Guild Wars 2

Recently I pug teamed with a strange guy who asked for zerker only members, claiming (rightly) that this results in a superior dps, and then he played rifle all the time, almost never going melee. And when people offered to relog to defensive chars, he was in strong opposition.
Guessing from his other remarks like “if I’m in a group which is not zerkers only I die too often” he was instinctively looking for bodyguards or maybe scapegoats to prevent frequent dying he suffered in recent runs.

I believe that this guy is a victim of the everpresent demand for zerker only gear and max dps at survivability cost. He is unable to play zerker but forced into it, which result in his funny tactics – equipping a rifle and staying at a safe range all the time. And it works – for him at least. He has the low protection of zerker gear, and a low damage since he uses a rifle which works best as a support weapon, not the main damage source, but he can claim he is a proper full zerker.

The morale of the story:
we need a viable option for players with a ranged dps playstyle (buff rangers)
we need some useful defensive/support builds

Being defensive is a stigma for a good reason – defensive characters are safe themselves, but they do not contribute to the group enough. The solution might be to add some strong party wide damage buffs or something.

Or… I don’t know… don’t join Zerker only groups?

This is the wrong subforum.
The moral of the story is that that guy was bad and why did you even group up with him in the first place since he has NO IDEA WHAT HE WAS DOING.

Almost every ZERKERS ONLY111!! run I join turns into a right disaster. Now I avoid them like a plague.

The game may need better supportive builds, sure. You could improve the viability of supportive builds by bringing the damage the weapons deal (weapon coefficients) closer to the damage the regular weapons deal. You could also improve supportive builds by removing the need to sacrifice a bunch of stat points just in order to be able to maintain buff x or heal for a decent amount (=remove healing power, buff base heals, remove boon duartion, improve base durations).
What the game does not need is “better defensive builds”. The whole action based combat revoles around beeing ACTIVE that means anticipating attacks and reacting accordingly, not “tanking” attacks and “healing” the damage back up.
GW2 was originally advertising with not having the need of dedicated players. No dedicated supports, dps, tanks, healers. Sadly this promise didn’t last. Both due to players beeing so narrow minded aswell as gameplay mechanics very lacking.

Fext.3614:

The morale of the story:
we need a viable option for players with a ranged dps playstyle (buff rangers)
we need some useful defensive/support builds

There is no moral. You were trolled. As a result you started to look down on zerkers, just coz u found someone who was a terrible example of one. This guy was probably having a good laugh behind ur back. How can i tell? his comment: that he has more survivability with zerk groups. This means hes likely a bottom feeder, he likes to hide behind others who clear mobs for him while he sits in some corner and spams F1 with his rifle. In other words, another useless noob in zerk gear who has no idea what hes doing.

I’ve had to carry tons of noobs like him, who expect others to do all the work for them. People who post for experienced runs but r themselves downed all the time. A lv69 guard who posts for an ‘exp speedrun’.. there’s tons of idiots out there.

Yeah, I’ve gotten stuck before with baddies who only range (rifle AA, not even using 3 or 4), and say ‘well i’m full zerk so what does it matter’.

Not to mention that there are plenty of ways to build survivability into a full zerk set. If you can keep your endurance regen up and bring a couple defensive traits/utilities and learn fights, you’ll be fine in zerk gear.