Guild Wars 2

I don’t get any of this, you want berserker stats nerfed (and I assume assassins as well then?). The reality of that is, people who can evade everything will be required to have some kind of defensive stat in their gear, making the run easier and even more of a snore-fest. To me it looks pretty much as a cry to make things easier.

If you were to say, make conditions just as viable so you can choose between power and DoT builds I’d agree, but all you do is talk about investing in survivability. Making a game with only tanks sounds like awesome, interesting gameplay… >_>

Aomine.5012:

Not like you give any other alternative.
All you do is pointing out the flaws, and how the problem exist, but you never provide any concrete idea of how to solve it.
How about enlighten us how should it be done? I’m all ears

I don’t think there is a problem with zerk outside of the fact that a few people who can’t use it seem to like to cry about it repeatedly on the forums.

You want diversity yet you want to make content easy enough for any gears to succeed.

What? I’m starting to think you have me confused with someone else at this point. I think there already is diversity (just not at the elite speedrun level) and that the content already is easy enough to clear with any gear.

Anet put timer on bosses, this action by itself already pushes people to use max DPS gear. Anet adds mechanic that leading to boss live longer = harder, already pushing people to use zerker gear to succeed.

And yet the content can still be done with other gear and builds.

So tell me, why now pushing you to more defensive/ condition base gear suddenly become unacceptable? They already did it for zerker!
Plus a zerker may still succeed under these new mechanic, just “less efficient and harder” than other gears, working in the same way when the mechanic favors zerkers. (You use cond and defensive gear, harder, but doable)

Because it is pointless and unnecessary, as I have already said.

Or you’re just lazy to change gear because all your characters are alrdy full zerk?

I gear and trait to be as optimal/efficient for the specific content I am doing and switch out equpiment and traits mid content as and when it is needed. So trying to suggest I am somehow lazy is a bit odd (just as it was odd that you seemed to be trying to imply that I didn’t like hard content earlier).

Fenrir.3609:

Aomine.5012:

Not like you give any other alternative.
All you do is pointing out the flaws, and how the problem exist, but you never provide any concrete idea of how to solve it.
How about enlighten us how should it be done? I’m all ears

I don’t think there is a problem with zerk outside of the fact that a few people who can’t use it seem to like to cry about it repeatedly on the forums.

You want diversity yet you want to make content easy enough for any gears to succeed.

What? I’m starting to think you have me confused with someone else at this point. I think there already is diversity (just not at the elite speedrun level) and that the content already is easy enough to clear with any gear.

Anet put timer on bosses, this action by itself already pushes people to use max DPS gear. Anet adds mechanic that leading to boss live longer = harder, already pushing people to use zerker gear to succeed.

And yet the content can still be done with other gear and builds.

So tell me, why now pushing you to more defensive/ condition base gear suddenly become unacceptable? They already did it for zerker!
Plus a zerker may still succeed under these new mechanic, just “less efficient and harder” than other gears, working in the same way when the mechanic favors zerkers. (You use cond and defensive gear, harder, but doable)

Because it is pointless and unnecessary, as I have already said.

Or you’re just lazy to change gear because all your characters are alrdy full zerk?

I gear and trait to be as optimal/efficient for the specific content I am doing and switch out equpiment and traits mid content as and when it is needed. So trying to suggest I am somehow lazy is a bit odd (just as it was odd that you seemed to be trying to imply that I didn’t like hard content earlier).

Great, you totally ignore every single points that I posted because on default your position is that the current system is fair and no change should be done.
Basically you just dodge all questions and discussion by throwing:
“It’s pointless, it’s not necessary, current system is fine”, without explaining anything.
There’s no point in discussing with you because you only deny points, but never provide any counter argument as to why not.

You must be a great politician.

Aomine.5012:

Fenrir.3609:

Aomine.5012:

But hey! People are complaining about contents being too easy that zerker can do everything that a non-zerker can do (survive, give support like others), while hitting way more damage.

So introducing this “hardcapped” mechanic that does not favor zerker too much is a fair trade-off right? Or suddenly you guys regret saying the fault is because mechanic and contents being too easy ? Tbh, not too many people like hard contents, so “fixing” the encounter may not be the best idea.

Also I fixed my original post of power healing distribution and make it fair to power build. (2/3 power, 1/3 healing). Also I pick healing as an example because it is one of the most unlikable stats in PVE. (And probably for good reasons)

None of that makes sense as a response to my post. You suggested changes to buff tanks and nerf zerk, I stated that said changes are unwarranted and now you are going on about difficulty?

You think throwing in loads of ret and buffing tank damage makes content harder, really?

Now I’m all for difficulty and enjoy soloing/trying to solo dungeons and fractals but two things occur here. First your original ideas (the ones I commented on) are bad ways of trying to achieve “harder” content. Secondly, you seem to be using “make it harder” as an excuse for basically, just trying to shaft zerk users and get some kind of hard trinity in the game.

Not like you give any other alternative.
All you do is pointing out the flaws, and how the problem exist, but you never provide any concrete idea of how to solve it.
How about enlighten us how should it be done? I’m all ears

You want diversity yet you want to make content easy enough for any gears to succeed. However you totally neglecting one thing:

Anet put timer on bosses, this action by itself already pushes people to use max DPS gear. Anet adds mechanic that leading to boss live longer = harder, already pushing people to use zerker gear to succeed.

So tell me, why now pushing you to more defensive/ condition base gear suddenly become unacceptable? They already did it for zerker!
Plus a zerker may still succeed under these new mechanic, just “less efficient and harder” than other gears, working in the same way when the mechanic favors zerkers. (You use cond and defensive gear, harder, but doable)

Or you’re just lazy to change gear because all your characters are alrdy full zerk?
In fact, I think all these protests are just a sign of people fear of change and spend more $$ on stuffs they don’t want to spend. They don’t want “balance”, they want the best gear out there that they can take and forget.
I see so many posts pointing out how this is going to make you change gear and can’t play what you want, but who said you can’t still use what you want?
Who said when you fight a bunch of Husks you can’t win with zerkers? It’s just harder but doable! Much like the zerker issue we’re experiencing right now!

Timers are on open world bosses. Where zerker has no value because they can’t be crit. Why do you spread misinformation?

The timers are there so people don’t afk the event and win in 30 minutes or more by just spamming 1 and actually have to play to get the reward.

Zerker is NOT and was NEVER optimal for timer bosses in open world.

No clue why people complain about the zerker folk.
Ofc glass cannon IS risky, anyone who goes that way – have to deal with it,
but otherwise zerk is the only way to make a good speed process through combats.
We’re not supposed to bother more than a few sec/trashfoe
Whole hordes would ragequit, as a lot did with the last “minor adjustment”.

IF you’re a Supporter kind, (which should be an additional build option with fast swapping), then you shouldn’t go Solo. Always take a Wookie with ya.

Aomine.5012:

phys.7689:

Harper.4173:

i dont think people quit because it was hard to farm gold, they quit because the game was not rewarding, and the few goals they had were grindy.

What i mean by this is they want to be able to feel like they are achieving something through play, but not neccesarily that they want gold. Many of these people wanted raids, and i think its not really because raid gameplay is awesome, but because you have this set of goals to work towards, and you feel like you are making progress by playing. You feel rewarded, even if you dont get much gold, you get the reward of moving to new interesting things.

Let me put your words into simple terms:
People want “vertical progression, the sense of being stronger with each accomplishment.”
Clearly GW2 doesn’t suit them so I don’t blame them for leaving, nor do I miss them.
Sadly the company does care about those people because they need money

no, its not vertical progression in terms of becoming stronger, its more like vertical progression in terms of difficulty/challenge and goals.
for example, the classic old game formula, you beat level 1, then you beat level 2, then you beat level 3. you may have had the same weapons/skills, but there was a sense of direction. Also they generally made the content harder slowly, so by the end you were a well trained bad kitten .

they use items to lead people, the items in and of themselves arent really that big a deal, its basically just a system that says, when you have proven mastery of this place, you will be ready for the next place.

You dont need to actually get any more statisical power.
GW2 has a very flat challenge curve, and doesnt have many teired goals. Every dungeon was basically around the same difficulty before the recent stat nerf, and every world boss was basically around the same difficulty. you also did work your way up to anything bad kitten , mount maelstrom is about the same as brisban wildlands.

anyhow all that aside, point is people didnt so much leave because they couldnt farm gold, its because the game isnt very deep, the biggest reward in most games is getting further and overcoming new challenges/getting better.

How about making bosses and mobs like players in pvp? Like some people said, give them stability, stun breakers and dodges. But let’s not stop there. Give them boons, condition removals and, most importantly, self healing skills.

Give them also retaliation so you need some passive sustain. Now we have perfect balance - you can’t go with too much defense (not enough dps) and you can’t also go with too much offense (not enough sustain). You would need boon removals and cc. True balance achieved.

haviz.1340:

How about making bosses and mobs like players in pvp? Like some people said, give them stability, stun breakers and dodges. But let’s not stop there. Give them boons, condition removals and, most importantly, self healing skills.

Give them also retaliation so you need some passive sustain. Now we have perfect balance – you can’t go with too much defense (not enough dps) and you can’t also go with too much offense (not enough sustain). You would need boon removals and cc. True balance achieved.

Like Dredge? Or Toxic?

haviz.1340:

How about making bosses and mobs like players in pvp? Like some people said, give them stability, stun breakers and dodges. But let’s not stop there. Give them boons, condition removals and, most importantly, self healing skills.

Give them also retaliation so you need some passive sustain. Now we have perfect balance – you can’t go with too much defense (not enough dps) and you can’t also go with too much offense (not enough sustain). You would need boon removals and cc. True balance achieved.

im guessing you are being faceous but honestly probably wouldnt be bad to have some real enemies to fight. the pvp training npcs are more entertaining to fight than your average veteran/champion anyhow

Ropechef.6192:

Like Dredge? Or Toxic?

Dredge don’t dodge, have no condition removal and don’t heal except passive regeneration. Toxic are more close to it but still lack things like retaliation, confusion and self healing.

phys.7689:

im guessing you are being faceous but honestly probably wouldnt be bad to have some real enemies to fight. the pvp training npcs are more entertaining to fight than your average veteran/champion anyhow

I’m honest here. I think the game degenerated too much into the state of fgs bs we need serious rehaul. Boss fights should be longer and more dangerous, there’s not enough pressure on players and if there is some, it’s mostly centered around 1 or 2 persons. For me the best option would be to remove completely stats from gear and move them to traits. That way you can have more emphasis on roles with an easy way to change them.

Berserker is obviously, at the moment, top of the line damage and it sets a standard. Even if Zerker were to be removed, everyone would just go to the next best option (which would then be top of the line) for DPS, and then that would be the next “x armor only”. The problem doesn’t lie in the stat spread, it lies in the fact that boss mechanics like instant OHKOs despite your gear and the fact that dodges and kiting are the best means of surviving, makes gearing tanky almost pointless in an “optimal” PvE scenario.

Also, average champion is boring but there are some decent individuals like risen priest of melandru. Unfortunately, anet chose to put them in the open world where 50 players can press 1 because bosses don’t scale their offense in most of the cases.

Eternum.1706:

Berserker is obviously, at the moment, top of the line damage and it sets a standard. Even if Zerker were to be removed, everyone would just go to the next best option (which would then be top of the line) for DPS, and then that would be the next “x armor only”. The problem doesn’t lie in the stat spread, it lies in the fact that boss mechanics like instant OHKOs despite your gear and the fact that dodges and kiting are the best means of surviving, makes gearing tanky almost pointless in an “optimal” PvE scenario.

Except that in dungeons you can count the numbers of one shot mechanics on fingers of one hand.

haviz.1340:

Ropechef.6192:

Like Dredge? Or Toxic?

Dredge don’t dodge, have no condition removal and don’t heal except passive regeneration. Toxic are more close to it but still lack things like retaliation, confusion and self healing.

hmm fair enough,
I guess if anything it is a step in the direction though.

Isnt that more or less what Wethospu was saying? it would not be so much as an overhaul of the AI. but simply adding MORE skills to an average enemies toolbar to use.

Kind of does make me wonder what would happen if MoB’s had the skillset of even the heart of the mist trainers.

Changes the dynamic

Ropechef.6192:

hmm fair enough,
I guess if anything it is a step in the direction though.

Isnt that more or less what Wethospu was saying? it would not be so much as an overhaul of the AI. but simply adding MORE skills to an average enemies toolbar to use.

Kind of does make me wonder what would happen if MoB’s had the skillset of even the heart of the mist trainers.

Changes the dynamic

I haven’t played much gw1 pve but I do recall mobs having players’ skills. It wasn’t perfect and they were stupid as usual but I think it was better experience.

Harper.4173:

Aomine.5012:

Fenrir.3609:

Aomine.5012:

But hey! People are complaining about contents being too easy that zerker can do everything that a non-zerker can do (survive, give support like others), while hitting way more damage.

So introducing this “hardcapped” mechanic that does not favor zerker too much is a fair trade-off right? Or suddenly you guys regret saying the fault is because mechanic and contents being too easy ? Tbh, not too many people like hard contents, so “fixing” the encounter may not be the best idea.

Also I fixed my original post of power healing distribution and make it fair to power build. (2/3 power, 1/3 healing). Also I pick healing as an example because it is one of the most unlikable stats in PVE. (And probably for good reasons)

None of that makes sense as a response to my post. You suggested changes to buff tanks and nerf zerk, I stated that said changes are unwarranted and now you are going on about difficulty?

You think throwing in loads of ret and buffing tank damage makes content harder, really?

Now I’m all for difficulty and enjoy soloing/trying to solo dungeons and fractals but two things occur here. First your original ideas (the ones I commented on) are bad ways of trying to achieve “harder” content. Secondly, you seem to be using “make it harder” as an excuse for basically, just trying to shaft zerk users and get some kind of hard trinity in the game.

Not like you give any other alternative.
All you do is pointing out the flaws, and how the problem exist, but you never provide any concrete idea of how to solve it.
How about enlighten us how should it be done? I’m all ears

You want diversity yet you want to make content easy enough for any gears to succeed. However you totally neglecting one thing:

Anet put timer on bosses, this action by itself already pushes people to use max DPS gear. Anet adds mechanic that leading to boss live longer = harder, already pushing people to use zerker gear to succeed.

So tell me, why now pushing you to more defensive/ condition base gear suddenly become unacceptable? They already did it for zerker!
Plus a zerker may still succeed under these new mechanic, just “less efficient and harder” than other gears, working in the same way when the mechanic favors zerkers. (You use cond and defensive gear, harder, but doable)

Or you’re just lazy to change gear because all your characters are alrdy full zerk?
In fact, I think all these protests are just a sign of people fear of change and spend more $$ on stuffs they don’t want to spend. They don’t want “balance”, they want the best gear out there that they can take and forget.
I see so many posts pointing out how this is going to make you change gear and can’t play what you want, but who said you can’t still use what you want?
Who said when you fight a bunch of Husks you can’t win with zerkers? It’s just harder but doable! Much like the zerker issue we’re experiencing right now!

Timers are on open world bosses. Where zerker has no value because they can’t be crit. Why do you spread misinformation?

The timers are there so people don’t afk the event and win in 30 minutes or more by just spamming 1 and actually have to play to get the reward.

Zerker is NOT and was NEVER optimal for timer bosses in open world.

Sorry I did not clearify my post more, but there are only a handful of world bosses that poses any sort of challenge and need a dps check.

First is the burn phase of Triple Trouble Wurms which you only have 2 minutes.
Second is the Six Minutes Knightfall from living story.
Third is the new Crown Pavillion boss rush (to a lesser degree)
Fourth is Teq the Sunless (to a lesser degree too)

You’ll notice except Teq the Sunless, all the rest of them takes critical hits like normal bosses because Anet want to further encourage the zerk gears to work even better.

As to all the rest of the World Bosses, they’re all just faceroll, so I don’t think it’s too important whether there’s a timer or not.

haviz.1340:

Ropechef.6192:

hmm fair enough,
I guess if anything it is a step in the direction though.

Isnt that more or less what Wethospu was saying? it would not be so much as an overhaul of the AI. but simply adding MORE skills to an average enemies toolbar to use.

Kind of does make me wonder what would happen if MoB’s had the skillset of even the heart of the mist trainers.

Changes the dynamic

I haven’t played much gw1 pve but I do recall mobs having players’ skills. It wasn’t perfect and they were stupid as usual but I think it was better experience.

About gw1, the evolution of monsters and their AI and skills was literally stunning.

In GW1 (prophecies, faction and nightfall) the skills available by monsters was limited. They were specialized in one way of doing damage and groups had little variety, allowing people to create solo farm build by using their weakness (totem axe farm, feather farm etc…). Typical example: Root behemoth

In GWEN, the charrs monsters had their set of skills expanded a lot and included skill combos used by players (Eg charr seeker burning arrow)

The final evolution in terms of mob abilities is found in the winds of change release, where the devs literally copy-pasted a certain number of popular PvE and PvP builds for ennemies.
I remember parties being nuked by ministry mages in a blink of en eye

In GW beyond, failure to target the right ennemy at the right time in hard mode could mean a quick and painful death (note: I was playing with 7 heroes all the time). If you have time, look at the description of their skill in the wiki. Ministry mages have everything synegizing.

So yes I am totally in favor of incorporating boss with copy-pasted pvp builds and the AI to play them in GW2. That’s a way to bring challenge as long as the mobs’ hp are toned down (hp meatbags are not interesting).

Thanks for this detailed explanation. I would prefer this game being harder but it doesn’t include band aid fixes like a lot of people suggest.

Aomine.5012:

Harper.4173:

Aomine.5012:

Fenrir.3609:

Aomine.5012:

But hey! People are complaining about contents being too easy that zerker can do everything that a non-zerker can do (survive, give support like others), while hitting way more damage.

So introducing this “hardcapped” mechanic that does not favor zerker too much is a fair trade-off right? Or suddenly you guys regret saying the fault is because mechanic and contents being too easy ? Tbh, not too many people like hard contents, so “fixing” the encounter may not be the best idea.

Also I fixed my original post of power healing distribution and make it fair to power build. (2/3 power, 1/3 healing). Also I pick healing as an example because it is one of the most unlikable stats in PVE. (And probably for good reasons)

None of that makes sense as a response to my post. You suggested changes to buff tanks and nerf zerk, I stated that said changes are unwarranted and now you are going on about difficulty?

You think throwing in loads of ret and buffing tank damage makes content harder, really?

Now I’m all for difficulty and enjoy soloing/trying to solo dungeons and fractals but two things occur here. First your original ideas (the ones I commented on) are bad ways of trying to achieve “harder” content. Secondly, you seem to be using “make it harder” as an excuse for basically, just trying to shaft zerk users and get some kind of hard trinity in the game.

Not like you give any other alternative.
All you do is pointing out the flaws, and how the problem exist, but you never provide any concrete idea of how to solve it.
How about enlighten us how should it be done? I’m all ears

You want diversity yet you want to make content easy enough for any gears to succeed. However you totally neglecting one thing:

Anet put timer on bosses, this action by itself already pushes people to use max DPS gear. Anet adds mechanic that leading to boss live longer = harder, already pushing people to use zerker gear to succeed.

So tell me, why now pushing you to more defensive/ condition base gear suddenly become unacceptable? They already did it for zerker!
Plus a zerker may still succeed under these new mechanic, just “less efficient and harder” than other gears, working in the same way when the mechanic favors zerkers. (You use cond and defensive gear, harder, but doable)

Or you’re just lazy to change gear because all your characters are alrdy full zerk?
In fact, I think all these protests are just a sign of people fear of change and spend more $$ on stuffs they don’t want to spend. They don’t want “balance”, they want the best gear out there that they can take and forget.
I see so many posts pointing out how this is going to make you change gear and can’t play what you want, but who said you can’t still use what you want?
Who said when you fight a bunch of Husks you can’t win with zerkers? It’s just harder but doable! Much like the zerker issue we’re experiencing right now!

Timers are on open world bosses. Where zerker has no value because they can’t be crit. Why do you spread misinformation?

The timers are there so people don’t afk the event and win in 30 minutes or more by just spamming 1 and actually have to play to get the reward.

Zerker is NOT and was NEVER optimal for timer bosses in open world.

Sorry I did not clearify my post more, but there are only a handful of world bosses that poses any sort of challenge and need a dps check.

First is the burn phase of Triple Trouble Wurms which you only have 2 minutes.
Second is the Six Minutes Knightfall from living story.
Third is the new Crown Pavillion boss rush (to a lesser degree)
Fourth is Teq the Sunless (to a lesser degree too)

You’ll notice except Teq the Sunless, all the rest of them takes critical hits like normal bosses because Anet want to further encourage the zerk gears to work even better.

As to all the rest of the World Bosses, they’re all just faceroll, so I don’t think it’s too important whether there’s a timer or not.

Anet is not actively encouraging zerker but is enforcing a policy where you can’t spam 1 while afk for 30 minutes and win. That’s just not going to work.

These bosses you mention ( except teq) have unique mechanics that have to be learned and used. Yes there’s a timer on it because if there wasn’t players couldn’t fail.

The mechanic would be useless since you could bypass it by running in, hitting it a bit, dying, repeat. So you’ve bypassed the mechanic supposed to punish you if you’re not engaging correctly.

If you don’t play the encounter right you will die. If you die you don’t dps. If you don’t dps the timer will run down and you will lose.

Anet isn’t encouraging zerker, Anet is enforcing mechanics by punishing players that fail to adhere to them.

Aomine.5012:

Great, you totally ignore every single points that I posted because on default your position is that the current system is fair and no change should be done.

I haven’t ignored any of your points, or at least, certainly not intentionally.

Basically you just dodge all questions and discussion by throwing:
“It’s pointless, it’s not necessary, current system is fine”, without explaining anything.

In fairness, I have given reasons numerous times in threads like this now.

The current system allows for large flexibility: You are not tied down to a specific role based on your class, you are not tied down to a specific role based on your gear.

There is great variety in who can do the content: You are able to do pretty much all of the content regardless of your gear, build, class or party composition. You are able to take more glassy, higher damage gear and still provide the neccessary cc/support should you have the skill and ability to use it. Promoting the active combat system for those players with a higher skill base.

There is a great range of metas across the game: From open world pve to instanced pve (with different meta builds within that context, to multiple wvw and spvp metas (roaming, bunkers, point caps/decaps etc).

Across pve and spvp/wvw, simply put, there is plenty of variety. What we have is a few people who are crying because whilst they can do content, they can’t do it as quickly as the zerk meta can in the niche of instanced pve speedrunning. Well tough really, I see zero issue with that. I don’t take my pve spec into wvw or spvp and cry endlessly about the fact it is not optimal, instead I realise that you build to be content specific if you want to be as optimal as possible.

Conversely tying people into restricted “roles” based on their gear stats or class reduces freedom and flexibility and would do nothing to alter the fact that:
a) there would still be a meta (so the same people would still complain and ask for nerfs).
b) there would still be gear checks (so the same people would still complain about “muh elitists”) .
c) people would still cry when their “play how I want” build falls outside of said meta.

Now I’m all for an increase in difficulty (as I have mentioned multiple times now), but I feel that should be achieved by an across the board increase in the quality of mob AI. Not done by simply whacking in ret to punish dps players or by buffing the dps of tanks.

If we see mobs adpating to a groups attack pattern, if we see them retreating and buffing, if we see mob AI positional counterplay, if we see them applying a larger range of skills and utilities and being proactive in combat. Well then we would have “harder” and more enjoyable gameplay. But all that has nothing to do with the argument really has it, the simple fact is people just like a good old cry about the zerker boogeyman.

There’s no point in discussing with you because you only deny points, but never provide any counter argument as to why not.

You must be a great politician.

Fair enough.

Harper.4173:

Anet is not actively encouraging zerker but is enforcing a policy where you can’t spam 1 while afk for 30 minutes and win. That’s just not going to work.

These bosses you mention ( except teq) have unique mechanics that have to be learned and used. Yes there’s a timer on it because if there wasn’t players couldn’t fail.

The mechanic would be useless since you could bypass it by running in, hitting it a bit, dying, repeat. So you’ve bypassed the mechanic supposed to punish you if you’re not engaging correctly.

If you don’t play the encounter right you will die. If you die you don’t dps. If you don’t dps the timer will run down and you will lose.

Anet isn’t encouraging zerker, Anet is enforcing mechanics by punishing players that fail to adhere to them.

Wurms phase 2 burn phase, Six Mins Knightfall, Crown Pavillion has “unique mechanic”? Seriously?

All you need to do is stack in one spot, stack mights, wear highest dps gear, bring as many FGS ele as you can, and kill bosses in VERY SHORT PERIOD OF TIME.
(2 mins, 6 mins, and 7 mins)

How can this not be just another hardcapped DPS check?
Many people can’t win these because they do not spec enough in their dps, and you can’t control them or change them whatsoever.

Timer does not make an encounter harder, it’s just an easy way for Anet to increase
difficulty without adjusting anything or make versatile mechanics.
There’re numerous ways to increase difficulty, such as defending certain objective, dead people cannot rev, capping certain objectives together, etc.
However, Anet does not know how to implant these type of mechanic and makes it hard enough to poses any challenge to our zergish type of play-style, so they just add a timer so they don’t have to do anything to their contents.

Also, my previous posts already provided numerous ways to increase the encounter difficulty. Husk by itself is a good example, but there need to be more enemies with similar mechanic and infest them all around Tyria.

Aomine.5012:

Harper.4173:

Anet is not actively encouraging zerker but is enforcing a policy where you can’t spam 1 while afk for 30 minutes and win. That’s just not going to work.

These bosses you mention ( except teq) have unique mechanics that have to be learned and used. Yes there’s a timer on it because if there wasn’t players couldn’t fail.

The mechanic would be useless since you could bypass it by running in, hitting it a bit, dying, repeat. So you’ve bypassed the mechanic supposed to punish you if you’re not engaging correctly.

If you don’t play the encounter right you will die. If you die you don’t dps. If you don’t dps the timer will run down and you will lose.

Anet isn’t encouraging zerker, Anet is enforcing mechanics by punishing players that fail to adhere to them.

Wurms phase 2 burn phase, Six Mins Knightfall, Crown Pavillion has “unique mechanic”? Seriously?

All you need to do is stack in one spot, stack mights, wear highest dps gear, bring as many FGS ele as you can, and kill bosses in VERY SHORT PERIOD OF TIME.
(2 mins, 6 mins, and 7 mins)

How can this not be just another hardcapped DPS check?
Many people can’t win these because they do not spec enough in their dps, and you can’t control them or change them whatsoever.

Timer does not make an encounter harder, it’s just an easy way for Anet to increase
difficulty without adjusting anything or make versatile mechanics.
There’re numerous ways to increase difficulty, such as defending certain objective, dead people cannot rev, capping certain objectives together, etc.
However, Anet does not know how to implant these type of mechanic and makes it hard enough to poses any challenge to our zergish type of play-style, so they just add a timer so they don’t have to do anything to their contents.

Also, my previous posts already provided numerous ways to increase the encounter difficulty. Husk by itself is an good example, but there need to be more enemies with similar mechanic and infest them all around Tyria.

Yes they have unique mechanic and they all need some level of organization. The timer is option for 2 of them btw and maybe some ppl will figure out that there is no reason to bring their cleric or sentinel toon.

Timer does not make an encounter harder, it’s just an easy way for Anet to increase difficulty

??????

There’s nothing wrong with zerkers, if u want to do dungeons 1 hour, do it yourself, i wish anet will not change it

Harper.4173:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I’m in agreement with others that simply nerfing berserker gear is not the answer. I don’t agree that the change to ferocity ‘did nothing’ or is ‘useless’ though. It was simply the first step in a long list of things that needed to be done in order to balance the various available roles to make support and cc more desirable.

I think we’re starting to see some of the further changes, although I don’t think their implementations are perfect. The amount of things no longer reflect able might require a bit of tweaking, for example.

And how exactly is zerker interfering with CC?

One is a gear set. The other is a type of skill that is used to knock down or knock back or do mean stuff to a boss or enemy.

How does zerker work against CC?

I’m really sad when I see misinformed posts like this. People (like yourself) actually believe that zerker is the root of all problems in this game. However the truth is different.
A full zerker player can still CC to the best of his/her ability.
Defiant is the reason that CC is not used / not required / not viable.

And you shouldn’t forget that a full zerker player can still support his team through:
boon sharing
res mechanics
reflects
heals

In fact -the only thing a zerk player will do worse as a support than a full Cleric’s is maybe less healing and less boon uptime.

Thank you, you highlight the issue wonderfully. This is precisely what some of us are talking about. Because of the way support and cc currently works, there is no reason to wear anything other than zerker gear. That’s the issue (Not the gear itself) There is no point for many people to take anyone wearing any other gear type, because it makes them less effective at dps while having no effect on whether they can adaquately support or cc. As I stated in another post, if a group was looking for a mesmer they would take the one in zerk over the one in valk because the one is zerk will do more damage while still offering the same amount of support / cc as the other (assuming exact same builds, blah blah, only diff is armor). That is the issue.

I understand that GW2 intentionally walked away from the trinity, I applauded it. I’m not asking for the trinity back. However, they did state that the game still had roles, in the form of dps, support, etc. That you could play as you pleased; however, with the current set up that’s not true. Right now (in pve) its ‘run zerk dps or gfto’ There isn’t any incentive to run any other armor set up beyond wanting to, which isn’t how it should work. Different armors should have desirability for different functionality, but we lack that with the current set up.

Ropechef.6192:

Kind of does make me wonder what would happen if MoB’s had the skillset of even the heart of the mist trainers.

Changes the dynamic

I personally enjoy the current mobs (though some need tweaking). However, I too would love to see PvE mobs that are as capable and dynamic as the Mists lobby practice NPC’s. They would make great lietenants.

Or maybe even add them as profession challenges, where you need to go to a specific location, summon and defeat them to earn skills and traits. That would be awesome.

As to the whole zerker meta (non) issue, the only problem with zerker gear is human behaviour. Because many players are only concerned with getting the shinies as quickly as possible, they often lose all sense of decency and do stupid things like not advertising their intent and then kicking players because they did not match their criteria.

I run zerker, condi and healing builds across various characters and I have a ton of fun with all of them. I haven’t yet been kicked from groups nor have I repeatedly failed content with non-zerker geared characters. The only problem is impatient players or time restricted players who have no communication skills.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

There isn’t any incentive to run any other armor set up beyond wanting to, which isn’t how it should work.

Actually that is exactly how it should work. You can run whatever build you want and do the content i.e. “play how I want”. If though you want to partake in the niche that is speedrunning or setting records then amazingly enough you should have to build for that and understandably in an action combat game, bringing more dps to the fore and using active mitigation is optimal.

There is another reason for not going full glass, some simply can’t manage it.

Different armors should have desirability for different functionality, but we lack that with the current set up.

Well no, we don’t lack that and trying to tie stats to roles more would remove freedom not promote it. Are you face tanking in zerk? Are you bunkering down on point in zerk? Are you wvw roaming in clerics?

Fenrir.3609:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

There isn’t any incentive to run any other armor set up beyond wanting to, which isn’t how it should work.

Actually that is exactly how it should work. You can run whatever build you want and do the content i.e. “play how I want”. If though you want to partake in the niche that is speedrunning or setting records then amazingly enough you should have to build for that and understandably in an action combat game, bringing more dps to the fore and using active mitigation is optimal.

There is another reason for not going full glass, some simply can’t manage it.

Not being able to manage shouldn’t be the only reason to spec a different gear.

Yes, you spec any gear you want because you desire to. But there is no incentive to. You have incentive to wear zerks. Quite a lot of it. Thus the ‘zerk or gtfo’ mentality, which causes issues… Again, going back to the mesmer example… the “typical” group isn’t going to take the one in valk gear.

Well no, we don’t lack that and trying to tie stats to roles more would remove freedom not promote it. Are you face tanking in zerk? Are you bunkering down on point in zerk? Are you wvw roaming in clerics?

wvw and spvp are different animals, they don’t have the same issues as basic open world pve (which is what i’ve been discussing this whole time). now, if pve AI was more like a real person’s and they had fully functional skill bars, that would fix the issue too…

we wouldn’t have the zerk gear, stack in a corner meta…

Here’s the incentive:

“I can’t dodge well enough so I’ll take valkyrie until I get better”

or

“I’m not bothered to dodge everything so I’ll take valkyrie so I can eat a few more hits”

if pve AI was more like a real person’s and they had fully functional skill bars, that would fix the issue too…
we wouldn’t have the zerk gear, stack in a corner meta…

People can’t even handle Kholer, make the AI like players and literally nobody besides those of us in good dungeon guilds will run the content.

Literally no suggestion ever suggested will ever stop speed runners from speed running, it only hurts casual runners.

maha.7902:

Here’s the incentive:

“I can’t dodge well enough so I’ll take valkyrie until I get better”

or

“I’m not bothered to dodge everything so I’ll take valkyrie so I can eat a few more hits”

if pve AI was more like a real person’s and they had fully functional skill bars, that would fix the issue too…
we wouldn’t have the zerk gear, stack in a corner meta…

People can’t even handle Kholer, make the AI like players and literally nobody besides those of us in good dungeon guilds will run the content.

Literally no suggestion ever suggested will ever stop speed runners from speed running, it only hurts casual runners.

I wasn’t trying to stop speed runners…

If I was, I’d have included things like mobs would never de-aggro (no skipping), you wouldn’t be able to make it to the next section until you cleared the room of foes (no skipping), etc.

There will always be those that seek the fastest route, with the lease possible resistance. That’s just human nature.

Fenrir.3609:

Well no, we don’t lack that and trying to tie stats to roles more would remove freedom not promote it. Are you face tanking in zerk? Are you bunkering down on point in zerk? Are you wvw roaming in clerics?

Let us stay focussed on pvp shall we. No one ever argued that zerker was dominating sPvP nor WvW.
The issue we are arguing about over and over again is : “Zerker are dominating PvE and a lot of people are getting mad about it.”

Fenrir.3609:

Actually that is exactly how it should work.

Can you then explain then WHY they nerfed the AC spider ? To screw up casual players while still allowing the soloers to cornerstack ? Do you think this is a credible reason ?

Quoting a few posts in this thread : “You can do a dungeon the normal way but it will take 10 times longer”. In other words, you have ONE SINGLE WAY of dealing efficiently with dungeons. Question: Isa game that let you choose between the one true efficient method and the masochist method a good game ?

What bugs some people in GW2 is this:

In a dungeon a marginal loss of dps results in an exponential increase of completion time.
‘Cause you can’t one shot the spider before it can spit the poison anymore.

In a normal world things would be more like this (assuming player skill remain constant in between):

In a dungeon a marginal loss of dps results in a marginal increase of completion time.
Which is what actually happens in aetherpath. You kill bosses slower if you downgrade from zerker to valkyrie or knight, but the strategy remains the same. In this case, you can have variety of gear so that people that are less skilled/have a shaky connection can play.

I understand that you have a lot of success in the actual meta (and you have spent lots of gold on your equipment), that is the reason why you do not want it to change significantly. That does not mean there is no problem. However, like it or not Anet wants strategy not to be entirely tied to wargear.

The same strategy should be applicable with either berserker, zealot, valk, assassin or other power dmg oriented gear. This lack of diversity is detrimental to the game in the end.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Not being able to manage shouldn’t be the only reason to spec a different gear.

It isn’t the only reason, but it is a very viable one.

Yes, you spec any gear you want because you desire to. But there is no incentive to.

The incentive is because you want/desire to and can do the content and meet that desire. You want to play in valk gear, cool, why is that exactly? Oh it suits your playstyle, great. Go do the content then and stop worrying that mean old zerk groups don’t want you.

You seem to be getting close to “oh well it’s not the very best so there is no incentive”. Which is a very strange case to make.

Thus the ‘zerk or gtfo’ mentality, which causes issues… Again, going back to the mesmer example… the “typical” group isn’t going to take the one in valk gear.

There is only “zerk of gfto” in pure zerk groups, perhaps if you want to play in valk, don’t join a pure zerk group? There are countless groups taking on countless players with different builds and gear.

wvw and spvp are different animals, they don’t have the same issues as basic open world pve (which is what i’ve been discussing this whole time). now, if pve AI was more like a real person’s and they had fully functional skill bars, that would fix the issue too…

we wouldn’t have the zerk gear, stack in a corner meta…

spvp and wvw are all part of the same game, the trouble is people seem to look at a tiny niche (instance dungeons), look at one meta and think the sky is falling. That you can use any set in said dungeons, that other sets dominate other aspects of the game, that there is a great deal of variety across the spectrum seems to pass some people by.

But yes, i’m all for increasing the AI in the game. Having said that, we would still have an instanced pve meta and it would still be dominated by stacking as much damage as possible given the content you are trying to do.

Indeed. Currently, different armor have desirability for different functionality.

Toughness, Vitality = Survivability
Healing Power, Boons Duration, Condition Duration = Support
Power, Precision, Ferocity = Direct Damage
Condition, Condition Duration, Precision = DoT

There you go, you got 4 big branch of role for different stats. That’s awesome. The problem is not there because that ‘’desirability for different functionality’’ already exist in the game. You go in sPvP or WvW then those 4 branch of role are in good shape. DoT is strong, Direct Damage is strong, Surviability is strong and Support is strong (but it fall behind the other 3 for stats). The problem only come in PvE, but different reasons.

- Survivability? : From my point of view there is not problem there. Passive surviability should stay only for ppl that learn or ppl that don’t have the skill to play without that. I think its just fine.
- DoT? : Now we get a problem. Its not 1v1 fight or 10vs10 fight. Its 5 players against 1 boss or 75 players vs 1 big World Boss. Everybody know why condition suck in PvE group play, everybody know why the situation is where it is now and everybody still waiting for Anet to fix the situation.
- Support? : That’s a tricky one. Why? Because its so easy to have support overpower if you go into stats. Why? Because they are so many source of stats. Way easier to get support from trait or skills because its easy to manage it. But when you get it from stats, then its another story. Healing Power scale so badly that its useless right now. But if they buff it, it could directly lead to a healer role to develop. What is the best balance? Its hard to create a balance there. Same thing with boons duration. Boons is hard to get except from food and trait. They added boons duration to other pieces, but they are so small that it just doesn’t make any sense to use those. But if they buff it, support could be so overpower. Right now you can reach 117% boons duration but for that you sacrifice so much that its bad. But if they buff its so you can reach 100% while just sacrificing a bit of the other stuff not everything. Then someone that sacrifice everything for boons duration could reach 200%? 250%? 300? What would be the best balance? You can reach a balance, I’m sure, but that’s hard and Anet took the easy road.

There is so much ways to fix the problem, but that’s not a zerker problem.
- Make conditions hit 3 times harder, but last a third less time, making it hard to 2-3 ppl to reach the cap of 25.
- Balancing existing support stats from gear. Imagine a Power/Ferocity/Boons Duration set that you could use as a Elementalist to stack might even more. Imagine a Necro using Condi, Precision, Condi Duration set not only for DoT dmg, but also to use weakness on a larger scale. Imagine a thief using Power, Precision, Condi Duration set to keep 25 stack of vulnerability for long period of time on bosses.
- Create New Support stats? Could a gear give you profession mechanic stats like on the last line of every professions? Virtues recharge rate for guardian, attunement swapping for ele, etc.

So much ways to increase build diversity from gear (because that already exist with trait, ect, but more build diversity is always nice). But the more you create, the harder it is to balance everything.

I don’t understand the issue.

Of course zerker is the meta, because it’s survivable. If you made us take more unavoidable damage, then it may not be, but then Valkyrie or Knights would become the new meta and it’d be the same situation.

There is no such thing as overkill when it comes to damage. But there is in defense. You just simply need enough defense to survive the fight. Since this is a skill based game they put a lot of that defense on active defense through things like dodge/blind/aegis/walls/evades/etc. These abilities don’t use stats, they just are what they are.

What other sets provide is a fallback for those that may not be able or may not want the stress of playing the glass cannon. Force us all to use soldier gear just to survive and suddenly you’ve removed the fallback options for those not able to really maximize their play. You’ve suddenly made it not only slower but downright impossible for some people to complete things because the gear that use to give them an extra mistake or two is now the bare minimum of survival.

A change would hurt those currently rocking PVT gear, not those already running Zerker.

VodCom.6924:

Let us stay focussed on pvp shall we. No one ever argued that zerker was dominating sPvP nor WvW.
The issue we are arguing about over and over again is : “Zerker are dominating PvE and a lot of people are getting mad about it.”

It is dominating a small, non competitive speedclear niche.

People are getting mad because their tanky builds are not as fast as zerkers or that their notion of some kind of cleric heal spammer is not the meta.

Can you then explain then WHY they nerfed the AC spider ? To screw up casual players while still allowing the soloers to cornerstack ? Do you think this is a credible reason ?

I’m not sure exactly how that works in relation to the comment you quoted. But if you want to talk about the SQ, they didn’t nerf it, they attempted to buff it.

Said buff came due to people in threads like this one moaning about how stacking was cheating. Funnily enough making the mob harder meant it was harder for the very casuals crying about it, whilst the top players have no issue at all. I’m all for making the content harder with better AI, let’s see how that increase in difficulty pans out with the casual player.

Quoting a few posts in this thread : “You can do a dungeon the normal way but it will take 10 times longer”. In other words, you have ONE SINGLE WAY of dealing efficiently with dungeons. Question: Isa game that let you choose between the one true efficient method and the masochist method a good game ?

I’m fairly confident that the countless non full zerk, non meta parties running through the dungeon content right at this very moment are non “masochists”. Perhaps they are not bothered it is possible to do it faster and they would rather use the playstyle they like. All power to them.

What bugs some people in GW2 is this:

In a dungeon a marginal loss of dps results in an exponential increase of completion time.
‘Cause you can’t one shot the spider before it can spit the poison anymore.

In a normal world things would be more like this (assuming player skill remain constant in between):

In a dungeon a marginal loss of dps results in a marginal increase of completion time.
Which is what actually happens in aetherpath. You kill bosses slower if you downgrade from zerker to valkyrie or knight, but the strategy remains the same. In this case, you can have variety of gear so that people that are less skilled/have a shaky connection can play.

I understand that you have a lot of success in the actual meta (and you have spent lots of gold on your equipment), that is the reason why you do not want it to change significantly. That does not mean there is no problem. However, like it or not Anet wants strategy not to be entirely tied to wargear.

The same strategy should be applicable with either berserker, zealot, valk, assassin or other power dmg oriented gear. This lack of diversity is detrimental to the game in the end.

I’m not sure I am following you on this part, I apologise if i’m getting the wrong end of the stick Strategy should clearly be tied to your party comp/build/gear. Why would you approach an encounter with exactly the same strategy when you have a different set up?

I think that line of thinking (everything should be the same regardless) is part of the major problem here. Look it is easy to switch traits/builds, gear is cheap (at the exo level) and any class can spec for any kind of quasi role and/or spec for specific content. Now it seems to be that we have a situation in which, any build/class/gear set up is viable/able to do the content and we also have a situation which means that if you want to be meta/efficient, you can easily tweak/change your set up for the content you are doing. That is fantastic.

And yet some people seem to feel they should be able to take their PVT tank from wvw into dungeons and not only do them, but be as efficient as the dungeon specific zerk meta. Which is a bit of an odd line of thinking to my mind.

I will say again that I am all for making the content more difficult and I would quite happily bin all my current gear if it meant dungeon content was made challening and interesting. But the suggestions i’ve seen thus far don’t strike me as being right, nor does any of the current “anti zerk” sentiment I see. But then, maybe I am biased/wrong. Who knows.

I think they should replace SQ with Lupi in AC. That will stop those pesky zurrrgers from stacking. Get on it ArenaNet!

I wasn’t trying to stop speed runners…
If I was, I’d have included things like mobs would never de-aggro (no skipping), you wouldn’t be able to make it to the next section until you cleared the room of foes (no skipping), etc.

Nope. We’d blaze through the mobs instantly and the less skilled players would be put off because the trash mobs tend to be more unforgiving than the bosses.

Like I said, nothing you can think of will stop speed runners – every single change suggested will ruin the game for your average player not the speed clearer.

Harper.4173:

People don’t hate hard content – that’s false.

People hate hard and unrewarding content.
[/b]People don’t repeat hard content if it’s not worth it.
People hate being forced to play harder content when previously it was easier.

Hard mode for dungeons would be a good thing if it was implemented together with new titles, maybe unique skins and better loot. [/b]

People who would want the challenge and the thrill could do it. Pugs could still do regular dungeons.

But if you change all content to satisfy the few that want it hard you’re going to turn the game into a ghost town.

One of the most heard complaints at the start of this game was that it was too hard to farm gold. People, and a lot of them quit because they couldn’t get good enough rewards in a time frame that would keep them satisfied.

Beyond this being yet another anti-zerker thread, I’ve seen a really good idea for a direction to take dungeons in. While I’m sure Explorable mode is supposed to be “hard mode” for dungeons, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have a Hard mode (call it what you will) with more mechanics that put stress on the usual high-damage groups.

Tweak the usual rewards for the current (and often speedrun) Explorables, give some good loot in Hard mode, and see if that coaxes well-practiced players into the harder content, since the criticism is that the current content is too easy. Then we’ll see where the meta ends up.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Harper.4173:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I’m in agreement with others that simply nerfing berserker gear is not the answer. I don’t agree that the change to ferocity ‘did nothing’ or is ‘useless’ though. It was simply the first step in a long list of things that needed to be done in order to balance the various available roles to make support and cc more desirable.

I think we’re starting to see some of the further changes, although I don’t think their implementations are perfect. The amount of things no longer reflect able might require a bit of tweaking, for example.

And how exactly is zerker interfering with CC?

One is a gear set. The other is a type of skill that is used to knock down or knock back or do mean stuff to a boss or enemy.

How does zerker work against CC?

I’m really sad when I see misinformed posts like this. People (like yourself) actually believe that zerker is the root of all problems in this game. However the truth is different.
A full zerker player can still CC to the best of his/her ability.
Defiant is the reason that CC is not used / not required / not viable.

And you shouldn’t forget that a full zerker player can still support his team through:
boon sharing
res mechanics
reflects
heals

In fact -the only thing a zerk player will do worse as a support than a full Cleric’s is maybe less healing and less boon uptime.

Thank you, you highlight the issue wonderfully. This is precisely what some of us are talking about. Because of the way support and cc currently works, there is no reason to wear anything other than zerker gear. That’s the issue (Not the gear itself) There is no point for many people to take anyone wearing any other gear type, because it makes them less effective at dps while having no effect on whether they can adaquately support or cc. As I stated in another post, if a group was looking for a mesmer they would take the one in zerk over the one in valk because the one is zerk will do more damage while still offering the same amount of support / cc as the other (assuming exact same builds, blah blah, only diff is armor). That is the issue.

I understand that GW2 intentionally walked away from the trinity, I applauded it. I’m not asking for the trinity back. However, they did state that the game still had roles, in the form of dps, support, etc. That you could play as you pleased; however, with the current set up that’s not true. Right now (in pve) its ‘run zerk dps or gfto’ There isn’t any incentive to run any other armor set up beyond wanting to, which isn’t how it should work. Different armors should have desirability for different functionality, but we lack that with the current set up.

And how is the fact that the amount of value you bring to your party as a player is not tied to your gear an issue?

Let’s put it another way – if one mesmer is wearing zerker and one is wearing valk, considering it is harder to survive as zerker then by rule of thumb the zerker mesmer should be a better player since he’s viable as zerker.

The question then becomes why would I take the less skilled mesmer in my party? And he is less skilled because:

1)He needs more tanky gear in his gamestyle.
2)He’s not interested enough to know what the meta is in order to get with the meta.

What you’re proposing – support and CC tied into gear instead of being equally effective for everyone is not a good idea.
How will it change things? You’ll run 4 zerker and 1 Cleric’s for boons and reflects. How is that not a meta.
There will simply be a new meta for support and cc players and anyone who isn’t wearing the " support and cc gear" will be considered a noob and kicked.

The current situation in which you’re not forced to take certain gear to accomplish a task is far better than the one in which you’re forced to.

Also please realize that zerker is not a role. I’ve said it 100 times before – you can have support and cc in this game while still wearing zerker.

If you’re getting the “zerker or gtfo” thing it’s not because you wouldn’t be needed as a role – but rather that the party requires a certain amount of skill ( The skill required to zerk in encounters) for you to be able to join. If you don’t qualify you don’t and they won’t take you. It’s that simple.

Also there are encounters that promote other armor sets ( look at Teq, Jungle Wurm). You need condi, you need PVT for optimal groups.
It simply isn’t as forced as you would like it to be. And that’s a good thing.

Rauderi.8706:

Harper.4173:

People don’t hate hard content – that’s false.

People hate hard and unrewarding content.
[/b]People don’t repeat hard content if it’s not worth it.
People hate being forced to play harder content when previously it was easier.

Hard mode for dungeons would be a good thing if it was implemented together with new titles, maybe unique skins and better loot. [/b]

People who would want the challenge and the thrill could do it. Pugs could still do regular dungeons.

But if you change all content to satisfy the few that want it hard you’re going to turn the game into a ghost town.

One of the most heard complaints at the start of this game was that it was too hard to farm gold. People, and a lot of them quit because they couldn’t get good enough rewards in a time frame that would keep them satisfied.

Beyond this being yet another anti-zerker thread, I’ve seen a really good idea for a direction to take dungeons in. While I’m sure Explorable mode is supposed to be “hard mode” for dungeons, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to have a Hard mode (call it what you will) with more mechanics that put stress on the usual high-damage groups.

Tweak the usual rewards for the current (and often speedrun) Explorables, give some good loot in Hard mode, and see if that coaxes well-practiced players into the harder content, since the criticism is that the current content is too easy. Then we’ll see where the meta ends up.

Thank you for your kind thoughts. I’m pretty sure this will happen soon.

Aomine.5012:

Harper.4173:

Anet is not actively encouraging zerker but is enforcing a policy where you can’t spam 1 while afk for 30 minutes and win. That’s just not going to work.

These bosses you mention ( except teq) have unique mechanics that have to be learned and used. Yes there’s a timer on it because if there wasn’t players couldn’t fail.

The mechanic would be useless since you could bypass it by running in, hitting it a bit, dying, repeat. So you’ve bypassed the mechanic supposed to punish you if you’re not engaging correctly.

If you don’t play the encounter right you will die. If you die you don’t dps. If you don’t dps the timer will run down and you will lose.

Anet isn’t encouraging zerker, Anet is enforcing mechanics by punishing players that fail to adhere to them.

Wurms phase 2 burn phase, Six Mins Knightfall, Crown Pavillion has “unique mechanic”? Seriously?

All you need to do is stack in one spot, stack mights, wear highest dps gear, bring as many FGS ele as you can, and kill bosses in VERY SHORT PERIOD OF TIME.
(2 mins, 6 mins, and 7 mins)

How can this not be just another hardcapped DPS check?
Many people can’t win these because they do not spec enough in their dps, and you can’t control them or change them whatsoever.

Timer does not make an encounter harder, it’s just an easy way for Anet to increase
difficulty without adjusting anything or make versatile mechanics.
There’re numerous ways to increase difficulty, such as defending certain objective, dead people cannot rev, capping certain objectives together, etc.
However, Anet does not know how to implant these type of mechanic and makes it hard enough to poses any challenge to our zergish type of play-style, so they just add a timer so they don’t have to do anything to their contents.

Also, my previous posts already provided numerous ways to increase the encounter difficulty. Husk by itself is a good example, but there need to be more enemies with similar mechanic and infest them all around Tyria.

Yes they do have mechanics. Especially the pavilion.

Maybe you’ve noticed that mechanic called the Turret that made one of the bosses become the bane of pugs.

Or other mechanics that demand constant reflects or player interaction.
If you’re saying these encounters don’t have mechanics you’re just plain wrong.

Dezert Stormz.7248:

90% of the LFG’s is still “LF ZERKERS ONLY!”
But if you find yourself a group of normal people , its way more fun to play, but hey takes longer.

Actually, 90% of open LFG’s are for ZERKERS ONLY because all of the other non-zerker groups fill instantly. I’m not just saying this as a theory, this is actually fact. I’ve sat and watched CM LFGs, TA LFGs, HOTW LFGs, etc you’ll see an LFG pop up that isn’t asking for zerker, within 30secs that thing is filled and off the list. Whereas the zerker only groups linger because people are less likely to join them. So when you look at the LFG you only see zerker requests.

Easiest test of this: create your own LFG. See how quickly people join. You will be shocked at how many people actually prefer not running in a zerker only group. Make sure you specify casual run, any build.

I think the fastest I’ve filled a group for let’s say AC p1 casual all welcome, was something like 8 seconds.

Harper.4173:

And how is the fact that the amount of value you bring to your party as a player is not tied to your gear an issue?

Except that your gear affects your dps, and the majority of players seem to be under the impression that if you aren’t pumping out the max dps (of which a component is having zerker gear) you’re not as valuable as someone who is.

Let’s put it another way – if one mesmer is wearing zerker and one is wearing valk, considering it is harder to survive as zerker then by rule of thumb the zerker mesmer should be a better player since he’s viable as zerker.

The question then becomes why would I take the less skilled mesmer in my party? And he is less skilled because:

1)He needs more tanky gear in his gamestyle.
2)He’s not interested enough to know what the meta is in order to get with the meta.

Should be. Doesn’t necessarily mean he is. But based on your own response, you’re going to pick that zerker, whether you know that be true or otherwise because he’s wearing zerker.

What you’re proposing – support and CC tied into gear instead of being equally effective for everyone is not a good idea.
How will it change things? You’ll run 4 zerker and 1 Cleric’s for boons and reflects. How is that not a meta.
There will simply be a new meta for support and cc players and anyone who isn’t wearing the " support and cc gear" will be considered a noob and kicked.

The current situation in which you’re not forced to take certain gear to accomplish a task is far better than the one in which you’re forced to.

I’ve made several suggestions, beyond tying support and cc to gear. Although, considering zerks is designed to make you create more damage per second, why should there not also be gear that extends your boon length, or makes your boons more effective? i can see how gear and control might not work, but support is more than just ‘healing’ and could have sets that make you more effective. obviously some balancing would be necessary, but shouldn’t the two work in tandem to make things better rather than just rolling dps gear and being ‘sufficient’? I’m just trying to add some depth, to mix it up. Something beyond “learn to dodge, gear up in zerkers, call it good.” Don’t you people get bored?

There will simply be a new meta for support and cc players and anyone who isn’t wearing the " support and cc gear" will be considered a noob and kicked.

You mean kind of like the “must be 80, zerk only, ping gear, must have 10k AP” crap we deal with now? I don’t see how shaking it up is necessarily a bad thing.

nagr.1593:

maha.7902:

3. spider queen drops poison in melee

of course, this goes both ways. groups with bad dps will end up ranging the boss with bows, groups with zerker will end up bursting down the boss but most or all of them dying at the end. in both cases, it’s now more time lost. continued whining of zerkers being OP will only lead to more waste of time, for all groups regardless of their gear.

And groups which know the mechanics will burst her down in few seconds.

Simple solution, match condition dps to direct dps (up condi dps to 5kdps like direct dps). Presently, condi damage maxes out at 4kdps

You mean kind of like the “must be 80, zerk only, ping gear, must have 10k AP” crap we deal with now? I don’t see how shaking it up is necessarily a bad thing.

“80s only, lf 2 zerks, 1 cc, 1 support, classes x and y only [who fulfill the support and cc role better than others] or kick”

You’re still going to have discrimination.

Besides, as far as I’m aware you don’t even play with those kind of groups so I don’t even know why you even care about what berserker pugs who spend a year finding a group do, you are in your group having fun, don’t let what other players do bother you.

Hell, right now you can take seven classes out of eight in to a berserker run (necros seriously need their support elements fixed for pve, they’re useless) since they’re all pretty darn competitive with each other for DPS – if you force “support” and “cc” roles you’ll just have certain classes who do it better than others and you’ll just have classes excluded, they won’t even have to ask you to ping gear or your build, the utilities your class has available just wouldn’t be on par with another class (e.g. guardian aegis has no contender).

I’ve made several suggestions, beyond tying support and cc to gear. Although, considering zerks is designed to make you create more damage per second, why should there not also be gear that extends your boon length, or makes your boons more effective? i can see how gear and control might not work, but support is more than just ‘healing’ and could have sets that make you more effective. obviously some balancing would be necessary, but shouldn’t the two work in tandem to make things better rather than just rolling dps gear and being ‘sufficient’? I’m just trying to add some depth, to mix it up. Something beyond “learn to dodge, gear up in zerkers, call it good.” Don’t you people get bored?

We already have strength runes to increase might duration, phalanx warriors take 30 in tactics which gives them 30% boon duration as well. And guess what – even though the build does like 75% of the damage of the max dps warrior build, it’s still a meta-build since the might stacking is absolutely balls to the wall insane. I mean you can even use hoelbrak as a budget alternative or just scholar runes with boon duration food if you don’t want to spend your whole family’s life savings on stupidly priced strength runes.

Simple solution, match condition dps to direct dps (up condi dps to 5kdps like direct dps). Presently, condi damage maxes out at 4kdps

Condi is already on par with direct damage in a solo setting, you don’t need to increase the DPS you just need to:

1. make condition damage scale with vuln
2. increase the condition cap
3. damage modifiers to apply to condition damage

The last hurdle is to find a way to make it possible to apply conditions immediately at a rapid rate – the ramp up time for condis is the same reason mesmers aren’t popular, by the time you get your dps going the fight is over.

Well, I see that the problem in zerker being good in PvE, is because most mobs only sport low armor, medium HP and high damage.

There are very few enemies that have more defensive capabilities. So far only notable foes are “Partially digested husks”, who sport very heavy armor…

And since berserker gear works for fast, high damage bursts.

I hope update to mobs comes at one point, introducing us more variety than our common “zerker feed”, along with the desired more advanced and adaptive AI too.

Though I believe the variation might only affect foes with ranks veteran and higher, leaving the normal mobs as the “can be killed with any build” kind.

maha.7902:

Condi is already on par with direct damage in a solo setting, you don’t need to increase the DPS you just need to:

1. make condition damage scale with vuln
2. increase the condition cap
3. damage modifiers to apply to condition damage

The last hurdle is to find a way to make it possible to apply conditions immediately at a rapid rate – the ramp up time for condis is the same reason mesmers aren’t popular, by the time you get your dps going the fight is over.

Conditions are somewhat a nobrainer tactic to use. Apply them, let them tick, reapply them. Most of the conditions can even be applied at range. I think it would be a good step to shift the damage from conditions from a consistent damage over time to the first few ticks. That doesn’t meant that conditions should deal no damage after a certain time but it should benefit those who can reapply those conditions very fast to compliment a more active playstyle.
The necro should be changed to excel at reapplying conditions.

Fenrir.3609:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

There isn’t any incentive to run any other armor set up beyond wanting to, which isn’t how it should work.

Actually that is exactly how it should work. You can run whatever build you want and do the content i.e. “play how I want”. If though you want to partake in the niche that is speedrunning or setting records then amazingly enough you should have to build for that and understandably in an action combat game, bringing more dps to the fore and using active mitigation is optimal.

There is another reason for not going full glass, some simply can’t manage it.

Different armors should have desirability for different functionality, but we lack that with the current set up.

Well no, we don’t lack that and trying to tie stats to roles more would remove freedom not promote it. Are you face tanking in zerk? Are you bunkering down on point in zerk? Are you wvw roaming in clerics?

if the main purpose of gear is to be a difficulty/effeciency slider, id rather gear not existed, and they introduced a difficulty/effeciency slider. I have always prefered progression systems that are based on customization and creating interesting combinations over just messing with potency.

but its is kind of messed up, especially now with ascended to need gear for different builds. oh well