Guild Wars 2

We always see experienced players suggesting zerk gear for people who want to build power builds in PvE, but is this really a good idea?

I’m not gonna argue that you can achieve the fastest dungeon times etc, etc, with zerk gear. Yes, if you’re an expert and you can dodge everything, then zerk is fine. But how many people out there are expert dungeon speedrunners? Like, 1% of the community? Maybe less?

Everytime I’ve been in a dungeon or fractal, there’s always been at least a death or two, and most of these deaths could have been avoided by wearing a safer set. What about open world events, where sometimes damage can be outright unavoidable? Where dodging one attack only means you’ll land on another AoE?

Valkyrie with exuberance runes works wonderfully for any non-expert player and I can’t see why sets like these aren’t being promoted to new or casual players, or even high tier fractals for that matter. The damage output is only ever so slightly lower than zerk and the survivability is much higher.

So what’s the deal with trying to sell zerk to every single player out there?

The deal is that people consider it funnier and more enjoyable if they are doing something optimized. It makes them feel better in general that they are doing something well. This might sound weird at first but, are we not encouraged to do our best at whatever we do?.

That said, this is not a real pressure outside of Fractals/Raids. Marauder, Valkyrie and the like works wonders for survivability as well as damage. You can also wear Celestial to be an all-rounder (change build as you wish without ever worrying about equipment!) and do well at most stuff.

Just remember though, toughness in particular needs a rework. They have severly nerfed it because of a previous PvP bunker meta, and it is basically a junk stat. You need vitality and proper use of protection+vigor much more than you need toughness, as enemies will simply pierce through you in groups. So it might actually be hindering yourself rather than protecting yourself, if you wear toughness equips.

what makes you think casual players arent highly skilled? you need to remember yesterdays pro player may well be today’s casual player. That aside however players trying to force builds on other people for the sake of scraping off a few minutes of a run is missing the point of gaming, same kind of mentality as the stacking at every nook and cranny approach – most of the time it is just not required and a hell of a lot less fun. in dungeons and fractals players should be free to play with builds, as you say forcing someone to zerk is pointless if thats not what they like to play.

Running gear such as zerker (or any set without toughness/vitality) will teach you to dodge hits because you will be taking much more damage as a result of the glassier stats.

Its like playing Hard mode on a new game. You’ll struggle far more at the beginning but end up much better than someone who plays on easy mode.

1) I’m casual player and I’m playing zerk gear because, even tho I’m casual I like to be challenged.

2) Who said it is a bad thing to die in dungeon, fractals, raid or from the simple mob for that matter, when Anet made spell that is used to get back you alive and your teammates that are again challenged to fight and revive a fallen ally. It’s a dynamic game with fast combat. Because I’m casual doesn’t mean that my 1 hour playtime won’t be spicy.

It promotes a faster learning curve,
or it promotes dependence on downed state.

I’ve seen both in pve and wvw.

maxwelgm.4315:

The deal is that people consider it funnier and more enjoyable if they are doing something optimized. It makes them feel better in general that they are doing something well. This might sound weird at first but, are we not encouraged to do our best at whatever we do?.

That said, this is not a real pressure outside of Fractals/Raids. Marauder, Valkyrie and the like works wonders for survivability as well as damage. You can also wear Celestial to be an all-rounder (change build as you wish without ever worrying about equipment!) and do well at most stuff.

Just remember though, toughness in particular needs a rework. They have severly nerfed it because of a previous PvP bunker meta, and it is basically a junk stat. You need vitality and proper use of protection+vigor much more than you need toughness, as enemies will simply pierce through you in groups. So it might actually be hindering yourself rather than protecting yourself, if you wear toughness equips.

What’s more optimal though, a dungeon run with 3 party wipes or a dungeon run 1 minute slower than the world record?

Dawnbreaker.6215:

maxwelgm.4315:

The deal is that people consider it funnier and more enjoyable if they are doing something optimized. It makes them feel better in general that they are doing something well. This might sound weird at first but, are we not encouraged to do our best at whatever we do?.

That said, this is not a real pressure outside of Fractals/Raids. Marauder, Valkyrie and the like works wonders for survivability as well as damage. You can also wear Celestial to be an all-rounder (change build as you wish without ever worrying about equipment!) and do well at most stuff.

Just remember though, toughness in particular needs a rework. They have severly nerfed it because of a previous PvP bunker meta, and it is basically a junk stat. You need vitality and proper use of protection+vigor much more than you need toughness, as enemies will simply pierce through you in groups. So it might actually be hindering yourself rather than protecting yourself, if you wear toughness equips.

What’s more optimal though, a dungeon run with 3 party wipes or a dungeon run 1 minute slower than the world record?

3 party wipes can happen even in tanky gear. You also have to look at it this way, if things die faster, you take less damage. The lower you go with damage stats, the longer enemies live. Also, “1 minute slower than the world record” is also running the same build as world record, but not shaving seconds off here and there. So the 3 party wipes and 1 minute slower could be the same group with different experience.

If you like damage, but want a bit more tanky, I suggest Marauders armor. It’s zerk with bit lower damage for a bit extra health. More health is better than higher toughness.

I have 21 lvl 80’s geared.
I notice I have mosly power and condi variants..

3 war, 1 DPS, 1Condi, 1 CC/bunker
3 grd, 1 DPS, 1 Condi, 1 Support/bunker
2 rng, 1 DPS or DPS/Heal , 1 Condi
2 thf, 1 DPS, 1 Condi
4 ele, 1 DPS, 1 Condi, 1 DPS/Heal, 1 Support/Bunker
2 msm 1 DPS or Support/Bunker, 1 Condi
3 ncr, 1 Condi, 1 Condi/Bunker, 1 DPS/Heal or Support/Bunker
(1 rvn, 1 mule)
(1 eng, 1 mule)

All condi’s are viper, all dps are zerk(/sin)…DPS/HEal tends to be zealot…
Only my Support and/ or bunkers tend to be commanders, minstrel, trailblazer they can be used in PvE, but you will never need a minstrel ele in AC

Well if all know the dungeon from more then 3 runs, you’ll run dungeons faster then 2013 speeduns now with the DPS zerks.. as casuals… And it takes an effort to get killed… you need to stand in circles, never dodge or just forget to press 1,1,1,1,1

It’s all relative. If an elementalist throws on some Valkyrie or Marauder gear when going solo through the Heart of Maguuma, I see nothing wrong with that. If a warrior is running full Nomad gear in Ascalon Catacombs to ensure they never get downed… yeah, they should probably consider pushing the envelope a little more.

I would say it depends on the player and what they are doing tbh.

Even in full tanky gear you are not assured to stay alive longer than others. For example if you are the ONLY one in any sort of tanky gear and hit a dungeon or something you might find yourself as the ONLY target by every mob in sight. This could easily wipe you faster than if you were simply in zerk gear (alongside everyone else) and the damage being spread around everyone. Trust me I saw this a lot during my years as the “tanky” guy. I even saw it last night in fact when I ran my Guardian through the new map when I joined the zerg to hit the Centaur POI/chests. Every single sharpshooter was firing at me of course…..

So in my opinion its all about what you are doing, your build, class and skill with said class. Of course there is NO HARM in trying out zerk gear or even tanky for that matter if you are usually zerk and seeing the results. You may just be surprised in fact.

For myself I have all 9 classes and for the first 7 of them I created them all with PVT and stuck with that for about 3 years. Only for my Neco and then Rev did I start them with zerk and I noticed a huge difference in map clear times (solo) as wll as just basically wiping out trash mobs making it faster to go where I wanted to go or to clear hearts quicker etc.

As soon as I saw this I quickly started to convert all of my chars to zerk but I still do keep their old PVT gear on them just incase the situation calls for it. After playing through all 9 classes (and 2 others just for fun!) through their world completes the impression I got was that the game was based around zerk gear. The mobs just seem designed for that build and heck even if you go to any vendor (I mean basic vendors for basic white gear) in the game you will clearly see “zerk” or “power” only gear for sale. Especially when you first start the game on a new char. It’s as if anet are giving you that subtle hint.

I do prefer tanky gear myself, especially on my Engi main, it seems like the Engi was designed to be a tanky class. Especially in WvW and pvp did I prefer it. I say “did” because anet has pretty much killed it for pvp thanks to “esports”. Dreading the day they kill it for WvW. Oops I went off point so as I was saying, I prefer tanky gear on my engi main but for me personally now, the game is just more fun when things die quicker.

It should be used by anyone who wants to use that gear regardless of what labels they or others put on them.

Not all casuals are bad at the game. I’m casual and I don’t die that often to things that I wouldn’t have died to in even the most survivable builds.

And not all casuals care about being optimal. They typically just care about having fun. And some people find challenges fun. And find the joy from finally succeeding to be worth the 3+ party wipes that had to happen previously for them to be able to do it. And they probably got better at the game while doing it.

Once again the word casual appears in a thread. I’m going to assume that the OP is using casual to mean less-skilled, even though that need not be the case. The post would make little sense to me if that is not what is meant.

To the topic, then. Talk about gear sets is over-emphasized. There is no game- or developer-imposed requirement to wear gear which has the same prefix on every piece. If you start with glass gear, you can change out 1, 2 or as-many-as-desired pieces of gear with one (or more) bulk stats depending on individual skill level, content used for, and system/connection.

The game supports mix-and-match, and mix-and-match may very well be the best idea for players in the mid range of the less-skilled to more-skilled continuum. That continuum is going to vary depending not only on skill, but also on preferred content. Not everyone who can go all-glass in core maps can get away with it in dungeons, meta events or HoT maps. Having the flexibility to trade a little damage for a little more survivability is not a bad thing — unless your intent is to join meta groups for group content that express a requirement for all-something gear.

It’s not necessarily wrong but more in the sense of not needed. Going full offensive stats gear in pve just works best becouse of pve’s very own nature. Classes are well capable of sustaining/healing themselfs, so there is slim to non need for other gear types. Unless you’re raiding or high tier fractal. Then a supporter(s) may/is usefull. It is a mindset you need to switch basically: more dps = faster kill = less required time to survive. Sure it may be annoying and perhaps difficult at start, but once you get used to it, you will see that you will have much smooter/faster runs

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Everytime I’ve been in a dungeon or fractal, there’s always been at least a death or two, and most of these deaths could have been avoided by wearing a safer set.

That’s the problem. Most of them really couldn’t, and as for the rest… For every one fight that succeeded due to someone surviving thanks to a more tanky build, there will be 10 that ended up as a wipe because they lasted too long as a result of not enough dps.

Apart from that, there’s no specific gear that should be used by casual players. Every such player can decide what they can (and should) wear on their own. For many, it will be zerks (because zerks do make the fights easier even on average skill level – you don’t need to be a “hardcore speedrunner” for that).

As the current fractal meta shows, survivability is an important factor, but doesn’t need to be achieved by using less optimal gear.

zerk gear is the only gear to use no matter the class or player is zerk and only zerk

JemL.3501:

zerk gear is the only gear to use no matter the class or player is zerk and only zerk

Except for druids, along with anyone else who feels like wearing other gear.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

maxwelgm.4315:

The deal is that people consider it funnier and more enjoyable if they are doing something optimized. It makes them feel better in general that they are doing something well. This might sound weird at first but, are we not encouraged to do our best at whatever we do?.

That said, this is not a real pressure outside of Fractals/Raids. Marauder, Valkyrie and the like works wonders for survivability as well as damage. You can also wear Celestial to be an all-rounder (change build as you wish without ever worrying about equipment!) and do well at most stuff.

Just remember though, toughness in particular needs a rework. They have severly nerfed it because of a previous PvP bunker meta, and it is basically a junk stat. You need vitality and proper use of protection+vigor much more than you need toughness, as enemies will simply pierce through you in groups. So it might actually be hindering yourself rather than protecting yourself, if you wear toughness equips.

What’s more optimal though, a dungeon run with 3 party wipes or a dungeon run 1 minute slower than the world record?

You’re assuming that dungeon wipes don’t happen if people don’t wear zerker. However if one person doesn’t wear zerker and four do, everything still dies slower and if the zerkers die and that guy is left the only one alive trying to solo a boss it’s not any faster.

There’s no real evidence for what you say, or at least it’s not my experience.

We used to run Lupi in our casual guild, which you’ll find in every path of Arah. Every path. And we’d take 8-10 minutes to kill him, during which sometimes we’d have deaths and sometimes we’d wipe.

Now, everyone is the guild that runs dungeons runs zerker. We kill Lupi in about 2 minutes after the first phase is over or in about 20% of the time we used to take. Fewer people go down because we don’t have to play perfectly for nearly as long.

Saying that you can do a dungeon faster is non-zerk gear is an argument I used to make. I found out from experience, I was wrong.

Vayne.8563:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

maxwelgm.4315:

The deal is that people consider it funnier and more enjoyable if they are doing something optimized. It makes them feel better in general that they are doing something well. This might sound weird at first but, are we not encouraged to do our best at whatever we do?.

That said, this is not a real pressure outside of Fractals/Raids. Marauder, Valkyrie and the like works wonders for survivability as well as damage. You can also wear Celestial to be an all-rounder (change build as you wish without ever worrying about equipment!) and do well at most stuff.

Just remember though, toughness in particular needs a rework. They have severly nerfed it because of a previous PvP bunker meta, and it is basically a junk stat. You need vitality and proper use of protection+vigor much more than you need toughness, as enemies will simply pierce through you in groups. So it might actually be hindering yourself rather than protecting yourself, if you wear toughness equips.

What’s more optimal though, a dungeon run with 3 party wipes or a dungeon run 1 minute slower than the world record?

You’re assuming that dungeon wipes don’t happen if people don’t wear zerker. However if one person doesn’t wear zerker and four do, everything still dies slower and if the zerkers die and that guy is left the only one alive trying to solo a boss it’s not any faster.

There’s no real evidence for what you say, or at least it’s not my experience.

We used to run Lupi in our casual guild, which you’ll find in every path of Arah. Every path. And we’d take 8-10 minutes to kill him, during which sometimes we’d have deaths and sometimes we’d wipe.

Now, everyone is the guild that runs dungeons runs zerker. We kill Lupi in about 2 minutes after the first phase is over or in about 20% of the time we used to take. Fewer people go down because we don’t have to play perfectly for nearly as long.

Saying that you can do a dungeon faster is non-zerk gear is an argument I used to make. I found out from experience, I was wrong.

5 points for saying that Vayne, many people can never say those dreaded words “I was wrong”, lol true story.

I too for the longest time preached “toughness” here. Heck anyone can go back through my thousands of posts and probably find it if they wanted to. But sadly, the truth is, you kill things slower which actually puts you at more risk from dying. It seems to be getting more so especially in LS and any type of instance. The game to me just seems based around Zerk gear more and more. It’s like anet said “we give up, most of them are gonna use it there’s nothing we can do about it, let’s just do what we can to challenge them while they use it”.

Along came HOT and we saw the effect in those maps. As zerk you are challenged if you are going places solo or not watching yourself. In these maps yes toughness gear can actually be better for you if you solo.

The bad part of all of this is those that are using any sort of toughness gear are the ones punished for it. Because it means it takes them even longer to kill mobs now since they have more hp to combat all the zerk gear and are getting more mechanics to challenge those zerkers. Their conds now do a lot more damage and more often. You really need to kill fast to avoid all those hits/conds/cheat mechanics (new conds that we can’t even remove as an example!).

I am not saying PVT or whatever else has no place because it certainly does. But in general, faster kills is usually the better way to go. And no, not just for faster dungeons or whatever (I don’t do dungeons), just basic surviving even one on one shows this now days. Think about when you are downed, who has the better chance to rally? A zerk doing more damage to kill some mob faster or some guy in toughness? In my exp here, again the zerk wins out. Everything in this game just points towards the zerk (or other fast damage) gear.

I am not saying this is how the game SHOULD be either because in fact I think the game SHOULD promote more use of variety. But the way the game is right now. It is what it is. Again just my opinion and experience.

Vayne.8563:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

maxwelgm.4315:

The deal is that people consider it funnier and more enjoyable if they are doing something optimized. It makes them feel better in general that they are doing something well. This might sound weird at first but, are we not encouraged to do our best at whatever we do?.

That said, this is not a real pressure outside of Fractals/Raids. Marauder, Valkyrie and the like works wonders for survivability as well as damage. You can also wear Celestial to be an all-rounder (change build as you wish without ever worrying about equipment!) and do well at most stuff.

Just remember though, toughness in particular needs a rework. They have severly nerfed it because of a previous PvP bunker meta, and it is basically a junk stat. You need vitality and proper use of protection+vigor much more than you need toughness, as enemies will simply pierce through you in groups. So it might actually be hindering yourself rather than protecting yourself, if you wear toughness equips.

What’s more optimal though, a dungeon run with 3 party wipes or a dungeon run 1 minute slower than the world record?

You’re assuming that dungeon wipes don’t happen if people don’t wear zerker. However if one person doesn’t wear zerker and four do, everything still dies slower and if the zerkers die and that guy is left the only one alive trying to solo a boss it’s not any faster.

There’s no real evidence for what you say, or at least it’s not my experience.

We used to run Lupi in our casual guild, which you’ll find in every path of Arah. Every path. And we’d take 8-10 minutes to kill him, during which sometimes we’d have deaths and sometimes we’d wipe.

Now, everyone is the guild that runs dungeons runs zerker. We kill Lupi in about 2 minutes after the first phase is over or in about 20% of the time we used to take. Fewer people go down because we don’t have to play perfectly for nearly as long.

Saying that you can do a dungeon faster is non-zerk gear is an argument I used to make. I found out from experience, I was wrong.

The corollary to this point being in direct opposition of the usually stated belief of “zerker = more skilled play” haha!

When I first got this game (years ago) my first ever set was full zerk and I had a BLAST using it for so long (longbow ranger ftw good old days)

I think I’ve always leaned towards more DPS orientated gearsets/stats in games such as this. That is just my preference.

I think going full DPS in games at first is disciplining yourself in a learning way; you begin to understand what NPCs/pvp skills hit hard etc through trial and error and you know your limits.

The game rewards those who can learn the mechanics. High-damage/low-defense gear/builds allow one to progress more quickly, tag more mobs for loot, and generally make things easier.

I would never recommend zerk gear to someone who seemed to be struggling. Just the same, I’d never recommend anything else to players who understand active defense in this game (or who are learning it).

By the way, consider rephrasing the title and initial question: “casual player” means something different to just about every I meet these days. It could mean anything from people who try to avoid challenging combat during their 18 hrs/day to people who play once in a while; both of those groups could include highly-skilled players.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

What’s more optimal though, a dungeon run with 3 party wipes or a dungeon run 1 minute slower than the world record?

It won’t be only 1 minute slower, and it won’t necessarily reduce the wipes that much. That’s what you’re missing.
And the example you made is not that good. For most classes, it would be a major reduction of dps for minor survivability gain. Critical hit chance is important – without it being high, all that ferocity is mostly wasted. And additional vitality will let you survive maybe one more hit (on high tier fractals perhaps not even that).

In my experience, it’s better to either go full bunker (in which case your role is to keep the mob(s) occupied and the rest of the group safe while the other, more glassy players will kill them, because you will have no dps to speak of on your own), or go straight to full glass (Berserker, Assassin or Viper, depending on build and class) and hope everything will go down before you will make a mistake. Anything in between, in most cases, means sacrificing more than you gain.

Rashagar.8349:

Vayne.8563:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

maxwelgm.4315:

The deal is that people consider it funnier and more enjoyable if they are doing something optimized. It makes them feel better in general that they are doing something well. This might sound weird at first but, are we not encouraged to do our best at whatever we do?.

That said, this is not a real pressure outside of Fractals/Raids. Marauder, Valkyrie and the like works wonders for survivability as well as damage. You can also wear Celestial to be an all-rounder (change build as you wish without ever worrying about equipment!) and do well at most stuff.

Just remember though, toughness in particular needs a rework. They have severly nerfed it because of a previous PvP bunker meta, and it is basically a junk stat. You need vitality and proper use of protection+vigor much more than you need toughness, as enemies will simply pierce through you in groups. So it might actually be hindering yourself rather than protecting yourself, if you wear toughness equips.

What’s more optimal though, a dungeon run with 3 party wipes or a dungeon run 1 minute slower than the world record?

You’re assuming that dungeon wipes don’t happen if people don’t wear zerker. However if one person doesn’t wear zerker and four do, everything still dies slower and if the zerkers die and that guy is left the only one alive trying to solo a boss it’s not any faster.

There’s no real evidence for what you say, or at least it’s not my experience.

We used to run Lupi in our casual guild, which you’ll find in every path of Arah. Every path. And we’d take 8-10 minutes to kill him, during which sometimes we’d have deaths and sometimes we’d wipe.

Now, everyone is the guild that runs dungeons runs zerker. We kill Lupi in about 2 minutes after the first phase is over or in about 20% of the time we used to take. Fewer people go down because we don’t have to play perfectly for nearly as long.

Saying that you can do a dungeon faster is non-zerk gear is an argument I used to make. I found out from experience, I was wrong.

The corollary to this point being in direct opposition of the usually stated belief of “zerker = more skilled play” haha!

Lol good point, in fact I think it actually requires MORE skill to play in defensive gear and always has! Being that every mob and their grandma will target you. If your reaction time and skill cooldowns are not managed properly it’s game over. Zerkers have always had it easy and just never knew it! :P

In action games with dodge mechanics, defensive stats don’t usually have much purpose but to make things more forgiving. Otherwise, they are important only when damage is unavoidable, like in traditional RPGs, where those stats are the abstract replacement for evasion mechanics.

Without a traditional trinity or anything of the sorts, in a game that is designed to be viable to all builds, players will give priority to those that can clear content faster or farm more effectively.

In addition to that, GW2’s design is bipolar, so while the game wants to be accessible to all builds, the reward systems do everything they possibly can to incentivate you to work towards a single stat set only. You have to be rich or very, very dedicated to built more than one gear set. This pidgeonholes the community even more into a single stat set, to the point that if, say, Anet buffed condition sets to be stronger than zerker sets in the future, everyone would complain because they would be forced to go through a massive grind again.

So the zerker mindset is probably here to stay. Not only would Anet have to revamp the entire combat system to make stat diversity work outside of very specific group content, they would also have to revamp the entire reward system to not scare players away from such change.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Everytime I’ve been in a dungeon or fractal, there’s always been at least a death or two, and most of these deaths could have been avoided by wearing a safer set.

What you are missing here is that playing with full damage builds makes things die faster, so in return you take less damage and have to deal with the boss mechanics fewer times. If you use a “safer set” then your team mates with the damage sets have to deal with more mechanics, and take more damage, leading to deaths that could’ve been avoided.

So it works both ways.

Understand you can finish -any content WITHOUT timers- in most set of gear and combinations….. even a group all in minstrels and nomads will eventually finish it…

Now for a DPS comparison…
Zerk ele does 25k-45k dmg per second in burst, at least so I’m led to believe…
Minstrels ele will do 1.25k-2.25k dmg per second…

Enemy A: 30k Hp and hit for 5k Hp every 5 seconds..
Enemy B: 3M hp and hit for 5k Hp every 5 seconds

So a zerk ele will kill Enemy A in 1 second which will take the minstrel ele 20 seconds. this is a significant advantage…. both will finsih the enmy with no problems…

So a zerk ele will kill Enemy B in 100 seconds wich will take the minstrel ele 2000 seconds… , Zerk ele will finish way quicker but has to make sure it’s not hit more then 2 times every heal period (20 secs) and must never run out of dodges to make this… The lack of DPS during dodges and heals will mean DPS will be lower.
The Minstrel ele, will just facetank this on water auto outhealing all dmg without a problem. it will take some time and if (s)he’s confident she might actually swap to some more dmg attunement now and then to up dps a bit.

IF the dmg would double…. 10k / 5 secs, the ele would be in a world of hurt requiring outside heals to stay alive, use a water build OR DIE. When dead this player will have to retry, all time spend until then is LOST. The minstrel ele will just whistle, dodge when it suits him/her and facetank the boss until its dead even though it takes ~20 minutes to do so.

Both have uses, buit the best options tend to be either:
All dmg, so you’ll kill normal enemies in as little time as possible.
OR
A balanced build allowing for res time, healing and some mitigation…

True bunkers only have uses in places with extreme pressure , and outside WvW this doesn’t really exist.

maddoctor.2738:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Everytime I’ve been in a dungeon or fractal, there’s always been at least a death or two, and most of these deaths could have been avoided by wearing a safer set.

What you are missing here is that playing with full damage builds makes things die faster, so in return you take less damage and have to deal with the boss mechanics fewer times. If you use a “safer set” then your team mates with the damage sets have to deal with more mechanics, and take more damage, leading to deaths that could’ve been avoided.

So it works both ways.

But here you are making a strawman argument where you pretend that I’m talking about Nomads or Clerics or something, which do kill things a lot slower.

However, that’s not the case at all. The comparison being made is between Berserker and Valkyrie or Marauder, which with the right runes or food can compensate for the lack of precision. Those sets have a very, very minimal damage difference with zerk, and hugely more survivability, therefore you’re killing things at nearly, if not the same speed, while not going down in one hit from random attacks.

So it’s not like you’re trading off huge chunks of damage for huge chunks of HP, like you claim in that strawman fallacy. It’s about trading just a little bit of damage for hugely more vitality.

And yeah, I did mention vitality, not toughness. I can’t see why everyone here is talking about toughness, seems like another strawman to me.

Personally I do not have many issues wih toughness.. Toughness would be a more advantageous stat if it would not be the stat guiding for aggro mechanics in a lot of instances

Understand healing is done per point…
if you need to do any content where healing is preferred or mandatory toughness automatically becomes more valuable then vitality.

this is simply explainable if you have a lot of vitality your healthpool will be really large and the healthpool wil be hit hard for hits received…

You could have 30k health and be hit for an unmitigated 7500 a hit… whcih would allow 3 hits… healing can fill you about 5k…in the same period
you’ll see there is a point where your will run out of health…

You could also have 20k health and be hit by by a mitigated 4.8 k a hit and be healed for 5 k in the same period… this should leave you up indefinately.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

However, that’s not the case at all. The comparison being made is between Berserker and Valkyrie or Marauder, which with the right runes or food can compensate for the lack of precision.

First, the difference between Berserker and Valkyrie/Maruader isn’t as small as you think it is
Second, if all players are running Valkyrie/Marauder it gets even lower because it’s multiplied by each player not running Berserker
Third, how does using different runes compensate for the 10% dps loss of Scholar Runes? Even without perfect uptime, Scholar Runes are a rather large static damage boost

All casual refers to is a player’s playtime and maybe investment with the game. It’s not an accurate indicator of skill level. A casual player can be just as good in berserker gear as someone who plays 12+ hours a day.

Ayrilana.1396:

All casual refers to is a player’s playtime and maybe investment with the game. It’s not an accurate indicator of skill level. A casual player can be just as good in berserker gear as someone who plays 12+ hours a day.

There’s two types of casual. The time casual and the playstyle casual.

The time ones don’t have the time or don’t care to put in the time.

The playstyle ones could play for hours, but don’t care about being perfect or doing things quickly.

Seera.5916:

Ayrilana.1396:

All casual refers to is a player’s playtime and maybe investment with the game. It’s not an accurate indicator of skill level. A casual player can be just as good in berserker gear as someone who plays 12+ hours a day.

There’s two types of casual. The time casual and the playstyle casual.

The time ones don’t have the time or don’t care to put in the time.

The playstyle ones could play for hours, but don’t care about being perfect or doing things quickly.

Which still doesn’t preclude either from using berserker gear. I don’t care about being perfect or to be the fastest at clearing content yet I have done just fine in berserker. My ability to perform in berserker has nothing to do with how much time I’ve chosen to invest in the game nor nor how perfect I want to be. Sure, I can take the time to memorize all of the telegraphed attacks, but that’s largely unnecessary in this game.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

So it’s not like you’re trading off huge chunks of damage for huge chunks of HP, like you claim in that strawman fallacy. It’s about trading just a little bit of damage for hugely more vitality.

it will be a bit more than “a little bit” of damage loss, especially if your vitality gain is significant.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

And yeah, I did mention vitality, not toughness. I can’t see why everyone here is talking about toughness

Maybe because toughness is much more useful in most cases.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

The comparison being made is between Berserker and Valkyrie or Marauder, which with the right runes or food can compensate for the lack of precision.

I believe the example you made was very specific – valkyrie with exuberance runes. That’s a really big dps loss for most builds, and a still significant one for those that can compensate for crit chance drop through trait shenanigans (although those are themselves a dps loss in most cases).

But perhaps i am mistaken. Make such a class and do the dps check on golem, post results, maybe you are on to something.

well… This is going back to zerk meta or nothing arguments…

Understand in thei games there are roughly 4 types of builds. No,… 5 actually…

1 Meta,
These are meant to be the highest DPS rotations with the maximum dragged from all avaialbel gear/sigil and runes available.
2 Optimized,
These are the builds tailored to specific encounters, although not always part of the meta, either in gear and build they tend to be tailored to what’s needed to pull the group through, here brains take over from the practiced dance paces.
3 Viable:
Anything… can contain DPS glass builds and PVT gear, really doesn’ matter and gets the job done.
4 Niche:
Only usable in specific circumstances, a.k.a. Gimmick or cheese builds.
5 Garbage:
The builds without synergy, or coherence. from the people who have gotten 6 exotic pieces from the story line in different levels with different runes and stat combinations and never looked on. Contains bad traits and low level gear for the sole purpose off not being interested, not intrigued, not bothered, or just not familair with the build system.

Examples for example Ele would be (for PvE (including dungeons and fractals))

1 A Meta:
Zerk/Scholar Staff Ele for DPS, fire/lightning/tempest
(nice for dungeons/fractals/raids)
2 An optimized:
Zerk/Scholar Staff Ele for DPS fire/water/tempest
(allows some heals by just rotating past water lowering dps sligtly, but providing enough sustain so non healer groups can manage if needed, smart thinking) No where near max dps though due to the loss of precision and ferocity
3 A viable:
Zealot/Monk Staff ele for DPS/heal water/arcane/tempest.
(not the main class for healing, but capable to do so allowing for okay healing and reasonable dmg (think 65% dmg and resonable heals) easily replaced by druid
4 A niche:
Minstrel/Monk Staff ele for heal/support water/earth/tempest( in PvE), (would be meta in wvw) No DPS at all, but stupid amounts of healing while fully tank capable… incredibly bunker. but will ned to make sure any DPS in the group has no problems staying above 90%.
And other example of niche could be a Condition S/F elementalist (Viper/nightmare) earth/fire/tempest…. It will be usefull in limited circumstances… but will likely also be passed by other builds.
5 Garbage…: zerk/clerics/carrion/soldier/rampager with 6 assorted superior runes earth/arcane/lightning (useless build, due to no synergy, no concept, no fiing gear and in general it could outperform the number 4 on thislist in DPS, but any build could do so…. so that’s not a measure, escpcially as its focus would be on a point whcih is completely ignored by the niche build in 4

I would recommend anyone use glass gear because:
1) All non-super-high-end PvE is very forgiving.
2) IMO it makes every fight easier. The faster you kill something, the less challenging the fight is.
3) If something is going to down you in PvE, odds are overwhelming that it’s some massive boss attack with a big tell (or you did something stupid like attack with a bunch of confusion on you). No one dies via auto-attack attrition, especially in instances where the boss attacks like once a minute. Your tanky gear is wasted.

But the final answer is: I don’t care what gear you use. I recommend glass, but do whatever the hell you want with your time.

Casual doesn’t mean bad so yes casual players could and should use berserker gear when appropriate.

I choose Zerk if leveling as most PvE stuffs are easy kill. End game different story and depends on what you want to accomplish. For instance I have a Condi Mesmer and can kite almost all HPs in HoT. Then you need to figure out if you are going to WvW or PvE content and go from there on what is desired by who you play with and what they need.

Should you use training wheels when learning to ride a bicycle? Plenty of people can learn without. Same goes for swimming.

How are you going to become competent if you don’t practice under the conditions you’re expected to perform in?

The key question to ask is what will I be fighting. Zerk is undoubtedly the best against single creatures, because the Zerk buries the enemy before it buries you.

But, against mobs or elites and champions, time is no longer your friend.

I’ll never build another set of zerk armor, because I don’t like having to WP after rough situations. I don’t play PvP, WvW, or raids, so I don’t think I will ever need it again.

Daddicus.6128:

The key question to ask is what will I be fighting. Zerk is undoubtedly the best against single creatures, because the Zerk buries the enemy before it buries you.

But, against mobs or elites and champions, time is no longer your friend.

I’ll never build another set of zerk armor, because I don’t like having to WP after rough situations. I don’t play PvP, WvW, or raids, so I don’t think I will ever need it again.

Except you can take on multiple veterans elites as zerk. People already do it.

Zenith.7301:

Daddicus.6128:

The key question to ask is what will I be fighting. Zerk is undoubtedly the best against single creatures, because the Zerk buries the enemy before it buries you.

But, against mobs or elites and champions, time is no longer your friend.

I’ll never build another set of zerk armor, because I don’t like having to WP after rough situations. I don’t play PvP, WvW, or raids, so I don’t think I will ever need it again.

Except you can take on multiple veterans elites as zerk. People already do it.

Kind of depends on the individual.

i would say zerker is the casual gear under most classes for pvx

Ashen.2907:

Zenith.7301:

Daddicus.6128:

The key question to ask is what will I be fighting. Zerk is undoubtedly the best against single creatures, because the Zerk buries the enemy before it buries you.

But, against mobs or elites and champions, time is no longer your friend.

I’ll never build another set of zerk armor, because I don’t like having to WP after rough situations. I don’t play PvP, WvW, or raids, so I don’t think I will ever need it again.

Except you can take on multiple veterans elites as zerk. People already do it.

Kind of depends on the individual.

And enemy type(s).

Seeing all those people die in the new map, with their full offensive, no defense/survivability stats with the legendary champs, standing in one spot without moving, i say no. Even at the canon events, which you must cc, or you do no damage, they keep spamming with damage, and do no damage. And eventually die. I try to inform them, sometimes they listen, many times not.
And playing casually (say a normal amount of playtime) is something else as having skill or not. I see many people with max masteries, so they played quite a lot, but dont even use cc when its needed, and die constantly.

ancientoak.4258:

Seeing all those people die in the new map, with their full offensive, no defense/survivability stats with the legendary champs, standing in one spot without moving, i say no. Even at the canon events, which you must cc, or you do no damage, they keep spamming with damage, and do no damage. And eventually die. I try to inform them, sometimes they listen, many times not.

Thats not a function of being casual, or wearing zerker, its a matter of not paying attention.

You should absolutely use zerk (unless you’re going with a condi build, then you should go Vipers).

The problem with using other gear, especially gear that focuses more on durability, is that it can teach you bad habits, or fail to teach you good habits. When you use Berserker gear, you learn thing like damage mitigation through things like blind, distort, aegis, etc. You learn how to position better and you learn to dodge crucial attacks and just work better in a group. Using tank stats causes you to miss out on those lessons.

ancientoak.4258:

Seeing all those people die in the new map, with their full offensive, no defense/survivability stats with the legendary champs, standing in one spot without moving, i say no. Even at the canon events, which you must cc, or you do no damage, they keep spamming with damage, and do no damage. And eventually die. I try to inform them, sometimes they listen, many times not.
And playing casually (say a normal amount of playtime) is something else as having skill or not. I see many people with max masteries, so they played quite a lot, but dont even use cc when its needed, and die constantly.

If everyone used vitality and toughness gear, imagine how much longer fights would take. Also, pretty much all of the things killing people can be avoided and/or mitigated.

“Should zerk gear be used by casual players?”

No. Go to Dragon’s Stand, the amount of people who get downed in one hit is too kitten high. Squishy people die and do nothing useful, they wait for revive and scale events up. People laugh at me for wearing Knight-Cavalier gear on my Necro but in the end, I deal more damage than dead people. Thanks to my unique invincible Necro build, I literally don’t even get downed in PvE. We would actually finish meta events faster if people stopped dying.

Ayrilana.1396:

ancientoak.4258:

Seeing all those people die in the new map, with their full offensive, no defense/survivability stats with the legendary champs, standing in one spot without moving, i say no. Even at the canon events, which you must cc, or you do no damage, they keep spamming with damage, and do no damage. And eventually die. I try to inform them, sometimes they listen, many times not.
And playing casually (say a normal amount of playtime) is something else as having skill or not. I see many people with max masteries, so they played quite a lot, but dont even use cc when its needed, and die constantly.

If everyone used vitality and toughness gear, imagine how much longer fights would take. Also, pretty much all of the things killing people can be avoided and/or mitigated. would have one-shot them anyway.

Not to misrepresent the point, but certain design devs have a love affair with OHKO and hard-CC spam.