Guild Wars 2

whyme.3281:

Nice post, but you forgot the condition damage stack limit. Which makes no sense at all, while the devs talk about “build-variety” all the time.

This is a problem I don’t have a solution for. If conditions were to last shorter but be more powerful, this would cause significant issues in PvP and WvW where people are already rapidly dying to conditions. If adding more time to a stack would deal damage, this would feel like condition damage turning into normal damage.

Looking at the seperate conditions, perhaps bleeding could get a slightly higher maximum (35?). To allow for atleast two heavy bleedfocused players in a team of 5.

For burning I would like to see the armour of PvE foes go up and the health go down, less skills that actually cause burning, shorter durations on burning. As of now the burning stacks up too fast.

For poison I would like to see more foes that use heals. Poison is pretty good at keeping this manageable. The duration issue is similar to burning but not quite as prevalent, since fewer professions can churn out poison with nearly every attack.

The other conditions are in quite a good spot if the foes in PvE were a bit quicker. Chill and cripple are currently rarely required to kite, this could use a change.

All these would only work in smaller group combat though. It would not help the world boss zerg-fests. So if you can come up with any good ideas on this one, please!

whyme.3281:

In my opinion with the actual content Zerker gear has to be drastically nerfed because there is disadvantage for not picking any defense.

So just making it less effective? Like say: critical damage as the primary stat, power and precision secondary? The new assassins gear would then be the go-to set.

The problem with just making it less effective is that there will always be a ‘most damaging’ set. As long as the encounters don’t punish you for using it, there is no reason not to. That said, I’ve heard that full berzerker gear deals double the damage that knights gear does. While knights gear isn’t twice as effective when it comes to defence. Reducing the gear without ruïning the equal stats on every set might mean a change in the way the damage formula works.

Well if anyone knows of a clean way to do it, that’d be great.

whyme.3281:

Now to the bosses. If you want to control them, something has to be done to Defiant. I think Anet doesn’t have to remove it, but the stack has to be reduced (lets say max. 5) for World bosses a higher limit is ok (i.e. one per player).
BUT with this change the auto attacks have to be modified to do no stuns, knockdown, … . Because 4 Mace warriors would probably permastun every boss.

Well, bosses could be sturdy enough to shake off stuns much quicker than a normal foe.

stof.9341:

Because if a zerk team needs to poison a boss so that their ream damage is higher than the boss healing speed, no other stat composition in the game would be able to kill it.

This would be the case if the only way to damage the foe was through direct damage. If the toughness were particularly high, conditions would stand out.

Also, if the encounter was punishing enough to make running around with no defense silly, then berserker gear wouldn’t really be an option.

That said, you make a valid point. The healing reduction of poison is 33%. The damage output of full berserker versus most other gear is much higher than a 33% increase. If a foe were to be impossible for an average team to take down without poison it would be a breeze for the zerker team.

Then again, it would still reward the zerker team for thinking about keeping poison up, which is a small plus in my book. Ideally the foe would have a strong heal, but not an immense base health, making poison much more significant than damage.

stof.9341:

Why? Because ANet seemed intended in making PvE experience that can be beaten by anything in any gear. It was the point of the trinity removal see? So that you never have to wait for THAT class with that build.

I don’t think the point of the trinity removal was to make everything beatable with any build. I think they may have overlooked the ease with which people with good reflexes can go through combat unscathed.

LHound.8964:

Why can’t certain bosses be susceptible to some conditions?
example:
A golem specific(reduce Physical Damage by 80%…
… slower than in the air.
Why can’t certain conditions behave different on certain bosses?
Poison on Nightmare/Risen could actually heal them.
/cheers

Yeah, this would be pretty cool. It would be nice if we found this out by trying it out though, instead of there being a tooltip that says: ‘This is the way to do it!’

Bezayne.6459:

A lot of good points made by the OP. I would also love to have more build diversity on any given character, but the system being what it is doesn’t support that currently…

Really hope we get to see some of that rather sooner than later in game.

Yeah, I am a dedicated buildcrafter as you might have guessed and have several exotic armors on nearly all my characters. An easier way to store and change gear on the fly would really help with this.

However, to be fully optimized, I would still be willing to go through all this.
For the less wealthy/dedicated build crafters, they can still make smaller changes like utilities and traits to do the job rather well without investing in new armor. Just not optimized for the situation.

sazberryftw.3809:

Great post, love some of your ideas.

One thing I will add though is certain bosses cannot require certain combat features unless ALL professions are able to provide this feature. E.g. A dungeon cannot require stealth.

Well, what if you could either obtain stealth through straying off the path to find a stealth fountain like the ones in the WvW EB puzzle? It would require a bit more work, but you could still do it. And in many encounters, stealth can be very useful, but not the only way to do it. You’d be able to do without, but it would simply take longer, or be more difficult.

digiowl.9620:

ANet’s problem was that they said “no trinity” rather than “no hard trinity”.

If any of the professions could turn into a acceptable healer, tank or dps by swapping traits and gear, the waiting goes out the window.

Yeah, I believe professions can easily pick up an entirely different role. There are quite a few different ways to build your character. Unfortunately many of those aren’t particularly useful.

digiowl.9620:

Then again, the game barely even recognize any kind of non-dps group assisting. You get a bit of XP for getting a comrade back on his feet, and that is about it. Boons given, healing done, damage taken (tanking), none of this matter as only dps counts for loot tagging. If you fail to damage at least one event related mob, you do not count for that event.

Well, with the loss of loot on champions in the Claw of Jormag event, instead rewarding upon completing the event succesfully, a good step has been made.

digiowl.9620:

I wonder if we could use control effects as a kind of aggro tool on defiant mobs. Meaning that if we smacked a mob with a control effect while they have defiant up, they would reliably come after us for doing so. This would allow us to use skills with said effect to pull mobs away from downed comrades even while defiant is up.

A nice idea, although it would allow players to keep a boss running from place to place. Another problem would be that it wouldn’t be the actual awesome skill that has the effect of saving your comrade, but just a weak substitute. Bosses should be able to bring their anger down upon a single foe. Though at the moment some of the immense defiance stacks found in the open world make this completely impossible. Which is no fun at all.

Perhaps there is an even better way to fix this.

stof.9341:

And you know what? I like it like that really. There is no fun in hunting 20 different gear sets for all situations, it’s mindless grind, even worse now that ascended was added. I’m pretty happy using a single zerk gear set and switching around my traits, weapons and utilities as needed for a fight. This is a LOT more fun for me because it’s open to experimenting whereas switching gear set is a huge grind that discourages experimentation.

This is an interesting viewpoint. I have not found it a problem to acquire different gear sets, but I make more hours playing this game than most.

Would you be against using a more balanced set as a starting point though? Let’s say knights armor with berserker trinkets? If the game were to be a bit harder on defenseless gear, we would have to opt for picking up more defensive traits or indeed getting ourselves a few new trinkets to make up for an aggressive traitchoice.

spoj.9672:

Wethospu.6437:

Just a word of warning. If PvE actually starts to require something you guys are getting hurt, not the speedrunners.

This. You may find you regret asking for change whereas the speedrunners may turn out to be the winners here because we get more challenging content which we can still clear quicker than casual players (more fun).

I am not against speedrunners, as Shadow Puppet pointed out. I would just like the strategies for this to be more diverse.

Ideally the content would be rewarding clever thinking for both speedclearers and non-speedclearers alike. Ofcourse the true speedclearers would be much more succesful at it, but that is all part of the game.

Why do you think people are using guardians? To get more defense.

Retraiting for more defense (etc. more condition removal) or simply swapping utilites/weapons is much more productive than getting a new set of armour, weapons and trinkets. Especially in this brave crafting world.

The Lost Witch.7601:

spoj.9672:

Wethospu.6437:

Just a word of warning. If PvE actually starts to require something you guys are getting hurt, not the speedrunners.

This. You may find you regret asking for change whereas the speedrunners may turn out to be the winners here because we get more challenging content which we can still clear quicker than casual players (more fun).

I am not against speedrunners, as Shadow Puppet pointed out. I would just like the strategies for this to be more diverse.

Ideally the content would be rewarding clever thinking for both speedclearers and non-speedclearers alike. Ofcourse the true speedclearers would be much more succesful at it, but that is all part of the game.

I doubt you can please both groups. I think putting every AC exp end boss to same room would be a nice challenge. Just imagine average pug there.

At the moment game is easy enough that actually pretty much everything is viable. I fully support the idea of making game more harder and require better tactics and gameplay. But I don’t think it will be good for an average player.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Many of these are already being used, but on the side, rather than as the main course. (With the exception of stealth, reflection and condition removal in some areas of the game.) Yet they can easily be the centrepiece of a players build. In a dungeon someone could take it upon himself to become “The boon remover”, which is ridiculous at the moment.

Dunno how it works in dungeons (I’ve avoided those like the plague), but in the regular game doing that cripples their participation score, making it difficult to get even bronze… As far as the game is concerned, unless something’s changed in the last few months, if you’re not directly affecting the enemy, you don’t matter.

Frankly, as long as the system remains such that players have to chip away slowly at each foe’s health bar (even basic foes who you’d gleefully wade through in other games to have a feeling of power) while being dodge-or-die on the player’s end (especially from tells that you can’t actually see amongst all the pyro), and without giving sufficient event credit for doing things other than directly damaging the foe, it will be fundamentally broken and not worth playing.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Lampshade.7569:

Most of your encounter suggestions are about forcing the players what you want them to do in order to complete it. The idea right now is that, at least I hope it is from what Ive seen, that any group can complete any dungeon as long as they all know what to do, they just might not be as efficient about it.

Yes. Every team composition should be able to do it. If it can’t be done by 5 thieves, there should be a way to get an npcbuff or find an environmental weapon that can help out, even if suboptimal. (Preferably suboptimal to what players can have at their disposal from a dedicated build)

The idea of enlisting the help of an NPC that brings what you lack did cross my mind. Some optional quest that, at the end, gives you a choice between several helpers, each with different focus, so you can address a specific issue of your team composition.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Rainweaver.7302:

I think it’s worth mentioning that it’s not only dodges: reflective skills in the current state of things are also extremely unhealthy for endgame PvE, as they completely trivialize encounters that would otherwise be challenging for the group:..

I share you concerns here. Reflects are a bit too powerful in many parts of the game. . .

I do think there is a bit of an issue with mobs using an attack that spreads like 5 bolts, destroying the wall rightaway and making this work just like giving everyone an aegis. Maybe a shorter duration could work better for many encounters? Or giving mobs some more piercing attacks? Perhaps the Wall of Reflection could even be %-based, stopping only half the attacks. Something could certainly be done to make reflects useful and unique as they are, but less overpowered.

Something could certainly be done . . . but certainly non of that which you are suggesting. All those changes would take away an important reason for using reflects – their reliability. They work well in weakening reflects against numerous targets, but when you need to block a specific ability in order to avoid faceplanting the lava . . . lets say its % based, you put up two walls, and yet you still wipe as the spell passes both of them. Shorter duration, that does not really work in favor of the idea of brains beating reflexes. Personally, I believe reflecting is one of the things that works well and should only be changed carefully. IF you see a problem there, I suggest you focus on proposing new boss abilities that are not as strongly countered by reflect rather than poking at the game mechanics.

Wethospu.6437:

Just a word of warning. If PvE actually starts to require something you guys are getting hurt, not the speedrunners.

I don’t think the OP’s post is about casuals vs speedrunners. The way I see it, it’s pointing out that PvE gameplay in this game follows a very rigid pattern and just isn’t very interesting or diverse.

Pretty much everything is already viable in PvE. It is just not required/needed. They can keep buffing stuff like healing or control but it won’t change a thing as long as nearly full offense works (faster clear times, faster rewards).
If they actually force us to use stuff like healing and control then casuals will get hurt. Good teams have plenty room for errors so they would really have to push the difficulty.

For example a boss which you have to interrupt every 30 seconds while keeping him slowed or you will wipe. Good teams can easily do it with some coordination. Pugs probably won’t have the tools and coordination to pull it off.

Having used a Lvl 20 buff to start a necro it sure is nice to dish out these nasty conditions instead of being on the receiving end of them! A nice change and good fun too.

A problem in PvE. Player defined roles fail a little because players are too polyvalent. If say, you have a fight where you need a well timed reflection or projectile absorbtion. Well, everyone can do it, they just replace one utility and it’s good. What did you lose? Nothing really. I have played many classes (as in, 7 so far :p) and in all cases I could spare one utility slot or two. Heck often all 3 even and it wouldn’t matter much for the build.

So hmm, what was I trying to say? Player roles in group PvE. There’s two kind of roles. Intrinsic roles and extrinsic. Intrinsic roles are stuff the players setup for specifically. Extrinsic roles are stuff the fights setups for them. For example, the AC path 2 lifter and puller roles with the ghostbuster rays.

Imagine a PvE boss with 5 different extrinsic roles to fill. Each player is doing something only he can do and contributing in his was to the fight. The roles are interdependent too so you need good coordination between players. The more you need, the harder the fight.

So, let’s assume we agree this is how the PvE should become at the most extreme : 5 players with distinct but interdependent roles in a fight. It’d be very easy for ANet to setup a fight with 5 extrinsic roles but it’s undesirable because it really feels like we aren’t even playing our char.

So we should be getting fights with 3-4 intrinsic roles to fill by players, to coordinate with each other. And there’s a problem here too. But contrary to the 5 extrinsic roles before, this one runs deep with the design of GW2 and is much harder to avoid. The problem I see is that, players do not have roles or very few.

There’s very little roles one player can fill that isn’t provided at 20% by each team mates like, for no additional cost at all. Need to keep a boss perma poisoned? Well the necro could maybe use that utility, gear up in poison duration and use a staff/scepter weapon set. But then again, the engineer will be applying many stacks too, the thief dagger autoattacks applies 2s poison every 1s and all like. They don’t even do it on purpose really, it just happens.

There’s a huge deficit in intrinsic roles for players to fill that aren’t just provided passively for little effort by the rest of the team. Boon removal is one, hard CC another and I suppose reflection too. Yet no fight requires boon removal, no fight requires hard CC and Defiant makes that a pain anyway, and long duration reflection cannot only be reached by making multiple players contribute a little.

How can ANet make a good fight like that? In the end, we all just stack together and dodge together. A rolling ball of utilities and roles all blurred together and dealing deathly damage to the boss.

Wethospu.6437:

Pretty much everything is already viable in PvE. It is just not required/needed. They can keep buffing stuff like healing or control but it won’t change a thing as long as nearly full offense works (faster clear times, faster rewards).
If they actually force us to use stuff like healing and control then casuals will get hurt. Good teams have plenty room for errors so they would really have to push the difficulty.

For example a boss which you have to interrupt every 30 seconds while keeping him slowed or you will wipe. Good teams can easily do it with some coordination. Pugs probably won’t have the tools and coordination to pull it off.

I can think of a couple things that might make a dungeon or boss encounter more interesting. In GW1, Urgoz’s Warren had zones that inflicted permanent debuffs on you (read more about it here: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Urgoz's_Warren ). If there were dungeons with sections that had unique debuffs to each zone, it might shake things up a bit. One zone could have permanent weakness, one zone could have permanent poison, etc. An area with permanent weakness would make most power builds ineffective vs condition builds. You could also have a dungeon fielding enemies that gain armor in proportion to the critical damage they absorb, so power builds are less effective vs them. Alternatively, you could have a boss that, instead of using powerful 1 hit kill attacks, relies on lots of condition spam and damage over time.

These are just ideas I brainstormed, there are many more. I believe dungeons should be split into normal/elite modes, with the normal modes being what we have right now and the elite modes being much more rewarding, diverse and challenging in terms of gameplay.

Sure, it’s easy to spice things up. My point is that if you want to make it tough for good teams it will be brutal for pugs. I’m perfectly fine with that but just want to ensure some of you know what you are asking. Cleric-heal-spam-bots or pvt-tanks won’t suddenly become good or wanted, probably vice versa (teams can’t afford carrying them anymore).

The Lost Witch.7601:

whyme.3281:

Nice post, but you forgot the condition damage stack limit. Which makes no sense at all, while the devs talk about “build-variety” all the time.

This is a problem I don’t have a solution for. If conditions were to last shorter but be more powerful, this would cause significant issues in PvP and WvW where people are already rapidly dying to conditions. If adding more time to a stack would deal damage, this would feel like condition damage turning into normal damage.

Maybe doubling the Stacklimit the higher the mobtier is. Veterans have 50bleed, 2 burns,… Elites(?) 75,3,….Champions 100,4,…. and so on. This would give some more space for Conditionsbuilds. Its is not perfekt, but it could work. So human player would not be effected.

Another way but more complex could be one slot per stack per player. Conditions like bleeds will have an average damage, that is increased by every new bleed. two 5sec bleeds with 100dmg would than be one 5sec bleed with 200dmg. A 3sec bleed on top of it would than mean 300dmg for 3sec and 200dmg for 2sec.

The Lost Witch.7601:

whyme.3281:

In my opinion with the actual content Zerker gear has to be drastically nerfed because there is disadvantage for not picking any defense.

So just making it less effective? Like say: critical damage as the primary stat, power and precision secondary? The new assassins gear would then be the go-to set.

You got me wrong here, I meant in the current system, where dmg>all. If you are forced to pick some defense, than Zerker gear can stay at it is. because you lose surviveability.

The Lost Witch.7601:

whyme.3281:

Now to the bosses. If you want to control them, something has to be done to Defiant. I think Anet doesn’t have to remove it, but the stack has to be reduced (lets say max. 5) for World bosses a higher limit is ok (i.e. one per player).
BUT with this change the auto attacks have to be modified to do no stuns, knockdown, … . Because 4 Mace warriors would probably permastun every boss.

Well, bosses could be sturdy enough to shake off stuns much quicker than a normal foe.

They allready are, its called “unshakable” which reduce CC-duration on them. Defiant is in the game to prevent players from stunlocking a boss.

For a heavy CC build unshakable is no problem. it is possible to interrupt every attack the enemy would do. But with a stack of Defiant of sometimes over 30 it is not possible to interrupt a certain spell when its needed.

On the other hand you can make the boss go enrage after 5 stuns in a certain amount of time, getting stability, swiftness and 25stacks might for 10sec.

Wethospu.6437:

Sure, it’s easy to spice things up. My point is that if you want to make it tough for good teams it will be brutal for pugs. I’m perfectly fine with that but just want to ensure some of you know what you are asking. Cleric-heal-spam-bots or pvt-tanks won’t suddenly become good or wanted, probably vice versa (teams can’t afford carrying them anymore).

Diverse content, even if its more challenging than most pugs can handle, is sorely needed. Dungeon trash mobs are mostly HP sponges with the occasional highly damaging attack. They don’t use heals and rarely use any interesting control abilities.

The day dodging and timing are made irrelevant in GW2 is the same day I quit playing.

Dodging doesn’t need to be made irrelevant. But in the current game it’s a kind of magic bullet used to avoid all damage. PvE could use some variety on that front.

Well I took the time to read the OP, and pretty much agree. Im glad some one put it up, because really the whole primacy of ‘reflex’ based stuff is annoying me. That, and the whole dps dps dps thing :P

generalraccoon.3857:

Well I took the time to read the OP, and pretty much agree. Im glad some one put it up, because really the whole primacy of ‘reflex’ based stuff is annoying me. That, and the whole dps dps dps thing :P

Maybe that’s not a game for you? Lack of casting bars, slow motion attacks and other design choices shows it was their intent to made a reflex based game.

stof.9341:

Dodging doesn’t need to be made irrelevant. But in the current game it’s a kind of magic bullet used to avoid all damage. PvE could use some variety on that front.

I agree to an extent. Like was mentioned before, increase the number of attacks from bosses/things that matter, and Blocking would be put in check. As it stands, you only need to block the heavy hitting attacks. Past that, Heal Sig+Adrenal Health has you covered.

JDGumby.7685:

Dunno how it works in dungeons (I’ve avoided those like the plague)… As far as the game is concerned, unless something’s changed in the last few months, if you’re not directly affecting the enemy, you don’t matter.

Fortunately some things have changed. The rewards from completing some of the bigger events have gone up, while many of the events no longer give loot for mobkills. And in dungeons things are quite a bit different. I do suggest you try them out again sometime.

In general, if completing the challenge delivers most of the rewards, then acting in the teams best interest is very rewarding. The bronze medals for resurrecting a lot does feel a bit lame, but the difference pales in comparison to most of the larger event rewards. The system isn’t perfect yet, but it has been making progress in the past months. Have faith.

Lampshade.7569:

Something could be done . . . but none of that which you are suggesting. All those changes would take away an important reason for using reflects – their reliability. They work well in weakening reflects against numerous targets, but when you need to block a specific ability in order to avoid faceplanting the lava . . . lets say its % based, you put up two walls, and yet you still wipe as the spell passes both of them. Shorter duration, that does not really work in favor of the idea of brains beating reflexes. Personally, I believe reflecting is one of the things that works well and should only be changed carefully. IF you see a problem there, I suggest you focus on proposing new boss abilities that are not as strongly countered by reflect rather than poking at the game mechanics.

A valid point. The reliability of reflects makes them unique, combat changing mechanics that really show off strategic planning. They have the potential to turn certain fights into very dull encounters, but in those cases it might very well be preferable to tweak the encounters instead of the mechanic.

stof.9341:

On extrinsic and intrinsic roles.

Ok, now personally, I wouldn’t like to see every boss fight dominated by Anet telling you exactly what to do. As you pointed out, this makes us feel like we’re not playing our own character. (Which is indeed an issue with mechanics like AC’s ooze pulling)

Fortunately, there is a lot that automatically comes with weaponsets and utility options that allows for a more natural approach to encounters. If I’m still using my own weapons and my strategically picked traitset, then it feels much more like I’m actually fighting with all that my character has to offer. There can be blunt and more subtle extrinsic design. It is the subtle kind that I’m aiming for. Content that doesn’t force anything very specific, but rewards clever adaptation.

stof.9341:

There’s very little roles one player can fill that isn’t provided at 20% by each team mates like, for no additional cost at all. Need to keep a boss perma poisoned? Well the necro could maybe use that utility, gear up in poison duration and use a staff/scepter weapon set. But then again, the engineer will be applying many stacks too, the thief dagger autoattacks applies 2s poison every 1s and all like. They don’t even do it on purpose really, it just happens.

Yeah I believe this is a problem in other parts of the game aswell. PvP is apparently suffering from a ton of extra conditions that get applied through traits/sigils/auto-attacks. I hope they will do something about this. As far as encounter design goes. It could be pretty hard to keep poison on a foe if the foe has some sort of condition removal, or some sort of resilience that makes it wear off quicker. Encounters could be tweaked to make applying poison require some effort.

I don’t mind that multiple professions could manage to do this and I don’t mind that a team without a dedicated conditioner can do it if they combine their forces. After all, having everyone bring as many poison skills as they can would reduce their effectiveness in other regions. (Most notably damage)

stof.9341:

There’s a huge deficit in intrinsic roles for players to fill that aren’t just provided passively for little effort by the rest of the team…

How can ANet make a good fight like that? In the end, we all just stack together and dodge together. A rolling ball of utilities and roles all blurred together and dealing deathly damage to the boss.

Well, I believe that through the design of subtle extrinsic encounters, players will find more joy in the intrinsic roles they may already like their characters to be in. I know I would certainly like to see my heavy CC engineer shine somewhere. I hope our suggestions can help ANet make a good fight.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Urgoz inspiration and other fine ideas.

These are just ideas I brainstormed, there are many more.

Keep ‘em coming. Later this weekend I’ll try to collect some suggestions and concerns in the OP.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

I believe dungeons should be split into normal/elite modes, with the normal modes being what we have right now and the elite modes being much more rewarding, diverse and challenging in terms of gameplay.

I think Normal/Hard Mode was quite effective in GW1, but might a bit more difficult in GW2. In GW1 foes just became tougher, stronger and faster. In GW2 we can see this kind of progression in the higher fractal levels and it is not entirely what I would like to see.

Adding new challenges doesn’t necessarily mean that the fight has to become much harder, just that different solutions must be found.

That said, if there would be a hard mode that would offer us other challenges than just a bigger focus on not missing that dodge, sign me up. I just think that the same desire for different types of difficulty are wanted by the non-hardcore GW2 public aswell.

Wethospu.6437:

Sure, it’s easy to spice things up. My point is that if you want to make it tough for good teams it will be brutal for pugs. I’m perfectly fine with that but just want to ensure some of you know what you are asking. Cleric-heal-spam-bots or pvt-tanks won’t suddenly become good or wanted, probably vice versa (teams can’t afford carrying them anymore).

Different, not necessarily harder.

whyme.3281:

Maybe doubling the Stacklimit the higher the mobtier is. Veterans have 50bleed, 2 burns,… Elites(?) 75,3,….Champions 100,4,…. and so on. This would give some more space for Conditionsbuilds. Its is not perfekt, but it could work. So human player would not be effected.

I vaguely remember reading something about high stacks of conditions being very stressful on server capacity. But I could be wrong here. Otherwise I would certainly like to see this in game.

whyme.3281:

Another way but more complex could be one slot per stack per player. Conditions like bleeds will have an average damage, that is increased by every new bleed. two 5sec bleeds with 100dmg would than be one 5sec bleed with 200dmg. A 3sec bleed on top of it would than mean 300dmg for 3sec and 200dmg for 2sec.

Wouldn’t this be the same as how it works now, but without the seperate stacks? Perhaps it would suffer from the same server capacity problem, but maybe this is a way to circumvent this. (Lack of programming knowledge)

whyme.3281:

You got me wrong here, I meant in the current system, where dmg>all. If you are forced to pick some defense, than Zerker gear can stay at it is. because you lose surviveability.

Ah, ok.

whyme.3281:

They already are, its called “unshakable” which reduce CC-duration on them. Defiant is in the game to prevent players from stunlocking a boss.

For a heavy CC build unshakable is no problem. it is possible to interrupt every attack the enemy would do. But with a stack of Defiant of sometimes over 30 it is not possible to interrupt a certain spell when its needed.

On the other hand you can make the boss go enrage after 5 stuns in a certain amount of time, getting stability, swiftness and 25stacks might for 10sec.

That would be a smart way to avoid stunlocks. Good suggestion!

haviz.1340:

generalraccoon.3857:

Well I took the time to read the OP, and pretty much agree. Im glad some one put it up, because really the whole primacy of ‘reflex’ based stuff is annoying me. That, and the whole dps dps dps thing :P

Maybe that’s not a game for you? Lack of casting bars, slow motion attacks and other design choices shows it was their intent to made a reflex based game.

Ohh I don’t know, early on this game was fine enough for me. Better than fine, to be honest, likely why I still stick around. But I think others are seeing it too, the increase in 1-shot kill mechanics and such. It’s not THAT bad for the moment, i’ll give you that, but better to try pre emptively (if possible)divert from going that way further. Also, if dodging/reflex is all thats needed to survive, it promotes that other annoyance: dps centric builds only.

But in anycase, you may be right. Maybe it will go in a direction that ends up being no longer my kind of thing, unlike how it was initially. I suppose one day ill move on, maybe…

The Lost Witch.7601:

whyme.3281:

On the other hand you can make the boss go enrage after 5 stuns in a certain amount of time, getting stability, swiftness and 25stacks might for 10sec.

That would be a smart way to avoid stunlocks. Good suggestion!

+1 on this. Certain amount of time defined by a stackable buff. Each stack granting a partial bonus with 4 stacks making him quite a bit tougher. It would be desirable to keep bosses on 2 stacks max, but when you needed a sudden interrupt, you could still do it – but for the price of one more stack. 5 stacks would grant an unremovable enrage buff. What all this buff grants aside from stability could then be part of the difficulty of the encounter, first alternative to 25might coming to my mind was some strong regeneration.

As for Defiant, I think ANet should just make the stacks decay quickly over time.

I have nothing to add. Just wanted to thank the OP for the excellent and thorough post.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Dramen Maidria.1034:

My thought was not to reduce the defiant stacks …

Interesting idea to give more power to the players instead of taking it from the monster…

My thought behind doing it this way was to provide a reason to focus more on control with a character rather than damage. If anyone had access to such a mechanic it just brings us right back to Damage Damage Damage instead of Damage Support Control. Anet had a brilliant idea with creating a trinity that any class can fill a role in, but we need buffs to the other roles along with some mechanic changes for that to happen. we already have traits that are intended more for PvP than PvE so it could work.

Dramen Maidria.1034:

Enemies need to try and move around instead of just standing there…

Enemies moving around wisely is an AI dream, but certainly a nice one. This would be great and grand. Perhaps a script could be designed that forces a monster to move every so many seconds between its attacks… [/quote]

I hope Anet can do this it is sorely needed to prevent simply stacking on top of a boss and facrolling your keyboard for the fight. That and some leashing changes to certain bosses so they cannot be pulled into corners to prevent any sort of movement. There’s a difference between a good strategy and cheese.

Dramen Maidria.1034:

What I also think would make a difference in the meta is to add to every boss an enrage mechanic like champion abominations have where there damage increases per stack, and have this buff trigger when a boss takes so much damage in a second…

The best part about the frenzy mechanic in my opinion is the increased attack speed, not so much the increased damage. But driving a foe into a rage could certainly appear like a very natural way to slow down the killing… I would certainly not add this to every boss, variety is my main goal. [/quote]

Actually what I was aiming at here was a mechanic that prevents or makes it incredibly difficult to kill bosses too quickly, ie before any of their mechanics really happen. Speed clearing dungeons relies more on good stealth usage, good use of terrain, and choosing the right boons and using them at the right time rather than anything else and there is nothing wrong with that. But bosses that get killed before any of their fight mechanics begin was not what Anet had in mind. You had a great idea of just increasing base attack speed of bosses while lowering their damage so that players with defensive traits have little trouble with it while pure damage characters will have to either completely back off from time to time or run out of dodges and get instantly downed. If you set the frenzy trigger to only apply to extremely high damage output compositions (such as the 4 warrior/mesmer composition) you can get around actually nerfing critical damage while also providing the more skilled players a way to add difficulty to fights that doesn’t affect 90% of the player base at all. It also prevents the average player from being a part of a full berserker team with little to no drawback. Running full berserker should not be easy enough for the average player to do without being constantly downed, and we are getting closer to that level of ease as people figure more things out.

Dramen Maidria.1034:

We still need improvements to condition damage so that it can be on the same level as critical damage.

Well, ideally condition damage would have its very own place in the game. If it were just doing more damage, it would be just like critical damage. As it is, poison is pretty cool since it also reduces healing. It is just unfortunate that nothing in PvE cares about that. Foes having a high toughness or near immunity to damage could also make conditions like burning and bleeding shine in places. [/quote]

It really should be split between PvE and PvP, Anet split skills in the original game for balancing reasons such as this and it still strikes me as odd that they do so little of this in GW2, it really did work in GW1. I was just trying to think of how to make condition damage work on the same level as critical damage (power, precision, and condition damage should be able to compete with power, precision, critical damage since both sacrifice any defensive traits) and with the stacks currently as they function multiple condition damage characters ultimately will take potential damage away from each other. the ideas where bosses either get reduced critical damage depending on how much they have taken or to have phases where bosses gain huge amounts of toughness are great, but as long as the stack size is a total of 25 and burning functions the way it does condition damage in PvE will remain handicapped.

Lampshade.7569:

The Lost Witch.7601:

whyme.3281:

On the other hand you can make the boss go enrage after 5 stuns in a certain amount of time, getting stability, swiftness and 25stacks might for 10sec.

That would be a smart way to avoid stunlocks. Good suggestion!

+1 on this. Certain amount of time defined by a stackable buff. Each stack granting a partial bonus with 4 stacks making him quite a bit tougher. It would be desirable to keep bosses on 2 stacks max, but when you needed a sudden interrupt, you could still do it – but for the price of one more stack. 5 stacks would grant an unremovable enrage buff. What all this buff grants aside from stability could then be part of the difficulty of the encounter, first alternative to 25might coming to my mind was some strong regeneration.

Phantasmal disenchanter, gg.

I don’t have anything to add as well, but this is a fabulous thread, Lost Witch! The problems you’ve discussed are prevalent, and the solutions and examples you’ve provided are inspiring and well thought-out. Keep it up so you can get noticed and start designing my dungeons!

This is the first post I’ve made in a long time. And it is because I so strongly agree with the general idea of this post. Make fights more interesting by forcing specialized mechanics (that need to be interrupted/ boon stripped/ etc) and builds to account for it. Kudos!

Zayhne.4763:

This is the first post I’ve made in a long time. And it is because I so strongly agree with the general idea of this post. Make fights more interesting by forcing specialized mechanics (that need to be interrupted/ boon stripped/ etc) and builds to account for it. Kudos!

Can’t wait for all the new threads in the dungeon sub where people are complaining that they have to run specified setups for certain fights…

Oh wait, we already have those, they’re called TAFU threads. People complain that they have to take reflects, and want to play the way they want.

I’m all for some change, but like Wethospu already pointed out (something I’ve pointed out in the past), if you change things, it’s usually the speedclearers that will still be the fastest, and the casuals that will still struggle, and usually struggle even more than before.

Well worded points!
I completely agree and I had to log in just to say well done

Particularly the part about being competent in GW1 and not doing so well in this game

I still enjoy it! However, I just feel that I have really poor reflexes, which kind of rules me out of competitive environments or dungeons. I’m reluctant to try these because ultimately, I’m just going to be flamed to death lol.

Aiglos.2907:

Well worded points!
I completely agree and I had to log in just to say well done

Particularly the part about being competent in GW1 and not doing so well in this game

I still enjoy it! However, I just feel that I have really poor reflexes, which kind of rules me out of competitive environments or dungeons. I’m reluctant to try these because ultimately, I’m just going to be flamed to death lol.

Don’t feel like you have to skip content just because you may run into some kitten 14-year old who runs a cookie-cutter build and plays 15 hours a day since he/she’s home-schooled. Do it! More often than not, I miss a dodge by double-tapping WASD, which is why I bound Dodge to the “F” key. Zoom all the way out, and watch for the animations to their one-hit KO’s/insane damage skills, then just hit that auto-dodge button.

Copestetic.5174:

Don’t feel like you have to skip content just because you may run into some kitten 14-year old who runs a cookie-cutter build and plays 15 hours a day since he/she’s home-schooled. Do it! More often than not, I miss a dodge by double-tapping WASD, which is why I bound Dodge to the “F” key. Zoom all the way out, and watch for the animations to their one-hit KO’s/insane damage skills, then just hit that auto-dodge button.

It’s funny how you feel the need to demonize the people that are simply better than you.

Bright.9160:

Copestetic.5174:

Don’t feel like you have to skip content just because you may run into some kitten 14-year old who runs a cookie-cutter build and plays 15 hours a day since he/she’s home-schooled. Do it! More often than not, I miss a dodge by double-tapping WASD, which is why I bound Dodge to the “F” key. Zoom all the way out, and watch for the animations to their one-hit KO’s/insane damage skills, then just hit that auto-dodge button.

It’s funny how you feel the need to demonize the people that are simply better than you.

I’m guessing you’re one of those types I was referring to? Elitist in a video game. You sir, are a winner.

Bright.9160:

Copestetic.5174:

Don’t feel like you have to skip content just because you may run into some kitten 14-year old who runs a cookie-cutter build and plays 15 hours a day since he/she’s home-schooled. Do it! More often than not, I miss a dodge by double-tapping WASD, which is why I bound Dodge to the “F” key. Zoom all the way out, and watch for the animations to their one-hit KO’s/insane damage skills, then just hit that auto-dodge button.

It’s funny how you feel the need to demonize the people that are simply better than you.

Aww I don’t think it was demonising. I think it was a nice supportive message, using an exaggerated example to instil confidence (much appreciated btw ).

Regardless, I do feel that ‘difficulty’ in PvE is generally mediated by ‘one hit kill moves’.

Aiglos.2907:

Bright.9160:

Copestetic.5174:

Don’t feel like you have to skip content just because you may run into some kitten 14-year old who runs a cookie-cutter build and plays 15 hours a day since he/she’s home-schooled. Do it! More often than not, I miss a dodge by double-tapping WASD, which is why I bound Dodge to the “F” key. Zoom all the way out, and watch for the animations to their one-hit KO’s/insane damage skills, then just hit that auto-dodge button.

It’s funny how you feel the need to demonize the people that are simply better than you.

Aww I don’t think it was demonising. I think it was a nice supportive message, using an exaggerated example to instil confidence (much appreciated btw ).

Regardless, I do feel that ‘difficulty’ in PvE is generally mediated by ‘one hit kill moves’.

That’s what I pretty much wanted it to be.

BEST.
POST.
EVER.

Make it happen!

Another " make the game what I want it to be " post. Greeeeat.

One of the things that I believe is fundamentally good about GW2 is that it rewards skill and ability.
Yes – they’ve toned down the strategy and buildcrafting aspect of the game but that’s gone and it’s never coming back. 5 of our skills are permanently linked to the weapon we carry. I think it’s clear to everyone what the devs intended.
The intention was a " no build fails " situation. Well – in that case the current meta will be the build that succeeds best.

In GW1 the build you brought meant everything. Not the case here – in GW2 the ability you have as a player means everything.
Yes – I see how some of the slow players can be upset – there are other aspects of the game that are more upsetting though.
Can you imagine the amount of work it would take to remake every encounter in the game and change it? What about the backlash?
People are comfortable with where the game is. They do their dungeons – get their gold – work on their legendary weapons.
The few people that actually want a challenge are doing high level fractals. Which in a sense is more like what you describe.

What are most of the players doing? Zerg farming bosses, speed clearing the fast dungeons and not much else. Why ? Because that’s the majority of your player base.
What do you think would happen when zerker parties wouldn’t be able to steamroll content? They’d steamroll the forums with so much “QQ” that could only be considered equal to the first announcement of ascended gear.

A lot of the people here are forgetting that this game shares very little in common with the original GW1.
Dodging and the way the game is set-up is part of the key mechanics of this game. I doubt these will ever be changed.

There are a few players ( like you OP and like the above posters ) that would enjoy this kind of change but there are more that wouldn’t. Many players are fine with the way this game is AND as I’ve found many times over they will be quick to remind you that GW2 is not GW1.

I read a few of your ideas/ situations – the first suggestion post – you can zerker them all – including the endurance one if you use a portal mesmer.
Whatever will be too hard for the majority of players will be endlessly skipped and players will just go somewhere else.

You want a more GW1 approach to mechanics – sadly enough GW2 is being kept as far away from what GW1 was as possible.

While changing the mechanics has a chance to anger and annoy a lot of players – so i’ll consider this the reason it’s not being done – bringing back some GW1 armor skins in the TP would cause no harm whatsoever – and do you see that happening? It’s already been a year.
Wonder why…

Regarding speed clearing and elitists.
Running dungeons in zerker gear isn’t easy – it becomes easy once you learn them by heart. Very few people in the game do it and you have to look for them specifically ( i should know since that’s mostly what I run with).
As much as people around this thread would want the general " min/max " approach most players take to this game ( myself included ) will not change.
This game is by design making you need money/resources for gear and legendary weapons and whatnot.
I don’t intend to waste time around running AC with a full tanky group. Why would I ?
Why would anyone not speed clear?

And don’t give me that " Enjoy the content " thing. How many times can you run the same dungeon over and over and still feel it’s unique?

Zerker/Stacking/skipping will always be a part of this game because that’s what most players want.
How many threads along the lines of " we cleared X dungeon too fast " or " we’re farming TOO HARD over here – please nerf " have you seen? People want this. You may not want to – but most of us do.

Ultimately GW2 is a " play the way you want game ". There’s nothing stopping anyone to get heavier gear, more utility and play any way they want. But changing the game to make it more fun for a dare I say few of the players – that’s just bad.

Dodging is a core mechanic that I LOVE about this game.
One of the few things I’m 100% in support of is the " be quick or be dead " idea of the dodge system. To take that away is to simply make the game into something else.
Instead of " let’s make the game so that dodging isn’t that important " why not just " let’s learn how to dodge".

Also – Bright pointed out a very true fact.
Make engagements in such a way that you need specific tactics/ gear to handle them and you’ve killed off 50% of the players right there.
You have NO idea how most of the players in this game play. Terrible is too much of a compliment.
Not only would you be forcing them to coordinate but also to get specific gear.
If this came on release it might have worked. But so far into the game here’s what will happen:

Given the nature of GW2 most players play a 1-set 1-build thing.
Change encounters in dungeons and bosses to require different sets and skills and whatnot – the rich, zerker farming elitists will be the first to have the funds to change. They’ll spam the forums, curse, adapt and keep on speed clearing.
By the time the average casual gets the gear he needs to run said dungeon effectively no decent party will have him since he won’t know what to do and get kicked at first mistake.

Harper.4173:

Another " make the game what I want it to be " post. Greeeeat.

If you would read the reactions in this thread you would see that the OP is not alone with his opinion .

Harper.4173:

One of the things that I believe is fundamentally good about GW2 is that it rewards skill and ability.
Yes – they’ve toned down the strategy and buildcrafting aspect of the game but that’s gone and it’s never coming back. 5 of our skills are permanently linked to the weapon we carry. I think it’s clear to everyone what the devs intended.
The intention was a " no build fails " situation. Well – in that case the current meta will be the build that succeeds best.

In GW1 the build you brought meant everything. Not the case here – in GW2 the ability you have as a player means everything.
Yes – I see how some of the slow players can be upset – there are other aspects of the game that are more upsetting though.

In GW2 you have different weapons for different builds. Right now the meta is Full-dmg melee berserker. If you are ranged -> kick, Wrong class -> kick (i.e. ranger, necro).
There are weapon sets designed around conditions, control, support none of them is needed and in most groups not allowed.

Harper.4173:

Can you imagine the amount of work it would take to remake every encounter in the game and change it? What about the backlash?

No one says it has to happen tomorrow, but the way GW2 is on right now seams to be the wrong one and it should be changed before it is to late. the forum is there to say what is wrong with the game not only how great zerker gear is

Harper.4173:

People are comfortable with where the game is. They do their dungeons – get their gold – work on their legendary weapons.
The few people that actually want a challenge are doing high level fractals. Which in a sense is more like what you describe.

What are most of the players doing? Zerg farming bosses, speed clearing the fast dungeons and not much else. Why ? Because that’s the majority of your player base.
What do you think would happen when zerker parties wouldn’t be able to steamroll content? They’d steamroll the forums with so much “QQ” that could only be considered equal to the first announcement of ascended gear.

And one day later they go to the forum and cry because everything is to easy and monotone or just quit the game forever.
Have you ever asked some of them why they are doing this? Because it makes fun or because they don’t have anything better to do?

Harper.4173:

A lot of the people here are forgetting that this game shares very little in common with the original GW1.
Dodging and the way the game is set-up is part of the key mechanics of this game. I doubt these will ever be changed.

There are a few players ( like you OP and like the above posters ) that would enjoy this kind of change but there are more that wouldn’t. Many players are fine with the way this game is AND as I’ve found many times over they will be quick to remind you that GW2 is not GW1.

Speaking of core mechanic, the game wasn’t meant to be build around zerker gear. There were other aspects planed too. i.e. control and support.
http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/

Harper.4173:

Regarding speed clearing and elitists.
Running dungeons in zerker gear isn’t easy – it becomes easy once you learn them by heart. Very few people in the game do it and you have to look for them specifically ( i should know since that’s mostly what I run with).
As much as people around this thread would want the general " min/max " approach most players take to this game ( myself included ) will not change.
This game is by design making you need money/resources for gear and legendary weapons and whatnot.
I don’t intend to waste time around running AC with a full tanky group. Why would I ?
Why would anyone not speed clear?

And why isn’t the tank armor deleted from the game then? or healing stats, condition damage, … We don’t need it. ^^

Harper.4173:

And don’t give me that " Enjoy the content " thing. How many times can you run the same dungeon over and over and still feel it’s unique?

depends on boss/dungeon mechanics, bring in some randomness and it won’t feel the same every time.

Harper.4173:

Zerker/Stacking/skipping will always be a part of this game because that’s what most players want.
How many threads along the lines of " we cleared X dungeon too fast " or " we’re farming TOO HARD over here – please nerf " have you seen? People want this. You may not want to – but most of us do.

Sure about this? 90% of the players don’t even know that there is a forum for the game, what about there opinion?

Harper.4173:

Ultimately GW2 is a " play the way you want game ". There’s nothing stopping anyone to get heavier gear, more utility and play any way they want. But changing the game to make it more fun for a dare I say few of the players – that’s just bad.

Dodging is a core mechanic that I LOVE about this game.
One of the few things I’m 100% in support of is the " be quick or be dead " idea of the dodge system. To take that away is to simply make the game into something else.
Instead of " let’s make the game so that dodging isn’t that important " why not just " let’s learn how to dodge".

No one said that dodging is a bad mechanic in this game, but the design of the game is made that all you need is damage and a dodge at the right time. But GW2 is more, the list of the OP at the end of Post 1 is long. And there is no damage or dodge included.

I am completely against removing dodge and I think the OP too, but at the moment it is just too powerful in combination with actual boss mechanics (only one big hit every 5sec). Just add some more frequent smaller hits, where you can’t dodge all the damage away instead of letting the boss stand there and do nothing.

Harper.4173:

Also – Bright pointed out a very true fact.
Make engagements in such a way that you need specific tactics/ gear to handle them and you’ve killed off 50% of the players right there.
You have NO idea how most of the players in this game play. Terrible is too much of a compliment.
Not only would you be forcing them to coordinate but also to get specific gear.
If this came on release it might have worked. But so far into the game here’s what will happen:
Given the nature of GW2 most players play a 1-set 1-build thing.
Change encounters in dungeons and bosses to require different sets and skills and whatnot – the rich, zerker farming elitists will be the first to have the funds to change. They’ll spam the forums, curse, adapt and keep on speed clearing.
By the time the average casual gets the gear he needs to run said dungeon effectively no decent party will have him since he won’t know what to do and get kicked at first mistake.

You have 4 utility slots that can be changed while out of combat plus different weapon sets with unique play styles. I think everyone in the game should be able to change one of them to get things solved.

I think the OP is pointing out some problems of the game that have to be changed sooner or later, because in the end they ruin the game. What If zerker gets boring, you could switch to different stats, but as you said, who wants to play with you anymore (
“waste time”)?

Don’t get me wrong, it is not personal that I only respond to your post.

All of the non-zerker stat combinations are for PvP and WvW. Also:

Speaking of core mechanic, the game wasn’t meant to be build around zerker gear. There were other aspects planed too. i.e. control and support.

Zerkers control and support just fine. In fact zerker groups do these things better than PUGs because they tend to know what they’re doing.

Maybe people could just get better at dodging :O

Copestetic.5174:

Bright.9160:

Copestetic.5174:

Don’t feel like you have to skip content just because you may run into some kitten 14-year old who runs a cookie-cutter build and plays 15 hours a day since he/she’s home-schooled. Do it! More often than not, I miss a dodge by double-tapping WASD, which is why I bound Dodge to the “F” key. Zoom all the way out, and watch for the animations to their one-hit KO’s/insane damage skills, then just hit that auto-dodge button.

It’s funny how you feel the need to demonize the people that are simply better than you.

I’m guessing you’re one of those types I was referring to? Elitist in a video game. You sir, are a winner.

Odd, because I’m neither 14 years old, nor home-schooled and I especially don’t play 15 hours a day.

It’s even funnier that you think that you’re better than me because you’re worse at something..

As for the person saying that support and control are not needed in this game, you are so very wrong. The reason most organized Berserker teams perform so well is because they have optimized the teamsetup to combine DPS, control and support so well. DPS is obviously well integrated. Control is used in the form of pulling and using positioning like LoS’ing. Support comes in the form of timed Aegis, condition removals, stability, and obviously individual dodges.

Just because PUGs suck at optimizing the use of control, support and DPS, and because control and support are more subtly present in the best team setups doesn’t mean they aren’t part of the META.

And even if they changed encounters so that support and control take on a bigger and less subtle role than they do now, people that are currently the best at end-game PvE, will most likely still be. And people that struggle with end-game PvE now will most likely still struggle, because it will take more coordination and skill to survive.

No one wants dodge removed from the game, it’s one of the things that makes this game unique and great. Dodging though shouldn’t be able to completely replace any defensive stats or gear.

Dramen Maidria.1034:

No one wants dodge removed from the game, it’s one of the things that makes this game unique and great. Dodging though shouldn’t be able to completely replace any defensive stats or gear.

Yes it should. The game was designed around that idea, it’s pretty obvious when they keep implementing stuff like Liadri in their new content, which is 100% an evade check. If you don’t like it, maybe this game isn’t for you.

Bright.9160:

Copestetic.5174:

Bright.9160:

Copestetic.5174:

Don’t feel like you have to skip content just because you may run into some kitten 14-year old who runs a cookie-cutter build and plays 15 hours a day since he/she’s home-schooled. Do it! More often than not, I miss a dodge by double-tapping WASD, which is why I bound Dodge to the “F” key. Zoom all the way out, and watch for the animations to their one-hit KO’s/insane damage skills, then just hit that auto-dodge button.

It’s funny how you feel the need to demonize the people that are simply better than you.

I’m guessing you’re one of those types I was referring to? Elitist in a video game. You sir, are a winner.

Odd, because I’m neither 14 years old, nor home-schooled and I especially don’t play 15 hours a day.

It’s even funnier that you think that you’re better than me because you’re worse at something..

Alright, I have no idea how you interpreted anything I said as being “better than you”. I’ll not be baited into this weird ( and random ) troll attempt.

nice effort and interesting ideas.
i don’t like that much the idea of running certain builds for certain encounters, but i totally agree that various classes as it is now do not bring any special feature to the fight unless they can reflect, stealth or portal, or sometimes instant ress.

you expressed it a lot better than me and i really simplified the situation, i just wanted to say that your post should be taken in consideration.

also i read somebody saying that the changes you propose need too much effort to put them down, but this is hardly an excuse, just because something is difficoult to program and code and debug doesn’t mean we have to shrug and be happy with the way it is.

I didn’t read the op as having the “sole intent” of making dodging “irrelevant” or “taking a more GW1 approach” to the game. Rather, I saw it as him providing solutions and situations that makes more use of the wide variety of tools, abilities, and mechanics already present in the game. Hence the title, signifying and highlighting that the biggest, perhaps only emphasized “skill” to PvE is only being able to dodge.

I’m totally down for a more complex and thus more potentially interesting PvE.