Guild Wars 2

For the longest time I used Hammer/Longbow for Fractals. I used banner regen and I swapped it for whatever my group needed. I was more into controlling the mobs so my group could dump their damage onto the mob before they could really do much of anything (Spamming weakness/CC that stuff).

As of last patch my precious hammer has been nerfed and on my hunt for a new weapon/build I have been greeted with a wall of zerker lovers just going nuts over it. I understand DPS sounds great but I have tried that in the past. Needless to say it did not go well… Yes the numbers were great, I have even been considered a damage modder by one shotting a ranger in WvW using eviscerate (not sure if I spelled that right). But in Fractals/Dungeons the damage was much greater coming back at me even with dodge spamming and having vigor up nearly all the time thanks to stances putting vigor on me.

So my question is, is Zerker warrior really viable? Or is it just an excuse for newer people to just swing away and hope the enemy dies before them? I understand veteran people swear by it and they do make it work but frankly, all I end up doing is picking up Zerker players trying to face tank a boss only to be greeted with a one shot to the face (Giggity).

My current setup is Soldier armor/Soldier runes (Test in progress ignore the runes) Zerker weapons, Ascended Cav/Cav rings/amulet, Soldier/Soldier earrings, Soldier Backpack (that will change in the future but for now I really do not care about it).

Legit responses only please, troll or noob labeling will be ignored. Thank You.

Zerker is bad in wvw unless perhaps you’re roaming.

It’s probably the best gear for dungeons fractals, however, if you’re pubing it may not seem that way. As they tend to not stacks and mob damage goes every which way which results in making it a lot harder to dodge. Plus the team composition is generally weaker compared to an organzied group. The concept behind zerker is that the more damage you do, the quicker you can clear mobs and the quicker you can finish the dungeon…Time is money, afterall. It does require a certain level of skill to wear full zerker and not die all the time. However, mobs do tend to aggro onto the player with the most toughness, so in a sense, toughness gear doesn’t really make you more survivable in a lot of cases.

Final thoughts:
If you’re pubing, use whatever gear you like. If you’re in an organized group, zerker is best.

Or you can use zerk gear, and trait something like 30-0-25-0-15 for PvE. You get some extra toughness/condi cleanse and adrenal health and you would still hit harder than a non zerk gear. Then when you get more familiar with the content or run with a better group all you have to do is retrait.

In WvW you should have another set (or multiple sets) geared specifically to what you will be doing,