Guild Wars 2

Part 3

Outlaws with flamethrowers

You’re in the army now

Retribution

A charging crystal

Exhaustion

End of part 3

Part 4

The lethal dose

Swarm it!/Spam it!

How low can you go?

The maze keepers

End of part 4

Part 5
The beekeeper

Run for the key

The high ropes

Chaser lasers

Feedback on these encounters, prettier versions and entirely different ideas are very welcome. Perhaps some dev will come across this thread and draw some inspiration from these ideas.

The end of part 5

Part 7
What GW2 experiences serve as an example? (Please let the devs know what you like!)

• The bomb room in CoE path 1. Interrupts and pushback skills can protect someone who is triggering the switch. This makes for a nice unique interaction with mobs where killing fast is not the best tactic.
• The queens gauntlet. I didn’t like all the bosses, but I really liked the npc that could change my traits. (Shame it wasn’t next to the repair kodan) The windcaller, deadeye and the pirates were the most interesting fights when it came to making a build. I also enjoyed the easier melee foes because they rewarded my extensive kiting manoeuvres. The one hit knock outs were as annoying as always though. Yet I can understand that a master of reflexes will not have respect for anything less than that.
• The outlaws in Caudecus Manor. They can be tossed around, reflected and kited, yet they still pose a challenge. (Though they could use a leap skill)
• The dredge fractal door bombing part. Where stealth, pushback and area denial have their place to shine. Being able to immobilize the boss at the end is cool too!
• Mai Trin. If only we needed to pull her into the fields, that would’ve been great. The dodging part of this fight was actually well placed. The focus was on dodging and surviving instead of dodging and killing. Stealth was well used, as were teleporting skills. I feel that this dungeon rewarded me for bringing a build specialized for this fight. I actually really like the normal aetherblade mobs too. They’re challenging but not instantly lethal.
• The army we have in the charr fractal. Keeping them alive is valuable, they’re strong. Healing and protecting them feels useful (if just a bit).
• Fighting level 12 foes on my level 9 character. The foes are tough and deal a lot of damage, but never enough to one shot me. Every piece of better armour, every level I gain feels like it makes me a lot tougher. It matters.
• Lighting the path in the Sharkmaw puzzle. I didn’t realize we could pick up torches until very late. Before that I just used all the skills that brighten up the surroundings to see where I would be going. We teamed up with a few people to more easily do this. Sadly, this wasn’t the intended way to do it. But food for thought.

I’ll add some more to these as I experience them in-game. It is about time that I post this topic to get some input! Thoughts benefit from good company.(That’s you, I hope!)

For everyone that just scrolled down to the end to save time…

GW2 has a large variety of combat moves. End-game PvE only utilizes dodging and damage to create difficulty. While this makes all content available to nearly every players build, it rarely if ever requires a specialized build.

To create a new type of difficult content, we can come up with different encounters. Foes that require some preparation. (Other than knowing where the ‘safe spot’ is)
Or we can change the balance of the way players fight monsters through changes in numbers. (Attack speed/health/damage numbers)

Preferably both.

Please help this game become a bit more about strategy and a bit less about reflexes. The balance in PvE is off. (WvW and PvP have entirely different issues, this is probably not one of them)

Thanks for reading!

Now go write your replies and please keep it civil

End of part 7…

Part 8

This is where I try to collect most of the relevant suggestions and concerns found in this thread.

Ideally I would include my own view on all these, but I simply did not reserve enough posts to do that. Most of the time a reply followed swiftly though. So just scroll down a bit.

Scrambles on the faster attacks threatening light armours.

Dramen Maidra on the issues of boss mobility and condition damage. Also a suggestion to take on defiance and to have bosses go into a rage when they are taking a lot of damage.

Runeblade on the issue of stacking.

Rainweaver on the issue of overpowered reflection skills.

Lampshade on the issues of devteam workload, unbalanced healing, and the freedom of players to play whatever build they like.

Lhound suggesting that bosses could be susceptible to certain conditions. Conditions behaving differently depending on the boss.

Sazberryftw on the issue of profession requirements.

Digiowl suggesting that taking away a defiant stack could shift aggro.

Stof on the issue of requiring different gear.

Wethospu on the issue of content becoming too hard for pugs.

TheKillerAngel suggesting an Urgoz-like dungeon and a normal/elite-mode split.

Whyme suggesting a solution to the condition cap and an enraged mechanic.

Stof suggesting that defiant stacks could decay over time.

Draimen Maidra on the issue of bosses dying before their abilities come into play and suggesting a PvE/PvP split for condition stacking.

TheKillerAngel suggesting a boss that gets frustrated by players that dodge everything.

DigiOwl on the issue of griefing.

TheKillerAngel with a list of skills that bosses lack.

Nessarose on why some people may not be able to dodge.

Silvos suggesting a reduced/different endurance regeneration and an encounter with a pile of corpses.

Shiren on line of sight exploitation.

Sylentir with a list of things that individual professions can do. To avoid making inaccessible content

My challenge mission design

Now don’t feel discouraged by all this. Your support and ideas are very welcome, better to have an idea or concern appearing multiple times than to perhaps miss out on some altogether.

(If you feel that a concern or idea is missing in this list, let me know)

Sounds like you could just zerk everything and dodge/mitigate (through blocks, protection, reflection) attacks like usual.

good post, OP. breath of fresh air from all the QQ.

Do you think aggro should be considered? If enemies attack faster and still choose their targets mostly randomly, that would put light armor users at a disadvantage, right?

Holy … that was a long read … but a lot of really fine suggestions were made, though I have to say that the thing that struck me as most true was the following:

“•Smart players with bad reflexes. There are plenty of bright people in my guild that managed to do the hard content in GW1 that are struggling with the terrors of GW2. Bringing protective gear and some extra healing just doesn’t help. If you don’t have the reflexes, you’re going to fail. And since difficulty is for a large part defined by the amount of time you can keep going without messing up a dodge…Yeah you’re going to have to miss out on all the challenging stuff.”

I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. I’m an old GW1 player, spent time in FoW, UW, completed multiple dungeon tomes in Hard Mode, Vanquished, etc. … and a lot of the process, for me anyway, was tweaking builds for maximum efficiency/effect, depending on where I was going … but in many of the more “challenging” portions of GW2, it isn’t mash #1, it’s mash the dodge, and if you miss one or two, or you fail to see the AoE circle, then yep, exactly, you’re toast. And even if it’s just a question of memorizing the timing, or the placement of AoE damage, or which direction you’re supposed to dodge, all it will take is missing one or two, and wham, toast …

But if there were areas that required one to truly think through it, using some of the skills at our disposal (knockbacks, interrupts, and pretty much everything else you mentioned), it would provide for challenging content for players who don’t want to spam dodges in zerk gear because it’s the only stat set that logically is worth it in many situations.

My warrior uses a healing and power (regeneration) build as a means to endure a large amount of punishment while at the same time not being completely useless. Dodging and timing is highly important to any skill based game. Intelligence and out of the box thinking is useful. In combat adaptability and able to think on the run is highly important as well.

Thoughout my dungeon runs and helping other people I noticed that a large number of the player base I have dealt with in PUG runs most people generally are terrible at thinking on the run. I find myself resurrecting the same people throughout the dungeon or risking my characters life to save them countless times. Such as the Kohl battle in AC, a large number of people do not figure out after the first grab/spin attack to dodge, block, move side to side, or anything to get out of his attack. Only reason why I used to dodge Kohl in AC was cause I did not want to spend half the fight resurrecting my team.

Another example was during F&F the final boss I ended up soloing as my team got wiped all expect me cause I learned quickly his attack patterns and countered them all.

Quick reflexes are only part of it being adaptable and thinking things through in a timely manner help greatly. Which brings me to why I choose healing/power over Bezerker is due to the fact that if everyone plays as a Bezerker (which seems to be just about everyone) they generally get downed faster and are easy prey in WvW.

Now to fully comment on the combat you are suggesting they should do. They absolutely need to make changes that make it from a dodge and #1 spam to coordination and adaptability. Such as “The Rising” what they are doing with Teq is a great start if pulled off correctly. The main issue is that if they were to make it more skill based rather then a spam based certain types of players would have trouble completing the content. (Generally that means those guys need to work on skill more)

AI also needs to be improved but that is complex to achieve.

The high-end content revolves around doing fluff and crafting. No need to improve that.

One of the big flaws in the PvE of this game is that we have all these skills that have practically zero use in PvE.

Mobs rarely give conditions or have boons so we almost never need condi removal or boon stripping skills. Instead, we often get mobs that have special monster skills that provide the same benefits as conditions or boons, but are invulnerable to player skills.

If mobs had some condi and boon removal, that’d make things even more interesting.

This is excellent! Great post Lost Witch!

I really want to love GW2 and I just cannot love a game where I am supposed to be heroic and yet I feel like a sickly pauper with the durability of wet paper. It really, really stops my fun and makes me not want to come back.

Being 1 shot is the dumbest mechanic in every MMO, in every game, and yet GW2 is full to overflowing with that situation.

I think the solution must come in changes to a number of the core design concepts that Anet had when they first developed the game. The trouble is, im not certain they care about changing them.

You touched on many of the same frustrations I have felt so I won’t bother to type them again and I will simply say I agree with your post in its entirety.

colesy.8490:

Sounds like you could just zerk everything and dodge/mitigate (through blocks, protection, reflection) attacks like usual.

Did you read all of the suggestions? And if so, do you have some ideas of your own? Perhaps zerker gear should be less effective, and this problem could be tackled from the other side?

Scrambles.2604:

Do you think aggro should be considered? If enemies attack faster and still choose their targets mostly randomly, that would put light armor users at a disadvantage, right?

Good point. Yes it would. In a way this was always intended. But if armor and toughness are supposed to matter more, then yes I suppose the weakness of light armor will show.

Buffing the base health of light armor characters could be an option, or making their heal skills a bit more effective. On the other hand, the health of warriors can be brought down a bit too perhaps, if they prove too effective in this new system. Guardians are already in a good spot, since they lose some efficiency in their blocks if foes attack faster, but make up for that with having stronger armor.

mojowalker.3798:

I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment…

… many situations.

Thanks, good to know there are more people that have those fond memories of build-tweaking.

Suddenflame.2601:

My warrior uses a healing and power (regeneration) build as a means to endure a large amount of punishment while at the same time not being completely useless. Dodging and timing is highly important to any skill based game. Intelligence and out of the box thinking is useful. In combat adaptability and able to think on the run is highly important as well.
…
Quick reflexes are only part of it being adaptable and thinking things through in a timely manner help greatly.
…
AI also needs to be improved but that is complex to achieve.

Aye, coming up with a good build certainly doesn’t get you there in this game. The in-combat reflexes, quick decisions and switch of tactics are an element that GW1 did not have in these proportions. And I think that is one of the great benefits of GW2, a much more active combat. Knowing when to ressurect, or when to avoid certain death trying to get that ally back up. Saving that stunbreaker for when you really need it, or finishing off that one foe with it right now. These are all very interesting moves and certainly reward strategic play.

I do feel that there can be a good combination of pre-combat strategizing and in-combat-on the fly-tactics. In which the pre-combat strategizing is currently lacking when it comes to our builds.

On a side note: I also tend to use partial clerics gear on my guardian to have a little bit more impact when I try to save my partymembers using my virtues and symbols. I have found that this works particularly well in groups that mess up in combat. In a fairly good group, the loss of damage is significant and I feel like I’m only slowing it down by bringing more defence.

As for the AI being complex to achieve: the game is still rather new, a lot can happen in a year. Complex stuff is a very daunting task, but as far as I know, Anet isn’t scared of that. It just takes time. If this thread can get things going sooner, all the better!

Lord Kuru.3685:

Mobs rarely give conditions or have boons so we almost never need condi removal or boon stripping skills. Instead, we often get mobs that have special monster skills that provide the same benefits as conditions or boons, but are invulnerable to player skills.

Yeah, come to think of it: There is this boss in HotW that has boons reapplied by totems. Taking off the boons doesn’t really work, since they are reapplied rightaway. Simply dps-ing the totems down is the best way to get rid of those boons. I think this could be more interesting without the totems. Or making the boons last longer and having them reapplied less often.

Rovaeden.8546:

I think the solution must come in changes to a number of the core design concepts that Anet had when they first developed the game. The trouble is, im not certain they care about changing them.

I think they’re pretty serious about their game. If they are not able to make things better now, they might be doing that over time. They figured MF was a bad idea, and they came up with a fix. If we give this problem some more attention, then perhaps so will they.

Also, I think some one shot kills are fine. There are people that need this kind of punishment for reflex-based combat in order to make it a real challenge. My main issue is that these appear to be the only type of real challenges.

Thanks for all the posts so far. Good to get some support and feedback on this problem that has clearly been on my mind for a long time.

Copestetic.5174:

colesy.8490:

Yes, I read the suggestions and they sound like they can all be zerked, and no zerker stats do not need a nerf if only a minority of players are even using them. The only reason they’d need a nerf is if they dominated a meta, and while they do dominate the experienced dungeoneer meta, there are many “play how you want” bads who won’t run it who probably outnumber the berserker players by far.

Can you honestly call those “play-how-you-want bads”…bad, because they don’t run a meta build?

Yep, he can’t respect anyone that doesn’t agree with the elitist meta mob. Always the same kind of insulting comments, which will be stated as “facts.” Nothing that you say will probably change his stance, though what you say is logical and true-no one is “a bad” just because he/she doesn’t strictly adhere to an elitist meta (and viceversa; no one is a “good player” just because he/she copies what’s supposed to be “the one way to play GW2”.)

On a positive note, I like the open-mindedness of the OP and this thread. This is the kind of constructive posting that I would pay attention to if I was a developer-non insulting, mature, honest, and obviously truly caring for the good of the game.

I do not mean to offend, but “the bads that don’t play the way I do” trolling gets old with time.

Star Ace.5207:

Copestetic.5174:

colesy.8490:

Yes, I read the suggestions and they sound like they can all be zerked, and no zerker stats do not need a nerf if only a minority of players are even using them. The only reason they’d need a nerf is if they dominated a meta, and while they do dominate the experienced dungeoneer meta, there are many “play how you want” bads who won’t run it who probably outnumber the berserker players by far.

Can you honestly call those “play-how-you-want bads”…bad, because they don’t run a meta build?

Yep, he can’t respect anyone that doesn’t agree with the elitist meta mob. Always the same kind of insulting comments, which will be stated as “facts.” Nothing that you say will probably change his stance, though what you say is logical and true-no one is “a bad” just because he/she doesn’t strictly adhere to an elitist meta (and viceversa; no one is a “good player” just because he/she copies what’s supposed to be “the one way to play GW2”.)

On a positive note, I like the open-mindedness of the OP and this thread. This is the kind of constructive posting that I would pay attention to if I was a developer-non insulting, mature, honest, and obviously truly caring for the good of the game.

I do not mean to offend, but “the bads that don’t play the way I do” trolling gets old with time.

I personally have no problem with meta builds. As someone who’s done countless FoWSC’s UWSC’s ( of different flavors over time ) and other end-game dungeons throughout GW1, I understand the reasoning behind a Build that’s based around the most efficient way to complete content, and repeat it.

That being said, I just don’t agree that people who don’t run meta are bad players. It’s those players that form the future meta, not the mindless followers of the current one.

I had been meaning to post something like this myself for a long time now but my own life is a bit too busy for me to really sit down and write it out. I had a lot of similar thoughts.
We need a reason to use control and support in dungeons. My thought was not to reduce the defiant stacks but to add in traits that allow for the removal of more than one defiance at a time. Enemies need to try and move around instead of just standing there when they get pushed against a wall. If they move and try to circle players control becomes more important. Increasing the basic attacks of bosses occurred to me as well, but you’re right it needs to be accompanied by a decrease in damage so that investing in defense makes a difference. 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. If you adjust this threshold to only be what extremely high damage output teams can deliver you would accomplish two things. First, it would slow down speed clearing so that bosses are not downed before their mechanics even come into play which was clearly not anticipated by Anet. Second, for the true elite players it creates a challenge they have been looking for, now they can deliberately make a boss harder without creating an encounter most of the community cannot kill. You can even add bonus rewards depending on how high the enraged stacks get when the boss downed. Adding bonus damage to a boss so that even it’s normal attacks will down a player in one hit no matter which boss it is reduces the ease in which pure berserker gear can be run. Yes there are some bosses that do this already but adding a mechanic like this to every boss can help balance out the meta. We still need improvements to condition damage so that it can be on the same level as critical damage.
Hopefully this thread gets Anet’s attention, the issues you brought up are what I feel is holding this game back from being amazing.

Dodging and timing is highly important to any skill based game

Meh, it is important in twitch shooters, but not in truly skill based games such as air combat simulations or complex strategy games.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Let me first mention that I really like GW2. A game with great potential. The game is still young and Anet has proven to be very ambitious, which is why I feel that this post is worth the effort.
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First of all Id like to thank you for all the effort you put into an attempt to improve the game. That much said, I disagree with most of what you posted. Sometimes you start with the best of intentions, put a lot of effort in it, and yet the magic just doesnt happen.

I see a lot of ideas for dungeoneering, but consider this:

1) The same abilities have to stay viable for pvp/wvw.
2) New mechanics would require reworking all of the current dungeons.

Now as for healing, I agree that there could be forcefully made situations where you would have to heal a lot or die. And if the only way to do this would be to improve your own healing abilities, that would be great, and it would probably work well. But that would require the complete absence of skills that heal your allies, otherwise all the healing would be pushed off on some poor guardian healbot. The only way I see that possible is to make the only way to help allies some stacking version of regeneration, that would then heal them depending on their own healing power. But with the current mechanics, that would require large amounts of work, remaking all of the skills that heal allies into something else.

These were just a few of examples, your real problem is: In your revolutionary ideas, you do not consider the mechanics already in place and how much effort it would take to change them. If you would, you could see how most of your ideas (Part 6) are, Im afraid, worse than useless.

On smart players with bad reflexes, though, I completely agree there, we could use more encounters where outsmarting the boss counts for a lot more than outdodging him.

And of course, +1 for some creative uses of terrain.

One last thought just came to me. 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. Right now, players have a lot of freedom, including the freedom to bring 4 berserker warriors and a mesmer.

“But I’ve found that pretty much anything that is difficult in GW2’s PvE involves either a lot of dodging or frantic jumping against a time limit.”

Going back to any MMO without active defenses (like dodge) feels really bad. Dodging is better than soaking damage with good armor and waiting for a heal from a priest.

Brilliant post. I’ve been thinking the same sort of thing recently. Such as the quick hits idea or introducing a undispellable DOT that would make healing power more useful. But I don’t think ANet will do anything about it. This might sound cynical but GW2 is a game made on the cheap. It’s a content factory rather than a craftsman’s shop. That’s why all their group stuff is always going to focus on dodge because it’s the cheapest way to ensure class balance while they pump that content out. But I hope they read this post and act on it.

The Lost Witch.7601:

• Berserker gear. Hard foes often kill you if you get hit once (or by several AoE fields at once), no matter what gear you wear. So it’s basically dodge or die. We might as well sacrifice all sorts of healing and armour for more damage then. While the damage reduction from toughness is quite effective mathematically, it doesn’t matter at all if a missed dodge or bad positioning still kills you in one second. In fact killing faster is the best defence, it reduces the chance of someone missing their dodge.

yup

The Lost Witch.7601:

• PvE Builds. While GW2 has lots of options when it comes to builds, a large part of it is only appealing in PvP. Pulling foes is only done once, by a guardian, to pull the mob together with a greatsword. Pushing is actually a hindrance most of the time, since it throws foes out of any AoE damage your friends have brought. And in the few cases where a pull might be useful, like getting Mai Trin inside the electrical storm, it is not really required. (She’ll just follow you over there)
  Getting an interrupt on a huge boss attack is also something that I have not yet been able to do. (Or felt the need to)

Just being pedantic here but mesmer focus pulls tend to be much more reliable than GS pull. There are also encounters where we use warriors to fear bosses into corners to do our business. As for interrupts, dredge fractal boss heal and CoE golem boss spin attack are the ones we (my guild team) always interrupt.

The Lost Witch.7601:

• My character has nothing unique to offer to the fight. This is put a bit harsh, but apart from bringing my guardian for reflects and party wide aegis (so my team can miss a few more dodges). I only feel uniquely useful if I’m using portal or shadow refuge. After all, anyone can dodge and hit. And that’s all we need.

well yeah… the things we need is obtainable in every class. But for something like speedclearing we do have specific roles for different classes.
*Guardians: Fire fields, aegis, stability, reflects, condition cleanse
*Mesmers: TW, focus pulls, reflects, condition cleanse
*Warriors: vulnerability, might/fury, banners
*Elementalists: blasts finishers (ie, fury and might), vulnerability. fire fields
*Thieves: spammable interrupts, spammable blast finishers, stealth

but yeah it all comes down to increasing overall dps

The Lost Witch.7601:

• Smart players with bad reflexes. There are plenty of bright people in my guild that managed to do the hard content in GW1 that are struggling with the terrors of GW2. Bringing protective gear and some extra healing just doesn’t help. If you don’t have the reflexes, you’re going to fail. And since difficulty is for a large part defined by the amount of time you can keep going without messing up a dodge…Yeah you’re going to have to miss out on all the challenging stuff.

well, I consider myself with horrible reflexes and I barely scrap by a lot of the contents. A lot of it comes down to muscle memory. I started playing GW1 after playing GW2 and I also face the same problem but the other way round. I can’t dodge my way out of trouble if I know nothing about the encounter before hand. I don’t think there is right or wrong it is just… a different cup of tea. It would be nice for anet to make different tea for everyone though.

PS: I would love to have to change builds for different encounters. But it just becomes annoying how anet didn’t implement build templates in this game.

The problem isn’t so much beserker builds > all…

It’s that players are obsessed with the path of least resistance, and so they master these speed clears that really are just muscle memory and min-maxing.

For someone who doesn’t play the same dungeon over and over and over for months, trying to do a explorable path in full berserker with a full Power/Crit/X build likely isn’t going to end well, either for that player or for the party he/she is in.

I don’t understand what is wrong with speed clearing.

Why is it a problem, whereas pressing 1 in open world bosses is perfectly fine?

Before any suggestions can be used, one thing must be done:

Stacking needs to go away. Any changes to the bosses or encounters will only be wasted as long as stacking exist.

In a PvP environment, Can you stack and win against the other team at the same time? No.

colesy.8490:

I don’t understand what is wrong with speed clearing.

Why is it a problem, whereas pressing 1 in open world bosses is perfectly fine?

I don’t think anyone is saying that there is anything wrong with speed clearing specifically in this post. I am pretty sure the intention of the OP is to draw attention to the fact that not everyone has the twitch reflexes (or possibly the computer power needed for smooth framerates ) to ensure that they can make every dodge every time. I know the view of many of the “hardcore” dungeon runners is basically what boils down to “tough deal with it” as they take a stance that if for whatever reason you are not able to compete in the twitch fest you are simply not “skilled” enough. I believe what the op is saying is that there should be some availability for different kinds of “skill”, where other things besides dodge or die matter. Also I believe the OP feels that it would be nice to actually have a reason to open build/gear diversity so that it is not always just about a dps race.

I took the time to read everything and I had to login just to applaud you for such a brilliant post, specially because it’s about an issue that bothers me the most in this game.

It saddens me because I hate playing glass cannon builds. Some of my friends stopped playing PvE once they realized their favorite characters were useless when using their favorite builds. I still use my tanky gear when I’m playing with friends because we just want to have fun and a good time (the primary goal of this game), but when joining a PuG, I simply use my full berserk warrior to avoid any teamwork issues.

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: Fractal’s imbued grawl shaman comes to mind, because it has potential to be such a good encounter where both control and support are useful (CC the grubs, healing/condition removal to counter any burning damage/immobilize, tanky gear to withstand some of the grubs attacks/firestorms). However, you can simply sit behind your wall of reflection and melt the grubs with your berserk gear while all the grub’s attacks and all the shaman’s arrows are reflected back.

I understand that before nerfing reflections, some encounters needs balancing (dredge fractals with all the high damaging ratniks and oscilators, for example), but I do feel that reflective skills should be limited to a given amount of attacks reflected. After five attacks reflected your wall of reflection is destroyed or something. This gives room for other ways of managing incoming attacks, such as crowd control, condition removal, boons, healing power, more resilient gear etc.

But once again, great post and very interesting ideas. Here’s hoping Anet takes notice of this.

Stooperdale.3560:

Going back to any MMO without active defenses (like dodge) feels really bad. Dodging is better than soaking damage with good armor and waiting for a heal from a priest.

Cant you have a mix of both? Where both smart tactical play and reflexive action play is needed in order to succeed?

colesy.8490:

I don’t understand what is wrong with speed clearing.

Why is it a problem, whereas pressing 1 in open world bosses is perfectly fine?

Is there something wrong with speed-clearing? No.

There IS a problem with assuming that it’s the only effective way to determine skill (as far as PvE is concerned), though. Not everyone has the option of running the same instance every day for months to figure out exactly what to avoid, how to avoid it, where to stand… etc. Not everyone WANTS to do that.

For those people, ya know what… if a little bit of toughness and vitality keeps you upright, I’m perfectly fine with them being slower on the damage rather than having to pick them up off the dirt every twenty seconds.

Dramen Maidria.1034:

My thought was not to reduce the defiant stacks but to add in traits that allow for the removal of more than one defiance at a time.

Interesting idea to give more power to the players instead of taking it from the monster. A trait would feel a bit of a forced pick perhaps. Maybe a boon? Although it would feel weird to have something like that solely for PvE bosses. But who knows what we can come up with.

Dramen Maidria.1034:

Enemies need to try and move around instead of just standing there when they get pushed against a wall. If they move and try to circle players control becomes more important.

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. Or something to prevent monsters from balling up so easily. Having them move away from one another when there are 3 or more in one spot. If someone with knowledge of scripting reads this, good ideas are very welcome here.

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. If you adjust this threshold to only be what extremely high damage output teams can deliver you would accomplish two things. First, it would slow down speed clearing so that bosses are not downed before their mechanics even come into play which was clearly not anticipated by Anet. Second, for the true elite players it creates a challenge they have been looking for, now they can deliberately make a boss harder without creating an encounter most of the community cannot kill. You can even add bonus rewards depending on how high the enraged stacks get when the boss downed.

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. A question we need to ask ourselves here is wether or not it is fun to kill a creature at a slower speed than you know you can. Attacking, and then running in circles for a moment to avoid enraging the beast and then attacking again could end up in a very weird and uncool playmechanic. But there is probably a way to make this work.

I would certainly not add this to every boss, variety is my main goal.

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.

Lampshade.7569:

First of all Id like to thank you for all the effort you put into an attempt to improve the game. That much said, I disagree with most of what you posted. Sometimes you start with the best of intentions, put a lot of effort in it, and yet the magic just doesnt happen…

I’d like to thank you for an honest and critical remark in return. I have some arguments to give, but answering this well takes a good night’s sleep, so stay tuned.

Nightarch.2943:

And here is solid proof.

Yeah, those darn ‘Unknowns’ are so very deadly.

Stooperdale.3560:

Going back to any MMO without active defenses (like dodge) feels really bad. Dodging is better than soaking damage with good armor and waiting for a heal from a priest.

I am not suggesting a return. Just a bit more balance.

Grumwulf.9602:

Brilliant post…But I don’t think ANet will do anything about it.

Well, this thread is the best way I know of to make it happen. Also … give them some credit and give them some time .

Wukunlin.8461:

As for interrupts, dredge fractal boss heal and CoE golem boss spin attack are the ones we (my guild team) always interrupt.

Oh right yeah, I have done that! Interrupting the heal that is. Felt good!

chemiclord.3978:

The problem isn’t so much beserker builds > all…
It’s that players are obsessed with the path of least resistance, and so they master these speed clears that really are just muscle memory and min-maxing.

I agree that this is a problem as well. But I believe this is a different problem. Paths of the least resistance offer people a way to easily farm what they wish to get. They’ve already made a step into making harder dungeon paths slightly more rewarding. This at least might bring people into contact with some of the more challenging content that they can indeed not brush off with simple berserker gear.

But in the end, when players are at their best, nearly every challenge ends up in the same strategy pretty much everywhere. Which is where my issue lies.

runeblade.7514:

Before any suggestions can be used, one thing must be done:

Stacking needs to go away. Any changes to the bosses or encounters will only be wasted as long as stacking exist.

My hope is that encounters can be designed in which stacking is not the best tactic. Stacking is preferable to other methods in so many ways, that it is hard to change this. From symbols healing nearby allies and offering a combo field for all, to having every AoE spell in the team land on multiple mobs. Countering stacking would also mean that you are effectively trying to counter one of the best ways in which teams can work together. This being said, there are certainly ways to discourage stacking. (See outlaws with flamethrowers)
I don’t think any strategy should be the best for every part of the game.

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Also I believe the OP feels that it would be nice to actually have a reason to open build/gear diversity so that it is not always just about a dps race.

Spot on.

Edit: Rainweaver and everyone posting later, I’ll respond to all that tomorrow.

Thanks for reading and posting!

No, I didn’t read all of that.

If you suggest to implement mechanics that force to switch out UTILITY SKILLS for certain boss encounters – I am all for it.

If you suggest mechanics that require to run specific BUILDS or use specific WEAPONS for certain boss encounters – Hell No.

That is my short version

Firefly.5982:

No, I didn’t read all of that.

If you suggest to implement mechanics that force to switch out UTILITY SKILLS for certain boss encounters – I am all for it.

If you suggest mechanics that require to run specific BUILDS or use specific WEAPONS for certain boss encounters – Hell No.

That is my short version

it really wouldn’t be that bad (okay requiring certain weapon skills is a bit much) if we can have those god kitten build templates

Nice post, but you forgot the Conditiondamage stack limit. which makes no sense at all, while the deffs talk about “build-variety” all the time.

Everyone is running around with Zerkergear because when a boss hits you with 50k damage it doesn’t matter how much defense you have. I don’t want to say that every onekitten has to be removed, but does this have to be the only way bosses deal damage?

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

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.

Last but not least one post of ArenaNet explaining how they think the whole no Trinity should work: http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/
I think nothing of it is implemented right now except of damage .

I remember the early times in CoF P1, we actually had to use [Poison] in the boss to prevent it from heavy healing (due to our lack of dps), or we could be there hours and still couldn’t kill him.

Why the game isn’t designed to use game mechanics?
Same old : [Hit, Hit, Dodge, Hit Hit, Dodge, Rez player, Hit, repeat]

/cheers

LHound.8964:

I remember the early times in CoF P1, we actually had to use [Poison] in the boss to prevent it from heavy healing (due to our lack of dps), or we could be there hours and still couldn’t kill him.

Why the game isn’t designed to use game mechanics?
Same old : [Hit, Hit, Dodge, Hit Hit, Dodge, Rez player, Hit, repeat]

/cheers

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.

The problem in the game is that the item system is bad. The different stat choices we got is useful for PvP only. For PvE it doesn’t make sense.

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.

But it does mean that any build can do any content, that there’s no need for healers so healing power is never required, there’s no need for tanks for toughness/vitality is never required.

Wow, great work, The Lost Witch! I agree with you on many parts. Very well said!

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

stof.9341:

LHound.8964:

I remember the early times in CoF P1, we actually had to use [Poison] in the boss to prevent it from heavy healing (due to our lack of dps), or we could be there hours and still couldn’t kill him.

Why the game isn’t designed to use game mechanics?
Same old : [Hit, Hit, Dodge, Hit Hit, Dodge, Rez player, Hit, repeat]

/cheers

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.

That’s the actual problem.
Why can’t certain bosses be susceptible to some conditions?
example:
A golem specific(reduce Physical Damage by 80%, Burning 30% more effective) – Obvious as golems are supposedly be hard as rock and not as paper.
A Water boss specific (Attack speed reduced by 40%, No damage from Burning, 20% more Bleed Damage) – No Burn Underwater… pretty obvious. Swinging weapons underwater is slower than in the air.

Why certain conditions can’t behave different on certain bosses?
Poison on Nightmare/Risen could actually heal them.

/cheers

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. Right now you are required to decide on what type of build you want and then go get the appropriate equipment for it, which is time consuming, the more so with ascended gear. A few people may have more than one set on them, but to do so needs much more support by game mechanics really, like spec templates and saving gear setups to equip on the fly (and hopefully not clutter up your bags).

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

Well, Destroyer bosses are immune to burning \o/

I agree completely. Vvery good post.

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.

Why? Because they told us in GW2 everyone must be able to take part no matter what their class. They said we would never again be waiting 30 minutes because we need a certain class with a certain build. They cannot go back on this statement. Of course, this excludes player-created ‘must-haves’ such as only taking 3 warriors, a mesmer and a thief for speed clears etc.

whyme.3281:

Nice post, but you forgot the Conditiondamage stack limit. which makes no sense at all, while the deffs talk about “build-variety” all the time.

Everyone is running around with Zerkergear because when a boss hits you with 50k damage it doesn’t matter how much defense you have. I don’t want to say that every onekitten has to be removed, but does this have to be the only way bosses deal damage?

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

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.

Last but not least one post of ArenaNet explaining how they think the whole no Trinity should work: http://gw2101.gtm.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/
I think nothing of it is implemented right now except of damage .

Why does it have to be nerfed when rarely anyone uses it? The amount of chastisement I get on this forum for even daring to mention it should be a good indicator that many people don’t, and don’t want to use it. Most people can’t even handle zerker gear. So why should the small minority of us who can actually use it be punished just because it’s the best gear?

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. This because it is a hard trinity that makes leveling healers a pain, and so reducing the number of people that take the time to level them.

But if you can level as a dps or tank, and then swap things around to go healer for a while, there would likely be more people willing to take up the mantle.

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.

Btw, 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.

And this is a large issue in groups, imo. No effective way for players to go “oh no you don’t” to a large mob trying to finish off a fellow player. The current aggro system is so opaque, people do not even know where to begin in attempting to manipulate mobs in that fashion.

Zerk gear shouldn’t be nerfed because it’s the best. The issue goes a long way past that.

The issue is simple : there is no stat on gear that serves any useful PvE role other than more DPS. Healing power? We don’t need healers so we don’t need it. Toughness? We don’t need tanks and have no situations we have to facetank unavoidable damage so we don’t need it.

Do you need some reflect damage for that boss tricky part? No gear stat helps. You want to perma blind that pack of hard hitting trash mod? No gear stat helps. You want to CC lock that pesky silver mobs? No gear stat helps.

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.

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).

Lampshade.7569:

Sometimes you start with the best of intentions, put a lot of effort in it, and yet the magic just doesnt happen.

I see a lot of ideas for dungeoneering, but consider this:

1) The same abilities have to stay viable for pvp/wvw.
2) New mechanics would require reworking all of the current dungeons.

To 1):

I can see how boosting heal skills might affect the pvp/wvw balance. The line of balance is a thin line, and it is not easily done. Of course it might look easy if I write down in a few words that healing power is heavily underperforming and could use a boost. I know that it is not, but I also know that the current balance is off in PvE.

Now with that said: PvP and WvW should probably first and foremost be the places where balance happens. This is where everyone feels it the most when it is off. If healing-bunkers become too powerful, there is not much fun to be had in PvP. If thieves become completely unkillable while roaming in WvW, neither is that.

You make a good point here about a rebalance of healing power being very difficult to do. Still, as of now, healing power scales bad for PvE. And though a general boost in all skills using healing power is probably impossible, and unfair, something will need to be done to make it worthwhile in PvE. (For instance, I think that when it comes to healing power, the guardian is in a pretty good spot, because even though the healing power isn’t affecting the healing skills by a large amount, he does have very many. So every bit of healing power he has is applied many more skills than what most other professions can bring at any given time.)

On a sidenote: Is clerics gear popular in PvP and WvW?

To 2):

Well, in a way yes. On the other hand, if they change future encounters, that is pretty good too. We’ve seen a pretty heavy AC revamp a while back. Revamping dungeons is something they are willing to do.

Lampshade.7569:

I agree that there could be forcefully made situations where you would have to heal a lot or die. And if the only way to do this would be to improve your own healing abilities, that would be great, and it would probably work well. But that would require the complete absence of skills that heal your allies, otherwise all the healing would be pushed off on some poor guardian healbot…

I am not very troubled by having the team push off most of the healing to some poor guardian healbot for a change. As long as it is still possible to do this with other professions aswell. When it comes to healing power, I realize that this is probably the hardest one to implement, because healing is currently so unevenly divided. In the ideal situation a team would have to find a way to somehow keep up regeneration on everyone and then add a few extra heals, like Super Elixir and Leeching Venoms/Venomous Aura.

To the teams with 3 guardians this would probably be super easy, while to other teams this might prove to be a real challenge. Which is what might result in specific group combinations. Now I am not against this, but I wouldn’t want to see the trinity return either.

So perhaps we can add a sidequest to an encounter like ‘A test of endurance’ where we can fight our way to an npc that will help out with the healing a bit. This would allow any team to make it through the encounter, but rewards people that come prepared by being able to save some time.

Lampshade.7569:

These were just a few of examples, your real problem is: In your revolutionary ideas, you do not consider the mechanics already in place and how much effort it would take to change them.

This is concerning mostly part 6 I believe. Well, considering the current mechanics as a whole is a hard thing to do. I have actually tried to do my best in doing so, but I have probably missed a lot. If you could provide some more detailed issues, this would be very helpful.

I realise that it would take a lot of effort to change game mechanics. But I am also someone who is pretty dedicated to this game and willing to give it time. I do not believe this can be fixed in a matter of months, or even a year. I do think that small steps can be made over time that will eventually lead to a better game.

The one thing I hope to do with this thread, is to find ways in which this can happen.

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)

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. On the other hand, they are one of those few effects that are particularly useful in a specific situation. At the moment however, I feel that they are a bit too effective. I really like your five attacks – suggestion. This would still allow them to shine in many situations, but doesn’t trivialize the encounter. It would also mean you have to time it well or position the party before putting the wall up since it can be gone so quickly.

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.

Firefly.5982:

If you suggest to implement mechanics that force to switch out UTILITY SKILLS for certain boss encounters – I am all for it.

If you suggest mechanics that require to run specific BUILDS or use specific WEAPONS for certain boss encounters – Hell No.
That is my short version

Well, optimally, these new mechanics and encounters would force people to switch utility skills to make it through.

In addition to that, they would reward running a specific build, using specific weapons. For example: I would like to have encounters that require pushes or pulls. This would mean that a guardian could bring Sanctuary, but also bringing a greatsword and a hammer would be even more effective.

If it is unrealistic for a given party to have enough pushes and pulls to their disposal, perhaps a weak environmental weapon can be found in the area that does a small push on a fairly long cooldown. This would allow for everyone to do it, but really reward those that can do it more efficiently.