Guild Wars 2

I know this is like the billionth time some has asked this question so please don’t bother to tell me to search. Thank you.

Now, is it better to got PVT support/tank guardian or DPS Zerk in pre-made high level Fractals?

If you are the single guardian in a fractal party then you should try a Knight’s/or zerker gear hammer build.

Full guide here: http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/12501056-dnt-guardian-build-5914

Scroll down until you see the hammer build used for fractals.

DPS Zerk.

full berserker

Zerker. PvT won’t help you team at all, only give you and only you some survivability at the expense of a great part of your dps.

The Hammer fractal build on the other hand will give constant protection to your team and all the support you need to keep you and your team alive, while sacrificing only a small part or your dps.

It’s all about your team play… PVT gear is the most selfish gear in the entire game.

V & T only help you. All damage stats help your team.

Healing Power “could” help if it were buffed a bit, but from my experience a full Cerlic set isn’t enough to change a parties outcome.

Go with with what you’re comfortable with. Maybe compromise with Knight’s? Just remember, an amazing DPS Guardian can also be a useless dead one.

PVT is kind of selfish, but I guess it depends on what you want to be doing. If you plan on pulling all the mobs and using Hammer auto to tank it could be better than Berserker, but I’d still go Berserker is you can survive the initial attack from the mobs until your party catches up/draws aggro too.

J Eberle.9312:

If you are the single guardian in a fractal party then you should try a Knight’s/or zerker gear hammer build.

Full guide here: http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/12501056-dnt-guardian-build-5914

Scroll down until you see the hammer build used for fractals.

Listen to her.

IvanTheGrey.2941:

J Eberle.9312:

If you are the single guardian in a fractal party then you should try a Knight’s/or zerker gear hammer build.

Full guide here: http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/12501056-dnt-guardian-build-5914

Scroll down until you see the hammer build used for fractals.

Listen to her.

seconded.

She, and the Gentleman that wrote that guide are easily 2 of the best guardians in game.

I think hammer build is over-rated, It is useful against some trash but I feel that on bosses like archdiviner he will still 1 hit you through protection, also scepter is awesome on some fractal bosses like Bloomhunger, Molten duo and dredge end bosses due to the large hit box

hammer is mostly for cliffside fractal during trash pulls

Selfish gear? What the hell are you guys on.
I understand wearing the zerk gear and that the combo gives significantly more damage than pvt, but I don’t get labeling pvt selfish gear.
It helps you survive plain and simple.

killing mobs slower just makes them kill your party easier.

pvt is selfish in PvE (except teq, but who cares about him anymore)

blakdoxa.7520:

Selfish gear? What the hell are you guys on.
I understand wearing the zerk gear and that the combo gives significantly more damage than pvt, but I don’t get labeling pvt selfish gear.
It helps you survive plain and simple.

Read that back to yourself. It helps YOU survive. Berserker gear helps you dps quickly, improving the party survivability as you kill mobs faster.

maha.7902:

blakdoxa.7520:

Selfish gear? What the hell are you guys on.
I understand wearing the zerk gear and that the combo gives significantly more damage than pvt, but I don’t get labeling pvt selfish gear.
It helps you survive plain and simple.

Read that back to yourself. It helps YOU survive. Berserker gear helps you dps quickly, improving the party survivability as you kill mobs faster.

True.

But what would be the difference in time it takes to kill lets say a pack of mobs if the guardian decided wear pvt over zerker? Does any one really know?

Aza.2105:

maha.7902:

blakdoxa.7520:

Selfish gear? What the hell are you guys on.
I understand wearing the zerk gear and that the combo gives significantly more damage than pvt, but I don’t get labeling pvt selfish gear.
It helps you survive plain and simple.

Read that back to yourself. It helps YOU survive. Berserker gear helps you dps quickly, improving the party survivability as you kill mobs faster.

True.

But what would be the difference in time it takes to kill lets say a pack of mobs if the guardian decided wear pvt over zerker? Does any one really know?

5o% faster, but Swifty could correct me more precisely.

Zerk or go home!

I do appreciate your input but I feel that through my shouts and support build (trooper runes) am more needed in a group where rest are DPS while I boon them and remove their conditions. However, I do have CoF zerk armor and I will do a Fotm run just to see which one feels better. Thank you all.

IvanTheGrey.2941:

Aza.2105:

maha.7902:

blakdoxa.7520:

Selfish gear? What the hell are you guys on.
I understand wearing the zerk gear and that the combo gives significantly more damage than pvt, but I don’t get labeling pvt selfish gear.
It helps you survive plain and simple.

Read that back to yourself. It helps YOU survive. Berserker gear helps you dps quickly, improving the party survivability as you kill mobs faster.

True.

But what would be the difference in time it takes to kill lets say a pack of mobs if the guardian decided wear pvt over zerker? Does any one really know?

5o% faster, but Swifty could correct me more precisely.

So one person in pvt makes the run 50% slower?

Aza.2105:

IvanTheGrey.2941:

Aza.2105:

maha.7902:

blakdoxa.7520:

Selfish gear? What the hell are you guys on.
I understand wearing the zerk gear and that the combo gives significantly more damage than pvt, but I don’t get labeling pvt selfish gear.
It helps you survive plain and simple.

Read that back to yourself. It helps YOU survive. Berserker gear helps you dps quickly, improving the party survivability as you kill mobs faster.

True.

But what would be the difference in time it takes to kill lets say a pack of mobs if the guardian decided wear pvt over zerker? Does any one really know?

5o% faster, but Swifty could correct me more precisely.

So one person in pvt makes the run 50% slower?

I apologize for the misunderstanding. The 50% was the dps difference btwn PVT and Berserker gear in terms of dps. If all things are equal, the difference would probably be around 10% in a full group kill time. (50% additional time added on by 20% of your party=10% total time added on to the kill time of a mob)

MrTitan.1654:

I do appreciate your input but I feel that through my shouts and support build (trooper runes) am more needed in a group where rest are DPS while I boon them and remove their conditions. However, I do have CoF zerk armor and I will do a Fotm run just to see which one feels better. Thank you all.

Trait your virtues to remove conditions on f2 and take purging flames if you need condition removal. Then just stick on dps traits and scholar runes, you’ll support and do damage at the same time.

IvanTheGrey.2941:

Aza.2105:

IvanTheGrey.2941:

Aza.2105:

maha.7902:

blakdoxa.7520:

Selfish gear? What the hell are you guys on.
I understand wearing the zerk gear and that the combo gives significantly more damage than pvt, but I don’t get labeling pvt selfish gear.
It helps you survive plain and simple.

Read that back to yourself. It helps YOU survive. Berserker gear helps you dps quickly, improving the party survivability as you kill mobs faster.

True.

But what would be the difference in time it takes to kill lets say a pack of mobs if the guardian decided wear pvt over zerker? Does any one really know?

5o% faster, but Swifty could correct me more precisely.

So one person in pvt makes the run 50% slower?

I apologize for the misunderstanding. The 50% was the dps difference btwn PVT and Berserker gear in terms of dps. If all things are equal, the difference would probably be around 10% in a full group kill time. (50% additional time added on by 20% of your party=10% total time added on to the kill time of a mob)

No problem.

This makes more sense.

mobs scale by 25% per nearby person

so if your dps is 50% less, that’s pretty hefty

Charak.9761:

mobs scale by 25% per nearby person

so if your dps is 50% less, that’s pretty hefty

Yea but its theoretical. There is a lot of numbers but they don’t take into consideration other variables. So its hard to know how big of a difference there would be between one party member wearing pvt vs zerk.

Aza.2105:

Charak.9761:

mobs scale by 25% per nearby person

so if your dps is 50% less, that’s pretty hefty

Yea but its theoretical. There is a lot of numbers but they don’t take into consideration other variables. So its hard to know how big of a difference there would be between one party member wearing pvt vs zerk.

there are addons that show actual health of players/mobs

MrTitan.1654:

I do appreciate your input but I feel that through my shouts and support build (trooper runes) am more needed in a group where rest are DPS while I boon them and remove their conditions. However, I do have CoF zerk armor and I will do a Fotm run just to see which one feels better. Thank you all.

What’s the point of asking on the forums if you ignore that pretty much everybody told you to go zerker and use PvT anyways? Meh.. in the end you can play how you want but I feel bad for the fractal groups that get you.

As somebody else already pointed out, you don’t need to slot shouts to cleanse condis and give protection, you don’t need PvT to be support. In fact the hammer dps spec that people linked here has more support even if you don’t look at dps since it has more efficient condi cleanses and better protection uptime.

You can actually provide more support with meta build I have listed than the ‘shout’ build. This is because in this game, killing things faster leads to less bad things happening to your group, while you can still provide cleanses, blinds and boons such as stability, aegises etc. along with reflects. Take it from someone who has run both builds for thousands of hours. Look at the link I have provided and spend some time thinking about how it works. I cannot agree more with what Keksmuffin has said. I’m sorry but really, you shouldn’t even bother asking for advice if at the end of the day it’s going to come down to your ‘feelings’.

Charak.9761:

Aza.2105:

Charak.9761:

mobs scale by 25% per nearby person

so if your dps is 50% less, that’s pretty hefty

Yea but its theoretical. There is a lot of numbers but they don’t take into consideration other variables. So its hard to know how big of a difference there would be between one party member wearing pvt vs zerk.

there are addons that show actual health of players/mobs

I’m not referring to the health of the mobs. I believe you about the scaling. When I say variables I’m roughly referring to intervals of time when you aren’t dpsing. Aka using healing skills, dodging etc.

Use this link: http://gw2dungeons.net/ Go to a specific encounter and look at the boss/mob attack pattern. Look for the cool down and damage of their big hits. Now imagine that you’d already done the DPS test of the two builds. Taking into account of all the available healing, blocking and dodging, how long you can withstand the big hits until all the resources is running out if your DPS is meh?

Gonna dispel a bit of a myth here:

PVT isn’t inherently “selfish”. If you end up on your back frequently due to using berserker gear, you’re being a lot more selfish than if you provide lower DPS in PVT and stay on your feet the whole time because I can guarantee you that causing your teammates to stop DPS entirely, run over to you and rez you will reduce your team’s overall DPS much, much more than just running with a low DPS armor set. This also potentially deprives your team of necessary reflects, aegis, etc. while you’re downed.

Yes, ideally you will know the encounter well enough to survive on dodges and using the right cooldowns at the right time, but that’s something you learn over time and doesn’t instantly happen the first couple times you step in Fractals.

Now, I agree that Knights’ gear is generally a better idea than PVT if you want a defensive set, but neither set is necessarily “selfish”.

PvT gear in PvE is being selfish unless it is requested/needed by some situations. The game mechanic in gw2 is that players kill mobs fast enough to avoid getting hit or downed. And even if a guardian survives the encounter with PvT gear, he/she cannot solo the entire barrage of mobs+bosses, hence getting killed anyway. If you are in full zerker you can contribute a lot in melting mobs/bosses down thus helping the entire party avoiding wipe. Also by having more toughness, the aggro will be drawn to guard, potentially screwing up LOS and getting killed even faster.

Aza.2105:

maha.7902:

blakdoxa.7520:

Selfish gear? What the hell are you guys on.
I understand wearing the zerk gear and that the combo gives significantly more damage than pvt, but I don’t get labeling pvt selfish gear.
It helps you survive plain and simple.

Read that back to yourself. It helps YOU survive. Berserker gear helps you dps quickly, improving the party survivability as you kill mobs faster.

True.

But what would be the difference in time it takes to kill lets say a pack of mobs if the guardian decided wear pvt over zerker? Does any one really know?

Oooh! ooh! I do! I do!
/me raises hand
200% crit damage 50% of the time, means you do approximately 50% more damage, meaning you do your job 50% better.

Assuming your using the hammer build and running pvt armor + zerker trinkets it is about 11% loss assuming the typical group buffs. In fractals you will most likely get less buffs and even less if you pug so it would come in around 15% loss. This will be enough for you to take 1 hit instead of instantly dying in some parts and isn’t a bad option when starting out and then moving away from. Anymore defensive gear/traits isn’t worth it and would just hinder your group since it won’t save you from another hit. DPS is really important in fractals for rallying quickly on harder trash to prevent wipes and bosses take long as is. Now that you can retrait on the fly you should use a scepter build for big targets like bloomhunger/molten duo and gs/sword for bosses that are more of a joke or the prot is meaningless like dredge bosses. You can find all the builds in the link that j eberle posted or in my sig.