Guild Wars 2

The reason that zerker gear is the best in pve is because of two reasons
1- people want to get their rewards as fast as they can. (Raises hand)
2- THIS IS THE BIG ONE- The fights in pve are NOT HARD AT ALL so in turn don’t require any other gear than just dps gear.

For example- in the current pve the monsters are so predictable and stupid that dodging is enough to avoid most damage. I mean why the hell would I wear healing gear and kill the mob in 2mins while out healing the damage it does to me when I can wear berserker gear and kill it on 10 secs. The fights in pve are not hard at all and people want their rewards as fast as possible so they wear zerker gear. ITS NOT THE GEAR ITS THE FIGHTS.
And
If anet does decide to do something about the “meta” it should be by making stuff harder to do, NOT by nerfing berserker gear.
ANET PLEASE NOTE
“Harder” doesn’t mean more hp and attacking quicker. It means having interesting and challenging mechanics and less predictable AI. One of my favorite fights in the game is the end boss of the Grawl fractal which has interesting and fun mechanics, constant pressure from the fear of catching on fire but still rather easy IMO.

Another way I think fights can be a bit more challenging is if ANET introduced a gambit system to instanced content. The more and harder gambits you pick, the better reward you get.
Let’s hope challenging group content is not just mobs with high health and slow attacks and not open world afk zergfests. I’m hoping for a raid system with at least minimum of 10 people inside a hard yet fun instanced type mode.

There will always be a meta, even if it’s putting water fields on top of the boss and hoping he drowns (lol hodgins from ac)

daksh.2176:

The reason that zerker gear is the best in pve is because of two reasons
1- people want to get their rewards as fast as they can. (Raises hand)
2- THIS IS THE BIG ONE- The fights in pve are NOT HARD AT ALL so in turn don’t require any other gear than just dps gear.

For example- in the current pve the monsters are so predictable and stupid that dodging is enough to avoid most damage. I mean why the hell would I wear healing gear and kill the mob in 2mins while out healing the damage it does to me when I can wear berserker gear and kill it on 10 secs. The fights in pve are not hard at all and people want their rewards as fast as possible so they wear zerker gear. ITS NOT THE GEAR ITS THE FIGHTS.
And
If anet does decide to do something about the “meta” it should be by making stuff harder to do, NOT by nerfing berserker gear.
ANET PLEASE NOTE
“Harder” doesn’t mean more hp and attacking quicker. It means having interesting and challenging mechanics and less predictable AI. One of my favorite fights in the game is the end boss of the Grawl fractal which has interesting and fun mechanics, constant pressure from the fear of catching on fire but still rather easy IMO.

Another way I think fights can be a bit more challenging is if ANET introduced a gambit system to instanced content. The more and harder gambits you pick, the better reward you get.
Let’s hope challenging group content is not just mobs with high health and slow attacks and not open world afk zergfests. I’m hoping for a raid system with at least minimum of 10 people inside a hard yet fun instanced type mode.

There will always be a meta, even if it’s putting water fields on top of the boss and hoping he drowns (lol hodgins from ac)

Im going to link people here when they scream nerf on conditions, thanks for the write up

this point has been made for over 2 yrs.

everyone but the speed run dungeon folks would like to see a change that sometimes requires different gear to be optimal/useful….provided rewards made the extra-time investment worthwhile.

but chances of the rewards being worth the effort is VERY slim…it would literally have to offer the equivalent of legendaries, for people to not simply abandon it and migrate back to the fastest/most efficiently rewarding content.

so ultimately, the zerk meta ends up being most acceptable/fair. the better you get at being a glass cannon that knows all dungeons inside out, the quicker you are rewarded. those that don’t want to zerk/stack can form their own groups that allow for the specific playstyle they want to engage in…at the pace they wish to engage in.

As long as dodging is in the game, this is how it will be.

I would just like to point out I’m in qT a dungeon speed running guild with many dungeon records

Relshdan.6854:

this point has been made for over 2 yrs.

everyone but the speed run dungeon folks would like to see a change that sometimes requires different gear to be optimal/useful….provided rewards made the extra-time investment worthwhile.

but chances of the rewards being worth the effort is VERY slim…it would literally have to offer the equivalent of legendaries, for people to not simply abandon it and migrate back to the fastest/most efficiently rewarding content.

so ultimately, the zerk meta ends up being most acceptable/fair. the better you get at being a glass cannon that knows all dungeons inside out, the quicker you are rewarded. those that don’t want to zerk/stack can form their own groups that allow for the specific playstyle they want to engage in…at the pace they wish to engage in.

There’s a big difference between wanting new and better mechanics that advance the game’s play value, and simply wanting forced gear diversity.

If gear diversity comes from better mechanics, great, that’s cool, no complaints, in fact praise as I’d like to see that. If gear diversity comes from mechanics specifically created to force such a change… well, that’s just lame, it’s not making the game any better just more restrictive.

To the OP, Yup, though I do think faster attacks can create more difficulty. I mean give Lupi quickness and it’d get more fun IMO (though fear those kicks).

Its really the predictable factor. Not matter how difficult a fight is if you know whats coming it will be farmable in no time.

Everyone hates doing mai trin because its (mostly) not predictable. The cannon shots, her teleporting (ya I know you can stay in melee but someone always goes too far) trying to get her to sit in the fields….

ofc mai trin sucks to fight because players have little control over the randomness. as well as there are multiple layers of it that can make it a real PITA.

Make it random + skill in reaction (like dodging jade maws death attack with out crystal.) That will make content difficult.

ANET can’t move away from zerker meta without providing both suitable and viable alternatives for people who invested a LOT in upgrading their gear to Zojja’s. I am sure the folks at ANET realize this as well and so, with this update, we have gear exchange program. It’s a good starting point. But, still this process removes the costly and time consuming upgrades during exchange. For example, warrior in fully ascended armor with strength rune. 72g will go down the toilet as soon as exchange is made to another type. Prior to 6/23, it’d be upwards of 300g. For some, 72g means barely 5 days of farming, and for a few others, it may even be a day of TP flipping, but, for majority of semi-hardcore/casual playerbase, aka most of us, it will be days of gold grinding before that kind of money can be recouped.

Beyond this obvious issue of cost, min-maxer will always, I repeat always, come up with 1 combination of gear set regardless of what ANET does. It may end up being 2 pieces of zerker, 1 sinsister, 1 giver, 1 apo, 1 sins etc. etc. to fill up all the slots to find the optimum balance for most of the content. And, believe me, many of us will copy that build and follow, thereby moving from zerker meta to another ‘combo’ meta.

Even if ANET forces content upon us that will make us switch our playstyle, armor choices based on the zone, gameplay type, the problem will always remain. No one in the right mind will carry 10 different gearset to conquer the world. Its unrealistic even in fantasy world. <lol>

One option ANET can explore is to allow stat changes on gear out of combat. For that they need to move the money exchanges and sinks out of gear system and move to something else to keep economy afloat. That means aligning PvE more towards PvP gear setup. It’s a lot of work and probably will kill rune and sigil market like it killed inscription market in GW1 when ANET made a similar change.

Mightybird.6034:

Its really the predictable factor. Not matter how difficult a fight is if you know whats coming it will be farmable in no time.

Everyone hates doing mai trin because its (mostly) not predictable. The cannon shots, her teleporting (ya I know you can stay in melee but someone always goes too far) trying to get her to sit in the fields….

ofc mai trin sucks to fight because players have little control over the randomness. as well as there are multiple layers of it that can make it a real PITA.

Make it random + skill in reaction (like dodging jade maws death attack with out crystal.) That will make content difficult.

They do have a bit of this, but patterns certainly emerge. Deeper skill bars for bosses would go a long way to at least make it all feel less static. Lupi will likely kick -> locust or grub -> Kick. But he does sometimes change things up, I can’t help but feel that if he had more attack options there’d be less of a static pattern, where a deviation from the standard rotation was more likely.

And, love Mai, but the cannon phase is annoying.

daksh.2176:

ANET PLEASE NOTE
“Harder” doesn’t mean more hp and attacking quicker. It means having interesting and challenging mechanics and less predictable AI.

Sure but that IS a good way to give people a reason to diversify their gear and approaches without nerfing ’Zerker.

Obviously if you want run in ‘Zerker gear and never have to get other gear you will hate that, because it’s the “hard counter”. So you are showing some balls but also some serious bias in demanding they not take this route! Cheapskate!

Attacking quicker is absolutely valid design, too – I mean, basically anything that could happen in PvP and that isn’t totally unfair, should be a risk in PvE. Sometimes that means facing attacks too rapid to just Dodge-roll or Block all of them.

velmeister.4187:

Beyond this obvious issue of cost, min-maxer will always, I repeat always, come up with 1 combination of gear set regardless of what ANET does. It may end up being 2 pieces of zerker, 1 sinsister, 1 giver, 1 apo, 1 sins etc. etc. to fill up all the slots to find the optimum balance for most of the content. And, believe me, many of us will copy that build and follow, thereby moving from zerker meta to another ‘combo’ meta.

You’re presuming all content would have the same meta, though – which is kind of true right now but that’s a design problem with the content.

A combo meta would be an improvement in accessibility, intuitive-ness and also mean that gear was priced in a more even way on the AH, which I would say were upsides.