Guild Wars 2

We learned a lot this weekend. Ele Ice Bow party spam is getting nerfed. Devs confirmed that Zerker builds will have a harder time in the newer content. And Druids will be the GW2 equivalent of GW1 Monks. So what does this mean? Holy Trinity coming back? Not quite. It just means it’s time to rewrite the meta.

Speculating on how dodging and evading just won’t cut it, all players are gonna need survivability. At the same time, you can’t go all Tanky, lest you not have enough DPS output to complete missions and raids. So considering all this, Balanced builds will be the next “in” thing. The best options seem to be leaning towards Soldier’s/PTV armor (Power, Toughness, and Vitality). That will give you some straight damage increase, with damage reductions and increased HP pool. Druid specs are most likely going to be pure heal, which uses Nomad’s (Toughness, Vitality, and Healing) or Cleric’s (Healing, Power, and Toughness). The latter allows Druids to have some damage output.

The good thing about this is now you can change your Ascended armor to another preferred stat combo. For people who can’t afford to craft multiple Ascended builds, this is a Godsend. It would be wise to begin investing in materials that allow for conversions, such as Soldier’s Intricate Gossamer Insignia and Elaborate Totems before prices spike.

And after few months the soldier meta is replaced again through full zerk meta

flashback income^^ remember the start of the game and holy soldier stats meta

Well, if Condis will play an important role in Raids, then one could speculate the Celestial gear will be the next Meta. Jack of all Trades, but master of none. Then we’ll see a spike in Quartz prices, as everyone’s gonna want to make Charged ones.

Market is just too crazy before important updates like HoT Release to speculate on Soldier’s Intricate Gossamer Insignia and Elaborate Totems out now is risky but if you want….

look at Spiritwood Plank after twitch show yesterday and the person who try to buy out all

Zaron.1987:

look at Spiritwood Plank after twitch show yesterday and the person who try to buy out all

Just FYI – It’s not against the rules, nor morally wrong to profit off of other players. <3

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Zaron.1987:

look at Spiritwood Plank after twitch show yesterday and the person who try to buy out all

Just FYI – It’s not against the rules, nor morally wrong to profit off of other players. <3

Just FYI i never said that or critize that!

just say that hobby speculants can fall deep and i dont speak from you to avoid misconceptions

I still have my doubts about the berserker meta not being the fastest way to clear a raid. We will see once raids are actually released, but seeing as there is literally not a single enemy currently in the game that isn’t fastest killed by a full offense group (husks being the only exception from berserker since they require sinister), I just don’t see what the devs base their assumption on.

Well, just in case I’ll take my celestial armor with me.

NOTHING in this game should be designed for Zerker.
Players will always find a way to cheese some Zerkers in once they learn the in’s and outs of the content anyway, but at least that way other builds would be more viable.

At least i already have heavy ascended berserker, soldier, celestial and sinister armor.

And for roaming with my guardian in silverwastes i prefer already mostly celestial
since it is a good mix of direct and condi damage with also more survivalibity.

However all those dungeon speedrunners will ofc still also need their zerker
stuff even if they maybe really need something else in HoT content.

And also if zerker die now constantly in HoT its only the fault of the healers

Kite.2510:

NOTHING in this game should be designed for Zerker.
Players will always find a way to cheese some Zerkers in once they learn the in’s and outs of the content anyway, but at least that way other builds would be more viable.

Nothing in this game IS designed for zerker.

The content is designed to be doable with the current game mechanics in mind. The fact that people are capable to use said mechanics and play with maximum damage gear is a result of refinement.

This is a dangerous direction to take, if a certain level of “survivability” is needed to clear a dungeon.

Not all professions are equal, some are just inherently far more durable. And could achieve high enough durability easier while sacrificing less in the department of offensive. The end result is just that professions who need to give up to much damage to not die in the content are going to get shunned.

Cyninja.2954:

Kite.2510:

NOTHING in this game should be designed for Zerker.
Players will always find a way to cheese some Zerkers in once they learn the in’s and outs of the content anyway, but at least that way other builds would be more viable.

Nothing in this game IS designed for zerker.

The content is designed to be doable with the current game mechanics in mind. The fact that people are capable to use said mechanics and play with maximum damage gear is a result of refinement.

The fact that Zerker was the meta for so long on everything means that everything was, intentionally or unintentionally, designed around the Zerker.
Look no further than the “Hard” Superbosses like the Tequatle patch, where besides the technical stuff, all other conditions for failing was “not doing enough damage”.

• Enemies not hitting hard or often enough for players to invest on toughness.
• Healing being Useless!
• Having defensive/supportive attributes not scale defensive/supportive skills (unlike power and conditions that synergies with most offensive skills), thus working better on heavy armor professions who rely less on avoiding damage.
• Also ANY event that appeared with a Strict Timer is a Zerker event!

There is no such thing as unintentional design.

Kite.2510:

Cyninja.2954:

Kite.2510:

NOTHING in this game should be designed for Zerker.
Players will always find a way to cheese some Zerkers in once they learn the in’s and outs of the content anyway, but at least that way other builds would be more viable.

Nothing in this game IS designed for zerker.

The content is designed to be doable with the current game mechanics in mind. The fact that people are capable to use said mechanics and play with maximum damage gear is a result of refinement.

The fact that Zerker was the meta for so long on everything means that everything was, intentionally or unintentionally, designed around the Zerker.
Look no further than the “Hard” Superbosses like the Tequatle patch, where besides the technical stuff, all other conditions for failing was “not doing enough damage”.

• Enemies not hitting hard or often enough for players to invest on toughness.
• Healing being Useless!
• Having defensive/supportive attributes not scale defensive/supportive skills (unlike power and conditions that synergies with most offensive skills), thus working better on heavy armor professions who rely less on avoiding damage.
• Also ANY event that appeared with a Strict Timer is a Zerker event!

1 .In Tequatle it’s mostly condition damage that’ll get you so toughness won’t really help.

2.Healing isn’t useless, I see so many people get down often and I’ve helped barely avoid a wipe because I have ascended zealot’s pants and gloves and an ascended triforge. There were other people standing on flowers too that helped rez so I’m not going to take full credit of course. Likewise in Tequatl shadow refuge ticks decently enough and is set to remove conditions.

3. I agree with this on some fronts, but on others it would effect PvP too much. Even there soldier’s, celestial, and other defensive stats are mandatory. Making characters too tanky would make fights last too long. Otherwise for PvE it’s a great idea.

4.Not always true. Dying is something that should be avoided. The time spent going from waypoint to event could be spent doing good sustained damage. Zerker still has its place but ferocity just increases bonus damage and precision is needed to unlock it at certain points.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Zaron.1987:

look at Spiritwood Plank after twitch show yesterday and the person who try to buy out all

Just FYI – It’s not against the rules, nor morally wrong to profit off of other players. <3

It’s not against the rules, but I would say it is morally wrong to try to exploit others for profit.

By “exploit”, I mean buying something for a low, or fair, price, from a retail venue, with the sole intention of reselling it at a very high one, on the same (or on a worse) venue.

I know this also happens IRL, sometimes, but I read that as morally wrong, to an extent, too.

How wrong depends on how much the person intends to price gouge and/or the financial circumstances in that person’s life.

I know you, or others, will try to argue with me about this, but I am talking about my gut reaction, here.

My instinct.

So, it’s not something I can, or would want to, change.

Of course, IRL, the moral “wrongness” of it could be balanced, or completely negated, by other issues.

For example, a person could be so poor, that it is far more moral (on balance) that they buy, say, rare and highly desirable luxury goods (that no one actually, really, needs) from a store and then resell them for a large profit, than it would be if they and their kids starved to death, or died from cold, or whatever.

But, in a game, no one faces actual starvation, or other unbearable hardship, so it is rather different.

It, generally, just boils down to greed.

This is not to say I have never bought and resold stuff in games, BTW…

But I still don’t consider it particularly moral.

New meta:

4 zerker
1 druid

no problem

Scientia.8924:

New meta:

4 zerker
1 druid

no problem

Druid doesn’t have a lot proactive support, mostly reactive. If the new content is all about pressure damage instead of spikes then sure, druid can work with other players using mostly offensive builds. However, if a pressure will have accompanied spike damage, then you’ll need proactive damage mitigation (dodges, protection, etc).

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

There is no such thing as unintentional design.

No, but there is (obviously) such a thing as design and with it, often, come unintended consequences.

Kite.2510:

The fact that Zerker was the meta for so long on everything means that everything was, intentionally or unintentionally, designed around the Zerker.
Look no further than the “Hard” Superbosses like the Tequatle patch, where besides the technical stuff, all other conditions for failing was “not doing enough damage”.

• Also ANY event that appeared with a Strict Timer is a Zerker event!

You know that until the last changes to worlbosses, Soldier stuff did the same
damage than berserker since you couldn’t crit at building-type bosses ?

@OP You mean something like this?
“LFM Exp. Soldier ONLY! READ DESC.”

ANet is trying to correct something that is fundamentally flawed.
You cannot have variety in gear sets or builds if all the professions use the same basic character stats, e.g. there’s no intellect for casters only or attack power for melees, or if there’s no kind of replacement for the holy trinity with dedicated support,heal,dps,etc.

No matter what they do, everyone will have the same gear with this system no matter if it’s called zerk or poney, because everyone is specializing on clearing the content as fast as possible.

“How wrong depends on how much the person intends to price gouge and/or the financial circumstances in that person’s life.”

I think reselling is wrong no matter the person’s circumstances. Of course I just mean within a game itself.

“But, in a game, no one faces actual starvation, or other unbearable hardship, so it is rather different.”

Apparently you’ve never been in a heavily understaffed area of Silverwaste where teagarrifs chain knock you down and hit so hard you die in two or three hits. That’s not even considering the guaranteed damage you’ll take if you dodge through their charge. Don’t even get me started on rangers who burst down non-veteran or mobs with very little HP left so fewer people can tag them or tag an event at the last second. Ranger upstart on attacks needs a serious nerf the damage from rapid fire is too instant and too much.

Beldin.5498:

At least i already have heavy ascended berserker, soldier, celestial and sinister armor.

And for roaming with my guardian in silverwastes i prefer already mostly celestial
since it is a good mix of direct and condi damage with also more survivalibity.

However all those dungeon speedrunners will ofc still also need their zerker
stuff even if they maybe really need something else in HoT content.

And also if zerker die now constantly in HoT its only the fault of the healers

na it won’t be the healers fault because the system is still based around dodging/ damage reduction through debuffs ect if a zerker dies he didn’t do enough to survive untill the healing effects kick in or he took too much damage to keep his HP sustained .

its not a holy trinity where the party only lives if the healer is good , the whole party must be good and Balanced for Survival , the druid will provide some Health sustain but it won’t keep you or them zerkers alive if they play badly or nor bring enough defences. its not as black or white as you think it is.

I think balance includes more than gear, it also includes trait and skill selection. I suspect Berserker gear is still going to be completely viable, even in raids, provided you are getting some survivability through other aspects of your build. You shouldn’t be able to make every choice in the direction of all-out offense and still do well. If you can, the content is too easy.

Hmm, it really depends.

If the new content becomes too tedious as a result, one may find people running the old stuff which will be more profitable. And that’s the ultimate problem when people talk about the “meta” when speed and gold become a primary goal.

ArchonWing.9480:

Hmm, it really depends.

If the new content becomes too tedious as a result, one may find people running the old stuff which will be more profitable. And that’s the ultimate problem when people talk about the “meta” when speed and gold become a primary goal.

A way to fix the problem would be having new content have better rewards even relative to the time investment compared to old content. If you can make 10g per hour in an old dungeon then make it so one can make 15g per hour in the new content where full zerker wouldn’t be viable.

Kite.2510:

Cyninja.2954:

Kite.2510:

NOTHING in this game should be designed for Zerker.
Players will always find a way to cheese some Zerkers in once they learn the in’s and outs of the content anyway, but at least that way other builds would be more viable.

Nothing in this game IS designed for zerker.

The content is designed to be doable with the current game mechanics in mind. The fact that people are capable to use said mechanics and play with maximum damage gear is a result of refinement.

The fact that Zerker was the meta for so long on everything means that everything was, intentionally or unintentionally, designed around the Zerker.
Look no further than the “Hard” Superbosses like the Tequatle patch, where besides the technical stuff, all other conditions for failing was “not doing enough damage”.

• Enemies not hitting hard or often enough for players to invest on toughness.
• Healing being Useless!
• Having defensive/supportive attributes not scale defensive/supportive skills (unlike power and conditions that synergies with most offensive skills), thus working better on heavy armor professions who rely less on avoiding damage.
• Also ANY event that appeared with a Strict Timer is a Zerker event!

Are we talking about the same tequattle who used to be/is crit immune? Essentially making 1 stat of berserker useless and making people run soldiers.

Where you get bombarded with AoE that can 2-3 shot berserker wearers. 1 shot on wave.

Not sure what you want them to do as far as anti zerker goes. Add a skill that automatically kills any berserker wearer?

Fact remains, the combat system with it’s active defenses lends itsself to max damage play. That has nothing to do with stats.

Kite.2510:

• Enemies not hitting hard or often enough for players to invest on toughness.

I’ve said it in the past, I’ll say it again. People will look back on these days with disgust where others were asking for more instant kill mechanics. Fractals bevor the revamp where like this with 1 hit agony post level 40. Back then Fractals were fun and took skill. Guess how much of the playerbase completed them?

In an action oriented game that relies on reflexes and player skill for defense, upping the damage means you are making less and less players able to complete the challenge, that is unless you give them heal spam bots to cover for fail play.

Kite.2510:

• Healing being Useless!

Healing is not useless in this meta. It’s NOT NEEDED. There is a difference. If you can’t see the difference, there is no point in continuing this argument.

Healing Power on the other hand has a weak scaling at the moment. This is again due to having to big a coefficient here would unbalance every single aspect of the game with the current content in mind. (then again that cleric guardian will keep your group at 100% health through a level 50 fractal Mai, even if you face roll into every single attack).

Kite.2510:

• Also ANY event that appeared with a Strict Timer is a Zerker event!

Depends totally on the event and timer. As is there is no event I can think off that can’t be completed with soldiers or more defensive gear. Timers in general are VERY lenient and only in place so events can move on and event chains don’t stay stuck. I politely disagree.

Kite.2510:

• Having defensive/supportive attributes not scale defensive/supportive skills (unlike power and conditions that synergies with most offensive skills), thus working better on heavy armor professions who rely less on avoiding damage.

Heavy armor profession less avoidance is a myth. Heavy armor provides aproximately 5% less damage per armor level (5% over medium, 10% over light). Not of significance considering the damage some attacks bring. Most active defensice skills are 100% damage ignore, not sure how much further you want them to synergise. Sure, Aegis could heal for each hit it blocks, let’s roll with that.

The difference in health pools is way more significant, and that is absolutely not affected by the heavy – low armor distribution.

People who are cheering the demise of the meta will find out in a month or two it will just be replaced with a different one. They nerf direct damage? It shifts to Condis. They introduce unavoidable damage? It shifts to classes that can best handle that damage while keeping up DPS or classes that can allow others to recover (such as 1 healer with 4 DPS being more DPS than 5 people who bring DPS and healing).

Blaming the developers and the content they design is pretty misleading. There’s (currently) no PvE worth being competitive about in GW2 yet it still exists and people still argue about best this or meta that.

It’s really a catch-22 for them because if they make it too hard players will create meta builds that are “required” to do the content at all and if they make it easy enough for any build to do it then people going to use maximum DPS to power through it fast as they can which people still then “require.” Metas are a creation of the player base.

Since the goal is team gear-build diversity, I’d expect a meta more like 6-8 glass, 1-2 heal and 1-2 bulky tbh. If the gear meta just changes to mostly Knight’s or Soldier’s, then ANet will have failed. It seems an ANet comment about glass builds having a harder time in HoT is being taken to mean individual builds. Well, what if they meant all-glass-team gear? That was the point of the changes to how content is designed.

Kodiak.3281:

People who are cheering the demise of the meta will find out in a month or two it will just be replaced with a different one. They nerf direct damage? It shifts to Condis. They introduce unavoidable damage? It shifts to classes that can best handle that damage while keeping up DPS or classes that can allow others to recover (such as 1 healer with 4 DPS being more DPS than 5 people who bring DPS and healing).

Blaming the developers and the content they design is pretty misleading. There’s (currently) no PvE worth being competitive about in GW2 yet it still exists and people still argue about best this or meta that.

It’s really a catch-22 for them because if they make it too hard players will create meta builds that are “required” to do the content at all and if they make it easy enough for any build to do it then people going to use maximum DPS to power through it fast as they can which people still then “require.” Metas are a creation of the player base.

I agree with this on a fundamental level because there is inherently a better way to get through something than another.

If they didn’t want zerker gear to be dominant in content, they could introduce content where killing the enemy is not a priority, say you have to escape from a collapsing dungeon, and the boss is merely trying to take you down with it so your main goal is to find the escape route or make bosses which aren’t able to damaged directly but you have to set off traps or something. I’m not sure how fun that would be though.

If the way to make zerker gear not the best is to artificially increase the difficulty by making damage unavoidable, or worse, forcing damage on the player of which they require healing or a certain stat threshold to survive it, then I’dd rather not have that at all.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Since the goal is team gear-build diversity, I’d expect a meta more like 6-8 glass, 1-2 heal and 1-2 bulky tbh. If the gear meta just changes to mostly Knight’s or Soldier’s, then ANet will have failed. It seems an ANet comment about glass builds having a harder time in HoT is being taken to mean individual builds. Well, what if they meant all-glass-team gear? That was the point of the changes to how content is designed.

I don’t see how you can have challenging content that will require the group to spread out for example without any kind of targeted heal or support skills currently in the game.
How do you heal a buddy who is far away? Who do you heal first?

So in the end it all comes back to individual gear/traits and everyone for himself, unless ANet goes again with the “stack all in the corner” type of encounters.

The relatively short range of boons and heals also contributes to the “stack closely” concept as well.

Weirdly enough, Anet has nerfed the range of support lately, such as guardian virtue range.

This puts ranged characters at an even greater disadvantage.

Kite.2510:

Cyninja.2954:

Kite.2510:

NOTHING in this game should be designed for Zerker.
Players will always find a way to cheese some Zerkers in once they learn the in’s and outs of the content anyway, but at least that way other builds would be more viable.

Nothing in this game IS designed for zerker.

The content is designed to be doable with the current game mechanics in mind. The fact that people are capable to use said mechanics and play with maximum damage gear is a result of refinement.

The fact that Zerker was the meta for so long on everything means that everything was, intentionally or unintentionally, designed around the Zerker.
Look no further than the “Hard” Superbosses like the Tequatle patch, where besides the technical stuff, all other conditions for failing was “not doing enough damage”.

• Enemies not hitting hard or often enough for players to invest on toughness.
• Healing being Useless!
• Having defensive/supportive attributes not scale defensive/supportive skills (unlike power and conditions that synergies with most offensive skills), thus working better on heavy armor professions who rely less on avoiding damage.
• Also ANY event that appeared with a Strict Timer is a Zerker event!

1. The entire point of any encounter in this game is to kill the enemy…so of course “not doing enough damage” is an issue. The enemies aren’t there for us to hug them. Even so, that has nothing to do with zerkers or any “zerker meta”. It has everything to do with players who refuse to stop trying to play this game as if it is a trinity mmo. Your role playing as a cleric is not the way this game was designed. It was designed for you to help with the killing. That does not mean you need to have zerk gear on, but it does mean you need to invest in some damage dealing and contribute to the goal of the game…killing the enemies.

2. The enemies do hit hard enough and often enough to invest in toughness…if you can’t be bothered to use any of your damage avoidance abilities. ANET designed the game in a fashion that provided you two options. Avoid damage or face tank damage. Just because you choose to face tank, doesn’t mean that everyone else should have to…that’s why they provided the options.

3. I don’t know what the kitten you are talking about with healing being useless. My healing skills work just fine. When I activate them, they heal me. I’ll go out on a limb here and assume you are mad about people like me not needing people like you to heal me? I’m sorry, but that’s how they designed the game intentionally. They designed the game where players were no longer dependent on other players to be functional. They designed it so that things did not automatically fail because of one person (tank or healer). They designed things such that you could complete content with anyone in your party (phiw). Its funny and sad that this was the phiw mantra early on in this game, but you guys changed your tune when it became obvious that meant you would be doing that without zerk players in your groups. The reality is that things are working as intended. Healing does support….it just is not currently mandatory. Runs can be easier with some healing…a few less downed players as a result. Runs can also be easier if players make less mistakes…meaning a few less downed players as a result. That’s what I call balanced options.

4. Why would defensive options need to scale when they are already at 100% by default? That has always been a disingenuous argument specifically wanting to force zerk players dependence on non zerk players. The only reason for wanting active defenses to not work properly for zerk players is to force the presence of non zerk players to use those utilities for them. Also, every player should be avoiding damage…not doing so is the epitome of face rolling.

5. Every event with a strict timer is a contribution measurement event. They were sending a clear message that maybe the least damaging of builds wasn’t the best or most polite option in a mass group environment…especially when such a significant portion of the other players there were doing the same thing. It is trivial to meet the timer requirement when at least contributing a minimum of damage. Its not like crit and ferocity are not disabled on fights like that. Power and condi were the only offensive stats that affect those major world bosses. Nomad wasn’t the best option perhaps? Its not like you guys haven’t been screaming for the exact opposite to happen for 3 years now….wanting events that just auto kill anything not wearing survival stats. Hypocrite much? I also find it funny that you guys spent 3 years screaming and crying on the forums for the trinity…or at least the GW2 version of it…but as soon as one of us says something about not liking the direction ANET is caving into…we are asked why we don’t just not buy the game or go to a different game. The hypocrisy is real.

VaLee.5102:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Since the goal is team gear-build diversity, I’d expect a meta more like 6-8 glass, 1-2 heal and 1-2 bulky tbh. If the gear meta just changes to mostly Knight’s or Soldier’s, then ANet will have failed. It seems an ANet comment about glass builds having a harder time in HoT is being taken to mean individual builds. Well, what if they meant all-glass-team gear? That was the point of the changes to how content is designed.

I don’t see how you can have challenging content that will require the group to spread out for example without any kind of targeted heal or support skills currently in the game.
How do you heal a buddy who is far away? Who do you heal first?

So in the end it all comes back to individual gear/traits and everyone for himself, unless ANet goes again with the “stack all in the corner” type of encounters.

My prediction is it will end in one of two ways – after things are figured out sufficient defense will be obtained from new food buffs or existing ones to allow “full zerker” parties to still clear it with maybe 1-2 people not being full zerker using buffs and food designed to keep them alive.

Second possibility – the whole meta will change and we’ll see 10 individual players each doing his own mitigation via gear – so 8 tanky power damage users ( Knight+ zerker) and 2 tanky condi damage users ( whatever works).

VaLee.5102:

@OP You mean something like this?
“LFM Exp. Soldier ONLY! READ DESC.”

ANet is trying to correct something that is fundamentally flawed.
You cannot have variety in gear sets or builds if all the professions use the same basic character stats, e.g. there’s no intellect for casters only or attack power for melees, or if there’s no kind of replacement for the holy trinity with dedicated support,heal,dps,etc.

No matter what they do, everyone will have the same gear with this system no matter if it’s called zerk or poney, because everyone is specializing on clearing the content as fast as possible.

This^

How can they be so far off from understanding the game they design….

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Beldin.5498:

At least i already have heavy ascended berserker, soldier, celestial and sinister armor.

And for roaming with my guardian in silverwastes i prefer already mostly celestial
since it is a good mix of direct and condi damage with also more survivalibity.

However all those dungeon speedrunners will ofc still also need their zerker
stuff even if they maybe really need something else in HoT content.

And also if zerker die now constantly in HoT its only the fault of the healers

na it won’t be the healers fault because the system is still based around dodging/ damage reduction through debuffs ect if a zerker dies he didn’t do enough to survive untill the healing effects kick in or he took too much damage to keep his HP sustained .

its not a holy trinity where the party only lives if the healer is good , the whole party must be good and Balanced for Survival , the druid will provide some Health sustain but it won’t keep you or them zerkers alive if they play badly or nor bring enough defences. its not as black or white as you think it is.

Without meters/metrics/inspect….it will be extremely ambiguous as to who’s fault it was. ANET has clearly stated that avoidance will not be enough to survive. That includes utility usage, skill usage, and dodging. That means healing will have to cover the rest. Guess where the finger is inevitably going to get pointed by default. Its not like healer blame is a new concept to mmos.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Beldin.5498:

At least i already have heavy ascended berserker, soldier, celestial and sinister armor.

And for roaming with my guardian in silverwastes i prefer already mostly celestial
since it is a good mix of direct and condi damage with also more survivalibity.

However all those dungeon speedrunners will ofc still also need their zerker
stuff even if they maybe really need something else in HoT content.

And also if zerker die now constantly in HoT its only the fault of the healers

na it won’t be the healers fault because the system is still based around dodging/ damage reduction through debuffs ect if a zerker dies he didn’t do enough to survive untill the healing effects kick in or he took too much damage to keep his HP sustained .

its not a holy trinity where the party only lives if the healer is good , the whole party must be good and Balanced for Survival , the druid will provide some Health sustain but it won’t keep you or them zerkers alive if they play badly or nor bring enough defences. its not as black or white as you think it is.

But .. but .. pointing with your finger on the healer is sooo much better than just
crying LAAAAAAAAAG !!!! when you messed something up

ArchonWing.9480:

Kodiak.3281:

People who are cheering the demise of the meta will find out in a month or two it will just be replaced with a different one. They nerf direct damage? It shifts to Condis. They introduce unavoidable damage? It shifts to classes that can best handle that damage while keeping up DPS or classes that can allow others to recover (such as 1 healer with 4 DPS being more DPS than 5 people who bring DPS and healing).

Blaming the developers and the content they design is pretty misleading. There’s (currently) no PvE worth being competitive about in GW2 yet it still exists and people still argue about best this or meta that.

It’s really a catch-22 for them because if they make it too hard players will create meta builds that are “required” to do the content at all and if they make it easy enough for any build to do it then people going to use maximum DPS to power through it fast as they can which people still then “require.” Metas are a creation of the player base.

I agree with this on a fundamental level because there is inherently a better way to get through something than another.

If they didn’t want zerker gear to be dominant in content, they could introduce content where killing the enemy is not a priority, say you have to escape from a collapsing dungeon, and the boss is merely trying to take you down with it so your main goal is to find the escape route or make bosses which aren’t able to damaged directly but you have to set off traps or something. I’m not sure how fun that would be though.

If the way to make zerker gear not the best is to artificially increase the difficulty by making damage unavoidable, or worse, forcing damage on the player of which they require healing or a certain stat threshold to survive it, then I’dd rather not have that at all.

Yes^ I can’t help but agree with every word you just said.

ODB.6891:

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Beldin.5498:

At least i already have heavy ascended berserker, soldier, celestial and sinister armor.

And for roaming with my guardian in silverwastes i prefer already mostly celestial
since it is a good mix of direct and condi damage with also more survivalibity.

However all those dungeon speedrunners will ofc still also need their zerker
stuff even if they maybe really need something else in HoT content.

And also if zerker die now constantly in HoT its only the fault of the healers

na it won’t be the healers fault because the system is still based around dodging/ damage reduction through debuffs ect if a zerker dies he didn’t do enough to survive untill the healing effects kick in or he took too much damage to keep his HP sustained .

its not a holy trinity where the party only lives if the healer is good , the whole party must be good and Balanced for Survival , the druid will provide some Health sustain but it won’t keep you or them zerkers alive if they play badly or nor bring enough defences. its not as black or white as you think it is.

Without meters/metrics/inspect….it will be extremely ambiguous as to who’s fault it was. ANET has clearly stated that avoidance will not be enough to survive. That includes utility usage, skill usage, and dodging. That means healing will have to cover the rest. Guess where the finger is inevitably going to get pointed by default. Its not like healer blame is a new concept to mmos.

Agreed. It will be even more fun where player skill dictates how much damage you take.

Imagine 2 scenarios:

A.) traditional MMO where your stats define how much damage you take and the occasional repositioning due to AoE and a tank, etc.

Healers here are already flamed heavily (I should know, I loved playing a Priest in WoW and a Tank in Warhammer. Treating your healers well was always an essential part).

B.) the more modern action paced MMO with active dodging and defenses to mitigate damage where players heavily influence how much damage actually gets to them.

This will be extremely fun for healers. When they now get flak for unskilled players on top of flak in general.

How could anything go wrong.

I’m pretty sure the design effort being put in is not intended to see everyone in the same set of stats again. It’s less to kill zerker meta and more to kill Lone Wolf meta where everybody is the same DPS-with-whatever-support-you-can-cram-in. More than stat-diversification, I bet you they’d like to see some ROLE DIVERSIFICATION.

In that arrangement, there will be a need for skilled ’zerker wearing characters who can dodge every bit of dodgable damage dishing max DPS while a control specialist is negating some of the worst hits and some of the constant unavoidable pressure and a support character is empowering everyone , deflecting and nullifying some of the big hit and refilling HP a bit faster than everyone can (and had better be) healing themselves. And just like now, as your team gets better at the mechanics, everyone shades towards hit-it-harder.

‘Zerker armor is the tool and the reward for experience. New encounters should put us back at the learning stage again where you run soldiers until you’ve got it dialed in. But even then they’re looking to make content where not everyone slides over to ’zerker as they get more experienced.

Agemnon.4608:

“How wrong depends on how much the person intends to price gouge and/or the financial circumstances in that person’s life.”

I think reselling is wrong no matter the person’s circumstances. Of course I just mean within a game itself.

“But, in a game, no one faces actual starvation, or other unbearable hardship, so it is rather different.”

Apparently you’ve never been in a heavily understaffed area of Silverwaste where teagarrifs chain knock you down and hit so hard you die in two or three hits. That’s not even considering the guaranteed damage you’ll take if you dodge through their charge. Don’t even get me started on rangers who burst down non-veteran or mobs with very little HP left so fewer people can tag them or tag an event at the last second. Ranger upstart on attacks needs a serious nerf the damage from rapid fire is too instant and too much.

Rangers need to be nerfed now?

Don’t get me wrong, my ranger can burst down veteran teragriffs and thrashers in a matter of seconds, but so can almost every other profession. For the record, I don’t use a longbow (or any other ranged weapon). Because of that, vile thrashers give me issue, but a herd of terragriffs is NP.

Yes, I have been chain CC’d to death, but mostly on my necromancer, who has very few stunbreaks and almost no stability.

Misguided.5139:

I think balance includes more than gear, it also includes trait and skill selection. I suspect Berserker gear is still going to be completely viable, even in raids, provided you are getting some survivability through other aspects of your build. You shouldn’t be able to make every choice in the direction of all-out offense and still do well. If you can, the content is too easy.

+1

Misguided.5139:

I think balance includes more than gear, it also includes trait and skill selection. I suspect Berserker gear is still going to be completely viable, even in raids, provided you are getting some survivability through other aspects of your build. You shouldn’t be able to make every choice in the direction of all-out offense and still do well. If you can, the content is too easy.

You absolutely correct but most people still believe that berserker meta means full offensive with no defence nor support.

VaLee.5102:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Since the goal is team gear-build diversity, I’d expect a meta more like 6-8 glass, 1-2 heal and 1-2 bulky tbh. If the gear meta just changes to mostly Knight’s or Soldier’s, then ANet will have failed. It seems an ANet comment about glass builds having a harder time in HoT is being taken to mean individual builds. Well, what if they meant all-glass-team gear? That was the point of the changes to how content is designed.

I don’t see how you can have challenging content that will require the group to spread out for example without any kind of targeted heal or support skills currently in the game.
How do you heal a buddy who is far away? Who do you heal first?

So in the end it all comes back to individual gear/traits and everyone for himself, unless ANet goes again with the “stack all in the corner” type of encounters.

Look at the examples they provide. One person holds the boss while surviving — maybe with a healer in his pocket, maybe not while the rest of the group does X. Or, one person is in close absorbing hits — maybe with a healer, maybe not — while the rest are at range applying conditions.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Look at the examples they provide. One person holds the boss while surviving — maybe with a healer in his pocket, maybe not while the rest of the group does X. Or, one person is in close absorbing hits — maybe with a healer, maybe not — while the rest are at range applying conditions.

I’m hoping there will be different “tasks” during the fights, much like what you just described or like what they did in raids for Marvel Heroes, such that different specs will be useful in different ways. Maybe one group needs massive damage with lots of aoe to deal with swarms while another group needs a bit more survivability/support to occupy a boss, just as an example.

Arenanet is struggling with an impossible design decision. Make raids accessible to the majority of their playerbase or ruin the berserker meta. Either or. You can’t have both.

The skill cap is just way too high. My guess is that the zerker meta will be just fine when they realize that only .1% of their playerbase is making any headway and nerf raids. If they even need to nerf them at all. The zerker nerf may just be an idle threat.

Terrahero.9358:

This is a dangerous direction to take, if a certain level of “survivability” is needed to clear a dungeon.

Not all professions are equal, some are just inherently far more durable. And could achieve high enough durability easier while sacrificing less in the department of offensive. The end result is just that professions who need to give up to much damage to not die in the content are going to get shunned.

So valk reapers could be meta while eles and thieves get shunned? I am SO in for this new meta.

Zerker will be superior forever. The core basic gameplay of gw2 is dmg > all. So anet might find ways to introduce hardcore content which can’t be done by zerker, but then other statt combinations wouldn’t do it either.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

…
The good thing about this is now you can change your Ascended armor to another preferred stat combo. For people who can’t afford to craft multiple Ascended builds, this is a Godsend. It would be wise to begin investing in materials that allow for conversions, such as Soldier’s Intricate Gossamer Insignia and Elaborate Totems before prices spike.

How can you change stats on Ascended armor? How much does it cost?

symke.3105:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

…
The good thing about this is now you can change your Ascended armor to another preferred stat combo. For people who can’t afford to craft multiple Ascended builds, this is a Godsend. It would be wise to begin investing in materials that allow for conversions, such as Soldier’s Intricate Gossamer Insignia and Elaborate Totems before prices spike.

How can you change stats on Ascended armor? How much does it cost?

From the wiki:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ascended_equipment
You can change the stats on Ascended weapons and armor by combining an Anthology of Heroes, the equipment you want to change, five globs of ectoplasm, and an exotic insignia (for armour) or inscription (for weapons). This process destroys all upgrades

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Anthology_of_Heroes

Post to fix forum bug.