Guild Wars 2

It’s time to start punishing brute force tactics in dungeons (i.e. full zerker groups with guardians).

Zerker warrior setups are glorified because they can kill bosses in the time that all of the guardian reflects and mesmer utilities are chained together. These tactics completely ignore all of the mechanics of a fight.

Bosses in Gw2 are “easy” because players effectively down them without having to deal with the mechanics (26s second lupi, TAkittentree dying in less than 15 seconds).

I would like to see some more complex mechanics in fights that punish brute force tactics and actually challenge players (i.e. devastating damage reflects, temporary invulnerabilities w/ counters, unique types of adds, mechanics that force players to kill targets in sequence, etc.).

You’re basically saying anet should nerf maximum dps builds because they do maximum dps…
“The best defence is the best offence,” someone

So you want anet to remake every dungeon

yeah, they’ll get right on that

In my opinion, it isn’t easy until you master what the class does. Speaking from a Zerk Guard standpoint, it takes a bit of time to use that build effectively. Because of the lack of health/heals compared to an AH build, I need to time and chain so many things together with my other party members in order for a dungeon run to be easy. I wouldn’t say the way I play my Zerk Guard is 100% brute force. You have to be knowledgeable of every single boss and mob in every single instance in order to work at your full potential (i.e. knowing when to use a hammer, constantly swapping weapons between bosses/events).

For example, I have to always be aware of using my blinds/vuln from my sword/focus, using aegis to block knockdowns/big attacks so the rest of my party can keep DPSing, cleansing conditions on my party if need be, and so much more all while being aware of my surroundings and my party.

Saying that I always do these things would be an absolute lie, however. If I have an off day, suck, or make one mistake and don’t throw up an aegis or whatever, the party can wipe easily. It’s a lot easier to find out who sucks at Guard/Mes then who sucks at War during a dungeon run.

Again, I’m speaking on behalf of my own Zerk Guard experience and Zerk parties in general. I am not a perfect player or someone who has fully mastered every single encounter, so I can see how people who have mastered encounters would want harder instances. Heck, I’m all for harder dungeons since they’re getting a bit stale for sure.

But yeah, I agree with you on wanting different mechanics in dungeons. I just disagree with you on the fact that Zerk party tactics ignore the mechanics of fights.

How many fight mechanics do you need to deal with if the boss is alive for 15-20 seconds?

Also, I’m not asking for a nerf to any class. I’m simply pointing out that current dungeon mechanics don’t punish players for brute forcing their way past the content with DPS.

Encounters don’t have phases, bosses don’t change tactics mid-fight, bosses also don’t punish players for standing there and dropping an obscene amount of damage on them.

Current bosses that are considered “hard” like TA FF and lupicus are just bypassed by bringing enough firepower to kill them before the party has to really deal with the mechanics they have.

There is not much a boss can throw at you in 20 seconds.

lordhelmos.7623:

Encounters don’t have phases, bosses don’t change tactics mid-fight, bosses also don’t punish players for standing there and dropping an obscene amount of damage on them.

Some bosses have phases like archdiviner or imbued shaman, but the former is cheesed by almost every team.

Current bosses that are considered “hard” like TA FF and lupicus are just bypassed by bringing enough firepower to kill them before the party has to really deal with the mechanics they have.

There is not much a boss can throw at you in 20 seconds.

TA FF last boss is hard since when? And how many teams can actually kill lupi in ~20s? Not to mention the preparations. Lupi might be hard for an average pug but the hardest bosses are in high level fractals.

Blix.8021:

So you want anet to remake every dungeon

yeah, they’ll get right on that

Anet has basically said in past updates that their goal is to revamp the dungeons overall. Their testing with AC didn’t go so well (at least the opinion on their success was heavily split) and the subject was mostly dropped in more recent updates. Only in the last blog update about where the game is going in the rest of 2013 did they start talking about dungeon rewards and time/effort. The argument that the OP is trying to make is one that was echoed almost unanimously within the first 3 months after people saw the limitations on dungeon encounters. The only people really who are not calling for changes to dungeon encounters are those who want to keep the reward/effort skewed heavily in their favor being taking advantage of the current zerker meta. Other people want to have engaging fights.

Of course, there could be people who want both sufficient rewards and engaging fights and that is where, I believe, Anet is trying to take dungeons going forward. Of course….they are taking their sweet time.

I thought you were hating against zerk parties, but your argument is about the actual dungeon bosses themselves. I agree with your wanting to have the mechanics changed up. I just don’t want the boss fights to be long/dragged out like how the current Grenth boss is.

It’s going to be a challenge to change the mechanics to something everyone can agree on, no one wants to spend ages doing a boss when there is a more efficient way to defeat it. I hope they get really creative with the changes, because I don’t think dragging out boss fights is the right idea unless you have to do something engaging during the fight.

Blix.8021:

So you want anet to remake every dungeon

yeah, they’ll get right on that

“Some of the dungeons that we may not think are as exciting? We may just blow them up entirely and come up with something else from the ashes. New mechanics, new new bosses, new rewards. Polish-wise, some of our dungeons are much closer to where we’ll like them to be and maybe, you’ll see smaller changes and smaller upgrades.”
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/colin-johanson-talks-dungeons-dragons-and-chairs

Yeah…..not as crazy as you thought eh?

Regarding OP-it seems ANet is at the very least aware that players are um using ‘overly clever use of game mechanics’ that results in trivializing virtually every dungeon and are looking into ways of making that aspect of the game…feel like…you know, a game-not a cow clicker. However they aren’t looking at disabling such things from what he said later on-they plan on offering alternatives (which I assume would be just as viable but…without modifying dmg itself I don’t see how it can be ubiquitous). I imagine what they’ll do is make cof p1 give very little rewards, change say hotw to have lot more mechanics and unfriendly to mass zerker and give hotw greater rewards to incentivize play. Bezerkers still have a place to autoattack for less rewards and non-zerkers have a place with advanced mechanics for better rewards<-purely speculation on my part though.

But the important thing to take away is they acknowledge dungeons aren’t being utilized (and when they are they’re done in a way that cannot be described as ‘fun’ using the most liberal definition of the word)and are willing to made radical changes-we just have to wait and see.

I can’t edit my post, weird.

Yeah, I mean it’s not the berserker players’ fault; the current dungeon boss mechanics just allow for berserker geared players to complete dungeons faster than non-berserker geared players.

easy solution:
nerf crit damage

Whiztard.1728:

easy solution:
nerf crit damage

Won’t stop anything. Top dps will still be top dps even if said dps is less than today’s top dps.

It’s like watching one of those world record guys do a rubik’s cube and saying “ugh rubik’s cube is such a stupid easy puzzly, nerf pls”

Blix.8021:

So you want anet to remake every dungeon

yeah, they’ll get right on that

This. Anet should remake every dungeon.

Right now, it is boring. It is all balanced around two dodges. It is all balanced on if you can dodge the devastating attack. It is not balanced on teamwork. It is not balanced on mitigating damage through any other means. Mechanics are nowhere near similar to sPvP play which is what skills are balanced for in the first place.

Bosses and trash mobs are nothing more than punching bags with huge hp pool.

Whiztard.1728:

easy solution:
nerf crit damage

nah, increase boss hp by 500% should do the trick… whilst were there lets increase boss damage and add more spawns too. done!

/sarcasm.

i see no problem with the brute force way, a good offence is a good defence.

If OP can kill any legendary boss in the game in 20 seconds I might take this post more seriously. There will always be people in any game who can make the hardest content look easy, but it doesn’t make it easy. If you don’t believe me, join an arah pug and tell me if lupicus goes down in under a minute.

I’m all for adding more interesting mechanics than tank n spank but I don’t think groups should be punished in fights where it’s an option. That’s just weird.

Broadicea.8294:

It’s like watching one of those world record guys do a rubik’s cube and saying “ugh rubik’s cube is such a stupid easy puzzly, nerf pls”

Exactly.

I think there is a place for DPS. But the problem is, that there isn’t a place for the rest. I think the developers need to take a long hard look at the PVE, and try to think of a way to make the other roles fit in. And that means giving support and control more effectiveness, and more importance in PVE. Especially during boss fights.

And I agree that bosses should have more phases, so the players cannot mindlessly punch the boss to death. DPS shouldn’t be the only thing that matters.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

I think there is a place for DPS. But the problem is, that there isn’t a place for the rest. I think the developers need to take a long hard look at the PVE, and try to think of a way to make the other roles fit in. And that means giving support and control more effectiveness, and more importance in PVE. Especially during boss fights.

I think PvE developer should take a long hard look at sPvP and then analyze how they can make PvE closer to sPvP. Developers should ask the question to themselves, how can I make mobs battles similar as players fighting players?

Skills are balanced directly for sPvP thus, AI needs to be like players.

Examples:

Mobile Mobs chase down players with the lowest hp like thieves chasing down low hp players.
Mobs stopping a burst/spike before it happens(Blocking, Weakness, invulnerability, stomp.)
Mobs actively mitigating damage and Mobs that can heal(Which replaces the large hp pool.)
Mobs coordinating such as immobilize → burst a player down.
Mobs that grant boons to make themselves much more dangerous. These boons will make mobs more dangerous.

and much more.

Anet could look into the meta builds in sPvP and design new mobs to fight like similar.

I want to fight a mob that fights like a D/D ele rather than a punching bags that farts red circles everywhere.

And I agree that bosses should have more phases, so the players cannot mindlessly punch the boss to death. DPS shouldn’t be the only thing that matters.

I disagree with phases. What bosses should do is change tactic midway and more variety of skills and tactics to deal in a given situation.

Player with low hp? Kill him!
About to die? Escape and heal!
Stunned? Use a stun-break.
Bleeding? Use condition removal.
etc etc.

I think PvE developer should take a long hard look at sPvP and then analyze how they can make PvE closer to sPvP.

I think that’s really the long and short of it.

runeblade.7514:

I want to fight a mob that fights like a D/D ele rather than a punching bags that farts red circles everywhere.

I think its desirable to have bosses in PvE that aren’t all that hard to fight. Shadow Behemoth is a good example. It’s in a low-level open world zone where there are people learning the game. You don’t want the first boss they fight to play like a champion PvPer or they’ll get scared off.

But yeah definitely, dungeon bosses should be an interesting challenge.

Imbune.5497:

Blix.8021:

So you want anet to remake every dungeon

yeah, they’ll get right on that

“Some of the dungeons that we may not think are as exciting? We may just blow them up entirely and come up with something else from the ashes. New mechanics, new new bosses, new rewards. Polish-wise, some of our dungeons are much closer to where we’ll like them to be and maybe, you’ll see smaller changes and smaller upgrades.”
http://www.usgamer.net/articles/colin-johanson-talks-dungeons-dragons-and-chairs

Yeah…..not as crazy as you thought eh?
.

cool and then they release candidate trials……
They never learn

No, just no. Terrible idea.
It’s only natural that skilled players who know perfectly the tactics of the encounters can easily defeat them going full zerk.
Seriously, It’s a reward for the risks taken. Ratio risk/reward anyone ?
What do you want ? Bosses that deal unreflectable, unblockable, un-invulnerable,undodgeable attacks (all at the same time) so that you are FORCED to move to more bunker builds ?
No please, boring gameplay.
Let everyone play what they want, that’s called diversity.
By the way, in other MMOs like WoW, higher stuff was glorified because it dealt more damage and made it easier, it should have been nerfed !!!

I think what people are not realizing is that their PVT/Cleric/Knight gear is actually handicapping them. Here’s my reasoning. You can take an extra hit on some boss/mob, true, without question, heck maybe even two extra hits before thinking “I’m going to pop my heal”. However, are you really maximizing your personal ability when doing so? Isn’t that extra armor acting as a crutch at the expense of PREVENTING more boss/mob attacks by killing faster?

I personally faced this situation. My AH made the transition from mix of knight/soldier/zerker to full zero a few weeks ago. At first, I couldn’t believe how much faster I was dying. Instead of running back to the old gear, I thought “hmm… maybe it’s my skill level, and I wasn’t as good as I thought it was”. A few days later, I relearned how to play my guard (and other characters, they’ve also made the transition to full zerk). It’s worth the humbling moments of fail to realize that you can evolve into something better.

tldr: Asking for revamps are nice, but if you’ve been stuck in nonzerk build/gear, make the change and you’ll be surprised by how much more it’ll require out of your own ability.

I’m stayin’ out of this one just b/c I’m not big on the word “punish”.

I’d rather all fights be “interesting” … and not punishing to anyone just b/c of how much (or how little … which is who gets punished right now) DPS they do.

While ppl complain about dps makes things trivial, 20sec Lupi etc etc. How many pugs actually do that? You want Anet to punish zerkers because of that 1%?

If you enjoy tanky builds, just post on the lfg site “LFM TANKS ONLY! PING GEAR OR KICK”?

Yeah, dungeon encounters should be more interesting. But if that requires ppl to bring tanky gear to fight a boss of a million hp then i get something better to do.