Guild Wars 2

Title says it, if you’re not running it, are you hurting yourself? Basically, if you and your groupmates aren’t running a full set of zerkers are you just gimping yourself?

Another way to look at it, what’s better:

1) A group going through a dungeon running full zerkers (save for maybe 1 class dedicated to “healing” or protection)

vs

2) A group made up of whatever they wanted to play (how anet states the game can be played)

Or is berserker’s gear only viable for specific dungeon paths (speed runs? CoF1 for example)

Thanks for your input!

EDIT: Just want to clarify a BIT more!

Lets say, for example…Your up against a pack of mobs. Now, you can run in and use your utilities, your wall of reflections, your blocks, your stabilities, crowd control effects, roots, etc with a “normal” group… Or just pull them all in close and AoE the crud out of them and smash them in 6 seconds. That’s what I’m basically asking. Thanks!

Full zerker isn’t currently better than a zerker with cavalier/valk rings (depending on class).
Since you’re stacking fury easily in teams you can sacrifice a bit of precision for health/toughness you lack, there is really no bonus going full berserker.

Imo zerker is your “starting” gear, then you min/max to a better setup.

in most cases dodge roll, invulnerability and healing skills are enough for someone to stay alive, that is why full zerk becomes viable in cof run 1 for example. but if you want to run a dungeon with toughness vita power gear or magic find gear i suggest you go to a party wearing the same gear as you and record the time it takes you to do that run. maybe then you would understand why so many use full zerk

Red Falcon.8257:

Full zerker isn’t currently better than a zerker with cavalier/valk rings (depending on class).
Since you’re stacking fury easily in teams you can sacrifice a bit of precision for health/toughness you lack, there is really no bonus going full berserker.

Imo zerker is your “starting” gear, then you min/max to a better setup.

*Agony does a percent of your health per tick

*Omnom Berry Ghosts

COME ON STEP IT UP

It depends if “gimping yourself” is equivalent in your mind to “not completing content as rapidly as humanly possible.” There are tons of viable stat combos and especially complementary builds between classes that can be a blast to play.

I suppose “going full zerker” depends on the profession and the situation. For my warrior, I have two rather “conventional” builds and sets of gear: full soldier and full berserker. The soldier build is ridiculously durable and great for pulling aggro towards me and away from the rest of the party. But for pure damage, a full berzerker warrior with some toughness and the right weapons is hard to beat. Yes, I have to be a lot more careful with my warrior when he has the berzerker build as I have less overall armor and vitality than with a soldier build. But both are a blast to play and I change builds depending on the mission or my mood.

Now, my guardian is a different story. For me, a knight’s build seems to offer the most balance in terms of support, durability and damage.

My necromancer has yet an entirely different build (rampager’s).

So I guess what I am trying to say is that “full zerker” as an endgame build is not always “fun” or even optimal in every situation.

My warrior runs with knights armor and zerker weapons/jewels.

My ele runs a bleed build with carrion armor and rampager weapons/jewels

My guardian runs soldier armor and weapons with sapphire jewels.

I could go on. Certain encounters can be rushed through with a team of zerkers (CoF path 1 is the most prominent). But that does not make other options less viable.

Vorch.2985:

My warrior runs with knights armor and zerker weapons/jewels.

My ele runs a bleed build with carrion armor and rampager weapons/jewels

My guardian runs soldier armor and weapons with sapphire jewels.

I could go on. Certain encounters can be rushed through with a team of zerkers (CoF path 1 is the most prominent). But that does not make other options less viable.

Exactly.
Just because you can run CoF path 1 ezmode naked and semi-afk it doesn’t mean you can do the same in harder content.

For instance on my Warrior I have full zerker but cavalier jewelry, effectively sacrificing very little DPS but getting a major amount of damage reduction in return.

Just make sure it’s always a 50/50 trade, i.e. don’t trade 5000 health for 10 damage that’s a bad trade.

If I ran full zerkers on me ele, I would be one-shot by every boss in the game…. I only have so many dodge rolls.

Solo.9027:

I used to run full soldier’s on my ele, it was very tanky and with might stacking my damage was just ok. Since learning the game more I have made the transition into full berserker’s and survive just as well but put out SIGNIFICANTLY more damage.

How? Dodging is 100% mitigation and vigor lets you dodge much more. If you take renewing stamina from arcana and build with high crit chance you will pretty much live in vigor. I have tested it just auto attacking and watching it constantly refill, its great not having to rely on heals as much.

Monsters also will focus on you more if you have higher toughness(prevailing wisdom I am starting to believe having switched out of it). I have noticed if they do turn to me its only for a brief instant now with berserker’s versus with soldiers they would follow me the whole fight.

Full zerk and full soldier are both inefficient setups.
Mix/matching to get the best out of everything is much better.

I prefer a balanced set of gear depending on class.

I run berserk+valk on my mesmer and guardian. Since both have great survivability skills.

P/V/T+ruby orb armor on my engi, with berserker trinkets, cloak and weapon. Used to run full berserk, but got tired of the full glasscannon squishyness. Just the PVT set pieces help alot with survival, I gave up 12% crit damage for it and a wee bit of crit chance (5% or something). With traits included I have high survivability and still deal good damage.

Full rabid, head to toe on my necro. Massive damage and great staying power.

IMO balance is the best way to go. Remember, a dead person deals zero damage.

I run a condition build Ranger with nothing but Power/Precision/Condi and some Crit %. If you know the fights well enough and know when to dodge and use your evades and blocks, for the most part you don’t NEED toughness and vit, it’s just nice to have.

I can’t really think of a fight where I really really wished I had vit and toughness because it would have made the fight noticeably easier.