Guild Wars 2

Mea.5491:

“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.

They get down because they don’t pay attention. One of the primary reasons being the snipers’ line attack thing that people just stand in. Defensive gear isn’t going to help that.

Rauderi.8706:

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.

There are very few OHKO attacks in this game and they all can be avoided. Some mobs have a lot of CC spam but not over the top that defensive gear would really matter.

The thing with defensive gear vs offensive gear is that you tend to kill things much quicker with offensive gear. Not surprising. The extra time it takes to kill things with defensive gear could turn it into a battle of attrition which you may not win. I often find it better to kill things quicker than to attempt to out sustain them.

Only people wearing all offensive gear get downed in one shot .
If you get one shotted you have too much offensive gear
If you don’t do enough condition damage you need more CD gear.
If a fight with a small mob takes too long you have too much defencive gear.
Mix and match for the win !

Why do you all call is zerk ? When it starts with a B… Berserker’s I remember it being really confusing when I first started as to what on earth people where walking about as it didn’t match anything on wiki.

Mea.5491:

“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.

I’m a casual.

I could care less about following a meta rotation to the T. I don’t care to put forth the effort to get better at the game.

My characters are mostly in a mixture of Beserker/Assassin’s gear. And Assassins mixed in only due to cost. I use meta builds because I don’t care enough to make my own

I only have one piece of ascended armor outside of a few rings that dropped for me in Fractals. And I made that one piece of ascended armor a week or two ago. And I haven’t started on making the next one yet.

Did I start off my characters in that armor? NOPE. My main, and Elementalist started off Cleric’s. And traited for survivability. The rate at which I killed stuff was laughably bad. I did run with some friends in Fractals with this main. 3 in meta builds, another was a Cleric’s engineer. I was dead the most often.

It was maybe a couple of months before HoT released when I switched my main off of her Cleric’s gear. My other characters that were created before that time but after my main were already in the Berserker/Assassin builds.

A lot of times dying vs not dying comes down to paying attention, not a player’s build. A player’s build may allow them to pass by not paying attention one or two more times possibly than the player in glass cannon gear, but they’ll still end up dead.

Ayrilana.1396:

Mea.5491:

“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.

They get down because they don’t pay attention. One of the primary reasons being the snipers’ line attack thing that people just stand in. Defensive gear isn’t going to help that.

Yep, I’ll admit that’s the primary reason I get downed it’s because latency between me seeing what is going on and me not reacting to it fast enough or doing the wrong thing.

aerial.7021:

Why do you all call is zerk ? When it starts with a B… Berserker’s I remember it being really confusing when I first started as to what on earth people where walking about as it didn’t match anything on wiki.

1. It was shorter for LFG postings.
2. Now it’s probably also to distinguish it from the Warrior Elite class when discussing things on the forum.

zcearo.1897:

Only people wearing all offensive gear get downed in one shot .
If you get one shotted you have too much offensive gear
If you don’t do enough condition damage you need more CD gear.
If a fight with a small mob takes too long you have too much defencive gear.
Mix and match for the win !

In some instances there are attacks that are one shots regardless of what gear you use. Mostly in dungeons and fractals and raids.

Seera.5916:

aerial.7021:

Why do you all call is zerk ? When it starts with a B… Berserker’s I remember it being really confusing when I first started as to what on earth people where walking about as it didn’t match anything on wiki.

1. It was shorter for LFG postings.
2. Now it’s probably also to distinguish it from the Warrior Elite class when discussing things on the forum.

Ah thanks, always wondered where that came from.

Ayrilana.1396:

Mea.5491:

“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.

They get down because they don’t pay attention. One of the primary reasons being the snipers’ line attack thing that people just stand in. Defensive gear isn’t going to help that.

Depends on the person. I could pay aaallll the attention in full dps gear, I would still die simply because I am horrible at timing blocks and stuff like that. Not everyone has super fast reflexes. That’s where defensive gear helps and it helps a lot according to my experiences. I use defensive gear on all of my characters because I know I suck. Unfortunately, many other people who suck still go with dps gear because… meta.

Seera.5916:

zcearo.1897:

Only people wearing all offensive gear get downed in one shot .
If you get one shotted you have too much offensive gear
If you don’t do enough condition damage you need more CD gear.
If a fight with a small mob takes too long you have too much defencive gear.
Mix and match for the win !

In some instances there are attacks that are one shots regardless of what gear you use. Mostly in dungeons and fractals and raids.

If you have some defense there is no one shot . Unless you are talking about the lazer floor in the artherblades hide out fractal . That’s not really a attacking foe I didn’t count that .

aerial.7021:

Ayrilana.1396:

Mea.5491:

“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.

They get down because they don’t pay attention. One of the primary reasons being the snipers’ line attack thing that people just stand in. Defensive gear isn’t going to help that.

Yep, I’ll admit that’s the primary reason I get downed it’s because latency between me seeing what is going on and me not reacting to it fast enough or doing the wrong thing.

Latency is probably another factor I should have included.

Mea.5491:

Ayrilana.1396:

Mea.5491:

“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.

They get down because they don’t pay attention. One of the primary reasons being the snipers’ line attack thing that people just stand in. Defensive gear isn’t going to help that.

Depends on the person. I could pay aaallll the attention in full dps gear, I would still die simply because I am horrible at timing blocks and stuff like that. Not everyone has super fast reflexes. That’s where defensive gear helps and it helps a lot according to my experiences. I use defensive gear on all of my characters because I know I suck. Unfortunately, many other people who suck still go with dps gear because… meta.

I tend to just pay attention to any attack that would be the most devastating and then not care about the rest. I tried using defensive gear awhile back but felt that I performed much worse not only time-wise but also in regards to survivability in the long run. That’s just from my personal experience and in what others have said that have experienced the same.

The great thing about the game is that players can complete most content in whatever gear that they want. If they feel more comfortable in defensive gear then they can feel free to use it. They just have to be mindful in groups where players could prefer, or require, offensive gear.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

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 actually tried the random exotics from leveling up/personal story thing. Wasn’t as horrible as I expected but I wasn’t using random traits.

zcearo.1897:

Seera.5916:

zcearo.1897:

Only people wearing all offensive gear get downed in one shot .
If you get one shotted you have too much offensive gear
If you don’t do enough condition damage you need more CD gear.
If a fight with a small mob takes too long you have too much defencive gear.
Mix and match for the win !

In some instances there are attacks that are one shots regardless of what gear you use. Mostly in dungeons and fractals and raids.

If you have some defense there is no one shot . Unless you are talking about the lazer floor in the artherblades hide out fractal . That’s not really a attacking foe I didn’t count that .

Like I said, the one shot attacks tend to be found in instanced content.

Seera.5916:

zcearo.1897:

Seera.5916:

zcearo.1897:

Only people wearing all offensive gear get downed in one shot .
If you get one shotted you have too much offensive gear
If you don’t do enough condition damage you need more CD gear.
If a fight with a small mob takes too long you have too much defencive gear.
Mix and match for the win !

In some instances there are attacks that are one shots regardless of what gear you use. Mostly in dungeons and fractals and raids.

If you have some defense there is no one shot . Unless you are talking about the lazer floor in the artherblades hide out fractal . That’s not really a attacking foe I didn’t count that .

Like I said, the one shot attacks tend to be found in instanced content.

Such as ?
As far as I can tell they don’t exist .

I’m content to use Carrion armor/weapons and Berserker other stuff on my fire sword/torch Guardian. It’s fun and plenty good enough for normal world PvE. The health is nice, because I can stand there and just take a hit or two if need be (handy in my lag rich environment…).

Seems to me there are lots of nifty stat combos people can play with to find what they personally enjoy. People should feel welcome to experiment and discover their own thing, because that’s definitely what the game is telling people. What other people think is moot.

zcearo.1897:

Seera.5916:

zcearo.1897:

Seera.5916:

zcearo.1897:

Only people wearing all offensive gear get downed in one shot .
If you get one shotted you have too much offensive gear
If you don’t do enough condition damage you need more CD gear.
If a fight with a small mob takes too long you have too much defencive gear.
Mix and match for the win !

In some instances there are attacks that are one shots regardless of what gear you use. Mostly in dungeons and fractals and raids.

If you have some defense there is no one shot . Unless you are talking about the lazer floor in the artherblades hide out fractal . That’s not really a attacking foe I didn’t count that .

Like I said, the one shot attacks tend to be found in instanced content.

Such as ?
As far as I can tell they don’t exist .

Let’s see to name a few……

Jade Maw Lazer beam if not dodged or invuln’d or holding a Crystal.
VG green circles if no one stands in them.
Gorseval world ender.
Sabetha flame wall.
Kudu from CoE story iirc

Oh and There are many more than these, these are just off the top of my head, most dungeon bosses have them, and quite a few mechanics/bosses in open world have OHKOs that only invuln and Dodging mitigates and no amount of stats will stop.

Ayrilana.1396:

The great thing about the game is that players can complete most content in whatever gear that they want. If they feel more comfortable in defensive gear then they can feel free to use it. They just have to be mindful in groups where players could prefer, or require, offensive gear.

Exactly. I’ll stick with my defensive stuff as long as mobs die fast enough for my liking and I don’t do hardcore group content anyway (raids, high lvl fractals). The good thing about open world events is the freedom. I do what I want and no one yells at me for not being meta, lol.

I had myself the same question when I started 8 months ago.

I was advised for a zerker/scholar (glass) build and tbh I had some rough time especially in my first visits at WvW. Had to sit down and read more about my class, equipment and build.

The good with GW2 is that characters are highly customisable so with small tweaks you can bring your character close to where it suits your playstyle. Some people may support the “pure DPS” build dogmatically but personally I prefer having a teammate dealing 1k damage less than dying every 30 secs.

TLDR: read some sites like metabattle to get ideas, play enough to learn your class and adjust the build so that you are efficient.

Aeolus.3615:

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

Back in my day, we did content in explorer’s gear. I remember doing Liadri in it.

Mea.5491:

“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.

You’ve got a valid point there.

As to answering the question, I think a casual player can use zerker gear, if he/she is capable of not dying all the time. In that case, the zerker player in question has to acknowledge in all honesty that he/she should consider minimizing his down-time (heh) by perhaps getting better or gearing up some hp or toughness.

zcearo.1897:

Only people wearing all offensive gear get downed in one shot .

Too bad i have lost my screencap of 37k damage from getting warbannered by an aether elite during LA defense event. On 3300 armor.
(hint: champs, which were also present in the same event, hit for more. Neither of those were considered bosses – just upscaled normal trash enemies).

zcearo.1897:

Only people wearing all offensive gear get downed in one shot .

With Berserker gear (no vitality) the health values are as follows:
High: 19,212
Medium: 15,922
Low: 11,645

Marauder and Valkyrie provide the following health boosts (if using full Ascended)
Marauder: +6330 health
Valkyrie: +9610 health

Marauder and Valkyrie are also offensive stats and the health they provide is hardly enough to compensate for a second hit which also depends on your profession, a Warrior in Berserker gear has almost the same health (19212) but more armor than an Elementalist in Valkyrie gear (21255), if an attack can 1-shot the Warrior it WILL 1-shot the Elementalist too. This means that some professions, like the Elementalist, shouldn’t get defensive gear and rely on active defenses and good positioning to survive.

You can use whatever you want xd. By definition its best if you choose a gear that allow you to perform in your best in a confortable/enjoyable form (with depends of context and skill level) and if in group its between the specific and explicit requeriment of it.

Now if we go for casual as: semiafk playing/ not strive to improve skill level. Then go for something confortable that put you below a unconfortable/no fun death rate per hour in the activities you do. You arent going to raids or specific geared party.

If your definition of casual its: i play little per week but im super fan of hardmode (most hardcores in time arent), choose a gear that adjust to your superior active defenses for most content and one for your specific group content role (tends to overlap, not always, example: healer).

Blocks, dogges, invuln, blinds etc, etc, etc. The pitifull cc bar was the last nail in the coffin tbh for other stats besides zerk. The whole bloody game screams zerk gear.

Honestly not much use talking about it + what somebody said above. Trading dmg for tankyness doesnt actually pay off since the boss just survives for longer times thus does much more dmg. Not to mention that in some dungeons there are a few dps races where u can wipe easily if u prolong the fight.

Better to wipe a few times until you learn the encounters properly than being tanky, it’s not needed at all the way this game is shaped.

Should “casuals” use berserker gear?

Essentially, this entire argument boils down to – if they feel like they want to, and feel like they can manage, then there is no reason not to. In other words, its personal choice. I know several who “can” but opt not to, just cause they don’t feel like it. They aren’t necessarily worried about killing things ‘efficiently.’ They just play to enjoy themselves. I tend to fall into this category as well. I “can” play just fine in zerk gear, but I have other characters that aren’t kitted out that way that I enjoy playing just as much.

Ayrilana.1396:

Mea.5491:

“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.

They get down because they don’t pay attention. One of the primary reasons being the snipers’ line attack thing that people just stand in. Defensive gear isn’t going to help that.

http://puu.sh/u2VuP/0973f486e4.jpg Defensive gear isn’t going to stop anything. Maybe I would live some additional hits by trash mobs but these aren’t a threat to Zerker gear anyways.

I usually go down there because I try to go melee while everyone is camping their LB pressing one while I’m surrounded by dumb bears and maybe one or two other players.

nsleep.7839:

Ayrilana.1396:

Mea.5491:

“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.

They get down because they don’t pay attention. One of the primary reasons being the snipers’ line attack thing that people just stand in. Defensive gear isn’t going to help that.

http://puu.sh/u2VuP/0973f486e4.jpg Defensive gear isn’t going to stop anything. Maybe I would live some additional hits by trash mobs but these aren’t a threat to Zerker gear anyways.

I usually go down there because I try to go melee while everyone is camping their LB pressing one while I’m surrounded by dumb bears and maybe one or two other players.

So, as long as everyone else is doing what you want them to do you can survive in berserker gear? It sounds like defensive gear would allow you to do what you want to do regardless of what everyone else is doing.

It certainly works out that way for my d/d celestial elementalist. While others claim the class is squishy, I can charge right in and solo champions, rush headlong into the army of chak that assaults SCAR camp, etc. Skilled dodging will only get you so far when you have that many enemies to deal with. Sometimes you need to be able to take damage and have time to heal it back. That’s where defensive gear sets can be useful.

Is it meta? No. But you guys are crazy saying there is no place for it, particularly in solo open world content. Maybe there’s no reason you absolutely need to solo champions and group events, but saying defensive gear can’t help you survive some of those situations better is just ridiculous.

nsleep.7839:

http://puu.sh/u2VuP/0973f486e4.jpg Defensive gear isn’t going to stop anything. Maybe I would live some additional hits by trash mobs but these aren’t a threat to Zerker gear anyways.

To be fair, those desolators were designed for garbage. Another hidden fetish brought to light, honestly: the un-CC-able pain-mob.
Desolator, can’t be CC’d or even damaged until it decides it wants to be hit. Until then, Scrapper-hammer bashes its target with absurd damage.
Jade Anything. Massive CC/damage on super-short cooldowns but refuses to take CC 90% of the time.

I can understand this behavior for bosses and leaving strategic windows open, but on veterans that are still meant to be solo’d, it’s beyond cheap.

Mea.5491:

“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.

That has more to do with necro than the gear. Same thing happens when I am there with my necro in full berserker gear. That includes walking through and standing in AoEs.

zcearo.1897:

Seera.5916:

zcearo.1897:

Seera.5916:

zcearo.1897:

Only people wearing all offensive gear get downed in one shot .
If you get one shotted you have too much offensive gear
If you don’t do enough condition damage you need more CD gear.
If a fight with a small mob takes too long you have too much defencive gear.
Mix and match for the win !

In some instances there are attacks that are one shots regardless of what gear you use. Mostly in dungeons and fractals and raids.

If you have some defense there is no one shot . Unless you are talking about the lazer floor in the artherblades hide out fractal . That’s not really a attacking foe I didn’t count that .

Like I said, the one shot attacks tend to be found in instanced content.

Such as ?
As far as I can tell they don’t exist .

Beginning of the Mai Trin fractal, although that might be a bug.

The mission in LS S2 in the Grove.

But, you’re right: at best they’re extremely rare.

As partially mentioned in the thread, there are some who like to play this game but cannot play optimally for various RL physical reasons. In my case, its a combination of being unable to judge quickly enough in a busy environment (the ability to remove some of the affects on characters would go a long way in fixing that), as well as not being able to physically react perfectly (at least for prolonged periods of time, such as in some of these longer meta runs).

One possibility for solving this problem can be choosing a class you like the most, and building up its strengths to counter RL weaknesses and still apply decent DPS.

In my case, I decided anything ‘serious’ would be done in my Guardian, which is traited for fast Aegis refresh, and a few other Aegis enhancing traits dropped in (can be switched to other things as needed). Add in Trooper runes (his base is in the old Shout builds) to give the old PoV abilities (plus allowing the new one in case I need a different GM trait). DH has traits that allow for both melee and ranged options as needed too, which is why I normally sit on that now, but at times I’ll switch it out for Zeal or Virtues depending on the situation.

With gear, I’ve taken a generally balanced Zerk/Soldier approach, as I don’t play the game often enough anymore to invest into the deep grind needed for the new stat combinations (tbh, all I really want atm are Commander accessories for those slots). The four main ‘trinket’ slots are quire useful in that effect – I use these to fine-tune if I need more defense, more health or more damage. But the Amulet is always Zerk and the Back (Mawdrey Infused) is Soldier.

This has worked well in most game modes, including the few times I’ve been able to be brought into Raids (under the ‘getting a taste of it’ idea). I personally do not like the idea of being locked into combat for the entire Raid run though, as my best ‘build’ is constantly flowing throughout an encounter – both on the weapon side and Trait side – so I’m unlikely to run those regularly. But taking DS an an example (as it was mentioned here), I switch from my DPS ‘base’ to Group Support and back to DPS (along with weapon swaps) through its run. It works really well for me, because I know the class and most of its weapons.

From the various alts I have, I suspect I can probably do the same on my Ranger, Mesmer and Necro with relatively little tweaking as well; After Guard I know these three the most, but still need some time in learning the various traits. Really, it would not surprise me if its possible to do on all classes; I just don’t have the time anymore to work at it. So I leave it as an exercise to the readers…

Honest answer that isnt evolved around feelings etc…..

Yes, you only need them in fractals/dungeons or raids, which is very different for each player and the skill cap in this game is so small, that you should pretty much have whole class figured out as soon as you max out on masteries….in short:

As dps class raid: go with zerk gear, only fair.

In fractals: almost no matter class……yes, if you dont put dps, the reason for u being there is small

in pvp/world gathering…stuff/wvw: No, zerk gear is not only not recommended, but bad.

I’ve played zerk since forever…because of that I’ve learned how to play my main (ele) better. When you’re that glassy, you have to learn the game mechanics in order to survive: ie. dodge, positioning, use of terrain, skill rotations, etc. When players can’t or won’t wrap their heads around that, they die a lot, with the resultant loud QQing…especially with zerk equipment, because zerk.

This has been going on since gaming. How many times I’ve reminded players…don’t stand in the AOE…don’t stand in the line of fire…don’t aggro needlessly, and on and on. So it is what it is…players, casual or otherwise will either learn the game, or else die with glassy builds. That’s the way it is. My opinion.

In my opinion it really depends on build and role you want to fulfill.

Zerk is simply glass cannon which focuses on raw power. I am using it on my great sword chronomancer and it works just fine. My play style is a lot about kiting and keeping distance while creating distractions with illusions.
I’ve also started to use zerk on my melee ranger and I found out that bit of survivability won’t hurt because when you are playing in melee range you are more often exposed to dangerous situations and sometimes being able to withstand few more hits while dealing damage to boss with broken defiance bar can actually help a lot. So I am working on marauder set now.
You can also play melee ranger build based on regaining opening strikes and for this kind of build works valkyrie better than zerk.

Zerk is in general the best dps option and people often rather improve their offensive capabilities first.

zengara.8301:

In fractals: almost no matter class……yes, if you dont put dps, the reason for u being there is small

Tell that to my condi/minion necro, who almost always survives longer than the rest of the party.

AkantorCZ.8952:

My play style is a lot about kiting and keeping distance while creating distractions with illusions.

I wish I could kite better. But, these old fingers just aren’t up to the challenge any more. But, my grandson should be taking up the mantle of “computer game king” in just a few years.

I’d rather not use the terms “casual” or “hardcore”. When it comes to players, these terms are pretty loosely defined, if at all. There’s really no consensus in the gaming industry or any game community on a strict definition of these terms. (As far as I know!)

I’d much rather use “skilled” or “unskilled”. So, to answer your question OP, if any player is skilled enough to use zerker, then use zerker if that player is comfortable using it. If not as skilled, just bring more support builds in your party.

aerial.7021:

Why do you all call is zerk ? When it starts with a B… Berserker’s I remember it being really confusing when I first started as to what on earth people where walking about as it didn’t match anything on wiki.

Berserker – ‘zerker -> zerk (as I’m sure you know by now). And when it comes to frequent use, monosyllables normally win out over polysyllables.

But honestly? Frankly, the real answer to all such questions is always, “Because.”

“Because” that’s one of the things that people call it, and no-one cares what it starts with. If you don’t like the term, don’t use it. You think it should be something else, start calling it that instead. If your version is better, and you play and post enough, it may catch on. Otherwise, just get used to the idea that you’re merely one tiny part of a much bigger community, that every community that you may join has its own jargon, whether you as an individual happen to like it or not, and that – frankly – it’s mostly simply up to you to learn it.

Should casuals use berserker gear?
Yes, certainly. It does indeed force players to learn about more effective defenses such as blinds, evades, blocks, etc rather than adding defensive stats only. They can always ease their way in by replacing their gear with more offensive pieces over time.

Do casuals have to use berserker gear?
They do not. Everyone is free to run whichever gear they prefer. Just like everyone else is free to exclude them from their parties if they disagree with that choice of gear.

Can it be a problem if people go too defensive during events?
Sometimes. Most events are rather balanced and forgiving enough to allow for many different gear choices. You still see some of them fail once in a while because there simply wasn’t enough damage, because everyone thought they can leave the dangerous “glassy playstyle” to someone else.

In any case, it is much more important to play a certain build or the right way rather than running a certain type of gear.
Always go for group utility/boons over personal defenses. The amount of time you should spend ressing others should be proportional to how tanky you are.
In short, don’t be that guy. You know, the guy in full Nomad running nothing but signets and defensive traits. Standing there and litterly hitting the boss for zero damage. Actually making it harder by being there and therefor upscaling the boss.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

What about open world events, where sometimes damage can be outright unavoidable? Where dodging one attack only means you’ll land on another AoE?

I run almost entirely PvE stuff, solo, and quite often in gear on or close to the meta – which means lots of ‘zerker, usually with just a bit of Soldier’s thrown in on trinkets. It doesn’t give me any trouble. I don’t really recognise this description of open world events, though. There can be plenty of near-unavoidable overlap for less powerful attacks, sure, but not when it comes to the really big stuff.

Left hand on WSAD keys; right on mouse; double-tap to dodge (never “V”). You have keys to take you in the 4 cardinal directions relative to your facing, and can tweak your mouse to fine-tune your facing almost instantly. If you really can’t see somewhere safe to dodge to when the damage circles pop, most times you’re not paying enough attention; if you see it but can’t get there, you simply need more practice.

I made a quick test video where I solo the first boss of level 1 fractal with full zerker and my tanky 3000 armor wvw gear.

https://youtu.be/iWmRIg1Wtus

Its not perfect, but it shows some differences between those armor types. I consider myself a casual player and I prefer the berserker gear.

Wasabi Kitty.8247:

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.

Yeah because you can dodge everything and avoid everything with those, right?

At no point in an open world event will you ever dodge an AoE just to find yourself in yet another AoE attack?

Or find that your defensive skills are on cooldown, while being in the middle of a red circle?

Or find that the boss you’re fighting has gone invincible and all you can do for 60 seconds is avoid its damage or tank it head on?

And even if none of the above ever, ever happen to you because of how much a pro you are (which, again, I highly doubt, regardless of your level of skill; some deaths are just unavoidable while in zerk gear) it’s not the case of 90% of the community.

This zerk meta crap just has to die one day or the other. Bringing in Vipers was not enough to bury it.

Just another prespective…

I believe having slightly higher defense could actually benefits you even in offensive ways. Only higher stats doesn’t necessarily means higher damage output. How?

- less time spended by avoiding downstate or lying on the ground will produce more attacks
- finding balance between offense nad defense to not being oneshoted by bosses – again less delays in your activity
- easier keeping of stacks from sigils like bloodlust

Of course I am not talking about extremes like Nomad. The best offense is often the best defence.

Player’s skill does a lot for sure, but there are situations when you will be hit no matter what (out of endurance, skills on cd, wrong timing, etc.) and we all know how messy this game sometimes could be.

Boiled down argument.

If you think it’s the best set and you arent skilled enough to use it effectively: no

Because someone told you to: no

If you are good at the content and more concerned with clearing it fast than clearing it in a unique, innovative or interesting way: yes

If you are comfortable enough with your skills and playstyle to know how to avoid dying with zero toughness on your content of choice: yes (Note: being caught with zero defensive skills and zero stamina in a red circle disqualifies you from this description)

If you are a subset of the prior class and occasionally blunder: Hybrid Valkyrie, then yes.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

This zerk meta crap just has to die one day or the other.

If someone is getting killed too much, especially in the open world, they can use a more durable profession, or they can try playing mostly with ranged weapons. As I pointed out earlier in this thread, an Elementalist in Marauder or Valkyrie gear will still be one shot killed by an attack that can down a Warrior using Berserker gear. So your profession plays a very important role in choosing your gear.

maddoctor.2738:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

This zerk meta crap just has to die one day or the other.

If someone is getting killed too much, especially in the open world, they can use a more durable profession, or they can try playing mostly with ranged weapons. As I pointed out earlier in this thread, an Elementalist in Marauder or Valkyrie gear will still be one shot killed by an attack that can down a Warrior using Berserker gear. So your profession plays a very important role in choosing your gear.

I’d much rather choose more durable stats for my chosen preferred profession than change profession just so I could play *some*thing with berserker stats.

I get the point you’re making here but still, it needed to be said in case anyone extrapolated the wrong thing from your text heh. =)

Why not? Pretty much all of PvE can be played with zerker gear. By all of PvE I mean non-HoT maps (don’t have HoT so I can’t say for those). And as my main is zerker ranger I really learned how to move in a fight and that means positionig and a whole lot of dodging. The key is to attack from afar and take as much HP down before they come close, and prevent them from coming close for as long as possible. So, yeah zerker gear thought me to be fast in a fight and avoid damage as much as I can. That means in PvP when I’m not careful or I’m against someone stronger I can be downed easily. But I have learned to play in downed state also, mostly skill 2 and wolf’s f2 skill (it’s about timig but if done right it really pays out). I say play zerker if you want but at the end of the day it’s all about personal preference.

Rashagar.8349:

I’d much rather choose more durable stats for my chosen preferred profession than change profession just so I could play *some*thing with berserker stats.

There is another angle too. In the Elementalist – Warrior example, if an attack can down a Warrior in Berserker gear then an Elementalist in Berserker or Marauder or Valkyrie gear will also be downed by the same attack, meaning choosing the durable gear on the Elementalist is a total waste. You’ll be downed if you are hit anyway so why bother with more durable gear?

The OP specifically asked for Marauder and Valkyrie and not really durable sets like Cleric or Soldier