

If you need a bit more sustainability until you get the hang of things, I’d go for a Toughness stat armor; Vitality is more of a buffer against conditions which you won’t be encountering as much in PvE, and Warriors have a pretty highhealth pool to start with anyways.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fJAQNAnZRjMdU5ZfH2ewJagfAxcgBNOPa1GVvB-TVSCABhq+DM7PAwDAYhDBgYKBnS5XGHBA60HcwJIIAACA78mH9mH9mlCwqFAA-w

/2cents

As a warrior your crit chance are really high, and you can reach easily the 100% cap in group settings, and since lowering your crit chance will be a huge dps loss, I’d recommend either knights or zealots stats.

Zealot is way better than Knight is, because it has power as the main attribute. I suggest never to go for Knight.

To answer your question, OP, yes it makes a substantial difference in DPS to go with anything other than berserker. If you must make sure that the stat combo has power as the main attribute and that one of the minor attributes is either precision or ferocity (or both). Since the only two stat combos available that fit this category are Berserker and Zealot, that leaves you with just these two to use unless you want to take a much larger loss in DPS.

Some people tend to go for Soldier, but please take my word for it that it is a huge, huge mistake. It may be fine to use in WvW, but you’ll hit like a wet noodle in PvE by comparison with Berserker.

Hi,

Purple Miku.7032:

Zealot is way better than Knight is, because it has power as the main attribute. I suggest never to go for Knight.

The warrior per se has very limited access to healing and regeneration (although other classes can bathe them in regeneration), so basically investing in Zealot gear is for the sole passive effect of the Healing Signet, so about 11 additional HP per second when compared to a berserker armor? The returns look quite low to me in regards of the size of the investment.

Also, players who want some sustain in their build will necessarily have to trade for DPS. It’s a temporary state though, the time for them to learn to master the class and dungeon mechanics, and get back to berserker. So basically, in the long run, what you truly want isn’t the setup with the minimal DPS loss, but the one that will allow you to learn and move away from defensive stats as fast as possible.

Regards.

Thanks for all the replies !
I have read that if I go with more toughness that would make the AI’s to hit me more because they favour the ‘’tough guy’s meat’’ more. That is why I was considering Valkyrie’s the extra HP would soak up the extra damage I take when I don’t dodge properly or just walk straight up into danger which results in a K.O. for me. But now I see which would be the better to go.
Thanks for all the fast replies and your time ! ^.^

Purple Miku.7032:

Zealot is way better than Knight is, because it has power as the main attribute. I suggest never to go for Knight.

To answer your question, OP, yes it makes a substantial difference in DPS to go with anything other than berserker. If you must make sure that the stat combo has power as the main attribute and that one of the minor attributes is either precision or ferocity (or both). Since the only two stat combos available that fit this category are Berserker and Zealot, that leaves you with just these two to use unless you want to take a much larger loss in DPS.

Some people tend to go for Soldier, but please take my word for it that it is a huge, huge mistake. It may be fine to use in WvW, but you’ll hit like a wet noodle in PvE by comparison with Berserker.

I disagree, but only with the zealot thing, because of Armored Attack. toughness / power / precision results in added power in place of borderline useless healing +.

Everything else is spot on.

I use a hybrid mix of Knight/Soldier/Zerker. with Armored Attack traited, damage is not as high as zerker, but solid enough that you can keep pushing dps when zerks would be forced to dodge or blow up.

whether this puts it on par (mostly) with zerker or not remains to be seen. It’s comfortable for me so I haven’t run tests compared to fullzerk.

I wonder if high dps intermittently (when not dodging) can be outclassed by consistent lower facetank dps.

I agree overall with the comments made and I also support Knight instead of Zealot.
However, i think it is important to notice that the OP states that he is a new player and to learn the ropes Berserk gear is not forgiving. Hence, survivability may be more important as a beginner.
How I started: Knight Armor with rubies, Cavalier trinkets with rubies and Knight/Cavalier weapons. it is also not very expensive and it helped me for the transition to full Berserker gear and more appropriate runes.
You will also notice that in dungeons: a) knowing when to dodge and b) knowing successful strategies for the bosses, will increase enormously your survivability.

Let me clarify something in my previous post.

What I was intending to get at is that aside from Zealot, every other stat combo besides Assassin gives a rather large loss in DPS when compared to Berserker on a warrior. Berserker is still the best overall, but these two are the next best options. For a warrior, Zealot stands out as being on top of Knight big time.

To those of you pointing out the little gain from the healing power, I agree with you. My general mentality is that it’s simply not worth using other stat combos in PvE.

If Knight had power as its major attribute rather than toughness, then I’d view it as a solid option. To have both power and precision as minor attributes results in a really really large DPS loss when compared to Berserker.

It’s especially worth considering how negligible the gain is from vitality and toughness in PvE. Consider how many bosses hit slowly with very telegraphed attacks that deal a sizable amount of damage… you’d need to stack loads of toughness just to make the difference of being able to tank 1 more attack without evading/blocking. Does that really seem worth it?

The answer to me is an obvious no, but each to his/her own.

@Purple Miku

Now it is clearer and I think it is a fair assessment.
I work on the assumption, though, that learning how to do dungeons/fractals (there is basically nothing else in PvE worth theory crafting for) involves a bit more survivability.
At least, that worked for me: I wasn’t doing a lot of damage, but I could make a couple of mistakes (no more than that – we all agree that stacking T/V will not keep you alive much longer anyway) and still be alive to learn from those, without triggering a carpet fest (always downed).
In brief: if I have to learn I will be glad to sacrifice damage and stay alive 5 seconds more to learn.
Then, we all agree that berserk is the way to go.
What you think?

Manuelito.6081:

@Purple Miku

Now it is clearer and I think it is a fair assessment.
I work on the assumption, though, that learning how to do dungeons/fractals (there is basically nothing else in PvE worth theory crafting for) involves a bit more survivability.
At least, that worked for me: I wasn’t doing a lot of damage, but I could make a couple of mistakes (no more than that – we all agree that stacking T/V will not keep you alive much longer anyway) and still be alive to learn from those, without triggering a carpet fest (always downed).
In brief: if I have to learn I will be glad to sacrifice damage and stay alive 5 seconds more to learn.
Then, we all agree that berserk is the way to go.
What you think?

This is pretty much my view.

Speedclearing? You know what you’re doing? Fullzerk, every time.

Although, I’m still curious about if there is a balancing point involving Armored Attack that I can capitalize on.

Miku, when/if you reply, mind listing your current Power/Fer/Crit damage% for dungeon runs?

I’m currently:

2578 power
2311 precision
895 ferocity

70% critical chance
210% critical damage

with truffle steak nourishment (+100 power +70 precision) and without might, fury, or banners.

I just activated banner + for great justice + signet of rage and took a picture here to make it easier on myself: http://puu.sh/blEoW.png

Well, I feel like having a meta warrior with less damaging stats is far more helpful than a berserker shout heal one. They’ll end up in berserker anyway, it’s just a matter of time. It may be a placebo, since that toughness/healing power gained won’t help against big attacks, but if a new player feel better by playing a sub optimal stat and don’t try to enforce this playstyle onto others, as opposed to the " I’m a healer" crowd, all power ( and prec, and ferocity) to them. The dps loss of going knight 6/5/0/0/3 is lower than going berserker 2/0/6/6/0, anyway.

PS: not trying to make a point or anything, just giving thoughts about why going knight is acceptable when learning.

Here’s what I like to run, 3 part soldier, 3 part beserker.

Soldier for the chest, helm, and pants. Berserker for shoulders, gloves, and boots, with all berserker trinkets and weapons.

It gives me a bit more health and survivability while not detracting too much from dps.

Granted it’s not the most damaging build a warrior can run but it’s not bad either. And you’ll likely survive a hit that will outright kill a full berserker.

It works pretty good in wvw and pve.

oxtred.7658:

Well, I feel like having a meta warrior with less damaging stats is far more helpful than a berserker shout heal one. They’ll end up in berserker anyway, it’s just a matter of time. It may be a placebo, since that toughness/healing power gained won’t help against big attacks, but if a new player feel better by playing a sub optimal stat and don’t try to enforce this playstyle onto others, as opposed to the " I’m a healer" crowd, all power ( and prec, and ferocity) to them. The dps loss of going knight 6/5/0/0/3 is lower than going berserker 2/0/6/6/0, anyway.

PS: not trying to make a point or anything, just giving thoughts about why going knight is acceptable when learning.

I said nothing about shoutheals. The point I was making is that a warrior in 65003 with Zealot will out-DPS a 65003 in Knight.

I still don’t see the point in using Knight over Berserker even when learning because of the negligible impact that toughness and vitality have against bosses in dungeons by comparison to the offensive attributes.

I understand the logic behind the decision made to start out in it, dw… but in actual practice it’s not as helpful as a lot of people have claimed.

Purple Miku.7032:

I’m currently:

2578 power
2311 precision
895 ferocity

70% critical chance
210% critical damage

with truffle steak nourishment (+100 power +70 precision) and without might, fury, or banners.

I just activated banner + for great justice + signet of rage and took a picture here to make it easier on myself: http://puu.sh/blEoW.png

Same build (6/5/0/0/3) and same slot skills activated but with a rearrangement of stat priorities you can yield 78 more power, 5% crit damage and 1% more crit. (No special infusions used, just versatile simple infusions.)

http://i.imgur.com/KFbkx7R.jpg

Just thought you might be interested in knowing.

Is that with 3 assassin pieces? I’m assuming so, and assuming you aren’t using a utility nourishment like maintenance oil or whatever.

Purple Miku.7032:

Is that with 3 assassin pieces? I’m assuming so, and assuming you aren’t using a utility nourishment like maintenance oil or whatever.

No and no. I am using 6 piece Assasins w/Str runes and Sup Sharp stone for utility nourishment.

Sharpening stone makes a difference though, since you’ll be using a X slaying in dungeons most of the time.

Yeah see I’m using undead slaying in mine. If I were to use superior sharpening stone I’d be at 2,949 power if I’m not mistaken.. which would put me at around the same as yours. Either way, super close to the same but I’m always using slaying potions if applicable and thanks for sharing!

oxtred.7658:

Sharpening stone makes a difference though, since you’ll be using a X slaying in dungeons most of the time.

Unless you are running fractals and dont mind wasting lots of Gees.

Skale venom is cool.

I see my subtlety has gone unnoticed, which I am clearly not good at. I hold both [rT] and you, Purple Miku, with high regards so I will attempt to be as respectful as I can, while still addressing (what I see as possible) flaws in optimization. But first I want to catch up anyone who is new to GW2, warriors, soloing, pugging or people that run in guilds that may as well be pugs.

To those I ask, what is the most important stat that a warrior has? Which of all the stats affect the warrior dps the most? Is there even a stat that affects warrior dps the most? If you said precision, you are on spot on.

Imagine its your Bday and you are given Bday moneyz. Well, actually a choice of Bday moneyz. You are given 100$ and then must choose either; to accept another sum of money up to 149$ or multiply your current holdings by 1.5. Which do you choose? Easy, right? This is the same problem we face in GW2, except the first option is more like 20$ and the second is some constant between 1.5 and 2.5.

Precision is easily the stat that increases our dps most (until the cap is meet). Luckily for us, warriors can readily reach the crit cap, making our ability to maximize our dps much more likely. Precision allows power to become far more effective through multiplication, making warriors a very, very strong dps class. If you are part of the set of people that I mentioned above and are not running assassin’s gear, are not taking into consideration what what banners/signets you should be running or are not even mixing up zerkers with assasin’s, ponder the following.

Each time you hit some mob or boss and you DONT crit, you have just hit as hard as someone running power/vitality/toughness. Meaning, you just had a hit that COMPLETELY ignored one of your secondary stats, ferocity. And if you are wondering how often you are ignoring that secondary stat, all you need to look at is the compliment of your critical chance (1- crit chance). So if you just calculated that probability, that same probability is how effective someone running power/vitality/ferocity would have done in your shoes that same percent of the time during that last fight. I.e., your dps = (crit chance)x(you running w/crit at cap) + (1- crit chance)x(you running with power/vitality/ferocity). Crazy, huh?

Oh, but it gets better/worse. Any person that pugs, solos, runs with guilds that might play like pugs (the set of people mentioned above), and is NOT attempting to run with their crit at cap and is running in some build with forceful greatsword, is just throwing their dps in the toilet (with a few exceptions, such as the noble souls who sacrifice their dps for Phalanx Str., or you have a considerate elementalist in the pug party.) Barring these exceptions, when you DONT crit, not only did you just hit for at least 1.5 times less than you could have, you just missed one might stack (or 35 power), which just further increased how hard you could have hit on your next swing. Meaning, if you are running under the crit cap during some portion of a boss fight, you just missed out on many stacks of culmulative might during period. And if you are running 65003, your axe rotation likely started out might starved and ended might starved, which really kitten your axe dps.

But still there is more. You know how everyone states that healing power scales poorly? Yeah it does. But you know what? Take away critical chance from the dps function and guess what? Power and healing power scale in the same manner. (Side note; It would be really interesting if Healing would be allowed to crit.)

So, one might ask, what is all the hype with running with full zerkers? Why do so many people run it? Some time ago a spread sheet was created that made some assumptions. From what I understand, it was made under many assumptions, assumptions that do not accurately model the situation regarding the people that pug, people that solo, etc. Assumptions such as 25 stack of might, 25 stack of invulnerability, 100% of fury, and so forth. Under these numerous buffs, the dps of warriors was estimated, gear choices were made, decisions were made. Later, gear was introduced with precision as the primary stat and it was evaluated. (Im not entirely sure, but I think the assumptions were also re evaluated at some point. But I do know that the spread sheet still do not accurately reflect warrior dps on an individual level.) But if your crit chance is capped through external buffs, does assassin’s gear look very attractive? No of course not. Thus zerker gear remained the preferred choice.

Then, following up with an equally good question one might ask, why has zerker remained the preferred choice? Surely some pug would have caught on that zerker is an inferior choice to mixing up/full assassin’s for them, at some point right? Well, running a mix of assassins can appear to have a superficial flaw (that isnt acutally a flaw); your crits are not hitting as hard as what they were when you were running full zerker gear. So to someone just comparing their 100 blades to each other, a natural bias forms due to human nature. We can sometimes disregard/overlook flaws in favor of a preferred outcome. And since our objective is to attain as much damage per second as possible, bigger crits would, seemingly, achieve this goal, and our preferred outcome established.

But the reality of the situation is that the math simply does not support this outcome. Collectively, the smaller crits sum to a greater total number of damage points than the larger. I am ready and willing to prove this mathematically, but before you ask, consider the experiment above; would you rather hit for massive damage 1 out of 10 hits or hit for 1/10th that same massive damage every hit with some chance to crit greater than 1/10?

Ok, now that everyone is caught up, back to the conversation with Purple Miku. Yeah, I should have guessed that you running an undead potion. Arah is a very popular dungeon. You might even run with undead sigils to further boost your dps which would further deflate your stats. But considering how often you solo, surely you do not always run with three offensive skills on your bar. And even if you do, both banner and fury do not have 100% uptime, leaving a probability that both fall off at the same time. So, should I assume your run assassins on your solo runs? And if not, why?

OP i’ll make it easier for you.

for PvE go full zerk, no way around it.

for WvW/PvP here you should ask yourself whether you go full offensive or bunker bit to sustain better.

If one only switches the 6 armor pieces from Berserker to Zealot, 224 points go from Ferocity to Healing Power (I’m assuming exotic armor, because there’s no way I can ever afford ascended armor).

One gains 1% additional critical damage every 15 Ferocity points, so this switch in gear would net in a 14.93% loss in critical damage.

Assuming you are using Healing Signet (362+0.05*HealingPower) and you have Adrenal Health (351+0.15*HealingPower), and assuming a full adrenaline bar, your total healing per second should be
711+0.2*HealingPower

Which means that, in the best conditions, your loss of 14.93% crit dmg is opposed to an extra 44.8 healing per second.
It doesn’t seem it’s worth it.

I’m sure that healing per second can be made more substantial, but only with an even heavier loss.

Maxwell.7843:

and you have Adrenal Health (351+0.15*HealingPower), and assuming a full adrenaline bar, your total healing per second should be
711+0.2*HealingPower

Adrenal Health is per 3 seconds.

According to the wiki it’s

Adrenaline level 1 healing: 117 (0.05)
Adrenaline level 2 healing: 234 (0.10)
Adrenaline level 3 healing: 351 (0.15)

Where does your 3 come from? o.o

EDIT: I misread you post, you meant it activates every 3 seconds!
I had no idea, but how come the wiki doesn’t say anything about this…?

Maxwell.7843:

According to the wiki it’s

Adrenaline level 1 healing: 117 (0.05)
Adrenaline level 2 healing: 234 (0.10)
Adrenaline level 3 healing: 351 (0.15)

Where does your 3 come from? o.o

EDIT: I misread you post, you meant it activates every 3 seconds!
I had no idea, but how come the wiki doesn’t say anything about this…?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Adrenal_Health

edited the wiki for you xD

Lol thanks xD

I amend my previous calculation then:

Assuming you are using Healing Signet (362+0.05xHealingPower) and you have Adrenal Health (117+0.05xHealingPower), and assuming a full adrenaline bar, your total healing per second should be
479+0.1xHealingPower

Which means that, in the best conditions, your loss of 14.93% crit dmg is opposed to an extra 22.4 healing per second.
It doesn’t seem it’s worth it.

Oh, by the way, I looked at the runes that give additional Healing Power, and it seems to me they are not meant to be used by warriors.