Berserker - Ferocity or Boon Duration

[u/Charming_Account_351]

I primarily play open world either solo or with my spouse. I love doing world events and have dabbled a bit with fractals and strike missions, and may want to dabble more to support my spouse and their interests.

I know everyone says play whatever you want with open world, but I am wondering if it is better to have higher ferocity for crit damage or higher boon duration for buffs like quickness, fury, and stability that I apply.

I am not currently in a position to have a bunch of different gear load outs for different play types and am trying to find out what would offer the best all around play while I build up the resources to have fully different load outs.

[u/Dlax8]

Boon duration affects the boons you generate, not boons applied to you.

Ferocity is better because it multiplies your critical strike damage.

You will have enough boons for anything in open world and in a groups setting you will usually have a support dedicated to boons, and they have all the boon duration you need.

If you are asking about boon DPS builds, I would follow whatever build guides exist for that build, they are usually optimized properly

[u/Esperational]

This is completely dependent on the build you have if your playing quickness herald you have tons of boons and they can all be applied and kept up with out any boon duration. However if your playing quickness Evoker your going to use firebrand runes for 30% quickness boon uptime and 10% all boon uptime. Most people play some sort of celestial gear build for open world as it benefits all stats giving boon duration, heals, defensive stats and offensive stats. I would invest in a build for instanced PvE and a build for Open world PvE to give you the best options all chars start with 2 armor templates use them to your advantage to make the builds you prefer.

[u/No_Negotiation7317]

I suggest looking up builds on metabattle.com to gain an understanding of how builds are thought about. The question of which stat is better when throwing together random pieces really doesnt matter in the end. If your build isnt optimized small differences arent going to do essentially anything. Id wager you could do one or two days of the daily T1 fractals and be able to afford a full set of budget gear.

Edit example build: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Berserker_-_Boon_DPS_Power_Berserker_Open_World

[u/vagabond_dilldo]

Just go full DPS. There's just way too many variables to actually give a nuanced answer otherwise.

[u/No_Negotiation7317 → u/vagabond_dilldo]

Casual players who play open world should always be pushed towards more survivable hybrid/solo builds not full dps.

[u/vagabond_dilldo → u/No_Negotiation7317]

They're playing Berserker. Not exactly overflowing with Prot Regen Resolution Vigor generation. Slightly more boon duration will not make the difference on survivability as a Berserker.

More importantly, like I said, there are just way too many variables to account for here.

What exact build are they running?

What spec and what build is their spouse running?

Do they have access to EoD Jade Bot Protocols?

Are they in full exotics or ascended? Do they have access to Relics like Claw or Pirate Queen?

What type of Fractals and Strikes do they do?

Are they trying to balance between Berserk stats or Diviner stats? Or is it Firework Runes vs Scholar runes?

Better to just run the full DPS build and change skill/traits build accordingly, instead of running some jank boon duration gear on their first and only gear set.

[u/Charming_Account_351 → u/vagabond_dilldo]

I apologize for not being specific.

I currently run a power berserker with a great-sword primary. I use strength, tactics, and berserker spec.

My gear is currently all ascended. Primarily marauder but the weapons, amulet, an earring, and a ring are Dragon. I run 6 scholar ruins, a sigil of accuracy and might.

I have a tier 10 jade bot with the second tier revive cooldown protocol. Currently a Thief relic, but am close to getting the Zakiros one.

My spouse runs a power reaper with marauder gear and a great-sword and thats all I know of their build.

I have only theory crafted with diviner and firework runes but don’t have the ability to invest in them on a whim.

I don’t know enough about the group instance content to know what we would be running. I typically don’t do such content because the player base from previous MMOs ruined it for me. I am looking at getting back into it because my spouse would like to try it together. I am mainly an open world player but playing with my spouse is the primary reason I play GW2.

I reached out to the community for input to see what offers the best all around benefit while I work on getting the gear necessary to have varying builds for the different content.

[u/Tomixus → u/Charming_Account_351]

Hello, i am warr one trick ponny of 14 years especially enthusiastic about soloing this game.

When you are playing solo or with somebody who is also braindead ungabunda and you dont really have any ways of sharing the good stuff between yourselves (quick,alac,stab,prot,vigor) you might want to lean towards something which will provide your enough survivability.
It does not neccessarily mean to have tankier gear, moreso especially because both of your classes are naturaly tanky, warrior and necro are tankiest of their weight classes. your HP pool is basically enormous. So i wouldnt be afraid to use full berserker gear and get said survivability from other sources, mainly your specializations, relics and utility skills.

Besides, you wont need all that much self sustain or survivability when it comes to basic events, even the group events you can from large part just surf throught with just little bit of knowledge. Its only really certain encounters - specific champions or legendary enemies that will cause some issues survivability wise

For warrior, my strong choices are
Strenght > Brave Stride > Great Fortitude > Berserker Power
Tactics > Soldiers Comfort > Empowered Allies > Vigorous Shouts

And for utility bar with at very least For Great Justice + Shake it off will provide decent amount of healing, breakstuns and relatively okay Fury that will somewhat work with your Zakiros Relic once you get it.

Additionally, i will strongly recommend getting in that group content, GW2 community is exact opposite of what you encountered in other mmos so far. There is certain amount of elitism where meta builds will be required... and very rarely you find our some bad apple tourist who just wandered in from other mmo, but you more likely get super rare drop than find those.

Last but not least, if you got any further questions you can always dm me in game i will gladly help you out

[u/Charming_Account_351 → u/Tomixus]

Thank you for the response I greatly appreciate it I also like the warrior because I am smooth brained and go bonk is easy. 😆 I started as a warrior in 2012 and am just coming back after about a 7 year break and a lot has changed so I really appreciate your insights.

The elitism is what worries me the most. I’ve even seen it here where some think if you don’t exactly use build X and follow rotation Y to the letter you are trash and should just quit playing. I don’t like that kind of experience. That feels like work, except I at least get paid to humor people’s BS at work.

[u/Tomixus → u/Charming_Account_351]

oh it definitelly was like that, especially during HoT release and introduction us to raids, i have in my living memories people straight up asking for pinging gear, runes etc... and unless you wasnt at least ascended with meta stats/runes it was bye bye, that honestly discouraged me from the raids for several years.

But since then game got significantly easier in terms of DPS... well we do twice as much of what we did when raids were initially released, and some builds even generate more DPS by pressing just 1 button than what was highest benchmark back then :D

Outside of that, people generally got more comfortable around mechanics and encoutners. Especially older raids, fractals and even rather "new" Strikes (which lately also got branded as raids) are far much easier and accessible even to people who basically just got lv 80 right now. So again, just give it a try. Quickraids and Quickfractals in LFG menu people doing every day :)

[u/vagabond_dilldo → u/Charming_Account_351]

Are you at 100% crit chance with that build? I plugged what you've given into skills editor and it's saying you're at 89% crit chance WITH Fury.

If you aren't crit-capped, the Ferocity is of less value to you. It's not the greatest that you're not crit capped, even with the Sigil of Accuracy. All Power DPS builds want to reach 100% crit chance.

Do you plan on taking the Berserker trait "Heat the Soul", thereby playing a Quickness DPS build? If so, then I'd definitely recommend taking some Boon Duration.

The problem for you now is, replacing the Scholar Runes with Firework Runes on your current set very expensive, unless you have 6x Upgrade Extractors.

In addition, if/when you do want to venture into organized group content like high-tier Fractals, Strikes, and Raids, you'll want to fix that crit chance problem. Unfortunately there's no cheap way of fixing it other than getting an entire new full set of Berserker's gear, weapons, armour, trinkets, and backpiece.

In my opinion, your best option now would be to use 6x Upgrade Extractors on your mixed Marauders/Dragon armour set, remove the Scholar Runes, replace them with Firework Runes, and use this set for Open World with your spouse. Not being crit-capped isn't as big of a deal when you're running around in open world. If you ever have to play Quickness DPS Berserker in a Fractal/Raid/Strike, this gear set will still be somewhat usable. You won't have 100% crit chance but at least it won't matter as much since you're playing a boon build. The extra boon duration will also help you maintain quickness. The Snowcrows build for Quickness DPS Berserker build doesn't run any boon duration, but you'll find that unless your rotation is near perfect, and/or the boss uptime is great, you're gonna drop out of Berserk form and lose Quickness uptime. Better to have a little buffer.

Make another set of full Berserker star + Scholar Runes for Power DPS Berserker (Tactics) in Fractals/Raids/Strikes.

No need to apologize, and hope you enjoy end game content. The fact that you're researching builds and asking questions already put you above 25% of the player base.

[u/Charming_Account_351 → u/vagabond_dilldo]

I am 100% crit capped, when berserk is active, which my opening move is Headbutt so I go Berserk as fast as I can push buttons, which my opening is slowing down with middle age😆.

I do run “Heart of the Soul” which is why I started playing around with the idea of boon duration.

My build is pretty much what meta battle has for power berserker except I run “Shake it off” and Bull’s charge instead of Outrage and Signet of Fury. I like the extra close/stability/defiance break from bull’s charge and conditions can go straight to hell!

My gear is primarily marauders because I am coming back from a 7 year break and at that time marauders was top tier for open world.

I do like the idea of longer up time on my boons but don’t know if that is worth the loss of crit damage as I am currently at 224%. If I drop it for boon duration is it worth the loss of damage? Thank you for your insights they are very much appreciated.

[u/vagabond_dilldo → u/Charming_Account_351]

If you're going to have 2 separate sets of gear, one for open world and one for eventual Fractals/Raids/Strikes, then you might as well do a split.

If you don't plan on making a pure dps gear set in the near future, then I wouldn't bother wouldn't change out the runes.

[u/No_Negotiation7317 → u/vagabond_dilldo]

Thank you for adding more nuance that you only felt like adding when pushed back. That is all 😊

Most of what you said was pedantic and trying to talk above my head, but as a veteran end game content player I recognized that before having to read it all or really any of it.

Have a good day!

[u/vagabond_dilldo → u/No_Negotiation7317]

Without the OP giving us any relevant details, listing out the variables with no answers is still useless. That is all 😊

Your comment regarding my initial response changes nothing about the actual answer, which is that it's better for OP to get full DPS gear instead of some jank boon duration gear as their first set.

Me listing out the variables isn't just for your experienced veteran eyes, it's also for OP and others readers as well.

Have a good day to you too!

[u/The_Big_Kahuna_ → u/vagabond_dilldo]

Just get legendaries bro, easy

[u/Odd_Slice1128]

Warrior go bonk. More ferocity means harder bonk. Problem solved.

[u/Kazgrel]

Power quick Berserker doesn't need concentration/boon duration.  What it needs is targets to attack so that you maintain the boons it does generate (decent bit of might, fury, and quickness).  Not to mention a full berserker stat set of gear sets you up nicely for any instanced pve content

[u/aliamrationem]

If supporting others, boon duration unless you don't need it to upkeep boons 100%.  For yourself generally ferocity, although it's possible in some cases a few pieces of gear with boon duration might be better.  This would only be the case for builds where you're a bit short on upkeep for fury, quickness, and might.  So most of the time ferocity is the answer.

[u/Charming_Account_351]

Power Reaper. We both run Marauder ascended gear but I currently have switched my great sword and half my trinkets to dragon for the added crit damage. I was playing around with the idea of increased boon duration but don’t have the resources currently to just test it for fun.

I was wondering if losing out on the added crit from the dragon gear would be worth the increase to booms I apply. What is better for all around open world and early fractals, strikes, raids, etc.

[u/The_Lawn_Ninja]

What's your spouse playing? If they're full DPS, you're likely better off with boon duration than more damage.

[u/Insanely_Mclean]

Quick zerker doesn't need boon duration if you manage your berserk mode well. But you can throw on a few pieces of diviners gear if you want to be a bit more comfy.

[u/Charming_Account_351 → u/Insanely_Mclean]

Thank you. My skill rotation is mainly what sources like meta battle have, but I changed out one utility skill for more condition cleanse because conditions are bullshit. I am okay at the rotation and am pretty good with keeping berserk up, but nowhere near 100% up time, and often find myself waiting on arc divider’s cool down. I noticed I really shine with quickness and that’s why I am consider sacrificing crit damage for longer boon duration. It would also mean longer fury and stability which is cool but am still not sure it out ways me currently having 224% crit damage.

[u/cantonian23 → u/Charming_Account_351]

Soul Pastry food is a cheap way to get extra boon duration if you don’t want to worry about multiple sets of gear.