Guild Wars 2

CptAurellian.9537:

Hunter.4783:

Time to reconsider Knights vs Zerker gear in PVE

Why should anyone do that? Defensive stats are still useless.

Yes and no.

Yes when the DPS advantage of the berserker set clearly outweighs the benefits of something like the knights set.

However, note that CRITICAL DAMAGE is the stat which is taking a “hit” in the zerker set, not the power or precision. Therefore if the overall change is a 10% dps loss, and crit dmg provides 1/3 of the dps boost (for argument’s sake) that particular stat is in fact taking a 30% hit in effectiveness.

Not only that, but now sets like knights and solders will be closer to zerker in the DPS spectrum. Now of course I haven’t done the math yet, but the new scenario will be like:

Do I wanna lose 10% DPS and gain 1k armor instead of 30% DPS prenerf.

When you look at it this way, its not as clear cut. yes I know DPS is the way to go, but the recent changes will allow players to consider tradeoffs to full zerker gear.

Zerker still best for players that know the content.

Bleh, why do I even bother trying to enlighten all you zerker drones. Keep full zerkering brah!

Yes, we have yet to see the light that is cleric’s gear. Please, enlighten us.

Hunter.4783:

Bleh, why do I even bother trying to enlighten all you zerker drones. Keep full zerkering brah!

top lel m8

keep running suboptimal sets. people who know the content will still be running berserker because it’s best for completing content quickly and efficiently.

love that resentment for the “zerker drones” who are the people who want to play as optimally as they can. have fun being special, suboptimal and ever-resentful special snowflakes.

im calling you all zerker drones because you are unwilling to look for other options which might open after this patch, zerker is best for running CoF p1 or for bragging about lupi solo kills.

Not so optimal when u do dredge fractal 49.

PS: I love your comeback about cleric gear. Shows your ignorance. There is more than just full zerker and cleric to this game

dredge fractal 49 is harder than soloing lupicus on a guardian, got it.

guanlongwucaii.3162:

dredge fractal 49 is harder than soloing lupicus on a guardian, got it.

Countering extremely telegraphed boss attacks coming in the interval of 4sec is quite challenging. you are right

Like I said in the other thread:

The sigil change (2x sigils on 2H, no shared cooldown) makes it much easier to stack sigil effects and get higher levels of might/vuln/whatever. This results in an overall DPS boost for comps that do NOT cap might/vuln, i.e. most pugs, which in turn makes pug runs that much easier.

Conversely, the overall damage reduction makes it take longer to kill bosses which may push some fights over the “damage threshold” where you can just stack and burst before the boss even attacks. This makes it slightly harder for organized groups to just blow through content like they currently do.

So what we have is puglife becoming easier and organized groups becoming harder. It’s moving towards equalizing difficulty across different group comps which in turn makes it easier for Anet to make tweaks based on the effectiveness of organized DPS meta. Currently pugs have it really hard and organized groups have it really easy, and you can’t really push things one way or another without really screwing it for one or the other. Make content challenging for organized groups = becomes impossible for pugs, etc.

Hunter.4783:

fadeaway.2807:

Arenanet has said a lot of things in the past.
Nothing will change. They’ll probably do something stupid like increase mob hp because zerkers burn through it too fast. That or remove everyone’s easy access vigor and call it a day.

Whatever happens, the new meta will be whatever gives the highest dps.

Negative, not if you make encounters around heavy AoE and condi pressure where survival rather than DPS wins the encounter.

So its okay to make zerk players change to pvt style gear, but it wasn’t okay to expect pvt style players to change to zerk style gear? Double standard much?

If anything, they should nerf toughness just like they did critical damage. High amounts of toughness accomplish the same thing as high damage….allows players to bypass encounter mechanics…just in a different way. Zerk stats allowed players to shorten encounters and chain active defenses in that shortened period to achieve success. PVT players can just stand there and ignore encounter mechanics and eventually win via attrition. I don’t see how that’s any less deserving of a nerf.

ODB.6891:

Hunter.4783:

fadeaway.2807:

Arenanet has said a lot of things in the past.
Nothing will change. They’ll probably do something stupid like increase mob hp because zerkers burn through it too fast. That or remove everyone’s easy access vigor and call it a day.

Whatever happens, the new meta will be whatever gives the highest dps.

Negative, not if you make encounters around heavy AoE and condi pressure where survival rather than DPS wins the encounter.

So its okay to make zerk players change to pvt style gear, but it wasn’t okay to expect pvt style players to change to zerk style gear? Double standard much?

On the contrary. With his change, the healing power from your Cleric, Shaman, or Celestial teammate would actually mean something in terms of keeping you, as the zerker, alive for that much longer. Failing that, you could always change your tactics, taking more condition removal or defensive utilities – you know, actually adapting your playstyle the way you should have to.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

ODB.6891:

Hunter.4783:

fadeaway.2807:

Arenanet has said a lot of things in the past.
Nothing will change. They’ll probably do something stupid like increase mob hp because zerkers burn through it too fast. That or remove everyone’s easy access vigor and call it a day.

Whatever happens, the new meta will be whatever gives the highest dps.

Negative, not if you make encounters around heavy AoE and condi pressure where survival rather than DPS wins the encounter.

So its okay to make zerk players change to pvt style gear, but it wasn’t okay to expect pvt style players to change to zerk style gear? Double standard much?

On the contrary. With his change, the healing power from your Cleric, Shaman, or Celestial teammate would actually mean something in terms of keeping you, as the zerker, alive for that much longer. Failing that, you could always change your tactics, taking more condition removal or defensive utilities – you know, actually adapting your playstyle the way you should have to.

Exactly what failed assumption leads you to believe that no zerk stat players take defensive or condition removal utilities? The reason healing power fails in pve is not going to change because critical damage was nerfed. The reason healing power fails in pve is because of one hit mechanics and low base hp pools of certain classes. You can’t heal someone out of a downed state.

The premise of the post I responded to was that encounters should be built more around survival…which translates into require pvt style gear instead of zerk gear. This is the same thing pvt style players were up in arms about concerning not being wanted in pug dungeon/fractal runs. Its hypocritical for one faction to do it and also complain about the other having done it.

I think pvt needs to learn to adapt, which it currently does not have to.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Painbow.6059:

I don’t understand why people don’t like dps dominance? More dps = stuff dies quicker = gold quicker am I not right? people want to play healers not needed in gw2 people want to play tank not needed in gw2, defensive gear not needed in gw2, making these specific roles would damage the game as it would mean you need a tank and a healer and dps roles with no mid points, if a group just specs for max dps and brings 1 guard along with them using a 20,25,0,0,25 build that is enough support for anything outside fractals along with good damage

People don’t like dps dominance because it:

Invalidates the majority of gear sets (in PvE).
Reduces team composition variety.
Removes entire professions from the equation in many groups.
Removes the option to play roles other than dps – kills the “play your way” philosophy of the game.

Basically, I bolded every part of your statement that IS in fact, a problem with the current game design. Guild Wars 2 was not intended to not have any roles – it was designed to allow everyone to play every role effectively regardless of their class and for groups to not require any particular combination of roles to function. There’s a pretty distinct difference. The way things are intended to be would allow anyone to (theoretically) make more-or-less comparable contributions while playing the way they wish do. The way that the game currently is – the way which you blindly seem to support – makes every playstyle that isn’t dps entirely redundant (in PvE).

I’m sorry, but you are misreading the pre-release game description. There are not supposed to be any specific roles. Every class is supposed to be able to play all roles, but their description included the word “AND”, not “OR” when talking about what players would be able to do. They mentioned damage, support, and control…not picking one of the three and only doing that one thing.

ODB.6891:

Duke Blackrose.4981:

Painbow.6059:

I don’t understand why people don’t like dps dominance? More dps = stuff dies quicker = gold quicker am I not right? people want to play healers not needed in gw2 people want to play tank not needed in gw2, defensive gear not needed in gw2, making these specific roles would damage the game as it would mean you need a tank and a healer and dps roles with no mid points, if a group just specs for max dps and brings 1 guard along with them using a 20,25,0,0,25 build that is enough support for anything outside fractals along with good damage

People don’t like dps dominance because it:

Invalidates the majority of gear sets (in PvE).
Reduces team composition variety.
Removes entire professions from the equation in many groups.
Removes the option to play roles other than dps – kills the “play your way” philosophy of the game.

Basically, I bolded every part of your statement that IS in fact, a problem with the current game design. Guild Wars 2 was not intended to not have any roles – it was designed to allow everyone to play every role effectively regardless of their class and for groups to not require any particular combination of roles to function. There’s a pretty distinct difference. The way things are intended to be would allow anyone to (theoretically) make more-or-less comparable contributions while playing the way they wish do. The way that the game currently is – the way which you blindly seem to support – makes every playstyle that isn’t dps entirely redundant (in PvE).

I’m sorry, but you are misreading the pre-release game description. There are not supposed to be any specific roles. Every class is supposed to be able to play all roles, but their description included the word “AND”, not “OR” when talking about what players would be able to do. They mentioned damage, support, and control…not picking one of the three and only doing that one thing.

And you seem to be under the mistaken assumption that gear dictates role. It really doesn’t. Roles are performed through skills – a DPS-geared Guardian with a Hammer is putting out damage through his damaging skills, support through healing, con removal, reflects, and other effects, and control through his Hammer’s knockback, immobilize, and wards. A PVT Guardian does the same thing, but with a different focus – he makes a smaller (but still very much considerable) contribution to his team’s damage while filling the other two roles in the same way.

All gear does is HIGHLIGHT the role(s) a player wishes to play. A Cleric’s Guardian is clearly leaning more towards the support side of the coin; his heals will, indeed, be slightly more effective. He is still, however, playing all of the roles at once; refusing to dps because he isn’t “geared” for it would involve doing nothing for extended periods of time.

And that’s precisely what the game is missing – the ability to (viably) highlight your character’s central role or roles in a way that is helpful (in PvE). There is no tanking, so tank gear is meaningless – you’re just a kitten dps with the same support and control opportunities at the same efficiency as the dps. There is little reason to go with healing power – you’ve just kitten your dps in exchange for a measly increase to healing output. Control doesn’t scale on toughness or vitality (or even on condition duration, with the exception of Immobilize and soft cc), making the control (traditionally “tank”) aspect of the game meaningless – and this is ignoring the fact that Defiant destroys control entirely.

Basically, no one is arguing that you need to be able to pick a role to exclusively play – because that does work against the game’s fundamental design – but part of the play-your-way philosophy that the game has so long advocated must involve utilizing your profession’s unique flavor of dps, support, and control and EMPHASIZING your preferred part of this soft-trinity while still contributing the other two parts (or, in the case of Celestial gear or Shaman’s gear, contributing everything in pretty much equal amounts).

And I must bring up the mere existence of other gear types as a supporting factor in this. Why would other nomenclatures be available if dps was intended to be the sole, central role that dominates the game with the other two soft-trinity roles as mere afterthoughts?

Duke Blackrose.4981:

And you seem to be under the mistaken assumption that gear dictates role. It really doesn’t. Roles are performed through skills – a DPS-geared Guardian with a Hammer is putting out damage through his damaging skills, support through healing, con removal, reflects, and other effects, and control through his Hammer’s knockback, immobilize, and wards. A PVT Guardian does the same thing, but with a different focus – he makes a smaller (but still very much considerable) contribution to his team’s damage while filling the other two roles in the same way.

All gear does is HIGHLIGHT the role(s) a player wishes to play. A Cleric’s Guardian is clearly leaning more towards the support side of the coin; his heals will, indeed, be slightly more effective. He is still, however, playing all of the roles at once; refusing to dps because he isn’t “geared” for it would involve doing nothing for extended periods of time.

And that’s precisely what the game is missing – the ability to (viably) highlight your character’s central role or roles in a way that is helpful (in PvE). There is no tanking, so tank gear is meaningless – you’re just a kitten dps with the same support and control opportunities at the same efficiency as the dps. There is little reason to go with healing power – you’ve just kitten your dps in exchange for a measly increase to healing output. Control doesn’t scale on toughness or vitality (or even on condition duration, with the exception of Immobilize and soft cc), making the control (traditionally “tank”) aspect of the game meaningless – and this is ignoring the fact that Defiant destroys control entirely.

Basically, no one is arguing that you need to be able to pick a role to exclusively play – because that does work against the game’s fundamental design – but part of the play-your-way philosophy that the game has so long advocated must involve utilizing your profession’s unique flavor of dps, support, and control and EMPHASIZING your preferred part of this soft-trinity while still contributing the other two parts (or, in the case of Celestial gear or Shaman’s gear, contributing everything in pretty much equal amounts).

And I must bring up the mere existence of other gear types as a supporting factor in this. Why would other nomenclatures be available if dps was intended to be the sole, central role that dominates the game with the other two soft-trinity roles as mere afterthoughts?

This another misread. I have made no assumption or statement that gear determines role. My statements indicate there are no roles. This game is about multi-tasking. Doing all three things at once. On that, we seem to agree. I also agree about the inability to do control due to defiant..that really needs to be changed.

I personally don’t think that there should be a pve gear set focused on healing, when one shots and classes with extremely low base hp exist. The only way a set focused on healing can be effective is if everyone has enough hp to not get downed in a single hit. Even then, that set needs to be able to output enough damage to make a meaningful contribution to the primary objective of the encounter..which is killing the boss. The way the game is designed, you are supposed to move out of the way of damaging effects in encounters or counter those effects. Otherwise, the damaging effects are rendered meaningless and the game really becomes mindless. If the way a healing set counters that is to output enough healing to render those effects meaningless…then we have a new required meta…worse than the original problem in my opinion. Imagine every group demanding a healer for optimum performance.

Maybe I’m not giving clerics a fair shake….it may be bias from all the staff guards I end up getting grouped with. Staff is such a low damage weapon that it makes the lower damage output on clerics gear even worse.

In the end, all I really care about is having everyone in the group make equal contributions and not extending the duration of the encounters unnecessarily. I don’t really think buffing healing power is the way to go, because I wouldn’t want to have to deal with every group demanding a healer…and certainly not having groups demand that one person switch to healing. Imagine groups booting someone to get a healer instead…no thanks on that.

Hunter.4783:

im calling you all zerker drones because you are unwilling to look for other options which might open after this patch, zerker is best for running CoF p1 or for bragging about lupi solo kills.

Not so optimal when u do dredge fractal 49.

PS: I love your comeback about cleric gear. Shows your ignorance. There is more than just full zerker and cleric to this game

Uhm. You can do all dungeons in zerker gear, including dredge 49 just fine. Your argument = invalid.

#EveryoneIsIgnorantButMe

#RampagerNewMeta2014

#RIPassassins

J Eberle.9312:

Hunter.4783:

im calling you all zerker drones because you are unwilling to look for other options which might open after this patch, zerker is best for running CoF p1 or for bragging about lupi solo kills.

Not so optimal when u do dredge fractal 49.

PS: I love your comeback about cleric gear. Shows your ignorance. There is more than just full zerker and cleric to this game

Uhm. You can do all dungeons in zerker gear, including dredge 49 just fine. Your argument = invalid.

#EveryoneIsIgnorantButMe

#RampagerNewMeta2014

Until u have that full zerker guardian try to stand on the switch

And your argument can be used bothways.

“Zerk gear is the way to go because I say so, if u can’t do said content with zerk gear, you aren’t good enough”

Notice the catch 22 that everyone seems to be using these days?

(im not saying its right or wrong, im saying It doesn’t leave much room for discussion)

run a bad spec just for one event in one fractal

ok

guanlongwucaii.3162:

run a bad spec just for one event in one fractal

ok

Ohhh? Do my eyes deceive me? So someone does run 49 fractals.

Till now I was getting only CoF heroes

Hunter.4783:

J Eberle.9312:

Hunter.4783:

im calling you all zerker drones because you are unwilling to look for other options which might open after this patch, zerker is best for running CoF p1 or for bragging about lupi solo kills.

Not so optimal when u do dredge fractal 49.

PS: I love your comeback about cleric gear. Shows your ignorance. There is more than just full zerker and cleric to this game

Uhm. You can do all dungeons in zerker gear, including dredge 49 just fine. Your argument = invalid.

#EveryoneIsIgnorantButMe

#RampagerNewMeta2014

Until u have that full zerker guardian try to stand on the switch

And your argument can be used bothways.

“Zerk gear is the way to go because I say so, if u can’t do said content with zerk gear, you aren’t good enough”

Notice the catch 22 that everyone seems to be using these days?

(im not saying its right or wrong, im saying It doesn’t leave much room for discussion)

1. ) usually the guardian kites the mobs around.

2.) If they do stand on the switch they just chain exploits reflects.

“Zerk gear is the way to go because I say so, if u can’t do said content with zerk gear, you aren’t good enough”

^
Never said this

J Eberle.9312:

Hunter.4783:

J Eberle.9312:

Hunter.4783:

im calling you all zerker drones because you are unwilling to look for other options which might open after this patch, zerker is best for running CoF p1 or for bragging about lupi solo kills.

Not so optimal when u do dredge fractal 49.

PS: I love your comeback about cleric gear. Shows your ignorance. There is more than just full zerker and cleric to this game

Uhm. You can do all dungeons in zerker gear, including dredge 49 just fine. Your argument = invalid.

#EveryoneIsIgnorantButMe

#RampagerNewMeta2014

Until u have that full zerker guardian try to stand on the switch

And your argument can be used bothways.

“Zerk gear is the way to go because I say so, if u can’t do said content with zerk gear, you aren’t good enough”

Notice the catch 22 that everyone seems to be using these days?

(im not saying its right or wrong, im saying It doesn’t leave much room for discussion)

1. ) usually the guardian kites the mobs around.

2.) If they do stand on the switch they just chain exploits reflects.

“Zerk gear is the way to go because I say so, if u can’t do said content with zerk gear, you aren’t good enough”

^
Never said this

Ah yes, kiting, until you realize half the mob has gone back and 2 shot the guys standing on switches.

And then you have the bomb run…

Its easy to advocate full zerk for cakewalk content until you realize that shouldn’t even register in everyone’s radars. All its there is for people to post videos soloing extremely telegraphed bosses and brag about it.

Once you get to content that actually MATTERS, you understand full zerk groups is not that ideal and you wanna have a few valk or PTV pieces in there. 11k health in fractal 49 is NOT optimal.

Spoken by someone who knows nothing of the strats most of us use in fractals. We make the ele sit on a switch in beserker gear. We must be stupid.

Hunter.4783:

J Eberle.9312:

Hunter.4783:

J Eberle.9312:

Hunter.4783:

im calling you all zerker drones because you are unwilling to look for other options which might open after this patch, zerker is best for running CoF p1 or for bragging about lupi solo kills.

Not so optimal when u do dredge fractal 49.

PS: I love your comeback about cleric gear. Shows your ignorance. There is more than just full zerker and cleric to this game

Uhm. You can do all dungeons in zerker gear, including dredge 49 just fine. Your argument = invalid.

#EveryoneIsIgnorantButMe

#RampagerNewMeta2014

Until u have that full zerker guardian try to stand on the switch

And your argument can be used bothways.

“Zerk gear is the way to go because I say so, if u can’t do said content with zerk gear, you aren’t good enough”

Notice the catch 22 that everyone seems to be using these days?

(im not saying its right or wrong, im saying It doesn’t leave much room for discussion)

1. ) usually the guardian kites the mobs around.

2.) If they do stand on the switch they just chain exploits reflects.

“Zerk gear is the way to go because I say so, if u can’t do said content with zerk gear, you aren’t good enough”

^
Never said this

Ah yes, kiting, until you realize half the mob has gone back and 2 shot the guys standing on switches.

This doesn’t happen if you make sure you have them agro’ed. I’m not sure what you’re getting at here because I do this often and have yet to have a problem. And if I did, it would not be because I was wearing zerker gear lol.

And then you have the bomb run…

You’re telling me you can’t do this in zerker gear either? Been there done that.

Its easy to advocate full zerk for cakewalk content until you realize that shouldn’t even register in everyone’s radars. All its there is for people to post videos soloing extremely telegraphed bosses and brag about it.

It’s easy to advocate zerker gear because it actually works. Everyday I tour each dungeon from AC to arah in full zerk. Pretty sure it’s working outside of solo videos.

Once you get to content that actually MATTERS, you understand full zerk groups is not that ideal and you wanna have a few valk or PTV pieces in there. 11k health in fractal 49 is NOT optimal.

I do 49’s often with a full team of players entirely in zerker gear. I think I know what’s up here. >_>

J Eberle.9312:

It’s easy to advocate zerker gear because it actually works. Everyday I tour each dungeon from AC to arah in full zerk. Pretty sure it’s working outside of solo videos.

Exactly. I hear dungeon content is hard. As I said, this type of content shouldn’t even register.

I do 49’s often

And I pug it everyday. And I can tell you again full zerk in fractal 49 is not OPTIMAL. It is doable for sure, but simply not optimal or efficient. The whole notion of 11k health on a guard is stupid but again, this brings back the catch 22 I mentioned a while back.

Its the best for beating hard stuff like AC though

Hunter.4783:

J Eberle.9312:

It’s easy to advocate zerker gear because it actually works. Everyday I tour each dungeon from AC to arah in full zerk. Pretty sure it’s working outside of solo videos.

Exactly. I hear dungeon content is hard. As I said, this type of content shouldn’t even register.

Shouldn’t even register? what?

And I pug it everyday. And I can tell you again full zerk in fractal 49 is not OPTIMAL. It is doable for sure, but simply not optimal or efficient. The whole notion of 11k health on a guard is stupid but again, this brings back the catch 22 I mentioned a while back.

Its the best for beating hard stuff like AC though

You can keep telling me zerker is not optimal but I’m still going to use it, and I’m still going to have flawless runs. Yep, even with my 11k hp I can have flawless 49’s. Must be due to some crazy class mechanics like aegis, vigor, blinds, reflects and…

So going slow with no dps is optimal.

#Logic

CoF heroes 4 life

J Eberle.9312:

You can keep telling me zerker is not optimal but I’m still going to use it, and I’m still going to have flawless runs. Yep, even with my 11k hp I can have flawless 49’s. Must be due to some crazy class mechanics like aegis, vigor, blinds, reflects and…

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

dodging

Flawless 49 runs as a full DPS build guardian with pugs?

She didnt say with pugs. But ive pugged as dps guard before and i survived fine. The pugs however didnt with their clerics and so on.

The person she responded to was referring to pugs. So I was simply assuming these so-called flawless runs were with pugs. I also pugged as a dps guard (sword/focus build) before and I could definitely tell these runs were far from smooth. Still I rather fall back on a hammer build to give my team some extra support.

I wasn’t actually referring to pugs. This was brought up by hunter. But just fyi I also run it in pugs just fine. I’m simply letting people know it’s perfectly do-able and can in fact be optimal if you take advantage of your class’s skill set. I also never stated that I ran as a full DPS guardian, that was simply plucked out of thin air. I said I can run 49 in full berserker gear. I run a hammer build with Writ of persistence and master of consecrations.

Now as to why you are so hostile towards people running berserker which has zero effect on you, I am curious. Calling people drones is not exactly friendly conversation. You also appear to make a thousand assumptions a minute as to what Spoj and I think of people not running zerker.

J Eberle.9312:

I. I also never stated that I ran as a full DPS guardian, that was simply plucked out of thin air.

aaaaaaaaah, there we go. Finally, wasn’t so hard to admit it. Thing is friend, when people on these boards refer to a full zerker guardian, its also implied they run the 20/25/0/0/25 build. Because according to these boards, this is the meta. Full zerker and this build are one and the same for most people because simply there is no point in running 20/25/0/0/25 without full zerk.

Therefore you do NOT run GC on 49 pugs. Thanks for the clarification.

FYI I am not hostile to zerk guardians, my gear is 80% zerk. I am however hostile to people like spoj and co who think there is either full zerk glass cannon, or full cleric healway and are unwilling to even bother discussing anything else in between these extremes. Hence why I call em zerk drones.

Thats a wild assumption to make about me. I think you will find im much more accepting of sub par builds than most people. And i find your unwarranted hostility offensive.

Hunter.4783:

J Eberle.9312:

I. I also never stated that I ran as a full DPS guardian, that was simply plucked out of thin air.

aaaaaaaaah, there we go. Finally, wasn’t so hard to admit it. Thing is friend, when people on these boards refer to a full zerker guardian, its also implied they run the 20/25/0/0/25 build. Because according to these boards, this is the meta. Full zerker and this build are one and the same for most people because simply there is no point in running 20/25/0/0/25 without full zerk.

Therefore you do NOT run GC on 49 pugs. Thanks for the clarification.

FYI I am not hostile to zerk guardians, my gear is 80% zerk. I am however hostile to people like spoj and co who think there is either full zerk glass cannon, or full cleric healway and are unwilling to even bother discussing anything else in between these extremes. Hence why I call em zerk drones.

No, it’s not implied. That’s something you once again assumed. Possibly for the sake of being hostile now towards me. And if you want to talk meta, the meta build for high lvl fotm on guardian is actually the one I run, which includes full zerk gear + hammer.

You made the assumption that I ran the full DPS build that is meta in other dungeons instead of the correct assumption which would be that I run the high lvl fotm meta build in fotm 49 which is probably just too much common sense. When did I ever state that I ran ’ full GC’? Where did I say that? I was simply discussing the use of berserker gear. You are simply making up arguments and then arguing with yourself.

Also, leave poor spoj out of this, he is a nice guy. If you want to be hostile towards individuals, here is not the place.

Hunter.4783:

J Eberle.9312:

I. I also never stated that I ran as a full DPS guardian, that was simply plucked out of thin air.

aaaaaaaaah, there we go. Finally, wasn’t so hard to admit it. Thing is friend, when people on these boards refer to a full zerker guardian, its also implied they run the 20/25/0/0/25 build. Because according to these boards, this is the meta. Full zerker and this build are one and the same for most people because simply there is no point in running 20/25/0/0/25 without full zerk.

Therefore you do NOT run GC on 49 pugs. Thanks for the clarification.

FYI I am not hostile to zerk guardians, my gear is 80% zerk. I am however hostile to people like spoj and co who think there is either full zerk glass cannon, or full cleric healway and are unwilling to even bother discussing anything else in between these extremes. Hence why I call em zerk drones.

Go read Obal’s guide. He clearly states that knight’s gear is ok for people learning the content or that needs the extra help in staying alive.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guide-DPS-Guardian-for-PVE/first

And if you can handle it, zerker gear is best. It kills the fastest. If you can’t survive on full zerk, then there is no problem with that. But to call it not optimal is ridiculous. (this is about gear not build, since I too run hammer for fractals).

Hunter.4783:

J Eberle.9312:

I. I also never stated that I ran as a full DPS guardian, that was simply plucked out of thin air.

aaaaaaaaah, there we go. Finally, wasn’t so hard to admit it. Thing is friend, when people on these boards refer to a full zerker guardian, its also implied they run the 20/25/0/0/25 build. Because according to these boards, this is the meta. Full zerker and this build are one and the same for most people because simply there is no point in running 20/25/0/0/25 without full zerk.

Therefore you do NOT run GC on 49 pugs. Thanks for the clarification.

FYI I am not hostile to zerk guardians, my gear is 80% zerk. I am however hostile to people like spoj and co who think there is either full zerk glass cannon, or full cleric healway and are unwilling to even bother discussing anything else in between these extremes. Hence why I call em zerk drones.

Actually, you’re coming off fairly hostile, you are the one name calling after all.

You seem to have no idea what is going on with runs outside you’re own. Guess what, people really are running full zerk in 49 pugs successfully. Organized teams like what J Eberle runs in, are running full glass cannon team, not only successfully, but twice as fast as many pugs finish in. Just because you’ve never seen runs like these, doesn’t mean they don’t happen.

You don’t even need guardians or mesmers to run fractals. They just make it smoother/faster than running a suboptimal party composition, since you have to play it safer and use some defensive utils without them (I said defensive utils. Not tank gear.). I’ve done dredge with zero guard/mes that went better than most pugs-with-guardians.

[edited my text since I wrote the contrary of what I intended to mean. God I suck at English.]

laharl.8435:

Hunter.4783:

J Eberle.9312:

I. I also never stated that I ran as a full DPS guardian, that was simply plucked out of thin air.

aaaaaaaaah, there we go. Finally, wasn’t so hard to admit it. Thing is friend, when people on these boards refer to a full zerker guardian, its also implied they run the 20/25/0/0/25 build. Because according to these boards, this is the meta. Full zerker and this build are one and the same for most people because simply there is no point in running 20/25/0/0/25 without full zerk.

Therefore you do NOT run GC on 49 pugs. Thanks for the clarification.

FYI I am not hostile to zerk guardians, my gear is 80% zerk. I am however hostile to people like spoj and co who think there is either full zerk glass cannon, or full cleric healway and are unwilling to even bother discussing anything else in between these extremes. Hence why I call em zerk drones.

Actually, you’re coming off fairly hostile, you are the one name calling after all.

You seem to have no idea what is going on with runs outside you’re own. Guess what, people really are running full zerk in 49 pugs successfully. Organized teams like what J Eberle runs in, are running full glass cannon team, not only successfully, but twice as fast as many pugs finish in. Just because you’ve never seen runs like these, doesn’t mean they don’t happen.

Hence the catch 22 I was talking about.

Hunter.4783:

Hence the catch 22 I was talking about.

I’m not understanding how that random phrase is relevant.

While I don’t think the meta is changing much based on this single change, the whole premise that killing a mob faster makes zerkers the best gear in PVE just got 10% less meaningful. It’s all relative anyways … as long as zerkers does the most damage, it’s always going to be regarded as the best PVE gear for an engineered team of pros. I think the only time that will be challenged with an rigour is if they adjust parameters that make defensive stats more important/necessary. For example, unblockable environmental damage. I don’t doubt that’s coming faster than we think so at some point, these arguments might actually come interesting debates when everyone is brought into a more strategic consideration.

Decent dps guards don’t use valor, so we’re not going to get hit as hard as some classes.
Ironically warriors and guards won’t feel this as much as say.. thieves.. or rangers.. or mesmers.

In fact, if they truly mean a 10% dps loss through the ferocity change, I estimate between 10-15 ferocity per crit damage %, and the 2nd sigil almost makes up for it. 20/25/0/0/25 will be incredible. I just wish there was a half decent radiance trait to take in the mid-tier.

fadeaway.2807:

I just wish there was a half decent radiance trait to take in the mid-tier.

You mean 10% more sword damage isn’t decent?

Honestly for a 20/25/0/0/25 build and the new double sigil 2h weapons I’m not even sure it’s worth swapping to 1h anymore. It’d certainly take near perfect rotation of cooldowns. I suppose if you yearn for the focus blast and blinds it won’t hurt, but if there was a trait worth taking in radiance I’d probably opt for that and stick with the 2h. We’ll see how it goes.

Sounds like I missed a fun conversation.

The obvious answer is to stop pugging Fractals, I did that at around level 15 when it got obvious that pugs weren’t gonna be able to do any of it without wiping constantly.

Sooo, um, what I’ve been reading on this page is this:
- Some guy coming in here yelling that zerker gear sucks because he runs with puggies that don’t appear to coordinate their movements
- The person he is arguing with is a DnT member who runs with coordinated teams using specific strategies
- Mister Hunter is making fallacious arguments here and attacking innocent bystanders instead of going in game and testing it with a coordinated team

Did I get anything wrong?

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Sounds like I missed a fun conversation.

The obvious answer is to stop pugging Fractals, I did that at around level 15 when it got obvious that pugs weren’t gonna be able to do any of it without wiping constantly.

My pugs only wipe once on the ascalon fractal when mobs agro half the map. Rest is pretty smooth. Then again, not everyone rolls with glass cannon

I have no trouble at all in most of my fractal 49 groups (pugs) as a berserker guardian (10,30,0,5,25), and I contribute easily the same, if not more (taking damage into consideration) to each group. Sure, every now and then I end up finding a group that just doesn’t synergise well, but even then, I, myself, usually do fine (can’t say the same when the rest of the group in their PTV dies and leaves me all alone down in the deepz)

I don’t see the “DPS” meta changing anytime soon for PvE (Berserker will still be king)(Rework the AI and PvE already?) I don’t see “Support” playing any real important role in PvE anytime soon, and unfortunately I don’t see “Conditions” being equal or even close to DPS anytime soon in PvE.

The fact that zerker gear will still do more damage, even after the crit nerf, and game mechanics unchanged, nothing will change the DPS meta.
There has to be a game changing reason to take for example, toughness, as an important stat to kill more efficiently.

Well, not much will change in terms of tactics with this change alone. But I don’t think this is a tactics-changing… tactic. I think what Anet is doing is basically putting the brakes on blowing through encounters so quickly. It’s not a huge speedbump, but I think it will be a noticeable one. My guess is, it’s the first step in what will likely be a more comprehensive reworking of statistics and their value, coupled with dungeon and general PVE redesigns. They’ve redesigned dungeons and encounters before, and I think they’ve been dropping hints about redesigns for months, what with their rhetoric about the living story potentially changing dungeons and all that. We’ve seen them tip-toe into that kind of thing already with TA.

Anyway, long story short, I really don’t think that it’s all that obscure what’s going on. They’re slowing down the pace a bit, likely in preparation for other changes.