Guild Wars 2

pdavis.8031:

Wait, so while I’m pulling mobs/boss AWAY from the group and doing DECENT damage at the same time, I’m not actually pulling anything and the avatars chasing me aren’t really chasing me. It’s all in my head? Yes I understand that you can’t “hold aggro” but I can get a group to chase me. Granted it’s not a for a long drawn out time, but it’s enough for the “squishier” people in the group to recover before diving back into the fray.

Do you want me to lie to you? No, you aren’t pulling more than 1/5th of the aggro. Sorry that’s the truth, the sooner you stop deceiving yourself the better you’ll be for it.

[Sarcasm] Apparently I don’t know how to play at all and am just a horrible player because I don’t follow the zerk mentality and be a mindless lemming. There is no other way to play than zerker, and in not doing so I’m ruining the game for everyone else. [End sarcasm]

I really need to learn to ignor the trolls

I’m not trolling, I’m trying to help you. If you don’t want help, fine. But don’t pretend you are something you’re not, your build is something it isn’t, and you’re doing something you are not doing.

killahmayne: +10,000 for that. And therein lies the crix of my problem. I don’t play the same way, and am looked down upon because of it.

Tree.3916:

pdavis.8031:

Wait, so while I’m pulling mobs/boss AWAY from the group and doing DECENT damage at the same time, I’m not actually pulling anything and the avatars chasing me aren’t really chasing me. It’s all in my head? Yes I understand that you can’t “hold aggro” but I can get a group to chase me. Granted it’s not a for a long drawn out time, but it’s enough for the “squishier” people in the group to recover before diving back into the fray.

Do you want me to lie to you? No, you aren’t pulling more than 1/5th of the aggro. Sorry that’s the truth, the sooner you stop deceiving yourself the better you’ll be for it.

[Sarcasm] Apparently I don’t know how to play at all and am just a horrible player because I don’t follow the zerk mentality and be a mindless lemming. There is no other way to play than zerker, and in not doing so I’m ruining the game for everyone else. [End sarcasm]

I really need to learn to ignor the trolls

I’m not trolling, I’m trying to help you. If you don’t want help, fine. But don’t pretend you are something you’re not, your build is something it isn’t, and you’re doing something you are not doing.

So if I’m not kiting mobs away from the party, then what am I doing? If I can pull 3 mobs away from the group, thats 3 mobs that aren’t attacking everyone else.

Whats wrong with my build? The ONLY answer I’ve recieved on this subject is that it doesn’t do enough damage. I will gladly welcome any help on maintaining a valk build, and improvements towards that end. But the overall message that I’m getting is that anything but zerker sucks, and you’re a bad player, and stop trying to fight the system and just submit.

killahmayne +1
You win

/thread

killahmayne.9518:

That also doesn’t mean I purposely run the worst possible build for PvE, because I do care if a run takes 20 minutes instead of 10 and I am holding that back. However so called elitists tend to lose sight of things and tend to berate and belittle others just because they aren’t as serious about certain content (i.e PvE) as they are and are getting on the case of people running a build that is perhaps only 90% optimal instead of 95% optimal. Some just don’t respect people that don’t care about that stuff as much they do and the concept of people trying to play this game for the fun or as a stress reliever is completely foreign to them. Some just fail to consider other perspectives other than their own. Now that is what I consider shameful.

Maybe I am delving to deep into this, but that is the honest truth.

The difference is, when I PvE I run the absolute best build I possible can. When I sPvP I run the best build I can. When I WvW I run the absolute best build I can. Not sucking matters to me, because I try to do the best I can do. I don’t care about spvp or wvw nearly enough to consider myself “good” at them, but I try to do the best I can out of respect for my teammates and for my personal edification.

So if I’m not kiting mobs away from the party, then what am I doing? If I can pull 3 mobs away from the group, thats 3 mobs that aren’t attacking everyone else.

I have no idea what you’re doing. Post a video of you in a group doing Arah and I can give specific answers.

Whats wrong with my build? The ONLY answer I’ve recieved on this subject is that it doesn’t do enough damage. I will gladly welcome any help on maintaining a valk build, and improvements towards that end. But the overall message that I’m getting is that anything but zerker sucks, and you’re a bad player, and stop trying to fight the system and just submit.

Let me stop you right there. No one advocating for berserker gear has made the statement that you’re bad, for all we know you might be great. The point we are making is that the optimal gearset for pve is berserker, and if you want to be the best you can be, that is what you would run.

If you don’t care about maximizing your potential that’s fine, no one will knock people who just want to play without having to put tons of effort in, but at the same time time you have to be honest with yourself and honest about the effort you’re putting in and the results you’re getting out.

Lastly, “maintaining a valk build” is a weir term for me. Why are you so married to the concept of Valkyrie’s gear? It’s like you found a conclusion (using Valkyries gear) and then went out of your way to find the question it solves. It strikes as the same attitude of an early adopter who buys a new product without waiting for reviews and then returns home after purchasing and reads all the reviews to confirm the decision that has already been made. I’m guessing your spent a ton of gold on Valkyries gear and you feel committed to running it. What you’d find is that you would probably have better DPS using exotic berserkers gear over ascended Valks, but barring that you would be better off using the meta traits and Valks gear to bad traits and Valks gear. So you made a mistake, the solution isn’t to double down and run a half-kittened pseudo tank build, it’s to try to fix it the best you can and make the best of your circumstances.

Tree.3916

Lastly, “maintaining a valk build” is a weir term for me. Why are you so married to the concept of Valkyrie’s gear? It’s like you found a conclusion (using Valkyries gear) and then went out of your way to find the question it solves. It strikes as the same attitude of an early adopter who buys a new product without waiting for reviews and then returns home after purchasing and reads all the reviews to confirm the decision that has already been made. I’m guessing your spent a ton of gold on Valkyries gear and you feel committed to running it. What you’d find is that you would probably have better DPS using exotic berserkers gear over ascended Valks, but barring that you would be better off using the meta traits and Valks gear to bad traits and Valks gear. So you made a mistake, the solution isn’t to double down and run a half-kittened pseudo tank build, it’s to try to fix it the best you can and make the best of your circumstances.

So before I made my ascended gear, I carefully weighed the pros and cons of each set before delving into it. I found that Valkyrie was much more appealing than Berserker. One of the main reasons was Vitality. I like to have more HP. It means I can stay in the fight longer. Yes I sacrifced presicion to do so, but traiting for precision and using precision runes makes up some of that. I wasn’t trying to go full tank. If I wanted that I would have rolled a guardian and geared and specd specifically for that. I spent around ~50g for the whole set, as I farmed pretty much all of it.

Which of my traits are bad? They work for what I’m try to accomplish and I feel compliment my gear well.

Your traits are 20/20/30/0/0.

Problem #1: You seem to have gone out of your way to avoid % damage modifiers. This is plausible in a build dedicated to using your burst skills, but you aren’t that since you don’t have Burst Mastery or Furious. So you have, frankly, abysmal dps. You are missing about 35% damage modifiers compared to the meta Axe build. Then factor in that you’re runnign Valks, so your crit chance (or lack thereof) is costing you another 20% dps. The DPS is very very bad for a pve build.

Problem #2. The Defense trait line is absolutely amazing in pvp/wvw. It has nothing to offer in pve. There condition removal is useless, there is nothing to increase your dps, and the grandmaster traits are uneeded since you should be dodging the type of hits Defy Pain protects you from.

Problem #3. You don’t want to play the meta. You want to be more team oriented. Fine. So… ummm… why don’t you have 20 in Tactics for banner cooldown reduction and Empower Allies? Those are two fantastic support traits that allow a warrior to better do what a warrior does for team support. Offensive support.

Problem #4 Eagle Runes would be less DPS for you than Scholar Runes or Opal Orbs. I would use Opal Orbs instead, and put the Exquisite Opal Jewels in all your trinket sockets until you get Ascended berserkers.

Problem #5 Offhand Axe is worse than literally any other choice. Even shield brings more the table than Axe. But if I were you, I would bring Mace and Warhorn and Sword and change the one you use on an encounter by encounter basis.

Allow me to retort:
#1: So with the current line up I have, I’m missing 20% DPS. Which is 2 extra hits in 10. I can live with that.

#2: Added defense=survivabilty without relying on endurance. While these may not add to my DPS, they do allow me to survive longer, thus allowing for more damage dealt over time.

#3: I don’t use banners. While I may not be contributing much to the team in the form of buffs, I feel the signets and FGJ allow me to contribute in other ways. Namely survival.

#4: While scholar runes may provide more power and crit damage, crit damage is meaningless unless you can crit. (aka more precision). I do agree that opal orbs and jewels would be better than the eagle runes.

#5: I like off hand axe. Axe 4 allows for fury without activating a signet or shout, and Axe 5 allows some crowd control. Hitting 5+ mobs for an average of 6k each as well dramtically increasing my adrenaline. If I do it right I can usually be full andrenaline after using f1 skill before f1 skill CD is finished.

All that being said, many of the upgrades are subject to change upon the patch. But just the screen shot of the Eagle runes, it seems to add more precision and more crit damage then it does already. I took a chance on those, but we’ll see what happens post patch.

I do appreciate your POSITIVE Feedback on my build though. I’m not trying to refute your claims on whats wrong with my build. I just want to show WHY I chose the traits that I did. I will also revisit my trait line up with the new traits coming out. The dual wielding one is something I’m keeping my eye on.

pdavis.8031:

Allow me to retort:
#1: So with the current line up I have, I’m missing 20% DPS. Which is 2 extra hits in 10. I can live with that.

#2: Added defense=survivabilty without relying on endurance. While these may not add to my DPS, they do allow me to survive longer, thus allowing for more damage dealt over time.

#3: I don’t use banners. While I may not be contributing much to the team in the form of buffs, I feel the signets and FGJ allow me to contribute in other ways. Namely survival.

#4: While scholar runes may provide more power and crit damage, crit damage is meaningless unless you can crit. (aka more precision). I do agree that opal orbs and jewels would be better than the eagle runes.

#5: I like off hand axe. Axe 4 allows for fury without activating a signet or shout, and Axe 5 allows some crowd control. Hitting 5+ mobs for an average of 6k each as well dramtically increasing my adrenaline. If I do it right I can usually be full andrenaline after using f1 skill before f1 skill CD is finished.

All that being said, many of the upgrades are subject to change upon the patch. But just the screen shot of the Eagle runes, it seems to add more precision and more crit damage then it does already. I took a chance on those, but we’ll see what happens post patch.

I do appreciate your POSITIVE Feedback on my build though. I’m not trying to refute your claims on whats wrong with my build. I just want to show WHY I chose the traits that I did. I will also revisit my trait line up with the new traits coming out. The dual wielding one is something I’m keeping my eye on.

1. No, read what he wrote. You are like 55% less DPS, probably closer to 60% when you consider the 100 Power and 50 Precision and 15% crit damage you don’t have.

2. People have 0 trouble surviving in full dps gear and traits so they have just as much survivability as you, and do 60% more dps.

3. If you don’t use banners or empower allies you are literally adding nothing to the group but being a warm body. Those are the single most powerful DPS group boosting effects in the game, and not bringing them is basically being worthless to your party.

4. Even with your low crit chance, scholar runes are better than Eagle Runes. After the patch Opal Orbs will be nerfed to uselessness.

5. Axe #4 adds nothing. You already have near perma fury from SoR and FGJ, if one other member of your party gives some Fury Axe #4 does literally nothing except negative DPS since it’s less dps than an auto attack.

Also, Axe #5 is less dps than an auto-attack in almost every case you will encounter in a dungeon, thus making it a negative dps skill too.

As a result, offhand axe has two skills that provide basically no utility and are negative DPS.

I give up. Apparently my biggest mistake was bringing this to the forums. Thanks for the beat downs.

Peace out

So.. you posted a build here, asked: “What are some valid and well thought out arguments as to why Valk, or any other build for warrior, doesn’t work and zerker is the only way to go.”

People then told you WHY your valk gear was worse, WHY your DPS was 60% lower and why that was bad, and your response is to say it was a mistake? Did you expect people to just say positive things about your build and expect no criticism, you cant say the arguments were not valid or well thought out, since they were. There is a reason 30/25/0/0/15 is the meta, its better then the other options. The other options like your build works, but they are worse in some way and you cant deny it.

lol. ^

“Apparently my biggest mistake was bringing this to the forums. Thanks for the beat downs.

Peace out"

lol. again.

Apparently, you can’t take any criticism whatsoever, u have 10 people all telling you what is best, or what you should change, and NOPE! Their wrong because they don’t agree with u. Like Delay said, u asked for advice and we gave it, but u chose to argue. What was the point in asking anyways if u weren’t gonna listen to any of it? So, stick with ur valk, keep thinking ur helping the parties with ur survivability and group support mechanisms u don’t have, and play with as many groups as u can take before u get kicked enough times that u finally understand what everyone in this thread was saying.

and your welcome

peace out

OK let me try this again. I want to stick as close as I can to my original build while maintaining survivability. I understand full DPS may be the best, I feel that survivability is important.

While I get that you are all trying to help, I’m not trying to argue that my build is better and that you’re all wrong. I haven’t seen much in the way of help as much of the response, and I’m at fault here too, has been along the lines of "your DPS sucks, and you should use the meta because it works, don’t argue just do it. "

I’m asking for suggestions on making this build work, give specific ideas, not just its horrible because x y z.

My criteria: mainly solo pve, with an occasional dungeon/fractal/group. I do change up for groups and such according to what I’m doing. Upon some help suggestions I’ve made some changes. Thanks.http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vIEQNAnXTnMdQpgW5BmhAnIIQQK0wvw8YICii4UgKUFwDA-zgDBYLBCnBkoAiIAgFAM3sIasFOERjlVoKJYqSRWXSI1zLY+EKqeBwAA-e

-sigh- ill help u make a build for valk, which pieces do u have so far? or do u have valk for everything including trinkets and weapons

Everything I have is on the posted build. Im leaning more towards berserker for trinkets, and havent made up my mind for weapons yet, but im working on frostfang.

try this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vIAQNAR3XjMdU5ZtHGewJaAw8YIgK6ygKm0HmD-zEDBYOERzkfwUEJjKIQ5mFRjtypIasqFYqSRWXSI1fIY+EKqeBwAA-w

the underwater weapons are just to show u which sigils to stack (perception)

its not as damaging as zerker but it’ll work.

getting new stats for ur weapons will only got about 4-6g, though lb is not good for dungeons, burning won’t tick that much cuz u got no condi damage, and arcing arrow isn’t rlly spammable, so gs is the way u wanna go

Hmmm not bad, but it seems im sacrificing 300 armor, 13% crit damage, and 1k health for 200 attack. I agree the gs may be a good way to go, but ill keep the lb handy for a ranged weapon, as most dungeon runs are mostly stack in a corner out of range nowadays anyway :P I like the sigils, great addition to dps without sacrificing anything else. Im trying to keep my hp and armor as high as possible without sacrificing too much dps. Its a start though, I’ll keep looking at the gs for swap set and play around with some traits.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vIAQNAR3XjMdU5ZtHmhwJqAALw8YogK6ogKm0CSFKD-zEDBYOERzkfwUEJjKIQ5mFRjtypIasqFYqSRWXSI1fIY+EKqeBwAA-w

What about this? I can basically keep (near) perma fury wil SoR and FGJ and stance will increasing damage even more, as well as keeping hp and armor up.

pdavis.8031:

wildfang.9670:

in all honesty pdavis you should make your own build and refinement that’s what I do. it’s fun and enjoyable and makes your character more unique. hell a run a rifle gs warrior which out right appalls some people. doesn’t change fact I do pretty dang good.

Oh I totally agree. Thats part of the reason I made this thread. There are other effective options other then zerk, and I run one of those options. What bothers me the most, is that there are too many people caught up in the DPS race and look down on those that that run something other than zerker. Doing gear checks on open PUG groups, kicking or leaving a party because its not zerk, etc. I understand Zerk is the highest DPS in the game, but that doesn’t mean anyone not running zerk is a sub par player, or have a ineffective build to add anything to a party.

I’ll try to sum up most / all reasons why zerk is so popular instead of pve encouraging experimentation this may be lengthy for that i’m sorry.

it goes beyond simple speed run mentality to almost verging on common sense for it to be used. many bosses can 1 shot your if you in high toughness armor so the stat becomes irrelevant.

many bosses are actually stacked instead of properly fought take the spider queen from ac or colossus rumbluss either of which are insanely easy to kill with a decent group. that’s just two of many sadly. ghost eater probably encourages it more then either by his mechanic (same for the boss from cof path and ofc others) you get 3 easy chances to take down his armor and dps him ofc you want it to count longer fight drags on much harder it becomes not a difficulty spike more of a mountain.

broken bosses
their are actually bosses that are utterly harmless if you know the safe spots. why would anyone want toughness or hell armor for these bosses. hell many of the bosses I mentioned are from ac the 2nd best paying pve dungeon.

won’t let me alter my post for i’m going to make a second one pdavis. all these imbalances strongly favor zerk since at the end of the day a team of zerkers will likely kill prior to being killed. with the highest possible dps killing legendary tier mobs in less then 20 seconds. lupis fastest kill is 17 secs now I hear.

til anet fixes the imbalances I mentioned the zerk mentality will likely stay. which comes good news and bad news. it seems anet wants to change this mentality. bad news their change sounds like it’s going to have the reverse effect. as lack in dps will be increasingly be notice as such odd builds will have a even harder time finding a team. (however if the loss is purely because of the ferocity change it may be manageable or have the effect kinda opposite of this as dps will equal out across a few armor types but uneven in others the main point high tier dps will be more comparable with med tier armor with power pre + random stat will be tolerated better. although i’m doubtful this will be how the crit change will occur i’m hopeful if only because what the alt means for experimentation.

anet needs to fix the dungeons to stop safe spots (stacking is usually caused because of safe spots for a boss or certain attack.) it would probably been a good idea to do that first then to fix the dps imbalance. it would make more people work for their reward resulting in either a playing better with zerk or going with a more bulky build.

nahh, stick with the one I gave u, u will only have about 3-5 boons on u (5 is stretching it), so that will only be a 3-5% dmg increase, its barely noticeable, with mine, its about a 10-15% dmg increase with only a 1k loss in health and around 100-200 armor, not noticeable at all

That actually makes sense. So as a way to combat that why not get a group who is willing to try a non zerk build and fight the bosses differently. I would be totally down for something like that. It could be fun encourage diversity in a dungeon build, and go nonstandard all the way. Best yes broken bosses I agree are a large contributer to the “problem”. But fixing them would take a complete rewrite of the whole boss and its mechanics.

shadowpass.4236:

nahh, stick with the one I gave u, u will only have about 3-5 boons on u (5 is stretching it), so that will only be a 3-5% dmg increase, its barely noticeable, with mine, its about a 10-15% dmg increase with only a 1k loss in health and around 100-200 armor, not noticeable at all

Maybe, but its basically zerk traits with valk armor. Which is the opposite direction im trying to go.

heh, ur going in the wrong direction… :/ i don’t know how to explain it any better, other than what ppl have said so far, there are bosses that will 1 shot u, it doesn’t matter if ur full soldiers, u will still die in the same time as full zerk, but its better to get as much dmg as u can in before u do, but as with most things in this game, the bosses are predictable, and so are the mobs, so instead of building tanky and being able to absorb 1-2 more hits before dying, u can go zerk, learn the patterns, and not get hit by anything at all

Yes I agree, but im trying get away from the zerk mindset. Which was the whole point of this thread before it got derailed. I thank you for your input and will take it under consideration.

some probably but a few can be done via minor tweaks.

i’ll use the exact same bosses in my and explain how a few minor tweaks would actually probably help.

spider queen prevent the little path way that everone stacks in from going through the gate to the spiders. spider queen can’t be lured there and as such stacks wouldn’t work.

option 2

make her rubber band at the gates they do this with another much harder boss in cm seamus. it would prevent her from being stacked on all together. would only require changes to the bosses behavior and shouldn’t require a major rewrite.

option 3 make her invulnerable at that location.

colossus
remove the pillar all together. now your succeptable to his knock back and his aoe fields of death. should be fairly simple i’d imagine but can’t gurrentee.

option 2
make people who stack at that location unable to damage him by giving him invuln frames. effect = to option a.

ghost eater *cringes*

enhance the time his shield is down per trap more time to dps him helps avoid the extra diffuclty of trying to refill traps if your dps is too low and your run out.

option 2
remain mostly the same maybe a slight increase in his armor down time but remove / GREATLY nerf his ability to heal so people are not punished by the prolonged battle even more

pdavis absolutely your idea to find people who would do it would work. however you’d have to actually find the people. I tend to run with guildies personally so my odd builds don’t run into much of a hassle but the strong zerk mentality makes that easier said then done.

you can do what I do and stick with guildies or do it by making your own group (I don’t specify zerk nor do I advertise what i’m using I just use it in other words no pinging)

however doing this means more inexperienced players and some tougher dungeon runs. however the worst dungeons runs I have had experienced was not from the group of people not knowing what to do causing us to wipe for 2 hours at a point that is easy to do. it was with runs that went fairly normal 20 mins maybe. however someone makes a mistake and starts a fight in pc or starts a fight with me cause I accidentally mis clicked a skill or some easy to do small mistake like that or simply people taking the game way to seriously.

Wait you were in that arah run we did a few days back where we kept getting wiped at the tar elemental for 2 hours? For no reason at all…

how about 30 10 0 0 30

dual wielding/axe mastery/zerks power
rending strikes
0
0
signet mastery/sharpened axes/burst mastery.

sigil of intelligence.

the sigil will allow you to crit 3x after swaping with the coming buff. you’ll get at least respectable precision from your runes i’m assuming over 30% crit chance with 3 gaurrenteed.

burst master combined with zerks power means you can use eviscerate and still retain some dps buff. your crits can inflict vunerbility boosting your dps even more and granting you 2 strikes of adrenaline. which should be easy as you gain it via swap and 2 strikes per crit with axe meaning you should be nearly 2 bars most of the fight even with using your burst.

whirling axes will now give aoe vuneerbility and fill your ad bar’s with a 16 sec recharge. (cancel it part way through to maximize dps potential)

I don’t specify utls i am a firm beliver in a good build should be not only effective but flexible.

i don’t main axes but this build should give a boost to yur team as your inflict vunerbility to foes increasing their dps as well as your own allowing you to use your burst more effectively with a less harsh dps drop.

feel free try it out and tell me what you think.

no i wasn’t X D i hate arah’s design so i try to avoid it and just do other dungeons ac cm se hotw cof X D

anyway that build should maximize on valks crit damage potential give it a decent crit rate and enable for high dps out put.

sorry i didn’t put any suggestion despite my numerous posts X D.

No no, it was good. You nailed the problem on the head. And offered a solution other than “you suck and your build sucks, go away”

Hmmm not bad. The numbers look good, but the 1k drop in hp worries me a bit. As well as the armor. While it may be great in dungeon, solo pve roaming is differnt. But ill take it for a test drive and see what happens.

thanks davis kinda enjoyed coming up with that build i suggested regaurdless X D. i may go tinker with my war in spvp later lol

oh if the hp’s a problem swap dual wielding for great fortitude it’ll give you a large health boost. however costing you some dps in the process X D.

the sigil won’t work properly (as i described) until apr 15 when their changing it from 1 crit to 3. so it won’t be at it’s most effective til then.

Ok swapped dual wielding for great Fortitude, and signet master for vigorous focus for added dodging ability to make up for loss of armor too

oh your worried about the hp well great fortitude will actually fix that the armor hmm.

k that’s a bit tougher to think over while keeping your current dual axe build.

k heres a idea if you don’t like my previous because of the armor and health.

go 20 10 20 0 20

str
great fortitude (for the hp) axe mastery
arms
rending strikes
defense
shield mastery/cleansing ire
0
disc
signet mastery sharpend axes

equip a shield over your second axe.

k now i’ll explain the changes.

you’ll have a very large dps drop as we left out dual wieldings 5% and left out zerker power and burst mastery to give us a few traits to play around with. i swapped your off hand axe for a shield. we also swapped dual wielding for great fortitude. we did however gain 290 toughness (which should be about as high if not higher then any build you used with dual axes) armor wise. great fortitude makes up for the vitality you didn’t want to lose.

we did however gain ire this will give you more adrenaline and as it should be common knowledge by now you’ll have a high rate of condtion removal and enhanced adrenaline gain.

the shield will give you short cc and it’s 3 second block (on a 20 second cd mind you) a boost of 290 defense which isn’t shabby.

we lost your perm fury up time by removing the second axe as well as the ability to generate adrenaline via whirling axes. ire helps with that second one. however you’ll still have a high furry up time via signet of rage.

this build is much more bulky but it’s also less offensive. your movement speed will be about same though. the only really but very noticeable changes will be the lost of burst mastery zerkers power and dual wielding greatly reducing your dps. your crit chance will be the same under the effects of fury (2/3 the time) 33 sec furry with a 48 sec cd.

it’ll give you a very noticeable dps drop while giving you more survivability.

i genuinely would prefer the first build as said build would honestly make better use of your weapon set.

however this is a alt build you could try if your turned off by the loss of toughness and vitality.

i doubt you will be though.

pfft forgot to mention strong points of shield >.< you’ll gain a short hard cc which will be utterly pointless for most bosses as most have defiant but it’s also a leap finsher and well that’s something for pve i guess X D.

the big point is your shield stance which is a 3 second block with shield mastery traited it’s a 20 second cool down which greatly enhances your tankiness.

also it gives you 90 toughness which means your essientally at or only very slightly below what your toughness (armor) would be for your current build

i personally prefer the first build more and truthfully i think it’s better but this one may be more your flavor if you want something more tanky.

If you insist on not running meta just cus then try this tanky DPS build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vIAQNAR3ejMdU5ZtHGewJaAA94qq2yo4HgUKszNA-z0BBYfCyEEwUIBKzsIasFWFRjVXDT5iIqmQAmnAA-w

Much better all around stats then your build. Toughness is also almost always a much better damage mitigator than vitality as well especially on a warrior with an already massive HP pool. Having high vitality can even hurt you in fractals because agony scales off a % of your health, meaning the more health you have the more health each tick will take.

Oooo. Pretty.

I was not aware of the higher lvl fractals and agony.
Will definetly consider that when I get up to those levels.

Not everything in PvE is zerk.

Take the collosus fractal for example. At 40+, you’re going to be taking serious unavoidable damage constantly, with vulnerability and poison bring stacked on you all the time, and damage isn’t really that important because the aim until the boss fight isn’t to kill things quickly as possible but to survive. In fact, you would even want to control your damage sometimes.

It’s just that we don’t have enough of content like that and all the stuff the average player does to get income everyday is just faceroll, so you may as well just go full zerk.

Having said that, warriors are a bit of a special class because even if you go full zerk, you still have quite a bit of survivability.

I agree with pdavis.

The mindset that the community has regarding PvE is to only run berserker gear to maximize effeciency in dungeons. So that they can go through the dungeon quicker and receive the rewards quickly.

After all why have fun when you can get the shiny at the end of the dungeon?

But honestly this line of thought is stagnating.

I play Demon Souls, Dark Souls, and Dark Souls II and I think that this train of thought applies to all games.

People will generally go for the “easiest” route. They will maximize their damage output in order to take out the enemy quickly. What is the fun and skill in this? In the aforementioned games people would constantly create one-shot builds and strictly adhere to one primary method of engagement. And that’s it.

The same has happened in GW2. The community has come at a standstill in terms of methods of engagement. And so when different Living Story installments have been pushed out with different types of enemies that the community isn’t used to. They fall apart.

All I am saying is that I support pdavis in looking for a different way to play the game. Because if you stick to the same thing constantly you will eventually get bored/ your enjoyment, and perception of the game, will degrade.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Not everything in PvE is zerk.

Take the collosus fractal for example. At 40+, you’re going to be taking serious unavoidable damage constantly, with vulnerability and poison bring stacked on you all the time, and damage isn’t really that important because the aim until the boss fight isn’t to kill things quickly as possible but to survive. In fact, you would even want to control your damage sometimes.

It’s just that we don’t have enough of content like that and all the stuff the average player does to get income everyday is just faceroll, so you may as well just go full zerk.

Having said that, warriors are a bit of a special class because even if you go full zerk, you still have quite a bit of survivability.

Weird, I have no problem in full berserker doing the cliffside fractal. So long as you have sufficient AR the condition circles are trivial. Much more concerning are the archdiviner’s hammer attacks which can kill you quickly if you can’t dodge. But that comes down to individual player skill. I suppose if you can’t read those kind of boss tells you would be better off with a tankier set. As you improve, you will dodge his attacks innately. On the plus side, you will be much better in pvp fighting all the hambows once you can beat the Archdiviner in melee.

^ I’m talking about doing the seals, the boss is zerk material unless someone dodnt kill all his adds before hitting the seal. Mobs will constantly attack you and you really can’t dodge everything, and they hurt quite a bit on 40+.

And to elaborate, why would you want to zerk it anyways? Your damage is of minor importance there because adds just respawn and the only point of doing so is to charge up the hammer, which only 1 person can have at a time. You also want to control your damage, so that you leave mobs at low HP for the hammer guy to pick off.

pdavis I’m totally with you on this. Not everyone plays for stats, some play to be unique, some play to be the hardest hitting, and others play to be never dying tanks. Its all about how you play the game and choose to have fun. If one player likes to orgasm at tolling out 60k crits fine but it does not mean that another player should have to or even be pressured into playing that same way. That being said constructive criticism should be encouraged and I’m happy to see so much of it on this thread. Keep up the nice work and keep on playing with whatever build makes you happy.