Guild Wars 2

Hi all!

I’m like all others a veteran at clearing Cof P1, and I take pride in playing my warrior my own way. Today’s run brought about a new thought to me. It’s the first time I’ve been recommended (putting it in a nice way) to be a zerk warrior using GS (you know the typical warriors you see on the street)

I’ll describe my gear and build – Full exotic Knight’s with Soldier runes, Full soldier’s accessories, Dual axe/rifle, My base dmg is 3k and 2.8k def.

Traits –
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIIQNAnXUnkOk8YzDSBxEZAwooogUKazt0jyQLNA

I do agree that GS warriors are great and all, but does everyone have to be a clone? I enjoy my dual-axe build and its definitely not something to look down on. Furthermore, my DPS/damage output will not be behind the GS build either. I’m fully capable of holding my own and my traited shouts are loved by all (heals, remove conditions).

So with this all, I have to ask, is the GS warrior that much better? Just my opinion, I have to emphasise I have nothing against fellow GS warriors

Have some variety!

I would not want you in my CoF p1 speed run. Your damage+trait is just awful.

The optimal loadout is GS + Axe/Warhorn, GS for the 100B, GS3 (if you are against a wall) and axe 1 when those two GS skills on cooldown. Traiting should be 30, 25, 0, 0, 15 for damage.

There’s nothing in CoF p1 where you need to tank anything for long and where you can’t just dps down to zero.

Just play how you want. I use a great sword but run a more survivability build. I never have problem getting groups I kill things just fine , and not to mention these poor elitist guys running around with there leet gear cant stay up for more then two seconds when they get smacked I just have to laugh. Mean while I’m usually last one standing and have saved many fights just play how you want:)

LoL. You put 20 points in Strength for Axe Mastery instead of getting the last 10 points in Discipline, do the math. In my experience optimal traits for Axe mainhand are 10-30-0-0-30, you get two traits giving you extra adrenaline on crit and the lower Burst recharge time and you can spam Eviscerate on an 8s cooldown, that’s the best DPS you can get out of the Axe imo. Also, Axe off-hand sucks, get a Mace.

Is it just me or does caring about damage go hand in hand with immaturity.

I done the fast 4 warrior and 1 mesmer runs, but my fastest runs were mixed groups.

To be nice i’ll give my axe/shield+rifle build as example of how you can use something else besides GS to deal decent damage, and at the same time have the ability to stand your ground and chooce to go ranged when needed. I run all zerker gear. You can easily exchange shield for a mace and change the defense traits accordingly.
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fIIQNAneUnkOk8YzDSBxEhABzALuCThi4ogKCQ9h2A

I wouldn’t call it immaturity, it’s just a fact that more DPS is faster kills, and faster kills mean faster runs. 100b has been shown to be the most damaging ability and axe 1 is also highly damaging. It can be annoying having a run take longer than it should because someone wants to run something that doesn’t make a run go fast.

It’s not that zerk warriors are THAT much better then others in CoF speed runs. Its more that Berserker gear> ANYTHING ELSE. No matter what class you are, whether it be, necro or engie, or war, or w/e. If your not in berserker gear and some1 else is, they will do SIGNIFICANTLY more damage then you. When i do my CoF speed runs idc what class you are, as long as your in full zerker, the damage difference is negligible. However with your knight/soldier mix, you would slow the group down a fair amount making your build subpar for “farming”.

Agreed, it’s not the class, its the gear. I’ve done 7-8 min runs with my warrior, 2 guardiens, 1 mesmer and 1 engineer.

I’ve seen some very fail Zerk warriors in CoF P1. It’s not that they were bad players or poorly geared. In fact, they had the most cookie-cutter of builds. It’s that they didn’t fit well with the rest of the team and became a handicap.

Depending on your team compositions, the GS Zerk warriors can be very effective or a complete liability. This makes them less desirable when running a genuine PUG because it’s harder to sort out team synergy in those scenarios, although in my experience it is usually manageable enough (especially in CoF P1).

That’s why some dungeon groups look for specific compositions, they know how those team compositions work and what they’re capable of. They’ve characterized the entire team and not just the individual warrior.

So those “pro” (I scoffed when I typed that) speed run groups might not want you around unless you have the specific build and gear setup, but you should be able to exercise a lot of freedom if you stick to PUGs.

Thank you all fellow warriors for your recommendations and feedback, I respect all views and opinions of others (the warrior community is just so big!). I guess for now I’ll experiment with the various zerk builds I’ve been offered here (GS/axe+shield, etc) and find the one I like best to improve my CoF experience.

I have a question for the zerk armour upgrade slots thou, is ruby orbs good?

Keep the comments coming in and thank you again!

6x Ruby jewels will give you: +150 power, +90 precision, +18% critical damage

6x Eagle runes: +165 precision, +8% critical damage, and +5% damage half the time (average of 2.5% damage).

It basically depends how often you crit. With a high enough critical hit chance the Ruby crit damage bonus will take over. With crap critical hit chance the Eagle runes will probably win out. Assuming you’re going all out for max crit, Ruby jewels win out.

Disclaimer: it was a long time ago I did the maths on this.

The other problem you will have is, because everyone else will have full zerker gear, you will aggro everyone. Consequently, you will be downed a lot. There isn’t enough toughness in the world to offset an angry silver mob.

TooBz.3065:

The other problem you will have is, because everyone else will have full zerker gear, you will aggro everyone. Consequently, you will be downed a lot. There isn’t enough toughness in the world to offset an angry silver mob.

I do not mean to offend, but this is not always true. The aggro doesn’t always go for for the highest armor player character, IME-I don’t know how this became a “fact” over time, when in fact, it isn’t factual. I mean no argument, though, and will be happy to be proven wrong, especially if a developer has ever specified anywhere that enemies do indeed follow the highest total armor player 100% of the time.

(Most likely, it’s an excuse for people to apologize for using all Berserker’s, but they need no such apology, because such builds have their purpose. They should understand, however, that on occasion they will also be the recipient of enemy aggro, no matter if there’s a Guardian with 3,000+ armor in the group.)

I was a career Dark Knight in FFXI for 8 years and if that thought me anything about Glass Cannons is that the worst damage dealer is a dead damage dealer.

I would not recomend Zerk to anyone that hasn’t mastere.d the dodge/kite/gtfo way of playing. Your just going to agravate yourself and your group. So my answer is a Yes and No.

Full zerker warriors are the most effecient. Of course you can clear anything at whatever pace you would like - but when you have to grind a minimum 1400g for any legendary (depending on whether you buy your precursor or MF dump), every 1-2 minutes shaved off the 1700 runs+ that cof farmers do makes quite a big difference.

Axe mainhand and traiting for it is hands down the best over time dps. GS is best burst when 100B is up. Building appropriately to swap between these two and gearing full zerk will equate to the fastest clears - you don’t need to tank anything and a good mesmer will easily keep everyone alive and clearing effeciently (which is why Mesmers never get geared checked).

Forestgreen.7981:

Traiting should be 30, 25, 0, 0, 15 for damage..

What would your specific trait build out be then?

When run correctly, they are much better. “Much” is the operative term here, and it is relative.
4 Zerker warriors can cut your CoF p1 run time down by up to 50%. On my mesmer, I’ve seen them cut down the 1st boss in a single time warp, and drop the last boss by 50% in a single time warp.

However, 50% is really not that much time when a typical group can run the instance in roughly 12-15 minutes. A decent group can do it in 10-12 minutes. A well-run mesmer/zerker group can do it in about 8 minutes.

If you intend to heavily farm the instance, saving 4-7 minutes per run adds up quickly. However, for the typical player looking to run it 1,2,3 times – it really doesn’t matter much.

What everyone that has posted here has failed to mention is DO NOT USE GS UNLESS YOUR KILLING GATE. That’s right. GS lowers your damage output significantly. On slaver its not much of a difference because WW’ing into the wall makes up for some of the damage loss, but on effigy its a huge damage loss. There’s a reason why teams that consistently kill effigy in less than 10 seconds do not use a GS.

I’ve been using axe\mace + rifle combo for some time. It’s a decent set with ranged option for when you’re low on health and boss is focusing you.

But lately I decided to switch rifle for GS in my cof loadout. Using HB and #3 on GS, then autoattacking with axe gives a nice boost to DPS. And since warriors are DPS machines anyway, we can as well try to do it as best as we can. It’s not like we must think about protecting\supporting the party or anything.

I still use axe\mace+rifle(longbow) in harder dungeons\fractals.

depend on condition, I’m using banner spec when my party have good dps & using GS + A/A on weapon swap

I used to run CoF p1 as a zerker team. I used to be pretty elitist with group build too until until i was present when a “regular joe” player got kicked after a truck load of abuse by an idiot with a warrior. I’ve since gone for the more tanky approach with Hammer/GS, it’s a hell of alot more fun for me then zerker playstyle plus i don’t have to be a kitten to other players. Elitists can keep CoF, there’s more to this game then speed running 1 path repeatedly.

I looked up the aggro mechanic on GW2Wiki. It works on the players distance / damage, abilities in use can cause the mob to switch, like ressing another player or dps’ing an encouter mechanic. Armour rating and use of a shield factors in the mobs threat table too but less then the other factors

Hehe. Their all using GS not knowing that axe does about 30% more damage overall with secret sigils.

(from about 23 seconds. Fastest cof effigy kill with a Warrior geared as condition damage)

Somewhere, a game designer who worked long and hard on CoF is reading this and crying.

Not criticism, by the way. It’s only natural that people look for the path of least resistance. In that case, yes, “Zerker” would be it.