Guild Wars 2

Jerus.4350:

Purple Miku.7032:

EcoRI.9273:

If a pug has to choose AFK auto attack for a guarantee way of progressing vs constant wipe, which would they choose?

See now you’re just reinforcing the point made earlier that this is a training wheels tactic :P

Why do we have to say it with such a negative connotation. Isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t this exactly what all the people in the general forum have been crying that there isn’t? We have proof right here that all their complaints are complete bullkitten. Sure if you want to be more efficient and more optimal you can and should run with the full zerk setup still utilizing block rotations and what not, but, you have this, which can really increase the ease of play and result in that soft trinity people have been crying for.

This post is freakin amazing, we should be embracing it, bookmarking it, and linking it every time someone complains about the game. We shouldn’t be trying to rip this guy a part for giving us this awesome set of videos proving the points we’ve all been making in those general discussion threads.

As Rising said earlier, the only negative is if we start getting 2-3 of these in groups, naw, just 1, hell more than one ruins the effectiveness of it ignoring the additional dps loss as it’d ruin the agro manipulation.

Thank you for being open minded!
I must say you got the idea of the build right

and yes, you dont want to have more than 1 cleric tank guard in the group just like you dont wanna have 2 tanks or 2 healers in “traditional mmo” dungeon group.

spoj.9672:

I think its more of a natural reaction for many of us to try and optimise the tactic. That means taking something which can anchor without losing as much dps. Such as the old AH meta. I dont really understand why people are so defensive about it. Miku was simply asking the reason they use it. Others were simply discussing/suggesting better alternatives. And all weve got is defensive responses with very poor reasoning as to why they dont like the other alternatives.

Because i get the desire to anchor. I just dont understand the need to heal constantly when your group isnt even getting hit. :P

The only “defensive responses” I see here coming from “full zerk or no skill ololo” people who refuse to make one step away from the middle of the universe and see things differently.

I am all for alternatives and frankly we’ve tested other stat comps and just didn’t find it as efficient as cleric for what we doing and for what our goals are. As I said before – Zealot would be much better alternative for certain bosses where you don’t have to hold aggro (Fire Shaman etc.). I’m gonna test it as soon as I get full Zealot set and I will share the results.

So your main question is “why you need to heal group while you already holding boss aggro”. Brown already addressed that but I can explain that part again. Most fractal bosses do more things than just 1 auto attack skill
- Mossman has wolves that can bite DPS
- Archdiviner drops wells that screw up melee DPS by applying weakness (you cant crit, you cant regenerate endurance). Also adds.
- Frizz trio requires direct healing. I would like to see if you can do this as smoothly with knights/zerk guardian https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me3Ae7htPzg&list=PLCxfgAjHhmmy0a29VtGeRpCK4ADb4SQTS&index=13
- Molten duo – Berserker autoattack is 360 degree multi hit attack. You need heals/protection if you plan to fight him in melee for more than 5 sec.

You can continue the list on your own

The main assumption for creating this build was that fights last longer than 5 sec (either underman or not-so-high-dps pug). Isn’t this what people were begging for for 2 years? Build that would make fractal pug runs as smooth as other dungeons? When I run cleric BP guard 5man my fractal never takes longer than 25-35 min (depending on roll).

Dear Skady,

Thank you for your informative videos. I think your 1 heal 4 zerk philosophy is fantastic, especially for pug, casuals, or uncoordinated parties. I think it represents a healthy balance between speed, smoothness, and consistency of runs. Not everyone wants to be a world record player – some of us just want to play. The extreme focus on increasing speed and dps has, at times, led to zealotry and fanaticism in both the meta and anti-meta communities. I think your philosophy fills a much needed space for balance between the two worlds. I hope you continue to make many more videos, and that we can exchange notes in game

Just two questions Skady:

1. Is communal defences a good idea especially for mossman? I notice you took battle presence. Especially for mossman, he hits so hard. The additional regen on your fellow teammates arguably won’t help that much. With communal defences, every twenty seconds, using non aegis blocks like focus 5 or mace 3 grants ur team mates a free aegis which blocks a harsh attack. Additionally going further into that tree increases your toughness which is needed to hold aggro.

2. What about the healing tome? If you have about 2k healing power, you might be able to sustain urself for 20-30 seconds while your blocks are on cool downs. Cast a SOA then go into tome. You can heal urself, ur shield, and ur team. Would this be a viable alternative?

Also, perhaps rotate between kralka chocs and the new riceballs? Riceballs give lower self healing but 10% more outgoing heals. So when tanking moss or arch diviner where all the aggro is on u, perhaps take choc. But in other instances, perhaps riceballs is better?

Thanks for considering I have watched some but not all the videos yet. If I mentioned something you have already covered, i apologise in advance – please do bear with me

Yours faithfully,

Ohlette

Thanks for questions

1. Is communal defences a good idea especially for mossman? I notice you took battle presence. Especially for mossman, he hits so hard. The additional regen on your fellow teammates arguably won’t help that much. With communal defences, every twenty seconds, using non aegis blocks like focus 5 or mace 3 grants ur team mates a free aegis which blocks a harsh attack. Additionally going further into that tree increases your toughness which is needed to hold aggro.

For Mossman you want at least 4 points in Virtues to pick ‘Master of Consecrations’ (longer wall, shorter cd) + ‘Spirit weapon mastery’ (+15 sec on SOA duration). If you drop one of those and go 00662 you gonna lose a lot of reflect uptime. I usually rotate WoR-SoA-WoR and after that combo you gonna have 20 sec gap in reflect which is usually covered by aegis/smokescreen. I tried Communal Defenses but it works weird and I didnt notice aegis procs on party members. Maybe range is too short, or most likely skill has internal cooldown (there is no IDC on tooltip) and my guess is that ICD is long and it usually being ‘eaten’ by Retreat/Courage when your team gets aegis anyways. For Archdiviner you gonna need traited Resolve to remove weakness from your dps after wells, that again wont allow you to go 6 in Valor.

Faythe.3096:

2. What about the healing tome? If you have about 2k healing power, you might be able to sustain urself for 20-30 seconds while your blocks are on cool downs. Cast a SOA then go into tome. You can heal urself, ur shield, and ur team. Would this be a viable alternative?

I prefer Renewed Focus for all fights where i’m supposed to hold aggro and tank the boss. Since this build is not passive and highly relies on blocks – you will benefit much more from extra block and extra resolve. Also burst heal (Resolve) is more reliable in fractals than book heal since you can time it when you dont have agony (agony won’t allow you to heal). The only place where I find book useful is Old Tom (trio, i still prefer focus for 5man cause fight is very fast). Even on Frizz I pick focus for extra Courage (stab)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uczgA8AJITA&list=PLCxfgAjHhmmy0a29VtGeRpCK4ADb4SQTS&index=7

I am behind the idea of 1 tank and the rest focusing on dps as a viable playstyle for a group of friends that are coordinated and know what they’re doing.
Saying it’s great for pugs, however, is something I have mixed feelings about. In theory it’s nice to hold aggro and healing up your team to stay above 90% hp for scholar runes, but pugs are far from using optimized dps rotations.

In fotm 50 pugs I have over the weekend encountered a staff camping guardian, dual pistol thief (at bloomhunger, then I left the party), people generally using knockbacks or fears at random,… all kinds of things that lower the party dps or mess up your aggro. I don’t think going full healtank and sacrificing your own dps is a good thing in pugs, where your dps is usually needed or where people will take the aggro off you, making your build kinda pointless.

TL;DR: With a group of friends I would also think this might be a fun playstyle, but I think it won’t fit for pugs.

Faythe.3096:

1. Is communal defences a good idea especially for mossman?

Communal defenses is a strange beast that’s awkward to control. When you are attacked, you will use a block. Frequently, this will come in the form of virtue of courage or retreat, both of which also give your nearby allies aegis. Upon block, communal defenses is triggered, and you give your allies aegis which they already have. It is wasted and now on 20s cool down. Lets say instead, you manage to pull off a mace/focus block while communal defenses is ready. Now your allies have aegis. The next attack can be:
1. auto attack. You need another block. If you use retreat or virtue of courage you overwrite your allies existing aegis rendering communal defenses useless.
2. bouncing daggers. Your wall/shield/swirling winds/smoke screen should stop the daggers, but say they are all on CD. Then you’ll use a block which is just like scenario one and communal defenses is useless again. If all projectile destruction is on CD AND you fail to block bouncing daggers AND your previous mace block proc’d communal defenses, then it helps your team mates on this attack.
3. gouge. This is a double attack so you’ll need more than a single block anyway.

And what’s to say that communal defenses won’t be chewed up by a trash wolf?

Finally, there is no good way to keep track of the cool down on communal defense. Who knows if your next mace block or retreat will proc communal defense?

On paper, communal defenses seems really good, but in practice, I find it too unpredictable to be useful.

2. What about the healing tome? If you have about 2k healing power, you might be able to sustain urself for 20-30 seconds while your blocks are on cool downs. Cast a SOA then go into tome. You can heal urself, ur shield, and ur team. Would this be a viable alternative?

Healing tome is effective for many boss encounters. I have not found it to be effective for mossman. Heal area is not quite enough to sustain yourself through mossman’s attacks so you’re really counting on a one time light of deliverance, which has a 3 minute CD.

Also, perhaps rotate between kralka chocs and the new riceballs? Riceballs give lower self healing but 10% more outgoing heals. So when tanking moss or arch diviner where all the aggro is on u, perhaps take choc. But in other instances, perhaps riceballs is better?

I use riceballs. It’s all about healing your team mates, not yourself.

Jerus.4350:

Why do we have to say it with such a negative connotation. Isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t this exactly what all the people in the general forum have been crying that there isn’t? We have proof right here that all their complaints are complete bullkitten.

This post is freakin amazing, we should be embracing it, bookmarking it, and linking it every time someone complains about the game. We shouldn’t be trying to rip this guy a part for giving us this awesome set of videos proving the points we’ve all been making in those general discussion threads.

OP was continuously stating that this is for efficiency purposes and not for the purpose of training wheels/learning to play better. In other words, this is what he/she believes is best to use for trioing fotm. Then that other person chimes in and reinforces what somebody else said earlier, which is that playing with tank/healer builds serves the purpose of training wheels to learn to play it in full berserker. All I did was simply point that out, your inference is what was negative not my implication. Hopefully that clears it for you.

I also don’t really see what the point in glorifying the videos is, because we’ve already had videos uploaded with people AFK spamming 1 killing bosses in dungeons and a video of Dub semi-AFKing mossman but no one cared.

We all have known this entire time that any and all builds are possible to play with and regardless of what information we throw out there to pugs, none of them care because they join LFG ads, get kicked and whine on the forums like helpless self-entitled children because they don’t wanna make their own groups. People like that aren’t looking for help, they’re looking for vengeance on the people that play differently than them. :P

drowze.3709:

I am behind the idea of 1 tank and the rest focusing on dps as a viable playstyle for a group of friends that are coordinated and know what they’re doing.
Saying it’s great for pugs, however, is something I have mixed feelings about. In theory it’s nice to hold aggro and healing up your team to stay above 90% hp for scholar runes, but pugs are far from using optimized dps rotations.

In fotm 50 pugs I have over the weekend encountered a staff camping guardian, dual pistol thief (at bloomhunger, then I left the party), people generally using knockbacks or fears at random,… all kinds of things that lower the party dps or mess up your aggro. I don’t think going full healtank and sacrificing your own dps is a good thing in pugs, where your dps is usually needed or where people will take the aggro off you, making your build kinda pointless.

TL;DR: With a group of friends I would also think this might be a fun playstyle, but I think it won’t fit for pugs.

The main problem with pugs is to make people execute ‘stand-behind-the-boss-do-not-move’ strategy. They still trying to run around like chickens getting hit by Mossman/Archdiviner cleave and dying. But after a few minutes they usually pick it up and stack behind since they see that strategy is actually working. Same with Weapon Testing Facility – you telling em to stack on guard and they still running around dying sometimes.

I guess it just takes time to break the ice, change people’s mentality and show them with an example that it is quite possible to have a Tank in GW2. People just too used to “every man for himself” thing.

Dear Skady and Brown,

Thank you for your informative responses on communal defences and healing tomes.

Have a good one in game~

Yours Faithfully,

Ohlette

Skady.5916:

The only “defensive responses” I see here coming from “full zerk or no skill ololo” people who refuse to make one step away from the middle of the universe and see things differently.

I’d say that’s an exemple of being pretty defensive, and insulting the people trying to argue with you at the same time. It’s also the things people do when they know they’re wrong,by the way. It’s just making your ( well- explained) post less attractive to read.

Why no zealot gear? With it u have good heal and still have damage.

oxtred.7658:

Skady.5916:

The only “defensive responses” I see here coming from “full zerk or no skill ololo” people who refuse to make one step away from the middle of the universe and see things differently.

I’d say that’s an exemple of being pretty defensive, and insulting the people trying to argue with you at the same time. It’s also the things people do when they know they’re wrong,by the way. It’s just making your ( well- explained) post less attractive to read.

Lol, if her opinion sounds insulting to you then your comments on her build "training wheel for people to learn how to use berserker" sounds above and beyond condescending, disrespectful, self-centered, elitist and try hard.

#casually edited to protect other people’s feeling

I liked, got me interested.

Thank you very much Skady and Brown for a wonderful run!!

It was very fun and great practice for homing my skills, I would love to go again.
This is great, this is like the meta at the core. Working on deference and tells so you can move to more offensive rotations

sarah

Iris Ng.9845:

Lol, if her opinion sounds insulting to you then your comments on her build “training wheel for people to learn how to use berserker” sounds above and beyond condescending, disrespectful, self-centered, elitist and try hard.

You’re really doing no one in this thread any favors by lashing out as you are. Try your hardest to keep this civil, or the moderators will come through here and likely close an otherwise valid thread with an interesting discussion premise.

I like how this build got a generally more positive reception here in the dungeon forum, it seens like people here got more tolerant to different playstyles. Last year Nemesis made a video with a similar build, but he got so much hate here XD but maybe that happened because it was a video from him, depending on who sends the message people will react differently.

Here’s the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oueBpmhAU-o

Nemesis also openly bashed and insulted our playstyles. While proving his ignorance on the subject. So thats why.

a few vids added:
- engi+ele run
- sub 3 min Mossman trio kill, staff ele POV (ele is actually my main). That video shows how tank guard lets us basically freecast entire time without the need of kiting and losing any DPS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-K3nWS2lQE&index=14&list=PLCxfgAjHhmmy0a29VtGeRpCK4ADb4SQTS

So here is the thing. You can hold aggro on two or three bosses in the game with full clerics and allow your team to more safely DPS.

But guess what? You can do the same thing with Full berserker and two-three pieces of Soldiers/Knights/Celestial gear without totally gimping your DPS. You don’t need to overload on Toughness. You need just enough to hold aggro. That means every piece of Toughness you equip beyond the necessary minimum is quite unnecessarily prolonging the fight.

“yeah but with mostly zerker when you run out of cool downs you have to dodge and you’ll lose aggro”

Or, you know, your team could keep the boss crippled or chilled (very easy to do at mossman especially thanks to ghost pepper poppers) and when you run low on cool downs you just backpedal slightly faster than he can walk.

hybrid.5027:

So here is the thing. You can hold aggro on two or three bosses in the game with full clerics and allow your team to more safely DPS.

But guess what? You can do the same thing with Full berserker and two-three pieces of Soldiers/Knights/Celestial gear without totally gimping your DPS. You don’t need to overload on Toughness. You need just enough to hold aggro. That means every piece of Toughness you equip beyond the necessary minimum is quite unnecessarily prolonging the fight.

“yeah but with mostly zerker when you run out of cool downs you have to dodge and you’ll lose aggro”

Or, you know, your team could keep the boss crippled or chilled (very easy to do at mossman especially thanks to ghost pepper poppers) and when you run low on cool downs you just backpedal slightly faster than he can walk.

The method that I use when I play Guardian is literally face tank mossman/archie in berserker gear. I use my dodge as much as possible for the big hitters and I usually have enough aegis chain rotations and blocks to keep myself alive when I run out of dodges. That retreat and SoA buff makes aegis face tanking so much easier. I also usually hold aggro pretty well in zerker gear :-\(I also use that Obal hammer build 35042 because I like the vigor procs)

EcoRI.9273:

hybrid.5027:

So here is the thing. You can hold aggro on two or three bosses in the game with full clerics and allow your team to more safely DPS.

But guess what? You can do the same thing with Full berserker and two-three pieces of Soldiers/Knights/Celestial gear without totally gimping your DPS. You don’t need to overload on Toughness. You need just enough to hold aggro. That means every piece of Toughness you equip beyond the necessary minimum is quite unnecessarily prolonging the fight.

“yeah but with mostly zerker when you run out of cool downs you have to dodge and you’ll lose aggro”

Or, you know, your team could keep the boss crippled or chilled (very easy to do at mossman especially thanks to ghost pepper poppers) and when you run low on cool downs you just backpedal slightly faster than he can walk.

The method that I use when I play Guardian is literally face tank mossman/archie in berserker gear. I use my dodge as much as possible for the big hitters and I usually have enough aegis chain rotations and blocks to keep myself alive when I run out of dodges. That retreat and SoA buff makes aegis face tanking so much easier. I also usually hold aggro pretty well in zerker gear :-\(I also use that Obal hammer build 35042 because I like the vigor procs)

Honor is the Vitality tree not toughness But yes, with good positioning and initial agro you can usually do a good job of holding agro, but it’s not nearly as locked down as you see in these videos in my experience.

@Casmurro, he also uses shield and sanctuary, both are niche tools not something I’d really throw into a general build. I remember seeing that video before but I closed it out when I saw those two things and didn’t even give it a chance, maybe I should have but yeah, shield is bad.

Skady.5916:

Hello team!

I started a series of vids showing how to run Cleric Tank Guardian in FOTM.
This build will allow you to face tank any fractal boss virtually without dodging/kiting while your team mates can focus on pure DPS (good old stack here and don’t move strat).

Here is the playlist on youtube with detailed build explanation, rotations and boss specifics. Currently being updated while i’m getting more fractal footage.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCxfgAjHhmmy0a29VtGeRpCK4ADb4SQTS

I hope this will be useful
Have a good one!

P.S. Holy trinity was never missing in GW2 it just never was a part of the meta. You can still play how you want and beat any content

For all of those bosses you can facetank/hold agro while staying full Berserker, blocks are sufficient which you can clearly see on your archdiviner kill. I just don’t see the use of taking Cleric’s gear when it’s not even needed and it’s obvious that you know the deal of rotating blocks/invulns.

hybrid.5027:

You can do the same thing with Full berserker and two-three pieces of Soldiers/Knights/Celestial gear without totally gimping your DPS. You don’t need to overload on Toughness. You need just enough to hold aggro. That means every piece of Toughness you equip beyond the necessary minimum is quite unnecessarily prolonging the fight.

I think a lot of people in this discussion are still sort of missing the point. This clerics build is simply one possible way to play the game that I find to be effective. No one is claiming that it’s the fastest. This idea of swapping out every piece of gear except the bare minimum in order to go faster is essentially the spirit of the zerk meta.

The last video shows a sub 3 minute mossman trio at level 50. I would not call that “totally gimping” our dps. You’ll also notice that 20% of that fight is in bear/leopard form. It doesn’t matter if you get bad RNG. The run also doesn’t totally fall to kitten when someone makes a mistake (this happens to me a lot in full zerk trios).

Or, you know, your team could keep the boss crippled or chilled (very easy to do at mossman especially thanks to ghost pepper poppers) and when you run low on cool downs you just backpedal slightly faster than he can walk.

Yes there are many ways to skin a cat. Ghost pepper poppers is certainly one of them, and many people use it. Personally, I think ghost pepper poppers is a lousy nourishment, especially if you’re pushing zerk meta. If dps and speed were the only things that mattered, why are you giving up 10% dps (vs dragon breath buns) when so many classes can chill/cripple/immobilize “for free?”

dboylolz.3916:

Skady.5916:

Hello team!

I started a series of vids showing how to run Cleric Tank Guardian in FOTM.
This build will allow you to face tank any fractal boss virtually without dodging/kiting while your team mates can focus on pure DPS (good old stack here and don’t move strat).

Here is the playlist on youtube with detailed build explanation, rotations and boss specifics. Currently being updated while i’m getting more fractal footage.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCxfgAjHhmmy0a29VtGeRpCK4ADb4SQTS

I hope this will be useful
Have a good one!

P.S. Holy trinity was never missing in GW2 it just never was a part of the meta. You can still play how you want and beat any content

For all of those bosses you can facetank/hold agro while staying full Berserker, blocks are sufficient which you can clearly see on your archdiviner kill. I just don’t see the use of taking Cleric’s gear when it’s not even needed and it’s obvious that you know the deal of rotating blocks/invulns.

I don’t mean to sound rude to the OP, but to me, the selling point of the build is that it is an easier build for most players to run compared to a support berserker guardian. Cleric’s gear and the traits just gives more leniency to mistimed dodges, bad aegis rotations. I feel the video just shows that it is not that slow that everyone claims it to be. Or rather it is not that bad when you consider the overall party DPS.

EcoRI.9273:

dboylolz.3916:

Skady.5916:

Hello team!

I started a series of vids showing how to run Cleric Tank Guardian in FOTM.
This build will allow you to face tank any fractal boss virtually without dodging/kiting while your team mates can focus on pure DPS (good old stack here and don’t move strat).

Here is the playlist on youtube with detailed build explanation, rotations and boss specifics. Currently being updated while i’m getting more fractal footage.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCxfgAjHhmmy0a29VtGeRpCK4ADb4SQTS

I hope this will be useful
Have a good one!

P.S. Holy trinity was never missing in GW2 it just never was a part of the meta. You can still play how you want and beat any content

For all of those bosses you can facetank/hold agro while staying full Berserker, blocks are sufficient which you can clearly see on your archdiviner kill. I just don’t see the use of taking Cleric’s gear when it’s not even needed and it’s obvious that you know the deal of rotating blocks/invulns.

I don’t mean to sound rude to the OP, but to me, the selling point of the build is that it is an easier build for most players to run compared to a support berserker guardian. Cleric’s gear and the traits just gives more leniency to mistimed dodges, bad aegis rotations. I feel the video just shows that it is not that slow that everyone claims it to be. Or rather it is not that bad when you consider the overall party DPS.

Pretty much. Sometimes work is already stressful enough that you only want some relaxing game play. I would speak for some friend of mine who rather not step into fractals at all due to his (imaginary) fear of playing bad in his berserker gear, not following a pug strategy or long tiring unrewarding fights with random wipes. Not after a long day of work.

Correct me if I’m wrong but we’re talking a max dps loss of 20% if the guard doesn’t even attack. And, realistically probably much less when you consider that the zerk guard will be in mace much of the time (no perfect rotations when you’re concerned with the blocks am I right?), as well as as giving freedom to the other players to run their rotations better. It just doesn’t seem like it’d amount to all that much. Not saying it’s the best way, probably wouldn’t do the things we have seen in some of [YET]‘s videos, but it just doesn’t seem a terrible idea.

I am curious to see a full group video just to see what they can really do.

Brown.8560:

hybrid.5027:

You can do the same thing with Full berserker and two-three pieces of Soldiers/Knights/Celestial gear without totally gimping your DPS. You don’t need to overload on Toughness. You need just enough to hold aggro. That means every piece of Toughness you equip beyond the necessary minimum is quite unnecessarily prolonging the fight.

I think a lot of people in this discussion are still sort of missing the point. This clerics build is simply one possible way to play the game that I find to be effective. No one is claiming that it’s the fastest. This idea of swapping out every piece of gear except the bare minimum in order to go faster is essentially the spirit of the zerk meta.

The last video shows a sub 3 minute mossman trio at level 50. I would not call that “totally gimping” our dps. You’ll also notice that 20% of that fight is in bear/leopard form. It doesn’t matter if you get bad RNG. The run also doesn’t totally fall to kitten when someone makes a mistake (this happens to me a lot in full zerk trios).

Or, you know, your team could keep the boss crippled or chilled (very easy to do at mossman especially thanks to ghost pepper poppers) and when you run low on cool downs you just backpedal slightly faster than he can walk.

Yes there are many ways to skin a cat. Ghost pepper poppers is certainly one of them, and many people use it. Personally, I think ghost pepper poppers is a lousy nourishment, especially if you’re pushing zerk meta. If dps and speed were the only things that mattered, why are you giving up 10% dps (vs dragon breath buns) when so many classes can chill/cripple/immobilize “for free?”

Any method whereby the boss is dead and you are not is viable. No one is saying clerics guardian is non-viable.

The argument is thus…

Some people run every red light, don’t stop at stop signs and speed as fast as they can. They sometimes crash or get a ticket but once they get there, they are usually there fast. (Full berserker)

Other people purposely drive incredibly slowly, cautiously and safely. These people only take right turns because crossing left is incrementally more dangerous than taking a right turn. They will get to the destination but it will take longer. (Full clerics)

The last group drives at a moderate pace, safely but they accelerate in the straighaways to a very high speed. They will turn left when its optimal. They always signal before turning. They arrive only a little after the first group when the first group is safe, and far faster when it isn’t. But since they almost never crash themselves they are ALWAYS faster than the slow guys(90% berserkers with a piece or two of toughness gear to hold aggro better)

It’s quite obvious that the optimal driving strategy is the last one. You will ALWAYS get to the destination faster than the slowest guys -and equally as safe- and sometimes the extra safety ensures that you get there faster than the speedsters.

tldr; no caution bad, some caution good, too much caution bad.

hybrid.5027:

So here is the thing. You can hold aggro on two or three bosses in the game with full clerics and allow your team to more safely DPS.

But guess what? You can do the same thing with Full berserker and two-three pieces of Soldiers/Knights/Celestial gear without totally gimping your DPS. You don’t need to overload on Toughness. You need just enough to hold aggro. That means every piece of Toughness you equip beyond the necessary minimum is quite unnecessarily prolonging the fight.

This is not the point of this thread. Lets try it again

The point of this thread is not to show off how I can tank Mossman in berserker gear and kill him in xxx milliseconds. I will leave that to professional speed run groups

The point of this thread is to show the community that GW2 PvE mechanics are in fact no different from “traditional MMO” mechanics and in fact you can have a tank in this game just like in any other game. This is why you don’t need to kite bosses that actually hit hard and require more than 60 sec to kill. You can just lock em down with a “Tank”, stand still and just do damage. For some reason this gave to some forum guys an idea that Tank is just AFK and this is ololo easy – this is why we got a videos showing that in fact he is not AFK and in fact you need to have an idea about block rotation. Even in tankiest gear (nomads) you gonna die if you miss more than 3 blocks in a row (zerker gear will get you killed if you miss 1 block, cleric -2 blocks).

How do you gear this Tank up? Its totally up to you. I am fully aware that in professional speed run group you can kill Mossman in somewhat about 1min (hell we even have video showing that you can casually 3man it with cleric guard in under 3 min). But that is beside the point. The point of the build was not to make a speed record. If I had a goal to make a speed record I would probably go with “zerker gear with a few pieces of cavalier/knights gear” idea. But this is not. This is not a speedrun record, and this is not a speedrun forum

As for “training wheel” part – you are entitled to think whatever you prefer As of now we have no proof that zerker guard can perform as a reliable tank in a real dungeon situation. Once again: by real dungeon situation I mean more or less decent pug, not speed run group that kills boss before it even spawns properly or gets out of deep freeze This is why we showcase underman – you can clearly see mechanics, skill rotations etcetc.

Have a nice day and enjoy stability changes (RIP Tornado 2012-2015)

Skady.5916:

The point of this thread is to show the community that GW2 PvE mechanics are in fact no different from “traditional MMO” mechanics and in fact you can have a tank in this game just like in any other game.

*for certain bosses

Doesnt work everywhere. For example imbued shaman and lupicus.

spoj.9672:

Skady.5916:

The point of this thread is to show the community that GW2 PvE mechanics are in fact no different from “traditional MMO” mechanics and in fact you can have a tank in this game just like in any other game.

*for certain bosses

Doesnt work everywhere. For example imbued shaman and lupicus.

Sure thing

This is why we showcase Mossman/ Archdiviner where tank actually shines, Frizz trio where healing power actually shines (I would like to see Frizz trio with zerker guardian) etcetc.

As for Fire Shaman. Aggro on that guy means firestorm. If you check my vids you will see that he always drops firestorm on a guardian. It means that guardian can just sit 300-400 units away from dps and keep aegis up for them. Fire Shaman trio was somewhat unreliable with zerker guard – cleric guard made trio a cakewalk. Generally speaking, when played right, it gives your group more room for maneuver, less wipes. Yes, you can swap gear between boss encounter and carry Cleric (melee bosses), Zealot (pure heals for Frizz) and Zerker. I just dont believe people would do that in “normal” or “casual” runs.

I’m glad you mentioned Lupicus. One day I was bored and joined one of those casual groups that was stuck on Lupi. We just did “stack on guard in front of the boss and you dont have to dodge” strat – worked pretty well and guys were impressed. Of course alternatively I could let em die and solo him on my zerk character – but many people do that already anyways

spoj.9672:

Doesnt work everywhere. For example imbued shaman and lupicus.

I think you’d be surprised. This build works extremely well at lupicus. The strategy is slightly different. Everyone stacks inside the guardian (as opposed to behind the boss). Mace 3 is a party wide block so long as party members are inside its range. So it’s entirely possible to do the entire lupicus fight without anyone moving or dodging. You’ll end up spawning grubs this way so I think it’s still better to dodge the grub spawn attack.

Thats not build specific or tanking. Thats simply utilising group blocks (you can do it in berserker), its no different to using group aegis’s in a meta comp. Im saying the whole tanking/anchoring/aggroing thing doesnt work everywhere. You arent stopping lupi from targeting other players or hitting them with cleaved attacks. So its not like a traditional MMO in all encounters. :P

Skady have you made a post on reddit yet? It gets a lot more attention generally hopefully from hard support enthusiasts, you’d make a great role model.

dboylolz.3916:

For all of those bosses you can facetank/hold agro while staying full Berserker, blocks are sufficient which you can clearly see on your archdiviner kill. I just don’t see the use of taking Cleric’s gear when it’s not even needed and it’s obvious that you know the deal of rotating blocks/invulns.

I have tried “tanking” with full berserker gear. I don’t find it to be as effective. There are times when I get hit when I don’t intend to get hit. Perhaps it is because I have 330 ms ~ 460 ms ping . Perhaps my reaction time is just not as fast as other players. Or perhaps I simply make mistakes and waste blocks unnecessarily. Whatever the case may be, when this happens in berserker gear, the whole run just starts to unravel. I go down, then my team mates go down trying to res me. My average trio run time in full berserker gear is much slower than cleric/zerk/zerk.

There are certain encounters where sustaining health is important. Frizz fight is one such example as Skady has mention. The lack of DPS in a 3 man party means you can not simply “kill them before they kill you.” I’ve tried, and I have not been able to stack and eat laser walls in zerk trios. You end up having to kite around the room in order to stay alive.

spoj.9672:

Thats not build specific or tanking. Thats simply utilising group blocks (you can do it in berserker), its no different to using group aegis’s in a meta comp. Im saying the whole tanking/anchoring/aggroing thing doesnt work everywhere.

That’s true. For this particular encounter, you can do this same strategy with berserker gear. I’m in full support of zerk meta. I think it’s very effective and I play it all the time. I’m just saying this cleric build is effective too. In this particular example the extra heals with clerics means the party stays 90+% health without moving even when the locust swarms hit.

Why do you run Clerics instead of Nomads? Wouldn’t you be able to tank that much better in Nomads?

Strife would be proud of this thread. RIP

Man, whatever happened to having fun playing the game?

To be fair, the guys that came 2nd in the fractal tourny used something similar to this strategy (and arguably they would have had a good chance at winning if they didn’t have a mass dc in the final). Pretty sure the guard used full knight’s gear though, which is definitely more that enough in a 5 man pt.

I’m good with my berserker guard tho. Let mossy play with the earth ele if he likes toughness so much.

hybrid.5027:

Why do you run Clerics instead of Nomads? Wouldn’t you be able to tank that much better in Nomads?

I would imagine breaking out of the cages on Cliffside would be a hell of a lot harder in nomads

If you run with Skady you know how awesome this is the first time you see it.

Tiburon.8634:

If you run with Skady you know how awesome this is the first time you see it.

If you run with Obal, Nessiah, Lushy and Winston you know how awesome it is when they can do the same thing in berserker with on piece of Knights gear.

hybrid.5027:

Tiburon.8634:

If you run with Skady you know how awesome this is the first time you see it.

If you run with Obal, Nessiah, Lushy and Winston you know how awesome it is when they can do the same thing in berserker with on piece of Knights gear.

Ran with Zui a couple times where he carried me hard like this

Is it just one piece of knights gear? ran with a friend last night who happens to have a celestial set of gear and they threw that on and the Ettin clung to them like glue (and mossy) we were wondering what the breakpoint is, how many peices of knights etc. Is it just one? If I had say a knights mace would that be enough?

I know I can get agro a lot just from proximity but bosses don’t snap to me if I get knocked back or they teleport away like it does in Skady’s videos, will 1 piece of knights do that? or would I need more, that’s more my question as again I can hold agro if I’m the closest usually already but there are other factors that ruin that.

Hi team!

hybrid.5027:

Why do you run Clerics instead of Nomads? Wouldn’t you be able to tank that much better in Nomads?

There are few reasons for picking Cleric over Nomads:
- Nomads has lower healing power than Cleric. That means you wont be supporting your team as well as Cleric (healing power is mainly to keep group at 90%+ not yourself).
- You don’t need Vitality to “hold aggro”, this stat serves a “selfish purpose” to give you more room for mistake and doesn’t bring anything to the team.
- You can comfortably survive in Cleric gear even in 2-3man party. You can test it for yourself – just get rid of wolves on Mossman and rotate blocks for 5-10 min solo without moving (dodge only for double axe).
- Also as mentioned above Archdiviner’s cages will be a problem without a power stat. Cage is a structure – meaning that you cannot crit it and apply condis, but you need power to break out. Since guard is holding aggro he will be caged every 10-20 sec and you wanna get out asap (your team will only have 1 aegis up).

cranos.5913:

To be fair, the guys that came 2nd in the fractal tourny used something similar to this strategy (and arguably they would have had a good chance at winning if they didn’t have a mass dc in the final). Pretty sure the guard used full knight’s gear though, which is definitely more that enough in a 5 man pt.

Honestly I kinda feel the same way when I run with 5man guild group when builds are minmaxed I feel like Cleric is a bit of a waste and Knights would be enough to act as a tank.

Cleric stat combo really starts to shine in pugs and underman parties. You can replace Cleric with Zealot/Knights/Zerk/Cavalier depending on your group’s DPS and encounter (same rule applies, min TTK = min defensive stats). I believe that if you really try to minmax this strat with perfect group you can go with zerker gear – you technically will be able to hold aggro just from 4 points in Valor (+200 toughness, you gonna have more armor than PS warrior). Just remember – 1 block missed/wasted and you dead Cleric is just a universal answer for all existing fractals and all existing party comps and it doesnt really gimps your speed, in fact it just makes runs smoother and reliable cause things are not going to kitten due to one mistake (they will still go to kitten if you make more than 2 mistakes though).

I will keep adding more vids and examples with different trio comps. Tonight’s run with Staff Ele+Engi combo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ubRKdpDfU8&list=PLCxfgAjHhmmy0a29VtGeRpCK4ADb4SQTS&index=16

We are planning to do Necro+Engi, need volunteers Hard to find a person passionate about Necro and experienced with builds.

There has been times where I had knights gear on and they don’t stick to me like glue and there has been times where i had full zerker and they just wouldn’t get off me. I feel initial aggro plays a heavy part in retaining aggro. And as for the passive defensive stats, I hate to say it but its a player skill thing where if you are skilled, you can do almost everything a clerics can do in berserker. And if you are a total newbie(fresh lvl 80, never did fotm, got dragged in by friends to do a fotm 30 scenario), you probably want Nomads. Again the selling point to the passive defense is the ease of play and its decent clear speed and what gear they choose(Nomads,clerics,knights) depends on how well they play.

There appears to be a recurring theme here. People continue to claim that this can be done with knights gear or berserker gear. I want to address both of these:

1. Berserker gear – In full 5-person zerk meta parties, this notion of tanking/healing is sort of moot. Especially in coordinated teams with 2 eles 4 icebows. The boss never gets out of deep freeze and typically dies (or phases) within two dps rotations. Does anyone really use a zerk mace in full 5-man parties? The strategy is different and you rely on sword/focus/virtue blinds + deep freeze.

In low man parties , I think berserker gear is significantly harder and in fact less effective than clerics gear. Yes of course it’s possible, and when everything is perfect, you will potentially get a faster time than cleric/zerk/zerk. But in my experience, the full party wipes + resets makes the average run time much longer. Additionally, there are certain encounters that are near impossible with zerk x3 without endless kiting and lower overall dps.

2. Knights gear. Let me start out by quoting myself from an earlier post:

I have not found knights gear to be as effective as clerics gear in 3-man fractal runs. If you prefer it, good for you.

I’ll elaborate on why I think clerics gear is more effective than knights gear. First of all, clerics gear provides more support for the team in the form of heals. So far, Skady has only shown videos of “tank boss forever” fights. Ideally, she never moves, and the party members never get hit. But there are many other scenarios in which the extra healing comes in handy. Despite your best efforts to blind all the trash mobs, certain attacks are bound to connect, especially when you are pulling more than 5 enemies. In these situations, a clerics guardian will outshine a knights guardian. Trash mobs in ascalon fractal, siege weapons, the start of grawl fractal, chest seal are a few examples. I also utilize merciful intervention a lot more than Skady. During the Ashym fight, it is difficult to dodge both agony attacks, especially for those that melee and the squire is messing with you. A quick MI + virtue of resolve will heal your party members to full health. Knights gear does not provide this kind of support. Secondly, all things being equal, knights gear is hardly a damage increase as compared to clerics gear. They have the same power stat. The only additional damage stat knights gear brings to the table is 745 points of precision (full ascended trinkets + armor + weapon). This is equivalent to ~15% ~25% more damage. In my opinion, the 15% 25% damage is not worth the trade off of the massive heals you can provide to your team mates. Most of the dps comes from your two zerk team mates anyway.

My math says Knights is 25.2% more DPS than Clerics.

frifox.5283:

My math says Knights is 25.2% more DPS than Clerics.

Becomes significantly more when you consider that the guy in knight gear:

• may have some to significant amounts of berserker/valkyrie gear mixed in
• gets additional damage (and some self-sustain) when using life leeching food because there is more than ample precision to make it viable
• may be running DPS runes
• has 100 more ferocity and possibly ~100-150 precision from Valor VI and going the full 6 in Valor

frifox.5283:

My math says Knights is 25.2% more DPS than Clerics.

You are right; I did my math wrong. I forgot to include base ferocity in my calculations. The rest of my post still stands though.

Brown.8560:

frifox.5283:

My math says Knights is 25.2% more DPS than Clerics.

You are right; I did my math wrong. I forgot to include base ferocity in my calculations. The rest of my post still stands though.

No offense but the only reason why this thread’s annoying me is because you + OP have posted many times suggesting that this is the best method to use for efficiency because of comments saying things like “you can’t do _ with berserker” etc. It’s false.

I’ve been duoing/trioing fotm 50’s for ages and it’s almost entirely possible to tank mossman with a guardian in berserker, which is unlike what you say. The difference is that instead of trying to avoid dodging and having someone change their gear, we’re all much more active during it and the fight is less stationary and well… more of a fight, I guess.

Yes, it’s error prone to people that don’t fully understand Mossman’s attacks and make mistakes. It certainly isn’t going to work for people that don’t know what to do in every moment. But the problem I have with your posts is that you’re pretty much saying that you cannot repeat what you’re doing without being in clerics. It isn’t true.

Your methods work for you, which is fine, but you’re spreading false information by stating you can’t tank in full berserker. You can. And even in Skady’s cleric mossman trio, I can see Mossman turning around and using dancing dagger on the ele/thief, and hear her saying that she cannot fully protect them from all of his attacks so they need to dodge some of them. This exact same situation happens when the guardian is in berserker. It’s no different.

For reference to show that a cleric guard isn’t needed to tank, here’s a video of Sesshi and I duoing Mossman on 50 with two staff eles:

http://www.twitch.tv/purpleishawt/c/6120798

..which is basically one of the most yolo sort of setups you can choose from. It was our third try, and I presume that provided we put effort into it it would be possible to do it in around 3 minutes.

As you can see, when you spawn rock elemental he will maintain aggro the same way that the guard does. As long as you remain a certain distance from him, he will absolutely never stop attacking the rock elemental aside from the occasional dancing dagger throw, until that rock elemental dies.

Once again, I’m not trying to bash you and your friends. While I won’t do it because the idea of standing still doing almost nothing to defend myself for the whole encounter sounds just as fun to me as the idea of doing what pugs do and bug him in the water, I commend you for finding your own way of enjoying yourself and encourage you to do as you please.

Just please don’t spread false information about it.

It is completely possible to hold aggro and have smooth + consistently fast runs without cleric guards. It may not work for you, but it certainly has for me.