Guild Wars 2

hello guys my name is black hunter steele in game and i am a warrior and my main build is conditions (rabid) i also have played with zerker for couple months then switched to knight’s tanky zerk build. so i have been doing a lot of research since beta on “the best pvp build” or dueling build. started with zerker then tanks could beat me then i rolled tanky zerk for a very long time until the “conditon” ranger beat me and i was disappointed. i found out that conditons was the best due to the damage being constant and can only go up during combat. Suddenly i found out hat people really hate these build and call it “cheese build”. Now i have that set in my inventory and rolled back to tanky zerker. i wanted to post this so people can give all their opinions about conditions in general and all these builds and suggest stuff.

PvP – Do what you want.
PvE – Zerker or don’t bother.

The end.

Cheese builds aren’t exclusive to conditions. Stun/perma-run warriors and stealth spamming d/p thieves are both power based. In sPvP minion-mancer necros are also pretty cheesy. The old d/d ele was cheesy too and it wasn’t condi-based.

Nerf them all into the ground!! I want pure cookie cutter classes that are all perfectly balanced and do the same exact thing. Just the class aesthetics are different to give the classes character. That way scrubby players can’t cry anymore!

Well, it’s basically a problem with core mechanics. In PvE pure DPS wins out, because a skilled character can mitigate enough damage and heal enough even when not specialized for it that using anything else is just needlessly prolonging a fight, and the AI is stupid and predictable enough that CC is really just a waste of time you could be putting out damage. Combine that with classes with higher base armor being able to do as much or more damage than casters, and you end up with the pure zerker warrior meta in PVE, with possibly a guardian or two thrown in if you want. Now you take that to PVP, and damage isn’t as reliable, so building for health and toughness becomes more reliable, since building for it doesn’t nerf your damage enough, and you can do enough damage while outlasting berserkers to kill them. The the counter arises of condition bursts, which are way too slow for PvE, where non condition damage can be relied on, but great for PvP because the damage is reliable while pure non condition damage isn’t. It also has the benefit of being pretty effective at killing everything regardless of build. So we get this new meta where the class that can stack the most conditions on the enemy while shedding/surviving the most conditions on themselves wins out in the long run. So basically we’ve got this situation where in PvE all classes can do DPS and should push for as much DPS as possible and recieve pretty much no benefit for choosing a class with low base health or armor. In PvP, building for conditions means more reliable damage than any other build so you’ll kill glass cannons fast, and classes built for survivability a little slower, but your only real fights are going to be with classes that remove conditions from themselves faster or put conditions on you faster.

So it’s not a “cheese build”, it’s just a matter of being able to look at how combat in this game is actually done. Sure there’s room for human error. The meta kind of assumes that everyone is mitigating damage reliably and often, ie that all players have a certain minimum skill level. A great player using a berserker build against a player that doesn’t dodge and evade is going to do so much damage so fast that condi being more reliable or them having more health isn’t going to save them. A good bunker build, with intelligent healing/mitigation may very well just straight up out last a condi burst while grinding them down slowly with their less reliable more sporadic damage. In PvE, berserker may be faster, but not if you can’t read boss tells and don’t step out of red circles. If you’re down all the time it won’t matter what your theoretical max DPS is.

TL,DR Don’t hate the player, hate the game. Using what works better than anything else isn’t cheesy. It’s just smart. When people say they don’t like your cheesy build, what they really mean is they wish there were a better build balance and more options, which I think we all can agree with.

Condition damage with bloodlust, food and might stacks is way out of control. I can burst people so fast using conditions that they don’t have time to remove them. Even if they remove them, the stacks are up and killing them before their condition removal is done cooling down.

Getting bleeds past 2k per tick, stack torment, poison and confusion by perplexity runes – just way too easy and powerful.

Anet need to get conditions under control.

As to condition cheese, first thing I’d ask is “how many resources have you poured into countering conditions?” Are you willing to give up offense to gain defensive benefit? If not, commit yourself to the DPS race and KILL THEM FIRST.

imsoenthused.1634:

Well, it’s basically a problem with core mechanics. In PvE pure DPS wins out, because a skilled character can mitigate enough damage and heal enough even when not specialized for it that using anything else is just needlessly prolonging a fight, and the AI is stupid and predictable enough that CC is really just a waste of time you could be putting out damage. Combine that with classes with higher base armor being able to do as much or more damage than casters, and you end up with the pure zerker warrior meta in PVE, with possibly a guardian or two thrown in if you want. Now you take that to PVP, and damage isn’t as reliable, so building for health and toughness becomes more reliable, since building for it doesn’t nerf your damage enough, and you can do enough damage while outlasting berserkers to kill them. The the counter arises of condition bursts, which are way too slow for PvE, where non condition damage can be relied on, but great for PvP because the damage is reliable while pure non condition damage isn’t. It also has the benefit of being pretty effective at killing everything regardless of build. So we get this new meta where the class that can stack the most conditions on the enemy while shedding/surviving the most conditions on themselves wins out in the long run. So basically we’ve got this situation where in PvE all classes can do DPS and should push for as much DPS as possible and recieve pretty much no benefit for choosing a class with low base health or armor. In PvP, building for conditions means more reliable damage than any other build so you’ll kill glass cannons fast, and classes built for survivability a little slower, but your only real fights are going to be with classes that remove conditions from themselves faster or put conditions on you faster.

So it’s not a “cheese build”, it’s just a matter of being able to look at how combat in this game is actually done. Sure there’s room for human error. The meta kind of assumes that everyone is mitigating damage reliably and often, ie that all players have a certain minimum skill level. A great player using a berserker build against a player that doesn’t dodge and evade is going to do so much damage so fast that condi being more reliable or them having more health isn’t going to save them. A good bunker build, with intelligent healing/mitigation may very well just straight up out last a condi burst while grinding them down slowly with their less reliable more sporadic damage. In PvE, berserker may be faster, but not if you can’t read boss tells and don’t step out of red circles. If you’re down all the time it won’t matter what your theoretical max DPS is.

TL,DR Don’t hate the player, hate the game. Using what works better than anything else isn’t cheesy. It’s just smart. When people say they don’t like your cheesy build, what they really mean is they wish there were a better build balance and more options, which I think we all can agree with.

I’ve never heard the problem described so well, thanks – I agree with all of that.

Imbalance stifles variety, and is what creates these “best builds”. If everything was a lot more balanced, we would have more variety. Think about it. If 1 build beats them all, then sooner or later most people will end up with it or some minor variant of it.

Bagel.4598:

Fenrir.3609:

Bagel.4598:

PvP – Do what you want.
PvE – Zerker or don’t bother.

The end.

No.

Yes

No, you have it back to front.

PvP = competitive environment with a dominant condi/bunker meta. If you use any old random “play just how I want lol build” then you are going to get roflstomped or at the very least put yourself at a major disadvantage.

PvE = completely non competitive and for the main, faceroll easy. You can play pretty much any build you want and do the content. Infact most people engaged in pve don’t seem to spec full glass zerk. Where zerk does dominate is in a highly specific niche within the pve setting, namely min/max speed clear dungeon groups.

Fenrir.3609:

Bagel.4598:

Fenrir.3609:

Bagel.4598:

PvP – Do what you want.
PvE – Zerker or don’t bother.

The end.

No.

Yes

No, you have it back to front.

PvP = competitive environment with a dominant condi/bunker meta. If you use any old random “play just how I want lol build” then you are going to get roflstomped or at the very least put yourself at a major disadvantage.

PvE = completely non competitive and for the main, faceroll easy. You can play pretty much any build you want and do the content. Infact most people engaged in pve don’t seem to spec full glass zerk. Where zerk does dominate is in a highly specific niche within the pve setting, namely min/max speed clear dungeon groups.

You’ve never played pve I guess.

Agree with the post above that to the extent we have a problem with zerker builds or “cheese” builds we are talking about a game design issue and not a player issue. Players notice what works and adapt.

Condi builds have a small niche in pvp which i would argue doesn’t carry over well to wvw where condition removal is pervasive and continuous. I suppose they could be effective in certain scenarios. And forget about pve because of the way condition damage is managed by stacks on a boss as opposed to damage by player. In any realistic grouping of players a condition build is likely contributing little more than “white” damage. And, if you added five more bleeders you wouldn’t be significantly increasing the damage. Compare that to adding five more zerker warriors and you can understand where the “meta” comes from.

Realistically, we have only one meaningful combat role, DPS. Whatever build best fills that role, balancing out required survivability, will be what you see in the game.

Dash.7108:

Fenrir.3609:

Bagel.4598:

Fenrir.3609:

Bagel.4598:

PvP – Do what you want.
PvE – Zerker or don’t bother.

The end.

No.

Yes

No, you have it back to front.

PvP = competitive environment with a dominant condi/bunker meta. If you use any old random “play just how I want lol build” then you are going to get roflstomped or at the very least put yourself at a major disadvantage.

PvE = completely non competitive and for the main, faceroll easy. You can play pretty much any build you want and do the content. Infact most people engaged in pve don’t seem to spec full glass zerk. Where zerk does dominate is in a highly specific niche within the pve setting, namely min/max speed clear dungeon groups.

You’ve never played pve I guess.

Sure sounds like he hasn’t.

It’s impossible to balance this game or any other MMO for that matter. It’s why MMO PvP will never be a successful e-sport. There’s too many variables.

I’ll give you a PvE example because it’s easier to understand but you can apply it to PvP as well.....

Berserker gear = 1700ish DPS
Soldier gear = 1400ish DPS and 500 DPS mitigation

If a fight does not require mitigation, Berserker gear will always be better.
If a fight does require mitigation, Soldier gear will always be better.

There will never be a scenario in which these two sets are equal. They will NEVER be balanced. One of them will always situationally be better than the other.

You have two choices in this game:

1) Run the best build and win
2) Don’t run the best build and lose

It’s that simple. Cheese or be cheesed.

Peetee.9406:

It’s impossible to balance this game or any other MMO for that matter. It’s why MMO PvP will never be a successful e-sport. There’s too many variables.

I’ll give you a PvE example because it’s easier to understand but you can apply it to PvP as well…..

Berserker gear = 1700ish DPS
Soldier gear = 1400ish DPS and 500 DPS mitigation

If a fight does not require mitigation, Berserker gear will always be better.
If a fight does require mitigation, Soldier gear will always be better.

There will never be a scenario in which these two sets are equal. They will NEVER be balanced. One of them will always situationally be better than the other.

You have two choices in this game:

1) Run the best build and win
2) Don’t run the best build and lose

It’s that simple. Cheese or be cheesed.

All things being equal beyond the character yes, but what about the millions of variables that make up a human being? The player themselves? I suppose there is an optimal rotation (i.e. how you use your skills) but you don’t know how your opponent is going to counter those skills. It isn’t all about highest DPS.

Also, choosing the variables in our character is perhaps part of our variables and our play style.

Having said that, if the meta really is that much stronger that it always dictates the outcome regardless of the player, then the game is broken.

I am talking from an ele’s perspective here.

From my experience cheese has always been based on really flimsy all-in strategies that you try to catch someone off guard with… like trying to one-shot somebody with a Kill Shot.

What you’re doing would more aptly be described as playing the meta.

Dash.7108:

You’ve never played pve I guess.

What’s wrong with his statement?

Speaking from a purely PvE standpoint:

All I know is that if I were to try to take my zerker elementalist to WvW as she is right now, she would be nothing more than exp for the other team.

As Peetee said, there will always be a mechanic where every good build will be situationally better than every other good build. The key will be finding the one that performs better for you in the most situations.

Zerker Glass Cannon builds are godly in PvE right now, because most mob AI is clunky, predictable and slow. The goal is to kill it before it breeds, so to speak, so DPS is naturally going to be king. The sad part is that with the new ferocity/crit changes, those who have never tried anything but the ZGC build will be here in the forums complaining about how the “game iz ruined and I’ma gonna /ragequit nao!”

So, try new things and if it’s cheesy, so be it.