Guild Wars 2

I really really wish Zerk build to be nerfed, such build really deserves it on PvE.

It’s not fair that it seems there’s only 1 possible build on this game that is acceptable, that is Zerkers.

I and certainly many others on this situation, want to play dungeons with our own builds, without be constantly kicked, insulted and other things because there is too much elitism about this.

For the sake our community health, end this “zerker build master-race”, even Guardians are Zerkers now! Dear lord!

If you don’t want to play Zerkers then don’t play with zerker only parties. All indiscriminate accepting parties don’t check for zerkers.

Start your own party and advertise it as casual or however you want?

runeblade.7514:

If you don’t want to play Zerkers then don’t play with zerker only parties. All indiscriminate accepting parties don’t check for zerkers.

That would be possible, but when something goes wrong when doing the dungeon, it’s blame the “non zerker” phase as the boss didn’t died fast enough and we wiped.
The elitism on this game it’s only growing and only damaging the community itself, being very un-friendly for new players as the LFG Tool and the “silent” kicking of players when inside the dungeon… clearly shows were we are headed on this.

The game is too easy when zerker is only option. People just want finish content fast and get rewards. Healer, balanced or bunker providers close to zero benefit in current PvE.

Your problems seems to be elitism, not Zerker gear. Zerker gear WAS nerfed (for max.-level dungeons) and it changed nothing about the appeal of the gear. Nerfing it further wont change anything either unless some other gear suddenly deals more DPS.

Yes, elitism might be a problem but it’s one that can be avoided or worked around.

People play Zerkers because DPS is the only thing that really matters in PvE and, when combined with stacking, the benefits far outweigh the downsides.

It’s a PvE design issue, not a stat-balancing issue.

so interesting i remember the times when i was kicked as guardian bcs i play zerker

People will always find a reason to kick nerfing the only fun playstyle in pve will not help anything.

You mean you wiped at the boss even with your super awesome tanking gear? The game most be broken, as mentioned before join groups tha meet your requirements such as th typical “anyone welcome” or “any build welcome” of not start your your own group.

If you came into my clearly labelled zerker-only party. I would kick you too.

I wanted some fancy insulting, but i have a serious question instead.
Why you favour your own build instead of the accepted meta builds? Including berserker gear ofc.

Dalanor.5387:

I wanted some fancy insulting, but i have a serious question instead.
Why you favour your own build instead of the accepted meta builds? Including berserker gear ofc.

Because the game is fun when we have several builds, and we actually PLAY the game, not fast-run towards all content and then complain this game do not have enough content. O.o

Why can’t you just play non zerker with your non zerker party and let zerker do what they do instead of crying for a nerf?

Max Lexandre.6279:

Dalanor.5387:

I wanted some fancy insulting, but i have a serious question instead.
Why you favour your own build instead of the accepted meta builds? Including berserker gear ofc.

Because the game is fun when we have several builds, and we actually PLAY the game, not fast-run towards all content and then complain this game do not have enough content. O.o

It doesn’t have enough content because the game’s focus is on temporary content, and we’ve had a long break without any more of it.

Zerker is statistically the best gear in the game for PVE.

While you can live longer in tank gear, so do all the enemies. The enemies that also live longer do more damage, making the benefit of tank gear moot. Worst of all, you don’t exactly absorb attacks or hold aggro, so while you live longer, no one else does.

Death is the ultimate debuff; dead enemies do no damage. The faster an enemy dies, the less damage it does, the quicker the fight ends and you heal to full health. This all goes on top of something else: active defenses. Players all have dodges, blocks, invulnerability, evades, and blinds on cooldowns. If you kill enemies quick enough, you don’t run out of active defenses. But, when you take forever to kill enemies, you’ll use up all your blinds, dodges, and blocks, meaning you’ll take more damage in the long run.

On top of this, the faster an enemy dies, the faster you get their drops. So, it is more profitable as well.

This is where the zerker meta comes from. Though players exaggerate the necessity of zerker gear, they do not exaggerate the benefits. As for being kicked: this only happens if you join a party that demands all zerker gear, or is denoted as a “speed running” party. Other groups don’t gear check at all, so join those groups instead of zerker groups.

…

Max Lexandre.6279:

I really really wish Zerk build to be nerfed, such build really deserves it on PvE.

It’s not fair that it seems there’s only 1 possible build on this game that is acceptable, that is Zerkers.

I and certainly many others on this situation, want to play dungeons with our own builds, without be constantly kicked, insulted and other things because there is too much elitism about this.

For the sake our community health, end this “zerker build master-race”, even Guardians are Zerkers now! Dear lord!

I understand your frustration, but

1. Zerker is a gear choice and not a build
2. If Berzerker gear gets nerfed, the meta will just change to the next best thing i.e. assassins and everybody will want you to run that
3. Paths that are less easy and would allow other gear choices are not run by the casual people i.e. Aetherpath
4. In higher level Fractals support gear is sometimes not that bad

And the most used phrase, you can run as you want, just look for people that do the same and start a group like: Casual run, no zerker required

I am also not a fan of the zerker gear meta, but when I am in these casual groups I almost always leave at some point as the run goes: wipe, wipe, half wipe… after 20 minutes the next boss and the same routine. With people who know how to play theyr class and build it’s faster and less frustrating even without stacking etc. And these people run whatever build they want, just in zerker gear, because every other gear choice is less good in PvE up to being a liability.

You do not need toughness or vita or healing power, as a healing specced guard heals more than enough in zerker. Taking one more hit with toughness or vita will most likely not change the battle outcome, as you can ress the person easily. All boons do not require a specific gear stat, that’s why you can run Guardian with your selected build in defense mode and still add damage in berzerker gear while defensive gear would make no difference except for taking longer.

The problem is, that defense tactics like healing and boons as well as offensive boons do not require any gear. Therefore you go with the gear that makes it most easy, while running support builds.

And that is berzerker gear.

The problems lies in somehow bad boss mechanics and the independence of stats in relation to supportive or CC builds while CC is even somehow comepletely useless with defiant. A possible solution would be to just scrap all stats from equipement like in GW1 and solely build via Traits and Runes while giving more stats on trait choices.
Because that is your build and gear choice is zerker for PvE (except maybe celectial Ele or Condition Damage which has more pressing problems). While other gear choices are actually usefull in PvP and WWW…

Anti-zerkers vs Elitists
Round 74831

Are you ready?

I can agree that in PvE some gear needs to be looked up, but coupling back stats to other effects make it rather messy. GW2 was touted as fast paced action MMORPG. In that case, people should really change their mindset that the game feels like an MMO that uses trinity-like mechanics, when the game feels like, IMO a hybrid between a fighting game and your semi-traditional RPG.

kitten is it so hard to make a non-zerker group? Or are you angry that they don’t want to carry you anymore after zerker nerf? Make your own LFG or read them SC, speedrun, rush, max DPS etc. it’s for zerkers only even for a guardian. I see many non zerkers groups in LFG so stop whining or l2p with zerker gear.

Max Lexandre.6279:

I really really wish Zerk build to be nerfed, such build really deserves it on PvE.

It’s not fair that it seems there’s only 1 possible build on this game that is acceptable, that is Zerkers.

I and certainly many others on this situation, want to play dungeons with our own builds, without be constantly kicked, insulted and other things because there is too much elitism about this.

For the sake our community health, end this “zerker build master-race”, even Guardians are Zerkers now! Dear lord!

Majority of LFG is not gear specific.

It’s so easy to deal with your problem that a child can figure it out. Don’t expect other people or the system to fix your problem.

And the itsy-bitsy spider
Climbed up the spout again

Max Lexandre.6279:

Dalanor.5387:

I wanted some fancy insulting, but i have a serious question instead.
Why you favour your own build instead of the accepted meta builds? Including berserker gear ofc.

Because the game is fun when we have several builds, and we actually PLAY the game, not fast-run towards all content and then complain this game do not have enough content. O.o

Sit down, it will be schocking.
We have fun too. Amazing, right? But those builds are effective and makes our runs faster.
And correct me if i’m wrong, but if you do your dungeon runs with your suboptimal settings, it’s still the same 8 dungeons what we run too, so the content won’t be expand magicaly if you wear PVT.

Max Lexandre.6279:

The elitism on this game it’s only growing and only damaging the community itself, being very un-friendly for new players as the LFG Tool and the “silent” kicking of players when inside the dungeon… clearly shows were we are headed on this.

I wouldn’t say it’s unfriendly to new players, I’d say it’s unfriendly to ignorant or wilfully ignorant players.

Last night two guildies and I put up an LFM for CoE, typical “read this zerker blahblah” message, I had not put experienced in the description and we got a brand new thief player. He told us up front that he was new, confirmed he was in fact in bererker gear as requested by my LFM, asked if that was ok, and if we would tell him anything he needed to know.

He was so new that he wasn’t even in proper zone for the dungeon, so we waited for him before doing the first champ. He was a little confused about the 1-4 console part, the laser jumping and got a bit antsy about the damage Alpha’s PBAoE did (no guard); but, he blasted my ele’s fire fields instead of ruining them and dodged appropriately for the most part. He even asked what dungeon potions were best for Alpha, much to my surprise.

TL;DR: A new player who joins specific LFMs all willy nilly is not going to have a good experience and will probably be kicked, that is their own fault for not reading. A new player who reads the LFM and makes a bit of an effort to know what is going on before hand is the best kind of new player, and shouldn’t have any problems.

Dalanor.5387:

And correct me if i’m wrong, but if you do your dungeon runs with your suboptimal settings, it’s still the same 8 dungeons what we run too, so the content won’t be expand magicaly if you wear PVT.

I somehow agree that there’s a different fun in running a dungeon more slowly – it’s all about immersion, you actually let yourself immersed in the story told and even fancy exploring the dungeon, rather than speed-clearing it. The content obviously does not differ, but the way you enjoy it does.

As for “suboptimal settings”, I think that telling people their builds are suboptimal without even knowing what they run or why they run it, is uninformed and borderline discourteous. I’ve met lots of people running berserker and meta builds, proud of it, then completely unable to watch boss tells and avoid AoE, going down as a result and ending up raging about it. Obviously, their setup was “suboptimal” with their level of skills, and the group would have performed better without them.

As for now, I’ve stopped doing group dungeons, because I got sick of people attitudes (and attitudes not even backed by skills), and only do solo (or more rarely duo) instances. I’ve found lots of excitement in that, more freedom in the gameplay (because no pressure from a group), more challenge, more immersion.

The base line has not changed though since months, though: only play with people that share the same values as you do, and keep from insulting people that do not.

DUNGEON BINGO!

Emanuel.9781:

DUNGEON BINGO!

Bingo!

Emanuel.9781:

DUNGEON BINGO!

Full win? YESSS

Bingo! Congraz to the OP!

It’s not the gear. Having the confidence to run glass cannon, relying on your own knowledge of the fight and reflexes to keep you alive, signifies that you are an experienced and good player. That is why people look primarily for zerkers.

zerker works best when the entire party is zerker… too few zerker then they dont have the sustain to survive the stack before the mobs die and the zerker ends up downed….thats why you see posts where someone who was not zerk was the last one alive while everyone else was dead

the solution has always been to make your own group and to not join groups requesting zerk

I used to think the same thing. In fact I still don’t care much for the full Zerk gear set up being meta. However I accept it for one simple reason. I was a GW1 player. More specifically I was a heavy Speed Clearer. This addresses two things.

1) I like getting my runs done as fast as possible. The best way to do this is max dps with skillful players (Know how to dodge and how mob mechanics work).
2) GW1 didn’t have gear sets. Everyone essentially ran blank gear, because the gear didn’t give bonus to any stat, save for those you bought runes to increase.

Running Zerk is pretty much the same thing. We put our faith in our skills and gamble with our lives to make our runs as fast as possible. And I get this isn’t for everyone and that’s fine. I don’t scoff at people who don’t run Zerk. I do however get annoyed when my ad says “X Dungeon | 80’s Only | Exp ZERK Only!” And people join with PVT gear. I don’t care if you run PVT. It has its uses. Just not in a “Zerk Only” group. Illiteracy does get kicked from my party with a kind message about reading the ad they are signing up for.

This is not to say other gear sets are useless and ZERK is GOD. But just know that Zerk is sort of expected in most groups for a fast run. And as some have stated; you can always make your own group with a trinity set up if you can’t stand the Zerk meta. Even I will agree that sometimes having a healer or tank on board helps in some situations.

Gee, this isn’t a familiar rant or anything.

Zerker isn’t a build. Zerker is a gear set. There is more build diversity in this game than ever before.

Zerker isn’t the build.
Zerker isn’t the gear.
Zerker is the state of mind.
May the force be with you!

The only way you’d be allowed to use whatever gear you want in every dungeon group is if all of the gear was the same.

Open LFG Panel.
Start a party with the following text – "Path “X” Everyone Weclomed".
?

Your way of having fun is not my.
I love speed clears and fast runs with experienced players who know how to play.
Don’t join my party if you don’t meet my requirements. No one is forcing you.

What’s the alternative to zerk?

I’m quite curious what OP was running.

We should have speed clear bingo record threads.

Lucas.9157:

And the itsy-bitsy spider
Climbed up the spout again

Oh gawd, that thing is so cute.

Plenty of people play the game the way its meant to be played. You just have to learn to create your own parties. Since day 1 there is LFG tool in this game I’ve never joined a party. Even though there are no benefits of being a party leader, I always started the thing myself and all my parties get filled with people for less than 2 minutes. I don’t care if they are zerkers or not, if they are lvl 80 or dungeon level, i don’t care if they want to swap on last boss or not. And I’m sure there are thousands of people just like me. You just have to learn to deal with it, that there are people who want to finish arah in ~30-40 minutes, and the 2 CoF paths in ~15 minutes or less combined and move on with their lives

And you are wrong for blaming them to play the way they want and that they want your playstyle in their party. To each their own. That’s the hard truth you have to face and agree with.

The best solution is to make “friends” or get real life friends to play the game so you could play together the way you want, with whoever you want and with whatever build your heart desires. I myself once did AC with 3 lvl 35 characters. Was fun, took 2 hours. Haven’t done it again

Ravenmoon.5318:

Plenty of people play the game the way its meant to be played. You just have to learn to create your own parties. Since day 1 there is LFG tool in this game I’ve never joined a party. Even though there are no benefits of being a party leader, I always started the thing myself and all my parties get filled with people for less than 2 minutes. I don’t care if they are zerkers or not, if they are lvl 80 or dungeon level, i don’t care if they want to swap on last boss or not. And I’m sure there are thousands of people just like me. You just have to learn to deal with it, that there are people who want to finish arah in ~30-40 minutes, and the 2 CoF paths in ~15 minutes or less combined and move on with their lives

And you are wrong for blaming them to play the way they want and that they want your playstyle in their party. To each their own. That’s the hard truth you have to face and agree with.

The best solution is to make “friends” or get real life friends to play the game so you could play together the way you want, with whoever you want and with whatever build your heart desires. I myself once did AC with 3 lvl 35 characters. Was fun, took 2 hours. Haven’t done it again

+1 for Sheriff Ravenmoon.

Glad to see people are realizing that there’s an easy solution to this berserker party thing. Even if the majority of the cats are still going to meow.

Max Lexandre.6279:

runeblade.7514:

If you don’t want to play Zerkers then don’t play with zerker only parties. All indiscriminate accepting parties don’t check for zerkers.

That would be possible, but when something goes wrong when doing the dungeon, it’s blame the “non zerker” phase as the boss didn’t died fast enough and we wiped.

Makes me wonder though, if you’re not running zerk, and you’re not keeping the party alive. Then what are you doing?

It’s simple, stop joining groups that ask for zerkers. Stop expecting to be able to run your crappy 1/5/3/2/5 builds on your rangers in FotM 49.

It comes down to understanding the content. PvE is all about damage with the way the AI works. Yes, you can run other specs and it works, but it takes far longer and it’s ultimately pointless. Toughness and Vitality are incredibly selfish stats. They are simply there to allow you to make more mistakes, that’s it.

The only time you’ll be kicked is if you join the wrong group. Join casual runs and you wont have a problem.

mexay.3902:

It’s simple, stop joining groups that ask for zerkers. Stop expecting to be able to run your crappy 1/5/3/2/5 builds on your rangers in FotM 49.

It comes down to understanding the content. PvE is all about damage with the way the AI works. Yes, you can run other specs and it works, but it takes far longer and it’s ultimately pointless. Toughness and Vitality are incredibly selfish stats. They are simply there to allow you to make more mistakes, that’s it.

The only time you’ll be kicked is if you join the wrong group. Join casual runs and you wont have a problem.

Wait how did they get so many extra trait points? Rangers OP!

If you can’t play Zerk, don’t play Zerk. But don’t blame your lack of skill on others, that’s not being a Team-player. Go for Knights, or Soldiers, and run casual until you know each encounter in and out, then you’ll have -more- than enough G and experience to get some Zerker gear and rock out.

Gyler.8150:

mexay.3902:

It’s simple, stop joining groups that ask for zerkers. Stop expecting to be able to run your crappy 1/5/3/2/5 builds on your rangers in FotM 49.

It comes down to understanding the content. PvE is all about damage with the way the AI works. Yes, you can run other specs and it works, but it takes far longer and it’s ultimately pointless. Toughness and Vitality are incredibly selfish stats. They are simply there to allow you to make more mistakes, that’s it.

The only time you’ll be kicked is if you join the wrong group. Join casual runs and you wont have a problem.

Wait how did they get so many extra trait points? Rangers OP!

Pet gives you two extra trait points, apparently.

I notice. I just don’t call people on it. I leave that to the “ping gear or kick” crowds.

If anything, I’ll usually make comments in guild chat. And when I’m done with a party, I’ll just say, “Welp, done. G’luck all. May your guardians always have reflect handy.”

Who said anything about measuring through damage dealt?

Azreell.1568:

DigitalKirin.9714:

I notice. I just don’t call people on it. I leave that to the “ping gear or kick” crowds.

If anything, I’ll usually make comments in guild chat. And when I’m done with a party, I’ll just say, “Welp, done. G’luck all. May your guardians always have reflect handy.”

Actually it’s impossible for you to notice without a damage meter.

So, I’m going to call you out on this.

Even in zerker gear peoples dps and performance very GREATLY.

So , You can have someone in full zerker doing terrible dps and someone in for example in celes or zealot doing more simply because they are playing better and and using their cds and rotations appropriately.

So no offense but I call bs on your statement.

It’s not unreasonable to know the approximate damage to expect from each class. Can you tell how much one person is doing in AC, where everything dies immediately no matter what? Probably not. Can you tell in Arah or CoE or Fractals? Absolutely.

Requiring zerker with no ping is fine because there usually will only be a handful of people cheating like you, and most will follow the request. That’s always enough in the low-level dungeons.

maxinion.8396:

Azreell.1568:

DigitalKirin.9714:

I notice. I just don’t call people on it. I leave that to the “ping gear or kick” crowds.

If anything, I’ll usually make comments in guild chat. And when I’m done with a party, I’ll just say, “Welp, done. G’luck all. May your guardians always have reflect handy.”

Actually it’s impossible for you to notice without a damage meter.

So, I’m going to call you out on this.

Even in zerker gear peoples dps and performance very GREATLY.

So , You can have someone in full zerker doing terrible dps and someone in for example in celes or zealot doing more simply because they are playing better and and using their cds and rotations appropriately.

So no offense but I call bs on your statement.

It’s not unreasonable to know the approximate damage to expect from each class. Can you tell how much one person is doing in AC, where everything dies immediately no matter what? Probably not. Can you tell in Arah or CoE or Fractals? Absolutely.

Requiring zerker with no ping is fine because there usually will only be a handful of people cheating like you, and most will follow the request. That’s always enough in the low-level dungeons.

Having experienced the highest levels of fractals as well as completing / solo’ing Arah , I will be the first to tell you – It is still impossible for you to be able to tell which person is doing less damage in any group. The difference even in Arah, CoE or Fractals is minimal unless you are running with a static group.

Also, As I said once again – A person in full zerker does not ensure the maximum damage for that particular spot due to player skill , spec and class.

It’s simply a stigma.

Also, To clarify – I was not cheating as I have stated prior I have full ascended zerker sets which at any point in time I could have put on – but the point is it was never required nor asked.

This stigma is similar to people desiring heavies only for parties or warriors only thinking they are the highest dps.

The bottom line is without a ping there isn’t a person alive who is going to be able to tell if any particular player is wearing zerker or not if they are playing the class with even the smallest amount of skill.

Anyone who gets kicked from a party for lack of zerker is doing something wrong far beyond gear.