Guild Wars 2

Please take this with a grain of salt as you read this but. . . here we go.
(For just solution skip to second post)
The problem thus far;
The Meta is, kill stuff before it kills us.
If I finish this faster I can get more reward
The more I do it, the more bad rewards I get, faster means the more gold I get from bad rewards (opinion).

So by the looks of things killing things fast is what people have narrowed playing the game to. berserker gear is the answer to that, You kill things fast making the mobs not able to kill you. Now this normally isn’t a problem because with the layout of mobs make them have a chance to chunk out your health while you damage another; this is okay because you have low defenses because of Power, Precision, Critical Damage being your main stats. No defense, so to counter that the community as a whole came up with the Skip it or Corner it Meta. Rather simple really, if you can skip the event or mobs do so, if not go into a corner, stack on top of one another and DPS it with Area of Effect Skills. So now the clumped up mobs cannot spread out to damage you effectively and you can hit every single mob there at once, raising your DPS tenfold.

That is what this Meta is currently and it doesn’t stop there. Clearly we couldn’t do that to a Boss all the time, some of those bosses have OHK skills. This will one hit everyone no matter the Toughness and Vitality you have on your character. So we are now discouraged once more to be a tank, There is no Holy Trinity, but that is not the problem. Why should I be a tank character with the highest survivability when I get one hit anyway? So being a tank really doesn’t mean I can survive. Thus give the impression to other players to NOT be a tank, but in return, be a DPS role. We have every profession being a DPS role because that is truly the only way to survive. This is wrong, but this is right too. We corner mobs into corners increasing our survivability by killing them all at once, we corner mobs making checkpoints clear faster, making dungeons faster. Now the problem with OHK moves is they are suppose to ONE HIT YOU. This would be great but we have the great tool of dodge. This lets us dodge every single attack no matter how threatening for about 1-2 seconds. With OHK moves they seem to be scripted on a timer, these timers are so forgiving our endurance refills to full before these OHK moves happen again. Berserker role players no longer need to risk their lives to damage 120%.

This is the meta snd that is the other problem with our game. How do we solve this meta though? This is what everyone and even the developers have been asking. A meta is not something you can just get rid of without drastically damaging a part of your game. A simple fix is to get rid of berserker gear or making the DPS so low it only does a small amount more than another set, but then Assassin’s gear will reign supreme. Thus recreating the meta. So to recap the problem before going into the Solution is this; Meta is Skip it or Corner it, killing fast is king thus making berserker gear king as well. We cannot get rid of berserker gear, and being a tank means nothing.

This is my opinion of a solution we could try; or at the very least test. Because as we all know everything, to some degree, looks great on paper (IE: Scarlet).
By definition is a Warrior who is Frenzied usually by rage or being crazed. Mechanically this fits the warrior profession perfectly, thoughth thatshis is irrelevant though. Berserker gear is Power, Precision, and Critical Damage. This raised the most highest damage stats for a character. Another form of what a berserker is that they will put their life up on the line but bring their entire deck to the table. Highest Risk/Reward factor. Where is that risk so far it is reward/reward.

So my solution is based on my understanding of their current change to critical damage. As I see it they will not undo those changes. (UPDATE SO FEROCITY DOESN’T DO WHAT I THOUGHT IT DID, READ THIS PART WITH A GRAIN OF SALT.) My understanding the gear will now be Power Precision Ferocity? (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ferocity). This might not work because they want all gear have the same initial stat value but lets go with this anyway. Lets say instead of what berserker gear will be soon and make it Power Ferocity and -5% endurance refill. This is 5% for Every berserker item. Armor, weapons, trinkets(6+4+6= 16 times 5=80%)
This can sound good or we could raise it so Chest and Legs are -15%. Excluding the chest from this equation this would be -70% endurance refill and then with the 15% from Chest and Legs that would be another -30% making -100% Endurance refill. To balance this “Nerf” we shall raise the Power they get from the gear making them hit ~1.5 times more damage and the ferocity giving them better critical chance. This sounds fair does it not? You hit more but you can’t dodge skills as much. I’ve also noted that this would cause classes with invulnerable skills to further use this gear set which in my opinion is fine. . . for this piece.

That is just one piece of the puzzle, this will cause berserkers have more of a risk to balance their reward. So now let us reward non berserker role players. Put in a code for % Toughness = % gained for OHK survival. This will make people want to be more of a tank, continue down this path to further increase the % damage reduction via % Toughness. So the higher Toughness I have the less % damage I take plus even more, the more % toughness I have the less likely I will be killed by OHK skills.
We can simply make this a percent chance to not die or a percent damage reduction. Instead of taking 100% of player health take 10% less or 30% less.

That should make not only tank players more happy but possibly cause berserker gear be washed out with toughness gear ie Knight’s (still gives damage but not as much as berserker’s. So we have made Varity in player build and meta but the mechanic of the Meta is also the problem. So we made it so berserkers cannot dodge as much as others but odds are currently they will regain endurance before the next OHK move. So let us create more OHK moves for bosses and have them more often. This should not effect tanks as much but also make people look for toughness players so they do not wipe completely. I am putting this to work with the idea A-net is doing with Vigor, slowly changing the amount of Vigor a class can acquire. So to recap this short bit also, toughness effects damage taken by over all damage and % damage from OHK. But also make OHK hit more often with different moves that OHK.

Now to the actual meta of skip it or corner it. I don’t have to much I can think of right now but I will try. For example in Ascalon Catacombs Dungeon the spider queen was a difficult fight but it is now rendered easier because we go into the corner by the stairs and stack absolutely destroying it with AoE and DPS. Perhaps make it so the Spider queen goes Invulnerable but past the gargoyle heads into the trap room, or have it reset but still take damage after that area. This will help boss fights but for fights IE the one fight after the Spider Queen we will need to do it a bit different. One fix would be stop players from jumping up to the wall or make the mobs spread out of the corner(opposite of the wall). Arena Net would have to go through and figure out the way NPC/mobs can go and where they’d get stuck where you can corner stack DPS them.

This was my solution of the ideas I’ve gathered based on my understanding, I am not saying “THIS WILL WORK DO IT NOW” but simply read it as “this is another players opinion and I think __”. Also notice how I mentioned reward and loot is a problem yet I mentioned nothing of it? That is simply because it will not fix the meta issue at all.

I’d love a developers opinion on this but I’m afraid it is to long For them to read.

TL:DR:
Make Berserker gear high risk high reward via more DPS, less endurance refill.
Make Toughness more valuable to living via less DPS taken, higher % to live from OHK.
Make OHK more frequent and more types of moves.
Make mobs/bosses smart enough to not go into corners to stop them from being Corner stacked.

No one has anything to say about this? I figured it would be a topic we could talk about.

Did you seriously just write down that you wanted more one hit kills?

Whew. this made me chuckle.

You just killed the Zerker meta and replaced it with a toughness meta. Try instead to think of balance.

It wouldn’t replace it with a Toughness meta, I’m not saying bosses should have 10 OHK moves either. But more or less 2 or 3 that it switches between. If full berserker players don’t put toughness they simply go to down state. People will toughness loss % health instead of going into down state. the values I used above are mere numbers we would have to test before going full into game. This theory I would imagine would not kill berserker roles but flood it with some toughness so they do not just go full berserker.
To remove one Meta another must take place, so Yes if this stops the Meta another will take its place.

Bad idea. Not even casuals support OHK’s from many readings of casual posts in the past.

also the endurance thing is nothing to any warrior, warhorn vigor, burst restores endurance, energy sigil, theres already a fractal thing less dodge and no zerk has a problem with that.

just another un-experienced player trying to fix something that he hasnt studied enough.

The thing is, the only way a boss mob has “10 one-hit kills” is if you’re an ele going full glass cannon. Even one of the hardest hitting bosses in the game (Lupicus) only has two or three attacks that deal more than 16k damage.

The rest ARE survivable, if you’re ready for it and have something (either in your gear or build) that increases your defense to some degree.

So, yeah… the boss mechanics pretty much already ARE what you want it to be.

At issue is that if you ARE ready for it, it’s generally preferable to avoid the damage entirely, which is what makes said toughness and vitality largely worthless to an experienced player.

I’m not sure what the answer is… but I don’t think what the OP asks for is it either.

As I said i wasn’t speaking of 10 OHK moves for every boss, I am speaking more of less the ones who have 1 or none. IE: Lupi can stay as is. And I am aware Warriors have a lot of Vigor but if the armor gives 80-100% negative endurance regen even those skills won’t do do much PLUS that using those will reduce their DPS as well(maybe not signet warriors). Warriors make the most sense to be a berserker DPS class.

Riku.4821:

Warriors make the most sense to be a berserker DPS class.

What do you want Thief to be, then? A healer?!

This entire idea is awful. More chance of OHKO from less dodges means people will run even MORE Berserker. THE ENTIRE REASON THE BERSERKER META EXISTS IS BECAUSE OF HARD HITS MAKING TOUGHNESS WORTHLESS AND SUPPORT/CONTROL BEING POINTLESS. IT IS NOTHING TO DO WITH DODGES.

FYI, Warrior meta builds contain precisely zero Vigor.

Maybe you could think about all 8 classes instead of constantly in the context of just Warrior. This reeks of ignorance and/or an agenda to boost your main class against others.

Been busy irl didn’t have time to check forum. For the record my main is a cleric guardian and a dmg survival mesmer. I feel thieves should be blow out massive crits then disappear and blow out another crit from behind you. Warriors on the other hand I see as the two opposites, either full dmg or support tank(banner, shouts).
could you explain why people would build more berserker gear if it means dying more often? Perhaps to balance out more. Give bosses more health?

I have a very simply solution to all “meta” builds, I ignore them and the players who insist you have to use them. Never used them in GW1, will not be using them in GW2 either. I play with the build I like that fits my play style. That is the reason there are so many traits, you can choose the ones that fit you. Players who insist on using cookie cutter builds simply have no imagination or skill of their own.

Riku.4821:

For the record my main is a cleric guardian and a dmg survival mesmer.

Holy porcupine … Why man, just why???

• Ferocity does not add to critical chance; ergo removing precision would be an extreme nerf to glass DPS builds, which depend heavily on high crit chances plus high critical damage to generate their high damage
• On Berserker gear, Power is already the highest stat. Not sure whether you’re proposing giving Berserker gear 1.5x of the power it has (which would counter an attempt to have stat numbers be consistent across sets), or some sort of adjustment to the damage formula only for glass builds; neither idea is consistent with developer intent
• There are currently no stat sets with negative attributes; introducing negative attributes would be an admission that the existing set-up is broken, which is not the case
• Glass builds are just one of several options in PvP, ergo the problem is not inherent to stat distribution; the real problem is that mob combat plays into the game’s damage avoidance frames in a way that player combat does not; relatively simple adjustments to mob combat would be a better solution than making glass builds much weaker in WvW
• Making it harder for glass builds to recoup their dodge would place further emphasis on finishing mobs faster; this would make adhering to the existing meta even more important, rather than promoting diversity

Honestly, if ANet is going to stick to stat adjustment solutions rather than adjustments to dungeon mob AI, it might be better to just let the meta be, and give Healing Power and Toughness a PvE only buff (i.e., not in WvW and not in sPvP).

Thank you @Sundown, read your post and I now understand about the removal of precision. As I said I though ferocity did something else than what it does. Well adjustment to mob AI was another part to my solution, as was a buff to toughness and healing power. Personally I think seeing attack speed/energy regen/-endurance regen would be cool to see(similar to gw1).
@dalanor Because I like having a healer class.

Riku.4821:

@dalanor Because I like having a healer class.

In a game where roles like tanks and healers are non-existent. Great! Makes sense!

This is possibly the worst idea i’ve seen in a long time.

Let’s make zerker hit for more but make it unplayable because it’ll never get to deal that damage.
Let’s make non-zerker builds facetank even better than they do now.

How about no?

Also if you like having a healer class perhaps the game that was designed form the ground up to not have a dedicated healer or any sort of class oriented towards that isn’t the one for you.
Just saying.

@Dalanor I’ve enjoyed the 1400hours I’ve played and my healer guardian. They designed to play how you want to yet the meta takes that over because if you aren’t berserker 5K+ AP player you get kicked out of the party.

The main idea behind my idea is berserker players keep some DPS gear then fill it with say Knights. This keeps DPS but lowers it making OHK’s less effect over all.

Clearly no one even wants to talk about why they don’t like something, just bash it then go play DPS wars 2.