Guild Wars 2

They needto seperate WvW and PvE in some aspects to be honest.

Keep the condition stack cap in WvW because face it. In the current zerg-fest WvW is, 25 bleeds is enough to take you out in seconds once you run out of condition removal. I been in situations on my thief that conditions have killed me far more then that zerker warrior or that zerker ele blasting into my face has. Zerker is only great for bursts there, I’m guilty of being a “Zerker Thief” but I have a few pieces to up my Vit and Toughness. Not a true glass cannon but playing smart and patient in fights for my moments to strike downs far more people then me blasting in with a Mug, BS, Heartseeker to death. I’m not even traited for mug, mostly Shadow Arts and Arobatics with a few in trickery and a few in Critical Strikes. This is all personal choice though, it’s a game and do what makes you happy.

In PvE I think they should remove the condition caps. And all armor in aspects (PvE, WvW, SPvP, tPvP) should recieve a small buff to condition damage, healing power, and etc to make them more optiomal. Maybe world bosses like Teq, Shatterer, and Claw of Jormag should have a condition cap where ever is more balanced. Because in those situations, they could easily have 250+ stacks of bleeding with all the people. The healing would be better in dungeons and other instances because not all of us are on the same “Skill level”. More “lower skilled” players might need more healing then some of us and other “skill levels” might want it to ensure they are staying up and giving team support so no one drops like flies.

From what I seen, this game does not favor any trinity with support. There are skills that go well and combo finishers, but who really uses these tatics? It’s more common to see in PuGs that there will be so much to combo off and no one uses it. I’ve been in a few PuGs where I see all these combo fields and I just switch to my Short Bow and blast finish them all for Might, Ret, Protection for the team, and then I do it to apply burning, chill, etc with my blast finishers damage to enemies. Often times I get questioned what I’m doing and once I got kicked for utilizing the combo fields. I’m not saying everyone ignores these, because I see in some PvE and A LOT of it used in WvW but they are generally very well organized groups of people that have aimed for these effects, in PvE with PuGs, it’s more of just striaght DPS all the time.

That’s just my opinion and some things point more to players not utilizing it, and some to suggestions to the Devs. Take my opinion as you will because I’m not going to argue with anyone about it. And some of it was off topic very well, but it relates to my main idea of “Some fault is the players, and some the Devs”. I’m not targetting the A-Net team ether of bad designs. I’ve played Guild Wars 1 since launch and GW2 since headstart and I love both games very much. I’m just stating what I think will make other aspects better then everyone looking and choosing one aspect because it’s the meta by both players and some design.

PearlGore.7419:

It would be nice if we did not have liars in here, would help the discussion on gear.

I agree. I would love to see FULL zerker people in 40 plus fotm not get downed all the time. They told you to practice earlier right??? Haha these newbwaffles would get downed in a heartbeat.

I actually wrote a topic about this a long time ago. It was titled “Tough issues”, and it went into the mathematics behind how stats and damage are calculated.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Tough-issues/first

If anything, I’d recommend reading the first page of the topic. Short story is:

*Toughness scales horribly when compared to power and condition damage.
*Vitality scales better on low HP classes but only works once.
*Dead enemies do no damage, so faster enemy = less damage done = more survivability

There are a few places where toughness and vitality come into play, particularly in PVP and survivability thresholds when fighting enemies with high sustained damage.

Of course, it is also worth it to look at rampager and carrion sets as well as zerker. There are a few instances (grenadier engineers and necromancers) where rampager will outpace zerker, simply because of how big an influence conditions have to those classes. Carrion is also worth mentioning since it focuses on the two best scaling stats on combat, even if they act independently of each other.

Kichwas.7152:

Vayne.8563:

Asssuming that the best players are a minority (which is a pretty good bet), that means that the best players would indeed be better off with beserker gear. But you can’t tell me all players are in the top 15-20 % in skill.

The reality is more like 1% can pull off a tissue-paper build, and 15% claim they can but end up doing more harm to their groups than good by facerolling on so many pulls.

1% lol? any guild group with voice chat can plow through instances with full zerker sets.

1% would be more applicable to those with the skill to solo a dungeon.

Wethospu.6437:

If you survive easily you have too much defense and could have more offense and do things faster.

Anyways I’m bit curious, how do you people know everyone melting in seconds is running Berserkers or if pvt-gear would even make any difference? Do you ask them to link their gear? Play with them again when they use pvt-gear?

Standard veteran mob standing next to boss drops an AOE on half the group.
2 players who were at full health are suddenly in the downed state, and me standing right next to them – I’ve barely suffered 10%.

- That happens way to often.

Guess who’s group now has to 3-man the boss and adds? Or I can leave the other two still up to 2-man it while I rez the zerkers, only to see them faceplant on the very next AOE…

Oh and, if you survive – it means you had just the right amount of defensive stats.

Nick.6972:

Guardian is my main.
Full Cleric armor + Ascended rings.

Started a Warrior a week ago, because glass cannons is the way to go in this game.
Damage > Everything else.

My guardian uses a form of Altruistic healing on a hammer and scepter/focus build (might swap out focus for torch, but I like the Bell skin for focus…).

I try to put on a LOT of toughness, condition damage, and bonus healing, and my utilities are set up to have me spamming boons constantly.

The end result is that I do a -LOT- to keep my group up, to where all that background damage from AOE, minor adds, and so on gets pushed off the table and they can boss focus. But with my toughness, I get major boss aggro, and can do the above while seemingly tanking.

As for the condition damage, I spam out fire constantly (and thus why I think my ranged set should go torch), and this takes out most of that adds with again, background skill use, in addition to putting a big dent into a boss.

Sure I’m not likely to stack bonus healing on my mace/shield & longbow using warrior… (where I use the mace/shield to take down bosses by doing interrupts and blocks to them as much as I can).
- But on my Guardian its golden. I can’t save the zerkers who die in one-shot, but if they can survive 2-shots I’ve got them (and really, if you’re running balanced gear, you can survive quite a lot more than that).

Wethospu.6437:

Seveleniumus.5973:

In theory yes, in practice – no…
Not everyone is perfect in this game and not everyone has 24/7 spare time to “get better” in every dungeon there is + WvW +sPvP in this game. If one can not survive, zerker gear is worthless. I run a war with 3k armor and ~28-30k health and I’m often the last man standing and many times are left to solo the last dungeon boss, when all the “standard” zerker teammates go down.
I also like the basic idea of being able to sustain some punishment and being able to run through trash mobs like they’re nothing, I can not do that with zerker gear as every smallest mistake can get me downed.

If I can solo most of the dungeons with my Berserker Warrior that says something about being practical (with 5 guys it’s a lot more easier). You are feel free to try with your PVT-gear.
As you said, with Berserker-gear you have less room to make mistakes so people want to kill stuff as fast possible. Then if you have few guys rolling with low damage bunkers/tanks it gets much harder for glass-cannons because fight lasts longer. Also if you are supposed to be a tank and you aren’t protecting your teammates then what’s supposed to be your role?
Yes for skipping PVT-gear is obviously better because you aren’t dealing any damage, however all skips are quite easy.

I run a shout warrior, so I heal, buff/debuff, remove conditions, kite (as with 3k armor I usually get the most aggro) and with axe x axe I can still reach 50 % critical with 50 % increased critical damage, so I also DO a lot of damage , not that much less than any zerker build, enough to solo bosses and champions in a reasonable amount of time without the need to be perfect at everything I do.

Xter.6271:

There are skills that go well and combo finishers, but who really uses these tatics? It’s more common to see in PuGs that there will be so much to combo off and no one uses it. I’ve been in a few PuGs where I see all these combo fields and I just switch to my Short Bow and blast finish them all for Might, Ret, Protection for the team, and then I do it to apply burning, chill, etc with my blast finishers damage to enemies. Often times I get questioned what I’m doing and once I got kicked for utilizing the combo fields.

That baffles me.

I always try to make use of combo fields when I see them, or when I can lay them out. But my first 80 was my Hammer Guardian – where to auto attack sets up a field for another core attack. So its instinctive for me to think in terms of boosting potential by using these.

I can’t imagine a group kicking someone for playing well.

Then again, back in WoW my warrior tank was once booted from an instance for taunting a mob off the priest healer because “its not fair that you get to kill everything, let him kill one too.” So internet odds being what they are – I guess its bond to happen to somebody that they’d be kicked for using one of the core features of how group combat is supposed to work in this game.

Kichwas.7152:

Wethospu.6437:

If you survive easily you have too much defense and could have more offense and do things faster.

Anyways I’m bit curious, how do you people know everyone melting in seconds is running Berserkers or if pvt-gear would even make any difference? Do you ask them to link their gear? Play with them again when they use pvt-gear?

Standard veteran mob standing next to boss drops an AOE on half the group.
2 players who were at full health are suddenly in the downed state, and me standing right next to them – I’ve barely suffered 10%.

- That happens way to often.

Guess who’s group now has to 3-man the boss and adds? Or I can leave the other two still up to 2-man it while I rez the zerkers, only to see them faceplant on the very next AOE…

Oh and, if you survive – it means you had just the right amount of defensive stats.

That happens way too often. It’s been a regular thing then I play my warrior. I stand there up close and personal with 2 other warriors or other squishy geared people, kaboom AoE, I keep standing there, wondering where the other 2 guys went. Then I take a look at the floor and there they are. Then I just back up, dump some arrows and combo fields. Or I avoid the AoE with a dodge, F4 LB, then evisc back into the fight, since I’m not caught up by looking at “huge” numbers from my 100B.

I dont think I’ll ever go back to full zerk gear on any of my toons after trying more defensive combinations. I just got tired of some situations that would down me if I screwed up. Now I can take the semi heavy hits and dodge the planet killers, earlier the semi heavy hits would be planet killers aswell, so dodge had to be more stressed.

There are good and bad players berserker or not. I personally use a mix of berserker and pvt atm. IMO berserker is useful more often than not. For mob farming, usually they wouldn’t be too much trouble in the first place so killing them fast is the way to go. For dungeon runs, when you are more experienced in the run you are also more likely to be able to avoid lethal damage. At that stage vit and tough is just sitting pretty there whereas damage is still useful since you are almost always attacking.

Which is not to say vit and tough are useless. They have their role. They allowed for more room for error. Also when fighting a boss for the first time or so and when it is determined that a boss couldn’t not be burst down safely..

I use a mix because i am just an average player and the mix gave me more leeway but i can see that a full offensive gear will be much useful in the hands of a good player.

The reason people think healing doesn’t scale is because you need toughness as well as healing. Trying to heal a berserker warrior is a waste of time since they have little toughness.

I see people with berkerker gear drop like flies in dungeons and WvW. I use mainly clerics gear on my guardian and I can tell instantly when I hit them in WvW if they are berserker or not. I never die 1v1 ever in WvW using clerics gear. Yeah it takes me longer to kill, but who cares? I can usually win 2v1 as well.

A big reason people with berserkers do well in fractals is because there is usually a support class in the group. Why do you think everyone wants a guardian for fractals? Because their support spells keep everyone else alive to do their thing.

SneakyErvin.3056:

Kichwas.7152:

Wethospu.6437:

If you survive easily you have too much defense and could have more offense and do things faster.

Anyways I’m bit curious, how do you people know everyone melting in seconds is running Berserkers or if pvt-gear would even make any difference? Do you ask them to link their gear? Play with them again when they use pvt-gear?

Standard veteran mob standing next to boss drops an AOE on half the group.
2 players who were at full health are suddenly in the downed state, and me standing right next to them – I’ve barely suffered 10%.

- That happens way to often.

Guess who’s group now has to 3-man the boss and adds? Or I can leave the other two still up to 2-man it while I rez the zerkers, only to see them faceplant on the very next AOE…

Oh and, if you survive – it means you had just the right amount of defensive stats.

That happens way too often. It’s been a regular thing then I play my warrior. I stand there up close and personal with 2 other warriors or other squishy geared people, kaboom AoE, I keep standing there, wondering where the other 2 guys went. Then I take a look at the floor and there they are. Then I just back up, dump some arrows and combo fields. Or I avoid the AoE with a dodge, F4 LB, then evisc back into the fight, since I’m not caught up by looking at “huge” numbers from my 100B.

I dont think I’ll ever go back to full zerk gear on any of my toons after trying more defensive combinations. I just got tired of some situations that would down me if I screwed up. Now I can take the semi heavy hits and dodge the planet killers, earlier the semi heavy hits would be planet killers aswell, so dodge had to be more stressed.

Well, at least I know I don’t have to take both of you seriously anymore.
I have 2127 armor and 18372 health. When I get one-shot and you take only 10% of your maximum health you would need:
21270 armor
OR
183720 health
OR (optimal)
6251 armor and 62510 health

Math: Effective was used (Armor * VItality). To take 10% damage you need to have 10 times as much effective health. You get biggest effective health when Armor * 10 = Health (because Vitality gives 10 Health). So best Armor is X when X * X * 10 = 39077244 * 10 → X = 6251. Then Vitality is just 10X.

Wethospu.6437:

SneakyErvin.3056:

Kichwas.7152:

Wethospu.6437:

If you survive easily you have too much defense and could have more offense and do things faster.

Anyways I’m bit curious, how do you people know everyone melting in seconds is running Berserkers or if pvt-gear would even make any difference? Do you ask them to link their gear? Play with them again when they use pvt-gear?

Standard veteran mob standing next to boss drops an AOE on half the group.
2 players who were at full health are suddenly in the downed state, and me standing right next to them – I’ve barely suffered 10%.

- That happens way to often.

Guess who’s group now has to 3-man the boss and adds? Or I can leave the other two still up to 2-man it while I rez the zerkers, only to see them faceplant on the very next AOE…

Oh and, if you survive – it means you had just the right amount of defensive stats.

That happens way too often. It’s been a regular thing then I play my warrior. I stand there up close and personal with 2 other warriors or other squishy geared people, kaboom AoE, I keep standing there, wondering where the other 2 guys went. Then I take a look at the floor and there they are. Then I just back up, dump some arrows and combo fields. Or I avoid the AoE with a dodge, F4 LB, then evisc back into the fight, since I’m not caught up by looking at “huge” numbers from my 100B.

I dont think I’ll ever go back to full zerk gear on any of my toons after trying more defensive combinations. I just got tired of some situations that would down me if I screwed up. Now I can take the semi heavy hits and dodge the planet killers, earlier the semi heavy hits would be planet killers aswell, so dodge had to be more stressed.

Well, at least I know I don’t have to take both of you seriously anymore.
I have 2127 armor and 18372 health. When I get one-shot and you take only 10% of your maximum health you would need:
21270 armor
OR
183720 health
OR (optimal)
6251 armor and 62510 health

Math: Effective was used (Armor * VItality). To take 10% damage you need to have 10 times as much effective health. You get biggest effective health when Armor * 10 = Health (because Vitality gives 10 Health). So best Armor is X when X * X * 10 = 39077244 * 10 -> X = 6251. Then Vitality is just 10X.

it was at best an estimate, say he meant he took 20% of his health, and they took 100, then factor in protection 33% dmg reduction, it becomes a lot more probable.

and yeah i have seen full zerkers go down incredibly fast repeatedly. I have also seen them survive without going down very often. Fact remains though toughness and vitality are not ineffective stats, its just boring, and mostly about getting hit. i say make some of these stats more tied to skills, then people may have more reasons to make interesting choices.

Or they could just increase enemy reg attack speed.

phys.7689:

i say make some of these stats more tied to skills, then people may have more reasons to make interesting choices.

Or they could just increase enemy reg attack speed.

Defensive stats already have an effect on the enemy’s attacks so I don’t think it’d be right to let your skills be affected by a stat that also affects enemy attacks. Currently, offensive stats have no effect on enemy attacks (except making the dead faster, I suppose).

Now, you could have toughness and vitality correlate to other parts of an enemy’s attacks….

For Vitality, what if conditions had a chance to ‘scourge’ their targets, which basically gives them the chance to do additional effects, apply additional duration, maybe resist being cleanse somehow (basically, just the chance conditions can be extra nasty) and Vitality would reduce the chance of that happening.

For Toughness, maybe break down AoEs into smaller circles (not visually, but mechanically). Without toughness, you have to completely escape the red circle (or in Lupicus’ case, be go a bit beyond the circle as well). With some toughness, you might be able to stand on the edge and take just a portion of the AoE’s damage and with high toughness, you just have to not be near the center or else you take full damage.

Healing power, though, could just use a straight boost.

Leo G.4501:

phys.7689:

i say make some of these stats more tied to skills, then people may have more reasons to make interesting choices.

Or they could just increase enemy reg attack speed.

Defensive stats already have an effect on the enemy’s attacks so I don’t think it’d be right to let your skills be affected by a stat that also affects enemy attacks.

They do, but they fight a up hill battle.

Remember that the damage output before armor is weapon power multiplied by power. Meaning that for armor (it divides the result) to have a solid impact it needs to be higher than the power of the attacker. And then you get critical hits, that increase any remaining damage by at least 50%. Meaning that critical hits can quickly cancel out whatever impact armor had.

salameri.3768:

PearlGore.7419:

It would be nice if we did not have liars in here, would help the discussion on gear.

I agree. I would love to see FULL zerker people in 40 plus fotm not get downed all the time. They told you to practice earlier right??? Haha these newbwaffles would get downed in a heartbeat.

Iam full zerker thief and i can tell you that iam not downed all the time. Iam not gonna say i dont get downed in FoTM lvl 40+ because i dont think any class can guarantee that. I mean random blast from mages in ascaleon fractal and you are downed no matter which armor you wear or you aggro too much kraits at 2nd cage and stuffs like that, but i can guarantee that i get downed as much as any other class in full knight armor and iam gonna meele same mobs they do….

phys.7689:

Wethospu.6437:

SneakyErvin.3056:

Kichwas.7152:

Wethospu.6437:

If you survive easily you have too much defense and could have more offense and do things faster.

Anyways I’m bit curious, how do you people know everyone melting in seconds is running Berserkers or if pvt-gear would even make any difference? Do you ask them to link their gear? Play with them again when they use pvt-gear?

Standard veteran mob standing next to boss drops an AOE on half the group.
2 players who were at full health are suddenly in the downed state, and me standing right next to them – I’ve barely suffered 10%.

- That happens way to often.

Guess who’s group now has to 3-man the boss and adds? Or I can leave the other two still up to 2-man it while I rez the zerkers, only to see them faceplant on the very next AOE…

Oh and, if you survive – it means you had just the right amount of defensive stats.

That happens way too often. It’s been a regular thing then I play my warrior. I stand there up close and personal with 2 other warriors or other squishy geared people, kaboom AoE, I keep standing there, wondering where the other 2 guys went. Then I take a look at the floor and there they are. Then I just back up, dump some arrows and combo fields. Or I avoid the AoE with a dodge, F4 LB, then evisc back into the fight, since I’m not caught up by looking at “huge” numbers from my 100B.

I dont think I’ll ever go back to full zerk gear on any of my toons after trying more defensive combinations. I just got tired of some situations that would down me if I screwed up. Now I can take the semi heavy hits and dodge the planet killers, earlier the semi heavy hits would be planet killers aswell, so dodge had to be more stressed.

Well, at least I know I don’t have to take both of you seriously anymore.
I have 2127 armor and 18372 health. When I get one-shot and you take only 10% of your maximum health you would need:
21270 armor
OR
183720 health
OR (optimal)
6251 armor and 62510 health

Math: Effective was used (Armor * VItality). To take 10% damage you need to have 10 times as much effective health. You get biggest effective health when Armor * 10 = Health (because Vitality gives 10 Health). So best Armor is X when X * X * 10 = 39077244 * 10 -> X = 6251. Then Vitality is just 10X.

it was at best an estimate, say he meant he took 20% of his health, and they took 100, then factor in protection 33% dmg reduction, it becomes a lot more probable.
—

Why peoples estimates are always over the top (and always favoring them)? It’s quite bad for credibility.
So numbers for your estimation.
First without protection (Warriors don’t really have access):
4421 Armor and 44203 Health.

With protection (would have taken 3/2 * 20% = 30% damage without protection).
3610 Armor and 36092 Health.

Kichwas.7152:

Lastly: I have yet to encounter anything in this game that can one-shot any of my 8 characters. Even the big dragon fights. I’ve seen a few things that can two shot me, but most can’t even do that.

I take it, you haven’t fought Kudzu in CoE story yet.

On that note, i am not sure people mean that they can go from full health to zero when they say “one shot”. But there are plenty of bosses, both event and otherwise, that can drop you in a single blow if you have less than full health when it happens.

Never mind that many of such blows are paired up with a launch/blowout/knockdown effect, meaning that you may find yourself with very low health and unable to get out of range of a followup attack.

Ability to dodge and full zerk are your best friends, toss in a guard in knight/zerk mix for support and a zerker mesmer for utility+extra damage. Cleric gear is useless in everything except wubwub pretty much.

About those downstate zerker warriors who give us a bad name are randoms playing warrior alts as a result of CoF farming, who haven’t grasped the concept of weaponswapping/swapping out utilities and try to bruteforce facetank absolutely every encounter like every boss is the effigy.

Good players make full glass viable everywhere and actually don’t go down unless a someone messes up real bad. Smart play and cross-profession coordination and it’s all good.

Psybunny.8906:

Ability to dodge and full zerk are your best friends, toss in a guard in knight/zerk mix for support and a zerker mesmer for utility+extra damage. Cleric gear is useless in everything except wubwub pretty much.

About those downstate zerker warriors who give us a bad name are randoms playing warrior alts as a result of CoF farming, who haven’t grasped the concept of weaponswapping/swapping out utilities and try to bruteforce facetank absolutely every encounter like every boss is the effigy.

Good players make full glass viable everywhere and actually don’t go down unless a someone messes up real bad. Smart play and cross-profession coordination and it’s all good.

I would like to see no downed state videos of 4xzerker warrior and 1xzerker mesmer Bloomhunger lvl 40 pls.

Though I don’t know why you brought up 4 warrs, since as I said that 3 zerker warrs+tank guard+mesmer is my preferred setup (doesn’t mean I’m elitist I’m willing to run with whatever setup usually). Correct me if I’m wrong, if you’re in melee range Bloomhunger only hits you with his agony attack if you’re inside of him. Agony attack can also be reflected with WoR and Feedback. Tactics for that encounter should be similar to meleeing lupi.

Wethospu.6437:

SneakyErvin.3056:

Kichwas.7152:

Wethospu.6437:

If you survive easily you have too much defense and could have more offense and do things faster.

Anyways I’m bit curious, how do you people know everyone melting in seconds is running Berserkers or if pvt-gear would even make any difference? Do you ask them to link their gear? Play with them again when they use pvt-gear?

Standard veteran mob standing next to boss drops an AOE on half the group.
2 players who were at full health are suddenly in the downed state, and me standing right next to them – I’ve barely suffered 10%.

- That happens way to often.

Guess who’s group now has to 3-man the boss and adds? Or I can leave the other two still up to 2-man it while I rez the zerkers, only to see them faceplant on the very next AOE…

Oh and, if you survive – it means you had just the right amount of defensive stats.

That happens way too often. It’s been a regular thing then I play my warrior. I stand there up close and personal with 2 other warriors or other squishy geared people, kaboom AoE, I keep standing there, wondering where the other 2 guys went. Then I take a look at the floor and there they are. Then I just back up, dump some arrows and combo fields. Or I avoid the AoE with a dodge, F4 LB, then evisc back into the fight, since I’m not caught up by looking at “huge” numbers from my 100B.

I dont think I’ll ever go back to full zerk gear on any of my toons after trying more defensive combinations. I just got tired of some situations that would down me if I screwed up. Now I can take the semi heavy hits and dodge the planet killers, earlier the semi heavy hits would be planet killers aswell, so dodge had to be more stressed.

Well, at least I know I don’t have to take both of you seriously anymore.
I have 2127 armor and 18372 health. When I get one-shot and you take only 10% of your maximum health you would need:
21270 armor
OR
183720 health
OR (optimal)
6251 armor and 62510 health

Math: Effective was used (Armor * VItality). To take 10% damage you need to have 10 times as much effective health. You get biggest effective health when Armor * 10 = Health (because Vitality gives 10 Health). So best Armor is X when X * X * 10 = 39077244 * 10 -> X = 6251. Then Vitality is just 10X.

You do know, you dont get any credibility for quoting someone and claiming they said something. I wasnt the one saying anything about 10%, still you quoted my post along with his. I was just agreeing with him that it’s just too usual to see zerkers go down around you when you are still standing.

It has nothing to do with 10% or what , it’s a matter of being downed or standing, giving the rest of the group an annoying time getting you back on your feet and having to stop their dps. In the end if you dont manage to stay on your feet in zerk gear as much as the guy in mixed gear you will deal less damage overall and force your group to deal less damage while rezzing you. And since many zerkers go down alot, they also deal less damage in the long run compared to someone that goes up and down between 100-25 during the fight/dungeon.

Rezzing someone isnt just a downside on dps, it’s also has the downside of snatching aggro quite often.

Berserker is certainly great in PvE assuming you have support, but I’d hesitate to use it in WvW unless I was in a group with heavy support and condition removal.

Experienced WvW players can spot a glass cannon very quickly and as soon as they do, that person is dead unless somebody else keeps them alive.

Wethospu doesn’t really need to quote something to make him credible, he has tons of videos soloing with that awful “instadeath” zerker gear. Only argument I’ve seen against zerker is the skill level issue. That is true, zerker requires more careful play, but at the same time it doesn’t remove the fact that it is more efficient than mixed gear for DPS.

PearlGore.7419:

Depends on the build obviously. I’m not going to run a Hammer Warrior in WvW wearing Beserker Gear. And GL with high lvl Fractals or Arah EXP in beserker Gear lol.

Actually high level fractal builds are using Berserker Gear, as defensive stats diminish to being pointless at really high levels. You’d think you’d know this from visiting forums and whatnot before making a statement like that, but oh well…

Psybunny.8906:

Wethospu doesn’t really need to quote something to make him credible, he has tons of videos soloing with that awful “instadeath” zerker gear. Only argument I’ve seen against zerker is the skill level issue. That is true, zerker requires more careful play, but at the same time it doesn’t remove the fact that it is more efficient than mixed gear for DPS.

Yes well nothing against Wethospu, but he doesnt show you the videos where he had failed practiced. Imagine if he was in a party and had to cope with more random attack patterns. Not sure if scaling occurs from solo to party of five – never tried before.

VoiceOfUnreason.5976:

Actually high level fractal builds are using Berserker Gear, as defensive stats diminish to being pointless at really high levels. You’d think you’d know this from visiting forums and whatnot before making a statement like that, but oh well…

That is very high level fractals when you get one-shotted even with PVT armor. For relatively high level fractals, defensive stats is still very viable. In short, its ok to wear PVT armor for something that can two or three shot you in full berserker armor so that you do not get downed as often in encounters you cannot kill within 1 min with maximum dps.

Wethospu.6437:

Seveleniumus.5973:

In theory yes, in practice – no…
Not everyone is perfect in this game and not everyone has 24/7 spare time to “get better” in every dungeon there is + WvW +sPvP in this game. If one can not survive, zerker gear is worthless. I run a war with 3k armor and ~28-30k health and I’m often the last man standing and many times are left to solo the last dungeon boss, when all the “standard” zerker teammates go down.
I also like the basic idea of being able to sustain some punishment and being able to run through trash mobs like they’re nothing, I can not do that with zerker gear as every smallest mistake can get me downed.

If I can solo most of the dungeons with my Berserker Warrior that says something about being practical (with 5 guys it’s a lot more easier). You are feel free to try with your PVT-gear.
As you said, with Berserker-gear you have less room to make mistakes so people want to kill stuff as fast possible. Then if you have few guys rolling with low damage bunkers/tanks it gets much harder for glass-cannons because fight lasts longer. Also if you are supposed to be a tank and you aren’t protecting your teammates then what’s supposed to be your role?
Yes for skipping PVT-gear is obviously better because you aren’t dealing any damage, however all skips are quite easy.

Pukknub.7368:

For me it’s kinda the opposite, why do people buy berserker gear?
Being that squishy is not good in my opinion. But I prefer survivability over damage in almost every game.

In PvE, people just want to get it done fast.

Lafiel.9372:

—
Berserker gear pve is only strong if the person who wears it is skilled. Others who wear it just end up dying 2-3 seconds into a boss fight – constantly.

How much stronger do you think PVT-gear makes you? About 2 times stronger? So you last 4-6 seconds instead?

A LOT stronger (try 10-20x). I can face tank most mobs for a long time wearing “knights” not pvt. with berserkers, no way. Besides, you missed my main point, I didn’t say berserker was bad, it is just bad in the wrong hands. TOO many times have I seen fail warriors/fail thieves fail zerker classes who die and down within SECONDS of the fight. Okay okay, sure, guys like me wearing knights gear, losing out on that 30 % crit damage is really putting a tow on your survivability, but really? you die in 3-4 seconds in a fight and your reasoning is that they should have killed faster. Not every fight out there is as short as slave driver lol. Again, I emphasize, nothing wrong with berserker gear, but in the right hands. If you’re the kind of guy who can’t get out of a boss fight without at least downing once, then maybe you should reconsider using it instead of saying, the guy wearing knights is pulling us down, it’s his fault I can’t survive more than 5 seconds wearing this gear.

As for fractals, I dunno, i’m not very hardcore in it, highest i’ve been to is about 48 and things there I can still melee/face tank a bit like a breeze. I suppose if i’m at like level 80, then things will one hit me, then and again, getting 1 hit by agony doesn’t really count.

Also pretty sure the necro who soloed Lupi had a hyrbid armor. Actually I use full berserker on my warrior as well, because well that is expected from the dps class and warrior has a sufficently large HP pool for errors. However I do switch to knights for higher level fractals at certain bosses – Bloomhunger and Legendary Shaman. I go PVT when carrying the stupid hammer in Cliffside at arm seals.

As for thief full berserker in PVE, you must be very skilled to not be asking for rezzes relatively often compared to your teemmates.

Knight Armor with Zerker Trinkets is what I run when I’m having some trouble but most of the time I can manage with Full Zerker. I think you need to know your class and its limitations to be able to run full zerker gear. Or else you’ll be throwin up High Fives from the ground.

Guild Wars 1 didn’t have this problem because gear didn’t give these kind of stat bonuses.
I can’t believe they actually regressed in that respect.

This whole “zerker is better than everything” is mostly true for PvE content that is predictable and knowable, but unless you’re a thief or a ranger, you really ought not to be running berserker in WvW. When I fight berserker Warriors or Guardians I cringe as my auto-attack is shaving off 1/10 of their hp per hit and my chain hits 6 times. Burning their elites and heals in the first few seconds of battle before they’ve even dealt 1/3 of my life in damage because of my damage mitigation.

As a commander, running pure berserker gear would be suicide. Until you’ve been there, you don’t realize how many thieves will sit on the sidelines of every battle, tab through the enemies to find the commander, and focus them above all else.

This all said, for PvE most of my classes are glass cannons depending on the group. If I’m the only melee in a group, I will bring out my WvW armor sets so that I’m a bit bulkier, because my being an anchor will help the other berserker ranged players do more damage with less worry. Remember what I just said; an anchor enables others to dps better and unfettered. You might think that your damage mitigation is all awesome and that you’re a beast dodger, but in many instances it’s not about dodging or mitigating every attack because you simply can’t. In those instances, you need to dodge specific key attacks and soak others and then sustain the hits with healing and team support. The supreme example of this is the Grawl boss in L48 fractals; do it without any supporting characters and you’ll find that you need every player to be absolutely perfect at absolutely every moment, and that you will be completely unable to do it with pugs at all, period. Those anchors make the runs much, much, much easier, and allow Warriors and Thieves and Rangers and Engineers and whatever to do far more damage by comparison (plus you’d be amazed at how well my anchor Guardian stacks might on the team).

tl;dr: If you’re thinking only about yourself, run Berserker. If you want to better learn the subtleties of coordinated groups that actually do runs faster than your 5 berserker group can, practice being an anchor, and you’ll see what good Toughness, Vitality, Healing Power, and other such stats can do.

Khal Drogo.9631:

Yes well nothing against Wethospu, but he doesnt show you the videos where he had failed practiced. Imagine if he was in a party and had to cope with more random attack patterns. Not sure if scaling occurs from solo to party of five – never tried before.

It doesn’t. Not only fights last 5 times longer, but you also get full focus and no one gets you up if you get downed.
Random attack pattern also means you won’t get hit all the time.

Lafiel.9372:

Wethospu.6437:

How much stronger do you think PVT-gear makes you? About 2 times stronger? So you last 4-6 seconds instead?

A LOT stronger (try 10-20x). I can face tank most mobs for a long time wearing “knights” not pvt. with berserkers, no way. —

Maybe missing your main point again but scroll up , check my calculations and see how many stats you need in order to get 10 times stronger (not to mention 20…), it’s monstrous.

Edit: messed up quotes

I think the problem (for PvE at least) is that most of the high-end encounters involve bosses flinging out so much damage that toughness and vitality become moot points.

If you’re fighting Lupicus, the difference between a toughness set and a zerker set isn’t that significant because you’re getting hit for 8-11k if you do get hit. Basically, that only allows a toughness-geared character to survive maybe one or two more hits than a zerker character while severely hampering their damage output, making the fight last longer and increasing the chance that everyone takes more hits. In such a situation, if a player is skilled enough to know how to avoid the attacks, the advantages to a berserker set massively outweigh that small decrease in survivability.

What the game truly lacks are “pressure” encounters – where damage is dealt in smaller, more regular packets rather than huge spikes that are either all-or-nothing. We need some encounters where bosses are flinging out attacks that can’t reasonably all be avoided or blocked, which puts characters with toughness and vitality gear in a better position to weather the storm. Remember Kanaxai from GW1, where everyone had a constant and unremovable health degeneration effect while fighting him? It would take something like that to shift the focus from damage to survivability.

Right now, the closest thing we have to one of these encounters is the Grawl fractal boss, but since almost all of his “pressure” comes from burning (which toughness doesn’t affect), it really only elevates healing power as a desirable stat.

Wethospu.6437:

Khal Drogo.9631:

Yes well nothing against Wethospu, but he doesnt show you the videos where he had failed practiced. Imagine if he was in a party and had to cope with more random attack patterns. Not sure if scaling occurs from solo to party of five – never tried before.

It doesn’t. Not only fights last 5 times longer, but you also get full focus and no one gets you up if you get downed.
Random attack pattern also means you won’t get hit all the time.

Lafiel.9372:

Lafiel.9372:

—
Berserker gear pve is only strong if the person who wears it is skilled. Others who wear it just end up dying 2-3 seconds into a boss fight – constantly.

How much stronger do you think PVT-gear makes you? About 2 times stronger? So you last 4-6 seconds instead?

A LOT stronger (try 10-20x). I can face tank most mobs for a long time wearing “knights” not pvt. with berserkers, no way.
—

Maybe missing your main point again but scroll up , check my calculations and see how many stats you need in order to get 10 times stronger (not to mention 20…), it’s monstrous.
[/quote]

yes people are exagerating, however, from my research, a berseker full warrior gets 13.68 dmg reduction, whereas a full max toughness build gets 49.6 dmg reduction. this means, say a monster hits for 10 000 dmg
berserker warrior gets hit for
8.632k
knights warrior gets hit for
5.04k
but now we look at protection, which essentially allows you to take 66% dmg
so the defensive dude is taking 3.3k dmg
the berserker is taking 5.6k
so the berserker is taking 70% more dmg roughly, now not only that but when you start looking at heals
the most effiecient healing skill is giving 281 heals per sec with no healing from what i have seen
this means the toughness warrior needs 11.7 seconds to fully recover from a hit

the berserker warrior needs 19.9 seconds. this is basically an extra dodge in terms of damage mitigation, and this is only including your basic heals, its not including heals on shouts, team healing regeneration etc.

So while its only 70% more damage taken, in overall survivability its a pretty big deal, with the nature of heals, i think it could be the difference between being nigh unkillable and not having to stop attacking very often, and having to back off constantly.

Of course, how much one actually needs all that defensive stats is questionable, this isnt a game where you are guaranteed to get hit as much. But its not that these stats arent effective, they are a huge difference in how much dmg your team can sustain and mitigate through heals.

Wethospu.6437:

Lafiel.9372:

Lafiel.9372:

—
Berserker gear pve is only strong if the person who wears it is skilled. Others who wear it just end up dying 2-3 seconds into a boss fight – constantly.

How much stronger do you think PVT-gear makes you? About 2 times stronger? So you last 4-6 seconds instead?

A LOT stronger (try 10-20x). I can face tank most mobs for a long time wearing “knights” not pvt. with berserkers, no way.
—
Maybe missing your main point again but scroll up , check my calculations and see how many stats you need in order to get 10 times stronger (not to mention 20…), it’s monstrous.

That would require a total armor value in the 20000-40000 range, right?

phys.7689:

yes people are exagerating, however, from my research, a berseker full warrior gets 13.68 dmg reduction, whereas a full max toughness build gets 49.6 dmg reduction. this means, say a monster hits for 10 000 dmg
berserker warrior gets hit for
8.632k
knights warrior gets hit for
5.04k
but now we look at protection, which essentially allows you to take 66% dmg
so the defensive dude is taking 3.3k dmg
the berserker is taking 5.6k
so the berserker is taking 70% more dmg roughly, now not only that but when you start looking at heals
the most effiecient healing skill is giving 281 heals per sec with no healing from what i have seen
this means the toughness warrior needs 11.7 seconds to fully recover from a hit

the berserker warrior needs 19.9 seconds. this is basically an extra dodge in terms of damage mitigation, and this is only including your basic heals, its not including heals on shouts, team healing regeneration etc.

So while its only 70% more damage taken, in overall survivability its a pretty big deal, with the nature of heals, i think it could be the difference between being nigh unkillable and not having to stop attacking very often, and having to back off constantly.

Of course, how much one actually needs all that defensive stats is questionable, this isnt a game where you are guaranteed to get hit as much. But its not that these stats arent effective, they are a huge difference in how much dmg your team can sustain and mitigate through heals.

The devil in the details here are that protection is a straight percentage decrease. In other words, the more armor you already have on the more armor it in effect adds.

digiowl.9620:

phys.7689:

yes people are exagerating, however, from my research, a berseker full warrior gets 13.68 dmg reduction, whereas a full max toughness build gets 49.6 dmg reduction. this means, say a monster hits for 10 000 dmg
berserker warrior gets hit for
8.632k
knights warrior gets hit for
5.04k
but now we look at protection, which essentially allows you to take 66% dmg
so the defensive dude is taking 3.3k dmg
the berserker is taking 5.6k
so the berserker is taking 70% more dmg roughly, now not only that but when you start looking at heals
the most effiecient healing skill is giving 281 heals per sec with no healing from what i have seen
this means the toughness warrior needs 11.7 seconds to fully recover from a hit

the berserker warrior needs 19.9 seconds. this is basically an extra dodge in terms of damage mitigation, and this is only including your basic heals, its not including heals on shouts, team healing regeneration etc.

So while its only 70% more damage taken, in overall survivability its a pretty big deal, with the nature of heals, i think it could be the difference between being nigh unkillable and not having to stop attacking very often, and having to back off constantly.

Of course, how much one actually needs all that defensive stats is questionable, this isnt a game where you are guaranteed to get hit as much. But its not that these stats arent effective, they are a huge difference in how much dmg your team can sustain and mitigate through heals.

The devil in the details here are that protection is a straight percentage decrease. In other words, the more armor you already have on the more armor it in effect adds.

its more about how heals work, since the lower the number of dmg, the more effective healing is. People think heals dont matter, but if you got people doing the right things, heals are a noticeable amount of mitiagtion, and the less dmg the players take the more effective it is.

It really comes down to the skill set of the players involved.

Assuming the perfect berserker, how often does he have to actually hold back in attacking in order to survive, what is the increase in risk of failure?
Assuming the perfect knight, how often can he continue to hit because his toughness and the teams heals mitigate his dmg, what is the increase in risk of success.

These questions are not easily answered in this game, and thats for the best. However, toughness is going to continue to be boring for many people.

the other problem with toughness, is its best paired with healing/healers if you dont have that going on in your group, its effectiveness is drastically lowered. This is probably why classes that have good healing potential/boons gel better with toughness

also fact is, the game difficulty isnt too high, im pretty sure any highly organized group will probably have little to no difficulties.

Long story short, the game needs some iteration of hard mode in order for various builds to shine, and the playerbase skill level to evolve.

The reason why berserker is the cookie cutter of choice is probably because although the skill cieling is supposed to be high, it really isnt that high in some content.

Btw, i find it interesting that there is no gear that has a combo of toughness, vitality and healing power. You can get plenty that has either toughness or vitality paired up with healing power, but the third is usually a offensive attribute like power or precision.

Distaste.4801:

The problem with berserker is stat synergy that is not available through any other stats. I mean Power x Crit % x Crit damage x % damage increases provides for some insane damage scaling and it should not be there unless the defensive stats scale equally. There needs to be defensive stat multipliers as well. Healing power should be a viable stat, but since ArenaNet is so hellbent on not having healers it’s pretty much a wasted stat since 9/10 it scales absolutely horribly.

Very well stated… Damage mitigation with respect to armor and healing does not scale in a linear fashion, but yet damage scales in a multiplicative fashion (and does it ever!). Throw in high crit chance and high +% crit damage, and you have yourself a real problem with combat balance. As you alluded to, the damage formula prevents having pure tanks and healers. But, we are left with an end game centered around one parameter: DPS (in PvE especially).

I really respect and applaud the developers for having the courage to depart from the trinity as I do believe the system is dated and needs to go. Nonetheless, I think there are better ways to approach the problem mathematically. Right now, there exists virtually no practical difference in damage mitigation between armor values of 2700 and 3200 (see some of my previous posts on this topic for the analysis). That’s a whopping difference of 500 in toughness, but yet affording only about a 10% difference in damage mitigation. This is due to the non-linear nature of the damage formula. It is a very clever design if you want to limit the effectiveness of armor without a hard cap. But, just like there are stat multipliers for damage, there needs to be stat multipliers for damage mitigation as well. For instance, we can keep the original damage formula, but attach a coefficient to the denominator [1.xx] to boost the effectiveness of armor and counteract the insanely high damage output from the one-shot wonders. With a very simple fix such as this, maybe our end-game characters can finally start to “feel” epic, instead of succumbing to common dungeon trash, which often hits harder than the boss himself.

But that’s another discussion…

phys.7689:

yes people are exaggerating
—
—

Finally someone who actually makes sense.
Anyways it’s good to keep in mind that while a Berserker takes 70% more damage than a Knight, that Knight takes 40% less damage than a Berserkes.

carabidus.6214:

Maybe our end game characters can finally start to “feel” epic, instead of succumbing to common dungeon trash, which often hits harder than the boss himself.

Or get swamped by a horde of low damage mobs unless your basic attacks have AOE characteristics (hello GS).

carabidus.6214:

Distaste.4801:

The problem with berserker is stat synergy that is not available through any other stats. I mean Power x Crit % x Crit damage x % damage increases provides for some insane damage scaling and it should not be there unless the defensive stats scale equally. There needs to be defensive stat multipliers as well. Healing power should be a viable stat, but since ArenaNet is so hellbent on not having healers it’s pretty much a wasted stat since 9/10 it scales absolutely horribly.

Very well stated… Damage mitigation with respect to armor and healing does not scale in a linear fashion, but yet damage scales in a multiplicative fashion (and does it ever!). Throw in high crit chance and high +% crit damage, and you have yourself a real problem with combat balance. As you alluded to, the damage formula prevents having pure tanks and healers. But, we are left with an end game centered around one parameter: DPS (in PvE especially).

I really respect and applaud the developers for having the courage to depart from the trinity as I do believe the system is dated and needs to go. Nonetheless, I think there are better ways to approach the problem mathematically. Right now, there exists virtually no practical difference in damage mitigation between armor values of 2700 and 3200 (see some of my previous posts on this topic for the analysis). That’s a whopping difference of 500 in toughness, but yet affording only about a 10% difference in damage mitigation. This is due to the non-linear nature of the damage formula. It is a very clever design if you want to limit the effectiveness of armor without a hard cap. But, just like there are stat multipliers for damage, there needs to be stat multipliers for damage mitigation as well. For instance, we can keep the original damage formula, but attach a coefficient to the denominator [1.xx] to boost the effectiveness of armor and counteract the insanely high damage output from the one-shot wonders. With a very simple fix such as this, maybe our end-game characters can finally start to “feel” epic, instead of succumbing to common dungeon trash, which often hits harder than the boss himself.

But that’s another discussion…

essentially my research shows it really isnt that much more effective, and as far as inter player synergy, toughness is more effective
(since multiple people can heal, but people generally cant increase others dmg in any stat based way.

the real dif is, if your skilled you can avoid a lot of dmg, but really that is for the best.

phys.7689:

essentially my research shows it really isnt that much more effective, and as far as inter player synergy, toughness is more effective
(since multiple people can heal, but people generally cant increase others dmg in any stat based way.

Be mindful that there are traits that specifically do this, and there are also boosters such as banners, spirits, and so forth. Furthermore, aoe might stacks boost dps stats appreciably. My anchor Guardian runs a very defensive setup, and yet does quite respectable damage with a perma 16 stacks of might up at a minimum that she can maintain on the entire group.

Rising Dusk.2408:

phys.7689:

essentially my research shows it really isnt that much more effective, and as far as inter player synergy, toughness is more effective
(since multiple people can heal, but people generally cant increase others dmg in any stat based way.

Be mindful that there are traits that specifically do this, and there are also boosters such as banners, spirits, and so forth. Furthermore, aoe might stacks boost dps stats appreciably. My anchor Guardian runs a very defensive setup, and yet does quite respectable damage with a perma 16 stacks of might up at a minimum that she can maintain on the entire group.

right but these dmg buffs are not more effective when used by berserkers, 25 stacks of might is giving everyone 875 power regardless of your stacks.
Aoe precision as well.
however healing is more effective the more dmg reduction there is

Im not implying or saying that offensive buffs are worthless, im just saying they effect everyone pretty linearly, whereas the effectiveness of healing at mitigation when toughness is high is not linear. therefore, i dont think toughness really needs to be more effective at all.

tom.7468:

Also every dungeon can be completed by teams of only berserker + on a lot of weapons most of you’re dps come from auto attack.

??

Auto attacks are actually discouraged on warrior. 100b/whirlwind/rush/axe swap eviscerate, axe vuln attack etc… If you just auto attack/100b/auto attack your not doing maximum potential DPS. not even close.

I was a huge proponent of PVT/Knights and tanky/hybrid builds on my guard for a VERY long time. Ran every dungeon and every fractals 100s of times using those builds on my guard.

I would argue vehemently about the ‘survivability’ and ‘necessity’ of having all those ‘abilities’.

Then, one day… I got bored.

I decided, wth, I have the tokens and the time so I’ll give a full zerker/max dps guard build a shot (and I was very nervous).

I’ve been running full zerker/max dps build now for a couple months on my guard. I have a full arah set of Knight’s I carry around with me as ‘back up’ just in case… I’ve never once used it.

I run the highest levels of fractals every day. Always 30+.

I am not a special or gifted player by any means. Some may call me elitist because I can get frustrated if a run doesn’t go well due to poor play somewhere, but it’s really just that I’m lazy and want it over as fast as possible at this point (and, the runs I’m in very rarely go badly).

I’m older, actually, and do not have the reflexes I once had yet I survive. I suspect most of it is from experience because I’ve run all dungeons and fractals so many times now (enough to outfit 8 80’s completely with full sets of armor/weapons, including every weapon they can use and still have thousands of tokens left. They all have fractal backpieces and fractal skins).

Anyway, that’s my story.

Now, I can tell you, without any hesitation, that I was 100% wrong about PVT/Knights or any tanky/hybrid build. I was the biggest evangelist for those builds and now I am probably the biggest against them (in PvE, as there are very real strategies around a bunker guard in PvP that are fun).

In PvE, I will likely never run anything besides 100% berserker gear with a full dps build on my guard again. Ever. There is absolutely no reason to. I have access to every single skill I had access to before and, guess what?, they still work the exact same. Aegis mitigates. Regen heals over time (enough for most things). And, my Resolve still fills my globe up. My party gets all the same buffs from me… Well, that’s not true… They actually get more because I crit proc more often.

Listen, it’s not a build for everyone. It is a playstyle that requires attention and more focus on certain aspects of the fight to be completely successful. Some people pay better attention to other aspects so they would do better in hybrid builds that offer a slightly higher margin of error. But, I generally don’t have a lot of issues holding aggro on Lupi while some pugs get res’d or on fotm 30+ grawl shaman either… In fact, it’s not really any harder that it was before with tankier stuff.

For me, it’s berserker’s all the way. Being able to dish out 5.6k dps and still maintain full mitigation is just too kitten good to give up. Being the last one standing and actually having the dps to kill whatever we are fighting in less than a few minutes (instead of 20+ in tanky stuff) is a godsend.

I’m not going to say anyone is wrong here (though it may come off that way). But, I would urge those who do not believe to at least try it and give it some time so they can adjust to the degree of focus it takes. Then, see what you truly believe.

GW2 is not like any other MMO in this way. DPS is king. I am a believer now. I was very hard for me to separate from my old styles of the trinity, etc. VERY HARD. But, now that I have… I feel like I have unlocked so much more potential in my toon and the game.

Thank you.

ThePedroKid.2580:

I was a huge proponent of PVT/Knights and tanky/hybrid builds on my guard for a VERY long time. Ran every dungeon and every fractals 100s of times using those builds on my guard.

I would argue vehemently about the ‘survivability’ and ‘necessity’ of having all those ‘abilities’.

Then, one day… I got bored.

I decided, wth, I have the tokens and the time so I’ll give a full zerker/max dps guard build a shot (and I was very nervous).

I’ve been running full zerker/max dps build now for a couple months on my guard. I have a full arah set of Knight’s I carry around with me as ‘back up’ just in case… I’ve never once used it.

I run the highest levels of fractals every day. Always 30+.

I am not a special or gifted player by any means. Some may call me elitist because I can get frustrated if a run doesn’t go well due to poor play somewhere, but it’s really just that I’m lazy and want it over as fast as possible at this point (and, the runs I’m in very rarely go badly).

I’m older, actually, and do not have the reflexes I once had yet I survive. I suspect most of it is from experience because I’ve run all dungeons and fractals so many times now (enough to outfit 8 80’s completely with full sets of armor/weapons, including every weapon they can use and still have thousands of tokens left. They all have fractal backpieces and fractal skins).

Anyway, that’s my story.

Now, I can tell you, without any hesitation, that I was 100% wrong about PVT/Knights or any tanky/hybrid build. I was the biggest evangelist for those builds and now I am probably the biggest against them (in PvE, as there are very real strategies around a bunker guard in PvP that are fun).

In PvE, I will likely never run anything besides 100% berserker gear with a full dps build on my guard again. Ever. There is absolutely no reason to. I have access to every single skill I had access to before and, guess what?, they still work the exact same. Aegis mitigates. Regen heals over time (enough for most things). And, my Resolve still fills my globe up. My party gets all the same buffs from me… Well, that’s not true… They actually get more because I crit proc more often.

Listen, it’s not a build for everyone. It is a playstyle that requires attention and more focus on certain aspects of the fight to be completely successful. Some people pay better attention to other aspects so they would do better in hybrid builds that offer a slightly higher margin of error. But, I generally don’t have a lot of issues holding aggro on Lupi while some pugs get res’d or on fotm 30+ grawl shaman either… In fact, it’s not really any harder that it was before with tankier stuff.

For me, it’s berserker’s all the way. Being able to dish out 5.6k dps and still maintain full mitigation is just too kitten good to give up. Being the last one standing and actually having the dps to kill whatever we are fighting in less than a few minutes (instead of 20+ in tanky stuff) is a godsend.

I’m not going to say anyone is wrong here (though it may come off that way). But, I would urge those who do not believe to at least try it and give it some time so they can adjust to the degree of focus it takes. Then, see what you truly believe.

GW2 is not like any other MMO in this way. DPS is king. I am a believer now. I was very hard for me to separate from my old styles of the trinity, etc. VERY HARD. But, now that I have… I feel like I have unlocked so much more potential in my toon and the game.

Thank you.

I don’t think you realize how easy it is to be a berserker guardian.

phys.7689:

right but these dmg buffs are not more effective when used by berserkers, 25 stacks of might is giving everyone 875 power regardless of your stacks.
Aoe precision as well.
however healing is more effective the more dmg reduction there is

Im not implying or saying that offensive buffs are worthless, im just saying they effect everyone pretty linearly, whereas the effectiveness of healing at mitigation when toughness is high is not linear. therefore, i dont think toughness really needs to be more effective at all.

While this is true, the percent increase a player sees from a flat increase of 875 power is actually dependent on what their current stats are. A condition damage Necro has only 900 or so Power normally, so a boost of 875 is nearly a 100% increase in their power-based damage output (which is surprisingly plentiful for necros even when using condition builds) while they can take advantage of their other benefits, and that’s just one example. That said, I agree that a Berserker, while getting less % bonus damage, still benefits ‘equally’.