Guild Wars 2

I am more or less trying to get into gw2 slowly, what I have noticed, is that many people see zerker as a problem, I kinda do too, mainly because the whole “only zerker” thing in dungeon runs.

But what is the alternative, do people mainly want something like bunker to prevail over zerker or…?

All in all, would like an explanation, because I got both, and got to admit, a bit more fun playing with a huge damage dealer (glass cannon) rather than a bunker sitting there and slowly pulling hp off opponent while receiving pretty low damage.

(This is normaly seen as both in PvP and PvE, I dont want to rule 1 out)

People run zerker builds because it’s usually the most efficient way of doing the content. Removing zerker from the meta would just make a different build become the meta, so the meta does not just disappear. If you wish to run different builds, it’s pretty easy to make your own LFG party saying what you want. There are also some guilds out there which are dedicated to not-skipping mobs and running any build you want.

I know, I just wanted a explanation of why people would like zerker builds gone, and what the alternative would be? (and made a statement that i think bunkers would a pretty bad alternative)

People want berserker build gone because they can’t deal with the fact their rp mace healing guardian isn’t the fastest build to complete a path. The alternative would be assassin, or zealot, something with precision and critical damage for reflect classes. Berserker build doesn’t even exist; berserker is a gear, not a build.

I imagine a lot hopes it will drop the elitism down a notch. If the most effective way is going to be a slow crawl anyway, why complain?

I don’t know. Early trains of thought might not be the best.

zengara.8301:

I know, I just wanted a explanation of why people would like zerker builds gone, and what the alternative would be? (and made a statement that i think bunkers would a pretty bad alternative)

Because they think it’s a problem but it’s not

The problem isn’t that zerker is a problem. The problem is that zerker seems to be the only solution. It’s all good to use what works, but some people actually ENJOY filling other roles that don’t involve generic glass-cannoning. And the pro-zerker group is right, removing zerker builds would not help. The solution is to find a way to make other builds and roles more useful.

zengara.8301:

I know, I just wanted a explanation of why people would like zerker builds gone, and what the alternative would be? (and made a statement that i think bunkers would a pretty bad alternative)

Those people want everything nerfed to the lowest common denominator – them, because scrubs. Unfortunately, when it gets nerfed, they complain about it being “too long”, “too unrewarding” and so on, since they live in a vanilla world and can’t grasp the fact that those two things – rewards and efficiency – are what all games are based on.

Yeah, giving the other a role would help, but wouldn’t that just instantly return to the trinity problem? where there is a healer/tank/dps since the others also need a role, I cant see a way out of this beside giving healing a significant boost and tank/bunker more agro + armor? (which will in the end just make this game into WoW with better graphics o.o…)

But if they could somehow fix it, without making it a trinity problem, or that they need a certain role for each dungeon, then it would be awesome, especially if no matter the combination, the fast runs would end at around the same time.

Many people (especially in PvE) enjoy high-dps gear because it gets the job done very quickly and effectively if they understand combat mechanics in various situations. I believe that the condition cap is one main reason why condition builds have been underused in PvE, although I think such a cap is good in PvP situations. Either way, pure dps is often the way to go in the current stage of PvE, and as a result we have many groups frowning upon the use of other armor stats; the bad apples of the PvE elite world are the ones who leave a bad image of higher end dungeon runs with their “zerk only or kick” mentality.

Berserker stats aren’t the problem in PvE, and instead it’s the basic NPC fighting mechanics that are easily manipulated and extremely predictable. Players calling for the removal or nerf of berserker stats likely won’t get rid of elitists in the game; I would think such nerfs or removals could inspire certain elitists to ragequit GW2, only to be replaced by the next generation of elitists soon after.

There are elite players in PvE and there are elitists; elitists aren’t always good at the game and will usually be quick to judge others based on their gear. Nerfing or removing high-dps builds will not solve the elitist problem, and instead I think ANet is doing a great job of slowly updating the NPC fighting mechanics through the Living World. We may find fights in the future where zerker will be less viable compared to other gear combinations, which is perhaps the best way to encourage build diversity in PvE.

These are my opinions on the matter. Edited to fix a typo.

The problem is that while the tanking role was removed, the stats remained, without any actual mechanics being added in to allow for interesting alternative strategy within the game, or even giving an effect to our active abilities. This, combined with an unchallenging PVE environment, leads to a very narrow choice when it comes to wanting to maximise your efficiency and skill with the game as it currently stands, leaving other options as sub-optimal outside of acting as a crutch.

If the best you can do with maxed out tanking gear is just facetank the enemy, it really isn’t all that interesting an option in a world without any proper aggro management.

No armour sets should be gotten rid of, the game just needs to add in mechanics to expand the role of the less popular stats so that they are not considered so woefully inefficient in comparison to damage enhancing stats. The ideal would be an environment where people can express skill with the game in different dimensions depending on all the tools they use, with difficulty only being determined by the actual encounters.

Thanatos.2691:

Many people (especially in PvE) enjoy high-dps gear because it gets the job done very quickly and effectively if they understand combat mechanics in various situations. I believe that the condition cap is one main reason why condition builds have been underused in PvE, although I think such a cap is good in PvP situations. Either way, pure dps is often the way to go in the current stage of PvE, and as a result we have many groups frowning upon the use of other armor stats; the bad apples of the PvE elite world are the ones who leave a bad image of higher end dungeon runs with their “zerk only or kick” mentality.

Pure DPS is false, pure DPS Armor Stats is correct for the zerker “meta”. Nowadays I mostly play my Thief in dungeons / fractals. Do I use “Pure DPS” gear? Yes I use full Berserker with Scholar Runes, do I use “Pure DPS” in general? Hell no.

I use my Shortbow to provide lots of Blast Finishers for Might, to skip parts or reach places / events quickly, to provide easy Poison Fields for near perma Weakness on hard hitting mobs.
I use my Pistol off-hand to interrupt key skills of trash mobs (like Terragriffs), I use it to provide blindness for mobs in Dungeons.
I use a main Sword combined with Pistol offhand for Pistol Whip to offset Retaliation, for easy spammable personal condi removal and lots of aoe cleave for bunched up mobs.
I use my daggers for lots of DPS to bring down mobs/bosses quickly.

That’s just for weapons, I change my weapons way too often. Same goes with traits and utility skills.

Traiting for condi removal when I apply stealth is amazing with CnD to remove things like lots of Bleed stacks and constant burning.
Extra stealth duration for those skips, and the labyrinth in the Silverwastes.
Fall damage reduction self-explanatory
Providing Might/Fury/Swiftness to myself and my party when I Steal is great support

Smokescreen to protect myself and my party from projectiles AND another blind field, in case I’m out of initiative and can’t use Black Powder, or don’t have my off-hand pistol equipped.

What I’m trying to say is that players can have multiple playstyles and it’s better to change to fit a situation so you are optimal. There is no “perfect” build that can apply to all situations equally, you need to adapt and change to be optimal, therefore just “pure dps” is wrong and is never used in any group that is worth something.

Notice how despite all the changes I do, I’m never “forced” to also change my gear. I can stay in my Full Berserker and provide MASSIVE support for my team, and have super survivabiltiy for myself, without the need to change my gear stats. And this is one of the best things in this game.

tl;dr People say that the there is no variety and different playstyles in the “zerker meta” but that’s completely wrong. There is build diversity/variety, there are combinations, lots of support and control going on in the “zerker meta” that players want so much to destroy.

I think gear stats themselves were a bad addition to the game. It’s gear that needs tweaking, don’t confuse the “zerker meta” with Berserker stats. Those who just use their stats and go 11111 pure dps are NOT what the “zerker meta” is.

Croc.5129:

No armour sets should be gotten rid of, the game just needs to add in mechanics to expand the role of the less popular stats so that they are not considered so woefully inefficient in comparison to damage enhancing stats. The ideal would be an environment where people can express skill with the game in different dimensions depending on all the tools they use, with difficulty only being determined by the actual encounters.

But that’s exactly what is happening in the game right now. Changing your weapons / traits / skills depending on the situation is important and knowing what to use and when to use it is the actual player skill required.

The “Problem” with tanking gear is that it makes people not die as easily, if offers a buffer in their survability. When players understand the encounters, and the tools at their disposal, better, they can switch to more damaging gear. I don’t see a problem with that really, changing to more and more offensive gear as you get better and better at an action-oriented game isn’t bad.

Content is already very easy with “tanking” gear, you stand there and take all hits never getting downed. With more offensive gear, a few simple mistakes will lead to your death, why should tanking gear be made even better then?

zengara.8301:

Yeah, giving the other a role would help, but wouldn’t that just instantly return to the trinity problem? where there is a healer/tank/dps since the others also need a role, I cant see a way out of this beside giving healing a significant boost and tank/bunker more agro + armor? (which will in the end just make this game into WoW with better graphics o.o…)

But if they could somehow fix it, without making it a trinity problem, or that they need a certain role for each dungeon, then it would be awesome, especially if no matter the combination, the fast runs would end at around the same time.

You are completely correct. If they make other roles required then it shifts to a trinity and people are forced to wait for other roles. Elitism remains. If they dont buff other roles enough then people will stay berserker. You cant really fix it. It really just comes down to the people complaining need to understand what they are asking for and learn to deal with it by finding their own groups.

maddoctor.2738:

Thanatos.2691:

Many people (especially in PvE) enjoy high-dps gear because it gets the job done very quickly and effectively if they understand combat mechanics in various situations. I believe that the condition cap is one main reason why condition builds have been underused in PvE, although I think such a cap is good in PvP situations. Either way, pure dps is often the way to go in the current stage of PvE, and as a result we have many groups frowning upon the use of other armor stats; the bad apples of the PvE elite world are the ones who leave a bad image of higher end dungeon runs with their “zerk only or kick” mentality.

Pure DPS is false, pure DPS Armor Stats is correct for the zerker “meta”. Nowadays I mostly play my Thief in dungeons / fractals. Do I use “Pure DPS” gear? Yes I use full Berserker with Scholar Runes, do I use “Pure DPS” in general? Hell no.

I use my Shortbow to provide lots of Blast Finishers for Might, to skip parts or reach places / events quickly, to provide easy Poison Fields for near perma Weakness on hard hitting mobs.
I use my Pistol off-hand to interrupt key skills of trash mobs (like Terragriffs), I use it to provide blindness for mobs in Dungeons.
I use a main Sword combined with Pistol offhand for Pistol Whip to offset Retaliation, for easy spammable personal condi removal and lots of aoe cleave for bunched up mobs.
I use my daggers for lots of DPS to bring down mobs/bosses quickly.

That’s just for weapons, I change my weapons way too often. Same goes with traits and utility skills.

Traiting for condi removal when I apply stealth is amazing with CnD to remove things like lots of Bleed stacks and constant burning.
Extra stealth duration for those skips, and the labyrinth in the Silverwastes.
Fall damage reduction self-explanatory
Providing Might/Fury/Swiftness to myself and my party when I Steal is great support

Smokescreen to protect myself and my party from projectiles AND another blind field, in case I’m out of initiative and can’t use Black Powder, or don’t have my off-hand pistol equipped.

What I’m trying to say is that players can have multiple playstyles and it’s better to change to fit a situation so you are optimal. There is no “perfect” build that can apply to all situations equally, you need to adapt and change to be optimal, therefore just “pure dps” is wrong and is never used in any group that is worth something.

Notice how despite all the changes I do, I’m never “forced” to also change my gear. I can stay in my Full Berserker and provide MASSIVE support for my team, and have super survivabiltiy for myself, without the need to change my gear stats. And this is one of the best things in this game.

tl;dr People say that the there is no variety and different playstyles in the “zerker meta” but that’s completely wrong. There is build diversity/variety, there are combinations, lots of support and control going on in the “zerker meta” that players want so much to destroy.

I think gear stats themselves were a bad addition to the game. It’s gear that needs tweaking, don’t confuse the “zerker meta” with Berserker stats. Those who just use their stats and go 11111 pure dps are NOT what the “zerker meta” is.

Right. Perhaps I should have said pure DPS builds as was the intended meaning all along. We are talking about the builds (mainly those that utilize berserker armor stats) in this thread after all, so I assumed it was already implied that is what we were discussing. I’m sorry you felt the need to go on a tangent about playstyles in a thread about builds and gear due to one small detail that context clues obviously weren’t able to make clear. I’ll try to type every single word in the future while remembering the daunting evidence in this post that context clues aren’t utilized effectively by all readers.

You’re right, don’t get me wrong. Situational playstyles are important for good play, but that’s not what this tread is about.

Thanatos.2691:

Right. Perhaps I should have said pure DPS builds as was the intended meaning all along. We are talking about the builds (mainly those that utilize berserker armor stats) in this thread after all, so I assumed it was already implied that is what we were discussing. I’m sorry you felt the need to go on a tangent about playstyles in a thread about builds and gear due to one small detail that context clues obviously weren’t able to make clear. I’ll try to type every single word in the future while remembering the daunting evidence in this post that context clues aren’t utilized effectively by all readers.

You’re right, don’t get me wrong. Situational playstyles are important for good play, but that’s not what this tread is about.

There is no pure DPS build in the “zerker meta”. That’s what I was explaining in my post, Support and Control both happen in those speedrun “zerker only” parties that people hate so much. And in some cases (most cases maybe?) they SUPPORT and CONTROL way more than people with defensive gear do.

In the most well optimized speedrun groups you are rarely left without 25 stacks might (or close), permanent fury, appropriate blind fields for trash mobs, stealth and projectile reflection, party stability, aoe condi cleanse etc, in other words you always have maximum and efficient SUPPORT and CONTROL. On the other hand in those “random” parties you rarely have 1 stack of might, and MAYBE some Guardian will use WoR to reflect projectiles. Seeing a Thief using Smokescreen when WoR is on CD, or there is no Guardian in the party, is as rare as a precursor drop.

Gear stats is NOT your BUILD. There is absolutely nothing wrong with builds in this game. You can support and control just fine, regardless of your gear.

These people who see zerker as a problem don’t realise their fighting mobs with 50-200k and bosses with up to a million hp and are sitting there with petty 150 dps and think they are saving the team. You can solo every dungeon with zerker.
I don’t mind if people use some peices of assassin and celestial but when people run full pvt and nomad which scale up the boss and escalate the risk of getting 1 shot then they bring nothing to the team infact the whole dungeon go faster without them.
You can play how you want…
However don’t join a zerker only group and expect to get carried.
In games with trinity the tank have ways to hold aggro there is no such thing here.

tom.7468:

but when people run full pvt and nomad which scale up the boss and escalate the risk of getting 1 shot then they bring nothing to the team

According to calculations on reddit, full nomad’s guardian does about 48% damage of full berserker’s. Not defending tanky gear in DPS-centered scenarios, just noting that “nothing” is a bit far-fetched.

The good thing about the zerk meta is it actually makes good use of this games combat system, which is actively dodging and timing abilities.

If anything else that isn’t a pure glass was to become meta, it would actually degrade the gameplay (at least for pve)

Now all Anet needs to do is capitalize on this by making more difficult dungeon and bosses that follow the line of thinking when they designed lupicus and this game will become the Dark Souls of MMO.

zengara.8301:

I am more or less trying to get into gw2 slowly, what I have noticed, is that many people see zerker as a problem, I kinda do too, mainly because the whole “only zerker” thing in dungeon runs.

But what is the alternative, do people mainly want something like bunker to prevail over zerker or…?

All in all, would like an explanation, because I got both, and got to admit, a bit more fun playing with a huge damage dealer (glass cannon) rather than a bunker sitting there and slowly pulling hp off opponent while receiving pretty low damage.

(This is normaly seen as both in PvP and PvE, I dont want to rule 1 out)

People want to play in their “unique” sub-optimal roleplaying ways and still get maximum reward for it.

That’s where the “zerker problem” is – it’s people who don’t want to play for maximum rewards wanting those rewards while still playing well within their own comfort zone.

The idea is not to adapt to the game in order to perform better but to adapt the game to them in order to perform better.

It isn’t even about damage or zerker in the end – it’s about people being excluded because they’re ineffective and instead of changing that they want the game to change in a way that makes them more effective.

Selver.1307:

I imagine a lot hopes it will drop the elitism down a notch. If the most effective way is going to be a slow crawl anyway, why complain?

I don’t know. Early trains of thought might not be the best.

No it would not – because it’s also about mentality. Nobody likes to play with players that are different. At least not the “elitists”.

zengara.8301:

I know, I just wanted a explanation of why people would like zerker builds gone, and what the alternative would be? (and made a statement that i think bunkers would a pretty bad alternative)

Because they aren’t good enough to play zerker builds, most often. Just going by my personal experiences there.

maddoctor.2738:

Thanatos.2691:

Right. Perhaps I should have said pure DPS builds as was the intended meaning all along. We are talking about the builds (mainly those that utilize berserker armor stats) in this thread after all, so I assumed it was already implied that is what we were discussing. I’m sorry you felt the need to go on a tangent about playstyles in a thread about builds and gear due to one small detail that context clues obviously weren’t able to make clear. I’ll try to type every single word in the future while remembering the daunting evidence in this post that context clues aren’t utilized effectively by all readers.

You’re right, don’t get me wrong. Situational playstyles are important for good play, but that’s not what this tread is about.

There is no pure DPS build in the “zerker meta”. That’s what I was explaining in my post, Support and Control both happen in those speedrun “zerker only” parties that people hate so much. And in some cases (most cases maybe?) they SUPPORT and CONTROL way more than people with defensive gear do.

In the most well optimized speedrun groups you are rarely left without 25 stacks might (or close), permanent fury, appropriate blind fields for trash mobs, stealth and projectile reflection, party stability, aoe condi cleanse etc, in other words you always have maximum and efficient SUPPORT and CONTROL. On the other hand in those “random” parties you rarely have 1 stack of might, and MAYBE some Guardian will use WoR to reflect projectiles. Seeing a Thief using Smokescreen when WoR is on CD, or there is no Guardian in the party, is as rare as a precursor drop.

Gear stats is NOT your BUILD. There is absolutely nothing wrong with builds in this game. You can support and control just fine, regardless of your gear.

I’m sorry? Gear stats are very much a part of a build.

http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki
http://en.gw2skills.net/

etc. etc. etc. Gear stats are very important in a build as an essential component of gear-trait synergy. For example if a build relies on on-crit effects, then gear with high precision is more useful. If you’re a phalanx-strength warrior, runes of strength would be a very useful part of that particular build for sustaining party might, unless you want to go a step further and argue that runes and sigils are also not a part of a build. Food and other consumables are also just as important for a build when used in certain situations. Once again, we are talking about gear and not player skills. Player skill is not part of a build.

Berserker gear has been well-known as the armor of choice for PvE in the past years; berserker gear and other high-dps gears are best utilized by better players in dungeons. As players have gained an understanding of the combat mechanics in PvE and how to exploit them, berserker gear has become much more popular since there is much less risk with the additional information we’ve gained these past years.

A new player likely won’t know when do dodge every boss attack or when to pre-might, etc. and would possibly be more interested in defensive gear to stay alive longer; when these defensive-geared new players are faced with the “zerker only” posts of [usually] more experienced players, the new players are made to feel unwelcome due to their choice of gear. The three paths a newer player takes from here as I’ve observed is 1: buy zerker gear after succumbing to peer pressure, 2: stick with defensive gear until comfortable with switching over to whatever the current meta is as far as gear choice, or 3: forget about the meta entirely and play how they want. Of course my observations may very well differ from others, but this is where I believe the problem has stemmed from.

Not as many people cared about the zerker gear in the beginning of the game when many mechanics were still being learned, and new players are struggling against older players who already understand the mechanics and see less risk in running builds utilizing high-dps gear. One elitist bad apple in the dungeon community can create more bad apples who create a bad image of dungeoneers. In an attempt to explain and possibly rectify this unsolvable problem, a good chunk of people have attempted to link the player attitude problem with the gear they use without considering the difference in personalities and game time between players in this massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

These are my personal opinions on the matter and I do hope we can stay on track with this thread although the topic has been beaten to death well over a year ago for GW2. We are not discussing situational class mechanics, rather the zerker builds/gear that are perceived as a problem by a percentage of our GW2 population.

zengara.8301:

I know, I just wanted a explanation of why people would like zerker builds gone, and what the alternative would be? (and made a statement that i think bunkers would a pretty bad alternative)

Quick recall : playing full meta is difficult despite what some players want you to believe. Miss one dodge and you wipe. I’m talking about fractal 30+ and Arah, not AC or CoF (where it’s easy as pie). I personnaly do not have the skill to play meta ATM.

Some people want zerker gone because they are jealous. Mostly.

Some (other) people think that the overdominance of berserker (and direct damage type) over condition damage is a problem that needs to be adressed. Nike proposed a fix not a long ago. Can’t find the original post though.

However there is an overexposition of berserker and metagame in this MMO. Truth is, 2/3 of the players I’ve played with do not bother with the meta and do their daily AC P3 in knight, valkyrie or celestial equipment.

It’s fine as long as you do not care about breaking the world record.

maddoctor.2738:

But that’s exactly what is happening in the game right now. Changing your weapons / traits / skills depending on the situation is important and knowing what to use and when to use it is the actual player skill required.

The “Problem” with tanking gear is that it makes people not die as easily, if offers a buffer in their survability. When players understand the encounters, and the tools at their disposal, better, they can switch to more damaging gear. I don’t see a problem with that really, changing to more and more offensive gear as you get better and better at an action-oriented game isn’t bad.

Content is already very easy with “tanking” gear, you stand there and take all hits never getting downed. With more offensive gear, a few simple mistakes will lead to your death, why should tanking gear be made even better then?

The problem is not that there are no tools to play with, just that the range of effective tools is narrow, and defensive stats are mostly cut out of many interactions with the most meaningful build choices you can make.

When you say playing with defensive gear is easier, you are just stating what I see is part of the problem with the game. Every single video where a man can just face tank an enemy without having to utilise the full range of their options is something I see as a design flaw caused by the lack of mechanical association between one’s available abilities and their defensive stats.

Difficulty of the game should nto be something determined by gear, but by the individual encounter you are trying to face. Just being able to stand there and take damage without having to rely on your abilities is also a design flaw of the game without any underlying mechanics to take advantage of with the extra survivability.

Gear should offer alternative tactics which are just as effective and carry just as much risk across the board, with meaningful mechanics to support that. A bad player in tanky gear would do pitiful damage to the enemy until their armor was penetrated and crushed. A good defensive minded player would be able to throw the enemy off balance and attack them while they are vulnerable using their skills, while a berserker would continue with an equivelant strategy of dodging the enemy’s attacks and then hitting the enemy right back with the force of an avalanche, while trying to avoid being overwhelmed by the enemy’s assault. Enemy AI improvement would go a long way to supporting this kind of adaptability.

The way the game is set up right now is so simple that there is only one linear path to mastering the content, and I find it boring. And as long as the base mechanics remain the same, no matter what mordrem are added in, the way to improve will always be to pile on offensive stats. There is no real give and take in this kind of system.

I am asking for an expansion of the game’s content so that actual skilled play can be expressed in multiple different ways, which would mean toning down inherent value of defensive stats in exchange for the implementation of affecting defensive abilities for similar effect, so that you can punish the enemy for attacking you instead of just standing there and being able to auto-attack to victory. Making one have to work and properly apply their abilities in order to not have to retreat from the enemy if they build themselves that way, instead of only being able to improve your abilities with offensive stats. Healing can be improved too, but the investment is never worth it in comparison to focusing on your offensive stats.

If blocking for instance were an equivelant stamina draining ability to dodging in the game, where you want to catch an enemy’s attack for a debuff or a change in their current state which would allow them to take even more damage, or do less damage to your allies, while blocking simultaneously also leaves you exposed if you time it improperly, making you take even more damage. And a successful block will still leave you with a damage malus, which can be decreased to negligible levels with a high enough amount of toughness. This is a rough idea just to illustrate one possible thing the game can add in to expand playing potential.

Understanding the encounter should mean utilising the skills you have to defeat the enemy in the most efficient way possible. It just so happens that the game only supports a narrow understanding of that efficiency with its current implemented mechanics, with a lack of meaningful interactions with defensive stats being implemented. The end point of all this is that any group, with any combination of builds and gear, can mix their abilities together in order to achieve equivelant clearing times when they work to the best of their focus, with the difficulty of the encounter being what challenges the group’s skill.

maddoctor.2738:

Thanatos.2691:

Many people (especially in PvE) enjoy high-dps gear because it gets the job done very quickly and effectively if they understand combat mechanics in various situations. I believe that the condition cap is one main reason why condition builds have been underused in PvE, although I think such a cap is good in PvP situations. Either way, pure dps is often the way to go in the current stage of PvE, and as a result we have many groups frowning upon the use of other armor stats; the bad apples of the PvE elite world are the ones who leave a bad image of higher end dungeon runs with their “zerk only or kick” mentality.

Pure DPS is false, pure DPS Armor Stats is correct for the zerker “meta”. Nowadays I mostly play my Thief in dungeons / fractals. Do I use “Pure DPS” gear? Yes I use full Berserker with Scholar Runes, do I use “Pure DPS” in general? Hell no.

I use my Shortbow to provide lots of Blast Finishers for Might, to skip parts or reach places / events quickly, to provide easy Poison Fields for near perma Weakness on hard hitting mobs.
I use my Pistol off-hand to interrupt key skills of trash mobs (like Terragriffs), I use it to provide blindness for mobs in Dungeons.
I use a main Sword combined with Pistol offhand for Pistol Whip to offset Retaliation, for easy spammable personal condi removal and lots of aoe cleave for bunched up mobs.
I use my daggers for lots of DPS to bring down mobs/bosses quickly.

That’s just for weapons, I change my weapons way too often. Same goes with traits and utility skills.

Traiting for condi removal when I apply stealth is amazing with CnD to remove things like lots of Bleed stacks and constant burning.
Extra stealth duration for those skips, and the labyrinth in the Silverwastes.
Fall damage reduction self-explanatory
Providing Might/Fury/Swiftness to myself and my party when I Steal is great support

Smokescreen to protect myself and my party from projectiles AND another blind field, in case I’m out of initiative and can’t use Black Powder, or don’t have my off-hand pistol equipped.

What I’m trying to say is that players can have multiple playstyles and it’s better to change to fit a situation so you are optimal. There is no “perfect” build that can apply to all situations equally, you need to adapt and change to be optimal, therefore just “pure dps” is wrong and is never used in any group that is worth something.

Notice how despite all the changes I do, I’m never “forced” to also change my gear. I can stay in my Full Berserker and provide MASSIVE support for my team, and have super survivabiltiy for myself, without the need to change my gear stats. And this is one of the best things in this game.

tl;dr People say that the there is no variety and different playstyles in the “zerker meta” but that’s completely wrong. There is build diversity/variety, there are combinations, lots of support and control going on in the “zerker meta” that players want so much to destroy.

I think gear stats themselves were a bad addition to the game. It’s gear that needs tweaking, don’t confuse the “zerker meta” with Berserker stats. Those who just use their stats and go 11111 pure dps are NOT what the “zerker meta” is.

And yet, with PVT gear, or any healing gear, all that support is useless if you can’t output the damage that is required for certain groups that want fast and efficient runs. That is why it’s called berserker meta, because berserker gear is preferred.

The “Zerker Problem” is the result of two choices made by ArenaNet:
1. Having Active Defense (dodging).
2. Having all offensive and all defensive stat allocations.

Choice 1 is one that I agree with, as it makes the game more fun.
Choice 2 is the problem. When you make a game that allows a large difference between the best and worst in terms of DPS, the percentage of “unacceptable” builds is also larger. This leads to a playerbase split between those who demand the most efficient runs (and those who blindly think they are following the most efficient runs just because they copy their build) and those who don’t care that much about efficiency and are just playing to have fun. Once those two groups meet up, the terms “elitists” and “scrubs” show up almost instantly.

Ideally, there would be no gear sets that have only offensive or only defensive stats as this would squish the possible DPS range and increase the number of “acceptable” gear sets which would then make both groups less hostile to each other. Obviously, there would still be the actual “elitists” who only want the meta in their group because they are doing speed runs (which, let’s be honest here, don’t have a problem with scrubs because they aren’t using the LFG tool, they have a whole guild dedicated to excluding non-meta players which keeps them out of the fray) and the actual “scrubs”, but they will have less of an impact.

Unfortunately, it’s probably too late to delete people’s gear and force them into a narrower band of DPS possibilities (remember all that ruckus over the Magic Find removal? and that wasn’t even a helpful stat at all!), so we are stuck with the current toxic environment where the two sides throw stones and hurt everyone in the middle.

mtpelion.4562:

The “Zerker Problem” is the result of two choices made by ArenaNet:
1. Having Active Defense (dodging).
2. Having all offensive and all defensive stat allocations.

Choice 1 is one that I agree with, as it makes the game more fun.
Choice 2 is the problem. When you make a game that allows a large difference between the best and worst in terms of DPS, the percentage of “unacceptable” builds is also larger. This leads to a playerbase split between those who demand the most efficient runs (and those who blindly think they are following the most efficient runs just because they copy their build) and those who don’t care that much about efficiency and are just playing to have fun. Once those two groups meet up, the terms “elitists” and “scrubs” show up almost instantly.

Ideally, there would be no gear sets that have only offensive or only defensive stats as this would squish the possible DPS range and increase the number of “acceptable” gear sets which would then make both groups less hostile to each other. Obviously, there would still be the actual “elitists” who only want the meta in their group because they are doing speed runs (which, let’s be honest here, don’t have a problem with scrubs because they aren’t using the LFG tool, they have a whole guild dedicated to excluding non-meta players which keeps them out of the fray) and the actual “scrubs”, but they will have less of an impact.

Unfortunately, it’s probably too late to delete people’s gear and force them into a narrower band of DPS possibilities (remember all that ruckus over the Magic Find removal? and that wasn’t even a helpful stat at all!), so we are stuck with the current toxic environment where the two sides throw stones and hurt everyone in the middle.

As stalker-ish as this might sound, I enjoy reading your posts

mtpelion.4562:

Once those two groups meet up, the terms “elitists” and “scrubs” show up almost instantly.

I love that moment when “Scrubs” pwn “Elitists”.

Bererker gear is pretty much part of the meta at this point and isn’t likely to change. Part of the problem that caused this is that dungeon monsters were “balanced” by making them tanky more than anything else, so groups want DPS in order to reduce the frustration of long fights. These were also like this since the game’s release.

To me the game has been moving in the right direction, especially with the living story fights. Both of the dragon bosses were not particularly tanky, but introduced new mechanics in order to avoid damage and make the boss vulnerable. This makes other gear more viable (I did them on my PTV Engineer without issue) but still trains the player towards avoiding damage and attacks altogether. In that case Berzerker gear will still be the end-goal to be able to use in fights.

mtpelion.4562:

… so we are stuck with the current toxic environment where the two sides throw stones and hurt everyone in the middle.

Long story short, the extremists are kittenholes who can’t be nice to others?

When I look at the language used in some of the pro/anti sides, I see a startling lack of empathy/emotional intelligence. …on the internet! Shocking.

On to me being less snarky. The “zerker problem” is mostly a PR issue that spawned from items mtpelion pointed out above and the natural inclination for many gamers to optimize.
If players could learn how to use the LFG tool with open communication, we’d see much less of these problems.

Tao.5096:

I love that moment when “Scrubs” pwn “Elitists”.

The “scrubs” obliviously believe that they pwned “elitists” when they enter the “elitist” groups and make them fail because their ignorance ruins the synergies and strategies which are required by “elitists” to be so efficient.

Lifestealer.4910:

The good thing about the zerk meta is it actually makes good use of this games combat system, which is actively dodging and timing abilities.

If anything else that isn’t a pure glass was to become meta, it would actually degrade the gameplay (at least for pve)

Now all Anet needs to do is capitalize on this by making more difficult dungeon and bosses that follow the line of thinking when they designed lupicus and this game will become the Dark Souls of MMO.

Erm, lupicus takes less than a minute to kill with reflects. He’s one of the easiest/fastest bosses in Arah. In terms of ‘hard’ dungeon bosses, the HoTW bosses tend to be harder. Meleeing the boss at the end of HoTWp1 without getting downed is significantly harder, and melee cleaving the double quaggan boss in p2 even more so.

It’s enough that most speed clear teams range these two bosses, but nearly everyone melees lupi if they’re not new to Arah explorables.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Tao.5096:

I love that moment when “Scrubs” pwn “Elitists”.

The “scrubs” obliviously believe that they pwned “elitists” when they enter the “elitist” groups and make them fail because their ignorance ruins the synergies and strategies which are required by “elitists” to be so efficient.

That’s a rather condescending view-point. It’s not unheard of for a scrub to end up out-performing elitist that were not as skilled and finely tuned as they thought they were. Hardly means the scrub made them fail or ruined there synergies.

See it this way: in WoW you only have certain stats you need for your class. The same in Guild Wars 2: you have only Berserker stats for your DPS class. Since all are DPS.

The big problem is other stats won’t help much: fights takes longer, the damage output of the enemy takes longer —> you have to mitigate it with your crappy stats (cleric etc.). Since you can dodge, reflect, blind, etc. You can acively nullify most attacks from enemies. Of course you need to be good or you go down quickly (but even then, you dish out DPS as long as you live an be still more useful than a crappy staff cleric guardian).

Dedlaw.9130:

Lishtenbird.2814:

Tao.5096:

I love that moment when “Scrubs” pwn “Elitists”.

The “scrubs” obliviously believe that they pwned “elitists” when they enter the “elitist” groups and make them fail because their ignorance ruins the synergies and strategies which are required by “elitists” to be so efficient.

That’s a rather condescending view-point. It’s not unheard of for a scrub to end up out-performing elitist that were not as skilled and finely tuned as they thought they were. Hardly means the scrub made them fail or ruined there synergies.

It’s a condescending view-point directed at an another condescending view-point. (That’s actually why most “zerker” threads are degrading into flaming eventually and get closed.)

Yes, non-skilled players aiming for skilled tactics can fail, and skilled players using common sense can outperform the less sharp wannabes. But skilled experienced players in a coordinated group can fail because of an unexperienced player “playing how s/he wants” – which I do see from my daily lvl 49 fractal runs with guildies on TS when we’re short of people, and even from CoE/AC runs. No Deep Freeze because of an unneeded CC on zero defiance stacks, area retaliation instead of might and so on, and so on.

Lishtenbird.2814:

Tao.5096:

I love that moment when “Scrubs” pwn “Elitists”.

The “scrubs” obliviously believe that they pwned “elitists” when they enter the “elitist” groups and make them fail because their ignorance ruins the synergies and strategies which are required by “elitists” to be so efficient.

I have read a bit, and I agree on 1 thing….
As it is now, the dungeons are targeted towards 5 players, not what the professions are, or builds…..what if they changed that and made it alot more direct/detailed, so instead of acting upon how many people are inside, each dungeon reads the different stats and acknowledge them combined or 1 by 1 (of course it got a minimum HP/dmg so that 5 people are needed)?

(Really the only way I can see this work, without this game needs to change to different “builds” each time)

zengara.8301:

I am more or less trying to get into gw2 slowly, what I have noticed, is that many people see zerker as a problem, I kinda do too, mainly because the whole “only zerker” thing in dungeon runs.

OP, you see so many “zerker only” ads in LFG because they take longer to fill than others. Plenty of people open LFG for dungeons with no specific gear requirements.

When I open an LFG for “P1, speedrun,” it takes much longer to fill than “P1, everyone welcome.” So a lot of the time I do the latter, since I’d rather complete the dungeon more slowly and actually be playing than waiting around for my group to fill.

It’s not berserker’s gear that’s the problem – it’s bad attitudes, on both sides of the fence. Not everyone who gears/traits for max damage in PvE is an elitist or a jerk. A very very small minority of people are like that.

If you want to do a specific dungeon and all the groups in LFG are requesting gear you don’t use, open your own! Some of the people who join might even be using berserker’s gear, and they might be really cool and helpful to someone who’s learning.

Rauderi.8706:

mtpelion.4562:

… so we are stuck with the current toxic environment where the two sides throw stones and hurt everyone in the middle.

Long story short, the extremists are kittenholes who can’t be nice to others?

When I look at the language used in some of the pro/anti sides, I see a startling lack of empathy/emotional intelligence. …on the internet! Shocking.

On to me being less snarky. The “zerker problem” is mostly a PR issue that spawned from items mtpelion pointed out above and the natural inclination for many gamers to optimize.
If players could learn how to use the LFG tool with open communication, we’d see much less of these problems.

If there was an automatic grouping feature that every other MMO uses, this whole issue would go away.

Hayashi.3416:

Lifestealer.4910:

The good thing about the zerk meta is it actually makes good use of this games combat system, which is actively dodging and timing abilities.

If anything else that isn’t a pure glass was to become meta, it would actually degrade the gameplay (at least for pve)

Now all Anet needs to do is capitalize on this by making more difficult dungeon and bosses that follow the line of thinking when they designed lupicus and this game will become the Dark Souls of MMO.

Erm, lupicus takes less than a minute to kill with reflects. He’s one of the easiest/fastest bosses in Arah. In terms of ‘hard’ dungeon bosses, the HoTW bosses tend to be harder. Meleeing the boss at the end of HoTWp1 without getting downed is significantly harder, and melee cleaving the double quaggan boss in p2 even more so.

It’s enough that most speed clear teams range these two bosses, but nearly everyone melees lupi if they’re not new to Arah explorables.

What i meant by the line of thinking with lupicus is to have bosses that have different stages with different attacks that the player has to learn or risk party wipe. Anyone who went to arah for the first time or even after a week will think that lupicus is a nightmare to beat (if u dont exploit that is).

The boss encourages player to get better and learn which is what all dungeon bosses should be.

Squee.7829:

The problem isn’t that zerker is a problem. The problem is that zerker seems to be the only solution. It’s all good to use what works, but some people actually ENJOY filling other roles that don’t involve generic glass-cannoning. And the pro-zerker group is right, removing zerker builds would not help. The solution is to find a way to make other builds and roles more useful.

The other problem are people themselves.

They just can’t hit the “create party” button for some reason.

Complaining about the meta will never go away, when something changes, a new meta will will form, the old will disappear. And then people will start complaining about the NEW meta, and the cycle continues. All you have to do is look at LoL when it comes to shifting metas. They nerf or buff something, or change something, the meta changes, and everyone adjusts to it. Then people complain about the meta, so they change something again and a new meta rises, then people complain again…

Serophous.9085:

Squee.7829:

The problem isn’t that zerker is a problem. The problem is that zerker seems to be the only solution. It’s all good to use what works, but some people actually ENJOY filling other roles that don’t involve generic glass-cannoning. And the pro-zerker group is right, removing zerker builds would not help. The solution is to find a way to make other builds and roles more useful.

The other problem are people themselves.

They just can’t hit the “create party” button for some reason.

People don’t usually like to lead, so they would rather just join an existing group. It’s the reason why there’s fewer commanders.

Another reason, is because the person who leads is usually the first to get blamed if things go wrong. This is why people don’t want to create groups, and also because they might be new to dungeons.

When they see “experienced 80’s only or gtfo”, they become discouraged before they even start. It sends a negative message to the new player that they suck and aren’t worthy of their group. This is why i prefer automatic grouping, because it places random people in a group, without having them feel any pressure.

nexxe.7081:

…This is why i prefer automatic grouping, because it places random people in a group, without having them feel any pressure.

Wouldn’t automatic grouping end up with more players being kicked? That would be even more discouraging to inexperienced players.

Lazuli.2098:

nexxe.7081:

…This is why i prefer automatic grouping, because it places random people in a group, without having them feel any pressure.

Wouldn’t automatic grouping end up with more players being kicked? That would be even more discouraging to inexperienced players.

It leads to lots of screaming and tryhards bawling on forums about needing tools to weed or the bads, yeah.

The solution for people not wanting to play together isn’t to force them to play together.

Lazuli.2098:

nexxe.7081:

…This is why i prefer automatic grouping, because it places random people in a group, without having them feel any pressure.

Wouldn’t automatic grouping end up with more players being kicked? That would be even more discouraging to inexperienced players.

Actually, it would have the opposite effect, since the people who queued up for the dungeon, would know that they joined a random group, thus eliminating the restrictions that the group creator required. An auto group tool eliminated the elitist and gear-check problems that plagued past MMO’s, but GW2 brought back that atmosphere. This problem doesn’t exist in other mainstream MMO’s anymore, unless you join a hardcore raiding guild that is on the verge of progression raiding.

Why?

ANet designed a game wherein required, dedicated roles were not included. Trinity MMO’s feature builds where everything from gear to talents to weapon choice figured into the build’s intended role. In its place, ANet implemented soft roles, featuring defensive and offensive buffs serving as the means whereby a player would make a contribution to the team effort. There is a stat that improves buffs (boon duration), but it is not featured on any of the common armor sets and is mostly obtained via traits, runes and consumables. This state of affairs created a situation wherein stats on armor/weapons/trinkets primarily allow for players to specialize along two axes.

The first axis is whether one is going to do condition damage or direct damage. In group play, condition damage is inferior to direct damage. Direct damage produces higher DPS. Also, condition damage takes time to ramp up, taking time to get stacks of damaging conditions. Direct damage s more front-loaded, because at the start of a fight, all of one’s skills are off cooldown. There’s also an issue with the condition stack cap, which is a server infrastructure issue. This issue means that condition users will overwrite each others stacks, limiting their damage if more than one or two are present.

The other axis is whether a character is more offensive or more defensive. This game gives players active defensive options. Toughness and resilience have a place in both PvP and PvE. In both modes, you use as much offense as your skill at using active defense allows you to get away with.

The problem in PvE is that there is a different learning curve than in PvP. Sure, in PvP you can learn what each profession can do, and learn attack animations, but you never know exactly what and when that player is going to use X. That is not true in PvE, where mobs behave much the same every time you run into them, and where their “tells” are longer and thus easier to pick up on and react to.

In the meantime, the GW2 dungeons are now “on farm.” As with dungeons/raids in any MMO, once content is on farm, efficiency is job one. Since encounters don’t end until mobs are dead, efficiency parties seek as much DPS as possible to speed things along just as they do in every MMO out there. The difference is that in GW2 you might sacrifice a bit of power from a trait line (e.g., an Empower Allies warrior) or some other similar sacrifice to make the party more efficient, while in the trinity MMO you sacrifice two DPS slots because the encounters require a tank and healer.

Those who complain are upset for a variety of reasons, most of which boil down to wanting to be part of “efficiency” parties while using gear and/or a build that is not considered the most efficient. The same thing happens in every other MMO, with the exception that tanks and healers are usually immune. There may have been a time when Beastmaster Hunters were wanted, for instance, but there were plenty of times then they weren’t.