Guild Wars 2

One thing to note is that ANet refuses to touch anything unless it relates to the current living story.

sad but true……

LostInSmoke.2590:

aelfwe.4239:

ANET:
we introduce ascendent armor !!

Player:
QQ 450 gold to craft a full set it requires 30 laurel plenty of time gated mat QQ

1 month later

Player:
Finally i’ve complete my zerker ascendend armor, it costed a lot, but now finally i’m done

2 day later

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

is this a troll, yeah?

I WILL quit this game if Anet messes this up. I have 2 sets of zerker ascended armor made already.

Most of my friends already quit because they were tired of the boring “balls deep DPS” Zerker kitten. The change is probably too late to bring all of them back, but some of them might come back if the change is solid.

mahariel.4981:

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.

Tried that berserker set vs. that passive defense strengthened, recently? Who won?

The problem isn’t that berserker set is great; I acually agree with:

dutchiez.7502:

If you want to go through with this, please do not make Berserker’s setups weaker but make the other setups stronger/more useful. Nerfing the zerker gear will only end in dumbed down and more boring gameplay. Buffing everything else will likely have similar effects but there might be ways to avoid them more so than when nerfing zerker.

Big damage should be big damage. But big defense has to have better (quicker might be a step in the right direction; No instant solution, but there’s no multi-strike block counter, on land at least).

The problem isn’t that you’re having fun with berserkers. The problem is somewhat two-fold; one, the game is designed for other build use, and two, other people aren’t having as much of the fun of success with those other builds.

Then again, addressing berserkers also means doing something REALLY different about scaling DPS versus ‘Survivability’

Suffice to say, I love this game, but I feel I have to stay away from it now. I know you guys are behind the curve a bit, Jon, but I await these changes!

Cant we just have more challenging content (5 man instanced) and less of this zerg fest achievement point grinding living story nonsense that is just a way for them to add more rng chests and other crap to the gem store?

I desperately hope you guys (Anet) really look at working on the current meta….I mean, a real, hard, in-depth look.
(Considering a while back, when asked about this and how it affected LFG, they just brushed it off as a community issue.)

Please don’t come out with mediocre fixes. Do something drastic.

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.

huh?
Where did you get the “no risk for zerkers” out of that?
Sure there is. Same risk as before, just a bit (tiny, if even) higher since you need to stay concentrated longer.

ANet, want to stop everyone using zerker?

Set all of your dungeon fights up to the Alphard/Lupicus scale.

Do you know what happens now? Newbies have hell with these fights (I can show screen caps of a group I carried through Alphard) and experienced players clear them efficiently. That way, newbie zerkers die, experienced zerkers clear them, and newbie zerkers decide to utilise more defensive gear to mitigate damage better. More diverse meta!

Xae.7204:

LostInSmoke.2590:

aelfwe.4239:

ANET:
we introduce ascendent armor !!

Player:
QQ 450 gold to craft a full set it requires 30 laurel plenty of time gated mat QQ

1 month later

Player:
Finally i’ve complete my zerker ascendend armor, it costed a lot, but now finally i’m done

2 day later

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

is this a troll, yeah?

I WILL quit this game if Anet messes this up. I have 2 sets of zerker ascended armor made already.

Most of my friends already quit because they were tired of the boring “balls deep DPS” Zerker kitten. The change is probably too late to bring all of them back, but some of them might come back if the change is solid.

I don’t really understand how it’s boring to do DPS. Is doing less DPS and being tankier going to somehow make the game more fun? Are fights taking longer going to be more fun?

so, i am playing ele in pve. almost every direct atk one-shotting me. there is no good ele’s condi spec and you want to nerf zerk builds?
I am trade off risk of oneshot for high damage.

condi? if you nerf zerk stats and make new meta – condi meta. some classes changes their places, but at all nothing change – you can’t make everyone happy.

what about ascended gear? will we get some refunds for all that gear/weapons/upgrades , etc?

35lvl fractal, 1 condi necro, 1 support ele. almost 3 hours to finish it.
/o\

dont make condi meta. I beg you so hard. ele’s already kicked out from spvp, dont kick me out of pve.

Berzerker just needs to be capped at 60% bonus crit damage just like spvp.

The damage scaling is out of whack compared to all the other gear, and quite honestly this game’s PvE is pretty horrible when bosses last less than 2 minutes against a full berzerker group.

The worst part is they will likely blanket nerf berzerker without realizing the huge practical DPS disparities between classes. It’s been forever ever since guardians and warriors have ruled the PvE game, and the only viable DPS ele weapon are conjures instead of their kitten ed mainhands because many classes’ autoattacks are so bad compared to warrior/guard/LH ele.

fadeaway.2807:

I think you are going to have a hard time convincing people that we need an aggro system when one of the main promotions of gw2 was the removal of the Holy trinity.

I’m of the opinion that the trinity was a good thing, and I would actually agree that an aggro system based off who was built for defense would help pve diversity.

It may hit healers though. It’s harder to focus heal one person than it is to are heal a group of people.

I read (somewhere) a simplified explanation of the aggro system, with rankings based on toughness/high damage output/reviving players being key draws for enemy targets. Unfortunately, I can’t remember where I spotted it.

Zenith.7301:

Berzerker just needs to be capped at 60% bonus crit damage just like spvp.

The damage scaling is out of whack compared to all the other gear, and quite honestly this game’s PvE is pretty horrible when bosses last less than 2 minutes against a full berzerker group.

The worst part is they will likely blanket nerf berzerker without realizing the huge practical DPS disparities between classes. It’s been forever ever since guardians and warriors have ruled the PvE game, and the only viable DPS ele weapon are conjures instead of their kitten ed mainhands because many classes’ autoattacks are so bad compared to warrior/guard/LH ele.

sry but you are talking trash here.

try a staff ele and realize how wrong you are, please.
+ every profession has its use in PvE. only necro is lacking compared to other professions.
the reason why you see so many warriors is because warrior has the most room for error by far.

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

Great news, finally a nerf to the Berserker DPS races, let’s see if other characters can become a little more useful in the meta.

NoTrigger.8396:

Zenith.7301:

Berzerker just needs to be capped at 60% bonus crit damage just like spvp.

The damage scaling is out of whack compared to all the other gear, and quite honestly this game’s PvE is pretty horrible when bosses last less than 2 minutes against a full berzerker group.

The worst part is they will likely blanket nerf berzerker without realizing the huge practical DPS disparities between classes. It’s been forever ever since guardians and warriors have ruled the PvE game, and the only viable DPS ele weapon are conjures instead of their kitten ed mainhands because many classes’ autoattacks are so bad compared to warrior/guard/LH ele.

sry but you are talking trash here.

try a staff ele and realize how wrong you are, please.
+ every profession has its use in PvE. only necro is lacking compared to other professions.
the reason why you see so many warriors is because warrior has the most room for error by far. D/D autoattacks are horrendous, and for staff ele you just sit in fire spamming fireball because all the other attunement autoattacks suck.

The most practical DPS is usually the most consistent, best DPS. I’d rather bring a berk warrior ascalonian fractal than a berk ele who will die in 1 hit when it would take 2-3 to take the warrior out, and the berk ele has no damage advantage despite the survivability handicap.

And no, staff ele isn’t even close to LH ele mainhand damage. Staff ele isn’t a melee playstyle either.

Tiburon.8634:

Hopefully the changes involve buffing conditions and not nerfing berserkers. Otherwise you should have changed the meta before you had players making all that berserker ascended armor.

THIS.

Great news, finally a nerf to the Berserker DPS races, let’s see if other characters can become a little more useful in the meta.

I agree, nerfing a stat combo which people have spent a ton of in-game $$$ to ascend is clearly a good idea.

Punishing people who can play their classes is also a good idea.

And no, staff ele isn’t even close to LH ele mainhand damage. Staff ele isn’t a melee playstyle either.

Then you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about. Please just stop.

Ahlen.7591:

I don’t really understand how it’s boring to do DPS. Is doing less DPS and being tankier going to somehow make the game more fun? Are fights taking longer going to be more fun?

The thing is that the DPS which can be done is so high and unconditional that it completely nullifies mob mechanics, making mobs simple big HP pools to be depleted.

This makes most PVE fights boring. I’d rather have less DPS, let the mob/boss have less health as well, and be able to use these mechanics more to beat it in the same amount of time. In other words, make the DPS conditional, let the player acquire it though boss mechanics. This would bring more variety in the gameplay.

For instance: how many types of AoE for Alpha, and how do they work? If you know this, then you know they can all be played differently and make an interesting mechanics – but in the actual fights, no one cares, simply hug, hit, evade 2sec after AoE pop under, and repeat… Now, what about this: reduce the basic DPS, and grant a buff when inside the inner/outer circle part of certain AoE, buff which would let you DPS the thing…

Zenith.7301:

NoTrigger.8396:

Zenith.7301:

Berzerker just needs to be capped at 60% bonus crit damage just like spvp.

The damage scaling is out of whack compared to all the other gear, and quite honestly this game’s PvE is pretty horrible when bosses last less than 2 minutes against a full berzerker group.

The worst part is they will likely blanket nerf berzerker without realizing the huge practical DPS disparities between classes. It’s been forever ever since guardians and warriors have ruled the PvE game, and the only viable DPS ele weapon are conjures instead of their kitten ed mainhands because many classes’ autoattacks are so bad compared to warrior/guard/LH ele.

sry but you are talking trash here.

try a staff ele and realize how wrong you are, please.
+ every profession has its use in PvE. only necro is lacking compared to other professions.
the reason why you see so many warriors is because warrior has the most room for error by far. D/D autoattacks are horrendous, and for staff ele you just sit in fire spamming fireball because all the other attunement autoattacks suck.

The most practical DPS is usually the most consistent, best DPS. I’d rather bring a berk warrior ascalonian fractal than a berk ele who will die in 1 hit when it would take 2-3 to take the warrior out, and the berk ele has no damage advantage despite the survivability handicap.

And no, staff ele isn’t even close to LH ele mainhand damage. Staff ele isn’t a melee playstyle either.

interesting.
then tell me why ele deals the most dps in PvE by far?
and actually you have to stay within 300 range to deal most dps with staff.
+ staff and LH are very close.

NoTrigger.8396:

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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXvuSbAZFjk

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.

You mean showing me that you can solo a boss that is supposed be for 5 players is currently proving your point?
It only shows how broken the game is.

And no one will force you to use anything but zerker. I am not saying to render zerker play worse than others. Just level things. Zerker has no downsides.

To be honest, I’ve skipped a few pages, since most of it seems to be people quoting the dev and whining about how they’ll mess it up. Hopefully the devs wont mess up, and if they apply the Socratic Method they shouldn’t screw up too bad.

To understand why it is the zerker set dominates PVE, it is best to look at where zerker doesn’t dominate: sPVP and WvW. Running around in pure zerker in sPVP is more liable to get you killed than it is to accomplish anything: AI will tear you down, stuns will lock you down quickly, and you don’t have enough health to live through a condi bomb. In WvW zerker sees more uses, both as a ganking tool for thieves and warriors, and also in zerg gameplay, but in these contexts zerker obviously isn’t dominating, or even arguably the best choice.

So, apply the Socratic Method: What is the difference between PVP and PVE that makes it so zerker is unquestionably the best set in PVE, and only so-so in PVP? I already covered much of this on the first page of the thread, but again the best way tl;dr this is the following:

Other players are built around killing you. PVE mobs are not. PVE mobs have seemingly random gimmicks that contribute little to nothing toward how dangerous they are.

It isn’t about stat distribution, or stats working well together, or anything of the sort. It is about enemies having a series of tactics that, realistically, make running in full glass cannon gear actually dangerous.

Enemies need counter-cc. They need burst. They need to kite. They need to heal. They need fast but weaker attacks alongside of slow but strong attacks. They need to debuff. Now, this doesn’t have to be done for every enemy in the game.

These changes should prioritize vets and above, of course. Regular mobs just die too quickly, regardless of what you have them do.

Now, there are many whole goals for this change, and none of them are to stop players from running berserker.

#1: Make PVE more interesting. It’ll be a bit harder, but every class already has the tools needed to deal with most of these things.

#2: Encourage more diversity in utilities and traits. There are so many tools at our disposal (weakness, blinks, chill, poison, CC) that serve little to no purpose because they game is built in such a way that they are useless.

#3: Encourage more diversity in stats. The biggest problem with toughness, vitality, compassion, malice, and expertise is that they are objectively useless for a skilled player. By making these passive stats more useful via compelling design, this makes it so, while zerkers will overall perform worse by themselves, when combined they perform overall better.

By doing this, the game becomes more fun for everyone, and everyone wins.

I think the underlying issue is the removal of the “trinity”. There is no point to have five damage-dealers where two of them are geared for toughness and another one for healing power. All of them will go zerk as this makes them effective in their role.
Actually, by removing the “trinity” you only got rid of tanks and healers. DPS were left untouched. I realise this idea is a bit hard to grasp but it is nevertheless perfectly true.

Carighan.6758:

Thread:
I welcome the announcement of work on the DPS meta. IMO, a nerf is actually the smarter way, but not only a nerf. I think right now berserker builds are too strong, compared to what PvE offers. As such buffing non-zerker builds isn’t a fix – it’ll just make PvE trivial independent of the build you run.

However, on occasions I’ve run completely stupid builds, and if you misspec your char, PvE feels oddly… balanced. :o
This makes me think that we’re just too strong, as player characters. Hence I’d go with a nerf.

But not exclusively. Points where to tweak the PvE meta, IMO:

• Too many stats benefiting direct attacks. Remove one. Doesn’t need to be replaced with a condition stat, rather I’d like to see a fourth defensive stat. Dodge was one idea, but it feels too random since we have player dodge. Maybe a stat which increases endurance regeneration? Since you cannot attack while dodging, this works well.

Maybee crit damage could be supressed, then crits would only be used to proc nice effects (burn, chill, etc on crit). Such effects could even be added to auto attacks depending on the class or weapon (slashing gives 1 sec of bleed on crit, piercing on sec of cripple…)

Carighan.6758:

• Add autoattacks to mobs, making glass cannon setups – independent of whether based on direct attacks or conditions – forced to soak some attacks, instead of just dodging everything. This would also make interrupt-based play much easier because mobs would be casting something quite often. The attacks don’t need to be powerful, they just need to provide a baseline of outgoing damage.

Don’t forget how big the base stat gap is. I think what you propose would not affect high-HP classes at all while making ele and thief unplayable. Bot thoose 2 classes have no way of sustaining regen or damage mitigation in the amount that would be needed to unzerk a signet warrior.

Carighan.6758:

• Revisit the aggro-system on a per-mob basis. Specifically, I think smarter enemies like humanoids should identify and attack “weak” characters (Berserker, Assassin, Rampager etc) as a priority. On the contrary, simple beasts could go for the visibly largest character (including flashy large-scale AE effects), while flying enemies would first try to single out ranged characters. Etc. Make it feel more believable, while at the same time making it more predictable for us.

So focus ele (weak HP) or focus eles (flashy meteor) or focuse ele (ranged) niiice ;-)
I hope Anet are carefull about this so as to not cripple active classes against thoose having passive defences

BeoErgon.9107:

NoTrigger.8396:

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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXvuSbAZFjk

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.

You mean showing me that you can solo a boss that is supposed be for 5 players is currently proving your point?
It only shows how broken the game is.

And no one will force you to use anything but zerker. I am not saying to render zerker play worse than others. Just level things. Zerker has no downsides.

it has downsides. if you kitten up, you will end up dead.
the video shows that im good enough to ignore any defensive stats.
the video shows that i dont need ultra high dps to dps down bosses before they can kill me (which isnt true anyways).

Elegie.3620:

Ahlen.7591:

I don’t really understand how it’s boring to do DPS. Is doing less DPS and being tankier going to somehow make the game more fun? Are fights taking longer going to be more fun?

The thing is that the DPS which can be done is so high and unconditional that it completely nullifies mob mechanics, making mobs simple big HP pools to be depleted.

mobs in this game ARE simple big HP pools to be depleted with very few exceptions, berserker group or not.

and this is exactly where the problem begins.

play how you want, thats what they told us. im playing how i want, you are playing how you want.
but why are people trying to destroy my playstyle, when im not trying to destroy theirs?

you had a choice. be tanky and deal less damage, or learn to play and become a good player.

i chose the second option. why cant people accept the choice i made?
and why cant people accept that being a good player is more rewarding?

To look at the (PvE!) meta:

- First understand that berzerker and assassins have 3 damage-inprovement stats zerk based on power, assassin on precision.
- There is only 1 other armor set comparable: rampagers, precision, condition dmg and power, but if you equip a warrior with rampagers based armor and trinkets it will lose aout 40-65% dmg capability compared to assassin, not to talk about berzerker…

Damage mitigation as used now:
Dodges/evades/blocks
Also having dodges and evades and blocks, which effectively cancel all damage/attacks done the next second , makes the damage you can dish out outweigh ALL stats not related to damage (being boon duration, healing, toughness,vitality & condition duration, and the realtively low effect of condition damage makes this stat add to the list. This goes for as long as you can keep your health above 0 points of course. When damage IS taken we would need other stats to either regain the health pool,(healing), mitigation (toughness) or just a bigger pool (vitality).

Healing/regen:
( Aoe) DOT healing skills make use of vitality/toughness less important (having 5 people stand in a healing spring in melee or a mark/well of blood, effect of virtue of resolve or running signet of the wild or healing signet, or just any other regen or health buff food or dolyak’s runes for that matter) will add quite a lot of extra hit points before the pool runs out. when stacked this effect is bigger of course. Running healing signet in a healing spring while under the effects of signet of resolve, you’ll get my idea.

Reflects:
Reflects , retalliation and comparable effects make recieved damage less, AND they’ll damage the enemy, these are nice to run and essential for some boss fights, they are also a mechanic which can make or break runs. But when used effectively they’ll mke your limited vitality last a long time…

Condition removal /invunerability
You can remove 2 conditions AoE with shouts atm, and more with a lot of classes making the stacks you have done your best to put on the enemy instantly useless.
of course if you can put a huge load of conditions on target as cover it will be a bit less but DOT is easily removed. some classes can remove conditions every 10 seconds as well or use their healing skill to actively remove conditions. Some classes have traits and skill completely denying conditions as a whole. It’s like a recurring invunerability…

In the end:
So you are left with 3 stats, power, precison and critical damage for now, as they make sure you have a speedy and nice run through whatever content (except for wvw and pvp) and out off all other stats: boon duration and healing are the most prefered other stats, even though you will never take them, because you will lose raw dps.

Just for the record, I run quite some hybrid builds, but damage is laugfable compared to berzerker stats, mostly because the weapons with the conditions never do comparable damage in the first place and afterwards most damage is capped and made useless.

2 suggestions to solve the zerk/sin meta:
- make conditions (DOT) more prominent, give personalized condition stacks (outgoing), and make conditions more damaging also against objects. This wil open up other builds/stats expanding the meta
- make bosses more mobile, hit more often with both damage and (damaging) conditions and use more area denial (AoE), and change the way defiant works: it disallows so many skills and options instantly.
This could lengthen fights making use of vitality toughness and heling power more usefull. This will make melee DPS more difficult as you will not be able to dodge all the attacks anymore, only the truly destructive ones, and force you to keep moving. dis-allowing some skills unless an enemy is frozen/cripled/stunned/immobilized/knocked down watever, also allowing for interupt builds.
These 2 options will avoid nerfing/buffing bosses,removing the need for more tweaking, adress the present problems and open new builds, without the need for nerfing zerk and sin armors people have done so much for to aquire them. They’ll be part of the general playstyles, and be signs of experienced player, but no longer the ONLY useful build.

Lastly:
Make (armor/weapon/trinket) stat combos with condition dmg, precision and healing and one power, precision, healing to combat the effects of my suggestion. lastly a boon duration/healing/ power and a condition duration/condition dmg/ healing would add something worthwhile for some classes as well..

Sorry for any remaining typo’s and faulty grammar and translations, I tried my best to make this readable.

@NoTrigger
It is strange how you keep opposing good DPS players to lame players that do anything else.
You know what I saw in your video that stucks me as incoherent : perma vigor.
DPS + perma vigor = possibility to void any damage in the game.

Yes, if you do a false movement you are doomed, but this is true for any other build.

AS I said before, the problem is that you can do EVERYTHING by going the DPS route. Dodge, heal, boost, damage, control, …

This is what I talk about when saying there is no downside.
And if you can’t at least remove one of those, it kills any need of diversity in a team.

But don’t worry, I see your point. You are having fun with the game as it is and don’t want any change.
Many of us are not having fun because the game is broken.

Call us bads if it makes you feel better.

BeoErgon.9107:

@NoTrigger
It is strange how you keep opposing good DPS players to lame players that do anything else.
You know what I saw in your video that stucks me as incoherent : perma vigor.
DPS + perma vigor = possibility to void any damage in the game.

Yes, if you do a false movement you are doomed, but this is true for any other build.

AS I said before, the problem is that you can do EVERYTHING by going the DPS route. Dodge, heal, boost, damage, control, …

This is what I talk about when saying there is no downside.
And if you can’t at least remove one of those, it kills any need of diversity in a team.

But don’t worry, I see your point. You are having fun with the game as it is and don’t want any change.
Many of us are not having fun because the game is broken.

Call us bads if it makes you feel better.

i want a change. i want more difficult PvE content.
and further you can do EVERYTHING in this game by going the PVT route.
tank, tank, tank, tank.
it has no downsides, you dont even have to dodge.
this is what im talking about when im saying PVT has no downsides.

on a serious note: if you go tanky the tradeoff is you will deal less damage.
if you go beserker the tradeoff is you will die if you kitten up.
thats how it is.

and yes, diversity in a team is killed already. but thats the concept of guild wars 2.
PLAY HOW YOU WANT, NO TRINITY.

and why arent many of you having fun? you had a choice as i have said before.

the combat system is based around avoiding damage instead of tanking it.
its an active combat system. and that was 100% obvious before you bought the game.
dodge is key in gw2, the game is designed around it. you have to accept it.

and i dont have any reason to call people like you bads.
tbh with you, when i pug i dont care about the gear my teammates use. i play together with them and dont complain.

last time i joined a lfg group my group insisted to range lupicus. i told them i wont range and rather watch the fight then.
after 12 minutes lupicus still wasnt dead.
they used tanky gear, and they kept dying and dying, they were standing there like a rock when lupi did his lifeleech and so on.
i should have recorded a video of that fight.

what i want to tell you: its player skill that trivializes PvE content, not berserker gear.

if you want to play tanky-dps, go for it. but you have to live with that you are slower than 5 full berserker players who know what they are doing.
instead you will earn more room for error.

i played ah guard with soldier runes back when i wasnt experienced. and i can tell you, lupi doesnt die super fast, but you are able to eat bubbles like a boss and laugh in his face.

BeoErgon.9107:

@NoTrigger
It is strange how you keep opposing good DPS players to lame players that do anything else.
You know what I saw in your video that stucks me as incoherent : perma vigor.
DPS + perma vigor = possibility to void any damage in the game.

Yes, if you do a false movement you are doomed, but this is true for any other build.

AS I said before, the problem is that you can do EVERYTHING by going the DPS route. Dodge, heal, boost, damage, control, …

This is what I talk about when saying there is no downside.
And if you can’t at least remove one of those, it kills any need of diversity in a team.

But don’t worry, I see your point. You are having fun with the game as it is and don’t want any change.
Many of us are not having fun because the game is broken.

Call us bads if it makes you feel better.

You cannot avoid all the damage even in this encounter just by dodging but I’m sure you are aware of that. He’s using blocks, reflects and invulnerabilities as well as abusing lupi’s AI by pushing him into the wall. I’m still waiting to see any solo boss fights completed only with dodging, no blocks, reflects, etc involved.

Try to understand that the diversity you so eagerly wish doesn’t come only from the gear. In fact, it comes from weapons, utility skills and traits. Improving diversity by depending on the gear is the worst possible choice because it’s the only time-gated and time-consuming thing out of those. Retrait, change a weapon? Sure. Get cleric’s instead of rampager’s? Not so much.

If any hypothetical changes happen just don’t make new threads how instead of “lf1m zerk any class” you are forced to advertise your party with “lf1m clerics ele only” and how people do not read your description, join with random builds and you have to kick them. And then you advertised your party too frequently and you cannot do it anymore. All in the name of diveristy obtained mostly by the gear.

Anet should just improve the toughness / armor damage reduction scaling to the point that maxing out the armor stat gives decent defense to maximum attack.

It’s like you guys complaining are new to MMO’s or something.
This is what you get for playing the meta. You feel strong for a while and then a sudden nerf. People always get mad over this and I don’t understand why. Can’t you see that it’s not the devs intention for content to be this easy with a certain setup or build ? Is this really so hard to comprehend ? It’s the same in every game. Deal with it. Looking forward to this.

if you are talking about my clerics guardian build, i have to agree. im so tanky. nothing can kill me. it makes me run around totaly brainafk with great success.
arenanet definitely has to nerf clerics gear and force us to play more berserker, so monsters will be able to kill us actually.

this is how i feel when raging trough dungeons:

@NoTrigger
Don’t get me wrong : I feel DPS is an important part of any team. But should be only one part of it.
Say you want to DPS : 5 group DPS should be able to do the encounter efficiently, by timing their skills. But! What is incoherent is that bringing one other type of build only is a minus and never a plus. Heal? What fo? You can do it. Support? You proved yourself you can boost your DPS toon alone with no problems. Controls? You had enough blocks, reflects…
You can do anything! I don’t mean that this does not require skill : I mean that bringing any other type of player will only be a minus.

@haviz
Please, stop putting words in my mouth. I am wanting to have other types of builds ‘be a plus’ to the DPS of the encounters and not a minus like they are now. Going all the way to the otehr extreme would be just as bad.

The thing is, DPS builds can do heal, boon, control, support… Everything. Skill is needed, sure, but an equally skilled control/support player just brings nothing to the team and this is where the game fails.

If you’re trying to play a “control” or “support” build you’re not skilled in the first place, therefore success in this game caters to skilled players (well, efficient success anyway).

ANet made it clear this would not be a trinity game, but ever since release people have not stopped complaining about how they can’t heal (SPOILER ALERT – no healers) and they can’t tank (SPOILER ALERT – no tanks). It’s clear you’re playing the wrong game if you’re not interested in multitasking and fulfilling the roles of dps, support and control all on a single class/character.

BeoErgon.9107:

@haviz
Please, stop putting words in my mouth. I am wanting to have other types of builds ‘be a plus’ to the DPS of the encounters and not a minus like they are now. Going all the way to the otehr extreme would be just as bad.

The thing is, DPS builds can do heal, boon, control, support… Everything. Skill is needed, sure, but an equally skilled control/support player just brings nothing to the team and this is where the game fails.

And what do you think happens when other builds will be “a plus”? Random pugs (everyone’s favourtie word – elitists) will require you to bring those builds because it’s better. Do you know what optimal means?

Hm at this point I’d like to point out that I did an arah p3 in FULL pvt, literally TRIED to eat lupi kicks and STILL finished it in less than 20 minutes, which is ‘pug standard’ id say. Should we take PVT out of the game too?

BeoErgon.9107:

@NoTrigger
Don’t get me wrong : I feel DPS is an important part of any team. But should be only one part of it.
Say you want to DPS : 5 group DPS should be able to do the encounter efficiently, by timing their skills. But! What is incoherent is that bringing one other type of build only is a minus and never a plus. Heal? What fo? You can do it. Support? You proved yourself you can boost your DPS toon alone with no problems. Controls? You had enough blocks, reflects…
You can do anything! I don’t mean that this does not require skill : I mean that bringing any other type of player will only be a minus.

@haviz
Please, stop putting words in my mouth. I am wanting to have other types of builds ‘be a plus’ to the DPS of the encounters and not a minus like they are now. Going all the way to the otehr extreme would be just as bad.

The thing is, DPS builds can do heal, boon, control, support… Everything. Skill is needed, sure, but an equally skilled control/support player just brings nothing to the team and this is where the game fails.

5 full berserker players are supporting each other:
might stacks,
fury,
banner,
spotter,
reflection,
projectile absorbtion,
regeneration,
retaliation,
protection,
aegis,
blocks,
swiftness,
vulnerability,
blinds,
and so on.

no profession in this game can bring all of them to the group.
thats why you have to use different professions to have a decent group composition.

it was stated, gw2 wont have healer and tanks.

the thing you describe is the desire for a trinity. gw2 doesnt have a trinity.
in gw2 you are everything at the same time.
you can play a healer, you can play a tank. its viable and it works. its just not optimal.
but thats the design of guild wars 2.
the only way to change the game to fulfil your wishes here is to rework the entire game.
or wvw. if im not mistaken there is sort of a trinity in wvw guilds.

Richo.3081:

Hm at this point I’d like to point out that I did an arah p3 in FULL pvt, literally TRIED to eat lupi kicks and STILL finished it in less than 20 minutes, which is ‘pug standard’ id say. Should we take PVT out of the game too?

Trying to eat kicks with a gear? That’s a low level stuff. Make a party of 5 “pet masters” like minion masters, spirit rangers, spirit weapons guardians, etc and then try to eat kicks. Hello aoe limit, you are invincible. This is the test sample how it works against the bubble.

Well, let’s stop here.
There is nothing more annoying that people trying to make me say thing I did not.

Every kind of play whould bring somethign to a team and this is rendered impossible as long as ONE playstile can do it all.

Now, go on preaching how good you are and how the rest are crap just because they don’t like how the game throws 80% of the build diversity out of the window.

Bye.

BeoErgon.9107:

Well, let’s stop here.
There is nothing more annoying that people trying to make me say thing I did not.

Every kind of play whould bring somethign to a team and this is rendered impossible as long as ONE playstile can do it all.

Now, go on preaching how good you are and how the rest are crap just because they don’t like how the game throws 80% of the build diversity out of the window.

Bye.

im sorry if i hurt your feelings by telling you what has been said before the game was released. but you might want to take a look at this:

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1078544-GW2-official-Blogpost-about-the-Holy-Trinity-must-read

let me quote the most important part:
“We built this game so that they professions act as play styles, not as roles. Each profession can support, control, and do damage. "

BeoErgon.9107:

Well, let’s stop here.
There is nothing more annoying that people trying to make me say thing I did not.

Every kind of play whould bring somethign to a team and this is rendered impossible as long as ONE playstile can do it all.

Now, go on preaching how good you are and how the rest are crap just because they don’t like how the game throws 80% of the build diversity out of the window.

Bye.

The game doesn’t throw out anything. You can probably complete 99% of the whole content running random builds. How’s that not diverse?

Last time I checked Zerkers couldn’t tank hits like Knight’s or Cleric’s.

There always will be one certain build that is optimal and you cannot change it.

No matter what happens your “I play how I want” builds won’t probably be the new meta so people will still keep kicking you. And people using the meta builds will just adapt and use the new meta builds.

I agree that some changes would spicy up the game in a good way. But that’s not what lots of people are asking.

I don’t use zerker for more damage mainly, I use it because other stats don’t affect me, don’t need toughness don’t need vital don’t need cond damage/healing, the only stats I need are power/prec/crit damage, I really hope they make PvE harder thus more appealing to use harder sets, because at the moment good players don’t need any defensive stats for pve

The power scaling on berserkers has always been too high as a base (crit damage).

I see this as something of a problem because encounters feel balanced for berserker level damage. If crit % stat scaling was lower at base and + from gear, the base HP on mobs could be reduced significantly. If this was combined with slight increase in armor on higher level mobs this would also help to balance out condition damage somewhat in PVE. You could also bring up the damage of other sets by straight increasing their stat values or doing other such things of course – I don’t really care either way.

Berserkers should still be the best DPS set by a nice margin. But the margin doesn’t need to be so enormous, and players not running berserkers shouldn’t slow the party down so much.

I say this as someone with with 10 80s geared in berserkers, 2 of them with a full set of ascended zerk weps/armor/trinkets.

The funny thing about this kind of change is that nobody would even need to know about it. All of this could be changed in the background, the numbers in your combat log could be displayed the same as before, and bosses could still go down around about as fast in a full zerk group.

Only now a group not running full zerk wouldn’t take as long as it used to.

Lots of people who appear not good enough to play glass cannons here seeming to like the prospect of them getting nerfed.
Should there not be a reward for being able to dodge big hits?

They can nerf zerker – as long as it is still top for dps I imagine people will still prefer it.
The problem is… what can they do to improve vitality, toughness and healing power?
If someone can already survive in zerker, they don’t need those stats and they won’t need them in future after they are buffed.

The only other route is to force people to want the defensive stats by adding damage you cannot avoid to the game. Which isn’t fun, punishes skilled players, and trivialises dodging & active defenses.

Difficult situation.

One tweak might be to make damage multipliers additive rather than multiplicative. Eg at the moment if you have two 10% damage multipliers, that makes 21%. When we’re hitting multipliers of 70% this becomes quite a large multiplier for dps specs/builds.

Something else I’ve noticed the game design – sometimes crit builds are useless.
Take hotw path 1 for example.
Do you need 5 zerkers? Not really. 4 zerkers and 1 non zerker to go and non-crit dps the totems down works just as well.

I spent 450g on ascened zerk armor 2 days ago – kitten my life

Nevermind – feel free to make condition damage/massive CC/range worth playing in PvE.
I am bored of this full zerk/melee everything everywhere all the time meta,you have my support for change that.

But please be careful about WvW and dont punish organized groups.

Can’t wait to see Anet delivering the final blow to the already agonizing Dungeon community with a Zerk gear nerf in order to please the PTV/Cleric/PlayHowIWant audience.

/popcorn

Conditions getting buffed will not change anything.

People don’t pick conditions in open world bosses because the dragons etc stack to 25.

So what’s stopping you going condi in dungeons?
Your group may touch the cap, but only just. Your high damage burns/poison etc will be prioritized. In fact you probably have higher damage per action and therefore damage per second.

The reason condis aren’t seen much in dungeons is because the mobs die too fast. You want leaves and burst, not massive dps over 30 seconds.

LarzoSk.5412:

I spent 450g on ascened zerk armor 2 days ago – kitten my life

I made mine yesterday and one hour later, I read about this amazing thing here. Somehow I expect a very convincing argument to join my brother in Planetside 2 when ANet presents the actual changes.

Fastest clear time spec = meta

nothing’s gonna change, people are just going to leave

fadeaway.2807:

Conditions getting buffed will not change anything.

People don’t pick conditions in open world bosses because the dragons etc stack to 25.

So what’s stopping you going condi in dungeons?
Your group may touch the cap, but only just. Your high damage burns/poison etc will be prioritized. In fact you probably have higher damage per action and therefore damage per second.

The reason condis aren’t seen much in dungeons is because the mobs die too fast. You want leaves and burst, not massive dps over 30 seconds.

a condition necromancer can reach the cap on his own. so 1 conditionmancers and any other bleed are out of question. On top of that are there some zerker builds that also fill up those bleeds with their own (the prime example is the phantasm mesmer) effectivily reducing the condition users damage.