Guild Wars 2

To borrorw the phrase from that guy in the audience.

There is a consistent repetition of threads that in some way or another address the two topics of condition damage and the zerker meta.

While they remain legitimate points, are these essentially grumbles or is PVE actually regarded as being broken as a result?

The way I see it, it’s whatever the players think it is. So if the playerbase considers something is broken, then that means it is. So, is PVE broken?

conditions seem to be getting addressed in HoT, the meta being broken is simply a matter of perception. to people who want their zero damage builds to be not-terrible it’s broken, for people who enjoy playing glass cannons and surviving via active defense it’s fine.

PvE isn’t broken in the least, in my strong opinion. People are grumbling about what they perceive as something specific to GW2, which is that there are some builds that are more efficient than others and some builds that hit some sort of ‘wall’ of effectiveness.

The thing is pretty much any highly-skilled player in any game will reach a point where they have met all the game’s challenges and are looking for ways to improve their experience. PvE is still extremely challenging for a lot of people and a lot of fun for many who have mastered its intricacies.

Could it be improved? Could the meta be disrupted? (Should it be?) Sure. But that’s very different from being ‘broken’.

Finally, keep in mind that you aren’t hearing from ‘the playerbase’ — you are hearing from the group of people who are skilled enough to have reached the peak (or near-peak) of efficiency and looking for new challenges. Or people who have a preferred playstyle, which doesn’t do as well under GW2’s mechanics. The people who are satisfied or pleased with the current state of the game aren’t likely to be spending time on the forums explaining to the speed-runners why they don’t think the game is broken.

Its quite simple:

Yes the most efficient way of running content is Berserker/Assassin.
Yes thats not terribly interesting for some.

But there is absolutely nothing stopping you from running Cleric Guardians, Magi Eles, Soldier Thiefs or whatever you want.

I do not join any metazerk or AP based group, mostly on principle actually.
But I have no problem running dungeons or Fractals with whatever build I like.

Conditions are different, they dont play into the Zerk only debate because conditions are just another form of damage. I am pretty sure Anet wont fix conditions to be honest. They had 3 years and they havent done anything about it.
Even if they would fix them now, it would make Anet look like an incredibly incompetent company.

I personally think Anet doesnt care about conditions.
Its completely impossible for them not to be able to come up with a solution for 3 years if they even care a little bit.

It is not broken who told you that? It simply doen’t get fixed because we wanted a waterless jungle instead and that’s what we got.

Arkinos.7245:

I personally think Anet doesnt care about conditions.
Its completely impossible for them not to be able to come up with a solution for 3 years if they even care a little bit.

Conditions are fine, players just don’t like the way they work. Each damage type is a single “pool” instead of tracking each damage source. It’s fine when you solo or the party is designed to make use of one or two condition builds. When there’s a zerg of 100 players attacking the same target, it’s like each toon has a quiver of endless arrows but only one bow for everyone. You get one “shot” then have to hand the bow to someone else and wait for it to come around again for the next shot.

Encounters like world bosses couldn’t be done with conditions the way the players want them to work. With 500 damage sources ticking every second, either the boss would die instantly or the game would crash from trying to track all that data. The only way to solve this dilemma is to rewrite how the game works – maybe they can devote the resources to do this when coding the expansion, but I doubt it.

Likewise the zerker stats thing, the game wasn’t designed for a “tank” to stand there absorbing massive amounts of damage without difficulty. Armor doesn’t reduce damage enough and healers can’t replace hp fast enough, so you can’t take more than two or three hits at best. For those with fast reflexes, dodging out of the way means you never take damage because you never get hit. Combined with the highest damage output, tank and spank is replaced by hit and run. Those who can’t dodge fast enough end up dying a lot.

It’s simply a matter of the intentions of the devs vs. the expectations of the players. It was not designed as a traditional trinity-based MMO, and doesn’t play like it. But most of the early players wanted traditional MMO gameplay and the devs tried to retrofit the game to suit them. But you can’t do that with a game that’s already 99.9% finished, you have to trash 80% of the work you have already done and redo it to traditional MMO standards.

Arkinos.7245:

Its quite simple:

Yes the most efficient way of running content is Berserker/Assassin.
Yes thats not terribly interesting for some.

But there is absolutely nothing stopping you from running Cleric Guardians, Magi Eles, Soldier Thiefs or whatever you want.

I do not join any metazerk or AP based group, mostly on principle actually.
But I have no problem running dungeons or Fractals with whatever build I like.

Conditions are different, they dont play into the Zerk only debate because conditions are just another form of damage. I am pretty sure Anet wont fix conditions to be honest. They had 3 years and they havent done anything about it.
Even if they would fix them now, it would make Anet look like an incredibly incompetent company.

I personally think Anet doesnt care about conditions.
Its completely impossible for them not to be able to come up with a solution for 3 years if they even care a little bit.

Except they are fixing them. The firsts tests were in the stress test for HoT.

Not sure how anyone not directly able to access their code/engine/tech can state impossible for them to not fix it in 3 years or call them incompetent. There were obviously wider ranging and deeper issues for them to deal with.

the “playerbase” is not a few people on a forum, amongst most of which you usually rekognize the same names over and over again.

Zerker is not a problem, every game has a “meta” gear, trinity games have different ones for different roles, but that does not change anything.

Stacking IS a problem, as it invalidates the attempt of creating a “twitchy” game. The issue behind that is abstract combat mechanics that carried over from more traditional mmorpg. Protection, stability, autohit and the like are the antithesis of action combat. If you throw those two styles of games together, you get a messed up result (TERA did combat way better, but don´t get me started on that game as a whole).

Difficulty. Or the lack thereof. Anet tried to include players of even the most abysmal skill level. Which is ok. But if you do that, you cannot lock better rewards behind difficulty. So, everything has to be an endeavour in yawning or be hard and not give good rewards – which usually makes such areas of a game vacated and forgotten. As the latter makes no sense at all in the long run, you get yawning over and over again.

Parts of the game (like one-shotting Lupi or afk-bashing Shatterer) are definitely broken. Most of the broken parts in PvE are broken since beta. While this means that they didn’t get addressed by ANet since launch and they obviously don’t care about content that isn’t in the epicentre of a hypenado, it also means that content that was released afterwards is less broken than what was released initially. ANet is learning and making progress, I just wish they’d apply some of their newfound knowledge to overhaul already existing content.

Zerk zerk zerk.

i call this broken.

maha.7902:

conditions seem to be getting addressed in HoT, the meta being broken is simply a matter of perception. to people who want their zero damage builds to be not-terrible it’s broken, for people who enjoy playing glass cannons and surviving via active defense it’s fine.

This is probably my favorite post on this subject ever.

As far as glass cannon gear goes, the primary belief that GW2 PvE (usually dungeons) is broken is due to people wanting hard and fast roles, aka trinity. Since we knew going in that GW2 would not have trinity, this is more sour grapes than prophecy.

The only things “broken” are the occasional bugs (like the new lupi bug) which get fixed eventually, or boss fights that are exploitable (like mossman, which may or may not be a bug depending on who you ask)

Some people like the zerker meta and some hate it, but that doesnt mean anything. Boring =/= broken.

Arkinos.7245:

Its quite simple:

Yes the most efficient way of running content is Berserker/Assassin.
Yes thats not terribly interesting for some.

But there is absolutely nothing stopping you from running Cleric Guardians, Magi Eles, Soldier Thiefs or whatever you want.

I do not join any metazerk or AP based group, mostly on principle actually.
But I have no problem running dungeons or Fractals with whatever build I like.

Conditions are different, they dont play into the Zerk only debate because conditions are just another form of damage. I am pretty sure Anet wont fix conditions to be honest. They had 3 years and they havent done anything about it.
Even if they would fix them now, it would make Anet look like an incredibly incompetent company.

I personally think Anet doesnt care about conditions.
Its completely impossible for them not to be able to come up with a solution for 3 years if they even care a little bit.

Why would you play a build when you know that there is another more effective and efficient build? Why would anyone not want to play the game at a most optimal way, your points is invalid.

In my opinion, yes it is.

It may not be broken everywhere, but there are definitely significant and glaring flaws in the design, which encourage cheesing as the norm.

warbignime.4610:

Arkinos.7245:

Its quite simple:

Yes the most efficient way of running content is Berserker/Assassin.
Yes thats not terribly interesting for some.

But there is absolutely nothing stopping you from running Cleric Guardians, Magi Eles, Soldier Thiefs or whatever you want.

I do not join any metazerk or AP based group, mostly on principle actually.
But I have no problem running dungeons or Fractals with whatever build I like.

Conditions are different, they dont play into the Zerk only debate because conditions are just another form of damage. I am pretty sure Anet wont fix conditions to be honest. They had 3 years and they havent done anything about it.
Even if they would fix them now, it would make Anet look like an incredibly incompetent company.

I personally think Anet doesnt care about conditions.
Its completely impossible for them not to be able to come up with a solution for 3 years if they even care a little bit.

Why would you play a build when you know that there is another more effective and efficient build? Why would anyone not want to play the game at a most optimal way, your points is invalid.

Various reasons:

• Variety.
• Challenge in the fact that the enemy now has more time to hit you.
• You aren’t skilled enough yet in active defense to give up the survivability against the non-one hit shots.
• You find the mechanics used for the meta to be boring. And games are supposed to be fun. And fun is subjective after all.

Ugh I’m so sick and tired of clueless players whining about berserker.

Anyways PvE is fine. There are adjustments that certain classes need but there’s nothing wrong with people wanting to play efficiently. This is a consequence of learning how to do everything and not needing defensive crutches.

Purple Miku.7032:

Ugh I’m so sick and tired of clueless players whining about berserker.

Anyways PvE is fine. There are adjustments that certain classes need but there’s nothing wrong with people wanting to play efficiently. This is a consequence of learning how to do everything and not needing defensive crutches.

It seems like you are the one that is clueless to me, you are too tunnel visioned to realize the problem.

tolunart.2095:

Encounters like world bosses couldn’t be done with conditions the way the players want them to work. With 500 damage sources ticking every second, either the boss would die instantly or the game would crash from trying to track all that data. The only way to solve this dilemma is to rewrite how the game works – maybe they can devote the resources to do this when coding the expansion, but I doubt it.

They are actually already working on that as some people in the beta have noted although that isn’t necessarily the solution they will stick with.

Bosses won’t die instantly regardless of how conditions work but they probably will die faster than now and scaling will feel less broken because everyone will be able to contribute to the fight rather than having some people be dead weight. They would die at about the same speed as having zero condition user showed up for the fight.

It would also make balancing easier.

PvE is not broken.

The fact people who are more experienced run zerk doesn’t mean zerk is op. It’s just the highest DPS stat combo…

Stacking is no more then an efficient way to share boons. Stacking vs walls is only usefull with a pre nerf FGS (and as it doesn’t exist in meta anymore, as it is obsolete due to it’s nerf) or when running multiple warriors in CoE for GS #3 evades in place, the only reason could be pulling ranged characters as you need to break LOS. Big probem with stacking can be the difficulty spotting ‘telegraphs’, but when you know them they are easier to spot..

Condition dmg is being adressed, 100 stacks being worked on, maybe even with overflow might allow for a potential shift towards more conditions in pve and this will be a interesting possibility in pve.

I play 7 professions. I use rabid, dire, celestial stats, sinister, zealot, clerics, cavaliers, nomads, soldiers, and berserker…. with runes of the pack, brawler, strength, hoelbrak, scholars, aristocrat, krait, monk, divinity, trooper…..showing build diversity is alive

nomads/clerics w trooper guardian can be very nice for ressing zerk ppl in the mai trin fractal…

I play full zerk warrior, ele, thief, guard, ranger and necro though….. and stack in fractals, and dungeons, and LS content…

I also use active defense where and when applicable…

The fact you can get 20 seconds of vulnerability (perma blind) with 3 ele’s or neco’s is powerfull, but it isn’t broken and not breaking not pve as a whole…
Each dodge is 1.5 seconds of total invulnerability, aegis….

It’s the game mechanic allowing this. Which can be questionable, but is not broken. How would you replace it?

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

PvE is not broken.

The fact people who are more experienced run zerk doesn’t mean zerk is op. It’s just the highest DPS stat combo…

Stacking is no more then an efficient way to share boons. Stacking vs walls is only usefull with a pre nerf FGS (and as it doesn’t exist in meta anymore, as it is obsolete due to it’s nerf) or when running multiple warriors in CoE for GS #3 evades in place, the only reason could be pulling ranged characters as you need to break LOS. Big probem with stacking can be the difficulty spotting ‘telegraphs’, but when you know them they are easier to spot..

Condition dmg is being adressed, 100 stacks being worked on, maybe even with overflow might allow for a potential shift towards more conditions in pve and this will be a interesting possibility in pve.

I play 7 professions. I use rabid, dire, celestial stats, sinister, zealot, clerics, cavaliers, nomads, soldiers, and berserker…. with runes of the pack, brawler, strength, hoelbrak, scholars, aristocrat, krait, monk, divinity, trooper…..showing build diversity is alive

nomads/clerics w trooper guardian can be very nice for ressing zerk ppl in the mai trin fractal…

I play full zerk warrior, ele, thief, guard, ranger and necro though….. and stack in fractals, and dungeons, and LS content…

I also use active defense where and when applicable…

The fact you can get 20 seconds of vulnerability (perma blind) with 3 ele’s or neco’s is powerfull, but it isn’t broken and not breaking not pve as a whole…
Each dodge is 1.5 seconds of total invulnerability, aegis….

It’s the game mechanic allowing this. Which can be questionable, but is not broken. How would you replace it?

Just because the game mechanic allow this, doesn’t mea n it’s good. Also your statement is straight up false, everyone run zerker because it’s the most efficient build , also running a build that us way less efficient and effective is just foolish.

warbignime.4610:

Just because the game mechanic allow this, doesn’t mea n it’s good. Also your statement is straight up false, everyone run zerker because it’s the most efficient build , also running a build that us way less efficient and effective is just foolish.

I’m sure you can back that statement up.

And no, not running glass setup isn’t foolish. Not everyone can do it.

warbignime.4610:

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

PvE is not broken.

The fact people who are more experienced run zerk doesn’t mean zerk is op. It’s just the highest DPS stat combo…

Stacking is no more then an efficient way to share boons. Stacking vs walls is only usefull with a pre nerf FGS (and as it doesn’t exist in meta anymore, as it is obsolete due to it’s nerf) or when running multiple warriors in CoE for GS #3 evades in place, the only reason could be pulling ranged characters as you need to break LOS. Big probem with stacking can be the difficulty spotting ‘telegraphs’, but when you know them they are easier to spot..

Condition dmg is being adressed, 100 stacks being worked on, maybe even with overflow might allow for a potential shift towards more conditions in pve and this will be a interesting possibility in pve.

I play 7 professions. I use rabid, dire, celestial stats, sinister, zealot, clerics, cavaliers, nomads, soldiers, and berserker…. with runes of the pack, brawler, strength, hoelbrak, scholars, aristocrat, krait, monk, divinity, trooper…..showing build diversity is alive

nomads/clerics w trooper guardian can be very nice for ressing zerk ppl in the mai trin fractal…

I play full zerk warrior, ele, thief, guard, ranger and necro though….. and stack in fractals, and dungeons, and LS content…

I also use active defense where and when applicable…

The fact you can get 20 seconds of vulnerability (perma blind) with 3 ele’s or neco’s is powerfull, but it isn’t broken and not breaking not pve as a whole…
Each dodge is 1.5 seconds of total invulnerability, aegis….

It’s the game mechanic allowing this. Which can be questionable, but is not broken. How would you replace it?

Just because the game mechanic allow this, doesn’t mea n it’s good. Also your statement is straight up false, everyone run zerker because it’s the most efficient build , also running a build that us way less efficient and effective is just foolish.

You are playing a game, not making sure your family can live in tyria. So have fun instead of just only focuusing on how to get rich quick.

Been there done that x8. I own acended weapons on 10+ characters, have -ALL- dyes unlocked, all recipe’s unlocked, Yes also heavy keepers, and light, so I also did medium..
I only have 2 legendaries though, I still want to craft bolt in the future.

I could be farming and farming to get my next ascended armor. But I’d rather play the game. It is not the same, grinding is boring and repeditive, playing is my way to keep things fresh.

I can do things the easy way or can keep pushing all stuff zerk, zerk, zerk. I’ve been running dungeons for 2+ years now. I love mixing l80 exp with zerk meta speedruns… And I’ve come to respect rangers and necro’s. I do not kick if a lvl 79 joins a speedrun party when having 5k, 10k or more AP, same for rangers and necro’s. it doesn’t matter.
As long as I’m not doing record runs the full meta is meaningless, especially when contenders are still running bloodlust or proccing fire, not using food and generally showing they are not zerk “meta” speedrunners but N00B wannabees!

If you’re running zerk meta without food/utility & dedicated sigils and I’m running zealots with full food, and sigils, who will do the most dmg? I think the zealot will do more dmg… If I’m running zerk with food and sigils I still seem to outdamage others by 30+%

Failing or using active defence available show how good or bad your party is.
Do NOT say ZERK is neccesary when people are to cheap to buy dedicated equipment & food, and if people DO have dedicated equipment they will be way more effective then 80% of our present dungeon running population full zerk,seemingly to dumb to see you will get 30+% -free- dmg by using correct weapons and food. Zerk is only a statcombo, a build is only build, and both are not complete without the rest.

Nothing annoys me more then ppl zerking without stacking might, giving fury, leaving banners behind and generally being NOOBS in dungeons…. while we are pomoting zerk being the only viable way. It isn’t.

I’ve run dungeons with 5 commander guardians, being a mix of soldier and nomads, or clerics and nomads or knights… You will facetank everything, not go down and still kill stuff, it is quite easy actually with perma 25 might. nobody crits anyways so fury is a waste and you’ll slug your way trough the dungeon on 2200-2400 power with nothing doing any harm. It will take you 20-35% longer making a 15 minute path last 18-20… no problems, missing dodge on Alpha? NP! Kohler whirling? LOL! Why worry. When using active defences you get 0 dmg, when making a mistake you will take not enough damage to get worried, which is healed up in seconds.

I still love TA with 5 rangers…..you should try it. Pew pew to the win….. And explore the variety and possibilities of Guild Wars 2.

warbignime.4610:

[…] , everyone run zerker because it’s the most efficient build , […]

“Zerker” is NOT a build…

Skoigoth.9238:

warbignime.4610:

[…] , everyone run zerker because it’s the most efficient build , […]

“Zerker” is NOT a build…

Since a build contains traits, skills, armor & weapon-stats, runes and sigills… Yes I’d call zerker a build. A build that coincidentally bears the same name as the stat-combination it’s built around.

Not broken, just oldschool lame and boring as hell.

^zerker is a attribute combination for weapons, armor and trinkets.

zerking means running max damage, in present lingo….

But you will need:

1. max damage armor,
2. max damage weapons,
3. max damage trinkets,
4. max damage build, (being traits!)
5. max damage runes,
6. max damage sigils
7. max damage food
8. max damage utility.

If something is missing you are not max damage.
If you do not stay up you are not max damage
If you so not stack might you are not max damage
If you fail to buff and heal people properly you are not max damage
If you fail to mitigate damage when possible you are not max damage

As all these things are important to you and your group to stay up and DPS.

This is zerking.as it is called. Some zerk in assassins. when new meta’s will arise we will zerk in other armors.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Since a build contains traits, skills, armor & weapon-stats, runes and sigills… Yes I’d call zerker a build. A build that coincidentally bears the same name as the stat-combination it’s built around.

Indeed, there are 9001 zerker builds out there according to this logic.

Yes, PvE is horribly broken. Right now, even the least skilled player in the game can put on full Nomads gear and kill (eventually) every boss in the game without having to use a single dodge. Nomads gear is horribly overpowered unkillable godmode and completely invalidates the active combat in the game by eliminating all risk of failure and removing the reward for understanding mechanics.

rotten.9753:

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Since a build contains traits, skills, armor & weapon-stats, runes and sigills… Yes I’d call zerker a build. A build that coincidentally bears the same name as the stat-combination it’s built around.

Indeed, there are 9001 zerker builds out there according to this logic.

This doesn’t mean that any build with the stat at it’s core is a zerker-build. On the contrary it means that everything has to be zerker to call it so. Not only the stat-combination that bears the same name as the build.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

This doesn’t mean that any build with the stat at it’s core is a zerker-build. On the contrary it means that everything has to be zerker to call it so. Not only the stat-combination that bears the same name as the build.

You can very well play full support 00266 ele with full berserker’s gear and your damage will by really low. An ele running 64220 with valyrie’s or knight’s will have more damage potential. So can the former still be called zerker build then? No, because there’s no such thing as a zerker build.

The stat system is shallow.
The enemy AI is shallow.
The enemy skillset is shallow.
Condition cap is broken in non-solo content.
Game is balanced mostly around PvP.

The flaw with the stat system, is that most of them are passive by nature in a game with active combat. Those stats make sense in traditional models where you can not avoid damage, but in a game full of active defenses, they are nothing more but tutorial tools. GW1 did it best, by having its attribute system directly affect active defenses as well.

The enemy AI and skillset are shallow, because they’re mostly predictable and same-y. The same dps rotation works against most of them. Stacking is a thing. Boon stripping, condition cleansing, stun breaking and the like are a rarety, because there’s no incentive to bring them most of the time. And if enemies could actually kite you, suddenly, conditions, ranged attacks and other tools would actually be more useful and a real alternative to pre-determined dps rotations.

Condition capping is broken because it literally makes your conditions do almost nothing when in group content. It is the anti-thesis of everything that GW2 stands for.

Balancing being done around pvp is obvious, but then again, what else could anet do? It would be pointless to attempt to balance the pve meta before the core enemy/ stat/ condition issues are fixed.

warbignime.4610:

Purple Miku.7032:

Ugh I’m so sick and tired of clueless players whining about berserker.

Anyways PvE is fine. There are adjustments that certain classes need but there’s nothing wrong with people wanting to play efficiently. This is a consequence of learning how to do everything and not needing defensive crutches.

It seems like you are the one that is clueless to me, you are too tunnel visioned to realize the problem.

Oh I realize what the problem is. The problem is that there are people with mindsets similar to your own and don’t get the combat system on this game.

It’s one thing if you don’t like it, but to claim it’s broken just because you don’t like it is silly. We understand you don’t like berserker gear. We also understand that there are players who want to conform everyone to their own beliefs instead of just making their own LFG posts stating what they want.

No one’s forcing you to wear berserker gear. Play with whatever floats your boat.

hybrid.5027:

Yes, PvE is horribly broken. Right now, even the least skilled player in the game can put on full Nomads gear and kill (eventually) every boss in the game without having to use a single dodge. Nomads gear is horribly overpowered unkillable godmode and completely invalidates the active combat in the game by eliminating all risk of failure and removing the reward for understanding mechanics.

Nomads just asks a bit more time, full nomads is about 1226 power… with food ~1450.. which takes the fight for the avg boss kill take about 3- 4 times as much time compared to fully buffed zerk. if you accept this it allows you to play the game. In effect the stat combinations are difficulty levels.

With this as an eye opener:

I’ll be frank. I have people in my guild who have (visual) disabilities , ppl who miss eyesight or a functional limb and they play as well. A player with the slightly impaired vision (40% remaining out of 200%) plays a LB ranger in WvW
We build a more survivable build for her: being a soldiers armor and brawler runes, axe/warhorn as alternate set and all the other gear full zerk. She is very good at surviving. she runs a 2500 armor with a potential 3300 power when fully buffed. She is lethal…. She was silver before me…

I also had a player with only 1 functional hand in one of my guilds , noiwadays he runs a nomads/clerics commander build on guardian. He has the dodges, all his utilities and autoattack bound to his mouse…. He stay alive where most die. The only thing he has a problem with is porting out of a fight. He used to run soldiers/clerics before, but likes this better.

Not everybody has 20/20 vision and 10 fingers. And the armors cater for all. So do not say well ppl can faceroll it, you are not a valid person to verify this…

I’d really want to see you to do lupi or t1 zerg WvW with 1 hand tied to your back and a blindfold with 2 pinholes. When done pls come back.

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Skoigoth.9238:

warbignime.4610:

[…] , everyone run zerker because it’s the most efficient build , […]

“Zerker” is NOT a build…

Since a build contains traits, skills, armor & weapon-stats, runes and sigills… Yes I’d call zerker a build. A build that coincidentally bears the same name as the stat-combination it’s built around.

Nope. You can change berserker gear pieces for whatever you want in a meta build depending on how comfortable you are surviving with less defenses, berserker itself isn’t integral to the builds at all.

With the way gear is implemented in this game, the disparity between the best DPS and the worst DPS is huge.

This would be OK if the content took both ends into consideration, but since they went with the action mode dodge feature (which I love), they basically negated any reason to use anything other than the best DPS gear.

The Silverwastes is clearly an attempt at redesigning enemies in order to make Berserker gear actually carry risk, which is nice.

The real fix would have been to limit armor to a single defensive stat and weapons to a single offensive stat (or a pair of stats if a 2-hander). The trinkets could then have been used to mix and match offense and defense. This would have left a much smaller disparity between best and worst DPS gear, and allowed content to be more easily designed to encompass everyone’s playstyle.

Unfortunately, that ship has sailed (they aren’t going to delete all of your existing gear and recipes) so we are stuck with the system we have now.

With the rework of conditions in HoT beta, a possibility of a more stable and viable conditions system emerged. It would also mean some bosses could be reworked to have a small HP pool and bigger armor, becoming hard hitting husks/earth elementals….

This could cause a shift, either in meta or in dungeons actively played.
It will also see all people saying zerk should be nerfed instantly quiet as the zerk gear will prove way more dangerous then expected…

PvE is broken. Horribly, utterly broken. It has been broken on the day of release and it will always be broken.

It is broken in GW2, it is broken in WoW, it is broken in RIFT and it is broken in every MMO that has been made and will ever be made.

This sentiment is expressed by the “top 0.01%”, “creme de la creme de la creme”, “elitist jerks” or whatever you want to call the segment of the players that have mastered the game’s most efficient strategies and tactics, have conquered every challenge and are now bored and bitter. These same players take to the forums to grouse and nerf-herd endlessly, whether it be about the lack of challenge or about the fact that “noobz w/no skillz” can clear the same content as the elites, albeit with more effort. They demand fundamental alteration to the game’s mechanics, they constantly bag on the game’s meta because the meta is inadequate or downright awful and encourages “bad players”. They post lengthy and detailed explanations as to why the game’s dev team would be served better to abandon their vision and bow to the collective wisdom of those blessed with the top DPS.

On such occasions when nerfs happen (and they may or may not be related to the demands of the elites), they are immediately met with a storm of cheers, followed inevitably by a second storm of compassionate “lol git gud cashul” advice to the remaining 99.99% of the player base whose experience just got turned on its head.

Time marches on though, and at about three months mark bitterness and boredom begin to stir once again, and the cycle begins anew.

Because PvE is broken. Horribly, utterly broken. It has been broken on the day of release and it will always be broken.

Xdmatt.3958:

PvE is broken. Horribly, utterly broken. It has been broken on the day of release and it will always be broken.

It is broken in GW2, it is broken in WoW, it is broken in RIFT and it is broken in every MMO that has been made and will ever be made.

This sentiment is expressed by the “top 0.01%”, “creme de la creme de la creme”, “elitist jerks” or whatever you want to call the segment of the players that have mastered the game’s most efficient strategies and tactics, have conquered every challenge and are now bored and bitter. These same players take to the forums to grouse and nerf-herd endlessly, whether it be about the lack of challenge or about the fact that “noobz w/no skillz” can clear the same content as the elites, albeit with more effort. They demand fundamental alteration to the game’s mechanics, they constantly bag on the game’s meta because the meta is inadequate or downright awful and encourages “bad players”. They post lengthy and detailed explanations as to why the game’s dev team would be served better to abandon their vision and bow to the collective wisdom of those blessed with the top DPS.

On such occasions when nerfs happen (and they may or may not be related to the demands of the elites), they are immediately met with a storm of cheers, followed inevitably by a second storm of compassionate “lol git gud cashul” advice to the remaining 99.99% of the player base whose experience just got turned on its head.

Time marches on though, and at about three months mark bitterness and boredom begin to stir once again, and the cycle begins anew.

Because PvE is broken. Horribly, utterly broken. It has been broken on the day of release and it will always be broken.

Love it, +1

Xdmatt.3958:

PvE is broken. Horribly, utterly broken. It has been broken on the day of release and it will always be broken.

It is broken in GW2, it is broken in WoW, it is broken in RIFT and it is broken in every MMO that has been made and will ever be made….

cut short for space, but great points throughout entire post

I find this post to be immensely thoughtful, and immensely thought provoking.

If one goes back through the Living Story Archives, you can see this phenomena play out repeatedly: around the release of just about every Season 2 Chapter, you’ll also see a number of threads exclaiming that the bosses are two hard, and you’ll see a number of people coming in and telling them “Well, it was easy for me.”
(In fact, if one looks through my own posting history you’ll see that when participating in these threads I repeatedly argued that the LS bosses were setup they way they were on purpose to force players to pay attention to, and learn how to deal with, “more complex” boss mechanics— which is essentially just a more tactful way of saying “L2P n00b!”).

I think the problem we have, as a community, is that this conversation has been going on so long that we’re not really hearing each other anymore.

These days, anytime someone uses the phrase “Build Diversity,” which, unless I’m mistaken, was brought into circulation by Anet itself when they were talking about… it was either when they were adding in hard bosses (redoing Teq, The Marionette Event, and Triple Trouble), or when they were implementing the new Ferocity stat (which I believe was meant to be a dps nerf, yes?)…

Anyway! I got off track: anytime someone begins a discussion about expanding build variety, people invested in the meta automatically hear it as “Bring back the trinity!” And, if we’re being completely honest, the archives show that there have been posts “suggesting” or “demanding” a return of the trinity, so this reaction of their’s is not entirely unfair.

Likewise, people who want to explore different options are so used to being screamed at, that anytime someone explains and or defends the reason for the current meta, it comes across as dismissive, elitist, or as a personal attack because— again if you look through the archives— that type of experience has happened repeatedly.
Why, I remember there was nearly a full year where, if you suggested anything other than GS/Sword+Focus on the Guardian Sub-Forum you’d get neck stomped by a whole army, rebuking you (to put it nicely) for “leading new players astray”— even if the OP started a thread specifically asking for a build that used different weapons, or different stats (thank kitten someone crunched the numbers on all the Guard weapons and “revealed” that most of them weren’t all that bad after all…).

Sentiments like that also “trickle down” and are misinterpreted by the community at large to the point where the general populace mistakes “Optimal” for Viable" and begins to react negatively to anything non-meta (when the reality is that very few players are actually playing at the levels where it makes a difference (i.e. they’re not popping slayer potions, or using slayer sigils, they’re not popping food, they’re not using the "optimal rotations etc.. etc…).
The number of times I’ve had to sit in a dungeon on teamspeak with my own guildies and listen to them mock Necros again and again (when I’m sitting right there in the party, on my necro) is simply ludicrous. Yes, according to the meta Necros aren’t great in parties, but the truth is Power Necros bring more than sufficient DPS, and most parties aren’t might stacking anyway (or other boons, etc..), so their lack of party support is largely a moot point (again, in the general public.)

The point is that I think this subject has become so toxic that it’s become impossible for people to genuinely discuss it: one half feels like the other is trying to rob them of an experience they 1) have worked hard to perfect and 2) genuinely find fun, while the other side feels like they are A) being locked out of the gameplay experience and B ) being personally made fun of.

In reality, I think we all need to take a step back, do our deep breathing exercises, and just let Arena Net do it’s thing for a while. Despite the fact that we have no idea when it’ll arrive, HoT is on the way, and they’ve stated that it’s going to bring “Challenging Content,” and changes to all the classes. What this means, what this looks like, what this changes? Nobody but Anet knows. And they’re gunna do what they want to do regardless of how much any of us scream about anything.

Their game, their vision, their rules. So maybe let’s just all play nice for a little while, yeah?

People that claim PvE is broken because Zerker is meta don’t seem to get that nothing is really broken – it’s just human nature.

People will always look for the most efficient way to do something. You can take away Berzerker gear and something else will just take it’s place. Unless you can design a system where absolutely everything is 100% equally effective, there will always be a “meta”. There will always be people who crunch the numbers & seek to min/max their efficiency even if it’s by just a slight margin.

Xdmatt.3958:

PvE is broken. Horribly, utterly broken. It has been broken on the day of release and it will always be broken.

It is broken in GW2, it is broken in WoW, it is broken in RIFT and it is broken in every MMO that has been made and will ever be made.

This sentiment is expressed by the “top 0.01%”, “creme de la creme de la creme”, “elitist jerks” or whatever you want to call the segment of the players that have mastered the game’s most efficient strategies and tactics, have conquered every challenge and are now bored and bitter. These same players take to the forums to grouse and nerf-herd endlessly, whether it be about the lack of challenge or about the fact that “noobz w/no skillz” can clear the same content as the elites, albeit with more effort. They demand fundamental alteration to the game’s mechanics, they constantly bag on the game’s meta because the meta is inadequate or downright awful and encourages “bad players”. They post lengthy and detailed explanations as to why the game’s dev team would be served better to abandon their vision and bow to the collective wisdom of those blessed with the top DPS.

On such occasions when nerfs happen (and they may or may not be related to the demands of the elites), they are immediately met with a storm of cheers, followed inevitably by a second storm of compassionate “lol git gud cashul” advice to the remaining 99.99% of the player base whose experience just got turned on its head.

Time marches on though, and at about three months mark bitterness and boredom begin to stir once again, and the cycle begins anew.

Because PvE is broken. Horribly, utterly broken. It has been broken on the day of release and it will always be broken.

There’s so many things wrong with this post that I have yet to find anything that is even remotely accurate…

BunjiKugashira.9754:

Parts of the game (like one-shotting Lupi or afk-bashing Shatterer) are definitely broken. Most of the broken parts in PvE are broken since beta. While this means that they didn’t get addressed by ANet since launch and they obviously don’t care about content that isn’t in the epicentre of a hypenado, it also means that content that was released afterwards is less broken than what was released initially. ANet is learning and making progress, I just wish they’d apply some of their newfound knowledge to overhaul already existing content.

“Hypenado”… this just made my whole day.

Ya know… I can’t think of a really eloquent way to say this so I’ll just put it out there as a rhetorical remark: If PVE is so “broken”, why do people continue to play? and care enough to post about it on forums? I only ask because it’s the same argument all the time — zerk vs. every other build.

There are plenty of other non-broken-according-to-your-approach/opinion/play-style games out there. Go enjoy yourselves.

i don’t usually sway by the pve way but…

if tanky toughness/vit is not effective in your game mode. there is something wrong with it.

if conditions, an offensive playstyle brought about by the system itself is not effective in your game mode, there is something wrong with it.

if your enemies are too easy to predict including patterns on where to bomb it and range in where you can reset agro, then there is something wrong with it.

if your enemies can be skipped so easily that one might wonder why they are there in the first place, then there is something wrong with it.

if one of the above is existent, complacency might be in the general public. it is their comfort zone by now. if so, then there is nothing wrong

so is it broken? nah.
anet actually loves you too much

godofcows.2451:

if tanky toughness/vit is not effective in your game mode. there is something wrong with it.

Why? I see those as training wheels or safety net. Why is that wrong?

godofcows.2451:

if conditions, an offensive playstyle brought about by the system itself is not effective in your game mode, there is something wrong with it.

True. Hopefully something will be done with HoT.

godofcows.2451:

if your enemies are too easy to predict including patterns on where to bomb it and range in where you can reset agro, then there is something wrong with it.

Two issues here. The game was designed as casual. I would really want more complex fight. Lupi, Liadri and some fractal 50 fight shouldn’t be the execption, they should be the norm. But as I said, the game wasn’t design to be an kittene. Second issue is the age of the content. More and more ppl get to know fights in dungeon and fractal in the last 2 years. Even bad players can now use full zerker build because they know the hell out of the content. The first issue is a problem for me, but it’s a design choice. More content with gradual difficulty like fractal seem to be the solution. The second issue isn’t really a problem. Everybody want more content, but the resource Anet have to create new content is limited. At best we can hope they do a better allocation of those resource (we don’t need another redesign of the daily Anet).

godofcows.2451:

if your enemies can be skipped so easily that one might wonder why they are there in the first place, then there is something wrong with it.

Kind of true, but I don’t think it’s a huge problem either. I mean, that the human nature after all. People will always try to make the most efficient run possible and that include skipping if possible. They can hunt down every skipping possible and come out with a solution. But I don’t think that’s a good allocation of resources for Anet or the players.

Zoltreez.6435:

Zerk zerk zerk.

i call this broken.

This. All gear besides zerk/assasin is just trash in PvE (world bosses grind fest does not count of course). Anything else might be used effectively ONLY on WvW, why do we still get it in pve?

mtpelion.4562:

The Silverwastes is clearly an attempt at redesigning enemies in order to make Berserker gear actually carry risk, which is nice.

Now think about is it that risky for warrior to wear zerker gear as it is for elementalists. Is the damage difference between these two classes high enough to make it worthy to have, say, 2 times less health? Don’t forget we’re talking about pve.

It’s perfect if you dodge/block/etc everything, then it just doesn’t matter. It starts to matter when you don’t dodge – then again, why should I play class that is a lot harder and is unforgiving and doesn’t deal that much damage at the same time?

That attempt was pathetic.

CutePicsHunter.7430:

<snip> then again, why should I play class that is a lot harder and is unforgiving and doesn’t deal that much damage at the same time? <snip>

Are you implying that, generally speaking, Warriors do more damage than Eles? Or even worse, that Warrior is harder to play than Ele? =P

Anyways, on topic: The fact that some people don´t like what a large portion of the community currently considers being the most efficient way to get things done in PvE doesn´t mean the game-mode as a whole is broken, don´t be ridiculous.

Oh and just in case you didn´t know, I´ll type it out for y´all once more:
YOU CAN POST YOUR OWN GROUP, WITH YOUR OWN REQUIREMENTS ON THE LFG-TOOL! YOU ARE NOT FORCED TO USE META BUILDS AND/OR BERSERKER´S/ASSASSIN´S GEAR; SAID GEAR/BUILDS ARE NOT REQUIRED TO COMPLETE ANYTHING IN THIS GAME!

This. All gear besides zerk/assasin is just trash in PvE (world bosses grind fest does not count of course). Anything else might be used effectively ONLY on WvW, why do we still get it in pve?

it’s not trash at all, it just isn’t optimal.

i don’t use my rabid or sinister gear and complain because it isn’t optimal, I accept that in most cases it’s second best and … live with it (shock! horror!)

and you know what, some people don’t have the reflexes to play glass. some people flat out just don’t want to and would rather heal team mates or soak up damage because they get some satisfaction out of it.

you’re basically saying PvE is broken because … a meta exists. then you know what, I guess every single game is broken.

Are you implying that, generally speaking, Warriors do more damage than Eles? Or even worse, that Warrior is harder to play than Ele? =P

don’t kid yourself in to thinking camping fire attunement and pressing 2 and 5 off of cooldown is any more challenging than a warrior rotation.