Guild Wars 2

Title ^ (Specifically dungeons)
Seems like everyone is using the 15/15/0/30/20 build or something.

Its about ego really, and the need to sway away from the masses.

Also comes from a feeling of inferiority towards warriors and whatnot, as well as to prove that we guardians can survive based on dodges alone, just like everyone else.

Could also be that a ton of people ran AH for long time so now people want a change of pace.

Lastly, some loser started calling AH builds the “noob friendly” or “noob” for short builds, so it all skyrocketed from there.

Keep in mind that since there are no DPS meters in this game, people look at that 10k GS#2 and think, holy kitten deeeeps. Little do they understand about combat uptime and the like but hey, I don’t wanna start arguing with said loser again.

So its a matter of perception?
Anyway we can’t dodge forever can we?

Was thinking about a build something like this :
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.4|2.5g.h1.d13.0.0|6.5a.h1m.d1b.0.0|1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7|4s.d1f.2s.d13.3s.d19.2s.d13.3s.d19.2s.d13|0.0.u56b.u287.a6|55.7|v.19.16.11.1i|e

i don’t think that’s entirely accurate and fair, Hunter.

your more “damage oriented” Guardians, don’t survive just based on dodges, but party wide blocks, blinds, and reflects.

i do agree a part of it is because AH has been around for so long and people do want a change of pace. within their specific groups of friends they play with, people have found AH is not needed. they felt they can survive just as well without AH, while ending encounters faster (by alternatively spending more points that add to damage).

though, i am a believer that if you can afford to, play whatever build best suited for the specific group composition you’ve found yourself in. of course, not every single PUG will have the time to discuss build strategies.. but i guess that’s a different story.

But AH builds are noob friendly, it is a selfish trait that helps only yourself to survive, which is useful when you’re learning your class and/or an encounter.
Pure of voice gives you and your group alot of surviability, which is better than AH in every way, plus honor is way more desirable as a trait line if compared with valor.

AH provides no team support, and makes you overly reliant on those heals. There also comes a point in the game (when you do Arah/high fractals) where you find that AH isn’t saving you from those incredibly hard-hitting mobs, and instead good DPS is required to burst those mobs down before they can kill you.

Your poorer DPS is also hampering the group, as many bosses are much easier to just burst down before letting them use too many powerful attacks.

also, to hunter: combat uptime? People say that dead DPS is no DPS, but if you’re not a terrible player and actually hit things and only go down at the end of the fight you will still likely be doing more damage than a moron in AH hitting like a wet noodle. And the more semi-DPS guardian builds (0/30/0/30/10 and 15/15/0/x/x s/f or hammer) builds are very easy to stay alive in while still doing more DPS than a trashy AH build.

Yeah, there’s the burst problem as well, if you do get hit by some bosses two times in a row, you’re going to die. AH is most likely not saving you from face-planting.

jingkangtan.6752:

So its a matter of perception?
Anyway we can’t dodge forever can we?

Was thinking about a build something like this :
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/guardian/?3.4|2.5g.h1.d13.0.0|6.5a.h1m.d1b.0.0|1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7|4s.d1f.2s.d13.3s.d19.2s.d13.3s.d19.2s.d13|0.0.u56b.u287.a6|55.7|v.19.16.11.1i|e

We can dodge forever. It only takes 5 in Honor and a decent crit rate. That’s why Mesmers and Guardians are the two tankiest classes in the game, they have high natural defense and loads of dodges. Piling on a bunch of regen doesn’t really make a huge difference if you know when to dodge.

It’s not like AH is totally useless, especially if you don’t know the encounters or just aren’t good at dodging, but that also pretty much means you’re inexperienced/bad and that AH is your crutch, which is again another reason for people to look down on guardians running it.

I find something funny after a full year. For many but not nearly the majority of players the idea that kitten happens and dodges get missed. That latency and crappy rigs do not exist never factor into their minds. If you do not dodge like a pro does perfectly because they ran this encounter 100 times before then you suck. Honest truth is I have learned one very important thing. It is going to take a hell of a lot time to rez you then it is going to deal with the 5% less dps you are bringing. If that were the case there would be no reason to not run the best class lithe the best build each and every encounter. If you are maximizing for DPS do it seriously with means running the class with the best up times on the best builds and only those classes. If we did that every run it would be one boring game.

At the end of the day swap in what you feel you need to survive while keeping up as much DPS as you can. While there are dodge kings who will never understand the idea that not everybody is perfect and it is not easy for everyone. If you feel you need AH to survive and not be carried then use it. It really is that simple. In some encounters it will be utterly useless but in most of the game it isn’t going to hurt kitten.

Honest truth is if you pug being selfish with your own survivability is a good way to actually get content cleared. Doesn’t mean you don’t bring SYG WoR etc. It just means you prepare yourself for the fact you may be carrying and your traits might need to reflect that.

“We can dodge forever. It only takes 5 in Honor and a decent crit rate. That’s why Mesmers and Guardians are the two tankiest classes in the game, they have high natural defense and loads of dodges. Piling on a bunch of regen doesn’t really make a huge difference if you know when to dodge.”

True but honestly double sigils of energy could leave the glassiest builds with good timing feeling like that too. S/D S/P thief can additionally get away from a great deal of incoming damage with the evades. Ranger, can have strong dodge traits and engineers are the only class that can get vigor on demand. In truth every class can do it.

TL;DR

if you are good at dodging and don’t need it don’t use it. However, do not feed into the hype the last thing anyone want is a zerker who dead all the time. Bring the traits, stats and skills you need to survive while pumping out as much dps as you can. Rezzing is much more of a pain in the kitten then a slightly longer fight. If you are puging do not even worry about it. Some may say you suck but at the end of day needing a rez is the biggest issue is most content.

On one last note in most pugs outside fractals what they want the heavy to do is tank (sigh). The amount of times I have “tanked” by simply dodging most if not all of the incoming damage is hilarious.

You guys seem to be overlooking a very important detail. Investing in valor will also increase your critical damage. So depending what trait line you sacrifice, allocating 30 points in valor may not damage dps. It could even boost it.

jingkangtan.6752:

Title ^ (Specifically dungeons)
Seems like everyone is using the 15/15/0/30/20 build or something.

I think it is preference. I have tried all berserkers AH, and it is awesome.

@skyline – did you mean 30 pts in Valor in your second to last sentance? if you’re talking crit damage, then we need to look at crit chance as well. of course, depending on varying builds.. say you didn’t have anything in Radiance. by giving up 30 in valor and going full radiance, you can pick up up to 29-30% crit chance if you’re using one-handed weapons. so depending on how much crit chance and damage you had to start off with, it could be seen as a fair trade off, or even gain more “damage”, plus utility that comes with on-crit procs.

the thing about the valor line vs honor line, is that the honor line potentially brings more group utility (even DPS boosting ones), compared to the valor line, which largely seem to be more self-focused.

if i am doing group based content, i’d be personally hard pressed to not go deep into honor. if i am doing more solo-based content, valor is a great line to invest in.

@ Skyline: Valor boosts your DPS only if you sacrifice Honor (if your party already has its 25 might permanently or is a bunch of ranged noobs) and Virtues. Problem is, if you sacrifice them, you’ll reduce AH’s effectiveness massively (no EM and/or longer symbols) and you’ll have only the very baseline support the class offers, nothing more.

I used to run AH build way back in the day but now its just not worth it imo. Unless you got your group stacking on you in melee, you aren’t gonna get crap and most pugs, you got range people standing way in the back not getting buffs or helping with your AH. Also as others have posted, AH isn’t needed anymore really and you can contribute more by going alittle more on the dps side. I personally run a 15/15/0/30/10 hammer right now and I love it. I took pure of voice cause it does help a lot and imo the trade off of the dps for being able to spam cleanse if needed is worth it. Plus having longer symbols and symbols applying vuln helps everyone out. AH still works but if you have 2-3 guards in a group and more than 1 is AH, you will notice the killing is slow.

TheGuy.3568:

I find something funny after a full year. For many but not nearly the majority of players the idea that kitten happens and dodges get missed. That latency and crappy rigs do not exist never factor into their minds. If you do not dodge like a pro does perfectly because they ran this encounter 100 times before then you suck. Honest truth is I have learned one very important thing. It is going to take a hell of a lot time to rez you then it is going to deal with the 5% less dps you are bringing. If that were the case there would be no reason to not run the best class lithe the best build each and every encounter. If you are maximizing for DPS do it seriously with means running the class with the best up times on the best builds and only those classes. If we did that every run it would be one boring game.

At the end of the day swap in what you feel you need to survive while keeping up as much DPS as you can. While there are dodge kings who will never understand the idea that not everybody is perfect and it is not easy for everyone. If you feel you need AH to survive and not be carried then use it. It really is that simple. In some encounters it will be utterly useless but in most of the game it isn’t going to hurt kitten.

Honest truth is if you pug being selfish with your own survivability is a good way to actually get content cleared. Doesn’t mean you don’t bring SYG WoR etc. It just means you prepare yourself for the fact you may be carrying and your traits might need to reflect that.

“We can dodge forever. It only takes 5 in Honor and a decent crit rate. That’s why Mesmers and Guardians are the two tankiest classes in the game, they have high natural defense and loads of dodges. Piling on a bunch of regen doesn’t really make a huge difference if you know when to dodge.”

True but honestly double sigils of energy could leave the glassiest builds with good timing feeling like that too. S/D S/P thief can additionally get away from a great deal of incoming damage with the evades. Ranger, can have strong dodge traits and engineers are the only class that can get vigor on demand. In truth every class can do it.

TL;DR

if you are good at dodging and don’t need it don’t use it. However, do not feed into the hype the last thing anyone want is a zerker who dead all the time. Bring the traits, stats and skills you need to survive while pumping out as much dps as you can. Rezzing is much more of a pain in the kitten then a slightly longer fight. If you are puging do not even worry about it. Some may say you suck but at the end of day needing a rez is the biggest issue is most content.

On one last note in most pugs outside fractals what they want the heavy to do is tank (sigh). The amount of times I have “tanked” by simply dodging most if not all of the incoming damage is hilarious.

The dead zerker will be doing more DPS than the other players.

Case in point, I did Arah story recently, we got to the mouth of zhaitan after killing the three AA turrets (btw haven’t done this fight in months so couldn’t remember a thing) and I spammed a basic DPS rotation and evaded all of the obvious attacks. At one point I didn’t time my dodge fast enough and downed. Nobody res’d me and I died, but I’m pretty sure I had almost solo’d the boss’s HP down to 25% because the last 25% of HP went down excruciatingly slow.

colesy.8490:

TheGuy.3568:

Bring the traits, stats and skills you need to survive while pumping out as much dps as you can. Rezzing is much more of a pain in the kitten then a slightly longer fight.

The dead zerker will be doing no DPS the other players will be forced to carry you.

Case in point, I did Arah story recently, we got to the mouth of zhaitan after killing the three AA turrets (btw haven’t done this fight in months so couldn’t remember a thing) and I spammed a basic DPS rotation and evaded all of the obvious attacks. At one point I didn’t time my dodge fast enough and downed. Nobody res’d me and I died, but I’m pretty sure I had almost solo’d the boss’s HP down to 25% because the last 25% of HP went down excruciatingly slow.

Fixed it for you. BTW read the highlighted part of my first post. It is one sentence. In fact I will whittle down your quote to it and next sentence. Once again if you can’t handle surviving full zerker…….don’t use it. Instead of a rebuttal you wrote the case in point. You pugged that run too didn’t you? So read the rest of my points because you literally gave an example of what happens in pugs. I rather have an alive DPS doing 5-10% less dps on the class that isn’t even top DPS than a dead players not doing kitten.

I think you’re confusing damage with DPS. I’m pretty sure even after I died, my average DPS in that fight was still higher than the bads I partied with since they all camped range.

Yes, I meant Valor, I corrected my post.

I agree that sacrificing honor is very prejudicial for overall dps, namely because of Empowering Might. Which personally I can’t go without. So instead of sacrificing Honor, I sacrifice Zeal, but I get that power back and then some more in the form of might. The might lasts long enough thanks to runes of the monk, water and traveler.

So this is what I run 0/15/30/20/5 on full zerker gear. I use Greatsword/staff Greatsword/Hammer. True I may not provide great support to my team but I’m not concerned about that. I support them enough by killing things fast and granting constant might (staff, Empowering Might and spamming Virtue of justice left and right everytime something dies)

colesy.8490:

I think you’re confusing damage with DPS. I’m pretty sure even after I died, my average DPS in that fight was still higher than the bads I partied with since they all camped range.

You are confusing good play with crappy play by all including yourself. Read the sentence again. Too complex? Let me clarify. Everyone should maximize their DPS in proportion to their own skill to survive. If you go down in a pug that is your own fault and whether you were top dps or not I could care less. Their are classes that out DPS guardian so the only thing you should worry about is maximizing your DPS while not going down. If you go down you failed at that end of story. Not really all that complex. If they all ran zerker and died the funny thing is it would be fail. If you all ran pure ranged tank it would be slow. If you all maximized your DPS while keeping traits you need to survive there would not have been an issue. Not really complex but you have a lot of say about things that do not even matter.

Bring the traits, stats and skills you need to survive while pumping out as much dps as you can.

Tell me how this is wrong?

One last thing. Complaining about what you get in pug? It is at the end of the day a pug.

OP, since you specifically mentioned dungeons, just slap on zerker gear and run whatever spec you want. Nobody is going to notice/care what traits you have on. I leave AH on when I do dungeons on my guardian because I use it in wvw zergs and am too lazy to respec. At worst, alpha dies 30 seconds slower. Nobody cares.

TheGuy.3568:

Bring the traits, stats and skills you need to survive while pumping out as much dps as you can.

Tell me how this is wrong?

You’re not really wrong; but at the same time people could be focusing on improving themselves so that they aren’t capping their own potential by relying on more crutches than necessary.

Ultimately, OP: AH is not the best trait to pick for the current min/max meta, but if you find that you can’t play without it (such as Mr. Hunter up there), then go for it. You won’t suffer an insane DPS loss, you won’t be as useless as a full PVT guardian, but you won’t be playing to your full potential. At the end of the day what’s important is that you can function at all, and if you can’t function without AH then you would be a fool not to take it.

Hope this helps.

EDIT: Thought I would add the preferred alternatives.

10/30/0/5/25 – GS+S/F (The typical glass build, still has good utility via the virtues line).
15/15/0/20/20 – Hammer+x (More of a defensive build, focuses on utility+damage via symbols).

Obviously you can shift a couple of trait points around, but as you may know a 30 point investment is quite large relative to a 5-10 shift.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

TheGuy.3568:

Bring the traits, stats and skills you need to survive while pumping out as much dps as you can.

Tell me how this is wrong?

You’re not really wrong; but at the same time people could be focusing on improving themselves so that they aren’t capping their own potential by relying on more crutches than necessary.

Generally I see 2 things. full zerker players who know how to play but do not realize that pugs are no mans land so they end up down and kitten ed. Players going full tank thinking that they are tanking but essentially are not. I rather have the zerker actually.

Many zerkers (I mean this truthfully rather than as in insult) have superiority complex that they are doing it right and everyone else is wrong. Honesty when I was on Zerk warrior from time to time I had the same mentality. Honest truth is if we broke it down like that I would never carry engineers (my main), Necromancer (not condi at least), rangers, ele that aren’t LH, Memsers without GS and timewarp, etc.

Maximizing your own dps is a very good thing, but at the same time you have to take it all with a grain of salt. The most solid I mean up time and DPS classes tend to be Guardian, Mesmer, and Warrior.

AH may be a little greedy depending on how you view the crit damage gain. However, the rarest thing is see for guardian in any run is GS/Sw+F (what I run). Most players are not comfortable with melee, are not comfortable with squishy builds, and play casually. Many people tell player “Run zerker or gtfo!” and “You suck if you don’t run zerker” (which you see often in chat but not in actual parties).

Rather than that I say run what you are comfortable with but do not forget about your DPS. Not everyone is going to get the hang of dodging. This game has a wide market and not everyone is going to like that type of game play. The majority of players are casual and are not fans of the if you don’t dodge perfectly you die play. They aren’t going to go out and get full zerker gear. So instead of elitist bs I just break it down to what you should be doing because kitten not everyone is that great at the dodging. Until players who feel there elite playstyle is the only way realize this there will be an issue.

jingkangtan.6752:

So its a matter of perception?
Anyway we can’t dodge forever can we?

BINGO!

For a more technical reason: AH depends on the positioning of your teammates. It’s at its best when your team is in your radius. It’s effectiveness has a wide range.

Obtena.7952:

BINGO!

For a more technical reason: AH depends on the positioning of your teammates. It’s at its best when your team is in your radius.

So, basically AH promotes stacking.

haviz.1340:

Obtena.7952:

BINGO!

For a more technical reason: AH depends on the positioning of your teammates. It’s at its best when your team is in your radius.

So, basically AH promotes stacking.

Sure, but only to the benefit of the Guardian running it.

Obtena.7952:

Sure, but only to the benefit of the Guardian running it.

Without guardian’s support, a whole team crumbles.

I wonder what teams that don’t have a guardian think of that statement.

If anyone can talk about doing things without a guardian, it’s haviz. see: climb to lvl80 fractals.

Blix.8021:

OP, since you specifically mentioned dungeons, just slap on zerker gear and run whatever spec you want. Nobody is going to notice/care what traits you have on. I leave AH on when I do dungeons on my guardian because I use it in wvw zergs and am too lazy to respec. At worst, alpha dies 30 seconds slower. Nobody cares.

^This. You only really need max dps for cof and stuff like that. Just make sure you aren’t doing dungeons in clerics or PVT

i have used AH from day 1 to now. still working well.

AHEM for PvE
AH2H for PvP

AH is only bad if you have the high school mentality. Were when the pack says something is no longer in style you no longer sport it. If they say something is no longer cool its no longer cool.

If you want to be down with the group of players who consider themselves pve elite, you don’t use AH. If you aren’t looking for someone to lead you, not looking to be apart of a group mindset, then you will understand their opinions do not matter. You are free to play how you like.

Surviving without AH… honestly isn’t that hard? It’s just a bit of extra regen. If you’re downing without it you will probably down with.

Also I should add that part of the misconseptin comes from people associating full PTV gear with AH, since the very first original builds included a ton of PTV gear in there.

In fact, the term AH was also used in conjunction with anchor, and vice versa, so really when people think of AH, they think of full PTV and staff main weapon which we all know to be worthless sin PVE.

LIttle do people understand that valor provides some very nice DPS bonuses and when the AH/EM build is used in conjunction with full or nearly full zerker gear it will provide equal if not HIGHER DPS over the entire dungeon run compared to the standard glass cannon specs.

That’s because of 2 things:

- Trash mobs actually doing more dmg than the boss itself
- Overall higher DPS uptime of AH.

It is worth noting that if you have those ultra awesome stacked groups where everyone is on TS and execute an encounter flawlessly, the GC build will most likely come out on top, but for everyday runs, pugs, or when you don’t feel you need perfection, the zerker AH will come out on top.

Keep in mind a lot of the AH hate is coming from overinflated egos who feel they need to prove something over the forums, ie, “I don’t need AH to survive, im better than you all”

PLAYING DEVILS ADVOCATE (/hypocrite) I can understand why people may feel they are limited or even regressing in skill so they need to take traits such as AH and such I for one know that in no time my skills in this game will be going backwards rather than getting better. I have psoriatic arthritis and there are far worse disabilities that people are playing this game with, so you can understand a bit why certain people who have different limiting factors than yourselves may need a bit of a buffer to help them stay up with the rest of their party, their damage may not be as great but they can still at least contribute while they are standing.

True, but then again, if it took no effort, they would already be at that point. Again, if it takes effort to improve and people are already happy with their performance ingame, then why would they bother?

Aza.2105:

AH is only bad if you have the high school mentality. Were when the pack says something is no longer in style you no longer sport it. If they say something is no longer cool its no longer cool.

If you want to be down with the group of players who consider themselves pve elite, you don’t use AH. If you aren’t looking for someone to lead you, not looking to be apart of a group mindset, then you will understand their opinions do not matter. You are free to play how you like.

My funny history about why i don’t use AH:
Got to 80, used it for a day, at some point i was doing CM and realized i had no cleanses, i was also faceplanting alot because of lol bleeding stacks… and AH wasn’t of much help, know what i did? Swaped it to pure of voice.
I didn’t need someone to tell me that AH sucks, but my early experience as a guardian could’ve been better if somebody said these words to me: “Dude, AH is trash”.

As for valor increasing dps – sure, if you’re fine with no cleanses, no might on crit, no shout cd and most likely no longer lasting reflects. When i have a guardian on my group i expect him to support with cleanses and barriers, not to look pretty thinking he’s an elementalist. I mean, any elementalist would provide more dps than him, and way more utility anyways.

Oxxy.7068:

Aza.2105:

AH is only bad if you have the high school mentality. Were when the pack says something is no longer in style you no longer sport it. If they say something is no longer cool its no longer cool.

If you want to be down with the group of players who consider themselves pve elite, you don’t use AH. If you aren’t looking for someone to lead you, not looking to be apart of a group mindset, then you will understand their opinions do not matter. You are free to play how you like.

My funny history about why i don’t use AH:
Got to 80, used it for a day, at some point i was doing CM and realized i had no cleanses, i was also faceplanting alot because of lol bleeding stacks… and AH wasn’t of much help, know what i did? Swaped it to pure of voice.
I didn’t need someone to tell me that AH sucks, but my early experience as a guardian could’ve been better if somebody said these words to me: “Dude, AH is trash”.

As for valor increasing dps – sure, if you’re fine with no cleanses, no might on crit, no shout cd and most likely no longer lasting reflects. When i have a guardian on my group i expect him to support with cleanses and barriers, not to look pretty thinking he’s an elementalist. I mean, any elementalist would provide more dps than him, and way more utility anyways.

When ever I used AH, I always took pov and shouts. Its true that AH offers no condition cleansing, which is why pov was necessary.

I haven’t used AH since around last oct or nov, I don’t care if other people use it. But I find it the playstyle very boring. I like meditations though, smite condition is nice burst damage, judges intervention with 1h sword is great for mobility and CoP is alright. Though.. CoP is vastly inferior to pov +shouts imo.

My biggest problem with AH was that for it to be 100% effective it requires you to be stacked with other players. This makes it pretty much ineffective unless you are constantly zerging with groups or in spvp if your group actually stays around you.

Oxxy.7068:

Aza.2105:

AH is only bad if you have the high school mentality. Were when the pack says something is no longer in style you no longer sport it. If they say something is no longer cool its no longer cool.

If you want to be down with the group of players who consider themselves pve elite, you don’t use AH. If you aren’t looking for someone to lead you, not looking to be apart of a group mindset, then you will understand their opinions do not matter. You are free to play how you like.

My funny history about why i don’t use AH:
Got to 80, used it for a day, at some point i was doing CM and realized i had no cleanses, i was also faceplanting alot because of lol bleeding stacks… and AH wasn’t of much help, know what i did? Swaped it to pure of voice.
I didn’t need someone to tell me that AH sucks, but my early experience as a guardian could’ve been better if somebody said these words to me: “Dude, AH is trash”.

As for valor increasing dps – sure, if you’re fine with no cleanses, no might on crit, no shout cd and most likely no longer lasting reflects. When i have a guardian on my group i expect him to support with cleanses and barriers, not to look pretty thinking he’s an elementalist. I mean, any elementalist would provide more dps than him, and way more utility anyways.

So you’re bad at picking traits and skills based on the situation, and that means AH is trash. Okay. Pure of Voice isn’t the only cleansing we have, so I’m not sure why switching your build entirely was your first go-to. Why not run Purity and the healing signet? Why not run soldier’s runes and keep the AH? Why not equip Purging Flames, or run with Absolute Resolution? We have a lot of options for condition removal, PoV just happens to be the most broken right now (not for long). Enjoy it while it lasts.

Danson.1094:

So you’re bad at picking traits and skills based on the situation, and that means AH is trash. Okay. Pure of Voice isn’t the only cleansing we have, so I’m not sure why switching your build entirely was your first go-to. Why not run Purity and the healing signet? Why not run soldier’s runes and keep the AH? Why not equip Purging Flames, or run with Absolute Resolution? We have a lot of options for condition removal, PoV just happens to be the most broken right now (not for long). Enjoy it while it lasts.

Purity + healing signet only affects myself, PoV works on all allies.
Soldier runes are horrible in PvE. Purging flames is a kittenty cond removal (are you familiar with CM? lol) Absolute resolution would require a build swap anyways.
All you said here just shows you’ve got no game knowledge PvE wise.

Also, i will still run PoV from time to time in PvE when they “fix” it (but probably won’t most of the time, since purging flames will be actually useful aside from providing fire fields).

As a player who usually runs with AH I would say that’s a mediocre choice. It’s, however, a safe bet for PUGing or running with a group with low damage capabilities (as I usually do).
Its effectiveness also varies a lot between dungeons. While I find it quite useless for Arah and I always swap it in favor of a Sw/Fc full radiance build for Caudecus, I think it has been a good choice for the SE path 2 I’ve run a couple ours ago.

colesy.8490:

TheGuy.3568:

-snip-

The dead zerker will be doing more DPS than the other players.

Case in point, I did Arah story recently, we got to the mouth of zhaitan after killing the three AA turrets (btw haven’t done this fight in months so couldn’t remember a thing) and I spammed a basic DPS rotation and evaded all of the obvious attacks. At one point I didn’t time my dodge fast enough and downed. Nobody res’d me and I died, but I’m pretty sure I had almost solo’d the boss’s HP down to 25% because the last 25% of HP went down excruciatingly slow.

If all 5 of you were running zerker and didn’t time their dodge fast enough and downed, nobody would res anybody, all of you would be dead, the boss would regenerate the 75% of its HP you took from it and nobody in your group did any damage at all. Therefore in that scenario, your DPS = 0. Then the lot of your would pay armor repairs and run back, and start rage quitting on the 2nd time this happens. That last 25%, excruciatingly slow bad DPS that took down the boss is what saved the day.

And dont say that doesnt happen that all 5 of you zerkers go down at the same time, a single AoE blow can 1hit the lot of 5 glass cannons stacking.

True though that 5 people doing 75% of the boss’s HP worth would have killed that boss 4 times over a long time ago, however you are not safe from an early AoE blow that just wipes your whole zerker party.

Yes, I have seen 4 noob zerkers wipe themselves the moment Slavedriver of CoF1 turned red-name, and i had to finish the boss solo. Know what else happened? They asked me to wipe. So i should kill myself and pay armor repairs because you cannot run your build right?

At the end of the day, fight experience and good internet(those who dodge the boss correctly) is all that matters to run Zerker right.

The best advice when running zerker, is to have a Warrior ready to drop Battle Standard on you the moment you go down.
Seriously, dont run support Guardians, just get a Warrior with Battle Standard.
Battle Standard alone is better support than any full support, Guardian or not, build anyone can run.

Zerker done right is the best. Zerker done wrong wipes and resets the boss.

Like Hunter said, it is pretty much an ego thing.

I personally am not sure what the issue is. PVE in GW2 is very easy and you can roll an AH build through a dungeon just as fast and easily as any other build if you build correctly.

To me, ah built can mean 2 builts.

Either crappy dps with good support or good dps with bad support. A ah built can’t simply have both good dps and support due to trait point limitations.

I think that’s why ah built are frowned upon becAuse it’s good survivability must come at the expense of either dps or support

Support in my opinion is decent timely group condition removal and traited master of consecration that is useful in most dungeons.

Edited to elaborate on support

Sutcliffe.5491:

To me, ah built can mean 2 builts.

Either crappy dps with good support or good dps with bad support. A ah built can’t simply have both good dps and support due to trait point limitations.

I think that’s why ah built are frowned upon becAuse it’s good survivability must come at the expense of either dps or support

This guy knows his kitten. Listen to him.

Sutcliffe.5491:

To me, ah built can mean 2 builts.

Either crappy dps with good support or good dps with bad support. A ah built can’t simply have both good dps and support due to trait point limitations.

I think that’s why ah built are frowned upon becAuse it’s good survivability must come at the expense of either dps or support

Support in my opinion is decent timely group condition removal and traited master of consecration that is useful in most dungeons.

Pretty much. ^^
You are spending 30 points on a grandmaster trait that doesn’t help your team. That only leaves 40 points to spend on traits that contribute.

jingkangtan.6752:

Title ^ (Specifically dungeons)
Seems like everyone is using the 15/15/0/30/20 build or something.

how can someone use 80 trait points?

The simple fact of this entire matter is that you do more for your party without AH.

AH was the training wheels for guardians starting out when the game first came out, when people were clueless about boss mechanics, dodging and how to time CC’s, blinds and reflects. However, now that people have an understanding of what to do in dungeons, AH is no longer required, and better much more efficient builds can be run to cut down on run times and result in smoother, less kitten hit the fan type clears.

Why can’t people accept that AH is a bad trait and move on?
I mean, anybody is free to use it if they want to, for whatever reason it is, but there is no need to get upset about the fact that it is a bad trait (well, valor in general is pretty meh) at PvE.

Also, i’d like to point to you, mr Danson, that this thread is about builds.

swiftpaw.6397:

The simple fact of this entire matter is that you do more for your party without AH.

That isn’t entirely true not by a long shot. Not every build is support based DPS so there is no guarantee you build without AH will do more for the party. The key thing in harder dungeons that guardians do for parties are WoR SYG SoTA. None of these is necessarily require you to run anything special to use as they are all utilities. Let me break it down a bit more. No one knows what build you run and the main complaint I see from “Pro” players is that they got none of the skills above when partying with a guardian. The difference in support is negligible unless you are going for PoV. The difference in support Vs a full on DPS build simply isn’t there.

Edit: If the thread is going to derail into stupidity and childish internet BS then maybe it should be locked?