Guild Wars 2

haviz.1340:

Aza.2105:

Its funny because in traditional mmorpgs dps players are considered the bottom tier out of the holy trinity. The problem was that it was always difficult to find healer and tank, you have to question why that is.

I never played any mmo but I would assume that it’s because of utter boredom, at least the case of healers.

Maybe also because it’s harder to play get gold by farming solo. Just making assumptions.

Well for solo healer/tank would just spec into a dps oriented build, so it wasn’t the problem. The biggest problem was the responsibility those two archetypes carry. If the group wipes the tank and healer would be blamed. So in short not many people wanted to carry the responsibility.

DPS classes in comparison didn’t have much responsibility other than killing the target. There was much more micromanaging on healer and tanks, thus requiring a higher skill cap to play them.

Belenwyn.8674:

Ahlen.7591:

Not really, because the best defense isn’t based on stats. The best defense is skills and evades.

Evade, Blind(sometimes), reflect, block, etc are far more important the harder the content gets. Not toughess/vit/healing pow.

Imagine an encounter forces you to operate a machine or a weapon like a mortar in WvW. No evade, no normal skills for you available. Who could operate the device longer when you get constantly damaged? Berserker or bunker?

They’re going to need to design some more interesting interact weapons then. I know some people find the zerk builds boring, but dear lord they are better than things like the mortars in this game.

haviz.1340:

DiogoSilva.7089:

Tell me, how do you coordenate CC skills and party support skills between different players in a random pug team, all the while preventing redudancy and wasted skills due to the lack of voice communication?

Can I assume that a hard trinity is more user/ pug friendly than a soft trinity for deep, challenging content?

Keep in mind that I’m not saying that the holy trinity is the way to go, just giving food for thought.

Dungeons in Guild Wars 2 reward players who enjoy organized parties, epic challenges, and delving deeper into the secrets of Tyria

Yes, dungeons should either require higher coordination or you should be force play with training wheels (defensive passive stats).

So, GW2 is not supposed to have challenging team content for pug players? Not even outside of dungeons?

And defensive stats are not meant to be anything more but training wheels (that don’t even teach much) and thus a rich source for elitism to rise, or to punish players who invest in the wrong stats unknowlingly?

I would like to ask people that complain that zerker is just autoattacking bosses and occasional dodging how having tanky chars that wouldn’t have to dodge would be better than this? Autoattacking bosses without dodging is better than autoattacking bosses with occasional dodging? Oh, and even now you can kill the hardest dungeon boss without even dodging by being tanky enough and having enough support. I’m sure it’s more engaging than occasional dodging.

I would also advise people that are claiming that zerker meta is based on killing before being killed to check up videos of FoTM high level scales bosses fights which last often more than 2 minutes. Moreover, I would recommend to notice the common denominator why those fights are trivial yet still long. The answer is reflections and aegis. Not killing before being killed.

JeRune.3512:

It would actually be nice to get this discussion back on track; right now there are people saying that DPS (zerker) specs should be nerfed and people defending this because of multiple reasons..

We can talk all we want about if the DPS meta should be “balanced” or “nerfed” or whatever. The fact remains that the “DPS meta”, the “Zerker builds” or even the “Players” are not at fault here.. and thus should not be changed or forced to change. Even the players that feel left out because they can’t or won’t play in a predefined way must see that “gear” is not at fault here..

What is? The game mechanics.. simple as that. No trinity (which I’m not saying is desirable) means that everyone is in fact a “jack of all trades”, this wouldn’t be a problem and actaully sounds good, if the encounters in game were made to fit that. The fact is that this is NOT the case. You don’t need a jack of all trades, you don’t need a trinity, you don’t even need toughness or vitality… You have dodge and DPS, you can stack/LoS, burn everything down and GG.

So nerfing or changing the Meta? This will just result in a different Meta or in another version of “trinity”.. Both of which will result in all the same problems you have now but with a different focus.. So quick fixes for this imagined problem are just not there, simple as that.

Can something be done? Sure.. Change the whole system, dodging, buffs, condi’s and AI. Change boss skills, trash mob skills the whole lot.. In essence, change everything..
Why? Because the the current meta is inherent to the system… There was no other outcome, never was, never has been..

So please, ANet, if you want to change something so there will be more build diversity, to move away from stacking and nuking.. fine! But don’t go for the easy way out here, because honestly, you’ll destroy a lot more than is good for the game.. I’m sure you guys are thinking this thing through and I think this thread is a testament of how important your decision is going to be.. This is one thing you CAN’T screw up guys..

Finally someone that gets it

To add to your ideas, how about another way to make it more desirable to bring other specs would be to have the bosses spawn minions when certain conditions are met, for example,
- if dps is to high and the boss will die in 10 seconds spawn veteran minions and the boss is invulnerable until all minions are dead.
- if toughness is to high spawn high damage veteran minions.
- if healing is to high, conditions galore on players.
- if control is to high, stability instead of defiant or a new system to replace defiant that actually works w/o negating 99% of the control archetype.

Aza.2105:

Well for solo healer/tank would just spec into a dps oriented build, so it wasn’t the problem. The biggest problem was the responsibility those two archetypes carry. If the group wipes the tank and healer would be blamed. So in short not many people wanted to carry the responsibility.

DPS classes in comparison didn’t have much responsibility other than killing the target. There was much more micromanaging on healer and tanks, thus requiring a higher skill cap to play them.

Respeccing in gw2 is not exactly time-friendly. I’m not expecting everyone to have couple of exotics gear sets, let alone ascended.

Nowadays, most responsibility remains with guardians/mesmers and basically is about putting reflections, aegis and condition removals.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

1) Encouraging build diversity by incentivizing the use of traits, weapons, and gear that have good damage/defense tradeoffs.
2) Making players pull their own weight.

I hardly think that’s unreasonable or ruining the game however Anet decides to go about doing it.

Agreed if you worked at Anet. But since you don’t…
Reread the last sentence. Unreasonable, ruining the game, Anet and decides. All together… Hm. Kinda worrying.
You just brought up a kittenstorm, and the counterbalance will be nothing.
I won’t accept any of their… “fixes” to this “zerk matter” until they “fix” the lack of any decent release and the ascended fiasco. Why do I bring this up again? Because, as if attaching so many stats to the armor weren’t foolish enough, the prices for best-in-slot gear are so inflated I can’t imagine being able to run more than 1, 2 builds and setups on a single character; let’s not talk about alts.
GW forced more build diversity because there was the possibility to do so. You can’t enforce build diversity in this game at its current state°, which is made stagnant by not only the lack of skills, the amount of bad (unusable) traits and the level of gameplay: it’s also the alt-unfriendly approach they have taken, the time-gating that’s taking over everything… and yeah.
In brief, be careful what you hope for. “Revamp”. Hah.

° Just so nobody can purposefully misinterpret this: I hope they’ll change many things; point 1) and 2) are two of them. But not at their price, not at their conditions, because I don’t believe they’ll be able to pull it off; I’m convinced, sine cera, that they’d end up… hell knows what could happen, actually. Nothing good, Scarlet and the various Aethertpaths Aetherthingies docent.
First of all, I want to see if they’re still able to build something worthy of a praise (I want to mention the outstanding quality of everything the art/environment team produces, gj). Once we got decent challenges to test new things on and a proper revamp/exploit fix to existing dungeons or events (Ohhh boy the world boss event revamp, another gigantic fiasco, I only save Mark II), then they can maybe work on stats scaling and something of that sort, if there’s still the need.
Then maybe a way to get ascended weapons and armors that doesn’t involve this… this… shameful thing we have now. You know, maybe… get the BiS gear from hard tasks to beat the hardest zones? No?
See what you got as an answer? Zerk dominance in PvE… completely disconnected from their own game, not realising that the zerk fever is just a symptom. You ask for build diversity and “making players pull their own weight” (how are they even supposed to force cleric bearbows to pull their weight? my imagination fails me): we’ll be getting, beh, maybe a nerf to critchance and critdamage and a buff to conddamage and bosses’ healthpools, oh joy. Won’t change a thing, other than making fights a bit longer and more tedious. Wow, what a change. Other gears will keep sucking, and so on and so forth.
Now, in case you’re wondering, I hope I’m wrong. Merely stating the pure fact that I don’t trust them and I don’t like what I’m seeing. If they start making notable changes and producing good and lasting content I’ll happily admit I was wrong. Up until this point, I can’t but be annoyed, frustrated and worried about any upcoming change they mention. Especially because I know I won’t get any refund or compensation for what I lose. <— mea culpa.
^
I guess that also explains why people overreact. Humans don’t like changes in general; this worsened by the fact few believe any change to be a good one, good for the game and for their enjoyment. <— personal biased opinion based on reading (and feeling) reactions.

I’m also aware of the fact nobody is going to bother seeing anything under all these layers of dark grey, and my diatribe will probably be ignored by them since it doesn’t come from the targeted audience. Having acknowledged that, I can sit back and enjoy showing my bitter disappointment with total freedom, instead of scrambling to get some attention. Colesy docet. That poor guy bit his fingers so many times in that post, trying to be polite and all so we could get some recognition. What did he get? Trashcan.
Screw that. I didn’t bother.

I’ll just leave this here, that sums up the whole thing.

Fenrir.3609:

Why do I get the feeling you are going to totally f*** this up.

I’d rather be stuck in a mud I know than choke in it because someone decided I had to be upside down; wouldn’t want to ruin your pretty shoes, eh.

Aza.2105:

haviz.1340:

Aza.2105:

Its funny because in traditional mmorpgs dps players are considered the bottom tier out of the holy trinity. The problem was that it was always difficult to find healer and tank, you have to question why that is.

I never played any mmo but I would assume that it’s because of utter boredom, at least the case of healers.

Maybe also because it’s harder to play get gold by farming solo. Just making assumptions.

Well for solo healer/tank would just spec into a dps oriented build, so it wasn’t the problem. The biggest problem was the responsibility those two archetypes carry. If the group wipes the tank and healer would be blamed. So in short not many people wanted to carry the responsibility.

DPS classes in comparison didn’t have much responsibility other than killing the target. There was much more micromanaging on healer and tanks, thus requiring a higher skill cap to play them.

In my experience in other mmos, it was only ever an issue (getting dedicated healers) when you ran pug groups (shudder), and even then it wasn’t that hard tbh. Most good pvp guilds in particular had a morass of dedicated healers.

haviz.1340:

Aza.2105:

Well for solo healer/tank would just spec into a dps oriented build, so it wasn’t the problem. The biggest problem was the responsibility those two archetypes carry. If the group wipes the tank and healer would be blamed. So in short not many people wanted to carry the responsibility.

DPS classes in comparison didn’t have much responsibility other than killing the target. There was much more micromanaging on healer and tanks, thus requiring a higher skill cap to play them.

Respeccing in gw2 is not exactly time-friendly. I’m not expecting everyone to have couple of exotics gear sets, let alone ascended.

Nowadays, most responsibility remains with guardians/mesmers and basically is about putting reflections, aegis and condition removals.

Its much easier than traditional mmorpgs. Gear is pretty easy to get and respeccing is cheap. In many mmorpgs getting gear with different stats and constantly respec was costy.

DiogoSilva.7089:

So, GW2 is not supposed to have challenging team content for pug players? Not even outside of dungeons?

And defensive stats are not meant to be anything more but training wheels (that don’t even teach much) and thus a rich source for elitism to rise, or to punish players who invest in the wrong stats unknowlingly?

GW2 doesn’t have challenging content at all. But yes, if you want to pug something harder go kill some world bosses, I heard anet is revamping them. Just don’t shout for zerg, it’s fun enough with low amount of people and doesn’t need any coordination. Not mocking you here, just stating my opinion blunlty.

We don’t know, those are our opinions. We’d have to ask designers. But in my opinion they are training wheels since passive defense is not exactly a sign of skilled players in a game that advertise its active combat.

In this thread:

• People who put on zerker gear and die every 3 seconds
• People who can’t use the dodge function AS INTENDED (holy **** you can EVADE an ENTIRE attack?!)
• People who can’t complete dungeons in less than 4 hours and feel bad others can do it in 4 minutes
• People who think the meta for old MMO’s should be the same for all MMO’s

Aza.2105:

Its much easier than traditional mmorpgs. Gear is pretty easy to get and respeccing is cheap. In many mmorpgs getting gear with different stats and constantly respec was costy.

It’s still time-gated. If gear was statless, I’m sure most of the people would have nothing against big meta shakes.

PART 1

Honestly, there is no real fix for this. Not because GW2 is broken as some say, but because ANet tries to accomplish the impossible that no MMO ever did.

They wanted to give up the holy trinity of healer / tank / dps. That’s what gives a character, “character”.

In GW2’s case, all classes have been altered to have a huge common, shared pool of resources including boons, conditions, defensive and offensive mechanisms. That means people can do everything with a party of 5 players. No matter how they alter the NPC mechanisms, the AI, there always will be an exploit, a safe spot to dps from, a way to make it. What ANet forgets, if they’ll take this away absolutely, people will abandon them.

EXAMPLE:
Ascalonian Catacombs
*Developer Point of View: Is it right to be able to stack in a corner and dps from there, this way countering the knockback / AoE damage / whatever mechanism we did put on that boss? Absotely not and should be changed.

*Player Point of View: That’s the way to do it. That how it’s effective. The Devs tried to give challange and forcing us to absolute flawless coordination, and it ended up being a completely abandoned and ignored dungeon, as we know the TA Aetherpath. I tried to do it once, with an organized (not random people) party, and I was sick of getting downed by a SINGLE hit in almost every encounter or puzzle thing. That leads to frustration, wasted time, and a risk much higher than the potential reward (of 3 green items and a rare). And now I see this thread, that almost clearly confirms that my silk-paper made berserker thief (traited to be as defensive as possible) will propably lose the only thing that’s left for him, the damage role she can barely fill compared to a warrior who doesn’t needs to worry about things we do, and can deal the same (in a worse case, better) damage.

So as you can see, our problem is more complex than berserkers being the primary role. If you want this to get better, you need to change a lot things at once, otherwise people will get upset and that’s definity I wouldn’t want as an owner of a game that makes money for me. I’m not telling “fanservice above all”, don’t misunderstand me.

a)But if you nerf the zerkers
b)Or destroy dungeon completition methods
…without DRASTIC character balance changes that makes them more balanced against PvE and against each other’s potential in PvE, you’ll seriously mess up everything, and player feedback will be misleading and harmful the first step makes it only half way.

I can only speak from a perspective of a thief (even if having a 80 tanky healer guardian I’m bored to hell with already, feeling uneffective, not needed and useless, and an 80 ranger I got bored of because of the lack of weapon variety – this is another topic). I’m not asking for buffs, I’ll just tell stuff I experience every day in a PvE enviroment, and do some comparsions between dps role way builded classes taking place in the same encounter.

PART 2

EXAMPLE:
Jormag’s Claw fight, phase 2 (wings ripped off):

*Warrior: face tank it, deal brutal damage and outheal everything. Thanks to the high health pool and regen, conditions barely skratch you. Can choose if you want to be ranged or melee, can provide good buffs to party / all nearby players via banners.

*Ranger: stay away and deal huge damage with your longbow. Buff ally dps, give regeneration and remove conditions if needed. Takes some damage but has the option to back off, recharge and go back in, while being useful by leaving spirits on the front.

*Thief: Obviously can’t go melee, because the passive freezing special stacks dps on me kills me in under 5-8 seconds from full health (~16k). The range of this AoE damage ticks runs more than halfway up the hill, and if we say it starts damaging me when I’m already at the dragon’s feet (took no damage getting there), I’m lucky if I make it out without getting downed using all my heal skills and the best mobility skills chained to each other. If there is no waterfield ele, fountain healer ranger, and a passive heal sharing guardian nearby, or all of them combined, I stand no chance. I literally can’t go ~50m or closer because I’m dead. All I can do is sit back, and help protecting the first part of the golem’s path from summoned minions.

It makes me feel useless. Completely obselete. The only role my class can fill, is simply not possible to be filled by that exact class. And as said before, I’m writing this to a topic that almost confirms that this role is getting nerfed. If not directly, it’s meaning, it’s purpose is getting tuned down, we can take that garanteed. Without tuning the other classes AND this class (at this point, no matter which class’ perspective I’m talking from), and possibly the PvE content itself, changing the meta can lead to a disaster. Maybe PvE tuning is something ANet can leave for later or entirely, but both on survival and damage side classes must be much better balanced between each other.

This leads to various things:
*Everyone gets a bit more the same. I see why some don’t like this and some do, but keep in mind the original concept of GW2 was to allow everonye to play whatever class he/she likes, without feeling being restricted to a single role. If you wanted to change the concept of the holy trinity, then don’t take away what you gave instead. Like it or not, damage will always be the primary role for everyone unless you bring back the holy trinity, and we (players) WILL. ALWAYS. FIND. A. WAY. There is no perfect design to avoid this.

*These changes will effect PvP: maybe before I had, but now I have absolutely no idea for what higher purpose ANet wants to use the same skill and gear balance for PvE and WvW. Many fun and definitly not exploitable tools or passive strenghts got taken away from almost all classes (with the exclusion of the warrior of course, again <_<) that were really needed or offered alternative(s!) in PvE, just because they were too frustrating for WvW eviroment to deal with, and instead of players coutering it (or giving people tools to counter it), the option itself got taken away. And that’s right, from a perspective it’s not a patch on a wound, but the wound itself closed, that’s true. From another perspective, it’s a door closed, later another closed, and later another closed, leaving less and less doors open. And now here we are, talking about why a single door is the only door players prefer, and ANet wants to close to that too.

If that happens, I’ll close to client and play something else too. I play for fun, to be a cog in a grand concept of some people who simply can’t understand that being that cog is not what many of us wants from this game, or from MMO’s in general.

- An overnerfed thief.

Richo.3081:

In this thread:

• People who put on zerker gear and die every 3 seconds
• People who can’t use the dodge function AS INTENDED (holy **** you can EVADE an ENTIRE attack?!)
• People who can’t complete dungeons in less than 4 hours and feel bad others can do it in 4 minutes
• People who think the meta for old MMO’s should be the same for all MMO’s

• You forgot people that run crappy builds but apply for speed clear groups and get mad when they are kicked.

haviz.1340:

It’s still time-gated. If gear was statless, I’m sure most of the people would have nothing against big meta shakes.

This is a big truth, I’m sure you are a gw1 player by that statement.

haviz.1340:

I would like to ask people that complain that zerker is just autoattacking bosses and occasional dodging how having tanky chars that wouldn’t have to dodge would be better than this? Autoattacking bosses without dodging is better than autoattacking bosses with occasional dodging? Oh, and even now you can kill the hardest dungeon boss without even dodging by being tanky enough and having enough support. I’m sure it’s more engaging than occasional dodging.

I would also advise people that are claiming that zerker meta is based on killing before being killed to check up videos of FoTM high level scales bosses fights which last often more than 2 minutes. Moreover, I would recommend to notice the common denominator why those fights are trivial yet still long. The answer is reflections and aegis. Not killing before being killed.

That people that complain zerker is just autoattacking have clearly never actually used zerker. I cannot possibly think of a single situation where non zerker builds are more engaging or skill intensive than zerker builds. These are builds that require you to know your skills, plan and when to use them and how.

Maybe to non zerkers it looks like it’s made easy, and sometimes it is only after planning for and understanding the fight mechanics. However, running a soldier build does not involve planning, reacting or any form of skilled play whatsoever. It is truly the most casual and disengaging playstyle in existence. If soldier builds are what the game becomes left with, then GW2 will truly have the worst PvE gameplay of any MMO there is.

The meta is not nearly as much of an issue as the PvE itself. We need dungeons and instances with drastically better mechanics. Of course, since GW2 doesn’t have a dungeon team anymore, that obviously isn’t likely to ever happen.

Richo.3081:

In this thread:

• People who put on zerker gear and die every 3 seconds
• People who can’t use the dodge function AS INTENDED (holy **** you can EVADE an ENTIRE attack?!)
• People who can’t complete dungeons in less than 4 hours and feel bad others can do it in 4 minutes
• People who think the meta for old MMO’s should be the same for all MMO’s

Sadly this probably isn’t far from the truth.

haviz.1340:

Aza.2105:

Its much easier than traditional mmorpgs. Gear is pretty easy to get and respeccing is cheap. In many mmorpgs getting gear with different stats and constantly respec was costy.

It’s still time-gated. If gear was statless, I’m sure most of the people would have nothing against big meta shakes.

Yep.

I don’t see them doing that though. But what they could do is maybe allow players to choose their stats on gear. Like legendaries.

haviz.1340:

Manuhell.2759:

The problem is that not only they do more damage, but it is also more safe to wear zerk and kill quickly than to wear defensive items and slug it on. Because defensive items don’t defend much anyway – maybe you resist one or two more hits, but as you end up taking more time, you’ll probably end risk more – and stats like healing power have very small benefits.

It’s safer because of the protection guardians and, in lesser extent, mesmers give.

Defensive chars can make use of them as well, it doesn’t really matter related to what we’re talking about.
It is just that defensive stats have too little impact whereas zerk/assassin end having far too much, due to how those stats are used in calculations, even compared to rampagers.

Some more Boss Mechanics would be nice.

1. Faster Boss attacks. So that they deal not 20k Damage every 10 seconds, but 2k Damage every Second if you are in Melee Range and the Boss hits you

2. Cleave attacks: If the Group stacks in a corner or in Front of a Boss, why not give him a Cleave that hits all 5 people. → Stacking removed

3. Make some bosses have very high armour and low life points → Conditions are good vs that Boss. → Direkt Damage Full Berserker Builds deal not much damage

4. Make some bosses have very low armour and many life points → Conditions are bad vs that Boss. → Direkt Damage Builds deal much damage

5. Give some Bosses a Retaliation Buff that reflects a percentage of the damage. Something like 10-20% maybe. If the 100-Yolo-Berserker-Warrior hits the boss for 30k Damage, he will have 3k-6k Damage reflected Back

6. Gives Boss an AoE Damage Aura → you cant Melee him

7. Let the Boss make a player a “bomb” that explodes and Deals AoE Damage → prevents stacking

8. Make a Boss invulnerable to direct Attacks unless 3 Players press a switch simultanously → Fight is more about Corrdination and not about DPS. Would also make Conditions better, which could still tick on the invulnerable boss

9. Let the Boss Mind Control 1-2 Players for 5-10 Seconds. And then let the Group have fun with not killing the classcannon Fullberserker Players while at the same time be hit really hard by the mind controlled player.

10. Make the Boss rooms less exploitable. If a Bossfight starts → close doors so people cant run away. Futhermore remove Corners in that room so people cant use the infamous “stack in the corner and hit the boss while the boss is in the wall and does no damage”-strategy (Ascalon Spiderqueen cough )

11. Give the Boss a “Rage” Mechanic. The Faster he looses Life, the faster the boss will hit, run and use skills. And the more Life a Boss has lost, the more damage he does. That combined with the Cleave Mechanic should wipe out the fullberserker glasscannon groups really fast.

….

and im sure there are some more mechanics you could use to make life harder for berserkers.

Blumpf.2518:

Some more Boss Mechanics would be nice.

1. Faster Boss attacks. So that they deal not 20k Damage every 10 seconds, but 2k Damage every Second if you are in Melee Range and the Boss hits you

2. Cleave attacks: If the Group stacks in a corner or in Front of a Boss, why not give him a Cleave that hits all 5 people. -> Stacking removed

3. Make some bosses have very high armour and low life points -> Conditions are good vs that Boss. -> Direkt Damage Full Berserker Builds deal not much damage

4. Make some bosses have very low armour and many life points -> Conditions are bad vs that Boss. -> Direkt Damage Builds deal much damage

5. Give some Bosses a Retaliation Buff that reflects a percentage of the damage. Something like 10-20% maybe. If the 100-Yolo-Berserker-Warrior hits the boss for 30k Damage, he will have 3k-6k Damage reflected Back

6. Gives Boss an AoE Damage Aura -> you cant Melee him

7. Let the Boss make a player a “bomb” that explodes and Deals AoE Damage -> prevents stacking

8. Make a Boss invulnerable to direct Attacks unless 3 Players press a switch simultanously -> Fight is more about Corrdination and not about DPS. Would also make Conditions better, which could still tick on the invulnerable boss

9. Let the Boss Mind Control 1-2 Players for 5-10 Seconds. And then let the Group have fun with not killing the classcannon Fullberserker Players while at the same time be hit really hard by the mind controlled player.

10. Make the Boss rooms less exploitable. If a Bossfight starts -> close doors so people cant run away. Futhermore remove Corners in that room so people cant use the infamous “stack in the corner and hit the boss while the boss is in the wall and does no damage”-strategy (Ascalon Spiderqueen cough )

11. Give the Boss a “Rage” Mechanic. The Faster he looses Life, the faster the boss will hit, run and use skills. And the more Life a Boss has lost, the more damage he does. That combined with the Cleave Mechanic should wipe out the fullberserker glasscannon groups really fast.

….

and im sure there are some more mechanics you could use to make life harder for berserkers.

hire this man arenanet

mahariel.4981:

Elrey.5472:

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

What bothers me is not that zerkers do more damage, but the point that zerkers can ignore most of the mechanics due to killing bosses before they can use their skills.

If an enemy do a really big attack each 45 seconds but you kill the boss in 40 seconds… there is the reason of why I hate zerker. It’s cheating in a sort way of speaking.

Risking all passive defense to rely on skill to mitigate through dodging and blocks is cheating?

No, playing my 11k hp zerker guard does not even remotely feel like cheating.

But of course, ArenaNet are catering to people like you rather than allowing organised group to reap the benefits of fully communicating either through party or voice comms, running strong builds and optimal rotations, we must ALL BE MEDIOCRE.

I’ve spent like £100 on gems in this game, and once again, the dungeon community is ignored.

GG ANet, you win.

Why must you insult those who don’t play the way you do in order to convey your point? You lose for not having any forum etiquette.

(The “Dungeon Community” involves way more than just speedrunners, BTW. That playstyle IS valid, but so is everyone else’s.)

7. Let the Boss make a player a “bomb” that explodes and Deals AoE Damage ? prevents stacking

Already in game, although with very limited damage.
SE1 says hello.

(Ascalon Spiderqueen cough )

It’s about scripting issue that makes the spiderqueen not use her long-range aoe poison attack that deals a lot of damage if there is no viable long-range target. Works the same if you simply hug her out in the open, even if you have players who use ranged weapons, or push her against any wall, and is not a line of sight or any ‘stuck in a wall’ thing.

About other ideas – i’m not sure if you’ve experienced the difference between running zerker and ptv against Lupicus or in high level fractals. I am inclined to say that you haven’t.
Let me point it for you, then: the difference is between going in down in 1~2 hits or 2~4 hits. Yes, sometimes it does make a big gap, and allows you to heal up, but if you’re not paying attention or don’t have access to extra block/blind/invul/dodge/stunbreaker/leap/whatever, you will have a bad time either way.

Zerker stats are not a problem.
No existing need of running tanky gear in PvE is not a problem.
If anything, the problem is twofold – (1) active damage mitigation is better than any kind of passive damage soaking (dodges, reflections, blocks are all you need for anything out there), (2) non-zerker builds are much less useful (introduce condition overflow so condition damage builds are a strong alternative, make removing defiance a bit less a pain – mix it with condition overflow so that 25+ vuln or 4th blind in a row or 4th weakness or chill or poison removes defiance stacks, buff healing power coefficient on specific traits and not skills or weapons).

Okay, so let’s assume “DPS” gets nerfed… then what? 1st boss AC (everyone knows the spider queen), do you think that nerfing DPS will actually change this encounter, or will it still be LoS/Stack in the corner, only this time it takes a minute longer to down her? And what for all the other dungeons?

This is exactly where the problem is; nerfing or boosting will have no effect, stacking and DPS’ing, whether it’s direct or condi, or one “tank” taking the damage due to toughness/vitality or whatever.. it’ll reamin exactly the same, it’ll just take longer; unless the encounter itself is changed..

It’s not that zerkers are too powerful but that the others feel useless in comparrison.

You should boost other builds instead of nerfing zerkers. To me it’s fun to play a zerker because it’s really risky since I have no defense stats, so I have to rely on properly timing and switching skills and dodging. I spent a lot of time and gold in game to build a character that can kill fast inside and outside dungeons and if you nerf that that would probably be a sign to stop playing. It would stop being fun. If you make it so that it takes ages to kill a mob, wouldn’t that just make it even more annoying?

Don’t make us “swing swords” if you know what I mean.

1. Faster Boss attacks. So that they deal not 20k Damage every 10 seconds, but 2k Damage every Second if you are in Melee Range and the Boss hits you

What about classes that entirely rely on dodges and endurance regenaration, and want to go melee? Or can only go melee? Passive damage / sec just because being close to something is horrible. Faster attacks are okay, but in return give more endurance (khmm… ANet just nerfed those). The idea in general is good but needs lots of class tuning. There is no way I could stand in a 2k damage ticks / sec or even /4-5 sec situation as a thief. The only way to survive that is to kill it before it kills me. That’s the current meta.

2. Cleave attacks: If the Group stacks in a corner or in Front of a Boss, why not give him a Cleave that hits all 5 people. ? Stacking removed

Sounds good. But it doesn’t need to 1 hit squishy people, the focus must be CC with low damage on this one.

3. Make some bosses have very high armour and low life points ? Conditions are good vs that Boss. ? Direkt Damage Full Berserker Builds deal not much damage

4. Make some bosses have very low armour and many life points ? Conditions are bad vs that Boss. ? Direkt Damage Builds deal much damage

Sounds good, but I want to add that both needs to be present in the same dungeon in order to allow every class to play in that dungeon without being “unwanted” by the party.

5. Give some Bosses a Retaliation Buff that reflects a percentage of the damage. Something like 10-20% maybe. If the 100-Yolo-Berserker-Warrior hits the boss for 30k Damage, he will have 3k-6k Damage reflected Back

That’s a warrior problem, not a boss problem. A solution that would fix the warrior and make squishy classes fear of even hitting their enemy, is not a solution. Warriors would have to worry about something. Rangers would kill themselves with a rapid series of shots, not to mention thiefs killing themselves by their own backstab. Percentage damage reflected is a horrible idea, can’t support you here. Sidenote: Diablo III tried it and turned out to be VERY bad, changed to flat amount later.

6. Gives Boss an AoE Damage Aura ? you cant Melee him

Good idea, but only after weapon usage extension for each class. What can a ranged guardian do? Or a shortbow thief? Not much I can tell you that. There is no real long range (or melee) build for some classes, and that needs to be done first, then “can’t go close / can’t go far” bosses can come.

7. Let the Boss make a player a “bomb” that explodes and Deals AoE Damage ? prevents stacking

Already in the game as I know. Fractals?

8. Make a Boss invulnerable to direct Attacks unless 3 Players press a switch simultanously ? Fight is more about Corrdination and not about DPS. Would also make Conditions better, which could still tick on the invulnerable boss

It would cause to make players focus even more on dps, so they’ll need less activations to finish it. If the boss deals too much damage in the meantime to make it difficult, it will just end up frustrating and people will go somewhere else. See: Aetherpath.

9. Let the Boss Mind Control 1-2 Players for 5-10 Seconds. And then let the Group have fun with not killing the classcannon Fullberserker Players while at the same time be hit really hard by the mind controlled player.

Good idea, but to make it interesting and feel unique, can be used only once or twice in the game. Plus it has to fit into the world, you can’t give mind control to a giant dog boss.

10. Make the Boss rooms less exploitable. If a Bossfight starts ? close doors so people cant run away. Futhermore remove Corners in that room so people cant use the infamous “stack in the corner and hit the boss while the boss is in the wall and does no damage”-strategy (Ascalon Spiderqueen cough )

Map design should never suffer and get simplified because of player behaviour. Especially not in a world like Guild Wars, that’s not some minimalistic cyber-techno world.

11. Give the Boss a “Rage” Mechanic. The Faster he looses Life, the faster the boss will hit, run and use skills. And the more Life a Boss has lost, the more damage he does. That combined with the Cleave Mechanic should wipe out the fullberserker glasscannon groups really fast.

Good idea in general, bad idea in general. Forces parties to take specific classes with specific builds → no more “play the way you want”. Plus tries to bring back the holy trinity of tank, healer, dps. The current meta design is not aviable for that, for healing is close to non exsistent, and there is no reliable aggro pull. Because of this, player’s solution will be to build even more dps, and kill it even faster, using a burst of survival skills.

and im sure there are some more mechanics you could use to make life harder for berserkers.

I don’t really know how they will get out of this mess.

I know people will not see it like me, but there should be a nerf of DPS builds. Why? For the simple reason that DPS builds need no one in PVE. As long as this is true, there will never be any need of the other builds.

Pure DPS can 100% mitigate any damage with dodging, they can buff themselves, they can remove their conditions, they can burst heal themselves.

Why need anything else?

The problem is that there is no downside to go full DPS and this makes any alternative useless in PVE. And don’t try to tell this is not true. This is the selling point of all the pro-DPS zerkers : anything else is sub-par and useless.

Now you can flame me all you want, but this is how I see it.

If nothing is removed from the DPS meta, nothing will change… Be it by nerfing the builds or reworking the IA to make a full DPS team less viable (I don’t say less viable that others… just reduce their current effectiveness), adjustments need to be done.

Are people, like, not aware that you can just made another set of gear if Anet actually does nerf zerk? It’s not like you’re limited to one set of gear per character or anything like that.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Are people, like, not aware that you can just made another set of gear if Anet actually does nerf zerk? It’s not like you’re limited to one set of gear per character or anything like that.

After spending 1000g on ascended gear I dont think ill be too pleased about that.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Are people, like, not aware that you can just made another set of gear if Anet actually does nerf zerk? It’s not like you’re limited to one set of gear per character or anything like that.

Yes because crafting a new full set of ascended armour, weapons and grabing new ascended trinkets takes no time at all.

spoj.9672:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Are people, like, not aware that you can just made another set of gear if Anet actually does nerf zerk? It’s not like you’re limited to one set of gear per character or anything like that.

After spending 1000g on ascended gear I dont think ill be too pleased about that.

This is part of the mess I was talking about. Their super idea of ascended that stuck people more or less to one role is coming to haunt Anet and limit their actions.

I will sit down and see how they are going to do it.

PS : I think they can’t really do much, but we will see.

Blumpf.2518:

Some more Boss Mechanics would be nice.

1. Faster Boss attacks. So that they deal not 20k Damage every 10 seconds, but 2k Damage every Second if you are in Melee Range and the Boss hits you

This defeats the purpose of the evade function AND forces people to play in a single style, limiting the game which isn’t particularly fair, is it? Right now you can already range bosses if you feel like it.

2. Cleave attacks: If the Group stacks in a corner or in Front of a Boss, why not give him a Cleave that hits all 5 people. -> Stacking removed

These already exist, however apparently you spend all your time in AC.

3. Make some bosses have very high armour and low life points -> Conditions are good vs that Boss. -> Direkt Damage Full Berserker Builds deal not much damage

Similar to my point before, it forces you into a particular play style.

4. Make some bosses have very low armour and many life points -> Conditions are bad vs that Boss. -> Direkt Damage Builds deal much damage

Already exists

5. Give some Bosses a Retaliation Buff that reflects a percentage of the damage. Something like 10-20% maybe. If the 100-Yolo-Berserker-Warrior hits the boss for 30k Damage, he will have 3k-6k Damage reflected Back

This makes no sense. If you return a % of dmg and the boss has a certain amount of dmg, it doesnt matter how fast you do the damage it still returns. It would only turn the game into another ‘you tank i heal’ scenario where everyone is afk and complains about how boring it is.

6. Gives Boss an AoE Damage Aura -> you cant Melee him

You really don’t like melee do you? There are already bosses in the game that are challenging to melee and thats why the dodge function exists.

7. Let the Boss make a player a “bomb” that explodes and Deals AoE Damage -> prevents stacking

And this would go off if 5 people were in melee range anyway?

8. Make a Boss invulnerable to direct Attacks unless 3 Players press a switch simultanously -> Fight is more about Corrdination and not about DPS. Would also make Conditions better, which could still tick on the invulnerable boss

You have literally spent no time of your entire gw2 life in Arah, nor have you done fractals.

9. Let the Boss Mind Control 1-2 Players for 5-10 Seconds. And then let the Group have fun with not killing the classcannon Fullberserker Players while at the same time be hit really hard by the mind controlled player.

And when your healer gets mind controlled you will post to anet and cry about why they implemented such a thing right?

10. Make the Boss rooms less exploitable. If a Bossfight starts -> close doors so people cant run away. Futhermore remove Corners in that room so people cant use the infamous “stack in the corner and hit the boss while the boss is in the wall and does no damage”-strategy (Ascalon Spiderqueen cough )

Spider queen still does a lot of damage, her bite hurts and weakness drastically counters burst damage. Her circles don’t go off because you are in melee range, not because you are stacked. Stacking just allows for better cleansing and combo fields. There are already bosses who can’t be killed like this, as I said above, its evident you spend all your time in AC.

11. Give the Boss a “Rage” Mechanic. The Faster he looses Life, the faster the boss will hit, run and use skills. And the more Life a Boss has lost, the more damage he does. That combined with the Cleave Mechanic should wipe out the fullberserker glasscannon groups really fast.

Is this kittened? Intentionally trying to slow the game down? You are literally trying to work against optomization and speed clearing which is just raw stupid.
….

and im sure there are some more mechanics you could use to make life harder for berserkers.

All in all, you need to learn to play because this is a joke

BeoErgon.9107:

spoj.9672:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Are people, like, not aware that you can just made another set of gear if Anet actually does nerf zerk? It’s not like you’re limited to one set of gear per character or anything like that.

After spending 1000g on ascended gear I dont think ill be too pleased about that.

This is part of the mess I was talking about. Their super idea of ascended that stuck people more or less to one role is coming to haunt Anet and limit their actions.

I will sit down and see how they are going to do it.

PS : I think they can’t really do much, but we will see.

Make ascended like legendaries in that you can switch stats as and when you like “outside of combat” and you resolve the issue.

Ofc that doesn’t detract from the fact that a nerf to zerk without some kind of combat mechanics alteration makes zero sense.

Why not just allow us to play something that would resemble the holy trinity instead of forcing people to go zerker for a more optimized dungeon run? Or at least make the other sets somehow useful.
For now we are just facing a somewhat elitist system that if you don’t run zerker you’re not allowed in a dungeon because you will hindrance an optimal and no stress performance.
I don’t blame people that restrict only to zerkers, the way the bosses and trash mob mechanic works in this game is frustrating to the point where investing in a full support build or tanky is almost to pointless when dodging and killing the target asap is the most effective way to counter 1 hit KOs and the inflated boss HP/Dmg + Defiance.
Vampiric stats atm? Garbage, ridiculous health gain per hit compared to how much you’re gonna be hit. Investing in Defense? You’ll still be hit for a lot and will end up being downed eventually.
Either revamp and rethink the whole PvE dungeon system to something all players and sets might enjoy and have fun or balance the different sets to a point where being a zerker or a rabid won’t flatuate too much dps or being a Soldier or something won’t get you almost-insta downed regardless of how much defense or regen you’re investing….

Fenrir.3609:

BeoErgon.9107:

spoj.9672:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Are people, like, not aware that you can just made another set of gear if Anet actually does nerf zerk? It’s not like you’re limited to one set of gear per character or anything like that.

After spending 1000g on ascended gear I dont think ill be too pleased about that.

This is part of the mess I was talking about. Their super idea of ascended that stuck people more or less to one role is coming to haunt Anet and limit their actions.

I will sit down and see how they are going to do it.

PS : I think they can’t really do much, but we will see.

Make ascended like legendaries in that you can switch stats as and when you like “outside of combat” and you resolve the issue.

Ofc that doesn’t detract from the fact that a nerf to zerk without some kind of combat mechanics alteration makes zero sense.

I would go for an even crazier idea : remove stats from weapons and armor. Only skill setup should make a difference in builds. Armors should give toughness and weapons power, that’s all.
This would need a big rework of the skill trees though.

Odd Magnet.3970:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

[…] “boss aura” […]

Borrowing this name from you Guanglai :p
(but with a different idea of mine)

Boss Aura
Bosses only take X% damage, goes up by Y% every Z seconds
(doesn’t have to be liniar)

Example:
Only takes 1% of damage you deal, goes up by 1% every 5 seconds

Why
It would make it harder for pure-zerkers to just burst it down with almost no risk.
Now you need to either coordinate your dodges/aegis very good or put in a bit more survivability.
Bosses would take a bit longer, but everything would still be doable for full zerkers.

It could even go into 100+% damage. That would be nice for more defensive groups, since it gets faster the longer they need for the boss (or in other words: stay alive)

It would make bosses take a bit longer for speedrun-groups, making it harder to do in pure-zerker, but wouldn’t nerf zerker-groups, especially not good coordinated groups.
At the same time it would make some defensive stats better for average good players (without a good coordinated group) and even let them be a bit faster than before (if the “Boss Aura” goes to 100+% damage)

Your thoughts?

I think that’s a completely awful, awful idea.

How is there no risk for zerkers? People, just because zerkers do more damage doesn’t mean that the boss doesn’t have time to one shot you. It does.

Zerk gear is the most skillful way to play the game, because if you make a mistake you die.

Lol sucks for those that wear ascended xD ~ GJ ANet

Ahlen.7591:

Odd Magnet.3970:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

[…] “boss aura” […]

Borrowing this name from you Guanglai :p
(but with a different idea of mine)

Boss Aura
Bosses only take X% damage, goes up by Y% every Z seconds
(doesn’t have to be liniar)

Example:
Only takes 1% of damage you deal, goes up by 1% every 5 seconds

Why
It would make it harder for pure-zerkers to just burst it down with almost no risk.
Now you need to either coordinate your dodges/aegis very good or put in a bit more survivability.
Bosses would take a bit longer, but everything would still be doable for full zerkers.

It could even go into 100+% damage. That would be nice for more defensive groups, since it gets faster the longer they need for the boss (or in other words: stay alive)

It would make bosses take a bit longer for speedrun-groups, making it harder to do in pure-zerker, but wouldn’t nerf zerker-groups, especially not good coordinated groups.
At the same time it would make some defensive stats better for average good players (without a good coordinated group) and even let them be a bit faster than before (if the “Boss Aura” goes to 100+% damage)

Your thoughts?

I think that’s a completely awful, awful idea.

How is there no risk for zerkers? People, just because zerkers do more damage doesn’t mean that the boss doesn’t have time to one shot you. It does.

Zerk gear is the most skillful way to play the game, because if you make a mistake you die.

The same can be said about all gear types in the game. A knight geared character would still get one shot by bosses just like a zerker.

In all honestly, I wish the dev hadn’t posted at all. Now we are just going to have people arguing over nothing for a week. This could be the overhaul of the condition system we’ve been waiting for, or it could be an arbitrary nerf to zerker gear to “fix” 5 minute dungeon runs. Right now we don’t know anything other then the devs want to shift the meta somehow. There’s not much point in talking about this until we know what changes we are arguing about.

Belenwyn.8674:

Imagine an encounter forces you to operate a machine or a weapon like a mortar in WvW. No evade, no normal skills for you available. Who could operate the device longer when you get constantly damaged? Berserker or bunker?

I honestly don’t think anyone is looking for another “Press 2 for five minutes to kill an Elder Dragon” encounter again.

Not zerk is the big problem, neither is assassin,

The problem is: half the damaging part of the combatmechanic is useless, or at least (far) below par.

If you want to use a conditions build in PvE :
I find the lack of usefullness of condition damage the problem in this game. Because you are not able to stack enough damage through conditions to do efficient dmg you ‘re not going to spec for it. Any condition damage you get for free is nice, but you wouldn’t spec for it. Also because condition damage will not open the gate/cage/crystal…

Why is condition damage important in relation to zerker builds?

It offers a lot of control mechanisms:
o If the enemy would attack with more conditions, (group-)builds would move more to condition removal & stunbreakers.
o to disrupt dps: Confusion was very usefull to control DPS. Killing yourself spamming 1 under the effects of a nice confusion stack is a nasty way to show you do not know what you’re doing.
o to disrupt the meta: Torment and fear is a powerful combo. Torment and terror is almost OP…
o Torment alone is already truly dangerous with aoe area denial (bleeds/fire/poison)…
o Conditions Linger… The boss could be out of sight but conditions would still work…
o Also DOT (conditions) would improve when DPS is denied a part of the time
o With a faster application, but lower amount of stacks people need to make a guess when to activate the cleanse else they’ll get swamped by the conditions, and they’ll die even though the condition would return. this would change cleansers to condition controlling.

But using conditions yourself shows conditions is not effective now, why:

1st
You have to be really lucky if your class hasn’t been nerfed into uselessness. E.g.: condition mesmer, condi necro… or any other class where dot was reduced in time

2nd
The caps for all players together make al lot of damaging condition builds not usefull. 1 stack for 5 or even 50 players (or more)?
Why would I bring a necromancer with 2200+ condition dmg to a fight where we have dozens of berserker players doing a bit of bleeding on each crit with 100 or 200 condition dmg? And what happens if I have 3 condiplayers or more?

3rd
Does the condition trigger as often as it should to make it viable
If I get my confusion mesmer into PvE I can do 10-12 stacks of confusion with limited duration (4-10 seconds max.) but my PvE enemy does only use skills once every 2-3 seconds leaving me and my party with no notable DPS from my character…

4th
And torment, well torment, most characters now have 1 skill doing torment…. And it’s usefull sometimes, but in dungeons the meta is a stack of players immobile in a corner… When there would be more uses for mobility (through area denial or Aoe) torment would be very usefull. Unfortunately most bosses do not run around

5th
If you used a good DPS build, with the slow enemy attack speed you are able to clean your conditions and kill him before he attacks again. or just leave the conditions and just kill him before you go down.

Lastly
If a fight last 15 minutes and the conditions wielding people have stacked up 15 minutes of venom/and fire why would their presence still be needed… Oh yes you capped them… So the fact the skills provided these effects are not usefull anyways…

As for poison and fire, I like them a lot when playing ALONE in a map with my necro or any other character, but when I fight a world boss/champion I fire my skills at the boss knowing my stack will be added to a stack which is already capped…

Also running a hybrid (both power and condition dmg) will make your stack be ignored to allow full conditions to have a tiny chance for loot, as your condition dmg will be to low.

In the end:
I often get frustrated with my condi builds and swap back to BERZERKER. I tried mesmer conditions, necro, ranger, warrior,thief and even guardian and elementalist (earth), Now only 3 remain: mostly out of nostalgia.

I support anything that adds depth and more choice to how we can play. This game (in PVE at least) currently leans a little to far to the “dps trumps all” side of the scale.

I never want to play a trinity game again, but do find the dps meta boring and welcome anything they do to get us away from it.

The problem will continue until they add the trinity back into the game and mechanics. It was a successful model for a reason. It doesn’t need to be tank/healer/dps. It can work equally as well as DPS/Support/Debuff.

But if everyone is the same then the one with the highest dps will always be more desirable because that is the only role.

Blaeys.3102:

I support anything that adds depth and more choice to how we can play. This game (in PVE at least) currently leans a little to far to the “dps trumps all” side of the scale.

I never want to play a trinity game again, but do find the dps meta boring and welcome anything they do to get us away from it.

People still can play how they want, the reason zerker is superior is because you put out dmg and play skillfully at the same time, instead of the tank heal mentality which is truly where ‘boring’ lies.

BeoErgon.9107:

I don’t really know how they will get out of this mess.

I know people will not see it like me, but there should be a nerf of DPS builds. Why? For the simple reason that DPS builds need no one in PVE. As long as this is true, there will never be any need of the other builds.

Pure DPS can 100% mitigate any damage with dodging, they can buff themselves, they can remove their conditions, they can burst heal themselves.

Why need anything else?

The problem is that there is no downside to go full DPS and this makes any alternative useless in PVE. And don’t try to tell this is not true. This is the selling point of all the pro-DPS zerkers : anything else is sub-par and useless.

Now you can flame me all you want, but this is how I see it.

If nothing is removed from the DPS meta, nothing will change… Be it by nerfing the builds or reworking the IA to make a full DPS team less viable (I don’t say less viable that others… just reduce their current effectiveness), adjustments need to be done.

and now i would like to hear from you,
do you really believe it is going to be fun for me to use any crappy tanky gear or condition damage builds?

i will be bored. im even bored right now.

nerfing berserker wont do anything except make people who play at a certain level quit the game.
arenanet has to deliver more challenging and difficult content.
the result will be: good players will still be using berserker.
bad players wont.

NoTrigger.8396:

the result will be: good players will still be using berserker.
bad players wont.

Obviously Anet isn’t in agreement with this statement. I don’t believe the current meta was ever intended. Zerker gear probably won’t be nerfed, but mob mechanics changed. If they were made more like live players then it would be poor judgement to go up against a full group of mobs as a glass cannon. The result would be similar to the zerker players in wvw or any squishy build in pvp. Free kill.

it wouldnt for smart players who have heads that cover enough space for more than 3 braincells.

in 12 month they didnt change anything except one dungeon path and fractals.
they ignore the dungeon community constantly and the only dungeon designer that was nice enough to communicate with us has “lost” his job.
do you really believe they are going to rework the entire PvE?
i dont.

and they designed a combat system which is based on avoiding damage instead of tanking it.
they designed a combat system which rewards good players for being smart and skilled.
but they failed to deliver proper content for it.

thats why the worst players get away with berserker gear at the moment.

before they change anything regarding builds in PvE (except condition builds, they should be buffed) they should rework all the afk fights in the game.

NoTrigger.8396:

it wouldnt for smart players who have heads that cover enough space for more than 3 braincells.

in 12 month they didnt change anything except one dungeon path and fractals.
they ignore the dungeon community constantly and the only dungeon designer that was nice enough to communicate with us has “lost” his job.
do you really believe they are going to rework the entire PvE?
i dont.

and they designed a combat system which is based on avoiding damage instead of tanking it.
they designed a combat system which rewards good players for being smart and skilled.
but they failed to deliver proper content for it.

thats why the worst players get away with berserker gear at the moment.

before they change anything regarding builds in PvE (except condition builds, they should be buffed) they should rework all the afk fights in the game.

If they changed mob mechanics to work anything like the original guild wars, facerolling mobs with a all glass cannon team wouldn’t be a wise choice.

With that being said, we don’t know what their plans are in dealing with the issue.

There are two ways encountering the “zerk dominance”
1) Massve rework:
Give Npcs new and good skills and rework their damage = Buffs like protection and regeneration will make a difference. On the same line, let those boons last shorter (no more hammer autoattacks pwnage for guards ).Defensive support actually needs judgement, however the correct use pays off.
Bring condition and direct damage on the same level. This exspecially involves a rework of all those “apply x seconds of bleed” minor traits. These are a big reason for condi damage beeing extremely bad in some parties.
Bring different weapons on the same level.There is no reason why some weapons vastly outperform others. You do not have to make the weapons identical. Axe and Greatsword for warrior are a good example. One deals relatively consistent damage where the other has strong non auto attack skills.
Give bosses abilities that HAVE to be interrupted where other can not be interrupted at all. Let every stun in the game have an interrupt effect and keep the cc imunity. CC cheesing a boss is as lame as tank cheesing or zerker cheesing.
Improve the combat AI of bosses and give players the chance to “bind bosses”. Tanky gear can be made useful that way and on the same level, having a lb ranger/gs mesmer in your party wont hurt everyone that wants to melee a boss anymore because of the boss getting kited away from them all the time.
Rebalance and add buffs to certain classes. Warriors are the kings of dungeons. Having a warrior is mandatory for any group that wants to be effective. Banners are extremely strong. Necros on the other side of the spectrum have nothing to contribute, they just use what the party provides them with.
….
2)The lazy way
Nerf the stats on zerker, simply give all enemies fast autoattacks with low damage.
You can try to “force” more defensive gear on players. However that only means there will be a new “zerker”. Simply adjusting some numbers wont help with that.

I would hope anet goes for the first appoach, but since that would require a massive amount of work I highly doubt that that will happen.
Simply forcing everyone to go tanky wont encourage smart class combinations or skill choice, it would just dethrone zerker and make a new tyrant take its place.