How do you survive with berserker stats in places like Maguma?

[Zexanima.7851]

**TL;DR**

I need some tips on surviving difficult open world and pve areas with glass cannon stats. Build/Gear suggestions welcome!

 

**Not TL;DR**

So I'm farming things in Maguma and I'm running more or less [this build](http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Soulbeast_-_Power_Greatsword "this build") It's really nice in that I can just delete most things. However when I engage a boss or event solo it's kind of a coin flip if I'll get rekt or not. If I run something like a tanky druid build I wont have an issue. It may take me forever to kill something , but I'll eventually kill it(as long as there is no timer). With full berserker and dps focus if I can't burst it down fast [i'm in danger](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/mobile/000/025/817/Screen_Shot_2018-03-30_at_11.34.27_AM.jpg). I know this is a l2p issue because people do it ezpz with berserker gear. Also makes it more difficult being full melee since I cant use my normal strat of GS burst -> run around with LB and pew pew -> Repeat. What makes it even harder is that I'm in SB and don't have a pet to pull some of the heat off me. Not to mention I'm more or less stuck with one pet because swapping out of SB form is a nono, so no pet with a 'oh shit' heal or taunt.

 

I'm able to get by, but I just die a lot compared to other classes/builds I've played. What are some things I can do as a glass cannon melee SB to survive in hard content? (Beside the obvious answer of "have you tried not taking damage/standing in the red circle?")

 

**EDIT**

 

After thinking about it for a bit I think I just commit to hard. I need to probably disengage and kite for cooldowns more often. Being only melee though I loose damage, so it feels wrong. I guess running solo though it can't be avoided. Probs need to give in and swap to LB for certain boss fights too, specially if I'm solo. I'm going to leave this up though in case someone has some good suggestions.

 

[Skotlex.7580]

You make it sound like the game is actually balanced. :P

 

That's just the way it is, the better you learn the enemy mechanics and your own placement, the better your survival goes.

 

Beyond changing stats, other ways to increase your survival are selection of defensive traits and utilities.

 

Something you could try, if you want to stick to a merged soulbeast, is to use the ogre runeset. It may be a bit of a DPS loss, but that rock dog pet companion will help take off quite some heat off you.

[Dahkeus.8243]

There's some utility skills that are particularly important in Maguuma and will make a bigger difference than your actual stats. In particular, having stability and stun breaks can make your life a lot easier. If you need more defense, just switch up your skills or traits to include more defense.

 

Assuming that you're running Soulbeast, go with something like the open world build on MetaBattle:

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Soulbeast_-_Boon_Berserker

 

Moa stance gives you protection and Dolyak gives you a stun break + stability. Adjusting your pet based on where you area will also help, such as by using the Jacaranda when you need more healing.

 

Personally, I prefer axe/axe (with Honed Axes and Natural Healing instead of Two-Handed Training and Zephyr's Speed) since it's a cleaving ranged weapon and it can be particularly helpful for the reflects against vines.

[InsaneQR.7412]

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBhYD7kSFohXsjXwkFgrFsMJY552g7xtJA0AmAORuKQm7kUlYVA-jBSGQBkR3AAeCADR5HgUvRKKBhx+DrVFhydRAAA-e

 

Something like this should do it.

Try to hit 34% boon duration.

You could also equip a boon duration sigil instead of a quickness one. And you could replace rune of the pack with rune of fireworks.

 

WS gives you life regen with protection. NM gives you perma protection.

And together with boon shuffling you always have regen, and high boon uptimes. Great vigor uptime and increased endurance regen.

You deal good amount of dmg due to glassy stats but also have great survivabbility due to good amounts of stunbreaks, dmg reduction and life regen.

Condi cleanses are there in decents amounts too.

 

Hope this helps.

[Zexanima.7851]

Thanks everyone! Yeah, I defiantly need some more stun breaks and stability. I'll go through the builds you guys suggested and hash something better together.

[Zexanima.7851]

> @"Cynder.2509" said:

> Two words: **Git gud**

 

Damn, I'm so much better now. I should have just done that in the first place. Thank you!

[Vukorep.3081]

Recently i played trough the HoT on a new staff core ele. While it wasnt full zerker, it was glass cannon so to speak (i had a mix of power, precision, concentraiton and a little bit of healing power exotics, but no vitality or toughness)

 

My traits were fire, water and arcane for damage, some healing and lots of boons.

 

While i was downed a few times and killed as well when fighting strong mobs (a few times in the entire personal storyline) i didnt feel like i would get 1 shotted on sight.

 

I kited, i used my air, earth, water large aoe cc, i used my strong attacks to blow up clumped enemies, and i switched to water for a burst of heal.

To be honest, ive managed to bump my health back for at least 6-8k just by using the water attunement and its traits and combos and i only used my actual healing skill (glyph of elemental harmony) in extreme situations for a full heal.

 

As a ele i used:

* long range

* aoe wards, stuns and chills

* large aoe blow ups

* rarely a earth elemental to tank something for me

* sometimes a sandstorm for mass blinds

 

Your ranger has some few similar protections tho. If youre going for condi or bersekrers it wont matter, but first and foremost ,rangers have pets that they can control ,move, and command around to take hits and tank for you. Numerous skills have active dodges such as shortbow, greatsword, sword, daggers... and there are a bunch of ways for you to gain long term endurances as well.

 

There are traps you can use to knock up, or chill multiple mobs, and barrage cripples everyone in a very large area.

Longbows also have a short stealth you can use to "reset" the fight and make the mobs focus your pet instead.

 

But in the end, it does all come down to "git gud", as in learn your capabilities and limits and work with them. There were countless times where i tagged various mobs with air bouncy auto attacks and then casted numerous aoes on top of my self and got downed, only to get back up when mobs start to die around me from the large amount of aoes and dmg.

[Blocki.4931]

Berserker is the best because it means you will finish the fights quicker -> less time to mess up. At the core it is always about learning what enemies can and can't do and how you approach them. Since mounts, most engages look like this:

 

Mount engage skill -> DPS -> CC before they recover from the mount engage CC -> Burst -> They're dead, good job.

 

Tanky gear would need more than one rotation of this and funnily enough, you would take more damage. At most you will survive only a couple hits longer, so why bother? Yes, you will get your face kicked in more than once, but after the initial learning curve it's only smooth sailing from there and isn't likely to be shaken up, ever.

[Zexanima.7851]

> @"Blocki.4931" said:

> Berserker is the best because it means you will finish the fights quicker -> less time to mess up. At the core it is always about learning what enemies can and can't do and how you approach them. Since mounts, most engages look like this:

>

> Mount engage skill -> DPS -> CC before they recover from the mount engage CC -> Burst -> They're dead, good job.

>

> Tanky gear would need more than one rotation of this and funnily enough, you would take more damage. At most you will survive only a couple hits longer, so why bother? Yes, you will get your face kicked in more than once, but after the initial learning curve it's only smooth sailing from there and isn't likely to be shaken up, ever.

 

I'm getting more use to full berserkers now, but still have trouble with certain bosses and large amounts of mobs. The issue comes when you can't burst down your enemies in two rotations and you start to run out of CDs, endurance, ect. and get stun chained or piled on by several mobs. I have ascended trinkets, weapons, and exotic armor (with one piece of ascend) so I know my gear is more than adequate. I just think outside of instanced content you kind of shoot yourself in the foot by running full glass. I kill things a lot faster running full berserker sword/axe + GS but I also die a lot more. If I ran with LB and picked up a defensive trait line or some defensive utility skills fights would last longer but I wouldn't be dying as much.

 

For instance I was in The Desolation the other day doing meta events to level up my griffon. I would often fight groups of anywhere between 4-8 enemies. I would open with mount attack -> sick 'em -> one wolf pack -> path of scares -> whirling defense. Good portion of the times this works and deletes them. I did die several times though due to enemies constantly being under some kind of red circle (their own or other npc's). It was either jump in the red and try and kill them before I die or kite and get killed because they were surrounded by red circles almost constantly. I did eventually complete the meta but not without dying 3-4 times. I feel like having a more tanky build/skills or a few pieces of tanky gear would have made the difference in a lot of those fights. Specially in soloing bosses that are suppose to be done by groups.

[Obtena.7952]

> @"Zexanima.7851" said:

> > @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > Berserker is the best because it means you will finish the fights quicker -> less time to mess up. At the core it is always about learning what enemies can and can't do and how you approach them. Since mounts, most engages look like this:

> >

> > Mount engage skill -> DPS -> CC before they recover from the mount engage CC -> Burst -> They're dead, good job.

> >

> > Tanky gear would need more than one rotation of this and funnily enough, you would take more damage. At most you will survive only a couple hits longer, so why bother? Yes, you will get your face kicked in more than once, but after the initial learning curve it's only smooth sailing from there and isn't likely to be shaken up, ever.

>

> I'm getting more use to full berserkers now, but still have trouble with certain bosses and large amounts of mobs.

 

Yes ... you will find that no matter how good you are, you eventually hit the wall with only intrinsic defenses before you get overwhelmed by these scenarios. It's nice to think you can just glass cannon your way through all OW content, but that's not actually true for most players, even good ones ... go tangle with some Chak groups in TD or small group White Mantle in Doric Lake if you can. Those will test your ability/build in OW.

 

What you say it true; swapping some gear or traits can be the difference. The advice that people should just YOLO berserker gear for OW because 'faster' is just bad, especially for new players.

 

 

 

 

[Zexanima.7851]

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> > @"Zexanima.7851" said:

> > > @"Blocki.4931" said:

> > > Berserker is the best because it means you will finish the fights quicker -> less time to mess up. At the core it is always about learning what enemies can and can't do and how you approach them. Since mounts, most engages look like this:

> > >

> > > Mount engage skill -> DPS -> CC before they recover from the mount engage CC -> Burst -> They're dead, good job.

> > >

> > > Tanky gear would need more than one rotation of this and funnily enough, you would take more damage. At most you will survive only a couple hits longer, so why bother? Yes, you will get your face kicked in more than once, but after the initial learning curve it's only smooth sailing from there and isn't likely to be shaken up, ever.

> >

> > I'm getting more use to full berserkers now, but still have trouble with certain bosses and large amounts of mobs.

>

> ... go tangle with some Chak groups in TD...

 

>

>

>

>

I actually did just this last night! I got destroyed repeatedly with my full glass berserker build. I would burst down maybe a dozen before getting overwhelmed.

 

[Skotlex.7580]

> @"Obtena.7952" said:

> What you say it true; swapping some gear or traits can be the difference. The advice that people should just YOLO berserker gear for OW because 'faster' is just bad, especially for new players.

 

I wouldn't say it's bad as much as it's misguided. The advice should probably be "go as offensively as you can as long as you feel comfortable with your level of survival". It's ultimately a tradeoff between defense and offense, and going full offense makes sense for the most experienced players.

 

Though there's the belief that a player only gets better if they are challenged, which is also why people recommend glass cannon gear, so that players get to thoughen up via open world carnage, so there's that.

[Pirogen.9561]

I'm new, playing for a month or so. Leveled Necromancer to 80, now im on a Ranger.

 

I solo. So, DPS is zero if you are dead.

 

For bosses: my pets tank. Moa or dog + bear. Pets make a big difference. I use axe/axe(or warhorn). Not condi build. Power with extra hit points so I don't get one-shotted. Condition removal is a must.

 

I don't break any speed records, but death is rare.

 

I checked those "meta" builds and none really worked for me. Kills trash fast, but solo vs champions is suicide. This makes so called meta builds junk for me, because: anyone can kill trash, but not all can kill big boss.

 

[Zexanima.7851]

> @"Pirogen.9561" said:

> I'm new, playing for a month or so. Leveled Necromancer to 80, now im on a Ranger.

>

> I solo. So, DPS is zero if you are dead.

>

> For bosses: my pets tank. Moa or dog + bear. Pets make a big difference. I use axe/axe(or warhorn). Not condi build. Power with extra hit points so I don't get one-shotted. Condition removal is a must.

>

> I don't break any speed records, but death is rare.

>

> I checked those "meta" builds and none really worked for me. Kills trash fast, but solo vs champions is suicide. This makes so called meta builds junk for me, because: anyone can kill trash, but not all can kill big boss.

>

 

That's my thinking as well. Running soulbeast though kind of makes things a little tougher since you don't have a pet to draw aggro. I love soulbeast skills, I hate not having a pet (even if the AI is dumb). It's a good chunk of the reason I play ranger. If i didn't want a pet I would just go something like warrior, theif, or rev. Not to get off topic though. I don't think I need to run anything other than berserker stats, but I DO need some defensive skills/traits. If I run Longbow I can stay alive even better. Up until recently I had been running full melee glass cannon and it did not go so well. I've slowly been incorporating more defensive skills. I think I may rotate out a weapon set for longbow soon for fights with melee hate but its hard to choose which (either GS or Sword/Axe/Warhorn)