Guild Wars 2

This might be a little bit of an ignorant or stupid question, but one of my main problems with the game was that EVERYONE was a Zerker and that’s all the majority of the people wanted (including rush dungeon runs).

I’m not asking for the tri-force like tank, healer and dps or asking if like in the raids dedicated roles are the standard now, but all I want to know is: is there any variety available?

Yes I understand there is the whole thing about “Oh just get a group for yourself that is okay with that”, but unfortunately I don’t have the liberty of having friends that play GW2 :P and it would be awhile to find competent people for it normally.

I just want to know in the game now is there any other actual builds other then Zerker?

Berserker still has it’s uses but it’s not the end-all be-all of PvE endgame.

Various gears with healing power are useful for healers in raids (though using berserkers on druids still works) as well has things like celestial, rabid, etc. for tanks.

DPS people still need to be on Berserker or Viper gear

This is for raids, for fractals and dungeons it’s all Berserker or Viper

There will always be one stat used by the masses deemed as superior; be it for damage or defense, when in reality only the pinnacle of players min-maxing their time for speed-runs will see noticeable differences. The masses want quick and easy clears. Stale dungeons lead to the easy part, so all that was variable was the quick part, and repeating those stale dungeons over and over again made players want the runs to end even faster, because they were bored.

There will always be a “meta” that focuses on optimizing efficiency. Always. And the majority of people will always be attracted to this ideology, moreso than ever, due to the lower rewards from these methods of playing and higher costs to sustain equipment and characters.

As such, there will always be a “berserker”; even if the mob difficulty was cranked up so heavily that playing in berserker gear was not possible for enough pugs, and the “stable” and fast run was done on dire, anyone not using such a combination would be considered a waste of time or not abiding to the oh-so-sacred pug meta.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Berserker still has it’s uses but it’s not the end-all be-all of PvE endgame.

Various gears with healing power are useful for healers in raids (though using berserkers on druids still works) as well has things like celestial, rabid, etc. for tanks.

DPS people still need to be on Berserker or Viper gear

This is for raids, for fractals and dungeons it’s all Berserker or Viper

Hmmm okay. Still debating if I wanna buy Heart of Thorns. While I totally understand that beserker is useful for its high damage capabilities, I just honestly get tired of an ENTIRE group of beserker, it just isn’t fun to me IMHO. When I first started playing when it launched I tried to make a support/tank style that focused on healing/buffing/protecting and it was incredibly fun and satisfying to me, but it wasn’t viable at all and nobody wanted me and even if I got into a group it was just a rush run.

ReigaK.9572:

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

Berserker still has it’s uses but it’s not the end-all be-all of PvE endgame.

Various gears with healing power are useful for healers in raids (though using berserkers on druids still works) as well has things like celestial, rabid, etc. for tanks.

DPS people still need to be on Berserker or Viper gear

This is for raids, for fractals and dungeons it’s all Berserker or Viper

Hmmm okay. Still debating if I wanna buy Heart of Thorns. While I totally understand that beserker is useful for its high damage capabilities, I just honestly get tired of an ENTIRE group of beserker, it just isn’t fun to me IMHO. When I first started playing when it launched I tried to make a support/tank style that focused on healing/buffing/protecting and it was incredibly fun and satisfying to me, but it wasn’t viable at all and nobody wanted me and even if I got into a group it was just a rush run.

It’s always going to be a rush if you play with people who want to rush. Most people want to rush, because most people are bored of the dungeons and just want to get the reward at the end.

Kind of like signing your name. When you first learned cursive, you probably wrote it as neat as possible and put tons of care into it. Be honest, how close to an illegible squiggle is it now? Your handwriting’s gotten better, but it’s so boring and mindless the effort of putting a good job into it just isn’t worth it. That’s how a lot of players feel about dungeons, so long as they get what they need from it.

No matter what you do, where you go, optimizations and conserving time will always exist. That’s just human nature, especially on repetitious tasks. It’s why we have innovation.

I’d suggest if you want more casual runs to make a party in LFG stating “all welcome” , or perhaps post on the boards looking for a guild that does more traditional runs or doesn’t care about party composition. I’ve never had an issue finding a party as an “all welcome” party creator despite the fact I play DPS; and some of those parties have inadvertently been some of the fastest I’ve ever had because people actually knew their classes and did a good job playing.

Good luck, but a non-existent meta is unfortunately never going to exist. If the meta were healing and tanking, you might be happy, but DPS players wouldn’t be. Best to just look for people who care not about hyper-speed runs. There are a lot of people out there who don’t care about speed.

Edit: That being said, HoT is pretty unforgiving for berserker/DPS builds. Particularly raids. That said, the content in HoT is pretty lack-luster unless you’re after elite specs. Buy the cheapest package you can if you decide to do it, and as an FYI, you’re not pugging raids any time soon. They’re hard.

You either run zerk or condi for “meta”. Or, you could use whatever you want and live your own life, like a man.

Zerk is still way to go for most. Condi has become more viable, as most bosses aren’t downed in 10 sec anymore, and some enemies have high toughness.

Healer+Tank is used in raid, but even they are trimmed to do as much damage as possible.

DeceiverX.8361:

There will always be one stat used by the masses deemed as superior; be it for damage or defense, when in reality only the pinnacle of players min-maxing their time for speed-runs will see noticeable differences.

This isn’t true. The prevalence of the zerker meta wasn’t some arbitrary superiority deemed by the masses. It was the product of how the game was designed. GW2 was made with active defenses and PVP in mind, so the ratio of damage to durability between gear sets was relatively small. After all, there’s no point to a PVP set if it specializes to the point of obsolescence. With active defenses being indiscriminate of gear types, full GC gear was designed to be fully capable on all classes. The enemies in the game were designed to be pretty basic, making them predictable and easy to herd and attack, and they were designed around the durability of a player before factoring in active defenses. Add in full healing out of combat, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for zerker dominance.

The superiority of zerker was obvious to anyone that comprehended the dodge function. You didn’t have to crunch numbers and theorycraft. You just put it own, and saw a drastic performance increase. Solo or group, overworld or not, the advantages of GC gear was obvious.

Now, to answer the OP’s question… it is complicated.

A) Condi gear works now. Viper is best, but sinister is sufficient for very quick fights, or if you already have 100% condi duration in your primary damaging condition. Generally you’ll have either full viper, or a viper/sinister mix

B)In legacy content (that is, pre-HoT), zerker is still meta.

C)In new content… it is complicated again.
1. For Elementalists, Guardians, and Thieves, Marauder is a competitor for overworld stuff. It is only 9% less damage than berserker, but adds 49% durability. The enemies in HoT are hard enough that those extra HP can mean the difference between life and death, moreso than the lost damage.
2. For Engineer and Ranger, Viper is meta. There are enemies that have high toughness, and so condition damage is better for them.
3. For anyone who is still running zerker (even the previously mentioned classes), the trait and utility setup isn’t as pure-damage based. For example, I still use zerker on my guard/ele/thief, but I frequently change out traits and utilities to defensive options instead of just pure options.
4. In raids, the meta is this: 1 zerker with a few pieces of knight gear, a condi set or two, one healer (who may also replace the tank), and the rest is zerker.