Guild Wars 2

Your first video was horribly flawed, something which you refused to acknowledge in the accompanying thread, which devolved into a flamewar. Why should I watch this one? Why shouldn’t this thread be closed immediately instead of waiting for the inevitable flamewar?

marnick.4305:

Your first video was horribly flawed, something which you refused to acknowledge in the accompanying thread. Why should I watch this one?

Because he might have improved. Different topic, different knowledge, different story.
Just give it a try.

I just watched, and I’d have to say he’s got some pretty good ideas.
Truth is, he’s right that Control abilities are somewhat sac-kicked in PvE. There’s a reason most dungeon “speed-runs” are full ‘zerker specced. Namely that DPS is > Control. Support still works, sure. You always want heals/buffs. But … what about the ability to manipulate the enemy’s movement and attacks against them? As is, the only reason PvE Confusion (just as an example) is stronger than WvW/PvP is due to enemy attack patterns being rather slow. Unshakeable just compounds the issue, by making CC on bosses crap out easier. And that’s just PvE-wise.
But, as with all arguments, YMMV.

Great video, very solid point well made. This deserves more attention.
I would also recommend watching his previous video on Risk vs Reward.

Nice ideas. I think you should outlines important points in your initial post.
Just so ANet devs going through the forums can quickly see what this is about.
Controling a boss seems unrewarding and useless at the moment, negating many builds on them. I wouldn’t mind if they hit harder or faster just as long as we can use some form of control on them at the RIGHT time.

I agree. Ever since I read Arena Net’s philosophy on the holy trinity I was excited. I knew I wanted to be a controller as that was very close to the tank role I took on in other MMOs. I also loved that their ideas for traits and skills would allow me to switch my role on the fly, if needed, and that professions would be capable of performing any of the roles, just in different ways, as needed. Unfortunately, the delivered product did not meet all the hype in this circumstance. Traits are no longer switchable on the fly, making it hard to change from a build using a support weapon/utilities to one focuses on DPS weapons/abilities. As the video points out, boss encounters are also not built in challenging or interesting ways that make it a requirement for someone to take on a controlling role, or others support.

I feel that I’m at my best as a controller when it comes to normal mobs in dungeons, but on boss encounters I falter. For example, my guardian’s wards are fantastic for bunching up the spiders in Twilight Arbor for the AOE DPS classes to take down, but my wards rarely affect a boss with defiance (and when they do it is only a temporary hindrance). I might as well not bring them over something to boost my party’s DPS further.

SirMoogie.9263:

Unfortunately, the delivered product did not meet all the hype in this circumstance.

Amen brother! Pre-game I was so hyped I imagined ascending to heaven upon installation of the game. Little did I know…

I haven’t seen a necro in a dungeon party since forever, which is really sad! I want to play one, but I’m greatly discouraged by the fact that they’re not a class that is being picked up.

I would love for them to have put in some energy in making the game so that the most efficient play style would be diversity, and not a stack of DPS.

(despite some Christianity references, I’m not religious lol)

kitten , just watched this video and now I’ll always be sad that bosses doesn’t work like that

After a long time I finally adapted and made a zerker war, just to be able to be effective, but I really do wish for them to change the system in such a way, so my other chars will also get a place in a dungeon

marnick.4305:

Your first video was horribly flawed, something which you refused to acknowledge in the accompanying thread, which devolved into a flamewar. Why should I watch this one? Why shouldn’t this thread be closed immediately instead of waiting for the inevitable flamewar?

I didn’t see the first video. The video presented in this threat is very good. I think kaboose has made good points.

Good point about defiance buff on bosses.It amazed me when i saw it for the first time(in september, if i recall correctly), why the hell it was important to render control absolutely useless against bosses?
Weird decision.

The video not only recognizes a significant issue with the game but also promotes a viable fix for the problem .
Well done sir.
The game is becoming so boring that I am not playing it much anymore which tears me up inside since I had such high hopes for this game.
They took everything that made GW1 so awesome and tossed it in the garbage to make way with zerg wars
My tanky mace/shield guardian is collecting dust and all I use now is my zerker

This is the big thing I miss from the holy trinity — defined roles. This isn’t required in GW2 and as a result I see far less team work than in other MMOs. The video was spot on with regards to DPS is king in this game.

The funny thing is bunker seems king in PvP — sorta opposite which may explain the reliance on the defiance buff.

HikariNoTen.1402:

Nice ideas. I think you should outlines important points in your initial post.
Just so ANet devs going through the forums can quickly see what this is about.
Controling a boss seems unrewarding and useless at the moment, negating many builds on them. I wouldn’t mind if they hit harder or faster just as long as we can use some form of control on them at the RIGHT time.

Good idea mate, I’ll get right on that.

juno.1840:

This is the big thing I miss from the holy trinity — defined roles. This isn’t required in GW2 and as a result I see far less team work than in other MMOs. The video was spot on with regards to DPS is king in this game.

The funny thing is bunker seems king in PvP — sorta opposite which may explain the reliance on the defiance buff.

It should be noted I agree with roles, but not Predefined roles. Anet can still have their vison of everyone does a bit of everything to keep us from falling into the “LF1M TANK! or LF1M HEALER!” they want so desperatly to avoid.
Let’s take this as an example based on the new building blocks.
Player A goes down. Player B wants to Revive player A but knows if they do The will get slaughtered by Bosses’s regular attacks while they do so (Boss really hates player A and is smashing them in the downed state.)
Player B uses a blowout effect to knock Boss away and resses Player A before the Boss can return.
I want to see more of this sort of thing encourgaged to keep fights diverse and reationary rather then zerged. Any thoughts?

Kaaboose, you once again prove yourself a man after my own heart. Their “every professions can take any role” idea looks like it comes pretty directly from the profession design coming from Factions and Nightfall’s specific professions, as well as the playstyle direction that the players themselves were driving the game towards. Rits were central to almost any build because they could buff, heal, protect, damage, etc. about as equally with different builds. There was rarely a build that put characters full tilt into a single role by the end because it was more effective to distribute your ability to heal, damage, or whatever amongst multiple characters. So creating a system where any profession can fill any role is the logical conclusion. Of course, if that means sacrificing the highly engaging customization of the first one, it doesn’t seem worth it.

But I don’t think we have a customization system that is actually worse in GW2. The wide variety of runes and sigils and their myriad effects are a far more interesting system. Traits have a great deal of interesting interactions. If more weapon and utility skills came with time, there would probably be plenty of interesting possibilities to explore. So why does everybody regardless of profession end up just tossing on a set of zerker’s set and trying to deal as much damage as possible?

1) Pure Math: It was pretty obvious to me during the betas that boosting power would be the most efficient way of getting the most from any character, just because it was weapon*power. Of course, I didn’t realize how much of a difference precision made, and the amount of damage people can do is staggering. With ALL SKILLS’ damage attached to the same numbers, what is the downside? Less Healing Power for a heal that you can only use once every 30 seconds at best? Vitality and Toughness aren’t much better, bosses do so much damage per hit you would be just delaying the inevitable if you get hit regularly. Condition damage might be worthwhile, but it’s hard to compare to thousands of damage every hit.

2) Action mechanics: I generally like the boss designs because they have a similar feel to the sort of big bosses you would get in a Zelda, God of War, or even Mario game. The idea of being able to dodge their attacks and land some sort of fatal blow on them is cool. But it also means that most of their attacks are easily dodgable. And when you’re not dodging, you can generally run and gun your way to victory. If you’re one of those people who almost never takes damage in a Zelda game, you wouldn’t think twice about sacrificing all your unnecessary heart containers for the opportunity to one shot every boss.

3) Discouraged Experimentation: One of the things that made GW1 great was the ease with which things could be tried out. Grab your heroes, tweak some settings, try it out. If you failed, only your pride was hurt. If you succeeded, you felt great. If I want to try something out in GW2, I have to acquire an entire equipment set (instead of changes some runes if anything), find a place to store my current gear, pay money to change my traits, buy runes and sigils, hope for a party willing to put up with my experimentation, and then pay for any armor repairs should it fail. sPvP is just a little too different to make that a decent replacement. Not much point in taking any of that risk when the zerker’s has been proven to be more than adequate to power through everything.

All that aside, I find the control skill situation pretty abysmal. I expect KDs to be rare and/or expensive, not something you can just do every 3 seconds. If they weren’t so common, there wouldn’t be so much of a need for defiant. And then later area enemies have a continual stream of KDs so that you will spend half your time knocked down if you don’t have stability, which for some reason IS actually hard to come by for any length of time. So as it stands, I can’t get much use of it, but am constantly subjected to it. At least in SAB we were given some blink time where we were immune to further knockdowns.

If you were going to use someone else’s video for a Lupi solo then why didn’t you at least use one of a Lupi solo where the person didn’t beat it by using glitches? Go to Wethospu at least if you need a speed kill with a warrior. He at least has done it since they fixed reckless dodge.

Your risk vs reward video was nice. Probably would still be playing if they actually had some content to do. Already solo’d Lupi b/c I was desperate for anything to do that would actually challenge me.

I think you, Kaboose, should make a whole thread on how you’d redesign the unshakable mechanic. I really liked your approach in the video.

Having the Defiant stacks decrease in time would really bring more control to the dungeons.

Now if only Anet would listen, this game would be well worth any money put into it.

Thanks for the support guys, Especially from The Talcmaster for his detailed post. There is so much potential for amazing encounters in GW2 and I see the developers struggling to do this with every introduced boss to the game but I can’t help feeling they could be made so much more fun with more emphasis on control and support.
We tryed knocking a dredge into thoese crushers in the molten facility and were disapointed (though not surpirsed) that he didn’t share the same fate as me when I went oall loot blind over that oricalcum vein…

Kaaboose.3897:

A follow up to my previous video about Risk Vs. Reward in GW2.
The Holy Trinity in GW2 Needs to be fixed IMO:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBxStGB6-UE

Points Covered:
The Guild Wars 2 Trinity of Damage/Support/Control.
Why DPS and the Zerker Meta Game is king and How to Fix it.
The Problems with Unshakable and Defiance and How to fix them.
Anets original goals at combat in GW2 and how it’s stayed.

I wanted very much to be against anything presented here for a variety of reasons. I, however, cannot. This does not promote anything that I could concider bad or backwards toward what GW2 currently is and should remain. This really is a good interpretation and would make a lot of things more worthwhile. It might even make my longbow, which is my prefered weapon, not seem so completely less useful than my greatsword.

Kal Spiro.9745:

I wanted very much to be against anything presented here for a variety of reasons. I, however, cannot. This does not promote anything that I could concider bad or backwards toward what GW2 currently is and should remain. This really is a good interpretation and would make a lot of things more worthwhile. It might even make my longbow, which is my prefered weapon, not seem so completely less useful than my greatsword.

Thanks Spiro, It does mean a lot to me to get the point across while still staying myself.
I’d also like to add that Tranquility of The Guild Wars Guru forums tracked down the original Development post for me that was mentioned throughout this video.
There’s a link to it here: http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/ or if you don’t want to go off site It’s also in the post below.
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

ANET

DPS: Call it whatever you like—DPS, damage per second—we just call it DAMAGE, and when it comes to making red bars go down, you can never have enough of it. Don’t trivialize it though; damage is a very versatile aspect of combat. There are so many ways that a character can do damage. Let’s take a look at a few.

Damage over time. This is the perfect way to apply some heavy damage to an enemy with little time investment upfront. Set an enemy on fire and just wait for the burning to do its magic.
Area of effect. Making one red bar go down is nice, if that’s all you can do. We prefer to spread the love among many enemies. That’s what AoE spells like Fireball are for.
Projectiles. Some attacks require you to be close to your enemy, while others let you deal damage from afar. Projectiles are somewhere in-between; you shoot an arrow at a target and if it hits, apply the damage.

Let’s stop here for a moment and point out how these damage types aren’t mutually exclusive in any way. There are projectiles, AoE projectiles, AoE projectiles that apply damage over time, etc. Try shooting a spread of seven arrows through a wall of fire—it works wonders for roasting up a set of attacking monsters or enemy players.
There are as many varieties of damage as there are weapons in first person shooters, and then some. We wanted to give you a chance to experience that FPS kind of variety, so we have given each profession different weapons and skill sets that let them do damage in different ways.

Heal: Don’t belittle the SUPPORT role by calling it heal. Healing is the least dynamic kind of support there is. It is reactive instead of proactive. Healing is for when you are already losing. In Guild Wars 2 we prefer that you support your allies before they take a beating. Sure, there are some healing spells in Guild Wars 2, but they make up a small portion of the support lines that are spread throughout the professions. Other kinds of support include buffs, active defense, and cross-profession combinations.
For instance, an elementalist can support his allies by dropping down a ground-targeted healing rain that rejuvenates allies in an area. He might also use Windborne Speed to help them chase down a target or escape out of longbow range. A warrior might shout “On My Target” to help his allies do more damage to a marked enemy, or use his warhorn to “Call to Arms” which improves the armor of his allies for a short time.

Part 2 below!

ANET

We use our cross-profession combos to fill in the rest of our support. An elementalist can create a Firewall or Static Field to improve the ranged attacks of his allies. A warrior can carry a Banner of Wisdom around the battlefield to increase the power of his allies’ magical attacks. An elementalist might cast an ice spell to freeze enemies, but that same spell might give his allies Frost Armor to protect them from incoming attacks. When you boil it down, support is just the friendly way for players to work together to accomplish a shared goal.
Tank: This is where Guild Wars 2 makes the biggest break from the traditional MMO setup. Tanking is the most rudimentary form of the most important combat fundamental, CONTROL. Every game has it, yet it always seems to get a bad name. In Guild Wars there was Knockdown, Interrupt, Weakness, Blind, and Cripple, to name a few. We wanted to build upon what we think makes control such an important part of dynamic combat.
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Control is the only thing versatile enough to get away from the rock-paper-scissors gameplay of other MMOs. It’s healing when you need it, its damage when you need it. It is the glue that holds together our system. From controlling movement to controlling damage, there are tons of exciting dynamic scenarios that control can set up. You can use a stun to save an ally or to finish off a fleeing enemy. Immobilize that warrior to get away from them, or use it on an elementalist to close in on them. In order to use it well, we had to understand the drawbacks of control too. How often can you do it? How excessive is the duration? How does it affect the difficulty of challenges you face?
There are a lot of different levels of control, from a simple cripple, to an immobilize, to a knockdown. Each one has its place. The more devastating control effects are, the more infrequently they need to occur, and their duration needs to be shorter. Knockdown is one of the strongest forms of control in Guild Wars 2, but you won’t see a character that can just keep knocking someone down indefinitely, and you won’t see a knockdown that puts an enemy out for so long that they won’t be able to react. It’s simply a tool that players have at their disposal to use at the right times to turn the tide of a battle.
You could say instead of DPS/heal/tank, we have our own trinity of damage, support, and control, but we prefer to think of them as the variety of elements that create a diverse and dynamic combat system that gives each player a toolbox to work with to solve any encounter we might throw their way. If that sounds like the kind of combat you are interested in, Guild Wars 2 is going to be a great place for you and your friends to fight together for many years to come.

Kaaboose.3897:

Thanks for the support guys, Especially from The Talcmaster for his detailed post. There is so much potential for amazing encounters in GW2 and I see the developers struggling to do this with every introduced boss to the game but I can’t help feeling they could be made so much more fun with more emphasis on control and support.
We tryed knocking a dredge into thoese crushers in the molten facility and were disapointed (though not surpirsed) that he didn’t share the same fate as me when I went oall loot blind over that oricalcum vein…

I can understand why mobs get immunity to environmental effects – they don’t have the AI to avoid them.

But I swear, there seems to be at least one designer that has a fetish for abusing this safeguard. Every time I’ve seen a combat near a potentially fatal drop, then sure enough, there’s been an enemy with the ability to push you off it. When it’s the final bosses of Molten Furnace that are obviously too big to push around and where going near the edge is a tradeoff between the possibility of falling and the otherwise more vulnerable centre, this is fair enough.

When it’s a single piddly Dredge on a narrow gantry that knocks you off to fall to your death moments after you watched it bounce off an invisible safety rail, though, it’s no less abusive than anything the players could do.

As for the rest… I’d like to say I agree with it entirely, but I’ve never managed to actually see the video – every time I’ve tried it’s been broken. Still, I think it’s basically saying things I’ve been saying for a while. Defiance especially needs to be less of a ‘kitten you’ to control (personally, I’d like to see a diminishing returns system for control where the more control effects applied within a short period, the shorter each one is – if applies across the board, this would also help ameliorate the chain-stunning effect seen from Orrian spectral weapons.

draxynnic.3719:

Kaaboose.3897:

Thanks for the support guys, Especially from The Talcmaster for his detailed post. There is so much potential for amazing encounters in GW2 and I see the developers struggling to do this with every introduced boss to the game but I can’t help feeling they could be made so much more fun with more emphasis on control and support.
We tryed knocking a dredge into thoese crushers in the molten facility and were disapointed (though not surpirsed) that he didn’t share the same fate as me when I went oall loot blind over that oricalcum vein…

I can understand why mobs get immunity to environmental effects – they don’t have the AI to avoid them.

But I swear, there seems to be at least one designer that has a fetish for abusing this safeguard. Every time I’ve seen a combat near a potentially fatal drop, then sure enough, there’s been an enemy with the ability to push you off it. When it’s the final bosses of Molten Furnace that are obviously too big to push around and where going near the edge is a tradeoff between the possibility of falling and the otherwise more vulnerable centre, this is fair enough.

When it’s a single piddly Dredge on a narrow gantry that knocks you off to fall to your death moments after you watched it bounce off an invisible safety rail, though, it’s no less abusive than anything the players could do.

As for the rest… I’d like to say I agree with it entirely, but I’ve never managed to actually see the video – every time I’ve tried it’s been broken. Still, I think it’s basically saying things I’ve been saying for a while. Defiance especially needs to be less of a ‘kitten you’ to control (personally, I’d like to see a diminishing returns system for control where the more control effects applied within a short period, the shorter each one is – if applies across the board, this would also help ameliorate the chain-stunning effect seen from Orrian spectral weapons.

It’s been fixed for quite a while… The original upload failed to convert for some reason. There’s an alternate version of the video here for players that like to listen as they play instead of watching.

That dev posting seems to say that while in other games kiting is frowned upon as a borderline exploit, ANet has made it a mandatory tactic in GW2.

But at the same time they made different movement directions have different speeds. Strafing moves slower than forward, and backwards moves slower still.

Then again, swiftness is perhaps one of the most accessible boons out there…

The more i think about it what the ANet development postings suggests, and what the game actually delivers ends up as one massive paradox.

digiowl.9620:

That dev posting seems to say that while in other games kiting is frowned upon as a borderline exploit, ANet has made it a mandatory tactic in GW2.

So you’re telling me that in other games, skilled gameplay is considered exploiting? That’s pathetic.

Weird…

tries a few more experiments

Whoah.. I think, somehow, my computer has borked its ability to play Youtube entirely. WTF?

draxynnic.3719:

Weird…

tries a few more experiments

Whoah.. I think, somehow, my computer has borked its ability to play Youtube entirely. WTF?

Have you tried rebooting? It may also involve a plug in that is interfering with YouTube. Possibly update java?

I like this idea. It’s frustrating how dungeons have almost become, GS Warriors or GTFO

draxynnic.3719:

Weird…

tries a few more experiments

Whoah.. I think, somehow, my computer has borked its ability to play Youtube entirely. WTF?

I got this too man! Something about updating adobe, and updates won’t fix it. Just click the abckround of the video (Not the link to the update) to bypass the stupid warning.

randomfightfan.4091:

digiowl.9620:

That dev posting seems to say that while in other games kiting is frowned upon as a borderline exploit, ANet has made it a mandatory tactic in GW2.

So you’re telling me that in other games, skilled gameplay is considered exploiting? That’s pathetic.

While i guess we are getting out on a limb here, i do not see what is so skilled about selecting a target, spamming your most powerful ranged attack, and running around to stay out of range of the mob’s attacks.

But then i increasingly suspect that what the gaming world mean by “skilled”, and what the dictionary mean are two very different things.

digiowl.9620:

randomfightfan.4091:

digiowl.9620:

That dev posting seems to say that while in other games kiting is frowned upon as a borderline exploit, ANet has made it a mandatory tactic in GW2.

So you’re telling me that in other games, skilled gameplay is considered exploiting? That’s pathetic.

While i guess we are getting out on a limb here, i do not see what is so skilled about selecting a target, spamming your most powerful ranged attack, and running around to stay out of range of the mob’s attacks.

But then i increasingly suspect that what the gaming world mean by “skilled”, and what the dictionary mean are two very different things.

Avoiding all damage while taking none isn’t considered skilled? Kiting doesn’t = ranged either. There’s such thing as kiting in melee range. Just because you punched someone in the face doesn’t mean you have to stand there and get punched back. Move out of the way son.

I support this Fixing the Holy Trinity, I even posted an Idea suggesting a possible way to fix it, as suggested by my guild friends.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/suggestions/Arena-Net-let-s-work-with-what-we-have/first#post2124761

Its becoming a growing problem in PVE the All Heavies parties for dungeons, as it leave the other cool professions pretty much looking as leftovers or worst, kick out for a Heavy. Its becoming very discouraging and its hurting the PvE experience.

That’s not actually the issue. The soldier professions aren’t favoured in the meta because of their survivability – yes, warriors do have the best base armour and health, but armour and health are pretty much irrelevant to groups that are looking to DPS down Lupicus in under a minute and the CoF p1 boss in seconds. They’re chosen mostly because they also have (or are perceived to have) the highest capability to increase the overall DPS of the team.

That they also happen to have the heaviest armour is coincidental. Warriors, Guardians and Mesmers could all have light armour and everyone else could have heavy, and the meta would probably still be the same – if there is a change, it’d be that guardians would pick up the stigma that thieves have now of dying quickly when poorly played.

IMHO, the benefits of high dps groups are rather far from game destroying. The vast majority of PVE players in the game either can’t or don’t play with characters in berserk armor and maximum dps builds. I agree that it would be a lot more fun if other mechanics were introduced, but you have to be OK with people whining “it’s too hard”; somewhat similar to the other thread where people are complaining about skill points in Orr being too hard when the reality is that they all can be solo’d in 30s by any class using very simple tactics (yes, under 80 & in green gear).

GW2 PVE is definitely far too easy and getting easier (eg. nerfs to personal story battles), but it’s mostly because of human nature. MMO battles are always a matter of killing the target before the target can kill you. Some start taking damage and react by thinking “I’ve got to kill this faster!” Others get hurt and think “OMG, make it stop hurting me!” A lot more seem to have the second reaction. So, you have some in “zerk” gear and some in “pvt” gear and if you mix them, you get both sides hating the other.

What the game truly lacks is teamwork, especially in boss fights. The environmental danger component is better than giant HP pools, but it leaves the “group” feeling like 5 people solo’ing together rather than a team that interacts to build on each other’s skills to achieve a synergy that is 10x better than can be achieved by 5x solo’ers.

Boss fights should be so hard that without group synergy, the group is guaranteed to fail. The game needs skills that interact with other player’s skills. Combos are pathetic compared to what’s really needed and we need bosses that can’t be killed without those very strong group abilities (or perhaps take 10-20x the time & effort without them).

Okuza.5210:

IMHO, the benefits of high dps groups are rather far from game destroying. The vast majority of PVE players in the game either can’t or don’t play with characters in berserk armor and maximum dps builds. I agree that it would be a lot more fun if other mechanics were introduced, but you have to be OK with people whining “it’s too hard”; somewhat similar to the other thread where people are complaining about skill points in Orr being too hard when the reality is that they all can be solo’d in 30s by any class using very simple tactics (yes, under 80 & in green gear).

GW2 PVE is definitely far too easy and getting easier (eg. nerfs to personal story battles), but it’s mostly because of human nature. MMO battles are always a matter of killing the target before the target can kill you. Some start taking damage and react by thinking “I’ve got to kill this faster!” Others get hurt and think “OMG, make it stop hurting me!” A lot more seem to have the second reaction. So, you have some in “zerk” gear and some in “pvt” gear and if you mix them, you get both sides hating the other.

What the game truly lacks is teamwork, especially in boss fights. The environmental danger component is better than giant HP pools, but it leaves the “group” feeling like 5 people solo’ing together rather than a team that interacts to build on each other’s skills to achieve a synergy that is 10x better than can be achieved by 5x solo’ers.

Boss fights should be so hard that without group synergy, the group is guaranteed to fail. The game needs skills that interact with other player’s skills. Combos are pathetic compared to what’s really needed and we need bosses that can’t be killed without those very strong group abilities (or perhaps take 10-20x the time & effort without them).

I’m going to have to go against saying that the vast majoirity of players don’t use zerker gear. Just have a look at the prices of such gear on the TP.
I most certinlly do agree with you on group synergy and combos really should be beefed up for CROSS player combos. This is all gone over in the link: : http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/
showing that Anet originally wanted exactly what you are describing but lost their way and gave up somewhere in development.

marnick.4305:

Your first video was horribly flawed, something which you refused to acknowledge in the accompanying thread, which devolved into a flamewar. Why should I watch this one? Why shouldn’t this thread be closed immediately instead of waiting for the inevitable flamewar?

Actually no it wasn’t and yes he has great ideas some of which would be important improvements for the game like actually dishing out rewards for the content done instead of farming whereas right now neither content nor farming provide adequate rewards for the gameplay time.

Anyways this video is great imo it talks about what some of us have been saying for quite some time now. Healing is a joke, condition damage is nerfed in PVE just after launch to ‘balance’ pvp and has never been fixed, and CC on bosses is a joke so what build does that leave us with? Zerker. Exactly.

All one has to do is go head over the engineer trait list and see what’s wrong. AOE heals hardly do anything, the regen and other such abilities do not improve with +healing so you might as well not even have that score on your armor.

You look at the boss fights and the special abilities on the bosses make CC completely useless. This is exactly like WoW but in WoW’s case you could actually tab target all day and just walk around out of the AOE boss damage zones, can’t do that in this game CC is as essential as dodge and should be improved for all boss/champion fights. Otherwise the combat becomes boring.

Where’s the build diversity?

Kaaboose.3897:

Okuza.5210:

IMHO, the benefits of high dps groups are rather far from game destroying. The vast majority of PVE players in the game either can’t or don’t play with characters in berserk armor and maximum dps builds. I agree that it would be a lot more fun if other mechanics were introduced, but you have to be OK with people whining “it’s too hard”; somewhat similar to the other thread where people are complaining about skill points in Orr being too hard when the reality is that they all can be solo’d in 30s by any class using very simple tactics (yes, under 80 & in green gear).

GW2 PVE is definitely far too easy and getting easier (eg. nerfs to personal story battles), but it’s mostly because of human nature. MMO battles are always a matter of killing the target before the target can kill you. Some start taking damage and react by thinking “I’ve got to kill this faster!” Others get hurt and think “OMG, make it stop hurting me!” A lot more seem to have the second reaction. So, you have some in “zerk” gear and some in “pvt” gear and if you mix them, you get both sides hating the other.

What the game truly lacks is teamwork, especially in boss fights. The environmental danger component is better than giant HP pools, but it leaves the “group” feeling like 5 people solo’ing together rather than a team that interacts to build on each other’s skills to achieve a synergy that is 10x better than can be achieved by 5x solo’ers.

Boss fights should be so hard that without group synergy, the group is guaranteed to fail. The game needs skills that interact with other player’s skills. Combos are pathetic compared to what’s really needed and we need bosses that can’t be killed without those very strong group abilities (or perhaps take 10-20x the time & effort without them).

I’m going to have to go against saying that the vast majoirity of players don’t use zerker gear. Just have a look at the prices of such gear on the TP.
I most certinlly do agree with you on group synergy and combos really should be beefed up for CROSS player combos. This is all gone over in the link: : http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/
showing that Anet originally wanted exactly what you are describing but lost their way and gave up somewhere in development.

I have looked at the prices in fact three items I’ve been tracking for the purposes of keeping up with inflation due to drops have been for zerker builds because since it’s the only viable build for their new dungeon focus most people will sell those items for gold as quickly as possible and that is the reason why it’s so expensive because it’s in high demand. I’ve been tracking it to see how the dwindling drops have been affecting the pricing over time.

tigirius.9014:

marnick.4305:

Your first video was horribly flawed, something which you refused to acknowledge in the accompanying thread, which devolved into a flamewar. Why should I watch this one? Why shouldn’t this thread be closed immediately instead of waiting for the inevitable flamewar?

Actually no it wasn’t and yes he has great ideas some of which would be important improvements for the game like actually dishing out rewards for the content done instead of farming whereas right now neither content nor farming provide adequate rewards for the gameplay time.

Anyways this video is great imo it talks about what some of us have been saying for quite some time now. Healing is a joke, condition damage is nerfed in PVE just after launch to ‘balance’ pvp and has never been fixed, and CC on bosses is a joke so what build does that leave us with? Zerker. Exactly.

All one has to do is go head over the engineer trait list and see what’s wrong. AOE heals hardly do anything, the regen and other such abilities do not improve with +healing so you might as well not even have that score on your armor.

You look at the boss fights and the special abilities on the bosses make CC completely useless. This is exactly like WoW but in WoW’s case you could actually tab target all day and just walk around out of the AOE boss damage zones, can’t do that in this game CC is as essential as dodge and should be improved for all boss/champion fights. Otherwise the combat becomes boring.

Where’s the build diversity?

This is ecatly what I want too see come from having the trinity fixed. Build diversity. With proper AI we wouldn’t even need to nerf zerger gear as full zerker parties would be very difficult to pull off.

I love your post. I use to have my warrior running things like hammers, kicks and the like. It was decent against large mob groups but it was useless against bosses. I think most control is weak in general. Its weak in pvp and pve. Honestly, why would I take kick anywhere. I have seen other control skills used however.

If you’ve ever played high level fractals you notice players using control and support skills. Its the only way to survive, the dungeon is too harsh. In most areas you can find guardians using projectile bubbles and walls. You can find mesmers using feedback, condition strips and portals. You can find some eles take their projectile blockers too. You bring certain utilities in different fractals and you swap them out when you don’t need them. The problem is this is only in higher level fractals.

Most of the other dungeons don’t care about any of that stuff. You can maybe remove conditions and maybe block projectiles. Otherwise DPS is all you need. CoE is a hard dungeon. Its a fun dungeon, but there is no need of anything except damage and the ability to dodge alpha’s abilities.

You can bring things like group condition removal into dungeons and feel useful but some abilities are just all around useless. Its not just the bosses, some mobs don’t react to control either. Your knockbacks, your fears, your stuns, your dazes, your poison, your confusion condition and your boon removals all lack a place inside dungeons. If I prevent 1 of 10 mobs from completing it’s attack for 1s does that do anything tangible? Why should I care about stripping boons when the mob spams it so frequently? Does my group really want me knocking this mob around? Why should I care about confusion damage when you only get 1 tick off before it expires? Why should I bring a poison ability instead of flat damage? Did the fight even need me to do anything to the mobs, other than damage, to help the group? No, not usually. If a mob had an annoying mechanic that the group wants to avoid then it dies first, why bother bringing these control abilities inside.

I’ve only logged in to say:
Great stuff man ! i’m glad that people like you are still around in gw2 to say what actually matters
Anet had a great vision which i respect but they also messed up very fundamental things !
I’ve actually tried hard to like this game but i can’t play it only because i like Anet’s vision.
If you can’t implement a new trinity simply go back to TANK DPS and HEALER nobody will be upset , developers get it wrong too but at least the game will be fixed (and of course redesign the instances, bosses and stuff like that )

I don’t think it needs to go all the way back to tank/heal/DPS. Control/support/DPS works – it was basically what we had in GW1, except that with the exception of SY! builds support builds invariably had at least some healing. The problem is that in GW2’s mechanics and encounter design, most forms of control and support just aren’t bothering with, leaving only damage as a role. (And those forms of support that do work are largely independant of stats.)

and that is because like kaaboose is saying they don’t know how to make it work
in fact there hasn’t been an mmo that could prove the trinity wrong. you need roles , each member has to rely on the other member for him to do his job .
as a tank your role is to take the beating and protect the party
as a healer your role is to keep the party alive
as a dps your role is to burn down the enemies and also make the tank’s and healer’s life easier by killing everything faster

One party with the same 1 role can not succeed you need a party with all the roles

there’s a reason why wow has been so successful for so many years

Basically in GW2 everyone has more roles but nobody has a specific role of his own and in the end all the members in the party end up having no role at all

Now i have no issues if GW2 would create mechanics and unique roles for those mechanics with every role needing to rely on the other roles to be successful but at the same time being equally important in successfully defeating an encounter but there hasn’t been a game so far which could do this . so coming back to my point if you can make it great. but if not go back to trinity because 3 roles are better than 1 role

P.S. damage/control/support is just a weaker form of trinity
damage is dps
control should’ve been the tank i assume this role should’ve been to somehow control the mobs so that they don’t hurt the party but i don’t see how you can make this work while not breaking the fight ; ok i suppose with enough inventivity you could make it work but your are just unnecessarily complicating things when the simple tank is much easier to do
support = healer

draxynnic.3719:

(And those forms of support that do work are largely independant of stats.)

Makes me wonder if there is too much “all or nothing” in this game.

Consider defiant. one control effect and suddenly the mob is 100% immune to the next 5+. Maybe they should instead make it have a slight chance to interrupt and only a half second “daze” (no launch, no knockback, no knockdown, just unable to attack for half a second) if it does so.

And yeah, support is too disconnected from stats. The only thing that seems to matter is boon duration, and maybe healing power for some professions.

Protection, duration.
Stability, duration.
Regeneration, duration and 12% (?!) healing power.
Aegis, duration.
Fury, duration.
Retaliation, duration.
Swiftness, duration.
Vigor, duration.

Only Might has intensity stacking, and even then there is no stat that can improve said intensity.

Meaning that the only way to tell the difference between someone good at support and someone not so good are how long the various boons last.

Btw, it is starting to get annoying that ANet tought making a movement speed boon was a good idea.

I find myself wondering why ANet went with the massive number of timers on boons and conditions, when they could have gone with a system of stacks.

Meaning that each boon and condition would be a stack, and each second or so the stacks would be reduced by 1, instead of having to track every last effect stack timer to the sub-second.

With it they could even have traits that made attacks decrease boon stacks instead of the current “boon hate”, meaning that going up against certain enemies would tear through your boons. Not in the all or nothing way of Corrupt Boon and similar, but where each attack would reduce certain stacks (perhaps across the board, perhaps only specific boons) by a certain amount.

This way you could have a boss with a massive, and permanent, protection stack, and where the size of the stack would actually have a impact on how much a damage reduction he got, and you either worked around it with conditions or you sent in the boon hate build to chop his way through the stack.

Sadly it is not likely to come about, as it will take a long time to rebalance all the relevant skills and traits around this new system, never mind the effects themselves.

100% agreed to OP

iFocus.3781:

I haven’t seen a necro in a dungeon party since forever, which is really sad! I want to play one, but I’m greatly discouraged by the fact that they’re not a class that is being picked up.

As a Necro player, I couldn’t agree more! Minions are completely useless in dungeons, end-game PvE and WvW because of their horrendous AI- they just stand around watching you attack stuff until the fight is almost over and you have no “ATTACK!” command for them at all like Rangers do on their F1 key, then they finally wake up and attack; they refuse to follow you if you jump even the TEENIEST gap or elevation change up or down, instead mindlessly pathing the long way around via the North Pole and bringing back 379 mobs that they pathed through while wandering about the countryside finding smooth, gap-free ramps; the Flesh Golem in particular goes charging off to attack random out-of-sight inanimate objects such as gates, cannons, trebs, etc. just because one of your wells or AoE’s may have inadvertently clipped them and, unlike Rangers, Necros have NO way to recall them or stop them from mindlessly attacking anything; and like Ranger pets, our minions stupidly path 20 feet AHEAD of us, aggroing things we didn’t want to aggro… and we have NO “come here, stay by me, be passive” control over them at all like Rangers do on their F3 key… so we switch to Conditionmancer or Powermancer (sadly abandoning a core Necro gameplay mechanic that should have been fun- minions) and quickly learn that neither of these builds is as robust and viable as other professions’ builds in terms of damage and survivability.

I personally know TWO players who have leveled Necros to 80 and then deleted them to roll new professions because of these issues. Hopefully, revisiting Necro balance vs. other professions as well as the whole Pet AI and lack of control for Rangers as well as Necros is in the works.