Guild Wars 2

Carighan.6758:

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.

sad to say but this comes directly from the lack of faith in anet balancing and the impression of them giving more credit to complainers rather than trying to find “balance”.

It may or may not be true but many nerfs they did were so immotivated that the nerf fear is predominant in this game….

They Always go for the Whack a mole nerf style in everything and reconsider it when something disappears from the game…..

I could give you examples in every part of the game:
-Profession balance: elementalist, glamour mesmer, phantasm mesmer etc etc
-Economy: Silk, T5 wood…
-Farming: orr

They are extremely fast with HUGE nerfs and take 3-6 months to slightly reconsider them and they don t even totally reverse them but only slightly…

Since they said they would reconsider berserker pve dominance, (that is not an issue…because as said you don t say so many requests for zerk ranger or necro for example) panic spread.

Along that there are also people frustrated with the current pve meta that wants Revenge instead of a better game for everyone.

Th ebest thing they could do is clarify what they intend to do about PvE…rather than saying they will reconsider berserkers that is something that can only spread panic considering how grindy pve has become.

Good post

I totally agree.

I agree that it’s not the gear in itself that’s the main problem (although those 3 stats does combo extremely well together), but the PvE content.

While I raided in WoW we had a term for the straight-up fights with no advanced mechanics – “Tank’n’spank”. The problem in GW2 is IMHO a combination of these things:

1. The majority of PvE fights are straight-up fights (or reduced to it with enough dps)
2. Tanks/healers are removed, leaving only the spanking part
3. Players are expected to use active defenses to avoid lethal damage

None of these are necessarily bad alone, but in combination it leaves a very one-sided meta where the only thing that matters is how much DPS your group can do.

And the way active defenses work (extremely strong, but limited resource) very much leads itself into a DPS race, where your best offense and defense is killing stuff before your active defenses runs out.

It’s to the point where you’re reducing risk instead of increasing it when going full zerk, and you get rewarded for it. In some places you’re even reducing the skill needed because the fights are so short that the advanced parts of a fight never happens.

This is my opinion of the current meta. If I’m wrong, please enlighten me. But, from my current point of view, the zerker meta does look very unbalanced, limiting, and frankly, quite boring. I do not think that’s how GW2 was supposed to be.

Zerker should keep rewarding neolike dodgers but should punish people who dont better then this, indeed.

I just want zerker to be less attractive to player so that we keep more option to the endgame content. People who dont run zerker may not be obligated to do it by the game to run the content but theyd rather run a build they will never be able to use correctly then to be shunned by the elite community, thats a very wrong way to go.

Everyone wants to be Elite who doesnt, if zerking everything out means behing elite players will all go toward it even if they cant do it right (aka bad zerkers wich are now all over the place) and it will result into the death of originality and build freedom (hey that guy is doing better then you do at both damage and survivability with a non zerker build yet because you run the meta you think yourself the best of both please stop lying to yourself when your constantly getting downed at the start of fights).

Can’t a player actualy be elite and run anything else then zerker actualy? Break the mold and be actualy unique? Well right now no because behing zerker is what behing good means. I run a lot of condition build and im actualy WAY above the average pve player when it comes to doing dungeons. I run with pugs only in fractals and likely ive been proving my skill more often by finishing the game content without zerking it then by running my warrior for pure damage because right now not running a meta team = more risk wich also = increased difficulty.

The very argument that zerkers all gets out to justify themselves is ‘’we are more glassy we take more risk and the fight has an increase in difficulty’‘. We take the same risk if not more risk as you do because at this level getting 1 shot by boss is common no mather your gear, so how come do you guys get to have a spotlight as the ’’elite’’ community when its actualy easyer for you to clear content then it is to the others?

On equal skill level and between two player with perfect ability to dodge hits who do you think is more skilled for finishing the content, the zerker team who speed run trought it or the average pug which gets it done despite the clear disavantage and at the laugh of the odds? As Terrasque said it came to the point you are reducing the risk and getting rewarded for running zerker rather then anything else.

Nike does have a point.

The decision to ignore defensive stats and load up on offensive stats SHOULD mean you deal a lot of damage and die easily.
That is exactly what zerker gear does. You have low hp, no mitigation, and massive dps.

The gear is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. It’s the content which isn’t providing the threat to your life.

In any other PvE game, once content becomes less threatening to your life… you begin swapping healers for dpsers.

fadeaway.2807:

Nike does have a point.

The decision to ignore defensive stats and load up on offensive stats SHOULD mean you deal a lot of damage and die easily.
That is exactly what zerker gear does. You have low hp, no mitigation, and massive dps.

The gear is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. It’s the content which isn’t providing the threat to your life.

In any other PvE game, once content becomes less threatening to your life… you begin swapping healers for dpsers.

I absolutely agree with this and the solution is to make new, better dungeons.

Will we see this happen? Doubtful.

Right now downing a boss with gear other then zerker is actualy more challanging then it is without. Running zerker is supose to actualy be challanging so where is the challange then?

Either they make zerker even easyer to kill either they make non zerker twice as harder to kill, its just common sense. Of course if they increase all mob difficulty cap it wont mather much if you run zerker or not it will just 1 shot punish every player to begin with and be twice as harder as before. Either toughness is given a meaning (im strongly against it because guild wars 2 doesnt need tanking) either they make it impossible to neolike survive stuff (wouldnt work as this game heavily rely on dodge) either they actualy reduce zerk damage to get it closer to what the other spec does because right now it prety much hit up to 10 time harder then the best conditionmancer in mather of DPS.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

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.

Considering I am almost entirely a PvE player, I can already prove your assumption wrong. Yes, I do occasional WvW, but those times are when I want a change of pace, so your entire premise is completely backwards. The current PvE environment is toxic, having not been balanced around active defense (other than the one-shots of bosses/agony in Fractals, where your defenseive stats simply don’t matter at all). Wearing Berserker/Assassin’s gear and doing well is no indication of skill right now. By design, glass cannons are a high risk/high reward playstyle, but PvE design did not really account for active defense, so the risk is unnaturally low for that playstyle.

Perhaps if you realize that what we are asking for is harder content, you might get past your “everyone else is bad and just whining” idea.

actually if people could admit this,would be good:

Almost anyone can run dungeons with a guardian and warriors in full zerk stacking and full melee.

less can run dungeons in full zerker without a guardian using zerk and stacking

Few can run dungeons without guardians and warriors while stacking and wearing zerk.

Really few run dungeons without war and guards and stacking in full zerk….

Some runs dungeon without armors…..(there may be a reason)

A significant part of PVE players rerolled at least a guard or a warrior expecially for istances…

Is this correct?

LordByron.8369:

actually if people could admit this,would be good:

Almost anyone can run dungeons with a guardian and warriors in full zerk stacking and full melee.

less can run dungeons in full zerker without a guardian using zerk and stacking

Few can run dungeons without guardians and warriors while stacking and wearing zerk.

Really few run dungeons without war and guards and stacking in full zerk….

Some runs dungeon without armors…..(there may be a reason)

A huge part of players rerolled at least a guard or a warrior expecially for istances…

Is this correct?

Enought of a sign to hint to the fact theres a problem.

kyubi.3620:

Right now downing a boss with gear other then zerker is actualy more challanging then it is without. Running zerker is supose to actualy be challanging so where is the challange then?

That is still a lie. Alot of bosses can kill zerkers easily. They are to easy (and boring most times), and it is not difficult enough.
But it is not more difficult to do it in other more defensive gear. I know how it was to play as a AH guard a year ago. I facetanked crap which can 1shot me now. It was definitly much easier as non zerk.

Even AC/CoE Bosses can kill Zerkers who can´t dogde. Corners are a problem, but not an easy to solve problem. And they are not a Zerk only one.

kyubi.3620

Enought of a sign to hint to the fact theres a problem.

yes and its not the armor….

LordByron.8369:

kyubi.3620

Enought of a sign to hint to the fact theres a problem.

yes and its not the armor….

The armor never was the issue. The issue is that the risk related to using said armor isn’t actually there.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

The armor never was the issue. The issue is that the risk related to using said armor isn’t actually there.

I read that as : “The armor isn’t the issue. The issue is the armor”

i think he just said that theres actualy no defrence in difficulty between fighting as zerker and fighting naked :/ wich is prety much true save for the damage loss

kyubi.3620:

i think he just said that theres actualy no defrence in difficulty between fighting as zerker and fighting naked :/ wich is prety much true save for the damage loss

Bingo! Though the loss of damage will increase difficulty some as now the enemy has more times to attack that you need to avoid. Not a huge increase, though.

@Stof: Try reading again. There is no issue at all with glass cannon builds. The problem is that what should be High Risk/High Reward is instead Low Risk/High Reward. If risk went up in PvE, I’m pretty sure most of the people would be quite satisfied. There are other changes that need to be done as well, namely to condition and boon use in PvE, but generally increasing the risk is the biggest part.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

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.

Considering I am almost entirely a PvE player, I can already prove your assumption wrong. Yes, I do occasional WvW, but those times are when I want a change of pace, so your entire premise is completely backwards. The current PvE environment is toxic, having not been balanced around active defense (other than the one-shots of bosses/agony in Fractals, where your defenseive stats simply don’t matter at all). Wearing Berserker/Assassin’s gear and doing well is no indication of skill right now. By design, glass cannons are a high risk/high reward playstyle, but PvE design did not really account for active defense, so the risk is unnaturally low for that playstyle.

Perhaps if you realize that what we are asking for is harder content, you might get past your “everyone else is bad and just whining” idea.

Newsflash : The PVE design team DID take into account active defense. That’s why PVE content is easy if you go full zerker and know how to play.
That’s your reward – completing in 10 minutes instead of 30 minutes. It’s what YOU receive as a player for your time and effort spent into clocking hours in game and running the same run hundreds of times.

Most people that haven’t even played 500 hours of GW2 are now looking and players that have 1500+ hours played speed clearing content like crazy in full zerker and believe that zerker is the problem and unfair. It isn’t – the problem is that a player’s time investment will always show.

There is hard content in the game – but people don’t even do it.

Who does the new TA Aetherblade path? ( and that’s not even seriously tough). Who would still do fractals if not for the skins? ( and even so not many do).
People don’t do tough content because they don’t want it tough. The players that DO want tough content in PVE are a MINORITY.
They’ll do the " tough " content once or twice then never run it again and stick to zergfests and AC1+3 + cof1 and HOTW 1.

If you want a challenge go to PVP. PVE is mostly for farming ( I would have added story and exploration here but the story in this game is so unbelievably bad I can’t even mention it).

kyubi.3620:

Zerker should keep rewarding neolike dodgers but should punish people who dont better then this, indeed.

I just want zerker to be less attractive to player so that we keep more option to the endgame content. People who dont run zerker may not be obligated to do it by the game to run the content but theyd rather run a build they will never be able to use correctly then to be shunned by the elite community, thats a very wrong way to go.

Everyone wants to be Elite who doesnt, if zerking everything out means behing elite players will all go toward it even if they cant do it right (aka bad zerkers wich are now all over the place) and it will result into the death of originality and build freedom (hey that guy is doing better then you do at both damage and survivability with a non zerker build yet because you run the meta you think yourself the best of both please stop lying to yourself when your constantly getting downed at the start of fights).

Can’t a player actualy be elite and run anything else then zerker actualy? Break the mold and be actualy unique? Well right now no because behing zerker is what behing good means. I run a lot of condition build and im actualy WAY above the average pve player when it comes to doing dungeons. I run with pugs only in fractals and likely ive been proving my skill more often by finishing the game content without zerking it then by running my warrior for pure damage because right now not running a meta team = more risk wich also = increased difficulty.

The very argument that zerkers all gets out to justify themselves is ‘’we are more glassy we take more risk and the fight has an increase in difficulty’‘. We take the same risk if not more risk as you do because at this level getting 1 shot by boss is common no mather your gear, so how come do you guys get to have a spotlight as the ’’elite’’ community when its actualy easyer for you to clear content then it is to the others?

On equal skill level and between two player with perfect ability to dodge hits who do you think is more skilled for finishing the content, the zerker team who speed run trought it or the average pug which gets it done despite the clear disavantage and at the laugh of the odds? As Terrasque said it came to the point you are reducing the risk and getting rewarded for running zerker rather then anything else.

Fun fact : there will ALWAYS be a meta. Pro players ( the elite ) will ALWAYS run the optimal meta.
No matter how much you try to shove " build diversity " down our throats you will never be " Elite" if you don’t run the meta. That will NEVER change.

OP, this is possibly one of the best posts on the forums, ever.

Harper.4173:

kyubi.3620:

Zerker should keep rewarding neolike dodgers but should punish people who dont better then this, indeed.

I just want zerker to be less attractive to player so that we keep more option to the endgame content. People who dont run zerker may not be obligated to do it by the game to run the content but theyd rather run a build they will never be able to use correctly then to be shunned by the elite community, thats a very wrong way to go.

Everyone wants to be Elite who doesnt, if zerking everything out means behing elite players will all go toward it even if they cant do it right (aka bad zerkers wich are now all over the place) and it will result into the death of originality and build freedom (hey that guy is doing better then you do at both damage and survivability with a non zerker build yet because you run the meta you think yourself the best of both please stop lying to yourself when your constantly getting downed at the start of fights).

Can’t a player actualy be elite and run anything else then zerker actualy? Break the mold and be actualy unique? Well right now no because behing zerker is what behing good means. I run a lot of condition build and im actualy WAY above the average pve player when it comes to doing dungeons. I run with pugs only in fractals and likely ive been proving my skill more often by finishing the game content without zerking it then by running my warrior for pure damage because right now not running a meta team = more risk wich also = increased difficulty.

The very argument that zerkers all gets out to justify themselves is ‘’we are more glassy we take more risk and the fight has an increase in difficulty’‘. We take the same risk if not more risk as you do because at this level getting 1 shot by boss is common no mather your gear, so how come do you guys get to have a spotlight as the ’’elite’’ community when its actualy easyer for you to clear content then it is to the others?

On equal skill level and between two player with perfect ability to dodge hits who do you think is more skilled for finishing the content, the zerker team who speed run trought it or the average pug which gets it done despite the clear disavantage and at the laugh of the odds? As Terrasque said it came to the point you are reducing the risk and getting rewarded for running zerker rather then anything else.

Fun fact : there will ALWAYS be a meta. Pro players ( the elite ) will ALWAYS run the optimal meta.
No matter how much you try to shove " build diversity " down our throats you will never be " Elite" if you don’t run the meta. That will NEVER change.

Count the number of assasin/warrior/ranger meta builds in guild wars 1 this is what happen when we have an equalising variant in the game wich scales prety much all build on the same level make things interesting and give somewhat of a margin to the possibility of ’’random’’ and surprise in both pvp and pve. I could number the possibly availlable meta build in guild wars 2 on a hundred of pages yet because personnal physical damage based build outdps them all by a good 10 time fold no one will run them let alone try and create them.

Harper.4173:

kyubi.3620:

Zerker should keep rewarding neolike dodgers but should punish people who dont better then this, indeed.

I just want zerker to be less attractive to player so that we keep more option to the endgame content. People who dont run zerker may not be obligated to do it by the game to run the content but theyd rather run a build they will never be able to use correctly then to be shunned by the elite community, thats a very wrong way to go.

Everyone wants to be Elite who doesnt, if zerking everything out means behing elite players will all go toward it even if they cant do it right (aka bad zerkers wich are now all over the place) and it will result into the death of originality and build freedom (hey that guy is doing better then you do at both damage and survivability with a non zerker build yet because you run the meta you think yourself the best of both please stop lying to yourself when your constantly getting downed at the start of fights).

Can’t a player actualy be elite and run anything else then zerker actualy? Break the mold and be actualy unique? Well right now no because behing zerker is what behing good means. I run a lot of condition build and im actualy WAY above the average pve player when it comes to doing dungeons. I run with pugs only in fractals and likely ive been proving my skill more often by finishing the game content without zerking it then by running my warrior for pure damage because right now not running a meta team = more risk wich also = increased difficulty.

The very argument that zerkers all gets out to justify themselves is ‘’we are more glassy we take more risk and the fight has an increase in difficulty’‘. We take the same risk if not more risk as you do because at this level getting 1 shot by boss is common no mather your gear, so how come do you guys get to have a spotlight as the ’’elite’’ community when its actualy easyer for you to clear content then it is to the others?

On equal skill level and between two player with perfect ability to dodge hits who do you think is more skilled for finishing the content, the zerker team who speed run trought it or the average pug which gets it done despite the clear disavantage and at the laugh of the odds? As Terrasque said it came to the point you are reducing the risk and getting rewarded for running zerker rather then anything else.

Fun fact : there will ALWAYS be a meta. Pro players ( the elite ) will ALWAYS run the optimal meta.
No matter how much you try to shove " build diversity " down our throats you will never be " Elite" if you don’t run the meta. That will NEVER change.

It’s not that simple. Consider for example Chess. Though there is theory of openings, end game tactics and what not, there does not exist a “meta strategy” in the same sense as it exists in many online games. So no, existence of a meta strategy isn’t some fundamental law of nature.

fadeaway.2807:

Nike does have a point.

The decision to ignore defensive stats and load up on offensive stats SHOULD mean you deal a lot of damage and die easily.
That is exactly what zerker gear does. You have low hp, no mitigation, and massive dps.

Not true. Zerker have low hp, massive dps while retaining the same level of active defense of a tanky build.

Low hp/defense is not obvious because OHKO from boss pretty much ignore that entirely.
You can wear full soldier yet still die to lupi if you don’t dodge red circles.

Dodge/evade/invul/reflect/block/perma-vigor > tank stats anyday. And these are independent from gear.

What soldier gear will save you from is sustained damage like conditions or environment degen like the toxic whatever or anything that hit you constantly. These rarely exist in dungeon.

In trade for the loss of armor/hp, zerker gains dps which shortens the time you have to fight the mobs, reduce the number of times you have to dodge. With the right setup you can kill some mobs before even having to dodge. So you can say in some battles, having zerker gear is less risky than a tanky gear.

Silferas.3841:

Afya.5842:

You can wear full soldier yet still die to lupi if you don’t dodge red circles.

Has nobody been kittening paying attention in this thread?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0kDnswWyjY

ww, sword 5, mace 2

Afya.5842:

Silferas.3841:

Afya.5842:

You can wear full soldier yet still die to lupi if you don’t dodge red circles.

Has nobody been kittening paying attention in this thread?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0kDnswWyjY

ww, sword 5, mace 2

http://youtu.be/aZgRUtK7LkM
http://youtu.be/b2VhmwLwvrM

I didn’t read all this craziness. But maybe if they nerf Zerker they can also look into Clerics/settlers and maybe let people tank and increase threat modifiers based on toughness values. <3 Make my day.

Afya.5842:

fadeaway.2807:

Nike does have a point.

The decision to ignore defensive stats and load up on offensive stats SHOULD mean you deal a lot of damage and die easily.
That is exactly what zerker gear does. You have low hp, no mitigation, and massive dps.

Not true. Zerker have low hp, massive dps while retaining the same level of active defense of a tanky build.

Low hp/defense is not obvious because OHKO from boss pretty much ignore that entirely.
You can wear full soldier yet still die to lupi if you don’t dodge red circles.

Dodge/evade/invul/reflect/block/perma-vigor > tank stats anyday. And these are independent from gear.

What soldier gear will save you from is sustained damage like conditions or environment degen like the toxic whatever or anything that hit you constantly. These rarely exist in dungeon.

In trade for the loss of armor/hp, zerker gains dps which shortens the time you have to fight the mobs, reduce the number of times you have to dodge. With the right setup you can kill some mobs before even having to dodge. So you can say in some battles, having zerker gear is less risky than a tanky gear.

Overstatement.

Not every attack in this game is a OHKO, a really small minority are.
The same hit that eats 50% of my DPS guardian HP, would causes only a 22% HP loss if I were using PVT. On bulky gear, I could survive 2 hits in a row, each one oneshoting my zerker counterpart.
And that’s without even accounting traits, runes and the like, wich could make me even more bulky/sustained.

That’s one of the biased things with sustained builds, which usually also bring some healing capabilities (Shoutheal, Altruistic Healing, …) on top of their bulkiness: they tend to perceive nothing but those big “OHKO” moves (which are the ones with the most obvious and long animations, so easiest to doge, for the most part).
Those Lupicus kicks that oneshot my zeker guardian? 5.5k damage. That’s nothing, I can even keep swinging my hammer until another one hits before popping a heal, even for 2-3 more if I’m carrying something like AH.
But those AoE circles? Those are the really dangerous part, and I’m even forced to suffer a lot more of them because of the increased killing time. How unfair! Clearly it’s a lot easier in zeker.

And even with that, I still somewhat agree with your last statement. SOME fights are not only faster, but also easier, for DPS SETUPS (whole group, with right builds and tactics, not a bunch random players doing whatever they like) and that’s unfair.
For the most part, however, the more sustain you stack, the easier the fight becomes.

Btw, you really need to try to take as much in the face as possible to get downed by Lupicus AoE circles in PVT gear.

kyubi.3620:

Harper.4173:

kyubi.3620:

Zerker should keep rewarding neolike dodgers but should punish people who dont better then this, indeed.

I just want zerker to be less attractive to player so that we keep more option to the endgame content. People who dont run zerker may not be obligated to do it by the game to run the content but theyd rather run a build they will never be able to use correctly then to be shunned by the elite community, thats a very wrong way to go.

Everyone wants to be Elite who doesnt, if zerking everything out means behing elite players will all go toward it even if they cant do it right (aka bad zerkers wich are now all over the place) and it will result into the death of originality and build freedom (hey that guy is doing better then you do at both damage and survivability with a non zerker build yet because you run the meta you think yourself the best of both please stop lying to yourself when your constantly getting downed at the start of fights).

Can’t a player actualy be elite and run anything else then zerker actualy? Break the mold and be actualy unique? Well right now no because behing zerker is what behing good means. I run a lot of condition build and im actualy WAY above the average pve player when it comes to doing dungeons. I run with pugs only in fractals and likely ive been proving my skill more often by finishing the game content without zerking it then by running my warrior for pure damage because right now not running a meta team = more risk wich also = increased difficulty.

The very argument that zerkers all gets out to justify themselves is ‘’we are more glassy we take more risk and the fight has an increase in difficulty’‘. We take the same risk if not more risk as you do because at this level getting 1 shot by boss is common no mather your gear, so how come do you guys get to have a spotlight as the ’’elite’’ community when its actualy easyer for you to clear content then it is to the others?

On equal skill level and between two player with perfect ability to dodge hits who do you think is more skilled for finishing the content, the zerker team who speed run trought it or the average pug which gets it done despite the clear disavantage and at the laugh of the odds? As Terrasque said it came to the point you are reducing the risk and getting rewarded for running zerker rather then anything else.

Fun fact : there will ALWAYS be a meta. Pro players ( the elite ) will ALWAYS run the optimal meta.
No matter how much you try to shove " build diversity " down our throats you will never be " Elite" if you don’t run the meta. That will NEVER change.

Count the number of assasin/warrior/ranger meta builds in guild wars 1 this is what happen when we have an equalising variant in the game wich scales prety much all build on the same level make things interesting and give somewhat of a margin to the possibility of ’’random’’ and surprise in both pvp and pve. I could number the possibly availlable meta build in guild wars 2 on a hundred of pages yet because personnal physical damage based build outdps them all by a good 10 time fold no one will run them let alone try and create them.

I don’t even think I understand what you want to say – but here’s the deal.
IN Guild Wars 1 – there was ALWAYS a meta – that would constantly change BUT there was ALWAYS a meta.
In PVE if you were trying to do any elite area speed clear you HAD to have the BUILD AND GEAR that the meta required.
In GvG and PVP you played the build that your team was doing IN the current meta.

Only low-tier PVE and PVP players were running around with BYOB ( Bring your own build).

spoj.9672:

Afya.5842:

Silferas.3841:

Afya.5842:

You can wear full soldier yet still die to lupi if you don’t dodge red circles.

Has nobody been kittening paying attention in this thread?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0kDnswWyjY

ww, sword 5, mace 2

http://youtu.be/aZgRUtK7LkM
http://youtu.be/b2VhmwLwvrM

Party-wide magnetic aura from elementalists due to a trait, area blocks via arcane shield by elementalists, aegis and protection from guardians, ress banners (and, if traited for it, regen) from warrior.
And i’m probably forgetting something.

Harper.4173:

kyubi.3620:

Harper.4173:

kyubi.3620:

Zerker should keep rewarding neolike dodgers but should punish people who dont better then this, indeed.

I just want zerker to be less attractive to player so that we keep more option to the endgame content. People who dont run zerker may not be obligated to do it by the game to run the content but theyd rather run a build they will never be able to use correctly then to be shunned by the elite community, thats a very wrong way to go.

Everyone wants to be Elite who doesnt, if zerking everything out means behing elite players will all go toward it even if they cant do it right (aka bad zerkers wich are now all over the place) and it will result into the death of originality and build freedom (hey that guy is doing better then you do at both damage and survivability with a non zerker build yet because you run the meta you think yourself the best of both please stop lying to yourself when your constantly getting downed at the start of fights).

Can’t a player actualy be elite and run anything else then zerker actualy? Break the mold and be actualy unique? Well right now no because behing zerker is what behing good means. I run a lot of condition build and im actualy WAY above the average pve player when it comes to doing dungeons. I run with pugs only in fractals and likely ive been proving my skill more often by finishing the game content without zerking it then by running my warrior for pure damage because right now not running a meta team = more risk wich also = increased difficulty.

The very argument that zerkers all gets out to justify themselves is ‘’we are more glassy we take more risk and the fight has an increase in difficulty’‘. We take the same risk if not more risk as you do because at this level getting 1 shot by boss is common no mather your gear, so how come do you guys get to have a spotlight as the ’’elite’’ community when its actualy easyer for you to clear content then it is to the others?

On equal skill level and between two player with perfect ability to dodge hits who do you think is more skilled for finishing the content, the zerker team who speed run trought it or the average pug which gets it done despite the clear disavantage and at the laugh of the odds? As Terrasque said it came to the point you are reducing the risk and getting rewarded for running zerker rather then anything else.

Fun fact : there will ALWAYS be a meta. Pro players ( the elite ) will ALWAYS run the optimal meta.
No matter how much you try to shove " build diversity " down our throats you will never be " Elite" if you don’t run the meta. That will NEVER change.

Count the number of assasin/warrior/ranger meta builds in guild wars 1 this is what happen when we have an equalising variant in the game wich scales prety much all build on the same level make things interesting and give somewhat of a margin to the possibility of ’’random’’ and surprise in both pvp and pve. I could number the possibly availlable meta build in guild wars 2 on a hundred of pages yet because personnal physical damage based build outdps them all by a good 10 time fold no one will run them let alone try and create them.

I don’t even think I understand what you want to say – but here’s the deal.
IN Guild Wars 1 – there was ALWAYS a meta – that would constantly change BUT there was ALWAYS a meta.
In PVE if you were trying to do any elite area speed clear you HAD to have the BUILD AND GEAR that the meta required.
In GvG and PVP you played the build that your team was doing IN the current meta.

Only low-tier PVE and PVP players were running around with BYOB ( Bring your own build).

likely you didnt do RA because running the meta in RA gets you killed period. The meta was somewhat fairly decent in all situation but didnt excel at anything while specialised build would get you trought the whole 25 win easily if you didnt encountered a direct counter. (Kinetic armor monk and healing dervish forever)

Harper.4173:

Fun fact : there will ALWAYS be a meta. Pro players ( the elite ) will ALWAYS run the optimal meta.
No matter how much you try to shove " build diversity " down our throats you will never be " Elite" if you don’t run the meta. That will NEVER change.

As someone who ran a very effective non-meta tank build in WoW.. In my experience, “elites” can sometimes be idiots who don’t know half of what they think they know.

Manuhell.2759:

spoj.9672:

Afya.5842:

Silferas.3841:

Afya.5842:

You can wear full soldier yet still die to lupi if you don’t dodge red circles.

Has nobody been kittening paying attention in this thread?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0kDnswWyjY

ww, sword 5, mace 2

http://youtu.be/aZgRUtK7LkM
http://youtu.be/b2VhmwLwvrM

Party-wide magnetic aura from elementalists due to a trait, area blocks via arcane shield by elementalists, aegis and protection from guardians, ress banners (and, if traited for it, regen) from warrior.
And i’m probably forgetting something.

Over thinking it.

kyubi.3620:

Harper.4173:

kyubi.3620:

Harper.4173:

kyubi.3620:

Zerker should keep rewarding neolike dodgers but should punish people who dont better then this, indeed.

I just want zerker to be less attractive to player so that we keep more option to the endgame content. People who dont run zerker may not be obligated to do it by the game to run the content but theyd rather run a build they will never be able to use correctly then to be shunned by the elite community, thats a very wrong way to go.

Everyone wants to be Elite who doesnt, if zerking everything out means behing elite players will all go toward it even if they cant do it right (aka bad zerkers wich are now all over the place) and it will result into the death of originality and build freedom (hey that guy is doing better then you do at both damage and survivability with a non zerker build yet because you run the meta you think yourself the best of both please stop lying to yourself when your constantly getting downed at the start of fights).

Can’t a player actualy be elite and run anything else then zerker actualy? Break the mold and be actualy unique? Well right now no because behing zerker is what behing good means. I run a lot of condition build and im actualy WAY above the average pve player when it comes to doing dungeons. I run with pugs only in fractals and likely ive been proving my skill more often by finishing the game content without zerking it then by running my warrior for pure damage because right now not running a meta team = more risk wich also = increased difficulty.

The very argument that zerkers all gets out to justify themselves is ‘’we are more glassy we take more risk and the fight has an increase in difficulty’‘. We take the same risk if not more risk as you do because at this level getting 1 shot by boss is common no mather your gear, so how come do you guys get to have a spotlight as the ’’elite’’ community when its actualy easyer for you to clear content then it is to the others?

On equal skill level and between two player with perfect ability to dodge hits who do you think is more skilled for finishing the content, the zerker team who speed run trought it or the average pug which gets it done despite the clear disavantage and at the laugh of the odds? As Terrasque said it came to the point you are reducing the risk and getting rewarded for running zerker rather then anything else.

Fun fact : there will ALWAYS be a meta. Pro players ( the elite ) will ALWAYS run the optimal meta.
No matter how much you try to shove " build diversity " down our throats you will never be " Elite" if you don’t run the meta. That will NEVER change.

Count the number of assasin/warrior/ranger meta builds in guild wars 1 this is what happen when we have an equalising variant in the game wich scales prety much all build on the same level make things interesting and give somewhat of a margin to the possibility of ’’random’’ and surprise in both pvp and pve. I could number the possibly availlable meta build in guild wars 2 on a hundred of pages yet because personnal physical damage based build outdps them all by a good 10 time fold no one will run them let alone try and create them.

I don’t even think I understand what you want to say – but here’s the deal.
IN Guild Wars 1 – there was ALWAYS a meta – that would constantly change BUT there was ALWAYS a meta.
In PVE if you were trying to do any elite area speed clear you HAD to have the BUILD AND GEAR that the meta required.
In GvG and PVP you played the build that your team was doing IN the current meta.

Only low-tier PVE and PVP players were running around with BYOB ( Bring your own build).

likely you didnt do RA because running the meta in RA gets you killed period. The meta was somewhat fairly decent in all situation but didnt excel at anything while specialised build would get you trought the whole 25 win easily if you didnt encountered a direct counter. (Kinetic armor monk and healing dervish forever)

RA is not a serious and was never a serious PVP mode. Also you just proved my point.
When you ran RA – you ran the RA meta. KA and HD. Or whatever else was imba OP in RA at the time.
There will always be a meta. For each aspect of the game. Always.

There may always be a meta, but in GW1, the meta kept changing, even in PvE (remember SABWAY?). That hasn’t happened in GW2 PvE.

Changing meta is healthy for a game. It means people are constatntly re-evaluating what is best and adapting. GW2 PvE meta is stagnant.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

There may always be a meta, but in GW1, the meta kept changing, even in PvE (remember SABWAY?). That hasn’t happened in GW2 PvE.

Changing meta is healthy for a game. It means people are constatntly re-evaluating what is best and adapting. GW2 PvE meta is stagnant.

They can change the meta up as much as they want as long as they dont completely ruin gearsets. Gw1 didnt have the same gear grind so it wasnt an issue.

RA is not a serious and was never a serious PVP mode. Also you just proved my point.
When you ran RA – you ran the RA meta. KA and HD. Or whatever else was imba OP in RA at the time.
There will always be a meta. For each aspect of the game. Always

dude no one ran HA or team arena late game anyway + kurzick versus luxon was just a dumb prelude to wvw zerg (i dont call the faction war SKILL there aint any to it)
GvG still held somewhat of a place but wasnt runned as often as before.

I ran over 300 defrent build in RA from hundred blade/half moon nightmare weapon interupt rit to smiting lethal art monk thank you and it wasnt always at the best time. I also ALWAYS designed them on my own wich was the nice thing about running them in RA because you could test their actual effectiveness. Sure KA is a meta… one meta amonst a thousand availlable meta wich where still behing runned at the time. In some way running a build is always running a meta however the defrence between this game and the previous one is that guild wars 1 ran on thousands of effective meta while this one runs on like 10 or 20 at best.

spoj.9672:

Afya.5842:

Silferas.3841:

Afya.5842:

You can wear full soldier yet still die to lupi if you don’t dodge red circles.

Has nobody been kittening paying attention in this thread?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0kDnswWyjY

ww, sword 5, mace 2

http://youtu.be/aZgRUtK7LkM
http://youtu.be/b2VhmwLwvrM

GJ but can still see block/evade/reflect w/e. Never trying to challenge you guys and I respect what you do. My point is not dodging(or evade w/e, pls stop trying to pick on word) is still lethal no matter what gear. That’s how current pve bosses work. I think it can have more elements instead of straight ohko. Bosses with high armor would favor conditions. Bosses with constant dot may require you to bring someon with healing. I don’t consider this nerfing zerker. Zerker stats never change, it’s just different mechanics in different dungeons.

spoj.9672:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

There may always be a meta, but in GW1, the meta kept changing, even in PvE (remember SABWAY?). That hasn’t happened in GW2 PvE.

Changing meta is healthy for a game. It means people are constatntly re-evaluating what is best and adapting. GW2 PvE meta is stagnant.

They can change the meta up as much as they want as long as they dont completely ruin gearsets. Gw1 didnt have the same gear grind so it wasnt an issue.

We’ve got it. GW1 is the solution!

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

There may always be a meta, but in GW1, the meta kept changing, even in PvE (remember SABWAY?). That hasn’t happened in GW2 PvE.

Changing meta is healthy for a game. It means people are constatntly re-evaluating what is best and adapting. GW2 PvE meta is stagnant.

GW1 was out for how long when Sab came along?
Gw2 has been out a year. That’s it.

Harper.4173:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

There may always be a meta, but in GW1, the meta kept changing, even in PvE (remember SABWAY?). That hasn’t happened in GW2 PvE.

Changing meta is healthy for a game. It means people are constatntly re-evaluating what is best and adapting. GW2 PvE meta is stagnant.

GW1 was out for how long when Sab came along?
Gw2 has been out a year. That’s it.

And how many different metas showed up in the first year of GW1? A heck of a lot. SABWAY wasn’t even the most popular meta setup, it was one of dozens.

stof.9341:

Proven.2854:

Basically, investments in becoming a primary control or support player is crappy relative to investments in becoming a primary DPS player.

There is no investment into becoming a primary control player. At most, you need a level 1 white weapon or two and to be naked. There is no stat in the gear that you need to invest into to control. Ok, maybe you need runes and sigils at most.

As for support, short of the pure healing support, there is no stats either. Still, healing support isn’t that good in the game because ANet doesn’t want primary healers anyway. In fact, most group heals have very bad scaling with healing power compared to your personal heal.

So, a support or a control player that geared into anything other than Zerk isn’t necessarily optimal. Because you DO dps some inbetween control or support actions.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Proven.2854:

The envisioned scenario is a combination of players geared for DPS, Control, and Support being the optimal group for clearing dungeons.

I’ve quoted your mistake for you. This is not the scenario anet envisioned when designing a no trinity game. This is not the scenario I envisioned when I was told this is a no trinity game.

This is the scenario envisioned by people who seem want to play some other game, but for some reason stick with this one.

I guess I’ll say it for the third time in this thread… every character has to dps, control and support. That is what anet promised when they said “no trinity.” This is what they delivered.

I suppose I’ll repeat something else too….

Traits and skills determine playstyle (aka dps, support, control)

Gear determines offensive vs defense.

People clamoring for more useful support and control value in pve should be talking about a TRAIT and UTILITY SKILL rebalance, not a gearing change

I’m not asking for a gearing change. I’m asking for combat encounter change. You’ve said it yourself, but in other parts of the game you have to deal with more unavoidable damage. If other stats were more valued in encounters we’d be better shape. Such as a situation that required a Hammer Warrior to wade through ranged enemies to lock down someone in the back, only to have to switch out once he needs to find cover. Or a Sword Thief that needs to keep an enemy pulled to the side so they a combination attack can’t occur. Encounters that force people to split up more and be unable to rely on the group’s active defenses alone to make it through.

Or maybe that’s not the answer. Maybe my arguments are simplistic. Maybe they need to make Healing Power more useful or do some kind of gear change after all like introducing some new stat that can replace something like Vitality. One immediate step is to make Condition Damage better for fights.

But as it is the current meta for PvE is degenerative.

At the livestream this friday, they are going to go over the “critical damage change”…

I don’t like the sound of that… Not one tiny bit

LordByron.8369:

They Always go for the Whack a mole nerf style in everything and reconsider it when something disappears from the game…..

I could give you examples in every part of the game:
-Profession balance: elementalist, glamour mesmer, phantasm mesmer etc etc
-Economy: Silk, T5 wood…
-Farming: orr

I’ve played Meridian 59, Everquest 1 (up to and including Legacy of Ykesha), Dark Age of Camelot (including Catacombs), WoW until MoP and now GW2.

And what you say is the exact same thing levered against each and every one of these companies.

So either there’s something about making a MMO which makes the devs collectively stupid, or there’s actually a sense to the way balance is done in these games.

I don’t see why some of the more invested people from both sides in this thread have any kind of disagreement since both sides are clamoring for a change in AI and encounters, not in the gear…

The fact that I can run any dungeon and any encounter (with the exception of Lupicus) with 4 zerker/assassin people who are playing for less then a week just by stacking, spamming offensive skills and using Endure Pain, Virtue of Courage, Arcane Shield etc. when they are close to dying means there’s something wrong going on, but is nerfing zerker damage to the ground (herp deerp) really the solution, or would it just transfer the problem to next best gear set ? I’m guessing it’s the latter.

I know I sound kinda stupid repeating like a parrot what has been said and what everyone already knows, but here I go:
-Toughness on some enemies needs to be increased, along with accessibility to protection. Toughness grants some space for condi builds, and protection is only available to dredge, and they spam it till kingdom come making boon removal/stealing a bad investment.
-A work over for unshakeable and defiant mechanics. Like giving mobs actual stability and condi removal, something that can be countered by active play.
-Reduce the HP of all elite/champ/legend mobs, somewhat compensated with healing skills. Again promotes active play and hard CC’s.
-Condi applying from mobs work over as well. They either don’t apply it enough or they, like the dredge with boons, spam them till kingdom come making me not care for condi removal since in first case its enough that in a party of 5 only 2 guys bring a utility for condi removal to get rid of that nasty 2 minutes stack of burning that boss just channeled and will do so again in 30 seconds or so; or bringing condi removal is useless since stupid ooze is applying half of the condis in the game on kittening autoattack…
-Faster and more varied attacks, less of telegraphed “hurr durr I keel u” attacks. Contrary to the popular belief, spamming aegis/blind/dodge/invoulnerability for a 3 seconds wind up attack does not make a skilled player. Also makes room for supports applying protection, regeneration, vigor, weakness, chilled etc. AND makes confusion finally useful.

I’ve probably missed allot of stuff but its late and I’m kittened that people are too entrenched in either “noob jelly PVTs” or “stupid zerks exploiters” view of things to see that (those more informed on the subject) people from both sides of the argument are basically saying the same things.

Silferas.3841:

At the livestream this friday, they are going to go over the “critical damage change”…

I don’t like the sound of that… Not one tiny bit

The most expectable thing is getting half critical damage on gear split into vitality.
It’s not the kind of “fix” i would want to see (it’s incredibly cheap and lazy; the same result could be achieved in a much better shape with similar changes), but it somewhat addresses the “issue” and is consistent with sPvP gear.

Silferas.3841:

At the livestream this friday, they are going to go over the “critical damage change”…

I don’t like the sound of that… Not one tiny bit

They will either break the game then and there or will actually manage to improve it.
My bet is on the first one.
They could have made more obscure builds work without breaking critical damage and zerker.

Vargamonth.2047:

Silferas.3841:

At the livestream this friday, they are going to go over the “critical damage change”…

I don’t like the sound of that… Not one tiny bit

The most expectable thing is getting half critical damage on gear split into vitality.
It’s not the kind of “fix” i would want to see (it’s incredibly cheap and lazy; the same result could be achieved in a much better shape with similar changes), but it somewhat addresses the “issue” and is consistent with sPvP gear.

This would lower the skillcap of zerker gear even more and make even more people use it. So I really hope anet arent that shortsighted.

Silferas.3841:

At the livestream this friday, they are going to go over the “critical damage change”…

I don’t like the sound of that… Not one tiny bit

Source?

@noobgood https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Balance-Developer-Livestream-on-Friday-at-2pm-PST/3501152

Freeelancer.2860:

Faster and more varied attacks, less of telegraphed “hurr durr I keel u” attacks. Contrary to the popular belief, spamming aegis/blind/dodge/invoulnerability for a 3 seconds wind up attack does not make a skilled player. Also makes room for supports applying protection, regeneration, vigor, weakness, chilled etc. AND makes confusion finally useful.

I don’t think nobody has called that skill.
I have stated several times myself that 3 second windup attacks are easy enough for everyone and, as long as they happen in a less than 1 every 10 seconds (time needed to regain a dodge worth endurance) rate, there’s nothing bad with them causing huge damage, even oneshot, so tanky specs have something to dodge.
The skillful part comes from much more frequent and fast attacks that demolish glass cannons but can be endured, even outhealed, by sustained specs/setups. Lupicus kicks, for example, are far from being a 3 second windup.

Btw, I agree with most of your post. I would say that almost every player who isn’t disturbed by minor, easy to solve, nuisances (ascended armor, gold farming, …) will agree with it.
An AI / encounter redesign is clearly the best for the game. Sadly, it’s also very unlikely to happen, not even think to have it soon.

Silferas.3841:

At the livestream this friday, they are going to go over the “critical damage change”…

I don’t like the sound of that… Not one tiny bit

Rampager new meta.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Silferas.3841:

At the livestream this friday, they are going to go over the “critical damage change”…

I don’t like the sound of that… Not one tiny bit

Rampager new meta.

And in a few weeks the same people crying about zerk will be crying about rampager, instead of either going for the optimal group comp or just getting on with the content and not worrying about other people doing it faster than them.

Good times.