Guild Wars 2

It’s also highly recommended to give every profession a try, you’ll familiarize yourself with their combos and know what to avoid and how their burst and other important skills look like.

Actually this is exactly how I feel when I play a warrior. I don’t think I’m underpowered, I just think everyone else is overpowered.

sorrow.2364:

I like how you take out a sentence from the context and build you own glass castle over something I’ve never said.
Please, tell me where I’ve said I play only hot-joins. In the name of god, please, TELL ME.

Do you want to know why there aren’t so many Warriors in tPvP? I’ll give you the answer: meta.
It is all about on how people fell about the class, not how the class effectively is.
Once upon a time, Warrior ran full glass cannon with GS/Axe. That was an horrible choices, but it was that popular to the point people linked that build to Warrior itself, then they start to become considered weak from the community to the point nobody wants them. This is the meta.

Did you remember the old times where tPvP was full of Guardian bunkers, Mesmers and Thieves with no Elementalist at all? Well, how did the Elementalists get so popular all of a sudden, then? They did not received any buff, as far I remember.
The answer to my question is the answer to yours.

Warrior had a niche role pre-quickness nerf. Massive AoE direct damage, a bit more beefy than a thief so he could stand in midfight AoE a bit longer. Due to that the targets usually dropped before he did. But even then warriors were a rare pick in tournas and it required you to play it very well to compete. You always required another roamer to support you to do anything though.

The reason why meta has steered towards what it is now is due to the fixes to a lot of other professions that involved survivability, pathing and hit detection on some skills, ranged attack fixes and minor trait tweaks over several patches and of course the meta focus from direct damage dominance to AoE and condifocus.

This was quite directly related to the fall of thief burst dominance when pistolwhip and D/D build damage was nerfed, people adepted to read bursts better. People didn’t drop in an instant anymore and this in return started to favor AoE and conditions to single target hardhitting bursts to increase the damage output to targets. There were always very successful ele and engy players and due to the meta change and profession fixes engy and ele have successfully established a place for themselves.

Ele is favored due to his thief like mobility, condi cleansing abilities and having very good sustain even in glass specs. Engy due to the ability to put out great CC, pointcontrol and great access to numerous conditions including high burning upkeep (which is the strongest damage condition imo). Only professions that can compete with such condipressure are trap ranger and necro, which were both very popular at one point.

Since condition cleansing focus is insane atm thanks to guards and eles, the only one who can successfully pressure is the engy (burning dura > bleed stacks, great uptime on boons and doesn’t rely on getting close to pressure). Excellent mobility, control and reliable AoE conditionpressure, while still remaining quite beefy make him the primary choice over trap ranger and necro.

Warrior has no place atm, they don’t have the escape/sustain mechanics to compete with eles, mesmers or even thieves in midfights.

They obviously can’t bunker aswell as a guardian due to lack of defensive boons, long cooldowns and low heals and obviously have no place as a homebunker since they can’t 1v1 aswell as BM ranger or bunkerengy. They could fit the role of roamer before, but since other roamers can sustain themselves independently and warrior’s ability to deliver his burst is nerfed hard it’s not wise to build your team around a warrior at the current state.

Your soldier lockdown warrior serves no purpose in a team setting, you lack damage and mobility, are the most easily focused down profession and all of your CC is completely negated by stability which turns your role completely useless on its uptime. That whole niche CC role can easily be replaced by an engineer who is not even focusing on it and still deals out good pressure and team utility.

I wouldn’t honestly run double melee on thief in sPvP. Nevertheless it’s a really strong set, wouldn’t say OP, but very very strong.

A smart and a wellplayed GC thief is a really nice addition in dungeoning, since he has best single target spike. Although for a thief to shine maximally he needs support from a guard and damageboost through fury+might from a warrior. And due to less survivability it needs a bit higher lvl of skill to play well than your average warrior. I would always pick a good thief 10/10 times over some “CoF warrior” who plays it as an alt.

I think the overall negativity towards thieves in PvE comes from “assassin” classes usually attracting a lot of players from the playergroup who have the unfortunate combination of pretty bad personality traits and skill level less than what they perceive to have. Due to that a bad warrior is easier to shrug off since they have better survivability in PvE, while a thief requires to be played well to be effective.

That said, I don’t really care what my teamsetup is in dungeons as long as people play well and carry their load. I do prefer atleast one support class though.

In other areas (wvwvw, tpvp) thieves have no trouble fitting in.

Having 3 thieves is a bit too much, as is having too many of any other profession (some exceptions) since it’ll deny some vital areas for your overall team setup.
One good thief in your setup is excellent, even two if the team setup is built around it. Best direct damage and an excellent roamer, especially with the new boonrip. Thieves should only run zerker in tpvp, your role is to kill and do maximum damage not to dance ‘ring-around-the-rosie’ with the target. “Sustain” thieves aren’t really a threat in tournas.

Dagger 4 and 5 suck pretty hard and as evilapprentice said CnD use in that build is only to safestomp some professions, clutch daze to prevent stomps/rez or to drop target from yourself when you’re getting focused too hard (SR is better though). Main damage still comes from autoattacks and taking chunks out of people with infiltrators-flanking-auto hit and runs. So I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to dodge auto attacks. FS→LS spam is brutal with a bit of CC assist against boonheavy professions like guards, engys, eles (even when focusfiring against rangers). Getting access to stability/protection/retaliation/loads of might/regen while focusing someone down is insane.

Evasive S/D is quite easy to pick up and has higher skillceiling than backstab specs imo. It has less burst than D/P, but very good sustained damage, debuffing, decent sustain from evasion and escapes and enough pressure to be an effective teamfight spec. It’s possible to solo a bunkerguard with it due to the massive boonremoval.

FYI Last stand works properly since the last balance patch, It activates and prevents first CC. It’s actually a really good trait now.

Leadfoot.9071:

I’m sure it’s something stupid… I recorded a video of it happening against training dummy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0D-s7quiXD8

Can’t tell what I did different the last time where it worked properly.

You’re hitting steal too fast. :P
The correct way to combo: 5->2 (wait till you start going up in the air)->Steal->(2 finishes and lands on target)->(you’re in stealth and have around 2 secs to hit backstab)->Backstab pew pew. Practice it more calmly and slower don’t mash your buttons randomly at the same time.

Combat log will show:
Black powder
Steal (Mug)
Heartseeker
Backstab

Ontopic:
Only thing D/D has over D/P is the execution speed, damage is the same, but D/P is miles over D/D for its utility. Blindfield (miniaegis and allows you to safestomp 5 out of 8 professions on first try), spammable interrupt (most evil thing ever), on demand gapcloser and stealth on demand that doesn’t require a target.

On D/D you require blind on stealth trait to stomp the same way (you sacrifice damage), you have no gapcloser on demand, no interrupts and you require hitting your target to stealth. What’s so hard to understand?

D/P backstab combo damage is pretty much the same as D/D if not higher.
BP+HS+Mug+Backstab vs CnD+Mug+Backstab.

It is viable, only the other 7 professions are more viable.

BossFi.6917:

Daecollo.9578:

Class Description.
Classes that are good at Enduring Punishment by List:
- Ranger. (Evade Spam/Mobility/Protection/Vigor/High Regeneration/Takes considerably less damage when almost dead.)
- Guardian. (Constant Protection/Vigor/High Regeneration.)
- Elementalist. (Constant Protection/Vigor/Regeneration.)
- Engineer. (Constant Protection/Vigor/Regeneration.)
- Mesmer. (Evades/Invuln Spam/Blinks.)
- Thief. (Evade Spam/Stealth Spam/Teleports.)
- Necromancer. (Bad Traits, Life-force doesn’t trait well with other skills.)
- Warrior. (No protection/Poor Condition Removal/Bad Traits.)

As a non-warrior my list of classes that I can kill the quickest are:

1) Warrior
2) Ranger
3) Thief
4) Mesmer
5) Engineer
6) Necro
7) Guardian
8) Elementalist

So I agree with you on warriors from a non-warrior point of view.

When I play on thief it’s pretty much the same experience. I’d change BM ranger to 8 together with bunker ele and I’d rate necro with dps eles to around 4 or so. Warriors are always absolutely helpless, doesn’t matter if I run d/p or s/d. The rare times they are actually a threat is when people underestimate them and actually ignore them in teamfights.

Matzepeng.1053:

Thanks for the suggestions! I’ve been trying zerker amu (with soldier jewel) for starters and the increase in damage is definetely noticeable. As is the Sigil of Fire so thanks for that!
Pretty squishy though so I might have to bring EP back as a panic button.
With the Zerker gear on-crit Sigils seem the better option (Sigil of Fire’s 5s icd and Battle’s 10s icd will also likely create a bit of a mess). So I’m thinking Strength for migght or Blood for some heals.

Strenght is not that good for pvp imo, it has annoyingly long ICD to make it worthwhile. Haven’t used blood in ages, how much does it heal for?

For some reason I’ve always ignored the Adrenaline recharge on Healing Surge. I’m trying this at the moment to see how it works.
How are you finding Signet of Fury as third utility? I always thought it was a bit of a waste because I didn’t play an adrenaline build before, but with the passive buff giving about 9% crit chance and the active giving back your 12% damage and 9% crit chance, plus enough adrenaline for a full Eviscirate or Combustive shot, it look much more interesting now. Thinking it could be really helpful at the beginning of the match as well and the 24s cd is pretty low.

I mainly ran signet of fury so I would always have full adrenaline on demand and lay down firefields every 8 seconds. Since I ran 20 points in defense it also had great synergy with adrenal health+dogged march for a bit of sustain so you could get out of nasty situations. Taking advantage of the maximum heal with healing surge if you pop signet of fury before healing is also very important. Signet cd reduction also makes signet of fury CD really low, so you can take advantage of the extra 180 precision and crit a lot.

The thought behind Bolas was to have another root while Bow 5 is on cd (and to have it ready when using the Axe), but I do agree that bullscharge is just as helpful. I think what made me lean towards bolas was the ability to use it twice as much as bullscharge and the longer duration of the skill itself.

Bolas are a good choice, but they are a bit tricky to hit. I used bull’s charge mainly for it’s heal interrupt/escaping or when I needed to get in someones face to finish them with GS. I can definitely see the use for bull’s to secure your eviscerate or as an extra escape. Give it a try, but use it with a different mindset than the usual 100b combo.

@Artaz: Which runes would you suggest if you weren’t going Lyssa on this and bowstrings instead of empowered?

If you’d pick up dogged march then I’d suggest hoelbrak. It has great synergy with the decreased condi duration and might/power focus, since you’ll be giving yourself might anyways with the F1+3 combo. Otherwise I’d pick up some damage rune like Ogre. You need the damage to keep pressure on people. Keep in mind that stronger bowstrings has some bugs, most notably it decreases your autoattack damage.

I agree that Necros aren’t the worst opponents it’s just they can ruin the SoR effect in a heart beat. I find Thiefs and Rangers to be most annoying actually. Because of their evasive capabilities. Since there’s no way I can kill a bunker on my own with this, I either wait for back up, try another node or just harass them and see if I can lure them off the point (which wouldn’t even be an option at high end play I imagine)

My build was very effective against terrormancers due to the massive ranged pressure you can put out. Firefields are extra nasty for them, since conditransfer is useless for pulsing conditions. BM rangers I could not kill 1v1, they will outsustain you and eventually the pet will kill you. Bow wasn’t enough to pressure through his evades/regen/prot, long fights, but the endresult will always be the same. Also you will not kill a bunker ele with a lbow spec, not enough variety in conditions too low burst countered by big sustain/cleansing. Against other classes it was pretty effective, because they don’t want to/can’t fight you head on due to the AoE pressure you put around yourself. Overall a fun spec to play.

Red Raven.7824:

Psybunny.8906:

snip

Wow, I did not expect to get so much speculation from just giving some simple input on a play style that’s working for me.

I half expected if people were interested, they would try it out.

I’m not exactly sure what you’re trying to compare this spec to either. It’s a glass cannon spec definitely, but instead of being a one trick pony glass cannon there are a few other tricks in the book that are somewhat less predictable than bull rush>frenzy>100b.

The point of this build is that you can deal outstanding damage without ever having to enter the fray. This also doesn’t mean that once in the fray you are SoL, Axe/Mace prove to be extremely effective for dealing lots of pressure.

Sorry if I came off as offensive, I’m just giving constructive feedback and pointing out the flaws that you can improve in a lbow build, especially if you plan on using it in tournas.

Why the hate on Signet of Fury? It has very nice synergy with lbow/axe builds that burn adrenaline fast. Insta full adrenaline to get max out of Healing Surge or for burst on demand. 5 vulna+weakness is hardly any replacement for it. :/

I usually alt a thief. I ran d/p before the balance patch, tried out some different warrior specs again, it was much better, but still disappointing and now I swapped to the “bruiser” S/D thief. Maximum cheese, but atleast I’m effective and I’m kind of enjoying the non-stealth melee gameplay.

For a lbow build it seems pretty usable imo, though most likely not viable at high end play. I have a few suggestions though, you should give full zerker amu a try and since you have quite a bit of condi removal then maybe give Healing surge a go for the higher heal and extra full adrenaline. You can also test how you like the Fire sigil in bow instead of Force. When that thing procs it’s amazing.

I gave a lbow build a try myself when the balance patch came out, it was really fun to play and I’d say it was semi-viable. It lacked some damage though, but had quite good survivability for a lbow build. Just for comparison what I tried out:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQJATRjcOxu9OuQMxBEkCNMLMKKCgQ9wOqj4A-ToAg0CnICSFkLITQygsBNsYZB

For clarification, I think this from sPvP POV. Warriors are fine/good in PvE, everyone knows that.

Where’s the group support? (FGJ?) Thief can do the same with a 10 point trait investment. Ele/engy/even ranger waterfield offers much better support.

Where’s your mobility? As a roamer spec you need mobility, this spec has less mobility than a BM ranger. If you’re purely teamfighter spec, what do you have to offer that an HGH engy or ele can’t?

How do you mitigate damage and deal with teamfocus? Do you rely on fear me as a defensive tool? What happens if people have stability. What about pressure from ranged or condi specs. How do you deal with getting CC’d/immobilized?

I guess your main burst is lbow F1+lbow 3, pop two shouts and swap to eviscerate considering your sigil choice. Do you rely purely on mace 5 and lbow 5 hitting to do any damage. Why is that burst more useful than for example mesmer izerker to doubleshatter or thief clusterbombing and swapping to instaspike?

How does your ranged sustained damage compare to mesmer/thief/HGH engy/S&D ele and how does your melee damage/survivability compare to S/D or D/P thief for example.

Why the fury on immobilize if you only have one source of immo and you’re also using FGJ and SoR? How often can you pop your vengeance in tpvp setting?

I’m not really sold by this spec.

Situation 1: Bladetrail and rush, first bladetrail hits cripples and immos them rush hits with the returning bladetrail, whirlwind through them, swap to axe+shield, cripple+immo with axe 3, shieldbash to eviscerate, axe auto, swap to GS catch them at the end of the dodge with bull’s charge and frenzy 100b and whirlwind through. Stability stomp.

Situation 2: Get crippled/chilled at the start of rush, move 10 feet, they dodge my bladetrail and I take ranged damage. Try to close the cap with whirlwind, move another 10 feet, almost reach the target. Swap to axe+shield I hit with my axe 3, I’m still too far to autoattack them, they dodge my shieldbash and that makes my eviscerate to fall short, I take ranged damage, I swap to GS and try to bull’s charge them, they dodge it, whirlwind them for a bit of damage, my health is quite low, try immo/cripple again, I get some frenzy+axe autos in, they insta teleport/evade away and start kiting me again. I use my shield, take loads of condidamage in the process, get chilled/cripple again. Die and sob while I go to character select screen.

Don’t run full melee without leg specialist. 10/20/0/10/30 is better if you prefer boonhate (total elekiller), otherwise 20/20/0/10/20 or 20/25/0/10/15, but you’ll lose Mobile strikes. Suggested runes are Ogre or scholar, fire/force/energy/bloodlust whatever you prefer on weapons. Skills are classical bulls, frenzy and balanced stance or endure pain.

Alternative build that works and has more sustain and nice aoe is lbow/gs with 20/0/20/0/30 with the Burst mastery trait. It has less burst though, but very good pressure. Dogged march and last stand from defense line, signet cd and mobile strikes from discipline. Utilities are bulls/bolas, signet of fury/frenzy, endure pain/balanced stance. Best runes are hoelbrak imo and fire on both weapons.

Elite on all of the builds is SoR ofc.

EDIT: And it’s hardly new, this has been the warrior “meta” for the past 6-7 months. :P

He is playing shoutheals.
20/30/0/0/20, 20/25/0/10/15, 20/20/0/0/30 are the most common dps builds (GS ones ofc)

Don’t bother with rare 80s, get greens since they are affordable till you swap them out (alternative is to get rares and salvage them later for ectos though), do CoF/CoE since they are fastest for exo 80 gear. Get geared up in zerker, get some cheap ruby orbs from TP and you’re good to go.

Main thing is don’t base your playstyle around CoF1 “warriors” and their attitude, run what you like. If you’re properly geared and if your build has synergy with your weapons you’re good to go. And of course practice.

A thief has to play more like a predator in spvp, mainly focus on other glass cannons and weakened targets and your job is to take them out as fast as possible.
You’re not the iniator and a good thief’s strength relies in not being seen, even if they are not in stealth. Currently your gamestyle is more like a wvwvw type, where you have the time to play around and take things slow. In spvp it’s much more crucial to be fast, since you only have very limited time till the enemy backup arrives.

Always try to play on mobility and 2v1 situations where you are the last one to enter the fight, so the focus isn’t on you, but on your teammate. This gives you the necessary few seconds to prep your burst unnoticed. In 1v1 situations if you miss your burst, it’s better to stealth up and drop the fight and move to somewhere else where you’re needed. You’re most effective if you get the opener on them.

Don’t use your shadowstep for “fast approach” unless you’re approaching unnoticed and you’re 100% sure you can instagib the target, even then it’s not that good idea to waste your stunbreak. Also don’t let your bloodlust get the better of you, fear the AoEs and stay in the shadows.

Sbow is pretty much mandatory as 2ndary in spvp, since a lot of maps have a huge focus on z-axis and mobility plays a huge role in thief gameplay. The second function sbow has for a thief are the teamfights, since you’re squishy and the amount of AoEs flying around you pretty much have to stay offpoint in bigger fights. You’ll still do decent damage with clusterbombs and keeping poison on point is excellent against downed/bunker builds.

Most popular builds in tournas atm are both zerker amu glasscannons.
25/30/0/0/15 d/p&sbow or 30/30/0/0/10 s/d&sbow, they play a bit differently, but the role is pretty much the same.

Learn how to approach different targets, what they can do to mitigate your damage and learn to adapt on the go. Different specs require different type of approach and you have to make quick decisions when a suitable situation arises.

I’m pretty sure that people would rather use builds that top players run with, rather than some random hotjoin players. I’ve seen some pretty “interesting” builds in hotjoin, but I haven’t took the effort to guide any of those people who have that type of builds. Since I’d probably learn a lot about my sexuality and my mother’s nightly activities if I’d make any comments to those players.

Add all the confirmation windows you want, but please give the people who actually know how to function in life the option to turn them all off. It’s getting a bit ridiculous already.

I was so disappointed when I saw that short and wide guildsword. Give us more elegant looking swords that actually look like swords not some flaming/ridiculous looking things that should belong to some different type of game.

Go go, boon/empathic are very solid. Hope you find someone quick and good luck in tourna.

Jax.5261:

Escape is the universal cancel key.

It’s too clunky to use regularly for my taste, I usually prefer things like doubleclick to drop targets and sheath/other options to cancel skills. I don’t enjoy having to move my hand from wasd, that’s the reason I have the regular F skills+swap on mouse. But I’ll use it as a fix for the downstate problem. It’s pretty weird since this is the first time I’ve had problems with the queue in downed state. My problem might be related to these:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/warrior/Warrior-skill-lag-is-kitten-unaccceptable

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Skill-lag-5-to-1-second-only-in-spvp/first#post2022256

Doesn’t happen regularly though and my ISP is fine and stable.

Thanks, will use it to bypass this issue till it gets fixed.

Amen! This is so frustrating.

• Dodgeroll back while respawning when I tried to avoid my death by dodging.
• Can’t cancel autoattacks when downed (yes I like to spam 1 button :/) and pop vengeance/interrupt since my autos are still in queue.
• Random dodgeroll after root ends.

Who thought this was a good idea?

^
^prime example of the “CoF = balance”.

Gathslan.1870:

This thread is hilarious.

Every pve player’’LOL U MAD ITS WARRIOR THAT IS GOLDEN FAVORED CLASS THAT EVERY DEV PLAYS IN BATHROOM LOL U SERIOUS?’’

And every WvW player ‘’YEAH ITS THIEF, WITH THAT STEALTH THEY CAN FIGHT 10 PEOPLE AND STILL SURVIVE, STEALTH IS BROKEN THEY LIKE NINJAS OF THE NIGHT’’

I wonder if people in this thread even understand that the two sides are talking about two different things entirely

Usually goes like this:

• sPvP (hotjoin)&WvW roaming – “THIEF, MESMER OP”
  (people who don’t know the opposing profession and its mechanics and get killed in random ganks)

• PvE/Dungeoning – “WARRIOR (or GUARDIAN, MESMER) OP”
  (people who think damage is the only variable that defines a profession and CoF speedrun time = balance)

• WvW zerg – “add profession here OP”
  (random tanky profession rolling over a smaller squad with superior numbers and killing that person in the process is clearly the indication of profession imbalance)

• tPvP – “profession I’m worst at fighting 1v1 against or a bunker I can’t catch or kill alone OP”
  (it is true that some builds/professions are stronger than others and there exists quite a bit of imbalance in terms of effectiveness, but the overall balance is still very close and not gamebreaking)

This is some serious PvE balance thread going on considering the responses here.
Warrior is obviously so OP in tpvp, having all that mad damage from those 30k killshots, eviscerates and unavoidable 100blades. BM ranger is the worst, no deeps, buff pets more. GW2 needs more balance around CoF.

Ontopic: Thief is pretty fine, offers too much reward when played like a kitten 2222 or 3333, but pretty balanced overall.

Bumpity bump bump.

@Leadfoot: Valk ammy probably
@apt: keep us updated I might give my old build a try also just have to adjust the playstyle.

Khenzy.9348:

Xom.9264:

Skill que is annoying, Dodge being part of it is gamebreaking

^Can anything be done with this? Is there any Anet dev out there to clarify this change at all?

I find this the most frustrating while playing a thief but it affects all my other characters as well.

This ^, I hate the new skill queue so much. Gameplay feels so much more clunky and not getting my vengeance or interrupt up because I mashed 1 from downed state and I’m unable to cancel it is so frustrating.

Happened to us yesterday once in tournas.

CC reduction trait is good and the combined burst mastery one is really good aswell. Boon hate is rubbish.

Just by watching your video. Might differ by few points, but I think it’s something like this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNAR5ejgOBvNPKPMRCE8Bs4UQJ0Hsj0DxYATDA-TkAg0CnIKSVkrITRyisFNsA

You run in tpvp with only 40 traitpoints spent? kitten.

This is what I’ve used for the past week or so. Seems pretty ok in teamfights, pretty good AoE and little better sustain.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQJATRjcOxu9OuQMxBEkCNMLMKKCgQ9wOqj4A-ToAg0CnICSFkLITQygsBNsYZB

HS dazespam to autoattack chain is one of the most evil things on a d/p set. That skill is totally fine.

Have to be honest, these are kinda bad builds. For comparison here are some things I’ve used in tournas, they’ve worked for me and maybe you’ll get some ideas on how to improve your builds. This thread opens up a good discussion in build variety.

Shatter mesmer: http://tiny.cc/nlrcww
Bunker guardian: http://tiny.cc/4prcww
Roamer thief: http://tiny.cc/b3rcww
Terror necro: http://tiny.cc/m7rcww
Bunker ranger: http://tiny.cc/9gscww
Roamer warrior: http://tiny.cc/rkscww (outdated, but this is what I used to play, looking forward to patchnotes/new build options)

It’s a HoM skin transmuted on top of a legendary.
Only explanation I could see for it is that the guy didn’t like the look of bolt and wanted to have a weapon that will always have BiS stats when ascended weapons come out. Incredibly silly nonetheless.

Good one and disturbingly accurate.
+1

Wethospu doesn’t really need to quote something to make him credible, he has tons of videos soloing with that awful “instadeath” zerker gear. Only argument I’ve seen against zerker is the skill level issue. That is true, zerker requires more careful play, but at the same time it doesn’t remove the fact that it is more efficient than mixed gear for DPS.

Though I don’t know why you brought up 4 warrs, since as I said that 3 zerker warrs+tank guard+mesmer is my preferred setup (doesn’t mean I’m elitist I’m willing to run with whatever setup usually). Correct me if I’m wrong, if you’re in melee range Bloomhunger only hits you with his agony attack if you’re inside of him. Agony attack can also be reflected with WoR and Feedback. Tactics for that encounter should be similar to meleeing lupi.

Ability to dodge and full zerk are your best friends, toss in a guard in knight/zerk mix for support and a zerker mesmer for utility+extra damage. Cleric gear is useless in everything except wubwub pretty much.

About those downstate zerker warriors who give us a bad name are randoms playing warrior alts as a result of CoF farming, who haven’t grasped the concept of weaponswapping/swapping out utilities and try to bruteforce facetank absolutely every encounter like every boss is the effigy.

Good players make full glass viable everywhere and actually don’t go down unless a someone messes up real bad. Smart play and cross-profession coordination and it’s all good.

AC is fine, p1 is still easy as hell, p2 has a fun boss mechanic and if p3 npc doesn’t bug out is faceroll aswell. Spider/troll are a bit nastier and not a faceroll tank&spank anymore, stalker is annoying as hell, but on the other hand Kholer is easier and pretty much everything else is left unchanged.

Both ele and necro are good in PvE. Usually staff ele and either scepter/dagger&staff necro or daggadagga powernecro, both work totally fine in dungeons.
Ele is king in tournas atm, but necro is still very strong as a bunkerbuster/midsupport in a condibuild. Necro can also play powerbuild in tournas, but it requires good shrouddancing and knowledge within the profession.