Guild Wars 2

Hi All,

I have seen all these groups asking for zerker – and many threads saying l2p active defenses in both pvp and pve (esp dungeons)
From what I can ascertain zerker is a armor stat is there a corresponding trait stat or is it all 6/6/x – full power / precision traits?
Active defenses are like Stealth, reflects and stuff so you don’t take damaged e.g. Stabilitys / condition clears?

Is there anything I’m missing here – or is the game really that easy that heals are not required?
IS it really just a case of learning the skill animations, sounds and what each boss does in pve and use an active defense?
PvP seems a bit harder to active defense – as the players are more random (human) but I presume the same logic there also applies?

Enlighten me a little please..
Tell me more how this dark art works that I can do dmg and take no dmg from stuff.

You’ve basically got it correct. A few things:

Heals are required, but additional Healing Power (the stat) is not. Healing Power scales TERRIBLY, meaning adding Healing Power doesn’t make your heals all that much more powerful.

It’s definitely harder to avoid damage as much in PvP, that’s why full glass (Zerker, etc) builds are less common there and you see stat sets like Celestial or Soldiers (for WvW) become more popular.

Oh, and the biggest active defense? Dodge. Between dodge, blind, and block, you can avoid the vast majority of damage in PvE.

Berserker stat’d gear is overrated IMO. It provides a slight increase in DPS for a huge lack of survivability. You’re not going to lose the dungeon or PVP simply because you have slightly less power.

Personally, I prefer to do a little mixing and matching. Valkyrie is a decent substitute for zerker with decent power and a lot more vitality.

I would pay no mind to the groups who insist you have to be level 99 with mandatory full legendary/ascended/zerker gear and a quaggan backpack to be cool enough to play with them.

If anything, I think the most effective active defense in PvE isn’t quite dodge but simply the bugged AI and you continuously moving to force the mobs to waste time starting/stopping and swinging at nothing. You can also dodge projectiles in the very same way (especially the arcing ones). That isn’t to say you don’t need to dodge or that you need to always be moving, but you can minimalize threat while using your other means of active defense for when you need it.

In PvP, you got me. I tend to go either hybrid (power/condition) or bunker (toughness + heals) and either way I’ll get rocked by players who have an impeccably rehearsed burst rotation or just have better awareness of the environment and their builds than me. I don’t try to study builds or anything, I just pick stuff that does what I want it to and have fun. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I’d say that’s the mark of a more balanced PvP but from the words of others, PvP in GW2 is unbelievable unbalanced >_>

As I understand it (and I’m no expert) there are two issues. One is that active play (moving, dodging, reflecting, blinding, aegis, etc) at the right time can mitigate enough damage that survival attributes on gear aren’t necessary if you play well, those attributes take the place of damage attributes that get the fight over faster, and the longer the fight takes the more likely even good players will make a mistake. Therefore, many groups want only offensive stat (berzerker) characters with good active play skills to burn through content as fast as possible.

The other issue seems to be that while healing, armor, toughness, vitality, etc, are often very useful in WvW and PvP, when dealing with PvE bosses a lot of mistakes will result in instant death regardless of how much of those stats you have stacked. Since you can’t out gear those attacks no matter what you do, you have to learn how to mitigate them with active play, and if you have to learn to mitigate those then a lot of players find themselves improving to the point they don’t need the defensive stats and they join the berzerkers fully or part way anyway.

Your ruse stops here TPMN!

NeedsFoodBadly.2671:

Berserker stat’d gear is overrated IMO. It provides a slight increase in DPS for a huge lack of survivability. You’re not going to lose the dungeon or PVP simply because you have slightly less power.

Personally, I prefer to do a little mixing and matching. Valkyrie is a decent substitute for zerker with decent power and a lot more vitality.

I would pay no mind to the groups who insist you have to be level 99 with mandatory full legendary/ascended/zerker gear and a quaggan backpack to be cool enough to play with them.

Lmfao.

“Slight” increase in DPS. Sure.

You can wear berserker gear and just set your traits however you want~ support, dps healing, whatever and lotta times your traits can make up for the lack of defense the armor gives. For Example Thief with Shadow Arts or Acrobatics can have nice survivability in full berserker due to blinds, stealth, dodging, etc. Any armor set can be useful in PvP depending on what you’re doing and how you want to play.

Thief, Warrior, and even to some extent ele can all work on zerker gear as well. Any class with good escapes and easy to land spike can do so in PvP, and warrior/ele/thief are kings of leaps/teleports+ spike. What warrior lacks in blinds he gets from his stances and ehaling signet while well, you know why thieves are so popular in WvW (because you’ll never die unless you want to).

The other classes have inferior mobility and spike capacity, so they need to build condi bunker or run in a large enough group that can babysit them from being 2-3 shot by a thief.

First off – the trait set ups you see in meta guides are about maximising damage via damage modifiers, group support, and might stacking.

Its not just max power/precision/ferocity, so the trait setups are different to the gear in that regard.

For example if you get +10% damage by going 4 deep into your vitality line, the guide will probably suggest that rather than going 6 deep into ferocity. These guides (usually done by DNT Guild) have had the numbers crunched and are optimised for max DPS.

This is for PvE.

PvP and WvW are totally different. As the goals can be very different to just killing mobs. In either game mode you can have bunker builds that are designed to take damage rather than dish it out.

In WvW almost every class needs to trait and build for more conditional removal, more vitality, and more toughness. Zerker gear might still be used, but the traits will be more defensive and their might be more defensive gear mixed in.

PvP is totally different again. The main focus for most classes is on group support. Bringing boons, heals, condition removals and other various buffs for you group is more important than your own personal damage, or survival.

The current meta for PvP is often referred to as celestial or the “sustain meta”. This is referring to classes using celestial stats, with builds that have a balanced spread of damage, group support, and survivability.

For PvE it is indeed the case that you can do everything without any defensive stats, heck most content you easily stay above 90% HP aswell (hence the Scholar Runes.) In group content half of the stuff (most Dungeons for example) dies under 20 seconds, it’d almost be an art to die, but even whilst soloing Berserker (or Assassin, or Sinister) is often preferred to speed up the kill. It really is just a case of learning the animations, required support (anti-projectiles, Aegis, etc) and knowing how to deal optimal dps to end a fight quick. Wouldn’t say any of that is easier (or more difficult) than your general tank and spank MMO with whack-a-mole healing, just different. I personally find it rather refreshing.

sPvP is quite a different case how-ever. There’re roles in which full Berserker can and will shine (e.g. all Thief meta-builds) but most teams will want to have their Celestials (or other more survivable specs) to stand on points during team-fights or hold the point whilst reinforcement arrives. Full Berserker set-ups also tend to have very little stomp/rez control, which you might find valuable in sPvP aswell.

Zerkers are a liability in my experience.

I kick zerkers on sight. They always die every fight even when I got good heals and tank the boss.

Purple Miku.7032:

NeedsFoodBadly.2671:

Berserker stat’d gear is overrated IMO. It provides a slight increase in DPS for a huge lack of survivability. You’re not going to lose the dungeon or PVP simply because you have slightly less power.

Personally, I prefer to do a little mixing and matching. Valkyrie is a decent substitute for zerker with decent power and a lot more vitality.

I would pay no mind to the groups who insist you have to be level 99 with mandatory full legendary/ascended/zerker gear and a quaggan backpack to be cool enough to play with them.

Lmfao.

“Slight” increase in DPS. Sure.

To be honest, the difference between Valkyrie and Berserker is that Valkyrie trades Precision for Vitality. With certain professions (Thief / Guardian) it’s easy to get to the sweet spot of 60% critical chance without using Berserker gear.

Sigil of Accuracy 7% and Precision Runes (Ranger) 8% result to 15% Critical Chance, Guardians can get an extra 15% (Right-hand strength), Thieves get an extra 20% (Signet, traits) for a total 30%/35% (Guard / Thief). Non-Guards/Thieves can use a Sigil of Perception to get that extra Critical Chance 12% at 25 Stacks.

If the rest of the build remains the same, full Berserker gear gives +35% Critical Chance, so basically for Day Time dungeons you trade Sigil of Frailty for Sigil of Accuracy, Rune of Ranger for Rune of Scholar and get +7k health. Both builds have 100% critical chance with full buffs.

Slight increase? Nope, but maybe it’s not as high as it might look at first.

Guardian is the last class (maybe second to last, mesmer) you want to lose precision on. Using those traits is a non-starter. Those traits are often used even with zerker gear. As are things like accuracy sigils.

Guardian should be running a zerk/assassin mix anyway for more precision.

Reflects – scale with your critical chance and damage, AND might stacks. One of the staple reasons for using a guard in the first place.

Thief, ele, ranger, and war are probably the most capable of dealing with lower prec, but even so.. The first two of those I can understand while learning to play though. They are going to get 1shotted by almost everything if they miss an evade, or the guard isn’t on the ball.
Limiting trait options like that isnt a good idea. Especially on a guard. You lose the ability to take vital support traits. Again – if your guard isn’t able to bring support, why take a guardian? May as well take another ele/thief.

Perception sigils are kitten pretty hard. I’m not saying never use them. I just wouldn’t want to have to have yet another weapon – one that is mostly going to be for open world when weapons I use for dungeons will work just fine.

tl:dr
All in all, if you really need extra survivability from gear, I’d just take a couple of defensive stat rings and save a fortune on armor AND runes.

Short explanation of why zerker is used: many boss encounters have one shot mechanics that if not dodged, insta down you, so there is zero point in going tanky as all that does is prolong the fight and make it more likely you miss a vital dodge.

It’s one of the problems of not having a trinity and leads to some real cheese.

timmyf.1490:

Healing Power scales TERRIBLY, meaning adding Healing Power doesn’t make your heals all that much more powerful.

With 560 points in healing power you can regenerate 200HP/sec or 1000HP/5sec. (0.125 x healing power +130). This, together with traits, signets and regeneration/healing provided by other group members, may result in a very good survival of your character.

With all the tools we have in the game (gear, food, runes and sigils, etc), 560 points in healing power is an easily achievable number, and best of all, you do not sacrifice other stats to achieve these results.

The biggest problem of healing power is that it’s additive, not multiplicative, and most skills even have an additional scalar of <1 for healing power so that 100 more healing power result in maybe 50 additional healing which makes it a total waste.
I created this list a long time ago (maybe a month after the newer healing skills like AED came out) so it might not be completely accurate right now but it shows base heal and the healing power scalar.
http://1drv.ms/191Afbz
And as one can see even if everything on healing power most stuff doesn’t even get a 25% increase in effectivity.

1. Bosses with OHKO mechanics.
Bosses that do 40k damage regardless of stats. Those bosses down you instantly no matter how much Toughness/Vitality you have. Healing is also useless there because you do not even get a chance to heal. The best defense is a good offense, as a Zerker team can kill the boss before it even has a chance to use that ultimate attack that you would have to avoid.

2. Trash mobs do not hit hard enough.
A Zerker(specially Warriors and Guardians) can currently survive most groups of trash mobs without so much as dodging or other forms of active defense. A Zerker lost 75% HP throughout the encounter that lasted 8 seconds. A Cleric remained at 100% HP throughout the same encounter that lasted 30 seconds. At the end of the encounter, the Zerker is out of combat and regains full HP. There was no reason to remain at full HP throughout the encounter other than it being some kind of safe boat in the very unlikely event that you would somehow get downed. The Cleric wasted 22 seconds.

3. Toughness has diminishing returns.
The Damage Formula divides by Armor instead of subtracting from it. This means the more points you add, the less return you get.

4. Zerker do not mix with non-Zerker
To put it in simple terms: A Zerker expects the boss to die to a full Zerker team by the time they used up their 2nd dodge. You did not bring Zerker, therefore the boss did not die because you lacked damage. The Zerker dies as they did not have a 3rd dodge.
You blame the Zerker for dying and being a bad player. The Zerker blames you as they already calculated that they would not need a 3rd dodge if you had enough Damage in the first place. It is true that if you had brought Zerker, they would not have died(as they would never need a 3rd dodge). It is also true that if the players were not Zerker, they would not have died(but the fight would take longer). Therefore, Zerkers and non-Zerkers do not mix.

The problem isnt berserker gear.
It does what it should do: increase your damage.

The problem is that everything else is worthless in most pve situations.

Vit/Toughness is useless because bosses will down you in 1-2 hits either way, and trash mobs die instantly vs a group. Vit also works only once per fight. You have 5k more hp you can take 5k more damage over the course of the entire fight, thats not much.

Condition damage is useless because its capped and takes time to ramp up.

Healing power is useless because the scaling of healing skills is pathetic.
A max healing power build will typically heal 50% more than a zerk build, some skills dont even get a 50% improvement.

Artemis Thuras.8795:

tl:dr
All in all, if you really need extra survivability from gear, I’d just take a couple of defensive stat rings and save a fortune on armor AND runes.

Well I just pointed out that you can reach 100% critical chance without using any Precision at all in your gear, just posting math here, not saying it’s the best thing ever. Is 7k extra hp (150% increase Guardians) worth the loss in damage? From personal experience, it’s not so great, better get more active defense than getting more hit points. But maybe it will work for other people who can’t use active defense well.

This thread wasnt about “berserker gear being a problem”. Seems people overlooked that the OP wanted advice on how to survive in zerker gear. EG what active defences a team can bring (note TEAM can bring, not individual, this is a multi-player game, not skyrim).

TPMN.1483:

Tell me more how this dark art works that I can do dmg and take no dmg from stuff.

Your best defense in berzerker’s gear is dodging. It’s true that you’ll eventually run out of endurance if an encounter takes a while, so having vigor or a utility/trait that refills your endurance helps a lot.

Go here to read about how you can give yourself vigor: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vigor
And here to see if you have access to a skill or trait that affects your endurance regen outside of vigor:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Endurance

Protection, stability, and aegis are also great ways to negate damage:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Protection
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stability
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Aegis

As you can see, not every profession has direct access to these boons. This is why cooperation with other players is important. Guardians are well known for their ability to provide other players with defensive boons, but they’re not the only ones who can. Learn what party-wide buffs you have access to (both offensive and defensive) and try to give those buffs to those around you at appropriate times.

Other defenses are a bit more profession specific – everyone can use everything, but some professions have greater access to a certain kind of defensive boon/condition than others. For instance, as a thief, you have a lot of access to blinds with certain weapon sets, especially pistol offhand. CC (crowd control) is also useful, since you can immobilize or slow down an enemy, making kiting easier and more effective. Learn what combo fields and finishers do – using a field you might not have access to with finishers you do can turn the tide of a particular fight.

Interrupting an enemy can also negate damage – this is where familiarity with an enemy’s tells can keep you alive. Skills that interrupt may be labelled with something like “daze,” or “stun.”
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Interrupt
They’re just as useful in PvP as they are in PvE, btw.

And finally, managing cooldowns. This is more critical when playing against human players, but it’s important in PvE as well. Knowing how frequently you’ll need to interrupt a skill is based on your estimation of a human enemy’s cooldowns, or familiarity with an NPC monster’s skills. In PvE, stacks of defiance (yep, another link: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Defiance) further complicate this cooldown management, since those defiance stacks need to be removed for interrupts to work as intended.

TPMN.1483:

Is there anything I’m missing here – or is the game really that easy that heals are not required?

None of this is “easy.” I hope that’s been conveyed well. Sometimes people talk about zerk builds as being “cheap” or “easy,” but they take a lot of skill to play without dying all the time. If you know enough about your profession (and in PvP, everyone else’s profession) to use zerker stats, you deserve the benefits that come from using those stats.

I agree that the zerker meta is over-rated, but I don’t agree that zerker builds aren’t doing significantly more dps in most crit-favoring fights than anyone else.

Its not required to complete anything though. It really just isn’t.

Also, its junk if one doesn’t know how to play it well by learning how to use their dodges and other forms of active defense tactically. Utter crap in the hands of those that think gear will carry them, in point of fact.

Even power/vit/toughness Soldier or Sentinel gear won’t really carry one anywhere (gear doesn’t play that kind of role here in GW2), but at least it comes a bit closer to looking like it might.

I still see people trying to run zerker that dodge blindly if they dodge and all and just hit all their buttons every fight irrespective of what they do or in what order, or when or to what.

In the hands of people that just wanna mess around and not try at all, the zerker meta is horrible and should not be attempted.

In the hands of someone that knows how to make it work well with their build? Its pretty epic what can be pulled off in a short amount of time with it in terms of damage output.

But that’s about it.

Thank you all for your replies so far (Chocolate – loved it !)

Let me reclarify:
I have seen all these groups asking for zerker – and many threads saying l2p active defenses in both pvp and pve (esp dungeons)
—> This is not a discussion about zerker or non-zerker for any content.

From what I can ascertain zerker is a armor stat is there a corresponding trait stat or is it all 6/6/x – full power / precision traits?
—> Is the trait set 6/6/x for everything e.g. full power/precision… from responses from Doggie.3184 has outlined some areas in this thats its not always about 6/6/x – not sure what traits other professions people are running though too much.

Active defenses are like Stealth, reflects and stuff so you don’t take damaged e.g. Stabilitys / condition clears?
—> Elegy.2159 – has answered this well I think.
—> But I’m thinking that dodge is the last-resort skill not the first active defense skill.. the other active defenses should come first (e.g. blinds/reflects). As dodging all the time wont get you anywhere and you’ll run out of dodges and just be a l2p person. (What I get from the responses)

Is there anything I’m missing here – or is the game really that easy that heals are not required?
—> Seems that some people think heals are required.

IS it really just a case of learning the skill animations, sounds and what each boss does in pve and use an active defense?
→ Nova.3814 – answers this well about learning the boss mechanics so you know how to avoid / mitigate the big hits.

PvP seems a bit harder to active defense – as the players are more random (human) but I presume the same logic there also applies?
>> Nova.3814 – also answers this well.

Is there anything else I’ve missed or other contributions to the help me understand this compelx stuff?

This thread is going beserk (see what I did there). Pls keep it focus on the question of TPMN.

TPMN.1483:

From what I can ascertain zerker is a armor stat is there a corresponding trait stat or is it all 6/6/x – full power / precision traits?

Yes zerker is the armor stats (Assassin can be better depending on your profession and build). For trait it’s more complicated, some build are using 6/6/x, but not all. Each profession will have several build depending on the situation or you can just use a general purpose build and never change it. Take a look at gw2metabattle for some basic build to start with.

TPMN.1483:

Is there anything I’m missing here – or is the game really that easy that heals are not required?

Self heal are required, but ppl healing other ppl is not that good and not required. Yes this game was build for casual mostly so its easy. What is less easy is to run full meta build, optimizing buffs, and optimizing your stategy to finish dungeon super quick. (Most dungeon can be run under 5min, while good pugs can do it in 15min and bad will do it in 20-25min). We also get our challenge from duo or solo run of dungeons.

TPMN.1483:

PvP seems a bit harder to active defense – as the players are more random (human) but I presume the same logic there also applies?

Yes and no. Some build/profession are glass canon, but they are non-forgiving. Most build in PvP have some defensive stats, but active defense is still super important. In PvE you know what will happen so you can anticipate all attack and use active defense, you can’t do that in PvP.

TPMN.1483:

Active defenses are like Stealth, reflects and stuff so you don’t take damaged e.g. Stabilitys / condition clears?

IS it really just a case of learning the skill animations, sounds and what each boss does in pve and use an active defense?

Enlighten me a little please..
Tell me more how this dark art works that I can do dmg and take no dmg from stuff.

Active defense is all thing that you activate to stop or lower the incoming dmg. It include aegis, blind, block, invulnerable, distortion, dodge, reflection. You can also think about weakness, protection and vigor as active defence(partially). Condition removal also, but its more like a heal. It fix thing after the hit, not prevent it.

How to use them depend on what profession you are using and what option are available to you. Your main goal here is to learn what are the animations of your enemies and react to them. If you spam your active defense, you gonna run out pretty quick. If you are using them at the right moment to block a particular attack you will drastically decrease the incoming dmg.

Some bosses have unblockable, unblindable, unreflectable attacks which force you to use dodge. Such examples include Malrona in TA. It really comes down to familiarity as to whether or not you should be dodging but generally speaking it’s never a bad habit to dodge the big attacks even if you negate the damage through other means.

NeedsFoodBadly.2671:

Berserker stat’d gear is overrated IMO. It provides a slight increase in DPS for a huge lack of survivability. You’re not going to lose the dungeon or PVP simply because you have slightly less power.

Personally, I prefer to do a little mixing and matching. Valkyrie is a decent substitute for zerker with decent power and a lot more vitality.

I would pay no mind to the groups who insist you have to be level 99 with mandatory full legendary/ascended/zerker gear and a quaggan backpack to be cool enough to play with them.

I will never want to party with people that do what you do. Because at least with people who run cleric guardian etc, I can understand that they want a different playstyle, to support etc. When i hear people mixing valk with zerk, it really only screams “I cannot survive with zerker, so i am going to take valkyrie so i can make more mistake and not get punished”. Valk isn’t a different build, it plays out exactly the same way as a zerk build except you do less damage and thus conrtibue less to the team.

Okay, since everybody here has overcomplicated the kitten out of these answers I’ll try.

Zerker is a stat set, it is the Berserker armor stats. Power, Precision, Ferocity. Some builds are 6/6/ but most aren’t . Most meta builds are built around optimizing team support and damage. So for example a Phalanx Strength warrior won’t hit as hard as a full dps warrior but would be capable of stacking 25 minute and 25 vulnerability. A guardian might run a utility build to shorten their wall of reflections cooldown, etc.

Active defense are things like blocks, dodges, reflects, condition removal, etc.

Yes, it is that easy, all you need to do is learn the enemies tells and in general you can avoid taking damage 90% of the time.

I have one character with full Berserker gear and a few with more defensive/balanced gear, and I got to say, full Berserker gear is always better than defensive/balanced for general PvE content (dungeons).
I like to solo dungeons, and doing so with a defensive/balanced set is incredibly tedious and slow. When I switch to my character with full Berserker gear, everything goes down so much quicker, the difference is insanely huge. Sure, you’re not allowed to make as many mistakes, but if people in Berserker gear are constantly dying, it’s clearly a learn 2 play issue.
The other problem with Berserker gear, and the reason why it’s so popular is that if your entire party consists of people wearing Berserker gear is that you can kill bosses so fast, they barely get the time to do their thing. This way you can mitigate the learn 2 play issue with bad players wearing Berserker gear, and is also the reason why people in defensive/balanced gear are dragging down the rest of the dungeon team so much.

That said, I still rather join a team of people wearing defensive/balanced gear who know how to have fun than a speedrun-obsessed party wearing full Berserker gear.

Dinks.2478:

So for example a Phalanx Strength warrior won’t hit as hard as a full dps warrior but would be capable of stacking 25 minute and 25 vulnerability

Just a little thing. Warrior can’t maintain 25 stack of vulnerability. Other than that you are right.

Thaddeus.4891:

Dinks.2478:

So for example a Phalanx Strength warrior won’t hit as hard as a full dps warrior but would be capable of stacking 25 minute and 25 vulnerability

Just a little thing. Warrior can’t maintain 25 stack of vulnerability. Other than that you are right.

Crushing Blow

Cyclone Axe

Greatsword Slice

Greatsword Swing

On my Mark

Yes they can

As someone who plays with both zerker and more defensive groups I can easily say that there IS a big difference when running in a full zerker group and when not. Alot of zerker defenses come from profession based skills that do not really decrease damage. Some examples of these are a mesmer’s 2 sword, wars 3 greatsword into wall, guards aegis and blinds, and ofc reflects. They are enough to let zerker groups kill foes, since they kill them so fast that other means really are unnecessary.

Most of the players that I have run into that do not understand zerker simply have not played in full zerker optimized groups. They have tried playing zerker in mix groups and base their opinions on that. So they think there is no real difference and that zerker=dying.

The main defense of a zerker is the offense of a full zerker group. It kills things quick enough to where there really isn’t any damage to mitigate which a few dodges and skills cannot provide.

Dinks.2478:

Thaddeus.4891:

Dinks.2478:

So for example a Phalanx Strength warrior won’t hit as hard as a full dps warrior but would be capable of stacking 25 minute and 25 vulnerability

Just a little thing. Warrior can’t maintain 25 stack of vulnerability. Other than that you are right.

Crushing Blow

Cyclone Axe

Greatsword Slice

Greatsword Swing

On my Mark

Yes they can

The key word is Maintain. That’s the thing. You can burst vuln, actually very good at it. But many fights last longer than your might will last. Remember defiance halves the duration. So your 10s Mace vuln is now 5s. 8s axe is now 4s. Likewise GS swings are 4s, and on my mark is 5s. If you were to use say Axe2, Mace4, and OMM you’d burst to 24 stacks, but it’d last for 4s, then drop to 20 for 1 more second and then be gone. And you have a cooldown of 30s for OMM and 15s on mace. Ignoring the limitations of rotations You can maintain 10 stacks from mace for ~33% of the time, 10 stacks from OMM for ~16% of the time, 4 stacks from axe for 66% of the time, then with GS you’ll be keeping up 2-3 stacks swinging that bad boy around.

Warrior’s vuln is not shabby at all, but it’s ability to maintain isn’t it’s strength.

TPMN.1483:

Hi All,

I have seen all these groups asking for zerker – and many threads saying l2p active defenses in both pvp and pve (esp dungeons)
From what I can ascertain zerker is a armor stat is there a corresponding trait stat or is it all 6/6/x – full power / precision traits?
Active defenses are like Stealth, reflects and stuff so you don’t take damaged e.g. Stabilitys / condition clears?

Is there anything I’m missing here – or is the game really that easy that heals are not required?
IS it really just a case of learning the skill animations, sounds and what each boss does in pve and use an active defense?
PvP seems a bit harder to active defense – as the players are more random (human) but I presume the same logic there also applies?

Enlighten me a little please..
Tell me more how this dark art works that I can do dmg and take no dmg from stuff.

PVP also has fast enough attacks that you can’t actively defend them all. That rarely happens in PVE. PVE is quite well designed for you to actively defend yourself. However there are some more attrition based mechanics (first boss in SEp3 for instance stacks bleed, first in CoFp1 has quick whips) and these mechanics will hit through your active defense unless you get really coordinated and keep the boss CC’d with things like deep freeze and defiant stripping.

Dinks.2478:

Yes they can

Ok sorry, yes they can. No they shouldn’t.

Crushing blow give a perma 8.6 vulnerability
Cyclone Axe give a perma 4.16 vulnerability
Rending Strikers give a perma 7.28 vulnerability

With equal to 20 perma vulnerability. You shouldn’t use GS auto-attack if you have the right rotation, but lets say you have a full GS auto-attack in there. That boost to 22 perma vulnerability. With OMM that bring us to 26 perma vulnerability, but what do you sacrifice? Signet of Fury? Banner of Discipline? Banner of Strenght?

And keep in mind that its with the best rotation, no dodge, nothing. In reality you probably gonna oscillate between 20-25 stack of vulnerability with OMM. And more around 15-20 without it. And that’s half of that against mobs with unshakable.

Jerus.4350:

Dinks.2478:

Thaddeus.4891:

Dinks.2478:

So for example a Phalanx Strength warrior won’t hit as hard as a full dps warrior but would be capable of stacking 25 minute and 25 vulnerability

Just a little thing. Warrior can’t maintain 25 stack of vulnerability. Other than that you are right.

Crushing Blow

Cyclone Axe

Greatsword Slice

Greatsword Swing

On my Mark

Yes they can

The key word is Maintain. That’s the thing. You can burst vuln, actually very good at it. But many fights last longer than your might will last. Remember defiance halves the duration. So your 10s Mace vuln is now 5s. 8s axe is now 4s. Likewise GS swings are 4s, and on my mark is 5s. If you were to use say Axe2, Mace4, and OMM you’d burst to 24 stacks, but it’d last for 4s, then drop to 20 for 1 more second and then be gone. And you have a cooldown of 30s for OMM and 15s on mace. Ignoring the limitations of rotations You can maintain 10 stacks from mace for ~33% of the time, 10 stacks from OMM for ~16% of the time, 4 stacks from axe for 66% of the time, then with GS you’ll be keeping up 2-3 stacks swinging that bad boy around.

Warrior’s vuln is not shabby at all, but it’s ability to maintain isn’t it’s strength.

Um defiance doesnt do anything except let you not use cc. Thats unshakable that halves weakness and vulnerability and applies stacks of defiance when CC’d.

Travis the Terrible.4739:

Jerus.4350:

Dinks.2478:

Thaddeus.4891:

Dinks.2478:

So for example a Phalanx Strength warrior won’t hit as hard as a full dps warrior but would be capable of stacking 25 minute and 25 vulnerability

Just a little thing. Warrior can’t maintain 25 stack of vulnerability. Other than that you are right.

Crushing Blow

Cyclone Axe

Greatsword Slice

Greatsword Swing

On my Mark

Yes they can

The key word is Maintain. That’s the thing. You can burst vuln, actually very good at it. But many fights last longer than your might will last. Remember defiance halves the duration. So your 10s Mace vuln is now 5s. 8s axe is now 4s. Likewise GS swings are 4s, and on my mark is 5s. If you were to use say Axe2, Mace4, and OMM you’d burst to 24 stacks, but it’d last for 4s, then drop to 20 for 1 more second and then be gone. And you have a cooldown of 30s for OMM and 15s on mace. Ignoring the limitations of rotations You can maintain 10 stacks from mace for ~33% of the time, 10 stacks from OMM for ~16% of the time, 4 stacks from axe for 66% of the time, then with GS you’ll be keeping up 2-3 stacks swinging that bad boy around.

Warrior’s vuln is not shabby at all, but it’s ability to maintain isn’t it’s strength.

Um defiance doesnt do anything except let you not use cc. Thats unshakable that halves weakness and vulnerability and applies stacks of defiance when CC’d.

True my bad, I usually just assume they go together, my bad.

Jerus.4350:

True my bad, I usually just assume they go together, my bad.

To an extent they are tied together but yeah defiance isnt whats shortening your condis. Its unshakable. :p

Thaddeus.4891:

Dinks.2478:

Yes they can

Ok sorry, yes they can. No they shouldn’t.

Crushing blow give a perma 8.6 vulnerability
Cyclone Axe give a perma 4.16 vulnerability
Rending Strikers give a perma 7.28 vulnerability

With equal to 20 perma vulnerability. You shouldn’t use GS auto-attack if you have the right rotation, but lets say you have a full GS auto-attack in there. That boost to 22 perma vulnerability. With OMM that bring us to 26 perma vulnerability, but what do you sacrifice? Signet of Fury? Banner of Discipline? Banner of Strenght?

And keep in mind that its with the best rotation, no dodge, nothing. In reality you probably gonna oscillate between 20-25 stack of vulnerability with OMM. And more around 15-20 without it. And that’s half of that against mobs with unshakable.

Is rending strikes really that high? I mean I knew it was decent, but I always thought it was lower than that. Good to know.

maddoctor.2738:

To be honest, the difference between Valkyrie and Berserker is that Valkyrie trades Precision for Vitality. With certain professions (Thief / Guardian) it’s easy to get to the sweet spot of 60% critical chance without using Berserker gear.

Keeping the meta traits as is, using Valkyrie still gives over 100% precision in Stealth. The typical dungeon rotation makes heavy use of stealth, so it works out. Difference in crit chance (un-stealthed) is 11% (53% zerker vs. 42% valkyrie – I don’t have ascended rings yet).

Jerus.4350:

Is rending strikes really that high? I mean I knew it was decent, but I always thought it was lower than that. Good to know.

Well to be fair that the number if you have 100% crit chance and your rotation is perfect, no dodge, etc. So that’s like the maximum you will get from it. Remember that with the meta build you get +30% condition duration.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

1. Bosses with OHKO mechanics.
Bosses that do 40k damage regardless of stats. Those bosses down you instantly no matter how much Toughness/Vitality you have. Healing is also useless there because you do not even get a chance to heal. The best defense is a good offense, as a Zerker team can kill the boss before it even has a chance to use that ultimate attack that you would have to avoid.

Which bosses have attacks that are unaffected by toughness and do 40k damage? I looked through the entire wiki and couldn’t find any mention of it.

Thaddeus.4891:

Jerus.4350:

Is rending strikes really that high? I mean I knew it was decent, but I always thought it was lower than that. Good to know.

Well to be fair that the number if you have 100% crit chance and your rotation is perfect, no dodge, etc. So that’s like the maximum you will get from it. Remember that with the meta build you get +30% condition duration.

True with the DPS meta, but PS is 05063 is it not? so you wouldn’t get that condi duration. So for PS you can get your 25 might but your vuln would be lacking… still higher than I had thought it was though. In all Honesty it seems like warrior might be able to match an Engi at this point as Engi isn’t actually just dropping nades all the time, you’re often rotating through other kits and in general I’m maintaining 10-15 not the ~20 that is possible with more nades.

TPMN.1483:

Hi All,

I have seen all these groups asking for zerker – and many threads saying l2p active defenses in both pvp and pve (esp dungeons)
From what I can ascertain zerker is a armor stat is there a corresponding trait stat or is it all 6/6/x – full power / precision traits?
Active defenses are like Stealth, reflects and stuff so you don’t take damaged e.g. Stabilitys / condition clears?

Is there anything I’m missing here – or is the game really that easy that heals are not required?
IS it really just a case of learning the skill animations, sounds and what each boss does in pve and use an active defense?
PvP seems a bit harder to active defense – as the players are more random (human) but I presume the same logic there also applies?

Enlighten me a little please..
Tell me more how this dark art works that I can do dmg and take no dmg from stuff.

This is exactly right.

The dark art is pretty simple, actually.

The more informed you are as to what attacks, casts or AOEs cause damage to you, the less armor you need. Armors that provide toughness and vitality do so with a direct reduction to your potential damage output, but if you know what is going to hit you and have an answer to either reducing or outright avoiding that damage that isnt “lol face tank it”, then you can devote that buffer you would need to keep yourself alive to increasing the damage you do.

Stealths, blocks, utilities and dodges are “Active defense”- that is, defense that mitigates or negates damage, but needs to be initiated by the user, rather than “passive defense” which is built into the armor at a cost to damage output. Every class has lots of “Active” defense, and generally the more familiar you are with your opponents (be them AI or Human), the more you can rely on well timed evades or mitigation that your class provides as part of its skillset.

Heals are by and large not required to be specced for, given your entire group (if you are not soloing) knows what they are doing.

It is absolutely just a case of learning animations, tells, and general rotations of skills used by AI and humans. In essence the game boils down to

*Can you learn to not stand in a circle?

*If a warrior has hit you with a shield, is carrying an axe, and muttered something about being “all wound up” or “ready to hit”, can you move?

*Can you protect your back if a thief has stealthed near you?

*Can you run from a lich?

*Can you not stand under the drop crate?

If you can do the above ^ reasonably well, you can devote the armor you’d use as a buffer for mistakes or unforeseen occurrences to finishing the fight faster or generally being more dangerous to your opponent. Even high damage is a good defense in pvp; because it forces your opponent to go on the defensive, be that using their utilities or what have you.

It really isnt too complex. if you know “lol this is gonna kill me” and one of your options at that time is “don’t get hit”, why carry toughness? Running all zerkers is not a required meta or a “play this way or you get a stigma attached to you” its just a benefit of high level, high skill play. Lots of people have gotten to that point where they just dont -need- toughness, which is why zerker is a meta now. Unless you’re one of those people that gets a kick out of beating bosses by poking them with a toothpick.

Then.. yknow… be my guest, run nomads or something.

Jerus.4350:

In all Honesty it seems like warrior might be able to match an Engi at this point as Engi isn’t actually just dropping nades all the time, you’re often rotating through other kits and in general I’m maintaining 10-15 not the ~20 that is possible with more nades.

Well if you look at these numbers it could see that ya Warrior are able to match the engineer. But that’s not totally true. With the standard GS + Axe/Mace you can in theory reach 20 stack of vulnerability if everything is perfect. But you probably gonna maintain more around 10-15 wihtout unshakable. For the engineer, simply auto-attacking will give you 25 stack of vulnerability without unshakable (13 with unshakable). Of course the less you are quick to getting back in your grenade, the less vulnerability you will be able to maintain. All those numbers are without food.

Further more, the Warrior will give vulnerability to 3 targets at the time, while the engineer can give it to 5 targets.

Thaddeus.4891:

Jerus.4350:

In all Honesty it seems like warrior might be able to match an Engi at this point as Engi isn’t actually just dropping nades all the time, you’re often rotating through other kits and in general I’m maintaining 10-15 not the ~20 that is possible with more nades.

Well if you look at these numbers it could see that ya Warrior are able to match the engineer. But that’s not totally true. With the standard GS + Axe/Mace you can in theory reach 20 stack of vulnerability if everything is perfect. But you probably gonna maintain more around 10-15 wihtout unshakable. For the engineer, simply auto-attacking will give you 25 stack of vulnerability without unshakable (13 with unshakable). Of course the less you are quick to getting back in your grenade, the less vulnerability you will be able to maintain. All those numbers are without food.

Further more, the Warrior will give vulnerability to 3 targets at the time, while the engineer can give it to 5 targets.

AHH, kk I assumed those numbers were with Unshakable not without. So half them and yeah Engi is still ahead (even in a rotation 20-25 is easy on things without unshakable).

For Engi on unshakable with rotation it’s usually bouncing between 10-15, without you’re well over the cap at times (only bounces down when you say go Napalm → Flame blast→Acid bomb stuff ) . Without the rotation and just nade spamming you can bump that up to like 15-20 on unshakable. This is what I have seen at least.

Lifestealer.4910:

I will never want to party with people that do what you do. Because at least with people who run cleric guardian etc, I can understand that they want a different playstyle, to support etc. When i hear people mixing valk with zerk, it really only screams “I cannot survive with zerker, so i am going to take valkyrie so i can make more mistake and not get punished”. Valk isn’t a different build, it plays out exactly the same way as a zerk build except you do less damage and thus conrtibue less to the team.

My valk armor rest zerker thief has got 2,5 more HP than my full zerker thief, try to miss a dodge with that. My damage output isn’t less than a zerker’s output because of the valk gear as both have power as a base, ferocity as one minor and the crit chance is at 41% with valk, wheras berserker gear has got 58%, so every second hit of both of them is a crit.
That’s just to say that both of you are wrong: valk doesn’t really save you and zerker doesn’t put out (that much more) damage than valk.
And in the end that wasn’t the question – and: I have yet to survive a fractal with full zerkers because I still have to care for my own health as my team isn’t that good yet. Full zerkers usually also means the traits and if I trait that way I really have no survivability.
I would be able to survive with my full zerker gear thief though, if the traits weren’t used up in the first 2 lines.

Edit: Or better: I can survive in any gear as long as I have 6 in Shadow Arts. For everything else I need a good team.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

4. Zerker do not mix with non-Zerker
To put it in simple terms: A Zerker expects the boss to die to a full Zerker team by the time they used up their 2nd dodge. You did not bring Zerker, therefore the boss did not die because you lacked damage. The Zerker dies as they did not have a 3rd dodge.
You blame the Zerker for dying and being a bad player. The Zerker blames you as they already calculated that they would not need a 3rd dodge if you had enough Damage in the first place. It is true that if you had brought Zerker, they would not have died(as they would never need a 3rd dodge). It is also true that if the players were not Zerker, they would not have died(but the fight would take longer). Therefore, Zerkers and non-Zerkers do not mix.

So much this.

Nothing worse than a self-righteous non-zerker in a zerker team big noting themselves because they survived. Only to show their ignorance of how the mechanics work.

[quote=4779894;Jana.6831:]