Guild Wars 2

Hello fellow players and ANet developers, so far we have been given a number of important information in topics regarding berserker changes, that in conjunction with each other don’t draw a pretty picture in my head. Let’s go over them:

1) berserker gear dominance is being addressed
2) critical damage is being changed
3) exact changes are going to be known this friday

Me, as well as a lot of other players, feel like this is taking the “easy” way out, and instead of addressing the true issues that lay with badly implemented dungeon boss AI, and overall difficulty of PvE content (which used to be higher during the Beta as I recall), it has been decided that berserker gear will simply be nerfed. As distasteful as I find this choice, I (along with many others) have been expecting it to happen, for obvious reasons. However, that is not why I have made this topic.

Now, depending on how the changes are pulled off, berserker gear may, or may not cease being useful in PvE/WvW (according to data from previous balance patches, it is not unreasonable to assume it very well might cease being useful altogether). But regardless of either of the outcomes coming true, there are a few issues that will arise from this:

1) Thieves will lose too much of their ability to pressure enemies (damage), and therefore their survivability will be even worse than it is now (pressure is a major factor in PvP survivability). Now, I have said this to developers a long time ago, and I even got a reply stating that I was right in my assumptions, but thieves have too much damage nested in their high tier traits, and their base damage is too low. If they want to spec more towards survivability, their damage output suffers heavily. Thanks to this, berserker plays too heavy a role in thieves’ builds compared to other classes, because damage is that much more important to them. Along with poor boon generation on their own (be it offensive or defensive) and overnerfed boon stealing, which was supposed to counter that weakness, thieves will suffer the most with this change.

In WvW stealth specs will become even more abundant, seeing as no other spec will be viable at all

In PvE thieves will cease functioning inside of the dungeons at all. Warriors and Guardians, who are naturally tanky will take over the few spots thieves, eles and rangers might have had in teams. That is under the assumption that berserker gear survives the slaughter as superior dungeon running option.

2) Elementalists: just like thieves, eles will suffer in PvE because of the gear change. Although fortunately for eles, they have abundance of damage modifiers in their traits, therefore the hit to berserker gear will not have as much of an effect on this class. Yet there is a persisting problem with ele survivability. If the hit to zerker gear is not big enough to warrant PVT meta (which I’d hate), eles will suffer just like thieves will, because there will be no advantage to taking one instead of a guardian or warrior.

3) Rampager spec: If the hit to berserker gear is too big, Rampagers will take over it’s place. That will mean a meta shift not only away from berserker specs, but also towards more hybrid classes like necromancers and engineers (which would be nice if it didn’t shut out classes with poor hybrid specs). It will not be a work of balance, it will be cutting off some classes from the meta, so that others can join it now. This has happened in PvP over half a year ago and people have come to hate that blasted patch. The game mode has never recovered and many great people have left the game for good.

4) Failing to address the issues with Clerics, Dire, Soldier’s, and every other defensive stat gear uselessness in PvE. Taking the easy way out.

So what can be done to address those issues? I could come up with an elaborate solution to each of the classes’ problems, but seeing as it’s the easy way that is preferred, what needs to be done (IMO) is:

- normalization of base health/armor amongst classes (PvE/WvW, doesn’t have to occur in PvP seeing as it’s completely different balance there). This has caused much grief in PvE and WvW to many players running non-heavies. While I do understand that each class has it’s own defensive mechanics, which was the base for the decision to split them into tiers in the first place, that balance decision is mainly affecting PvP balance, yet creating a major issue in other game modes. It is high time it was addressed. It’s always easier to just re-balance warrior’s active defense mechanics than to address all the other classes’ survivability issues. The normalization doesn’t necessarily have to be aimed at the top level of HP/armor, it can be the middle one for all I care (to keep PvE challenging), and WvW players can receive a passive bonus in HP when they join it.
- if normalization is not an option, make sure class specific defenses work for all content adequately (much more balance work)
- make sure berserker spec isn’t completely destroyed, so that rampager can come into play, but not as the only contender.

i can t understand where they take the idea ZERK is the issue…i 100% agree with you.

And seems their effort to spread panic and possibly destroy US/EU population is a priority.

Do they think that people will simply change equipment?
Its not PvP! full ascended equipment for a light profession costs 1000+ gold….

what about mesmers?
Its easy to see the profession totally disappear from pve in just one patch.

Oh yes, I’d forgotten mesmer (seeing as I don’t play it too much myself). Mesmers already have major DPS issues in PvE. They are possibly the slowest class to build up their DPS output and their sole usefulness lies in their team utility. This utility is proportionaly interwined with berserker gear in the form of time warp. The less berserkers you have in your team, the less efficient time warp is and the less needed mesmer becomes (freeing up a space for potentially superior pick)