Guild Wars 2

I haven’t touched pve and dungeons in over half a year, and only dabbled in wvw a few times, but I’ve read a couple posts saying how pve is all about maximizing damage. What about “balanced builds” like 20/0/0/20/30 with staff? Is pve really turning into these speed runs with ppl running min-max builds without a second’s pause? Would I be better off with zerker or soldiers gear, or clerics for healing/support? I’d like one gear set to work for both dungeons and wvw.

never lump wvw and pve together. they are compldtely different . the only possible way to use the same build and gear in both is to bfing your zerk meta into wvw. the only acceptable builds in pve are zerk. that youre starting point. in wvw you can go zerk, but kights/cavaliers mix will probaby be better so glass thieves dont insta kill you.

typed from phone

Anierna.6918:

the only acceptable builds in pve are zerk.

What he means is that it’s the build he prefers. You can actually just bring say, a celestial set or a soldiers set, and perform more than adequate in both PvE and WvW.

In both cases, it’s more about what you intend to do than actual performance. Support builds (not just healing, but boons too) tend to go for different runes and stats than dps builds. And of course, you can go bunker but that might be a little over the top for PvE as you won’t need that much defense.

If you intend to pug, you need to max damage as that is what people expect in dungeon runs.

Or you could put in the LFG text “casual run” or “fun run” if you want a balanced build.

You can do balanced builds too in secret and hope nobody notices or cares. Just make sure you don’t join LFG groups looking for “speed” or “level 80 only” or something of the sort. Those groups are expecting fast, efficient runs.

As for me. I’ve been running full zerk Glass Staff Ele for the longest time in dungeons, fractals and wvw. I don’t change gear and only respec traits when I want to experiment or try something different. For all intents and purposes, Full Zerk works great for me in all formats of the game. But not solo roaming.

Play what you want, Im playing that build, 20/0/0/20/30 staff Ele atm and its great. Anyways, looks like Zerk are gonna get nerfed in the future ( according to a dev post ). It’s good to be able to do stuff quickly, but playing the way you want is what counts. If other people are not happy, they can go to hell and you can move on ( That’s why guildies are amazing! )