Guild Wars 2

I know shields suck. Keep that in mind when posting please.

I have a full set of soldier’s exotics and im not really sure what i shd do about weapons since my armor isn’t also zerkers.

I guess what im really asking is what sigils and accessories/trinkets should i be running if i want to mace shield + w/e already having soldier’s stuff.

Thx

Your current gear doesn’t matter, Zerk will always be the suggested option for any choice as you don’t need more defense than that.

Sigils, Force is always nice, Night is great in most dungeons (and yes they work together), Frailty is nice as well for vuln stacks as it helps the whole group. Strength for some might as well as Battle if you swap weapons a lot. I’m a fan of Energy as more dodges is great. Those would be the ones I’d choose from generally.

Hope that helps, if you’re anything like me you’re starting out and soldier seems a good options but remember defense does nothing in PVE for this game other than make your life easier acting as a safety net if you fail to properly utilize your active defense. If you want it, that’s fine, jsut don’t join “meta” or “Zerk” groups as that isn’t what you’ll be.

So that’s it then, full zerker or nothing. It’s the be all, end all gear for everything, or at least pve?

Kormeg.2469:

So that’s it then, full zerker or nothing. It’s the be all, end all gear for everything, or at least pve?

Yep.

Only time any other gear is worth using is in WvW (which is dying for most non T1 servers) and PvP.

Arena.net tried to make other gear types worth using a while back by nerfing zerker by 10%, but it still wasn’t worth it.

This is mainly due to the fact that the vast majority of damage in PvE is well telegraphed, slow & comes in spikes. Thus you can avoid the majority of it via well timed dodges, reflects etc….. and self heal up the rest.

There is also the way that conditions scale on mobs which causes condition specs to not be worth using unless it’s a very long fight where you cannot stand still (only like 1-2 in game).

Short of a real expansion drastically changing the design it’s unlikely to ever be fixed either.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Kormeg.2469:

So that’s it then, full zerker or nothing. It’s the be all, end all gear for everything, or at least pve?

Short of a real expansion drastically changing the design it’s unlikely to ever be fixed either.

Holy kitten that’s horrible! I knew it was popular but this kittening sucks! Never seen anything like this in an mmo. Hopefully the ‘big news’ form PAX south is something to look forward to.

You can play whatever in casual runs, no one is forcing you te bo useful or good provided you don’t join a specific lfg. Berserker is just the best as support isn’t tied to gear and dpsing the boss faster helps your teammates. IF you are selfish, go soldier or carrion or nomad with spirit weapons and a 3/3/3/2 build, but don’t expect people to praise you and love your presence in any group content; it’s group content for a reason, and there’s people who rely on you, especially as a guardian.

Kormeg.2469:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Kormeg.2469:

So that’s it then, full zerker or nothing. It’s the be all, end all gear for everything, or at least pve?

Short of a real expansion drastically changing the design it’s unlikely to ever be fixed either.

Holy kitten that’s horrible! I knew it was popular but this kittening sucks! Never seen anything like this in an mmo. Hopefully the ‘big news’ form PAX south is something to look forward to.

Well… you might think that but really there is always a meta in games. In EQ we ran 1 tank, 1 healer, 1 control 3 DPS for groups (and often had a dps tanking/controlling for us as well meaning 1 healer 5 dps), and raids were basically 2 tank/healer groups and 7 DPS groups. In DCUO we ran full 4 DPS groups for group content if we could only using tanks/healers when needed, and raids we often ran 1 healer, 1 tank both in DPS setups with the rest being batteries and DPS (essentially DPS setup) as well.

There’s always a heavy leaning towards damage in MMOs. The general rule is you bring enough utility/support to survive and then stack the offense. That is with the idea that you will eventually have enough defense to survive but offense nearly never caps out until it’s trivial content such that things die in a single attack.

It’s the same with GW2.

Don’t let yourself get caught up with your gear though, the tweaking and variety in GW2 comes through your trait, weapon and utility skill choices. Gear is simply a sliding scale of offense to defense potential. With how the game is set up, being a very action based game style, you can survive things with simply applying your tools correctly. Dodge the attack, blind the enemies and toss up a block(or aegis) when you need to and you’ll get through things unscathed for the most part. This is why people go with zerker.

It’s not a “we like zerker and think everyone should play like us.” It’s simply how the game is designed, the optimal approach will be to glass up and lean on your skill rather than having the passive defense to survive the attacks.

It’s a fun game that asks that you learn the tells of your opponents and react to them. That’s what they created when they got rid of the trinity and put in a more action game style into this MMO. It’s not your typical RPG where you grab a healer and tank and lean on them as your defensive support, no, it’s each players responsibility to keep themselves alive.

Now that doesn’t mean teamwork and support isn’t important. As a guard you’re there for your support. A Wall of Reflection will save a lot of people as well as act offensively. A well timed Aegis will save lives. Blinding targets (not bosses generally) will prevent most all damage.

Do yourself a favor and free yourself from the constraints that other MMOs have created for you. This isn’t like other MMOs, it’s more action based, more about your own skill.

And, yes, Mace is good, the healing is helpful in many places as well as being a viable dps option. The block on it is great. Shield is a bit /meh much due to the long reuses but also other little issues.

It’s truly a great game, you just need to not think of it as your typical RPG, think of it more like an action game and you’ll see how great it can be. Sorry for the novel but I really hate seeing people so caught up in the mindframe of the status quo of MMOs instead of seeing this game for what it is. You’ll only hurt yourself and miss out on the fun that this game provides.

Well thanks for the lengthy explanation, i don’t think i fully understood why zerkers was the absolute best way to go

Kormeg.2469:

Well thanks for the lengthy explanation, i don’t think i fully understood why zerkers was the absolute best way to go

Its the optimal way to go, but you don’t need it to complete any content and have fun in the game.

The reason why zerker (or assassins) is the optimal way to go is simple. There is three category of stats for the gear.
- Damage : Power, Condition, Precision, Ferocity, etc
- Personnal surviability : Vitality, Toughness, etc
- Support : Healing Power, Boons Duration, etc

In support, Anet wanted to exclude a specific healer so we don’t get into the Holy Trinity. By doing that, we end up with good personal heal and bad scaling from healing power. You can’t outheal the incoming dmg, making it useless in pve. Boons duration is just too small in gear to do any good.

Personnal surviability only give you that. Its selfish and don’t help you team at all. BUT it’s an amazing training wheel when you learn the game, a new profession, new content or just want to play casual/relax. Its purpose is clear and does is well.

That leave us with dmg only. Unfortunaltly, condition dmg don’t work well in group content. Because of technical limitation, the cap on condition restraint the number of ppl playing condition before you start to cancel each other. One condition damage build can do 20 stack of bleed, leaving no place for a second guys to do bleeding. That only apply in group content, so in solo there is no problem with condition build.

So we end up with only 2 optimal gear : Zerker and Assassin. Now ppl complain that there is no diversity in gw2, but they are wrong. There is no diversity in gear stats, but there is a great deal of it in trait, sigil, runes, weapons, utilities, etc. A lot of ppl are changing their build or weapons several times inside a single dungeon to adapt to a specific situation.

Thaddeus.4891:

. A lot of ppl are changing their build or weapons several times inside a single dungeon to adapt to a specific situation.

SO what you’re saying is that just do zerkers and be done with gear stats, and look to traits and weapons for diversity. That’s a breath of fresh air from what i thought of the situation before.

Exactly. Though if you’re just learning the soldiers gear might be nice to give you a bit of a safety net as you get better at actively defending yourself with blinds/blocks/dodges/projectile defense.

And it’s kind of nice, instead of carrying multiple gear sets for differnt builds you simply need to swap traits/weapons/utilities, can you imagine carrying 4 full sets of gear?

And just to give you an example of some situations where you swap. Hammer isn’t my general weapon for Arah, but in groups with thieves/engi’s the blast finisher is nice to stack stealth, so I’ll swap it in for runs. Scepter is only good on big hitbox bosses, so Lupicus is more or less the only spot I use it. I’ll also swap in my energy sigil weapon for him and even trait Focus Mastery and Vigor trait if I’m not feeling brave. My build changes a few times throughout an arah path.

Kormeg.2469:

SO what you’re saying is that just do zerkers and be done with gear stats, and look to traits and weapons for diversity. That’s a breath of fresh air from what i thought of the situation before.

Pretty much. That’s the concept of GW2, but a lot of ppl just hit a brick of wall when they see zerker only and can’t see farther than that.

Keep in mind that going full zerker can be hard for some ppl. You really need to know the game, the content and your profession to not die a lot. If that’s your situation, a couple pieces of knight or soldier gear is not a bad thing. They are perfect training weel so if you need them use them. Condition build are also viable in solo situation or against some specific enemies like husk in the world boss Triple Wurm, they are just not great in group content like dungeons.

Some profession are really limited if you want some of the best build in dungeon. Warrior for exemple is pretty straight forward in that regard. One build is there since a long time and nobody come out with a better build yet. You still have phalanx build for more support but other than that if you take another build that will only to fit what you like, not to optimize your stuff.

Other profession on the other hand have several good build to fit different situation. The guardian have different optimal weapons depending of the situation, and different build depending on the needs of your group. The elementalist have three main family of build and different trait setup can be use in each of them to fit your group and your game style.

Thanks everyone for all your replies, you’ve all helped me IMMENSELY.

Kormeg.2469:

I know shields suck. Keep that in mind when posting please.

Well then what’s the purpose of asking for a build that uses it?

Black Box.9312:

Kormeg.2469:

I know shields suck. Keep that in mind when posting please.

Well then what’s the purpose of asking for a build that uses it?

There’s optimizing overall then there’s optimizing within a certain scope. That’s why.

Do you grab a nomad’s shield with a Sigil of Hobbling because shield sucks? Or do you grab a Zerk shield with a good sigil because it’s smarter to do so?

That question just bugs me as it’s a mind frame that I think is wrong. Sometimes it’s just fun to do things a certain way even if it’s kinda dumb, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t want to do that thing the best you can.

Black Box.9312:

Kormeg.2469:

I know shields suck. Keep that in mind when posting please.

Well then what’s the purpose of asking for a build that uses it?

For the same reason that not every single person plays warrior.

Jerus.4350:

Black Box.9312:

Kormeg.2469:

I know shields suck. Keep that in mind when posting please.

Well then what’s the purpose of asking for a build that uses it?

There’s optimizing overall then there’s optimizing within a certain scope. That’s why.

Do you grab a nomad’s shield with a Sigil of Hobbling because shield sucks? Or do you grab a Zerk shield with a good sigil because it’s smarter to do so?

That question just bugs me as it’s a mind frame that I think is wrong. Sometimes it’s just fun to do things a certain way even if it’s kinda dumb, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t want to do that thing the best you can.

Especially for a guardian shield. Its not like it will hurt the team. He will do exactly the same dps with a shield, the only difference for the team will be 1 less blind, but a bit more protection, which is not a bad trade. As long as he don’t destack mob with his shield, that change nothing for the rest of the party if he like to have a shield for the look. My friend like to play GS Axe/Axe on his warrior only to dual wield his mace. He usually do that when we have enough vulnerability anyway so the different is almost impossible to see and he have fun with two frostfang. Its not ideal, but with the meta build and ascended gear, who care about 1 little detail.

Kormeg.2469:

Black Box.9312:

Kormeg.2469:

I know shields suck. Keep that in mind when posting please.

Well then what’s the purpose of asking for a build that uses it?

For the same reason that not every single person plays warrior.

Not every single person plays warrior because there are optimal compositions that don’t involve playing warrior.

Guardian shield has no use in an optimal composition because it is the worst weapon in the game.

Well 1 thing your soldier’s gear is awesome for is Tequatel the sunless or other fights against things that are considered structures.

GoD Obelisk.3057:

Well 1 thing your soldier’s gear is awesome for is Tequatel the sunless or other fights against things that are considered structures.

For Teq yes, for the defense team no. Exactly as you say though things considered “structures” basically you can’t crit on them so precision/ferocity mean nothing against them. Just thought it’d be good to elaborate on the reason why and point out that it’s not the whole teq event just the big guy himself.

Black Box.9312:

Kormeg.2469:

Black Box.9312:

Kormeg.2469:

I know shields suck. Keep that in mind when posting please.

Well then what’s the purpose of asking for a build that uses it?

For the same reason that not every single person plays warrior.

Not every single person plays warrior because there are optimal compositions that don’t involve playing warrior.

Guardian shield has no use in an optimal composition because it is the worst weapon in the game.

And yet people play classes that aren’t ‘optimal ’ in such situations. Guess what dude, I’m just trying to have fun. From what I’ve been hearing shields being the worst, dont make them nonviable. Ill be enjoying myself doing that then, you can go ahead and play what people tell you is the best way to play.

Kormeg.2469:

Black Box.9312:

Kormeg.2469:

Black Box.9312:

Kormeg.2469:

I know shields suck. Keep that in mind when posting please.

Well then what’s the purpose of asking for a build that uses it?

For the same reason that not every single person plays warrior.

Not every single person plays warrior because there are optimal compositions that don’t involve playing warrior.

Guardian shield has no use in an optimal composition because it is the worst weapon in the game.

And yet people play classes that aren’t ‘optimal ’ in such situations. Guess what dude, I’m just trying to have fun. From what I’ve been hearing shields being the worst, dont make them nonviable. Ill be enjoying myself doing that then, you can go ahead and play what people tell you is the best way to play.

If you want to use a crappy weapon, then fine. But if you go looking for builds anyone worth their salt is gonna tell you that you should ditch it for a focus. It just seems highly counter-intuitive to go around asking for a good build but then constraining it to your bad requirements. If you want to run a bad build, at least have the sense to make it yourself.

Black Box.9312:

Kormeg.2469:

Black Box.9312:

Kormeg.2469:

Black Box.9312:

Kormeg.2469:

I know shields suck. Keep that in mind when posting please.

Well then what’s the purpose of asking for a build that uses it?

For the same reason that not every single person plays warrior.

Not every single person plays warrior because there are optimal compositions that don’t involve playing warrior.

Guardian shield has no use in an optimal composition because it is the worst weapon in the game.

And yet people play classes that aren’t ‘optimal ’ in such situations. Guess what dude, I’m just trying to have fun. From what I’ve been hearing shields being the worst, dont make them nonviable. Ill be enjoying myself doing that then, you can go ahead and play what people tell you is the best way to play.

If you want to use a crappy weapon, then fine. But if you go looking for builds anyone worth their salt is gonna tell you that you should ditch it for a focus. It just seems highly counter-intuitive to go around asking for a good build but then constraining it to your bad requirements. If you want to run a bad build, at least have the sense to make it yourself.

The very very first thing I said in my original post is that I know it sucks. I want to use a shield. Cuz i like how it works. You seem incapable of discerning that for yourself, and decided to present well known, tried and proven, beaten to death facts that I apparently did not explicitly state that I understood in my post well enough.

I want to play my guardian with a shield. That’s it. Cuz I think it’s cool. I don’t get why you’re posting at all considering I already knew this. Then saying i should come up with my own build, like asking for help is something i should only do if it makes sense to you? What?

Best to just ignore people like that. I’m sure they mean the best simply trying to tell people the best way to do things, but they can’t seem to understand why someone might like something that isn’t the best. It’s a foreign concept to them :b

Black Box.9312:

If you want to use a crappy weapon, then fine. But if you go looking for builds anyone worth their salt is gonna tell you that you should ditch it for a focus. It just seems highly counter-intuitive to go around asking for a good build but then constraining it to your bad requirements. If you want to run a bad build, at least have the sense to make it yourself.

WoW dude. Maybe you need to learn the reason why ppl say that Shield is a crappy weapon BEFORE try to lecture ppl.

In that particular case shield won’t decrease the effectiveness of his build by much. Ya it will be of limited usefulness, but focus is not a big important part of a PvE build anyway. Like i already said, this won’t hurt its dps. He will only replace a blind/regen pull skill by some protection and lose a block. That will impact him, not really his party at all. Its like he’s asking for playing a staff which will hurt his team by decreasing his dps by a lot. A shield or a focus that doesn’t really matter for the party. Ya focus will give better utilities, but that’s all. IT WON’T IMPACT HIS PARTY MUCH IF AT ALL.

( Focus 5 is a dps gain, shield 4 isn’t- not like I care, just saying)

oxtred.7658:

( Focus 5 is a dps gain, shield 4 isn’t- not like I care, just saying)

Isn’t focus4 also with it’s bounces or am I mistaken? Seems like plenty damage.

Last time I checked it was, but I didn’t bother doing the maths since months. It’s probably a dps gain on mace and scepter ( since they are less reliant on aa), can’t say about sword.
summons obal

Thaddeus.4891:

Black Box.9312:

If you want to use a crappy weapon, then fine. But if you go looking for builds anyone worth their salt is gonna tell you that you should ditch it for a focus. It just seems highly counter-intuitive to go around asking for a good build but then constraining it to your bad requirements. If you want to run a bad build, at least have the sense to make it yourself.

WoW dude. Maybe you need to learn the reason why ppl say that Shield is a crappy weapon BEFORE try to lecture ppl.

In that particular case shield won’t decrease the effectiveness of his build by much. Ya it will be of limited usefulness, but focus is not a big important part of a PvE build anyway. Like i already said, this won’t hurt its dps. He will only replace a blind/regen pull skill by some protection and lose a block. That will impact him, not really his party at all. Its like he’s asking for playing a staff which will hurt his team by decreasing his dps by a lot. A shield or a focus that doesn’t really matter for the party. Ya focus will give better utilities, but that’s all. IT WON’T IMPACT HIS PARTY MUCH IF AT ALL.

I know exactly why shield is bad. It provides minimal benefits with too much downtime. I don’t need other people to tell me what I already know from thousands of hours of experience with the class.

As for DPS, focus does it immensely better. The blind from focus 4 provides multiple stacks of vulnerability on a standard radiance build, which contributes to party DPS. Focus 5 can be used when the block is not necessary for survival for a very large chunk of burst damage while also being able to use other skills while it is active.

Shield does neither of these things, and lacks both offensive and defensive capabilities that focus can provide.

The guy can do what he wants with his build, but there are plenty of pug groups that won’t hesitate to call him out for making a poor choice in running a shield. I’m just doing it ahead of time in hopes that maybe he’ll save himself the trouble.

Yeah… but it looks freakin cool!

Its not because shield is not an optimal choice that it will screw up his build. Yup focus will help a bit more, but its only a really small part and it will not make a noticeable different in most situation.

oxtred.7658:

Last time I checked it was, but I didn’t bother doing the maths since months. It’s probably a dps gain on mace and scepter ( since they are less reliant on aa), can’t say about sword.
summons obal

Assuming your hitting one target and it bounces twice it is a gain over sword autos. The other autos are weaker so it’s even more of a gain. One bounce would be slightly less than sword aa. Even if bounces once or you can cleave multiple targets with autos there is still the vuln you put on for the group or can be a well timed blind for a slight loss. It’s not like it’s a big loss like flashing blade would be in that case. Most importantly though you get regen and become a tank and are healing and supporting your group and don’t need to run a healer tank build! Zerk it up with a focus.

Thank you as always Obal for your wisdom

Obal is super effective!

Dekeyz’s math is super effective.

obal.3218:

Dekeyz’s math is super effective.

That it is. Love it.

That’s what I thought. Thanks for checking.

Kormeg.2469:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Kormeg.2469:

So that’s it then, full zerker or nothing. It’s the be all, end all gear for everything, or at least pve?

Short of a real expansion drastically changing the design it’s unlikely to ever be fixed either.

Holy kitten that’s horrible! I knew it was popular but this kittening sucks! Never seen anything like this in an mmo. Hopefully the ‘big news’ form PAX south is something to look forward to.

Never seen this in an MMO? I’ve only played WoW and Rift, but both had optimal gear. zerker is optimal because it offers the highest DPS and content is still doable in it. It’s not “zerk or nothing”. It’s zerk is optimal. Others are suboptimal. By all means, you can do dungeon runs in other gear. (There are even videos out there of groups going things like full clerics so that don’t have to do any dodges or anything). But it is less effective in terms of time spent.

I’m really confused as to why there’s always threads popping up of “I hope new options open up”. What are you hoping for? In what way could soldier’s EVER compete with zerker’s in dungeons? It mathematically does less damage. You could argue that they could open up the bosses to do more damage or attack more frequently to force players to use some more defensive sets. But this doesn’t really open up options. It shuts down one (zerker) to shift to another. It’s not any more options in the end.

Sorin.4310:

Kormeg.2469:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Kormeg.2469:

So that’s it then, full zerker or nothing. It’s the be all, end all gear for everything, or at least pve?

Short of a real expansion drastically changing the design it’s unlikely to ever be fixed either.

Holy kitten that’s horrible! I knew it was popular but this kittening sucks! Never seen anything like this in an mmo. Hopefully the ‘big news’ form PAX south is something to look forward to.

Never seen this in an MMO? I’ve only played WoW and Rift, but both had optimal gear. zerker is optimal because it offers the highest DPS and content is still doable in it. It’s not “zerk or nothing”. It’s zerk is optimal. Others are suboptimal. By all means, you can do dungeon runs in other gear. (There are even videos out there of groups going things like full clerics so that don’t have to do any dodges or anything). But it is less effective in terms of time spent.

I’m really confused as to why there’s always threads popping up of “I hope new options open up”. What are you hoping for? In what way could soldier’s EVER compete with zerker’s in dungeons? It mathematically does less damage. You could argue that they could open up the bosses to do more damage or attack more frequently to force players to use some more defensive sets. But this doesn’t really open up options. It shuts down one (zerker) to shift to another. It’s not any more options in the end.

This is a fact, anyone who bother to argue after reading this, is just being delusional.
And of course people will always ask for optimal setup when posting on lfg (aka “zerk only”) why would anyone in their right mind post “bad and lazy player only”