Guild Wars 2

Just bringing an old topic back to attention. The combat system, while Anet tried to make something revolutionary, away from the trinity, is simply broken.

The main principle of the combat is:
- Everyone can heal/support (role 1)
- Everyone can deal damage (role 2)
- Everyone can tank (role 3)

The problem is… healing & tanking are incredibly undervalued in this game:

• As a healer you’ll do bad because:
  - PvE: you don’t need any healers.
  - PvP (i’m not talking about mechanics, I’m talking about the fighting): if you go healer, you lower the team’s damage and are nothing but a squishy fishy that can’t even fight back. It’s close to impossible to heal your allies because enemies eat through your health faster than you can heal it, aoe heals are limited to 5 persons and a lot of the heals actually miss because of the crazy movement skills in the game. On top of that, the self-heal is usually higher than anything the healer can do.

• As a tank you’ll do even worse because:
  - PvE: you don’t need tanks even less than healers because armour ratings make tiny tiny differences. 3,5k armor compared to 1,8k (lowest possible armor) means about 40% less damage (someone corrected this), while the person with just 2k armour will deal easily 300% more damage through his power/prec, conditions or both.
  - PvP: tanks are, like healers, weakening the team, because they contribute less damage and still take a lot because the armor ratings don’t make a big difference. Also the main defensive abilities are dodging and blocking, which are all abilities that can not be used to defend allies because you can’t do it for allies.

So what it comes down to is: damage dealing. The only role in this game is for dealing the most damage as possible in the shortest time, while trying to take as low damage as possible. Yes I’m aware most people run a hybrid build, but still a hybrid build that focuses on getting a lot of damage as the first stat.

This results in 2 strategies.

• Disabling enemies and dealing loads of direct damage in burst
• Stacking conditions on enemies to spike them down over time

Neither healers (players with ~1,5k healing power), neither tanks (people with 2k+ toughness) can do anything against these damage dealers, because:
- direct damage is reduced, but still deals an incredible amount against a regular tank
- condition damage isn’t even reduced by armour and can only be removed through condition removal, and not through heals

The combat becomes very much a matter of stunlocking and/or kiting, leaving barely any room for individual or team strategy because the main principle is take care of yourself.

I do agree for the most part. Theoretically, you take a bit of everything and create a hybrid as well, but I digress because I use a Berserker’s item in every slot.

Sirendor.1394:

the main principle is take care of yourself.

this is the problem. the game was designed so you don’t need to rely on anyone. this game is what happens when the developers got funding to make an mmorpg but secretly wanted to make an fps.

The “problem” with the combat is that you are trying to be a healer or a tank.
Seriously- you are looking at how to make the trinity effective in GW2- this is not possible because the game was not designed for it.

Personally I think the DPS- PvE meta we are seeing is because you are not alone in this- at least in part.
the other half of the equation is game design.
It is also at fault here because of the condition cap we all know about.

Fact is there are very many kinds of builds available and they are all interesting and mostly- touch wood- viable.
Players just find it very difficult to let go of the trinity and in it’s absence they go for the avenue of least resistance- which is DPS

i, and from the looks of it, many other people see this as a non-issue.

Your concept of how the combat system works is flawed:

“The combat system, while Anet tried to make something revolutionary, away from the trinity, is simply broken.

The main principle of the combat is:
– Everyone can heal/support (role 1)
– Everyone can deal damage (role 2)
– Everyone can tank (role 3)"

Wrong, but it’s an easy fix. Just add “simultaneously” to the above comment and you’ll find the combat is working as intended.

Wynne.3908:

Your concept of how the combat system works is flawed:

It is, but because the roles are support/damage/control. Yet the principle point of the OP I find to be mostly accurate.

Wrong, but it’s an easy fix. Just add “simultaneously” to the above comment and you’ll find the combat is working as intended.

The best (as deemed by the community) PvE builds are all ones that can provide the most damage, while providing some particularly useful function in the bulk of the encounters, usually by increasing team DPS. They’re all DPS-forward. I don’t know of any prominent control-forward PvE builds, and only a handful of support-forward builds (might stacking Ele being the most prominent of the bunch).

If there are really three distinct roles rather than just useful abilities (most of which directly involve team-DPS) welded on to DPS-forward builds, then this game is absolutely not working as intended.

In WvW, there’s more flexibility in support-forward builds and even outright tanks, but still no control-forward builds. I won’t speak to sPvP because I don’t have enough experience to speak about it.

The main principle of the combat is:
- Everyone can heal/support (role 1)
- Everyone can deal damage (role 2)
- Everyone can tank (role 3)

And this is the issue with your argument. These aren’t the main principles at all, if I’m understanding you correctly – that is, you’re saying that players can choose between tank, healer or DPS on every profession.

Firstly, ANet got rid of dedicated healers and roles dedicated to keeping aggro. Following that line of thought, shouldn’t that tell you that you shouldn’t be trying to play a dedicated support / damage / control?

Secondly, healing is only a small form of supporting others, and yet this is the only part you focus on. You even go as far as to expect a dedicated healer (which doesn’t exist, remember?) to be able to do a decent amount of healing to the point where it counteracts damage. In the post where ANet said why they got rid of dedicated healers, they said because they want a more proactive form of support (popping Protection just before a big hit), and less reactive (healing after the big hit).

Thirdly, there are no ‘tanks’ in that sense. There never was meant to be, as evidenced by the lack of aggro control abilities. Toughness is not meant to make you a juggernaut that can make you take hits while a dedicated support character focuses on keeping you alive. It’s more of a safety blanket than an iron shield. That’s the only purpose of such high-scaling defensive stats; when you’re the focus of the enemy. As for defensive abilities, such as blocking, they can actually be used to help team members, since you can intercept projectiles.

The actual principle is that, while in the flow of combat, you can have a character that is full on damage, or a hybrid that can move with the flows of battle when needed (going from damage to control, for example). Not having every profession fit into dedicated roles before you’ve even gone into the dungeon.

As for taking care of yourself, for the PvE side, maybe, but for PvP, especially WvW,I disagree.

However, this isn’t the same as me saying there aren’t flaws. I just feel what you’re stating as flaws aren’t actually inherently flaws.

Firstly, there are some mechanics that need improvement:

• Defiant – Needs to be changed so control is viable, but doesn’t allow for players to simply stunlock. Maybe have it not trigger if you interrupt, or have it decay over time.
• Conditions – Not so much an issue in dungeons with an organised group as in the open-world, and too effective in PvP.
• Boss attacks – more frequent, smaller hits, less big, one-shots.

Secondly, speaking from a PvE aspect, I don’t think it’s so much the fault as letting players build dedicated roles, as encounter design doesn’t utilise the depth that is there.

For example, we have control, boons, condition removal, conditions, damage, fields, traits to strengthen these aspects and so on.

However, most encounters a) either focus on damage or b) have mechanics that can be brute-forced through sheer damage.

The CoF effigy fight, in my eyes, is a good example.

You have 2 roles: destroying crystals and damaging the boss. Even if they’re more focused on the damage end, it’s still two roles (that is, your purpose in a fight). You still rely on the player to do their role properly.

However, one of them mechanics (destroying crystals) can simply be ignored through sheer damage (eased along with an unhealthy dose of Poison).

Now, say we tweaked this mechanic so:

• Alongside the (boosted) regen, the crystals also provide stacking damage + condition reduction.
• Destroying crystals applies a stacking DoT and Vulnerability to the player
• Bigger crystals occasionally spawn, that if the Effigy consumes it, it gains a barrier.

So, instead of just the damage aspect, we also have:

• Control – Stopping the effigy from going by the big crystal.
• Awareness of party members – knowing when to swap.

Then, for players to fully utilise their toolset, have encounters with a variety of mechanics. Maybe the boss before applies Burning and Bleeding frequently, meaning Condition Removal is needed.

TL:DR – Combat can be greatly improved by a) having a variety of mechanics, making players consider what skills to take and b) building roles into the fights with mechanics that can’t be brute-forced.

TheDaiBish.9735:

The main principle of the combat is:
- Everyone can heal/support (role 1)
- Everyone can deal damage (role 2)
- Everyone can tank (role 3)

And this is the issue with your argument. These aren’t the main principles at all, if I’m understanding you correctly – that is, you’re saying that players can choose between tank, healer or DPS on every profession.

I’m sorry I think you misread that part. I ment that each profession can heal/tank/deal damage, albeit simultaneously or apart. I tried gearing toward healing, toward tanking, toward raw dps, but I combined many hybrid builds aswell.

My criticism isn’t that there isn’t a holy trinity. I don’t mind that, though it seems that this combat system is more broken than the holy trinity system ever was.

My criticism is that damage (direct or conditioned) is the only thing that counts, next to ‘blocks’, ‘boons’, ‘dodges’ and that’s it. It makes combat a matter of:
- Using as much raw damage as possible without getting hit yourself
- Mitigating enemy damage by
a) disabling others
b) dodging
c) using boons
d) mitigating with skills (blocks, blinds, )

My main point is that combat becomes utterly meaningless if it’s all about stacking as much points in power/prec/crit OR condition damage, and then relying on CC, skills, dodges to evade damage. It’s pointless and it destroys every single support element in combat.

KingEsoteric.2067:

Wynne.3908:

Your concept of how the combat system works is flawed:

It is, but because the roles are support/damage/control. Yet the principle point of the OP I find to be mostly accurate.

Wrong, but it’s an easy fix. Just add “simultaneously” to the above comment and you’ll find the combat is working as intended.

The best (as deemed by the community) PvE builds are all ones that can provide the most damage, while providing some particularly useful function in the bulk of the encounters, usually by increasing team DPS. They’re all DPS-forward. I don’t know of any prominent control-forward PvE builds, and only a handful of support-forward builds (might stacking Ele being the most prominent of the bunch).

If there are really three distinct roles rather than just useful abilities (most of which directly involve team-DPS) welded on to DPS-forward builds, then this game is absolutely not working as intended.

In WvW, there’s more flexibility in support-forward builds and even outright tanks, but still no control-forward builds. I won’t speak to sPvP because I don’t have enough experience to speak about it.

My point is the OP insists the combat is broken, then goes on to list all the reasons why people can’t be a healer or a tank. Of course a player is going to fail at being a healer or a tank. That’s the whole point of the combat system is it not?

Wynne.3908:

KingEsoteric.2067:

Wynne.3908:

Your concept of how the combat system works is flawed:

It is, but because the roles are support/damage/control. Yet the principle point of the OP I find to be mostly accurate.

Wrong, but it’s an easy fix. Just add “simultaneously” to the above comment and you’ll find the combat is working as intended.

The best (as deemed by the community) PvE builds are all ones that can provide the most damage, while providing some particularly useful function in the bulk of the encounters, usually by increasing team DPS. They’re all DPS-forward. I don’t know of any prominent control-forward PvE builds, and only a handful of support-forward builds (might stacking Ele being the most prominent of the bunch).

If there are really three distinct roles rather than just useful abilities (most of which directly involve team-DPS) welded on to DPS-forward builds, then this game is absolutely not working as intended.

In WvW, there’s more flexibility in support-forward builds and even outright tanks, but still no control-forward builds. I won’t speak to sPvP because I don’t have enough experience to speak about it.

My point is the OP insists the combat is broken, then goes on to list all the reasons why people can’t be a healer or a tank. Of course a player is going to fail at being a healer or a tank. That’s the whole point of the combat system is it not?

Agreed it’s the point of their combat system. They wanted to do away with the trinity, but instead of 3 areas, they now have only 1 and that’s dps. So is their game richer now because we only have 1 option: going full damage?

Now mobs in-game are another matter entirely. Being mostly a PvE/Dungeon guy myself I find it interesting that people are finding build diversity to be more flexible in WvW. If this is the case I’d have to point at poor enemy design in PvE rather than a lack of viable builds as the main reason OP is frustrated.

Well everything is so easy that you don’t really need support. They should make so hard content that you can’t complete it without support classes.

It’s not broken. It’s just the way it was designed. It was an experiment, and in my opinion, it wasn’t executed well.

It was a nice theory, but trinity mmos give more control, and less chaos. Seeing everyone dodge and run every minute, looks ridiculous.

The AI needs to conform with this combat system via a threat mechanic, instead of running around with it’s head cut off. If every class had a taunt skill, there would be more control. Even if that taunt was around 5 secs, with a long cooldown, it would provide stability. There would be more coordination, and if Person A taunted first, and was about to die, Person B could taunt it off, or the other Persons could use combos on Person A and heal him.

The combat isn’t great, and i’m sure A-net knows this, but it’s too late to change the combat. It would require a “NGE”, and we all know what happened to SWG when that happened. They would have to revamp the AI, player skills, dungeons, SPvP, WvW.. etc..
It’s not going to happen.

Wynne.3908:

Now mobs in-game are another matter entirely. Being mostly a PvE/Dungeon guy myself I find it interesting that people are finding build diversity to be more flexible in WvW. If this is the case I’d have to point at poor enemy design in PvE rather than a lack of viable builds as the main reason OP is frustrated.

Encounters and Players are intertwined. There’s virtually no such thing as it being just an encounter problem: if the skills don’t fit the environment, it’s usually both that can be adjusted to encourage the desired effect.

In WvW, there are more builds because all the weaknesses of a person’s build can be washed away with simple numbers. Sub-optimal builds get herd immunity in WvW zerg combat.

nexxe.7081:

There would be more coordination, and if Person A taunted first, and was about to die, Person B could taunt it off, or the other Persons could use combos on Person A and heal him.

Except this tactic is already in the game in the form of stuns, knockdowns, knockbacks, and pulls.

TheDaiBish.9735:

nexxe.7081:

There would be more coordination, and if Person A taunted first, and was about to die, Person B could taunt it off, or the other Persons could use combos on Person A and heal him.

Except this tactic is already in the game in the form of stuns, knockdowns, knockbacks, and pulls.

Yes, but the mob would still be randomly attacking anyone, instead of focusing on the player who taunted. Those skills aren’t as effective, especially in large zergs in the open-world.

Guild Wars 2 combat in a nutshell:

-everyone is dps so gear berserker
-stack
-hit dodge once in a while to avoid damage. Good luck seeing through particle spam
-rez people who are downed. Dying is okay because you can rez an infinite number of times

I just have this unsubstantiated belief/hope, that if you had five people with a well thought out, balanced build, go head-to-head against a DPS-first type build, given equal skill that the balanced will steamroll anyone anytime. Granted I have no proof of this. This is what GW1 taught me

TheDaiBish.9735:

nexxe.7081:

There would be more coordination, and if Person A taunted first, and was about to die, Person B could taunt it off, or the other Persons could use combos on Person A and heal him.

Except this tactic is already in the game in the form of stuns, knockdowns, knockbacks, and pulls.

Not the same, and since no one groups thanks to open tagging and shared resources, there’s no communication to pull this stuff off.

But think if some boss would wipe whole zerg and players wouldn’t get any reward. Kitten they would rage like crazy in forums.

Wynne.3908:

I just have this unsubstantiated belief/hope, that if you had five people with a well thought out, balanced build, go head-to-head against a DPS-first type build, given equal skill that the balanced will steamroll anyone anytime. Granted I have no proof of this. This is what GW1 taught me

The full DPS (condi included) will win so long as they have enough damage mitigation and enough group stuns. Take the incredible hammer warriors. I’m not going to lie, I played it… and it’s overpowered because it has a combo of superior damage, a lot of damage mitigation and disabling for enemies. I can run in a fight 1 v 3 and kill each one off without problems (even fought 1v4 in Team Arena and came out alive). The only thing that can stop me is stability for the opponents, and even then nobody will ever kill me unless I do something incredibly stupid.

Zeldain.5710:

TheDaiBish.9735:

nexxe.7081:

There would be more coordination, and if Person A taunted first, and was about to die, Person B could taunt it off, or the other Persons could use combos on Person A and heal him.

Except this tactic is already in the game in the form of stuns, knockdowns, knockbacks, and pulls.

Not the same, and since no one groups thanks to open tagging and shared resources, there’s no communication to pull this stuff off.

I was referring more to instanced content, which is more focused on groups.

I also fail to see what shared resources (I’m assuming you mean nodes) and open tagging have anything to do with the conversation, but OK.

nexxe.7081:

Yes, but the mob would still be randomly attacking anyone, instead of focusing on the player who taunted. Those skills aren’t as effective, especially in large zergs in the open-world.

Well, since you mentioned the Trinity, I assumed we were talking about instances, since the Trinity is rarely used in the open-world anyway.

Sirendor.1394:

My main point is that combat becomes utterly meaningless if it’s all about stacking as much points in power/prec/crit OR condition damage, and then relying on CC, skills, dodges to evade damage. It’s pointless and it destroys every single support element in combat.

In terms of PvE, is this the combat systems fault, or encounter design for not utilising these aspects?

I keep speaking in terms of PvE, since I don’t have much in the way of experience of high-end PvP.

Sirendor.1394:

Wynne.3908:

I just have this unsubstantiated belief/hope, that if you had five people with a well thought out, balanced build, go head-to-head against a DPS-first type build, given equal skill that the balanced will steamroll anyone anytime. Granted I have no proof of this. This is what GW1 taught me

The full DPS (condi included) will win so long as they have enough damage mitigation and enough group stuns. Take the incredible hammer warriors. I’m not going to lie, I played it… and it’s overpowered because it has a combo of superior damage, a lot of damage mitigation and disabling for enemies. I can run in a fight 1 v 3 and kill each one off without problems (even fought 1v4 in Team Arena and came out alive). The only thing that can stop me is stability for the opponents, and even then nobody will ever kill me unless I do something incredibly stupid.

Yeah but this isn’t GW1. I’m saying my Balanced team will outperform your DPS team everywhere in GW2, PvE/PvP/WvW. I just can’t prove it. On the other hand you can’t prove your case either.

Wynne.3908:

Sirendor.1394:

Wynne.3908:

I just have this unsubstantiated belief/hope, that if you had five people with a well thought out, balanced build, go head-to-head against a DPS-first type build, given equal skill that the balanced will steamroll anyone anytime. Granted I have no proof of this. This is what GW1 taught me

The full DPS (condi included) will win so long as they have enough damage mitigation and enough group stuns. Take the incredible hammer warriors. I’m not going to lie, I played it… and it’s overpowered because it has a combo of superior damage, a lot of damage mitigation and disabling for enemies. I can run in a fight 1 v 3 and kill each one off without problems (even fought 1v4 in Team Arena and came out alive). The only thing that can stop me is stability for the opponents, and even then nobody will ever kill me unless I do something incredibly stupid.

Yeah but this isn’t GW1. I’m saying my Balanced team will outperform your DPS team everywhere in GW2, PvE/PvP/WvW. I just can’t prove it. On the other hand you can’t prove your case either.

You’d have to define “balanced” and “outperform” or we might as well just start talking about pogs or something for all the discussion will do.

Wynne.3908:

Sirendor.1394:

Wynne.3908:

I just have this unsubstantiated belief/hope, that if you had five people with a well thought out, balanced build, go head-to-head against a DPS-first type build, given equal skill that the balanced will steamroll anyone anytime. Granted I have no proof of this. This is what GW1 taught me

The full DPS (condi included) will win so long as they have enough damage mitigation and enough group stuns. Take the incredible hammer warriors. I’m not going to lie, I played it… and it’s overpowered because it has a combo of superior damage, a lot of damage mitigation and disabling for enemies. I can run in a fight 1 v 3 and kill each one off without problems (even fought 1v4 in Team Arena and came out alive). The only thing that can stop me is stability for the opponents, and even then nobody will ever kill me unless I do something incredibly stupid.

Yeah but this isn’t GW1. I’m saying my Balanced team will outperform your DPS team everywhere in GW2, PvE/PvP/WvW. I just can’t prove it. On the other hand you can’t prove your case either.

Where did I mention GW1? I’m talking about full zerk warrior in GW2. A full damage team will outperform any other in PvE and it will wreck anyone in WvW. You don’t need to prove your case, because I have tried full dps vs. any other kind of build, and dps always comes out on top.

Sirendor.1394:

Wynne.3908:

Sirendor.1394:

Wynne.3908:

I just have this unsubstantiated belief/hope, that if you had five people with a well thought out, balanced build, go head-to-head against a DPS-first type build, given equal skill that the balanced will steamroll anyone anytime. Granted I have no proof of this. This is what GW1 taught me

The full DPS (condi included) will win so long as they have enough damage mitigation and enough group stuns. Take the incredible hammer warriors. I’m not going to lie, I played it… and it’s overpowered because it has a combo of superior damage, a lot of damage mitigation and disabling for enemies. I can run in a fight 1 v 3 and kill each one off without problems (even fought 1v4 in Team Arena and came out alive). The only thing that can stop me is stability for the opponents, and even then nobody will ever kill me unless I do something incredibly stupid.

Yeah but this isn’t GW1. I’m saying my Balanced team will outperform your DPS team everywhere in GW2, PvE/PvP/WvW. I just can’t prove it. On the other hand you can’t prove your case either.

Where did I mention GW1? I’m talking about full zerk warrior in GW2. A full damage team will outperform any other in PvE and it will wreck anyone in WvW. You don’t need to prove your case, because I have tried full dps vs. any other kind of build, and dps always comes out on top.

I have tried full dps vs. any other kind of build

I doubt that.

This is a topic that I have put a lot of thought into. And until this is coming back as a CDI with proper dev interaction, I think I’ll just leave a link to my thoughts here:
Endgame PvE – Difficulty comes down to dodging

It is a long read, but I daresay it is worth your time. TheDaiBish’s ideas here come really close to mine.

Wynne.3908:

Sirendor.1394:

Wynne.3908:

I just have this unsubstantiated belief/hope, that if you had five people with a well thought out, balanced build, go head-to-head against a DPS-first type build, given equal skill that the balanced will steamroll anyone anytime. Granted I have no proof of this. This is what GW1 taught me

The full DPS (condi included) will win so long as they have enough damage mitigation and enough group stuns. Take the incredible hammer warriors. I’m not going to lie, I played it… and it’s overpowered because it has a combo of superior damage, a lot of damage mitigation and disabling for enemies. I can run in a fight 1 v 3 and kill each one off without problems (even fought 1v4 in Team Arena and came out alive). The only thing that can stop me is stability for the opponents, and even then nobody will ever kill me unless I do something incredibly stupid.

Yeah but this isn’t GW1. I’m saying my Balanced team will outperform your DPS team everywhere in GW2, PvE/PvP/WvW. I just can’t prove it. On the other hand you can’t prove your case either.

Put a well balanced team that know an encounter in pve vs a full zerker team that also know an encounter, the zerker team will always come out on top, and i mean ALWAYS.

As you could spend say 30 seconds on a boss when in zerker vs the balanced team in a mix of healing power/toughness gear, the same fight could take say 2 minutes. Why bother trying to heal or tank the damage being done by the boss when you could just finish the boss before he can even get a few hits on your party.

I’m not sure why the OP is talking about soaking and healing damage. That’s not GW2 and not relevant. The 3 main principles of MMO combat are not the 3 main principles of GW2 combat. A thief can continually stand in front of a group of enemies, continually blind them, and take no damage. Is that tanking? Does the thief need healing?

For the OP:

Watch GW2 Combat System 101 Video:

Watch HOW-TO-Build-Your-Class Video:

Now you understand how the combat works. The system is NOT Broken, it’s different from other MMORPGs. Either learn to play it and enjoy it for what it is, or you could always play other games that suits your needs better.

Good luck!

Here is the full guide:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/GW2-Combat-system-101-Guide/first

Its broken for him cause cant get over the so called TRINITY! Gw2 was successful getting rid of this crap and it is working as intended….

WingLegacy.7159:

Its broken for him cause cant get over the so called TRINITY! Gw2 was successful getting rid of this crap and it is working like intended.

lol Yeah, GW2’s combat has so much depth.
My videos and guide pretty much explains and shows that clearly.

The problem is, you get players that come from other games like WoW and they expect it to play like it. GW2 is a game for people who want a different kind of game, not the same thing with different skin and title.

Its for people who want something New.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

WingLegacy.7159:

Its broken for him cause cant get over the so called TRINITY! Gw2 was successful getting rid of this crap and it is working like intended.

lol Yeah, GW2’s combat has so much depth.
My videos and guide pretty much explains and shows that clearly.

The problem is, you get players that come from other games like WoW and they expect it to play like it. GW2 is a game for people who want a different kind of game, not the same thing with different skin and title.

Its for people who want something New.

You mean a kind of game where there is only one way to gear and combat is reduced to stacking? When the only role is DPS, your profession is irrelevant. The highest DPS is taken, which is why warriors are so popular.

Dark Catalyst.1028:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

WingLegacy.7159:

Its broken for him cause cant get over the so called TRINITY! Gw2 was successful getting rid of this crap and it is working like intended.

lol Yeah, GW2’s combat has so much depth.
My videos and guide pretty much explains and shows that clearly.

The problem is, you get players that come from other games like WoW and they expect it to play like it. GW2 is a game for people who want a different kind of game, not the same thing with different skin and title.

Its for people who want something New.

You mean a kind of game where there is only one way to gear and combat is reduced to stacking? When the only role is DPS, your profession is irrelevant. The highest DPS is taken, which is why warriors are so popular.

Yeah, Thank God GW2 is not like that game. =)

Dark Catalyst.1028:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

WingLegacy.7159:

Its broken for him cause cant get over the so called TRINITY! Gw2 was successful getting rid of this crap and it is working like intended.

lol Yeah, GW2’s combat has so much depth.
My videos and guide pretty much explains and shows that clearly.

The problem is, you get players that come from other games like WoW and they expect it to play like it. GW2 is a game for people who want a different kind of game, not the same thing with different skin and title.

Its for people who want something New.

You mean a kind of game where there is only one way to gear and combat is reduced to stacking? When the only role is DPS, your profession is irrelevant. The highest DPS is taken, which is why warriors are so popular.

Stacking is one way to get a boss down fast. But is not always effective depends on which dungeon/event your running…but you cant call it broken.

Morrigan.2809:

The “problem” with the combat is that you are trying to be a healer or a tank.
Seriously- you are looking at how to make the trinity effective in GW2- this is not possible because the game was not designed for it.

Personally I think the DPS- PvE meta we are seeing is because you are not alone in this- at least in part.
the other half of the equation is game design.
It is also at fault here because of the condition cap we all know about.

Fact is there are very many kinds of builds available and they are all interesting and mostly- touch wood- viable.
Players just find it very difficult to let go of the trinity and in it’s absence they go for the avenue of least resistance- which is DPS

No way now, don’t say there are many “viable” builds that go fine here…at least not for PVE-dungeon runners. That’s a matter of highest dps, always and only. You can give 25 stacks of bleeding and poison to a boss and it’ll fight as it had no condition for how bad they impact fights. Builds exist, they are fun but they are not, in any way not even close, as good as dps.

Pip.2094:

No way now, don’t say there are many “viable” builds that go fine here

Builds exist, they are fun but they are not, in any way not even close, as good as dps.

Viable and optimal are two different things.

Obviously you are only talking about PvE. And obviously full zerk only works because PvE isn’t hard enough.

No, in gw2 not every profession can do DPS/Tank/heal

it’s ( but not every class is as good) Damage/control/support

And it’s trough, Support isn’t just healing, banner warriors, who give passive buffs, are also supporting, control (or CC) is stunning/crippling/imob/… the enemy and Damage is, well damage.

The game looks broken to you, because you are building around DPS/Tank/healer, and you can’t build around that in GW2.

Morrigan.2809:

The “problem” with the combat is that you are trying to be a healer or a tank.
Seriously- you are looking at how to make the trinity effective in GW2- this is not possible because the game was not designed for it.

Personally I think the DPS- PvE meta we are seeing is because you are not alone in this- at least in part.
the other half of the equation is game design.
It is also at fault here because of the condition cap we all know about.

Fact is there are very many kinds of builds available and they are all interesting and mostly- touch wood- viable.
Players just find it very difficult to let go of the trinity and in it’s absence they go for the avenue of least resistance- which is DPS

Perfectly said.

Sirendor.1394:

• As a tank you’ll do even worse because:
  - PvE: you don’t need tanks even less than healers because armour ratings make tiny tiny differences. 3,5k armor compared to 2k (lowest possible armor) means about 20% less damage, while the person with 2k damage will deal easily 300% more damage.

Lowest possible armor for a light armor class in full exotics is 1836. And at least for heavy armor classes, you can get over 40% damage reduction from armor and still do decent damage. Of course by no means the highest damage possible (aka full zerker), but at least decent.

But yeah, it is well known that the effect of offensive stats on attack power is higher than the effect of defensive stats on survivability. That doesn’t mean that they’re worthless, though. You just need to know how much of those you’ll need for what you’re planning to do.

I think being able to take care of yourself and not depend on anyone is the reason GW2 is as of right now, the only mmo I play.

WingLegacy.7159:

Its broken for him cause cant get over the so called TRINITY! Gw2 was successful getting rid of this crap and it is working as intended….

Yah, but noone told the people designing the bosses. Succeeded with changing our perspective, failed to convince the bosses to change.

I’ll tell you this, I will NEVER run berserker mode in sPvP simply because you die far too fast and then have to wait around to respawn and those times can be lengthy at times. I pitty ANY fool who thinks having a survival build over pure damage is the wrong way to go.

The same goes for WvW, except for the fact that dying sends you all the way back to your nearest wp or base AND you usually have to pay for repairs.

The combat system is NOT broken in this game. Simply YOUR view of it is. There are NOT meant to be healer roles. There ARE meant to be survival builds who can also offer SUPPORT healing. There are NOT meant to be pure tanks in this game. There ARE survival (again) builds who can last in fights vs champs/big groups of mobs for far longer than pure damage builds.

The only problem with GW2’s combat is that most content can be defeated by zergs, which reduces the need to use any build other than DPS. Also, DPS builds often increase your chances of getting gold in events, because event achievements are often based on how much damage you deal (especially champ events).

I also agree with Morrigan, in that most players want the trinity and are trying to play the game that way and failing, so turn to the only build that works well for them.

One of my Guardian builds is support focused and I can see that I am contributing to the team, even though I may not get rewarded as much.

If rewards and events were improved to encourage and require more support based builds, I feel this would go a long way to improve people’s perceptions of the combat system in GW2.

Combat is not completely broken, most of WvW combats are fine.

You can save a buddy with protection / healing from time to time, but not make him invincible, by game design.

Still, PvE content is not enough challenging.

As long as you can do most of the content just with Zerk stuff, people will massively use it. But Nightmare tower was fine in difficulty, I wish more content like this will be released in 2014.

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

Dark Catalyst.1028:

DreamyAbaddon.3265:

WingLegacy.7159:

Its broken for him cause cant get over the so called TRINITY! Gw2 was successful getting rid of this crap and it is working like intended.

lol Yeah, GW2’s combat has so much depth.
My videos and guide pretty much explains and shows that clearly.

The problem is, you get players that come from other games like WoW and they expect it to play like it. GW2 is a game for people who want a different kind of game, not the same thing with different skin and title.

Its for people who want something New.

You mean a kind of game where there is only one way to gear and combat is reduced to stacking? When the only role is DPS, your profession is irrelevant. The highest DPS is taken, which is why warriors are so popular.

Yeah, Thank God GW2 is not like that game. =)

Sarcasm much. GW2 IS exactly what Dark catalyst expresses. They have killed 2 elements of the trinity in favor of one, making balance impossible and the skill required for combat laughable.

Paulytnz.7619:

I’ll tell you this, I will NEVER run berserker mode in sPvP simply because you die far too fast and then have to wait around to respawn and those times can be lengthy at times. I pitty ANY fool who thinks having a survival build over pure damage is the wrong way to go.

I’m talking about direct and condition damage. Pure dps is the best way to go as long as you have enough damage mitigation in dodges, blinds, blocks or you have endless CC (warrior).
Hybrid builds that focus on high dps and average armour are probably what you need if you don’t have enough damage mitigation through dodge/block/disable.

In any case, the balance is off. If you have 200 more power, 200 less toughness, someone else has 200 less power, 200 more toughness, by all means, you will kill that person so long as you are equally skilled.

I run full clerics shout guardian. I feel super effective at playing support/healing.

99% of players ahve never even tried healing gear much less to the point that they’re good with it……………….that’s the reality of it.