Guild Wars 2

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Likewise, ideally you should also be able to combine various gear types and end up with roughly the same results. Zerker gear should not end up being such a dominant set among the community.

Ok so you are saying that Soldier gear should be as good as zerker. It should give ‘’roughly the same results’’ like you said.

Now explain me how because I don’t see it. How can Soldier gear give roughly the same results???

Azure The Heartless.3261:

What would be the point in gear prefixes then?

They’d be part of your build choice. It’s pretty simple.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

And let’s say the “rough result” of baseline toughness is not enough for a group of players to survive in pve?

Survive what?

petyr baelish.9675:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

petyr baelish.9675:

@Eurhetemec.9052
In the end it will lengthen the entire run by a few minutes, which is not as dramatic as the anti berserker crowd claims.

I just want to point out how hypocritical it is of you to claim that the anti-berzerker crowd is the one claiming there is a huge difference, when in game it’s the berzerker crowd that actively excludes every other build from their LFG as if it made a huge difference.

It’s the berzerker users who consider it big enough a difference to exclude others from their parties, not the other way around. I have never seen a LFG with “valkyrie only” or “knights only”.

As I have said before, it’s not the gear that matters (as much) but the mentality and play associated with players that run berserker gear. If a person runs berserker gear it is more likely he’ll run the proper weapons, traits and support, use the right skills and knows what he’s doing.
So they, or at least I and my friends, don’t exclude you for your sub optimal gear but because we assume it’s accompanied by sub optimal play.
edit: and utilities*

That’s a pretty poor assumption, because in reality berzerker gear seems to be the standard choice for most new players, as most people will tell them to go with that gear.

If someone is not going zerk then it’s most likely that he has some idea going there and has practiced with it.

Regardless, my point still stands that you’re being a hypocrite for saying that the non-zerk crowd considers it a big difference when it’s you who makes such a fuss about what is optimal or not in LFG. In fact, the idea that you associate gear choice with skill only makes it worse, you actively judge people’s skill based on how they chose to play.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

How to fix the zerker meta:

Dont join speedclear rooms if you are not running zerker armor

The end.

Why is this kitten so hard for people to wrap their heads around; every time this topic comes up we get 5 pages of people writing paragraphs of nonsense.

Because Anet did not design dungeons with speed clearing in mind, as far as I am aware. Speed runners have come about because the content is not challenging enough for the veteran berserker players, and because of that it is one of the faster ways to make gold. Neither of which were intended.

You are right though, without speed running other stat combos are useful. But that doesn’t change the fact that explorable path dungeons can be done easily with full zerker teams, and that in my opinion is a problem. And do not take that the wrong way. I have no problem with players trying to do dungeons quickly for the challenge, but that is not why people do it.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Fair enough! It is really ez mode or are they actually using very special builds and classes, though?

Well I saw that with Elementalist, Guardian and Warrior mostly. Maybe it could work with Engineer and Mesmer too. I’m not sure about ranger and necromancer, don’t think they have enough healing capability. And it definitively don’t work with a thief since he’s not design in that direction.

There is a video of a warrior soloing the Mossman in level 50 alone with no dodge. Just to give you an idea.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

How to fix the zerker meta:

Dont join speedclear rooms if you are not running zerker armor

The end.

Why is this kitten so hard for people to wrap their heads around; every time this topic comes up we get 5 pages of people writing paragraphs of nonsense.

Because while it should work, people feel forced into zerker because of it’s overwhelming prevalence among the community. It IS the best and even if you do post an LFG without any stipulations or as “anything welcome” you still get the dirtbags who come in and spout off about zerker.

It’s the same reason I’m so frustrated with Lupi Wallsploit. It’s just freaking hard to avoid.

Thaddeus.4891:

Eurhetemec.9052:

Fair enough! It is really ez mode or are they actually using very special builds and classes, though?

Well I saw that with Elementalist, Guardian and Warrior mostly. Maybe it could work with Engineer and Mesmer too. I’m not sure about ranger and necromancer, don’t think they have enough healing capability. And it definitively don’t work with a thief since he’s not design in that direction.

There is a video of a warrior soloing the Mossman in level 50 alone with no dodge. Just to give you an idea.

Yeah thief is funny in that Invigorating precision makes doing more dps = better healing. So you can actually be more defensively sound in Zerk gear than say valkyrie gear assuming you’re able to avoid the one shot situations.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

What would be the point in gear prefixes then?

They’d be part of your build choice. It’s pretty simple.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

And let’s say the “rough result” of baseline toughness is not enough for a group of players to survive in pve?

Survive what?

redacted, it was addressed.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

petyr baelish.9675:

Dawnbreaker.6215:

petyr baelish.9675:

@Eurhetemec.9052
In the end it will lengthen the entire run by a few minutes, which is not as dramatic as the anti berserker crowd claims.

I just want to point out how hypocritical it is of you to claim that the anti-berzerker crowd is the one claiming there is a huge difference, when in game it’s the berzerker crowd that actively excludes every other build from their LFG as if it made a huge difference.

It’s the berzerker users who consider it big enough a difference to exclude others from their parties, not the other way around. I have never seen a LFG with “valkyrie only” or “knights only”.

As I have said before, it’s not the gear that matters (as much) but the mentality and play associated with players that run berserker gear. If a person runs berserker gear it is more likely he’ll run the proper weapons, traits and support, use the right skills and knows what he’s doing.
So they, or at least I and my friends, don’t exclude you for your sub optimal gear but because we assume it’s accompanied by sub optimal play.
edit: and utilities*

That’s a pretty poor assumption, because in reality berzerker gear seems to be the standard choice for most new players, as most people will tell them to go with that gear.

If someone is not going zerk then it’s most likely that he has some idea going there and has practiced with it.

Regardless, my point still stands that you’re being a hypocrite for saying that the non-zerk crowd considers it a big difference when it’s you who makes such a fuss about what is optimal or not in LFG. In fact, the idea that you associate gear choice with skill only makes it worse, you actively judge people’s skill based on how they chose to play.

To me it seems like the noob in zerk gear at least has tried to inform himself about dungeons while the other one just decided to roll with some random kitten. Anyhow, this is a matter of perspective and to be honest either situation is plausible. In my pugging experience few players that run berserker gear know how to play properly, however i have seen even fewer people that know how to play that don’t wear berserker gear.

Well the problem is that there is no other way to judge a player before the run starts aside from his gear choice. I suppose i could start questioning players about their builds or ask them to link me vids of them soloing lupi but then i’d never be able to start a run.

Jerus.4350:

Thaddeus.4891:

Eurhetemec.9052:

Fair enough! It is really ez mode or are they actually using very special builds and classes, though?

Well I saw that with Elementalist, Guardian and Warrior mostly. Maybe it could work with Engineer and Mesmer too. I’m not sure about ranger and necromancer, don’t think they have enough healing capability. And it definitively don’t work with a thief since he’s not design in that direction.

There is a video of a warrior soloing the Mossman in level 50 alone with no dodge. Just to give you an idea.

Yeah thief is funny in that Invigorating precision makes doing more dps = better healing. So you can actually be more defensively sound in Zerk gear than say valkyrie gear assuming you’re able to avoid the one shot situations.

An invigorating precision + malice signet thief in Magi gear. Maybe thief can facetank mobs after all.

If Anet want the players using more defensive/tanky gear they should make the mob smarter instead more tanky and the dungeons more random and the enemies with more variety within their skills.
If you can’t predict what you’ll encounter and how it will react, and you don’t know what will come out you’ll need more variety of gear at the risk of keep dying.

If they want us to begin using condition gear, conditions must be more relevant and reliable. Right now the conditions is a soft damage that most of the times doesn’t do the expected results.

Thaddeus.4891:

Harper.4173:

This does not work. Because they would still be running the equivalent of “zerker” which means best dps – only instead of 3 stats you would only take two.

Yes but zerker now is 3 stats out of 3. If it was 2 stats out of 3 (hell it could be 3 stats out of 4, i don’t care). Then people could take zerker and still have a choice left for the 3rd stats which would be support or defensive oriented. Condition Duration could create a problem because maybe Power, Precision, Condition Duration would be the only optimal gear since condition duration is hybrid. It’s a support and dps stats. But now we enter into detail or a undeveloped idea, so….

Harper.4173:

This solution is basically nerfing our damage and making everything take longer but doesn’t change anything else.

It’s nerfing only if they remove ferocity and won’t balance anything at all. Like i said, they could keep ferocity and give us 4 stats gear instead of 3. Or they could remove ferocity and balance things out so the nerf isn’t too high. They could boost power, or they could merge precision and ferocity together. There is a lot of option to limit or eliminate the nerf all together.

I highly doubt they’re going to rework the entire game. There would be massive uproar from the community. Consider how much time and gold has been invested in ascended already.

And the core problem remains – there will be no freedom to choose since the best option will be found and used – regardless if it has 2 or 3 or even 10 offensive stats.

Harper.4173:

I highly doubt they’re going to rework the entire game. There would be massive uproar from the community. Consider how much time and gold has been invested in ascended already.

And the core problem remains – there will be no freedom to choose since the best option will be found and used – regardless if it has 2 or 3 or even 10 offensive stats.

I’m not saying they should do it, or that there is chance that Anet will do it. I’m fine with the current system.

The core ’’problem’’ don’t remains. If the 3rd stats isn’t a dps stats, there won’t be 1 gear to rule them all like right now. There will be 1 best option for each profession, but the gear will change depending on the profession. Again look at my exemple. The best gear for an engineer would be Power, Precision, Condition Duration because he give vulnerability. The best gear for a PS Warrior would be Power, Precision, Boon Duration to give more might. It will also make the difference between those gear less important. A PS Warrior with Power, Precision, Condition Duration will not hurt AT ALL his team, if they can reach 25 stack of might by other means. Since the 3rd stats isn’t a dps stats, there is not a clear winner. It will depend on the situation and the party.

Again like I said. Condition Duration could be a problem since it’s support/dps stats. Maybe no gear with condition duration should exist or at least not a Power, Precision, Condition Duration.

VaLee.5102:

There will always be a meta. Period.

You nerf the zerk armor and then another set takes the meta place. It’s like this in every MMO, hardcore players will always find an optimal build/gear to clear the PvE content.

Yes, i agree. The problem does not lie in a single stat set being the most efficient, because there will always be more and less efficient stat sets. The problem lies in how much difference there is between those sets. The advantage zerker offers is just way too huge, especially compared to what you need (or don’t need) to sacrifice to use it (especially since the sacrifice in survivability can be practically negated by use of active defenses).

Jerus.4350:

dlonie.6547:

Arcadio.6875:

Jerus.4350:

But they didn’t, dungeon forum brothers, someone please summon the dev quote saying they were fully aware that well run groups would glass up.

Thing is at this point we’re well past the point that “well run” means much more than “has been playing dungeons for a few weeks and learned exactly what to do.”

I do find your comment about getting rid of swiftness quite interesting. “the game would feel slower”, yup, exactly, same goes for if they made zerker bad.

Got it!

I miss that guy =(

yeah

And I have to point out, posted at least a year before he was fired, so quite some time ago they were well aware of zerk being an option. , and Thanks Arcadio.

They were aware of zerk being an option “in the hands of a highly-skilled player”. The point however is that berserker set is not just “an option”. It’s the option – and not just for highly skiled players, but for average ones as well,

GreyWraith.8394:

My point was that this is only true when the content is both well known AND sufficiently static.

That’s not really true. It requires some level of familiarity with your class, that’s true, but once you have it, lack of knowledge of specific dungeon mechanics is as (un)likely to kill you in zerkers as in soldiers.

Harper.4173:

Before developing GW2 Anet developed GW1 – another game where players quickly proved very resourceful in finding farms and speed clears that could beat 3-4 hour long elite areas in around 20 minutes ( FOWSC).

Except in the case of GW1 there were more speedclear builds than one. They might have known there will be people speed clearing the dungeons, but it doesn’t mean they were aware those people will be using only zerkers, or that the zerkers will confer that much of an advantage over all other sets when speedclearing.

If you see their comments on the forums on the issue (some of whose were already linked earlier in this thread), you will notice that while they were aware that glass cannons will be an option for dungeon running, they seemed to expect that only a tiny minority of highly skilled players will be able to utilize that stat set well. It was supposed to be a high risk/high reward set, not a huge reward for only slight increase in risk

Azure The Heartless.3261:

What would be the point in gear prefixes then?

Yes, that’s a good question. What is the point of so many stats existing in this game, when the combat system seems to support only some of them?

I think that thsi question is actually a basis of the “zerker meta problem”. The game pretends to offer us a choice, but at the same time doesn’t even try to pretend there’s more than one correct answer.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Stuff

Where exactly did the devs say they’ll address the zerker meta issue? I’ve been following the HoT news quite a lot and have missed it. Please inform.

Also there’s a difference between calling YOU superficial and saying your understanding is superficial.
One implies you are a certain type of person. The other implies you lack the experience and understanding in a certain field.

Just because I only enjoy certain aspects of the game doesn’t make me superficial. In my quest to “increase my in game wallet” I’ve learned the ins and outs of this game and put thousands of hours into it – parts of it are forever seared into memory because of how much I’ve done it. I understand the game quite well.

The trinity being built into each individual is one thing. It being removed from that person and pushed into different individuals is another.
Creating dedicated roles undermines the whole concept of player independence in GW2. It is a 180 degree turn.

The core aspect of the trinity is that you have to rely on other people to do things you cannot and thus are tied to them. If they’re bad they’ll drag you down.
The core aspect of GW2’s system is that this DOES NOT HAPPEN. You are not forced to rely on anyone to do your things for you.

That’s why I’m saying adding a traditional trinity completely destroys the core of this game’s philosophy which is independence rather than interdependence.

It has interdependence but to a degree – you are rewarded for playing WITH your team but aren’t punished if they’re not doing their job or if they are terrible.

Absence of being complete? By whose standards ? Yours? The game is complete for me. What we’re dealing with is a difference of vision.

Class interdependence is a new layer of strategy, not the lack of something. Please, consider leaving your ACP1 runs for a second and trying any other game in the world.

It adds things – and takes others away. It takes away individuality. I have tried other games – and through those trials I’ve come to GW2 because I prefer a system where I’m not chained to my team.
While class interdependence does bring things to the table and is enjoyable for those who want it – it also subtracts from the experience from those who don’t.

And if you think that having someone else manage your health and aggro is a “new layer of strategy” I would consider it is not. It is simply making things more manageable since you only have to focus on less things now.

I would much rather prefer Gw2’s system where I have to manage health, aggro and my own DPS by myself all the time rather than have others do it for me.

I get your point of the suggestion forum – but honestly you can’t just suggest they rework the game – it doesn’t really work like that. People have been playing it for 3 years and have expectations of it. An unstable game will quickly lose people.
Months, years of hard work invalidated by a patch? People don’t like it – and never will.

Also the door thing is absurd – you perceive GW2’s lack of a trinity as terrible as a lack of doors on a car but to me there is nothing wrong.
Fundamentally there’s no right or wrong with a game ( as you claim) – only preference – and I once again ask you why you play a game if you seem to think it is glaringly flawed.
Not everyone will agree that GW2’s system constitutes a lack of doors. To me and others this is exactly why we came here.

To put it bluntly – in your own terms – GW2 is designed as a car without doors but that’s exactly what the people buying it wanted to get and what they enjoy. Why would you come along and demand a niche product be changed to fill another niche?

The number of metas and gear doesn’t make or break a game. Sales do.
A game succeeds or fails based on other indicators : number of players, player retention time, in-game sales – not your dissatisfaction with the current meta or lack of more sets in said meta. There’s no failure from a company’s perspective.

You may personally not like the product but if the product sells and sells well then you can’t really say it failed can you?

Something great can have its flaws too.

But in this particular case what you perceive as a “flaw” is perceived as normal and desirable by the majority of the community. That’s why fixing this flaw will do more harm than good.
The high number of “overwhelming number of “zerk meta” fanboys” might clue you in as to what the majority of people playing GW2 want. Or that the people who enjoy the game don’t want for the game what you would want for it.

serenke.4806:

Everyone who thinks PvE is easy should really just do an “easy” CM run with four people who have never been there before.

It can be any other dungeon anyway, the point is, while open world PvE is total kiddo stuff, dungeons can fail easily if you don’t have certain “support” for encounters. But whatever, there will be a thread asking for a solution to the zerker meta tomorrow too.

Its only hard if party is not running zerg gear,low damage will make you need to dodge and stuff.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

petyr baelish.9675:

@Eurhetemec.9052
In the end it will lengthen the entire run by a few minutes, which is not as dramatic as the anti berserker crowd claims.

I just want to point out how hypocritical it is of you to claim that the anti-berzerker crowd is the one claiming there is a huge difference, when in game it’s the berzerker crowd that actively excludes every other build from their LFG as if it made a huge difference.

It’s the berzerker users who consider it big enough a difference to exclude others from their parties, not the other way around. I have never seen a LFG with “valkyrie only” or “knights only”.

You want to know why zerks exclude non-zerks? It might not be what you expected.
It’s not because of the difference in clear times most of the times – it’s because of the difference in vision and perspective.

A full zerker player used his gear not only to deal damage but having said gear and a meta build indicates that he is most likely of the farmer mentality – that he wants to get the content done fast – clean and effective in order to get his rewards.

I usually don’t take non-zerker people in my parties not because of the damage drop – 4 zerks +1 non-zerk won’t matter that much but because said person has a much higher chance of being a "non-farmer.

As a result he may end up aggroing unwanted foes, not wanting to stack, not wanting to skip and make my run not only last longer but also be less enjoyable since the fun for me is doing it clean – with no wipes and unnecessary effort.

I filter people based on gear not because of damage but because of mindset.
I want to play with people like myself – logically people who use the gear I use, play the build I play are more likely to be similar to me than someone who doesn’t.

petyr baelish.9675:

You didn’t read my post at all, and if you did, you didn’t understand it.
Oh. And you didn’t quote this importan part, which actually adresses your closing statement:
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Honestly, most people that ask for ‘zerk gear’ in their group don’t really care about the berserker gear. What they actually ask of you is that you:
1) know how to run the dungeon
2) have the right build = traits, weapons and utilities
3) know the proper damage rotations and provide the support that’s expected of your class.
4) (bonus) use the right food
These 3(4) things are far more important than wearing berserker/asassin gear. Unfortunately, gear ping is the only way they can filter. This way they still won’t know if you are up to their standards, but at least they’ll know they’re playing with like minded individuals, or they’re getting trolled by nomad warriors that keep a zerk set in their inventory to ping.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

To be really honest I have seen many times people asking for “80 zerk exp” in low tier dungeons (AC TA SE) for self esteem. Many times I grouped with friends with no zerk gear myself but we still go in dungeon together where they open such an lfg.

In the end they have no clue about builds, might stack before pull, fail half their deep freeze or bring any food. They even don’t necessarily dodge well but still keep on saying that I should play zerk only (I actually have most my toons with zerk jewels and power as main stat on armor).

I am not against berserker gear at all but but everyone should be honest in these bi-weekly discussions :
- No, playing berserker gear is not ez win
- No, having berserker doesn’t mean the player is good
- Yes, low tier dungeons are too easy because down scaling is badly implemented for them

And please why people don’t bring real numbers of completion times. Try a meta build on another gear and show the time difference with the same players.
Unite non experimented players with their fav build/gear and compare with same player on meta builds.
Comparaison w/ or w/o food?

Astralporing.1957:

Yes, that’s a good question. What is the point of so many stats existing in this game, when the combat system seems to support only some of them?

I think that thsi question is actually a basis of the “zerker meta problem”. The game pretends to offer us a choice, but at the same time doesn’t even try to pretend there’s more than one correct answer.

WvW, PvP are 2 huge areas of the game that come to mind straight off the bat as to why we have so much choice in stats on gear.

Why do people keep focussing on PvE only when disscussing stats and choice?

Rin.1046:

I agree, if you raise the difficulty for veterans it will of course have a much bigger impact on casual and new players. But then you have to ask yourself, should a group of casuals be able to do a dungeon run as a full team of zerkers? Personally, I feel that full zerker dungeon runs should be in the realms of veteran content, not new and casual content. Dungeon explorable paths, as stated by Anet, are supposed to be challenging content, but if a full group of casual zerkers can do an explorable path dungeons, then something is seriously wrong with the balance.
That said, I think some dungeon paths have a good balance as it is, but not all of them.

They can’t do the run – even as non-zerkers. A casual run with 5 casuals that haven’t done the dungeon a lot will fail miserably. I know since I’ve sadly had to witness it.
New and casual players don’t do full zerker. And if they do you can spot them a mile away – they created the “dead zerker scrub” stereotype.

What would you consider balanced dungeon paths?

Also regarding difficulty balance and dungeons – I get what you’re saying – but dungeons are only played for farming purposes. If you up the challenge ( I have nothing against it) you have to up the rewards because if you don’t nobody will bother with your new super challenging content that doesn’t reward anything when I can easily farm silverwastes.

Notice how FOTM died? Good challenge – no reward.

The problem with upping the rewards and challenge means that new and casual players are now cut off from said rewards. We’ve had threads on this topic and they endlessly cried about how unfair it would be if harder content gave better rewards to players who did it. How they would be forced to improve or play said content they do not enjoy just so they’re not “left behind”.

So that idea I feel Anet has dropped off the table since Anet has this inclusion based vision of the game.

In more casual content, supportive builds are very effective, and have a more noticable impact on a teams performance. You only have to run a story mode dungeon with new players to see that. But they have hardly any noticable impact on veteran content, and that I think is where the fix is needed.

I would direct you to level 50 FOTM – the most “veteran oriented content” we have.
A good guardian is instrumental in supporting his team through various encounters and makes them much easier.

Archdiviner is just one. Another would be Mai Trin.

The problem is not that support isn’t valuable in hard veteran content – it’s just that we have very little veteran content in this game.

Dawnbreaker.6215:

Rin.1046:

You are right, and that is what I meant. Supportive roles should not become required. However, they should become more useful.

In more casual content, supportive builds are very effective, and have a more noticable impact on a teams performance. You only have to run a story mode dungeon with new players to see that. But they have hardly any noticable impact on veteran content, and that I think is where the fix is needed.

As others have said, in WvW and PvP other stat combos are more widely used, and the zerker meta is not so much of an issue. And the reason for that is because it is very challenging to play zerker in these game modes. It’s not impossible, but it is more challenging. Also because of how useful defensive stats are in PvP and WvW, many players build to fill different roles besides dps, such as bunkers, frontline melee in zergs, etc. If this kind of challenge could be added to top level PvE content, we would not hear all the complaints about berserker gear.

I think this is correct. If I can add to that,

Supportive builds should not be a requirement. But they should be as much a viable choice as classes are.

You can pick any class combination for a dungeon run and be relatively fast, because you’ll have various strategies available that are more or less equally efficient. I have never seen a “warrior only” or “elementalist only” dungeon party like I see “zerk only”.

Likewise, ideally you should also be able to combine various gear types and end up with roughly the same results. Zerker gear should not end up being such a dominant set among the community.

See – this is why I tell you I think your experience with the game is lacking.

You’ve never seen the famous " P1 warrior only" or “swamp heavies only” parties? Because I sure have.

Thaddeus.4891:

Harper.4173:

I highly doubt they’re going to rework the entire game. There would be massive uproar from the community. Consider how much time and gold has been invested in ascended already.

And the core problem remains – there will be no freedom to choose since the best option will be found and used – regardless if it has 2 or 3 or even 10 offensive stats.

I’m not saying they should do it, or that there is chance that Anet will do it. I’m fine with the current system.

The core ’’problem’’ don’t remains. If the 3rd stats isn’t a dps stats, there won’t be 1 gear to rule them all like right now. There will be 1 best option for each profession, but the gear will change depending on the profession. Again look at my exemple. The best gear for an engineer would be Power, Precision, Condition Duration because he give vulnerability. The best gear for a PS Warrior would be Power, Precision, Boon Duration to give more might. It will also make the difference between those gear less important. A PS Warrior with Power, Precision, Condition Duration will not hurt AT ALL his team, if they can reach 25 stack of might by other means. Since the 3rd stats isn’t a dps stats, there is not a clear winner. It will depend on the situation and the party.

Again like I said. Condition Duration could be a problem since it’s support/dps stats. Maybe no gear with condition duration should exist or at least not a Power, Precision, Condition Duration.

Actually you can calculate if condition duration for GS’s vulnerability or might duration is more effective. You can actually figure out which of the 3rd stats provides the party with the most benefits and make that the meta.

Jerus.4350:

Rin.1046:

Slow dps players down by making them deal with content more carefully, but do not stop them from doing it.

This is one of the things I think one of my old games did very well with a certain content design choice. They had a lot of stuff that was % based effects on the boss. Be it strait AE damage, Add Spawns, or required mechanics. Thing is GW2 relies on it’s NPCs to trigger these actions instead of the game itself, hence Lupi/Grawl Shaman phase skips. In the old game I’m talking about though we had encounters where say you had 2 adds spawn every 10% on the boss. If you unleashed a massive burn you may be able to take it from 100% to 60% in a couple seconds, such that the adds either hadn’t spawned or hadn’t reached you, but when they did, you’d get 8 adds coming at you instead of just 2.

This made bursting through certain enemies much more risky on top of the already more risky DPS setups. It was still very doable with correct tactics, but it made you consider what you were doing. Some enemies we’d not unleash the massive burns till the end when we knew it would finish it off, opting for a more controlled approach for the first 60% of the fight.

Now, again, I don’t know how they’d translate that type of system over to GW2, seems like the mechanics are different, and with current HP levels on many enemies you can burst them down from 100-0, so it’d render that type of design null anyways.

But, I thought it was worth mentioning it, because it fits what you were talking about, and I liked it very much. As it wasn’t just taking less safety nets, but actually making the content harder.

I like the idea too and I actually think it fits GW2.

Lieutenant Kholer works exactly as you suggest, for example.
Obviously, the boss suffers from an alarming lack of HP (as everything in AC for lvl80 charcaters) so, as you pointed, can easily be bursted down from 100 to 0.
On top of that, the whole battleground is a LOS paradise and the adds, which suffer from the same lack of HP, spawn too close to the boss (despite most of them being ranged), so they are doomed to be cleaved down almost instantly.
The idea, however, is still there.

We can also take a look at Imbued Shaman.
It has its own “issues”, namely the very nature of the adds (all identical and completely projectile based) and the bubble phase being a skill subject to a CD, but none of those seen with Kholer.
Even the Archidiviner works o a similar way.

Using more varied adds (even somewhat randomized ones, although I admit it would bring some new “issues”) and making them spawn spreaded away from the boss and on a more constant rate (every 10% instead of the usual 25%, so key CDs like AoE pulling or some powerful reflect are less likely to be ready every single time) would, IMHO, bring a lot of nice new things to the table.

Harper.4173:

Actually you can calculate if condition duration for GS’s vulnerability or might duration is more effective. You can actually figure out which of the 3rd stats provides the party with the most benefits and make that the meta.

Jesus. I know. There will be a meta gear for each profession. My point is that it won’t be the same for each profession. For exemple, we’ll figure out that hey boon duration is the best choice for a warrior. But for an engineer boon duration will be useless while Condi Duration will be the best choice. Different profession will have different meta gear. But yes, for each profession there will be only one gear that is meta.

It will also change depending on your group. If you have a Engineer to take care of the vulnerability your elementalist might be better off with boons duration to give more fury and might. But if you don’t have any engineer, you might be better off with condi duration to reach max vulnerability.

Thaddeus.4891:

Harper.4173:

Actually you can calculate if condition duration for GS’s vulnerability or might duration is more effective. You can actually figure out which of the 3rd stats provides the party with the most benefits and make that the meta.

Jesus. I know. There will be a meta gear for each profession. My point is that it won’t be the same for each profession. For exemple, we’ll figure out that hey boon duration is the best choice for a warrior. But for an engineer boon duration will be useless while Condi Duration will be the best choice. Different profession will have different meta gear. But yes, for each profession there will be only one gear that is meta.

So we are going from one gear fits all (and can be traded freely between characters) to best in slot per class.

The problem of people wanting to play something different isn’t fixed since they are forced to play in their best in slot for their class.

The problem of having to create multiple sets of gear since you can’t share them any more between same armor characters is created forcing people to spend even more time and gold on getting ascended.

How is any one winning in this scenario?

Harper.4173:

…snip…

That’s a fair comment. There is not much veteran content currently, but I believe Anet intended that there should be. But you do raise a valid point about the rewards, and locking casaul players out of it. I remember seeing those threads too.

Its a careful balancing act Anet needs to get right. Not just in how the stats and content work with each other, but with how entertained and happy each group of players is with the game. Take it too far one way and another group will complain. I, like you, think we need more challenging (veteran) content, and it sounds like Anet are going to be adding more of that in HoT. Lets hope that with that challenging PvE content the none-dps stats become more useful.

Another thing to consider is the changes to conditions that are coming. These will hopefully make condition and hybrid builds much more viable in PvE, increasing the number of useful gear types. It is still all focused on damage, but 3-4 stat options are better then 1. Add to that the more challenging content and we may find the lines between metas becoming more blurred.

Cyninja.2954:

So we are going from one gear fits all (and can be traded freely between characters) to best in slot per class.

The problem of people wanting to play something different isn’t fixed since they are forced to play in their best in slot for their class.

The problem of having to create multiple sets of gear since you can’t share them any more between same armor characters is created forcing people to spend even more time and gold on getting ascended.

How is any one winning in this scenario?

Well it’s the best solution I can come up with to try to please all those anti-zerk poster. A kind of compromise. Again, personally I prefer the current system.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Azure The Heartless.3261:

What would be the point in gear prefixes then?

They’d be part of your build choice. It’s pretty simple.

Your “simplicity” is to remove all need to make a choice…..because it would no longer matter what you pick to use. How does that make the game better in any way?

That’s the problem. With any system you can’t please everybody and when you try to you end up pleasing nobody. The trick is to find the most people you can please with your product and sell it to them.

GW2 bet its money on gathering non-traditional MMO players (casuals, non-trinity players, fashion lovers, etc) and aggressively marketed their game toward said players.
To go back and add a trinity or similar role-dependent systems is to slap their player base in the face and waste their own effort of carving out a niche ( which they have done VERY successfully).

Harper.4173:

That’s the problem. With any system you can’t please everybody and when you try to you end up pleasing nobody. The trick is to find the most people you can please with your product and sell it to them.

GW2 bet its money on gathering non-traditional MMO players (casuals, non-trinity players, fashion lovers, etc) and aggressively marketed their game toward said players.
To go back and add a trinity or similar role-dependent systems is to slap their player base in the face and waste their own effort of carving out a niche ( which they have done VERY successfully).

Absolutely agree.

What most don’t realize, GW2 is unique in some aspects. Giving up on this would mean to turn/create it into another mainstream Everquest,WoW, etc clone.

Let’s look at how those games did the last few years…

SW:TOR -> went F2P
Warhammer Online -> went F2P, then closed down
Tera -> F2P
Rift -> F2P
ES:Online → F2P

The funny thing is, even if GW2 switched over to a trinity system (which I have already explained is near impossible, but people just don’t listen) it would endup as another clone among many. No big deal, since most advocating for this change would simply leave to the next better WoW clone or even WoW itsself. Only the players enjoying GW2 for its uniqueness would be left in the cold.

Cyninja.2954:

Harper.4173:

That’s the problem. With any system you can’t please everybody and when you try to you end up pleasing nobody. The trick is to find the most people you can please with your product and sell it to them.

GW2 bet its money on gathering non-traditional MMO players (casuals, non-trinity players, fashion lovers, etc) and aggressively marketed their game toward said players.
To go back and add a trinity or similar role-dependent systems is to slap their player base in the face and waste their own effort of carving out a niche ( which they have done VERY successfully).

Absolutely agree.

What most don’t realize, GW2 is unique in some aspects. Giving up on this would mean to turn/create it into another mainstream Everquest,WoW, etc clone.

Let’s look at how those games did the last few years…

SW:TOR -> went F2P
Warhammer Online -> went F2P, then closed down
Tera -> F2P
Rift -> F2P
ES:Online -> F2P

The funny thing is, even if GW2 switched over to a trinity system (which I have already explained is near impossible, but people just don’t listen) it would endup as another clone among many. No big deal, since most advocating for this change would simply leave to the next better WoW clone or even WoW itsself. Only the players enjoying GW2 for its uniqueness would be left in the cold.

All those games are " unique in some aspects".

Post-F2P SWTOR is singificantly more financially successful than GW2.

Warhammer shut down for reasons unrelated to success. GW2’s design mimics it or learns from it heavily.

TERA is arguably more unique/unusual than GW2 (and way more pervy/creepy but…).

Not saying copy them, but your examples are sketchy.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Cyninja.2954:

Harper.4173:

That’s the problem. With any system you can’t please everybody and when you try to you end up pleasing nobody. The trick is to find the most people you can please with your product and sell it to them.

GW2 bet its money on gathering non-traditional MMO players (casuals, non-trinity players, fashion lovers, etc) and aggressively marketed their game toward said players.
To go back and add a trinity or similar role-dependent systems is to slap their player base in the face and waste their own effort of carving out a niche ( which they have done VERY successfully).

Absolutely agree.

What most don’t realize, GW2 is unique in some aspects. Giving up on this would mean to turn/create it into another mainstream Everquest,WoW, etc clone.

Let’s look at how those games did the last few years…

SW:TOR -> went F2P
Warhammer Online -> went F2P, then closed down
Tera -> F2P
Rift -> F2P
ES:Online -> F2P

The funny thing is, even if GW2 switched over to a trinity system (which I have already explained is near impossible, but people just don’t listen) it would endup as another clone among many. No big deal, since most advocating for this change would simply leave to the next better WoW clone or even WoW itsself. Only the players enjoying GW2 for its uniqueness would be left in the cold.

All those games are " unique in some aspects".

Post-F2P SWTOR is singificantly more financially successful than GW2.

Warhammer shut down for reasons unrelated to success. GW2’s design mimics it or learns from it heavily.

TERA is arguably more unique/unusual than GW2 (and way more pervy/creepy but…).

Not saying copy them, but your examples are sketchy.

Sure they are, but what are we talking about here? Itemization if I’m not mistaken. All those games are very similar in that while GW2 is unique.

My example was merely to state that going trinity will not solve any problems but instead create way bigger ones.

Also SW:TOR being more successful than GW2 is a big funny. Sure it could be more successful but are you really factoring in all the costs like developement and SW:TOR requiring at least 500k subscribers while running a p2p model (according to EA)? Meaning they must have cut back kitten staff for that game since it went f2p.

Tell me, how much unique content or expansions have come out and/or are announced for that game? None, last I recalled. It’s on the known f2p livesupport where some basic content gets added every few months to make people jump through new hoops or they introduce a new item tier where people need to regrind their equipment. Not to mention the Star Wars name holding it up.

Warhammer shut down because Games Workshop pulled the liscence. Yeah that had nothing to do money or the game spiraling down and being on life support for years. They basically decided they didn’t want their flagship IP at the bottom of the food chain making them no money.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Cyninja.2954:

Harper.4173:

That’s the problem. With any system you can’t please everybody and when you try to you end up pleasing nobody. The trick is to find the most people you can please with your product and sell it to them.

GW2 bet its money on gathering non-traditional MMO players (casuals, non-trinity players, fashion lovers, etc) and aggressively marketed their game toward said players.
To go back and add a trinity or similar role-dependent systems is to slap their player base in the face and waste their own effort of carving out a niche ( which they have done VERY successfully).

Absolutely agree.

What most don’t realize, GW2 is unique in some aspects. Giving up on this would mean to turn/create it into another mainstream Everquest,WoW, etc clone.

Let’s look at how those games did the last few years…

SW:TOR -> went F2P
Warhammer Online -> went F2P, then closed down
Tera -> F2P
Rift -> F2P
ES:Online -> F2P

The funny thing is, even if GW2 switched over to a trinity system (which I have already explained is near impossible, but people just don’t listen) it would endup as another clone among many. No big deal, since most advocating for this change would simply leave to the next better WoW clone or even WoW itsself. Only the players enjoying GW2 for its uniqueness would be left in the cold.

All those games are " unique in some aspects".

Post-F2P SWTOR is singificantly more financially successful than GW2.

Warhammer shut down for reasons unrelated to success. GW2’s design mimics it or learns from it heavily.

TERA is arguably more unique/unusual than GW2 (and way more pervy/creepy but…).

Not saying copy them, but your examples are sketchy.

Yes but SWTOR is riding out on the HUGE fanbase Star Wars has. It’s basically THE only Star Wars MMO out there.
You want Star Wars in an MMO setting? Only one place to go. And Star Wars is incredibly well known and well liked.

Problems with zerker is it inner (micro) synergy, and macro synergy.
Micro synergy mean that every point of Power increase effectiveness of Precision and Ferocity, and every other way around. So increasing more in all of these at this same time gives bigger benefit, than mixing.
Macro synergy mean that zerker geared people work better with other zerker geared people, because if enemy don’t die in this 20 seconds (when active defences are available), they start to drop like flies. In such environment every not zerker is at least frowned at, and more liked to get boot because of gear.

Other problem is lack of gear that provide minimal dps loss (major power, minor precision, minor toughness/vitality). We have valkyrie that is close, but ferocity without precision or critical strike bonus or fury 24/7 is simply bad stat.
And lets be honest sets like magi, or nomad are simply horrid (ok you could try to use nomad as bunker with 0 kill pressure)
When I look at crafting I see it supposed to be more like free form (with 8 main stats, and 8 crafting components determining type of equipment)… Too bad they didn’t used it.

Final gripe is that stats don’t scale this same way. As I said Ferocity is bad by itself. Healing power is even more laughable. With even these “big” healing skills having scaling comparable to single auto attack scaling.
And you know what… I understand it in most cases… Because we want to kill this guy some time today. I really would like to axe base healing and increase healing power scaling on water fields combo finishers, as they are supplementary to class mechanics and not core.
Also why not to give this stat some “supportive” power. Additional small bonus to boon durations (10-15% with full set).

Thaddeus.4891:

Now explain me how because I don’t see it. How can Soldier gear give roughly the same results???

Increase soldiers gears dmg. I suggested that a few pages ago.

I think people want to play different roles. So its not just about gear.
A healer is no option since dmg is more important than healing. If a fullcleric would do – let say – 90% dmg of a fullzerk, fullcleric would be an option. Healing is atm very helpful in GW2 – but the lost dmg is usually not worth it.

If I did no misstakes a fullberserk got roughly twice the effective power of a fullcleric. Thats a huge difference. To bring an example: a rune which turns 90% of healing power into power would reduce the dmg gap. If I did no misstakes it would result in ~85% dmg of a fullzerk. So healingbuilds or tanky equip would become better and are more welcome. Most PUGs don’t care about 10% dmg – potions, buffood which nobody uses;)

GW2 should be compared to hack’n slays, they got a similar gameplay.
Hack’n Slay healers do dmg, there is no trinity or fullhealer in (most?) hack’n slays since everyone needs to bring dmg. GW2 is the same, you don’t want to sacrifice huge amounts of dmg for being a bit more tanky or get better heals. Most bad groups got not enough dmg which causes trouble.

This is an issue over a divide on the type of players gw2 attracts.

One side is action games where in combat active dodging blocking and reflexes are preferred (more realistic) where the depth is from pure gameplay.

The other side is the RPG people where their character setups are somewhat similar to card games where they see depth in builds and systems.

What people need to figure out is if these are our 2 “extremes” where is anet’s position across that slider bar?
<(Action)————————————-(RPG)>

Dhorghar.5249:

Nemesis explains really well what’s wrong with the berserker meta in his new video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js5ltIBr73s

LOLOLOLOL. Video made me laugh. If content takes longer than it already does… I’ll quit and Anet won’t get anymore of my money.

That guy just wants the Trinity in GW2 because he mains a Necro. He sounds really bitter.

Bread.7516:

This is an issue over a divide on the type of players gw2 attracts.

One side is action games where in combat active dodging blocking and reflexes are preferred (more realistic) where the depth is from pure gameplay.

The other side is the RPG people where their character setups are somewhat similar to card games where they see depth in builds and systems.

What people need to figure out is if these are our 2 “extremes” where is anet’s position across that slider bar?
<(Action)————————————-(RPG)>

And yet, it’s the people driving the meta who bothered to figure out what skills are best in what situations, who did the math, who tested various builds and various gear to find out what worked best, and who make the fullest use of the game’s varied mechanics this side of PvP.

So, really, the action side has action folks who are also theory-crafters. The rest of that side is made up of meta emulators, action but no theory and other odds and sods. The other side is really a mishmash of trinity nostalgia, couldn’t care less and a bunch of other things, with some who like depth but not the way GW2 offers it.

And, as far as action—-RPG goes, GW2 is not all the way towards the action side.

Guest.8245:

Thoughts on this;

1) Reasons for zerker-only PvE
- Ease of use
- Lack of need to vary gear
- It’s not actually the only thing since PvP has different gear types
- Varying playstyles already existing in the game, separate from gear-driven ones
- Other gear is still viable, just not as efficient

2) Reasons against zerker-only Pve
- Anet have stated they don’t like it
- It’s a waste of a system (Gear)
- Confusing for new players (Of the 25 types of gear, only one is worth buying?)
- Making other gears more relevant does not necessarily mean:
a) Creating a “minimum threshhold” of tankiness (Gear Check)
b) You need to stop using zerker.
c) More viable Gear Types increases build diversity at the cost of nothing.

I guess to me this idea of “Zerker only” being fine is a bit weird. If that’s the case, why not just remove the whole gear system, and everyone gets the same gear and all that changes is your level?

What reasons did I miss for zerker only being fine?

“I guess to me this idea of “Zerker only” being fine is a bit weird. If that’s the case, why not just remove the whole gear system, and everyone gets the same gear and all that changes is your level?"

sorry the double quote BUT this is exactly my issue with the whole system .. other than play style YOU are basically being told YOU MUST wear zerker gear at all times ..

I am arguing about celestial gear because it takes so long to make and I am being to celestial is no good for anything other than PvP on an Ele BUT I found IT helps me in PvE as well (I am just waiting for the “you need to learn to p-lay BRO” message)

at this time the only thing all the other mats and crafting types are for is to burn off so you can level the crafting and then break down again .. anything using blood you keep and use..

it seems a poor system you might as well get rid of everything else at this time and just give us everything we are from other mat types as blood so we can actually make the type a gear that CAN be used (ok assassin gear works for some classes as well I admit).

Dhorghar.5249:

Nemesis explains really well what’s wrong with the berserker meta in his new video!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js5ltIBr73s

I’ll start off by saying I really don’t like Nemesis. I see him as a worse Kripp (which I also barely can stand). It’s something about his style of coming over as very arrogant (his selective fake laughing does no help here). I’m putting this here not to discredit him, just puting it here for completions sake since I have a negative disposition towards his videos.

His analysis is mostly correct though and his explanation is not very different from what some people have already stated in this thread (myself included).

Let’s take appart what his video is about:

Analysis of the problem
+ mostly correct. He explains how the berserker meta developed

+ lack of content made people overspecialize which resulted in maximum damage groups

+ he mentions pvp being part of the game (forgot wvw but okay for the sake and purposes at least he mentions one of the other game modes)

+ he mentions the weak AI as being part of the problem (again this was already mentioned by people in this thread)

- he compares berserker players to hacker, cheater, exploiters and basically states that this only exists because people wall hack or skip content in non intended ways. I strongly object to this. Yes, there are broken mechanics in this game, but not every one running full berserker is exploiting them. Big difference

- he compares pvp to pve and his analysis of why and how the gearshould work is extrapolated from pvp to pve. For example: melee damage needs to close in pvp first before getting to hit while ranged have an advantage but supposedly less damage. QUOTE: Melee glasscanonwill hit significantly higher than the ranged glasscanon END QUOTE. This is simply not true. Ranger damage and Necro damage say high. Not even going to go into the notion of balancing pve with pvp arguments…

+/- he views using the AI to funnel or group mobs as glitching. This was present in GW1 and can be considered an AI problem which if fixed would indeed make berserker meta tougher, but no wear near impossible. There are enough skills for pulling and ccing mobs to get the same effect. It woul raise the needed skill ceiling for using zerker though, I’d be all for this

- he focuses only on pve after his initial wierd pvp mention and never even mentions pvp or wvw later on.

- he provides no example of any boss not doable in full berserker gear without exploiting and the bosses shown during that part of his presentation are being killed sloppy and certainly are doable with an optimized party without exploiting. So unsure what he is going for here. His arguments are based on randoms in pugs I think complaining about “bosses needing to get fixed”.

- he never mentions the core problems of necro or ranger. lack of group support. which is very unfortunate since he himself is playing a necromancer.

Provided advice and HoT changes

+ yes, there will be major changes in HoT

+ anet is going for a shift to more condition damage and condition damage being viable more (this also has been staed by multiple players already)

+ he correctly adresses a problem where new players are starting to immitate advanced player behavior resulting in less immersion and more skipped content. His comparison to Ice Crown Citadel ( a raid in WoW) is laughable. GW2 has no raids. There are enough beter comparisons but of corse picking an example where a guild gets banned for exploiting fits his agenda better

- he gets progressively more arrogant and openly bashed expert players

- his analysis on profit is funny and wrong. yes, if everyone were capable of running every dungeon in 5 minutes, there would be no benefit .
-> besides the benefit over people not running the dungeon – whops, first benefit
-> besides the people who finish the dungeon slower – whops, second benefit

- he takes the QUOTE This ability will not do the same damage as before END QUOTE (used mostly with elementalist summoned weapons) completely out of context and uses it to explain a complete shift in game and content approach.

He then goes on a ramble about new content and getting excited over cutscenes etc. which I can fully understand since many of use are gobbeling up any new content that we can see about HoT.

He himself offers almost no suggestions as to how to fix the current meta besides saying:“anet will fix it.” He specifically does not mention a redesign of stats on gear but focuses more on the actual reasons of why zerker meta exists (weak AI, stale content, to easy content) where a lot of people in this thread could take a heap of learning away from.

Cyninja the only issue I see with the possible changes with the conditional damage is you will suddenly have everyone looking for rampage gear instead of the zerks gear they are now all using ..

I don’t know IF it can be “fixed” as such other than bringing back the trinity (and i kind of hate that idea as it is nice to not have to get the “right” group together and I am one of those nutty ones who plays an ele in support/dps role)

shaman.1938:

Cyninja the only issue I see with the possible changes with the conditional damage is you will suddenly have everyone looking for rampage gear instead of the zerks gear they are now all using ..

I don’t know IF it can be “fixed” as such other than bringing back the trinity (and i kind of hate that idea as it is nice to not have to get the “right” group together and I am one of those nutty ones who plays an ele in support/dps role)

Ideally and if done correctly, condition damage will come close enough or slightly surpass direct damage.

This would lead to different damage builds being viable at least. It would still not fix the problems of necromancer or ranger lacking group support (again, ranger and necro damage is amongst the highest in the game if played properly). Let’s hope we see some changes in this department.

If taken to far, or not far enough though we will be stuck with “1 damage type to rule them all”. So let’s hope anet is on the ball.

Again, trinity won’t come to this game. It’s simply not possible given the available ressources. The amount of work to properly change the game would be equal to an entire expansion if not more.

NiBlack.3149:

post

None of those really are problems in and of themselves, or their “solution” wouldn’t actually change a single thing.

While there’s definitely a “micro synergy” between Power/Precision/Ferocity, so what? Not everything has to have a bunch of additional stats that interact with it to be useful. And even then, Vitality and Toughness are just as directly linked as those three, and Toughness and Healing Power are extremely linked as well. Though Vitality and Healing Power aren’t heavily linked, the fact that all three of those create just as a tri-fecta as PPF does (Power and Ferocity, as you point in your Valk example, aren’t linked all that well together. Just like Vitality and Healing Power.) is extremely relevant. The existence of synergy doesn’t suddenly make things better than stuff that is not. Balance can be defined regardless of the presence of synergy.

Similarly, the macro synergy is bogus as a relevant factor. Why exactly do players have to start dropping like flies if an encounter reaches the 20 second mark (or any other arbitrarily large amount of time) should everyone not be Berserker (ignoring the fact that the meta builds for several classes isn’t actually Berserker at all)? If they’re dying, then that means that they weren’t good enough, and that the risk:reward from running all Berserker was too much for them. Sure everyone going Berserker is probably the best, but that means very little in terms. If there was suddenly build variety, that would be because those specific builds worked in the exact same “macro synergistic” way that the Berserker gear is now. It’s existence is always going to be there, and is never a problem.

The crafting comments, however, are an actual problem. It shouldn’t take careful management of all your trinkets/gear to get to this state of “zen” for your build when the problem is that there’s a specific set of three attributes that just aren’t an option for armor that would make it perfect without all of the gear juggling. The thing is, this wouldn’t change anything to do with the meta at all. When an entire thing is based around a meta-choice, why exactly would more fringe builds matter in this context? One of them might become meta? Cool, now we have a different meta of which everyone will still have to choose to take a part in or complain forever. Either way, the forums will still be filled with complainers, the game will still have “LFG Meta,” and people will still kick the undesired classes (assuming they did in the first place, and that ANet doesn’t increase the party size to that of the number of classes + greatly enforce classes to act differently).

Finally, the difference in scaling is irrelevant. Enemy HP doesn’t even come close to scaling in the same way that a player’s does. The highest HP I’ve ever seen on a player was around 90k HP, and that’s barely even putting a dent in some of the scaled up world bosses. If the scaling was the same, then Healing Power would instantly have to be nerfed or it would be clearly overpowered. We have no need of doing near as much healing as we need to do for damage in terms of scaling, and even adding in a healing role wouldn’t change that. Right now it gets by on just being somewhat overpowered ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1rrAFs2WD4 ), but because of its relative lack of necessity for what players are trying to do it isn’t really getting balanced (I’d say that more as a factor of people who use it tend to be newer at the game, and thus need the handicap from having an overpowered stat line).

Thaddeus.4891:

Well it’s the best solution I can come up with to try to please all those anti-zerk poster. A kind of compromise. Again, personally I prefer the current system.

One should not give in to a minority simply because they are loud about it… It is a sad and twisted world where the majority changes to suit the minority, and it’s a world where democracy has failed.

Jockum.1385:

Thaddeus.4891:

Now explain me how because I don’t see it. How can Soldier gear give roughly the same results???

Increase soldiers gears dmg. I suggested that a few pages ago.

I think people want to play different roles. So its not just about gear.
A healer is no option since dmg is more important than healing. If a fullcleric would do – let say – 90% dmg of a fullzerk, fullcleric would be an option. Healing is atm very helpful in GW2 – but the lost dmg is usually not worth it.

If I did no misstakes a fullberserk got roughly twice the effective power of a fullcleric. Thats a huge difference. To bring an example: a rune which turns 90% of healing power into power would reduce the dmg gap. If I did no misstakes it would result in ~85% dmg of a fullzerk. So healingbuilds or tanky equip would become better and are more welcome. Most PUGs don’t care about 10% dmg – potions, buffood which nobody uses;)

GW2 should be compared to hack’n slays, they got a similar gameplay.
Hack’n Slay healers do dmg, there is no trinity or fullhealer in (most?) hack’n slays since everyone needs to bring dmg. GW2 is the same, you don’t want to sacrifice huge amounts of dmg for being a bit more tanky or get better heals. Most bad groups got not enough dmg which causes trouble.

So basically make it easier for people because if the damage of let’s say healy/tanky gear is increased you’re basically dealing a lot more damage while still having the benefit of a lot more healing and tankiness than a berserker player.

You’re asking to be rewarded more for less active and less skilled play.

Also another mistake you make is thinking GW2 has or should have a healer.
It does not and should not – each person has his own healing skill so a healing archetype is not needed.

If you’re healing (outside of a few niche situations) you’re not doing anybody any good since you’re doing something that is redundant. I already have my OWN healing skill and can manage my own HP.

So instead of doing something useful you’re just doing what I’m already doing by myself – which is not needed.

Also Cyninja – I don’t agree that new players imitating veteran players is a problem. It is the natural course of all games.

Player sophistication increases the more a player stays active within a game or within a specific genre of games. This is not good or bad – it is a fact.
Look at any game – from DoTA to CS to Call of Duty – players are using tactics in public matches and low-skill brackets that were considered “pro material” just a few years ago.

Immersion is not really relevant since in an MMO immersion cannot be achieved effortlessly unless you are there at the very start of the game. Anything after and you’ll have people more informed and knowledgeable who will advise and break your “immersion”.

Harper.4173:

Jockum.1385:

Thaddeus.4891:

Now explain me how because I don’t see it. How can Soldier gear give roughly the same results???

Increase soldiers gears dmg. I suggested that a few pages ago.

I think people want to play different roles. So its not just about gear.
A healer is no option since dmg is more important than healing. If a fullcleric would do – let say – 90% dmg of a fullzerk, fullcleric would be an option. Healing is atm very helpful in GW2 – but the lost dmg is usually not worth it.

If I did no misstakes a fullberserk got roughly twice the effective power of a fullcleric. Thats a huge difference. To bring an example: a rune which turns 90% of healing power into power would reduce the dmg gap. If I did no misstakes it would result in ~85% dmg of a fullzerk. So healingbuilds or tanky equip would become better and are more welcome. Most PUGs don’t care about 10% dmg – potions, buffood which nobody uses;)

GW2 should be compared to hack’n slays, they got a similar gameplay.
Hack’n Slay healers do dmg, there is no trinity or fullhealer in (most?) hack’n slays since everyone needs to bring dmg. GW2 is the same, you don’t want to sacrifice huge amounts of dmg for being a bit more tanky or get better heals. Most bad groups got not enough dmg which causes trouble.

So basically make it easier for people because if the damage of let’s say healy/tanky gear is increased you’re basically dealing a lot more damage while still having the benefit of a lot more healing and tankiness than a berserker player.

You’re asking to be rewarded more for less active and less skilled play.

Also another mistake you make is thinking GW2 has or should have a healer.
It does not and should not – each person has his own healing skill so a healing archetype is not needed.

If you’re healing (outside of a few niche situations) you’re not doing anybody any good since you’re doing something that is redundant. I already have my OWN healing skill and can manage my own HP.

So instead of doing something useful you’re just doing what I’m already doing by myself – which is not needed.

-Not at all if healing is made to be part of the “Skilled Play”. Defiant Stance is one such a healing skill (sort of Mark of Protection from GW1) A Protector’s Strike that healed on block instead of damaging would be similar.
-Skilled healing spells, along with increased mob attack frequency, could push a more defensive meta.
-Tying blocks, blinds, controls, and interrupts to stats could also force a shift towards a balanced approach. In an example system, a boss would gain a certain amount of defiance when using an attack that needs to be broken through before interrupting it. Higher interrupt strength can help in that. To compensate, a boss doesn’t gain defiance upon that interrupt. (only when idle) Aegis could be stacked (higher support power characters could apply more of them), but bosses could burn through stacks, but lose a percentage of damage for each level of aegis removed.
-As a quick challenge: find the healer in the picture below

“Give clerics 90% of zerk damage” and “tie active defense to passive stats”.

These are joke/parody ideas right?

Harper.4173:

Also Cyninja – I don’t agree that new players imitating veteran players is a problem. It is the natural course of all games.

Player sophistication increases the more a player stays active within a game or within a specific genre of games. This is not good or bad – it is a fact.
Look at any game – from DoTA to CS to Call of Duty – players are using tactics in public matches and low-skill brackets that were considered “pro material” just a few years ago.

Immersion is not really relevant since in an MMO immersion cannot be achieved effortlessly unless you are there at the very start of the game. Anything after and you’ll have people more informed and knowledgeable who will advise and break your “immersion”.

It becomes a problem when the new players jump the process of understanding why specific gear and skills get chosen. When a big part of the enjoyment of discovery is taken from players.

Lack of understanding leads to exactly these kind of topics where people try to find supperficial solutions to complex problems not actually understanding the core concepts of the game and its mechanics.

Boro.7359:

Harper.4173:

Jockum.1385:

Thaddeus.4891:

snip

snip

So basically make it easier for people because if the damage of let’s say healy/tanky gear is increased you’re basically dealing a lot more damage while still having the benefit of a lot more healing and tankiness than a berserker player.

You’re asking to be rewarded more for less active and less skilled play.

Also another mistake you make is thinking GW2 has or should have a healer.
It does not and should not – each person has his own healing skill so a healing archetype is not needed.

If you’re healing (outside of a few niche situations) you’re not doing anybody any good since you’re doing something that is redundant. I already have my OWN healing skill and can manage my own HP.

So instead of doing something useful you’re just doing what I’m already doing by myself – which is not needed.

-Not at all if healing is made to be part of the “Skilled Play”. Defiant Stance is one such a healing skill (sort of Mark of Protection from GW1) A Protector’s Strike that healed on block instead of damaging would be similar.
-Skilled healing spells, along with increased mob attack frequency, could push a more defensive meta.
-Tying blocks, blinds, controls, and interrupts to stats could also force a shift towards a balanced approach. In an example system, a boss would gain a certain amount of defiance when using an attack that needs to be broken through before interrupting it. Higher interrupt strength can help in that. To compensate, a boss doesn’t gain defiance upon that interrupt. (only when idle) Aegis could be stacked (higher support power characters could apply more of them), but bosses could burn through stacks, but lose a percentage of damage for each level of aegis removed.
-As a quick challenge: find the healer in the picture below

Interesting idea of stacking defences like aegis. This would of corse open a new problem, any group setup without enough defences would not be viable.

It’s essentially a new spin on the “we only want classes xyz” present. Or multiple classes would have to provide the same defensive beneifts essentially making them same and the game more boring. Or the class which is best in providing needed defences is meta and the others are not.

I understand where you were going with the picture, but asking random people a question like that with no explanation makes no sense. Especially when the picture holds absolutely no clues to what the skills do or what each classes role/options are. Also as was pointed out multiple times, GW1 had a trinity system so while even if multiple characters would take support skills, you had a very different meta to build for. Finally GW1 had split skills between PvE and PvP. That’s a huge factor when considering builds and skills.

Well, if we stack aegis, we could might as well stack blind, and if one class can’t stack one then maybe they can stack the other, so perhaps that can help alleviate the issue. (and stacking blind on enemies is a whole different thing, as you are trying to position them instead of your allies for maximum AoE/skill effect, not to mention one is tied to boons, the other is to conditions, two important parts of the game.)

As for the GW1 pic, yeah, I forgot there are people here who can’t identify gw1 skills by their icons :/
So the solution: all rits have the same healing skills and attributes, all are contributing to damage, although the Communing rit does it passively.

notes:

• skill 5 is a targeted heal for 100hp (36 hp sacrifice if there aren’t any spirits within range)
• Skill 6 is an item spell that increases maximum hp by 80, self-heals for 160 when dropped, and has a 22 health sacrifice when used (30 if recast while held)
• maximum hp by the level the builds were designed for is 220
• Skill 5 has 4 second recharge, skill 6 has 15 seconds.
• The “build” is a collation of builds that could be used by lowbie canthans for the Minister Cho’s Estate mission, the first mission in that campaign.
• There are blocks (Rt/E skill 4), Blinds (Rt/Mo skill 2), Weakness (Rt/N skill 4), Damage Reduction (Rt/Mo skill 4) and interrupts (Rt/Me skill 1 and 2),

Most meta hero builds in gw1 (and by that I mean those created for Hard Mode) don’t have characters purely dedicated to healer: They either offer defensive or offensive support (N/Rt Curses Resto, Rt/any SoS resto, N/Rt Icy Veins/curses resto) Similarly, most controllers are specced to damage (Ineptitude mesmer, Panic mesmer), and even the “dedicated dps” (SoGM rit, most player builds) offer group support through skills like “Save Yourselves!” and Ebon Battle Standard of Honor, control through knockdowns, or just not being as much pressure on the healers through blocks and blinds.