Guild Wars 2

I’m still a newbie here… maybe 2 months old. I’m just curious why the system isn’t really based more heavily on making armor the primary source for defensive stats/boons and weapons for offensive stats/conditions/boons.

I’ve gone full dire for a condition damage build. But that’s both weapons and armor. Maybe it is an MMO formula that I’m not familiar with (never had much experience), but is my logic flawed for thinking a viable system would be something like the following?

Armor: Defensive
Defense
Toughness
Vitality
Defensive/Mobility Boon Duration (Stability, Resistance, Swiftness, etc.)

Weapons: Offensive
Damage
Power
Precision
Ferocity
Condition Damage/Duration
Offensive Boon Duration (Might)

I understand that there would need to be balancing within each of the two if that were the case. All offensive stats would come from one or two pieces of equipment instead of 14 + food. All of the defensive stats would come from 6 instead of 14 + food. That would leave trinkets and food to cover specialty things… perhaps overlapping the boon/condition intensity/duration.

Perhaps each piece of armor would grant only one stat, but at a high amount? Or two stats with lower amounts? Or even boons themselves at the cost of stats. For example:

Helmet A : 500 Toughness
Helmet B : 250 Toughness, 250 Vitality
Helmet C : 200 Toughness, 200 Vitality, % -10 Condition Duration on you
Helmet D : 100 Toughness, Swiftness
Helmet E : Stability

There could be the exceptions, of course. Like a shield granting higher defense and blocking, a sword parrying (glancing), a dagger more mobility. Or specialized armor that grants might at the cost of defensive stats… or even the option to go without a piece of armor to grant higher speed and endurance regeneration. But again, these examples are the exceptions to the rule.

Basically, the idea would be to make armor specialize in defense and/or mobility, and weapons in offense and damage.

I guess what I’m really wondering is why my armor increases the damage my attacks do… or why my weapons allow me to take more damage. I completely understand that weapons can be used defensively to an extent, but if armor affects offense at all, shouldn’t it hinder it instead of boost it?

It’s certainly not a complaint about the current system. I’m just throwing the idea out there to see what others think.

I’ve recommended this idea in the past.

Since we don’t have a holy trinity here, the margin between the best DPS and the worst DPS should not be very wide. Because of the way they have implemented stat distribution, that margin is insanely huge.

Doing the stats this way (armor = defensive, weapons = offensive, trinkets = both and special), you eliminate the margin and now spec for PLAYSTYLE rather than MOSTEST DEEPS!!!111!!

I personally love this game, but I definitely see the stat distribution as the single worst thing ArenaNet has done to the game. It’s a pretty critical flaw in my opinion.

Hidori.3472:

dodging, evading, blocking and similar skills are very powerful and after you played enough and learned the mechanics of the mobs, you’ll automatically go for more power and ditch passive defense stats.
I started as a power, toughness, vitality ele and now I’m running all pve with a glass build.

This works very well against dumb NPCs, but it’ll utterly fail in wvw or pvp.

That’s not incompatible with OP’s suggestion, which doesn’t rule out the possibility of armor that offers no Toughness or Vitality, but instead provides increased Endurance regeneration or Condition reduction.

So a person in Toughness/Vitality armor would deal the same amount of damage as someone in Endurance/Condition Reduction armor (provided they’re both using identical Zerk weapons), but the difference would be in their play style: the former will be dodging less and picking utilities to cleanse conditions and heal because they’re taking the hits, while the latter will be dodging like a monkey and picking damage boosting utilities.

Of course this is one of those things that probably sounds better on paper than in practice.

Pandaman.4758:

Hidori.3472:

dodging, evading, blocking and similar skills are very powerful and after you played enough and learned the mechanics of the mobs, you’ll automatically go for more power and ditch passive defense stats.
I started as a power, toughness, vitality ele and now I’m running all pve with a glass build.

This works very well against dumb NPCs, but it’ll utterly fail in wvw or pvp.

That’s not incompatible with OP’s suggestion, which doesn’t rule out the possibility of armor that offers no Toughness or Vitality, but instead provides increased Endurance regeneration or Condition reduction.

I’d just like to note that Endurance Regen and Condition Reduction are both passive defense stats.

So a person in Toughness/Vitality armor would deal the same amount of damage as someone in Endurance/Condition Reduction armor (provided they’re both using identical Zerk weapons), but the difference would be in their play style: the former will be dodging less and picking utilities to cleanse conditions and heal because they’re taking the hits, while the latter will be dodging like a monkey and picking damage boosting utilities.

This is true, but isnt that mostly how it is now? The only difference is now utilities make up for the damage difference.

It sounds ~alright~ in theory, but even at face value allowing the armor set to help determine stats would allow greater variation in build development, instead of reducing it to a set of four skills on your skill bar.

Hidori.3472:

This works very well against dumb NPCs, but it’ll utterly fail in wvw or pvp.

You’d be surprised what you can do with a glass build competitively.

And as a final note, all armor, regardless of what secondary stats they give based on name, provide a baseline defense armor rating that is universal for that armor weight. The secondary stats are just tacked onto that.

Azure The Heartless.3261:

It sounds ~alright~ in theory, but even at face value allowing the armor set to help determine stats would allow greater variation in build development, instead of reducing it to a set of four skills on your skill bar.

Ah, that actually made my curiosity grow. What do people see as important for a game such as this? Build variety or balance? Or both? I suppose there really isn’t a “correct” answer, but more of a personal preference.

Balance is important for competition, though trying to reach it can mean simplifying and streamlining to leave very little choices in build variety.

Build variety offers greater freedom, but at the risk of losing balance. It can also lead to extremely strong build and/or extremely weak builds. But it does allow the player the freedom to choose.

I suppose to take my previous examples further, I could use the following, and compare it to the type of builds we have today (random round numbers used, not to be equated with the current levels)…

Build A
Head: 250 Vitality
Shoulders: 250 Toughness
Chest: 500 Toughness
Hands: Regeneration
Legs: 200 Toughness, 200 Vitality
Feet: 250 Toughness, -10% Condition Duration on you

Build B
Head: Immune to Blind
Shoulders: -20% Condition Duration on you
Chest: Immune to Stun
Hands: 20% chance to cause an incoming strike to do half damage
Legs: Immune to Immobilization
Feet: Swiftness

Build C
No armor equipped. This results in maximum allowed movement speed and infinite endurance (unless a condition is applied that disrupts endurance).

Not that any of those examples would be ideal, but I do like the idea of having specialty pieces of equipment that apply boons or immunities themselves. I suppose that’s because my favorite game is Morrowind, and I judge all other RPG’s by it.

I’d also be interested in the idea of equipment having virtues accompanied by vices. Such as a helmet that allows only the user to see stealthed enemies, but at the cost of something terrible such as blinding lasting for the full timer instead of a missing a single strike… or even taking damage when blinded.

If you’ve played Morrowind, you’ll probably remember the Boots of Blinding Speed. Boots that gave you 300% maximum speed, but completely blinded you when you used them. Items like this would mean not only greater build variety, but you would also have to choose to accept the vices or to counter them using other equipment (ie: an amulet that granted immunity to blinding), sacrificing valuable equipment slots.

I don’t know. I just like dreaming of the possibilities! :-)

What the OP is talking about is a system within which stats are equally balanced (more or less) across all characters. This is not the system we have, nor the system in use in most MMO’s. Equal stats would place more of an emphasis on skill, and would of course require a tighter range of encounter difficulty. It would seem the sort of system that is more a natural for an action game. Unfortunately, it is not the sort of system that is familiar to most MMO gamers — the target audience for the game.

IndigoSundown.5419:

What the OP is talking about is a system within which stats are equally balanced (more or less) across all characters.

Hmm, unless I’ve missed something that should be rather obvious in my logic (it happens from time to time), I don’t believe that it the case. At least, no more than it is now.

The main concept is to simply move defensive stats/boon/etc. to armor, and move offensive stats/boons/etc. to weapons.

My current armor adds Vitality, Toughness, and Condition Damage to my build.
My current weapons also add Vitality, Toughness, and Condition Damage to my build.

I’m merely suggesting a system that, as a general rule, stats like Vitality and Toughness should only be associated with armor, and stats like Condition Damage and Power be associated with only weapons. Basically, just reorganizing stats to associate them with their more logical equipment.

As in an example above, I mentioned having a helmet that grants immunity to blinding. To me, that is more logical than having boots that grant an immunity to blinding, because the helmet protects the eyes, not the feet. Boots would be more logical to grant swiftness.

Again, unless I’m mistaken, it wouldn’t create parity any more than the current system. It would simply change the choices. Instead of choosing armor that makes you do more damage, your choice in armor would determine your mobility and survivability. Instead of choosing weapons that allow you to absorb more damage, your weapon choices would determine your damage output (directly, critically, or conditionally) and active defenses (blocking, parrying, or glancing).

If it did change the fundamental choices of character builds, I suppose it would be in the following way. Armor choices would vary between slow/passive/direct defense and fast/active/conditional defense. Weapon choices would vary between strong/direct/aggressive offense and weaker/conditional/sustainable (defensive) offense.

I can make all of those choices now, but in order to do so, I may have to change my entire gear selection to be most effective at whatever I choose because the stats are distributed throughout ALL equipment. In the system I’m suggesting, I would only need to change either my armor (defensive) OR my weapons (offensive), but not both, in order to change my play style to another extreme.

The different professions should always be different. I don’t believe this new system would do anything to change that. It would only change the equipment pieces you choose in order to reach the builds available now. They may be slightly different is all, but just as varied.

Kageseigi.2150:

I’m merely suggesting a system that, as a general rule, stats like Vitality and Toughness should only be associated with armor, and stats like Condition Damage and Power be associated with only weapons. Basically, just reorganizing stats to associate them with their more logical equipment.

The “logical equipment” would be that weapons would give damage, known as “weapon strength” in this game and that armor would give Defense. Both of them already do that. Everything else is extra stuffs that are either magically added or cannot be reasonably displayed without making a new skin. Pretend that a person getting +Power gear is just gluing a bunch of nails to their armor, or that a person getting +Vitality weapons is given a magical boon from their weapon.

There’s no good reason to believe that a choice in armor cannot involve better offensive capabilities than another, nor is it unheard of for weapons to give a better defensive set-up. That is a reality in the real world, and it’s pretty much a given in a world where you can have magic.

Kageseigi.2150:

IndigoSundown.5419:

What the OP is talking about is a system within which stats are equally balanced (more or less) across all characters.

Hmm, unless I’ve missed something that should be rather obvious in my logic (it happens from time to time), I don’t believe that it the case. At least, no more than it is now.

The main concept is to simply move defensive stats/boon/etc. to armor, and move offensive stats/boons/etc. to weapons.

My current armor adds Vitality, Toughness, and Condition Damage to my build.
My current weapons also add Vitality, Toughness, and Condition Damage to my build.

I’m merely suggesting a system that, as a general rule, stats like Vitality and Toughness should only be associated with armor, and stats like Condition Damage and Power be associated with only weapons. Basically, just reorganizing stats to associate them with their more logical equipment.

As in an example above, I mentioned having a helmet that grants immunity to blinding. To me, that is more logical than having boots that grant an immunity to blinding, because the helmet protects the eyes, not the feet. Boots would be more logical to grant swiftness.

Again, unless I’m mistaken, it wouldn’t create parity any more than the current system. It would simply change the choices. Instead of choosing armor that makes you do more damage, your choice in armor would determine your mobility and survivability. Instead of choosing weapons that allow you to absorb more damage, your weapon choices would determine your damage output (directly, critically, or conditionally) and active defenses (blocking, parrying, or glancing).

If it did change the fundamental choices of character builds, I suppose it would be in the following way. Armor choices would vary between slow/passive/direct defense and fast/active/conditional defense. Weapon choices would vary between strong/direct/aggressive offense and weaker/conditional/sustainable (defensive) offense.

I can make all of those choices now, but in order to do so, I may have to change my entire gear selection to be most effective at whatever I choose because the stats are distributed throughout ALL equipment. In the system I’m suggesting, I would only need to change either my armor (defensive) OR my weapons (offensive), but not both, in order to change my play style to another extreme.

The different professions should always be different. I don’t believe this new system would do anything to change that. It would only change the equipment pieces you choose in order to reach the builds available now. They may be slightly different is all, but just as varied.

You’re ignoring the fact that all characters bear weapons and wear armor. Thus, if only defensive stats appear on armor, all characters would have similar defensive stats. The same would be true with weapons. Since there are more armor pieces than weapons, the weapons would have to have more of the offensive stats, or defense would outstrip offense. If you put only certain boons or mechanics on each different piece, then you’d have to have meaningful choices per piece, or everyone would choose the obvious best options, yielding sameness.

I’m not saying it wouldn’t be doable, just that there would need to be differences to armor and weapons — and not just the most obvious choices for defense and offense being prevalent. Without true opportunity costs, the most effective are going to be the most chosen, with less effective choices being ignored or chosen for flavor over effectiveness — and scorned as defensive stats are now in dungeons.

Essentially, you’d need to have more defensive and offensive stats, and make players choose between them. If you limit armor to the few defensive stats we have now, everyone would choose toughness and vitality — and maybe -condition duration for PvP, and either the 3 direct damage stats, or precision, and the 2 condition stats for offense.

Remember that people will choose the best option. If they can’t max offense via armor stats, they’ll max whatever they can.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Remember that people will choose the best option. If they can’t max offense via armor stats, they’ll max whatever they can.

I actually think that is the key. Make it where there is no “best” option. There is only the “best” option for a play style.

There would still be choice. A lot of it. Perhaps more than there is now. But you wouldn’t be limited to one major scale: damage vs. survivability. You would actually have at least two clearly defined major scales…

Defense: slow and damage absorbing vs. fast and evasive
Offense: pure damage dealer vs. survivable skirmisher

And you would still have the existing secondary scales…

Defensive: direct protection vs. conditional protection vs. control protection
Offensive: direct damage vs. critical damage vs. conditional damage

Now, we have the scale between “glass cannon” and “bunker.” With the new system, your choice would not be between defense and offense, but between what type of defense and what type of offense. You would actually be able to have the “best” of both worlds…

You could choose between slow bunker or speedy glass for defense.
With either of the above, you could choose to be an instant cannon or a sustained drain.

As for the stats, that’s just a matter of math. It shouldn’t be too difficult. To be very basic, just think taking the sum of the defensive stats available now between the 14 equipment slots, and divide it by 6. Distribute those stats based on the armor slots (chest gets more than gloves, etc.). Do the same for weapons with the appropriate math, only for offensive stats. Weapons would get higher numbers than armor, of course, with there only being two slots instead of six. That doesn’t mean there can’t be just as much variety of weapon stats.

In fact, what’s so wrong with taking specialized equipment even further? The reverse of Celestial. Instead of the normal three stats (100, 50, 50), make it one stat (250), or the like?

Just thoughts really. Not that it will ever happen. Just thinking of what is possible.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Essentially, you’d need to have more defensive and offensive stats, and make players choose between them. If you limit armor to the few defensive stats we have now, everyone would choose toughness and vitality — and maybe -condition duration for PvP, and either the 3 direct damage stats, or precision, and the 2 condition stats for offense.

That’s one reason I would suggest having specialized equipment offer boons/immunities as well. They would give more choice over the default stats. But really, what do players choose nowadays? There are meta-build and there are non-meta builds.

Is taking a lot of Toughness more desirable than Stability or immunity to Blind or Confusion? I don’t want to take choice away. I prefer more choice. Even choosing to wear no armor should have significant benefits, even though it may not be the most desirable choice. I just suggest making choices more distinct and logical. Think of equipment selection being more akin to runes and sigils. You can go with stats or you can go with perks. But we can’t put sigils on armor or runes on weapons. That’s the one limiting factor.

Break yourself from the constraints of real world logic. Also erase the mentality you may have gained from other MMOs or RPGs in general. GW2 is different. It’s an Action RPG made into an MMO. It’s about your ability to read the situation and react. The majority of your defense come from that with dodges, blocks, blinds and what not.

GW2 is just a different beast. It works, It’s great, but it’s not your standard game. Don’t limit yourself by thinking in ways other games or the real world would tell you is correct, try to understand the game and make use of it’s systems to benefit you.

That’s really all I can say about this. I sometimes miss the more specialized itemization too, but this game just isn’t that. Don’t fall into that pitfall that many do and think outside of this game, it’s different, embrace it.

Eliminating a playstyle reduces choices.

Requiring that everyone gear for defense, at the cost of offense, reduces, or outright kills, the glass cannon playstyle.

If you want to focus on offensive stats for your weapon, do so. It is very possible.

Ashen.2907:

Eliminating a playstyle reduces choices.

That’s just it, there would be no elimination of play styles. In this suggested system, a glass cannon would simply benefit from having added mobility and evasion.

Glass = armor with mobility/immunity boons or no armor at all (which give an enormous boost to speed and endurance

Cannon = weapons with high direct damage stats

I don’t know where the idea of limiting play styles was ever eluded to. Perhaps I did not phrase my initial post well enough?

There is a reason stats are spread over both armor, trinkets and weapons. If all your offensive stats came from a weapon you would be pretty darn crippled if you had no luck finding a better weapon. Instead they decided to give all your armor a more equal value and spread offensive stats onto armor aswell. This way your weapon isn’t the ‘most’ important. It still is, but you can still play decently without a good weapon because your armor stats make up for it.

Kageseigi.2150:

Ashen.2907:

Eliminating a playstyle reduces choices.

That’s just it, there would be no elimination of play styles. In this suggested system, a glass cannon would simply benefit from having added mobility and evasion.

Glass = armor with mobility/immunity boons or no armor at all (which give an enormous boost to speed and endurance

Cannon = weapons with high direct damage stats

I don’t know where the idea of limiting play styles was ever eluded to. Perhaps I did not phrase my initial post well enough?

He’s talking about how you state things about defensive stats only being on armor, and offensive stats only being on weapons. Of course, you’ve moved past that since then, but that would involve reading your more recent posts, so meh.

And regardless of all that, your current desires have absolutely nothing to do with the current game at all. Mobility/Evasion are determined by class, not by armor. You can technically get runes to put in said armor to change that, but that’s neither here nor there. However, weight categories on armor are almost universally correct with how it works: light is fast, heavy is slow. Other than Warrior having high mobility for balance reasons, and Mesmer having low for flavor reasons, armor works exactly as you say it “should.” The only difference is that having no armor doesn’t help in any way. However, this isn’t D&D, and there is no THAC0. Not everything has to be complex to the point of choking the system.

All this boils down to choose a class, and that’s what you’re getting for the style. No you can’t just throw a warrior in light armor and have a troubadour. That’s not how this system is built, and isn’t how it should be. Make a Rogue and roleplay. If the skills are more desirable on the Warrior for your roleplay, roleplay harder. There may be a massive amount of customization in this game, and none of it punishes you for anything other than the simple risk:reward due to the action oriented gameplay (where player skill trumps the in-built MMO customization). The customization, however, only goes so far as what your armor brings to the table. Not what play style your character can possibly do. Your armor can do things to help that, but it’s not ever going to be the determining factor in what’s possible in the first place. Nor should it be the determining factor.

Kageseigi.2150:

Ashen.2907:

Eliminating a playstyle reduces choices.

That’s just it, there would be no elimination of play styles. In this suggested system, a glass cannon would simply benefit from having added mobility and evasion.

Glass = armor with mobility/immunity boons or no armor at all (which give an enormous boost to speed and endurance

Cannon = weapons with high direct damage stats

I don’t know where the idea of limiting play styles was ever eluded to. Perhaps I did not phrase my initial post well enough?

Mandating an increase in defense in any fashion while mandating a reduction in offense is, by definition, a reduction of glass cannon play.

Ashen.2907:

Mandating an increase in defense in any fashion while mandating a reduction in offense is, by definition, a reduction of glass cannon play.

Now that is a statement I cannot agree with. If you do not wish to take advantage of higher mobility, then simply do not do it. Neither is the offense reduced. There is no reduction in play in any way. It is as fragile and as deadly as ever. The play style itself is completely intact, not eliminated as was earlier claimed. However, other glass and cannon play styles would be available, increasing choices.

While the idea is certainly nice and all, and i do believe would add a LOT of choice if implemented correct, sadly i also think it is too big of a change to be in any way feasible to implement properly

Kageseigi.2150:

Ashen.2907:

Mandating an increase in defense in any fashion while mandating a reduction in offense is, by definition, a reduction of glass cannon play.

Now that is a statement I cannot agree with. If you do not wish to take advantage of higher mobility, then simply do not do it. Neither is the offense reduced. There is no reduction in play in any way. It is as fragile and as deadly as ever. The play style itself is completely intact, not eliminated as was earlier claimed. However, other glass and cannon play styles would be available, increasing choices.

If offensive stats are removed from armor then offense has been reduced. If armor provides a defensive benefit above what can be achieved now by choosing only offensive stats then the character’s glass aspect has been reduced.

GummiBear.2756:

sadly i also think it is too big of a change to be in any way feasible to implement properly

I certainly agree with that, except that I think it may be more feasible than we may think… in itself. I think the main issue would be changing the system from what it is now since everyone has worked to build their characters around the current system. Even the new changes with Hero Points have many people upset. I’d shudder to think about what would happen if this system was actually announced… especially without a very long open optional test period for players to give it a test drive. I suppose the only way to even do that well would be to structure it like PvP. Have it’s own lobby and instant build system, leaving the rest of the game unchanged.

Ashen.2907:

If offensive stats are removed from armor then offense has been reduced.

The offensive stats from armor would be merged with stats to weapons.

Ashen.2907:

If armor provides a defensive benefit above what can be achieved now by choosing only offensive stats

Defense and offense would be separated for the most part. So yes, there would be less of a sacrifice. Defensive choice would be more between passive absorption and active evasion. Offensive choice would be between high immediate damage, high sustained damage, and survivability. The exact choices are present today, though the method to achieving them is dispersed throughout all gear instead of organized into categories.

Ashen.2907:

then the character’s glass aspect has been reduced.

Only if you view it from the perspective of playing the exact same way as it is today. You could also view is as an enhancement. The glass cannon play style would still exist, with the option to play it as it currently is (yes, the effectiveness may be reduced) or with the added benefits of the change. The key is that the choice is still yours to make.

But please don’t say that it would eliminate a play style. It wouldn’t. You could say the exact same thing for every change that Anet has made to this game, major or minor. The most effective glass cannon build would be superior to what it is today. It would be a buff, not a nerf. More choices, more tools at your disposal.

There’s a pitfall here. Right now, we have opportunity costs between glass and bulk. Want to be more bulky, it costs you damage. Want more damage, it costs you passive defense. The choice may be a no-brainer in PvE, at least for the skilled, but in the PvP modes, defense is already potent.

So, OK. The OP does not want to remove the damage a glass build affords. It follows then, that he would not wish to remove the defensive capacity of a full-on bunker, either. So, a player could generate damage equivalent to what a current glass build can produce using the stats on weapons alone (remember, stats from traits are going away, so gear will play more of a role than before). In addition to that damage, that player would also be able to choose enhanced defense via the stats on armor. Whether that defense is more endurance, more toughness/vitality or more something else, you’ve now got a character who has the best of both builds.

So, what would stop someone from going all-out damage and all-out defense? Where is the opportunity cost in the OP’s proposal? Needing to select between more active or more passive defense is a playstyle choice, not opportunity cost.

Right now we can decide whether we want 1 defensive or offensive or condition piece or 2 up to 18 – with that we could only go defensive with 6 pieces and offensive with another 12, probably as the OP didn’t mention anything about trinkets and underwater gear. You can also try to go hybrid or whatever, so I’m not really sure how anyone can think that a system like this would offer more build diversity.
And I’m fine with my all offensive stats, defensive stats would hold me back.