TimTWW.5867 Posted September 19, 2017 Share Posted September 19, 2017 Currently for Power Guardian builds its generally Marauder for PvP and Berserker for PvE.I've recently gotten into a Raid guild, and was immediately told that my Marauder gear was bad and that I should swap to Berserker before I do a proper run of a raid.And so I did, 70 Gold later, I swapped over my 6 pieces of Marauder's ascended armor to Berserker stats and at first I didn't think too much of the difference, I had gone from 14255 hp to 11645 a meagre difference of 2,610 HP. I Immediately noticed however the frequency of myself going down in Fractals and Dungeons was at least double what it normally was. Such a tiny difference in the HP pool affected my game play significantly. So I began to think mabye I should've stuck with Marauders like I originally had instead of going to Berserkers; This made me decide to look at some numbers. I didn't run a full set of Marauders as there is not enough items to do that. So I decided to compare my old gear vs the new and found some rather interesting results. I'll Include the links to the gear sets I ran so you can see for yourselfOld Set : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAR7/m0ABFChddil4BTuA2/WgWbg8VkqKAslqXA-jxBBQBKU9n8obAAXEgA8EAwy+jSszoEMLKPAA-eNew Set : http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQNAR7/m0ABFChddil4BrKAslqXyFw+3C0aDkviUA-jhBBABnpEEr9HlfB8EAA4iAUp6P5pbAA-ePower - Old = 2804 New = 2867Critical Chance - Old = 57% New = 56%Critical Damage - Old = 213% New = 220%Health - Old = 14255 New = 11645Marauders = +2,610 Health, + 1% Crit ChanceBerserkers = +63 Power, + 7% Crit DamageAnd for some further thoughts I compared what the difference in DPS for the Strike, Vengeful Strike, Wrathful Strike chain for the great sword would be.Marauder = 967 (2059) -> 967 (2059) ->1450 (3088) = Adds up to 3384 - 7206 Damage TotalBerserker = 988 (2173) -> 988 (2173) ->1482 (3260) = Adds up to 3458 - 7606 Damage TotalSo the difference between the two in this DPS test is 74 - 400 Damage on the greatswords basic attack chainAll in all I'm perplexed, The extra DPS small and the Extra HP although not a large difference made a significant impact on my survivability in PvE content. Has anyone else had this issue? What seems more worth it? The Damage or Survivability? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrRay.3027 Posted September 19, 2017 Share Posted September 19, 2017 Noticed the same thing when I got Marauder for my eli for wvw and then tried it for open world and fractals. Haven't touched zerker since. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knox.8962 Posted September 19, 2017 Share Posted September 19, 2017 If you don't already overcap crit from traits (which is pretty easy to do if you are using radiance in a raid buffed scenario), you give up about 6% DPS pushing mara gear in for zerk gear up to the crit cap.In almost all cases, ascended mara gear will give you more effective power than exotic zerk gear would in the same slot.That said, going full zerk is more about signaling to other players that you are serious and willingness to try hard and improve etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghotistyx.6942 Posted September 19, 2017 Share Posted September 19, 2017 Berserker gives no such signal. Berserker only means you have Berserker armor. If you're bad, it'll be obvious in your play. If you're good, it'll be less apparent, but you probably won't be sleeping too often (unless you're bringing glass to a stone fight, but that's a different topic). Marauders does get you much closer to the crit cap where anything beyond is wasted. However looking at the stats as a whole, there is a significant increase in health for a small decrease in damage. Consider adding Beryls or Valkyrie pieces to offset any precision overloading (and take common buffs like banners into consideration when you do it). A mix of Berserker, Marauder, and Valkyrie pieces can grant a lot more health for a small damage tradeoff, which may be enough to put out more actual dps compared to straight berserker. The total effect and value will depend on personal skill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cat.8975 Posted September 19, 2017 Share Posted September 19, 2017 For meta PvE scenarios with a good mesmer, I'd just run valk instead. The radiance line gives you 60% crit chance, spotter+banner is 15.238%, fury for 20%, and 5% base. You can hit crit chance cap in full valk on guardian so long as you have retal/spotter/banners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
otto.5684 Posted September 19, 2017 Share Posted September 19, 2017 This is... not news (or Guardian exclusive). Open world PvE your better off with a bit more HP. Everything else PvE is about damage maximization. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LetoII.3782 Posted September 21, 2017 Share Posted September 21, 2017 Racing a stopwatch is all there is Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Craine.8162 Posted September 21, 2017 Share Posted September 21, 2017 raid guilds - or pretty much anyone raiding - are blinded by the "meta" which is set by minmaxing elitists that consider any build that has like 1% less dmg on the training golem as "off-meta" and therefore bad.you might want to look for a guild, or at least a group of players, that is a little more open-minded when it comes to builds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Einlanzer.1627 Posted September 21, 2017 Share Posted September 21, 2017 The marauder vs berserker debate is just generally interesting. There's a lot of Berserker zeal in the game, to some degree rightfully, but people often fail to look at the nuances. I think the main two questions at play are:a.) how much of your defense is in the form of mitigation, and how much is avoidance?b.) how much do you indirectly benefit from higher power or crit chance? The answers differs a bit from class to class, or from build to build I should say. Daredevils are a good example of Marauder pretty much never being worth it. Because of traits that regen health based on damage dealt, and an abundance of endurance for dodging, it's typically not worth giving up any offense for any extra passive defense, because your defense improves more by improving your offense than it does by actually building around defense.Guardians, on the other hand, are probably the prime candidate for swapping to Marauder from Berseker. With low health, high passive defense, and limited ways to benefit indirectly from greater offense, I think the extra survivability from Marauder is likely to more than offset the minor DPS loss in more situations than not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CptAurellian.9537 Posted September 21, 2017 Share Posted September 21, 2017 One question remains, how relevant are those situations? In my experience rather irrelevant. The same applies to zerker's damage bonus, btw. I probably wouldn't care too much whether someone uses zerker or marauder, since those 5% damage will never make the difference. Zerker is better, but in reality, some people will profit more from little training wheels. Thats fine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RabbitUp.8294 Posted September 21, 2017 Share Posted September 21, 2017 I do not like Marauders after the patch. I would rather focus on retaliation and wear Valks. With Marauder, even though the dps loss is minor, the hp increase is also small. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yannir.4132 Posted September 22, 2017 Share Posted September 22, 2017 Where raiding is considered, you can outright remove that +1% crit as you'll be crit capped in either case. But yeah, otherwise for open world or for fractals it doesn't really make a difference which set you are on. You will preferably have both sets. Or be in full legendaries so you can stat swap any time you like :lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buran.3796 Posted September 22, 2017 Share Posted September 22, 2017 For Guardians vitality is like chalk for lifters. if your gym doesn't allow you to use chalk, then change your gym. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roche.7491 Posted June 30, 2020 Share Posted June 30, 2020 @Knox.8962 said:If you don't already overcap crit from traits (which is pretty easy to do if you are using radiance in a raid buffed scenario), you give up about 6% DPS pushing mara gear in for zerk gear up to the crit cap.In almost all cases, ascended mara gear will give you more effective power than exotic zerk gear would in the same slot.That said, going full zerk is more about signaling to other players that you are serious and willingness to try hard and improve etc.The truth is:PurePower/berserker is for proHybrid/marauder is for beginnersPro means you mastered your opponent’s every move enough to kill him at full health.Beginners means you hack & slash and tank your opponent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fueki.4753 Posted June 30, 2020 Share Posted June 30, 2020 @Roche.7491 said:Hybrid/marauder is for beginnersThis is entirely false.Some people are constantly on edge, fearing one mistake is killing them while they use Berserker gear. And because they are on edge, they naturally perform worse.Some of those same people feel much safer with the higher HP pool, therefore are calmer and perform better.I've played for years now and therefore clearly are no beginner. I perform significantly better with Marauder and Wurm runes than I did with Berserker and Strength runes.Why did you unearth this thread anyway? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roche.7491 Posted June 30, 2020 Share Posted June 30, 2020 @Fueki.4753 said:@Roche.7491 said:Hybrid/marauder is for beginnersThis is entirely false.Some people are constantly on edge, fearing one mistake is killing them while they use Berserker gear. And because they are on edge, they naturally perform worse.Some of those same people feel much safer with the higher HP pool, therefore are calmer and perform better.I've played for years now and therefore clearly are no beginner. I perform significantly better with Marauder and Wurm runes than I did with Berserker and Strength runes.Why did you unearth this thread anyway?Was thinking hard if I should stick with berserker or marauder as marauder has in all sense an advantage over berserker.Then I realize that running a berserker is like playing devil may cry at heaven or hell mode. One hit will kill you in an instant. Less than 1% DMC players can do it. That is what I call pro. Untouchable and a complete mastery of the system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArchonWing.9480 Posted July 1, 2020 Share Posted July 1, 2020 In Open World, Marauder is fine because you're fighting mostly lots of trash mobs with low health and are probably skipping a ton. As a result, you aren't standing in a spot for a long time so others can buff you as you're often on your ownIt is only natural you want to tank a lot of the incidental damage from mobs you don't want to waste time on killing. The same applies to low fractals.Remember that meta raid builds run under the assumption that you have various raid buffs and are fighting a high HP boss in a relatively small arena. Naturally bringing that to open world isn't that great. In higher fractals, you get defensive stats from potions anyways and you get precision from potions, so marauders is not as hot there but valkyrie will get you the health. Also most tend to run with some kind of support and usually a healer that enables the dps to stand in fire and go at it anyways. The dps should really do their job and go all out on dps instead of taking selfish stats. In Raids, you have dedicated healers and support, so you should bring zerker for that, as bringing defense is redundant. With raid buffs like fury, spotter, and warrior, banners, your crit doesn't have to be that high. In addition there are DPS checks while not that hard, can be problematic. Dragging out the fight puts more strain on support. The greater problem with instanced content is that the longer a fight drags out, the more mechanics happen. You can circumvent this simply by DPSing harder. This is especially true in CMs where bosses like Arkk will continuously summon a bunch of insta kill mechanics when he is low on health; this can be dealt with just by ending the fight with good dps. Also a lot of mechanics simply will flat out kill you and a few extra k of health will simply allow you to make another mistake or two.Of course, if your ping sucks, marauder is not a bad idea. Also note this thread isn't about zerker vs marauder, but rather full zerk vs zerk + a few pieces that aren't zerk- not full zerk vs full marauder. The same argument applies but of course changing a few armor pieces to whatever was never really that big of a deal to begin with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roche.7491 Posted July 1, 2020 Share Posted July 1, 2020 @ArchonWing.9480 said:In Open World, Marauder is fine because you're fighting mostly lots of trash mobs with low health and are probably skipping a ton. As a result, you aren't standing in a spot for a long time so others can buff you as you're often on your ownIt is only natural you want to tank a lot of the incidental damage from mobs you don't want to waste time on killing. The same applies to low fractals.Remember that meta raid builds run under the assumption that you have various raid buffs and are fighting a high HP boss in a relatively small arena. Naturally bringing that to open world isn't that great. In higher fractals, you get defensive stats from potions anyways and you get precision from potions, so marauders is not as hot there but valkyrie will get you the health. Also most tend to run with some kind of support and usually a healer that enables the dps to stand in fire and go at it anyways. The dps should really do their job and go all out on dps instead of taking selfish stats. In Raids, you have dedicated healers and support, so you should bring zerker for that, as bringing defense is redundant. With raid buffs like fury, spotter, and warrior, banners, your crit doesn't have to be that high. In addition there are DPS checks while not that hard, can be problematic. Dragging out the fight puts more strain on support. The greater problem with instanced content is that the longer a fight drags out, the more mechanics happen. You can circumvent this simply by DPSing harder. This is especially true in CMs where bosses like Arkk will continuously summon a bunch of insta kill mechanics when he is low on health; this can be dealt with just by ending the fight with good dps. Also a lot of mechanics simply will flat out kill you and a few extra k of health will simply allow you to make another mistake or two.Of course, if your ping sucks, marauder is not a bad idea. Also note this thread isn't about zerker vs marauder, but rather full zerk vs zerk + a few pieces that aren't zerk- not full zerk vs full marauder. The same argument applies but of course changing a few armor pieces to whatever was never really that big of a deal to begin with. Agree with you. How about in pvp? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fueki.4753 Posted July 1, 2020 Share Posted July 1, 2020 @Roche.7491 said:Agree with you. How about in pvp?In PvP you are stun-locked and murdered within few seconds anyway, so the extra HP hardly matters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArchonWing.9480 Posted July 1, 2020 Share Posted July 1, 2020 @Roche.7491 said:@ArchonWing.9480 said:In Open World, Marauder is fine because you're fighting mostly lots of trash mobs with low health and are probably skipping a ton. As a result, you aren't standing in a spot for a long time so others can buff you as you're often on your ownIt is only natural you want to tank a lot of the incidental damage from mobs you don't want to waste time on killing. The same applies to low fractals.Remember that meta raid builds run under the assumption that you have various raid buffs and are fighting a high HP boss in a relatively small arena. Naturally bringing that to open world isn't that great. In higher fractals, you get defensive stats from potions anyways and you get precision from potions, so marauders is not as hot there but valkyrie will get you the health. Also most tend to run with some kind of support and usually a healer that enables the dps to stand in fire and go at it anyways. The dps should really do their job and go all out on dps instead of taking selfish stats. In Raids, you have dedicated healers and support, so you should bring zerker for that, as bringing defense is redundant. With raid buffs like fury, spotter, and warrior, banners, your crit doesn't have to be that high. In addition there are DPS checks while not that hard, can be problematic. Dragging out the fight puts more strain on support. The greater problem with instanced content is that the longer a fight drags out, the more mechanics happen. You can circumvent this simply by DPSing harder. This is especially true in CMs where bosses like Arkk will continuously summon a bunch of insta kill mechanics when he is low on health; this can be dealt with just by ending the fight with good dps. Also a lot of mechanics simply will flat out kill you and a few extra k of health will simply allow you to make another mistake or two.Of course, if your ping sucks, marauder is not a bad idea. Also note this thread isn't about zerker vs marauder, but rather full zerk vs zerk + a few pieces that aren't zerk- not full zerk vs full marauder. The same argument applies but of course changing a few armor pieces to whatever was never really that big of a deal to begin with. Agree with you. How about in pvp?Oh sorry, haven't pvp'd in years; but that uses different stats doesn't it? You can't just mix and match a few pieces.In WvW at least, marauder is much more popular for damage builds because nobody will let you complete a damage rotation on them and you usually need burst to kill them, therefore higher crit often yields better results. In addition it's very easy to get +1'd or suffer a lot of incidential damage so zerker is rarely viable for guardians due to weak disnenage abilities. And of course, your death could rally the enemy too. It's not like pve where you can die, but if you managed 2x damage of anyone else, you can rest easy because you did your job. And of course, bunkering or the ability to stall enemies is much more important outside of pve. Not just for holding points but also lasting long enough so that allies can arrive. At the end of the day, zerker is mostly a thing for scripted scenarios in organized play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jan.7915 Posted July 1, 2020 Share Posted July 1, 2020 @Fueki.4753 said:@Roche.7491 said:Agree with you. How about in pvp?In PvP you are stun-locked and murdered within few seconds anyway, so the extra HP hardly matters.Look at meta builds for PvP,if hp wouldn't help then people wouldn't run it.Marauders is wvw gear for some classes, I don't see the reason for guardian as we run firebrand usually.Now open world zerging and story... trailblazer firebrand is very awesome. DH is very awesome.dh can cycle focus block into heal(more damage is better there) into f3. You can easily reach crit cap with berserker, extra crit of marauders isn't necessary.Both works, nobody cares. Run full knight gear and nobody cares either.Raids, dungeons, fractals and strike mission there's only Berserker stats. Why? because it is easier to push a phase of you push it faster.This is where the marauders is for beginners comes in. Beginner group suck at dpsnand phase take too long everybody dropping to mechanic damage and then you notice that you drop slower with marauders. But it's a trap.Tldr:since crafting a set of marauders is a considerable investment it's not recommended at all unless you know why and where u need it and at that point you don't need it anymore.I just noticed that archon pretty much said the same, sorry.Then I realize that running a berserker is like >playing devil may cry at heaven or hell mode. >One hit will kill you in an instant. Less than 1% >DMC players can do it. That is what I call pro. >Untouchable and a complete mastery of the >system.That's not true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArchonWing.9480 Posted July 1, 2020 Share Posted July 1, 2020 @jan.7915 said:@Fueki.4753 said:@Roche.7491 said:Agree with you. How about in pvp?In PvP you are stun-locked and murdered within few seconds anyway, so the extra HP hardly matters.Look at meta builds for PvP,if hp wouldn't help then people wouldn't run it.Marauders is wvw gear for some classes, I don't see the reason for guardian as we run firebrand usually.Now open world zerging and story... trailblazer firebrand is very awesome. I actually agree with this, but sadly that stat is sorta expensive so it's usually not my first recommendation unless I know they have some gold to spare. Getting some Living Story Trinkets with TB is a good idea though. Open World is often much more about getting from point A to B and C and not necessarily killing everything on your way, so it is great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
otto.5684 Posted July 2, 2020 Share Posted July 2, 2020 @Roche.7491 said:@ArchonWing.9480 said:In Open World, Marauder is fine because you're fighting mostly lots of trash mobs with low health and are probably skipping a ton. As a result, you aren't standing in a spot for a long time so others can buff you as you're often on your ownIt is only natural you want to tank a lot of the incidental damage from mobs you don't want to waste time on killing. The same applies to low fractals.Remember that meta raid builds run under the assumption that you have various raid buffs and are fighting a high HP boss in a relatively small arena. Naturally bringing that to open world isn't that great. In higher fractals, you get defensive stats from potions anyways and you get precision from potions, so marauders is not as hot there but valkyrie will get you the health. Also most tend to run with some kind of support and usually a healer that enables the dps to stand in fire and go at it anyways. The dps should really do their job and go all out on dps instead of taking selfish stats. In Raids, you have dedicated healers and support, so you should bring zerker for that, as bringing defense is redundant. With raid buffs like fury, spotter, and warrior, banners, your crit doesn't have to be that high. In addition there are DPS checks while not that hard, can be problematic. Dragging out the fight puts more strain on support. The greater problem with instanced content is that the longer a fight drags out, the more mechanics happen. You can circumvent this simply by DPSing harder. This is especially true in CMs where bosses like Arkk will continuously summon a bunch of insta kill mechanics when he is low on health; this can be dealt with just by ending the fight with good dps. Also a lot of mechanics simply will flat out kill you and a few extra k of health will simply allow you to make another mistake or two.Of course, if your ping sucks, marauder is not a bad idea. Also note this thread isn't about zerker vs marauder, but rather full zerk vs zerk + a few pieces that aren't zerk- not full zerk vs full marauder. The same argument applies but of course changing a few armor pieces to whatever was never really that big of a deal to begin with. Agree with you. How about in pvp?Marauder. Never play a small HP pool class without HP in PvP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jan.7915 Posted July 4, 2020 Share Posted July 4, 2020 @ArchonWing.9480 said:@jan.7915 said:@Fueki.4753 said:@Roche.7491 said:Agree with you. How about in pvp?In PvP you are stun-locked and murdered within few seconds anyway, so the extra HP hardly matters.Look at meta builds for PvP,if hp wouldn't help then people wouldn't run it.Marauders is wvw gear for some classes, I don't see the reason for guardian as we run firebrand usually.Now open world zerging and story... trailblazer firebrand is very awesome. I actually agree with this, but sadly that stat is sorta expensive so it's usually not my first recommendation unless I know they have some gold to spare. Getting some Living Story Trinkets with TB is a good idea though. Open World is often much more about getting from point A to B and C and not necessarily killing everything on your way, so it is great.Full exotic berserker DH can do all story and pve easily, just not solo group events.But you can do nighttime events solo to farm bladed armor.Crafting trailblazer is stupid expensive, wouldn't do it especially since there's no gain over sinister viper grieving in group setups. I went trailblazer exotics and viper grieving accs for balance and crafted ascended for group content. Okay..I got trailblazer accs too but I specially enjoy playing those LW maps..i get that bit everybody has many sets of bloodstone accs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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