Guild Wars 2

Thaddeus.4891:

bai long.2085:

A team of Berserker’s, Knight’s, Nomad’s, Sinister, Clerics, etc is diverse. It will also never beat the raid, which is sad.

True but a group of Sinister, Valkyrie, Viper, Zerker, Assassin will. Hell there is even a place for a celestial, cleric, zealot or soldier guy.

Now I can’t talk about the second boss, i’m not there yet. But the first boss, you don’t need 9 glass canon and 1 tank. People with this kind of composition are killing the Vale Guardian with 1-2min left on the timer. So you could really have some Marauder, Celestial, Zealot in there too. Hell the tank could be Normad or Knight. So every single gear you mentionned can’t be usefull for the raid. But if we gonna have role in the raid, we need a balance in the team.

Now we only need encounters where 6-8 people in nomad, soldier, minstrel and apothecary will succeed and groups with 6-8 zerker, siniter etc, will not mange it.

Thaddeus.4891:

bai long.2085:

A team of Berserker’s, Knight’s, Nomad’s, Sinister, Clerics, etc is diverse. It will also never beat the raid, which is sad.

True but a group of Sinister, Valkyrie, Viper, Zerker, Assassin will. Hell there is even a place for a celestial, cleric, zealot or soldier guy.

Now I can’t talk about the second boss, i’m not there yet. But the first boss, you don’t need 9 glass canon and 1 tank. People with this kind of composition are killing the Vale Guardian with 1-2min left on the timer. So you could really have some Marauder, Celestial, Zealot in there too. Hell the tank could be Normad or Knight. So every single gear you mentionned can’t be usefull for the raid. But if we gonna have role in the raid, we need a balance in the team.

Now we only need encounters where 6-8 people in nomad, soldier, minstrel and apothecary will succeed and groups with 6-8 zerker, sinister etc, will not mange it.

You are right: not all kinds of gear can be useful in every single encounter. But each kind of gear can have its place in a decent number of encounters.

NikeEU.7690:

A lot of complaining about the trivial Vale Guardian enrage timer. Once you guy to Gorseval you’ll really have something to complain about.

Looking at the times left on the two kills i know (13 sec and 27 sec) i can totally agree on that, the fight is rly well tuned, Anet (and DnT and Att) did a good job there.

Out of curiosity, how much time did you guys have left after practicing for like a month?
Feel free to just pm it (if you even want to tell anyone) if it’s better to not tell too many ppl for now

bai long.2085:

Listen to this, because they’re facts:

For the way the Vale Guardian (that’s all I’ve fought as of yet) is setup, the enrage timer disallows for build diversity among players in the raid.

You cannot have more than 1 person running a fully defensive or defensive support build. You will run out of time and die. Furthermore, you can’t even have people who want to go hybrid. Everyone is either maximum DPS or it’s a failed run. There’s a long list of players who won’t be able to beat this raid boss simply because their build doomed them from the start.

A team of Berserker’s, Knight’s, Nomad’s, Sinister, Clerics, etc is diverse. It will also never beat the raid, which is sad.

ArenaNet said they were attempting to promote more build diversity but this enrage timer does the exact opposite.

Now, I’m a fantastic player. I’m super great. But, I’m very limited in the raid groups I can even attempt to join. I play a tanky healing druid in full ascended Nomad’s gear. I don’t DO DPS. I never die, ever. I picked a stat set that played to my personal strengths and I’m very successful with it. But, I can’t join ANY groups that already have anyone else who’s in even the slightest amount of defensive gear because the timer will go out and we’ll all die.

Me, with my 26k HP, 2700 toughness, near infinite heals and ridiculous hand eye coordination; destroyed because everyone else instantly died because an arbitrary timer reached 00:00.

Roll Berserker’s or Sinister or Viper’s, right? The problem I have with that is…that I don’t enjoy playing that type of character. If I were forced to pick between 1-3 preset builds that have a chance of completing content I’d just uninstall the game and start reading more books. I enjoy what I built and what I built, provided I’m really good at it, should have a decent shot at completing any form on content.

I’ve never complained about about something being too difficult in my life, because I know that if I can’t do it I’m just not good enough yet. The thing with this raid is, I’m more than good enough. I’m just not allowed.

In my opinion, the timer needs to be gotten rid of entirely. I should be able to put 10 people in Nomad’s gear in a raid and have a chance at winning. It’ll take all day but it should still be possible.

I see the raid as the great homogenizer. It’s the great machine that makes people give up every stat set except the few that stand a chance in the raid. That’s poor design. A homogenizer is the exact opposite of a diversifier.

Sure I could say, “what the heck, I’ll just go full glass and invite only full glass and play like that”. But, I don’t want to. So, if I have to, I won’t play anymore.

I’ll continue to attempt it with the groups I go with, but I don’t see any real hope for beating it until the timer is either increased or removed all together.

Maybe you’re results and experiences are different. But I’m talking about mine.

I am 100% with you on this,I have never been a meta player in any game ive played,i just refuse to follow masses like a mindless sheep,Ive always done things my way and will continue to do so until day i stop gaming.When i first started GW2 about a year ago all advice i was given for my warrior was berseker gear was like that from everyone.

Did i follow it ? Not a chance in hell, my war atm is 3 peices zerk,3 peices soldiers and pretty much all soldiers jewerly,Why? because thats how i wanted it kept myself some damage but built in some defense.Hell my Necro is FULL soldiers gear because thats how i want it to be.How i build my characters shouldn’t be decided by anyone or anything else other then myself.

Since raid patch people are more picky then ever.People on here saying on wow was same concept u always took gear/talents that offered highest possible damage.Well im sorry but that was maybe just you.Not everyone did that and u could still go into raids with w.e build u chose,boss may take 5minutes longer but in end people where happy when u killed it regardless of time it took.Situation is extremely different with raid we just got.Its almost guaranteed people wouldnt mind a longer boss fight with soldier geared ppl or any kinda of geared ppl long as they could beat it.The enrage timers are simply making people picky about who to take,because very little gear stats work.

Many others in this thread have already said same thing im going to say now,there is WAYYY more ways to make content challenging then adding timers forcing players to do things they arent happy with,And please dont come with comments of Raid is for hardcore players or if u dont like it dont do itSimply put EVERYONE paid for HOT expansion so EVERYONE should be given equal rights to experiencing all content we paid for.As raids stand now this is not the case

Jellytot.9816:

Simply put EVERYONE paid for HOT expansion so EVERYONE should be given equal rights to experiencing all content we paid for.As raids stand now this is not the case

Everyone who paid for HOT has the same chance to experience the raids. It’s the persons own issue if they don’t want to adapt to whatever content anet gives us.

I suck at PvP, so am i allowed to force anet to chance their entire pvp system, cause i paid for it?

MasterBlaster.6827:

Jellytot.9816:

Simply put EVERYONE paid for HOT expansion so EVERYONE should be given equal rights to experiencing all content we paid for.As raids stand now this is not the case

Everyone who paid for HOT has the same chance to experience the raids. It’s the persons own issue if they don’t want to adapt to whatever content anet gives us.

I suck at PvP, so am i allowed to force anet to chance their entire pvp system, cause i paid for it?

You confuse yourself between Adapt and Complete change,To adapt to something is runes/sigils/traits/utilities.Forcing people to fully change their stats on ascended gear that they worked for just to enjoy new content is not adapting.You are basically forcing players into a play style they simply do not enjoy to experience new content.Which is turn,turns out to be anti fun for them cause they cant enjoy it how they want,And is whole point of a game not to have fun while doing it?

And as for your question No you cannot because u clearly stated you suck at pvp,That is a player skill issue not a gameplay issue they are very different.I can bet there are many skilled pvers that cannot get into raids simply cause of the stats of their gear

Jellytot.9816:

I can bet there are many skilled pvers that cannot get into raids simply cause of the stats of their gear

Name two. 15 characters.

Jellytot.9816:

MasterBlaster.6827:

Jellytot.9816:

Simply put EVERYONE paid for HOT expansion so EVERYONE should be given equal rights to experiencing all content we paid for.As raids stand now this is not the case

Everyone who paid for HOT has the same chance to experience the raids. It’s the persons own issue if they don’t want to adapt to whatever content anet gives us.

I suck at PvP, so am i allowed to force anet to chance their entire pvp system, cause i paid for it?

You confuse yourself between Adapt and Complete change,To adapt to something is runes/sigils/traits/utilities.Forcing people to fully change their stats on ascended gear that they worked for just to enjoy new content is not adapting.You are basically forcing players into a play style they simply do not enjoy to experience new content.Which is turn,turns out to be anti fun for them cause they cant enjoy it how they want,And is whole point of a game not to have fun while doing it?

And as for your question No you cannot because u clearly stated you suck at pvp,That is a player skill issue not a gameplay issue they are very different.I can bet there are many skilled pvers that cannot get into raids simply cause of the stats of their gear

Changing gear is adapting for me, getting ascended gear should not be a problem nowadays, and especially for dps, exotic armor is enough.

I won’t start a meta vs antimeta discussion with you!

MasterBlaster.6827:

Jellytot.9816:

MasterBlaster.6827:

Jellytot.9816:

Simply put EVERYONE paid for HOT expansion so EVERYONE should be given equal rights to experiencing all content we paid for.As raids stand now this is not the case

Everyone who paid for HOT has the same chance to experience the raids. It’s the persons own issue if they don’t want to adapt to whatever content anet gives us.

I suck at PvP, so am i allowed to force anet to chance their entire pvp system, cause i paid for it?

You confuse yourself between Adapt and Complete change,To adapt to something is runes/sigils/traits/utilities.Forcing people to fully change their stats on ascended gear that they worked for just to enjoy new content is not adapting.You are basically forcing players into a play style they simply do not enjoy to experience new content.Which is turn,turns out to be anti fun for them cause they cant enjoy it how they want,And is whole point of a game not to have fun while doing it?

And as for your question No you cannot because u clearly stated you suck at pvp,That is a player skill issue not a gameplay issue they are very different.I can bet there are many skilled pvers that cannot get into raids simply cause of the stats of their gear

Changing gear is adapting for me, getting ascended gear should not be a problem nowadays, and especially for dps, exotic armor is enough.

I won’t start a meta vs antimeta discussion with you!

Of course u wont,because it would be a pointless discussion,To you following builds made by pros down to the last inch is best way to go and my logic is flawed and ill never get anywhere with my builds.To me id just called you a mindless sheep and say you have 0 ability to do your own thing,Never ending discussion.So ill just end my replies here.

Have a good day xD

Yes, i am blindly following the builds made by pros, without paying attention to anything besides that. That’s also how me and my team killed raid bosses, we stacked behind a corner and spammed 111111111.

Jellytot.9816:

Of course u wont,because it would be a pointless discussion,To you following builds made by pros down to the last inch is best way to go and my logic is flawed and ill never get anywhere with my builds.To me id just called you a mindless sheep and say you have 0 ability to do your own thing,Never ending discussion.So ill just end my replies here.

Have a good day xD

And who’s to blame for that? Where did MasterBlaster.6827 wrote that you’re logic is flawed and that you will never get anywhere with your builds?

You push the discussion to the extreme not him. Of course some people will push it to the extreme because it’s the internet, but you don’t need to follow them there.

The 2 extremes here are
1) I hate everything that the meta stand for and I will run on the complete other side just to not be part of the meta. I won’t adapt my build, the content need to adapt to my build.

2) The meta is almigty and the slightest change to it result in pure garbage that should be spit on.

But that’s a made up thing. In reality very very few people are on either of those sides. Just like Republican are not old racist bigots and Democrats are not communist.

In reality there is a lot of room in those build. Take thief for exemple. The meta build speak of 5 variations in traits, 5 differents weapons setup, 3 different heals, around 10 utilities and 3 elites. It also talk about changing a complete trait line and that’s not even talking about the standard D/D thief (not daredevil), which is still view as a great build. So talking about following the meta to the inc make no sense. What about people getting to a similar build by their own or taking the meta only as a starting point as they adapt it to their own need? Meta is a vague term, which regroup a huge diversity by itself.

Just like most people that create their own weird build usually have a brain and know where and why they use their stuff. They don’t bring AH and Staff claiming they do support, while they don’t. They able to recognize the strength and limitation of their build.

Nova Stiker.8396:

bladex.9502:

Nova Stiker.8396:

TheFamster.7806:

Land of Cheese.2584:

You bring DPS to a raid because the goal of the raid is to damage the boss until he is dead. Anything else is secondary. In MMOs with a traditional trinity, the tank and healers are there to support the DPS. The healers keep the tank alive so the tank can keep the aggro and the DPS can do their job.

That red bar over every mob’s head is a health bar. You need to decrease the amount of red to 0 to win. This is what DPS does. If your role is DPS and you are not wearing optimized DPS gear then you should not be there, period.

There is no such thing as “balance” between “doing all the DPS in DPS gear and doing all the DPS in healing gear.” That’s not possible. That’s not possible any more than it’s possible to hammer a nail with a feather.

If you want to bring your nomads to a raid and “do DPS” you are delusional. There is something fundamentally wrong with your critical thinking skills.

InB4 you get flamed and asked “have you beaten the vale guardian?”
I told OP I beat it twice, and I have the proof, and I bet him 9000 gems to prove him wrong, yet he completely ignores my posts and complains that raids shouldn’t not be about killing the boss but singing happy songs while dancing around the mythical creature. I don’t think OP knows what raiding or even the concept of killing mobs to get loot.

Omg would you shut up. You have done nothing but brag that you beat the Vale Gaurdian, welcome to the club. Welcome to the zerker meta.

The issue is the DPS balance is out of wack, as I stated, if you have 8 out of the 10 people that have anything into vitality, healing power or toughness, you most likely not have enough damage to beat raids.

The issue isn’t DPS, the issue is it’s ONLY zerkers. ONLY vipers or sinisters.
That 1200 power you get from soldiers? Not enough.
Cavaliers? Still doesn’t give enough DPS.
Rabids for condi! Sorry, all that toughness is holding you and your entire team back.

Time to find another more casual game maybe, have you tried Maple Story? maybe Runescape, they have nice casual raids that allow you to afk in tank gear.

Raids in every MMO have always been focused on DPS, as soon as people understand the content they will just stack as many DPS as possible, even in holy-trinity based games.

Also its rather funny you say he has done nothing but brag about killing Vale Guardian, yet all you do is brag about how you got to Gorseval and talk down on people that didn’t.
I’m sorry Anet stepped on your tiny weenie, but you’re just either gonna have to adapt or look for another MMO

You are confusing DPS focused with zerker focused. Get it right. Well, I doubt you can get it right.

Oh stop with the semantics argument. Condi in many cases deals more damage than physical dps. When people say zerk they mean DPS, they are interchangeable terms. Nitpicking about this just shows how much people want to ‘sound’ right rather than actually be right about something.

Star Ace.5207:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Star Ace.5207:

Rika.7249:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Rika.7249:

I’m completely fine with Berserker being needed, and Sinister being needed.

I’m not fine with needing to step down from my Herald Zerker, when my group needs condition damage, because Sinister Revenant isn’t viable, compared to Sinister Engineer.

I am fine with zerker.
I am fine with sinister.

I am not fine with 80% of your team must be zerker or sinister. As it is an absolute MUST.

Naturally it’s a must. 80% of your team is there to smack the bosses’ kitten, one’s there to keep everyone alive, and one’s there to mitigate the damage from the boss.

I’m not okay with the fact that your team isn’t necessarily able to actually make it, even WITH zerker/condi gear, simply because some classes are miles behind others.

I like needing to deal the max amount of damage possible, to beat the enrage timer. Hybrid survivability builds should generally be discouraged – which they are. They serve as training wheels, allowing for sloppy play, with a sloppy outcome.

Raids shouldn’t allow for sloppy play.

Sloppy play isn’t tied to gear-the most common false dichotomy and lie spread out throughout the community. Nowhere has ever officially stated that “passive stats” are meant to train you for “pro gear”, as there’s none in the game, unless Viper’s/Berserker’s makes you feel better about yourself, which is fine but no reason to belittle the “lesser” stat combos (in your mind.)

No, it hasn’t been stated, but it’s what makes sense for PvE.
PvE in this game is all about active defense and preventing to take or at least damage by whatever means you have at your disposal with said active defense. I mean why do you think this is an Action-MMO?
Besides, pretty much every content up to now was clearable in any kind of gear, with any kind of traits. It might’ve taken longer, sure, but it was doable.
Raids are meant to be hardcore content, having strict environments and not leaving much space for error while optimizing your efficiency in every way possible – among it, who would’ve thought, dps, along with support and control, because this is the trinity in this game, not dps heal tank. Guess what, support and control work just as nicely in glass-gear.
This isn’t a failure on ANets part, this is a failure on your part recognizing the fact that this is how raids are supposed to be, not a snoozefest where you can sleep your way through.

Personal attack, as expected, along with assumptions. Just disagree if you are going to do that, and move on.

I’m sorry, where do you see a personal attack and assumptions? Please don’t tell me that last part insulted you. lol

Jellytot.9816:

How i build my characters shouldn’t be decided by anyone or anything else other then myself.

No body is forcing you to do anything. They are simply choosing not to play with you because you do not enjoy playing the game the same way they do. I recommend making your own squad that does not have gear requirements.

Jellytot.9816:

Simply put EVERYONE paid for HOT expansion so EVERYONE should be given equal rights to experiencing all content we paid for.As raids stand now this is not the case

Everyone has access to the same content. Players who adapt to it and beat it get rewards, players who do not adapt do not. Everything is fair. What isn’t fair is demanding that content be tailored to you.

Also, enrage timers are good. If you run completely pure tank builds, the damage done by bosses is so low your not required to actually use active defenses. Essentially nomads lets you ignore boss mechanics, the same way zerker lets you ignore boss mechanics in dungeons. It shouldn’t be possible to ignore boss mechanics.

Nova Stiker.8396:

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.

Except removing the timer or giving more time to players would make things incredibly easy.
I was with a group today – got it down to 15% – if we would have had an extra minute we would’ve done it easily.

And that’s what they’re trying to avoid – by putting the timer you are constantly under pressure to not mess up – to not make mistakes – to not get ported, downed, and perform at 100% all the time.

More time = more room for mistakes.
More time would also mean more room for tankier set-ups but that in turn means that:

1. The fight is made easier because tankier set-ups are more forgiving with mistakes.
2. The fight is made easier because players that don’t need that tanky gear and don’t make mistakes will have no source of pressure since they can now dps easily in the given time.

It’s basically dungeons all over again if the timer is gone.

CUBEstorm.7192:

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….

And raids are not for these people. If you’re not at 100%, if you don’t have the best gear, the best consumables, the best build and time on your hands – Raids are not for you – or at least not in their current format.

One mistake from ONE person can end the attempt there and then.

Anet specifically said that Raids are tuned in order for them to be challenging ( aka hard) for the top 5-10% of players ( which is few).
This means that for the remaining 90% Raids should be impossible or nearly impossible unless these people step up their game or find groups that are so good they can afford to carry others.

thrag.9740:

Essentially nomads lets you ignore boss mechanics, the same way zerker lets you ignore boss mechanics in dungeons. It shouldn’t be possible to ignore boss mechanics.

That’s overstating things a bit. Nomad’s would not let you ignore the multiple raid wiping attacks that ignore defenses. Gorseval alone has several I’ve heard. We have to damage walls quick enough to get out of the arena to avoid an insta-death attack. Some of his spirits need to be DPSed to prevent damage increases (soft-enrage). Some of his spirit’s need to be damaged to avoid insta-wipe.

Nova Stiker.8396:

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.

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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.

Your teammates are performing “perfectly” at a lower difficulty setting that their stats are providing. Which means it isn’t good enough.

They need to perform perfectly at the high difficulty setting that glass builds force you into.

It makes sense that let’s say Soldier’s gear is weak – it should be.

It gives you Toughness and vitality which for example at vale guardian means you get more leeway when the boss does his breakbar attack, or if you get ported over one of the death zones.
In return for that leeway you give up your damage and thus the timer will end you.

IF your group is so good then play perfectly in zerker gear and win the raid.

Nova Stiker.8396:

Purple Miku.7032:

This community is probably one of the most obnoxious MMO communities I’ve ever seen strictly because of how many people demand for damage to be normalised across all gearsets.

There’s literally no way to make these people happy other than removing power, precision, ferocity and condition damage from the attributes.

-gives up and walks away-

What the hell are you talking about?

This is a thread about the zerker meta staying around despite ArenaNet saying they want to limit the viability of zerker gear.

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Apparently you missed it.

What happened in raids is ArenaNet did their exact opposite intentions, zerker armor is no longer just viable, it’s NECESSARY. So much so that any defensive stats can prevent victory.

---

So far there is no possible way to beat the first two bosses without more than half your team in zerker armor. The other half in vipers/sinisters.

Instead of making difficult mechanics to concur, they made rage timers. Lazy.

And they did limit the viability of zerker gear.
A 100% zerker Raid team cannot complete the content – there – it is not viable to run full zerker as a Raid team.

Anet never said they want to destroy the viability of full glass teams – just that they want to limit the viability of full zerker – and they did.

Zerker armor is not 100% necessary because you have team members that in order for the raid to succeed must definitely not wear zerker.

Can anyone tell me of another game were you have defense stats as a DPS? Because I can’t think of one.

That’s why you get a healer yo, to keep out of down state and max out the DPS like your job as a DPS is

Billy.1879:

Can anyone tell me of another game were you have defense stats as a DPS? Because I can’t think of one.s

WoW and Old Replublic have armor sets for their DPS classes that increase their lifepools, their resistances to certain effects, and some of their attributes serve both offense and defense (e.g., agility increases a rogue’s attack damage and their ability to dodge). AFAIK, there actually isn’t something equivalent to berserker’s in those games (i.e., sacrificing all defensive stats for offense).

However, these are different games with different systems. Since there is no concept of active dodging/blocking the defensive stats have to be there whenever enemies are made stronger, less DPS fall to the floor every time the boss sneezes.

SirMoogie.9263:

Billy.1879:

Can anyone tell me of another game were you have defense stats as a DPS? Because I can’t think of one.s

WoW and Old Replublic have armor sets for their DPS classes that increase their lifepools, their resistances to certain effects, and some of their attributes serve both offense and defense (e.g., agility increases a rogue’s attack damage and their ability to dodge).

That’s called power creep my friend and no rogue stacks agility because it was going to make their dodge chance go up, it was to make bigger yellow numbers splat on their screens.

You know what you put in blue gem sockets? Red gems, agility gems, for damage and ignore the crappy stats. Getting resistances for things died in BC after MS in black temple, you ain’t fooling me.

(Rogue was a main for years and years)

You know for a fact aside from resistance gating there was no encounter in the game where you’d throw on a HP set.

Billy.1879:

That’s called power creep my friend and no rogue stacks agility because it was going to make their dodge chance go up, it was to make bigger yellow numbers splat on their screens.

Your challenge wasn’t to name another game given these restrictions. :-P

Nova Stiker.8396:

This is a thread about the zerker meta staying around despite ArenaNet saying they want to limit the viability of zerker gear.

Nova Stiker.8396:

So far there is no possible way to beat the first two bosses without more than half your team in zerker armor. The other half in vipers/sinisters.

SirMoogie.9263:

Billy.1879:

That’s called power creep my friend and no rogue stacks agility because it was going to make their dodge chance go up, it was to make bigger yellow numbers splat on their screens.

Your challenge wasn’t to name another game given these restrictions. :-P

That was scrapping the bottom of the barrel to stand up to my challenge, you tried my man, you tried.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

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.

One type of gear is going to determine how you build your traits. If you’re going full DPS you’re going to take the traits that increase your DPS first, then whatever is left will be situational. It enforces speccing a certain way and taking certain classes.

Enforcing active based defense is fine, but if you’re going to have other stats then they need to be balanced as well. Why even have the other stats if they aren’t going to make them viable? I absolutely would love to see full blown tanks and healers through specs and stats, that would add a lot more depth to the game. In that same breath I will also say that they should not be 100% necessary,. All classes, stats, and specs should ultimately be equal. Just because it is an “action” mmo does not mean they get to forsake all other stats/abilities/traits, otherwise class customization is extremely boring, which is exactly why people are angry about the berserker meta.

The vale guardian doing 200% more damage after enrage does not make survivable specs suddenly viable. At that point they are going to be just as survivable as berserker specs negating the point of the spec in the first place.

Enrage timers in GW2 are just bad design given the lack of roles. They were created in order to test DPS roles since tanks/healers were constantly on trial. It is very easy to tell if a tank or healer is doing their job, but dps isn’t so easy. Hence enrage timers. So why use it in GW2 where there isn’t tank/healer/dps and class customization is built around building how you want? They took a mechanic without knowing why it was created or used and are using it to artificially increase difficulty while in the process are killing the class customization that’s supposed to make them unique. I can’t think of another way to describe that except bad design.

The only question you need to ask yourself to determine if the fight is poorly designed or not is to ask this “If there was no enrage timer would the fight be hard?”. If you think the fight would be really easy, then clearly it’s not that well designed. If the fight would still be hard then it’s a well designed fight. This isn’t to say that enrage timers can’t be used to make great encounters, quite the opposite, but they can’t just be slapped on to add difficulty of what would otherwise be a cake walk.

SirMoogie.9263:

thrag.9740:

Essentially nomads lets you ignore boss mechanics, the same way zerker lets you ignore boss mechanics in dungeons. It shouldn’t be possible to ignore boss mechanics.

That’s overstating things a bit. Nomad’s would not let you ignore the multiple raid wiping attacks that ignore defenses. Gorseval alone has several I’ve heard. We have to damage walls quick enough to get out of the arena to avoid an insta-death attack. Some of his spirits need to be DPSed to prevent damage increases (soft-enrage). Some of his spirit’s need to be damaged to avoid insta-wipe.

Well point taken, but it still lets you ignore some mechanics.

It seems like since people had read my original post they’ve begun trying to arguing with it for the sake of argument. Everything I said is 100% true. It’s not my opinion.

If you want to try to argue with something try to argue with this:

Firstly, what’s the real difference between DPS, hybrid and tanky classes?
DPS – They do extremely high damage
Hybrids – They carry a good bit of damage, a bit more survivability and perhaps a couple support skills.
Tankys – They’re built for survival at the cost of DPS.

I play only tanky builds. That’s what I enjoy playing. In WoW I played a Warrior and a Paladin. In FFXI I played a Paladin. In FFXIV I played a Paladin. In DAoC I played a Paladin. In Aion, I played a Templar and a Cleric.

What I love about GW2 is that there are no real hardset roles. I can make any class I want as tanky as I want to make it. I can make a thief that just refuses to die.

So you have some~ idea of where I’m coming from here and where I’m going with this:

I’ve been a martial artist for 18 years. I understand the need to deal damage and the need to be able to take it. In a video game you just pop back to life and everything is fine, but it’s obviously not the same as the real world. I prefer to play my games how I fight my fights. Never lose, never die, able to take hits well. Now, while you can take hits in the real world and still dish out heavy blows, things have to be balanced in a game. You can’t hit hard and take hits as well as everyone else. That wouldn’t be fair.

Full Nomad’s is what I run on my Druid. Before you say, “Ew gross.” please reread the above as to why I do that. Nomad’s and other tanking gear does NOT mean you never die. You still have to dodge, you still have to position yourself correctly, etc. Is it more forgiving? YES.

Someone running full Berserker’s, for example, is setup to deal as much damage as possible at the cost of their survivability. You can dodge out of most dangers if you’re good enough but you won’t be able to dodge every single attack.

In dungeons or fractals, when Berserker’s join my parties, I almost always find them dead half way through the boss fights and they remain dead the rest of the time. These people are used to running with Berserker’s only groups where you kill enemies before there’s any real threat to you. THAT is the problem a lot of people were having with the meta and that’s why ArenaNet decided to try to change it up.

It’s not because people just hate damage builds and scoff at them for some unknown reason. It’s because a group of all Berserker’s trivializes what would otherwise be a fun and exciting dungeon/fractals run. It’s just business.

Now we’re at the raid. Who am I going to invite to my group? Well I know a handful of people who are amazing players. They NEVER miss dodging at the perfect time and always use a great rotation of skills. They always pack the most useful situational utilities and several of them (not all) have a couple defensive stats on their armors, to make sure they can take the hits they’re forced to take when their endurance bars are spent.

It’s just too bad my band of really great players never stood a chance. I mean, sure, we could all change into different gear and screw up the builds we LIKE to play for the sake of standing a chance. But is that fun for us? Playing a build we obviously chose not to play? No. It’s not fun.

So many people’s arguments seem to be, “WELL~ If you’re not at 100% then raids aren’t meant for you. You must be ultimate uber top 0.1% players who all have teamspeak or raids aren’t meant for you.” I have news for those people. No one on Earth is ever 100% of what they ever could be. Therefore, it does not require you to be at 100% of your potential. Really really high? Yeah. Absolutely perfect? Impossible to be, therefore no.

I’d consider myself to be in the top very small percentile of really good players, which I attribute to what I said about myself earlier. I have good judgement and strategy skills and good coordination with my hands. But, even as a top-tier player, 10 of me couldn’t beat the raid (well we probably could because even after he enraged none of us would ever be touching any aoes anyway. but you get my point).

ArenaNet needed to make the raid ridiculously hard. I understand that. I WANTED that. I still want that and always will. But an enrage timer was not the way to do it. I keep looking at it like one of my fights and saying…it doesn’t matter how long you take to beat someone. As long as they’re beaten eventually, you win.

I’ll even toss our some friendly suggestions (albeit I’m not a game developer):
- Make his base attack much higher.
- Lower the time the green circles are on the field.
- Give him some extra attacks.
- Make him pulse a small amount of damage at his feet.
- Cause lighted floor panels to erupt periodically, killing anyone on them.
- Cause him to spawn a ton more blue AOEs.

But, for the love of God, please don’t time people. I’ll jump through as many flaming hoops as you’ve setup for me, but I want to jump through them as the build I enjoy playing. I don’t want to jump through them as something I don’t enjoy.

At the end of the day it’s all about fun. Are you having fun? Did you have fun? It’s a game and being a “hardcore” player doesn’t mean you spend 10 hours a day playing GW2. Being hardcore means you operate at a highly advanced level. I can be a hardcore Nomad Druid. Trust me, I am. I play for 2-3 hours a day in the evenings AT MOST.

With this raid, I have a lot of fun. A success for ArenaNet? Yeah! That is, until the timer reaches 00:00 and my fun is over because I chose to try to have fun playing the build I wanted to play in the first place. If I wen’t Berserker’s the fun would be over for me at 08:00.

The raid, to me, is a success because it’s fun and challenging up until the timer runs out and everyone but me dies instantly. Let’s do a little problem solving here. The exact time my fun ran out was the exact time the timer ran out and everyone died, thereby causing me not to be able to step into the green circles alone. It’s the timer.

It’s. The. Timer.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Star Ace.5207:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Star Ace.5207:

Rika.7249:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Rika.7249:

I’m completely fine with Berserker being needed, and Sinister being needed.

I’m not fine with needing to step down from my Herald Zerker, when my group needs condition damage, because Sinister Revenant isn’t viable, compared to Sinister Engineer.

I am fine with zerker.
I am fine with sinister.

I am not fine with 80% of your team must be zerker or sinister. As it is an absolute MUST.

Naturally it’s a must. 80% of your team is there to smack the bosses’ kitten, one’s there to keep everyone alive, and one’s there to mitigate the damage from the boss.

I’m not okay with the fact that your team isn’t necessarily able to actually make it, even WITH zerker/condi gear, simply because some classes are miles behind others.

I like needing to deal the max amount of damage possible, to beat the enrage timer. Hybrid survivability builds should generally be discouraged – which they are. They serve as training wheels, allowing for sloppy play, with a sloppy outcome.

Raids shouldn’t allow for sloppy play.

Sloppy play isn’t tied to gear-the most common false dichotomy and lie spread out throughout the community. Nowhere has ever officially stated that “passive stats” are meant to train you for “pro gear”, as there’s none in the game, unless Viper’s/Berserker’s makes you feel better about yourself, which is fine but no reason to belittle the “lesser” stat combos (in your mind.)

No, it hasn’t been stated, but it’s what makes sense for PvE.
PvE in this game is all about active defense and preventing to take or at least damage by whatever means you have at your disposal with said active defense. I mean why do you think this is an Action-MMO?
Besides, pretty much every content up to now was clearable in any kind of gear, with any kind of traits. It might’ve taken longer, sure, but it was doable.
Raids are meant to be hardcore content, having strict environments and not leaving much space for error while optimizing your efficiency in every way possible – among it, who would’ve thought, dps, along with support and control, because this is the trinity in this game, not dps heal tank. Guess what, support and control work just as nicely in glass-gear.
This isn’t a failure on ANets part, this is a failure on your part recognizing the fact that this is how raids are supposed to be, not a snoozefest where you can sleep your way through.

Personal attack, as expected, along with assumptions. Just disagree if you are going to do that, and move on.

I’m sorry, where do you see a personal attack and assumptions? Please don’t tell me that last part insulted you. lol

Personal attack, as expected, along with assumptions. Just disagree if you are going to do that, and move on. In addition, any post with “lol” is not to be taken seriously in any case. You know what was wrong with the post, and which assumptions were made.

Star Ace.5207:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Star Ace.5207:

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Star Ace.5207:

Rika.7249:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Rika.7249:

I’m completely fine with Berserker being needed, and Sinister being needed.

I’m not fine with needing to step down from my Herald Zerker, when my group needs condition damage, because Sinister Revenant isn’t viable, compared to Sinister Engineer.

I am fine with zerker.
I am fine with sinister.

I am not fine with 80% of your team must be zerker or sinister. As it is an absolute MUST.

Naturally it’s a must. 80% of your team is there to smack the bosses’ kitten, one’s there to keep everyone alive, and one’s there to mitigate the damage from the boss.

I’m not okay with the fact that your team isn’t necessarily able to actually make it, even WITH zerker/condi gear, simply because some classes are miles behind others.

I like needing to deal the max amount of damage possible, to beat the enrage timer. Hybrid survivability builds should generally be discouraged – which they are. They serve as training wheels, allowing for sloppy play, with a sloppy outcome.

Raids shouldn’t allow for sloppy play.

Sloppy play isn’t tied to gear-the most common false dichotomy and lie spread out throughout the community. Nowhere has ever officially stated that “passive stats” are meant to train you for “pro gear”, as there’s none in the game, unless Viper’s/Berserker’s makes you feel better about yourself, which is fine but no reason to belittle the “lesser” stat combos (in your mind.)

No, it hasn’t been stated, but it’s what makes sense for PvE.
PvE in this game is all about active defense and preventing to take or at least damage by whatever means you have at your disposal with said active defense. I mean why do you think this is an Action-MMO?
Besides, pretty much every content up to now was clearable in any kind of gear, with any kind of traits. It might’ve taken longer, sure, but it was doable.
Raids are meant to be hardcore content, having strict environments and not leaving much space for error while optimizing your efficiency in every way possible – among it, who would’ve thought, dps, along with support and control, because this is the trinity in this game, not dps heal tank. Guess what, support and control work just as nicely in glass-gear.
This isn’t a failure on ANets part, this is a failure on your part recognizing the fact that this is how raids are supposed to be, not a snoozefest where you can sleep your way through.

Personal attack, as expected, along with assumptions. Just disagree if you are going to do that, and move on.

I’m sorry, where do you see a personal attack and assumptions? Please don’t tell me that last part insulted you. lol

Personal attack, as expected, along with assumptions. Just disagree if you are going to do that, and move on. In addition, any post with “lol” is not to be taken seriously in any case. You know what was wrong with the post, and which assumptions were made.

Why would I ask if I did? I honestly do not see where I am attacking you personally, except that you might’ve taken the last part as attack.

But sure, go ahead.

I mean… all of everything else aside…

If you could remove the timer, then skilled groups could sell raids. It would be trivial to carry some baddies (have them sit out of the circle). Raids should only be accessible if all players are activly and valueably contributing.

Also… ya know, this is only the first wing, of the first raid… who the heck knows. The next Raid might include a huge AOE dps field that you must be able to facetank for a set period of time while doing mechanics instead of direct damage… at which point zerker is completely useless. That is easy enough to design, I have faith in Anet

Sentinel.5731:

The next Raid might include a huge AOE dps field that you must be able to facetank for a set period of time while doing mechanics instead of direct damage… at which point zerker is completely useless. That is easy enough to design, I have faith in Anet

Is that a fun mechanic? Is it skill testing? Is it good? I’m not convinced whatsoever on any of those points. However, I do agree with you that it is indeed easy enough to design.

1) we have condi-builds definitly viable too now (and even needed)
2) most raid groups have a dedicated healer druid
3) i often see 1 tank with high toughness to get aggro from boss all the time so others can dps easier

so i dont see only zerk being viable anymore

if there is content in PvE that is not only zerk then it is raids

ofc you still need to be rather dmg focused for things like the enraged-timer
but that is just so that people dont just go through the hard content slowly with bunkerbuilds even though they arent really that skilled…

Distaste.4801:

They took a mechanic without knowing why it was created or used and are using it to artificially increase difficulty while in the process are killing the class customization that’s supposed to make them unique. I can’t think of another way to describe that except bad design.

You are supposed to be changing your traits on the fly, based on the encounter, to optimize your chance of success. How are enrage timers killing that off? Gear stats have nothing to do with your character being unique. All your skills have the same functions regardless of what gear stats you have. A heal still heals. A condi attack still applies conditions. A boon/active defense skills still applies that boon/active defense. There is no uniqueness added by wearing self survival gear or stats to increase your healing output. All this is is stubbornness/unwillingness in the face of needing to adapt to the content. You guys were all in when you thought it was only players in zerk gear that would need to adapt….river of tears now that you realize you also need to adapt lol. Its actually pretty funny watching this blow up in your faces. We told you so….well in advance.

Distaste.4801:

The only question you need to ask yourself to determine if the fight is poorly designed or not is to ask this “If there was no enrage timer would the fight be hard?”. If you think the fight would be really easy, then clearly it’s not that well designed. If the fight would still be hard then it’s a well designed fight. This isn’t to say that enrage timers can’t be used to make great encounters, quite the opposite, but they can’t just be slapped on to add difficulty of what would otherwise be a cake walk.

How exactly could it possibly be hard if it allowed face tanking to win? The best they would do if they allowed that would be “tedious” or “annoying”…not “hard”. If face tanking to victory in nomad gear was allowed…the only possible challenging encounters would be some stupid puzzles or mini games…which the general consensus shows us that players really dislike and will not repeat unless they absolutely are forced to (TA aetherpath). That path got abandoned really quickly by so many players once they experienced the mini game/puzzle content. I’m pretty sure ANET does not want raids to be a repeat of that.

bai long.2085:

With this raid, I have a lot of fun. A success for ArenaNet? Yeah! That is, until the timer reaches 00:00 and my fun is over because I chose to try to have fun playing the build I wanted to play in the first place. If I wen’t Berserker’s the fun would be over for me at 08:00.

I’m curious, what buttons would you press differently if the stats on your gear were different? Would you still not heal when necessary? Would you still not block when necessary? Would you not attack at any available opportunity to contribute to reducing enemy hp to zero?

Zerker Meta is dead because an entire team of zerkers isn’t viable. Zerkers is still however needed to do well.

If you want to go Soldiers, Cleric’s, etc please join as a tank or healer. That’s what you are, a tank or healer, not a DPS, your stats make you a tank or healer. Those are not DPS armor sets

If you want to Power DPS you don’t HAVE to go Zerk either. Here are some alternatives for you. However Power, Precision, and Ferocity gear will always be the best at damage, of course, and you need all three to do power dps well.

Zealot (Power, Precision, Healing Power) – If you have another source for Ferocity, IE Mesmer with Mantra, this will run well I think. will probably want to mix in more ferocity with other gear types though, I really don’t recommend this one but it’s an idea.
Valkyrie (Power, Vitality, Ferocity) – Pretty sure Rev’s and Necro’s can pull this one off.
Captain (Precision, Power, Toughness) – Again, you might want to mix this in with gear that provides ferocity.
Assassin’s – This is the same stat allocation as Zerker just with Precision leading… it will probably work fine.
Commander (Power, Precision, Toughness, Concentration) – I wouldn’t quite recommend this unless you’re the tenth member of a party, with 7 other DPS already taken, and if you provide a lot of boons it might be useful. Get ready to struggle without Ferocity.
Marauder (Power, Precision, Vitality, Ferocity) – Tiny trade for some extra hp is good for light armor and medium armor classes I hear, you might like this if you want more survivability.
Viper (Power, Condition Damger, Precision, Expertise) – I love this stat set, find a way to maybe get some ferocity in there I say!

Personally if I was running a group and I asked for DPS those stats would be fine as long as the players know their rotations and buffs well to get what they may be missing. Anything else is not DPS armor, and one should not claim for it to be. Go tank or Healer if you don’t want to run these, or Condi damage as I didn’t cover that at all.

I guess in the end… if you don’t have at least power and either precision or ferocity on some gear, and if none of them are a major stat, it’s not Power DPS gear, don’t claim to be power DPS period.

Tanks: use tank gear and possibly spec defensive traits
Heal/support: Wears healer gear and specs support traits
Condi: Wears condi gear and uses condi traits
DPS: Uses DPS gear and DPS traits

I’m sorry, but a “DPS” player wearing Soldier gear is no “DPS” player at all. If that player wanta to use his Soldier, he can try his luck tanking. It’s more of a defensive gear set after all. I do think that atm the amount of DPS players required to clear the content is a bit overtuned, but I’m not really expecting to see it changed.

What I think Anet wanted to achieve here is to have a multitude of roles to fill for the raids. It’s only natural that the DPS role will be filled with people gearing approprietly. If you want to talk about Anet going around with their words, you could argue about them bringing back Holy Trinity, something they said thry never want to introduce in this game.

Please keep in mind that this game gives us the ability to avoid damage completely with a well timed dodge. Which in itself requires a certain timing and at some mechanics quick reflexes. I would argue that this requires the so called “skill”.

I can’t see how taking gear that reduces the damage you take can base an encounter which actually takes skill to complete. The damage reduction in and by itself trivializes mechanics because you are able to survive them with ease. So to avoid that you would need mechanics which threaten you to get killed. And then you’re back at the same premise as zerkers/condis are now. Which don’t have much room to take damage.

There’s just not much room for failure in raids which in my opinion is a good design system. And as far as I gathered you in fact take people with defenseive stats to kind of manage the aggro, which kind of gives those people a role to fit in.

Billy.1879:

Can anyone tell me of another game were you have defense stats as a DPS? Because I can’t think of one.

That’s why you get a healer yo, to keep out of down state and max out the DPS like your job as a DPS is

This game was never supposed to have healers in the first place!

Hyper Cutter.9376:

Billy.1879:

Can anyone tell me of another game were you have defense stats as a DPS? Because I can’t think of one.

That’s why you get a healer yo, to keep out of down state and max out the DPS like your job as a DPS is

This game was never supposed to have healers in the first place!

No, the trinity wasn’t being forced in the first place. If they didn’t want healers we wouldn’t have had water ele with group heal skills, mesmer with group heal mantra and shatter, engi with medkit, etc. It’s just healing has been subpar until recently.

Norjena.5172:

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.

Ahhhh, that’s the reason why we have the Zerker meta in Dungeons and Fractals, that don’t actually have any enrage timers and next to no dps checks, instead of pure PVT/Healing Guard meta.

In short, your argument makes no sense. If people want to beat the boss with pure Support/Tanky stuff and need 2 hours to do so, let them. But people usually want to beat the boss in 10 minutes instead of 2 hours if that is possible.

You can also create encounters that really need specific set ups and specific execution of said set up. Although I’m afraid that GW2’s skill and combat system lacks the actual capacity/depth to enable such encounter design.

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.

The only way to counter it is to do something like a support guard tank, druid full healer, zerk tempest with defensive utilities, and a support tempest with one damage stat. But all that does is make you die at 10-20 mins instead of wiping at 30 seconds – 5 mins.

Enrage timers are good, this is supposed to be hard content and you have to be a very good player to finish it AND you have to be willing to change your team comp to what is needed, not just what you want to play. Removing timer just lowers the amount of skill needed and is replaced with time needed.

This thread is incredible.

ANet said nothing about wanting to remove Berserker’s as a viable gear stat combination. What they wanted to inhibit was having your entire team be Berserker’s and outright ignore mechanics because content was too easy. They wanted to change the paradigm from “finishing content as fast as possible” to “struggle to finish content at all”. Thus, what they did was create content that was hard enough and damaging enough to force a couple players in a group to think about things from a different angle, and thus you get healers. Cleric’s Healers. The very fact that people are arguing about how necessary healers are indicates that ANet succeeded at doing exactly what they wanted to do: diversify the builds and roles that people are using. Ten days ago no one in their right mind brought Healing Power to instanced PvE content.

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”.

This pretty much sums up all.

To Anet, condition glass cannon spec does not count as zerker lol..

Well yeah, literally the name does not read as zerker that’s true.
But the direction is exactly the same.

Meh, so now we know what Anet actually means.

NikeEU.7690:

Jellytot.9816:

I can bet there are many skilled pvers that cannot get into raids simply cause of the stats of their gear

Name two. 15 characters.

I was having so much fun with me viper warrior, I can do lvl 100 fractal but no one wants a viper warrior in raid so I changed to zerker :<

“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.”
Very true. Somebody just wrote that he did 12-14k dmg every time and 97% after 6 min.. your answer is here above. That’s why a gear check and TS is a must!
( In my opinion, the players who are using other armors, weapons, for example “soldier”, they lack of confidence, that they are not so good, that they can die easy, so they compensate it like this, using soldier armor/weapon. (or something similar)
Those who are not using full berserkers, sinisters or vipers are just wasting the raid groups time.
For example, a full glass Reaper can do 20-28k dmg, sometimes 32k dmg on vale guardian, with greatsword can do 20-22k dmg. DH with Longbow can do 14-18k dmg, with greatsword same, sometimes more with both of them. Do not forget the traps, lots of CC, and lots of DMG with them.

Problem is you are forced for an ‘elite guild’ or a ‘very skilled but friendly’ guild (crazy rare in my opinion, the first one is way more present and is bad).

My guild has some ppl leave, that promised to get back at HoT but didnt, others get sick, ppl that went from pve content to pvp etc. The end resulst is, the best ppl are almost all gone. We are to few to succesfully raid now, while be probably could with the best ppl of our earlier line-up of people.

Anet has given me two choices: Leave this guild (wich i have a lot of friends) and join Elite guild (or that rare ’friendly but skilled), or stay here. Either choice has a huge downside: never succesfully play raids. ( A big selling reason for HoT) or leave a lot of good friends goodbye.

I’m surprised Rising dusk wich is always critical about anet, is so 100% defending raids atm. This time he doesn’t leave even an inch open for discussion that MAYBE anet did some things wrong. Tbh that suprises me. I see only one reason why this could be: he’s (by luck in my opinion) already in an ‘elite pve guild’, has almost, or fully succesfully done a raid, and since he never experienced these issues, and like everyone still agrees raids should be hard, he’s protecting them without question now. Point made: join a full pug group (i know this isn’t intented, but still go ahead an do it rising dusk, I challenge you). I wanna know the amount of hp you killed after 4 mins passed by. Imagine those are your guildies. Choose: leave them in an unfriendly manner, or keep joining them with big chance to fail raids.

That is the issue with raids imo.

If guilds would stop the ‘represent or kick’ thingy it could improve. But now if you are a PvX player, finding correct guild is mission impossible. Not all guild do wvw (and wvw only guilds require represent). Not all guilds do wvw boss (most that do, require represent). Not all guilds do dungeons, fractals, raids. Those who do, most of time require represent. Not all guilds do pvp. Most that do require represent.

I’m a pvx player, and will always be. To be able to do a raid, i will not sacrafice my bonds to people that do wvw, pvp ,etc. And the issue is, Anet is indirectly forcing it on the player base (the guild leader themself also a bit guilty with represent enforcing).

A solution would be alliances.

Pvp guild + fractal guild + wvw guild + raids guild, all in alliance, you represent one, but can join any of their chats/events without the ‘represent or kick’ issue.

Mind you i was for 3 years in two guilds, that were very open and never did ‘represent or kick’. Suddenly HoT came and they both kicked me. The reason was: ‘sorry but HoT kinda forces our hand, we need more serious people these days’. This is where Anet is at fault.

No guild = no ts. No ts/guild = no raid. No raid = frustration. Rising Dusk/Anet clearly don’t see this issue.

Or you find a guild which runs raids with you but accepts that you’re only there for raids – There are also lfg-guilds for people who want to raid but their own guild/friends aren’t up for it/you’re lacking people etc.

If you really want to run raids, you can find a way without giving up your friends/guild. There is also enough guilds with focus on one gametype which are friendly and don’t mind you repping other guilds for wvw/pvp activities, this might be more to your liking instead of going into one large guild which covers all.

Lilith.2541:

NikeEU.7690:

Jellytot.9816:

I can bet there are many skilled pvers that cannot get into raids simply cause of the stats of their gear

Name two. 15 characters.

I was having so much fun with me viper warrior, I can do lvl 100 fractal but no one wants a viper warrior in raid so I changed to zerker :<

Oh I dunno about that. If you go to my youtube and watch our Gorseval kill I think the community is going to come around to Viper Warrior pretty quickly. =)

https://youtu.be/QdthSNbkaJU