Guild Wars 2

Where did you see the post about the zerker nerf? I looked in the dungeon forum but didn’t see anything. If this is true, this could be either really really bad or really really good. I feel sorry for all the thieves out there though, they will officially be the worst class in PvE if zerker turns to crap.

They should nerf zergs instead.

I guess the time has come for zerkers to cry and whine, this will be the first thread of many.

Just for reference, the OP is probably referring to this

What about giving you a “big gun” so you can ’splode things and be happy?
Seriously… Buff all the classes? And then what? Giving you an “I win” button?

Hm without seeing exactly what they wrote it is hard to have an opinion. Depending on how it is implemented the nerf could be good or harmful.

An example of a bad nerf would be adding more Tequatl like bosses that are unaffected by crit. Uninteresting and its a straight nerf for little reason.

A good nerf would be to have a boss that is slightly slow but hits hard… standing by this guy nuking him down when you are his focus will use up your evades and see you on the floor. How is this a good nerf you ask? Simple… That berserker player is kind of the tank… or kiter would be the better term. He is the one who needs to be smart when it comes to keeping up the damage/holding the boss & surviving while doing so.

What about his teammates? Well more options are open now as having everyone being a berserker might just cause the boss to constantly swap targets and kill too quickly. Berserker then might not be the ideal set any longer for everyone to have and the need to mix it up becomes apparent.

Obviously I am just scratching the surface but at least in my opinion if they’re going to nerf it at all they should nerf it in an intelligent way.

JonPeters.5630:

We are trying to take steps to address some of the dominance of Berserker/DPS players. More info next week, I think.

Jon

Got to wonder how people go from “addressing” issues to OHNOES!! They N3rfing mah zerkers!!!

relax people…sheesh.

that doesnt mean Zerker Nerf. Honestly, all they need to do is give mobs more buffs like the HOTW p1 boss, as in regen and protection and stuff, so the Condi classes become much more useful.

Azure, not really. When I run that dungeon we still DPS that boss down instead of wasting time with the totems or worrying about CC since he has the defiance stacks.

Mokah… You must be new here because they have a history of bringing things down to match instead of lifting things up to match.

A dev has already said they’d rather change the preception of something than actually improve it. That’s why the ranger shortbow got nerfed to make the longbow look better by comparison. That is fact. That is history. That was done. That was not the only case of it either. There is no reason to believe they won’t bring down Zerkers instead of bringing up other types of builds due to past history… So, I repeat, you must be new here.

thefantasticg.3984:

Mokah… You must be new here because they have a history of bringing things down to match instead of lifting things up to match.

A dev has already said they’d rather change the preception of something than actually improve it. That’s why the ranger shortbow got nerfed to make the longbow look better by comparison. That is fact. That is history. That was done. That was not the only case of it either. There is no reason to believe they won’t bring down Zerkers instead of bringing up other types of builds due to past history… So, I repeat, you must be new here.

Truth +1

They didn’t explicitly say they would nerf zerkers, but Anet’s MO for fixing balancing issues is usually to nerf and to nerf hard. So hard that whatever’s being nerfed is never used again.

Anet’s likely painted themselves into a corner here because the existence of the Ascended grindfest and having more diverse builds/gear loadouts directly conflict with each other.

thefantasticg.3984:

There is no reason to believe they won’t bring down Zerkers instead of bringing up other types of builds due to past history… So, I repeat, you must be new here.

It’s gonna be total fun when this will happen… At least here on the forums…

This is probably going to end badly.

Its good that they’ll nerf zerker.

Zevilo.9304:

Its good that they’ll nerf zerker.

Why exactly?

a t s e.9614:

Well I just realised this was serious , the post on the dungeon forum… I tought it was another newbie crying for nerfs but then I saw the red text from anet…..

1) Guild wars 2 is different from other games which is great and a bit boring in some cases. This heavy burst meta feels good to destroy stuff and landing 50k hundred blades . But the problem I really have is the lack useful stuff in PVE . Only 2 things are used pulls\reflects. This is what I would fix instead of forcing us to tank the mobs..

2) Useless pve classes . I think alot of people want to nerf zerker because their class will never be accepted in a speed run. I can understand that, why
just not buffing them? So they can enjoy the game like every1 else.

3) “I play how I want” . This is probably the biggest problem in dungeons right now. Full cleric staff guardians playin how they want. Why cant you just downscale the boss HP when the overal party DPS is lower than “x” number? This would allow people to play how they want and be at the same level with zerker groups.

4) gw2 and it’s acended gear. If you want to nerf zerker , allow us the option to regear properly for the current dungeons. Ive spent tons of money on getting all the good stuff , norn t3, scholar runes etc . I dont wanna make another set all over again.

5) What you should do : its increase the teamwork for the actual dungeons. Right now , you can complete any dungeon without using the party chat.
Just make it more challenging and more fun .

6) punching bags= NOT DIFFICULT CONTENT . please stop . Why mobs have 3 billion hp ? Give them multiple phases like giganticus lupicus and reduce this ridiculous hp bag.

7) Give me a name change …. My warrior’s name is Zerk Powaaa, it will make no sense after your nerfs…

This is guildwars 2.

Thiss is what they/we wanted.

There is no holy trinity and no actually difficult content(liadri/sabtrib aside). This game is all about dpsing down the mobs as fast as possible to achieve the end result. The end result being gold, which this game revolves around too much.

There is no true end game quest/journey worth anything. Literally, almost, everything can be bought from the TP with gold/gems.

There being no trinity, which ppl rave(d) about, means there is no true teamwork involved in getting through the game. Thats it, thats why. No splitting pulls, no turning mobs, no dropping aggro/taking aggro, no dedicated healing/CC, etc… its all just beat this down and beat that down faster faster faster. Its never going to change because there is no need for further teamwork.

As much as people hate on the holy trinity, which it is nice to get away from, It really is crucial for a game to have true end game and cooperation among players. Talk about zergs/blobs and teamwork all you want but even with that it still revolves around dps.

I don"t mind meta change but i want refund for my ascendant berzerker gear to soldier gear.

Fenrir.3609:

Zevilo.9304:

Its good that they’ll nerf zerker.

Why exactly?

Zerker gear gives power, perc and crit damage, the high power and crit chance/damage make it the viable option for dps. The downside of it should be the lack of survivability but that’s not the case. There are alternatives to zerker anyway like assassins only with less power.

edit: and for the ppl with ascended gear already zerker, If you had magic find gear before then know that its possible to change gear stats to whatever you want.

If they are going to nerf zerker ascended they can atleast give you a option to change the stats to the next optimal stats so you dont have to go trough all the grind again.

Enjoyluck.2618:

I don"t mind meta change but i want refund for my ascendant berzerker gear to soldier gear.

Isn’t it your fault for believing the lie that GW2’s PvE is about “zerk play”? I knew all along the developers never intended that, even though most PvE encounters came down to the most DPS possible. The clue that “PvE=zerk” was never intended (at least not for 100% of players) is that Ascended gear was offered in multiple permutations-why offer Cleric’s Ascended gear (to mention just one) for “high end” play if it was intended only for WvW, as it’s usually-and equivocally-stated (of course there ARE WvW infusions, but those came later)?

(I mean no offense to you preferring Berserker’s gear, though. I use it sometimes myself on some of my characters.)

Also, I doubt they will nerf “zerk play” so bad that Soldier’s will be the only option. Soldier’s is not even my favorite stat combo. Surely you can keep all that Berserker’s gear and be effective, though who knows what they have in mind (plus I will find it VERY hard to believe you will change the “zerk only”-minded community’s stance so easily.)

Zevilo.9304:

Fenrir.3609:

Zevilo.9304:

Its good that they’ll nerf zerker.

Why exactly?

Zerker gear gives power, perc and crit damage, the high power and crit chance/damage make it the viable option for dps. The downside of it should be the lack of survivability but that’s not the case. There are alternatives to zerker anyway like assassins only with less power.

edit: and for the ppl with ascended gear already zerker, If you had magic find gear before then know that its possible to change gear stats to whatever you want.

You didn’t address the question. Why would a nerf on zerker be good?

You would need a total overhaul of the combat system/mechanics in order not to favour pure dmg and the ability to move/time/stack correctly over some guy stacking toughness.

A nerf to damage for the zerk set would do nothing for the game without the above. Which let’s face it, isn’t going to happen.

If you are going to move away from mobs with telegraphed massive spike damage attacks, move away from action/dodge combat and move towards a trinity system with dedicated healers et al. Then nerfing dps gear makes sense but becomes redundant anyway.

If you are just going to nerf the damage output of the glass cannon set up and err, that’s it. Then you are going to make things worse frankly.

As for “go assassins”, and? Kill stuff a bit slower? Awesome, that’s a step forward right there. That is, until people wearing PVT start moaning that those in assassins are clearing dungeons faster than them and we get another cry for nerfs.

tom.7468:

If they are going to nerf zerker ascended they can atleast give you a option to change the stats to the next optimal stats so you dont have to go trough all the grind again.

That makes sense, but the meta-community is very “youtube-oriented”, and who’s to say what’s “optimal” today won’t be obsolete tomorrow? You can’t expect them to let you change your gear every time there’s a different PvE speedrun “optimal” build.

(That said, I never liked how people are stuck to a build or two anyway, whatever builds they may be, with hard to get ascended gear.)

Still, as I said above, I highly doubt you will change this particular “speedrun community’s” mind in a day barring a extreme change, which I doubt it will be.

Based on the recent word byte on conditions, I’d guess that, “We are trying to take steps to address some of the dominance of Berserker/DPS players.” could very well be changing some mobs to be more resistant to direct damage. In fact, based on ANet’s history, introducing some mobs that are susceptible to conditions might well be their way of addressing both conditions and the dominance of direct damage.

I doubt there will be significant reduction in berserker capabilities. Glass cannons do not seem to be OP in PvP. Since the problem is more with PvE, they are more likely to change mobs than character capabilities.

About time they did something about zerkers.

AntiGw.9367:

About time they did something about zerkers.

Again, why?

If there is any issue, it is with the way the general combat mechanics work, not with zerker gear.

It is as clear as day why people able to dodge and coordinate a group are going to squeeze more potential out of damage gear in a spike heavy, dodge based, highly telegraphed combat system.

If they are going to overhaul the combat mechanics, or add in mobs/encounters which are direct damage resistant and remove all the 1 shot kill attacks et al. Then they have a chance of making the combat system more rounded and in turn promoting other gear choices in pve.

If they just nerf zerk gear on the back of people whining about speed clear groups, well then it is going to be a monumental fk up.

Fenrir.3609:

Zevilo.9304:

Fenrir.3609:

Zevilo.9304:

Its good that they’ll nerf zerker.

Why exactly?

Zerker gear gives power, perc and crit damage, the high power and crit chance/damage make it the viable option for dps. The downside of it should be the lack of survivability but that’s not the case. There are alternatives to zerker anyway like assassins only with less power.

edit: and for the ppl with ascended gear already zerker, If you had magic find gear before then know that its possible to change gear stats to whatever you want.

You didn’t address the question. Why would a nerf on zerker be good?

You would need a total overhaul of the combat system/mechanics in order not to favour pure dmg and the ability to move/time/stack correctly over some guy stacking toughness.

A nerf to damage for the zerk set would do nothing for the game without the above. Which let’s face it, isn’t going to happen.

If you are going to move away from mobs with telegraphed massive spike damage attacks, move away from action/dodge combat and move towards a trinity system with dedicated healers et al. Then nerfing dps gear makes sense but becomes redundant anyway.

If you are just going to nerf the damage output of the glass cannon set up and err, that’s it. Then you are going to make things worse frankly.

As for “go assassins”, and? Kill stuff a bit slower? Awesome, that’s a step forward right there. That is, until people wearing PVT start moaning that those in assassins are clearing dungeons faster than them and we get another cry for nerfs.

they don’t really need to over haul the game’s combat mechanic just because they went and nerfed zerker, that would be an over reaction because the ability to move/time/stack correctly is not connected with zerker gear.

Nerfing zerker gear isn’t just so you kill stuff slower, the gear setup often provides high power and damage and high crit chance/damage which together just burns everything too fast with no downside. Bosses cant react because they’re dead after a few seconds, If anything it encourages boss design with high hp pools. A nerf would really benefit build diversity.

And they should also nerf PVT specially to deter zerging, but that’s for another day.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Based on the recent word byte on conditions, I’d guess that, “We are trying to take steps to address some of the dominance of Berserker/DPS players.” could very well be changing some mobs to be more resistant to direct damage. In fact, based on ANet’s history, introducing some mobs that are susceptible to conditions might well be their way of addressing both conditions and the dominance of direct damage.

I doubt there will be significant reduction in berserker capabilities. Glass cannons do not seem to be OP in PvP. Since the problem is more with PvE, they are more likely to change mobs than character capabilities.

I’ve always wanted them to change it up so half of the mobs in dungeons have low toughness high vitality so zerk works for them, while the other half being high toughness low vitality, so conditions can work for them. You know, make it so that you HAVE to mix it up to complete a dungeon fast.

Hell, give bosses the ability to instantly take only crap damage (like 20 damage at the most) from direct damage and suddenly take double or triple damage from conditions for 30 seconds. Make some mandatory bosses START in this mode, and have them not have it for 20 seconds before reapplying it. It’d fix the zerker mindset, because it’d actually take longer if the entire party were zerkers compared to a mix. But this idea will most likely have problems somewhere.

Dungeons are in desperate need of changes, for far too long players have been just gearing full zerker, stacking in corners and auto attacking their way to victory, it has become so painfully boring for me that I have not run a single dungeon in months. Hopefully if there is a nerf to the zerker playstyle its with the dungeon mechanics only. As far as Ascended gear goes, yeah this is one of the biggest issues many players have right now, if or when ones builds/gear setup gets nerfed to uselessness they are presented with a nice 6 month gear grind to become viable again.

Haha, zerkes :P maybe my “useless” soldier guardian will really become useless as he won’t have to save as much zerker butts as up to this date. (Of course if they take resolution to grind different set of ascended gear :-/ )

they don’t really need to over haul the game’s combat mechanic just because they went and nerfed zerker, that would be an over reaction because the ability to move/time/stack correctly is not connected with zerker gear.

Nerfing zerker gear isn’t just so you kill stuff slower, the gear setup often provides high power and damage and high crit chance/damage which together just burns everything too fast with no downside. Bosses cant react because they’re dead after a few seconds, If anything it encourages boss design with high hp pools. A nerf would really benefit build diversity.

And they should also nerf PVT specially to deter zerging, but that’s for another day.

The reason zerker is the go to for people able to use it, is exactly because of the combat mechanics. Simply nerfing dps on zerker is not going to change how people play, instead all it will do is see people migrate to the next highest damage set up. So we have exactly the same scenario only everything is dying a bit slower and everyone is getting a bit more peeved off.

To remove dps as the go to for the people able to dodge, and to promote other set ups, then you need to alter the combat mechanics and not simply nerf zerker.

A base nerf to zerker would not improve diversity at all.

Just finished making my 6th Berserker piece of Ascended armor.
Nice news to see. /sarcasm Hope it’s not something that makes me regret crafting the only armor viable on Thief. :o

Doggie.3184:

Just finished making my 6th Berserker piece of Ascended armor.
Nice news to see. /sarcasm Hope it’s not something that makes me regret crafting the only armor viable on Thief. :o

Didn’t you know, nerfing zerker will suddenly make all the other armour types viable for you. Awesome right, get working on that clerics gear!

Fenrir.3609:

Doggie.3184:

Just finished making my 6th Berserker piece of Ascended armor.
Nice news to see. /sarcasm Hope it’s not something that makes me regret crafting the only armor viable on Thief. :o

Didn’t you know, nerfing zerker will suddenly make all the other armour types viable for you. Awesome right, get working on that clerics gear!

Have you been around long enough to understand how awkward some of our patches are?

Doggie.3184:

Fenrir.3609:

Doggie.3184:

Just finished making my 6th Berserker piece of Ascended armor.
Nice news to see. /sarcasm Hope it’s not something that makes me regret crafting the only armor viable on Thief. :o

Didn’t you know, nerfing zerker will suddenly make all the other armour types viable for you. Awesome right, get working on that clerics gear!

Have you been around long enough to understand how awkward some of our patches are?

I think you may have missed the sarcasm there.

Fenrir.3609:

Doggie.3184:

Fenrir.3609:

Doggie.3184:

Just finished making my 6th Berserker piece of Ascended armor.
Nice news to see. /sarcasm Hope it’s not something that makes me regret crafting the only armor viable on Thief. :o

Didn’t you know, nerfing zerker will suddenly make all the other armour types viable for you. Awesome right, get working on that clerics gear!

Have you been around long enough to understand how awkward some of our patches are?

I think you may have missed the sarcasm there.

I think you misunderstood my question. >.>

Doggie.3184:

Fenrir.3609:

Doggie.3184:

Fenrir.3609:

Doggie.3184:

Just finished making my 6th Berserker piece of Ascended armor.
Nice news to see. /sarcasm Hope it’s not something that makes me regret crafting the only armor viable on Thief. :o

Didn’t you know, nerfing zerker will suddenly make all the other armour types viable for you. Awesome right, get working on that clerics gear!

Have you been around long enough to understand how awkward some of our patches are?

I think you may have missed the sarcasm there.

I think you misunderstood my question. >.>

Probably, it is rather late.

I’ll just answer “yes”.

MokahTGS.7850:

JonPeters.5630:

We are trying to take steps to address some of the dominance of Berserker/DPS players. More info next week, I think.

Jon

Got to wonder how people go from “addressing” issues to OHNOES!! They N3rfing mah zerkers!!!

relax people…sheesh.

How can the people not worry? Anet handles ANYTHING implemented into the game TERRIBLY.

The problem isn’t with zerker gear. The problem is that Anet’s idea of challenge is “make it have tons of hit points.” Obviously the solution players find to this problem is hit as hard as possible to go through those hit points.

If the content in this game actually required more than just hitting it to beat it, people wouldn’t use zerker so much.

The problem isn’t with the gear, it’s with the game. If they fix zerker by making the content more than just a huge sack of hit points, I’m okay with that. But of course they’ll just give every boss unblockable knockbacks that go through stability and make a dozen more scarlet updates instead.

they could address berserker dominance without needing to nerf the gear. it would just be a matter designing the mobs to be able to exploit the minimal armor of glass cannons. not necessarily though one hit kills, because that would screw over everyone, but enough that full berserker would be too fragile to be effective.

that being said, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if they just nerfed the stats on the gear by 50%, given their past history with balancing. afterall, that’s much faster, easier, and cheaper than coming up with well designed monsters.

LOL for those that got their ascended gear sets xD
ahhh good one ANet

Nerfing Berserker gear isn’t really going to fix dungeons. What they need to do is take their current dungeon design, put them in a cannon, fire the thing, and then redesign the entire GW2 dungeon system from scratch.

Dungeons in MMOs should require teamwork. Dungeons should favor and encourage having different players with various playstyles.

The Tank-DPS-Healer paradigm works well because it achieves both of those goals incredibly well. Usually you get players who are more offense oriented and others who are more defense oriented, and only by playing well together they can win the encounters.

I’m not advocating for an introduction of the tanks/DPS/healers trinity in this game, however the game needs to have a dungeon design that is at least as good as that.

Zero Day.2594:

LOL for those that got their ascended gear sets xD
ahhh good one ANet

Like what was said before, If you played during the time where there was magic find gear you would know that they did let those people change the stats of those gear to any stat available via crafting.

and they didn’t say they were nerfing zerker gear yet. they were just addressing it’s dominance in dungeons vs condition builds.

If they do nerf it then they will probably let people change the stats like they did before.

They need to redo all the gear. The scaling was broken but happened to be somewhat acceptable for exotics. The introduction of ascended gear just exasperated the issue that was already there.

Zerker gear gives +17% dmg when upgraded fully. The next best gear only gives a ~10% increase. The best condition damage set only gives a 5.1% increase.

Gear scaling needs to be completely reworked. Anything less than that will just lead to more problems.

thefantasticg.3984:

-snip-
Mokah… You must be new here because they have a history of bringing things down to match instead of lifting things up to match.

A dev has already said they’d rather change the preception of something than actually improve it. That’s why the ranger shortbow got nerfed to make the longbow look better by comparison. That is fact. -snip-

I get the feeling there is some creative paraphrasing here somewhere on the dev comment. It’s funny though, because I’m a big fighting game player and that complaint about bringing things down instead of raising to match I hear in fighting games all the time and not just in mmos. I can’t really think of any mmo that I’ve played where balance is taken as raise everything else to match what is seen as too strong. I always looked at balance as aiming for a designed center instead of a ceiling.

They haven’t explicitly said they are going to nerf zerker. Still though, if we’re killin’ stuff in a manner that warrants changing, I’m all for it. Some of the gameplay suggestions people have been making I’m all for too. I agree that people will migrate to the next highest dps setup, but you know, you can’t really avoid that mindset unless max damage is balanced across all stat sets. Because they said they would change the DPS focus as well, I would bet that we’ll be seeing system changes as well.

haviz.1340:

They should nerf zergs instead.

That says nothing about what will happen.

The OP is worrying over nothing.

Jon Peters statement can be mean anything at this point.

NØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØØ

All my characters are zerkers…D:

I’m hoping for a bit of balancing both for zerkers and PvE content.

I have a friend who pretty much makes all his characters with zerker stats, and does oodles of damage all the time. Playing with him makes all my characters pretty much useless since he one hit kills almost everything. Sometimes I don’t get my loot/ach/heart done because he just roflstomps over everything. Of course I let him know that he needs to back off a bit, but that’s just my point.

He has no reason to change because it’s so effective, and for me it’s no fun at all.

Any change they make won’t be to the extent where full offensive teams won’t be viable. Hopefully, it will just increase the risk involved, meaning if you are going to neglect defense, you have to be more skilled.

To speculate, I think part of the problem lies in aggro. Right now, players dealing more damage are more likely to take aggro than players with higher surviability. This encourages all players to use the same gear, since otherwise, a dps class will take aggro while a tanky class won’t, thus defeating the purpose of playing a tanky class. By reversing this aggro mechanic, more defensive oriented classes can feel like they are making a bigger impact rather than having their defense wasted.

i refuse to use anything berserker simply because it’s obviously OP compared to the other stat sets.

if the majority of players gravitate towards a single set it makes the rest redundant along with the playstyles and builds that go with them.

why do people only want balance when it’s in their favour?

just make the AI target the zerker players more than toughness ones

I don’t think the problem is zerkers but the fact that mobs really only do a few things, have tons of HP and knockdown/charge crap and frustrate you. I can see why people go full zerk because dealing with some bosses for long is just a pain in the butt. Mobs need to do more than knockdown and have high hp.