Guild Wars 2

If you’re a noob figuring out how to play, then roll zerker anyway because it will force you to learn how to dodge and empasize which utility skills to bring.

Hickeroar.9734:

The majority of people in this game can show that zerker is simply not viable for THEM as a player…The vast majority of players can not, do not, will not, and never will have a desire to play the game that way. Zerker gear, for many players Is. Not. Viable.

I’m flabbergasted how you feel you speak for all players and all player’s desires and goals in this game.

Your claim runs exactly counter to that FACT.

You make claims about what most people desire. What the vast majority can and cannot do, and you are flabbergasted that HE feels that he speaks for all players and their desires ?

Hickeroar.9734:

You are a seriously deluded indivudual.

Yeah, your statement is correct….but only if you apply it to yourself,

Can’t really complain about what other players run when it comes to public games, everyone has the right to play how he or she wants to even if it isn’t the best/most viable/most optimal way. That being said, it annoys me seeing players run builds that just aren’t the best for certain situations so I tend to avoid pug parties and form parties with those I know run decent builds and are experienced enough to run a dungeon/fractal with few hiccups. For the occasion pug cof run, I’ll actually look for teams that are looking for the zerker warrior/Mesmer, speed run/ping gear for check to actually get a team worth running with, otherwise it just takes too long and is usually more trouble than its worth running with randoms using random toons…

Julie Yann.5379:

Yes! Like not making every dungeon boss immune to CC and not limiting condition damage in group play. Maybe even making some bosses immune to direct damage for short periods of time so that condition damage can have some sort of importance in PvE. Then you would need more variety of builds to clear content and create more dynamic team play.

If bosses aren’t immune to CC, it makes the risk part in “high risk/high reward of zerk gear” moot. Thus making zerk gear even more desirable. Don’t forget that a CC warrior can do the job fine in full DPS gear. Warrior Hammer even sports some awesome DPS against disabled targets thanks to a trait.

stof.9341:

Julie Yann.5379:

Yes! Like not making every dungeon boss immune to CC and not limiting condition damage in group play. Maybe even making some bosses immune to direct damage for short periods of time so that condition damage can have some sort of importance in PvE. Then you would need more variety of builds to clear content and create more dynamic team play.

If bosses aren’t immune to CC, it makes the risk part in “high risk/high reward of zerk gear” moot. Thus making zerk gear even more desirable. Don’t forget that a CC warrior can do the job fine in full DPS gear. Warrior Hammer even sports some awesome DPS against disabled targets thanks to a trait.

There are ways of creating high risk/high reward fight with bosses that aren’t immune to CC and without limiting condi damage. I think Anet just got lazy in their design and by doing so has made DPS the end all be all of PvE which to me is a problem. It makes zerk more desirable thus feeding the whole “Full zerk only, ping gear” mentality which kind of ruins the whole idea of build diversity. I main a warrior and my build is 80% zerk with a mix of cavalier and PTV when not running full MF. I refuse to add more zerk to it because I shouldn’t have to and will not be forced into it by flawed game mechanics I know the hammer well and it is just crap against bosses since it is a CC weapon and they are immune to it. It is fine for trash mobs but in dungeons most of those are skipped anyways so it is useless in dungeons.

The only reason I run with two pieces of knights gear (shoulder and gloves) on my Warrior is because all I do is PUG. Sometimes I really have to wonder wth players are actually running with…..

The best grps I ran with are those who wear zerker and they usually know the fights and strats. The rest of the players, like some in this thread, just have no clue what they are doing and always ALWAYS makes the runs harder than they should be.

Zerker gear is the best for pve, that’s a fact.

Sometimes I wished I was a jerk and just kicked staff guardians, staff ele, insert horrible build here, out of grps. But im way too nice for that, so I just sigh and carry them.

I don’t like the current meta though and hopefully Anet can come up with a solution to fix this.

Know what absolutely kills me about the legendary mobs in the pavillion?

A lot of their projectiles are set to unblockable, meaning they can’t be reflected.

If Anet targets projectile reflection and negates its effectiveness.

It will literally dumb down the game to zerkers, max dps, and dodge, there will literally be 0 depth to the combat then. Right now the combat’s only slight inkling of depth is well timed/placed reflects.

Darkeus.2369:

But I am with some people here. I play like I want to play, not because something is believed to be optimal, (And lol, optimal is such a dynamic term in MMO games. It is hilarious. I have seen what is “optimal” change all of the time.)

If you dont want to play pure berserker that is fine but will you people stop making claims or insinuations that it is not the most optimal gear (as the game stands now) It just hurts the people that dont know yet, and hurts the cause of getting the problem fixed.

Of course what is optimal will change as the game changes, between nerfs, buffs, fixes, and growth an MMO changes as time passes and therefore what was once the best can easily become the worst. (Check out bunker Ele’s from a year ago vs now for a great example of that.) But that doesn’t change that right now in the game the most optimal way to build a character is to have as much DPS as is possible without faceplanting all the time. For the people that are very good at dodging and maintaining their utilities and endurance this means full berserk. For people a bit behind that it means mostly berserk and so on and so forth. DPS is king here and that is a problem. Admitting to the problem is a good step on the path to getting it fixed.

Caramel Ham.4891:

The rest of the players, like some in this thread, just have no clue what they are doing and always ALWAYS makes the runs harder than they should be.

I find this sentence interesting.

I’ve read quite a few posts from people who run zerker gear (and this isn’t a comment about whether or not it’s the best) saying outright that PvE is easy, in fact, boringly so.

So, bearing this in mind, I always wondered why they would really mind a dungeon run harder than it needed to be. I can understand people who want a run to be a quick as possible, or as easy as possible, or as efficient as possible requesting that people in the group use zerker gear. I can understand the reasons why zerker gear is considered optimal. I DON’T understand how some can in one breath say that PvE content is way too easy and it’s boring, and in the next breath complain that people who don’t run zerker gear make things more difficult. Wouldn’t you WANT it to be more difficult?

This is a genuine question. And I don’t mean to pick on you specifically – just that this sentence stood out to me as representative of a particular way of thinking from some people that I’ve noticed on the forums that I find illogical.

We want actual difficulty, not purposely gimping our stats to make it harder.

Hence why there are things like Lupicus solo videos because it makes things challenging for yourself without screwing yourself over.

But isn’t that why people also do naked runs? Because it makes it harder and therefore more interesting? You’re purposely gimping yourself by taking on Lupi solo because you are choosing not to go in with 4 other people. It’s the same thing. Lupi hasn’t got more challenging than before, but you’ve changed your personal situation and removed the asset of 4 people’s help.

Unless ANet actually change the way fights are played out, the only way to make things challenging or harder in game is to kitten yourself. So while in theory you make a valid case, the example isn’t correct.

Naked runs lose stats, but not THAT much. A lot of stat points come from the trinkets and most naked runs I saw only removed armors :p

Still, you lose quite some toughness/armor that way which makes it even riskier than pure Zerk of course.

Well yeah, that’s my point. You’ve made it riskier/more challenging/harder by removing some stats. What’s the difference to running in a group with different armour stats? You’ve just lost overall stats. So the run is riskier/more challenging/harder. Which is what some people seem to want if they find the current AI too easy and boring. I just would think they’d welcome something that made the run harder, rather than scorning it and declaring themselves bored of easy content?

As I made clear before, just to reiterate that I don’t include all people who wear zerker gear in this … only the ones who say stuff is too easy and it’s boring yet don’t allow anything but the optimal (and thereby easiest) options in their dungeon runs.

When you have first build your character as strong as possible it is really annoying to deliberately make it weaker.
I like playing with pugs for challenge but I’m never going to weaken my character.

But what I really hate is when those “healer/disruptor” guys think they did all the work.

CrossedHorse.4261:

So, bearing this in mind, I always wondered why they would really mind a dungeon run harder than it needed to be. I can understand people who want a run to be a quick as possible, or as easy as possible, or as efficient as possible requesting that people in the group use zerker gear. I can understand the reasons why zerker gear is considered optimal. I DON’T understand how some can in one breath say that PvE content is way too easy and it’s boring, and in the next breath complain that people who don’t run zerker gear make things more difficult. Wouldn’t you WANT it to be more difficult?

I would say this depends on the person and the goal at hand. If your goal is to prove something whether to the community in a solo lupi vid, or just to yourself and your pals in a lets take on lupi naked! Then the intentional gimping is wanted.

But if you are on hour 3 of day 5 of grinding gold/mats/tokens/whatever from an instance then there is absolutely no point where that person wants the run to take longer or be harder than is needed. the goal here is not to finish but to finish optimally so the grind time to gains ratio is as efficient as possible.

I feel the people that say PvE is too easy isn’t talking about difficulty in terms of how hard a dungeon is to complete but that the thought required for that dungeon to be completed. We come from games that over a decade have learned to make bosses and instances interesting with tactics from tank swapping, DPS splitting, Enrage mechanics, Target dropping, character sacrifice, bomb mechanics, mind control or one of my favorites of all times, a chessboard. The bosses in GW2 require 2 simple things hit the boss and don’t get hit.

This is what I mean when I say it’s too easy. Even if the boss was the exact same difficulty but one person has to control them, a hearty high health high armor character that keeps the boss crippled or stunned, or frozen just to keep them away from the party, who makes it so the boss only has them to attack for 70% of the fight. A support character has to keep up reflections, who has to toss out protection and aegis to keep the softer DPS from taking too many hits and fields for combos for the characters.

this doesn’t make the encounter harder as in it is now impossible to do, but rather it makes the encounter take more thought and strategy at least more than hit the boss, get out of the red circle. Now this is completely counter to Anets philosophy of no trinity. So I’m not suggesting this, but what I’m trying to show is that roles in combat offers more depth to the combat even if the only added depth is that we now rely on each other in the fight.

Lokki.1092:

CrossedHorse.4261:

So, bearing this in mind, I always wondered why they would really mind a dungeon run harder than it needed to be. I can understand people who want a run to be a quick as possible, or as easy as possible, or as efficient as possible requesting that people in the group use zerker gear. I can understand the reasons why zerker gear is considered optimal. I DON’T understand how some can in one breath say that PvE content is way too easy and it’s boring, and in the next breath complain that people who don’t run zerker gear make things more difficult. Wouldn’t you WANT it to be more difficult?

I would say this depends on the person and the goal at hand. If your goal is to prove something whether to the community in a solo lupi vid, or just to yourself and your pals in a lets take on lupi naked! Then the intentional gimping is wanted.

But if you are on hour 3 of day 5 of grinding gold/mats/tokens/whatever from an instance then there is absolutely no point where that person wants the run to take longer or be harder than is needed. the goal here is not to finish but to finish optimally so the grind time to gains ratio is as efficient as possible.

I feel the people that say PvE is too easy isn’t talking about difficulty in terms of how hard a dungeon is to complete but that the thought required for that dungeon to be completed. We come from games that over a decade have learned to make bosses and instances interesting with tactics from tank swapping, DPS splitting, Enrage mechanics, Target dropping, character sacrifice, bomb mechanics, mind control or one of my favorites of all times, a chessboard. The bosses in GW2 require 2 simple things hit the boss and don’t get hit.

This is what I mean when I say it’s too easy. Even if the boss was the exact same difficulty but one person has to control them, a hearty high health high armor character that keeps the boss crippled or stunned, or frozen just to keep them away from the party, who makes it so the boss only has them to attack for 70% of the fight. A support character has to keep up reflections, who has to toss out protection and aegis to keep the softer DPS from taking too many hits and fields for combos for the characters.

this doesn’t make the encounter harder as in it is now impossible to do, but rather it makes the encounter take more thought and strategy at least more than hit the boss, get out of the red circle. Now this is completely counter to Anets philosophy of no trinity. So I’m not suggesting this, but what I’m trying to show is that roles in combat offers more depth to the combat even if the only added depth is that we now rely on each other in the fight.

Thank you for taking the time to actually read what I was asking, rather than assuming I was just making a simple “anti-zerker” comment.

I agree that it’s a case of objectives. As I said previously, those who are running zerker because they want to be as efficient as possible I completely understand. I guess this would include farming runs etc. I can get the need for speed, efficiency etc in that situation.

My question was more directed towards what you answered in the second half of your post. And that’s a good, fair point.

I guess I sort of thought that if you were required to really think about the rest of the team and what they were doing because the DPS output wasn’t enough to rely on a couple of timed dodges and doing damage to the boss faster than it can damage you, then it would actually offer a bit of challenge that people seemed to complain they didn’t have yet seemed to not really want based on their companion choices.

I get what you’re saying about your definition of “difficult” or “too easy”, and coming at it from that perspective, I agree with you. ANet really should try and make support roles more integral to the combat system (particularly as the skills involved are actually so interesting – more so, imo, than many of the pure DPS ones), and I really think they could do this without reverting to the traditional trinity system. Hopefully, that would solve everyone’s problem.

What you don’t realise is that zerkers are constantly spamming support skills, it’s just they don’t kitten themselves with bad gear.

I can double might stacks, reflect projectiles, give regeneration with my phantasms, group quickness, CC mobs by pulling them or pushing them, teleport party members, use AOE condition removal and more. Yet I do this while running full glass cannon.

Support roles are in the game, control is in the game, it’s just you can do all of this while running full DPS spec.

Who says I don’t realise that? I do realise that. And many people have also brought that point up over the course of this thread, which I did take the time to read.

But at the moment there are some professions and builds that could really shine in support roles that don’t get played because they simply aren’t needed. That’s not the players’ faults, that’s ANet’s issue. And it would be nice to see this diversity.

Many people talk of this “zerker situation” where we have a noticeable split between zerkers and non-zerkers (obviously not including EVERYONE in this) as being the symptom of the problem with the combat system, which I agree with. But you seem to be intent on making it the cause, which isn’t at all helpful to anyone – not to the people who disagree with zerker gear or the people who agree with it.

colesy.8490:

What you don’t realise is that zerkers are constantly spamming support skills, it’s just they don’t kitten themselves with bad gear.

I can double might stacks, reflect projectiles, give regeneration with my phantasms, group quickness, CC mobs by pulling them or pushing them, teleport party members, use AOE condition removal and more. Yet I do this while running full glass cannon.

Support roles are in the game, control is in the game, it’s just you can do all of this while running full DPS spec.

To be honest, I wouldn’t mind any of your arguments if you said “IME” or “what works for me”, applying them only to yourself. Once you start demanding that your playstyle should be common to everybody, as if they had to do things your way in order to succeed, it becomes really silly and inappropriate, especially with the insults you hurl along the way to anyone who would deviate from your “leet”, “flawless” playstyle.

If you don’t think people should be allowed to be different from you, you are in for a rough ride, because that’s not the way the world works.

I can easily edit your post to say something totally appropriate and non-insulting, favoring Berserker’s stats, but without the arrogance/attitude.