Guild Wars 2

Hi guys,

if you go all berserker, are you able to survive in the dungeons if you don’t have a guardian in the dungeon without its reflects?

Every time I go to a dungeon as all berserkers and with no guardian, I get the whole aggro and die all the time.

I understand the idea of going all berserkers to dungeons(kill quickly so u don’t die) but without the existence of guardian and its blinds/reflects it seems swirling winds and sand storm is not enough to save my skin.

I mean, I know all the videos from pro youtuber’s telling about all berserker meta but if you look closely all of their groups has a guardian, is that the untold truth, you should only go full berserker if have a guardian?

I run full assassin’s currently, but survivability is similar. I pretty much main staff all the time and have no issues staying alive regularly even without guardians. I can stay farther at ranged if I’m starting to take more hits or if the group doesn’t seem to be stacking might very often. Which weapon set are you trying to use? D/F might also be good if you aren’t already using that as you have many defensive skills built in.

Ahh, ok, I enjoy particularly Lightning Hammer, I try to bring the blinds as group utility so I have to be in melee….

I tend to run zerker staff ele in dungeons and I don’t have a large problem with survival.

Damage mitigation comes in many forms, not just blind and reflect. Protection, evasion and crowd control are also great ways to mitigate damage.

Try using the active skill with your earth elemental elite skill to provide good protection uptime for tough fights.

Try opening with Deep Freeze on ice bow. This can provide a few critical seconds of free dps before the boss even gets a chance to start fighting back.

If you are running in an all Berserker statted party ensure your toughness is 0 from gear and traits. If you have any, you will likely get more aggro than anyone else.

posthumecaver.6473:

Ahh, ok, I enjoy particularly Lightning Hammer, I try to bring the blinds as group utility so I have to be in melee….

Lightning Hammer builds are fantastic, but I feel like its a build that requires a solid group. And solid groups tend to have a guardian. You can’t help your group or kill things if you are dead, so if lightning hammer is getting you killed, maybe its time to either stay with the dagger at slightly longer range or the staff to really stay back?

posthumecaver.6473:

I mean, I know all the videos from pro youtuber’s telling about all berserker meta but if you look closely all of their groups has a guardian, is that the untold truth, you should only go full berserker if have a guardian?

Basically, yes. 100% zerker lightning hammer ele isn’t a good idea for non-optimal groups. It’s doable, but gw2 pve isn’t worth being a try-hard. My advice is just to change 3 accessories from zerker to cavalier, knight, zerk/valkyrie or some combination of the 3. It will change some one-shots into two-shots, so it’s essentially double the survivability in some cases without too much of a damage loss. Also, arcane shield, ether renewal and glyph of storms (cast in earth attunement) are good for additional defense.

I agree, you can easily sneak in some defensive stats on your gear without anyone noticing.

AAAAAAAAHHH no. Don’t do that.

It is far better to use defensive traits until you learn how to survive better or until you find better teammates, and keep using zerker gear in the meantime!

AAAAAAAAHHH no. Don’t do that.

It is far better to use defensive traits until you learn how to survive better or until you find better teammates, and keep using zerker gear in the meantime!

qft

If you feel like having problems with certain encounters, you could use glyph of storms and cast it while in earth attunement. It provides a 10 second blinding aoe.

If you’re staff try going for this

If you’re D/F try going for this

The reason I suggested the traits listed in the staff build is that quick glyphs not only allows you to summon the rock elemental to tank for you more often, but allows you to sandstorm more often as well. You lose out of arcane lightning (+150 ferocity) so use it in situations that sandstorm actually pays off to use (not on dredge mobs, not on champions/legendary bosses).

For the D/F build you don’t take quick glyphs but instead can swap out arcane wave for arcane shield, and also have renewing stamina for permanent vigour as long as you’re always attacking.

The D/F build also has strength runes instead of scholar like the staff one. The reason for this is that strength runes are literally always a DPS loss compared to scholar when using staff, but can be good with D/F if you are in a solo situation (or bad group) and struggle to maintain scholar. Scholar is always the best DPS though and overall I avoid strength – I just suggest it here because in your first post you indicated that you weren’t using staff to begin with.

Avoid any and all builds in pug groups that involve scepter. Do not use it. It’s very bad to use it in pugs unless you’re prestacking might. D/F is also almost equivalent DPS to scepter+LH builds these days anyways.

Without a guardian for blinds, reflects and condi cures I die all tthe time. Yes =/

But the ele has access to all three in large quantity?

Hey OP,

In pug, it’s all about situation awareness and knowledge of the mechanics which help you survive. For example, in this CM’s run, I don’t know any members of the group except for Sam (the thief), whom as thief was the first time I ran with. I could have gone for staff because the other ele went with LH, but with my miserable mistrust to others’ support, I stuck with Sc/F/LH. There are a few key moments I’d like to point out:

At 1:01, party member was staggering the cutscene (which is not a good thing), noticing that the guard was late to engage, I immediately went for a Deep Freeze to neutralize the boss. I did a first dodge as I know that the rifleman would knock me dead if I got hit by the projectile. Right after that, the guard messed up his Wall of Reflection position. However, boss was deep frozen, so it was safe to burst him down before backing up inside the wall. At 1:16, the other ele was res-ed up. Knowing that the next Shield of the Avenger would have cast time, I covered the group with Swirling Wind, then decided to go for LH as soon as I saw Flame Wall was cast. Notice how I moved around the boss while attacking? This boss has a habit of knocking back people in front of his face when the group not max melee him. This can be negated with possibly Hallowed Ground or max meleeing. Too much to ask in pug? Then try to move away from his frontal area.

At 1:58 I used Magnetic Wave as my personal protection when I picked up my chest.

At 2:28, I used Swirling Wind on the turrets to protect the slower party members from getting immobilized should stealth ran out for them. This was made while seeing that stealth was blinking. As expected, we did aggro one Rifleman later on.

3:06, Bloody Victoria went on stealth. This boss has a deadly stun and oneshot mechanic once she goes out of stealth. Knowing the threat, I strafed and dodge away as I predicted she would attack soon. Swirling wind was used to cover the other ele as she got knocked down by the rifleman.

3:41, Ele is not only a might stacker but also an essential stealth blaster. Thief has limited initiative, so don’t be lazy and try to help out in stealth stacking as much as you can. In NA speedrun, we usually blast stealth again before the stair. It’s different from EU as they prefer to run straight after the stair and SR. The confusion resulted in my bad aim at Comet and the hazardous reveal/aggro. Keep calm and stay in SR. I got some stealth up. The rest of the skip wasn’t too bad as I cycled through my defensive skills. For the last boss, Frost is super squishy but his freeze thrower hits so so hard. If you ever get aggro, just step back outside of his range, summon Earth elemental to face tank him and then safely attack him from his side. Focus on staying alive if you have aggro, as Frost is easy to deal with even with 3 or 4 other members attacking.

I hope this particular run helps you understand the mindset of most veteran zerker ele and how we can breeze through everything.

I can record my other pug run if you have any specific request.

The reason I picked CM because: it’s largely dependent on the reflect and stealth roles, both of which, ele is an essential secondary support. It extends the roles of ele, not only a might/fury/DPS stacker, but also a full-fledged important team player.

Let me tell you my version,

Ascolian Catacombs, spider queen, kitten there is no guardian, lets might stack and pop the swirling winds to prevent spiders shooting me from behind..

Ok I used the Ice Bow 5 on queen now 4, ok queen is at %25 HP., kitten swirling winds off, every kitten ed thing in the room shooting me, ohh my 2 dodge gone, heals is gone, kitten my team still could not kill the queen.

kitten I am down…..

This is mostly what happens to me, I hate the aggro mechanics in this game, I want to be survivable put toughness everything shoots at me, I want to go full Berserkers, I got the highest DPS everything shoots at me again

Your mistake is to misjudge your group DPS and decide to go to the face-tank-all-out-DPS-or-die route. It’s not the aggro system is broken. Even if you put on some toughness, as long as you deal the most aoe damage out there, chance is mobs still find you to attack. Once your swirling wind is down, retreat back to your LOS corner in the end of the room and kill off some of the small spiders which follow you. After that, re-engage the spider queen. Watch out for her spray, you need to be at least 900 range away from her frontal area, or dodge to her side. Approach her, deal damage, as soon as she spits poison aoe, dodge back again.

If you watch all the Spider Queen solo video, all the small spiders and gargoyle had been taken care of prior to engagement.

Ele zerker is the hardest way to play when you are not used to it. It’s gonna take a lot of dying but you gonna get used to it and you gonna die less and less over time.

The best defences for the Elementalist is position and knowing the attack of mobs.

IMHO, the aggro system is actually kinda broken. Aimed attacks of enemys like the first boss in cof1 will always hit the target with the least hp/armor. He gets pulled, nothing has happened dmg wise and my full zerker ele gets his 5k fire grab. Just by standing there. Every. kittenin. Time. So arenanet is all like “ok we have no healers in this game so let’s make up for it by letting bosses attack the class with the least sustain”.

Another example is CoE2, where a lot of small robots and from time to time, two bigger robots spawn. I work 1 robot and the rest of the group does damage to the second one which I haven’t even TOUCHED. What does the second one do? He starts focusing me down with his laser attack.

First CoF boss, he doesn’t need to be pulled and shouldn’t be pulled ever after since FGS is nerfed (hello, wake up call!!) Let your group know that you will DEEP FREEZE the boss and rain ice bow of death to him. If you cannot dodge his Fire Grab (which animation is rather obvious to me), get on your second most OP skill <Lightning Storm>, and your truly OP skill: <Meteor Shower>. Or just go D/F as popularity demand.

CoE 2: go D/F. If the other golem lazer you? That’s cute, Gale him. Swirling Wind in between of the golem and use your second most OP skill.

Iris Ng.9845:

Or just go D/F

go D/F.

I like to summarize

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Iris Ng.9845:

Or just go D/F

go D/F.

I like to summarize

That sinking heart feeling

Looks that is exactly my point, look to LFG, all Berserker 5000 AP or kick..

Then you go to dungeon, nobody waits for clearing the small spiders or gargoyles. All Berserkers meta relies on stacking up and supporting each other.

In PUG / All Berserker, first damage is everybody is at other part of the room.

And what is the purpose of going all berserker, if I am going to have so much DPS downtime when I have to hide one corner of the room and don’t DPS at all.

posthumecaver.6473:

And what is the purpose of going all berserker, if I am going to have so much DPS downtime when I have to hide one corner of the room and don’t DPS at all.

Just because some ppl are using outdated strategy that doesn’t mean that zerker need to use it.

We don’t need to hide in a corner and wait for mobs to get to us. That used to be a good strategy because of FGS. You wait for mobs to come to you, but then you do massive dmg to them. But FGS is not that good anymore so that strategy is bad in most case, but ppl are still using it because old habit die hard. It is still a good idea is some situation when mobs are all over the place, LOSing them in a corner is sometime the best way to regroup them so you do dmg to all of them, not just one at the time.

posthumecaver.6473:

Looks that is exactly my point, look to LFG, all Berserker 5000 AP or kick..

Then you go to dungeon, nobody waits for clearing the small spiders or gargoyles. All Berserkers meta relies on stacking up and supporting each other.

In PUG / All Berserker, first damage is everybody is at other part of the room.

And what is the purpose of going all berserker, if I am going to have so much DPS downtime when I have to hide one corner of the room and don’t DPS at all.

I strongly suggest you deviate from any speed clearing/meta guides you might be following. They aren’t written with pugging in mind, and you’re smart enough to realize some of the logic is questionable. You shouldn’t play with pugs as if they’ll do the right thing. Instead of even trying to kill the spider queen in 3 seconds, just kill at least some of the small spiders first. Yes, even if everybody else jumps on the boss, kill a few small spiders. It may not get you a world record run, but it’s the safer, smarter move. If they kick you for daring to slow down an ac run by a few seconds, they aren’t people worth grouping with or placating.

There is very little advantage in sticking with something that isn’t working for you. Clearly, you’ve given 100% zerker a shot; time to try something a little different. A cavalier ring, cavalier backpack, 2 points in water magic for vital striking and a knight earring will make a huge difference, and nobody will notice or say anything to you.

Tei.1704:

I strongly suggest you deviate from any speed clearing/meta guides you might be following. They aren’t written with pugging in mind, and you’re smart enough to realize some of the logic is questionable.

I write this kind of guides, yet I pug most of the time

Yup these guide work with pugs. Most ppl that write them pug often, if not most of the time.

There is plenty of zerker guys that can’t survive if there are not with a full zerker party, they are just bad zerker that rely on the fact that the group will kill the mobs before they die and not on their knowledge of the fight to dodge most important attack.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Tei.1704:

I strongly suggest you deviate from any speed clearing/meta guides you might be following. They aren’t written with pugging in mind, and you’re smart enough to realize some of the logic is questionable.

I write this kind of guides, yet I pug most of the time

But, you also understand the fights and the professions better and know where and how to deviate from the norm That’s a crucial thing. Sitting in max DPS setup and going face first into everything can get ya killed pretty easy, knowing when to say take vigor trait/arcane shield, when to use sandstorm instead of lightning, knowing how to recover from failing to burst something down… that stuff takes more than the basic knowledge of the guide, i mean it’s there, it just takes a deeper level of understanding to really know how to utilize it.

Iris Ng.9845:

I can record my other pug run if you have any specific request.

Here to help. Not to preach how zerker is universally the best. It is the best if you know the encounter.

The trick is, as much as I love my Ele, when I run dungeons I take my Guardian, that make life much more fun for everybody with a timely placed wall of reflection and constant blinds.

I really like to find a constant group instead of pugging (which is not quite possible because of the work and family) to use my Ele to its full potential but is too much pain with my Ele (may be I should only PUG with groups that has a Guardian ).

Jerus.4350:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Tei.1704:

I strongly suggest you deviate from any speed clearing/meta guides you might be following. They aren’t written with pugging in mind, and you’re smart enough to realize some of the logic is questionable.

I write this kind of guides, yet I pug most of the time

But, you also understand the fights and the professions better and know where and how to deviate from the norm That’s a crucial thing. Sitting in max DPS setup and going face first into everything can get ya killed pretty easy, knowing when to say take vigor trait/arcane shield, when to use sandstorm instead of lightning, knowing how to recover from failing to burst something down… that stuff takes more than the basic knowledge of the guide, i mean it’s there, it just takes a deeper level of understanding to really know how to utilize it.

My point most of the youtube guides presenting that sort methods (I said most) has ideal compositions (Guardians reflects/blinds, Thiefs stealth/blinds, Mesmer portal/feedback/time warp) then it is ok but I find berserker meta pain in ….. when you don’t have these compositions.

It is a pain… personally I’m far from perfect on my Ele and I struggle a bit. But you have a LOT of tools at your disposal. Like Iris suggested for spider queen, fail to initiate that burst fast enough, look at other tactics to recover with.

And btw, Engi also has reflects/blinds/stealths/condi removal and well just about everything but aegis, Ranger has a solid reflect in axe offhand, Nec can even toss a blind field down. Warrior is the only profession where things can get iffy, but for say the SQ fight they could always bring fear me and at least temporarily help with those annoying little guys.

Point being that the problem is more the strict adherence to the pure damage focus rather than assessing the situation and knowing how to properly adjust. Many of the people writing the guides know these things (and often hint to them without full explanations) but they would have to write a novel no one would ever finish to explain every situation with every different combination of things.

Jerus.4350:

It is a pain… personally I’m far from perfect on my Ele and I struggle a bit. But you have a LOT of tools at your disposal. Like Iris suggested for spider queen, fail to initiate that burst fast enough, look at other tactics to recover with.

And btw, Engi also has reflects/blinds/stealths/condi removal and well just about everything but aegis, Ranger has a solid reflect in axe offhand, Nec can even toss a blind field down. Warrior is the only profession where things can get iffy, but for say the SQ fight they could always bring fear me and at least temporarily help with those annoying little guys.

Point being that the problem is more the strict adherence to the pure damage focus rather than assessing the situation and knowing how to properly adjust. Many of the people writing the guides know these things (and often hint to them without full explanations) but they would have to write a novel no one would ever finish to explain every situation with every different combination of things.

Like Tom’s guide to Warrior on Dulfy. That one is a masterpiece.

Iris Ng.9845:

First CoF boss, he doesn’t need to be pulled and shouldn’t be pulled ever after since FGS is nerfed (hello, wake up call!!) Let your group know that you will DEEP FREEZE the boss and rain ice bow of death to him. If you cannot dodge his Fire Grab (which animation is rather obvious to me), get on your second most OP skill <Lightning Storm>, and your truly OP skill: <Meteor Shower>. Or just go D/F as popularity demand.

CoE 2: go D/F. If the other golem lazer you? That’s cute, Gale him. Swirling Wind in between of the golem and use your second most OP skill.

1) I didn’t say that this kills me, I made a point of how the aggro system works and how we consequently have to make up for it while the defense of other classes (who have more sustain by design) consists mainly of not being attacked in the first place.

2) Let me enlighten you about the advantages of corner stacking AFTER the fgs nerf:

- Burning speed is much easier to use against a wall

- As is whirlwind attack which also deals more damage

- Any aoe effects like trait passives or mightstacks will apply to the group because it is made sure that everyone stacks at the same position

- Bosses sometimes will get pushed away by the group (even without using cc) which can mean a dps loss if the boss retreats out of warriors 100 blades attack. If there is a wall behind the boss, this is less likely going to happen

- dodging into a wall means you don’t have to turn around and thus you can keep up with your dmg

Let me entertain you with some real, cold fact:

- Burning Speed is nerfed. Your fire trail doesn’t stack damage. It’s an old news.
- Warrior damage is nerfed so badly, I can hear Purple Miku cries a river in every topics mentioning Warrior’s DPS (poor guy!). Both Whirling Wind and Burning Speed should never be the priority before Deep Freeze and Ice storm.
- If everyone is meleeing the boss, you don’t need to corner stack on him.
- No, that is a very rare scenario. Unless it takes 1 minute to kill such a boss. Even Subject Alpha won’t get pushed that easily. Most of the time people just back down after eating so much damage.

In addition you can dodge through the mobs to have almost zero downtime in dps compare to dodging in a wall.

Ranger and Thief are taking advantage of flanking, which they can’t do very well in a corner

The downtime of pulling mobs in a corner vs rushing and killing the mobs where he spawn is really high in some situation. Especially when the boss is green when you reach him, that let you time to stack might on him and start killing him fully buffed the second he turn red.

Corner stacking is a good strategy in some fight. When you need to regroup a group of mobs or when it make the fight easier. But for most fight, stacking directly on the mobs is a more efficient strategy.

No one said that burning speed deals more dmg against a wall. Icebow is only a dps plus against targets with large hitboxes or groups. It’s not worth using against a single, normal sized target like the first cof boss. And did it ever occur to you that burning speed and whirlwind might move you away from the group?

Ice storm is worth using even on the thinnest target.

Besides, you can use the dodge-cast trick to stack all the ice meteors in a concentrated area, maximizing the chances to land them on a single target.

cursE.1794:

No one said that burning speed deals more dmg against a wall. Icebow is only a dps plus against targets with large hitboxes or groups. It’s not worth using against a single, normal sized target like the first cof boss. And did it ever occur to you that burning speed and whirlwind might move you away from the group?

Do you know the “camera-facing-down-the-ground” and “swap-weapon-during-the-channeling” tricks?

Even if the ele doesn’t use Ice Storm (because god knows what he’s thinking, idk), 3 seconds of deep freeze is worth it for the whole group to burst the boss down in safety. Scholar bonus? Check.100 blades? Check. Whirling Wrath? Check. Meteor Shower? Check. Lightning Storm? Check. Full chain of your favorite 30k Lightning Hammer swoosh swoosh? Check. Insert ____ skills.

Especially if Elementalist in your party have Tempest Defense. Its a 20% dmg increase while the boss is deep freeze.

It’s funny how ppl always forget about the overall topic when discussing such things. So basically, everyone out there in gw2 knows about the “camera-facing-down-the-ground” and “swap-weapon-during-the-channeling” tricks, runs full zerker, does 30k lightning hammer attack chains, runs scholar runes etc etc right? Then every boss is dead within under 10 seconds. So we have no problems staying alive. Wait, why are we discussing survivability then?

….

Is it possible that not everyone runs in organized groups?

Staying alive is a problem in pug groups . And if you don’t run in organized groups, groups will tend to start spreading and bosses will walk out of fields if you don’t stack them in a corner (oh I forgot, they will be dead in 3 seconds anyway, right?). I was never saying that you should ALWAYS cornerstack. All I’m saying is that is has its advantages and it’s simply wrong to state that one should never do it (.. at the first coe boss) like you did.

cursE.1794:

It’s funny how ppl always forget about the overall topic when discussing such things. So basically, everyone out there in gw2 knows about the “camera-facing-down-the-ground” and “swap-weapon-during-the-channeling” tricks, runs full zerker, does 30k lightning hammer attack chains, runs scholar runes etc etc right? Then every boss is dead within under 10 seconds. So we have no problems staying alive. Wait, why are we discussing survivability then?

….

Is it possible that not everyone runs in organized groups?

Staying alive is a problem in pug groups . And if you don’t run in organized groups, groups will tend to start spreading and bosses will walk out of fields if you don’t stack them in a corner (oh I forgot, they will be dead in 3 seconds anyway, right?). I was never saying that you should ALWAYS cornerstack. All I’m saying is that is has its advantages and it’s simply wrong to state that one should never do it (.. at the first coe boss) like you did.

YOU brought up the corner thing and we called you on it because you were wrong. Before you brought that up we were give him some options to survive. I run zerker and most of the time I run in dungeon I play either with pugs or guildmate that are not organized. I run organized group like 5-10% of my time only. You can learn to survive in full zerker ele because a lot of ppl did it. Its hard, but it can be done. And if someone think that its too hard, there is a lot of good option to help them.

YOU brought up the corner thing and we called you on it because you were wrong.

LOL. I’d like to see a quote there. That might make you scroll up to read what actually happened. I repeat for you: “I never said that you should always cornerstack”.

cursE.1794:

He gets pulled, nothing has happened dmg wise and my full zerker ele gets his 5k fire grab.

Iris Ng.9845:

First CoF boss, he doesn’t need to be pulled and shouldn’t be pulled ever after since FGS is nerfed

cursE.1794:

2) Let me enlighten you about the advantages of corner stacking AFTER the fgs nerf:

And we never said that you said that you should always cornerstack.

LOL, I was talking about the aggro system and just because I used the word “pulled” in a random sentence which Iris picked up on means that it was ME who brought up this discussion? Are you on crack mates?

I’d like to appear smart and insert some expression about this pointless argument here. Does “grasping at straws” work?

Also, good luck at playing with your pug. I’m outta here. Always in game if anyone needs practical advices, not some pointless cheesy pug tactics. o/

If you find something that disproves you, declare it as pointless and cheesy and gtfo. Well played, son.

cursE.1794:

If you find something that disproves you, declare it as pointless and cheesy and gtfo. Well played, son.

And what exactly did you disprove?

Thaddeus.4891:

cursE.1794:

If you find something that disproves you, declare it as pointless and cheesy and gtfo. Well played, son.

And what exactly did you disprove?

That it’s wrong to state that cornerstacking should NEVER be done (..at the first boss in cof p1) by bringing up the frequent case of doing a run in a pug group?

cursE.1794:

That it’s wrong to state that cornerstacking should NEVER be done (..at the first boss in cof p1) by bringing up the frequent case of doing a run in a pug group?

But it should never be done in pugs group. I mean, no big deal if your pug group do it, but it won’t make thing easier to survive.

There are things you should corner stack. The Slaver is not one of them.