Guild Wars 2

Fenrir.3609:

Nike.2631:

fadeaway.2807:

I want to play a super safe cleric bunker guardian & still have the kill speed of full zerker, because I am sick of seeing “lfg 5 zerkers” and they are not skilled. I think this is only fair.

Thanks.

Honestly, no one playing more defensive builds wants or expects their best time to match that of people playing balls-out full-tilt killify-them-all builds. They just want doing so to be risky enough that its the province of the truly awesome and not the bandwagon presumption of DPS-posers everywhere.

Jeeze… Wouldn’t you like to take some pride — to get some actual respect — for succeeding at something difficult rather than doing what’s the obvious play under the current system?

How would non zerkers have any idea of how “risky” it is? All those PVT and clerics users, all those people outside the meta have tons and tons and tons of experience running the meta and within full zerk, speedrun groups I gather? They all have ascended zerk and thought “too easy, get me some PVT and then ask for zerk nerfs on teh forums!”

Why are non zerk players the arbiters of “how risky” other players gameplay should be?

After the Ferocity changes, what happens if the “tanky” players decide “nope, still not risky enough for dem zerkers” and have another little cry on these forums? Ah right, we should put up with more nerfs right, for the good of the game and all that. I mean at least the nasty zerkers can “take some pride” as they get a good shafting.

Bring on the nerfs, who cares, it is clear that the best thing for this game would be more condi bunkers, more PVT facetanks and more cleric heal spammers. The dps nerfs should not stop until muh pvt hambow is the speedclear meta.

Here’s the problem as I understand it. Zerkers in PVE don’t increase their risk by investing heavily into offense. They decrease it. Defense/Support/Healing builds don’t decrease their risk by investing heavily into those areas. They increase it. It’s funny when you think about it. So, clearly, the non-zerkers know more about risk than the zerkers. I would think. I mean, everyone who shoots for max dps knows why. Damage reduction through armor and healing doesn’t have the same efficacy as using blinds, dodge, and reflects. Max DPS builds don’t lose out on how efficient they are at using some of the most meaningful survival tools the game offers while Max Defense builds are often anything but what their moniker describes because they can’t negate/heal at a level comparable to how damage/survival is calculated for the former. It just seems like active defense skills weren’t considered when allowing DPS builds to invest heavily into DPS stats.

Edit: It’s been said already and I agree with the position that we shouldn’t just make builds that allow you to stand in front of a boss while rolling your face across the keyboard and expect a win. But the lines as they are drawn now with regard to survival, damage, and viability need to be redrawn to breathe some life into the meta.

I’m so glad that gamers want to decide how we all play the game.

Reminds me of the government decided what we should or shouldn’t do in our daily life.

If a lot of people want full zerkers, then clearly Anet should make it so that full zerkers aren’t asked for as much because it isn’t “fair”. Thats how this all comes off. Its only fitting that it still doesn’t hurt the zerkers that much, but it will still slow down all runs and lower dps.

I really don’t like the idea of the nerf, and it kind of bothers me that a lot of it is due to people complaining about things that don’t really effect them. But thats how I felt most of the time playing GW1, with constant nerfing back and forth because group A whines about the first nerf and then group B whines later on.

Sekhmet.6153:

I’m so glad that gamers want to decide how we all play the game.

Reminds me of the government decided what we should or shouldn’t do in our daily life.

If a lot of people want full zerkers, then clearly Anet should make it so that full zerkers aren’t asked for as much because it isn’t “fair”. Thats how this all comes off. Its only fitting that it still doesn’t hurt the zerkers that much, but it will still slow down all runs and lower dps.

I really don’t like the idea of the nerf, and it kind of bothers me that a lot of it is due to people complaining about things that don’t really effect them. But thats how I felt most of the time playing GW1, with constant nerfing back and forth because group A whines about the first nerf and then group B whines later on.

Your post makes no sense. First off, it’s not the players that are changing the rules, it’s Anet. Second no one is saying you can’t continue to be a zerker anymore, go ahead and continue to be one if you’d like, no is stopping you. Anet is making the change because currently not enough people are being allowed to play the way they want. You said it’s important to you that people be able to play the way the want, so you should be supportive of this change.

Currently many people are blocked from group play because they don’t like to be forced to play zerker. Other people have begrudging compromised their playstyle because zerker is just too over powered.

I’m pretty sure that if zerker was under strength, you wouldn’t play it. So you can’t really claim your playing the way you want, because the only way you seem to want to play is whatever is OP. I’m sure that in another month you’ll adapt fine to what ever the new OP strategy. Those that wish to continue to play zerker, will continue to play zerker. those that ant to play differently, may finally have the opportunity to do so without be excluded from groups.

You really should be behind this change if you truly support playing the way you want.

Nike.2631:

fadeaway.2807:

I want to play a super safe cleric bunker guardian & still have the kill speed of full zerker, because I am sick of seeing “lfg 5 zerkers” and they are not skilled. I think this is only fair.

Thanks.

Honestly, no one playing more defensive builds wants or expects their best time to match that of people playing balls-out full-tilt killify-them-all builds. They just want doing so to be risky enough that its the province of the truly awesome and not the bandwagon presumption of DPS-posers everywhere.

Jeeze… Wouldn’t you like to take some pride — to get some actual respect — for succeeding at something difficult rather than doing what’s the obvious play under the current system?

The combat system of this game along with class (skills, weapons, traits) and monster design don’t really allow for traditional ideas of support…. Like having a healer (healing skill). What should be used (since they are available) are combo fields/finishers, primarily blast finishers with any field. Which people can already do in zerker or similar dps gear.
It’s a great idea to have support regardless of gear but now all of a sudden gear is relevant? Not really looking at healing power gear cause that requires you to throw all your eggs in one basket to become even seemingly interesting as a support gear towards “healing others.” Then there’s giver’s which turned out to be a failure as “boon duration” only affects boons on you and not others as they have their own boon duration.
So, yeah defensive gear won’t ever come to par with zerker gear and I find it unlikely such a change as reducing direct damage is going to be welcome, seeing as people really value their time well spent doing “what they want to do.”

This just seems like a huge overblown “people can’t get along with people” issue…

Edited to put some emphasis on the above part.

DarcShriek.5829:

Anet is making the change because currently not enough people are being allowed to play the way they want.

Wow, if that’s the rationale behind the change, ANet really needs a psychologist on staff. In this case, though, while you think that’s why Ferocity is being implemented, I very much doubt this to be the case.

IndigoSundown.5419:

DarcShriek.5829:

Anet is making the change because currently not enough people are being allowed to play the way they want.

Wow, if that’s the rationale behind the change, ANet really needs a psychologist on staff. In this case, though, while you think that’s why Ferocity is being implemented, I very much doubt this to be the case.

You don’t think it’s a balance issue? Bring the classes into balance, and less people will be forced to play zerker. For people that understand logical arguments, that means more people will be able to play the way they want.

Nike.2631:

fadeaway.2807:

I want to play a super safe cleric bunker guardian & still have the kill speed of full zerker, because I am sick of seeing “lfg 5 zerkers” and they are not skilled. I think this is only fair.

Thanks.

Honestly, no one playing more defensive builds wants or expects their best time to match that of people playing balls-out full-tilt killify-them-all builds. They just want doing so to be risky enough that its the province of the truly awesome and not the bandwagon presumption of DPS-posers everywhere.

Jeeze… Wouldn’t you like to take some pride — to get some actual respect — for succeeding at something difficult rather than doing what’s the obvious play under the current system?

Basically, you want others to play the game the way you want them to play? I don’t buy for a second that you want to nerf zerker gear because you care about how others skill level is perceived.

The way you make it sound, running zerk gear is the easiest thing you can do and you take no risk. Bad zerkers die more often than not, especially in PUG groups when half the group is in cleric’s gear putting out so little damage you would think they were actually healing the boss. People like you need to stop assuming anyone can throw on zerk gear and faceroll the entire game.

I have a feeling you are one of those people that show up in the dungeon forum 5 times a day complaining they got kicked from a party “for no reason whatsoever” when the reality is if people just played with like-minded individuals there would be no complaining and no whining. Instead, people constantly try to join groups in which they don’t fit the description then QQ on here about “zerk elitists, blah blah…”

Sadly, this could all be avoided if people just play the way they want and let others do the same.

DarcShriek.5829:

Your post makes no sense. First off, it’s not the players that are changing the rules, it’s Anet. Second no one is saying you can’t continue to be a zerker anymore, go ahead and continue to be one if you’d like, no is stopping you. Anet is making the change because currently not enough people are being allowed to play the way they want. You said it’s important to you that people be able to play the way the want, so you should be supportive of this change.

Actually, it is you who don’t seem to be making any sense. Anet is making the changes because of all the QQing on the forums. I thought that was pretty clear. I would love to hear an in depth analysis of how people are not being allowed to play how they want.

DarcShriek.5829:

Currently many people are blocked from group play because they don’t like to be forced to play zerker. Other people have begrudging compromised their playstyle because zerker is just too over powered.

I feel from this paragraph that you don’t actually play the game.

I have never had a problem getting into a group through the lfg tool. EVER. If I see a post advertising something that my build doesn’t fit, I simply make my own group to play with like-minded individuals. I don’t think I have ever waited for more than 2 minutes for a group to fill. If you think you should be able to join any group, even ones clearly saying “zerk only”, then YOU are not allowing others to play the way they want. Sounds pretty hypocritical to me.

DarcShriek.5829:

I’m pretty sure that if zerker was under strength, you wouldn’t play it. So you can’t really claim your playing the way you want, because the only way you seem to want to play is whatever is OP. I’m sure that in another month you’ll adapt fine to what ever the new OP strategy. Those that wish to continue to play zerker, will continue to play zerker. those that ant to play differently, may finally have the opportunity to do so without be excluded from groups.

So, clearly, you and others like you are the arbiters of what is and what is not OP. People do not run zerk gear because they don’t want to. People run it because it’s efficient. Oh the poor souls being excluded from groups that clearly advertise for something else. Guess we can’t have zerkers playing how they want to play all by themselves. Clearly, anet should force them to play another way by playing with people who have less efficient builds.

DarcShriek.5829:

You really should be behind this change if you truly support playing the way you want.

I am starting to wonder at this point if your whole post was a troll post. That, ot you clearly aren’t listening to a word you are saying.

You seem confused Cranked. Are people running zerer gear because they like it or because it’s the most efficient? You seem to think there is no difference between the two choices. I say there is. I bet you don’t wear it because you like it, but because it’s the most efficient. Make something else efficient, and you would just as happily use that. I say, make multiple choices equally efficient, and let the people decide.

Looks like people are arguing for the sake of arguing. Oh well, i stand by my previous post about people disregarding everything else this change deals with.

Zerker is only viable build

There’s no ‘trinty’ and more armour doesn’t stop 7k-15k hits

DarcShriek.5829:

Sekhmet.6153:

I’m so glad that gamers want to decide how we all play the game.

Reminds me of the government decided what we should or shouldn’t do in our daily life.

If a lot of people want full zerkers, then clearly Anet should make it so that full zerkers aren’t asked for as much because it isn’t “fair”. Thats how this all comes off. Its only fitting that it still doesn’t hurt the zerkers that much, but it will still slow down all runs and lower dps.

I really don’t like the idea of the nerf, and it kind of bothers me that a lot of it is due to people complaining about things that don’t really effect them. But thats how I felt most of the time playing GW1, with constant nerfing back and forth because group A whines about the first nerf and then group B whines later on.

Your post makes no sense. First off, it’s not the players that are changing the rules, it’s Anet. Second no one is saying you can’t continue to be a zerker anymore, go ahead and continue to be one if you’d like, no is stopping you. Anet is making the change because currently not enough people are being allowed to play the way they want. You said it’s important to you that people be able to play the way the want, so you should be supportive of this change.

Currently many people are blocked from group play because they don’t like to be forced to play zerker. Other people have begrudging compromised their playstyle because zerker is just too over powered.

I’m pretty sure that if zerker was under strength, you wouldn’t play it. So you can’t really claim your playing the way you want, because the only way you seem to want to play is whatever is OP. I’m sure that in another month you’ll adapt fine to what ever the new OP strategy. Those that wish to continue to play zerker, will continue to play zerker. those that ant to play differently, may finally have the opportunity to do so without be excluded from groups.

You really should be behind this change if you truly support playing the way you want.

First of all, I don’t even play zerker most of the time outside of my Warrior, and I don’t use it because its OP. Secondly, I just find it irritating that Anet is making changes based on “community feedback” involving people complaining that too many people are doing x,y, z, even though it really doesn’t effect them in the least bit.

I have never been excluded from a group when I’m playing and I’ve hardly had that many bad experiences with lfg, although I usually play with the same 3 or 4 guildies and then just look for an extra player in dungeons. I think its a terrible idea to make changes that are almost solely based on people not wanting so-and-so using a certain build.

I like playing aggressive characters when I can, so a hit-and-run style involving max dps and mobility is fun for me.

DarcShriek.5829:

You don’t think it’s a balance issue?

Of course there is some element of balance in the change to Ferocity. However, I don’t believe that that was the primary reason for the change. ANet may say that, but companies rarely tell customers everything. All you have to do is examine human behavior to realize that this change is not going to have the effect hoped for.

DarcShriek.5829:

Bring the classes into balance, and less people will be forced to play zerker.

Leaving aside that this change has nothing to do with professions/classes, there is a flaw in this assumption. If in fact, someone is being forced to use berserker stats against their will now, this change will not affect that state of mind. Marginally successful glass players may in fact be forced to incorporate more survival stats. However, players will not magically become more tolerant. In fact, they’re more likely to become less tolerant, if that’s possible, if the change negatively impacts their dungeon experience.

DarcShriek.5829:

For people that understand logical arguments, that means more people will be able to play the way they want.

People can play the way they want now.

If they want into the meta, yes, they have to accept the meta’s strictures. Soon, there will be a new meta, though whether it will differ greatly from the old remains to be seen. Regardless, the new meta will have its own strictures, and people will not be any more able to play the way they want in meta groups then than they are now.

The PvE meta problem, if there is one, is in the realm of human behavior. Unless various builds are so close together that there is little to differentiate them, there is always going to be exclusion based on build in the meta. If builds were all the same, players would still discriminate on skill, especially in a game where twitch is important to success.

But don’t take my word for it, stick around and watch. Maybe I’ll get to eat my words, but I don’t think so.

I remember this awesome Skill in Guild Wars one, Ursan’s Blessing. PvE only, but that didn’t stop people for yelling for a nerf cause it didn’t let them play as they want. I quite playing Guild Wars 1 the very next day, never uninstalled just stopped going back. (And by the way, Guild Wars 1 was not gods gift to MMOs hindsight is always 20/20 everyone remembers what they liked about it not what was actually there in places. I know, I recently started playing it again).

But people won’t be happy until DPS has been nerfed so hard it takes four to eight hours to run one dungeon. By that point I will be long gone, I might not play another MMO but I won’t be playing (or spending money on this one).

If we really want to go crazy and get rid of those Evil DPS builds lets leave the boss hp alone and cut the damage of all weapons across the board by half. Then the anti-zerker crowd can be happy when they take 20-30 minutes to drop one boss.

Fact is nothing will change, Cleric….solider….dire these are WvW gear sets. Not something for PVE. By the time people realize just how much the messed up this game with the Zerker nerf will be to late.

Bad players will still be bad, regardless of gear. It wasn’t that hard to find Non-Zerker groups. I often didn’t pay attention to which groups I joined despite being a zerker. But After this I will, if I keep playing PvE at all. I might just go Full time WvW.

I have done every dungeon in this game until I am sick of them. I just want the gold and I want it done. I think most other zerker speed group players were the same. We didn’t join your non zerker groups and tell you how to play. Why did you all feel the need to come here and complain?

Haters Just Want To Hate

Fenrir.3609:

Yeah I agree. This game needs more condi bunkers, more PVT facetanks and A LOT more clerics heal spammers. Hopefully by nerfing dps builds, we will see more of these challenging and interesting playstyles/builds.

Good to see like-minded people on the forum. Together we need to show anet that the vast majority love healers or love being healed and it needs to be implemented as fast as possible.

Challenge will come when finally we have healers.

haviz.1340:

Fenrir.3609:

Yeah I agree. This game needs more condi bunkers, more PVT facetanks and A LOT more clerics heal spammers. Hopefully by nerfing dps builds, we will see more of these challenging and interesting playstyles/builds.

Good to see like-minded people on the forum. Together we need to show anet that the vast majority love healers or love being healed and it needs to be implemented as fast as possible.

Challenge will come when finally we have healers.

Yep, this whole active defense and skill based support set up just promotes cheeseplay and exploiting. Dodging out of attacks? Using blinds, blocks and reflects? Stacking? Bah, that’s cheating. Heal spam and static facetanking is what we need for a more rewarding and challenging gameplay experience.

At least it looks like Anet are starting to wake up to what so many of the “tanky” crowd have been saying on these forums for months now. The only REAL support comes from having someone in the group stand at the back, do no damage and spam heals on everyone. The only REAL skill comes from whacking on armor with lots of toughness/heal pot and facetanking every hit.

We already see loads of PVT and clerics users in dungeons, but that’s not enough, until the zerker speedrun meta is totally destroyed and replaced with heal spam, until “LF1M exp zerk” is replaced with “LF1M clerics guard” then this game will continue to struggle.

If only I had known this before, I feel embarrassed to admit that I used to “play zerker”, but I’ve had my eyes opened. Full clerics is soooo much more difficult to use and I can see that those constantly asking for nerfs on the forums are only doing it because they want us all to have some pride back in how we play. Thanks to those heroes, the challenging path of “tanky” play is being opened up to me!

Nike.2631:

Jeeze… Wouldn’t you like to take some pride — to get some actual respect — for succeeding at something difficult rather than doing what’s the obvious play under the current system?

Personally I DO take pride in being able to run top fotms as a zerker melee Guardian without dying. I suppose that’s not challenging enough for you. But then again, everyone always says zerker spam is easy and not challenging, but there are a suspicious lack of people actually running the high fotms and putting out videos in zerker gear.

In my experience the people who say it’s face roll easy mode rarely have the skill to actually pull off the full zerker runs in question. And I don’t mean CoFp1.

Nike.2631:

fadeaway.2807:

I want to play a super safe cleric bunker guardian & still have the kill speed of full zerker, because I am sick of seeing “lfg 5 zerkers” and they are not skilled. I think this is only fair.

Thanks.

Honestly, no one playing more defensive builds wants or expects their best time to match that of people playing balls-out full-tilt killify-them-all builds. They just want doing so to be risky enough that its the province of the truly awesome and not the bandwagon presumption of DPS-posers everywhere.

Jeeze… Wouldn’t you like to take some pride — to get some actual respect — for succeeding at something difficult rather than doing what’s the obvious play under the current system?

You’re making another assumption here.
The majority of players in this game don’t want difficult. They want easy rewards for minimal time invested.

Sure – if there’s difficult content players might do it once or twice to earn the bragging rights that come with " i did x content " but afterwards they’ll still go back to farming what’s profitable because that’s what this game drives you to.

Legendaries, ascended, rare skins – they all cost a LOT of money. TP exclusive skins cost money as well. People are being pressured into playing for profit rather than playing for challenge or for the sake of it.

The DPS posers you mention so many times aren’t actually " posing " -they’re doing dps and succeeding at it moderately.
They’re not posing for the bragging rights or the need to " be cool " but are actually trying to farm and gain what they want to have in the game.

You said earlier that these changes will break this meta and bring about a new one – but here’s the catch – if the playerbase breaks as well and starts complaining en masse we’ll see the changes reverted. Because ultimately they can only take this game so far from what we’re used to before people cry out and demand the game to be left alone so they can farm in peace.

Sadly – the solution they’ve chosen to “fix” the meta is a broken one. They’re modifying classes and gear to kitten them against the content instead of modifying the content or adding new content that rewards players for skilled play and is desirable to go through.

nightwulf.1986:

Here’s the problem as I understand it. Zerkers in PVE don’t increase their risk by investing heavily into offense. They decrease it. Defense/Support/Healing builds don’t decrease their risk by investing heavily into those areas. They increase it.

And there’s the core flaw in your reasoning. Clerics don’t have to dodge, can spam random skills and complete arah. Zerkers dodge wrong 1 time and they’re dead (excluding warriors, they can make 1 mistake most of the time).

Recently we’ve had a couple of new people in my old guild that switched to full zerker, they die and die and die because they never learned the encounters in PVT/clerics gear. Suddenly rather easy dungeons like CM or TA become a challenge.

Please actually try playing it before making these assumptions. It’s not because some ppl spent days learning how to solo lupicus that it’s suddenly “not risky”, they just spent the time to learn how to play properly.

Making zerk dps weaker is only going to encourage people to enforce zerker only teams.

cranos.5913:

nightwulf.1986:

Here’s the problem as I understand it. Zerkers in PVE don’t increase their risk by investing heavily into offense. They decrease it. Defense/Support/Healing builds don’t decrease their risk by investing heavily into those areas. They increase it.

And there’s the core flaw in your reasoning. Clerics don’t have to dodge, can spam random skills and complete arah. Zerkers dodge wrong 1 time and they’re dead (excluding warriors, they can make 1 mistake most of the time).

Please, show me a bunker build that can facetank 48k damage from elite aether thug (29k from veteran maaaay be survivable on a warrior, not sure how high you can push warrior hps). Those are damages that appear more often with the new content – the direction the game is going in.
Think about it.

Nike.2631:

DeceiverX.8361:

And why are full-DPS parties a problem? If each individual is playing a selfish build and is skilled enough to kill the boss and act as an individual, why should they be punished for playing squishy DPS, especially if the gaps in potential for non-DPS builds exist due to inherent monster and level design flaws rather than number-crunching damage?

Because they’re NOT being punished particularly. For a strategy to become so wildly prevalent, the skill requirement actually has to be pretty low. To paraphrase Loki “If it were easy, everybody would be doing it.” Well, it’s not everybody but a lot of people ARE doing it. Not everyone who wears berserker and succeeds is actually that great a player and even this small change is going to make that more apparent.

Ferocity thus is is a failed solution – even before release – because even in the greater scheme of things, it does nothing to address the so-called problem that it’s designed to resolve.

If it did “nothing” we wouldn’t be seeing this level of outcry . We’ve seen people regularly arguing “well, now the 4 good zerkers can’t carry the cleric any more…” That is the sound of the slack being taken up, pulling the cords tight before another small change somewhere else uses that built-up tension to snap the current meta like a tree branch. You’re absolutely right: the damage nerf isn’t enough to change things… by itself.

It won’t be by itself before long.

We haven’t seen the rest of the balance pass notes for this patch. We also have seen them split up OBVIOUS components of the same change like reducing the availability of vigor to all profession over two patches.

It’s not about being high risk vs high reward on zerker play, though. People play these builds not because the skill cap is low but because the skill cap is the same for all builds due to the OHKO and similar mechanics implemented in so many of these fights. ANet has stated all builds should be viable in completing an objective. Full berserker “the best” right now not because the content is too easy but because there is literally no incentive to build anything else. PVT builds will die in the same one-shot skill as a berserker user, so why not just cut down the number of attacks the boss makes to prevent more OHKO’s from happening? This IS a valid strategy and shouldn’t be shunned upon. The problem is that building defensively/support-oriented has literally no benefit for both the individuals nor the party, for OHKO moves will drop tanks, support builds, DPS – anything, really – if they fail to dodge in time, anyways.

Berserker builds are already punished: you get hit, you die. The problem is that tank/support builds have the SAME level of punishment and no other skill cap necessary to work at maximum effectiveness. There’s no such thing as a “good tank player” or a “good support player” right now in GW2, because those roles have nothing to bring to the table and do not have any other kind of play penalties for failing on those roles.

People QQ’ing about berserker viability don’t understand the subject. Refer to crit builds for the problems at hand. Ferocity changes nerf precision/crit builds more than power ones. It affects some classes harder than others.

So no, the damage nerf doesn’t solve anything. Berserker will still be the best dungeon set. It will still remain the dungeon meta. Nothing will change except dungeon speed in the all-berserker parties. 10% is already a big number. People are going to be even less-inclined to invite other people of other builds, now.

I say it’s a failed “solution” because the only things which could resolve the problems occurring could and should be implemented independent of the damage reduction. The damage reduction aspect changes nothing and has no influence nor will be influenced by any other changes brought on in the future. Whether or not ANet has more fixes up their sleeve is irrelevant; ferocity doesn’t solve the problem it’s intended to, and we’ve already agreed that only other fixes will do this. Therefore why not just implement these other changes? Ferocity does nothing except destroy a lot of possibilities for WvW and further force people into the condi meta. The change is destructive and a failure because the alternative/required solutions to address the problems it doesn’t solve could work independently of ferocity.

DeceiverX.8361:

snip

A one-shot (OHKO) mechanic breaks viability?

Not really.

If you give no way to get out of that mechanic (dodge, block, aegis, blind), then it shows that there is no single thing out there that is viable.

You’re saying that PVT has become unviable because of one-shot mechanics, but only if you require one-shot mechanic to be facetanked instead by PVT and then you think this is the definition of viability.

This is ridiculous because if you use both Berserker’s and PVT you will be able to finish all contents of the game eventually. That is viability.

An example of PVT being non-viable is when there’s a time limit and DPS check at the same time. But the content with time limit, such as in CoF path 2, has nothing to do with gear set-ups.

Fenrir.3609:

haviz.1340:

Fenrir.3609:

Yeah I agree. This game needs more condi bunkers, more PVT facetanks and A LOT more clerics heal spammers. Hopefully by nerfing dps builds, we will see more of these challenging and interesting playstyles/builds.

Good to see like-minded people on the forum. Together we need to show anet that the vast majority love healers or love being healed and it needs to be implemented as fast as possible.

Challenge will come when finally we have healers.

Yep, this whole active defense and skill based support set up just promotes cheeseplay and exploiting. Dodging out of attacks? Using blinds, blocks and reflects? Stacking? Bah, that’s cheating. Heal spam and static facetanking is what we need for a more rewarding and challenging gameplay experience.

At least it looks like Anet are starting to wake up to what so many of the “tanky” crowd have been saying on these forums for months now. The only REAL support comes from having someone in the group stand at the back, do no damage and spam heals on everyone. The only REAL skill comes from whacking on armor with lots of toughness/heal pot and facetanking every hit.

We already see loads of PVT and clerics users in dungeons, but that’s not enough, until the zerker speedrun meta is totally destroyed and replaced with heal spam, until “LF1M exp zerk” is replaced with “LF1M clerics guard” then this game will continue to struggle.

If only I had known this before, I feel embarrassed to admit that I used to “play zerker”, but I’ve had my eyes opened. Full clerics is soooo much more difficult to use and I can see that those constantly asking for nerfs on the forums are only doing it because they want us all to have some pride back in how we play. Thanks to those heroes, the challenging path of “tanky” play is being opened up to me!

While I can appreciate satire as well as the next person, you guys might consider that not everyone will bother to read your post history to determine that this is satire.

DeceiverX.8361:

People QQ’ing about berserker viability don’t understand the subject. Refer to crit builds for the problems at hand. Ferocity changes nerf precision/crit builds more than power ones. It affects some classes harder than others.

So no, the damage nerf doesn’t solve anything. Berserker will still be the best dungeon set. It will still remain the dungeon meta. Nothing will change except dungeon speed in the all-berserker parties. 10% is already a big number. People are going to be even less-inclined to invite other people of other builds, now.

Agreed. Other builds starting with less dps than full berserker already are going to lose 15%+ of their damage, as demonstrated earlier in the thread. Berserker is becoming relatively more attractive from this change, not less. So yes, ferocity fundamentally fails to do what the developers claim is its design: to promote build diversity.

xallever.1874:

DeceiverX.8361:

snip

A one-shot (OHKO) mechanic breaks viability?

Not really.

If you give no way to get out of that mechanic (dodge, block, aegis, blind), then it shows that there is no single thing out there that is viable.

You’re saying that PVT has become unviable because of one-shot mechanics, but only if you require one-shot mechanic to be facetanked instead by PVT and then you think this is the definition of viability.

This is ridiculous because if you use both Berserker’s and PVT you will be able to finish all contents of the game eventually. That is viability.

An example of PVT being non-viable is when there’s a time limit and DPS check at the same time. But the content with time limit, such as in CoF path 2, has nothing to do with gear set-ups.

This isn’t what I’m saying, though.

I’m stating that PVT non-viability has nothing to do with game mechanics and entirely to do with how players want to play and how they want their peers to play.

To promote non-berserker viability, the game needs to be set up in ways where no-berserker players are rewarded (or the entire party is rewarded) substantially so that playing out of the DPS race is still capable of cutting down on time.

DarcShriek.5829:

You seem confused Cranked. Are people running zerer gear because they like it or because it’s the most efficient? You seem to think there is no difference between the two choices. I say there is. I bet you don’t wear it because you like it, but because it’s the most efficient. Make something else efficient, and you would just as happily use that. I say, make multiple choices equally efficient, and let the people decide.

On the contrary, I am far from it. YOU are acting like people only play it because it is what works the best. More than likely because you can’t survive in zerk gear, end up running some other build and then QQ here about zerks being bad for the game. I play it because it works the best AND I like it. I don’t want to run 4 hour dungeon paths when I can do it in 15 minutes and get the same reward for something I have already done 100+ times.

The problem stems from people wanting to run whatever build they want and still join the zerk groups so they can get a quick efficient run and get their reward as well. When the zerk parties won’t let them join they cry that they “can’t play the way they want”. When the reality all along has been you (or anyone else like you) can make a group of your own at any time and play exactly the way YOU like and leave others to do the same. The real “problem” is that is not good enough for most people.

I will play this game in DPS gear until they nerf it to the ground and dungeon paths take 3 times as long and when that day comes I will move on to another game.

DeceiverX.8361:

….because 10% damage overall includes damage dealt by non-critical strikes, thus…

I’m sorry… what? are you dense? they’re saying the decrease to crit damage results in an overall loss, not that they are reducing POWER by 10%. non-crit strikes will still be just as powerful(or not, depending on your point of view) as they were before.

DeceiverX.8361:

xallever.1874:

DeceiverX.8361:

snip

A one-shot (OHKO) mechanic breaks viability?

Not really.

If you give no way to get out of that mechanic (dodge, block, aegis, blind), then it shows that there is no single thing out there that is viable.

You’re saying that PVT has become unviable because of one-shot mechanics, but only if you require one-shot mechanic to be facetanked instead by PVT and then you think this is the definition of viability.

This is ridiculous because if you use both Berserker’s and PVT you will be able to finish all contents of the game eventually. That is viability.

An example of PVT being non-viable is when there’s a time limit and DPS check at the same time. But the content with time limit, such as in CoF path 2, has nothing to do with gear set-ups.

This isn’t what I’m saying, though.

I’m stating that PVT non-viability has nothing to do with game mechanics and entirely to do with how players want to play and how they want their peers to play.

To promote non-berserker viability, the game needs to be set up in ways where no-berserker players are rewarded (or the entire party is rewarded) substantially so that playing out of the DPS race is still capable of cutting down on time.

And what will be your suggestion for that?

At the top of my head, if the game can reach a balance between maintaining a 90% health for maximum DPS using one Cleric’s AH Guardian and the rest of Berserker’s Scholar’s, maybe that’d be a start.

That would require a mechanic that continuously drains the party’s HP slowly and overcome by continuous healing.

Of course, one of the solutions is of course to reach the point whereby a full berserker’s team isn’t downing the boss faster than this kind of team comp.

cranked.3812:

DarcShriek.5829:

You seem confused Cranked. Are people running zerer gear because they like it or because it’s the most efficient? You seem to think there is no difference between the two choices. I say there is. I bet you don’t wear it because you like it, but because it’s the most efficient. Make something else efficient, and you would just as happily use that. I say, make multiple choices equally efficient, and let the people decide.

On the contrary, I am far from it. YOU are acting like people only play it because it is what works the best. More than likely because you can’t survive in zerk gear, end up running some other build and then QQ here about zerks being bad for the game. I play it because it works the best AND I like it. I don’t want to run 4 hour dungeon paths when I can do it in 15 minutes and get the same reward for something I have already done 100+ times.

The problem stems from people wanting to run whatever build they want and still join the zerk groups so they can get a quick efficient run and get their reward as well. When the zerk parties won’t let them join they cry that they “can’t play the way they want”. When the reality all along has been you (or anyone else like you) can make a group of your own at any time and play exactly the way YOU like and leave others to do the same. The real “problem” is that is not good enough for most people.

I will play this game in DPS gear until they nerf it to the ground and dungeon paths take 3 times as long and when that day comes I will move on to another game.

QFT.

It’s rather coincidental that I can’t play the way I want because some people don’t like the Zerk Meta.

How much time will a dungeon take now? 10% longer? 30?

Form some groups with lfg. For God’s sake. Let me have my gear.

xallever.1874:

And what will be your suggestion for that?

At the top of my head, if the game can reach a balance between maintaining a 90% health for maximum DPS using one Cleric’s AH Guardian and the rest of Berserker’s Scholar’s, maybe that’d be a start.

That would require a mechanic that continuously drains the party’s HP slowly and overcome by continuous healing.

Of course, one of the solutions is of course to reach the point whereby a full berserker’s team isn’t downing the boss faster than this kind of team comp.

First off, REALLY? So, you want a dedicated healer to keep the team alive? Go play WoW.

Secondly, what do you care if some groups down bosses fast? From the sound of it, you aren’t part of those groups. It also sounds like you hate the fact that other people can down bosses quickly even though it doesn’t affect your gameplay experience even a little bit.

You are just another case of someone who doesn’t want others to play the way the want, but rather you want others to play the way YOU want them to play.

Astralporing.1957:

cranos.5913:

nightwulf.1986:

Here’s the problem as I understand it. Zerkers in PVE don’t increase their risk by investing heavily into offense. They decrease it. Defense/Support/Healing builds don’t decrease their risk by investing heavily into those areas. They increase it.

And there’s the core flaw in your reasoning. Clerics don’t have to dodge, can spam random skills and complete arah. Zerkers dodge wrong 1 time and they’re dead (excluding warriors, they can make 1 mistake most of the time).

Please, show me a bunker build that can facetank 48k damage from elite aether thug (29k from veteran maaaay be survivable on a warrior, not sure how high you can push warrior hps). Those are damages that appear more often with the new content – the direction the game is going in.
Think about it.

Your point about more difficulty is made by using and elite as example? You can blind/CC him to death. Faceroll. This does not suddenly mean clerics has a high skill cap.

Difficulty is not the direction this game is going in, it’s going into the spam 1 = win zerg direction.

It’s simple. People don’t like to waste time. They figure out what is the fastest and most efficient way to do something. GW2 is no different. Except GW2 over rewards players for doing nothing basically, It even rewards players for being failures. So the vast majority of rewards are bad rewards since there is too much of them. Players Need lots of these bad rewards to get anywhere in the game and compensation for their time.

DeceiverX.8361:

The problem is that building defensively/support-oriented has literally no benefit for both the individuals nor the party, for OHKO moves will drop tanks, support builds, DPS – anything, really – if they fail to dodge in time, anyways.

Berserker builds are already punished: you get hit, you die. The problem is that tank/support builds have the SAME level of punishment and no other skill cap necessary to work at maximum effectiveness.

I disagree with that entirely. I did my time on an AH guardian PVT build. Almost nothing got me down. Now on zerk with 10k health almost everything one shots. So yes, PVT players still need to use their dodge button, but much much much less. I never even learned how to play the game until I switched to zerk, simply because I wasn’t looking at the mechanics. I just didn’t need to.

cranked.3812:

xallever.1874:

And what will be your suggestion for that?

At the top of my head, if the game can reach a balance between maintaining a 90% health for maximum DPS using one Cleric’s AH Guardian and the rest of Berserker’s Scholar’s, maybe that’d be a start.

That would require a mechanic that continuously drains the party’s HP slowly and overcome by continuous healing.

Of course, one of the solutions is of course to reach the point whereby a full berserker’s team isn’t downing the boss faster than this kind of team comp.

First off, REALLY? So, you want a dedicated healer to keep the team alive? Go play WoW.

Secondly, what do you care if some groups down bosses fast? From the sound of it, you aren’t part of those groups. It also sounds like you hate the fact that other people can down bosses quickly even though it doesn’t affect your gameplay experience even a little bit.

You are just another case of someone who doesn’t want others to play the way the want, but rather you want others to play the way YOU want them to play.

Excuse me?

I don’t care for a dedicated healer from the state of the game now. But if Anet wants to do something about their original vision of Control, DPS and Support, something has to be done beyond the current state of the game.

Don’t start presuming things before you even know who I am. In the current state of the game, I care for no dedicated healer, but if the game is to go forward, the point is to reach a balance whereby someone who goes into support enables the entire team’s DPS to go faster.

I have 0 post telling others to play the way they don’t want to play. All I do is give recommendations on optimal set-ups in the current meta. And you, your first point is to tell me to back off and play WoW.

You can go ahead and scour through all the posts I made and start talking with some grounds.

Forgive me, as I havent read all four pages in this thread, but I’m having a difficult time wrapping my head around the math and logic that the ferocity change affects valkryie and cavalier more than zerker. I’ll provide an example.

A valkryie and a berserker each hit a target 10 times. The valkryie crits 2 times. The berserker Crits 7 times. For the sake of simplicity, lets say each crit hits for 1000 dmg. After the approximately 10% decrease in dmg, in those 10 hits, the valkyrie loses 200 points in total dmg output for 10 hits. The berserker loses 700 points. Now granted, the overall damage of the berserker is still higher than the valkyrie, but it seems to me logic would say that the berserker is taking the bigger hit. Am I wrong??

Black Scoutsman.5830:

Forgive me, as I havent read all four pages in this thread, but I’m having a difficult time wrapping my head around the math and logic that the ferocity change affects valkryie and cavalier more than zerker. I’ll provide an example.

A valkryie and a berserker each hit a target 10 times. The valkryie crits 2 times. The berserker Crits 7 times. For the sake of simplicity, lets say each crit hits for 1000 dmg. After the approximately 10% decrease in dmg, in those 10 hits, the valkyrie loses 200 points in total dmg output for 10 hits. The berserker loses 700 points. Now granted, the overall damage of the berserker is still higher than the valkyrie, but it seems to me logic would say that the berserker is taking the bigger hit. Am I wrong??

No. You’re not wrong.

It’s just that if the enemies’ health remain the same, it will be even more important that everybody is on the berserker gear.

Let’s say before that you have 4 people on berserker’s and one in valkyrie’s. Because the overall damage is already so huge by the 4 berserker’s, you can afford to have someone in valkyrie’s. But now that the damage of the 4 berserker’s has gone down, probably the one who was in valkyrie’s also now needs to be in berserker’s.

People are exactly right in saying this will have the opposite effect that Anet intended. Toning down the only build that works does not make the others more attractive. Since the party will be doing less damage than before, groups will be even MORE strict on max-dps builds (which will still be zerker) to make up for the loss. How does this accomplish anything but ticking off your customers?

I still maintain that the way to fix the gap between zerker and other sets was to go enemy to enemy, boss to boss, instance to instance and rework enemy NPCs to use dodges, move out of AoE, strafe into line of sight instead of running around corners and using a lot more boons and conditions.

The problem for the one thousandth time is not Beserker armor or players. The problem is PvE enemy design being too simplistic and it being way too easy to stack and kill enemies before they do any major DPS themselves. If max DPS was not the most optimal means of killing enemies players would not use Zerker overwhelmingly. A 10% reduction in Zerker damage will just mean the most optimal way to do dungeons will be 10% slower, but still much faster and more optimal than having different sets/builds which will also be slower.

Basically it comes down to this:

Many sets are optimal in SPvP and WvW because opposing players use all the defensive and offensive mechanics available in the game to fight and win against other players.

This is not the case with Enemy AI in PvE.

What’s the most common sense solution?

Make enemy AI act more like players do.

SakuraJD.4720:

DeceiverX.8361:

….because 10% damage overall includes damage dealt by non-critical strikes, thus…

I’m sorry… what? are you dense? they’re saying the decrease to crit damage results in an overall loss, not that they are reducing POWER by 10%. non-crit strikes will still be just as powerful(or not, depending on your point of view) as they were before.

The 10% figure is for overall damage, not just for critical hits. This means that the reduction applying to critical strikes will be greater than 10% because berserker setups do not have 100% critical chance. I think you mis-read my post, because nowhere did I say non-critical strikes will deal less damage.

Black Scoutsman.5830:

Forgive me, as I havent read all four pages in this thread, but I’m having a difficult time wrapping my head around the math and logic that the ferocity change affects valkryie and cavalier more than zerker. I’ll provide an example.

A valkryie and a berserker each hit a target 10 times. The valkryie crits 2 times. The berserker Crits 7 times. For the sake of simplicity, lets say each crit hits for 1000 dmg. After the approximately 10% decrease in dmg, in those 10 hits, the valkyrie loses 200 points in total dmg output for 10 hits. The berserker loses 700 points. Now granted, the overall damage of the berserker is still higher than the valkyrie, but it seems to me logic would say that the berserker is taking the bigger hit. Am I wrong??

Yes and no regarding these sets.
Players rarely run valkyrie/cavalier unless they have a mechanic, gear combination, or so on, that lets them crit more often, either through traits like Hidden Killer or other auto-crit skills/traits, access to fury, or simply just running berseker/valk/assassin’s hybrid sets. Without these bonuses, valkyrie doesn’t actually do anything – if anything, it just becomes strictly worse than PVT gear.

So yes, valkyrie is hit less hard if your build runs it vanilla as opposed to berserker due to it critting less. That said, these sets are usually reliant on builds with mechanics that heavily increase crit chance for a short duration repeatedly. Such is the case for elementalists, some rangers, and most notably, thieves.

As burst crit damage potency is reduced, the effectiveness of building around these gear combos also reduces. There’s less incentive to build into medium or 100% short duration crit chance builds and now more incentive to maximize it at all times to compensate for the lost burst and crit viability by compensating for it through auto-attacks.

Thus, players will make moves from valkyrie and cavalier’s to compensate for their “lost” damage, as before players used these sets to simply get some better defense to not die during their “downtime” periods.

Balekai.6083:

I still maintain that the way to fix the gap between zerker and other sets was to go enemy to enemy, boss to boss, instance to instance and rework enemy NPCs to use dodges, move out of AoE, strafe into line of sight instead of running around corners and using a lot more boons and conditions.

The problem for the one thousandth time is not Beserker armor or players. The problem is PvE enemy design being too simplistic and it being way too easy to stack and kill enemies before they do any major DPS themselves. If max DPS was not the most optimal means of killing enemies players would not use Zerker overwhelmingly. A 10% reduction in Zerker damage will just mean the most optimal way to do dungeons will be 10% slower, but still much faster and more optimal than having different sets/builds which will also be slower.

Basically it comes down to this:

Many sets are optimal in SPvP and WvW because opposing players use all the defensive and offensive mechanics available in the game to fight and win against other players.

This is not the case with Enemy AI in PvE.

What’s the most common sense solution?

Make enemy AI act more like players do.

Precisely. This change does nothing to solve the problem it’s been announced to try and resolve and only breaks WvW more. It has nothing to do with stat/gear/build effective power or the community so much as the dungeons not being designed to really encourage other styles of play and party paradigms.

Clear time should be positively affected by supporting players or soaking aggro. It’s not the case right now and I strongly suspect ANet has no intention to make these kinds of changes anywhere in the near future.

And as I mentioned, these changes would be successful without changing critical damage outputs. The ferocity change (in terms of its nerfs) does quite literally nothing but make the current problems worse.

This is a PvE driven change that’s rolling over into WvW which will make it exponentially worse for some people/classes. It does nothing to solve the problem because zerk players will be zerk players, it is what it is. They aren’t going to change how they want to play. A 10% reduction is still going to make it infinitely more effective than any other build to run dungeons.

As for it rolling over into WvW, yes it does hit some classes harder. Ranger firstly because the ferocity change also affects their pet. So the ranger and their pet are taking a dps hit. Will Anet buff the pet to compensate? Not likely. Some players also rely on crits to get the job done because they just don’t have the survivability or the skills to dance around in melee range.

We can argue 10% isn’t that much, but when you look at how “supposed” dps builds stand up against other builds that aren’t dps based, you really have to wonder. Take 2 of the same class, put one in PVT gear and the other in Zerker gear. The Zerker gear should deal both more burst and sustained damage right? Not in this game it doesn’t, PVT deals a considerbly more damage. It’s not 10% either, it’s in the range of 20-30% Given this, crit obviously is not a problem, toughness is. If anything, toughness should be taking a significant hit in WvW to balance things out.

Like the previous guy says. Berserker gear is not the issue, the npc design is. At the current state of things berserker gear will still be the most effecient way to kill something even after this uncalled for nerf. What they need to do is fix their npcs or even make them more resisitant to attacks forcing players to use tactics other than berserker rushing on top of the npc. Resistance to melee or close combat moves that punish this sort of combat could work too. Melee weapons do no dmg to the npc even. I’m sure there endless creative ways to fix this. its hardly the berserker gear thats the fault.

DeceiverX.8361:

It’s not about being high risk vs high reward on zerker play, though. People play these builds not because the skill cap is low but because the skill cap is the same for all builds due to the OHKO and similar mechanics implemented in so many of these fights. ANet has stated all builds should be viable in completing an objective. Full berserker “the best” right now not because the content is too easy but because there is literally no incentive to build anything else. PVT builds will die in the same one-shot skill as a berserker user, so why not just cut down the number of attacks the boss makes to prevent more OHKO’s from happening? This IS a valid strategy and shouldn’t be shunned upon. The problem is that building defensively/support-oriented has literally no benefit for both the individuals nor the party, for OHKO moves will drop tanks, support builds, DPS – anything, really – if they fail to dodge in time, anyways.

Berserker builds are already punished: you get hit, you die. The problem is that tank/support builds have the SAME level of punishment and no other skill cap necessary to work at maximum effectiveness. There’s no such thing as a “good tank player” or a “good support player” right now in GW2, because those roles have nothing to bring to the table and do not have any other kind of play penalties for failing on those roles.

People QQ’ing about berserker viability don’t understand the subject. Refer to crit builds for the problems at hand. Ferocity changes nerf precision/crit builds more than power ones. It affects some classes harder than others.

So no, the damage nerf doesn’t solve anything. Berserker will still be the best dungeon set. It will still remain the dungeon meta. Nothing will change except dungeon speed in the all-berserker parties. 10% is already a big number. People are going to be even less-inclined to invite other people of other builds, now.

I say it’s a failed “solution” because the only things which could resolve the problems occurring could and should be implemented independent of the damage reduction. The damage reduction aspect changes nothing and has no influence nor will be influenced by any other changes brought on in the future. Whether or not ANet has more fixes up their sleeve is irrelevant; ferocity doesn’t solve the problem it’s intended to, and we’ve already agreed that only other fixes will do this. Therefore why not just implement these other changes? Ferocity does nothing except destroy a lot of possibilities for WvW and further force people into the condi meta. The change is destructive and a failure because the alternative/required solutions to address the problems it doesn’t solve could work independently of ferocity.

Please compile a list of all those mythical attacks that one shot defensive builds, otherwise stop spreading misinformation. Would you like if someone was saying that soldier’s have exactly the same damage output as berserker’s with no proof?

xallever.1874:

Excuse me?

I don’t care for a dedicated healer from the state of the game now. But if Anet wants to do something about their original vision of Control, DPS and Support, something has to be done beyond the current state of the game.

Don’t start presuming things before you even know who I am. In the current state of the game, I care for no dedicated healer, but if the game is to go forward, the point is to reach a balance whereby someone who goes into support enables the entire team’s DPS to go faster.

I have 0 post telling others to play the way they don’t want to play. All I do is give recommendations on optimal set-ups in the current meta. And you, your first point is to tell me to back off and play WoW.

You can go ahead and scour through all the posts I made and start talking with some grounds.

The original trinity (dps/support/control) is there, it’s just not needed for the trivial content like dungeons. Otherwise, how have anet devs and testers even played this game prelaunch? Was it a different game?

Im Mudbone.1437:

I’m wishing GW2 never existed and in its stead they just added to and improved GW1, the worlds best game released to date. PERIOD.

I wish that all the people that approved of GW1 kept playing and didn’t move on to other games, they would probably have a larger voice if a majority of GW1 players kept playing after years.

haviz.1340:

xallever.1874:

Excuse me?

I don’t care for a dedicated healer from the state of the game now. But if Anet wants to do something about their original vision of Control, DPS and Support, something has to be done beyond the current state of the game.

Don’t start presuming things before you even know who I am. In the current state of the game, I care for no dedicated healer, but if the game is to go forward, the point is to reach a balance whereby someone who goes into support enables the entire team’s DPS to go faster.

I have 0 post telling others to play the way they don’t want to play. All I do is give recommendations on optimal set-ups in the current meta. And you, your first point is to tell me to back off and play WoW.

You can go ahead and scour through all the posts I made and start talking with some grounds.

The original trinity (dps/support/control) is there, it’s just not needed for the trivial content like dungeons. Otherwise, how have anet devs and testers even played this game prelaunch? Was it a different game?

I’m not saying that it’s not there, but that they need to make it a more prominent feature in dungeons.

Encounters like Mai Trin encourage the control aspect of the game more. More encounters somewhere that goes into that direction would be nice.

Which means the problem lies within the content, not gear.

haviz.1340:

Which means the problem lies within the content, not gear.

It’s a gray area between the content and the gear, though. They could always increase the enemies’ stats to a certain extent, and modify the boss mechanics to a certain extent.

Like the slave driver in CoF p1, if they make it so that the boss’ stats can take so much beating from a berserker’s gear that he’s not downed after the initial burst has run out, reduce the damage of the boss’ fast auto-attacks to be counterbalanced with toughness/vitality/healing power, then you can probably find a sweet spot between a team in all berserker’s and 1 dedicated support gear with the rest in berserker’s.

haviz.1340:

Which means the problem lies within the content, not gear.

Of course it does. Zerker meta is neither the cause of a problem nor the problem itself. It is merely a symptom of content/mechanics design deficiency.