Guild Wars 2

10/25/0/30/5 Is what I actually run for Hammer n GSword, this is my Hammer setup. 10/30/0/30/0 is used if you want the option of RHS.

0/0/30/30/10 will give you a ton of healing and survivability.

Mix gear to your comfort level.

GL,

Blood~

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Maiden England.3491:

Sorem.9157:

Maiden England.3491:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Maiden England.3491:

Bloodgruve.6038:

Maiden England.3491:

zerker guards are a joke.

That’s interesting because I feel that comfy PVT guards are a joke in PvE…

If you want to sit there all fat on hp and armor, full health all the time wasting potential DPS and wasting the time of your group then I guess that’s how you want to play.

I’d like to caution the OP here, and this is from experience, a full set of PVT will be rotting in the bank at some point. I’ve 3 man’d a lot of dungeon content with mostly full Zerker gear without issue. I run with another guard, he’s full Zerker also, runs 12.5k HP and he is front line melee and he survives it.

Gear to where you’re comfortable, just don’t be afraid to run some DPS gear over PVT.

@ the war vs guard DPS argument, post your numbers or formulas, speculation is not fact. Screen shots of 100b or WW alone is not proof.

If by PvE you mean killing boars in queensdale, then no, you don’t need PVT. When I say PvE, I mean doing dungeons like SE, CoF, Arah, Fractals, and CoE. If you go into one of those dungeons with a party, you’re expected to do most if not all the tanking. A zerker guard would do as much tanking as a warrior. The reason I run PVT is not so I have full health, rather so I’m not on the ground, being a pain in the butt to my team, throughout the whole dungeon.

You need PVT to survive in SE or CoF? Lol.

If I’m the only guardian in the party, yes I do.

Pretty sure a zerker Guardian can tank a lot more than a Warrior.

If you need PVT to tank CoF, you’re doing it wrong, Guardian is probably not your class. I tank it just fine with zerker, while being the only Guardian in the group.

been playing guard since release, i think i know that class pretty well…..

Then why do you need PVT for CoF?

You all seem to be so hard headed on PVT being useless in pve and zerker being the way to go. I’ll go try it once more and see how it goes. no hard feelings

Playstyle is a factor here too. With PVT Hammer you can stand toe to toe with your target all day long, in a lot of cases. Zerker uses more dodges and active mitigation but its still quite survivable.

PVT has a place, I still carry some of the pieces for rough spots but my default is 10 pcs Zerker 2 pcs PVT. Its not useless, its just not supportive of optimal dps. We only stop doing damage when we die, if we’re at 10% life for the whole dungeon but stay on our feet we’re still effective. Some of us like more of a cushion than others, I just get bored with full health and AH all the time.

Maiden England.3491:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Maiden England.3491:

Sorem.9157:

Maiden England.3491:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Maiden England.3491:

Bloodgruve.6038:

Maiden England.3491:

zerker guards are a joke.

That’s interesting because I feel that comfy PVT guards are a joke in PvE…

If you want to sit there all fat on hp and armor, full health all the time wasting potential DPS and wasting the time of your group then I guess that’s how you want to play.

I’d like to caution the OP here, and this is from experience, a full set of PVT will be rotting in the bank at some point. I’ve 3 man’d a lot of dungeon content with mostly full Zerker gear without issue. I run with another guard, he’s full Zerker also, runs 12.5k HP and he is front line melee and he survives it.

Gear to where you’re comfortable, just don’t be afraid to run some DPS gear over PVT.

@ the war vs guard DPS argument, post your numbers or formulas, speculation is not fact. Screen shots of 100b or WW alone is not proof.

If by PvE you mean killing boars in queensdale, then no, you don’t need PVT. When I say PvE, I mean doing dungeons like SE, CoF, Arah, Fractals, and CoE. If you go into one of those dungeons with a party, you’re expected to do most if not all the tanking. A zerker guard would do as much tanking as a warrior. The reason I run PVT is not so I have full health, rather so I’m not on the ground, being a pain in the butt to my team, throughout the whole dungeon.

You need PVT to survive in SE or CoF? Lol.

If I’m the only guardian in the party, yes I do.

Pretty sure a zerker Guardian can tank a lot more than a Warrior.

If you need PVT to tank CoF, you’re doing it wrong, Guardian is probably not your class. I tank it just fine with zerker, while being the only Guardian in the group.

been playing guard since release, i think i know that class pretty well…..

Then why do you need PVT for CoF?

You all seem to be so hard headed on PVT being useless in pve and zerker being the way to go. I’ll go try it once more and see how it goes. no hard feelings

I think the more objective summary is that zerker fans do not think you really need PVT. No content really (except higher level fractals maybe) really requires heavy builds of PVT to survive. Learning the mechanics, you can easily anticipate dodges and zerk your way through. Given all the defensive boons, you it’s even more forgiving to be zerk with guard as opposed to other classes.

I think both sides are arguing for two different kinds of play.

There’s solo play (aka every man for himself not necessarily soloing a dungeon) and then there’s team play.

PVT or cleric’s or more defensive stats with a guard, will most likely allow you to anchor (not having to dodge) and take on enemies more easier thus allowing your party more freedom to make mistakes / survive. This only really works if you have aggro on you — and we all know how reliable some aggro AIs are (some aren’t really reliable). Investing in healing power can help support party self-heals and boon duration is always a plus.

Zerker gear will allow you to be more effective as a player. If everybody in the party can handle themselves, this should be the most effective way to go (because bosses are just a dps check most of the time).

I think both sides have valid points. I honestly can’t go back to anything other than zerker because I like seeing the highest damage I can output and I’d rather just hope players can handle themselves in a tough fight.

It really depends on how you view party mates. If you want to help them, going more tanky never hurts. If you want to work with them and know they can take care of themselves, you can give up your armor stats for more effective damage output.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Maiden England.3491:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Maiden England.3491:

Sorem.9157:

Maiden England.3491:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Maiden England.3491:

Bloodgruve.6038:

Maiden England.3491:

zerker guards are a joke.

That’s interesting because I feel that comfy PVT guards are a joke in PvE…

If you want to sit there all fat on hp and armor, full health all the time wasting potential DPS and wasting the time of your group then I guess that’s how you want to play.

I’d like to caution the OP here, and this is from experience, a full set of PVT will be rotting in the bank at some point. I’ve 3 man’d a lot of dungeon content with mostly full Zerker gear without issue. I run with another guard, he’s full Zerker also, runs 12.5k HP and he is front line melee and he survives it.

Gear to where you’re comfortable, just don’t be afraid to run some DPS gear over PVT.

@ the war vs guard DPS argument, post your numbers or formulas, speculation is not fact. Screen shots of 100b or WW alone is not proof.

If by PvE you mean killing boars in queensdale, then no, you don’t need PVT. When I say PvE, I mean doing dungeons like SE, CoF, Arah, Fractals, and CoE. If you go into one of those dungeons with a party, you’re expected to do most if not all the tanking. A zerker guard would do as much tanking as a warrior. The reason I run PVT is not so I have full health, rather so I’m not on the ground, being a pain in the butt to my team, throughout the whole dungeon.

You need PVT to survive in SE or CoF? Lol.

If I’m the only guardian in the party, yes I do.

Pretty sure a zerker Guardian can tank a lot more than a Warrior.

If you need PVT to tank CoF, you’re doing it wrong, Guardian is probably not your class. I tank it just fine with zerker, while being the only Guardian in the group.

been playing guard since release, i think i know that class pretty well…..

Then why do you need PVT for CoF?

You all seem to be so hard headed on PVT being useless in pve and zerker being the way to go. I’ll go try it once more and see how it goes. no hard feelings

I think the more objective summary is that zerker fans do not think you really need PVT. No content really (except higher level fractals maybe) really requires heavy builds of PVT to survive. Learning the mechanics, you can easily anticipate dodges and zerk your way through. Given all the defensive boons, you it’s even more forgiving to be zerk with guard as opposed to other classes.

I think both sides are arguing for two different kinds of play.

There’s solo play (aka every man for himself not necessarily soloing a dungeon) and then there’s team play.

PVT or cleric’s or more defensive stats with a guard, will most likely allow you to anchor (not having to dodge) and take on enemies more easier thus allowing your party more freedom to make mistakes / survive. This only really works if you have aggro on you — and we all know how reliable some aggro AIs are (some aren’t really reliable). Investing in healing power can help support party self-heals and boon duration is always a plus.

Zerker gear will allow you to be more effective as a player. If everybody in the party can handle themselves, this should be the most effective way to go (because bosses are just a dps check most of the time).

I think both sides have valid points. I honestly can’t go back to anything other than zerker because I like seeing the highest damage I can output and I’d rather just hope players can handle themselves in a tough fight.

It really depends on how you view party mates. If you want to help them, going more tanky never hurts. If you want to work with them and know they can take care of themselves, you can give up your armor stats for more effective damage output.

Yes, of course this is all assuming you have a team good enough in CoF for example to take down slave driver quickly. I usually go in CoF with pugs that take 7 mins to kill slave driver while I’m tanking the whole time. You can’t just learn the game and dodge your way through all the hits, I do the dodging, AS WELL as use PVT.

Problem is PVT isn’t going to make you heal any more or any better. It just increases your own survivability at the cost of DPS output, which means mobs die slower, which means there are more chances for your teammates to miss a roll or something and die.

Slave Driver in COF is an extreme example of this. That guy has no health but pretty much just beats on a player for massive damage until he dies; the best way to deal with him is to just go full glass cannon on all characters and just burst him down before he even attacks anyone. The less DPS you have, the longer it takes to kill him and the more damage he deals to you.

A full tank team is actually MUCH more likely to wipe than a full DPS one, because most DPS teams can drop bosses in under a minute, before they can even do any damage. It’s not just limited to Slave Driver.

Bloodgruve.6038:

Maiden England.3491:

zerker guards are a joke.

That’s interesting because I feel that comfy PVT guards are a joke in PvE…

If you want to sit there all fat on hp and armor, full health all the time wasting potential DPS and wasting the time of your group then I guess that’s how you want to play.

I’d like to caution the OP here, and this is from experience, a full set of PVT will be rotting in the bank at some point. I’ve 3 man’d a lot of dungeon content with mostly full Zerker gear without issue. I run with another guard, he’s full Zerker also, runs 12.5k HP and he is front line melee and he survives it.

Gear to where you’re comfortable, just don’t be afraid to run some DPS gear over PVT.

@ the war vs guard DPS argument, post your numbers or formulas, speculation is not fact. Screen shots of 100b or WW alone is not proof.

didn’t see this post til now. your argument of guards base dps being higher is just as empty as mine. and having played both guard and war, from personal experience, without research or formulas, using the same gear, warrior and guardian do not even hit near the same dps as eachother…. you think guardian is just a warrior with defensive skills? its a bit more complicated than that.

Maiden England.3491:

Yes, of course this is all assuming you have a team good enough in CoF for example to take down slave driver quickly. I usually go in CoF with pugs that take 7 mins to kill slave driver while I’m tanking the whole time. You can’t just learn the game and dodge your way through all the hits, I do the dodging, AS WELL as use PVT.

I mean, every situation has a different tactic. For COF p1 it’s most ideal to use the highest dps to get it done as quickly as possible so your zerker warriors or non-def based players don’t drop. It requires communication really. If you have 4 warriors in your party but 3 are shouts/banner/defensive and 1 is zerk and then you are a guard who is zerk —- yes most likely you’d wish you had more support to keep them alive. But usually the LFG post should cover how your team is made/composed of. But again, you may not want to do that because it seems you probably are more of a team player and anticipate people making mistakes or like having it just in case to carry the team. That’s fine.

I don’t pug as much anymore so I don’t know what it’s like to deal with people who don’t bring enough to the plate to do a good cof p1 run. However, PVT is a personal choice, it isn’t a necessity – it really depends on the party comp.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Problem is PVT isn’t going to make you heal any more or any better. It just increases your own survivability at the cost of DPS output, which means mobs die slower, which means there are more chances for your teammates to miss a roll or something and die.

Slave Driver in COF is an extreme example of this. That guy has no health but pretty much just beats on a player for massive damage until he dies; the best way to deal with him is to just go full glass cannon on all characters and just burst him down before he even attacks anyone. The less DPS you have, the longer it takes to kill him and the more damage he deals to you.

A full tank team is actually MUCH more likely to wipe than a full DPS one, because most DPS teams can drop bosses in under a minute, before they can even do any damage. It’s not just limited to Slave Driver.

Agreed, the best way to take him is to dps him down prolonging it will eventually cause your committed dps players to drop. Again, aggro is not always directed towards the ‘tank’ in fights.

Maiden England.3491:

Yes, of course this is all assuming you have a team good enough in CoF for example to take down slave driver quickly. I usually go in CoF with pugs that take 7 mins to kill slave driver while I’m tanking the whole time. You can’t just learn the game and dodge your way through all the hits, I do the dodging, AS WELL as use PVT.

I run 4 war/1 mes speed runs for CoF 1 with my warrior. We down the slave driver in 7-12 seconds. If I do the same run with my zerk guardian, the slave driver takes much longer due to pugs not being dps geared, this is the only time anyone goes down.

I also sometimes lfg zerker ANYTHING with my zerker guard for CoF 1. We can generally kill the slave driver in 15 seconds or under. CoF is the ultimate path for running zerker gear because everything can be bursted so fast. Now I do run Knight armor/zerk trinkets for Arah to be able to take a couple more hits. But I know guards that run it just fine in full zerk.

Arah path 4 is another example where high dps is needed. I was at Simin with a pug the other day. For the life of us we could not out dps her regen. After so long we were wondering what gear each other was wearing. Turned out I was the only one with a zerker set. Another guard had only a FULL set of giver’s gear. We simply couldn’t beat her.

PVT is fine, that’s your playstyle. If it works for you then great. But you shouldn’t dismiss zerker guards as a joke.

laharl.8435:

Maiden England.3491:

Yes, of course this is all assuming you have a team good enough in CoF for example to take down slave driver quickly. I usually go in CoF with pugs that take 7 mins to kill slave driver while I’m tanking the whole time. You can’t just learn the game and dodge your way through all the hits, I do the dodging, AS WELL as use PVT.

I run 4 war/1 mes speed runs for CoF 1 with my warrior. We down the slave driver in 7-12 seconds. If I do the same run with my zerk guardian, the slave driver takes much longer due to pugs not being dps geared, this is the only time anyone goes down.

I also sometimes lfg zerker ANYTHING with my zerker guard for CoF 1. We can generally kill the slave driver in 15 seconds or under. CoF is the ultimate path for running zerker gear because everything can be bursted so fast. Now I do run Knight armor/zerk trinkets for Arah to be able to take a couple more hits. But I know guards that run it just fine in full zerk.

Arah path 4 is another example where high dps is needed. I was at Simin with a pug the other day. For the life of us we could not out dps her regen. After so long we were wondering what gear each other was wearing. Turned out I was the only one with a zerker set. Another guard had only a FULL set of giver’s gear. We simply couldn’t beat her.

PVT is fine, that’s your playstyle. If it works for you then great. But you should dismiss zerker guards as a joke.

This is exactly it. It is easy to go full PVT, or full knights, or full clerics, or whatever, with the tankiest weapon and traits and go “Look at all these zerkers that downed in dungeons while I was doing just fine” because no kitten, they are basically running the dungeon minus one person. You’re basically forcing your teammates to make up for your DPS while you do nothing, then acting surprised when they die and you don’t.

By reducing your DPS in favor of defense you don’t need, you’re practically taking the damage you take and redirecting it to your party members.

Let me remind you gentlemen that though zerker guardians do more damage, PVT gear still does some decent damage as well. So you’d be contributing somewhat decent dps as well as tanking the entire dungeon.

Maiden England.3491:

Let me remind you gentlemen that though zerker guardians do more damage, PVT gear still does some decent damage as well. So you’d be contributing somewhat decent dps as well as tanking the entire dungeon.

A PVT set deals less than half of what a zerker set does at base, and gains minimal additional benefit from fury, consumables, and Banner of Discipline. If you really want to be tanky DPS and not just full tank, you should, at the very minimum, go knights gear with berserker jewels. You will gain an extra 300 or so toughness and still retain some moderate degree of damage.

Maiden England.3491:

Let me remind you gentlemen that though zerker guardians do more damage, PVT gear still does some decent damage as well. So you’d be contributing somewhat decent dps as well as tanking the entire dungeon.

No, you simply don’t. After one rather disastrous AC run with two very defensive guardians from my guild, I calculated a bit because I was curious. Fortunately, one of them used the greatsword, with a mix of PVT and cleric’s armor, so that I could directly compare us. The final result was that I did roughly 250 % of his damage, which could probably be increased to almost 300 % if I was wearing 100 % zerker.

So in total, the damage output of a PVT guard is just one thing: ridiculous.

Maiden England.3491:

Let me remind you gentlemen that though zerker guardians do more damage, PVT gear still does some decent damage as well. So you’d be contributing somewhat decent dps as well as tanking the entire dungeon.

You’d be fine with Knights instead, and you can still “tank” mobs; full soldiers is just too much defense in PvE — full clerics would be much, MUCH better even. Very mediocre DPS but at least you can pass down your survivability to others via boosted healing.

I have to disagree with all of you Zerk Leets. Not everyone can run a full out Zerker DPS gear. In fact a LOT of the pug’s I’ve been in with where everyone ran with Zerker gear were constantly getting downed, and this was when I wore full zerker gear too. Was it just bad players? Probably, but they definately should not have been in Zerker gear.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

I have to disagree with all of you Zerk Leets. Not everyone can run a full out Zerker DPS gear. In fact a LOT of the pug’s I’ve been in with where everyone ran with Zerker gear were constantly getting downed, and this was when I wore full zerker gear too. Was it just bad players? Probably, but they definately should not have been in Zerker gear.

It takes a bit more skill to survive in zerker gear. And I don’t think people are saying zerker or go home. It’s just advice that if you eventually want to be an effective player, go zerker because Guards by themselves are naturally tanky if used in the right manner which to the OP means that he can (if he wants to) go zerker and still be tanky; thus being the best mix of tanky dps guard.

As with many threads, with very few exceptions, people are talking past each others w/o taking considerations of situations, player styles & skill level. Situation isn’t only about how hard a content is but also whether you are a party leader and your party consisted of inefficient players of your guild, friends. Once such thing starts registering in your mind, maybe, just maybe, you understand there are always some places and sometimes, you need something different.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.1g.h1j|2.1g.h1j|1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7.1c.a7|1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.8c.67|0.5.u56b.u29b.5|1b.7|0.0.0.0.0|e

This is what I use in WvW prior to me changing orbs to boon duration runes (wouldn’t recommend that if you are wanting to dps and not support).

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.0|1.1c.h1j|2.1c.0|1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7|1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.1g.67.8c.67|0.5.u56b.u28b.5|1b.7|0.0.0.0.0|e

This is what I would use if I wanted to really drop some dps and still somewhat stay alive. Just don’t go running into the zerg.

I wish I could incorporate a little more healing power to utilize the energy regen + selfless daring.

SkyChef.5432:

As with many threads, with very few exceptions, people are talking past each others w/o taking considerations of situations, player styles & skill level. Situation isn’t only about how hard a content is but also whether you are a party leader and your party consisted of inefficient players of your guild, friends. Once such thing starts registering in your mind, maybe, just maybe, you understand there are always some places and sometimes, you need something different.

Nail meet Head. It’s hammertime.

This is why I carry a second gear swap in one of my bags.

That should be self-evident. Nevertheless, situations in PvE, where PVT gear is actually useful, are negligible. Right now, I can only think of the cage in the dredge fractal, where you just want to survive without needing to do any damage. In most other cases, knight’s gear allows you to deal more damage while having sufficient defense (or even better defense than PVT, if you run an AH build with EM).

PVT doesn’t seem very good to me because you sacrifice so much crit chance that it hurts your ability to take advantage of EM/AH. What it’s good for is surviving very high spike damage in fractals… of which you should be dodging anyways. That extra margin of error is not worth the large dps hit you take. I place a higher priority in being able to replenish my life, and with AH I do that with pretty much anything my guardian does.

I do have knight’s armor though (rest zerker) on an AH build. I’m not super l33t and can’t be all zerker, but I survive fine and seem to be able to absorb most of the aggro in instances as well as doing ok in melee combat against zergs in wvw. At least I think so. I’m pretty close to them and can’t move half the time due to lag, though I sure hope it’s not just because they’re lagging too.

My suggestion is to add more offensive gear the more comfortable you get with the situation. And of course, there’s nothing wrong with having multiple armor sets in your inventory either.

ArchonWing.9480:

PVT doesn’t seem very good to me because you sacrifice so much crit chance that it hurts your ability to take advantage of EM/AH. What it’s good for is surviving very high spike damage in fractals… of which you should be dodging anyways. That extra margin of error is not worth the large dps hit you take. I place a higher priority in being able to replenish my life, and with AH I do that with pretty much anything my guardian does.

I do have knight’s armor though (rest zerker) on an AH build. I’m not super l33t and can’t be all zerker, but I survive fine and seem to be able to absorb most of the aggro in instances as well as doing ok in melee combat against zergs in wvw. At least I think so. I’m pretty close to them and can’t move half the time due to lag, though I sure hope it’s not just because they’re lagging too.

My suggestion is to add more offensive gear the more comfortable you get with the situation. And of course, there’s nothing wrong with having multiple armor sets in your inventory either.

It’s an extra margin of error but you will have more errors, because bosses take longer to kill. You may be able to survive one botched dodge but because it takes so long to kill everything, you have to dodge so much more than you’ll probably get hit again and die. Not to mention it, again, makes it much harder on the zerkers in your party since they now have to do perfect dodges over a much longer fight, without the extra buffer you’re getting from PVT.

In other words, I’d rather you go zerker and die, than have you go PVT and the rest of us die.

And yet, if you die in zerker then you are still doing little to no damage as you are arguing if someone would to survive in pvt.

as these guys said, zerker may be ideal in a perfect scenario, which nearly never happens.

Not picking sides per say but the reasoning was flawed is all. If you and your group can go full zerk and win, good. If you and your group can go full tank and win, also good.

If you can’t win, change something.

Well, here’s the thing.

Just because someone wears zerker gear, doesn’t automatically mean they’ll die.
If someone wears tanky low dps gear, then they automatically do a lot less damage regardless of how well they play. The game’s mechanics just allow one to mitigate the shortcomings of one gear type over the other.

The problem is that dealing damage to an enemy helps everyone in the party. Stacking toughness and vit on yourself doesn’t help your party unless you can exclusively draw damage on to yourself. Which can be hard given how AOE happy bosses are. It should also be known that guardians can hold enemies down and offer support regardless of stats. Guangli is right that the longer a fight goes, the harder it is on the rest of the party.

This doesn’t mean zerker gear is the one and only choice. Given latency and human error, it’s not absurdly wrong to have some kind of net. When CC effects come into play, it’s not that simple.The problem is when one sacrifices too much for it in a way that puts them behind for many situations and actually makes it uphill. You may survive another big hit or two, but is that worth doing so much less damage? In the end, it’s best to maximize damage without getting killed, and where that limit is depends on the person. I just don’t think anyone ever needs Pvt gear. But hey, that’s why you can carry around multiple gearsets. You don’t have to pick one forever.

That is under the assumption that the whole party is zerker but you. So if you are the cause of slower dps the rest of the group will be subjected to more instances of damage that they may or may not be able to handle.

On release, most people shunned those without survivability because they were downed and the mindset was low dps is better than no dps, so in that instance you had groups of people with low damage but high survivability, causing the one player with zerker gear to be the odd man out who would cause the rest of the group heartache because they had low dps and long fights, a downed person caused even longer fights and a general pain in the rear end. All in all the only person that dies is the one without tanky gear and the rest of the group trods on.

As we see now, tables have turned and most people are capable of avoiding the big hits and do enough damage to down enemies and clear dungeons in the matter of minutes instead of hours.

This does not mean every group is zerker though. So when a zerker guy joins a group that is more survival, they now look bad since the fights last longer and they have to play perfectly or get downed (thus they get downed a few times throughout the dungeon).

Turn that around and have a pvt guy in a zerker group. They are angry because fights are again lasting too long and causing them heartache and potentially death. Opposed to the tanky group, if someone comes in against the grain, then the whole group can die because of the long fights versus one person dying.

I sort of fall in the middle of those two mindsets, because I solo a lot and full glass makes it hard to take on some of the champs and events versus my more tanky set up. Yet if I go full tank then I run into long fights that may push the time limit of a dynamic event or just bore me in general.

So pick your groups or find a balance. Most people are polar and like the extremes of one side or the other though.

Build traits around defense/boons and rock full berserker gear + energy sigils and food. If you are good at dodging you will win.