Guild Wars 2

maddoctor.2738:

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

In open world I love my marauder set on my thief. My open world build features strong heals on offense. In my berserker set I am forced to play evasively far more often due to my low health pool. With marauder I can take a hit but stay on offense, giving me the opportunity to heal back the damage and potentially never have to play evasively (depending upon the scenario).

Talking about OHKO attacks is pointless because they are pass/fail mechanics that ignore gear entirely. When you talk about real scenarios that rule the solo open world game, defensive stats like vitality are anything but a total waste.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

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.

Most people don’t find themselves in those situations often enough to center armor stat choices around it.

Trust me, I should know. I’m a low/mid-skill level casual player who plays characters in Berserker gear and I don’t have many, if any, defensive skills. I don’t find myself in the situations you described often enough that have led to my character being downed.

Name me one open world boss that goes invincible for 60 seconds without a secondary objective to make it uninvincible?

Meta is only an issue when players enter content that requires cooperation between players. The meta is the meta because it’s the easiest build that gives the highest chances of success in what players wish to do. If you find the meta bad, then don’t join groups asking for it. Make a group and advertise what stats you want players to use, if any.

I also don’t understand why you think the meta should die. It’s not going to change anyone’s behavior as it pertains to the meta. Groups that currently require the meta will still require whatever becomes the new meta and will still exclude anyone who doesn’t. It’s not going to suddenly make players with lower skill levels any better at the game and it isn’t going to change their survivability in any huge way – the game runs on active defense, armor is passive so 99% of time deaths are due to not being aware of the situation and not the player’s gear.

casual is not equivalent to low skill.
low skill is well….newbies
so should zerk be used by newbies? yes.
why? if you learn it the safe way then you won’t be able to do it the “hard” way. you limit your skill cap.

SkyShroud.2865:

casual is not equivalent to low skill.
low skill is well….newbies
so should zerk be used by newbies? yes.
why? if you learn it the safe way then you won’t be able to do it the “hard” way. you limit your skill cap.

It depends on the player on that. If their skill level is such that they die so often in zerker gear that the game ceases to be fun whereas if they were wearing more defensive gear they would not, they should wear the more defensive gear. And then as they learn, slowly work zerker gear if going from defensive to full glass cannon would be bad for them based on their situation.

PvE lacks the mechanics to justify anything else except full glass. PvE is so easy that every damage can be avoided. Worst case is losing DPS through frequent damage avoidance.

E.g. thieves swapping to shortbow, because they fear the one-shot of an open world boss. I notice them every day.

-A bad thief would stay full zerk and swap to shortbow.

-A mediocre thief would run sth. like soldiers (Power Vitality Toughness), stay in melee and survive 1 or 2 hits (= time to heal or reposition) and deal higher DPS than these shortbow zerkers.

-A good thief would stay on zerk gear, learn the boss mechanics, go melee and lose just a minor amount of DPS when dodging.

WvW and PvP are a totally different story. Your counters increase drastically when you run zerk gear as it becomes very easy to outplay you.

For clarification: Durability Runes or ultility skills that reduce direct damage (Rise!, Endure Pain etc.) are NOT my definition of “full zerk” as they trade damage for survivability.

I have no faith in defensive stats for PvE. I think they just eat chunks out of your DPS without making any genuine difference to your survivability.

Fights are always designed to force dodging, CC, and other methods of avoidance/prevention; a fight where you can eat the damage while you stand and deliver is a boring fight. Also, stats that enable such behaviour in PvE would make a game-breaking difference against player-sized numbers in PvP.

If you care enough about your performance to customize your gear with intent, you’re probably a better player than you think re: dodging etc.

Seera.5916:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

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.

Most people don’t find themselves in those situations often enough to center armor stat choices around it.

Trust me, I should know. I’m a low/mid-skill level casual player who plays characters in Berserker gear and I don’t have many, if any, defensive skills. I don’t find myself in the situations you described often enough that have led to my character being downed.

Name me one open world boss that goes invincible for 60 seconds without a secondary objective to make it uninvincible?

Meta is only an issue when players enter content that requires cooperation between players. The meta is the meta because it’s the easiest build that gives the highest chances of success in what players wish to do. If you find the meta bad, then don’t join groups asking for it. Make a group and advertise what stats you want players to use, if any.

I also don’t understand why you think the meta should die. It’s not going to change anyone’s behavior as it pertains to the meta. Groups that currently require the meta will still require whatever becomes the new meta and will still exclude anyone who doesn’t. It’s not going to suddenly make players with lower skill levels any better at the game and it isn’t going to change their survivability in any huge way – the game runs on active defense, armor is passive so 99% of time deaths are due to not being aware of the situation and not the player’s gear.

I don’t think you understand the GW2 meta very well. While i agree with your sentiment, the GW2 meta has objectively been a dps race. If it was truly based on success rate, mistrel chrono would be meta, as it can literallly carry teams in raid. But it’s not. It’s relegated to a ‘viable’ build because it has low dps.

The only class i feel actively needs defensive gear is necro, and thats only because we lack active damage mitigation other than protection and dodging.

Necro traits allow you to take gear with no precision or very little, and still cap in parties. For instance right now, valkyrie necro is the highest dps necro build when min maxed, because of this. But it isn’t a ‘meta’ build? It has the highest damage and survivability, but it’s still not meta.

But I think that is a specific case.

Revenants, also have a trait that allows them to drop some precision due to double fury bonus.

META in GW2, is an issue when you truly want to min max. Most content can be cleared with viable or near meta builds. Yet people will cry about something as simple as not having the right food, because ‘meta’. And yes, I have actually had a condi necro rage at someone in our t4 fractals because they didnt have the right utility pot up when we started.

Meta in GW2 isn’t always the most effective. Sometimes its simply the highest dps. Which is sad for a classes like necro, rev, and engi.

FrostDraco.8306:

Meta in GW2 isn’t always the most effective. Sometimes its simply the highest dps. Which is sad for a classes like necro, rev, and engi.

Agreed. The pure meta builds thrown together in a party isn’t always the most effective, it depends on the encounter, classes available, their possible synergies and how they can take advantage of the situation. Many times this will include getting away a bit from the traits and utilities suggested by the builds considered meta so the party can achieve higher performance in a specific task.

FrostDraco.8306:

I don’t think you understand the GW2 meta very well. While i agree with your sentiment, the GW2 meta has objectively been a dps race. If it was truly based on success rate, mistrel chrono would be meta, as it can literallly carry teams in raid. But it’s not. It’s relegated to a ‘viable’ build because it has low dps.

The only class i feel actively needs defensive gear is necro, and thats only because we lack active damage mitigation other than protection and dodging.

Necro traits allow you to take gear with no precision or very little, and still cap in parties. For instance right now, valkyrie necro is the highest dps necro build when min maxed, because of this. But it isn’t a ‘meta’ build? It has the highest damage and survivability, but it’s still not meta.

But I think that is a specific case.

Revenants, also have a trait that allows them to drop some precision due to double fury bonus.

META in GW2, is an issue when you truly want to min max. Most content can be cleared with viable or near meta builds. Yet people will cry about something as simple as not having the right food, because ‘meta’. And yes, I have actually had a condi necro rage at someone in our t4 fractals because they didnt have the right utility pot up when we started.

Meta in GW2 isn’t always the most effective. Sometimes its simply the highest dps. Which is sad for a classes like necro, rev, and engi.

I’m referring to the PUG meta where players who aren’t looking for steady groups come in.

If the highest DPS combination of classes and builds and rotations isn’t easy for PUG’s to get, it’s not going to be the PUG meta.

The PUG meta for a class is the magical combination of easy to pull off and highest DPS. It gives the highest success rate between groups of strangers. Where success is completing the content within a reasonably quick time.

And I’m fully aware that the meta is all about maxing DPS. But if the average skill level of the average PUG group would end up wiping 75% of the time or taking 3x longer than the static groups (due to not being able to pull off the rotation flawlessly) with the highest DPS set up, then it’s not going to be the PUG meta likely. Because they’ll be too likely to wipe too often or easier for them pull off in a shorter time frame. They’ll back down a step or two (which likely won’t hurt their DPS too terribly, it just won’t be max DPS) and find something that’s got a lower chance of them wiping and easier rotations to pull off so they don’t take forever.

I fully understand what meta is with regards to GW2. And I’m fully aware that the meta may not necessarily be the most effective, highest possible DPS on paper, because people make mistakes and can’t always do the theoretical DPS.

I don’t know how you thought I didn’t get what the meta is from my post, I really don’t. I said nothing that you didn’t say in different words.

I tested full Zerk vs full Marauder on an all-ascended, raid equipped phalanx warrior recently.

+5 Power infusions on both.

I found that Zerk did 7% more damage while Marauder had 33% more health, under realistic raid buffs.

Hope this helps anyone who is trying to make a decision.

Seera.5916:

SkyShroud.2865:

casual is not equivalent to low skill.
low skill is well….newbies
so should zerk be used by newbies? yes.
why? if you learn it the safe way then you won’t be able to do it the “hard” way. you limit your skill cap.

It depends on the player on that. If their skill level is such that they die so often in zerker gear that the game ceases to be fun whereas if they were wearing more defensive gear they would not, they should wear the more defensive gear. And then as they learn, slowly work zerker gear if going from defensive to full glass cannon would be bad for them based on their situation.

nope. there aren’t that many things that can kill a zerker instantly. most of those that can kill a zerker instantly are pretty much end game contents. if a newbies chose to proceed to a end game content while having limited knowledge on their classes, they have to take up the responsible for doing so.

Lucky.9421:

I tested full Zerk vs full Marauder on an all-ascended, raid equipped phalanx warrior recently.

+5 Power infusions on both.

I found that Zerk did 7% more damage while Marauder had 33% more health, under realistic raid buffs.

Hope this helps anyone who is trying to make a decision.

33% more health even with a warrior? That would be 50% for a guard/ele/thief, which looks pretty huge for the relatively small damage loss.

SkyShroud.2865:

Seera.5916:

SkyShroud.2865:

casual is not equivalent to low skill.
low skill is well….newbies
so should zerk be used by newbies? yes.
why? if you learn it the safe way then you won’t be able to do it the “hard” way. you limit your skill cap.

It depends on the player on that. If their skill level is such that they die so often in zerker gear that the game ceases to be fun whereas if they were wearing more defensive gear they would not, they should wear the more defensive gear. And then as they learn, slowly work zerker gear if going from defensive to full glass cannon would be bad for them based on their situation.

nope. there aren’t that many things that can kill a zerker instantly. most of those that can kill a zerker instantly are pretty much end game contents. if a newbies chose to proceed to a end game content while having limited knowledge on their classes, they have to take up the responsible for doing so.

And players with low skill make more mistakes than those with high skill.

Mistakes leads to getting hit more than once.

So if a player’s skill level means that if they wear zerk and die so often that the game ceases to be fun for them, then they should start with more defensive gear and move towards zerk gear when they have gained more skill with the game. If they choose to do so. There is no rule in this game that all players must wear zerk gear. The only time it matters is the end game content where you have to play cooperatively with other players: dungeons, fractals, and raids. In which case, they would need to change their set up or join a group that’s willing to let them not be in meta builds (which do exist for all content to some extent).

I’m surprised this debate is still around. Anyway, yes newbies should use glass cannon gear. Berserker, Assassin, Viper, Sinister, etc. if more have been added.

Whether or not a newbie should use glass cannon gear isn’t a question of skill, insomuch as it is a question of efficiency. GW2 was designed PVP first, with close ratios between player stats and gear prefixes. The different stat loadouts you use are all meant to both survive other player’s attacks, and also threaten other players with your attacks. Going full glass or full tank usually means you’re doing twice the damage or talking half the damage of the other. An enemy who dies faster does less damage overall, so a good offense translates into a good defense.

This translates to PVE as well. Nearly every gear prefix was designed to be wholly self-sufficient, so with the exceptions of Nomad and Minstrel you’ll never build yourself into impotence simply by choosing the wrong gear. The enemies only do 2k per attack, if even that much, so you’ll rarely find yourself in insta-gib territory or overwhelmed by damage. But, with all that said, glass cannon gear still has a set of distinct advantages that other sets don’t give.

#1: GC is faster. Faster means quicker healing, quicker rewards, a greater volume of things done per fixed time, and thus it is more profitable.
#2: Likewise, GC gear is more convenient if you have limited play time.
#3: Things are on time limits. Dynamic events and map wide meta events have a literal clock ticking down.
#4: GC has better peak performance. Assuming terrible play most of the sets balance out. But assuming perfect play, GC enables you to accomplish feats that other sets literally cannot do.
#5: Traits, utilities, and tactics make up the bulk of your defenses. If you find yourself dying too fast, it is really easy to change to a more defense trait setup, utility setup, weapon, and strategy. Owning multiple gear prefixes, however, is expensive and cumbersome to deal with.
#6: New players tend to hang back and kite mobs while using ranged weapons, to which defensive stats matter very little. If they’re going to bearbow, they might as well be the best bearbow possible.
#7: You fully heal after the encounter is over, so there is no long-term concerns. A win is a win, so it doesn’t matter how wide a margin your win is.
#8: There are enemies in the game who are so frail that you can obliterate them before they can counter-attack.
#9: Death is cheap. Even if you fail, until the late game it is a mild inconvenience at best.

With all that said, you can make a solid case for Maurader gear. It only does slightly less DPS than Berserkers/Assassins, but that additional 5.8k HP actually means a lot on the low and mid HP tiers. Overall, Maurader is an extremely efficient set in its distribution, and also it has 300 more points total. The big problem is whether or not players will accept you into their team. Though maurader is sufficient for raids, it might not be enough for the raid group.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I’m surprised this debate is still around. Anyway, yes newbies should use glass cannon gear. Berserker, Assassin, Viper, Sinister, etc. if more have been added.

Whether or not a newbie should use glass cannon gear isn’t a question of skill, insomuch as it is a question of efficiency. GW2 was designed PVP first, with close ratios between player stats and gear prefixes. The different stat loadouts you use are all meant to both survive other player’s attacks, and also threaten other players with your attacks. Going full glass or full tank usually means you’re doing twice the damage or talking half the damage of the other. This translates into a roughly equal performance, since either the enemy lives half as long and thus only does half the damage, or you have twice the effective health against an enemy that does full damage.

This translates to PVE as well. Nearly every gear prefix was designed to be wholly self-sufficient, so with the exceptions of Nomad and Minstrel you’ll never build yourself into impotence simply by choosing the wrong gear. The enemies only do 2k per attack, if even that much, so you’ll rarely find yourself in insta-gib territory or overwhelmed by damage. But, with all that said, glass cannon gear still has a set of distinct advantages that other sets don’t give.

#1: GC is faster. Faster means quicker healing, quicker rewards, a greater volume of things done per fixed time, and thus it is more profitable.
#2: Likewise, GC gear is more convenient if you have limited play time.
#3: Things are on time limits. Dynamic events and map wide meta events have a literal clock ticking down.
#4: GC has better peak performance. Assuming terrible play most of the sets balance out. But assuming perfect play, GC enables you to accomplish feats that other sets literally cannot do.
#5: Traits, utilities, and tactics make up the bulk of your defenses. If you find yourself dying too fast, it is really easy to change to a more defense trait setup, utility setup, weapon, and strategy. Owning multiple gear prefixes, however, is expensive and cumbersome to deal with.
#6: New players tend to hang back and kite mobs while using ranged weapons, to which defensive stats matter very little. If they’re going to bearbow, they might as well be the best bearbow possible.
#7: You fully heal after the encounter is over, so there is no long-term concerns. A win is a win, so it doesn’t matter how wide a margin your win is.
#8: There are enemies in the game who are so frail that you can obliterate them before they can counter-attack.

With all that said, you can make a solid case for Maurader gear. It only does slightly less DPS than Berserkers/Assassins, but that additional 5.8k HP actually means a lot on the low and mid HP tiers. Overall, Maurader is an extremely efficient set in its distribution, and also it has 300 more points total. The big problem is whether or not players will accept you into their team. Though maurader is sufficient for raids, it might not be enough for the raid group.

Your numbers 5 and 7 really stand out to me. The entire list is solid but those two points in particular.

Changing to more defensive utilities or traits before going into a particularly rough fight is cheap and easy. And finishing a fight with positive health total is a win, no matter how large the remaining total.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I’m surprised this debate is still around. Anyway, yes newbies should use glass cannon gear. Berserker, Assassin, Viper, Sinister, etc. if more have been added.

Whether or not a newbie should use glass cannon gear isn’t a question of skill, insomuch as it is a question of efficiency. GW2 was designed PVP first, with close ratios between player stats and gear prefixes. The different stat loadouts you use are all meant to both survive other player’s attacks, and also threaten other players with your attacks. Going full glass or full tank usually means you’re doing twice the damage or talking half the damage of the other. An enemy who dies faster does less damage overall, so a good offense translates into a good defense.

This translates to PVE as well. Nearly every gear prefix was designed to be wholly self-sufficient, so with the exceptions of Nomad and Minstrel you’ll never build yourself into impotence simply by choosing the wrong gear. The enemies only do 2k per attack, if even that much, so you’ll rarely find yourself in insta-gib territory or overwhelmed by damage. But, with all that said, glass cannon gear still has a set of distinct advantages that other sets don’t give.

#1: GC is faster. Faster means quicker healing, quicker rewards, a greater volume of things done per fixed time, and thus it is more profitable.
#2: Likewise, GC gear is more convenient if you have limited play time.
#3: Things are on time limits. Dynamic events and map wide meta events have a literal clock ticking down.
#4: GC has better peak performance. Assuming terrible play most of the sets balance out. But assuming perfect play, GC enables you to accomplish feats that other sets literally cannot do.
#5: Traits, utilities, and tactics make up the bulk of your defenses. If you find yourself dying too fast, it is really easy to change to a more defense trait setup, utility setup, weapon, and strategy. Owning multiple gear prefixes, however, is expensive and cumbersome to deal with.
#6: New players tend to hang back and kite mobs while using ranged weapons, to which defensive stats matter very little. If they’re going to bearbow, they might as well be the best bearbow possible.
#7: You fully heal after the encounter is over, so there is no long-term concerns. A win is a win, so it doesn’t matter how wide a margin your win is.
#8: There are enemies in the game who are so frail that you can obliterate them before they can counter-attack.
#9: Death is cheap. Even if you fail, until the late game it is a mild inconvenience at best.

With all that said, you can make a solid case for Maurader gear. It only does slightly less DPS than Berserkers/Assassins, but that additional 5.8k HP actually means a lot on the low and mid HP tiers. Overall, Maurader is an extremely efficient set in its distribution, and also it has 300 more points total. The big problem is whether or not players will accept you into their team. Though maurader is sufficient for raids, it might not be enough for the raid group.

I’ll say it again, if a player’s fun would be affected so much that they would stop playing the game due to dying too much with glass cannon gear, they should start in more defensive gear. And only when they feel comfortable should they move towards glass cannon gear. They should of course not join groups who require meta builds.

My ability to learn the game was not affected negatively by me gearing up in full Cleric’s with traits and skills set for survivability. It gave me room for a few extra mistakes. I did however, not attempt to PUG dungeons until I was on a character with full glass cannon gear (Berserker/Assassin’s mix) and I joined any welcome groups at that. I did do Fractals on my Cleric’s character with friends (who knew I was in full Cleric’s).

My full Cleric’s character is now sitting in mostly a mixture of Berserker/Assassin’s gear. I’ve got a few other stats as I got a few ascended ring drops in Fractals. And she was the only one of my characters to not get geared as glass cannon when they hit level 80.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I’m surprised this debate is still around. Anyway, yes newbies should use glass cannon gear. Berserker, Assassin, Viper, Sinister, etc. if more have been added.

Whether or not a newbie should use glass cannon gear isn’t a question of skill, insomuch as it is a question of efficiency. GW2 was designed PVP first, with close ratios between player stats and gear prefixes. The different stat loadouts you use are all meant to both survive other player’s attacks, and also threaten other players with your attacks. Going full glass or full tank usually means you’re doing twice the damage or talking half the damage of the other. An enemy who dies faster does less damage overall, so a good offense translates into a good defense.

That’s a bit misleading. It assumes that with the berserker set your health never reaches 0 at any point during the fight. Certainly that assumption favors choosing berserker gear over marauder. But if it does reach 0, then your damage output is also 0 and the defensive set is a far better choice.

You can certainly argue that for skilled players this doesn’t happen often enough to justify the efficiency loss. But not all players are equal and even if they were, not all players play the same way or have the same comfort level when it comes to dying. Some players play with friends. Others follow the zerg. Others prefer to go it alone.

Then you have other factors that come down to personal preference. Maybe instead of ranging and making smart pulls with your glass elementalist, you prefer to break out the daggers and ride the lightning solo straight into the chak assault on SCAR camp or go toe-to-toe at 300 range with the mushroom queen hero point? I’m not saying it can’t be done full glass or even that most players have such things in mind when they play. But if you do and that’s what matters to you, then chances are having a tankier set of gear is going to help you out a lot.

Bottom line: It seems to me that there are too many factors involved that come down to personal preference to unequivocally state that new players should use berserker gear. In fact, it seems clear that many players aren’t doing well by following that advice as evidenced by the fact that this debate pops up frequently and apparently has been ongoing for some time now.

Seera.5916:

I’ll say it again, if a player’s fun would be affected so much that they would stop playing the game due to dying too much with glass cannon gear, they should start in more defensive gear. And only when they feel comfortable should they move towards glass cannon gear. They should of course not join groups who require meta builds.

They’re not going to die more often in glass cannon gear. That’s sort of the whole point. The effective power per health product between gear prefixes isn’t that big. You can beat most overworld enemies by walking up and auto-attacking with no dodging, even in full glass. Even in heart of thorns, as an elementalist. You don’t do better just because you have more health and armor.

AliamRationem.5172:

That’s a bit misleading. It assumes that with the berserker set your health never reaches 0 at any point during the fight. Certainly that assumption favors choosing berserker gear over marauder. But if it does reach 0, then your damage output is also 0 and the defensive set is a far better choice.

No it doesn’t. The relationship between enemy survival time and enemy damage upkeep is linear. In a straight up brawl, if you would have died doing double damage at base HP then you also would have died doing normal damage at double HP. You’ll still die but it’ll just take longer to fail. Likewise, the existence of a debate doesn’t prove your point. It just means people are ideologically driven enough to take a stance and refuse to listen.

I’ll say it again: this isn’t an issue of skill. The question is if a player will still beat most enemies by default if they’re in glass cannon gear. Unless something has radically changed in the last 8 months the answer is yes they can. Playstyle is influenced more by which class you pick than which gear you use, since HP tiers affect durability more than prefixes if you factor in the tradeoff between damage and durability.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Seera.5916:

I’ll say it again, if a player’s fun would be affected so much that they would stop playing the game due to dying too much with glass cannon gear, they should start in more defensive gear. And only when they feel comfortable should they move towards glass cannon gear. They should of course not join groups who require meta builds.

They’re not going to die more often in glass cannon gear. That’s sort of the whole point. The effective power per health product between gear prefixes isn’t that big. You can beat most overworld enemies by walking up and auto-attacking with no dodging, even in full glass. Even in heart of thorns, as an elementalist. You don’t do better just because you have more health and armor.

AliamRationem.5172:

That’s a bit misleading. It assumes that with the berserker set your health never reaches 0 at any point during the fight. Certainly that assumption favors choosing berserker gear over marauder. But if it does reach 0, then your damage output is also 0 and the defensive set is a far better choice.

No it doesn’t. The relationship between enemy survival time and enemy damage upkeep is linear. In a straight up brawl, if you would have died doing double damage at base HP then you also would have died doing normal damage at double HP. You’ll still die but it’ll just take longer to fail. Likewise, the existence of a debate doesn’t prove your point. It just means people are ideologically driven enough to take a stance and refuse to listen.

I’ll say it again: this isn’t an issue of skill. The question is if a player will still beat most enemies by default if they’re in glass cannon gear. Unless something has radically changed in the last 8 months the answer is yes they can. Playstyle is influenced more by which class you pick than which gear you use, since HP tiers affect durability more than prefixes if you factor in the tradeoff between damage and durability.

Since most things in the open world do not have OHKO’s, those in more defensive gear do tend to be able to take one or two more hits. And sometimes that one or two more hits can mean the difference between a heal coming off of cool down or going down or getting enough endurance for a dodge.

The number of deaths it may avoid may not be huge. One or two hits can happen quickly. And sometimes just that knowledge may give players the confidence needed to do better. And that aspect may be more important than the one or two more hits.

Sometimes it is best for new players to not use glass cannon gear. If a player can do it, great, if not, they should not feel bad in using other gear.

And I am of course, just talking about open world PvE, not dungeons, fractals, raids, or WvW.

Well, I think I consider it like this:

Seera.5916:

FrostDraco.8306:

I don’t think you understand the GW2 meta very well. While i agree with your sentiment, the GW2 meta has objectively been a dps race. If it was truly based on success rate, mistrel chrono would be meta, as it can literallly carry teams in raid. But it’s not. It’s relegated to a ‘viable’ build because it has low dps.

The only class i feel actively needs defensive gear is necro, and thats only because we lack active damage mitigation other than protection and dodging.

Necro traits allow you to take gear with no precision or very little, and still cap in parties. For instance right now, valkyrie necro is the highest dps necro build when min maxed, because of this. But it isn’t a ‘meta’ build? It has the highest damage and survivability, but it’s still not meta.

But I think that is a specific case.

Revenants, also have a trait that allows them to drop some precision due to double fury bonus.

META in GW2, is an issue when you truly want to min max. Most content can be cleared with viable or near meta builds. Yet people will cry about something as simple as not having the right food, because ‘meta’. And yes, I have actually had a condi necro rage at someone in our t4 fractals because they didnt have the right utility pot up when we started.

Meta in GW2 isn’t always the most effective. Sometimes its simply the highest dps. Which is sad for a classes like necro, rev, and engi.

I’m referring to the PUG meta where players who aren’t looking for steady groups come in.

If the highest DPS combination of classes and builds and rotations isn’t easy for PUG’s to get, it’s not going to be the PUG meta.

The PUG meta for a class is the magical combination of easy to pull off and highest DPS. It gives the highest success rate between groups of strangers. Where success is completing the content within a reasonably quick time.

And I’m fully aware that the meta is all about maxing DPS. But if the average skill level of the average PUG group would end up wiping 75% of the time or taking 3x longer than the static groups (due to not being able to pull off the rotation flawlessly) with the highest DPS set up, then it’s not going to be the PUG meta likely. Because they’ll be too likely to wipe too often or easier for them pull off in a shorter time frame. They’ll back down a step or two (which likely won’t hurt their DPS too terribly, it just won’t be max DPS) and find something that’s got a lower chance of them wiping and easier rotations to pull off so they don’t take forever.

I fully understand what meta is with regards to GW2. And I’m fully aware that the meta may not necessarily be the most effective, highest possible DPS on paper, because people make mistakes and can’t always do the theoretical DPS.

I don’t know how you thought I didn’t get what the meta is from my post, I really don’t. I said nothing that you didn’t say in different words.

I wasn’t talking about just PUGs, thats why. PUG meta comes from coordinated meta.

What a lot of PUGs forget is that coordinated meta comes in a variety of flavors, and doesn’t need to be followed to a tee, to be achieved.

I’m just gonna point out the fact that the “you get one shot anyway even in valkyrie gear” is bullkitten.

I’ve been using both valkyrie gear and berzerker gear all along. Open world is my thing, and in open world it’s impossible to avoid damage, either because of there being too many AoE’s around you or because of there being too many people around for you to event see attacks coming in your direction.

In Valkyrie, on my main class which is Engineer, I often find myself running around with less than 5k HP left due to having tanked a few hits here and there, and almost always find a way to heal myself and keep going.

Every one of those times I was running around with 5k in Valkyrie, I would have been downed in Zerk, wasting other people’s time while not doing any damage myself. I know this is true, because I tried both and I know how both work.

You can say “oh but with enough skill you can survive”, nonsense, everyone gets downed once or twice in open world, or even killed, in open world it’s not a matter of skill but a matter of luck.

This “meta” is a good tool for dungeons, and good for people who don’t know how to build and are looking for something straightforward, but at some point you have to remove the small wheels off your bike and learn to do things by yourself.

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.

The safest way through a difficult fight is bringing down the opponent as fast as possible. Therefore, more health/toughness is not favorable over damage (raw or condition), because the former will only drag the fight on longer, so not really an advantage.

Even (or especially) when you are a casual player, you should go by builds that have been put together and tested by experienced players. I recommend www.metabattle.com for this purpose. Zerk gear is not recommendable for each profession.

I agree with regard to open world zergs, DS being a prime example with all the bloody snipers hidden among the other trash. The question is just whether you want to have an additional gear set just for this, but that’s something for the individual to decide.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

I’m just gonna point out the fact that the “you get one shot anyway even in valkyrie gear” is bullkitten.

I’ve been using both valkyrie gear and berzerker gear all along. Open world is my thing, and in open world it’s impossible to avoid damage, either because of there being too many AoE’s around you or because of there being too many people around for you to event see attacks coming in your direction.

In Valkyrie, on my main class which is Engineer, I often find myself running around with less than 5k HP left due to having tanked a few hits here and there, and almost always find a way to heal myself and keep going.

Every one of those times I was running around with 5k in Valkyrie, I would have been downed in Zerk, wasting other people’s time while not doing any damage myself. I know this is true, because I tried both and I know how both work.

You can say “oh but with enough skill you can survive”, nonsense, everyone gets downed once or twice in open world, or even killed, in open world it’s not a matter of skill but a matter of luck.

This “meta” is a good tool for dungeons, and good for people who don’t know how to build and are looking for something straightforward, but at some point you have to remove the small wheels off your bike and learn to do things by yourself.

It is a matter of skill mostly. And I’m someone who doesn’t think every casual player should use zerk gear.

And just because one uses meta builds doesn’t mean they are using training wheels. And in this game, one doesn’t have to remove all of the training wheels. Players can continue to use sites like metabattle to figure out what the new meta is when major balancing patches occur. It’s not a horrible thing for casual players who do not wish to delve into figuring out why a build is the meta to use sites and resources put together by players who do like figuring out what the new meta is.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

No it doesn’t. The relationship between enemy survival time and enemy damage upkeep is linear. In a straight up brawl, if you would have died doing double damage at base HP then you also would have died doing normal damage at double HP. You’ll still die but it’ll just take longer to fail. Likewise, the existence of a debate doesn’t prove your point. It just means people are ideologically driven enough to take a stance and refuse to listen.

I’m sorry, but you’re simply wrong. First, in order for both characters to take the same amount of damage and have the same ability to heal it back, only vitality may be used as a defensive stat. Replacing one offensive stat with vitality will not result in a 50% damage loss. Not only that, but as you yourself point out there are sets like marauder that offer vitality as a fourth stat while having more overall stat points than berserker stats.

Further, in real game play scenarios players do not take normalized damage over time (e.g. 1k damage every second like clockwork). A damage spike that a player with high health can absorb safely can easily place a GC build in danger of being killed by normal damage.

Obviously, if what you say were true then defensive gear would have no purpose. It would simply result in the exact same number of deaths while requiring more time to produce the same result. However, that is clearly not the case.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

You can say “oh but with enough skill you can survive”, nonsense, everyone gets downed once or twice in open world, or even killed, in open world it’s not a matter of skill but a matter of luck.

That’s total nonsense. With enough skill (rather low skill level) you won’t be downed at all in the open world, even while using Berserker/Viper gear, saying that “everyone gets downed” is false. And if you are ranged you don’t need much skill at all, stay at the back and roll on your keyboard. If you go in melee range you need some extra skill to survive in the open world, mostly due to the amount of particle effects that hide boss tells.
I don’t know where you find these impossibly hard encounters that are full of red circles you can’t avoid.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

[…]
In Valkyrie, on my main class which is Engineer, I often find myself running around with less than 5k HP left due to having tanked a few hits here and there, and almost always find a way to heal myself and keep going.
[…]

but at some point you have to remove the small wheels off your bike and learn to do things by yourself.

Extra vitality is your small wheels. It is keeping you up when you would have fallen.

I used Valkyrie for a while on my mesmer. I eventually changed it for assassin and got much better at the game. Because it forced me to learn how to survive by myself, using skills and trait to my advantage instead of just relying on my armor.

That said, use the armor you want. No one cares as long you don’t try to force yourself in their group.

A full-DPS set will give you a hard time. If you like being easily crushed, go with it.

RandomWolf.3986:

A full-DPS set will give you a hard time. If you like being easily crushed, go with it.

I don’t like being easily crushed. I’m wearing a full-DPS set. I rarely have a hard time due to my gear.

RandomWolf.3986:

A full-DPS set will give you a hard time. If you like being easily crushed, go with it.

On my ele, i found the opposite to be true. Any attempt to increase survivability of my build caused more enemies to be able to get close to me and start pounding. More pounding meant usually increased amount of pain, blood, and deaths.
Going zerker however pushed all of that on the enemies, and further away from me.

(so, to sum it up: if you play a squishy class, don’t bother toughening up, because you will still be squishy. Put all your hopes in ability to kill enemies before they kill you)

ot me there’s a problem is everyone or most people is using the same stats in their armor.