Guild Wars 2

People complain that they dont want to run Zerker because everyone runs the same thing.

People want all gear to more or less complete content in the same time, doing the same thing.

…

So the “solution” to the “problem” of a lack of variety is to make everything more similar.

…

I just wanna read the blog post already so that I may know whether to delete my PvE characters and move on to WvW/PvP full time or whether there will be some fun in PvE left after ANet’s done with it, because frankly I find running tank comps in PvE boring beyond belief. If I am forced to run a tank spec to complete a dungeon, I’d rather not do the dungeon at all.

NoTrigger.8396:

i understand exactly what he means and he is trying to nerf berserker to the ground.
read all his posts and you will understand my reaction.

+ zerker players who are bad already receive max punishment.

They dont.
I can run CoF P1 with 5 full Zerker players and never take enough damage to get downed, let alone die from the final boss ever, without even dodging once. Same with many other dungeon paths that have “80s exp zerk only speed clear”. All it takes is stacking. Where’s the punishment?

You seem to be considering yourself in the list of “dont dodge like gods” then. Because if you were in the list of “dodge like gods” you are unaffected, what’s your problem?

If you are indeed in the “dont dodge like gods” list, I am sorry to say that maybe it is time you up your gameplay, or maybe Arenanet should up the game difficulty for you. Or swap gear to something else that will be at your skill level.

@Turtle Dragon: ok, can you make me a video of a full zerker thief 30/30/0/0/10 or zerker ele 30/10/10/20/0 that doesn’t ever die with any party in CoF 1? I know warriors can do it, but that’s because of maximum HP and one of the best (passive) heals in this game, but that’s an issue of one class, not a gear spec.

I love how people in this thread apparently don’t understand that the OP is not calling for any nerf to Berserker gear, rather changing PvE enemies to increase the risk associated with glass cannon builds. Truly skilled players could still complete the content quickly (perhaps slightly slower than they do now, but still faster than anyone else), but it would require even better play on their parts than it does now and it would be risky to go with a full glass cannon team. However, a mixed team would become significantly more efficient.

Almost everyone screaming about how this would hurt the game likely falls into the category of people who can do the easy content in full glass cannon setups right now, but aren’t actually that skilled. Personally, I don’t see any issue with full DPS group speed runs requiring serious skill (right now, they really don’t take as much as people claim) and other setups becoming important for efficient, reliable runs.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

You seem to be considering yourself in the list of “dont dodge like gods” then. Because if you were in the list of “dodge like gods” you are unaffected, what’s your problem?

How about the part where he suggested nerfing his dps by 50%. That sounds like something doesn’t leave him “unaffected.” Face it, Kyubi is making dumb suggestions to solve a non-existent problem. Coming up with bad answers to fake problems is pretty shameful.

If you are indeed in the “dont dodge like gods” list, I am sorry to say that maybe it is time you up your game, or maybe Arenanet should up the game for you. Or swap gear to something else that will be at your skill level.

He is in [rT] so it’s a safe assumption to make that he is in the 1% of top dodgers in the game.

@Turtle Dragon: nobody is against upping the difficulty of content in this game. We are all against upping the difficulty selectively for berserker players and making it not worthwhile for people to run that spec anymore. Everybody will be ok if the game got more challenging, but where would be the reward in running a spec that has it harder than everyone else when everyone else would be able to finish the content in comparable time?

i have no problem with increasing the difficulty.
but i have a problem when someone is trying to destroy my playstyle with suggestions like “reduce endurance regen by 50%, nerf critdmg by 50%”

all arenanet can do to force good players to run different gear is increasing the difficulty of the PvE content.

and with increased difficulty i dont mean mobs that die after 1 hit or killing mobs with pvp finishers.

I feel like a lot of people here are getting lost in some idea seperation here.
Berserker is not a way of life, it is a stat set up. The problem here is that one stat setup far outperforms most other stat set ups. This basically boils down to other stats not being valuable.
lets keep the discussion to PVE here, because pvp is a totally different beast.

One of the big issues is defensive/control/support skills are not effected that much by stats. This means a berserker is usually as good a support charachter as 95% of other armor sets. He is as good at active defense as 95% of other armor sets. He is as good at control as 85% of other armor sets.

as long as this is the case, berserker versus other sets will generally be a measure of how much dmg you can avoid, rather than what playstyle or role you prefer.

U should forget CoF and AC, in most other dungeons berserkers who aren´t warriors/necros have to avoid alot of nearly 1shot attacks.

It can/should be harder, but a berserker thief/ele should be able todo the same without defesive traits/gear. If they are losing their dps advatage compared to warriors, nobody will pick them over a warrior (or necromancer).

And that´s the main point why GW2 PvE is at the end of it´s possibilitys. I wrote it over a year ago. People laughed, in a few weeks we will see who is right.

Silferas.3841:

@Turtle Dragon: ok, can you make me a video of a full zerker thief 30/30/0/0/10 or zerker ele 30/10/10/20/0 that doesn’t ever die with any party in CoF 1? I know warriors can do it, but that’s because of maximum HP and one of the best (passive) heals in this game, but that’s an issue of one class, not a gear spec.

First, I only claimed that it can be done for CoF1 final boss, not the whole run.
Second, to show that someone “never dies” would be a very difficult thing to video. You want me to video his everyday CoF for you? How many videos will be enough to show you that he “never” dies?

For final boss, take a look:
All it takes is 1 Guardian with Virtue of Courage, Renewed Focus and Retreat, and the Zerker party. You see the large AoE circle? Retreat. Next AoE circle? Courage. RF to recharge Courage, next AoE circle? Courage. that boss does the AoE circle about every 10 seconds. 40s is more than enough to down that boss with full Zerkers. You do not need to dodge even once. Thief and Eles welcome. Again, never dodged once, never took a single hit.

I think we can all agree that increasing the difficulty of PVE content (generally, not selectively) is the answer.

phys.7689:

I feel like a lot of people here are getting lost in some idea seperation here.
Berserker is not a way of life, it is a stat set up. The problem here is that one stat setup far outperforms most other stat set ups. This basically boils down to other stats not being valuable.
lets keep the discussion to PVE here, because pvp is a totally different beast.

One of the big issues is defensive/control/support skills are not effected that much by stats. This means a berserker is usually as good a support charachter as 95% of other armor sets. He is as good at active defense as 95% of other armor sets. He is as good at control as 85% of other armor sets.

as long as this is the case, berserker versus other sets will generally be a measure of how much dmg you can avoid, rather than what playstyle or role you prefer.

Exactly. So just buff the other armor so it does what its suppose to do better. Make high toughness gear last longer(and hold aggro), make cleric gear heal more, and make condi gear make the conditions wayyyyyy more potent in PVE, so they will find worth in dungeons. I’m talking fat ticks per second(only for PVE, since this would wreck WvW. And it will make each stack more potent, since there is that dumb 25 stack limit).

The gameplay of the game won’t change, and zerker gear will probably be the most “optimal”, but most people don’t play to be min-maxers. So buff the other armor, and give people reasons to play that armor.

For clarification, my suggestion on buffing the armor were just random stuff, but that’s the idea. I think the condi one is pretty good though.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Silferas.3841:

@Turtle Dragon: ok, can you make me a video of a full zerker thief 30/30/0/0/10 or zerker ele 30/10/10/20/0 that doesn’t ever die with any party in CoF 1? I know warriors can do it, but that’s because of maximum HP and one of the best (passive) heals in this game, but that’s an issue of one class, not a gear spec.

First, I only claimed that it can be done for CoF1 final boss, not the whole run.
Second, to show that someone “never dies” would be a very difficult thing to video. You want me to video his everyday CoF for you? How many videos will be enough to show you that he “never” dies?

For final boss, take a look:
All it takes is 1 Guardian with Virtue of Courage, Renewed Focus and Retreat, and the Zerker party. You see the large AoE circle? Retreat. Next AoE circle? Courage. RF to recharge Courage, next AoE circle? Courage. that boss does the AoE circle about every 10 seconds. 40s is more than enough to down that boss with full Zerkers. You do not need to dodge even once. Thief and Eles welcome. Again, never dodged once, never took a single hit.

Yes, and here we are getting into the area of teamplay. Not pugging, not general dungeons, not berserker gear, but teamplay, which is the area of organized teams.

I don’t see why PUGs should get the same results as teams. I don’t see why PVT should be as fast as zerker, I don’t see any reason to do anything about any of these things. They can all run dungeons, they won’t fail them, they won’t be hurt by any mechanism that makes zerker superior to them. They will just be slower.

And about the “never die” thingie: you never die in an organized team. You PUG and you will be hugging the floor in full zerker on ele or thief the moment you fail one minor thing, and that’s balanced.

The base difficulty even for zerker players has to be upped because the current pve content gets faceroll easy after you learn it; which means anything other than pure damage is a waste.

Which means there may as well not BE non-zerk gear in PvE. Which is silly, and not a defensible position.

What should be happening is running higher damage setups grants an increase in completion speed in exchange for an increase in the plausible risk of failure/delays.

But that’s not what is happening even in halfway coordinated groups. The base difficulty is so low for everyone post learning a dungeon that even a couple points in survival stats are usually wasted because less damage almost always means slower completion.

This is not healthy for the long term future of a game. The ’zerker stat array itself does not inherently need to be changed, but rather the nature of the challenges a player faces in PvE. There is a reason glass cannons do not completely dominate in the other two main game modes (yet still have very good uses; and can function in non-favored environments given the right skill/mentality).

Silferas.3841:

I think we can all agree that increasing the difficulty of PVE content (generally, not selectively) is the answer.

Id say its more about increasing the monster response to players, which somewhat increases difficulty, but really, its more about lowering cheese.

Monsters should become more defensive when party is highly offensively buffed
Monsters should move more when dmg is being focused on 1 place
more offensive when players become extremely defensive, or get high HOT.
more control when players are moving

but while this makes combat more entertaining, it wont really solve the gear issue, because until other stats effect your ability to perform NEEDED/advantgeous roles, there is little reason not to use berserker even if your role is support control, and for many jobs even defensive.

Silferas.3841:

@Turtle Dragon: nobody is against upping the difficulty of content in this game. We are all against upping the difficulty selectively for berserker players and making it not worthwhile for people to run that spec anymore. Everybody will be ok if the game got more challenging, but where would be the reward in running a spec that has it harder than everyone else when everyone else would be able to finish the content in comparable time?

“We are all against upping the difficulty selectively for berserker players and making it not worthwhile for people to run that spec anymore.”
Zerker will always remain worthwhile for better players.

“but where would be the reward in running a spec that has it harder than everyone else when everyone else would be able to finish the content in comparable time?”
Zerker will keep their shorter time as reward.

To make this clear, we want
Zerker = harder but shorter
Armor = easier but longer

What we have now,
Zerker = shorter
Armor = longer

Overkillengine.6084:

The base difficulty even for zerker players has to be upped because the current pve content gets faceroll easy after you learn it; which means anything other than pure damage is a waste.

Which means there may as well not BE non-zerk gear in PvE. Which is silly, and not a defensible position.

What should be happening is running higher damage setups grants an increase in completion speed in exchange for an increase in the plausible risk of failure/delays.

But that’s not what is happening even in halfway coordinated groups. The base difficulty is so low for everyone post learning a dungeon that even a couple points in survival stats are usually wasted because less damage almost always means slower completion.

This is not healthy for the long term future of a game. The ’zerker stat array itself does not inherently need to be changed, but rather the nature of the challenges a player faces in PvE. There is a reason glass cannons do not completely dominate in the other two main game modes (yet still have very good uses; and can function in non-favored environments given the right skill/mentality).

difficulty is an issue, but its not really the berserker issue. Once you get good, no matter how difficult, beserker will once again be best gear. All you would be doing is making the scale of what skill level you can be beserker without failing higher, not actually making other gear sets useful.

If they want stats to matter they have to effect how well you can perform other roles/playstyles be more effected by stats.

Silferas.3841:

Turtle Dragon.9241:

Silferas.3841:

@Turtle Dragon: ok, can you make me a video of a full zerker thief 30/30/0/0/10 or zerker ele 30/10/10/20/0 that doesn’t ever die with any party in CoF 1? I know warriors can do it, but that’s because of maximum HP and one of the best (passive) heals in this game, but that’s an issue of one class, not a gear spec.

First, I only claimed that it can be done for CoF1 final boss, not the whole run.
Second, to show that someone “never dies” would be a very difficult thing to video. You want me to video his everyday CoF for you? How many videos will be enough to show you that he “never” dies?

For final boss, take a look:
All it takes is 1 Guardian with Virtue of Courage, Renewed Focus and Retreat, and the Zerker party. You see the large AoE circle? Retreat. Next AoE circle? Courage. RF to recharge Courage, next AoE circle? Courage. that boss does the AoE circle about every 10 seconds. 40s is more than enough to down that boss with full Zerkers. You do not need to dodge even once. Thief and Eles welcome. Again, never dodged once, never took a single hit.

Yes, and here we are getting into the area of teamplay. Not pugging, not general dungeons, not berserker gear, but teamplay, which is the area of organized teams.

I don’t see why PUGs should get the same results as teams. I don’t see why PVT should be as fast as zerker, I don’t see any reason to do anything about any of these things. They can all run dungeons, they won’t fail them, they won’t be hurt by any mechanism that makes zerker superior to them. They will just be slower.

And about the “never die” thingie: you never die in an organized team. You PUG and you will be hugging the floor in full zerker on ele or thief the moment you fail one minor thing, and that’s balanced.

This is not a team, this is actually pug. This is how many are running pug CoF P1 nowadays when they mention “Zerker 80s Exp only 4k AP minimum or kick”. Want some extra safety? put in 2 Guardians with Aegis. You see the red circle, you have 4 whole seconds to press the Aegis button. No failing, no minor thing, 0% skill or teamplay involved. DPS the boss to death while stacking on it, do not move, do not pass go, but you do collect 200. Mindless.

The point i need to stress here: this does not work with non-zerkers as you will run out of Aegis before you kill the boss(as a single Guardian). Thus this is 1 more thing that makes zerker even better than others while being mindless. My party is doing NOTHING other than press 1 or their basic DPS rotation, not even dodge. The only one that has to do things(and easy things that even a 1 handed monkey can do) is the Guardian.

I just wanted to say thanks to Blood Red Arachnid for posting this well-reasoned and well-thought out thread about this particular issue.

In addition to everything else said in the opening posts, a big part of the “berserker problem” is the way the enemy AI behaves. Stacking against a wall (or boss) and having enemies dumbly all cluster around the group is just plain stupid and isn’t fun. Smarter enemy AI would go a long way towards fixing this issue and discouraging this sort of play without impacting the damage that zerker gear does.

Enemies need to use AoE skills to hit party members when they attempt this strategy. They need to spread out again. They need to focus on downed players to take them out. They need to heal and buff themselves to counteract high damage attacks. And so on. These changes would make the game more challenging but that’s desperately needed. I personally think it would also make the game a lot more fun.

Zedd.8239:

I just wanted to say thanks to Blood Red Arachnid for posting this well-reasoned and well-thought out thread about this particular issue.

But it’s not an issue…

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

People complain that they dont want to run Zerker because everyone runs the same thing.

People want all gear to more or less complete content in the same time, doing the same thing.

…

So the “solution” to the “problem” of a lack of variety is to make everything more similar.

…

Homogenization is the key! Difference is decadence!

Skill must be removed!

Miku Lawrence.6329:

But it’s not an issue…

Not to some people perhaps. But it’s an issue to me and many others. And it’s clearly an issue to ANet given that they’re working on addressing it.

Zedd.8239:

I just wanted to say thanks to Blood Red Arachnid for posting this well-reasoned and well-thought out thread about this particular issue.

In addition to everything else said in the opening posts, a big part of the “berserker problem” is the way the enemy AI behaves. Stacking against a wall (or boss) and having enemies dumbly all cluster around the group is just plain stupid and isn’t fun. Smarter enemy AI would go a long way towards fixing this issue and discouraging this sort of play without impacting the damage that zerker gear does.

Enemies need to use AoE skills to hit party members when they attempt this strategy. They need to spread out again. They need to focus on downed players to take them out. They need to heal and buff themselves to counteract high damage attacks. And so on. These changes would make the game more challenging but that’s desperately needed. I personally think it would also make the game a lot more fun.

Tankygroups have to stack aswell to be “effective” stacking is the logical consequence out of the game mechanics.

1. No tank>no place where mobs are they follow rnd players>chaos
2. Buffs/Support isonly useable in a area around the player. U have to stack to support others. Healing or might it doesn´t matter
3. ranged dps is bad (even Staff eles dps is bad in ranged gruops), and mobs which are following a ranged guy will be a loss of dps for melees.
This isn´t a zerkergroup problem. They are probably the only ones who care about, cause they know it.

If u wear Dire, Zerker, Clerics or PVT all these problems will be exactly the same. To “fix” stacking, they should make GW3 i think it´s to late for such a big change to combat mechanics.

Zedd.8239:

Miku Lawrence.6329:

But it’s not an issue…

Not to some people perhaps. But it’s an issue to me and many others. And it’s clearly an issue to ANet given that they’re working on addressing it.

It’s an imaginary issue then. Anet works on adressing the result of their flawed desing, not on giving a fix to damage gear.

There are no real “fixes” for stacking, but with some small changes could address the “issue” of having to play in melee even when using a ranged weapon.
Just increasing blast radii from 360 to 600 could work wonders. It’s not like it would allow to anyone to sit at 1200 range, but at least people could play a ranged weapon at some noticeable range without losing that much.

Silferas.3841:

I think we can all agree that increasing the difficulty of PVE content (generally, not selectively) is the answer.

We don’t all agree, because your statement is only half a proposal.

If you increase the difficulty, then increase the rewards too. Because right now, the only “reward” of using meta builds is a few extra minutes. Time is worth something, granted, but it’s hardly an embarrassment of riches.

But honestly, the real problem with this thread and this entire discussion is the faulty premise that there is a problem with the meta. At the risk of hyperbole, I haven’t seen one cogent explanation of why there is a problem. Change for the sake of change is stupid.

Norjena.5172:

Tankygruops have to stack aswell to be “effective” stacking is the logical consequence out of the game mechanics.

1. No tank>no place where mobs are they follow rnd players>chaos
2. Buffs/Support isonly useable in a area around the player. U have to stack to support others. Healing or might it doesn´t matter
3. ranged dps is bad (even Staff eles dps is bad in ranged gruops), and mobs which are following a ranged guy will be a loss of dps for melees.
This isn´t a zerkergroup problem. They are probably the only ones who care about, cause they know it.

If u wear Dire, Zerker, Clerics or PVT all these problems will be exactly the same. To “fix” stacking, they should make GW3 i think it´s to late for such a big change to combat mechanics.

So, standing up against a boss or wall to prevent the boss or mobs from using AoE attacks against the group is ok in your book? It makes logical sense that mobs or bosses won’t use cleave/AoE attacks to hit all of the players at once when they’re standing right on top of them? Enemies should just stand in place and dumbly get hit?

I’m not saying stacking is an invalid tactic. There are situations where it has advantages and makes strategic sense (e.g., grouping up enemies to AoE them to death). I’m saying that it needs to have a greater risk associated with it if people choose to go glass cannon. Enemy AI doesn’t know how to deal with this technique (at least not very well anyway) and as a result it’s become the norm for a lot of players.

The gear itself is fine. The problem is that other gear is significantly less desirable for a lot of players because the game mechanics emphasize DPS over everything else in PvE. Support and control have their place but they aren’t powerful enough to be desirable to a lot of people outside of sPvP and WvW. Most boss fights are just giant DPS checks. And on top of that, enemy behavior just encourages the stacking and auto-attacking strategy. In that sense, zerker gear is a problem but only indirectly. That just isn’t good for the longevity of the game and it goes against many of the design goals ANet seems to be shooting for.

I just have to chime in on this. The “play how you want” thing is being used very spitefully by certain folks in the community.

Look, “play how you want” means that you can play however you want and complete the content. The game, yes it is a game, is designed to be a fun hobby to occupy your time. You are supposed to enjoy the way you play and enjoy the game (in theory).

What “play how you want” doesn’t mean is that your chosen play-style will be the most efficient one. This isn’t an argument about speculating how much fun ‘elitists’ or ‘casuals’ respectively have. It’s just a statement. “Play how you want” is just a freedom from a rigid class system.

Now, this is where folks start being unreasonable. Just because you personally enjoy playing in Cleric gear, does not mean that you should be on equal DPS footing as a player in Berserker gear. “Play how you want” does not mean you can play free of consequences. If this were the case, zerk players would also have to benefit from the Toughness and Vitality of a PVT player. You weigh and evaluate your playstyle with your in game goals.

Do you want to clear dungeons and fractals very quickly and precisely with very little room for error? Is that fun for you? Then Berserker’s or Assassin’s are for you. Do you enjoy playing open world content exclusively? Well…any gear will work for you there. Do you like WvW? It would be best to build in some tankyness to your gear to succeed there. Do you really enjoy playing full support but only enjoy playing in dungeons? You can do that too BUT do understand that for all choices there are consequences as well. You will NOT have the damage output of a Berserker geared player.

I think this is where the “play how I want” is tripping folks up. Of course I don’t mean everyone. Just the loud PUG folks complaining about PvE for all the wrong reasons. They want all the benefits of DPS gear; they want high DPS, lightning fast clear times, well coordinated utilities and synergy without actually putting forth the time to achieve this. They did not learn to dodge and synergize. They did not strategize with their guilds or clear teams to perfect their timing. Nope. They simply hopped into an LFG group with whatever gear they had on and are now raging that they cannot complete content as fast as these good groups.

This is as absurd as me complaining that I did not qualify for the olympics 400 m despite never running track a day in my life. If you want to speed clear, put forth the time to learn it with a good team. Again, it’s a game that you can “play how you want”. If I want full Arah armor, I must play accordingly to get the tokens. Do I like Arah? Not particularly. Then I should weigh my desire for that armor against my desire to play in places that are not Arah.

tl;dr – “Play how you want” does not mean you can spec for toughness and yet still get the same clear time as an experienced zerker team

What is even the zerker issue, that many use it? Is that really a problem? I for one don’t give a rats kitten what you run. I just care about what I like to run. Does build diversity even matter in having fun? Especially while in PvE??? I don’t think the mobs care…

I’m going to take this convo into a different realm. Because, this is really less about gear and more about the question, “What is fun?”

For me, fun does not come from challenge. The emotional response to challenge and stress is different from fun. And, I don’t want to experience a stress response too often each day. That is simply not healthy by any scientifically quantified means. If every enemy encounter in PvE became stressful as a “fix” for zerker, then kitten this game is over.

To cut to the chase, we need more to do than killing. You want to solve Zerker issues, how about not focusing on and basing the entirety of this game around killing. There’s more to life and existence than that. The biggest problem lies in everyone being up each others kitten instead of just playing the game for fun!

Zedd.8239:

Norjena.5172:

Tankygruops have to stack aswell to be “effective” stacking is the logical consequence out of the game mechanics.

1. No tank>no place where mobs are they follow rnd players>chaos
2. Buffs/Support isonly useable in a area around the player. U have to stack to support others. Healing or might it doesn´t matter
3. ranged dps is bad (even Staff eles dps is bad in ranged gruops), and mobs which are following a ranged guy will be a loss of dps for melees.
This isn´t a zerkergroup problem. They are probably the only ones who care about, cause they know it.

If u wear Dire, Zerker, Clerics or PVT all these problems will be exactly the same. To “fix” stacking, they should make GW3 i think it´s to late for such a big change to combat mechanics.

So, standing up against a boss or wall to prevent the boss or mobs from using AoE attacks against the group is ok in your book? It makes logical sense that mobs or bosses won’t use cleave/AoE attacks to hit all of the players at once when they’re standing right on top of them? Enemies should just stand in place and dumbly get hit?

I’m not saying stacking is an invalid tactic. There are situations where it has advantages and makes strategic sense (e.g., grouping up enemies to AoE them to death). I’m saying that it needs to have a greater risk associated with it if people choose to go glass cannon. Enemy AI doesn’t know how to deal with this technique (at least not very well anyway) and as a result it’s become the norm for a lot of players.

The gear itself is fine. The problem is that other gear is significantly less desirable for a lot of players because the game mechanics emphasize DPS over everything else in PvE. Support and control have their place but they aren’t powerful enough to be desirable to a lot of people outside of sPvP and WvW. Most boss fights are just giant DPS checks. And on top of that, enemy behavior just encourages the stacking and auto-attacking strategy. In that sense, zerker gear is a problem but only indirectly. That just isn’t good for the longevity of the game and it goes against many of the design goals ANet seems to be shooting for.

So non zerk tends to be the optimal meta in two out of three pillars of the game, WvW and spvp (as you yourself seem to admit).

Non zerk gear is also more than capable of doing the pve content, more often than not with face roll ease lets be honest.

And then we have full glass zerk groups, dedicated to speed running some pve content. And people are crying about the zerk, really?

The pve combat mechanics do indeed drive a dps pve meta at the high end, should you be concerned with optimal efficiency and worry about doing the content as fast as the next group (a group you aren’t actually competeing with given pve is not a zero sum game).

But quite why people are getting their knickers in a twist because they can’t take their WvW meta dominant PVT character, or their spvp condi build and suddenly blitz a high level fractal as quickly as a dedicated pve zerk set up, well I’m not sure what the issue is.

I gather that the people harping on about a pve meta change and/or a nerf to zerk, are going to spend the next few days and weeks creating endless threads on this subforum asking for a PVT WvW meta nerf et al and a buff to pure glass zerkers in WvW and spvp right?

With regards to this whole risk thing, there is a greater risk, it’s not hard if you have any idea as to what you are doing, but yes, there is a greater risk. There is a reason zerk groups ask for specific group comps and experienced players, there is a reason a great deal of pve players are running around in non zerk, or zerk hybrid builds.

Can someone explain to me, why in a game with no trinity and with active defence. Would people not migrate to more dps gear given they provide support through non trinity traditional means? If you are going to focus on pve and you want to be a more group orientated guard, why would you not provide your support through your skills and as you improve your gameplay also migrate to a more damage gear set up as you learn to actively avoid damage?

Can you not time protection and walls because you have dps gear on?

Why are people so desperate to face tank mobs and be pure, dedicated healers when the game has an active defense driven mechanism with no trinity?

DeWolfe.2174:

What is even the zerker issue…

After reading dozens of pages and endless posts, I still have no idea. I get the issues with the mobs lack of tactics, AI, skills. I get the issues with many of the bosses being a joke. But I’m still 100% lost on why zerker gear is a (real) issue.

TY….. I’m completely on the same page with you.

For the question, “why would people want to be dedicated healers?”
….. Because it’s called ROLE PLAYING!
:)

DeWolfe.2174:

TY….. I’m completely on the same page with you.

For the question, “why would people want to be dedicated healers?”
….. Because it’s called ROLE PLAYING!
:)

So someones role playing is getting borked up because another, none RP speed run group is getting through a dungeon a bit faster than them? Well that makes no sense at all.

You can RP a dedicated healer and wear clerics gear, hell you can RP a psychopath and wear no gear at all for I care. Not sure why that would require a nerf to zerkers though.

The question was more “why would you get bent out of shape that a dedicated healer is not speed run optimal, in a game which was from the outset, clearly not about dedicated pve healers and the trinity system”. It’s like going and playing Darkfall and then spending weeks complaining about the fact that it is FFA pvp and has looting.

Sorin.4310:

DeWolfe.2174:

What is even the zerker issue…

After reading dozens of pages and endless posts, I still have no idea. I get the issues with the mobs lack of tactics, AI, skills. I get the issues with many of the bosses being a joke. But I’m still 100% lost on why zerker gear is a (real) issue.

Zerker is not the issue. It’s just the way the game is designed that lets zerkers get away with it. Other mmos, zerkers get ripped apart like paper mache, so they need other professions to keep them alive. Hence, the other gears/builds are just as valuable. Having no holy trinity for balance, the game play style will tip to one side.

Some of the disagreement on this post comes down to game design preferences. Some people want a soft-trinity design while others prefer the all dps meta.

Nike has articulated a game design where support etc comes from traits and abilities while gear is an offensive / defensive trade-off. I think this has 3 problems for gw2:

1. It relegates all non-zerker gear to “training wheels” sets, which a player is expected to progress beyond. This basically trivialises the other gear sets as interesting choices
2. It does not explain the place of healing power in the game;
3. As BRA notes, there is not enough of a defensive trade-off with zerker gear, making it by the far the superior set for even average players. This could be addressed by more difficult combat however, which I assume the pro-zerker posters would also welcome.

My personal opinion is that a straight zerker meta is boring and one-dimensional. Stacking and whacking is a valid tactic but also boring gameplay (yes I know there is more to the gameplay than this). Trait and ability choices are not enough to remedy this.

Part of the issue other posters have identified is that all the important support in the game currently does not rely on stats. Perhaps one solution would be to make some of the important support skills, like reflect and timewarp, rely on a “support” stat which would compete with the zerker stats. Another solution would be to create a better use for the other control and debuff abilties in the game.

I think giving bosses frequent small attacks would not be a good idea. It would penalise low hp and armour classes. Also, requiring players to have x amount of defensive stacks is just as uninteresting as making such stats irrelevant. A better solution would be to add other mobs or avoidable damaging effects to boss encounters. This would create more incoming attacks to be absorbed, but it would also allow the skilled players to kite and avoid them in full zerker. It would thus up the skill level required to use full zerker, without making defensive stats mandatory. This is what Anet have already done with some encounters, such as Molten facility and fire shaman fractal.

However I do not think that zerker gear should be nerfed or defensive stats made mandatory for all players. I’d just like the gameplay and build choices to be more varied and interesting.

Sorin.4310:

DeWolfe.2174:

What is even the zerker issue…

After reading dozens of pages and endless posts, I still have no idea. I get the issues with the mobs lack of tactics, AI, skills. I get the issues with many of the bosses being a joke. But I’m still 100% lost on why zerker gear is a (real) issue.

Zerker gear isn’t an issue. It never was. What is an issue is that nothing but zerker has any importance in PvE. If you’re not running Zerker/Assassin’s, you’re not needed. You blew a large investment into mostly worthless stats.

That is the issue that these threads are addressing. Something must be done to make other stat combos relevant in PvE, whether it’s times when they are simply the superior choice (Karka are a decent example, with high armor, low health, favoring condition damage), or bumping up the skill required to go 5 glass cannon successfully (which also will require semi-randomized attack routines from mobs/bosses, otherwise, players memorize the new rotations and this shows up again). Faster attacking enemies would also increase the value of Weakness, Protection, Confusion, and Retaliation. In all of these cases, the solution is re-working enemies.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Zedd.8239:

I just wanted to say thanks to Blood Red Arachnid for posting this well-reasoned and well-thought out thread about this particular issue.

But it’s not an issue…

Really? Because ANet seems to believe it is. I actually feel it’s long overdue, and that it will be for the well-being of the game and its community (granted they offer a plausible solution.)

A bit late to the party, but I just wanted to say kudos to BRA for his original post. Informative, balanced and a good summary on the current situation and why ANet is looking at changing the “Zerker meta”. (What decisions they make is ultimately up to them. We as players just have to wait and see, and give out feedback once it’s out.)

Defensive stats and gear need to be reworked so that they contribute to the combat in a more active manner.

For example, why should the damage of Retaliation be based on Power, and not Toughness? The whole thing is based around the thorns concept, which is armor. Therefore, why not make Retaliation damage increase from Toughness?

It’s a different way of dealing damage. And, if you feel like being Tougher, at least you can still dish some damage out – if you get hit. So, by putting trait points into Toughness, taking traits that give me Retaliation, and wearing gear that gives me Toughness, I have an alternative means of dealing damage, without having to run Berserker/Assassin. It makes me want to get in the way to get hit. Retaliation could stack in intensity, instead of duration.

Now.

Think about doing something similar to every defensive stat.

The key is to make the defensive stats provide some kind of active contribution, instead of merely a passive one, that is made obsolete by the active dodge mechanic.

The above example I gave is a proto-idea that could work for Toughness gear. Figure out something similar for Vitality and Healing Power too, and then you got your solution.

NoTrigger.8396:

Star Ace.5207:

NoTrigger.8396:

kyubi.3620:

All of these post all show the one important point they need to make it twice as harder for full zerker to survive but somewhat worthwhile for someone whos not zerking to do the same. That way player who dodge like gods arent any more punished then before and people who run balanced build wich doesnt rely on pure damage actualy get to be party worthwhile.

oh boy,

can you start thinking before you post?

PLAYERS WHO DODGE LIKE GODS SHOULDNT BE PUNISHED BECAUSE THEY ARE kittenING SKILLED.
and by nerfing berserker you will also nerf the fun of those players.
and no matter what arenanet will do, one thing is for sure.
i will never allow people like you to join my party.

what is going on in your head?
why do you want to nerf playerskill?
what about if you l2p and buff your own playerskill so you will be able to enjoy min/max builds that also provide maximum support at the same time?

you didnt even understand this.
a full berserker build can provide as much support as your tanky hulk build.
because gw2 doesnt have a trinity and everyone can do damage, cc and support at the same time.

concept of guild wars 2
concept of the guild wars 2 combat system.

Nothing is going on with his head; he could ask the same about your intolerance. Play and let play.

That’s the concept of the current speedrun community, not ANet’s own concept, evidently, because they believe this needs addressing. So no, I don’t agree-nor does ANet-with your “concept” for GW2.

(It’s OK to speedrun, however. Just leave others alone for not doing so.)

i dont care how he wants to play.
i let him play the way he wants.
he can go hulk 24/7.

the funny thing is that he wants to nerf MY playstyle. not the other way around.
only because he is not good enough to use my playstyle.
he feels useless with his hulk builds.

thats not a stat or gear issue. its a l2p issue.
but crying on forums is always easier than improving yourself.

This is 100% wrong… what do you know about any player here? I’m sure I would beat you in any duel, so don’t talk about skill. Zerk gear is simply superior for this game’s PvE. It is a matter of gear and stats. It is not a matter of L2P. Didn’t know people could be so unreasonable.

You know its the people and dungeons that become boring. Zerker armor itself is always fresh and fun.

Ghostextechnica.3270:

Note too that Zerker is encouraged by world boss DPS timers.

DPS timers make complete sense in MMO’s where devs wish to limit progression towards those who have managed to acquire high dps gear in the current tier of content.

However, boss timers make ZERO sense in GW2 where you can jump into Zerker gear and do max damage straight away. It only encourages using Zerker or finding a lot more people to attend.

Seriously, you would need a lot more people to do Teq if half the attendees wore non-zerker gear.

Except world bosses and Teq don’t take critical damage ergo the optimal gear is PVT not zerker.
Know your game please.

If other builds ( stat combos ) are in some way improved to make them more viable then I can see that as a good move.
But nerfing zerker gear ( and the huge investment some people have made into zerker ascended gear) just because some people can’t keep up and complain about it would be the wrong way to go about it.

Sirendor.1394:

This is 100% wrong… what do you know about any player here? I’m sure I would beat you in any duel, so don’t talk about skill. Zerk gear is simply superior for this game’s PvE. It is a matter of gear and stats. It is not a matter of L2P. Didn’t know people could be so unreasonable.

OK, go solo Lupicus naked (no armor) like he did (he even posted a video in this topic a few posts back). It’s a form of a PvE duel (since this is a PvE discussion). Go ahead, I dare you

NoTrigger.8396:

the only reason why you want to nerf berserker is because you are either too bad to play it or you simply dont like it.

I feel a strange sense of deja vu here..

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Zerker gear isn’t an issue. It never was. What is an issue is that nothing but zerker has any importance in PvE. If you’re not running Zerker/Assassin’s, you’re not needed. You blew a large investment into mostly worthless stats.

Ah! Someone from that camp finally admitted it. This whole thing is about making WvWers who spent a bunch on ascended sentinels gear not have to respec for dungeons and still feel powerful. I suggested this was possibly the motivation before and nobody on that side of the debate would agree, but you finally did, thanks.

Berner.7289:

Terrasque.8735:

You seem to be stating for a fact that the zerk meta fix will lower the needed skillcap, while most suggestions I’ve seen are based around increasing the skill needed to play zerker well.

Let me do a simple mechanic example. What if some bosses had a reflection shield, that would reflect a certain percent of the damage done back to whoever did the attack, and the shield would be down for a period if the boss was successfully interrupted.

You’d either have to take pauses to avoid lethal damage, gear/spec for handling more incoming damage, have support to keep you alive, or use CC properly. Now my question is, in that example, how would it make things easier than it is now?

All this would do is slow down the amount of time it takes a skillful group of DPS-geared players to complete the content. Consequently, what you’re really doing is nerfing the rewards of skillful play, because the only reward for skillful play in GW2 is the ability to complete content quickly and efficiently.

I like how you insist that having damage-only gear is skillful play in itself, and any change to that is a nerf to being a skillful player.

And also, you seem say that having mechanics to react to and play around is not skill, while just doing damage all the time is skill – and everything that tries to prevent you from just doing damage without interruption and react to it is reducing skill. I hope you understand that such logic might seem a bit strange to some?

You’re also assuming that a mob with that mechanic would have the same too-large health pool as today’s mobs. I really doubt that would be the case.

What about :
1) DECREASE gigantic HP pool on bosses (it makes the fight more boring than entertaining)
2) Increase Toughness on the bosses/enemies – less direct damage, more condition rewarding.
3) Use the HP/Toughness ratio semi randomly when boss spawn or when it regenerate fully – party would need to check if go with direct or condition damage
4) Remove defiant at all, but make the bosses able to reflect some conditions spammed at them to the caster. Reduce the effectiveness of CC on them to 25-50% – so it is still useful.
5) Allow bosses to spawn minions.
6) Allow bosses to dodge (with better pool on Vigor)
6) Remove 1hit kills at all. You cannot kill by 1 shot, boss should not do either.
7) Allow bosses to “learn” in dungeon – on the basis of frequencies of attack kinds change the skill/time for particular skill. Example :
CoF1 boss – when attacked by whole melee – then use the aoe attack more frequently, when ranged – use shooting flames more often, against condition heavy party – use shake it off, against direct damage – use Aegis/other tool.

And for the minions traveling in groups – differentiate them – healer/condition spammer/direct damage.

I love how people reply to this thread with the same stuff they spew in the other 500 threads, not realizing that this isn’t about the balancing itself. Rather about why sides can be so hostile about it.

I really think Arachnid hit the nail on the head, people are too entrenched in there “I’m a better player, I do this, it works best, it works because I make it work, don’t nerf skill”-position.

This proves a few things which are fairly common knowledge about MMORPGs, nicely so:

• If you’re at the top, the game is balanced as it is. If you’re not, then it isn’t. Balance is when you’re the winner, as always.
• A problem only exists in 1 incarnation, and has exactly 1 cause. There are no compounding problems or symptoms, ever.
• Balance is something objectively decided and not up to interpretation.

Its my considered opinion that its not the gear at fault, nor even the gameplay mechanics. To me its a failure of content design, specifically in regards to encounters themselves. I should probably elaborate a bit with an example. Ok then.

For example; A Dungeon boss is no longer a single entity, it is instead three units.
Boss A; High HP pool, High Passive Defence
Boss B; Medium HP pool, Uses Environmental elements for defence
Boss C; Low HP pool, High Active defence

The basic premise is that it requires all three styles of combat to defeat them. One boss requires DPS, one control, the other conditions all in the same encounter.The most effective being a team that balances all 3 styles through whatever means and compositions they chose.

Single target, large hp pool encounters will only ever lead to DPS centric gameplay. Hence the DPS meta.

Well that’s my thoughts anyway.