Guild Wars 2

Reason, why bad players prefer berzerker

edit:

The OP is not saying class a > class b.
The OP is not even saying def > off. (he wrote: def and off stats are balanced)
Point of OP is: In a game where off and def stats are balanced, the chance that the winner of a fight is actually the better player is much higher when 2 tanky teams play compared to 2 gc fighting each other.

First, I want to say that I know that every successful gw2 tpvp team needs to have a certain amount of glass cannons in their team.
However the reason for that is purely the game mode called „point capture“. The whole system in gw2 is fighting with a superior number and winning those fights as quick as possible to start a snowball effect which will lead into having a superior number in the next fight and so on.
For this reason and only this reason are glass cannons very important.

Now that I have this covered I’m going to explain why bad players prefer an offensive setup, top playsers instead go more for a defensive setup (regardless what game).

Important:
The situation I’m going to talk about is an even fight X players vs X players starting from an 1v1 to “whatever-size” vs “same -whatever-size” fighting to their deaths. So basically every even team fight.
In addition, off and def stats have of course to be balanced. This means that when you trade a certain amount of offensive stats you gain an equal amount of defensive stats and the other way around. So when I give up 10% dmg, I will gain 10% dmg reduction etc..

In General:
I hear people claiming that „running an offensive setup requires much more skill than having a defensive setup but at the time would be much more rewarding.“

It’s easy to show that this is obviously big bs:

Let’s have a look at the differences between an off and a def setup:
pros for def:
-more survivabilty
-easier to recover

pros for off:
-higher burst with less cd
-higher sustain

If you want an example just take the normal berzerker backstab thief compared to a soldier/venom thief.
The soldier/venom thief only has medium burst every ~30s when activating his leeching venoms. But his survivabilty is of course much higher due to more def stats and more healing (leeching venoms).

Why do people think it’s harder to player the zerker thief than the soldier thief? Because you die much faster! BUT on the other hand, every new/bad player will be able to kill something. Your damage is so high that even if you screw up your dmg rotation and interrupts you’re stilling going to kill (as long as you live).
The soldier thief however has to put much more effort to down someone – it works about like this:
1. Force the enemy to use his heal without using your „medium“ burst
2. Wait until his heal almost is off cd again (that’s when people are the most vulnerable)
3. Burst him with all you got
4. If the enemy still lives you need to interrupt their heal and finish him

You see how much more skill you need to kill someone when runing a def setup compared to going full zerker?

In conclusion:
So going for a defensive setup vs offensive setup is „having the risk of not being able to kill someone but getting rewarded by living longer“ vs „having the risk of dying very easy but getting rewarded by killing very fast and easy.“

Why do good players/teams prefer def setups?
This is something that has happened in every MMO over time. At some point the top groups will start running more and more defensive setups.
The explantion for this is:
Why take a risk when you’re already the better player/team???

Now lets go back a step:
Every MMO has a „luck factor“. Normally such luck factors are:
1. crit luck
2. proc luck
3. even server lag is luck (someone who messes up his burst is hit much more by server lag than someone who auto attacks waiting for his cds)
4. and last but not least the luck factor especially for gw2: dodge luck!

So you may argue that dodging is no luck in a 1v1 situation, but every fight which is 2v2+ has a major luck factor. This has been admitted by several successful players every now and then. The last one I can remember was Helseth in his rant of the week about spamming. Everyone who claims he is dodging everything on purpose in team fights is being illusionary. (but it does not matter, since there are still other non negatable luck factors).

Now is the time where you, the reader, have to make one conclusion by yourself (I will still help you a little):
Offensive setup players are much much much more influenced by this luck factor than defensive setup players.
E.g.: Two glass cannons fight each other. One non crit or lucky dodge roll can obviously shift the outcome of the fight entirely from one side to the other.
On the other hand, when two defensive players are fighting each other, the impact of one single crit/non crit is much less significant.

—> I hope you agree with me on this one. If not I would suggest that you let your IQ be checked, but please expect a disappointing result.

In conclusion:
Going for an offensive setup for a top team/player will expose them to the risk of losing to a worse team/player. Top teams do not need the luck to win against other teams because there are not many teams wich would win against when no luck would be involved.

—> I always laugh a little when people say „People play def because it’s much safer, you know…“.
YES!!! It is much safer, because the chance is much higher that the better player will win! And that’s what should happen in a good and balanced game, ain’t that right? =D

Important!!!:
This always leads into top groups going as defensive as possible while still be able to kill the enemy with good coordination of burst and CC. I am not saying top teams are going full bunker in every game! I will write it again:
Top teams always go as defensive as possible WHILE still be able to kill the enemy team „with skill“.

Why do bad players prefer an offensive setup („full zerker only option to have fun – everything else is lame noob bs)“:

There are two reasons:
1. The obvious one: The exact opposite why good players prefer a defensive setup: Bad players need a high „luck factor“ to at least have a chance of winning. The bad player is by defintion going to lose against a good player on even terms. Only —>luck<-- scaled with a „high luck factor“ gives them from time to time the satiscfaction of winning.

2. It’s boring for bad players to play defensive! Because bad players are just not able to kill something when wearing something else than zerker. It’s sad but at the same time very true (just think about it).
Bad players are not able to coordinate their burst and CC so fights would go forever and nothing would happen.

In Conclusion:
Now I guess the statement: „Berzerker is more risk but also more rewarding“ is true afterall.

BUT: Not because because of skillful play but only because offensive setups are always carrying a much higher luck factor with them!

—> So running an offensive setup exposes everyone to a much much much higher risk of losing to a worse player/team but at the same time gives you the chance to win against a better player/team from time to time but only when luck is favouring you.

—>Even when running a defensive setup you will lose to a worse player from time to time because if he is critting and proccing everything and you are not – well than there is not much one can do.
But the chances of that happening is just so much smaller compared to running an offensive setup!

Two last things:
1. My native language is not English!
2. Let’s welcome the zerker fanboys who didn’t understand a single word they just read and have some fun together. =)

edit: Everyone should see it like this:
If a fight needs 100 abilities to end – to define the winner and the loser – the chance that the better player is the winner is much higher than in a fight which is over after only 3 abilities were used.

this made me laugh. Thank you kind sir.

Why bad players prefer condi bunkers: because “fire and forget” builds/skills play the game for you, so you can feel great while not actually playing.

thaooo.5320:

Why bad players prefer condi bunkers: because “fire and forget” builds/skills play the game for you, so you can feel great while not actually playing.

That’s why I wrote “def and off stats need to be balanced”.

Well, in any game the first step to becomming better is learning how to stay alive longer. Whether it be through positioning defensive abilities, or by learning how to properly CC or trick their opponent.

top players play full glass thieves…

you chose wrong class as an example; i can go full tank on thief and still die instantly but do virtually no dmg

This has to be sarcastic…. but you seem serious.

I have a warrior and MM bunker for when my team needs a bunker.

I have a shatter mesmer and engi on the glassy side for when my team needs DPS.

It is much, much easier to play bunker.

Case in point: Past couple of days I have had some bad lag (that whole Dallas pocket loss they are talking about I think) and have just played on my warrior the whole time. I miss earthshaker sometimes and see a quick spike in my health loss at the beginning of an encounter, but we’ve done really well.

Cynz.9437:

top players play full glass thieves…

you chose wrong class as an example; i can go full tank on thief and still die instantly but do virtually no dmg

If you do no damage with a soldier thief then this example perfectly fits you. When I’m playing a venom share soldier thief, I can melt any bunker together with one of my bunkers by coordinating unmitigatable damage through the trait Leeching Venoms.
As you can see, it all comes down to coordinating and playing skillfully.
And when you die instantly with a soldier thief with leeching venoms trait you are srsly doing something wrong. But flames by side – there are actually numbers which are proving my point that soldier thieves must live longer than zerker on average – you just have to open your hero panel and look under vitality and thoughness!

……..The MAIN reason defensive builds are played more by better player is because the game is tuned to benefit them. Defensive condi builds are too efficient because there is no defense against condi (as in, no stat that reduces condi dmg) the only way to deal with them is to outheal/remove them and that takes time. Furthermore, since the goal is to stand on points, defensive builds and their ability to hold out a point on their own for a while, even against multiple attackers, is favored. Glass cannons are unable to hold points and are inefficient in their damage since by stacking toughness any good tank can neutralize their burst and force them into a sustain fight which they will likely loose. Tanks should pay for being tanky by doing less burst, but kills matter too little in this game if you’re holding the point. And tanks are better at holding points.

In good pvp games, if a glass cannon dies in a fight but does a lot of damage in the process and gets even one kill, it’s worth it, because healing is slow/high cost and long rez timers and other penalties to death/benefits to kills make deaths really matter. In this game, if a glass cannon goes in and takes 4 people to half health and dies so his team can “clean up”, they will be topped off again on health within seconds, so even if the team gets there 5 seconds later there is nothing to clean up, everyone is full health. Damage without kills means almost nothing, just like kills without holding points means almost nothing. This game is very one dimensional, it’s all about standing on nodes grabbing your kitten, little else matters much. And tanks do that better, with condi tanks doing it even better because they can wear down other players with their “ignore all defense” damage while sitting on point tanking.

To quote my friends shortly before we gave up on this game, “they should rename it Condi Bunkers Wars” or “Who Can Sit on Nodes Longer Holding Their kitten Wars”.

Ethics.4519:

This has to be sarcastic…. but you seem serious.

I have a warrior and MM bunker for when my team needs a bunker.

I have a shatter mesmer and engi on the glassy side for when my team needs DPS.

It is much, much easier to play bunker.

Case in point: Past couple of days I have had some bad lag (that whole Dallas pocket loss they are talking about I think) and have just played on my warrior the whole time. I miss earthshaker sometimes and see a quick spike in my health loss at the beginning of an encounter, but we’ve done really well.

Well, you are comparing two of the strongest builds at the moment with two rather weak builds.
You need to read the very top of my initial post. It says under the condition that off and def stats are balanced. That cond classes and AI classes have an easier time due to unbalanced cond dmg and minion dmg should be obvious. I will make no comments to warriors…

This post is theory-crafting. I understand when you guys are a little overburdened by this.

It’s not good player vs bad player and their preference. It is that currently, there are tanky builds and tanky/condi builds that minimize the mistakes you make. Sure in a zerker vs zerker match up you’ll eventually get lucky and global someone; however in the long run of multiple match ups the better player will win. Why? Because there is less room for error with those builds. Now, continuing on with berserker vs berserker you now have to look at each profession and analyze what abilities they have that help them marginalize their mistakes. In this case, as to the reason why thieves are the burst class of choice, is they have evades/stealth and easy access to disengage from fights.

I understand where you are coming from mister OP. Setting up kills requires more skill than two shotting someone. And ofcourse the good players will try to balance their defense and offense in a way that allows them to stay alive, while maintaining their abbilitie to kill or support or w/e their role is.

However …

In this game the tanky specs like MM necro, condi (bunker) warrior, spiritranger and such have some of the easiest rotations. They are incredibly forgiving in every way shape and form.

edit: You mentioned that this is the case in other MMOs aswell. Can you mention some of these examples?

If i look at wow for example i can see how something like TSG can fit your description. But there are other examples of setups that fit the “kill fast or die” playstyle that are really skillbased aswell (RMP for example).

Locuz.2651:

I understand where you are coming from mister OP. Setting up kills requires more skill than two shotting someone. And ofcourse the good players will try to balance their defense and offense in a way that allows them to stay alive, while maintaining their abbilitie to kill or support or w/e their role is.

However …

In this game the tanky specs like MM necro, condi (bunker) warrior, spiritranger and such have some of the easiest rotations. They are incredibly forgiving in every way shape and form.

Yes. That is true. In this game are builds possible which give you high defense and high offense at the same time. But that’s because things like cond dmg and pets are not balanced well enough.

Everyone should see it like this:
If a fight needs 100 abilities to end – to define the winner and the loser – the chance that the better player is the winner is much higher than in a fight which is over after only 3 abilities were used.

Now everyone can think about whether the 100 abilities are used when two soldier/def setup players fight each other or if 2 berzerker/off setup players fight each other.

Ceraldor.3160:

Cynz.9437:

top players play full glass thieves…

you chose wrong class as an example; i can go full tank on thief and still die instantly but do virtually no dmg

If you do no damage with a soldier thief then this example perfectly fits you. When I’m playing a venom share soldier thief, I can melt any bunker together with one of my bunkers by coordinating unmitigatable damage through the trait Leeching Venoms.
As you can see, it all comes down to coordinating and playing skillfully.
And when you die instantly with a soldier thief with leeching venoms trait you are srsly doing something wrong. But flames by side – there are actually numbers which are proving my point that soldier thieves must live longer than zerker on average – you just have to open your hero panel and look under vitality and thoughness!

wow you actually believe that lol

why should i bring venom share thief when i can have necro? he still will live longer than your thief and have better sustain… besides pvt venom share thief doesn’t have good spike dmg

i went against ostrich egg team when they were running thief with venoms, they lost… i believe if they ran normal s/p or d/p thief they would have won

i agree bunkers will have better chance to win simply because even if they die they just can hold points longer but thief is just bad example lol; thieves just don’t have what makes a bunker bunker aka aegis, stability, big heals etc.

Julius.1094:

……..The MAIN reason defensive builds are played more by better player is because the game is tuned to benefit them. Defensive condi builds are too efficient because there is no defense against condi (as in, no stat that reduces condi dmg) the only way to deal with them is to outheal/remove them and that takes time.

you contradict yourself in a single sentence. condi has all the same counters as power and on the top of it has removal and delay.

i would expect that only about 2/3 of condi damage ultimately makes it to enemy health bar and even that you may have to wait for 8-10 sec delay while they tick. some power burst can bring you down (stomp included) in half of that time.

Cynz.9437:

Ceraldor.3160:

Cynz.9437:

top players play full glass thieves…

you chose wrong class as an example; i can go full tank on thief and still die instantly but do virtually no dmg

If you do no damage with a soldier thief then this example perfectly fits you. When I’m playing a venom share soldier thief, I can melt any bunker together with one of my bunkers by coordinating unmitigatable damage through the trait Leeching Venoms.
As you can see, it all comes down to coordinating and playing skillfully.
And when you die instantly with a soldier thief with leeching venoms trait you are srsly doing something wrong. But flames by side – there are actually numbers which are proving my point that soldier thieves must live longer than zerker on average – you just have to open your hero panel and look under vitality and thoughness!

wow you actually believe that lol

why should i bring venom share thief when i can have necro? he still will live longer than your thief and have better sustain… besides pvt venom share thief doesn’t have good spike dmg

i went against ostrich egg team when they were running thief with venoms, they lost… i believe if they ran normal s/p or d/p thief they would have won

i agree bunkers will have better chance to win simply because even if they die they just can hold points longer but thief is just bad example lol; thieves just don’t have what makes a bunker bunker aka aegis, stability, big heals etc.

wow _ just wow…
you must literally be blind if you can’t see the point the OP is making (no offense to blind people).
The OP is not saying class a > class b.
The OP is not even saying def > off. (he wrote: def and off stats are balanced)
Point of OP is: In a game where off and def stats are balanced, the chance that the winner of a fight is actually the better player is much higher when 2 tanky teams play compared to 2 gc fighting each other.

@OP: you are overestimating the intelligence of the average gamer by a lot!

tarcheg.4872:

The OP is not saying class a > class b.
The OP is not even saying def > off. (he wrote: def and off stats are balanced)
Point of OP is: In a game where off and def stats are balanced, the chance that the winner of a fight is actually the better player is much higher when 2 tanky teams play compared to 2 gc fighting each other.

Thanks dude, couldn’t have said it any better – I will quote this in first post so people will understand my point much easier!

Why did vvv lose in the GF tourney when they ran triple bunker?

Can someone tell me if this is a joke thread before I read it?

Edit: at the risk of this being a trolled, sounds like you’re saying defensive set ups are harder, so four reasons why that’s not the case, real fast.

A: Landing key attacks consistently is more important on glass builds; glassvglass defines the winner almost immediately, and vs bunker/sustain it is vital to take them down.

B: in team fights, glass teams take more coordination to pull off as when and how to use your burst is crucial. EG if you down someone and he gets ressed easily that’s a big plus to the attrition team. Attrition teams just focus in on the first guy to run out of cool downs.

C: attrition builds can take stuff on the chin; glass builds can’t. Not getting hit by stuff is harder than using your heal when it comes off cooldown.

D: thieves

There are many more reasons, but in all honesty even I don’t care.

i personally consider berserk specs a support for the team, as someone mentioned “to CLEAN”.

when two bunkers fight in mid, and a soldier comes in to fight the bunker, and an evade whurin larc strike thief (zerk amulet) hops in vs soldier + bunker, imo the thief is giving the best support and the bunker is giving the best benefits for his boons/heals/res here, not to mention all the boons the thief is stealing. if thief die, guard can easily res (you’d need necro to counter this).

while soldiers + bunker guy are both being outhealed by thief’s bunker and ofc thief should be avoiding all attacks with all the teleports.
Here in my view i see all the pressure is coming from the thief, which one do you kill? thief dies, guardian resses, target guardian? might be dead by then, guardian dies? thief could probably stealth res but lets stick to more generalized zerk specs. so i just gave an example of thief, i don’t think all classes suits being zerk spec however.

Phaeton.9582:

Can someone tell me if this is a joke thread before I read it?

Not a joke, and a somewhat legitimate argument. The title is just trolly, because there’s many unlisted reasons a good player would play zerk. He’s really just saying with tanky characters, the player that plays consistently better wins, not who gets one lucky big hit.

But of course, there’s tactical and strategic reasons to play zerk, also it’s more fun.

I can understand where the OP is coming from just about.

However, don’t forget how much time those “100 moves” can take up in a match compared to bursting someone down fast enough and capping a point before 2 other players show up (for example).

Yes when both players have to set up carefully and coordinate skills in order to down each other in defensive setups, it is harder overall (depending on build) than one/two punch backstab/shatter, llucky burst or whatever. But pvp doesn’t give you the luxury of time that sort of fight will need. In wvw sure, go ahead knock yourself out – can extend a fight indefinitely (providing you don’t get ganked).

thaooo.5320:

Why bad players prefer condi bunkers: because “fire and forget” builds/skills play the game for you, so you can feel great while not actually playing.

This is so true, because DoT requires much less active offense and much more active defense. Its easy to sit in some tanky spec and let conditions do the work for you, because most dps players dont actually do a lot of damage over time. Instead they rely on burst, which means your defense is low, so its paramount to blow everything you got and hope you down the enemy. Where as DoT is such bs because of how unfair it is.

This is such a bs.
You cant say it takes x moves more so more time so the better player wins.Even if you could i still fail to see how a fight lasting 10 seconds has to mean less skill is involved than a fight of 100 sec but we dont even need to get there.

Defence in gw2 comes from more HEALING, more MOBILITY and JAIL FREE CARDS
Not so from raw stats.So when you run a defence stat build that can also run,stunbreak like a motherkittener, burst heal and escape and reset you got way more room for error.
The more of the above you sacrifice for more damage and burst the less forgiving your build is. Now i cant claim that screwing up with those builds doest actually harm your team BUT since time is a resource the negatives of you messing up are certainly less.
And since this is about spvp burst setups in conquest are a lot harder to play. And the reason is simply that less sustain means less time for your team to react.
..Just the idea that you think that peopel run bunkers and soldier builds because they are skillfull makes me wanna punch the screen.Every body knows that to win you need to cheese your way with these kittenty eversustaining builds that even monkeys can play..

I believe that you think 2 burst builds fighting against each other is about luck..That couldnt be less true.Its just the mistakes show up so fast that the small edge of what 1 player got gives less room for recovery to the other and the fight snowballs hard.
If you think there was no skill involved and it was luck then you probably failed to realise what went wrong in the first place

Player skill is a mix of knowledge and adroitness.

If you want to specifically argue GW2 setups, Berserker is more skill dependent because it attributes active play, whereas defensive stats enhance the player passively; not dependent on skill.

I feel your argument targets offensive vs. defensive effectiveness, which (while interesting) depends on specific game design, but I suspect a perfect system would support them equally.

^well saying that defensive stats enhance the player passively therefore less skill is required is wrong..and you ll just give him something to hold on if he responds to you.
The reason is that offencive stats also enhance the player passively by reducing the time it takes that he needs to survive before he manages to win.And in a perfect balance those would be equally effective..But this game is about conquest and fighting in small circles ,it has something thats called downstate ..and stalling time is very effective since its entirely points based system.

Ryan.9387:

Why did vvv lose in the GF tourney when they ran triple bunker?

The reason could be that the other time was the better team.
Again:
My point is NOT, that def is stronger.
My point is NOT, that def or off (!) is easier to play.

I said in my post that under the condition both are same effective/balanced. I wrote both have a certain risk and a certain reward. I’m just saying it is also not harder to play offensive than defensive. But I’m not saying it is the other way around!

When you take the time to read the post then please take the time to understand it. Yes the title is a little provoking – mostly to bring people in this thread.

Also please read that I said, that I’m looking at a fight not a whole match in conquest mode. I know you need certain builds in conquest due to holding a point with bunkers and killing bunkers asap (also to find at the very top).

This thread contain theory crafting for an even fight to death (like death match =D).

But at least some people seem to get the direction I’m coming from.

An offensive build is just much more luck dependent!

This thread makes no sense at all; simply said the reason that the preference at the moment is to play tanky is not synonymous with any of the reasons you have stated.

The reason people have stopped playing glass on anything but thief is because your risk of death to irrelevant aoe damage is too high; along with the fact that most glass canon burst spec’s have a hard time dealing with the out of control condition spam.

I will just give you an example for my personal experiences; take for example a team fight where a spirit ranger decides to focus on a shatter mesmer; it becomes very difficult for a mesmer to deal damage in the teamfight because he is so pressured purely from the spirit rangers 1 spam, that he risks going down before dealing any damage; often forcing the mesmer to disengage the fight until that ranger focuses fire else where.
Had this ranger been focusing fire onto a necro or a warrior, they would be a lot more durable and would be able to sustain / transfer those conditions.

Glass just suffers from easily being shut down in the current meta, its basically like saying I can deal 500 damage 100% every teamfight versus someone saying I can deal 750 damage but that depends on 200 different factors that could occur in the team fight.
In almost all situations you would take the dependable 500 damage.

Thief is the only class that does not abide by this, because they have an excess amount of stealth / evades / gap closer’s / damage on demand; they are possibly the single best class for keeping people down, along with having the high burst potential and great team utility; they are also very survivable.
Running anything but a glass thief is akin to having diarrhea instead of a cheese burger; it just makes no sense.

Berserker in this current meta is just too hard to pull off, with so little reward that people don’t run it anymore; its just easier to play that way. Its by no means an indicator of the persons skill level.

Sorry but I just disagree immensely with the op.

@Xeph:
You guys need to understand that I’m not talking directly to gw2 and the conquest mode but much more about XvsX fights in general.
I know that conquest has other rules than a normal fight like deathmatch.

Though since this is theory-crafting, my point is valid saying that offensive players are more dependent on luck therefor have the chance at winning against better players but at the risk of losing against worse players.

Ceraldor.3160:

First, I want to say that I know that every successful gw2 tpvp team needs to have a certain amount of glass cannons in their team.

Since people seem to forget the start of my post when having finished it, I will quote this to maybe prevent some contra arguments which are already taken care of in the first couple sentences.

Avead.5760:

The reason is that offencive stats also enhance the player passively by reducing the time it takes that he needs to survive before he manages to win.

By “passively” I understand you to mean “indirectly”, as otherwise your statement doesn’t make sense.

I comply with that active play should be more effective than passive play, but you happen to neglect the importance of active defensive in your reasoning.

Avead.5760:

And in a perfect balance those would be equally effective..But this game is about conquest and fighting in small circles ,it has something thats called downstate ..and stalling time is very effective since its entirely points based system.

Effectiveness is not necessarily in a direct cause and effect relationship with skill, however I do support that in good systems, it should be.

OP – Three meandering posts sprinkled with inconsistency and gross oversimplification just to justify your preference for soldier venom share over zerker glass thief. Sir, I salute your affluent position in life which affords you so much free time.

Ceraldor.3160:

@Xeph:
You guys need to understand that I’m not talking directly to gw2 and the conquest mode but much more about XvsX fights in general.
I know that conquest has other rules than a normal fight like deathmatch.

Though since this is theory-crafting, my point is valid saying that offensive players are more dependent on luck therefor have the chance at winning against better players but at the risk of losing against worse players.

why are you only looking at one side of the coin; what if a better player is using zerker amulet, but looses to a worse player who is playing solider/amulet sustain, which I can assure you is infinitely easier to pull off.

For you to make the claim that playing a defensive build; which in essence means that you can focus on surviving and dealing moderate damage through out the fight with little to no risk of being insta gibbed; having the safety net of high hp pools, mitigation and sustain, is harder then running glass, where you need to land your damage, survive by mitigating damage through timed use of cool downs. I don’t know sir but the claim you are making is down right absurd.

Its like claiming that is easier to walk a tight rope with a safety net, then without one.
One can afford to make mistakes with little repercussion; whilst the other has no margin of error available to them.

Also your argument regarding luck, every game has that; there is no way to around the RNG of crits; or possible evades to skills used. This though has little to no impact on the skill required to play the build.

The fact also that your making the assumption that worse players play glass in order to kill better players is beyond far fetched; the worse player also risks getting destroyed and having 0 impact.
Had he engaged with a tanky build, he would accomplish a lot more then had he gone in with a glass build.
This can also be seen clearly through the huge decline in people playing berserker builds, its just no fun dying instantly for someone who doesn’t understand how the game works.

Defensive play has always been a lot easier then offensive play.

Just for clarification I will make an exmaple to my point which is still meant globally.

You can disagree on the following two points:

1. Offensive builds rely much more on luck than defensive builds.

Example: A good players duels a bad player. Both are playing the typical gc d/p thief.
To keep things simple I will say that burst = d/p #5 + #2 + bs.
Now the better player has the better reaction though he can perform his burst first. But he is not critting his hs so he gets no sigil proc for extra dmg. Result: Bad player does not drop below 50% so no 20% extra dmg for bs. —> bad players survives the burst.
Now the bad players is doing his burst but he crits his full combo which results into the death of the better player and the bad player winning even though he had the worse reaction at the start.

Now they log onto their soldier/meditations guardians. If they duel now, the first 1-3 crits have a much lesser impact on the outcome of the duel.

2. A good player wins against a bad player on even term / no luck involved
Explanation: really? just look up the defintions of a good/bad gamer!!!

Now Xehp, everyone else – with which of these 2 points are you disagreeing?

All I did at the end was to make an easy conclusion:
A good player will try to minimize the luck involved in a match since he would be winning if no luck at all is taken into account. This “luck minimization” is done by going for a more defensive setup.
A bad player needs the advantage luck may give him so he will strive for a more offensive setup.

I’m honestly a little shocked that so called “pro players” are obviously overwhelmed by a little theory-crafting.

you should be running 100% crit chance from stealth anyway….

Ceraldor.3160:

I’m honestly a little shocked that so called “pro players” are obviously overwhelmed by a little theory-crafting.

Please recognise the distinction between disagreeing and being overwhelmed. Most posters just feel that your core argument is flawed, that’s all.

Aereniel.7356:

Ceraldor.3160:

I’m honestly a little shocked that so called “pro players” are obviously overwhelmed by a little theory-crafting.

Please recognise the distinction between disagreeing and being overwhelmed. Most posters just feel that your core argument is flawed, that’s all.

With which of the two points I’m making are you disagreeing? I listed them three posts above this post.

edit: Someone is clearly overwhelmed when making a post with examples which have nothing to do with the main point of my initial post. I never said def is easier to play. I never said def is harder to play! It has a certain advantage and a certain disadvantage!

Here is my problem with your post, you make gross over simplifications in order to support your point, which now has become rather moot.

Your claims of a bad player being able to win over a good player, just because both are running berserker, is overly watered down;its like both players are beating down on each other; rather you cater everything so that it may suit the argument you are making.
I have never lost a match in this game; and thought to myself gosh if that guy didn’t crit me so much we would’ve won the game, yeah sorry team I got out rng’d.
Truth of the matter is, there is always something you can do to prevent this from happening; getting caught in a burst is mostly through the players own error, maybe I over extended to secure a kill. I can look back on those numbers and think if he didn’t crit me so many times in the burst maybe I would’ve survived it, or I could view it as me making a mistake which got me caught in a bad position and overall caused me to die. This also breeds better players, and a better train of thought, over just assuming you lost purely due to rng; which don’t get me wrong does play a factor (You can take this in a 1v1, 2v2 or 3v3 scenario if you so wish.)

Also I understand that you are trying to “theory craft”, but this subject is so heavily saturated on these forums, regarding tank builds vs zerker builds; there is no shortage of information, this provides nothing new to the argument other then the fact of some tailor made arguments in order to suit the op’s view points.

I apologise if I am coming off as rude; but the over simplifications and tailor made arguments in order to support a notion that is based purely around the op’s viewpoint of how zerker 1v1’s playout; and then dismissing everyone else as not understanding the core subject which you are trying to discuss, does not make “Theory crafting”.

Xeph.4513:

Here is my problem with your post, you make gross over simplifications in order to support your point, which now has become rather moot.

Your claims of a bad player being able to win over a good player, just because both are running berserker, is overly watered down;its like both players are beating down on each other; rather you cater everything so that it may suit the argument you are making.
I have never lost a match in this game; and thought to myself gosh if that guy didn’t crit me so much we would’ve won the game, yeah sorry team I got out rng’d.
Truth of the matter is, there is always something you can do to prevent this from happening; getting caught in a burst is mostly through the players own error, maybe I over extended to secure a kill. I can look back on those numbers and think if he didn’t crit me so many times in the burst maybe I would’ve survived it, or I could view it as me making a mistake which got me caught in a bad position and overall caused me to die. This also breeds better players, and a better train of thought, over just assuming you lost purely due to rng; which don’t get me wrong does play a factor (You can take this in a 1v1, 2v2 or 3v3 scenario if you so wish.)

Also I understand that you are trying to “theory craft”, but this subject is so heavily saturated on these forums, regarding tank builds vs zerker builds; there is no shortage of information, this provides nothing new to the argument other then the fact of some tailor made arguments in order to suit the op’s view points.

I apologise if I am coming off as rude; but the over simplifications and tailor made arguments in order to support a notion that is based purely around the op’s viewpoint of how zerker 1v1’s playout; and then dismissing everyone else as not understanding the core subject which you are trying to discuss, does not make “Theory crafting”.

look at his past posts xeph I think you’re being trolled

Of course I apologise if I am coming off as rude; but:

Xeph.4513:

I have never lost a match in this game; and thought to myself gosh if that guy didn’t crit me so much we would’ve won the game, yeah sorry team I got out rng’d.

So you are seriously saying that you never were about to burst someone but then the other guy does a dodge roll just because his energy is at 100% and you mess up your burst and you never thought „what a lucky dodge roll“? Who do you try to be kidding here?

Xeph.4513:

Truth of the matter is, there is always something you can do to prevent this from happening; getting caught in a burst is mostly through the players own error, maybe I over extended to secure a kill. I can look back on those numbers and think if he didn’t crit me so many times in the burst maybe I would’ve survived it, or I could view it as me making a mistake which got me caught in a bad position and overall caused me to die. This also breeds better players, and a better train of thought, over just assuming you lost purely due to rng; which don’t get me wrong does play a factor (You can take this in a 1v1, 2v2 or 3v3 scenario if you so wish.)

This is gold!
You are telling me that „there is always something you can do to prevent this [getting bursted etc.] from happening“ ???
I remember you very well about ¾ year ago, when you were crying like a little baby „I can’t do anything […] get this thief away from me“ in ts the second any random s/d thief would be onto you (no offense bro – ok maybe just a little).
How can someone say, that you can always prevent damage when not even a full year ago he quitted because of not being able to get away from a certain class/specc.
That just blows my mind!

The truth is, there is not always something you can do to prevent getting damaged. Because this would not only mean that you play uncountable times better than your enemy (which is arguable even possible in theory) but you also would need to be able to forsee stuff like server lag etc. (which just is literally impossible even in theory).

But for you Xeph I will try to explain everything with some more theory-crafting:

We have player A: full off setup: kills everything one hit but dyes in one burst. But he is so skilled that he just never gets hit under normal circumstances, even when a whole team tries to kill him (because he forsees every move they do).

We have player B: full def setup: never dies and has so much skill that he can time his damage and interrupts so well, that he kills every other bunker over time.

Now we are looking into best and worst case scenarios for these two players in a team fight:

Best case scenarioa:
Player A: He one hits everything with one AoE. Fight is over after 0.735 seconds.

Player B: He kills everything but needs over 3minutes! So much more time than the gc.
But I said from the beginning:

Ceraldor.3160:

Important:
The situation I’m going to talk about is an even fight X players vs X players starting from an 1v1 to “whatever-size” vs “same -whatever-size” fighting to their deaths. So basically every even team fight.

Ceraldor.3160:

This thread contain theory crafting for an even fight to death (like death match =D).

so the result is the same. The best player won and time doesn’t matter.
That time does matter in conquest is nothing new and that’s why wrote at the very top:

Ceraldor.3160:

First, I want to say that I know that every successful gw2 tpvp team needs to have a certain amount of glass cannons in their team.
However the reason for that is purely the game mode called „point capture“. The whole system in gw2 is fighting with a superior number and winning those fights as quick as possible to start a snowball effect which will lead into having a superior number in the next fight and so on.
For this reason and only this reason are glass cannons very important.

Now the worst case scenarios:

Player A: A server lag hits Player A and he messes up his blind + dodge roll to conta the other thieves burst. The other thief is critting and proccing everything so he kills our pro player A and the better player just lost his game.

Player B: Player B gets hit by a server lag. He messes up his interrupt so the enemy guard can full heal himself back to 100%. Now our pro player needs more than 5 minutes to win the fight!

The result:
It’s much safer to play defensive if you are the better player! Bad luck will have a much less impact on defensive players. So if the defensive player is already winning, the chance that bad luck will make him lose is much lesser than when he would go for an offensive setup.

I have an idea, why OP don’t you go play a full zerker elementalist and
tell me how much skill do you need to survive… oh! its rng, so 50% of the times
you must win right? right ?

Serious now, Xeph has very good points. Yours from the other hand, exists only for
supporting your opinion, and they are not objective at all.
I can understand the rng thing that you are saying. Yes there is an rng factor, BUT this is an element of the game.
A random lag, a random dodge a random blind, a miss click. Truly i cannot
understand how do you have extract this opinions of yours, there is not a solid base at all.
I have play as an ele and necro tanky builds and ( more ) zerker builds. The later
requires EXTREMELY more skill for surviving , deliver your damage and help the team.
And your examples is from another game or world or something like that. OR
the players are gods or completely idiots.
And for the last, the zerker players does not need “luck” for winning at all. They need
3x times more skill. Luck can help to not die when you are ready to. But this is
a small chance that applies to anyone in the game. My guess? Someone insta killed you
and you thought "kitten this @#%% lucky kitten, if his attack didn’t crit ( even when he has lost every survivability to have this 80% crit damage ) i would have won… lets make a theory about it and troll eehhmmm… post it to forums. " That’s the vibe i’m getting

Both sides have a reasonable argument – it’s not as straightforward as you’re making it out to be in the OP.

While in theory it can make sense that over an extended period of time (or moves), any random flucuations in player actions/skill will be ironed out, such that the better player will beat the weaker player, in practice the game has so many effects to take into account that this is not entirely true.

Again, in theory Zerker requires more active skill to survive – should be no question here. But taking into account passive skills/abilities, stealth and so on, this too is not as clear cut as it seems.

I don’t want to spend time on writing a wall of text, so I’ll just say it depends entirely on the individual build and the situation.
Different builds and different classes will have different skill ranges – some overlapping, but you can’t split them with glass builds at one end of the scale and tank at the other end – perhaps a zerker build for one class will be easier (requires less skill) to play than a tank build for another class for one player, and perhaps that tank build is easier than another zerker build for a different class.

The meta still needs GC roamers, any attrition specs [not that there are any good ones in this game] would be relegated strictly to team fights because a 1v1 on far point as an attrition spec would run the risk of having someone else from their team come to help, securing the point. Being able to KO the far point defender in a matter of seconds OR realize it wont happen and blink back to the team fight is far more valuable.

Certain glass specs take a lot of skill to play; power necro/power ranger/ele those specs are very active in how they survive and one mistake on your part will mean a loss.

The only glass specs we actually see in the meta, however, revolve around spamming high damage attacks while at the same time using non-counterable defences; glass mesmer using invuln/stealth, glass thief spamming evade, blink & stealth, glass guardian spamming block & blind, glass warrior spamming damage & cc immunity. Those do not take skill, those are built for putting up a non-counterable wall to cover you while you burst down the enemy before they can touch you.

Play hambow soldiers…look how much more skillful you become. I don’t even pay attention to what I’m doing. Two people on point? I just go in trucking…Play zerker anything and that’s not happening.

Pyriall.5027:

Play hambow soldiers…look how much more skillful you become. I don’t even pay attention to what I’m doing. Two people on point? I just go in trucking…Play zerker anything and that’s not happening.

Please quote me where I said that berserker needs more or less skill than soldier!

Most glass cannon builds operate in a way that actually supports the OP’s argument. Glass cannons try to apply their burst and if they fail, they often have to fall back to survive. Now granted, there is skill involved in knowing when and how to escape, though at the same time, it’s difficult to argue that this style is harder to play. It’s an all-in approach that doesn’t even try to deal with a sticky situation.

There is a reason why glass cannons prefer entering fights that outnumber their opponents and that is to minimize the risk while putting their increased damage to best use. This is definitely smart and a good way to take advantage of your strengths, but once again not exactly difficult or challenging gameplay, yet the most effective.

In even fights many glass cannons just sit on the edge of a fight and apply ranged pressure, which is the safest approach there is.

Ignoring condition builds in this discussion, as they are somewhat different in regards to their stat distribution, it is probably just as demanding and difficult to kill stuff with a balanced power build than it is for a glass cannon to survive and perhaps even more so considering, as noted above, that glass cannons are most effective when they outnumber their opponents.

If on the other hand people believe it is easier to kill players with a balanced power build, because you are not as susceptible to burst or because it is more forgiving, then you kinda have to wonder why so many still choose to run a berzerker’s amulet albeit being inferior.

@ Curunen.8729 and Slim.3024
Thanks so much for letting me see that at least some players do understand the purpose of this thread!
And yes – things are “not as clear” in game as they are in theory.
Stuff like cond dmg, pet builds etc allow players to be good in offense and defense at the same time. And also simple mechanics such as stealth and invulnerability will lead to different results in game.
However, you have to understand the theory in order to make adjustments coming from unbalanced builds/skills/stats/mechanics etc.

Ceraldor.3160:

It’s much safer to play defensive if you are the better player! Bad luck will have a much less impact on defensive players. So if the defensive player is already winning, the chance that bad luck will make him lose is much lesser than when he would go for an offensive setup.

So what you are saying is that defensive specs are more tolerant in terms of RNG, hence it’s preferable to gravitate towards them. In essence, defensive setups are (say it with me now) more forgiving. Has it really taken you this entire thread to state the obvious?

Ceraldor.3160:

A good player will try to minimize the luck involved in a match since he would be winning if no luck at all is taken into account. This “luck minimization” is done by going for a more defensive setup.
A bad player needs the advantage luck may give him so he will strive for a more offensive setup.

Speaking of GW2 specifically, my personal observations are pretty much the exact opposite. Weaker players tend to pick tankier condition specs, because such specs tolerate more errors in skill use, positioning and timing than glass cannon specs. A weak player can still be marginally effective running a tanky defensive spec, while he/she would be totally ineffective running a glass spec. The risk vs. reward in tanky specs is more attractive to weaker players. But Xeph already went over all of this, and he did it with much more patience and expertise than I can muster.

I don’t know what to tell you, except that I disagree with your premise both in theory and in practical application, as I see no evidence to support it in GW2 or any other PvP game I have experience with.

Go in peace.