Guild Wars 2

For some reason Anet thinks changing the zerk meta will change pve for some reason when I don’t think thats really the problem. I think the problem is Anet has many poorly designed dungeons and AI, its almost always the AI, that are stupid enough to stand in a corner and get bursted by zerker builds. The thing about Zerk is when you combined Zerk with poor game design, it creates embarrassingly poor, perhaps the worst PVE ever seen in an MMO. A lot of people take advantage of the fact that dungeons are either so easy or so easily exploited with corner stacking that playing a Zerk meta is punished no differently than a non-zerk average dps build.

I decided to attempt to solo some fractals(+40) recently and realized you can’t really corner stack except in a few instances where you could bug the boss(even though I chose not too). In some instances, the only way to kill the boss reasonably is by running a Zerker build and being extremely pro with your positioning and timing. In that situation, there really is nothing wrong with Zerker at all, its actually respectable if you can pull it off, since you choose to have extremely high dps yet take the risk of very low survivability.

This reminds me a lot of dark souls. The easiest roles to play are easiest because of their survivability aka tankiness. Playing the more difficult, lighter armor classes is more punishing even though you have access to nicer DPS.

The truth is, if the majority of mobs and bosses in dungeons couldn’t be skipped/bugged/stacked in a corner/or just had more mechanics than standing in one place and casting a knockdown every 10 seconds, the zerk meta may not exist because it would be too hard to play. It would require people to time their dodges too well and position them self more cleverly.

This is simply my insight after hearing a lot about zerk metas and Anet nerfing them and doing fractals more frequently lately.

The Zerk meta in PvE is simply because of the lack of a good AI. Image an enemy, that switches randomly between different AI’s. He also has endurance and dodges every skill if he can. The enemy will use blocks and riposte, won’t oneshot you, but will be a bit more unpredictable. The reason why ppl normally don’t use zerker in WvW is that the enemy is unpredictable compared to PvE. This way range combat gets a buff, rangers ger more viable again since they can be zerker, while others can’t anymore. CC gets more important and heals / survivability > might stacks.

I keep hearing people say: GW2 has bad AI. But I have no idea what people mean by that. Do you mean the variety of abilities that a enemy has? Cause that’s not AI. Do you mean stacking? Since that seem more to be a dungeon design issue than an AI issue.
Really I’d like to add to the conversation but I think the vocabulary needs some refinement.

CureForLiving.5360:

I keep hearing people say: GW2 has bad AI. But I have no idea what people mean by that. Do you mean the variety of abilities that a enemy has? Cause that’s not AI. Do you mean stacking? Since that seem more to be a dungeon design issue than an AI issue.
Really I’d like to add to the conversation but I think the vocabulary needs some refinement.

You are up to something. It is hard to call what we see in GW2 AI. I think people talk about the scripting.

CureForLiving.5360:

I keep hearing people say: GW2 has bad AI. But I have no idea what people mean by that. Do you mean the variety of abilities that a enemy has? Cause that’s not AI. Do you mean stacking? Since that seem more to be a dungeon design issue than an AI issue.
Really I’d like to add to the conversation but I think the vocabulary needs some refinement.

If the enemy has no challenging abilities Id think that is just poor mechanics and not AI. I think that the AI getting stuck in a corner which eventually contributes to extremely high and quick dps from the players without punishment, id think thats bad AI and bad game mechanics. Bad AI because they should be able to move out of this corner(even though I could see this being more difficult than it sounds to do as a dev) and bad mechanics because even if you can’t counter this with AI, you can give mobs more powerful abilities to counter this. If Anet made it so mobs stacked in a corner or stacked really tightly against anywall, had much higher outgoing damage, and much higher defense, buffing each other, there is no way anyone would do that. Its a much easier change to make, compared to nerfing zerk with ferocity. I don’t understand if Anet is nerfing zerk by taking this approach(Which I think is a lazy approach) or they are nerfing zerk to affect areas of spvp as well.

Because buffing AI’s HP will make them better AI.

noobgood.8762:

Because buffing AI’s HP will make them better AI.

I said that buffing AI in certain instances(like if they are pinned between a wall or next to multiple enemies) would be a replacement compared to making AI able to avoid corner stacking situation which seems like an endeavor for the devs. One way or another, corner stacking is probably at the very very core of whats ruined PVE and made berserker builds extremely prevalent, because once a mob is in a corner, for the most part, youve won when you run a berserker build.

Who remembers Shiro in GW1? Yeah. 2006 AI, now 8 years later, Arena Net still can’t achieve that.

GW1 was a all instance game. Meaning that ANet had a much wider CPU budget to work with. They knew exactly how much computing time characters could generate with their abilities, and so could cram the AI on top by tweaking the mob count. End result, fewer but smarter mobs.

“GW1 was a all instance game”

And why are the bosses in dungeons sooooooo lame? They’re instances, amirite?

If we keep talking about gw1 some moderator is going to shut down my thread lol. So lets just talk about why gw2 instances don’t seem up to par.

I think one problem is that we haven’t had any new dungeons in the history of gw2 besides fotm and TA aether if you want to say that but most of the instances were created back during the beginning of middle of the LS. This was a time(especially during the beginning of the game) where perhaps Anet didn’t know how the community would react to the difficulty of the current dungeons. After 18 months I think Anet has a pretty good idea of whats going on and the skill level of their community. I think by now they should have learned much more about dungeon design. Looking at TA path one, I really enjoy it because it is more difficult and I don’t know of any bosses there that I think are particularily poor besides the Charr chief guy who doesn’t really do much and still feels like a tank n’ spank fight. The first duo boss is really cool, the mechanics are fun, but its extremely easy once you get it down, I don’t think they can be corner stacked either(gj anet). The last boss can be difficult because of the watchwork gears sitting all over the place, and if you kill the hologram too soon you are kind of screwed. Its nothing insane though, just more difficult than other dungeon paths we see in gw2. I really hope to see more dungeons or dungeon paths this year!

Logic disconnect:
“haven’t had any new dungeons in the history of gw2 besides fotm”.
Rest of text talks about TA Aether.

DigitalKirin.9714:

Logic disconnect:
“haven’t had any new dungeons in the history of gw2 besides fotm”.
Rest of text talks about TA Aether.

lol ye sorry my fault.

not sure we need more gimmicky mechanix like the new TA path.

we need the existing bosses to react to players..
using boons and blocks.
players are stacking? use cleaves and/or blowout.
players use LOS? use AOE.
players reach certain amount of condition variety /condition stacks? use cleanses.
players use 100b, pistolwhip, FGS ? use block.

Lalangamena.3694:

not sure we need more gimmicky mechanix like the new TA path.

we need the existing bosses to react to players..
using boons and blocks.
players are stacking? use cleaves and/or blowout.
players use LOS? use AOE.
players reach certain amount of condition variety /condition stacks? use cleanses.
players use 100b, pistolwhip, FGS ? use block.

Im not saying they should all be like TA aether but I just liked that path because it was refreshing from other dungeons. And I agree with you on the AI changes. I perosnally think this should be done for almost all the mobs in the game right now. Almost as base mechanics that apply to enemies, because these are all simple maneuvers to pull off. Blocking/aoe/cleave.

- berserker meta is a speedrun meta, not overall dungeon meta
- there’s more speedruns because there is no new content to beat. It gets easier on your 50th run you know, not to mention there’s nothing else to aim for than efficiency without new content
- you can’t balance dungeons around experienced people only. There are new players who have trouble beating the same dungeons we run in 5 minutes.
- ease of running a dungeon depends on the class you play, your team and your personal skill. I find meleeing stuff significantly easier with my mesmer/war than with my thief (on d/d) or LH ele when I PUG. Some classes simply have it easier than others by default.
- stacking requiring no strategy is a misconception. Stacking is a strategy that doesn’t work without specific skills and team setup. Try running cliffside 2nd seal (the fire ring one) by stacking on the far side without a thief or guardian to keep blinding the enemies and you will find out that it doesn’t turn out that well. Or fighting groups of dredge without reflects ect.
- I fail to see how holy trinity dungeon running from other games requires any more effort or skill than running a proper speedrun in gw2. I’ve played Lineage 2, WoW and several other MMOs and it all came down to paying attention to what you should be doing rather than skill. Although there is less variety in the employment of strategies in gw2, the amount itself is not any lower.

Why do I get the feeling that everybody who comes to complain on these forums about berserker gear is some godly entity who has reached the enlightened state in this game where he can effortlessly breeze through any dungeon no matter which party they end up with just by stacking in any random corner and spamming their auto attack. It seems more likely to me that those same people have simply grown tired of the game and are looking for something completely different, yet don’t feel like grinding their way through another MMO. Am I the only noob on this forum who still runs into problems from time to time? Am I the only one who dies here and there when they make a mistake? Am I the only one who thinks that berserker is not nearly as forgiving as these threads might imply? It could all come down to me just being horrible, but what does that make the sizable rest of this game’s population who don’t do as well as I do?

I agree that we need some improvements in the enemy design and I think ANet is realizing it and starting to fix it.

The main problem is, like you said, that Zerker is (almost) always the best solution for everything. People have found ways to fight any enemy safely, or just skip it entirely.

The nerf of the Berserker’s stats is most likely the first step to solving this issue.
Also, if you notice, there HAVE been bosses that are a counter to this problem. The best example is the Mai Trin fight. You can’t stack to beat her, or gain the advantage in any way. You basically have to fight her like intended. The only exception is stealthing through the cannon phase, but oh well.

What’s REALLY annoying is hearing people say “this dungeon’s easy/this fight is boring” when they’re just casually using stacking and skipping tactics.

Nick.6972:

Who remembers Shiro in GW1? Yeah. 2006 AI, now 8 years later, Arena Net still can’t achieve that.

Did it even have any AI or just powerful skills?

Silferas.3841:

- berserker meta is a speedrun meta, not overall dungeon meta
- there’s more speedruns because there is no new content to beat. It gets easier on your 50th run you know, not to mention there’s nothing else to aim for than efficiency without new content
- you can’t balance dungeons around experienced people only. There are new players who have trouble beating the same dungeons we run in 5 minutes.
- ease of running a dungeon depends on the class you play, your team and your personal skill. I find meleeing stuff significantly easier with my mesmer/war than with my thief (on d/d) or LH ele when I PUG. Some classes simply have it easier than others by default.
- stacking requiring no strategy is a misconception. Stacking is a strategy that doesn’t work without specific skills and team setup. Try running cliffside 2nd seal (the fire ring one) by stacking on the far side without a thief or guardian to keep blinding the enemies and you will find out that it doesn’t turn out that well. Or fighting groups of dredge without reflects ect.
- I fail to see how holy trinity dungeon running from other games requires any more effort or skill than running a proper speedrun in gw2. I’ve played Lineage 2, WoW and several other MMOs and it all came down to paying attention to what you should be doing rather than skill. Although there is less variety in the employment of strategies in gw2, the amount itself is not any lower.

Why do I get the feeling that everybody who comes to complain on these forums about berserker gear is some godly entity who has reached the enlightened state in this game where he can effortlessly breeze through any dungeon no matter which party they end up with just by stacking in any random corner and spamming their auto attack. It seems more likely to me that those same people have simply grown tired of the game and are looking for something completely different, yet don’t feel like grinding their way through another MMO. Am I the only noob on this forum who still runs into problems from time to time? Am I the only one who dies here and there when they make a mistake? Am I the only one who thinks that berserker is not nearly as forgiving as these threads might imply? It could all come down to me just being horrible, but what does that make the sizable rest of this game’s population who don’t do as well as I do?

It doesn’t even have to do with speedruns. The runs happen to be fast yes but thats simply because of the zerk+poormechanics/ai/design in general. The majority of players go into fractals or dungeons just to get it done, meaning they want to get it done the most efficent way possible. This just happens to be combining zerker meta’s with the exploitation of stupid AI that allows them to clear mobs and bosses extremely quickly, or just skip the mobs all together. This is the problem. It gives no other reason to use anything but zerker. There are very few boss fights in this game that actually punish zerker. One would be shaman, because you can’t bug it, LOS it, corner stack, or all 3. Doing shaman on low levels is easy but on 49-50 its not with zerker builds. Its a good fight because it pressures people indivudually to dodge and have the correct positioning. If you don’t do either of these things you are likely going to get 2 hit, and when the mobs come up.

Correct me if i;m wrong but the term “Meta” in the context of gaming means the most optimal/best right? it is not about how many people adapt the build or strategy, it’s about the ideal best.

So if less people do not use the meta, yet it is still the best in the hands of good gamers, then the meta stays the same.

Btw if you create a dark souls type feel and difficulty to the bosses (which im all for it), the meta will still be full zerk and nothing will change except more casuals complaining about difficulty.

—april 25 ds2 PC here i come lol

Axelwarrior.9084:

The best example is the Mai Trin fight. You can’t stack to beat her, or gain the advantage in any way.

Can stack on her just fine. And you gain the advantage of not having to kite into the lightning fields.

edit:

Doing shaman on low levels is easy but on 49-50 its not with zerker builds.

sigh

Wethospu.6437:

Nick.6972:

Who remembers Shiro in GW1? Yeah. 2006 AI, now 8 years later, Arena Net still can’t achieve that.

Did it even have any AI or just powerful skills?

just powerful spam of skill rotations, AI wasn’t really there since gw1 was never an action-like game

Challenge accepted.

I’ll do a series of “stack here, stack there, zerker, 1111111”-runs and see what bosses we can beat.

AI translates to “artificial intelligence.”

The mobs are idiotic and extremely predictable.

Bread.7516:

Correct me if i;m wrong but the term “Meta” in the context of gaming means the most optimal/best right? it is not about how many people adapt the build or strategy, it’s about the ideal best.

So if less people do not use the meta, yet it is still the best in the hands of good gamers, then the meta stays the same.

Btw if you create a dark souls type feel and difficulty to the bosses (which im all for it), the meta will still be full zerk and nothing will change except more casuals complaining about difficulty.

—april 25 ds2 PC here i come lol

It wouldn’t. Zerk is optimal now because its the fastest way to get through dungeons, but mainly because of the bad design, poor mechanics, and certain holes in the game design(like corner stacking). If that was gone then zerk wouldn’t be optimal because it would be too difficult. The thing is there is nothing difficult baout running zerk now hen you can skip mobs or corner stack them in dungeons.

@SkylightMoon: if you dislike the way dungeons are run, why not join a non-skipping no-stacking guild? If you dislike running dungeons in zerker gear, why not use something you like and join a “play how you want” group? If you lack challenge, why not go fractal 50, or do arah without skipping, or solo some dungeons? Why does it have to be, that you demand that the way the rest of us like to play this game has to be taken from us. Why do you demand that we play the way you do, when none of us are forcing you to play how we do? I have yet to hear of a speedrunner who would demand, that conditions should stop working on bosses, and that ranged damage should be reflected back to it’s caster past 300 range mark, or that support skill range should be reduced, so that the guy ranging the boss doesn’t get any boons even by accident. We don’t care how others play their game, we just want to play it our way. The fact that it’s the most efficient way is on purpose, since that’s the whole point of building and running dungeons the way we do. Remember that this is a game, people don’t play it when they don’t enjoy it. If the meta were to change, the top people would find a way to do dungeons in the most efficient way, and the rest of us would learn from them and follow. That is as long as we still found it fun to play, and as long as we were willing to put up with the grind that has been introduced into gw2 as of late.

There is no point in making the content we have right now harder. ANet either needs to redesign dungeons completely, or better, come up with new dungeon content.

SkylightMoon.1980:

Bread.7516:

Correct me if i;m wrong but the term “Meta” in the context of gaming means the most optimal/best right? it is not about how many people adapt the build or strategy, it’s about the ideal best.

So if less people do not use the meta, yet it is still the best in the hands of good gamers, then the meta stays the same.

Btw if you create a dark souls type feel and difficulty to the bosses (which im all for it), the meta will still be full zerk and nothing will change except more casuals complaining about difficulty.

—april 25 ds2 PC here i come lol

It wouldn’t. Zerk is optimal now because its the fastest way to get through dungeons, but mainly because of the bad design, poor mechanics, and certain holes in the game design(like corner stacking). If that was gone then zerk wouldn’t be optimal because it would be too difficult. The thing is there is nothing difficult baout running zerk now hen you can skip mobs or corner stack them in dungeons.

It’s not that difficult to run zerk even if you don;t corner LoS or skip.

Stacking is just full melee, people still need to dodge block reflect etc.

Being able to run 5 zerks – there is nothing wrong with that. From the point of view of a dark souls player (or any legit action game player) there REALLY isn’t anything wrong with that unless one is a crappy DS player.

Only thing i agree on is AI overhaul for more interesting bosses, 5-man zerk should still be as effective.

Bread.7516:

SkylightMoon.1980:

Bread.7516:

Correct me if i;m wrong but the term “Meta” in the context of gaming means the most optimal/best right? it is not about how many people adapt the build or strategy, it’s about the ideal best.

So if less people do not use the meta, yet it is still the best in the hands of good gamers, then the meta stays the same.

Btw if you create a dark souls type feel and difficulty to the bosses (which im all for it), the meta will still be full zerk and nothing will change except more casuals complaining about difficulty.

—april 25 ds2 PC here i come lol

It wouldn’t. Zerk is optimal now because its the fastest way to get through dungeons, but mainly because of the bad design, poor mechanics, and certain holes in the game design(like corner stacking). If that was gone then zerk wouldn’t be optimal because it would be too difficult. The thing is there is nothing difficult baout running zerk now hen you can skip mobs or corner stack them in dungeons.

It’s not that difficult to run zerk even if you don;t corner LoS or skip.

Stacking is just full melee, people still need to dodge block reflect etc.

Being able to run 5 zerks – there is nothing wrong with that. From the point of view of a dark souls player (or any legit action game player) there REALLY isn’t anything wrong with that unless one is a crappy DS player.

Only thing i agree on is AI overhaul for more interesting bosses, 5-man zerk should still be as effective.

Most effective? Maybe, but not nearly as easy. Zerk for having very high dps by forcing the player to be more skilled on timing their skills, positioning, and dodges.

SkylightMoon.1980:

Most effective? Maybe, but not nearly as easy. Zerk for having very high dps by forcing the player to be more skilled on timing their skills, positioning, and dodges.

Well yeah, that’s what i’m saying. If it stays as the ideal most effective then it will still be the meta, just less players who can handle it or stay effective wearing it.

But there poses a problem, within the whole time gw2 has been released – i doubt Anet knows how to make action-like bosses. They’ll probably just mess with stats of bosses employ the same formula and jay wilson it (lol), or worse…more gimmicks.

Insert unblockables, non-projectile classified actual projectiles, moves you can even use invul. feel free to add to the wall of shame. Note to devs: if you wan;t to make something unblockable, make sure it’s intuitive that you cant block it.

Basically, given anet’s track record I THINK most dungeon vets are skeptical if there is a current change to dungeons. If you can’t do it right, leave it alone.

…they have no dungeon team, and they have HR issues. (spread too thin)

I was laughing my butt off on the Shiro comparison. Shiro was a chump that could be soloed. In fact he even killed himself if you were playing the right skills, almost no challenge ect. Now if you tried to do it “legit” you got punished by party members being exiled and replaced with mobs, his overpowered attack that he spammed when he was worn down, and the general bs that his skill rotation included.

As for the topic: nothing wrong with zerker gear. Its a full dps set meant for advanced players. A newly minted level 80 is going to struggle in dungeons with zerk if they think they can just join a group and stand in the corning spamming skills on cooldown. Once you know what to do and how to avoid damage, why would you waste time on useless excess vitality and toughness?

Another comparison to GW1, while that game technically had a trinity, a common speed clearing tactic was to ball up the mobs, often using body blocks, then spiking the best damage rotation to wipe the entire group. Sounds like using LoS corners and zerk skill rotations to me. Hell its even harder to do that in GW2 since there is a limit to how many enemies your skills can affect (cleave and AoE target limit).

You are forgetting the part where GW1 HM AI would scatter from AoE or if they took high amounts of damage too fast. Or how enemies would focus certain targets like monks, and often would lock onto the lowest health player regardless of who went in first.

SkylightMoon.1980:

1) The Shaman on 49-50, i want to have a full DPS team there to kill the grubs as fast as possible and not getting overrun by them. Most people that did level 79-80 use to run DPS build there too. So your point is false.

2) You say the shaman is a good fight because it push people to dodge? That exactly what the full DPS build do. You can’t survive if you don’t dodge at the right time and manage well enough your endurance, block, evade, etc.

3) Cornerstack, FGS, bug etc. All those help, but even if they would not exist anymore, full DPS would still be better.

4) The game punish full DPS build. Its hard to play full DPS, why people are always saying its so easy. Its easy if you have the skill and the knowledge of what you are doing. But its harder than any other build. When me and my friend play with our tankier toons, we have no problem at all, we don’t really need to pay attention and complete all content with ease. But when you go full DPS (the party as a whole, where nobody is there to revive you if you make a mistake) then its whole new situation. I really wonder how many of these people really tried a full DPS team (not full zerker, full DPS) in another path than CoF path 1 and still complain in the forum how its so easy.

I see people using the words bad design, poorly designed AI and flawed mechanics so much that it makes me believe that most of them have no idea what constitutes a good or bad AI/Mechanic.

It’s easy to say do this or do that, but so far most of the ideas I’ve read from these people are biased against the berserker meta, which makes it evident that (consciously or not) rather than wanting to improve the game, their goal is to make pure damage builds completely un-viable/impractical. All these factor makes it hard for me to take them seriously, and I’m positive that this opinion is not solely mine.

SkylightMoon.1980:

Bread.7516:

SkylightMoon.1980:

Bread.7516:

Correct me if i;m wrong but the term “Meta” in the context of gaming means the most optimal/best right? it is not about how many people adapt the build or strategy, it’s about the ideal best.

So if less people do not use the meta, yet it is still the best in the hands of good gamers, then the meta stays the same.

Btw if you create a dark souls type feel and difficulty to the bosses (which im all for it), the meta will still be full zerk and nothing will change except more casuals complaining about difficulty.

—april 25 ds2 PC here i come lol

It wouldn’t. Zerk is optimal now because its the fastest way to get through dungeons, but mainly because of the bad design, poor mechanics, and certain holes in the game design(like corner stacking). If that was gone then zerk wouldn’t be optimal because it would be too difficult. The thing is there is nothing difficult baout running zerk now hen you can skip mobs or corner stack them in dungeons.

It’s not that difficult to run zerk even if you don;t corner LoS or skip.

Stacking is just full melee, people still need to dodge block reflect etc.

Being able to run 5 zerks – there is nothing wrong with that. From the point of view of a dark souls player (or any legit action game player) there REALLY isn’t anything wrong with that unless one is a crappy DS player.

Only thing i agree on is AI overhaul for more interesting bosses, 5-man zerk should still be as effective.

Most effective? Maybe, but not nearly as easy. Zerk for having very high dps by forcing the player to be more skilled on timing their skills, positioning, and dodges.

Easy? Tanky sets are the easy ones. Haven’t you seen the vids of Clerics tanking Alpha or running full Arah paths without dodging? Zerkers can’t do that, they have to use active mitigation to avoid damage. You’re watching speed runs, seeing big numbers and things dying fast and not realizing there’s more going on than that. It’s insanely easy for Clerics to finish any dungeon. Zerker will finish it faster obviously, but they have to work for it.

Thaddeus.4891:

SkylightMoon.1980:

1) The Shaman on 49-50, i want to have a full DPS team there to kill the grubs as fast as possible and not getting overrun by them. Most people that did level 79-80 use to run DPS build there too. So your point is false.

2) You say the shaman is a good fight because it push people to dodge? That exactly what the full DPS build do. You can’t survive if you don’t dodge at the right time and manage well enough your endurance, block, evade, etc.

3) Cornerstack, FGS, bug etc. All those help, but even if they would not exist anymore, full DPS would still be better.

4) The game punish full DPS build. Its hard to play full DPS, why people are always saying its so easy. Its easy if you have the skill and the knowledge of what you are doing. But its harder than any other build. When me and my friend play with our tankier toons, we have no problem at all, we don’t really need to pay attention and complete all content with ease. But when you go full DPS (the party as a whole, where nobody is there to revive you if you make a mistake) then its whole new situation. I really wonder how many of these people really tried a full DPS team (not full zerker, full DPS) in another path than CoF path 1 and still complain in the forum how its so easy.

In response to your third comment, of course it would still be better but significantly less popular because right now its a technique that gets you through most of the pve instances in this game. Clearing most of the mobs in dungeons/fractals comes through this method which just leaves you which a boss. For the most part, if you run a full zerker party with 25 stacks of might, 25 stacks of vulnerability, and 2 eles with fgs, and timewarp, you can pretty much kill the boss in 5-10 seconds. Anet has said stuff like this is just clever game mechanics at work. The first problem with this is that you literally have to toggle an option in the games menu to get like 1000% more dps from the fgs, thats laughable in the first place. Secondly, getting 25 might, 25 vulnerabiliity, isn’t super hard to do, which is why all together killing the bosses and mobs is pretty easy.

laharl.8435:

SkylightMoon.1980:

Bread.7516:

SkylightMoon.1980:

Bread.7516:

Correct me if i;m wrong but the term “Meta” in the context of gaming means the most optimal/best right? it is not about how many people adapt the build or strategy, it’s about the ideal best.

So if less people do not use the meta, yet it is still the best in the hands of good gamers, then the meta stays the same.

Btw if you create a dark souls type feel and difficulty to the bosses (which im all for it), the meta will still be full zerk and nothing will change except more casuals complaining about difficulty.

—april 25 ds2 PC here i come lol

It wouldn’t. Zerk is optimal now because its the fastest way to get through dungeons, but mainly because of the bad design, poor mechanics, and certain holes in the game design(like corner stacking). If that was gone then zerk wouldn’t be optimal because it would be too difficult. The thing is there is nothing difficult baout running zerk now hen you can skip mobs or corner stack them in dungeons.

It’s not that difficult to run zerk even if you don;t corner LoS or skip.

Stacking is just full melee, people still need to dodge block reflect etc.

Being able to run 5 zerks – there is nothing wrong with that. From the point of view of a dark souls player (or any legit action game player) there REALLY isn’t anything wrong with that unless one is a crappy DS player.

Only thing i agree on is AI overhaul for more interesting bosses, 5-man zerk should still be as effective.

Most effective? Maybe, but not nearly as easy. Zerk for having very high dps by forcing the player to be more skilled on timing their skills, positioning, and dodges.

Easy? Tanky sets are the easy ones. Haven’t you seen the vids of Clerics tanking Alpha or running full Arah paths without dodging? Zerkers can’t do that, they have to use active mitigation to avoid damage. You’re watching speed runs, seeing big numbers and things dying fast and not realizing there’s more going on than that. It’s insanely easy for Clerics to finish any dungeon. Zerker will finish it faster obviously, but they have to work for it.

Tanky sets are obviously easier, they also take longer. However for most instances, not all, but most, there is reason to use them because they are not put at any less risk than melee when people are exploiting it. I call LOSing exploiting and I also think corner-stacking lies somewhere between exploiting and bad game design, its kind of a hole in the game id say. A hole that gw2 pve is fallin down for the time being.

LoS in pvp is called a counterplay and in pve an exploit.

Anyone who thinks line of sight is an exploit is not worth listening to. Line of sight was intentionally put into this game by the devs as an intentional way to avoid ranged damage. They specifically designed projectiles not to go through walls unlike certain other games. It is a 100% ANet dev & designer endorsed strategy for dealing with ranged attacks.

You have no clue what the word exploit means. Kindly stop using it & spreading misinformation. Thanks.

wolfpaq.7354:

Anyone who thinks line of sight is an exploit is not worth listening to. Line of sight was intentionally put into this game by the devs as an intentional way to avoid ranged damage. They specifically designed projectiles not to go through walls unlike certain other games. It is a 100% ANet dev & designer endorsed strategy for dealing with ranged attacks.

You have no clue what the word exploit means. Kindly stop using it & spreading misinformation. Thanks.

So very much this. LOSing has been a tactic in games for over a decade and suddenly it’s exploiting? please…

FenrirSlakt.3692:

I see people using the words bad design, poorly designed AI and flawed mechanics so much that it makes me believe that most of them have no idea what constitutes a good or bad AI/Mechanic.

What is a good AI?

Suppose you put a group of skilled human players in control of a group of enemies. What strategy and tactics would they use? If an AI can somewhat replicate that, I would call that good AI.

Would human players run to stack in one spot like idiots when they can’t LOS the target? What if instead, a mob, when it saw you stacking behind LOS, forms a tactically sound position and tries to lock down and nuke the ball of players?

Human players would attack more often, dodge, use their skills more intelligently (e.g., not wasting CC skills on targets with stability or blocking), scatter from AOE, choose targets more intelligently (e.g, everyone switches targets to CC and burst down a weakened player).

Personally I think the game should be more twitchy.

I also think making the mobs more trinity-like would be useful. Suppose some mobs had strong healers, their healing and damage mitigation being so strong that you must CC and/or burst them down before you can kill the rest of the enemies. These healers would constantly kite you as well.

If you try to target the healers, the rest of the enemies will switch focus to you and slam you with CC, debuffs, and nukes.

That would be a more interesting type of fight.

But… my favorite youtuber said it breaks game mechanics…

wolfpaq.7354:

Anyone who thinks line of sight is an exploit is not worth listening to. Line of sight was intentionally put into this game by the devs as an intentional way to avoid ranged damage. They specifically designed projectiles not to go through walls unlike certain other games. It is a 100% ANet dev & designer endorsed strategy for dealing with ranged attacks.

You have no clue what the word exploit means. Kindly stop using it & spreading misinformation. Thanks.

To amend this, when used as noun discribes finding an unintended bug in a game’s coding to achieve unusual results. A good example of this was the infinite items glitch in pokemon. The act of LoSing as a tactic that exploits (the verb) the terrain to gain a positional advantage over the mobs. It’s no different from trench warfare. (Arguably equally glamourous as well) Even though the LoSing exploits (verb) the terrain, it is not in an unintentional fashion, thus the tactic is not an Exploit (Noun).

All that said, that is not to say there isn’t a problem, it’s just this problem isn’t player created. The true problem is the simplistic nature of the game’s combat AI. Traditionally the counter to LoSing, even in the real world, is flanking, kiting or digging in and waiting, or sieging and waiting. Mob AI in this game is so simplistic it can’t comprehend any of these, as such, LoSing is disproportionately effective.

voidwater.2064:

FenrirSlakt.3692:

I see people using the words bad design, poorly designed AI and flawed mechanics so much that it makes me believe that most of them have no idea what constitutes a good or bad AI/Mechanic.

What is a good AI?

Suppose you put a group of skilled human players in control of a group of enemies. What strategy and tactics would they use? If an AI can somewhat replicate that, I would call that good AI.

Would human players run to stack in one spot like idiots when they can’t LOS the target? What if instead, a mob, when it saw you stacking behind LOS, forms a tactically sound position around the players and tries to lock down and nuke the ball of players?

Human players would attack more often, dodge, use their skills more intelligently (e.g., not wasting CC skills on targets with stability or blocking), scatter from AOE, choose targets more intelligently (e.g, everyone switches targets to CC and burst down a weakened player).

Personally I think the game should be more twitchy.

I also think making the mobs more trinity-like would be useful. Suppose some mobs had strong healers, their healing and damage mitigation being so strong that you must CC and/or burst them down before you can kill the rest of the enemies. These healers would constantly kite you as well.

If you try to target the healers, the rest of the enemies will switch focus to you and slam you with CC, debuffs, and nukes.

That would be a more interesting type of fight.

They could even have these healer type enemies run from players, and only target allies. They’d be “must kill” targets so the players would have to break from thier cover to engage them. (That or bursty assassin classes like thieves would become highly desired)

RemiRome.8495:

Axelwarrior.9084:

The best example is the Mai Trin fight. You can’t stack to beat her, or gain the advantage in any way.

Can stack on her just fine. And you gain the advantage of not having to kite into the lightning fields.

So you’re telling me you can lure her to a corner, have her sit still and still continue DPSing her while taking all her attacks, lightning fields and cannonballs without the need to dodge?

Yes.
But it’s hard to find team who is confident or believes it will work.

Strange. I never knew stacking meant “pull to corner, don’t dodge, eat all attacks”. If so, then I guess I’ve never stacked!

voidwater.2064:

FenrirSlakt.3692:

I see people using the words bad design, poorly designed AI and flawed mechanics so much that it makes me believe that most of them have no idea what constitutes a good or bad AI/Mechanic.

What is a good AI?

Suppose you put a group of skilled human players in control of a group of enemies. What strategy and tactics would they use? If an AI can somewhat replicate that, I would call that good AI.

Would human players run to stack in one spot like idiots when they can’t LOS the target? What if instead, a mob, when it saw you stacking behind LOS, forms a tactically sound position and tries to lock down and nuke the ball of players?

Human players would attack more often, dodge, use their skills more intelligently (e.g., not wasting CC skills on targets with stability or blocking), scatter from AOE, choose targets more intelligently (e.g, everyone switches targets to CC and burst down a weakened player).

Personally I think the game should be more twitchy.

I also think making the mobs more trinity-like would be useful. Suppose some mobs had strong healers, their healing and damage mitigation being so strong that you must CC and/or burst them down before you can kill the rest of the enemies. These healers would constantly kite you as well.

If you try to target the healers, the rest of the enemies will switch focus to you and slam you with CC, debuffs, and nukes.

That would be a more interesting type of fight.

Considering that you (and I) know nothing or very little of this game’s engine, everything you said is just wishful thinking. Very few people actually know what technical limitations keep ANET from designing more dynamic AIs.
It is a known fact that the more complex something becomes, the more prone it comes to break or in this case, glitch.

Also, tech limitations aside, let’s talk about the limitations of the average player. Let’s suppose that ANET managed to create more intelligent AI and bosses with more challenging mechanics that can actually put players in uncomfortable positions without glitches or bugs.. How long do you think it will take before these forums explode with complaints from mediocre/lazy/unskilled players? Most of the “Elitists” would once again adapt and steamroll through content as they do today, and considering that content would actually require far better mechanical/cognitive skills, they would be granted an actual legit reason to kick casuals from their runs.
In short, you’d have the exact same situation we have these days, except that more people would whine about it, and mind you, we have a ton of whiners already.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all in for a challenge, but I don’t think it should be proposed by people who haven’t ran anything that’s not CoF/AC/CM.
Most of the people that complain here are simply clueless.

if you are telling me stacking in corner is explot, consider full cleric party, facetanking everything without any scratch, an exploit too. ;p

Regarding the AI talk: although far from perfect, dredges are probably the best we have in terms of AI…

Good variety of ranged and melee damage
Group buffing, including protection
Good CC
Ranged mobs have defenses if engaged in melee (bombers run, oscillators and resonators use CC)
Add spawning mechanism through the mining suit
Immunity to one of, if not the most powerful condition for PvE

…and yet, they’re still considered by many as the worst and most hated type of enemy in the game. I understand things like fractal’s clown car gives them a bad reputation, but I also saw people complaining about them back in the molten facility dungeon, simply because they don’t like the blind immunities or the dazes.

Sometimes I wonder if people truly want challenging AI/design when they are already bothered by dredges.

Rainweaver.7302:

Regarding the AI talk: although far from perfect, dredges are probably the best we have in terms of AI…

Good variety of ranged and melee damage
Group buffing, including protection
Good CC
Ranged mobs have defenses if engaged in melee (bombers run, oscillators and resonators use CC)
Add spawning mechanism through the mining suit
Immunity to one of, if not the most powerful condition for PvE

…and yet, they’re still considered by many as the worst and most hated type of enemy in the game. I understand things like fractal’s clown car gives them a bad reputation, but I also saw people complaining about them back in the molten facility dungeon, simply because they don’t like the blind immunities or the dazes.

Sometimes I wonder if people truly want challenging AI/design when they are already bothered by dredges.

Dredge do not have good AI just a spam of skills available to them, same AI as regular mobs.