Guild Wars 2

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

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.

^^ This ^^

For better or for worse, ANet is married to dodge. It’s the central feature of their entire combat system. It’s not going to be reduced in importance.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

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.

I think the ideas in this thread are getting twisted away from the original message. Dodging has a role in this game, but when most boss mechanics tend to be built around evading highly damaging attacks it tends to reduce build and gameplay diversity. This ISN’T about making gameplay simpler or easier. If anything, it’s about making it more complex, with the potential to be much more challenging to skilled players. Well designed twitch games fighting games go far beyond simple evade to avoid damage, and Guild Wars 2 could learn a lot from them.

For example: Street Fighter and Soul Calibur. If an opponent is attacking, you can do several things to counter them:

- Block them
- Move out of the way
- Counter them with an attack
- Guard impact

If an opponent chooses to block an attack, you can do a variety of things:

- You can throw them
- You can reposition and attack them from a direction they aren’t blocking
- You can hit them with an unblockable attack
- You can use an attack that they aren’t guarding against (hitting an enemy with a low attack when they are only blocking mid-high attacks)

Combat mechanics for most encounters in GW2 can be summarized as:

- DPS. With only a few exceptions, enemies do not actively defend against your attacks or heal significantly.
- If the next attack is single hit, Aegis
- If the next attack is a reflectable projectile, reflect
- If the next attack is a multi hit over a 2 second window, evade

Designing enemy mechanics around simply evading big attacks gets stale really fast, in my opinion. It’s how most of the fights are made (Lupi, Subject Alpha, Kholer to name a few) and it reduces build diversity to the point that in PvE you only need 1 zerk set with scholar runes to complete the content once you get good enough. This isn’t good boss/dungeon design because it under utilizes a significant amount of the abilities and skills that are available to classes.

I just want toughness/armor to matter more than protection/evades/blocks.

Corian.4068:

I just want toughness/armor to matter more than protection/evades/blocks.

I do as well, but Protection/Dodge/Block should be equally important. And I fully agree with TheKillerAngel, the topic is being derailed ( I apologize for my part in this ) due to the lack of reading comprehension of other posters, or those that are just anti-change because it would affect how they currently play the game.

Copestetic.5174:

those that are just anti-change because it would affect how they currently play the game.

Pretty much this. It’s clear that ANet want blocks/evades to be the most important mechanic(s) when it comes to designing their PvE content. I don’t understand how having to ‘require toughness gear’ is making content more diverse. You’re literally just asking to be able to facetank some hits so that you aren’t punished as hard for failing to use a combination of evades/blocks/aegis/blinds/reflects.

Asking for diversity via more mechanics in encounters, however, would be cool. I liked the suggestions someone made about implementing rooms such as were present in Urgoz/Deep/DoA in GW1.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Copestetic.5174:

those that are just anti-change because it would affect how they currently play the game.

Pretty much this. It’s clear that ANet want blocks/evades to be the most important mechanic(s) when it comes to designing their PvE content. I don’t understand how having to ‘require toughness gear’ is making content more diverse. You’re literally just asking to be able to facetank some hits so that you aren’t punished as hard for failing to use a combination of evades/blocks/aegis/blinds/reflects.

Asking for diversity via more mechanics in encounters, however, would be cool. I liked the suggestions someone made about implementing rooms such as were present in Urgoz/Deep/DoA in GW1.

Hmm, I don’t think it’s really about “requiring” Toughness, but making it a little more important overall.

I agree though, Environmental Effects like in some Elite areas in GW1 would be a welcomed change like constant party-wide DoT, an automatic Knockdown every 30 seconds, a constant Poison-like effect with -33% healing etc are all great ideas and would require a more diversity than the normal dungeons/game requires at the moment.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Copestetic.5174:

those that are just anti-change because it would affect how they currently play the game.

Pretty much this. It’s clear that ANet want blocks/evades to be the most important mechanic(s) when it comes to designing their PvE content. I don’t understand how having to ‘require toughness gear’ is making content more diverse. You’re literally just asking to be able to facetank some hits so that you aren’t punished as hard for failing to use a combination of evades/blocks/aegis/blinds/reflects.

Asking for diversity via more mechanics in encounters, however, would be cool. I liked the suggestions someone made about implementing rooms such as were present in Urgoz/Deep/DoA in GW1.

Yeah, I would agree that “requiring toughness gear” wouldn’t be a good way to go about designing content. The best option, I think, is to design encounters that gives players choices on how they want to build, with ups and downs for each. Here’s an idea for a boss encounter I just brainstormed.

- This boss has moderately frequent, moderate damage area of effect attack that can be dodged. If you have high toughness, the damage dealt from this attack is negligible, but each attack you absorb (if not mitigated by a block or evade) adds a stack to a special counter on the boss. Once this counter reaches 25, the boss can do one of several things:

- Summon additional minions to the fight
- Unleash a special attack
- Apply multiple conditions to the team
- Gain several temporary buffs

The attack happens frequently enough so that it’s difficult (but possible) to evade/block 100% of the time, but it presents players with several options: They can choose to build defensively and “eat” these attacks and deal with the adds/debuffs/etc. Or they can evade the attacks.

Choosing to evade the attacks comes with a caveat, though: If the boss misses most of its attacks, it gets “frustrated” and starts to apply long-lasting (30s) debuffs to the team that cannot be dispelled. These debuffs include a penalty on endurance regeneration and a long-lasting damage over time. These debuffs can be countered in several ways: strategically choosing when to take a hit and when to evade (to prevent the boss from reaching this “frustrated” state), or building a team comp that can further mitigate the endurance penalty/damage over time. This gives use for things like blasting water fields/running 1 member with a healing spec to provide AoE healing, or having a warrior run Warhorn for AoE vigor.

@copetestic

If it means we’re permanently in combat and can’t swap utilities, then no.

A knockdown every 30 seconds doesn’t sound like a major issue either if we can just drop stability or pop a stun breaker. Poison-effect seems meh when we’re mitigating most damage anyway and not even using heals.

The way I see it, is that non-zerker stat combinations are just for PvP and WvW. If you look at it that way, the combat in the game actually makes sense, whereas if you don’t it just leaves you wondering why condi builds and tank builds are so awful in PvE.

colesy.8490:

@copetestic

If it means we’re permanently in combat and can’t swap utilities, then no.

A knockdown every 30 seconds doesn’t sound like a major issue either if we can just drop stability or pop a stun breaker. Poison-effect seems meh when we’re mitigating most damage anyway and not even using heals.

The way I see it, is that non-zerker stat combinations are just for PvP and WvW. If you look at it that way, the combat in the game actually makes sense, whereas if you don’t it just leaves you wondering why condi builds and tank builds are so awful in PvE.

Yeah, they’re not the best examples of what could be added ( modified for GW2 ), but it’s things along those lines that I’d like to see implemented to add a little diversity to things.

I really, really, hope that’s not how ANet views zerker gear as regards to PvE, and the rest for PvP. If it is, then that’s pretty much it on my end.

I’m thinking about making a “design a boss” thread in the Dungeons forums and I would love to hear your contributions.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

I’m thinking about making a “design a boss” thread in the Dungeons forums and I would love to hear your contributions.

You’ll probably get abused

Another thing that may be holding ANet back on the PVE side, is that they tried to reduce the potential for griefing. And griefing is often done by intentionally triggering avoidable punishments in boss fights and similar.

There are weapon sets designed around conditions, control, support none of them is needed and in most groups not allowed.

Oh? So mesmers don’t use focus? Guardians never use their hammer (ring of warding, banish, immobilize), their staff (line of warding), greatsword (AoE pull)? Warriors never use mace 5. Thieves never use pistol offhand (blinding powder, headshot). I’ll pass on engineer because they can’t be built without having some form of built-in control and support.

We remove conditions, we use aegises, blinds, we use control as much as we can and where it makes sense, you just don’t see it and have zero experience in speedclearing dungeons.

The only thing you mention we don’t use are conditions. And by conditions I mean things like bleed. Because otherwise, we do use conditions. We spam blind. We spam vulnerability (best condition in the game). And sometimes we use chill when there’s the odd engineer in the group. We use cripple quite often (they help in certain situations like pulling the aggro from the abomination in arah while preventing their rush attack from hitting you). The only type of condition nobody cares for : torment, bleed, poison, which are damage conditions and of course they suck compared to direct damage.

So, you are wrong in all accounts. Conditions are used, just not the ones that would make a Rabid Necro important or useful in any way, shape or form. Control is massively used. Support is massively used (aegis, regen, protection, reflection, condition removal etc).

There’s just no justification for you to be a useless passive healbot who stands in the back of the group doing nothing but spamming heals while the rest of the group carries you through content. You can bring some form of support, and control, and even conditions, but you can’t just sit in the back and be some sort of carried member who’s patting himself in the back for being necessary in a Trinity world.

Some weapons would be useless even if conditions mattered in PVE. Scepter for example on Mesmer does terrible direct damage and only has confusion as a condition and it’s really bad in most pve situations. Changing the content would not change the fact that this weapon is bad. You’d need to change the weapon itself. Even on a condition build it’d still be pretty bad. Even if conditions were buffed.

Anet recently made a statement that not all weapons should be useful in all situations, when people were asking if they intended for Staff (on elementalist) to be terrible in TPVP. They acknowledged that staff sucks in TPVP and that they will do nothing about it.
It would be logical that they apply the same reasonining to PVE and that not all weapons should be equal in PVE. /thread

Copestetic.5174:

colesy.8490:

@copetestic

If it means we’re permanently in combat and can’t swap utilities, then no.

A knockdown every 30 seconds doesn’t sound like a major issue either if we can just drop stability or pop a stun breaker. Poison-effect seems meh when we’re mitigating most damage anyway and not even using heals.

The way I see it, is that non-zerker stat combinations are just for PvP and WvW. If you look at it that way, the combat in the game actually makes sense, whereas if you don’t it just leaves you wondering why condi builds and tank builds are so awful in PvE.

Yeah, they’re not the best examples of what could be added ( modified for GW2 ), but it’s things along those lines that I’d like to see implemented to add a little diversity to things.

I really, really, hope that’s not how ANet views zerker gear as regards to PvE, and the rest for PvP. If it is, then that’s pretty much it on my end.

That’s not the way ANet sees it; that’s the way a group of players sees it, and certainly not the entire playerbase. Nowhere ever has ANet stated that Berserker’s stats are the one way to play GW2, and that diverse stats are for WvW/PvP-that’s some people’s conclusion based on how they prefer to play the game, because, as stated on this thread (and unfortunately) the game seems to take little account of the Professions potential in other areas besides direct damage. I can be 100% sure that the full-DPS direction for PvE wasn’t anything ANet intended, but something that players figured out by themselves by exploiting the way most PvE encounters work.

As for me, I shall always respect any player’s desire to contribute to a group in any way he/she wishes, without any need to belittle him/her or questioning his/her skill because he/she may not be following what everybody else does. ANet gave him/her the right to choose whichever stats and builds he/she feels works for him/her,-and has never made an official statement about Berserker’s being “the way to go” for PvE (nothing against Berserker’s stats by themselves, though.)

Nikaido.3457:

There’s just no justification for you to be a useless passive healbot who stands in the back of the group doing nothing but spamming heals while the rest of the group carries you through content. You can bring some form of support, and control, and even conditions, but you can’t just sit in the back and be some sort of carried member who’s patting himself in the back for being necessary in a Trinity world.

As if anyone in this thread believed in the above. I don’t believe most players that want build diversity wants to be a “healbot” as you propose they do. I certainly don’t care for the Trinity, but “one build/gear-set to rule them all” is equally sucky on all accounts.

I certainly don’t care for the Trinity, but “one build/gear-set to rule them all” is equally sucky on all accounts.

Why ? because you want to feel like you are a unique snowflake ? It’s fine the way it is considering the ascended grind, the very thought of having to get multiple set of different stats on this would make me feel nauseous.

Seeing the fact that even in solo play like the Gauntlet berserker gear was still pretty much the best to do encounters like Liadri, and that it still puts complete emphasis on player ability and dodge rather than passive things like tanking I’d say anet is currently agreeing with us on the direction PVE should take.

Nikaido.3457:

There are weapon sets designed around conditions, control, support none of them is needed and in most groups not allowed.

Long quote

I agree with you that control and conditions do play a role in PvE, but I feel that role tends to be under-utilized by the design of many encounters. Control in dungeons tends to be limited to pulling mobs together for cleaving or blocking/pulling for runs, whereas useful conditions are mostly ones that can either enhance or mitigate direct damage. Because of the defiant mechanic and some bosses just being immune to interrupts, many other forms of control are much less useful. That might not be a problem to everyone, but I think that the current PvE emphasis on power-based damage ends up unnecessarily stifling build diversity. I said once in an earlier post, once you get good, there is no reason to run a character equipped with anything more than zerker gear with scholar runes. If the dungeon designers can’t think of a situation that requires more creativity in builds, it shows that they 1. Probably haven’t played enough games and 2. Just aren’t very creative with their combat mechanics.

Your point about ascended grind for multiple gear sets is a legitimate concern, however. But I can think of designing bosses in ways that that wouldn’t necessarily require you to own a completely different set of stats (though this might be optimal), while encouraging players to use different weapons and tactics.

Ok, another long post coming up.

I thank many of you for the support I find in this thread. To many replies I agree completely, which leaves me with nothing more to add.

For that reason this post is mostly about the issues and the suggestions.

Keeping up the personal replies is taking a bit too much time So I’ll try to go into the general concerns that you have brought up. I have written them down in my own words to make it easier to read. If you feel that I have misrepresented the concern, please let me know.

The concerns in order of appearance since my last post:

This game is reflex based. We love it, it takes skill. It is not GW1, it is GW2, a different game entirely.

Ok, as I have said in the opening post: To many players this playstyle must appeal. But for me, and I believe many others, this is lacking. As in other MMORPG’s you have the possibility to make a wide variety of builds. You have many different weapons you can equip and endless amounts of traitcombinations. This suggests that there is a use for many of these. While at the moment, most of the non-dps options pale in comparison.

With all these options in place, I do not believe that it is the desire of GW2 to disregard all this for PvE. And as such I believe my suggestions and ideas are atleast somewhat in line with what the designers would like GW2 to be.

I do not desire for this game to be GW1, I would just like a more diverse GW2. Skill isn’t just defined by reflexes, also by strategic planning.

Having to bring a certain build would only result in more complaints on the forums.

I believe that it is possible to have encounters in which certain builds shine, but don’t limit the players to just this one build. Of course there will be video’s of a team making an ‘optimal’ speedrun. And this will lead to a certain preference in group composition. This is not any different from the way things are now.

Even though doing a lot of content in a 4 warrior one mesmer team might be faster, it is not the only way of doing it. With my suggested new encounters this would still be the case, except I hope that there will be more diversity in the optimal way of dealing with some encounters.

As for players not being able to complete the content because they can’t figure out a good way of interacting with a certain boss’s mechanics: This is already the case for some of the more dodge dependant content. I do not see how this should be the only type of difficulty proposed to players. These new encounters aren’t by definition harder, just different.

For those who can’t figure things out, there is always a wiki, the forums or a youtube video to be found somewhere.

I am afraid of the work it would take to redesign PvE

Well, I wouldn’t want them to redesign all of PvE. There are plenty of cool encounters already. I just believe that there could be more variety. It wouldn’t mean a redesign of everything that already exists, but it could steer future design (or some of the revamps they’ve been doing) in another direction.

The majority of the players are happy with this game already, they prefer doing it with just one skillset/build.

Yes, there are probably loads of people that are quite content with the game as it is. That does not mean that there isn’t room for improvement. As for the preference of doing it with just one build: I can understand where this is coming from. I like working out a build with great synergy, and then I tend to stick with it for most of the game.

I wouldn’t want the game to change into a state where my well balanced build is not going to be viable anywhere. I would just like some places (most likely dungeons) to offer challenges that would reward me for adjusting my build skillfully.

Even if your ‘majority of the players’ (wether this is indeed the majority is debatable, they might simply not see an alternative) is unwilling to ever change builds for an hour or two every now and then, there is still a substantial amount of players that would absolutely love to give those unused skills and armorsets a chance.

To largely take away skillful buildcrafting in a game with so many skill and trait choices to cater to this ‘majority’ of players that probably don’t care about any difficult content would really limit the potential of the game.

Whatever will be too hard will be skipped.

As is already the case, and it does not prevent me from doing some of the less popular dungeon paths. As I’ve stated before, this is not about making the game harder, just about allowing for a different type of challenging content.

People just need to get better at dodging. It is what this game is about. Liadri proves it.

The Queens Gauntlet had an NPC that allowed for easier trait swapping. I believe this was done to stimulate a change of builds to overcome the different challenges the gauntlet offered. There can be more to this game than dodging. Simply because things are how they are, that doesn’t mean they can’t become something better.

Also, you cannot expect everyone to become great dodgers. Just as I cannot expect everyone to become great buildcrafters. However the buildcrafting element can be overcome by looking up guides on the internet, dodging is a lot harder to learn. Overcoming a challenge gives me a thrill. Why should this thrill be limited to just those who can dodge?

There is no problem with control and utilities, it is already being used in speedclears.

Yes, a few control skills are being used in speedclears. I do believe these are very limited compared to the amount of skills there are, but some are certainly being used very well. However, this is mostly limited to speedclears only. You could overcome pretty much all of the encounters even without using these utilities. Just as long as you dodge on time and in the right direction.

New encounters won’t make people better at this game. It will widen the gap between good players and mediocre players.

I believe new encounters can reveal the use of some utilities and in that help people to become better at this game. In the same spirit, I believe people that are not very good at certain parts of the game will be a lot better at these new encounters due to a different playstyle. Not better than the focused speedclear community, but better than they are in dodge-dependant areas.

There will always be a gap between good players and mediocre players, it is what makes good players feel good. If the content were to be made more difficult, then yes, there would be parts that are unbeatable for your average player. In fact, some of those already exist. But I do not desire more difficult content, just different difficult content. If strategic builds become more important in encounters, this would make the content easier for those that are willing to look up a good strategy for the encounter. Easier than learning all the tells and missing not a single dodge.

On the other hand, it will still prove a challenge for those who would like to figure it out on their own.

Area effects could make it impossible to swap utilities in the zone. (In regards to an Urgoz type of dungeon)

Well, you’d have to decide on a strategy before entering the zone. This could make for some interesting discussions on tactics before entering. Urgoz was filled with several short zones. So you would only be unable to get out of combat for a small portion of the game before getting ready for the next.

Gear choices are meant for PvP and WvW. PvE is not designed for this.

But it could be.

The potential for griefing.

This could be a serious issue in the current version of the game, since replacing a party member after kicking can be a bit of a hassle. However I’ve heard that there is a LFG system coming up, so that might be able to fix this issue.

Not everything is useful in PvE and that is not a problem. The same goes for certain builds and weapons that are useless in PvP.

Well the more things that are useful in PvE, the better, right? As far as I know, Anet is all for build variety. If some things only work in certain situations, that is just fine, as long as there are some situations in which they work. At the moment, there are just not enough of those situations in PvE.

Now if it were impossible to make PvP tactics interesting for PvE, I might just say: Oh well, I’ll live with that. But I see that it is not impossible.

Healbot spam shouldn’t be rewarded.

Overall, I would say no. It would be silly to have a person dedicated to healing everywhere. This is what was bad about the trinity. However, I would like to see some encounters in which heavy healing is rewarded. And since nearly every profession can bring quite a bit of healing, this doesn’t need to be done by one dedicated healbot. If a team is unable to bring enough healing, perhaps there could be a way to have a helpful npc join up after a short sidequest.

Grinding for multiple sets makes me nauseous

Yeah, that is a bit lame. Atleast exotic gear is relatively easy to get. However, I do feel that a more balanced set could be a better starting point than full berserker. It is not my desire that content would be unbeatable for those who wear berserker gear, just that they feel the dangers of using defenseless gear a bit more.

I would be happy to mix in my berserker gear with some other trinkets and defensive runes to try and power out a large amount of damage while staying alive. I would have to decide on which alternative pieces of gear to get and I would like to feel the difference. (Not just see the damage numbers)

The grind is a pain, but in my opinion the gains from a change in this direction are much larger than the losses.

Nikaido.3457:

Why ? because you want to feel like you are a unique snowflake ?

Yes, I would very much like to feel unique. But more importantly: I would like to feel valuable for bringing something unique to the battle.

Ok, this was all about the issues some of you have with the things I’ve proposed.

On to the suggestions.

On the two versions of enraged.

To make bosses a bit tougher so they don’t die like flies to a dps team, an enraged buff was suggested. Now to avoid confusion between two enrage mechanics, let’s call the one that makes bosses tougher when they take big hits Enraged, and the one that is more about the boss becoming more deadly as he gets interrupted: Frustrated

The enraged mechanic would solve the issue with bosses dying before their effects get a chance to shine. But it would also bring up another problem. It would punish people for actually playing at their very best. Hitting hard and fast feels awesome, finding ways to maximize damage potential is actually a cool thing to do.

Just increasing the health and armor of the creature isn’t satisfying either, because it would mean that without a high dps focus, the fight would take ages. We may need something else… suggestions?

As for the frustrated-mechanic, I think that one is very useable. Regeneration instead of might (or in addition to?) would actually be very cool since it might help prevent players from dps-ing the boss down in one go after a full stunlock.

I would say the stability, attackspeed and defiant part of this mechanic may need to be unremovable buffs, while the others actually allow for player interaction.

Defiant stacks should fall off over time.

So let’s say a boss starts with 5 stacks and it would lose one stack every 3 seconds.
This would mean that the team gets to land an interrupt every 15 seconds, if no one accidentily (or purposefully) wastes the opportunity to do so on a critical attack. I assume the defiant stacks would be reapplied after an interrupt?

This would certainly make it easier for people to time a well placed interrupt if they are in a random team and without 5 interrupts available to take down all the stacks by themselves. It would feel a bit silly bosses still recharge their interrupted skills rightaway though. Since you would be on a 15 second cooldown before you could interrupt it again. Constantly being able to land the interrupt every 15 seconds would also be a bity silly, so I guess the cooldown timer on interruptible boss skills should be slightly lower than the time it takes for defiant to go offline again.

An interesting suggestion that may need some more work.

Splitting conditions for PvE and PvP

Although this would probably make it more easy to find the right balance. Every change of skill, every new addition to the skillset and such will need to be balanced twice in this case. (Especially those concerning conditions ofcourse)

But well, perhaps it is necessary to invest in this to make it work.

Alternatively, in encounters for smaller groups, it would be cool if conditions wore off faster on certain bosses but be more effective. That way it would still require several players or a few very focused builds to take down the boss, simply because it’ll be hard to get the conditions to stick. This would ofcourse not work for the issue on world bosses and I wouldn’t want to see this mechanic on every foe in the game either.

A complex boss design by The Killer Angel

Interesting idea, it would take the average player a while to figure out what is going on though. But with some NPC giving tips or suggestions, this could be good fun.

The: ‘Make a boss thread.’

Good idea, feel free to keep posting encounters in this thread though. I intend to make a list of ideas and concerns in the OP with links to the original posts in the thread.

Thanks for all the input so far! Concerns as well as suggestions, it is a combination of both that can end up in good concrete ideas. Keep it up.

90% of people who posted here think that zerker means rolling a warrior and spam 100b and mobs die. In other worlds, they are completely clueless.

Make encounters requiring even 1 utility skill and most of players will come to forums and cry to anet “I want to play how I want”. TAFU/SNAFU comes to my mind.

Coordination? Recall old simin? Literally hundreds of complains how it promotes zerkers while in reality it needed a basic coordination. You make encounters requiring more coordination then pugs will complain you need voice communication.

Most of the stuff anet designed like control weapons were made specifically for pvp, otherwise mobs wouldn’t have 150,000 hp.

Toughness/vitality? Liadri would be the best example for average player but have you ever tried high level fractals? Anet doesn’t do harder content by introducing more mechanics, they do it by increasing damage of the mobs. Defensive statistics are basically for pvp where they do matter.

Priority should be to make dungeons/fractals more rewarding than brainless, mindnumbing spamming in open world.

Man, this is such an awesome post. Can’treally say much other than that really. All of those encounters sound SO fun, and are just ideal for this game’s combat system. It seems ridiculous to me that such an amazing combat system is only really utilised in PvP and WvW. And that really is the case. The only time you face an encounter that requires thought rather than reflex is in a PvP situation when you’re fighting opponents which have the ability to use the most exciting mechanics of the combat system.
“Interrupts
Knockdowns
Knockbacks
Slows
Immobilizers
Pulling skills
Teleports
Leaps
Movement speed enhancers
Boon removal
Healing
Protection
Blinds
Blocks
Reflects
Invulnerability
Projectile absorption/destruction
Retaliation
Stealth
Summoned creatures
Stability
Area denial (Line of warding for example)
Combo fields
Conditions
Floating
Sinking
Traps
Quickness
Stunbreakers
Condition removal”
Fights like these would absolutely revolutionise this game’s PvE content. Seriously. I really REALLY hope this post is listened to, taken into consideration, and NOT swept under the carpet. I KNOW how much people would love to see this sort of thing.

Meh, just give me the option to actually ride out a fight without running around like a headless chicken while my heal recharges and i’ll be a happy camper.

Right now it feels i should just hit yakkity sax and do like Benny Hill whenever i go up against anything more than a single mob in a starting area, no matter how much i pile on the defense.

It may be fun the first few times when you take down a larger mob this way. But doing it over and over and over becomes stressful to the point that you need to log off to unwind.

Meaning that i see a difference between having to dodge the odd massive blow to stay in the fight, and having to constantly run in circles to stay alive no matter how i build my character. The former to me is a action-ish RPG, the latter is a pure action game (a shooter even if i load up on ranged weapons). I play RPGs because i want how i build my character to matter. If i want to play a shooter there are a long list of games to choose from, all with control schemes more fitting to the genera.

haviz.1340:

90% of people who posted here think that zerker means rolling a warrior and spam 100b and mobs die. In other worlds, they are completely clueless.

Make encounters requiring even 1 utility skill and most of players will come to forums and cry to anet “I want to play how I want”. TAFU/SNAFU comes to my mind.

Coordination? Recall old simin? Literally hundreds of complains how it promotes zerkers while in reality it needed a basic coordination. You make encounters requiring more coordination then pugs will complain you need voice communication.

Most of the stuff anet designed like control weapons were made specifically for pvp, otherwise mobs wouldn’t have 150,000 hp.

Toughness/vitality? Liadri would be the best example for average player but have you ever tried high level fractals? Anet doesn’t do harder content by introducing more mechanics, they do it by increasing damage of the mobs. Defensive statistics are basically for pvp where they do matter.

Priority should be to make dungeons/fractals more rewarding than brainless, mindnumbing spamming in open world.

I agree with you that dungeons and fractals need to be made more rewarding, and that this is easier to fix than the design of a lot of bosses. For one, getting rid of the account-wide token requirement/increasing the tokens given, and increasing the gold per run at the end is a start.

The design of the current crop of dungeons: I think outside a few cases, they should mostly be left as-is. But I do think that new, permanent content should distinguish between normal and elite modes. Normal modes should give standard rewards and “be puggable,” while elite modes should give much higher rewards and be “un-puggable.” In general, I would like to see bosses move away from an over-reliance on 1-hit kill type attacks. This game sorely lacks bosses that kill players with pressure, damage over time, and things other than dodgeable 1 hit kill attacks.

Nikaido.3457:

I certainly don’t care for the Trinity, but “one build/gear-set to rule them all” is equally sucky on all accounts.

Why ? because you want to feel like you are a unique snowflake ? It’s fine the way it is considering the ascended grind, the very thought of having to get multiple set of different stats on this would make me feel nauseous.

That’s the POINT. Having Berserker be the ONLY acceptable set for PVE means that if you want to run any other kind of content, you have to use your Berserker-geared character to grind out a whole ‘nother set of gear for the other builds and playstyles you’d like to use that are trash in the current PVE framework.

Bad Decision Dino.1386:

That’s the POINT. Having Berserker be the ONLY acceptable set for PVE means that if you want to run any other kind of content, you have to use your Berserker-geared character to grind out a whole ‘nother set of gear for the other builds and playstyles you’d like to use that are trash in the current PVE framework.

At least you don’t have to farm even more once ascended armour comes. Just have 1 standard gear – berserker.

ascended gear is not needed to be good, you get what? 5% more stats? They are not needed to “win or lose” a dungeon.

For most of the example bosses it would be enough to change some utility skills. With a special armor set it would be of course easier but impossible without it. We have the same system right now, with berserker+dodge is everything in every dungeon. You can still beat them with conditionbuilds, tankybuilds or healing builds, but it makes it harder and takes much longer. So why not turn this arround to conditions would be better at boss1, healing helps at boss2,…. Just focus some other mechanics at boss/dungeon design. Thats all the op wants. Nothing more.

whyme.3281:

ascended gear is not needed to be good, you get what? 5% more stats? They are not needed to “win or lose” a dungeon.

Then why introducing them in the first place? Any reason except “gear progression” that doesn’t even have a purpose?

I do not desire for this game to be GW1, I would just like a more diverse GW2. Skill isn’t just defined by reflexes, also by strategic planning.

That’s where you’re wrong OP. Let me elaborate : “the ability to use one’s knowledge effectively and readily in execution or performance” ; " dexterity or coordination especially in the execution of learned physical tasks".
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/skill

That’s what skill is – it’s reflexes and dodging. It’s dodging so many times that it becomes second nature.
Theory crafting isn’t skill – it’s just something you enjoy. Sure – some people do it and they do it well but you’re deluded thinking that the majority will do it. They will just look it up on the forums/dulfy/ wherever.

Also, you cannot expect everyone to become great dodgers. Just as I cannot expect everyone to become great buildcrafters. However the buildcrafting element can be overcome by looking up guides on the internet, dodging is a lot harder to learn.

That’s just it – while buildcrafting and different engagements CAN be learned off the internet dodging can’t – so that’s why it IS the skill that this game revolves around.
I may be dumber than a table but i can read the wiki and fight a boss with little trouble after. But no matter how much you read or buildcraft – if you don’t work at improving you WILL NOT improve.

Even though doing a lot of content in a 4 warrior one mesmer team might be faster, it is not the only way of doing it. With my suggested new encounters this would still be the case, except I hope that there will be more diversity in the optimal way of dealing with some encounters.

So your suggestion doesn’t make the game more accessible to players – in fact it makes it less – since you now have to gear and trait for EACH specific situation.
How is that an improvement over the situation we have now? You’re essentially just making us farm out more gear.

As for players not being able to complete the content because they can’t figure out a good way of interacting with a certain boss’s mechanics: This is already the case for some of the more dodge dependant content. I do not see how this should be the only type of difficulty proposed to players. These new encounters aren’t by definition harder, just different.

Because anything else isn’t actually difficulty – it’s just forcing them to grind more. It’s just forcing them into a mold but once they fit that mold they haven’t improved.

How is going on wiki and reading about a boss then putting on PVT gear making you a better player? It doesn’t. It just means you read something and did it.

You know what made me a better player? Liadri.
That boss forced me to calm down, pace myself, do everything right and then i got it.
I tried it 50 times + BUT at the end of that process I had learned something. I went in a worse player and came out a better one – because it forced ME to change.
Not my gear, not my build but ME. The person playing changed. I became more patient, learned how to better control myself and how to better focus. That’s something that can’t be slapped on with a bit of gear.

Even if your ‘majority of the players’ (wether this is indeed the majority is debatable, they might simply not see an alternative) is unwilling to ever change builds for an hour or two every now and then, there is still a substantial amount of players that would absolutely love to give those unused skills and armorsets a chance.

I think we can agree that the majority of players does in fact like to run a 1 set 1 build set-up. It’s comfortable and fun.
Guild Wars 2 is designed around the idea that the content should be doable even if a player is bad, poorly geared and traited wrong.

My question to you and your " substantial amount of players " is this – WHY don’t you?
Is the fact that a zerker team can run the dungeon 2-3-4-5 times faster really the reason you’re not going in with full PVT and CC and Support and beating that boss the way YOU like?
Why not seek out people who want to do it your way and then you can stun the boss to death if that’s what you want.
But no – you want to change the game for EVERYONE and then basically we’ll all be forced to play YOUR version of it. The one that you want.
Nobody is stopping you and anyone else to use any gear and any skills you want.
You however want to stop people from using what they want and start using what you think should go in different places.

The Queens Gauntlet had an NPC that allowed for easier trait swapping. I believe this was done to stimulate a change of builds to overcome the different challenges the gauntlet offered.

I beat her with the same gear and the same build i beat the rest of the gauntlet with.
The player has to improve for Liadri to go down, not the gear.

Yes, a few control skills are being used in speedclears. I do believe these are very limited compared to the amount of skills there are, but some are certainly being used very well.

Try high level fractals please.

strategic builds become more important in encounters, this would make the content easier for those that are willing to look up a good strategy for the encounter. Easier than learning all the tells and missing not a single dodge.

And here we get to the heart of the issue – under all your pretenses of " improving the game " and " more difficulty" you actually want it made easier.

If your system is made in place skill and difficulty go right out the window.
/wiki every boss encounter and you’re done. You’re replacing the dodge part with an easier part that OTHER people can do for you and figure out for you.

Right now you can’t have someone dodge for you. But if they make the bosses less dodge and more build dependent you’ll just nicely copy/paste a build off wiki or whatever site and be good to go. Is that really what we want?

Do you remember the good old day of GW1 when you had the " ping or kick " paradigm? How is that promoting diversity?

I’m a hardcore player – if the 10 dungeons I do per say need me to have 5 builds i will get them and do the runs.
A casual will not – learning that he now has to have 5 different specs and a lot of new gear will make him disheartened and also not viable.
Nobody will take him along – and you’ll have him stuck with other people that can’t change to the new meta right away.

On the other hand, it will still prove a challenge for those who would like to figure it out on their own.

Do you really think anyone will do this? Seriously?

GW2 has maybe a million or more active players – maybe a few hundreds will. Does it really matter?

Well, you’d have to decide on a strategy before entering the zone. This could make for some interesting discussions on tactics before entering.

No- this will mean – " brb guys checking wiki for this part " or " brb guys checking dulfy or whatever for the current meta here " .
Or it will lead to " guys what should I bring here " – " omg you don’t know this ? Kick please".

It is not my desire that content would be unbeatable for those who wear berserker gear, just that they feel the dangers of using defenseless gear a bit more.

So basically – make the game easier for me – hurt these guys more because….well because they’re zerkers – they deserve it.
Running this game with zerkers is HARD. Not a lot of people do it.
I did it from day one of the game and it took me a LONG time to stop hugging the floor. But that was SELF-IMPROVEMENT on my part.

Toughness and vitality have their place – sPVP, WvW and PVE. High level fractals where it isn’t just a few bosses with telegraphed attacks.
Everywhere in PVE you see toughness based gear since it’s very popular.

Well the more things that are useful in PvE, the better, right? As far as I know, Anet is all for build variety. If some things only work in certain situations, that is just fine, as long as there are some situations in which they work. At the moment, there are just not enough of those situations in PvE.

Everything works in PVE right now – that’s the deal. You can use any build you want. Any traits, any weapons. That’s what build variety means.

There will ALWAYS be an optimal way to do content and players will almost always go for that route. That’s a fact.
You just want this to be more spread out thinking that it will promote variety while instead it will deadlock us into a meta where we have to carry 3 sets of gear around and switch between each dungeon to be viable.
If let’s say PVT and healing become the norm for x dungeon in 2 weeks or less you won’t be able to get in with anything else. How is that promoting variety?
It’s FORCING it – an artificial version of variety.
As a player you’re being funneled into a mold – forced to do something – not given an option.
And yes the content as you have said might be doable with other builds/gear stats but in a less optimal way – good luck finding people who want to do it like that.

Looking forward to your reply OP.

Harper.4173:

I do not desire for this game to be GW1, I would just like a more diverse GW2. Skill isn’t just defined by reflexes, also by strategic planning.

That’s where you’re wrong OP. Let me elaborate : “the ability to use one’s knowledge effectively and readily in execution or performance” ; " dexterity or coordination especially in the execution of learned physical tasks".
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/skill

You heard it here first! Magic: The Gathering players are mouth-breathing skill-less drones. I mean anyone can just look up a deck build and breeze straight through to the tournament, amirite? Now pressing one single button at the right time…Hungry Hungry Hippos is where the REAL skill is at!

Yes, they can.

Look up an aggro deck, cast a one drop, a two drop, burn a blocking creature on turn 3, cast your curve topper turn 4, gg.

@Bad Decision Dino

Did you read that definition ? Try perhaps to understand it?
Skill is not something you can read about and understand your way into having it.
It is PRACTICING until you can’t get it wrong.

Yes- you can look up an MTG deck that is successful- read and learn the game rules by heart and then – without having played ONCE you can play a very competitive game. Because you can just read it, understand it and make it your own.

You can’t pick up reflexes – you have to TRAIN THEM.
I can’t read my way into properly dodging and neither can you.

Plus – this game isn’t even close to the complexity of MTG. Do you think that the players here will bother trying to FIGURE things out?
While you believe you can’t just pick up an MTG deck and breeze through – you most certainly load up a GW2 build and breeze through.

Pressing that one button at the right time means more than just pressing – it means understanding what’s going on – figuring out what situation you’re in – making a call and doing that in the time it takes to evade.

It’s not that hard but it’s harder than most players can manage – that’s why you rarely see pure zerkers in PVE.

You try pressing dodge like Hungry Hippos and see where that gets you.
The attitude you treated my post with indicates to me you’re frustrated – maybe with your inability to develop the skill needed to play this game effectively or maybe with your lack of ability to understand what i wrote.

Read the definition of skill again – rinse and repeat about the " EXECUTION OF LEARNED PHYISICAL TASKS".

Also in the future keep your arguments related to GW2. MTG is a different game – i’m not sure why we’re even talking about it.

Nothing being suggested changes berserker gear’s place in the gear hierarchy, for people that can run it it will always perform the best. Changes in the combat system would make it harder to run, but the top percent of skilled players who run it now would still be able to run it. What people have been asking for is for other damage options to also be viable, for investing into support to be meaningful, and for control to work better against defiance. There is a difference between using a weapon skill or two for control and actually sacrificing damage dealing traits for control ones. Same for support. During development Anet wanted to have the game use a completely new trinity, it was their intent for these things to be viable. There could be grandmaster traits that boost healing power efficiency, increase protection to 50% in short bursts, remove multiple defiant stacks per hard CC used, boost these roles in other ways where there is a significant benefit to your party for choosing these traits over damage ones. None of this replaces full berserker team builds, it just offers alternatives that can work almost as well. At the end of the day berserker is still at the top of the food chain, other options just are not as low as they are now.
Using Liadri is a bad example for an argument that Anet wants this meta. Liadri was designed to provide a challenge to the more elite PvE players, who all run full berserker gear. It was not just a dodge check, it was also a DPS check since you were timed. It was temporary content, they weren’t going to redesign the combat system to provide the same challenge for a living story update.
Anet may feel that despite their opinion of the PvE meta in dungeons they do not have to resources to make any major changes to the combat system or to bosses and simply accept they fell short of what they wanted to achieve. Or it may be something planned for an expansion. The things being discussed have been a hot topic in the community for a long time now, and the general consensus is the flaws in the combat system is one of the things holding the game back from being truly amazing.

You can’t change zerkers efficiency without making scrubs complaining even more about “hard” content.

Harper.4173:

@Bad Decision Dino

Did you read that definition ? Try perhaps to understand it?
Skill is not something you can read about and understand your way into having it.
It is PRACTICING until you can’t get it wrong.

Yes- you can look up an MTG deck that is successful- read and learn the game rules by heart and then – without having played ONCE you can play a very competitive game. Because you can just read it, understand it and make it your own.

You can’t pick up reflexes – you have to TRAIN THEM.
I can’t read my way into properly dodging and neither can you.

Plus – this game isn’t even close to the complexity of MTG. Do you think that the players here will bother trying to FIGURE things out?
While you believe you can’t just pick up an MTG deck and breeze through – you most certainly load up a GW2 build and breeze through.

Pressing that one button at the right time means more than just pressing – it means understanding what’s going on – figuring out what situation you’re in – making a call and doing that in the time it takes to evade.

It’s not that hard but it’s harder than most players can manage – that’s why you rarely see pure zerkers in PVE.

You try pressing dodge like Hungry Hippos and see where that gets you.
The attitude you treated my post with indicates to me you’re frustrated – maybe with your inability to develop the skill needed to play this game effectively or maybe with your lack of ability to understand what i wrote.

Read the definition of skill again – rinse and repeat about the " EXECUTION OF LEARNED PHYISICAL TASKS".

Also in the future keep your arguments related to GW2. MTG is a different game – i’m not sure why we’re even talking about it.

And instead of reading about how to use a build/taking down a boss, we have videos to show us when to dodge properly for just about every dungeon boss in this game. When you go up against said boss now, you know when to dodge. Then? Yep, you press that one little button to do so.

@Harper

Haha. Yeah, sure, mad. I just think it’s funny when someone starts bringing in the dictionary into it and using it to justify shouting “YOU WILL BURN THIS REPETITIVE MOTION INTO YOUR HEAD UNTIL ITS SECOND NATURE AND YOU CANT GET IT WRONG! THAT IS SKILL!” Like jeez man, here comes the Dodge Gestapo!

You say that dodging is the only place where skill can be developed because this game isn’t anywhere near as complex as MTG, yet ignore that OP’s entire point is that the game should start progressing towards the goal of adding multiple layers of complexity into the game beyond dodging. Instead of creating a more complex game, you’d rather just give up and reduce 8 whole classes to a glorified Quick-Time Event. It’s not like you can’t look up on the internet when exactly you need to dodge in a fight at which phases, and which animations telegraph what attack.

Your idea that challenge variety would all be invalidated because people can just go on the internet and look up the optimum build is hollow. Because that’s already the case. I went on the internet, and found out that there is an optimum build. It happened to be Zerk or go home. “But maybe if I try something with traits that favo-” “NO! SHUT UP! WHY ARENT YOU IN ZERK, NUB?”

At least when different build possibilities are emphasized, you spent a little time wondering which of the 10 builds you saw on the internet will work for you, your next challenge, and your play-style. Skills in this game are different enough that just copy-pasting a build from the internet that favors different traits and weapons than what you’re used to actually does require a great deal of practice. Or hell, they may even be beyond your capability of playing, so you have to tweak it so it works a little better for you. I know I couldn’t just go from playing 80 levels of Flamethrower/Elixir engy to flinging grenades every second just because the internet told me it works.

And at no point did OP say he didn’t like dodging. He just said he’s disappointed by the reductionist design direction that makes it the be-all and end-all to the game. As for me, I love the dodge mechanic and its emphasis in the game. But I’m hardly even playing anymore due to the gear grind this game requires at this point, and finding out that the PVE meta has shifted towards the ONE TRUE WAY of gear (one that I never bothered to acquire because I favored a different playstyle) just sours the game for me.

Oh great, in order to not get yelled at by my fellow players in End-Game, I have to grind out a set of gear for a boring build that the internet told me to use, instead of using the gear and build that I meticulously planned out to work for my individual preferences and playstyle. Everyone likes to justify it by claiming that “Well you don’t HAVE to do anything! No one’s holding a gun to your head and MAKING you use Zerk…it’s just…you know…stupid to do anything else if you want to contribute to your team.”

Why do you bring pugs in here? Make your own party and play how you want. That’s how good players do anyway. You could say I run with typical zerker elitist yet I can go ahead and run with hammer in dungeons and that’s perfectly fine for them.

haviz.1340:

Why do you bring pugs in here? Make your own party and play how you want. That’s how good players do anyway. You could say I run with typical zerker elitist yet I can go ahead and run with hammer in dungeons and that’s perfectly fine for them.

Because friends and guildies never get annoyed when you keep making their job harder by rolling with a useless “eccentric” build…

FYI, it may not be a big enough deal to break friendships, but making your guildies stay up late that because you couldn’t pull your weight so you all had to retry that dungeon after 4 wipes because you were so close to winning is a really quick way to ensure those friends start thinking of you as more of a charity case, and making up excuses to run their serious content with other groups.

Harper.4173:

@Bad Decision Dino

-Stuff-

Are you suggesting that it is impossible to create content that is equally or more difficult without being wholly reliant on dodges?

And instead of reading about how to use a build/taking down a boss, we have videos to show us when to dodge properly for just about every dungeon boss in this game. When you go up against said boss now, you know when to dodge. Then? Yep, you press that one little button to do so.

Except most of the player base can’t remember that so well. A build can be loaded up and it will STAY there.
Watching a video doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to dodge just as well as the person in the video. One is just copy/pasting something and one is a learned, trained, physical task.
Please – if you cannot grasp the difference between the two then don’t even bother.

The bottom line is I can read about something in a wiki and put it on my char. However I can’t watch a youtube video that will give me dexterity and speedy reflexes.

@TheKillerAngel –
I’m suggesting that the content should be made in such a way that if a player is good enough he should be able to dodge through it without the need for heavier builds.
Tougher content exists already. Gear-specific content is NOT a good idea.

Haha. Yeah, sure, mad. I just think it’s funny when someone starts bringing in the dictionary into it and using it to justify shouting “YOU WILL BURN THIS REPETITIVE MOTION INTO YOUR HEAD UNTIL ITS SECOND NATURE AND YOU CANT GET IT WRONG! THAT IS SKILL!” Like jeez man, here comes the Dodge Gestapo!

This is what it takes to improve in the game. I did it a number of times and guess what? It improved my gameplay.

You say that dodging is the only place where skill can be developed because this game isn’t anywhere near as complex as MTG, yet ignore that OP’s entire point is that the game should start progressing towards the goal of adding multiple layers of complexity into the game beyond dodging. Instead of creating a more complex game, you’d rather just give up and reduce 8 whole classes to a glorified Quick-Time Event. It’s not like you can’t look up on the internet when exactly you need to dodge in a fight at which phases, and which animations telegraph what attack.

Actually no.
I’ll adress you and Killer Angel here.
I believe that in order to make the game more difficult, more complex and more challenging – elite versions of different areas should be available. That way nobody gets upset with the current content being changed BUT the hardcore get a challenge.

And as far as how hard it should be – I believe they should add this gear-related or mechanic-related complexity ON TOP of the current dodge situation.
So not only will you have to dodge near perfect to be able to do it – you’ll also be fighting versus other mechanics.
It’s not what OP suggested – he suggested making content less dodge dependent and supplementing difficulty with other mechanics. I’m saying STACK it all on top and make something that takes weeks or months to master.

It happened to be Zerk or go home. “But maybe if I try something with traits that favo-” “NO! SHUT UP! WHY ARENT YOU IN ZERK, NUB?”

Because nobody cares. Because the optimal time for a dungeon/whatever has been figured out – it is what you get with max zerkers.
If you’re not wearing zerkers it means you either :
a- don’t know it is the optimal way – and i don’t want someone uninformed in my party.
b- don’t know how to handle it and it will drop you – and i don’t want you in my party.

That’s why you get that attitude – because you’re trying to play with people that are playing the game VERY differently than you.

Oh great, in order to not get yelled at by my fellow players in End-Game, I have to grind out a set of gear for a boring build that the internet told me to use, instead of using the gear and build that I meticulously planned out to work for my individual preferences and playstyle

Because if you want to roll with the cool kids – you better be cool.
Jokes aside – if you want to use a build that is more to your taste – there are parties for that. Don’t expect however that the majority of the player base cater to you – cradle you in their loving arms and take you on runs because you want to be special and loved.

You work for the team and the team works for you. You can’t do that – you don’t get to run. Nobody is going to carry you for free.

Bad Decision Dino.1386:

Oh great, in order to not get yelled at by my fellow players in End-Game, I have to grind out a set of gear for a boring build that the internet told me to use, instead of using the gear and build that I meticulously planned out to work for my individual preferences and playstyle. Everyone likes to justify it by claiming that “Well you don’t HAVE to do anything! No one’s holding a gun to your head and MAKING you use Zerk…it’s just…you know…stupid to do anything else if you want to contribute to your team.”

If you “meticulously planned” a bad and worth-for-nothing build… i actually feel sorry for you.
Any PvE based healing build in this game does nothing more than accomplish a false sense of usefulness, same goes for any condition damage that is not Rampager… and Rampager only works if you’re soloing stuff as an Engi anyways. Also, defiant.
I understand that for some people admitting that their way of doing things is actually worse than everyone’s else is a hard thing to do… but for Skritt’s sake, just don’t fool yourself for too long.

@Harper:

And AGAIN…. No one here says, that running Zerker gear wouldn’t be the most effective way to completet the content. But we want some challange to players running with berserker gear. Or reward for group play not for pure dmg. Ok maybe there would be some Bosses that cant be defeated with full Zerker gear, who cares? Thats life. At the moment every boss gets harder for not running Zerker gear.

If you run a full soldier set at the moment, you only get disadvantages in current meta. Only at trashmobs (that are skipped anyways) you would see a difference. Bosses still oneshot you, the fights takes at least two times longer. Which means more room for mistakes and get whiped.

If you want a challange, try killing Lupicus (for example) with a tanky, or healing orientated group and without reflecting

@Nikaido
Why do we have 30 Utilityskills, 5 Traitlines with different stats and traits and 5+ weapon sets per class then? Only for running Build X, pressing 1,1,1,1,1,1,V,….. and doing the same kitten over and over again. Reading in Patchnote, “for buildvariaty” and laugh.

I agree PvE endgame is way too based on gib mechanics / dodge checks and high damage in general.

My main gripe is that many bosses or situations are unmelee-able or barely melee-able.
This means that even a melee-centered profession will have to play ranged the whole match – and let’s face it, ranged is boring.

whyme.3281:

@Harper:

And AGAIN…. No one here says, that running Zerker gear wouldn’t be the most effective way to completet the content. But we want some challange to players running with berserker gear. Or reward for group play not for pure dmg. Ok maybe there would be some Bosses that cant be defeated with full Zerker gear, who cares? Thats life. At the moment every boss gets harder for not running Zerker gear.

If you run a full soldier set at the moment, you only get disadvantages in current meta. Only at trashmobs (that are skipped anyways) you would see a difference. Bosses still oneshot you, the fights takes at least two times longer. Which means more room for mistakes and get whiped.

If you want a challange, try killing Lupicus (for example) with a tanky, or healing orientated group and without reflecting

Except at very high level (70+) fractals, most bosses without unique mechanics like Hunter&Crusher do not one shot you. Take tanky guardian against lupi and compare that to zerker guardian. Night and day.

whyme.3281:

@Nikaido
Why do we have 30 Utilityskills, 5 Traitlines with different stats and traits and 5+ weapon sets per class then? Only for running Build X, pressing 1,1,1,1,1,1,V,….. and doing the same kitten over and over again. Reading in Patchnote, “for buildvariaty” and laugh.

Maybe they were designed for different type of game like zvz or pvp?

So 95% of the Armorsets we have were designed for WvW and PVP?

whyme.3281:

So 95% of the Armorsets we have were designed for WvW and PVP?

And for bads in pve.

whyme.3281:

So 95% of the Armorsets we have were designed for WvW and PVP?

It’s pretty obvious the stat system was thought of for sPvP and not PvE or WvW.