Guild Wars 2

I don’t think ArenaNet understands how to design PvE. Raids enforced the very thing they wanted to stop.

In other words, unless you beat phase 1 before 6 minutes, 30 seconds you will not have enough damage.

I hate the timer and if they must have one I see no reason for it to be so low. The mechanics of the fight are great and tough enough that you wipe without worrying about time. If there must be one then 12mins would be a good spot imo.

Veneratio.1980:

I hate the timer and if they must have one I see no reason for it to be so low. The mechanics of the fight are great and tough enough that you wipe without worrying about time. If there must be one then 12mins would be a good spot imo.

Oh, I’m not talking about the Vale Guardians timer. Oh no, Gerovage? … Gorvoge? … the boss after him is hands down reaches 0 = GG.

Three of our party members can confirm running Soldiers, Rabids or Cavalier’s will most likely prevent you from beating the second boss.

For the DPS role raids you HAVE to run zerkers, vipers or sinisters. Anything else will hinder yourself and your entire team.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Veneratio.1980:

I hate the timer and if they must have one I see no reason for it to be so low. The mechanics of the fight are great and tough enough that you wipe without worrying about time. If there must be one then 12mins would be a good spot imo.

Oh, I’m not talking about the Vale Guardians timer. Oh no, Gerovage? … Gorvoge? … the boss after him is hands down reaches 0 = GG.

Three of our party members can confirm running Soldiers, Rabids or Cavalier’s will most likely prevent you from beating the second boss.

For the DPS role raids you HAVE to run zerkers, vipers or sinisters. Anything else will hinder yourself and your entire team.

When you say zerker, vipers or sinisters does this mean zerker armor, weapons AND trinkets? or just armor and maybe weapon?

circuitnerd.5863:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Veneratio.1980:

I hate the timer and if they must have one I see no reason for it to be so low. The mechanics of the fight are great and tough enough that you wipe without worrying about time. If there must be one then 12mins would be a good spot imo.

Oh, I’m not talking about the Vale Guardians timer. Oh no, Gerovage? … Gorvoge? … the boss after him is hands down reaches 0 = GG.

Three of our party members can confirm running Soldiers, Rabids or Cavalier’s will most likely prevent you from beating the second boss.

For the DPS role raids you HAVE to run zerkers, vipers or sinisters. Anything else will hinder yourself and your entire team.

When you say zerker, vipers or sinisters does this mean zerker armor, weapons AND trinkets? or just armor and maybe weapon?

Full glass, right now the biggest challenge is battling the timer. Unless ArenaNet stops kitten ing around and realizes how stupid the enrage timer is, you are punished for playing defensively.

circuitnerd.5863:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Veneratio.1980:

I hate the timer and if they must have one I see no reason for it to be so low. The mechanics of the fight are great and tough enough that you wipe without worrying about time. If there must be one then 12mins would be a good spot imo.

Oh, I’m not talking about the Vale Guardians timer. Oh no, Gerovage? … Gorvoge? … the boss after him is hands down reaches 0 = GG.

Three of our party members can confirm running Soldiers, Rabids or Cavalier’s will most likely prevent you from beating the second boss.

For the DPS role raids you HAVE to run zerkers, vipers or sinisters. Anything else will hinder yourself and your entire team.

When you say zerker, vipers or sinisters does this mean zerker armor, weapons AND trinkets? or just armor and maybe weapon?

Yes. All three& runes & sigils. That is what is meant when one talks about being ‘zerker’.
It also typically means scholar or str runes and force sigil, with some other build complementary sigil such as air. Or berserker runes with malice/bursting sigil for Condi.

After 3 years are we still discussing this? Gw2 is not based and wont be in classical trinity. Deal with it or go play another game.

Oh and by the way, support on gw2 has nothing to do in your gear stats. And you need plenty of support on this game.

“waaaaaah we have to full glass and actually try to survive instead of slowly wittling down bosses over the course of 30min waaaah”

This is an action based MMO, enforcing mostly full glass specs is the right thing to do in PvE, ANet knows that.

So far I kinda want aggro on an engi/Rev to make bomb kit & dps generally lot easier to use. At least for the vale guard.

Dps == tank.
Poor neo.

In my opinion the enrage timer is one of the biggest issues.

Also some of the mobs have way too much HP to allow other gears setups than “zerkers” (or sinister/viper for dmg resistant enemies).

For example the four big ghosts @ the second boss Gorvoge(?) (and also the walls while being chased by this fog of doom…). They have a big health pool, and the ghosts wipe the whole group if one breaks through, punishing groups which play a bit more defensive and don’t go full damage…

Just looking at the basic mechanics the raids are great. But I fail to understand how ANet wants us to go for build diversity, and yet is still forcing people to go for glassy dmg/condi builds by having an enrage timer.

If you go for to much defense, you are punished. You may say that one druid/ele that goes for healing may be enough , but if this one guy dies, the whole group may be dead too.

And than there is the other topic of testing raids… DnT (who did the testing with other guilds) is, from what I know, very experienced in regards to dungeons etc.

But this is not the average player base! Most people don’t run these souped-up gear compositions they have… Most people don’t play on such a high concentration level, where every button press of the damage rotation is studied in.

For example we have one guy, who doesn’t pay 100% attention the whole time, doesn’t run full glass with his ele. Currently I’m forced to exclude him from raids, just because the benchmark was done with people, who are multiple times better than most players ingame….

I understand that the raids are supposed to be end-game content, but currently I have the impression, that victory in Spirit Vale won’t be archived by very many players.

Raids weren’t meant for the average player base.
We asked for higher end skill content and we got it.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

“waaaaaah we have to full glass and actually try to survive instead of slowly wittling down bosses over the course of 30min waaaah”

This is an action based MMO, enforcing mostly full glass specs is the right thing to do in PvE, ANet knows that.

I don’t understand what people don’t understand here.

The fact that you require DPS gear to kill the boss makes it HARDER not EASIER. Isn’t the complaint about zerker that it trivializes a lot of older content (dungeons) because you can kill everything extremely fast without caring much about their mechanics? Well, you can’t do that here, so why is everyone up in arms?

This is good game design for, like you said, an action MMORPG.

Kurr.4179:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

“waaaaaah we have to full glass and actually try to survive instead of slowly wittling down bosses over the course of 30min waaaah”

This is an action based MMO, enforcing mostly full glass specs is the right thing to do in PvE, ANet knows that.

I don’t understand what people don’t understand here.

The fact that you require DPS gear to kill the boss makes it HARDER not EASIER. Isn’t the complaint about zerker that it trivializes a lot of older content (dungeons) because you can kill everything extremely fast without caring much about their mechanics? Well, you can’t do that here, so why is everyone up in arms?

This is good game design for, like you said, an action MMORPG.

Most people just kitten about Zerker because they’re apparently not allowed to play what they want (when in reality, any gear is fine, or well, was, until raids – but it only applies for them, for everything else it still doesn’t really matter) and there’s groups that like to achieve a certain minimum amount of efficiency/dps by only taking people with glass-gear.
That being said, yeah, glass-specs and powercreep make bosses in old content just drop on sight which is why imo dungeons are enjoyed best with 3 man or even less, as long as the paths allow for it.

Kurr.4179:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

“waaaaaah we have to full glass and actually try to survive instead of slowly wittling down bosses over the course of 30min waaaah”

This is an action based MMO, enforcing mostly full glass specs is the right thing to do in PvE, ANet knows that.

I don’t understand what people don’t understand here.

The fact that you require DPS gear to kill the boss makes it HARDER not EASIER. Isn’t the complaint about zerker that it trivializes a lot of older content (dungeons) because you can kill everything extremely fast without caring much about their mechanics? Well, you can’t do that here, so why is everyone up in arms?

This is good game design for, like you said, an action MMORPG.

This. Exactly this.

Yesterday I used my brand new sinister build 12-16k dps build on the vale. He still had 97% health after the timer hit 6 min.

So even if EVery player has this huge dps, we still can’t make it? what is this bullkitten. Unless he has some hidden ‘self heal’ mechanic, this is just so wrong.

Without the timers people could just use nomadgear and facetank it.

Enragetimers are the reason why raidmetas in other games aren´t something like 4 tanks and 6 healers….

It´s important that players learn how to do dmg, not even the gear. The whole dps rotation becomes important now.
And that´s great.

It’s obvious that OP wants something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6DKZ45a0VU so that he can raid while doing other things.
Got forbid people actually have to learn the mechanics of the game in order to play

TheFamster.7806:

It’s obvious that OP wants something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6DKZ45a0VU so that he can raid while doing other things.
Got forbid people actually have to learn the mechanics of the game in order to play

Please, you never beaten the Vale Guardian.

Gorseval already has some bullkitten mechanics, but reasonable.

What is unreasonable is that my guildies feel like their armor STATS prevents us from having enough damage to beat the rage timer. We can preform perfectly and yet lose because 4 of our DPS didn’t have the most powerful DPS stats.

Basically what I am saying is full ascended soldiers is WEAK. Full ascended Rabids is WEAK. Going a hybrid of zerkers and valkyrie is WEAK. Going full ascended celestial is WEAK.
We beat the Vale Guardian through excellent team coordination but Gorseval is just DPS check #2 thanks to a second rage time and those spirits you have to quickly kill before he gains more damage.

Unless you are support or tanking aggro, any stats that is not berserkers, sinisters or vipers WILL prevent you from having a successful raid. The only mechanics to learn is to be punished for not bringing enough DPS.
Period.

Hmm, weird, I was never under the impression that anet has a problem with the “zerker meta” in particular, yet a lot of people seem to think they do. Did I miss something?

Kurr.4179:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

“waaaaaah we have to full glass and actually try to survive instead of slowly wittling down bosses over the course of 30min waaaah”

This is an action based MMO, enforcing mostly full glass specs is the right thing to do in PvE, ANet knows that.

I don’t understand what people don’t understand here.

The fact that you require DPS gear to kill the boss makes it HARDER not EASIER. Isn’t the complaint about zerker that it trivializes a lot of older content (dungeons) because you can kill everything extremely fast without caring much about their mechanics? Well, you can’t do that here, so why is everyone up in arms?

This is good game design for, like you said, an action MMORPG.

People hate the berserker meta because it pigeonholes them into a single build. Putting people into berserker specs does not make it harder at all. The fight is over quicker and thus you need to the mechanics less. It seems harder because a single hit might kill you, but it is equally as hard to keep doing mechanics for long periods of time because concentration wains, luck falters, and resources run low.

This is absolute terrible game design. GOOD game design would allow any spec played with equal skill to complete the boss because what they give-up on offense would give them survivability to last longer. GW2 does not do this and that’s one of it’s biggest issues. The class balance is a mess and the meta balance is just as bad. Any raids designed with those in mind will be just as bad. The game needs a solid foundation and what we have is some Styrofoam.

Distaste.4801:

Kurr.4179:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

“waaaaaah we have to full glass and actually try to survive instead of slowly wittling down bosses over the course of 30min waaaah”

This is an action based MMO, enforcing mostly full glass specs is the right thing to do in PvE, ANet knows that.

I don’t understand what people don’t understand here.

The fact that you require DPS gear to kill the boss makes it HARDER not EASIER. Isn’t the complaint about zerker that it trivializes a lot of older content (dungeons) because you can kill everything extremely fast without caring much about their mechanics? Well, you can’t do that here, so why is everyone up in arms?

This is good game design for, like you said, an action MMORPG.

People hate the berserker meta because it pigeonholes them into a single build. Putting people into berserker specs does not make it harder at all. The fight is over quicker and thus you need to the mechanics less. It seems harder because a single hit might kill you, but it is equally as hard to keep doing mechanics for long periods of time because concentration wains, luck falters, and resources run low.

This is absolute terrible game design. GOOD game design would allow any spec played with equal skill to complete the boss because what they give-up on offense would give them survivability to last longer. GW2 does not do this and that’s one of it’s biggest issues. The class balance is a mess and the meta balance is just as bad. Any raids designed with those in mind will be just as bad. The game needs a solid foundation and what we have is some Styrofoam.

How is one type of gear = one type of build? You have lots of variables in your traitlines and utilities which you change depending on situation.

Also, why exactly is enforcing active instead of passive defense inside PvE of a, let me say it again, action based MMO, bad design? You want to turn the game into something it isn’t with full blown tanks and healers.

Also, just fyi, the Vale Guardian enrage is “simply” 200% damage, not a party wipe. So yeah, if you’re full nomads party then glhf, you can probably still wittle him down over time.

Skoigoth.9238:

Hmm, weird, I was never under the impression that anet has a problem with the “zerker meta” in particular, yet a lot of people seem to think they do. Did I miss something?

1 dev said that “berserker not gonna cut it” few months ago. People heard “trinity is coming to gw2” but in reality it was “direct damage will not be effective everywhere”.

Yeah I remember that comment from reddit (I believe it was Colin?), not sure why people interpreted that as “gtfo zurkers” though =P

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Skoigoth.9238:

Hmm, weird, I was never under the impression that anet has a problem with the “zerker meta” in particular, yet a lot of people seem to think they do. Did I miss something?

1 dev said that “berserker not gonna cut it” few months ago. People heard “trinity is coming to gw2” but in reality it was “direct damage will not be effective everywhere”.

Groseval is the condi DPS check.

Hell, Groseval is EXACTLY how Nomad groups cannot win.
…
Why the kitten do we have Rage timers if we have a boss that is about killing things fast enough already?

Distaste.4801:

Kurr.4179:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

“waaaaaah we have to full glass and actually try to survive instead of slowly wittling down bosses over the course of 30min waaaah”

This is an action based MMO, enforcing mostly full glass specs is the right thing to do in PvE, ANet knows that.

I don’t understand what people don’t understand here.

The fact that you require DPS gear to kill the boss makes it HARDER not EASIER. Isn’t the complaint about zerker that it trivializes a lot of older content (dungeons) because you can kill everything extremely fast without caring much about their mechanics? Well, you can’t do that here, so why is everyone up in arms?

This is good game design for, like you said, an action MMORPG.

People hate the berserker meta because it pigeonholes them into a single build. Putting people into berserker specs does not make it harder at all. The fight is over quicker and thus you need to the mechanics less. It seems harder because a single hit might kill you, but it is equally as hard to keep doing mechanics for long periods of time because concentration wains, luck falters, and resources run low.

This is absolute terrible game design. GOOD game design would allow any spec played with equal skill to complete the boss because what they give-up on offense would give them survivability to last longer. GW2 does not do this and that’s one of it’s biggest issues. The class balance is a mess and the meta balance is just as bad. Any raids designed with those in mind will be just as bad. The game needs a solid foundation and what we have is some Styrofoam.

I completely disagree with this. I spent over 6 hours last night with a group of people constantly changing builds, group compositions, utilities, and gear in order to better kill the Vale Guardian. While we never managed to kill it, we did see very clear improvements after making certain changes, and that, I think is what good design is all about. There is always going to be an optimal build/comp for every boss. That doesn’t necessarily mean there will be only one that works, but it does mean there will be one that works best. While we do see the zerker meta everywhere else in the game, suddenly we have spots in the raid for a tank and actual dedicated healers (suddenly people are playing druid?!? no way!!!). Of course you need to bring dps to a raid. Content becomes too easy if you’re playing with 10 tank as you can essentially nullify several mechanics of the boss. It’s actually the same argument here that we see against the zerker meta in dungeons – mechanics can be nullified because the boss dies too quickly (with a 10 tank raid, you just nullify them in a different way). However, it’s impossible to nuke these bosses down quickly enough to skip mechanics. The challenge comes in when you have to maintain your dps rotation and overcome mechanics at the same time. It’s much harder to keep up your dps while running to circles on the floor, dodging seekers, and paying attention to boss phases than if you can just tank through everything and not worry about outputting optimal dps. Sure you have to complete the mechanics more times, but the mechanics themselves aren’t really that inherently hard. It’s maintaining enough dps and surviving at the same time that’s challenging.

The way I see it, we’re already seeing more build diversity in raids than we ever did any any other aspect of the PVE world. Just because all of the DPS happen to be in zerker gear doesn’t mean we don’t have diversity. Of course DPS are going to be in zerker gear – that’s their job (and wonderfully enough, we’re actually required to have different types of zerker builds). But we’re now seeing room in groups for other builds as well – you absolutely need a tank for the Vale Guardian and an aoe healer or two really don’t hurt either.

Let’s look at WoW for a second (sorry, I know I should never bring WoW up here :P). In a WoW raid group, you have tanks, healers, and dps. All of the dps in that group will be running the build that outputs the most damage. That means, even if you really really really want to be running a crit based shadow priest, if stacking mastery provides more dps, then you need to run that build, or risk not bringing enough dps to kill the boss. And that’s not a bad thing. Part of the challenge of raiding is that you need to work to figure out the optimal build for your character for each particular encounter.

I’ve also seen a lot of people talking about how not any old person can just run into the raid and down the first boss, and again I say this is a good thing. I spent six hours last night consistently wiping on the Vale Guardian and it was the most fun I have ever had in GW2. I’m not exaggerating. Raids are not designed to be doable by all players and until Anet implements an “easy mode” for the bosses, that should be the case. We asked for high-end, challenging content and Anet absolutely delivered. From what I’ve seen so far, these fights are some of the best designed encounters I’ve seen in any MMO, and I’ve played my fair few. Thank you Anet. <3

ODB.6891:

Skoigoth.9238:

Hmm, weird, I was never under the impression that anet has a problem with the “zerker meta” in particular, yet a lot of people seem to think they do. Did I miss something?

Phiw got over excited when ANET threw them a bone…in the form of healers and tanking mechanics in raids. ANET also gassed them up to think that they were going to force players out of berserker gear when at least two ANET employees said something about the end of the berserker meta. Phiw just took that and ran with it assuming that would mean that they were going to be able to face tank everything down in nomads….despite being specifically told that raids were going to be challenging group content. Phiw didn’t realize that anything that presents a true challenge in this game, will include a dps check as part of that challenge….otherwise its just a snooze fest until it eventually dies. ANET did a great job of incorporating interesting mechanics into the encounters, but it still has to have the dps check component to be a challenge. I’m still extremely unhappy about anything that has to have a specific gear stat to even do any damage to it. Its funny how people wanted these roles, but now complain that to fill a dps role…they actually need to bring top notch dps gear….not mixed with valkyrie, cavalier, knights, soldiers, etc. I still think its more of an execution issue that is stopping success, but even if it is truly low dps output, you have to consider that having multiple players (who claim to be filling the dps role) mixing in non dps gear…that ends up being the equivalent of having one or more entire players wearing that non dps gear….your raid damage will suffer as a result. ANET did succeed in forcing different gear sets into top tier PvE content (healers, condi gear, and possibly at least one player with a modicum of toughness)…just don’t expect to have a phiw party with every slot in the raid.

I don’t get these threads. Did every tank and healer in the MMO universe come to GW2 only to complain there’s no classic tanking and healing? In every other MMO they lack those roles…

From what I’ve seen from the first boss the classical trinity is much more defined there then anywhere else in the game. But you know, for a trinity you need a tank, a healer and guess what? DPS. In fact in all MMOs DPS is the biggest group in a raid comp, so yes you will need dmg gear.

The timer is there for a very good reason. So you can’t afk kill it in nomads and I think that’s extremely necessary if they wanna keep raids somewhat challenging.

softblackcarbon.1537:

-snip-

This is coming from a guy that NEVER beaten the Vale Guardian.

The only build diversity raids are creating is punishing players using Soldiers, Rabids and other things.

Spoilers: You don’t need a tank! You can trap the guardian at the blue pillar and wail him down in seconds until phase 2. Which, in phases 3 and 5 the same strategy doesn’t work.

I’m sorry but until you fight Grosval, everything you just said about DPS checks just gets tossed out the Window. You’ll realize how utterly pointless they are once you fight Groseval, which, has 3 DPS checks in his fight alone. The enraged spirits, the charged spirits and ANOTHER Enrage timer.

So the DPS check timer at the Vale Guardian is utterly pointless.

Hell, the DPS check timer at Groseval is also utterly pointless because the enraged spirits will make him too strong if you don’t have enough damage.

You were saying?

A-net logic to kill the zerker meta… Add timers to the boss so you have to dps like mad to win.

hurrado.2346:

A-net logic to kill the zerker meta… Add timers to the boss so you have to dps like mad to win.

Clearly you don’t even understand what the zerker meta was even about. I’ll enlighten you. The zerker meta was to bring ALL zerker geared players…no healers, no tanks, nothing but top direct damage (builds, gear, etc). That is clearly not what is happening now as you have healers, pseudo tanking, and condition damage builds/gear. Please stop regurgitating things that you don’t understand.

Its challenging for the wrong reasons. I can handle the mechanics, but I can’t handle the strict time limit even with full damage gear… It puts people under too much pressure in my opinion, and its that pressure that causes people to choke / make mistakes.

ODB.6891:

hurrado.2346:

A-net logic to kill the zerker meta… Add timers to the boss so you have to dps like mad to win.

Clearly you don’t even understand what the zerker meta was even about. I’ll enlighten you. The zerker meta was to bring ALL zerker geared players…no healers, no tanks, nothing but top direct damage (builds, gear, etc). That is clearly not what is happening now as you have healers, pseudo tanking, and condition damage builds/gear. Please stop regurgitating things that you don’t understand.

Stop posting when you never gotten past the Vale Guardian.

I can tell you for a fact, after dozen hours of fighting, trying different builds, professions I will tell you what you need for success:

• 1 Tempest Auramancer to tank and heal.
• 1 zerker Revenant
• 2 condi trap rangers/bomb engineers
• ZERKER EVERYTHING ELSE

I cannot stress enough how taking Soldiers, Celestial, Shamans can mean you and your team will never beat raids. If you cannot beat phase 1 in 2 minutes, your team does not have enough DPS.

Good game design?

P.S. A full nomad team would be more build diversity
P.S.S. A fully defensive team will never get past Grosval anyways, so defending the rage time is really stupid.

Nova Stiker.8396:

ODB.6891:

hurrado.2346:

A-net logic to kill the zerker meta… Add timers to the boss so you have to dps like mad to win.

Clearly you don’t even understand what the zerker meta was even about. I’ll enlighten you. The zerker meta was to bring ALL zerker geared players…no healers, no tanks, nothing but top direct damage (builds, gear, etc). That is clearly not what is happening now as you have healers, pseudo tanking, and condition damage builds/gear. Please stop regurgitating things that you don’t understand.

Stop posting when you never gotten past the Vale Guardian.

I can tell you for a fact, after dozen hours of fighting, trying different builds, professions I will tell you what you need for success:

• 1 Tempest Auramancer to tank at the blue pillar.
• 1 zerker Revenant
• 2 condi trap rangers
• ZERKER EVERYTHING ELSE

I cannot stress enough how taking Soldiers can mean you and your team will never beat raids.

Good game design?

????

@Nova.
When the gear stats has ever had anything with support in this game???
As I think you won’t get it. You wanna be a healer? Ok, blast water fields. Is that it. All the differents gear stats have sense in order parts of the game, not in PVE. And this is goooood!

Nova Stiker.8396:

ODB.6891:

hurrado.2346:

A-net logic to kill the zerker meta… Add timers to the boss so you have to dps like mad to win.

Clearly you don’t even understand what the zerker meta was even about. I’ll enlighten you. The zerker meta was to bring ALL zerker geared players…no healers, no tanks, nothing but top direct damage (builds, gear, etc). That is clearly not what is happening now as you have healers, pseudo tanking, and condition damage builds/gear. Please stop regurgitating things that you don’t understand.

Stop posting when you never gotten past the Vale Guardian.

I can tell you for a fact, after dozen hours of fighting, trying different builds, professions I will tell you what you need for success:

• 1 Tempest Auramancer to tank and heal.
• 1 zerker Revenant
• 2 condi trap rangers/bomb engineers
• ZERKER EVERYTHING ELSE

I cannot stress enough how taking Soldiers, Celestial, Shamans can mean you and your team will never beat raids. If you cannot beat phase 1 in 2 minutes, your team does not have enough DPS.

Good game design?

Idk what you’ve been smoking, but I want a share.
Also +1 for telling people that did the actual worlds first Vale Guardian kill during beta that they “never beat Vale Guardian”

@bladex why did you reveal that! I was gonna wager a couple thousand gem and get rich from him!
@nova I beat vale guardian in the beta, I was the part of world 3rd, and yesterday I beat it again with my guildies in an hour. There are people in this forum who are really good at the game, and it seems like you’re just complaining about how you cannot play “however you want”. Again, go watch that video and tell me how that is skillful.

If you don’t believe I beat the vale guardian, lets put about 9000 gems on the line and I will gladly prove my kills, both beta weekend and yesterday. Thanks

Nova Stiker.8396:

softblackcarbon.1537:

-snip-

This is coming from a guy that NEVER beaten the Vale Guardian.

The only build diversity raids are creating is punishing players using Soldiers, Rabids and other things.

Spoilers: You don’t need a tank! You can trap the guardian at the blue pillar and wail him down in seconds until phase 2. Which, in phases 3 and 5 the same strategy doesn’t work.

I’m sorry but until you fight Grosval, everything you just said about DPS checks just gets tossed out the Window. You’ll realize how utterly pointless they are once you fight Groseval, which, has 3 DPS checks in his fight alone. The enraged spirits, the charged spirits and ANOTHER Enrage timer.

So the DPS check timer at the Vale Guardian is utterly pointless.

Hell, the DPS check timer at Groseval is also utterly pointless because the enraged spirits will make him too strong if you don’t have enough damage.

---

You were saying?

Wait I’m confused. First of all, I don’t think the fact that I haven’t killed the boss means any of my points have been invalidated?

Re: DPS checks. These are what make the fights challenging. Here’s the logic:
Case 1: Any gear and build is viable (i.e. “diversity” according to you):
There can be no enrage timers —> DPS doesn’t matter – you can kill the boss at whatever speed you want. —> Players can run very tanky builds to make the mechanics easier to overcome. —> The fight becomes much less challenging (sloppy play is allowed)
Result: Not a fun high-end encounter

Case 2: Everyone must go power zerker (i.e. complete lack of diversity):
There are incredibly hard enrage timers —> DPS is all that matters —> the only mechanics can be kiting —> The fight is much more challenging, but the mechanics have to remain fairly simple
Result: While this certainly leads to a more challenging encounter, it can’t be as interesting.

Case 3: Most people play some form of zerker build, some play more support-oriented builds (i.e. diversity according to me):
There are fair enrage timers —> DPS is highly important —> some players fill specialized roles in the group that are not zerker —> mechanics are complex and cannot be ignored —> DPS must be maintained while performing other actions, or mechanics must be overcome quickly for quicker return to DPS —> the fight is engaging and challenging

I hope that helps explain why DPS checks are so important. Essentially every other MMO uses either soft or hard enrage timers to provide challenging content. And to top it all off, Anet has gone with soft enrage timers (meaning, the boss can technically still be beaten once the enrage timer is reached as opposed to an actual guaranteed wipe mechanic at timer) which again provides slightly more flexibility within builds.

Needing lots of DPS in raids isn’t a new concept. The praise Anet deserves here is that they managed to design encounters that don’t require the group to be made of 9 zerk warriors and a zerk mesmer (cough cof cough). The fact that not every single build in the game is 100% viable for raiding content doesn’t mean we lack diversity.

softblackcarbon.1537:

Nova Stiker.8396:

softblackcarbon.1537:

-snip-

This is coming from a guy that NEVER beaten the Vale Guardian.

The only build diversity raids are creating is punishing players using Soldiers, Rabids and other things.

Spoilers: You don’t need a tank! You can trap the guardian at the blue pillar and wail him down in seconds until phase 2. Which, in phases 3 and 5 the same strategy doesn’t work.

I’m sorry but until you fight Grosval, everything you just said about DPS checks just gets tossed out the Window. You’ll realize how utterly pointless they are once you fight Groseval, which, has 3 DPS checks in his fight alone. The enraged spirits, the charged spirits and ANOTHER Enrage timer.

So the DPS check timer at the Vale Guardian is utterly pointless.

Hell, the DPS check timer at Groseval is also utterly pointless because the enraged spirits will make him too strong if you don’t have enough damage.

---

You were saying?

Wait I’m confused. First of all, I don’t think the fact that I haven’t killed the boss means any of my points have been invalidated?

Re: DPS checks. These are what make the fights challenging. Here’s the logic:
Case 1: Any gear and build is viable (i.e. “diversity” according to you):
There can be no enrage timers —> DPS doesn’t matter – you can kill the boss at whatever speed you want. --> Players can run very tanky builds to make the mechanics easier to overcome. —> The fight becomes much less challenging (sloppy play is allowed)
Result: Not a fun high-end encounter

Case 2: Everyone must go power zerker (i.e. complete lack of diversity):
There are incredibly hard enrage timers —> DPS is all that matters --> the only mechanics can be kiting —> The fight is much more challenging, but the mechanics have to remain fairly simple
Result: While this certainly leads to a more challenging encounter, it can’t be as interesting.

Case 3: Most people play some form of zerker build, some play more support-oriented builds (i.e. diversity according to me):
There are fair enrage timers —> DPS is highly important --> some players fill specialized roles in the group that are not zerker —> mechanics are complex and cannot be ignored --> DPS must be maintained while performing other actions, or mechanics must be overcome quickly for quicker return to DPS —> the fight is engaging and challenging

I hope that helps explain why DPS checks are so important. Essentially every other MMO uses either soft or hard enrage timers to provide challenging content. And to top it all off, Anet has gone with soft enrage timers (meaning, the boss can technically still be beaten once the enrage timer is reached as opposed to an actual guaranteed wipe mechanic at timer) which again provides slightly more flexibility within builds.

Needing lots of DPS in raids isn’t a new concept. The praise Anet deserves here is that they managed to design encounters that don’t require the group to be made of 9 zerk warriors and a zerk mesmer (cough cof cough). The fact that not every single build in the game is 100% viable for raiding content doesn’t mean we lack diversity.

So explain to me how raids isn’t just more zerker meta?

For everyone that is DPS, why does success depend on you carrying berserker and not Soldiers, Cavaliers or any gear that isn’t raw damage?

And I’m talking about DPS stats, not DPS roles.

What you’ve done is successfully explained what ArenaNet was going for and exactly why it fails so hard.

10 hours of against the Vale Guardian with pugs and 2 guild teams. The team that I beat it with had the most raw damage. Only 3 players on the team had gear with a toughness or vitality stat, the remaining 7 was zerker and vipers.
Oh, Groseval we couldn’t beat, our team was torn between more zerkers or more vipers because our DPS just wasn’t high enough. (That and 3 hours we just got tired.)

Nova Stiker.8396:

circuitnerd.5863:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Veneratio.1980:

I hate the timer and if they must have one I see no reason for it to be so low. The mechanics of the fight are great and tough enough that you wipe without worrying about time. If there must be one then 12mins would be a good spot imo.

Oh, I’m not talking about the Vale Guardians timer. Oh no, Gerovage? … Gorvoge? … the boss after him is hands down reaches 0 = GG.

Three of our party members can confirm running Soldiers, Rabids or Cavalier’s will most likely prevent you from beating the second boss.

For the DPS role raids you HAVE to run zerkers, vipers or sinisters. Anything else will hinder yourself and your entire team.

When you say zerker, vipers or sinisters does this mean zerker armor, weapons AND trinkets? or just armor and maybe weapon?

Full glass, right now the biggest challenge is battling the timer. Unless ArenaNet stops kitten ing around and realizes how stupid the enrage timer is, you are punished for playing defensively.

Read: bringing more defensive gear adds some challenge in terms of beating the timer, while taking away some challenge associated with staying alive. In some circles, we call this balance.

Sorin.4310:

Nova Stiker.8396:

circuitnerd.5863:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Veneratio.1980:

I hate the timer and if they must have one I see no reason for it to be so low. The mechanics of the fight are great and tough enough that you wipe without worrying about time. If there must be one then 12mins would be a good spot imo.

Oh, I’m not talking about the Vale Guardians timer. Oh no, Gerovage? … Gorvoge? … the boss after him is hands down reaches 0 = GG.

Three of our party members can confirm running Soldiers, Rabids or Cavalier’s will most likely prevent you from beating the second boss.

For the DPS role raids you HAVE to run zerkers, vipers or sinisters. Anything else will hinder yourself and your entire team.

When you say zerker, vipers or sinisters does this mean zerker armor, weapons AND trinkets? or just armor and maybe weapon?

Full glass, right now the biggest challenge is battling the timer. Unless ArenaNet stops kitten ing around and realizes how stupid the enrage timer is, you are punished for playing defensively.

Read: bringing more defensive gear adds some challenge in terms of beating the timer, while taking away some challenge associated with staying alive. In some circles, we call this balance.

Read: Groseval punishes teams that don’t have enough DPS without a timer (even though he has a stupid timer) A full nomad team can never beat Groseval in a million years because of the enraged and charged spirits.

In other words, it’s not more challenge.

There are many more ways to reward DPS outside a timer. Apparently you fail to understand that.

Fair question : Can some DPS wear a mix stuff like Knight armor and weapon + Zerk Jewels ? Or Apothecary armor, giver weapon and sinister/viper jewel?
If yes then the diversity is achieved.

What I mean is that the minimal requirements is not just a prefix, but stats. The so-called berserker meta means you have to bring all offensive stats to kill as fast as possible. In the raid configuration, as long as you kill within the timer it is fine, no record required… at least for now.

If someone comes and say that a DPS players needs (maybe I’m way too far) 2200 Power, 60% crit (or less crit but more ferocity) then I guess it is up to the player to find the more suitable itemization for his character. If you want to bring HP, more damage, condis, toughness then you have the choice… hence diversity.

If someone has tried I’d be curious to hear about it.

Ranael.6423:

Fair question : Can some DPS wear a mix stuff like Knight armor and weapon + Zerk Jewels ? Or Apothecary armor, giver weapon and sinister/viper jewel?
If yes then the diversity is achieved.

What I mean is that the minimal requirements is not just a prefix, but stats.

If someone comes and say that a DPS players needs (maybe I’m way too far) 2200 Power, 60% crit (or less crit but more ferocity) then I guess it is up to the player to find the more suitable itemization for his character. If you want to bring HP, more damage, condis, toughness then you have the choice… hence diversity.

If someone has tried I’d be curious to hear about it.

For my experience, my guild felt like going hybrid damage was not only pointless but punishing. I know we had a full ascended soldier herald, I was celestial/commander Tempest and one other was Rabid/shaman mix engineer.

When we got to Groseval it really felt like we lacked the damage as the Enraged spirits would be eaten before we got the chance to kill them. Granted, it was late and we all were tired. I should have snagged my zerker chronomancer before going to bed and giving that a try.

But in the end, it felt like us 3 did not have enough DPS for our team who was already zerker/vipers. Groseval enraged is significantly worse than Vale Guardians, making DPS the prime source of success.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Ranael.6423:

Fair question : Can some DPS wear a mix stuff like Knight armor and weapon + Zerk Jewels ? Or Apothecary armor, giver weapon and sinister/viper jewel?
If yes then the diversity is achieved.

What I mean is that the minimal requirements is not just a prefix, but stats.

If someone comes and say that a DPS players needs (maybe I’m way too far) 2200 Power, 60% crit (or less crit but more ferocity) then I guess it is up to the player to find the more suitable itemization for his character. If you want to bring HP, more damage, condis, toughness then you have the choice… hence diversity.

If someone has tried I’d be curious to hear about it.

For my experience, my guild felt like going hybrid damage was not only pointless but punishing. I know we had a full ascended soldier herald, I was celestial/commander Tempest and one other was Rabid/shaman mix engineer.

When we got to Groseval it really felt like we lacked the damage as the Enraged spirits would be eaten before we got the chance to kill them. Granted, it was late and we all were tired. I should have snagged my zerker chronomancer before going to bed and giving that a try.

But in the end, it felt like us 3 did not have enough DPS for our team who was already zerker/vipers. Groseval enraged is significantly worse than Vale Guardians, making DPS the prime source of success.

So you need to give up defenses for more DPS in order to beat content?
Welcome to raids my friend

bladex.9502:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Ranael.6423:

Fair question : Can some DPS wear a mix stuff like Knight armor and weapon + Zerk Jewels ? Or Apothecary armor, giver weapon and sinister/viper jewel?
If yes then the diversity is achieved.

What I mean is that the minimal requirements is not just a prefix, but stats.

If someone comes and say that a DPS players needs (maybe I’m way too far) 2200 Power, 60% crit (or less crit but more ferocity) then I guess it is up to the player to find the more suitable itemization for his character. If you want to bring HP, more damage, condis, toughness then you have the choice… hence diversity.

If someone has tried I’d be curious to hear about it.

For my experience, my guild felt like going hybrid damage was not only pointless but punishing. I know we had a full ascended soldier herald, I was celestial/commander Tempest and one other was Rabid/shaman mix engineer.

When we got to Groseval it really felt like we lacked the damage as the Enraged spirits would be eaten before we got the chance to kill them. Granted, it was late and we all were tired. I should have snagged my zerker chronomancer before going to bed and giving that a try.

But in the end, it felt like us 3 did not have enough DPS for our team who was already zerker/vipers. Groseval enraged is significantly worse than Vale Guardians, making DPS the prime source of success.

So you need to give up defenses for more DPS in order to beat content?
Welcome to raids my friend

Welcome to the zerker meta, again.

My guild beat it, and I’m in full clerics… I’m a druid healer. We didn’t have a tempest with us either. Some were in condi gear and other in zerker. If you are meant to focus on DPS then get DPS gear. If you are meant to tank or heal, get the required gear. Everyone doesn’t need zerk gear.

Nova Stiker.8396:

bladex.9502:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Ranael.6423:

Fair question : Can some DPS wear a mix stuff like Knight armor and weapon + Zerk Jewels ? Or Apothecary armor, giver weapon and sinister/viper jewel?
If yes then the diversity is achieved.

What I mean is that the minimal requirements is not just a prefix, but stats.

If someone comes and say that a DPS players needs (maybe I’m way too far) 2200 Power, 60% crit (or less crit but more ferocity) then I guess it is up to the player to find the more suitable itemization for his character. If you want to bring HP, more damage, condis, toughness then you have the choice… hence diversity.

If someone has tried I’d be curious to hear about it.

For my experience, my guild felt like going hybrid damage was not only pointless but punishing. I know we had a full ascended soldier herald, I was celestial/commander Tempest and one other was Rabid/shaman mix engineer.

When we got to Groseval it really felt like we lacked the damage as the Enraged spirits would be eaten before we got the chance to kill them. Granted, it was late and we all were tired. I should have snagged my zerker chronomancer before going to bed and giving that a try.

But in the end, it felt like us 3 did not have enough DPS for our team who was already zerker/vipers. Groseval enraged is significantly worse than Vale Guardians, making DPS the prime source of success.

So you need to give up defenses for more DPS in order to beat content?
Welcome to raids my friend

Welcome to the zerker meta, again.

LOL basically if any form of DPS is involed, it is zerker meta. So logical. Maybe raid shouldn’t even have bosses or mobs, or have invulnerable mobs so that people basically heal for hours and hours until they fall asleep. Sounds like a great raid mechanic.
BTW Im still waiting for the reply for 9000 gems.

Nova Stiker.8396:

bladex.9502:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Ranael.6423:

Fair question : Can some DPS wear a mix stuff like Knight armor and weapon + Zerk Jewels ? Or Apothecary armor, giver weapon and sinister/viper jewel?
If yes then the diversity is achieved.

What I mean is that the minimal requirements is not just a prefix, but stats.

If someone comes and say that a DPS players needs (maybe I’m way too far) 2200 Power, 60% crit (or less crit but more ferocity) then I guess it is up to the player to find the more suitable itemization for his character. If you want to bring HP, more damage, condis, toughness then you have the choice… hence diversity.

If someone has tried I’d be curious to hear about it.

For my experience, my guild felt like going hybrid damage was not only pointless but punishing. I know we had a full ascended soldier herald, I was celestial/commander Tempest and one other was Rabid/shaman mix engineer.

When we got to Groseval it really felt like we lacked the damage as the Enraged spirits would be eaten before we got the chance to kill them. Granted, it was late and we all were tired. I should have snagged my zerker chronomancer before going to bed and giving that a try.

But in the end, it felt like us 3 did not have enough DPS for our team who was already zerker/vipers. Groseval enraged is significantly worse than Vale Guardians, making DPS the prime source of success.

So you need to give up defenses for more DPS in order to beat content?
Welcome to raids my friend

Welcome to the zerker meta, again.

Welcome to QQ, again.

Gorseval is really really challenging and in my opinion will remain unpuggable until the game gets significantly more power creep. But people should refrain from complaining about the tuning until they understand the fight.

NikeEU.7690:

Gorseval is really really challenging and in my opinion will remain unpuggable until the game gets significantly more power creep. But people should refrain from complaining about the tuning until they understand the fight.

Honestly Gorseval felt easier than the Vale Guardian, we got him to 33% nearly everytime, but those kitten enraged spirits make the final stretch very hard.

Nova Stiker.8396:

NikeEU.7690:

Gorseval is really really challenging and in my opinion will remain unpuggable until the game gets significantly more power creep. But people should refrain from complaining about the tuning until they understand the fight.

Honestly Gorseval felt easier than the Vale Guardian, we got him to 33% nearly everytime, but those kitten enraged spirits make the final stretch very hard.

33% is where the fight becomes challenging tbh, gotta look for so many different things at the same time, it’s just awesome.