Guild Wars 2

Nerfing crit damage wont effect the meta. It might make rampager necro and engi stronger than their zerker counterparts though. But neither versions of those classes is an optimum choice for dungeons. Therefore meta unchanged, just slowed down slightly. People will continue to cry about being excluded from zerker groups.

spoj.9672:

Nerfing crit damage wont effect the meta. It might make rampager necro and engi stronger than their zerker counterparts though. But neither versions of those classes is an optimum choice for dungeons. Therefore meta unchanged, just slowed down slightly. People will continue to cry about being excluded from zerker groups.

I dont give a crap about dungeons.. but what about pvp/wvw?

We just all run rampage gear?? atleast its balanced ;-P

Making crit damage less effective in both pvp/wvw is a hard nerf and there is just no point to not use rampage gear

nicknamenick.2437:

spoj.9672:

Nerfing crit damage wont effect the meta. It might make rampager necro and engi stronger than their zerker counterparts though. But neither versions of those classes is an optimum choice for dungeons. Therefore meta unchanged, just slowed down slightly. People will continue to cry about being excluded from zerker groups.

I dont give a crap about dungeons.. but what about pvp/wvw?

We just all run rampage gear?? atleast its balanced ;-P

Making crit damage less effective in both pvp/wvw is a hard nerf and there is just no point to not use rampage gear

Nerfing maximum crit damage by half will obviously affect the meta once you get on equal level with the 9k per second necromancer and become unable to crit above 20k with hundred blade. Well then im about to undust my minion master necromancer and watch the dev video with popcorns as they decapitate critical damage in a public execution.

kyubi.3620:

nicknamenick.2437:

spoj.9672:

Nerfing crit damage wont effect the meta. It might make rampager necro and engi stronger than their zerker counterparts though. But neither versions of those classes is an optimum choice for dungeons. Therefore meta unchanged, just slowed down slightly. People will continue to cry about being excluded from zerker groups.

I dont give a crap about dungeons.. but what about pvp/wvw?

We just all run rampage gear?? atleast its balanced ;-P

Making crit damage less effective in both pvp/wvw is a hard nerf and there is just no point to not use rampage gear

Nerfing maximum crit damage by half will obviously affect the meta once you get on equal level with the 9k per second necromancer and become unable to crit above 20k with hundred blade. Well then im about to undust my minion master necromancer and watch the dev video with popcorns as they decapitate critical damage in a public execution.

wow…. so much hate o.o

well guys wildstar is comming! maybe there wont be a playerbase as ridiculous as here.

critical damage will still be possible to run it just mean youl have to keep a cond damage user in a 4 zerker party for maximum damage effectively giving a purpose to cond damage in pve as well as to zerker.

how do you know so much about this? did they say anything about how exactly they gonna change it?

As expected, stupid easy and lazy nerf that will absolutely not fix the problems of other gears
/sigh
Why do they never think carefully, asking players and providing thoughtful solutions instead of just nerfing everything ?

GW2, the only game where your characters gets weaker and weaker the more you play, sounds cool !

Valdur.2679:

people think that doubling the armor of the monsters and cutting their health in half would nerf the zerkers. WRONG! the zerkers will kill the monsters in the EXACT amount of time because toughness x health = THE SAME as before

…

i think this this is the best solution possible for now. do you all agree?

No, your numbers seem unfair … for the condition user.
If you take a usual meta build and replace all zeker gear for a knight/cavalier mix (which don’t even have power as primary), you still retain about 75% of your damage output.
A rabid user, who is getting less armor and more offensive stats, should deal about 80% of that damage (way more than your 66%).

The condition problem is, however, much deeper than this. Even if we get rid of the shared condition cap, even if we increase armor on enemies and make condition damage more on par with power, we would still be far, really far, from solving the problem.

People tend to look ar berserker as the main source of insane damage. The truth is that boon/vulnerability stacking (which is available for everyone) and, specially, multiple final damage modifiers (+10% damage against X, +5% damage when Y, …) are often overlooked and play a HUGE role.

Conditions don’t get any benefit from vulnerability.
Vulnerability duration is halved on champions and, like other conditions, is capped at 25 stacks. It requires some investment and party wide configuration to make a good use of it; keeping the stacks as high as possible without wasting them.
Conditions also bypass protection. If enemies are given the ability to cast protection on themselves (and not refresh it as soon as it’s stripped), the skill/configuration required to get of rid of it as fast as possible should play in favor of power builds.
If good vulnerability stacking and protection stripping are expected for power play, you’re at risk of making condition users clearly favored for PUGs (where this is unlekily to happen), which is quite a bit unfair.
If you try, however, to reward it (making condi users slightly weaker if these thing are done but slightly more powerful if not), that could be enough for removing any chance on condi users being included in organized groups.

All those X% final modifiers are multiplicative, and often require a heavy investment trait/gear wise, an investment that should be also required on condition users for things to be fair.
There’s a complete lack, however, of multiplicative condi damage percent increases. Most traits would increase duration (another problem I’ll introduce next to this) or create additional effects, usually on crits, which are additive by nature. All of this means that condition users needs to be either stronger before traits or weaker after them, which leads to the same problem as before.
Some of those raw damage multipliers aren’t also automatic and require not so easy conditions to be met. A X% increase when wielding some weapon is trivial, but the usual 10% damage increase when over 90% HP from scholar runes is not. Should things be balanced around players who get hit here and there or around godlike ones?

The final and probably most important difference is the time needed to build up conditions. No matter how many stacks you’re able to keep on a steady situation, you’re going to need some initial timeframe, where you’re going to lack damage, to build them up.
If the fight is short enough, this timeframe can be a noticeable part of it. In some extreme cases or just when dealing with trash, the combat might be over even before it finsihes.
Another way too look at it is through condition duration. If you look at condition attacks individually, they’re not that different from power ones (specially in PvE where monster rarely cleanse them). They will ensure some amount of damage if they connect, just with it being dealt over time.
Whenever the fight ends, some of this damage will be lost, and the shorter the fight, the more noticeable that loss will be. If you take into account that many of the trait/gear damage improvements, which should be taken to compete with optimized power builds, are condition duration based, the disparity gets aggravated.
Now again, if you try to balance this for speedrun groups, you create unmatched monsters in any other enviroment. If not, condition users will never be competitive.

We have three main differences, all of them leading to the same balance problem.
Any step into conditions becoming competitive, makes them clearly OP in any non optimal enviroment. Fixing this is FAR from easy.

So here’s a thought: what if instead of nerfing anything, they simply incorporate Crit Damage into a bonus multiplier for Condition Damage?

I know Crit Damage doesn’t affect Condition Damage, but that’s just the current system. Couldn’t they implement some kind of bonus to Condition + Crit Damage set up so they multiply off each other? That way zerker stays the same, but Conditions get a buff if they have added Crit Damage.

SonOfJacob.7396:

So here’s a thought: what if instead of nerfing anything, they simply incorporate Crit Damage into a bonus multiplier for Condition Damage?

I know Crit Damage doesn’t affect Condition Damage, but that’s just the current system. Couldn’t they implement some kind of bonus to Condition + Crit Damage set up so they multiply off each other? That way zerker stays the same, but Conditions get a buff if they have added Crit Damage.

I doubt that’s even possible.
Afaik there isn’t a single situation where condition damage scale with anything but the “condition damage” stat. There are no 5% increased condition damage sigils, traits or similar … whenever something is meant to boost conditions, it does through duration or just creates a new effect adding a few more, independent, bleed stacks.
Condition damage calculation probably need to be kept as simple as possible for the same technical issues that force the condition cap to exist.

Well, but adding Crit Damage as a value to duration might be a possibility then. For example, say a person specs for 30% Crit Damage on a Condition Damage toon. So the Condition Duration increases by 30% OR the initial Condition Damage increases 30%.

SonOfJacob.7396:

Well, but adding Crit Damage as a value to duration might be a possibility then. For example, say a person specs for 30% Crit Damage on a Condition Damage toon. So the Condition Duration increases by 30% OR the initial Condition Damage increases 30%.

Conditions are already rampant in WvW and spvp. You can’t even make it “pve only” as it would still fk up WvW even more, which is directly tied to pve mechanics.

thing is wvw is unfortunaly related to pve so you cant basicaly fix the condition damage or the crit damage in pve without also affecting wvw.

I’d just like for any other gear to be closer in performance to berzerker.

I can run berzerker gear everywhere to good effect, WvW included.

In fact, some classes like thief and mesmer and warrior lend themselves rather well to berzerker gear because they have defensives that allow them to stay offensive.

I just don’t get how a necromancer or thief autoattack dagger chain, limited to one target without cleave, can be doing less damage than a warrior and guardian’s cleaving weapons.

I don’t get who thought allowing D/P thieves and phantasm mesmers roam in WvW in zerker with 110%+ bonus crit damage was a good idea.

Berzerker just scales in a way that rampager does not.

Zenith.7301:

I’d just like for any other gear to be closer in performance to berzerker.
…
Berzerker just scales in a way that rampager does not.

If I read this right, and differentiate between what others have said before, you would like a scaling effect for other builds – is that correct? So, like Power, Precision, Crit Damage all contribute to highest melee damage possible, you’d like more of an equalizer for scaling up some other type of damage (and I don’t believe you are saying you want a scaling up of builds that are defensive in nature).

But then, I’m not sure how that can be done since the only other two types of damage mentioned on the wiki (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Damage) are conditions (which affects WvW and others have said that’s not viable) and falling (which isn’t really used in combat).

There is ranged damage, but I don’t suppose you mean buffing that to equal zerker because as I understand it, ranged is less risk (the whole “risk versus reward” conversation mentioned everywhere). I’m honestly trying to understand what a solution could be and still not simply “nerf” something because that just seems too simple…it’s just going to make everything take longer.

SonOfJacob.7396:

There is ranged damage, but I don’t suppose you mean buffing that to equal zerker because as I understand it, ranged is less risk (the whole “risk versus reward” conversation mentioned everywhere). I’m honestly trying to understand what a solution could be and still not simply “nerf” something because that just seems too simple…it’s just going to make everything take longer.

Don’t start on risk vs reward there while stacking in melee provides both optimal damage and protect. That and with the limit range on boons there is less and less reason for that argument.

But if we are going there hypothetically how is it that soldier profession do not have some sort of build it reduction on their damage as they are at a base less risk than the adventurers or scholars.

I think they need to rework monsters something like this:
100 % HP down to 75 % HP : A monster is more vulnerable to critical damage. Builds with heavy crits benefit most in this phase.
75 % to 50 % HP: Once the monster has been critically bruised, it is more vulnerable to conditional damage.
50% to 25% HP: Monster goes into ‘rage’ mode, reflecting most physical and conditional damage back to the source. So, this stage requires skills/party member with nice healing skills or other support skills to buff the team.
25% to 0% HP: Monster is in the ‘burn’ phase and is vulnerable to all kinds of damage before it is dead.

The order of vulnerabilities isn’t important. The important thing is to realize that everyone can contribute.

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

I have a BIG request with this topic: Please, be realistic.
If there is a better build to deal with pve stuff, people will discover it and will use it.
If you need 3 different type of armors and set of weapons to deal with different boss behaviours, that simply will be annoying. And remember that people like to use 3 or more different classes, which implies that farming for his armors, weapons and trinkets should be far from unbearable.

P.D. PvE its different from WvW. WvW have a lot more of space to play with different builds. PvE will always be ruled for the fastest way to deal with a boss or dungeon.

Since this thread is still going…

How viable would it be to buff the stat increases from traits, but in turn reduce those stats from (all related) gear?

The idea is to give you the same build numbers for Zerk, at the expense of going 30/30/x/x/x. Or PVT at 20/x/20/20/x (or something like that). This would probably require/force some fixing and tweaking of trait lines – not a bad thing IMO.

kyubi.3620:

critical damage will still be possible to run it just mean youl have to keep a cond damage user in a 4 zerker party for maximum damage effectively giving a purpose to cond damage in pve as well as to zerker.

Why should I look for a pug with different builds? So instead of making a party in a minute I have to wait 15 minutes to be able to run a dungeon because: “the party needs a ….”.
If problem seems to be those people that create parties where only zerkers are invited. So, ignore them. And for those minorities will be a big group of players nerfed?

Sungak Alkandenes.1369:

Since this thread is still going…

How viable would it be to buff the stat increases from traits, but in turn reduce those stats from (all related) gear?

The idea is to give you the same build numbers for Zerk, at the expense of going 30/30/x/x/x. Or PVT at 20/x/20/20/x (or something like that). This would probably require/force some fixing and tweaking of trait lines – not a bad thing IMO.

The problem is that this would not require just “some” fixing of the trait lines, but a massive overhaul of them, rebuilding quite some classes almost from scratch. Besides, what happens to supportive traits? This would completely screw classes like guardian or mesmer which rely heavily on bringing utility instead of raw DPS.

Bran.7425:

Don’t start on risk vs reward there while stacking in melee provides both optimal damage and protect. That and with the limit range on boons there is less and less reason for that argument.

So I understand you properly, you’re saying that enemies should target melee first, right? That’s what it kinda sounds like (which isn’t a bad idea). The only logical conclusion at this point is the need to rework AI (which, I know, a TON of people have pointed out), not changing armor.

It would be interesting if committed zerker CoF P1 run teams made videos with full trait and armor and trinkets spec’d to PVT. Dodging is fine, use everything you can, just make the run full PVT so there’s a baseline for meaningful comparison out there.

While making enemies target melee first, makes sense. It would still not change anything in regards to stacking. Overall there’s a lot of weirdness with the aggro system in GW2. Like how it seems to put very high priority on high armor targets. I would welcome a change to the ai, but I think a lot more is needed.

Anyone else have the feeling that the zerk-haters used to be the MF-leechers?

Another feeling I have is that this discussion wouldn’t even exist if we didn’t still play the exact same game as on release 1½ year ago. Meaningless bickering over the scraps we got. Compare that to a soon ten year old WoW, who had a couple of dungeons, two new raids and an expansion date set within the first year. I know this game is P2P, but still, so much potential wasted on rushed, sub-par LS content .

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

While making enemies target melee first, makes sense. It would still not change anything in regards to stacking. Overall there’s a lot of weirdness with the aggro system in GW2. Like how it seems to put very high priority on high armor targets. I would welcome a change to the ai, but I think a lot more is needed.

That targeting priority seems to have been ANet’s attempt at allowing some semblance of tanking without a overt taunt mechanic.

Except it works crap all because it is highly likely that a caster will dress hardier by their very nature compared to a warrior or guardian. End result is that the more squishy caster becomes the target, no matter how much he tries not to.

/sigh

To think that this is what the game has come to in terms of balance.
Nerfing zerker will not do anything to balance the game. Simply because dps is right were it should be while almost every other role or type of style is not as viable.
Not because they are week and dps is strong. Instead simply because the machanics are somewhat broken.

Berzerker is the meta because of how the mechanics of the game works. Thus nerfing berzerker will not solve the problem as that will only be balancing things around broken mechanics which I find stupid. It’s like repairing a chain on a bike when the bike is constantly breaking the chain because its broken. Granted repairing the chain will solve the visible problem temporarily. But in the end more problems will be found and it just makes more work that needs to done then fixing the true problem in the first place.

Btw this is all PVE. Not PVP. So any change should only be in pve and should not effect pvp in any way.
Anyway
When the mechanics of the game are not dynamic in terms of damage mitigation it will always result in those that have more dps then survivability being more effective because survivability is pointless.

In other words. Because the game has instant kill machanics that are no less effective against full blown tank-type characters then glass cannons It makes running defense stats pointless because in actuality defense stats are useless in that scenario while having more dps is useful.

Thus it is the mechanics of the game that needs to be fixed, tweaked ,polished to allow the majority of play-styles to have some visible role and effectiveness.

So for a example change how damage in pve works with armor so that high armor characters are noticeably more effective in mitigating damage than a glass cannon. Thus making that kind of play style have a viable point to it.

There are many other things that need to be done that I don’t have the patience nor the time to bother explaining. but simply put.

“This games pve in most areas is nothing but boring repetitive play with very little interesting mechanics to make the player(s) both as a individual or as a group think or take up separate roles (support, and control) besides dps so as to win their confrontation. It’s all stack and dps and dodge that instant kill mechanic with very little variation on the majority of confrontations or tactics needed to win”

So nerfing the most effective style of play because of how the broken machanics works will not solve the problem. Simply because it will not make the other play styles any more viable than they are now. Thus this will only damage the game.

sometimes u gotta understand, regardless of having full zerker or pvt, its how the players play.

even if u give some players celestial gear with 3x the current stats, they still will die and complain about not being accepted into a group etc.

nobody wants someone that doesnt play as a team player, example : running out luring 20 mobs and killing the whole group over and over again.

nobody will want someone that doesnt know how to play their classes or use skills that are available for their classes which regardless of being zerker or pvt, can support the group with.

nobody will want players that does nothing except for dying and letting other team members to complete the dungeon while they stay dead to leech.

regarding the solo @ lupi etc, IF you can solo as a zerker, you CAN solo as a pvt.

but because of the sacrifices zerker make, they die 1 hit, so they do get to do more damage and kill things faster.

For PVT, because they have more toughness and vitality, allowing yourself to take more hits, you are penalized to do less damage.

For VTC, because you have alot of toughness and vitality, and high condi output, you deal average damage AND take less damage, because of the tradeoff, you are penalized by a time gate where you need your conditions to tick to do damage.

regardless of which you play, every class bring different things on the table to use regardless of being a glass cannon or a condi build OR a pvt.

most players prefer zerker players doing dungeons is because they ARE capable and KNOWLEDGEABLE enough to AVOID damage instead of TAKING DIRECT HITS and die. also they support others better by staying alive instead of dying all the time. which is supposed to be done by PVT players that can survive.

problem is alot of players that are new, tend to like facetanking. spam the 1 button without taking any damage, hence having hacks, exploits, etc.

fixing the AI would make the content more interesting like the Lidari @ gauntlet. that was fun. something new for a change.

having dodge, blind, reflection, projectile blocking, aegis, invul, stability. all this skills makes a player, not having 9999999 HP and 99999999 armor.

the general way things are going feels like SAB mode. 1 stick hits for fix damage, everyone have a pool of 1000 hp. u know those old bunker jokes from really old MMO’s? its getting sad.

Just keep experimenting with DPS and Zerker Gear and u will ruin the game .
People farming for their Gear for a couple of months,and then u come and say that is to strong,we are going to nerf that.Its a game spoiling.
Keep it with that tempo and u gonna lose GW2 players.
Its a lot new games coming so there wont be a problem to replace it and find a better game.

DAJDZA.3108:

People farming for their Gear for a couple of months,and then u come and say that is to strong,we are going to nerf that.Its a game spoiling.

Question: Would you leave imbalances imbalanced for the same of not invalidating previous time invested by players?

If yes – and your post seems to indicate that – followup question: How would you ever do balance patching in a MMORPG?

Boyd.5438:

most players prefer zerker players doing dungeons is because they ARE capable and KNOWLEDGEABLE enough to AVOID damage instead of TAKING DIRECT HITS and die. also they support others better by staying alive instead of dying all the time. which is supposed to be done by PVT players that can survive.

THIS!
perfect example: fracs 38 dredge – noob tank guardian gets downed every 2 minutes – my zerker mesmer (gs/s-p) only got downed once because i actually know how to avoid heavy damage – even in melee range with the sword.

Carighan.6758:

DAJDZA.3108:

People farming for their Gear for a couple of months,and then u come and say that is to strong,we are going to nerf that.Its a game spoiling.

Question: Would you leave imbalances imbalanced for the same of not invalidating previous time invested by players?

If yes – and your post seems to indicate that – followup question: How would you ever do balance patching in a MMORPG?

Personally I would address those imbalances across the board by make adjustments to the mechanics which drive said imbalances. Not by kneejerk nerfing stats.

I wouldn’t leave the root cause of the problem alone (i.e. the gameplay/combat mechanics) whilst nerfing a stat which will make fk all difference.

I also wouldn’t target one small niche meta (speed running pve which is not a zero sum, nor a competitive facet of the game) within a pve subset which sees all builds able to complete the content, whilst leaving condi spam and bunker metas to dominate two out of three segments of the game and all of the competitive aspect of the game.

I also wouldn’t introduce time gated, BiS gear and then a short while after say “btw we are changing the meta/nerfing yo stats lulz”.

Fenrir.3609:

Carighan.6758:

DAJDZA.3108:

People farming for their Gear for a couple of months,and then u come and say that is to strong,we are going to nerf that.Its a game spoiling.

Question: Would you leave imbalances imbalanced for the same of not invalidating previous time invested by players?

If yes – and your post seems to indicate that – followup question: How would you ever do balance patching in a MMORPG?

Personally I would address those imbalances across the board by make adjustments to the mechanics which drive said imbalances. Not by kneejerk nerfing stats.

I wouldn’t leave the root cause of the problem alone (i.e. the gameplay/combat mechanics) whilst nerfing a stat which will make fk all difference.

I also wouldn’t target one small niche meta (speed running pve which is not a zero sum, nor a competitive facet of the game) within a pve subset which sees all builds able to complete the content, whilst leaving condi spam and bunker metas to dominate two out of three segments of the game and all of the competitive aspect of the game.

I also wouldn’t introduce time gated, BiS gear and then a short while after say “btw we are changing the meta/nerfing yo stats lulz”.

A thousand times this, Fenrir. I really hope that those points are clear to ANet, and I hope they have the vision and foresight to step back from this sudden gear change until they’ve looked at addressing the actual problem.

Even if changing PvE mechanics is difficult, it can’t be any more difficult than dealing with the absolute quagmire we stand to face if they let easy dungeon mechanics impact the entire game’s balance.

Anet, WE GET IT. You want us to spend more time playing a game that already feels like you have to binge game just to keep up with content/achievements, not miss out on skins, etc… JUST so we are more likely to purchase gems from your shop.

How do you plan to achieve this? By continuously making the items we work (VERY HARD) for irrelevant in the end and forcing us to conform to new meta and dedicate ourselves to a new grind.

It seems Anets idea of ‘fixing’ something is just to nerf it into uselessness like so many other aspects of the game.

You guys wanted to take away the trinity, healers and tanks. So what’s left after that? DPS of course. Isn’t this game working how you intended? Condi builds do have their place in the game, although it is mostly pvp.

How about Anet focuses on fixing things that are truly broken atm? Ranger pets/traits I’m looking at you.

Mirror Owl.7204:

Fenrir.3609:

Carighan.6758:

DAJDZA.3108:

People farming for their Gear for a couple of months,and then u come and say that is to strong,we are going to nerf that.Its a game spoiling.

Question: Would you leave imbalances imbalanced for the same of not invalidating previous time invested by players?

If yes – and your post seems to indicate that – followup question: How would you ever do balance patching in a MMORPG?

Personally I would address those imbalances across the board by make adjustments to the mechanics which drive said imbalances. Not by kneejerk nerfing stats.

I wouldn’t leave the root cause of the problem alone (i.e. the gameplay/combat mechanics) whilst nerfing a stat which will make fk all difference.

I also wouldn’t target one small niche meta (speed running pve which is not a zero sum, nor a competitive facet of the game) within a pve subset which sees all builds able to complete the content, whilst leaving condi spam and bunker metas to dominate two out of three segments of the game and all of the competitive aspect of the game.

I also wouldn’t introduce time gated, BiS gear and then a short while after say “btw we are changing the meta/nerfing yo stats lulz”.

A thousand times this, Fenrir. I really hope that those points are clear to ANet, and I hope they have the vision and foresight to step back from this sudden gear change until they’ve looked at addressing the actual problem.

Even if changing PvE mechanics is difficult, it can’t be any more difficult than dealing with the absolute quagmire we stand to face if they let easy dungeon mechanics impact the entire game’s balance.

the problem at hand now is that alot of players just wanna bloody facetank, full clerics, healing and deal 10 damage per hit, while punishing those that can dodge and spend time avoid taking damage while dealing 1k damage per hit. they want zerkers to be as slow as they are because its not fair for them to take so long.

thing is they dont understand, if u want A, u need to give up B, to give up B, you need to be C.

they dont want to work, they just want to get rich.

likely would love a banknotes printer @ their basement to constantly print money without working for it.

Palaryel.2463:

Increased monster armor to make up for the HP lost will directly lower the direct damage the monster receives (resulting in zerkers doing less damage than now). However, berserker geared people would still do the highest amount of direct damage possible. The change is that a condition + direct damage mixed group will kill things faster as opposed to a full zerker group.

That is basically what he said, lower health, increase armor to compensate so direct damage kills as fast, but condition gets a boost

Also, that change would open up certain new possibilities for monsters, as you could intruduce monster types that have really low HP but huge armor. Imagine a dungeon where 50% trash mobs have low hp high armor and the other 50% have it the same way like now (asuming no skipping is possible): a fullm zerker group would die to the high armored monsters since they wouldnt be able to kill it, a full condi group would die to the normal monsters since their raw HP would take to long to chew down via conditions, but a mixed group would do just fine since the conditioners could kill the high armor mobs in a few seconds, while the zerkers spike down the raw HP monster. Voila, build balance achieved

Anyways, yes thats one relatively simple change that wouldnt affect PVP at all, but would do a lot for PVE.

Interesting.

Changing PvE monsters without changing gear and mechanics would be best to change the build variety, but it requires an awful lot of playability testing and re-balancing of encounters.

Zenith.7301:

I’d just like for any other gear to be closer in performance to berzerker.

I can run berzerker gear everywhere to good effect, WvW included.

In fact, some classes like thief and mesmer and warrior lend themselves rather well to berzerker gear because they have defensives that allow them to stay offensive.

I just don’t get how a necromancer or thief autoattack dagger chain, limited to one target without cleave, can be doing less damage than a warrior and guardian’s cleaving weapons.

I don’t get who thought allowing D/P thieves and phantasm mesmers roam in WvW in zerker with 110%+ bonus crit damage was a good idea.

Berzerker just scales in a way that rampager does not.

berserker in WvW isnt really good. Its usable at times, but it has serious drawbacks, and limits your playstyle. This is fine, this is what berserker should be. However in PVE its a different story.

frans.8092:

Palaryel.2463:

Increased monster armor to make up for the HP lost will directly lower the direct damage the monster receives (resulting in zerkers doing less damage than now). However, berserker geared people would still do the highest amount of direct damage possible. The change is that a condition + direct damage mixed group will kill things faster as opposed to a full zerker group.

That is basically what he said, lower health, increase armor to compensate so direct damage kills as fast, but condition gets a boost

Also, that change would open up certain new possibilities for monsters, as you could intruduce monster types that have really low HP but huge armor. Imagine a dungeon where 50% trash mobs have low hp high armor and the other 50% have it the same way like now (asuming no skipping is possible): a fullm zerker group would die to the high armored monsters since they wouldnt be able to kill it, a full condi group would die to the normal monsters since their raw HP would take to long to chew down via conditions, but a mixed group would do just fine since the conditioners could kill the high armor mobs in a few seconds, while the zerkers spike down the raw HP monster. Voila, build balance achieved

Anyways, yes thats one relatively simple change that wouldnt affect PVP at all, but would do a lot for PVE.

Interesting.

Changing PvE monsters without changing gear and mechanics would be best to change the build variety, but it requires an awful lot of playability testing and re-balancing of encounters.

yea, it would take more time, but its really the only solution, aside from making other stats effect more than just armor or max hp. I know the balance team likes to do things with numbers because its a lot easier, and cost effective, but sometimes the problem isnt about numbers.
Even if they make berserkers suck, it will just be replaced by whatever the next best gear is, then everyone will demand you wear that. The only way this doesnt happen is if stats reflect a real difference in the way you play.

“Berserker sucks” ok
GW2, the only game where the more you play the weaker your classe gets. Wildstar is coming, some servers will be closed

spoj.9672:

Nerfing crit damage wont effect the meta. It might make rampager necro and engi stronger than their zerker counterparts though. But neither versions of those classes is an optimum choice for dungeons. Therefore meta unchanged, just slowed down slightly. People will continue to cry about being excluded from zerker groups.

Unfortunate too. A few observations & predictions:

1. Zerker groups take longer to complete but still complete faster than non-zerk groups. No real rebalance is completed since non-zerker groups will lose out on their crit damage as well and extend the time for their runs. Much QQ is still to be heard.

2. Some zerkers will take this as a personal affront and actively, and aggressively exclude and persecute non-zerk players because they believe the blame for the nerf lies with ALL players who don’t roll zerk gear

3. More vitriol in the community. More division. More QQ and no change to the real issues of PvE.

lfm CoF p1 max ferocity or kick!
huehuehue

By itself, crit damage won’t effect meta but I think we are all experienced enough at MMOs to know this won’t be the only change they make to impact the meta in the direction they want it.

BTW, the first salvo from Anet has been launched: a 10% damage reduction to DPS builds through a change removing crit damage and replacing with a new conversion stat called Ferocity.

Thull.2736:

lfm CoF p1 max ferocity or kick!
huehuehue

gtfo

There has to be some kind of trinity for DPS to not be the meta. I hate to say it, and maybe I’m alone, but toss 5 zerker warriors, mesmers, guardians, thieves (well, idk, gotta be competent thieves) or rangers into a dungeon, and I’m pretty sure… no, i’m 100% sure the first 3 I named can run anything smoothly. See a certain P1 of a certain dungeon. Right now, there is 0 need for healing and crap in pve. In WvW and SPvP, this is 100% different, you HAVE to have balance and be organized to win. PvE land is like… oh ok… so no point in defending, let’s just kill this boss that has easily avoidable mechanics asap.

TBH…. maybe having invulnerable frames when you dodge in PvE needs to go. Lol like seriously, maybe you should force people to be a bit defensive. Zerkers rely on dodge, heals, and quickly killing something.

@OP everything was good except for the aggro changes. That would push us back into the holy trinity of tank/dps/healer, and we don’t need any of that. especially:
“lower DPS draws more aggro”
combine that with bosses naturally targetting tankier players will take us back to WoW style tactics. I’d hate to see this game become another generic MMO.

in the meantime the new bosses oneshot everywhere ……

Clearly useful to invest in thoughness/vit/healing

Hmm. I’m out of this topic but I’ll leave my points here:

• I am playing with Critical DMG because I have no time to killing them for ages, meanwhile I’m running out of HP…
• I am a Ranger and all I can rely on is to kill foes faster than they do.
• My taste is good ol’ Diablo style, when we slay dozens of minions instead of duelling every NPC 1 by 1.
• Since my class is still in beta stage & the armors of the game is way out of my realistic but bit Hell-ish taste, my only joy left is to slay with very dinamical movement.

the real problems imo is the power of support, if mobs hit so hard u will need a real healer for compensate it, but they dont wanna do it, its fine for me, but this means the only real support is dodging system… so everyone dps and think yourself will ever be the best way… the only stuff u need as support is shield of avenger, wall of reflection, war banner, banner of discipline/strenght, feedback, timewarp, shadow refuge is nice for some part on fotm, but u can go full dps… there is no spot for bunker/support build, cause no one can support you as your dodge vs those mobs

if they redesign how mob hit you, and introduce some different mechanism all this should change…. my suggestion is drop down ALL dps from player and alot dmg from npc, then make dodge really slow recharge, and make it something special that u dont need to spam… so with lower dps we can kill anything, and we need some support guys for stay alive, and we know when dodge cause if we dodge in the wrong moment we dont have another one for a while, so its all about player skill and knowledge, and if someone make a mistake the support team mate can help us with some support skill/traits, w/o be oneshotted like now a full bunker will be…

whats the point if a full bunker have more or less same survivability of full zerker? cause 30k of dmg will shot everyone, or alot of mobs hit u for 5k x5 in 2 seconds.. so someone should say “dodge”!! ok i’m dodging but it means that i dont need any support guys, so everyone goes dps

The real problem is physical damage is rather unlimited while condition damage is rather limited (25 stacks of bleeding) or wasted. Creature has 5000 HP left while you do 5000 poison damage in 8s but a warrior is killing it in to 2s so 6s of your poison are wasted.

My solution for that is make condition damage stronger in time so higher condi dps. Result: It is much more difficult to get to those 25 stacks and there is an overall damage increase that is closer to berserker.

Skill X does 5000 damage in 10s -> 2500 in 2s.

I think the issue is that the PvP players will tell you that conditions are already too strong there. The problem is ofc that in sPvP, conditions attack rather small HP pools, and in rather small numbers.

In WvW or PvE, conditions are attack comparatively large (summing up a zerg + it’s condition cleansing) eHP and there’s a ton of condition appliers.

Options:

• Remove sPvP
• Make all conditions stronger in PvE and WvW, but leave them alone in sPvP. Also, remove caps in PvE/WvW only.
• Muffins.

Yeah i didn’t take PVP into consideration so thanks for this.

In the end a separation of PVP/PVE/WVW should have been made from the start of the game since all of these game types are different and need to be balanced separately.

I would also say that every community would be more satisfied by that. I mean sooner or later the devs may agree.