Guild Wars 2

The Unbutchered thread tittle originally said:
Defensive Skills of Glassy Professions to scale with Toughness.
_______________________________________________________________

Back to my fight to rid the game of the Berserker Gear obsession, with another idea!

Have skills scale with things other than Attack. With zero of “insert non-attack attribute here” , make them weaker than they currently are, and when full of that attribute, the character can be almost untouchable!
It would put TONS of more strategy into making your build!

Currently, especially the glassy professions tend to focus on dps, mostly because they have lots of escape strategies, and these strategies don’t change no mater what build you have!
Until now, Arenanet’s only answer to that, is the occasional trait that based on one attributed enhances another.

I don’t care about Players opinions on this thread.
I know beforehand they’ll hate it if their lovely zerker gears become less important.
This topic is for A-net to see and make that decision!

People already gave this idea years ago. It wasn’t a good idea then, and still isn’t a good idea now.

Obsessions are never a good thing.

hybrid.5027:

People already gave this idea years ago. It wasn’t a good idea then, and still isn’t a good idea now.

But apparently there is still no real solution!
Doing Nothing is worse than doing something badly.

…
…and why was it a bad idea?!

“My idea is so dumb I’m saying in advance to not comment it, and I’m obsessed with something like a mad man; what do you think of the worst balance idea in the world?”

Don’t mind me, I’m the translator.

Have a Coke and a smile…

You do realize that even if they removed zerker gear tomorrow, a new meta would be theorycrafted, right?

You are never going to get to a place where all gear is equally good for every person. It just isn’t possible, and even if it were, it wouldn’t be a good use of development time.

Oh, why am I even trying? It’s clear that nothing that anyone says is going to change your opinion here.

The reason why zerker and DPS-or-altF4-the-game is so dominant in PvE isn’t to do with how player mechanics work, it’s to do with both the trivial nature of PvE content and how everything attacks slow and hits hard.

You don’t ever see people running full zerker in PvP do you?

Having said that: if we do actually one day just remove zerker gear from the game like how MF gear was removed, it’ll probably open up more options. Power, precision and ferocity just synergises too well to be put into the same set, so only allowing you to take 2 of them would make what’s the best 3rd stat debatable.

Xae Isareth.1364:

The reason why zerker and DPS-or-altF4-the-game is so dominant in PvE isn’t to do with how player mechanics work, it’s to do with both the trivial nature of PvE content and how everything attacks slow and hits hard.

You don’t ever see people running full zerker in PvP do you?

Having said that: if we do actually one day just remove zerker gear from the game like how MF gear was removed, it’ll probably open up more options. Power, precision and ferocity just synergises too well to be put into the same set, so only allowing you to take 2 of them would make what’s the best 3rd stat debatable.

As you said!
Players will always jump to the next most powerful thing, and once you fix that they’ll jump to the next, and then the next…

It’s called balancing…
__________________________________________________________________

oxtred.7658:

“My idea is so dumb I’m saying in advance to not comment it, and I’m obsessed with something like a mad man; what do you think of the worst balance idea in the world?”

Don’t mind me, I’m the translator.

Kite.2510:

Xae Isareth.1364:

The reason why zerker and DPS-or-altF4-the-game is so dominant in PvE isn’t to do with how player mechanics work, it’s to do with both the trivial nature of PvE content and how everything attacks slow and hits hard.

You don’t ever see people running full zerker in PvP do you?

Having said that: if we do actually one day just remove zerker gear from the game like how MF gear was removed, it’ll probably open up more options. Power, precision and ferocity just synergises too well to be put into the same set, so only allowing you to take 2 of them would make what’s the best 3rd stat debatable.

As you said!
Players will always jump to the next most powerful thing, and once you fix that they’ll jump to the next, and then the next…

It’s called balancing…

If you’re just going to replace the current meta with a new meta that’s basically the same as the current meta (ie, x-gear setup is better than everything else in every situation), then what’s the point?

To fix the problem, they have to go to it’s roots and make more mechanics other than just stepping out of the red circle or dodge the big attack necessary.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Kite.2510:

Xae Isareth.1364:

The reason why zerker and DPS-or-altF4-the-game is so dominant in PvE isn’t to do with how player mechanics work, it’s to do with both the trivial nature of PvE content and how everything attacks slow and hits hard.

You don’t ever see people running full zerker in PvP do you?

Having said that: if we do actually one day just remove zerker gear from the game like how MF gear was removed, it’ll probably open up more options. Power, precision and ferocity just synergises too well to be put into the same set, so only allowing you to take 2 of them would make what’s the best 3rd stat debatable.

As you said!
Players will always jump to the next most powerful thing, and once you fix that they’ll jump to the next, and then the next…

It’s called balancing…

If you’re just going to replace the current meta with a new meta that’s basically the same as the current meta (ie, x-gear setup is better than everything else in every situation), then what’s the point?

To fix the problem, they have to go to it’s roots and make more mechanics other than just stepping out of the red circle or dodge the big attack necessary.

Once again, as I said! Limiting your defensing maneuvers based on stats will change your approach drastically. Didn’t you read what I wrote?

Fixing a problem to be replaced by another is still progress! Until you find that sweet thin line you should keep twicking.

Or you could just learn to play the game as is rather than expecting them to modify the mechanics to suit your desire for tanky builds to be the meta.

Try opening your eyes when you play, it helps a lot when dodging. Because that’s what you are asking, for toughness and vitality to scale up so much that you can literally close your eyes and press spam attacks to win.

Also, this game is not balanced around PVE. It’s balanced around PVP, where zerker is extremely squishy and basically no one plays it because they get destroyed.

Kite.2510:

Doing Nothing is worse than doing something badly.

Except when you make it worse than it was before. In cases like that, it’s better to do nothing. You’re idea is sort of vague, but it seems to me like something that will go wrong.

Kite.2510:

hybrid.5027:

People already gave this idea years ago. It wasn’t a good idea then, and still isn’t a good idea now.

But apparently there is still no real solution!
Doing Nothing is worse than doing something badly.

…
…and why was it a bad idea?!

You can’t say there is no solution, since there is no problem to be solved in the first place. The game is working as intended. You’re trying to fix what isn’t broken.

Players that don’t need tanky gear to survive don’t use tanky gear. It’s really as simple as that. That isn’t a problem, it’s good game design.

Thank you and have a nice day.

oxtred.7658:

“My idea is so dumb I’m saying in advance to not comment it, and I’m obsessed with something like a mad man; what do you think of the worst balance idea in the world?”

Don’t mind me, I’m the translator.

His “dumb” idea is actually quite smart: link stats to active actions instead of passive effects. It only makes sense in GW2’s combat, and even GW1 did it.

DiogoSilva.7089:

oxtred.7658:

“My idea is so dumb I’m saying in advance to not comment it, and I’m obsessed with something like a mad man; what do you think of the worst balance idea in the world?”

Don’t mind me, I’m the translator.

His “dumb” idea is actually quite smart: link stats to active actions instead of passive effects. It only makes sense in GW2’s combat, and even GW1 did it.

I don’t care about other players opinion in this thread.

Let me rephrase it.
Currently you dodge, block, reflect, whatever you negate 100% incoming damage.
After your idea you have to invest in toughness to negate more … ? Or … what?

I don’t care about Players opinions on this thread.

Thats some very well developed attitude there.

Kite.2510:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Kite.2510:

Xae Isareth.1364:

The reason why zerker and DPS-or-altF4-the-game is so dominant in PvE isn’t to do with how player mechanics work, it’s to do with both the trivial nature of PvE content and how everything attacks slow and hits hard.

You don’t ever see people running full zerker in PvP do you?

Having said that: if we do actually one day just remove zerker gear from the game like how MF gear was removed, it’ll probably open up more options. Power, precision and ferocity just synergises too well to be put into the same set, so only allowing you to take 2 of them would make what’s the best 3rd stat debatable.

As you said!
Players will always jump to the next most powerful thing, and once you fix that they’ll jump to the next, and then the next…

It’s called balancing…

If you’re just going to replace the current meta with a new meta that’s basically the same as the current meta (ie, x-gear setup is better than everything else in every situation), then what’s the point?

To fix the problem, they have to go to it’s roots and make more mechanics other than just stepping out of the red circle or dodge the big attack necessary.

Once again, as I said! Limiting your defensing maneuvers based on stats will change your approach drastically. Didn’t you read what I wrote?

Fixing a problem to be replaced by another is still progress! Until you find that sweet thin line you should keep twicking.

I read what you said but that’s not balancing or progress. We know the problem is, we know how to fix it, and we know what doesn’t fix it. The very reason why zerker is the meta is because you don’t need that defence in PvE.

What are you going to do with aegis and reflects anyways? Make them it such that it works on a % based chance?

Xae Isareth.1364:

Kite.2510:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Kite.2510:

As you said!
Players will always jump to the next most powerful thing, and once you fix that they’ll jump to the next, and then the next…

It’s called balancing…

If you’re just going to replace the current meta with a new meta that’s basically the same as the current meta (ie, x-gear setup is better than everything else in every situation), then what’s the point?

To fix the problem, they have to go to it’s roots and make more mechanics other than just stepping out of the red circle or dodge the big attack necessary.

Once again, as I said! Limiting your defensing maneuvers based on stats will change your approach drastically. Didn’t you read what I wrote?

Fixing a problem to be replaced by another is still progress! Until you find that sweet thin line you should keep twicking.

I read what you said but that’s not balancing or progress. We know the problem is, we know how to fix it, and we know what doesn’t fix it. The very reason why zerker is the meta is because you don’t need that defence in PvE.

What are you going to do with aegis and reflects anyways? Make them it such that it works on a % based chance?

No. That’s a boon. But i would happily make it scale with that useless healing atribude, and then change the name from “healing” to “Boon efectiveness”. Having high boon effectivenes would result in longer invulerability by fractions of a second.

There are tons of ways to scale a skill. It doesn’t have to be a percentage of your precious invulnerability.

I’m sure that if A-net had made this post, saying “We examined new ways to make the act of making the builds more deep and exciting while promoting build variety. From the next future patch players should expect to see their skills scale with a much bigger variety of their atributes…ect”., then the thread would be much less toxic.

Kite.2510:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Kite.2510:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Kite.2510:

As you said!
Players will always jump to the next most powerful thing, and once you fix that they’ll jump to the next, and then the next…

It’s called balancing…

If you’re just going to replace the current meta with a new meta that’s basically the same as the current meta (ie, x-gear setup is better than everything else in every situation), then what’s the point?

To fix the problem, they have to go to it’s roots and make more mechanics other than just stepping out of the red circle or dodge the big attack necessary.

Once again, as I said! Limiting your defensing maneuvers based on stats will change your approach drastically. Didn’t you read what I wrote?

Fixing a problem to be replaced by another is still progress! Until you find that sweet thin line you should keep twicking.

I read what you said but that’s not balancing or progress. We know the problem is, we know how to fix it, and we know what doesn’t fix it. The very reason why zerker is the meta is because you don’t need that defence in PvE.

What are you going to do with aegis and reflects anyways? Make them it such that it works on a % based chance?

No. That’s a boon. But i would happily make it scale with that useless healing atribude, and then change the name from “healing” to “Boon efectiveness”. Having high boon effectivenes would result in longer invulerability by fractions of a second.

There are tons of ways to scale a skill. It doesn’t have to be a percentage of your precious invulnerability.

I’m sure that if A-net had made this post, saying “We examined new ways to make the act of making the builds more deep and exciting while promoting build variety. From the next future patch players should expect to see their skills scale with a much bigger variety of their atributes…ect”., then the thread would be much less toxic.

My point is that the problem isn’t that defence and whatevernot isn’t strong enough or toughness is useless, but that you just simply don’t need any of it.

In any build there’s at most one or two defensive skills, and frankly, you can do without them in most cases. Would you really go and sacrifice power/prec/fero when they are perfect synergies for each other just to buff up those skills? Especially for speedclears were you hardly even use them?

Even if Anet one day makes it such that wearing PVT gives you 1 million HP and makes every one of your defensive skills instant godmode, zerker would still be the meta.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Kite.2510:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Kite.2510:

Xae Isareth.1364:

If you’re just going to replace the current meta with a new meta that’s basically the same as the current meta (ie, x-gear setup is better than everything else in every situation), then what’s the point?

To fix the problem, they have to go to it’s roots and make more mechanics other than just stepping out of the red circle or dodge the big attack necessary.

Once again, as I said! Limiting your defensing maneuvers based on stats will change your approach drastically. Didn’t you read what I wrote?

Fixing a problem to be replaced by another is still progress! Until you find that sweet thin line you should keep twicking.

I read what you said but that’s not balancing or progress. We know the problem is, we know how to fix it, and we know what doesn’t fix it. The very reason why zerker is the meta is because you don’t need that defence in PvE.

What are you going to do with aegis and reflects anyways? Make them it such that it works on a % based chance?

No. That’s a boon. But i would happily make it scale with that useless healing atribude, and then change the name from “healing” to “Boon efectiveness”. Having high boon effectivenes would result in longer invulerability by fractions of a second.

There are tons of ways to scale a skill. It doesn’t have to be a percentage of your precious invulnerability.

I’m sure that if A-net had made this post, saying “We examined new ways to make the act of making the builds more deep and exciting while promoting build variety. From the next future patch players should expect to see their skills scale with a much bigger variety of their atributes…ect”., then the thread would be much less toxic.

My point is that the problem isn’t that defence and whatevernot isn’t strong enough or toughness is useless, but that you just simply don’t need any of it.

In any build there’s at most one or two defensive skills, and frankly, you can do without them in most cases. Would you really go and sacrifice power/prec/fero when they are perfect synergies for each other just to buff up those skills? Especially for speedclears were you hardly even use them?

Even if Anet one day makes it such that wearing PVT gives you 1 million HP and makes every one of your defensive skills instant godmode, zerker would still be the meta.

Thats the problem!
Defencive options are currently extreamly effective without the need to invest a single drop of atributes in them. If however we make them weaker by default and scale them with certain unused atributes, it would balance the builds and the game it self greatly.
As for pvp, whatever change occurs to you, als occurs for the oposition, so the problem will partially fix it self.

The real problem is that the game wasnt like that from launch, and now the mere mentioning of having let go of some of your precious dps in favor of survivability is met with toxicity.

You’re coming at from the perspective that toughness and vitality don’t do what they are supposed to do. However they do work. Players in PvP do use them. The problem is that you don’t need that sort of work in PvE because players use well tested tactics and can run the dungeons in any gear whatsoever. Note that – any gear whatsoever. They therefore use the highest dps gear. Making other defensive gear even more defensive isn’t going to change that.

Reducing existing defenses to make dungeons harder for speed runners is actually just going to hurt the newcomers who already find dungeons tough, very tough. Newcomers can use all sorts of builds and tactics to get through dungeons already. It’s just not optimal.

Giving defensive stats an extra bonus to defense or offense is just going to break PvP where plenty of builds can work already.

Stooperdale.3560:

You’re coming at from the perspective that toughness and vitality don’t do what they are supposed to do. However they do work. Players in PvP do use them. The problem is that you don’t need that sort of work in PvE because players use well tested tactics and can run the dungeons in any gear whatsoever. Note that – any gear whatsoever. They therefore use the highest dps gear. Making other defensive gear even more defensive isn’t going to change that.

Reducing existing defenses to make dungeons harder for speed runners is actually just going to hurt the newcomers who already find dungeons tough, very tough. Newcomers can use all sorts of builds and tactics to get through dungeons already. It’s just not optimal.

Giving defensive stats an extra bonus to defense or offense is just going to break PvP where plenty of builds can work already.

This poster understands the game.

Stooperdale.3560:

You’re coming at from the perspective that toughness and vitality don’t do what they are supposed to do. However they do work. Players in PvP do use them. The problem is that you don’t need that sort of work in PvE because players use well tested tactics and can run the dungeons in any gear whatsoever. Note that – any gear whatsoever. They therefore use the highest dps gear. Making other defensive gear even more defensive isn’t going to change that.

Reducing existing defenses to make dungeons harder for speed runners is actually just going to hurt the newcomers who already find dungeons tough, very tough. Newcomers can use all sorts of builds and tactics to get through dungeons already. It’s just not optimal.

Giving defensive stats an extra bonus to defense or offense is just going to break PvP where plenty of builds can work already.

most of yall are missing the point.
the point is to have stats effective active abilities.
So that someone who is defensive statted gets an active benefit for using his defensive skills.
Then people will make real choices based on gameplay/playstyles. Thing is, right now, berserkers get the same benefit from defensive/control/support skills.

Its not even really about speed running, its about creating some more variation in playstyle. check gw1, its not really about anti beserker, its about interesting playstyles/choices

You want something other than berserker gear to be optimal? Go PvP.

Open world PvE has always been about the DPS race, regardless of which game you came from.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Stooperdale.3560:

You’re coming at from the perspective that toughness and vitality don’t do what they are supposed to do. However they do work. Players in PvP do use them. The problem is that you don’t need that sort of work in PvE because players use well tested tactics and can run the dungeons in any gear whatsoever. Note that – any gear whatsoever. They therefore use the highest dps gear. Making other defensive gear even more defensive isn’t going to change that.

Reducing existing defenses to make dungeons harder for speed runners is actually just going to hurt the newcomers who already find dungeons tough, very tough. Newcomers can use all sorts of builds and tactics to get through dungeons already. It’s just not optimal.

Giving defensive stats an extra bonus to defense or offense is just going to break PvP where plenty of builds can work already.

This poster understands the game.

yeah, he understands it, but its pretty flawed. With the current system, they should probably remove all gear stats, and create a setting you adjust on your charachter
dps-def<——I————————————————→def-dps
thats basically all the gear currently means for most of the stat sets.

phys.7689:

yeah, he understands it, but its pretty flawed. With the current system, they should probably remove all gear stats, and create a setting you adjust on your charachter
dps-def<——I————————————————->def-dps
thats basically all the gear currently means for most of the stat sets.

The flaw was using an old-style MMO stat system which is rooted in games which feature tank/heal/DPS. I’d rather have seen something different, but they opted for something the same, probably as a point of similarity for fans of other MMO’s.

Your offense/defense continuum is essentially what the game offers. It just does so in a confusing and round-about fashion by offering 20+ stat combos at max level. Yet, when a given combo isn’t available, people demand it, so obviously some people are using these stats.

More defensive (and healing) stat combos serve two functions: they’re used in PvP; and more defensive set-ups are used in PvE by those whose reflexes, situational awareness and/or connections preclude being glass.

I understand the desire for build diversity. However, I’ve yet to see a stat-dominated game where there is much build diversity in optimum party setup. Sure, there’s the optimum tank build, the optimum healing build and the optimum DPS build for the various classes, but that’s just required roles, not diversity like I saw in the original GW.

But…there ARE other effective builds/ stats! It’s all about the ppl you go with…If you run with those kitty “zerk only with gear check” (srsly?!?!?! kitten?!?!?!) kittens, it is your own fault!
I often join those groups only to show my settler/ apothecary set, getting kicked, blocked and then flamed at xD
The real problem is the community. Deal with it.

Oh and to the guys that said you wont see zerkers in pvp…are we playing the same game? Zerk rangers all over the place!

Xae Isareth.1364:

Having said that: if we do actually one day just remove zerker gear from the game like how MF gear was removed, it’ll probably open up more options.

it will reduce options because we will have -1 gear set to choose from and the next most offensive gear will become the new meta.

Xae Isareth.1364:

We know the problem is, we know how to fix it, and we know what doesn’t fix it. The very reason why zerker is the meta is *because you don’t need that defence in PvE. *

you need defense in PvE, but in our combat system the defense comes in form of active damage avoiding based on player skill. thats great about gw2. if you need more defense, you will play better and avoid incoming damage with even more active defense, teamwork and skill. thats even better. and all of that just depends on how good you are.

phys.7689:

Stooperdale.3560:

You’re coming at from the perspective that toughness and vitality don’t do what they are supposed to do. However they do work. Players in PvP do use them. The problem is that you don’t need that sort of work in PvE because players use well tested tactics and can run the dungeons in any gear whatsoever. Note that – any gear whatsoever. They therefore use the highest dps gear. Making other defensive gear even more defensive isn’t going to change that.

Reducing existing defenses to make dungeons harder for speed runners is actually just going to hurt the newcomers who already find dungeons tough, very tough. Newcomers can use all sorts of builds and tactics to get through dungeons already. It’s just not optimal.

Giving defensive stats an extra bonus to defense or offense is just going to break PvP where plenty of builds can work already.

most of yall are missing the point.
the point is to have stats effective active abilities.
So that someone who is defensive statted gets an active benefit for using his defensive skills.
Then people will make real choices based on gameplay/playstyles. Thing is, right now, berserkers get the same benefit from defensive/control/support skills.

Its not even really about speed running, its about creating some more variation in playstyle. check gw1, its not really about anti beserker, its about interesting playstyles/choices

You missed the part where they’re trying to tell you that PvE is so ridiculously trivial that defensive abilities are relatively useless. There’s very little variation in PvE in terms of what the NPC baddies are going to throw at you. Oh look, that guy’s ranged. Might have to use a gap closer. Oh look, that guy heal himself. Might want to interrupt that…or just nuke him so he doesn’t have time.

The point is, zerker meta in PvE is here to stay regardless of how little you enjoy it. Tankier builds may become the meta if ANet ever decides to get off their butts and make PvE enemies as mechanically diverse as they were in GW1.
Don’t hold your breath for that one.
Me, I’m still waiting on the expansion that brings back the Dervish. Best class they ever came up with. (plsplsplsANetsenpai).

Kveldulf.7605:

Oh and to the guys that said you wont see zerkers in pvp…are we playing the same game? Zerk rangers all over the place!

But we all know rangers are relatively useless on the whole and have been since Factions. :P
Plink, plink, plink.
Along comes the Elementalist, who Rides the Lightning all the way to the little old ranger’s grave.

On a side note, the original title of the thread is a bit…misguided.
If you think Elementalists are glassy, you’ve never seen a good earth mage.
Assassins with guns (aka thieves) are supposed to be squishy. They’re designed to pump out damage, not take it to the face. Then again, nobody is anymore…you’re supposed to block or avoid it.
Rangers have enough CC between themselves and their pets to trivialize their durability problems.
Mesmers are deceptively nimble, much like Thieves. A good Mesmer won’t let you close enough to damage him.
Monks are now Guardians, which kinda sucks…but meh.
Engineers are Heimerdinger. Turrets OP. Kitekitekitekite.

IndigoSundown.5419:

phys.7689:

yeah, he understands it, but its pretty flawed. With the current system, they should probably remove all gear stats, and create a setting you adjust on your charachter
dps-def<——I————————————————->def-dps
thats basically all the gear currently means for most of the stat sets.

The flaw was using an old-style MMO stat system which is rooted in games which feature tank/heal/DPS. I’d rather have seen something different, but they opted for something the same, probably as a point of similarity for fans of other MMO’s.

Your offense/defense continuum is essentially what the game offers. It just does so in a confusing and round-about fashion by offering 20+ stat combos at max level. Yet, when a given combo isn’t available, people demand it, so obviously some people are using these stats.

More defensive (and healing) stat combos serve two functions: they’re used in PvP; and more defensive set-ups are used in PvE by those whose reflexes, situational awareness and/or connections preclude being glass.

I understand the desire for build diversity. However, I’ve yet to see a stat-dominated game where there is much build diversity in optimum party setup. Sure, there’s the optimum tank build, the optimum healing build and the optimum DPS build for the various classes, but that’s just required roles, not diversity like I saw in the original GW.

yeah, gw1 was the game that actually offered you multiple ways to skin a cat, that varied based on your playstyle.

the most interesting GW2 stat sets usually involve tweaking your dps style (crit versus power or how much condi you can have), or a rare stat set up that might be useful if the coeffecients work out (but they seldom do)

Making the pve enemies more thretening is just the first step. Making the rest 50% of the atribudes actually usefull is just as importand.

BTW, If anyone read my original thread tittle, i mentioned specifically the glassy professions as prime candidates for that change, as the defensive atributes like toughness and vitality are almost useless on them, and instead relly heavilly in atribude-free difensive manuvres and skills.

50% higher attackspeed on all Pve Mobs.
50-100% higher attack damage on all Pve Mobs.
100% better defensive stat scaling on players.
Make LoS’ing impossible. (For example higher Mob cleave damage, better mob AoE spells. Or just simply throw in some more objects where LoS’ing is currently being executed. I can think of many spots where a simple object like a box or tree or whatever would shot down the ability to LoS entirely.)

I’d love to test something like this for a few days and see how it works.

Xae Isareth.1364:

You don’t ever see people running full zerker in PvP do you?

No? I do. Most of the rangers i come across run zerker, the thieves probably run assasin, and zerker necro in spvp is almost the only viable build, asides from bunker. The fact necros don’t have stability of any kind, means that you either kill fast or you turn into a hokey puck. .

Yes, things would probably be more interesting if zerk wasn’t the pve meta. As has been identified many times, it’s not necessarily the professions’ fault, it’s the (original launch) content that has been utterly outsmarted and relegated into stack/skip facerolls. Sorting that out just doesn’t seem to be a priority for ANet, who seem happier just to apply the lessons learned to new content only.

cakesphere.5910:

You do realize that even if they removed zerker gear tomorrow, a new meta would be theorycrafted, right?

It’s not the existence of the meta that is a problem. It’s how much that meta is better than alternatives, and how useless most of those alternatives are.

cakesphere.5910:

You are never going to get to a place where all gear is equally good for every person. It just isn’t possible, and even if it were, it wouldn’t be a good use of development time.

- Going full power stats is good because:
1) condition damage is broken
2) skills, dodging and buffs/debuffs give better protection than armor tanking

so it’s not really a question of what kind of character you want to play, or how to strategize to beat the challenges.

Flitzie.6082:

50% higher attackspeed on all Pve Mobs.
50-100% higher attack damage on all Pve Mobs.
100% better defensive stat scaling on players.
Make LoS’ing impossible. (For example higher Mob cleave damage, better mob AoE spells. Or just simply throw in some more objects where LoS’ing is currently being executed. I can think of many spots where a simple object like a box or tree or whatever would shot down the ability to LoS entirely.)

I’d love to test something like this for a few days and see how it works.

Let me tell you how that would end up working:
1. Speed runners will flood the forum because you’re nerfing them (and only them) – they don’t typically carry defensive abilities or gear for defensive stats.
2. The average player will become much less effective overall, because the current dodge mechanics would do nothing to alleviate the 150-200% increase in incoming damage.
3. The leveling process would become excessively cumbersome to the point that newer players will be discouraged very early in the process.
4. Aegis becomes useless, Blind becomes overpowered, Chain CC/kite builds become overpowered, condition damage builds get pushed out of the limelight.
5. Removing the ability to use line of sight defensively makes dodge rolling useless, and removes terrain as a battlefield mechanic. Also makes ranged builds legitimately broken because they can just walk around a building in circles while plinking you to death – they’ll never see you or be able to attack you.

So this is just a bad idea, you don’t change the meta by chancing the overall difficulty in PvE from mild to broken.

Astralporing.1957:

It’s not the existence of the meta that is a problem.

It’s how much that meta is better than alternatives,

By better, you are presumably talking about a ratio of kill speed to being able to make a mistake. So, let’s say you want to adjust that ratio. Do you:

• Adjust defensive stats to be more powerful, either by adjusting damage calculation in their favor or by scaling defensive actives based on stats, as the OP suggests? Either would break PvP. Either would make PvE easier than it already is for the defensive player. Thing is, defensive is already really strong in PvE. As an experiment, I took a bunker Engineer into Labyrinth on Monday. In fights where both the Horror and the Viscount were present (happened 3x), the Engie was darned near unkillable, while the zerg was dropping like flies. How much stronger would defense need to be?
• Rework the damage calculation so that a greater percentage of the product is generated by weapon strength, but the product of power builds remains about where it is? This would increase damage of lower-Power builds while not affecting glass or Soldier set-ups. It would also buff the damage of healing based stat combos. If you do that, what happens to the opportunity cost of having stronger healing?
• Rework critical, which has been done once already, with the net affect being that the meta was completely unchanged? However, what is the opportunity cost of having access to high crit rates and multipliers? I submit that cost should not be calculated based on dungeon play where anyone who doesn’t know them by heart still struggles, regardless of gear.

Other alternatives exist. You could further reduce the defense available to glass builds. However, this would be very contrary to the game’s active combat aspects.

Astralporing.1957:

and how useless most of those alternatives are.

Very much disagree with this part. The other stat combos are presumably pretty useful to people who run them, whether that be in PvP or PvE.

Disclaimer I’m intentionally leaving condition damage builds, offensive or defensive, out of the discussion, as their uselessness is not a factor of stats, but of other game design issues, particularly infrastructure.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Astralporing.1957:

It’s not the existence of the meta that is a problem.

It’s how much that meta is better than alternatives,

By better, you are presumably talking about a ratio of kill speed to being able to make a mistake. So, let’s say you want to adjust that ratio. Do you:

• Adjust defensive stats to be more powerful, either by adjusting damage calculation in their favor or by scaling defensive actives based on stats, as the OP suggests? Either would break PvP. Either would make PvE easier than it already is for the defensive player. Thing is, defensive is already really strong in PvE. As an experiment, I took a bunker Engineer into Labyrinth on Monday. In fights where both the Horror and the Viscount were present (happened 3x), the Engie was darned near unkillable, while the zerg was dropping like flies. How much stronger would defense need to be?
• Rework the damage calculation so that a greater percentage of the product is generated by weapon strength, but the product of power builds remains about where it is? This would increase damage of lower-Power builds while not affecting glass or Soldier set-ups. It would also buff the damage of healing based stat combos. If you do that, what happens to the opportunity cost of having stronger healing?
• Rework critical, which has been done once already, with the net affect being that the meta was completely unchanged? However, what is the opportunity cost of having access to high crit rates and multipliers? I submit that cost should not be calculated based on dungeon play where anyone who doesn’t know them by heart still struggles, regardless of gear.

Other alternatives exist. You could further reduce the defense available to glass builds. However, this would be very contrary to the game’s active combat aspects.

Astralporing.1957:

and how useless most of those alternatives are.

Very much disagree with this part. The other stat combos are presumably pretty useful to people who run them, whether that be in PvP or PvE.

Disclaimer I’m intentionally leaving condition damage builds, offensive or defensive, out of the discussion, as their uselessness is not a factor of stats, but of other game design issues, particularly infrastructure.

it wouldnt really break pvp to increase/decrease effects based on stats. It would of course need to be balanced. But any change they make would need to be balanced.

However, i do recognize its unlikely they will do a thing that would require so much balance adjustments at this stage,

Kite.2510:

>untouchable!

>TONS of more strategy into making your build!

This response isnt for you, it’s for Anet to see what you believe strategy stems from.

(You should probably desire input from the players your change propositions will affect, instead of just blindly suggesting Anet add it, much less outright reject it. such a stance makes it painfully obvious that you’re the only one looking to benefit from a change. I’m a bunker myself and immovable wall is about as non-strategic as you can get. )