Guild Wars 2

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Still waiting to hear what the “problem” is. In a good player’s hands, pve dps builds are objectively superior.

SO WHAT? Please explain why and how this is a “problem” that requires “fixing.”

You didn’t read the post, did you?

I always enjoy these threads. It’s always “Zerk players, your playstyle is lesser and our tanky mindless playstyle is better!”

Especially things like making active dodge, one of the most skillful things that the game has going for it, less important. While increasing the mindlessness of just stacking defenses.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Section 3: What this problem is not.

#3: This is not about punishing players for their investment.
—————————————————————————————————————

tl;dr Anet didn’t balance for active defense, and everyone who whines about other players being at fault is wrong and just making the problem worse. The zerk issue hurts everyone. Read the kitten post to know why.

Depending on what happens this isn’t true at all. When ascended armor came out I finally bit the bullet and went with full dps gear. I’ve never had it before, and it costs an arm and a leg of both materials and time, and replacing some of those materials (like cloth) is going to take significantly more time because of the loot tables. In a worst case I scenario I don’t want that investment wasted on something that is potentially unplayable, and I don’t want a “fix” to berserkers that could set me back 6 months.

And Anet did balance for active defense, you can see that in some of the trait lines, primarily for the medium armor classes. And then you have the mob abilities themselves.

Reposting myself from Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1v3w03/state_of_the_zerk_awesome_insight_by_blood_red/ceoiywv

I don’t think it would affect WvW or sPvP at all.

I’ve always said the problem lies in the content, not in the professions themselves. Yes, I know some professions, like the warrior, still do too much damage in comparison with the others, but this should be addressed with buffs, and not nerfs, and is not the core problem.

Let’s look at the Queen’s Gauntlet. It’s specially painful because it was pretty much designed around it being a DPS race:

• Time limit. If you don’t have good DPS, you won’t kill the boss in time, and you die.
• Instant-downing abilities. Why are you going to give a kitten about vitality or toughness when half the attacks of the enemy boss are grossly overpowered and down you with one hit?

ArenaNet put those mechanics there, and you got to be blind not to notice how biased they were. They could have done incredible bosses where you needed condition and tank builds, but they didn’t. Just DPS.

In my opinion, they do need to rework the entire AI, and make it more tactic. Give the enemies more self-healing abilities, and allow them to be interrupted. Dodges are about tactical defense, but Crowd Control, which should be tactical offense, doesn’t get any love, and when you need it there’s always an abuse of the defiant mechanic. Also, give enemies abilities to remove endurance.

Two things they need to fix, for good. They innovated in many things, and they should be the first MMO to kill these two things:

• Pulling: Attacking an enemy to make it come for you with the rest of his group not noticing.
• Kiting: Running around with the enemy chasing you, while you hit them.

Groups of enemies should react together, and melee enemies should stop chasing you after a while and change their strategy, attacking you at distance, shielding or reflecting your ranged attacks.

Lonami.2987:

Reposting myself from Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1v3w03/state_of_the_zerk_awesome_insight_by_blood_red/ceoiywv

I don’t think it would affect WvW or sPvP at all.

I’ve always said the problem lies in the content, not in the professions themselves. Yes, I know some professions, like the warrior, still do too much damage in comparison with the others, but this should be addressed with buffs, and not nerfs, and is not the core problem.

Let’s look at the Queen’s Gauntlet. It’s specially painful because it was pretty much designed around it being a DPS race:

• Time limit. If you don’t have good DPS, you won’t kill the boss in time, and you die.
• Instant-downing abilities. Why are you going to give a kitten about vitality or toughness when half the attacks of the enemy boss are grossly overpowered and down you with one hit?

ArenaNet put those mechanics there, and you got to be blind not to notice how biased they were. They could have done incredible bosses where you needed condition and tank builds, but they didn’t. Just DPS.

In my opinion, they do need to rework the entire AI, and make it more tactic. Give the enemies more self-healing abilities, and allow them to be interrupted. Dodges are about tactical defense, but Crowd Control, which should be tactical offense, doesn’t get any love, and when you need it there’s always an abuse of the defiant mechanic. Also, give enemies abilities to remove endurance.

Two things they need to fix, for good. They innovated in many things, and they should be the first MMO to kill these two things:

• Pulling: Attacking an enemy to make it come for you with the rest of his group not noticing.
• Kiting: Running around with the enemy chasing you, while you hit them.

Groups of enemies should react together, and melee enemies should stop chasing you after a while and change their strategy, attacking you at distance, shielding or reflecting your ranged attacks.

I don’t think the Gaunlet was specifically about DPS and running full zerk but more about changing your traits hence the retraiter that was there. I did the tornado lady on my ele had to go into earth for Stab on earth armor of earth trait and cantrip cooldowns. I never go in earth I think that was the design behind the gauntlet now Dead-Eye Dumwell farming was a different story and all about dps racing.

Shaun.5093:

You didn’t read the post, did you?

What is the ultimate problem? Should tanky gear which give you more room for error rewards you with the same efficiency?

Ahlen.7591:

I always enjoy these threads. It’s always “Zerk players, your playstyle is lesser and our tanky mindless playstyle is better!”

Especially things like making active dodge, one of the most skillful things that the game has going for it, less important. While increasing the mindlessness of just stacking defenses.

Something like this?

http://youtu.be/b2VhmwLwvrM

Lonami.2987:

Let’s look at the Queen’s Gauntlet. It’s specially painful because it was pretty much designed around it being a DPS race:

• Time limit. If you don’t have good DPS, you won’t kill the boss in time, and you die.
• Instant-downing abilities. Why are you going to give a kitten about vitality or toughness when half the attacks of the enemy boss are grossly overpowered and down you with one hit?

ArenaNet put those mechanics there, and you got to be blind not to notice how biased they were. They could have done incredible bosses where you needed condition and tank builds, but they didn’t. Just DPS.

Calling the gauntlet a DPS race is, honestly, going too far.
There were a few fights (like Subject 7, and Liadri up to some degree), where a serious lack of damage could be deadly, but something like full berserkers was far from needed.

I completed all the thing with soldier armor and half of my traitpoints invested on defense. Even with that, I had more than a whole minute remaining in almost every combat.
I completed “Light up the Darkness” (throw 8 orbs at Liadri before killing her) on a fairly even mix of Knight, Cleric and Zeker.
Condition builds were working really well, better than power ones for the most part.

That is an extraordinary well written post. Read it all, don’t rely on summaries.

I was thinking about this “issue” over the past few days after seeing the red post that Anet was looking into changing the berserker dynamics. The only solution I could see was to make toughness either have a chance to automatically block attacks or have it increase endurance regeneration.

Both your post here and your sugestions are really good. Great analysis and great suggestions! Well done. I would love to see your suggestions being implemented by Anet.

+1

haviz.1340:

Ahlen.7591:

I always enjoy these threads. It’s always “Zerk players, your playstyle is lesser and our tanky mindless playstyle is better!”

Especially things like making active dodge, one of the most skillful things that the game has going for it, less important. While increasing the mindlessness of just stacking defenses.

Something like this?

http://youtu.be/b2VhmwLwvrM

Good video this is the other side of the Spectrum tanky no thought process just press your buttons dodge key doesn’t exist. So you have DPS race or you could have this video the 2 extremes. In the middle is? People that don’t care if you are dps or tanky and just want to run the dungeon for fun regardless of what the gear is or party comp.

Fun for some is efficient dps focused builds with min/max and theorycrafting. Theorycrafters are always going to min/max the best possible build and we all reap the benefits of those theorycrafters when making gear choices. There is a reason the most expensive runes from before the first ascended patch are no longer some of the most expensive runes anymore. Everyone learned and information was posted it is why sigil of force is over 1 gold now when it use to be 20 silver.

I don’t feel that berseker gear would be nerfed in it’s effectiveness for DPS just that some dungeons and enemies will have more requirements to be defeated besides just dps. Where some other element is required like healing or conditions etc. If that is added it will be arbitrary barriers added or the sake of diversity in dungeons besides zerk but it is what people are asking for.

His analysis lacks anything about sustain which is mostly used by tanky builds.

oZii.2864:

Good video this is the other side of the Spectrum tanky no thought process just press your buttons dodge key doesn’t exist. So you have DPS race or you could have this video the 2 extremes. In the middle is? People that don’t care if you are dps or tanky and just want to run the dungeon for fun regardless of what the gear is or party comp.

Fun for some is efficient dps focused builds with min/max and theorycrafting. Theorycrafters are always going to min/max the best possible build and we all reap the benefits of those theorycrafters when making gear choices. There is a reason the most expensive runes from before the first ascended patch are no longer some of the most expensive runes anymore. Everyone learned and information was posted it is why sigil of force is over 1 gold now when it use to be 20 silver.

The middle is that you dodge and tank while healing up. Sounds reasonable?

haviz.1340:

oZii.2864:

Good video this is the other side of the Spectrum tanky no thought process just press your buttons dodge key doesn’t exist. So you have DPS race or you could have this video the 2 extremes. In the middle is? People that don’t care if you are dps or tanky and just want to run the dungeon for fun regardless of what the gear is or party comp.

Fun for some is efficient dps focused builds with min/max and theorycrafting. Theorycrafters are always going to min/max the best possible build and we all reap the benefits of those theorycrafters when making gear choices. There is a reason the most expensive runes from before the first ascended patch are no longer some of the most expensive runes anymore. Everyone learned and information was posted it is why sigil of force is over 1 gold now when it use to be 20 silver.

The middle is that you dodge and tank while healing up. Sounds reasonable?

I think that is what some people are asking for that all they have to do is focus on dodging tanking and healing people they don’t have to do damage to feel "wanted’ in their other gear.

Great read. That’s all I’ll say.

oZii.2864:

I think that is what some people are asking for that all they have to do is focus on dodging tanking and healing people they don’t have to do damage to feel "wanted’ in their other gear.

That’s how it is currently and this is not what people demand. They demand that their tanky builds have similar efficiency to glass cannon builds which sounds and is ridiculous.

haviz.1340:

oZii.2864:

I think that is what some people are asking for that all they have to do is focus on dodging tanking and healing people they don’t have to do damage to feel "wanted’ in their other gear.

That’s how it is currently and this is not what people demand. They demand that their tanky builds have similar efficiency to glass cannon builds which sounds and is ridiculous.

I take away from the discussion that people want to basically hop out of WvW in their full PVT armor open LFG and get a group without being called out that they aren’t zerker.

oZii.2864:

I take away from the discussion that people want to basically hop out of WvW in their full PVT armor open LFG and get a group without being called out that they aren’t zerker.

I’m not going to claim it’s the truth since we lack any kind of a proof but I would assume that there are a lot of people like that.

haviz.1340:

oZii.2864:

I take away from the discussion that people want to basically hop out of WvW in their full PVT armor open LFG and get a group without being called out that they aren’t zerker.

I’m not going to claim it’s the truth since we lack any kind of a proof but I would assume that there are a lot of people like that.

It is quite likely that there is some truth to that.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Still waiting to hear what the “problem” is. In a good player’s hands, pve dps builds are objectively superior.

SO WHAT? Please explain why and how this is a “problem” that requires “fixing.”

It’s not how the game was advertised. We were told “any class can play any role” and right now that is ludicrous because DPS builds are far superior to anything else.

Right now people are tired of face-rolling through content to farm gold. The fact that DPS builds are the only optimal ones is part of that equation. If I had three viable builds on my Guardian each with different stats I might be inclined to earn different armor sets and unlock cosmetics for them.

The way the game works right now do you think combat is better or worse than other MMORPG’s you have played? I’m not implying there is a right answer I’m asking for your perspective on this.

It’s simply the best response to this problem I’ve read.

OP really hit the nail about active defenses empowering all-out DPS far more than mixed dps/defense.

I have just something to add, and I wish OP talked a bit about that in his post, because it will draw Anet’s attention. And it’s the question : “Why is the trinity working so well ?”. Please don’t think that I want some kind of trinity in the game, but we can certainly learn from a system which has been refined from mmo’s to mmo’s and is working very well in some of the most popular ones.

I think it’s because of 2 things:

- Passive defenses are far more important in a trinity setup than in GW2. The Tank tanks enemies, and if he doesn’t have enough defenses or fails to play around that (using skills to augment defenses or dodge etc) during combat, it’s over. I don’t see this happening in GW2 because active defense is really easy to do (aegis, dodge, etc), and rezzing a downed player is deliberatly extremely powerful. Making foes harder will only make the content less forgiving, but players will probably not switch to passive defenses.

- All classes have some kind of Resource management. Mana, rage, etc you name it. Basically, what it allows is a finer balance between offense and defense. If you use all your mana to dps and the mob isn’t dead, you can’t cast active defenses anymore and you’re dead. It creates choices and consequences. It provides equilibrium. GW2 has a wonderful system which make the combat very dynamic, by removing resource management (except for thieves, which totally unrelated I always thought was kind of weird) and making cd extremely low. And don’t get me wrong I love it. But the equilibrium isn’t there anymore, and you can go 100% dps against a boss while casting active defenses without any problem.

I do not believe the “Zerker Problem” will ever be fixed, because it really stems from different mechanics which are all deeply rooted in GW2’s dynamic combat gameplay. But if Anet ever find an answer other than nerfing Zerk / buffing other stats, they will have my utmost respect, because it’s clearly a very difficult and complex gamedesign problem.

Finnway.2183:

It’s not how the game was advertised. We were told “any class can play any role” and right now that is ludicrous because DPS builds are far superior to anything else.

Right now people are tired of face-rolling through content to farm gold. The fact that DPS builds are the only viable ones is part of that equation. If I had three viable builds on my Guardian each with different stats I might be inclined to earn different armor sets and unlock cosmetics for them.

The way the game works right now do you think combat is better or worse than other MMORPG’s you have played? (I don’t mean recently; I mean any game since the dawn of time)

Everything is viable thus “any class can play any role”.

Finnway.2183:

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Still waiting to hear what the “problem” is. In a good player’s hands, pve dps builds are objectively superior.

SO WHAT? Please explain why and how this is a “problem” that requires “fixing.”

It’s not how the game was advertised. We were told “any class can play any role” and right now that is ludicrous because DPS builds are far superior to anything else.

Right now people are tired of face-rolling through content to farm gold. The fact that DPS builds are the only viable ones is part of that equation. If I had three viable builds on my Guardian each with different stats I might be inclined to earn different armor sets and unlock cosmetics for them.

The way the game works right now do you think combat is better or worse than other MMORPG’s you have played? (I don’t mean recently; I mean any game since the dawn of time)

The game was like that at launch and even a few months into it but people learned the encounters learned the AI’s patterns so they could speed up the runs faster and faster. That doesn’t have anything to do with builds or armor that is just evolution. People basically learned2play. What is likely to happen is enrage timer type of stuff happening putting arbitrary barriers on already existing enemies so that people are “forced” to bring other gear or classes. Now the only “forcing” is self inflicted it isn’t Anet’s fault players kick other players for not running meta builds. The players adapted became better and thus this is a unintended consequence of the current AI programming in dungeons.

haviz.1340:

Everything is viable thus “any class can play any role”.

But not all roles are equal because DPS far out-performs other builds in open-world PvE, Dungeons, and Fractals.

oZii.2864:

Finnway.2183:

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Still waiting to hear what the “problem” is. In a good player’s hands, pve dps builds are objectively superior.

SO WHAT? Please explain why and how this is a “problem” that requires “fixing.”

It’s not how the game was advertised. We were told “any class can play any role” and right now that is ludicrous because DPS builds are far superior to anything else.

Right now people are tired of face-rolling through content to farm gold. The fact that DPS builds are the only viable ones is part of that equation. If I had three viable builds on my Guardian each with different stats I might be inclined to earn different armor sets and unlock cosmetics for them.

The way the game works right now do you think combat is better or worse than other MMORPG’s you have played? (I don’t mean recently; I mean any game since the dawn of time)

The game was like that at launch and even a few months into it but people learned the encounters learned the AI’s patterns so they could speed up the runs faster and faster. That doesn’t have anything to do with builds or armor that is just evolution. People basically learned2play. The fix is better AI and enemies gear doesn’t have to be changed if people want the challenge. What is likely to happen is enrage timer type of stuff happening putting arbitrary barriers on already existing enemies so that people are “forced” to bring other gear or classes. Now the only “forcing” is self inflicted it isn’t Anet’s fault players kick other players for not running meta builds. The players adapted became better and thus this is a unintended consequence of the current AI programming in dungeons.

But the important thing is that players are able to play like that because the game is designed that way. The game vastly favors DPS builds because of flaws in design that have not been worked out.

Finnway.2183:

haviz.1340:

Everything is viable thus “any class can play any role”.

Everything is not viable in the sense that DPS far out-performs other builds in open-world PvE, Dungeons, and Fractals.

It is viable I can go do temple of Balthazaar right now in full clerics gear and nobody would know but I am not advertising that I am in clerics neither am I hiding it.

Of course DPS out performs healing power for Damage. What else is there besides damage? You kill with damage. You don’t kill with vitality, toughness, or healing power. Those stats don’t do damage power, precision, crit damage and condition damage kill.

It is easy to say that there is a flaw in zerker gear but what is the alternative clerics? Soldiers? You still came in the dungeon to kill stuff so you brought gear to kill. If you don’t need the vitality, toughness, or healing power why bring that kind of gear?

Finnway.2183:

haviz.1340:

Everything is viable thus “any class can play any role”.

Everything is not viable in the sense that DPS far out-performs other builds in open-world PvE, Dungeons, and Fractals.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/viable

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/optimal

Everything is viable. Damage gear is optimal.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Finnway.2183:

haviz.1340:

Everything is viable thus “any class can play any role”.

Everything is not viable in the sense that DPS far out-performs other builds in open-world PvE, Dungeons, and Fractals.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/viable

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/optimal

Everything is viable. Damage gear is optimal.

Point taken.

Finnway.2183:

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Still waiting to hear what the “problem” is. In a good player’s hands, pve dps builds are objectively superior.

SO WHAT? Please explain why and how this is a “problem” that requires “fixing.”

It’s not how the game was advertised. We were told “any class can play any role” and right now that is ludicrous because DPS builds are far superior to anything else.

Right now people are tired of face-rolling through content to farm gold. The fact that DPS builds are the only viable ones is part of that equation. If I had three viable builds on my Guardian each with different stats I might be inclined to earn different armor sets and unlock cosmetics for them.

The way the game works right now do you think combat is better or worse than other MMORPG’s you have played? I’m asking for your perspective on this.

Any class can still play any roll, it just so happens that DPS roles seem to be better at killing stuff. Crazy, I know, right?

Anet advertised the game as an action based combat game where any class can take on any roll, which is true. Any class can do DPS, heal or use control. Some classes are better at some of those roles than others, but all in all, they’re fairly balanced.

What you’re asking is that a healing specced player will be equally effective in PvE as a damage specced player, and you don’t seem to realize how ludicrous this demand is.

PvE is based around killing things, therefor, doing damage is going to be a necessary part of your teambuild. In PvP, you have different roles, bunkers, roamers, spikers, etc, and they’re built for that role. What you’re asking, effectively, is the equivalent of someone on the PvP forums demanding that a bunker spec would be equally effective at killing someone than a glass cannon spec would be.

In the old tank-‘n-spank trinity teambuilds of other MMO’s, it was the exact same thing. Every teambuild was focused around maximizing DPS. It just so happened that a team was able to do more damage when a tank and a healer were taking care of the survivability. Thus, people spiraled towards that sort of META.

In GW2, people are responsible for their own survivability in the form of dodges and self-heals in a lot of teams. When you run organized group setups, there will be more subtle things like blind spam, might/fury/vuln stacking and the likes, which are all things that maximize DPS output.

PvE will always revolve around maximizing DPS output. I honestly don’t understand what you people are asking for. If they nerf zerker (which they probably won’t) the next best thing will take it’s place. If they buff other setups, they will be weighed against the current zerker setup, if they’re better, the meta will change, if they’re not, it won’t.

If they change encounters to make it more difficult for people to run full zerker (something I welcome), they’ll just make content more difficult for bads, who will come to the forums and cry a river about how the new content is too hard.

Back when they wanted to “fix” the Underworld in GW1; something that was necessary, I’ll admit, because the format was broken, they did so on demand of the casual playerbase that didn’t like the META. They changed the encounters and added a difficult end-boss that was supposed to punish the META. It did, actually, but the META adapted and the people that were running it before the change were still running it after. Guess who got punished though? Guess who suddenly had a really hard time completing the Underworld? If you guessed “those filthy META elitists”, you guessed wrong. If you guessed “the people crying for a change”, you guessed right.

He surely has a point.
But I still feel like something is missing…

Bright.9160:

Finnway.2183:

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Still waiting to hear what the “problem” is. In a good player’s hands, pve dps builds are objectively superior.

SO WHAT? Please explain why and how this is a “problem” that requires “fixing.”

It’s not how the game was advertised. We were told “any class can play any role” and right now that is ludicrous because DPS builds are far superior to anything else.

Right now people are tired of face-rolling through content to farm gold. The fact that DPS builds are the only viable ones is part of that equation. If I had three viable builds on my Guardian each with different stats I might be inclined to earn different armor sets and unlock cosmetics for them.

The way the game works right now do you think combat is better or worse than other MMORPG’s you have played? I’m asking for your perspective on this.

Any class can still play any roll, it just so happens that DPS roles seem to be better at killing stuff. Crazy, I know, right?

Anet advertised the game as an action based combat game where any class can take on any roll, which is true. Any class can do DPS, heal or use control. Some classes are better at some of those roles than others, but all in all, they’re fairly balanced.

What you’re asking is that a healing specced player will be equally effective in PvE as a damage specced player, and you don’t seem to realize how ludicrous this demand is.

PvE is based around killing things, therefor, doing damage is going to be a necessary part of your teambuild. In PvP, you have different roles, bunkers, roamers, spikers, etc, and they’re built for that role. What you’re asking, effectively, is the equivalent of someone on the PvP forums demanding that a bunker spec would be equally effective at killing someone than a glass cannon spec would be.

In the old tank-‘n-spank trinity teambuilds of other MMO’s, it was the exact same thing. Every teambuild was focused around maximizing DPS. It just so happened that a team was able to do more damage when a tank and a healer were taking care of the survivability. Thus, people spiraled towards that sort of META.

In GW2, people are responsible for their own survivability in the form of dodges and self-heals in a lot of teams. When you run organized group setups, there will be more subtle things like blind spam, might/fury/vuln stacking and the likes, which are all things that maximize DPS output.

PvE will always revolve around maximizing DPS output. I honestly don’t understand what you people are asking for. If they nerf zerker (which they probably won’t) the next best thing will take it’s place. If they buff other setups, they will be weighed against the current zerker setup, if they’re better, the meta will change, if they’re not, it won’t.

If they change encounters to make it more difficult for people to run full zerker (something I welcome), they’ll just make content more difficult for bads, who will come to the forums and cry a river about how the new content is too hard.

Back when they wanted to “fix” the Underworld in GW1; something that was necessary, I’ll admit, because the format was broken, they did so on demand of the casual playerbase that didn’t like the META. They changed the encounters and added a difficult end-boss that was supposed to punish the META. It did, actually, but the META adapted and the people that were running it before the change were still running it after. Guess who got punished though? Guess who suddenly had a really hard time completing the Underworld? If you guessed “those filthy META elitists”, you guessed wrong. If you guessed “the people crying for a change”, you guessed right.

This is the most insightful post in the thread that poses that the “problem” people want to fix is ludicrous. Don’t get me wrong, control and condition damage builds suck right now in PvE and they shouldn’t, and ANet should work on beefing them up (lower HP enemies, but with higher toughness, and get rid of defiant entirely for temporary stability), but the notion that pure healing builds should in some manner match the DPS output of pure DPS builds is ridiculous and shouldn’t be entertained as a serious thought by anyone.

Both sides have a point. Everything is viable but not everything is optimal and because not all builds can be the best (utopia) there will always be a meta.
Having said that, it would be nice if anet closed a bit the gap between zerker and everything else because the former is much better by far in pve.

Bright.9160:

I honestly don’t understand what you people are asking for.

Thanks for the generalization. I didn’t know I was schizophrenic.

Bright.9160:

If you guessed “those filthy META elitists”, you guessed wrong. If you guessed “the people crying for a change”, you guessed right.

Why do you assume anyone who wants build diversity automatically thinks people who use DPS builds are elitist? I admitted DPS builds are superior in my post… I personally run DPS builds.

Bright.9160:

What you’re asking is that a healing specced player will be equally effective in PvE as a damage specced player, and you don’t seem to realize how ludicrous this demand is.

But, for example, if they punished stacking condition and CC builds might be more viable valid.

Bright.9160:

If they change encounters to make it more difficult for people to run full zerker (something I welcome), they’ll just make content more difficult for bads, who will come to the forums and cry a river about how the new content is too hard.

Sounds good to me.

While I think your (the OP) analysis is good, it ignores the biggest advantage a soldier’s geared character has over a glass cannon: it survives a lot better in a multiple-enemy environment. There’s a good reason people go high defence in World vs. World. Soldiers can wade deep into a zerg that’s dealing lots of AoEs and come out the other end intact.

But you’re right about the enemies in PvE. Dungeons and other situations are easy because people use the Line-Of-Sight tactic; stand behind an obstacle and pull, and the enemies just cluster together on top of you. All of those ranged attackers are no longer in a situation they were designed for. The glass cannons can blast the area and hit multiple enemies, and they just go down quickly.

If the enemy was smarter, those ranged attackers would walk around the obstacle in a wide arch, still keeping their distance, but finding line of sight. Or the enemies themselves would use more ground-targeted AoEs, or at least have them available to counter that tactic.

It’s also pretty common among a few bosses that their most devastating attacks are only performed when players keep their distance. When you get into melee range, they just stop doing the really hurtful stuff.

So what the OP suggest is correct: the enemies need adjusting, not the builds.

Love the thread OP.

Here’s to hoping PvE AI gets a major rework to behave more like WvW, where build diversity actually means something. If the AI enemies actually fought smart and used active defences of their own, the game would be much more enjoyable and challenging. Berserker would still be viable like in WvW, but support and control builds would suddenly be viable too. (And if we’re lucky, condition damage builds too.. boo 2 u 25 stack limit)

Anet promised a loose trinity of damage, control and support. I’d love to see it.

You forgot some important Issues

A fast list of things he forgot and they DO matter alot, Im not going to discus them or go into big detail, just list some things OP missed.

1) Condition builds in group play and against Objects
2) CC/support against bosses (there almost isnt any)
3) Some parts of the Game (high level fractals, some dungeon paths etc..) things hit so hard so fast, its BETTER to be full DPS than tank.
4) Heals and Conditions cant Crit and also they have no stat synergy to make them more desirable like Zerk does (The combo of Power/Prec/Crit damage all helps each other and multiplies), Toughness and Heal power do have some synergy, but no multipliers.
5) Longer fights doesnt make them more fun.

Very good read. Very.

I would only add (perhaps you said this but I missed it) is that the problem you identified is exacerbated by toughness being designed to draw aggro by default.

Faux.1937:

You forgot some important Issues

A fast list of things he forgot and they DO matter alot, Im not going to discus them or go into big detail, just list some things OP missed.

1) Condition builds in group play and against Objects
2) CC/support against bosses (there almost isnt any)
3) Some parts of the Game (high level fractals, some dungeon paths etc..) things hit so hard so fast, its BETTER to be full DPS than tank.
4) Heals and Conditions cant Crit and also they have no stat synergy to make them more desirable like Zerk does (The combo of Power/Prec/Crit damage all helps each other and multiplies), Toughness and Heal power do have some synergy, but no multipliers.
5) Longer fights doesnt make them more fun.

Conditions can’t crit because conditions bypass defense, so that’s not really reasonable.

Condition damage would be fine and good DPS…..if it was individual stacks. On a Warrior you can maintain permanent 25 stacks of bleed, which with 2400 con damage (reasonable in PVE) is a fairly significant source of DPS.

The problem is that the other members of the group probably don’t have as efficient or powerful conditions, and eat up your valuable stacks.

The TL;DR is sufficent, with maybe a few more lines. No need to use that many words.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The overt zerker dominance in PVE hurts everyone. Even zerker users in the long run.

How?

theres a simple way to fix it and its to kill the critical damage on gear. You kill the critical damage and phys damage build prety much becomes slightly more efficient damage wise then control and support but not enought to actualy make them the only choice. Once your best crit on HB becomes a 20k will you actualy start thinking about using condition damage or running support / control to keep the mobs inactive while people hit them or will you still be a raw damage. When the line blurrs between the effectiveness of builds and everyone start having similar damage save for a slight improvement on the dps specialist who still deal the best damage but arent that overwhelming that other spec are useless in comparison people start running defrent stuff (yes you deal better damage so what do you gain if the boss fight last 10 less second then it would have if you had actualy ran something a little less glass cannony, truth is youd have ran a control build and would have likely gone to the same result with very little change in the amount of time it would take save for the fact youd not have wiped 3 times before reaching the boss because the adds went wild and started hammering your team with damage and you couldnt prevent it).

In GW 1 pvp assasins would deal prety much the same damage as everyone else however what made it interesting was their ability for long combo at high speed involving lots of interupt knockdown and CC to keep the target in check and unable to act (eventualy resulting in the death of the target). Sure the elementalist spamming lightning spell in the corner was dealing wonderfull damage and same goes for the lightning rider but he wasnt actualy realy any better then the necromancer doting down and hexing everyone with crippling curse or the mesmer spamming domination hex, everyone was equaly dangerous and everyone was usefull.

Of course in guild wars 1 we had the monk who healed everyone like crazy but in GW2 we can heal ourselves on our own and we still can support with protection and regeneration.

Ahlen.7591:

The problem is that the other members of the group probably don’t have as efficient or powerful conditions, and eat up your valuable stacks.

The problem is the global stack count.. should be individual per attacking player (but that’s a technical limitation apparently).

Faux.1937:

1) Condition builds in group play and against Objects
2) CC/support against bosses (there almost isnt any)
3) Some parts of the Game (high level fractals, some dungeon paths etc..) things hit so hard so fast, its BETTER to be full DPS than tank.
4) Heals and Conditions cant Crit and also they have no stat synergy to make them more desirable like Zerk does (The combo of Power/Prec/Crit damage all helps each other and multiplies), Toughness and Heal power do have some synergy, but no multipliers.
5) Longer fights doesnt make them more fun.

If they fix boss AI to be less kitten and deterministic perhaps they could do away with defiance as well. I’d be nice to see a boss retreat behind a post to cleanse conditions.

Their damage output and health should be scaled down too. If they didn’t fire off predictable and easily dodged mega attacks (or random ground targeting) they wouldn’t need to hit so hard to be challenging. Nor would they need large health pools to increase the chance one of their rng dumb attacks downs a player.

It would be nice if heals could crit, but healing power should be in other forms of gear.. I’d love to see a Power/Precision/Healing power build. I’d also like to see it more viable than it is now. I understand they don’t want to force players into the holy trinity, but they should make support and healing more viable. I believe smarter bosses that hit less hard but in smarter ways would help in that regard.. more “ouch I’m hurt and snared help!” and less “got one shot, don’t know what killed me can’t see”.

Do I make any sense?

Thread’s gold. Anet needs to read this through again and again and again before actually stepping into solving the problem.

Exceptionally good read. Good job.

Bright.9160:

Finnway.2183:

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Still waiting to hear what the “problem” is. In a good player’s hands, pve dps builds are objectively superior.

SO WHAT? Please explain why and how this is a “problem” that requires “fixing.”

It’s not how the game was advertised. We were told “any class can play any role” and right now that is ludicrous because DPS builds are far superior to anything else.

Right now people are tired of face-rolling through content to farm gold. The fact that DPS builds are the only viable ones is part of that equation. If I had three viable builds on my Guardian each with different stats I might be inclined to earn different armor sets and unlock cosmetics for them.

The way the game works right now do you think combat is better or worse than other MMORPG’s you have played? I’m asking for your perspective on this.

Some classes are better at some of those roles than others, but all in all, they’re fairly balanced.

They are balanced around PVP only. No I’m not saying PVP has perfect balance, that will never happen, but at least they shift the meta around. Anyway, classes in pve ain’t balanced. Certain classes have much more say “active defense” than others. Also 90+% of the “active defense” ie reflect, vigor, evade don’t require much stats sacrifice. And control is complete kitten in pve thanks to unshakable. Healing is unimportant due to the OHKO. Conditions are constantly being cleansed from boss. People are punished because they invested in anything other than DPS. And some classes are unwanted because they excel in something irrelevant in pve.

PvE will always revolve around maximizing DPS output. I honestly don’t understand what you people are asking for. If they nerf zerker (which they probably won’t) the next best thing will take it’s place. If they buff other setups, they will be weighed against the current zerker setup, if they’re better, the meta will change, if they’re not, it won’t.

People ain’t asking them to “nerf zerker” and I think some people get nervous because the meta may change. I don’t think it will change much but I do hope for any small steps towards a better balance. I hope one day an full ascended tank can actually tank. I hope unshakable gets rework so you can actually control bosses. I hope reflect/vigor/evade/etc cost more so you can’t have the full effect of them with any build. I hope bosses have less OHKO and more sustain to make healing/toughness/vit more viable. An additional hope, that AI is cleverer to not stand in aoe all the time.

Ahlen.7591:

Faux.1937:

You forgot some important Issues

A fast list of things he forgot and they DO matter alot, Im not going to discus them or go into big detail, just list some things OP missed.

1) Condition builds in group play and against Objects
2) CC/support against bosses (there almost isnt any)
3) Some parts of the Game (high level fractals, some dungeon paths etc..) things hit so hard so fast, its BETTER to be full DPS than tank.
4) Heals and Conditions cant Crit and also they have no stat synergy to make them more desirable like Zerk does (The combo of Power/Prec/Crit damage all helps each other and multiplies), Toughness and Heal power do have some synergy, but no multipliers.
5) Longer fights doesnt make them more fun.

Conditions can’t crit because conditions bypass defense, so that’s not really reasonable.

Condition damage would be fine and good DPS…..if it was individual stacks. On a Warrior you can maintain permanent 25 stacks of bleed, which with 2400 con damage (reasonable in PVE) is a fairly significant source of DPS.

The problem is that the other members of the group probably don’t have as efficient or powerful conditions, and eat up your valuable stacks.

I said conditions in group play (hence warriors or of classes like thief adding conditions that do little to no damage makes the condition build user less effective) and I didnt say condtitions NEEDS to crit just stating no synergy with other stats like zerk, with that said it takes more time and effect to get up conditions for max damage out put compare to a Zerk class.

Zerk (aka physical damage) will (as of right now) always out DPS a condition build in both long term and short term fighting.

This can be seen very easily when testing (the gear really matters with conditions, Dire, Rabid and Carrion are more traditional Condition damage builds where Rampages are part physical and condition builds)

I used Dire, with 2k Condition damage on a thief, each bleed lasted for something like 17 1/2 sec, and did 142 damage a tick, Fight a giant in Curse Shore I could keep 23 stacks of bleeds on at all times ( once it hit that 1st 20+ stacks that is) so 23×142=3266 a damage a tick.

You may think “WOW thats alot” but the amount of effort in trynig to keep it at 23 stacks was harder than my Pistol Whip build, that not only killed the giant faster and easier, but was able to do an average of 13.5k per Pistol whip (2.5sec) for an average of 5400 damage compare to the 3550 damage form Bleeds and Poison.

SO the whole “condition ignore armor” doesnt really matter when the damage out put compare to zerk is slower and lower, having them crit would bring that damage up to zerk level.

Im sure someone can make a better condition build to do more damage, Say on a necro (burn, bleeds, torment and poison) But not all classes can do that easily.

Afya.5842:

I hope one day an full ascended tank can actually tank..

Without an aggro system?

kyubi.3620:

theres a simple way to fix it and its to kill the critical damage on gear. You kill the critical damage and phys damage build prety much becomes slightly more efficient damage wise then control and support but not enought to actualy make them the only choice. Once your best crit on HB becomes a 20k will you actualy start thinking about using condition damage or running support / control to keep the mobs inactive while people hit them or will you still be a raw damage. When the line blurrs between the effectiveness of builds and everyone start having similar damage save for a slight improvement on the dps specialist who still deal the best damage but arent that overwhelming that other spec are useless in comparison people start running defrent stuff (yes you deal better damage so what do you gain if the boss fight last 10 less second then it would have if you had actualy ran something a little less glass cannony, truth is youd have ran a control build and would have likely gone to the same result with very little change in the amount of time it would take save for the fact youd not have wiped 3 times before reaching the boss because the adds went wild and started hammering your team with damage and you couldnt prevent it).

In GW 1 pvp assasins would deal prety much the same damage as everyone else however what made it interesting was their ability for long combo at high speed involving lots of interupt knockdown and CC to keep the target in check and unable to act (eventualy resulting in the death of the target). Sure the elementalist spamming lightning spell in the corner was dealing wonderfull damage and same goes for the lightning rider but he wasnt actualy realy any better then the necromancer doting down and hexing everyone with crippling curse or the mesmer spamming domination hex, everyone was equaly dangerous and everyone was usefull.

Of course in guild wars 1 we had the monk who healed everyone like crazy but in GW2 we can heal ourselves on our own and we still can support with protection and regeneration.

Killing critical damage on gear is knee jerk and won’t fix anything. That is like saying kill power on all gear and leave only precision and critical damage.

Everyone will just stack power and precision and a power+ precision party would still kill faster than a all soldier party. Optimal dps will always be found through traits or gear removing one offensive stat won’t change optimal dps builds they just wont be as good as before but still the best for dps.

No critical damage on gear means everyone moves to rampagers. LFG all rampagers or kick. If anyone thinks this would ever really happen I would advise you to go pick up stocks of cheap rampager gear for profit. It just makes it the next best thing.

Finnway.2183:

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Still waiting to hear what the “problem” is. In a good player’s hands, pve dps builds are objectively superior.

SO WHAT? Please explain why and how this is a “problem” that requires “fixing.”

It’s not how the game was advertised. We were told “any class can play any role” and right now that is ludicrous because DPS builds are far superior to anything else.

100% wrong. You are misquoting and misremembering. The promise was “no trinity, no dedicated roles, all classes will provide dps, healing, support, cc”

This does not mean “anything goes all classes can fulfill any role.” It means there are no roles and all characters are expected to DPS (zerker meta: check), Support (zerker meta: check), CC (zerker meta: check), and heal (zerker meta: check).

What you, and the other zerkernerfers want is a trinity system where any class can fulfill any of the trinity roles but that is not the game that Anet promise and not the game Anet delivered.

I consider this post of mine to have effectively put this debate to bed. Mods can feel free to sticky my post and close the thread.

fadeaway.2807:

Afya.5842:

I hope one day an full ascended tank can actually tank..

Without an aggro system?

I hope they dont add an agro system for tanks, b.c then it would be the start of the trinity.

I can see it now LFG “4 zerks LF agro tank, Dont be noob and die”

Removing stat combinations with critical damage would be a big change and would probably make things more interesting by not allowing extreme speedkills (with enemies not having almost time to react) and nerfing reflect in a quite strong way.

There’s one thing I don’t like, however, and that’s being forced to slot a stat I could not want (and even with that, playing with power as secondary stat).
As I said on a different thread, if this kind of “fixes” are going to be made, I pretty much prefer demoting (promoting at low levels) every gear to double stat combinations.
It still prevents some probably unintended results caused by insane damage outputs, but doesn’t force anyone into filler stats and solves a lot of downscaling disparities.