Guild Wars 2

rfdarko.4639:

Goodness, it seems like you read “placebo” and nothing else of my post. The main argument that you make I actually mention just above that – Bridgette and retal. Turmain is essentially the same thing: you brute force rather then ib5, so healing allows melee classes to stay in melee range and dps the whole time. I was actually trying to play devils advocate. I’m sorry that word distracted so much from my point, which was really just that whether you have a centaur rune mesmer running around portaling or a healing guardian, being down one dps character isn’t going to make much of a difference where kill times are concerned. It’s going to be seconds or a few more seconds.

I don’t have any problem with the set up, although I wouldn’t advise trying to use it in pugs as you suggest. Because while 4zerk1heal is not that much different from 5zerks, 4 grab-bag-of random-traits-and-specs + 1 heal isn’t always going to work out. You can’t depend on pugs to deal dps, and after two years of pugging I can safely say it’s much better to bring your own dps and bring active defense without gimping yourself to buff or heal your party mates. Pugs are much more likely to lack good damage then they are to lack personal survivability. “They trust me to protect them, and I trust them to fully dps.” – trust is not something you bring into pugs, so I’d advise keeping the healer guard for times when you know everyone in the party and know the full group composition.

Dear rfDarko.4639,

Thank you for your reply. You post was one of the more substantive ones., and worthy of reply. The replies to your arguments can actually all be found in my earlier post. I certainly hope you won’t jump to conclusions that I only considered your ‘placebo argument’ just because ‘placebo’ was the only word I borrowed from your post. In summarising the gist of the entire posts so far, I hope I can seek your understanding that how I phrase it may not fully correspond to how you phased things – but it does not meant your words were not considered.

For the sake of completion, I set out your main arguments and reply accordingly:

1. Encounters are so under-tuned that everything explodes in seconds

I disagree. I have replied to this in my post. GW2 is harder than it appears because it rewards good teamwork (with easy runs), but serious penalises ones.

2. Using the same strategies as in the video but making the guard zerker probably wouldn’t make the path that much faster

I agree. It would probably make the run slower (if the same tactics were used) since zerk guardians cannot heal. I mentioned earlier in my post that full support requires active defences, passive defences, and heals. Zerk guards are only strong in the first element.

3. Healing had more of a placebo effect than anything else – you would have done nearly the same with or without it + 1heal 4zerk is unlikely to work well with PUGS

Again, in my post. Good healing is elusive. The point is not whether I would have done the same, but whether any reasonable pug in my position would have done the same kitten zerk or 1 supp 4 zerk. My humble view is that 5 zerk in any pug is far more likely to fail due to the low margin for error. My experience from pugging since GW2’s inception is that where I play heals, I can better control the survivability and fate of my group compared to when I am full zerk. While I may not be able to trust every pug to DPS effectively, I can at least trust them to DPS. Keeping them alive is not predicated on them trusting me. The absence of trust doesn’t mean the run fails. It just means its overall speed is reduced a little by people dodging or defending more than they should. This is a far more acceptable outcome than being a zerker in a pug group and you have far less options of ensuring group survival because you yourself are struggling to survive amidst the group’s tactical mistakes, bad team members, etc. I also point out that I have had good DPSers join when I post for zerker pugs. My group today were all PUGs I met along the way. In short, all things being equal, 1 heal 4 zerk is more viable in pug/casual scenarios than 5 zerk parties.

4. 1heal4zerk may not result in much kill time difference compared to 5 zerk parties

I agree on this point, and I have addressed this in my post earlier. One of my key arguments is that 1heal4zerk brings many benefits in addition to allowing you to kill around or at the same speed as full zerk parties. Therefore, it is worthy of sincere consideration.

Thank you.

Yours Faithfully,

Ohlette

I personally think in terms of increasing speed for a dungeon run, Berserker build vs Non Berserker build is not a huge priority that some of you guys are claiming it to be. There are other things far more important than that to “PERSONAL” dps that you guys are advocating that can magically turn that 8minute run to 4minutes. Instead of saying the same thing over and over “if your guardian was running meta build, it would have been faster.” The statement has so little weight. I would agrue that if the guardian was berserker meta build, it would be only slightly faster. Strategy is far more important than what a person’s build is. When talking about increasing speed. I would personally rank the following for its ability to shave off time:

1: Figure out how to avoid fighting trash mobs.
2: Figure out how to get to point A to point B as fast as possible.
3: Figure out which events can be skipped.
4: Figure out how to give your overall party more DPS.
5: Personal DPS

instead of giving advice on how to save a few pennies, give advice on how to save a few dollars.

Let’s look at what a healer guardian can bring to the table instead of being ignorant and just claim that a build sucks because it has no personal DPS. And yes it is NOT OPTIMAL but it is not as bad that some of you guys are claiming it to be.
1: healer guardian can be the ultimate bunker, which means your party don’t need to dodge as might to avoid hits. Dodging once in a 10second fight is a 10%loss of personal DPS.
2: Scholar bonus is maintained longer.
3: Vacuum DPS rotation is OP as hell.

EcoRI.9273:

I personally think in terms of increasing speed for a dungeon run, Berserker build vs Non Berserker build is not a huge priority that some of you guys are claiming it to be. There are other things far more important than that to “PERSONAL” dps that you guys are advocating that can magically turn that 8minute run to 4minutes. Instead of saying the same thing over and over “if your guardian was running meta build, it would have been faster.” The statement has so little weight. I would agrue that if the guardian was berserker meta build, it would be only slightly faster. Strategy is far more important than what a person’s build is. When talking about increasing speed. I would personally rank the following for its ability to shave off time:

1: Figure out how to avoid fighting trash mobs.
2: Figure out how to get to point A to point B as fast as possible.
3: Figure out which events can be skipped.
4: Figure out how to give your overall party more DPS.
5: Personal DPS

instead of giving advice on how to save a few pennies, give advice on how to save a few dollars.

Solid argument.

To add to Ecori’s point, I think that the more complex the skip becomes, the more distant the tactics get from PUG reality. For PUGs parties, I think its important, when assessing what skips/tactics to use, to balance between ease of use and the time saved. To continue the money metaphor: no point pushing high risk tactics for several extra seconds when the party is not ready for it: would be penny wise pound foolish.

Ok so I watched the video, the [arty DPS is not that bad, you guys were melting everything pretty quick. Much faster kill times than pugs who are all berserkers for sure.

It sounds like we simply have different experiences and different priorities then, so I won’t argue that your point of view is not valid. If your goal is to make it to then end of an encounter without a single down in a pug, I can’t say that I can absolutely ensure that on my staff elementalist. I think to say the “speed is reduced a little” is generous, and I disagree that a good player will be “struggling to survive amidst the group’s tactical mistakes,” – a skilled player will adapt to what defense is and isn’t present in a given situation. Also the line “gw2 is harder than it appears” ? It sounds like you are talking to someone who doesn’t play the game – most days I solo or low man both fotm and dungeons, so I understand how hard (or not, as the case may be) encounters are. I do believe there are some genuinely challenging encounters in the game, but CM specifically is under-tuned for fully geared players with even a moderate amount of experience.

to iris – I understand the filmed run wasn’t a pug, but she was advising this group set up for “casual/pug” runs, which is what I was responding to.

Edit, to be a bit clearer: “1 heal 4 zerk is more viable in pug/casual scenarios than 5 zerk parties.” Is not the point I was arguing against, all though I would lean more towards “deserves consideration” rather then flat out “more viable”. My point was: From my experience at least, when going in totally blind to a random pug, bringing dps and active party wide defense makes things go smoother then depending on your party-mates to do enough damage. It seems like you’ve had the opposite experience, and I can’t really argue with that. You post for “zerker” pugs, so that may be part of it.

rfdarko.4639:

It sounds like we simply have different experiences and different priorities then, so I won’t argue that your point of view is not valid. If your goal is to make it to then end of an encounter without a single down in a pug, I can’t say that I can absolutely ensure that on my staff elementalist. I think to say the “speed is reduced a little” is generous, and I disagree that a good player will be “struggling to survive amidst the group’s tactical mistakes,” – a skilled player will adapt to what defense is and isn’t present in a given situation. Also the line “gw2 is harder than it appears” ? It sounds like you are talking to someone who doesn’t play the game – most days I solo or low man both fotm and dungeons, so I understand how hard (or not, as the case may be) encounters are. I do believe there are some genuinely challenging encounters in the game, but CM specifically is under-tuned for fully geared players with even a moderate amount of experience.

to iris – I understand the filmed run wasn’t a pug, but she was advising this group set up for “casual/pug” runs, which is what I was responding to.

Edit, to be a bit clearer: “1 heal 4 zerk is more viable in pug/casual scenarios than 5 zerk parties.” Is not the point I was arguing against, all though I would lean more towards “deserves consideration” rather then flat out “more viable”. My point was: From my experience at least, when going in totally blind to a random pug, bringing dps and active party wide defense makes things go smoother then depending on your party-mates to do enough damage. It seems like you’ve had the opposite experience, and I can’t really argue with that. You post for “zerker” pugs, so that may be part of it.

Dear Darko,

Thank you for your response.

1. I think the term ‘reduced a little’ should be corrected to ‘somewhat reduced’. There are times when the DPS is reduced only by a small portion, and times when it is fairly larger. It all depends on the skill of the pugs which are drafted. It is both accurate and inaccurate to describe the term as ‘reduced a little’.

2. The goal of healing is to allow for the most effective way to get through a PUG dungeon, taking into account the circumstances of casuals/pugs. Just in case, I clarify that it is not just trying to get through a dungeon without downs, and therefore taking a very long time in the process.

3. I disagree that a skilled player ‘will’ adapt to difficult circumstances. For lack of a better word, I think ‘may’ is a more appropriate term. Nevertheless, I feel that while skilled zerkers are not incapable of carrying parties, given that the bulk of players are casual, and that as a zerker your options in ensuring party survival are limited, it is arguably more effective to clear content with by sacrificing 1 person’s dps and supporting 4 casuals with heals, rather than going 5 zerk and end up with limited options (only active defences) or soloing the content (because your team is dead, down, struggling to survive). Alot more things can go wrong with 5 zerks given the narrow margin for error. It is also noteworthy that as a non-zerk, your dps is lower, but certainly not negligible.

4. Since you generally don’t dispute that 1heal4zerks is more viable for pugs, I think I have nothing much more to add to your point. If you sincerely feel the proposition is worthy of consideration, that is adequate for the purposes of logical argument. As an aside, I only started posting for zerker pugs about of several months ago. Prior to that, I just dungeoned with whatever pugs I got, and that worked out fine. I certainly don’t doubt the quality of your experience, but neither do I second-guess mine. There is probably some differentiating factor that explains the polarity of our experiences, but I think for the purposes of this debate, it isn’t necessary to go into that.

Good luck on your solos~

Yours Faithfully,

Ohlette

EcoRI.9273:

I personally think in terms of increasing speed for a dungeon run, Berserker build vs Non Berserker build is not a huge priority that some of you guys are claiming it to be. There are other things far more important than that to “PERSONAL” dps that you guys are advocating that can magically turn that 8minute run to 4minutes. Instead of saying the same thing over and over “if your guardian was running meta build, it would have been faster.” The statement has so little weight. I would agrue that if the guardian was berserker meta build, it would be only slightly faster. Strategy is far more important than what a person’s build is. When talking about increasing speed. I would personally rank the following for its ability to shave off time:

1: Figure out how to avoid fighting trash mobs.
2: Figure out how to get to point A to point B as fast as possible.
3: Figure out which events can be skipped.
4: Figure out how to give your overall party more DPS.
5: Personal DPS

instead of giving advice on how to save a few pennies, give advice on how to save a few dollars.

Let’s look at what a healer guardian can bring to the table instead of being ignorant and just claim that a build sucks because it has no personal DPS. And yes it is NOT OPTIMAL but it is not as bad that some of you guys are claiming it to be.
1: healer guardian can be the ultimate bunker, which means your party don’t need to dodge as might to avoid hits. Dodging once in a 10second fight is a 10%loss of personal DPS.
2: Scholar bonus is maintained longer.
3: Vacuum DPS rotation is OP as hell.

@ point 1.
<3 Engi where I drop a bomb when I dodge

The problem with the idea of a “1 healer 4 zerkers” party setup is that the healer can only really be useful and help zerkers avoid dodging and stuff in the easy dungeons only. The idea of using a healer for zerkers breaks in content like Arah and high level FOTM. Your healer can, indeed, keep zerkers from dodging out of something like Bridgette’s retal symbol. It won’t help zerkers on something like Lupicus or Archdiviner. For that the whole party needs to be tanky, which makes run last much longer.

Basically, the only point of a 1healer 4 zerker party setup is to trivialize.. content that is already trivial to begin with. It doesn’t trivialize the more interesting dungeons at all. The net contribution of a healer on something like Lupicus is zero. If someone messed up dodging there on a zerker build, down they’ll go.
That looks rather pointless to me.

Taku.6352:

Magi’s staff/IB ele is the best healer in the game.

Why magi’s? Can you elaborate?

rotten.9753:

Taku.6352:

Magi’s staff/IB ele is the best healer in the game.

Why magi’s? Can you elaborate?

Healing power as main and precision as second for more oncrit procs. And vitality being superior to toughness. Clerics offers HP, Power and Toughness, so it is inferior.

Edit : and Because you’re going for a 02066 build (Air – Soothing Winds, Pecision is converted into Healing Power), thus no points in power anyways.

Edit 2 : I’d never think to make an optimal healing build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fFAQFAGnMISLD2zA0RYAMAj8I4F8BFFAKPDuB9AA-TxxGABA8AAwTJYuXAg20Boo6PDt/wSK/IFgz6tA-e

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Healing power as main and precision as second for more oncrit procs. And vitality being superior to toughness. Clerics offers HP, Power and Toughness, so it is inferior.

So it’s effectively the same as clerics in healing department but offers more generally?

When it comes to traits and sigils yes. (See my edits).

Good posts Faythe. Yes the dps will suffer in theory, but I have found that by facetanking bosses to keep them stationary, keeping everyone at 100%hp for scholars, encouraging melee rather than safer ranged options, reducing the movement they need to avoid taking damage etc – the overall dps does not suffer by as much as you would think in the average pug.

My favorite example of this is Mai Trin. Consider 5 ranged pugs trying to ranged kite her, missing shadowstep dodges, and generally having a bad day. Now consider an experienced healer guardian telling them to stack on him and melee her down while he keeps everyone at 100% without breaking a sweat. Which is more likely to down her faster?

Considering all of the pit stops and trash mobs speedrunners would have skipped, portals, jumping routes etc not used… I think 8 mins is perfectly reasonable for a pug considering you lowered the skill requirement to make it a quick run by a decent amount.

You only have to look at the forum/reddit post counts vs the speedrun contest view numbers vs the anet financial statements to conclude that although the forums are a vocal crew, the number of people hugely worried about everyone being perfectly performing zerkers 100% of the time and blitzing content is quite simply tiny.

Nikaido.3457:

The problem with the idea of a “1 healer 4 zerkers” party setup is that the healer can only really be useful and help zerkers avoid dodging and stuff in the easy dungeons only. The idea of using a healer for zerkers breaks in content like Arah and high level FOTM. Your healer can, indeed, keep zerkers from dodging out of something like Bridgette’s retal symbol. It won’t help zerkers on something like Lupicus or Archdiviner. For that the whole party needs to be tanky, which makes run last much longer.

Basically, the only point of a 1healer 4 zerker party setup is to trivialize.. content that is already trivial to begin with. It doesn’t trivialize the more interesting dungeons at all. The net contribution of a healer on something like Lupicus is zero. If someone messed up dodging there on a zerker build, down they’ll go.
That looks rather pointless to me.

[KING] Tournament, 1healer 4zerker(I think they were RTG?) came in second, it works.

PS: I noticed in streams, that alot of players are doing the headshot→icebow strat. If you think about it, it is a very similar concept. Have the thief sacrifice all of its personal DPS just so a team can freeze a boss 1-2 extra times. It is not optimal as well but it makes encounters super easy just like the support guardian.

EcoRI.9273:

Nikaido.3457:

The problem with the idea of a “1 healer 4 zerkers” party setup is that the healer can only really be useful and help zerkers avoid dodging and stuff in the easy dungeons only. The idea of using a healer for zerkers breaks in content like Arah and high level FOTM. Your healer can, indeed, keep zerkers from dodging out of something like Bridgette’s retal symbol. It won’t help zerkers on something like Lupicus or Archdiviner. For that the whole party needs to be tanky, which makes run last much longer.

Basically, the only point of a 1healer 4 zerker party setup is to trivialize.. content that is already trivial to begin with. It doesn’t trivialize the more interesting dungeons at all. The net contribution of a healer on something like Lupicus is zero. If someone messed up dodging there on a zerker build, down they’ll go.
That looks rather pointless to me.

[KING] Tournament, 1healer 4zerker(I think they were RTG?) came in second, it works.

PS: I noticed in streams, that alot of players are doing the headshot->icebow strat. If you think about it, it is a very similar concept. Have the thief sacrifice all of its personal DPS just so a team can freeze a boss 1-2 extra times. It is not optimal as well but it makes encounters super easy just like the support guardian.

I thought he was playing the classic pillar guard not healer guard (PVT not clerics) and the main benefit was he was able to more easily and consistently pull off things like soloing mai trin bomb phase or keep the ettin controlled.

Also thief loses CnD when using pistol, it’s a notable damage loss but far less than sacrificing the majority of your offensive stats isn’kitten You also gain blind at parts and what not. Still able to pull off wicked backstabs and very high heartseekers, they lose the revealed training much of the time though.

Jerus.4350:

EcoRI.9273:

Nikaido.3457:

The problem with the idea of a “1 healer 4 zerkers” party setup is that the healer can only really be useful and help zerkers avoid dodging and stuff in the easy dungeons only. The idea of using a healer for zerkers breaks in content like Arah and high level FOTM. Your healer can, indeed, keep zerkers from dodging out of something like Bridgette’s retal symbol. It won’t help zerkers on something like Lupicus or Archdiviner. For that the whole party needs to be tanky, which makes run last much longer.

Basically, the only point of a 1healer 4 zerker party setup is to trivialize.. content that is already trivial to begin with. It doesn’t trivialize the more interesting dungeons at all. The net contribution of a healer on something like Lupicus is zero. If someone messed up dodging there on a zerker build, down they’ll go.
That looks rather pointless to me.

[KING] Tournament, 1healer 4zerker(I think they were RTG?) came in second, it works.

PS: I noticed in streams, that alot of players are doing the headshot->icebow strat. If you think about it, it is a very similar concept. Have the thief sacrifice all of its personal DPS just so a team can freeze a boss 1-2 extra times. It is not optimal as well but it makes encounters super easy just like the support guardian.

I thought he was playing the classic pillar guard not healer guard (PVT not clerics) and the main benefit was he was able to more easily and consistently pull off things like soloing mai trin bomb phase or keep the ettin controlled.

Also thief loses CnD when using pistol, it’s a notable damage loss but far less than sacrificing the majority of your offensive stats isn’kitten You also gain blind at parts and what not. Still able to pull off wicked backstabs and very high heartseekers, they lose the revealed training much of the time though.

No. Don’t even think of traditional rotations. Thief will lose all inititatives to remove all the defiant for the extra deep freeze. They will need to trait for improvisation and make sure that they get 1 or even two icebows to keep up the dps. Then the rest will be spamming Heartseeker until the boss is dead.

The fair comparison would be taking a mesmer for portal and bleed stacks vs. a healer guard.

GrimmR.3541:

Iris Ng.9845:

oxtred.7658:

I personally find it satisfying to keep people alive without healing power by just using proper active defense, but for each their own. If you have fun using healing power, do so, as long as your group agrees.

You can’t use active defense against retaliation, or constant poison/burning uptime)

But you can LoS Bridgette or pull/knock her out of it.

There is no CC in guild wars 2. People tell me this in the general forum, so it must be true. Defiance system means you have to face tank her retaliation.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Saint.5647:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Rising Dusk.2408:

Other styles certainly are viable! I agree with that. That said, your video also clearly shows what it does to your team net DPS since the all-time record is under 3 minutes and yours is over 8.

Blaming the healer for the extra 5 minutes in the run without including the multiple pit stops they had setting up Pug strats or the fact that they did almost nothing to reduce travel time.

You are aware that as a forum specialist you’re suppose to be neutral right?

He’s supposed to be neutral regarding Anet and the playerbase if they’re at odds. He isn’t required to support every opinion that pops up in the sub-forum.

His job as a forum specialist is partially to represent the dungeon community as a whole he is neither allowed to be pro zerker meta or pro PHIW, he cannot take sides period and must represent us in unity. He is not suppose to support anyone’s opinion or have one himself.

Anet is neither pro zerk or anti or pro trinity or anti or pro PHIW or in order to maintain a non discriminating image. Rising Dusk can either absorb this same prime directive or step down so he can engage with whatever he wants. He lost those rights the moment he volunteered.

And you’re an expert and have a say in what he can and cannot say because?

To be fair nomads guard is useful in HotW casual runs :p

hybrid.5027:

GrimmR.3541:

Iris Ng.9845:

oxtred.7658:

I personally find it satisfying to keep people alive without healing power by just using proper active defense, but for each their own. If you have fun using healing power, do so, as long as your group agrees.

You can’t use active defense against retaliation, or constant poison/burning uptime)

But you can LoS Bridgette or pull/knock her out of it.

There is no CC in guild wars 2. People tell me this in the general forum, so it must be true. Defiance system means you have to face tank her retaliation.

Shhh Nike, don’t listen to them. Let them spread their wrong informations deep down in the general discussion forum!

fadeaway.2807:

Good posts Faythe. Yes the dps will suffer in theory, but I have found that by facetanking bosses to keep them stationary, keeping everyone at 100%hp for scholars, encouraging melee rather than safer ranged options, reducing the movement they need to avoid taking damage etc – the overall dps does not suffer by as much as you would think in the average pug.

My favorite example of this is Mai Trin. Consider 5 ranged pugs trying to ranged kite her, missing shadowstep dodges, and generally having a bad day. Now consider an experienced healer guardian telling them to stack on him and melee her down while he keeps everyone at 100% without breaking a sweat. Which is more likely to down her faster?

Considering all of the pit stops and trash mobs speedrunners would have skipped, portals, jumping routes etc not used… I think 8 mins is perfectly reasonable for a pug considering you lowered the skill requirement to make it a quick run by a decent amount.

You only have to look at the forum/reddit post counts vs the speedrun contest view numbers vs the anet financial statements to conclude that although the forums are a vocal crew, the number of people hugely worried about everyone being perfectly performing zerkers 100% of the time and blitzing content is quite simply tiny.

Dear Fadeaway,

Thank you for your kind comments. Yeah I agree with you. Haha, you used to be able to face tank mai trin with healing tome and out heal all the Dmg to you and your party. It’s harder to do so now with fractaled patch stepping in.

Yeah as you point out, I think the 8 mins would have been shortened by abt 2+mins if we had started filming straight after picking path instead of before, and if I hadn’t taken my time to run around and change skills because I was SMSing irl. As OP said, we didn’t know we were being filmed. I don’t think our time would have been world record speed or even the speed of 5 speedzerkers. But a 6 + min casual run with 1 heal 4 zerk without stealthing thru mobs does seem reasonable, even by 5 zerk standards.

Yours faithfully,

Ohlette