Guild Wars 2

Please note the focus of my post is directed at PvE more so than PvP and WvWvW.

>> PREAMBLE <<
Since the game’s launch, the berserker stat set (Power/Precision/Ferocity) has been considered by most to be the most powerful and optimal set in the game, so much so that most other stat combinations are seen as a hindrance to a team rather than an asset. It can trivialize most forms of content without much effort and leaves little room for improvement.

After 2 years of this state, many people have grown restless and wish to see more variety in viable stat combinations in team-oriented play, but there has been little direction given in how this can be accomplished.

And so, the focus of this topic is to discuss why the game has such a heavy bias towards the berserker stat set and what can be done to change that in favor of more viable stat sets in PvE.
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>> THE PROBLEM <<
To understand how to add more build variety to PvE, we need to first understand why there isn’t variety. Many people would be very quick to point fingers at the poor implementation of dungeon encounters, but I feel the root of the problem is far deeper, hidden in the mechanics of the game itself.

GW2 is different from other MMOs primarily in its combat system. Instead of a stationary battles with a trinity set up, GW2 has a combat system that lacks a hard-trinity and has a huge emphasis on movement and positioning. Given this, it doesn’t make sense to use the same mechanics as trinity-based combat in this game. So why does it?

> One of the biggest, glaring reasons for why GW2 has a huge emphasis on berserker stats is because of how little defensive stats are needed in actual combat. In a trinity-based combat system, defense is needed for the tank to hold aggro and survive the damage being thrown at him. Defense is useful because damage is unavoidable. However, in GW2, every attack can be mitigated or negate entirely with movement, positioning, and good usage of skills. There is also no reliable aggro mechanic, so there cannot be a dedicated tank to divert damage away from the party. So then, what use are defensive stats when you can avoid all the damage? What use is being defensive when the boss is attacking your squishy party member and throwing AoEs everywhere?

The fundamental difference between the two combats is in a trinity game defensive stats are a selfless decision that keeps the party alive and coordinated, where in GW2 defensive stats are purely selfish and provide nothing to the team aside from personal survivability (which is also less necessary due to the downed and rally mechanics). You are much more useful doing more damage and ending the fight quicker than to survive longer but force the party to deal with the fight mechanics longer.

> The second biggest reason why Berserker stats are so powerful is because of how powerful supportive skills are, and how you don’t need to specifically spec to use them. In this game, every class can do a bit of everything. Most of all, every class can do a lot of damage, especially with a berserker stat. Thus, classes aren’t chosen on their damage output, but rather what utility they can bring to the party. Thieves have the highest single-target damage in the game, but they are brought for their aoe blinds, stealths, and blast finishers over their damage. Warriors do a lot of cleave damage, but they are brought for their banners, might, fury, and vulnerability. And so on.

Classes can fill nearly every roll needed in combat without having to spec for it, and this is the problem. You don’t need to be defensive because you can just blind, block, evade, dodge, invuln, and just plain walk out of range of the attack. Your stats don’t do anything aside from increasing your damage output and decreasing your damage input. If there is to be build variety, this needs to change.
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>> THE SUGGESTION <<
Stats should directly affect the potency of skills. Too many skills just naturally apply really strong effects without having to spec into them. Powerful berserker builds can apply conditions by just hitting the enemy with crits, despite having no condition damage. Nearly every class can throw out a ton of party boons like they are nothing. Classes can mitigate all forms of damage by throwing blinds, blocks, and evades without speccing at all into survivability. Stats need to affect more than just damage.

> I suggest stats affect the potency of skills, requiring you to include a specific stat into your build to accomplish different effects. Certain thresholds should be met to trigger the effects of certain skills as well. For instance,

• Power should affect your overall damage output as well as increasing the potency of might, retaliation, and vulnerability. After meeting a specific threshold, skills will be able to apply might, retaliation and vulnerability.
• Precision should affect your crit chance and increases the potency of fury, weakness, and blind. After a threshold, skills will be able to apply fury, weakness and blind.
• Toughness should reduce the amount of damage you take, increases the duration of defensive skills such as blocks and invulnerabilities, increases the potency of protection, stability, aegis (last longer, after a threshold can block more attacks), and decreases the potency vulnerability and weakness applied to you.
• Vitality should increase your total HP, increase your maximum dodge points (allow you to dodge with higher vitality. To make this work, the default DP a person should have should be 50 (instead of 100)), increase the potency of evasive skills, increase the potency of swiftness and vigor, and decreases the potency of cripple, immobilize, and chilled applied to you.
• Healing power should affect how fast you res someone, how fast you are ressed, increase the amount of HP in downed state, increase the amount your heal skills heal for, and increases the potency of regeneration, and decreases the potency of DoTs applied to you (bleeds, poison, burning, torment, confusion).

Additionally, new stats should be added called condition mastery, which is a combination of condition damage and condition duration, and boon mastery, which is a combination of boon duration and healing power.

• Condition mastery will affect the potency of conditions you apply, and after a threshold, your skills will be able to apply bleeding, poison, burning, confusion, and torment.
• Boon mastery will affect the potency of boon you apply, and after a threshold, your attacks will be able to apply a variety of boons, and boon you apply will also be applied to your party members. The idea to this is party boons should only be made possible with this stat, given a few exceptions.
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>> CLOSING COMMENTS <<
It is likely my suggestions are far from the best of choices, but they are meant to illustrate the idea discussed. I believe the suggestion should be given some consideration as to how effective it would be and how it would change the game, for better or worse.

k
but no

thx

And people will still figure out what the new meta is and then that will be what is required for speed runs in dungeons.

There will always be a meta and it will likely always be whatever has the highest DPS. Because ANet does not want a party to have to wait for a specific class or build to be able to do anything in this game. Which means everyone has to be able to do everything to some degree. And if you change that, you’ll drive a lot of people away from the game as it’s one of the bigger selling points of the game. That you don’t have to wait for a healer or a tank or whatever.

PvE is incapable of ever requiring skill so it’s pointless to change it.

don’t hate m8

Oh boy, here we go again. Let me summarize your post.
Zerkers will become more damaging, tanky ones become more tanky AND can dodge more. Where is the logic and “solution” in this? Asking for a change just for the sake of changing isn’t a good idea in my opinion.
If full defensive builds wouldn’t be inbalanced enough while negating core mechanics of the game like dodge … Not to mention when you can simply AFK bosses with legit tactics.
But if you make berserker’s obsolete in some or every encounter there will be another meta. Like how soldier’s gear is highly recommended at Teq.

Can we merge these kind of threads into one? It’s starts to get boring when someones open a new topic every day.

Coldtart.4785:

PvE is incapable of ever requiring skill so it’s pointless to change it.

In which team did you participate in the most recent dungeon tournaments?

Dalanor.5387:

Coldtart.4785:

PvE is incapable of ever requiring skill so it’s pointless to change it.

Which team did you participate in the most recent dungeon tournaments?

Did any of those players have to play mindgames against the AI?

Coldtart.4785:

Dalanor.5387:

Coldtart.4785:

PvE is incapable of ever requiring skill so it’s pointless to change it.

Which team did you participate in the most recent dungeon tournaments?

Did any of those players have to play mindgames against the AI?

They still had to compete against other team times/beat other players. Are you trying to say that unless there is direct conflict between humans involved nothing takes skill?

Coldtart.4785:

Dalanor.5387:

Coldtart.4785:

PvE is incapable of ever requiring skill so it’s pointless to change it.

Which team did you participate in the most recent dungeon tournaments?

Did any of those players have to play mindgames against the AI?

Mind games huh? Sure brah…

Dalanor.5387:

Oh boy, here we go again. Let me summarize your post.
Zerkers will become more damaging, tanky ones become more tanky AND can dodge more. Where is the logic and “solution” in this? Asking for a change just for the sake of changing isn’t a good idea in my opinion.
If full defensive builds wouldn’t be inbalanced enough while negating core mechanics of the game like dodge … Not to mention when you can simply AFK bosses with legit tactics.
But if you make berserker’s obsolete in some or every encounter there will be another meta. Like how soldier’s gear is highly recommended at Teq.

Can we merge these kind of threads into one? It’s starts to get boring when someones open a new topic every day.

I’m suspecting you didn’t read my post, because you completely missed my point, which was that defensive stats are useless only because defensive utilities and support is too strong. Thus, tying those mechanics to defensive stats gives those stats actual use and viability.

My suggestion doesn’t make defensive builds more defensive, it makes it so players need to specifically spec to use defensive utilities and supports to their fullest, while also making it so players need to specifically build boons and conditions into their build if they want to have them; they aren’t just freely given.

Please go read my post and give me actual criticism.

So my Elementalist isn’t supposed to be able to burn, chill, cripple my foes unless I spec for condition?

No thanks.

Every class should be able to do everything to some degree. Spec’ing for something should only make you better in that area. Not give you the ability to do that. Not for this game.

Seera.5916:

So my Elementalist isn’t supposed to be able to burn, chill, cripple my foes unless I spec for condition?

No thanks.

Every class should be able to do everything to some degree. Spec’ing for something should only make you better in that area. Not give you the ability to do that. Not for this game.

I didn’t include movement crippling conditions and CC because I feel every class should be able to do those, but I do maintain that classes shouldn’t be able to apply damaging conditions unless they spec for it, giving a few exceptions for traits and profession mechanics.

Additionally, saying every class should be able to do everything to some degree does not mean every class should be able to do everything at any given time with no specialization. The suggestion I gave still allows for classes to do a bit of everything, and even more than what they currently can do if balanced correctly, but the difference being you have to specialize in what you want to do rather than have every class and player have literally every option at every given moment. It’s for that reason this game feels so casual to begin with.

I also stated however not to take my examples to heart and to focus on the concept I gave instead of the actual specifics.

Some of these changes may not have the effect you want.

By making damage scale harder, and defensive traits viable, there will be even more separation (and elitism) between the speed and casual communities.

Remember the FGS nerf? Speed run community was never dependent on FGS to kill the Spider Queen in AC so it quickly found alternatives (beginning with knowing how to dodge her animations to begin with). Similar things happened with that spider boss in TA Up with reflects getting nerfed.

Perhaps if ANet wants something like tanking to be more viable, they need to reveal the exact mechanics behind tanking. What is it specifically that helps a player gain aggro? The anchor (usually a guardian) used to be speed meta, but fell out of favor when it was found it couldn’t even reliably keep consistent aggro.

Perhaps they need to pay more attention to WvW and GvG, where stats aside from Berserker have been widely used and accepted.

I can almost guarantee, though, that following the OP proposals with stats will turn even more dungeons into ones nobody runs (Arah 1/4, TA A, etc) if encounters are not scaled down, and 5 man instanced loot pinatas if they are.

I do maintain that classes shouldn’t be able to apply damaging conditions unless they spec for it

Would 700 condition damage be enough? You can get that with 0 condition damage from gear and 20 might stacks.

What about 1300? That’s 5 in the warrior precision line (6-5-0-0-3 power meta), 25 stacks of might, a strength banner, and 0 condition damage from gear.

Lol zerk doesn’t trivialize combat.. it’s for players who know how to dodge. Don’t dodge? Miss a dodge? You down bro!

In other silly sets you can facetank all day… how is THAT not trivializing content? If anything, zerk makes stuff more challenging.

High risk, high reward. In this case, less time autoattacking w/e trivial content you are playing. Most players would point a finger at encounters because that is the issue here.

Fortunately, anything and everything can be run in zerker and as long as you know how to evade certain attacks it will always be the best. Unless ofc ANet forces people out of this set.

This is what happens when you make a game more or less completely based on DPS, but “no trinity” everyone said… you’re welcome!

@Loki: I appreciate the thought and work you´ve put into this, but in my opinion you got a lot of basic things wrong.

• “The zerker meta” is only really relevant for a small portion of PvE (by itself already just a portion of this game) – Dungeons. Nobody cares what build you are using when you are completing heart quests or random dynamic events .
• There is a very decent variety of builds within the meta. Out of all 8 classes, 7 classes are absolutely viable and even Necromancers are not so terrible that you actually couldn´t play them in dungeons at all.
• NOBODY HAS TO PLAY THE META to succeed at anything in this game!! The meta is about maximum efficiency, not viability. If you like to do Arah with a full nomad´s setup, I am pretty sure you can do that if you really wish to.
• If you try to “fix” the meta a new one will emerge and simply replace the old one.
• The suggestions you´ve made would be a huge step towards trinity game play. Without things like a “proper” aggro mechanic, however, this would be a total disaster and the new meta would probably become full celestial or something like that.
• You (as many others) are focusing WAY TO MUCH on stat balance, which is fine for the most part. I rather think that PvE has become stale and easy for many players because of a lack of variety when it comes to combat and mob mechanics.

Looking at what the devs have done in terms of combat/mob mechanics with the last couple of story updates (hard hitting trash mobs, mobs with tons of toughness, condi-spamming mobs, lots of hard CC, …), I am pretty sure that they will incentivize build variety and “out-of-the-box” thinking further in the future. This however has very little to do with stat balance.

Skoigoth.9238:

@Loki: I appreciate the thought and work you´ve put into this, but in my opinion you got a lot of basic things wrong.

1. “The zerker meta” is only really relevant for a small portion of PvE (by itself already just a portion of this game) – Dungeons. Nobody cares what build you are using when you are completing heart quests or random dynamic events .
2. There is a very decent variety of builds within the meta. Out of all 8 classes, 7 classes are absolutely viable and even Necromancers are not so terrible that you actually couldn´t play them in dungeons at all.
3. NOBODY HAS TO PLAY THE META to succeed at anything in this game!! The meta is about maximum efficiency, not viability. If you like to do Arah with a full nomad´s setup, I am pretty sure you can do that if you really wish to.
4. If you try to “fix” the meta a new one will emerge and simply replace the old one.
5. The suggestions you´ve made would be a huge step towards trinity game play. Without things like a “proper” aggro mechanic, however, this would be a total disaster and the new meta would probably become full celestial or something like that.
6. You (as many others) are focusing WAY TO MUCH on stat balance, which is fine for the most part. I rather think that PvE has become stale and easy for many players because of a lack of variety when it comes to combat and mob mechanics.

Looking at what the devs have done in terms of combat/mob mechanics with the last couple of story updates (hard hitting trash mobs, mobs with tons of toughness, condi-spamming mobs, lots of hard CC, …), I am pretty sure that they will incentivize build variety and “out-of-the-box” thinking further in the future. This however has very little to do with stat balance.

1. I would argue that group-oriented raid/instanced content is the main form of PvE in this game, and I would consider solo-oriented content such as world completion and dynamic events to be a transition or distraction from the main game. This is a team-focus game, so to balance around solo play is counter-productive.
2. No, there actually isn’t. The meta for any class currently is to build as much damage as possible and take all the damage modifiers you can in your traits. That isn’t variety, and this touches upon what I said earlier, which is you bring classes for their support and utility over their damage.
3. If you call everything viable, then the term viable loses its meaning. I would argue only few things currently are viable in group play, and they all revolve around as much damage as possible. A defensive build is a hindrance more than an asset in a team-oriented situation with only a few small exceptions.
4. That is fine. The purpose of my suggestion wasn’t to get rid of a meta, but rather change the meta to include a higher variety of builds and to make defensive builds actually useful in a team situation.
5. This may be true. This is why I emphasized at the end to focus on the concept rather than the details I provided, and to discuss how this would change the game for better or worse.
6. I don’t see how this is something that conflicts with my suggestion. Rather, I feel my suggestion actually addresses this very problem.

I suggested this because I do not think the new mob mechanics will change anything at all. Different design encounters won’t be enough to promote build diversity. Good design can promote movement over stacking, but when you can mitigate 100% of the damage through supportive and utility skills and kill the husks just as fast with raw damage, berserker is still going to be the best in every scenario,

Everytime someone says the meta is about maximising damage, he can’t be taken seriously.

oxtred.7658:

Everytime someone says the meta is about maximising damage, he can’t be taken seriously.

It is though. The current meta is to deal as much damage as possible as fast as possible while utilizing supportive skills to keep the party alive. This is the whole point of warriors bringing banners, thieves bringing blinds, guardians bringing blinds, blocks, condi removal, and reflects, rangers bringing frost spirit and spotter, and elementalists bringing conjurer weapons.

This is also why fire fields are considered the best field, as they provide 3 stacks of might per blast to the party, which is more damage.

Only necros bring the absolute maximum personal dps build to the table. Guess what? They are excluded from the meta.

Loki.8793:

1. I would argue that group-oriented raid/instanced content is the main form of PvE in this game, and I would consider solo-oriented content such as world completion and dynamic events to be a transition or distraction from the main game. This is a team-focus game, so to balance around solo play is counter-productive.

Well, that´s your opinion. I enjoy instanced group-oriented content the most in PvE myself, but that doesn´t mean it is more important than other areas of the game and apparently the devs don´t consider it the core of the game either. Or how else would you explain the facts that they have disbanded their dungeon team ages ago and mostly balance the game around sPvP?

2. No, there actually isn’t. The meta for any class currently is to build as much damage as possible and take all the damage modifiers you can in your traits. That isn’t variety, and this touches upon what I said earlier, which is you bring classes for their support and utility over their damage.

First, the current meta builds for organized dungeon groups are not about maximizing personal dps, this is simply wrong. Ironically, you pretty much spelled it out in your second statement though. These builds are about bringing as much support/utility as necessary to successfully complete certain content while sacrificing as few personal dps as possible.
Secondly, I could link you at least 2-3 core builds for every class that are considered “meta”. The variety comes mostly from different choices of weapons, traits, utilities, runes and sigils, depending on what content you are intending to do and how the rest of your group is set up. Things like that determine your play style so much more than the stats you have on your gear.

3. If you call everything viable, then the term viable loses its meaning. I would argue only few things currently are viable in group play, and they all revolve around as much damage as possible. A defensive build is a hindrance more than an asset in a team-oriented situation with only a few small exceptions.

Apparently we have different understandings of what “viable” means. To me it means “you can make this work” and not “this is the best way to do it”. But let us not argue about semantics, it´s almost always pointless.

4. That is fine. The purpose of my suggestion wasn’t to get rid of a meta, but rather change the meta to include a higher variety of builds and to make defensive builds actually useful in a team situation.

5. This may be true. This is why I emphasized at the end to focus on the concept rather than the details I provided, and to discuss how this would change the game for better or worse.

Yes I got that, but why do you think this imaginary new meta would be less restrictive than the current one? I´m pretty happy we don´t have to deal with this “lf 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 dps”-stuff here in GW2.

6. I don’t see how this is something that conflicts with my suggestion. Rather, I feel my suggestion actually addresses this very problem.

I have to disagree once again, your suggestions are solely about stat mechanics and stat balance and not about encounter design at all.

I suggested this because I do not think the new mob mechanics will change anything at all. Different design encounters won’t be enough to promote build diversity. Good design can promote movement over stacking, but when you can mitigate 100% of the damage through supportive and utility skills and kill the husks just as fast with raw damage, berserker is still going to be the best in every scenario,

I guess it all depends on how far the devs will take it with their game design in the future. We disagree very heavily on how much build diversity there is in the game currently and whether or not the current meta is problematic after all.
In the end it doesn´t matter anyways, because anet made it very clear in the past that they do not give a kitten about dungeons

Maybe we should go to the sPvP sub-forum and start kittening there about balance…

DaveGan.8065:

~Snip~

Perhaps if ANet wants something like tanking to be more viable, they need to reveal the exact mechanics behind tanking. What is it specifically that helps a player gain aggro? The anchor (usually a guardian) used to be speed meta, but fell out of favor when it was found it couldn’t even reliably keep consistent aggro.

~Snip~

If you’re interested in finding out how to keep up aggro, look it up on the wiki…it’s listed in there on what the AI uses to select targets…and I’m not linking it because this was brought up in another thread about aggro somewhere else…find it yourself. Aggro can be drawn to a character and maintained…it’s not that hard…I’ve done it plenty of times.

oxtred.7658:

Only necros bring the absolute maximum personal dps build to the table. Guess what? They are excluded from the meta.

quoted for truth.

Only one way to break the zerker meta without introducing harder restrictions and that is to make the AI effective enough to counterplay it within the rulesets of the game.

- If players can dodge, so should a lot of the mobs, and should do it reactively and effectively.
- If players can lay down effective smoke fields and stack the opposition around the corner, mobs should be able to do this against players, reflects? mobs should be able to do this just as effectively.
- If players are capable of monster healing and effective water blasting etc, so should mobs.
- Shadow Refuge? if mobs catch this in their lines of sight, they should instinctively start wailing in that general direction to try and get people in combat, forcing smart use of stealth. It is still an effective tactic but now you have to be careful with how you use stealth rather than it being a free pass to the next part of the dungeon.
- Players can stomp and use whichever boons or abilities to secure the stomp, so should mobs
- Players can cc entire groups and focus fire on desired targets, mobs should also be capable of doing this tactically
- Players can stack truck tons of toughness and be a full tank nomad that annoys the crap out of everyone, mobs should do this as well.
- Retaliation? let’s get that on the list to
- Let’s bring PU style mesmer mobs in the mix
- Hey look Colin! I’m swinging a sword! hey look I’m still swinging a sword! Mobs should actually see that you are doing this and try to instinctively react to it. Careless with it? maybe a mob will deliberately run in with counter blow and cave your face in or put a huge chunk of torment on you if its a mesmer type
- You see all of those rune sets and sigils on the market that no one uses? let’s design mobs that can actually show people how effective they can be in the right hands. Get creative mobs out in the field that are both smart and effective and you will see people start to consider options. Inquest condi thieves? get them using active radiation fields WHILE using the superior runes of rata sum WHILE a golem is going around using blast finishers, putting weakness on players WHILE the thieves are using well timed cloak and daggers in conjunction with the Cloaked in the Shadow trait. If people start seeing mobs do stuff like that they be like “Hey wait that’s cool, hey wait! I can do something like that too!” and you’ll get the creative juices going. Maybe they’ll combo roll for initiative and withdraw into shadow refuge to try and reset the fight, come back around the corner and use shortbow on point.

To break the zerker meta without introducing a hard trinity is to make content that is both complex and statistically diverse, to have encounters which vary in character sheet stats, different levels of armor, vitality, power, precision, etc, and with AI organic enough to try and take advantage of the tools and the numbers with them. To break the zerker meta is to basically turn much of the PvE encounters into PvP Simulations.

Make mobs as capable as human players as far as skill availability, use of mechanics, and access to different stat variations and you’ll see the meta get blown to bits(either that or it just turns into 4 celestial + 1 dps which is fine with as you at some degree cannot trivialize any mechanic in celestial, they all have to be weighed and dealt with).

At the end of the day, PvE(atleast in high level) should be requiring players to take into account everything in the game and how to best effectively use tools available to them including the various stat options available on armor. PvE needs to be less Farm Simulator 2014 and more a game with “Action-Oriented Combat” with tactile choices.

I play only warrior and have more than 5500 hours logged. I have 6 full ascended sets including zerker.
I havent used it once in the last 6 months.

The only situation where other party members might require you to run full zerker is in dungeons or fractals. Thats a very small part of all game content and you can do it on other builds as well.
Zerker isnt meta.

There is build variety in PvE. They’re just a variety of damage and support focused builds. You do not like these builds. Because you do not like these builds, you claim there is no diversity, despite there actually being diversity.

You claim there is a problem. There is not a problem.

Now that we’ve had the 36038276928367y913762396723672nd “fix duh zurkhurrrr methurrrrr” thread, you’d think people would get the message after being schooled in every single thread that their beliefs about the combat system are incorrect and that they should either stop playing or actually read what people are writing and embrace it.

Or, you know.

We can have

fix duh zurkhburghurr methurrrrr plssssssss

Skoigoth.9238:

I enjoy instanced group-oriented content the most in PvE myself, but that doesn´t mean it is more important than other areas of the game and apparently the devs don´t consider it the core of the game either. Or how else would you explain the facts that they have disbanded their dungeon team ages ago and mostly balance the game around sPvP?

> The fact that they balance around PvP solidifies my point. They balance around team oriented-content. It doesn’t matter if their dungeon team was disbanded, it is still a fact that the most played content by far in PvE is dungeons. Thousands of people run dungeons each and every day, even 2 years after launch, and is really the only form of content people use the LFG tool for.

the current meta builds for organized dungeon groups are not about maximizing personal dps, this is simply wrong. These builds are about bringing as much support/utility as necessary to successfully complete certain content while sacrificing as few personal dps as possible.

> You agree with me then.

The variety comes mostly from different choices of weapons, traits, utilities, runes and sigils, depending on what content you are intending to do and how the rest of your group is set up. Things like that determine your play style so much more than the stats you have on your gear.

> The problem with your statement is most of the things you claim give build diversity are things people change on the fly. To me, changing a single utility or swapping out a weapon for a fight isn’t the same as having build diversity. People still use the same traits, or the same trait template, people still bring as much damage as possible and use berserker everything, people still use the same sigils and runes. There is a little variety in sigil and rune choice, but 9 times out of 10 it is a sigil or rune that increases damage.

Apparently we have different understandings of what “viable” means. To me it means “you can make this work” and not “this is the best way to do it”.

> That isn’t the point. The point here is what builds bring actual advantages and utility to a group. Not every build can do this. Yes, you can go full nomads in a berserker group and complete the dungeon just fine, but it wasn’t because the nomad set brought anything to the party. It was because the 4 other berserkers carried you.

why do you think this imaginary new meta would be less restrictive than the current one? I´m pretty happy we don´t have to deal with this “lf 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 dps”-stuff here in GW2.

> The game is already like that. You need to have a coordinated team in tPvP, have specific roles be filled in roaming groups in WvW, zergs need to have specific skills, traits, and weapons for WvW and world bosses, and so does PvE. You can’t JUST rush in with all glass cannons with no forms of defense. You STILL need to bring specific skills and traits to make the run possible, and this is what the meta is about.

> My suggestion would require certain roles to be filled. This isn’t a bad thing, especially in a group-oriented game. It’s not like you have to wait for specific classes. Every class can fulfill every needed roll. All one would need to do is change the trait set up and utilities/weapons and a new roll can be achieved. The only thing that would change is needing to actually talk to your team and coordinate a little bit before hand. I just wish your trait build ACTUALLY had some significance in what roll you played and were vital to that roll. As it is now, you can get all the defense and support you need from a few weapon skills, a utility or 2, and a specific trait among the ENTIRE TEAM. This is bad.

> Some would say this would just make people not want to run dungeons, and this would be true if dungeons stayed exactly the same. Right now, people are motivated to do things based on the rewards they get. Completing a normal dungeon gets you a gold for completing it, completing Arah gives you 3. However, no one does it because of how much of a hassle it is to do Arah. However, what if the reward was 10 gold per path? Everyone would do it every day, despite how much of a hassle it is.

I have to disagree once again, your suggestions are solely about stat mechanics and stat balance and not about encounter design at all.

> Because encounter designs aren’t the root of the problem. The best they can do is force players to move and not stack, but that’s about as much as they can do. The AI is still the same. The same problems that plague the game are still there. The problem is the mechanics themselves. Anet decided to try something new and innovated a lot, but when they changed the combat they kept in the fundamental mechanics from the other games that were designed around trinity combat and didn’t consider how they would affect their game. And it shows.

maha.7902:

There is build variety in PvE. They’re just a variety of damage and support focused builds. You do not like these builds. Because you do not like these builds, you claim there is no diversity, despite there actually being diversity.

I never said I disliked the builds. I very much appreciate the high-risk-high-reward gameplay berserker offers. My problem is that defensive stats are comparably useless to offensive stats in a team setting.

And there is no build diversity. Swapping out a utility or 2 depending on the dungeon and swapping out a weapon for a single encounter is not the same as build diversity. Literally every warrior is a carbon copy of every other warrior, every thief is the same as every other thief, etc. If there was build diversity, you would see professions not use the same trait template, same weapons, same armor, same runes and sigils, etc. But you do. You’re wrong.

Active defence is a good thing, not a bad thing. Defensive stats are for players who either do not know the encounter well enough to mitigate damage, are not proficient at dodging certain attacks, or are not in groups coordinated enough to mitigate damage. Both player skill and coordination are rewarded with faster kill times.

As it is now, you can complete dungeons with anything. 5 players in nomad’s gear, 5 player’s in berserker’s gear, 5 players in no gear— and anywhere in between. That is build diversity. You’re welcome to play with any gear you want, and you can succeed with it provided you are skilled/knowledgeable enough.

As soon as you require defensive stats, you start limiting build diversity, not expanding it. The meta is meta because it is the current best, if stats are changed a new meta will emerge, no better and no worse than this one.

Loki,

I have some thoughts about your proposal.

1. In group content, the current state of support buffs (i.e., Aegis, Fury, etc.) is, as you say, that they can be very effective with skilled play, and are not tied to stats. In order to make buffs stronger based on stats, you would either have to: (a) accept stronger buffs than is currently the case (e.g., a Berserker’s might provides more than 35 power per stack) or (b) reduce the effect of these buffs, so that the current level of effectiveness can only be reached by attaining a given level of the stat needed. The problem with (a) is that this would strengthen glass builds while leaving the defensive buffs available to them intact. The problem with (b) is that these buffs are an integral part of profession design. Some professions make up for lower skill damage coefficients, lower health pools, etc. with easier access to buffs. Think Engineer, which by ANet’s design philosophy makes up for lower damage coefficients via increased versatility. This would mess with profession balance.
2. Since ANet has demonstrated a pattern of refusing to separate PvE and PvP balance, the suggestion would play havoc with PvP balance. Imagine, if you will, the reaction to a bunker build with stronger defensive buffs, or conversely, the reaction to building for bulk only to find that you do even less damage than now because your might, fury, etc. are weaker. In PvP, the opportunity cost for building bulky seems relatively balanced, as does the opportunity cost for building glass.
3. I believe that in another thread you made the point that the stat system is really not a good fit for an action game. Whether you did or not, that is certainly my thought, anyway. To that thought, I would add that — having included stats in a quasi-action game — thinking about build variety as being stat based is also inappropriate. I would submit that build variety is based on what you bring to the group. Nike has an excellent series on profession contributions to speed runs on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/user/TurboDzan). The Engineer video, in particular, talks about seeing what else is in the party and adjusting your build to make up for what is lacking. This seems an ideal build strategy for the profession that was designed with versatility in mind.

Loki.8793:

Dalanor.5387:

Oh boy, here we go again. Let me summarize your post.
Zerkers will become more damaging, tanky ones become more tanky AND can dodge more. Where is the logic and “solution” in this? Asking for a change just for the sake of changing isn’t a good idea in my opinion.
If full defensive builds wouldn’t be inbalanced enough while negating core mechanics of the game like dodge … Not to mention when you can simply AFK bosses with legit tactics.
But if you make berserker’s obsolete in some or every encounter there will be another meta. Like how soldier’s gear is highly recommended at Teq.

Can we merge these kind of threads into one? It’s starts to get boring when someones open a new topic every day.

I’m suspecting you didn’t read my post, because you completely missed my point, which was that defensive stats are useless only because defensive utilities and support is too strong. Thus, tying those mechanics to defensive stats gives those stats actual use and viability.

My suggestion doesn’t make defensive builds more defensive, it makes it so players need to specifically spec to use defensive utilities and supports to their fullest, while also making it so players need to specifically build boons and conditions into their build if they want to have them; they aren’t just freely given.

Please go read my post and give me actual criticism.

I did, thats why i replied. Sorry if you don’t like it.
The only part i ignored, but luckily others pointed out that most of these design decisions go against completely ANet’s vision of the combat system. What i mean you are independent from your gear and not need to specialize with it for any roles.
I highly suggest you to search for previous threads (we got like 3-4 last week again) and educate yourself with the same issues with the same replies we suggest. Every. Week.

This idea was posted on days ago by this guy

IndigoSundown.5419:

snip

I appreciate your comment. Thank you for taking the time to write all that.

1. I feel linking boons and conditions directly to different stats was a bit hasty on my part, but I still feel that stats should affect the skills in the game more directly than they do, aside from just making them more powerful. As it is now, I feel characters are too strong by themselves, which is why there’s this illusion that there aren’t any defined roles in combat. There are roles, they just aren’t as clear cut and apparent as they are usually are. I feel that, if done correctly, this concept would increase the presence and potency of other stats and make builds feel more distinct and unique from one another. I draw this concept from GW1s combat system and how effective it was at creating build diversity. Builds that had the exact same skills could feel completely different based on how you allocated your attributes, and could even give them completely different roles in combat.
2. In PvE, Offensive builds are the most powerful, but in PvP, I would argue defensive and condition builds are the most powerful. I would even go as far to say they’re too powerful. You don’t really see glass cannons in tPvP anymore, not even on thieves, who have switched to s/d from d/p. And the reason why defensive and condition-focused builds are so strong is largely because of passives and how stupidly simple it is to apply conditions. A burst build needs to significantly outplay a defensive condi build to win, and this shouldn’t be the case in a balanced game. Again, I feel builds are too powerful because they have access to too many options at once. I feel there needs to be a bit more specialization to achieve what we see in some of these builds.
3. That is a fair point. I would honestly prefer there were no defensive stats in GW2 and everyone had the same amount of defense dependent on their armor class. I would also prefer there were significantly more utilities and weapon choices to choose from so that one could specialize to a specific role based on skill choice rather than stat choice. However, I don’t see anet even considering this for this game (despite that it was done in their previous).

You should notice by now that I seem to care a lot about specialization. While good arguments can be made against it in an action-oriented game, I feel it is necessary in a team-oriented game. If you don’t have distinct roles, all the classes meld together and have the same playstyle. From playing all 8 classes extensively, I’m disappointed at how similar they all feel. The reason why you can bring any combination of classes into a dungeon and complete it with relative ease is because all of the classes are pretty much the same with slightly different themes and mechanics to differentiate them. This can be argued as both a good and bad thing, but from the success of GW1, I see it as a step down rather than up.

Zaklex.6308:

DaveGan.8065:

~Snip~

Perhaps if ANet wants something like tanking to be more viable, they need to reveal the exact mechanics behind tanking. What is it specifically that helps a player gain aggro? The anchor (usually a guardian) used to be speed meta, but fell out of favor when it was found it couldn’t even reliably keep consistent aggro.

~Snip~

If you’re interested in finding out how to keep up aggro, look it up on the wiki…it’s listed in there on what the AI uses to select targets…and I’m not linking it because this was brought up in another thread about aggro somewhere else…find it yourself. Aggro can be drawn to a character and maintained…it’s not that hard…I’ve done it plenty of times.

I’m well aware that high toughness melee AH guardian + 4 ranged characters maintains aggro… most of the time…and then you realize you can split the ettin and shaman champions in Uncategorized Fractal because toughness is a higher priority for the ettin than the shaman.

I’m well aware that the wiki lists factors that contribute to aggro. The former meta anchor guardian fell out of favor once people started meleeing more and it became clear that proximity and damage (things you don’t get in your lolcasualyolopug range parties) dealt were enough to change the aggro around.

Anchor guardian fell out of meta because it couldn’t effectively anchor anymore, especially in Fractals (where keeping a boss still while everyone unloads perfect rotations behind it would be arguably superior to everyone having to kite and dodge a bit). If your party isn’t taking aggro from an anchor guardian it says more about their damage output than your aggro.

Your condescending tone has also been noted. I originally hoped you were speaking from a position of justified arrogance (in which case I would look forward to learning more about this game’s mechanics). However, checking your recent posts reveal that it seems to be a mere superiority complex. Perhaps, instead of asking me to check the wiki, you can check it again to better realize the (limited) extent of aggro in this game.

Sharen Graves.1276:

This idea was posted on days ago by this guy

I had known WoodenPotatoes supported this idea, but I didn’t know he had an alternate channel. I’ll have to check that out later.

But no, the idea stems from GW1s attribute system and how it affected the potency of skills. I would imagine WoodenPotatoes got this idea from GW1 as well.

You’re in luck, OP.

The solution is here for you and all that hate Berserker metas!

@ Loki

Thanks for your response, and I appreciate your thoughts.

I would have greatly preferred an import or adaptation of GW stats and gearing. I think it would have gone better with the action style of the combat. Unfortunately, that ship burned long before launch, a sacrifice on the altar of MMO tropes.

Easier change: add more bosses with retal (that cannot be removed) or some auras. That way if you are hitting you take some dmg back no matter what.

“I have no ideea how this game works but I made a long post to seem smart.”

-OP

The game could have worked with a different stat structure, offering some interesting options (endurance regeneration, cooldown reduction, …) instead (or on top) of those passive defenses which are reduced to “training wheels” in almost every PvE action combat system. The game could have even worked without stats at all.
Designers opted, however, for a much more classic approach (both in stats and encounter design) that doesn’t match the combat system, probably in order to appeal to the masses.

At this point, if developers want to make extremely offensive setups less prevalent without causing a big mess, pushing a higher skill cap through AI improvements and encounter design is probably the best solution.

Making the effectiveness of some boons and core mechanics to depend on raw stats would not only bring back PvP development to alfa status (devs want PvE and PvP mechanics to be as similar as possible and the proposed change is just too big to be applied only to one of them) but has also a very important issue with “forced training wheels” (while I might need the extra dodges provided by vitality to succeed on a fight, the vitality itself will also increase my HP and allow me to survive some mistakes).

This is, for example, the main reason why I can’t withstand Diablo 3.
The way itemization works, when enemies deal enough damage for the gameplay to be interesting, my own damage is so ridiculously low that many fights (specially against some skill combinations on rares) become just impossible. On the other hand, when I reach the damage output I desire, my survivability has also increased and I can take too many hits before dying for the gameplay to be enjoyable.

Or we could fix everything by removing armor totally. Everyone is equal, everyone is happy.
Just need to kick people by asking their traits and weapon choices. Much easier to spot than armor stats that one can lie about. Makes your traits meaningful and reduces the completion speed gap betwen good players and terrible players (the core point of every nerf zerk thread).

Anyone with me?

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Only one way to break the zerker meta without introducing harder restrictions and that is to make the AI effective enough to counterplay it within the rulesets of the game.
-snip-

Pretty much this.

The other way to approach it is to have each boss encounter involve a complex mechanic where gear doesn’t really matter as much (think Echoes of the Past living story bosses); a mix of both complex AI and complex boss encounters would be an interesting way to break the zerker meta.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Or we could fix everything by removing armor totally. Everyone is equal, everyone is happy.
Just need to kick people by asking their traits and weapon choices. Much easier to spot than armor stats that one can lie about. Makes your traits meaningful and reduces the completion speed gap betwen good players and terrible players (the core point of every nerf zerk thread).

Anyone with me?

No, not really; traiting in the first and second line is more powerful, you know.
And I think the core of all threads like this is that those who can’t make zerker’s work feel like bad players but they don’t want to feel like bad players.

Loki.8793:

Classes can fill nearly every roll needed in combat without having to spec for it, and this is the problem. You don’t need to be defensive because you can just blind, block, evade, dodge, invuln, and just plain walk out of range of the attack. Your stats don’t do anything aside from increasing your damage output and decreasing your damage input. If there is to be build variety, this needs to change.

This is actually how the game was designed to work and is working as intended. I don’t know how you came up with the idea that this has to change but you’re definitely in the wrong.

Players are supposed to actively fight to keep themselves alive using traits and skills rather than just raw stats.

The system you suggest ( if you had done your research) was actually implemented in early builds of GW2 – where power, precision and the other stats were not only manually assigned by players but no tied into gear.

These stats influenced your melee damage, ranged damage, health pool, magic damage and so on.

This system was scrapped early in development and I can understand that if they did away with it then it’s not likely it’s going to make a comeback.

Also please stop thinking this will somehow create " variety " – it won’t.

GW1 had a system where your attributes dictated how well your skills worked. Do you know what happened? How things were different?

In no way – it was still have this build and gear or get kicked all the way. Because there will always be a meta – whether it’s zerker or something else doesn’t really matter.

The thing that works the best at clearing dungeons and other content will be the singular goal towards which players will push.
The meta doesn’t magically “include a higher variety” because there’s no variety to include.

One build or stat combo or whatever will do the job better than the others ( even if by a small margin) and that will be the new meta.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Or we could fix everything by removing armor totally. Everyone is equal, everyone is happy.
Just need to kick people by asking their traits and weapon choices. Much easier to spot than armor stats that one can lie about. Makes your traits meaningful and reduces the completion speed gap betwen good players and terrible players (the core point of every nerf zerk thread).

Anyone with me?

No.

Because that completion speed gap is there for a reason. Why should players who haven’t put in the time and effort to get to those perfect clear times be rewarded more?

Why should a player with 500 hours of gameplay do as well as someone with 2000 hours of gameplay?

If you want your speed clear times to be as good – work for it.

Handing things over to terrible players is in no way or form a good thing for the game.

oxtred.7658:

Everytime someone says the meta is about maximising damage, he can’t be taken seriously.

At this point I don’t give a duck anymore so I’ll just repeat that until you understand it, in a month or so.

Harper.4173:

No.

Because that completion speed gap is there for a reason. Why should players who haven’t put in the time and effort to get to those perfect clear times be rewarded more?

Why should a player with 500 hours of gameplay do as well as someone with 2000 hours of gameplay?

If you want your speed clear times to be as good – work for it.

Handing things over to terrible players is in no way or form a good thing for the game.

Should have added an Irony tag or something. Trying to understand OP’s logic (you know, that “hunter must think like his pray” thingy).

if you wish the “zerker” meta, to go away.

you must create content SO hard that the “berserkers” cry. Not just rivers, but oceans.

~Wethsopu

now that being said. can you imagine what would happen to 99 percent of the player base if content was SO hard that Even the best could not beat it?

Only thing you need for PvE is better AI, and with that, better boss mechanics.

It is really sad that Guild Wars 2 has a beautiful combat system….. much better than any other game I’ve ever played… and we just stack in the corner for LOS and max dps.

The problem is, they can’t change the meta from full zerker team till they add back some of the things they removed from the trinity.

They can’t make enemies deal damage more frequently without improving the scaling on stats like healing power….. which to be honest is the worst stat in the game (and Anet made it that way purposely).

If an enemy attacks once every ten seconds for 50,000 dmg, nobody will ever die, even though it is a one-shot skill. (provided they know how to dodge)

If that same enemy attacks once every 5 seconds for 25,000 dmg, players probably still won’t die (because they still have an additional dodge roll)

If that same enemy attacks once every 2.5 seconds for 12,500 dmg, players are going to begin struggling to completely avoid damage due to lack of endurance…. but endurance can be boosted, and additional skills provide evade mechanics.

And finally if that same enemy attacks once every second, and deals 6k dmg, people would be getting melted in zerker gear, since they do not have the endurance or skills to dodge, and lack the toughness to survive…. and it would give even full pvt players a run for their money.

The problem is that NONE of the enemies in this game attack fast enough to give any player any reason to run anything other than max dps with no survivability.

Every single attack that would kill a zerker in one hit can be completely avoided by evading.

Halve the damage of enemy attacks, and make enemies attack twice as often and you will find out what a world of a difference it will make.