Guild Wars 2

I believe there’s no need to articulate the issue. So i’ll get straight to solution. Guild Wars’s 2 biggest crime in terms of PvE is that while it has a great character skill build system (numerous stat combos on gear, varied skills and traits), it lacks proper PvE incentive to try anything else then “kill them fast”.

Proper enemy mechanics and unique attack and defense patterns on them are in order. The superbosses like teq (immune to crits) or jungle wurm (high resistance to physical attacks but not conditions) are a start. But more is needed. Here are few of my ideas for new monster mechanics.

1. Aoe damage/shielding zone around a monster – the enemy is enveloped with a protective field that damages anyone inside it while also gradually lowers damage of any attack flying into it. The closer to the center (which is monster itself) the greater the damage, but lower defense value.

Any melee attacker will have to get up close and swallow constant, pulsing damage at it’s max. Here’s where having higher hp, higher armor and protection/regen comes into play. Glass cannons could not hope to endure such condition for long without proper healing in place.

Range attackers will have to face either sniping at range, but watching their damage dwindle as their shots move through the whole area of field facing it’s fulll defensive power, or moving closer, taking some damage, but having their own reduced by less.

Condition appliers would be in best situation, since the physical part of attack might be reduced by the field, but conditions are not, and can be applied from afar.

2. Enemies armed with nasty bouncing projectiles that do splash damage on hit, but have limited range of bounce. Stacking parties get to eat all of it, spread out parties wouldn’t be hurt too much.

3. High risk moments for physical attackers – for example that retalliation of mordrem wolves. But it can be pushed even further, for example moments when a beast will reflect 1/2 damage it receives back to attacker.

4. monster frenzy mechanic – noticing players hp drop low monster might enrage itself gaining boost to it’s speed, damage and using more lethal attacks. Obviously glass cannons who forgot their defense will be #1 fodder for such beasts.

5. Monster adaptation to attack. You attack monster with powerful physical attacks – it goes into physicall defense mode reducing damage heavily, while becoming susceptible to conditions. If you go with conditions, it’ll start clensing them off, but that will block it’s physical defense mode. Either one or the other. Obviously, condition damage would have to reach proper level of damage per second for the beast to choose condi clense instead of turtling from regular attacks.

6. Intimidating defense. If party defends well and a monster can’t lower any of it’s member’s hp below certain percentage it can become afraid and more susceptible to damage at least for a while. Of course that mechanic require that given beats has proper array of attacks that will thorougly test party’s defenses.

Well it ain’t perfect, but you get the general idea. Make those wild, rabid, carnivourous (or herbivourous in sylvari’s case!) beasts give those glass cannons a run for their money!

And a new meta will evolve!

Then posts will be “Idea to solve New meta”

There is no problem with the zerker meta. Please see the current other thread for more discussion on why it is not a problem.

for point 2:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Alphard,_Serpent_of_the_Waves

There are plenty of mobs with those mechanics already, a fair chunk of them in arah exp.

People QQ its too hard and don’t do it.

This type of thing has been bought up soo many times. Wish search worked.

Arah, here i come!

Firstly, great effort.. nice job!
On the other hand, I don’t really think there is an ’’issue’’ to solve. I simply don’t think that Anet has issues finding a new ’’meta’’, they rather want it to be this way.. for now at least.

I wonder if the devs are as annoyed with the people complaining about berserker gear as the rest of us are.

I’d probably be cringing in my seat there while on shift wishing I could throw down the banhammer ._.

I think the new LS enemy mechanics we’ve been seeing since the introduction of the Silverwastes is leaning towards some of these ideas to an extent. I’d argue that the common berserker stats aren’t the issue and that it’s the painfully easy AI we’ve been fighting these past 2 years. They are easily pulled around corners still and use extremely predictable moves while not showing any ability to react to player reflects, position, etc. For most of these enemies, the easiest strategy is often to use their weak AI against them by predicting their attacks and bursting them to nothing during windows of opportunity.

Although I’m not in favor of making nerfs to players to end this supposed “zerker meta,” I am completely in favor of adding new challenging AI and enemy combat mechanics into the game. We have a long way to go before the GW2 AI will ever make them as dangerous as enemy players, but new and interesting PvE enemy combat mechanics such as the ones you listed would be pretty fun in my opinion. I think there is a major problem with the stack-and-smash berserker strategy, but the problem is less with the players’ ability to adapt and more with the AI’s inability to adapt.

These are my opinions on the matter. I’m in favor of changes like these to PvE enemies.

Purple Miku.7032:

I wonder if the devs are as annoyed with the people complaining about berserker gear as the rest of us are.

I’d probably be cringing in my seat there while on shift wishing I could throw down the banhammer ._.

Trust me, they throw infractions left and right, just not against the persons you would expect.

The only real problem the berserker meta has ever had was that you had the entire other side of the damage coin that was being ignored because it was being greatly outperformed. They have finally found a way to correct that, between higher monster toughness and a new gear stat with condition damage as it’s main stat.
Defensive stats DO have a purpose, for those people who aren’t skilled enough to run full damage gear in any given situation to have the additional armor or health to survive. Not everyone needs it, but for those that do it keeps them alive.
Yes there are people who get carried in full damage gear by being dependent on other classes mechanics to survive, but that is an entirely other matter that it looks like the new boss designs will sort out.

Oh let’s beat this dead horse again. There is zero content in the game that requires the “zerker meta”. People list zerker to farm gold. If you don’t want to farm gold and just want to play whatever random build you want then join any of the 75% of groups that don’t ask you do to efficient DPS. What I hear when I see whining about this mythical “zerker meta” is people who are jealous of those who bother to learn their class and learn fight mechanics and see the payoff in more gold per hour. No matter what change is made the top % of players will find the most efficient method and it will filter down to the gold farmers and the new “meta” as you call it will form. Zerker isn’t the problem, the idealistic goal of making every group compatible with every player is.

3 topics on the first page about this “problem” wasn’t enough?

Starting to wonder if the same people who made mount threads every 15 minutes are just on to something new these days.

Dramen Maidria.1034:

The only real problem the berserker meta has ever had was that you had the entire other side of the damage coin that was being ignored because it was being greatly outperformed. They have finally found a way to correct that, between higher monster toughness and a new gear stat with condition damage as it’s main stat.
Defensive stats DO have a purpose, for those people who aren’t skilled enough to run full damage gear in any given situation to have the additional armor or health to survive. Not everyone needs it, but for those that do it keeps them alive.
Yes there are people who get carried in full damage gear by being dependent on other classes mechanics to survive, but that is an entirely other matter that it looks like the new boss designs will sort out.

At some point i have to disagree with defensive stats offering highter survival in this game. Why? Aggro is based on toughness. Everytime i put my wvw set (2,8k armor) on dung i draw the whole aggro of every possible mob in the dungeon while zerks are free to dps without worrying about taking hits. Zerk is fine, but aggro needs to be reworked.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Dramen Maidria.1034:

The only real problem the berserker meta has ever had was that you had the entire other side of the damage coin that was being ignored because it was being greatly outperformed. They have finally found a way to correct that, between higher monster toughness and a new gear stat with condition damage as it’s main stat.
Defensive stats DO have a purpose, for those people who aren’t skilled enough to run full damage gear in any given situation to have the additional armor or health to survive. Not everyone needs it, but for those that do it keeps them alive.
Yes there are people who get carried in full damage gear by being dependent on other classes mechanics to survive, but that is an entirely other matter that it looks like the new boss designs will sort out.

At some point i have to disagree with defensive stats offering highter survival in this game. Why? Aggro is based on toughness. Everytime i put my wvw set (2,8k armor) on dung i draw the whole aggro of every possible mob in the dungeon while zerks are free to dps without worrying about taking hits. Zerk is fine, but aggro needs to be reworked.

Can you go into details because many of us experienced the opposite of that.

Dalanor.5387:

Scoobaniec.9561:

Dramen Maidria.1034:

The only real problem the berserker meta has ever had was that you had the entire other side of the damage coin that was being ignored because it was being greatly outperformed. They have finally found a way to correct that, between higher monster toughness and a new gear stat with condition damage as it’s main stat.
Defensive stats DO have a purpose, for those people who aren’t skilled enough to run full damage gear in any given situation to have the additional armor or health to survive. Not everyone needs it, but for those that do it keeps them alive.
Yes there are people who get carried in full damage gear by being dependent on other classes mechanics to survive, but that is an entirely other matter that it looks like the new boss designs will sort out.

At some point i have to disagree with defensive stats offering highter survival in this game. Why? Aggro is based on toughness. Everytime i put my wvw set (2,8k armor) on dung i draw the whole aggro of every possible mob in the dungeon while zerks are free to dps without worrying about taking hits. Zerk is fine, but aggro needs to be reworked.

Can you go into details because many of us experienced the opposite of that.

No idea about what details you asking for.

When i run full zerk setup i dont have to worry much about drawing aggro, so in the end i have easier time to survive as i dont have to dodge all that much or using defensive skills to stay alive.

When i put my wvw gear and traits i have the whole aggro on me in party where everyone else has zerk setup.

So the question is, which setup carries me actually? Wvw or zerk? For me answer is obvious – zerk. So much about skill..

I’ll just leave this here….

I actually smiled when I saw that somebody had made another thread.
It’s comforting in a sense. The future may hold many unknown elements for me and I may be forced to go down paths that I may have never imagined.
I might face incredible luck or abysmal unfortune but there’s one thing I know and can take some small modicum of comfort in :

There will always be someone posting another thread about how to fix the meta.

Dramen Maidria.1034:

Defensive stats DO have a purpose, for those people who aren’t skilled enough to run full damage gear in any given situation to have the additional armor or health to survive. Not everyone needs it, but for those that do it keeps them alive.

That is sidestepping the difficulty of the challenge. Something which should only be determined by the difficulty of the dungeon or encounter, not gear.

The game’s shallow mechanics don’t allow for aenough dimensions for expressing skill, so it all gets so kitten boring, and renders a whole swath of build and gear combinations as suboptimal by default.

Choosing between playing well and just playing how you want is not a real choice at all if you care about actually getting better at the game.

The game requires base mechanical changes to the way in which ability scaling works in order to truly get to that point, in addition to better encounter design.

For instance, the addition of a guard stance to punish an enemy’s attack when properly timed, leaves the enemy in an altered state which makes them vulnerable to further damage, meaning people in more defensive gear will both be able to take advantage of not needing to get away from the enemy as often, since it will not cancel out damage like a dodge, but still serve to further the goal of killing the enemy. It will require a different skill set in comparison to a person in more offensive gear, but serve to kill the enemy just as efficiently when mastered.

A guy in tanky gear doesn’t have to dodge> It’s a dps gain over dodging> your suggestion is already implemented

oxtred.7658:

A guy in tanky gear doesn’t have to dodge> It’s a dps gain over dodging> your suggestion is already implemented

No it isn’t. If it were, that would be another imbalance entirely. There has to be mechanics put in place to have the player actively take advantage of their sturdier character in order to deal equivelant damage in a scenario where they are expected to go toe to toe with the enemy.

As it is now, enemy attacks on the whole are not dangerous enough to make someone in offensive gear back off for a significant enough amount of time that the extra defense would even things out. Plus, that would be very annoying for the offensively geared person if it were implemented that way.

Croc.5129:

oxtred.7658:

A guy in tanky gear doesn’t have to dodge> It’s a dps gain over dodging> your suggestion is already implemented

No it isn’t. If it were, that would be another imbalance entirely. There has to be mechanics put in place to have the player actively take advantage of their sturdier character in order to deal equivelant damage in a scenario where they are expected to go toe to toe with the enemy.

As it is now, enemy attacks on the whole are not dangerous enough to make someone in offensive gear back off for a significant enough amount of time that the extra defense would even things out. Plus, that would be very annoying for the offensively geared person if it were implemented that way.

I would love to make a compilation of every enemy in the game that can one shot a berserker geared player for you, but it would would take too long. Zerkers are already punished plenty for misusing active defenses. It’s hard to notice sometimes b/c they are very powerful and timing is easy once you’ve learned enemy mechanics. To say that enemies don’t do enough damage to is just wrong though. There are even enemies who will one or two shot a fully defensive spec for that matter.

Anet likes their ‘metrics’. If there wasn’t GEAR diversity at all, like is claimed, then perhaps they might make some changes. The fact that there appears to be no shortage of players running around in non-DPS gear sets (just look at all the “die zerker’s!!!”, “boo to the zerker meta!!”, etc threads that appear) would suggest that there is am rather vast community of non-meta players in the game. Perhaps the significant difference is the meta players have learned and taken initiative to group with like-minded players while the anti-meta crowd just kitten and moan and expect Anet to police the game and solve their PERCIEVED ‘problems’ for them. Maybe you guys should all band together and develope consistency among yourselves. Or…you could play a little bit of devil’s advocate and wear nothing but berserker gear, PROVING that NO OTHER gear is useful or desired.

Creating unsubstantiated threads rapid fire on the forums will ‘solve’ nothing though. These threads aren’t some novel, new thing. They’ve been droning on for almost two years now and have yet to make a point that isn’t derived from emotions or anecdotes.

The problem is that any blanket nerf to zerker means warrior and guardian get pushed up more as the de facto classes since they have the highest innate survival.

What needs nerfing is might and fury stacking and banners.

Then what you can do is make mobs that are more vulnerable to condition damage so bringing a condi class to the comp is advantageous.

And both aegis and reflect walls from guardian need nerfing, as well as thief black powder so classes with debuffs like necromancer can shine.

Another design issue is that bosses have basically immunity to debilitating conditions so while a guardian and ele and warrior boons work fine on bosses, the encromancer and ranger niches of condi hybrids suck.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

I believe there’s no need to articulate the issue.

Then no need to articulate any solution. By not describing what you feel is a problem, you are jut showing that there isn’t any problem.
Now I guess there are enough already opened thread about the matter on first page, just reading them show all arguments in favor of something like what we already have and those in favor of changes like yours. By now I would say it is clear :
*there is no Zerker meta, Berserker is about gear, not build. The meta build don’t only revolve around maxing power, berserker gear does.
*If one only see groups asking for meta and/or zerker gear it is because the other groups (no stress, phiw, slow pace, no skip… call them how you like) are filled way more quicker and doesn’t appear long on the lfg window…. create your own group and you will see.
*If solution like yours were implemented, there is no reasons to also implement enrage timers to have dps check, “scared” debuff on boss when they take to much damage too rapidly that make them unable to act for some seconds. Balance goes in every direction.
*The game is “soft” enough to let everyone play how he wants, 5-man healer dungeons can be cleared, it will just be longer while more open to mistakes.
*If one want to play something else than berserker gear and meta build, the first thing is to find the right people to do it. If you fall when you run there is no need to cut every runners’ leg, just find other walking people.

So please before posting it would be good to prove that there is no other way to play than playing the PVE meta. Then the discussion can be opened about how you can improve the gameplay you want to use. No need to destroy others’ fun to feel more powerful.

Tman.6349:

I would love to make a compilation of every enemy in the game that can one shot a berserker geared player for you, but it would would take too long. Zerkers are already punished plenty for misusing active defenses. It’s hard to notice sometimes b/c they are very powerful and timing is easy once you’ve learned enemy mechanics. To say that enemies don’t do enough damage to is just wrong though. There are even enemies who will one or two shot a fully defensive spec for that matter.

Anet likes their ‘metrics’. If there wasn’t GEAR diversity at all, like is claimed, then perhaps they might make some changes. The fact that there appears to be no shortage of players running around in non-DPS gear sets (just look at all the “die zerker’s!!!”, “boo to the zerker meta!!”, etc threads that appear) would suggest that there is am rather vast community of non-meta players in the game. Perhaps the significant difference is the meta players have learned and taken initiative to group with like-minded players while the anti-meta crowd just kitten and moan and expect Anet to police the game and solve their PERCIEVED ‘problems’ for them. Maybe you guys should all band together and develope consistency among yourselves. Or…you could play a little bit of devil’s advocate and wear nothing but berserker gear, PROVING that NO OTHER gear is useful or desired.

Creating unsubstantiated threads rapid fire on the forums will ‘solve’ nothing though. These threads aren’t some novel, new thing. They’ve been droning on for almost two years now and have yet to make a point that isn’t derived from emotions or anecdotes.

People putting on suboptimal gear just because they like the idea of it does not transform the game into something that actually properly supports their gearing choice. Metrics don’t tell the whole story.

The meta is not something that all players are concerned with, so they go into any old dungeon, do whatever they want, and are fine with it. This game is easy enough to allow for that. But if somebody wants to reach for a greater skill level in accordance to the mechanics the game presents you with, the shallow mechanical depth leaves a very narrow path. It gets boring.

A berserker being able to dodge every attack and hit back to achieve maximum damage potential is exactly how one should play in glassy gear. The game has the basic setup for how one should play a glass character down just fine.

But how does one play to an equivelant optimal level when you are in tanky gear? You have all that toughness and vitality, and what do you use it for? Standing around and whittling away at a giant health bar? When your damge will be so much poorer than the berserker and they can keep whacking with enough frequency to just outpace you in any encounter situation?

You should have something that lets you actively turn that sturdiness into strength so that you can punish the enemy for trying to break through your armour, hence the basic premise behind the guard mechanic idea. They take the hit, with some damage reduction, in a way a glassy character never could, but they punish the enemy greatly for it and proceed to capitalize on that opening. Mistiming the guard ability means that you not only waste your stamina, but you lose health for absolutely no gain, and need to recover that before the next opportunity to guard comes in, so that you can actually stay in melee range while the smaller hits wittle away at your thicker armour.

Also, just because an enemy can one shot you does not mean it is dangerous. The AI is dumb, and dodge is the all powerful nullifier. Even taking different skill levels into account, it really is not all that stimulating.

It doesn’t help that things like boons and non-damage conditions have absolutely no scaling with any stat regarding their intensity, while your offensive abilities are boosted by putting on offensive gear. Boosting of abilities is good, why is it so limited in a game that wishes to have the focus be on ability use?

Are meta-threads now the new mount threads ?

Cant wait to see mounts with capes do duelz in the open world .. but only with knight stats on their capes. That will surely save the game :p