Guild Wars 2

Can someone explain some the slang in Guild Wars 2. I hear words like Zerg, Berserk, Condi (which I guess is short for Condition). And while we’re talking about this, can someone also explain the stats in GW2 and why I would want to focus on them? I know in another game Tough=Health, but in this game Tough=Armor. Thanks to those who explain this to me.

I know there is a thread somewhere listing a ton of slang, but meanwhile:

Zerg — long standing term in online games for forming a large mob of units to overwhelm with numbers rather than tactics. Here, it’s a crowd of players avalanching over mobs or other players (if in WvW).

Berserk — this game has a stat set called “Berserker” which is aimed at dps without defense. Many feel it is the optimal stat set to use in almost every PvE situation.

Condi — yep, short for Condition, generally applied to someone built and traited to deal condition damage rather than direct damage.

Stats — don’t ask me! I don’t like playing with numbers, I go with a general “this is better than that, I’ll get more of it.” The wiki might give you the best in depth information.

Wiki has a bunch listed: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Abbreviations

To the stats: The biggest problem is, that bosses (in open world or in dungeons) do so much damage that it nearly doesn’t matter if you survive 2 or 3 attacks – therefore, vitality (giving more max health) and toughness (giving more defense) aren’t that useful in end content. It’s more viable to focus on damage (power, ferocity, precision -> berserk/zerk stats) and dodge at the right times. More damage -> bosses go down faster -> they have less time to launch their attacks → it doesn’t matter that you lack defensive stats.

However, if you’re a new player and not that experienced with your class (especially if you have something squishy like an elementalist), you can start with something more defensive (eg soldier stats plus some defensive runes like dolyak runes) to survive a bit longer in open world mob fights. If you get used to it, you can exchange one piece by one to zerk stats til you’re full zerk. (Scholar runes work well on zerk armor)

If you have time I recommend reading this page, and the links pages for the individual attributes, it really helped me get my head around it all: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attributes

It is a lot to read, and probably won’t make total sense in one read through, but IMO it’s well worth it because once you understand how the stats work you can make your own decision on which ones to use and how instead of copying builds from other people and hoping they know what they’re talking about.

Also a good rule of thumb is to never assume that two things in different games are the same just because they share a name. Even if it seems like they should be.

One mistake I made early on was assuming that my rangers Marksmanship trait line was better if I was using a bow and Skirmishing was better if I was using a sword. It made total sense to me, in Guild Wars 1 you put points into Marksmanship to boost your bow attacks and the name Skirmishing sounds like it’s related to melee combat. Turns out that’s completely wrong, both affect both kinds of weapon but in different ways.

Well here are a few for ya…

Zerg: Refers to the Zerg Swarm from Starcraft. Also sometimes referred to interchangeably as a blob. Generally a large mass of players. Opinions differ as to whether or not organization plays a part in whether to call it a zerg or blob.
Zerk: or Berserk as you put it refers to Berserker stat gear which is Power > Precision = Ferocity. For stat combo nomenclature most people will be using triple-stat combos
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stat_combination
Condi: is indeed short for condition
Toughness: does not equal armor. Toughness and (item) Defense contribute to Armor.
Health: is derived from Vitality and Base Health. For base health figures take a look here
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Health#Base_health_by_profession

For general attribute info here you go
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Attribute

While you should read the Attribute pages for a complete answer, in short.

Power —> you do more direct damage
Precision —> you are more likely to do a critical hit
Ferocity —> your critical hits do more damage (base +50% damage)
Vitality —> 1 vitality gives +10 hp
Toughness —> you take less direct damage
Boon duration —> all boons you apply (might, swiftness, etc.) last longer based on a % (I believe the max is +100%)
Condition Damage —> All of your conditions do more damage (each condition scales differently with condition damage)
Condition Duration —> All of your conditions last for a % longer (I believe the max is +100%)
Healing power —> you healing skills and regen boons will heal for more (the amount heals depends on each individual skill, if you look at the skill on the wiki look at the coefficient to see how strongly healing power affects that skill. Ex. Heal 1000 hp + 0.05*healing power)
Then there is a profession mechanic trait that usually reduces the cool down of your professions special ability

Each armor (at the higher levels) gives a big bonus to 1 stat and a smaller bonus to 2 stats (with some exceptions, celestial gives a “very small” bonus to all stats). People normally just call them based on their name.

Zerker (or Berserker) is power as the big bonus. precision and ferocity as the smaller bonus.
Solider (sometimes referred to PTV) has Power as the big bonus, and Toughness and Vitality as the smaller bonuses.

What stats you want to focus on depends on what profession you are, what weapons you want to use, what playstyle you want, and what game mode (PvE, WvW, PvP, dungeons/fractals) you like to play. As usually the same skills/weapons/stats don’t work the best in all modes.

In general:

Toughness helps you “tank” (the counter to) direct damage.
Vitality is suppose to be the counter to condition damage.
Power helps you do more direct damage to something
Conditions let you hurt something while not actively attacking it (once you apply them, but usually has a long start up time)
Precision lets you crit to do more damage, and also to activate certain traits and sigils.
Ferocity lets you do massive damage if you can crit something (some bosses can’t be crited. certain classes have defensive abilities that stop them from getting crited, etc.). Plus you need to have good precision to make use of high ferocity (the base chance to crit is 4%. And fury, a boon, always adds +20%).
Boon duration and Healing power are usually for specific builds; mostly support.

AC/CW/TW/CoF/CoE/Arah/HotW/FotM or Fractals/SE are all dungeons.
Karma: The pink stuff you get from doing for example, events. You can spend it on gear (it goes until level 80 exotic and has a few stat types to choose from), a RNG box, Obsidian Shards (which are used for Ascended and Legendary gear)
WvW badges: Currency you get from playing WvW (see below). You can buy basic skins or gear with it (exotic armor and weapons and ascended trinkets, paired with Laurels – see below)
Laurels: Currency you get for logging in. You can buy ascended trinkets, skins, minis crafting materials and other goodies with it.
RNG means random number generator, it refers to something being random. A RNG box is a box that has a chance to drop all kinds of stuff: Minis, boosters, dyes, you name it.
Exotic gear is the second highest grade of gear there is. You can do all content besides high levels FotM with it and it’s pretty easy to get.
Ascended is the best gear in the game (also called BiS – Best in Slot). It’s expensive and only a little bit better than exotic but it allows you to do high levels FotM.
Legendary comes only in weapons and has the same rarity/quality as Ascended but it has a fancy skin and allows you to swap stats at any time. It’s also extremely expensive
WvW is a 3 server battleground, press B.
sPvP is an equilized capture node battleground (press the swords icon at the top of your screen, I don’t know the short cut).
Stacking means standing all together (usually done in melee range of a mob). This way you share boons and ensure that the mobs aren’t spread all over the place, so you can easily kill them in a dungeon.

Sorry for replying so late. Thanks, I didn’t think the wiki would have a page dedicated to terms used in the game :P This was REALLY helpful. And again, thank you for helping me. Kudos to all of you!