Guild Wars 2

Mapisto.2154:

Guys, you are going off topic!!
I did not say zerks need to be nerfd, and the topic is not about how zerks are lame.
Some of us clearly like this style and its really fine, but the problem is that other builds don’t match zerks in PVE.

Lets simplify it: condies are bad in PVE, they need improvement.

The problem with your bolded statement is
zerker is not a build. zerker is gear. They are not the same thing.

Maybe Burst meta could be a better term, but could confuse new posters.

xDudisx.5914:

Bran.7425:

One of the issues I have with the this whole berserker argument is that it suppose to be justified by the lack of defensive stats, but by that same notion there should be a build of some profession that caps out damage wise in Rampager’s or the new Sinister gear as they equally lack defense. Then we get into the odd critical hit immune object bosses (that feel a bit lazy in that over all design).

One problem with no crit is that there are conditions that proc on crit. Giving higher armor and maybe less hp would be a good way to promote conditions a little bit, at least for bosses.

Condition damage problem boiled down to the limitation of the game engine. Shared, capped, redundant and queued of 25 stacks make it awful for group game play. Each classes should have had their own specific conditions to begin with to avoid queue and redundancy problem inter classes. Then condition damage should be on individual basis, no queue, no stacking, no 25 stack cap BS.

Even if condition damage become viable or fixed for group play, OP’s dilemma won’t be solved by much. The game will be majority a dps oriented game. OP is just taking a short cut by blaming zerk, which he confused for build, not gears. There are zerk gears with meta build around it. It doesn’t mean you can’t wear other gears with that meta build. Go wear a soldier or knight gears for instance, no 1 stopping you.

Look at silverwaste, at first you thought it’s challenging and toughness+vitality matter. Reality is it consist of spamfest and virtually no cd hostile npc all around. It’s hardly a survival fight, you still want to kill them ASAP.
Breaches and Vinewrath bosses are DPS fight (with hard timer), with few survival mechanic build for you.
Even the most difficult encounter 3xWurm is a DPS fight (with hard timer), survival mechanics are just extras.
Likewise, Teq.

It’s the very nature of mmorpg, dps dps dps. Even with holy trinity around on other mmorpg, players don’t like to spend an eternity killing stuffs. The problem with gw2 is without holy trinity, the focus on dps is even more obvious and amplified.
It’s not different on FPS games either, overpowered guns tend to be used and survival come down to who can kill faster, dps, given skill and tactic are on par.

OP, probably should play single player game like Dark Souls series or others.

You guys heard the phrase about beating dead horses?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/This-Meta-has-to-end/first#post4602051

Artemis Thuras.8795:

You guys heard the phrase about beating dead horses?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/This-Meta-has-to-end/first#post4602051

But, but, but…

…It makes such a satisfying ‘splat’ sound when I hit it with this stick.

:(

Mapisto.2154:

Guys, you are going off topic!!
I did not say zerks need to be nerfd, and the topic is not about how zerks are lame.
Some of us clearly like this style and its really fine, but the problem is that other builds don’t match zerks in PVE.

Lets simplify it: condies are bad in PVE, they need improvement.

First – I hope you read my posts that were addressed to you since I tried to make some things you didn’t quite seem to know clear.

Second – we all know condis are bad in PVE. This topic has been done and redone about a million times. People figured it out shortly after launch.

The fact that 2.5 years later they’ve been unable to fix it pretty much means they don’t have a way to fix it.

It’s not as simple as " oh this needs improving " and then boom – it gets improved.

I’m pretty sure the hundreds of condition damage in PVE threads have shown the devs what the community feels regarding this topic.

I’m also sure that if they could fix it – they would – but I doubt there’s a fix to the condi cap.

Mapisto.2154:

Hi everyone.
When was the last time you saw a player wearing a rampager armor? sinister? shaman?

Im not saying “nerf zerks”.
I think condition damage should play a greater role in PVE.
Healing power and vitality are not that important to survive.
Non-zerk builds not rewarding enough.

Hope you guys agree with me.

My 2nd-most powerful character wears mostly Rampager.

My most powerful character wears full Dire.

Sariel V.7024:

Mapisto.2154:

Hi everyone.
When was the last time you saw a player wearing a rampager armor? sinister? shaman?

Im not saying “nerf zerks”.
I think condition damage should play a greater role in PVE.
Healing power and vitality are not that important to survive.
Non-zerk builds not rewarding enough.

Hope you guys agree with me.

My 2nd-most powerful character wears mostly Rampager.

My most powerful character wears full Dire.

No! It can’t be true! You’re lying!

No! NOOOOOOOOOOoOoOOoooOOo!

In other news, I have a Dire set on one of my necros. That and her giver’s weapons makes for some yakkety sax times. Its like ‘Trololol, I can’t die, neener neener, OH YOU’RE TRYING TO KILL ME, have some 1m+ long bleeds dealing 21.8k damage and enjoy your terror-trip right out of my face!’

It doesn’t hit hard for straight damage, but y’know…it just about can’t die, and the bleeds just go on for miles.

Miles, I tell you.

Miles.

Pino.5209:

xDudisx.5914:

Bran.7425:

One of the issues I have with the this whole berserker argument is that it suppose to be justified by the lack of defensive stats, but by that same notion there should be a build of some profession that caps out damage wise in Rampager’s or the new Sinister gear as they equally lack defense. Then we get into the odd critical hit immune object bosses (that feel a bit lazy in that over all design).

One problem with no crit is that there are conditions that proc on crit. Giving higher armor and maybe less hp would be a good way to promote conditions a little bit, at least for bosses.

Condition damage problem boiled down to the limitation of the game engine. Shared, capped, redundant and queued of 25 stacks make it awful for group game play. Each classes should have had their own specific conditions to begin with to avoid queue and redundancy problem inter classes. Then condition damage should be on individual basis, no queue, no stacking, no 25 stack cap BS.

Even if condition damage become viable or fixed for group play, OP’s dilemma won’t be solved by much. The game will be majority a dps oriented game. OP is just taking a short cut by blaming zerk, which he confused for build, not gears. There are zerk gears with meta build around it. It doesn’t mean you can’t wear other gears with that meta build. Go wear a soldier or knight gears for instance, no 1 stopping you.

Look at silverwaste, at first you thought it’s challenging and toughness+vitality matter. Reality is it consist of spamfest and virtually no cd hostile npc all around. It’s hardly a survival fight, you still want to kill them ASAP.
Breaches and Vinewrath bosses are DPS fight (with hard timer), with few survival mechanic build for you.
Even the most difficult encounter 3xWurm is a DPS fight (with hard timer), survival mechanics are just extras.
Likewise, Teq.

It’s the very nature of mmorpg, dps dps dps. Even with holy trinity around on other mmorpg, players don’t like to spend an eternity killing stuffs. The problem with gw2 is without holy trinity, the focus on dps is even more obvious and amplified.
It’s not different on FPS games either, overpowered guns tend to be used and survival come down to who can kill faster, dps, given skill and tactic are on par.

OP, probably should play single player game like Dark Souls series or others.

Looks like you are trying to underrate the gear just to say that zerker is not a problem. Try running meta traits with nomads and see how much dps you will lose.

The limitations of the 25 stacks are a problem almost impossible to solve in open world but for a 5men instanced dungeon it could be bypassed tweaking armor and hp numbers.

xDudisx.5914:

Looks like you are trying to underrate the gear just to say that zerker is not a problem. Try running meta traits with nomads and see how much dps you will lose.

The DPS you’d lose is largely irrelevant when you consider that you’d be essentially unkillable.

hybrid.5027:

xDudisx.5914:

Looks like you are trying to underrate the gear just to say that zerker is not a problem. Try running meta traits with nomads and see how much dps you will lose.

The DPS you’d lose is largely irrelevant when you consider that you’d be essentially unkillable.

Yeah, clearlly irrelevant. That is why we see everyone running nomads, clerics, dire, etc and no one running zerker/assassin.

Bran.7425:

Maybe Burst meta could be a better term, but could confuse new posters.

The proper term is “glass”. Honestly, how many people truly run glass builds with all offensive traits, damaging utilities and narry a cleanse/stun-break?

Not siding with either side here, but many of the “zerk” meta have different support/defensive traits/utilities even if that support tends to lean on team offensive buffs.

If you’re talking about the choice of striking the enemy down quickly, it’s kind of a player choice there. The default encounter has limitations that encourage offense and active defense that nullifies much of what the enemy can throw at you. Since a boon is pretty much the same no matter who you get it from (same with non-damaging condis) and everyone has access to invulnerability frames by default, you’re going to be hard pressed to get much from passive defense or healing. Unless those stats somehow boost active defense capabilities, we’ll be at an empass. No one seems interested in that course of action.

xDudisx.5914:

hybrid.5027:

xDudisx.5914:

Looks like you are trying to underrate the gear just to say that zerker is not a problem. Try running meta traits with nomads and see how much dps you will lose.

The DPS you’d lose is largely irrelevant when you consider that you’d be essentially unkillable.

Yeah, clearlly irrelevant. That is why we see everyone running nomads, clerics, dire, etc and no one running zerker/assassin.

The gear you choose is indicative of how much damage you believe you will be unable to avoid. If people running dungeons expected to receive as much unavoidable damage as a WVW commander, they would be running nomads. Did I really just have to explain that to you, or do you have a non-glib point to make?

You don’t see good players wearing tanky gear because they don’t need their training wheels or security blanket anymore. You probably don’t have as long a memory as I do, but two years ago the pve meta was guardians with 3k armor and warriors with some knights gears. People stopped valuing the extra defense these things gave them when they got better at avoiding damage in the first place.

Again, the DPS youd lose isn’t relevant because in full nomads it would be very difficult to die. Assuming you NEED the nomads gear (why else would you wear it?), it is by far the most efficient thing you can run. The problem you failed to see is that most people don’t need it since the game is 2.5 years old and people have have time to get good.

A few days ago I ran P4 arah with one person who really new what he was doing and a bunch of non-zerker “noobs”.

I had done the path before, but I was no expert. We didn’t run past monsters. We killed everything between us and victory.

It took us under an hour and a half to finish and we beat lupi on the first try.

Now on the flip-side, I went in on P3 arah with some folks who did F-all damage and we didn’t get past the first boss. Our DPS was low. People didn’t know what they were doing and we had no AOE condition clear.
Offense should probably be your main stat. You should combo at-least two sources of damage (Power, Crits, Conditions).
The newer content seems to be punishing zerk more than dungeons. Heck, the xp boost they did this past weekend did not even cover dungeons.

hybrid.5027:

xDudisx.5914:

hybrid.5027:

xDudisx.5914:

Looks like you are trying to underrate the gear just to say that zerker is not a problem. Try running meta traits with nomads and see how much dps you will lose.

The DPS you’d lose is largely irrelevant when you consider that you’d be essentially unkillable.

Yeah, clearlly irrelevant. That is why we see everyone running nomads, clerics, dire, etc and no one running zerker/assassin.

The gear you choose is indicative of how much damage you believe you will be unable to avoid. If people running dungeons expected to receive as much unavoidable damage as a WVW commander, they would be running nomads. Did I really just have to explain that to you, or do you have a non-glib point to make?

You don’t see good players wearing tanky gear because they don’t need their training wheels or security blanket anymore. You probably don’t have as long a memory as I do, but two years ago the pve meta was guardians with 3k armor and warriors with some knights gears. People stopped valuing the extra defense these things gave them when they got better at avoiding damage in the first place.

Again, the DPS youd lose isn’t relevant because in full nomads it would be very difficult to die. Assuming you NEED the nomads gear (why else would you wear it?), it is by far the most efficient thing you can run. The problem you failed to see is that most people don’t need it since the game is 2.5 years old and people have have time to get good.

You don’t see people wearing tank/condi/healer gear because most of the content is braindead easy. The content is so easy that it let you avoid almost all the dmg, by the simple fact that you kill the boss so fast it wont be able to kill you. You shouldn’t be able to avoid all/almost all the dmg investing 100% in offensive.

Just look at the past changes:

-nerf to ferocity
-nerf to FGS
-nerf to norn racial elite
-tomorrow a nerf to might

The dmg that you think is ok and “skillful” is just too high compared with everything else that it bypasses the easy hp spong bosses. I am glad that Anet is slowly walking towards the direction of reducing the direct dmg output in the game. Next step would be add more unavoidable dmg like perma retal, auras, pulsing aoe, etc…

Sinister is a full offensive set but condis are still bad in a group. It is not the offensive stats that are broken right now, just zerker/assassin all the other stats are subpar.

I tried zerking the new zones and living story.
It was way easier when I switched to a celestial spec.

The new mobs seem to dish out less damage, but are far harder to avoid. I like zerk being max damage, but you should feel the danger when running it.

For all these people calling zerk = skill. That only applies to solo runs. When people stack and burst a boss down before it finishes a wind-up, that is not skill in any sense of the word.

xDudisx.5914:

The content is so easy that it let you avoid almost all the dmg, by the simple fact that you kill the boss so fast it wont be able to kill you. You shouldn’t be able to avoid all/almost all the dmg investing 100% in offensive.

Your first sentence is incorrect. I can solo Lupicus on multiple classes not because I kill him before he can kill me with berserker gear, but because I understand his mechanics deeply and I know my classes well enough to adapt as needed to the challenges the mechanics present me.

Your second sentence is your opinion and not a fact. And it isn’t even a particularly useful opinion because the developers clearly intended the game to such that a skilled player can avoid damage. So I don’t want to say your opinion is wrong, I’ll be generous and say that your opinion does not accurately reflect what the game is in practice, nor what the game is intended to be in theory.

Who gives a flying kitten what’s “skill” and what’s not? Here’s the question:

Does TAKING LONGER to complete content mean you have more fun? If so, go wild. Just let people who want to complete it quickly do so.

Do content the way you want with like-minded people and stop complaining because somebody else wants to do it differently.

Kittening kitten.

Bran.7425:

xDudisx.5914:

One problem with no crit is that there are conditions that proc on crit. Giving higher armor and maybe less hp would be a good way to promote conditions a little bit, at least for bosses.

Perhaps, but with the whole games design being hinder with the limitation of 5v5 conquest mode balance it will be some time before PvE can really progress that and the condition caps (along with passive condition are going to happen traits when critical hits) make a condition focus player in a place where they may not get credit no matter the effort they put into the encounter (not to mention the general population focus of burn it before it can do anything/time limit style dps (gear) check encounter design)

I think an easy way to improve other builds overall is an overhaul of sorts for traits as a start. For example, necros take the power/prec lines whether they’re going for a condi build, power build, or hybrid. If they’re going for a power build, then a trait like Barbed Precision is more or less useless. Now, imagine if you could choose from a selection of the Minor traits, not just major? Perhaps one that doesnt inflict a condition, but is a benefit to a power build? Same thing with warriors and other classes that have Minor traits that inflict conditions.

In fact, I’d rather have Hemophilia as the Curses adept Minor, with the choice to take Barbed precision as the major.

xDudisx.5914:

hybrid.5027:

xDudisx.5914:

Looks like you are trying to underrate the gear just to say that zerker is not a problem. Try running meta traits with nomads and see how much dps you will lose.

The DPS you’d lose is largely irrelevant when you consider that you’d be essentially unkillable.

Yeah, clearlly irrelevant. That is why we see everyone running nomads, clerics, dire, etc and no one running zerker/assassin.

Have you considered that people don’t run those because they don’t need to be unkillable?

Mapisto.2154:

Thief (which has REALLY FUN skills that NO ONE USES because they are not proper berserker skills.)

Not sure what you’re talking about. Majority of thieves run berserker in S/P, S/D, D/D and occasionally P/D modes for specific targets.

… we don’t talk about P/Ps though.

Mapisto.2154:

When was the last time you saw a player wearing a rampager armor? sinister? shaman?

Sini S/S warriors exist, and you probably don’t want to ever meet one. Basically they’re like walking Volkovs. Rampager is used on some engineer builds that I frankly don’t agree with, but they exist.

Shaman, though… that’s regarded as one of the worst stat types around. Not as bad as Magi, though, because that one makes Nomad look good.

Marthkus.4615:

I tried zerking the new zones and living story.
It was way easier when I switched to a celestial spec.

The new mobs seem to dish out less damage, but are far harder to avoid. I like zerk being max damage, but you should feel the danger when running it.

For all these people calling zerk = skill. That only applies to solo runs. When people stack and burst a boss down before it finishes a wind-up, that is not skill in any sense of the word.

Yes, they learned that put almost all the boss dmg into a slow telegraphed hit was not very good idea. New mobs have a bit better atcks. A bunch of aoes, constant reapplying condis, etc. We also have examples of encounters where you cant do a critical hits and some heavy armor targets susceptible to condis.

With 5 zerker players the boss dies so fast that the only skill involved is land ice bow #5 and do a simple dps rotation that for soma classes consists in mostly autoatk

hybrid.5027:

xDudisx.5914:

The content is so easy that it let you avoid almost all the dmg, by the simple fact that you kill the boss so fast it wont be able to kill you. You shouldn’t be able to avoid all/almost all the dmg investing 100% in offensive.

Your first sentence is incorrect. I can solo Lupicus on multiple classes not because I kill him before he can kill me with berserker gear, but because I understand his mechanics deeply and I know my classes well enough to adapt as needed to the challenges the mechanics present me.

Your second sentence is your opinion and not a fact. And it isn’t even a particularly useful opinion because the developers clearly intended the game to such that a skilled player can avoid damage. So I don’t want to say your opinion is wrong, I’ll be generous and say that your opinion does not accurately reflect what the game is in practice, nor what the game is intended to be in theory.

I haven’t read such a bad post like yours in a long time.

In the greatest majority of the dungeons boss fights there is no skill involved because with 5 zerker meta players you kill the boss so fast it wont fight back. Your are trying to run away from what we are discussing. First you tried to put wvw , now solo runs. A player be able to complete a content designed for 5 is a blatant proof that the mechanics need some serious rework.

Your are just wrong. Just look at new content that they implement, things are changing to not favor zerker that much: teq, wurm, SW, etc…The only reason why dungeons still so easy is because they were made 2.5 years ago when game released and suffered small changes. The only place where zerker is risk/reward balanced is spvp because you can’t avoid all the dmg.

Also tomorrow they are reducing the overall dmg output by cutting 125 power.

Sinister is a full offensive set but condis are still bad in a group.

Lol most people do not seem to know : conditions are more then just bleeding & burning, which are both empty dmg condi’s.

If it wasn’t for conditions your game would be different

poison reducing healing by 33% and oh yes some dmg…
torment, well damage yes, but if they run, or you kite them dmg doubles
confusion, well use the skill I dare ya, and you’ll pay the price
vulnerability…. yes a condition want 25% more dmg?
weakness… turn your foe into a wet noodle. no more crits, 50% chance for 50% dmg.
blind: miss next attck

interupts(and conditions):
stun/daze
knockdown
fear/ terror

movement impeding conditions.
immobilized: you are going nowhere
chill 66% reduced movement, 66% added recharge
criple 50% reduced movement…

Conditions are more then just a few points of damage. Most condition builds will run condition duration, which will benefit the group directly. Also some condition users are not hampered by the masses and their meta builds, : mesmers… Ok you’ll lose 20% of group dmg output vs a zerker, but a decent DOT build will do a lot of damage, and it will keep on ticking for a while, very usefull if you need to rerun as the boss will not reset untill the condition has passed… Oh and if a condi specisalist is not wanted take a hybrid…

Also tomorrow they are reducing the overall dmg output by cutting 125 power.

Which is the end of the world your DPS zerk warrior will lose out on 3.5% power… so now the end-boss in AC p2 will take 5.175 seconds instead of 5. I’m truly shocked

I do agree with lupicus solo It will take a little bit more then a couple of hits more. for every 30 hits you’ll need to do 1 more now. Yes…. if you’d be running 25 stacks all the time that is…

Harper.4173:

xDudisx.5914:

hybrid.5027:

xDudisx.5914:

Looks like you are trying to underrate the gear just to say that zerker is not a problem. Try running meta traits with nomads and see how much dps you will lose.

The DPS you’d lose is largely irrelevant when you consider that you’d be essentially unkillable.

Yeah, clearlly irrelevant. That is why we see everyone running nomads, clerics, dire, etc and no one running zerker/assassin.

Have you considered that people don’t run those because they don’t need to be unkillable?

Have ever thought that the reason they would be unkillable is because dungeon’s bosses are doing too little dmg and when they do it is concentrated in slow telegraphed skills? If bosses had more armor, less hp, more dmg, and hit more often the game would be much more balance for all the other stat combination available. The reason defensive stats are useless now is because there is little to no unavoidable dmg in pve.

Berserker is fine, the reason why everybody uses it it because condition damage sucks.

The very few high armor NPCs in the Maguuma Wastes dont change anything.
Condition damage needs to be useful in pve, that will fix berserker gear.

And its not hard to do this too: increase the bleeding caps for Champions and above and rebalance the armor/health levels of every single NPC for more armor and less health.

There you go I did you job, pay me.

xDudisx.5914:

The content is so easy that it let you avoid almost all the dmg, by the simple fact that you kill the boss so fast it wont be able to kill you.

That’s clearly cheating.
You should only be able to kill thing after you’re dead.

Non-zerk gear is only useful in WvW. So they might as well remove it from PvE all together, forcing noobs to learn how to play, and this debate will be over once and for all.

A player be able to complete a content designed for 5 is a blatant proof that the mechanics need some serious rework.

Not really. Tera and WoW have soloable instances. There are a lot of single player games with parties where you can choose to go without one and solo the game too. Things being soloable just demonstrates that when a player reaches a certain skill level that the game won’t just outright deny them the opportunity to put their skills to the test by things like player gating (stand on 4 switches, oh I guess you can’t solo now hurrrrrrrr).

A game will pretty much never be balanced around soloing if it involves group combat, but if it is possible, that is always nice. The Dragon Age games are all balanced around using a party but I think all three of them are soloable.

Sube Dai.8496:

Non-zerk gear is only useful in WvW. So they might as well remove it from PvE all together, forcing noobs to learn how to play, and this debate will be over once and for all.

Yeah there is plenty of PVE content that is hard to zerk through.

That is stuff no one runs though because it is hard to zerk through.

xDudisx.5914:

Harper.4173:

xDudisx.5914:

hybrid.5027:

xDudisx.5914:

Looks like you are trying to underrate the gear just to say that zerker is not a problem. Try running meta traits with nomads and see how much dps you will lose.

The DPS you’d lose is largely irrelevant when you consider that you’d be essentially unkillable.

Yeah, clearlly irrelevant. That is why we see everyone running nomads, clerics, dire, etc and no one running zerker/assassin.

Have you considered that people don’t run those because they don’t need to be unkillable?

Have ever thought that the reason they would be unkillable is because dungeon’s bosses are doing too little dmg and when they do it is concentrated in slow telegraphed skills? If bosses had more armor, less hp, more dmg, and hit more often the game would be much more balance for all the other stat combination available. The reason defensive stats are useless now is because there is little to no unavoidable dmg in pve.

What if the boss’ telegraph attack was still pretty strong, but during the channel of a certain one, it blocks critical hits, has heightened armor and if interrupted, he kind of “explodes” doing AoE CC and ripping all your boons away? If he uses the attack and lands it, he follows up with quick flurries of weaker hits but while doing so is much more vulnerable to damage for a time?

so you block the big choreographed one, and then just double dodge (or if extra dodge needed, energy sigil so you can triple dodge) through the flurry of damage?

Leo G.4501:

xDudisx.5914:

Harper.4173:

xDudisx.5914:

hybrid.5027:

xDudisx.5914:

Looks like you are trying to underrate the gear just to say that zerker is not a problem. Try running meta traits with nomads and see how much dps you will lose.

The DPS you’d lose is largely irrelevant when you consider that you’d be essentially unkillable.

Yeah, clearlly irrelevant. That is why we see everyone running nomads, clerics, dire, etc and no one running zerker/assassin.

Have you considered that people don’t run those because they don’t need to be unkillable?

Have ever thought that the reason they would be unkillable is because dungeon’s bosses are doing too little dmg and when they do it is concentrated in slow telegraphed skills? If bosses had more armor, less hp, more dmg, and hit more often the game would be much more balance for all the other stat combination available. The reason defensive stats are useless now is because there is little to no unavoidable dmg in pve.

What if the boss’ telegraph attack was still pretty strong, but during the channel of a certain one, it blocks critical hits, has heightened armor and if interrupted, he kind of “explodes” doing AoE CC and ripping all your boons away? If he uses the attack and lands it, he follows up with quick flurries of weaker hits but while doing so is much more vulnerable to damage for a time?

Yeah, that sounds overcomplicated and would lend to being broketastic from the moment it were implemented on into the rest of the game’s lifestpan.

I shudder to imagine them trying to make something that complex playable for the average GW2 player.

maha.7902:

A player be able to complete a content designed for 5 is a blatant proof that the mechanics need some serious rework.

Not really. Tera and WoW have soloable instances. There are a lot of single player games with parties where you can choose to go without one and solo the game too. Things being soloable just demonstrates that when a player reaches a certain skill level that the game won’t just outright deny them the opportunity to put their skills to the test by things like player gating (stand on 4 switches, oh I guess you can’t solo now hurrrrrrrr).

A game will pretty much never be balanced around soloing if it involves group combat, but if it is possible, that is always nice. The Dragon Age games are all balanced around using a party but I think all three of them are soloable.

If there is a specific solo version of the dungeon it is a different story. Normally games that give up the solo option have 2 versions: 1 for groups and 1 for solo with less hp/dmg, etc.. Normally you also dont have solo versions for all the dungeons. When I played Tera I remmember intances like WonderHolme and some other dungeons had no solo options

Also games that have gear grind it is understandable that if you go back to a lower lvl and lower gear requirement dungeons you will be able to solo. Here we are balanced for the lvl of the content and have no gear grind compared with other mmos.

maha.7902:

so you block the big choreographed one, and then just double dodge (or if extra dodge needed, energy sigil so you can triple dodge) through the flurry of damage?

A block wouldn’t be considered ‘connecting’ though. So he wouldn’t go into the flurry of attacks therefore he would remain ‘armored’ for a time. Invulnerable also sort of just cancels attacks rather than connecting (from experience).

naiasonod.9265:

Leo G.4501:

xDudisx.5914:

Harper.4173:

xDudisx.5914:

hybrid.5027:

xDudisx.5914:

Looks like you are trying to underrate the gear just to say that zerker is not a problem. Try running meta traits with nomads and see how much dps you will lose.

The DPS you’d lose is largely irrelevant when you consider that you’d be essentially unkillable.

Yeah, clearlly irrelevant. That is why we see everyone running nomads, clerics, dire, etc and no one running zerker/assassin.

Have you considered that people don’t run those because they don’t need to be unkillable?

Have ever thought that the reason they would be unkillable is because dungeon’s bosses are doing too little dmg and when they do it is concentrated in slow telegraphed skills? If bosses had more armor, less hp, more dmg, and hit more often the game would be much more balance for all the other stat combination available. The reason defensive stats are useless now is because there is little to no unavoidable dmg in pve.

What if the boss’ telegraph attack was still pretty strong, but during the channel of a certain one, it blocks critical hits, has heightened armor and if interrupted, he kind of “explodes” doing AoE CC and ripping all your boons away? If he uses the attack and lands it, he follows up with quick flurries of weaker hits but while doing so is much more vulnerable to damage for a time?

Yeah, that sounds overcomplicated and would lend to being broketastic from the moment it were implemented on into the rest of the game’s lifestpan.

I shudder to imagine them trying to make something that complex playable for the average GW2 player.

Hah, I love this attitude.

Pretty much amounts to “ACCEPT THE GAME THE WAY IT IS! FLAWS, REPEAT TACTICS AND ALL!” I mean, geeze, you’re basically not even trying

I’m finding my sinister fitted necro a lot of fun, and rewarding, Probably the best hybrid equipment for a necro.

So, what we can gather from this thread, just like all the others that are frequently made:

Berserker stats are not the problem, it’s the fact the mechanics and AI in dungeons are far too easy.

Oh so facetank builds or “healer” builds where you sit at the back and watch peoples health bar without anything else should be more rewarding than zerk?.. why again?

I also sense alot of salty people that dislike others for soloing and selling dungeon path. They don’t know that being able to solo a dungeon is a good thing, its not like soloing them is easy, let alone doing it effeciently. If you dislike parties demanding zerk all the time, you can always go solo a dungeon in whatever gear you want, any gear is viable, people have even solo’d arah naked.

Final thing i have to say is you can tell when somebody has no idea of what they are talking about when they say stacking is core for the “meta”.

Because a legitimate suggestion is being ignored in favor of people kittening back and forth with hyperbole and generally NOT contributing to this thread in general, have it quoted at you again.

xDudisx.5914:

Bran.7425:

xDudisx.5914:

One problem with no crit is that there are conditions that proc on crit. Giving higher armor and maybe less hp would be a good way to promote conditions a little bit, at least for bosses.

Perhaps, but with the whole games design being hinder with the limitation of 5v5 conquest mode balance it will be some time before PvE can really progress that and the condition caps (along with passive condition are going to happen traits when critical hits) make a condition focus player in a place where they may not get credit no matter the effort they put into the encounter (not to mention the general population focus of burn it before it can do anything/time limit style dps (gear) check encounter design)

I think an easy way to improve other builds overall is an overhaul of sorts for traits as a start. For example, necros take the power/prec lines whether they’re going for a condi build, power build, or hybrid. If they’re going for a power build, then a trait like Barbed Precision is more or less useless. Now, imagine if you could choose from a selection of the Minor traits, not just major? Perhaps one that doesnt inflict a condition, but is a benefit to a power build? Same thing with warriors and other classes that have Minor traits that inflict conditions.

In fact, I’d rather have Hemophilia as the Curses adept Minor, with the choice to take Barbed precision as the major.

Try not to get the thread closed would you guys? Refining (or discovering) ideas is better done in a single thread instead of being strewn around 982374650234876592384765 threads where 982374650234876592384764 of them have been locked due to posts like the last 10 or so.

edit:(the quote is my reply to the inner quote, forum wonkiness is breaking it, cba fixing)

Mapisto.2154:

Do you see what they did there? this is a role playing game and you have one role for pve.

I do not mean to insult, but the above is as “accurate” as the statement that Rangers are supposed to be archers because they are "range"rs.

RPG was never meant to mean tanks/healers/DPSrs. The “Role” term has nothing to do with video game trinities, even if many said games have these or other roles. In short, RPG, the original term, has no relation whatsoever with player character in-game roles-it is about YOU playing the role of your character, regardless of its “role” the game.

(GW2 doesn’t need a trinity to be a RPG, as it only needs the role-player, not any trinity roles.)

Lazaar.9123:

Zenith.7301:

Except I use zerker stats. On every one of my toons. And I’m sick of the kittenty PvE exploits. Nobody does it for the challenge. They do it for the gold.

How can a 3-4 minute fight translate into a “challenge” is beyond me. All you need to know is where to ball in as a group, and robotically evade the tell.

No real cleansing mechanisms, no party splitting to do real encounter objectives. Just zerg the living crap out of every boss in this game.

So, no, I’ve read your kittenty excuses, I just don’t accept them as a valid argument for making all the other stat combinations and playstyle options worthless for any serious content approach.

Funny, considering anything outside of dungeon speed runs can be done by any build. You can’t even crit the ‘bosses that are zerged the living crap out of’. And yes, people using exploits is a problem, but ArenaNet already does action against them if they see it. But that has no relevance to zerker stats.

You can do it, but you complicate your life significantly by doing so and drag out the run by a considerable amount.

I could go back to WoW and carry a bunch of guildmates through mythics while they’re doing 17k dps while a few of us do 30k+ dps, but I have no desire to make my experience more time consuming seeing as how I’d rather have that extra time to do other things.

So, yeah, I could use a longbow on my RANGER, and maybe use the black moa I worked so hard to get the hall of monuments points for, but that only makes the run a far worse experience.

And what I want is not to complete the content, but have competitive playstyle options instead of the whole stack all zerker, bring a warrior with banners and an ele to stack might and zerg the boss in 2 minutes garbage that most PvE content currently is.

In dynamic events you just switch it out for stacking guardians and warriors in melee and having eles spam staff skills.

As usual, necro and ranger can do whatever because they’re a subpar class anyways that doesn’t fit into most game formats.

There’s not a single recent time where in WoW you even encounter something like "no rogues/hunters, paladins and warriors only. "

This game has such an egregious disparity of power between builds and professions, and people like to sit here and pretend that the supremacy of Warriors, Guardians, Thieves and Elementalists in PvE and WvW isn’t something real.

Zenith.7301:

You can do it, but you complicate your life significantly by doing so and drag out the run by a considerable amount.

I could go back to WoW and carry a bunch of guildmates through mythics while they’re doing 17k dps while a few of us do 30k+ dps, but I have no desire to make my experience more time consuming seeing as how I’d rather have that extra time to do other things.

So, yeah, I could use a longbow on my RANGER, and maybe use the black moa I worked so hard to get the hall of monuments points for, but that only makes the run a far worse experience.

And what I want is not to complete the content, but have competitive playstyle options instead of the whole stack all zerker, bring a warrior with banners and an ele to stack might and zerg the boss in 2 minutes garbage that most PvE content currently is.

In dynamic events you just switch it out for stacking guardians and warriors in melee and having eles spam staff skills.

As usual, necro and ranger can do whatever because they’re a subpar class anyways that doesn’t fit into most game formats.

There’s not a single recent time where in WoW you even encounter something like "no rogues/hunters, paladins and warriors only. "

This game has such an egregious disparity of power between builds and professions, and people like to sit here and pretend that the supremacy of Warriors, Guardians, Thieves and Elementalists in PvE and WvW isn’t something real.

The only class that isnt equal to the others is necro. Ranger engineer and mesmer which you did not mention in that last list are all very very good in PvE giving off good dps. Engineer and Mesmers are super helpful because of vuln from engies and reflects/ pulls from mesmers.

What you’re talking about seems to be just a problem with how easy PvE is and how boss mechanics are simple and easy to bypass. How does that relate to Zerker? People are complaining about berserker but everytime i run any dungeon i always have to right zerk only to get maybe 3 members with good dps. Its not really a problem not everyone uses it and most people couldn’t care less if the run takes a couple minutes longer. Talk about how certain professions need to be boosted and how challenging dungeons need to be created in HoT, dont complain about a build thats strong.

champ.7021:

Zenith.7301:

You can do it, but you complicate your life significantly by doing so and drag out the run by a considerable amount.

I could go back to WoW and carry a bunch of guildmates through mythics while they’re doing 17k dps while a few of us do 30k+ dps, but I have no desire to make my experience more time consuming seeing as how I’d rather have that extra time to do other things.

So, yeah, I could use a longbow on my RANGER, and maybe use the black moa I worked so hard to get the hall of monuments points for, but that only makes the run a far worse experience.

And what I want is not to complete the content, but have competitive playstyle options instead of the whole stack all zerker, bring a warrior with banners and an ele to stack might and zerg the boss in 2 minutes garbage that most PvE content currently is.

In dynamic events you just switch it out for stacking guardians and warriors in melee and having eles spam staff skills.

As usual, necro and ranger can do whatever because they’re a subpar class anyways that doesn’t fit into most game formats.

There’s not a single recent time where in WoW you even encounter something like "no rogues/hunters, paladins and warriors only. "

This game has such an egregious disparity of power between builds and professions, and people like to sit here and pretend that the supremacy of Warriors, Guardians, Thieves and Elementalists in PvE and WvW isn’t something real.

The only class that isnt equal to the others is necro. Ranger engineer and mesmer which you did not mention in that last list are all very very good in PvE giving off good dps. Engineer and Mesmers are super helpful because of vuln from engies and reflects/ pulls from mesmers.

What you’re talking about seems to be just a problem with how easy PvE is and how boss mechanics are simple and easy to bypass. How does that relate to Zerker? People are complaining about berserker but everytime i run any dungeon i always have to right zerk only to get maybe 3 members with good dps. Its not really a problem not everyone uses it and most people couldn’t care less if the run takes a couple minutes longer. Talk about how certain professions need to be boosted and how challenging dungeons need to be created in HoT, dont complain about a build thats strong.

I don’t want zerker nerfed. I want other stat builds buffed, and zerker people don’t want that because they get their rocks off on having superiority over other builds.

Lazaar.9123:

So, what we can gather from this thread, just like all the others that are frequently made:

Berserker stats are not the problem, it’s the fact the mechanics and AI in dungeons are far too easy.

/thread

Leo G.4501:

naiasonod.9265:

Leo G.4501:

What if the boss’ telegraph attack was still pretty strong, but during the channel of a certain one, it blocks critical hits, has heightened armor and if interrupted, he kind of “explodes” doing AoE CC and ripping all your boons away? If he uses the attack and lands it, he follows up with quick flurries of weaker hits but while doing so is much more vulnerable to damage for a time?

Yeah, that sounds overcomplicated and would lend to being broketastic from the moment it were implemented on into the rest of the game’s lifestpan.

I shudder to imagine them trying to make something that complex playable for the average GW2 player.

Hah, I love this attitude.

Pretty much amounts to “ACCEPT THE GAME THE WAY IT IS! FLAWS, REPEAT TACTICS AND ALL!” I mean, geeze, you’re basically not even trying

And you’re trying to add complicated mechanics that target a specific stat choice. Why “blocks critical hits?” Why not “blocks all hits?” I’m fine with more interesting fights, but not with targeting play styles because some people don’t understand the concept of opportunity cost.

Zenith.7301:

I don’t want zerker nerfed. I want other stat builds buffed, and zerker people don’t want that because they get their rocks off on having superiority over other builds.

So you’re generalizing and have an attitude problem? Check out Brazil’s youtube he has a condi warrior build. ppl want more builds, Anet hasnt created them. The only thing zerker lovers hate is builds like clerics because they dont like healing but Anet keeps buffing those so……

Lazaar.9123:

Lazaar.9123:

So, what we can gather from this thread, just like all the others that are frequently made:

Berserker stats are not the problem, it’s the fact the mechanics and AI in dungeons are far too easy.

/thread

fine ill stop

IndigoSundown.5419:

Leo G.4501:

naiasonod.9265:

Leo G.4501:

What if the boss’ telegraph attack was still pretty strong, but during the channel of a certain one, it blocks critical hits, has heightened armor and if interrupted, he kind of “explodes” doing AoE CC and ripping all your boons away? If he uses the attack and lands it, he follows up with quick flurries of weaker hits but while doing so is much more vulnerable to damage for a time?

Yeah, that sounds overcomplicated and would lend to being broketastic from the moment it were implemented on into the rest of the game’s lifestpan.

I shudder to imagine them trying to make something that complex playable for the average GW2 player.

Hah, I love this attitude.

Pretty much amounts to “ACCEPT THE GAME THE WAY IT IS! FLAWS, REPEAT TACTICS AND ALL!” I mean, geeze, you’re basically not even trying

And you’re trying to add complicated mechanics that target a specific stat choice. Why “blocks critical hits?” Why not “blocks all hits?” I’m fine with more interesting fights, but not with targeting play styles because some people don’t understand the concept of opportunity cost.

There’s no opportunity cost to a zerker playstyle when you can use a guardian and the evade mechanic to mitigate most of its weaknesses. Please stop trying so hard to paint zerker playstyle as this incredibly risky affair.

I’ll take a full zerker group to my fractal 50’s any day over some PVT or condi spec garbage. I’ll take heavies over some necro or ranger as well. Nothing poses a risk if you can kill it before it becomes a threat and a guardian is feeding your group aegis+ reflect making you virtually immune to dying for enough time to wipe out the threat.

A “block all attacks” mechanic would even hurt condi specs far more than power specs because most condi specs mainatain condi stacks through cd skills while power specs get the majority of their damage from autoattacks. A single blocked autoattack is not the same as getting a 8 sec cd condi skill blocked.

AI SHOULD target playstyles. There should be mobs resistant to direct damage and mobs that spam conditions so that groups have a variety of specs in them instead of the usual full zerker.

If the game doesn’t encourage variety in group composition, then every single comp will just try to maximize damage.

Zenith.7301:

There’s no opportunity cost to a zerker playstyle when you can use a guardian and the evade mechanic to mitigate most of its weaknesses. Please stop trying so hard to paint zerker playstyle as this incredibly risky affair.

Yeah, tell that to all the players I see downed left, right and center just about anywhere I play.

I’ll take a full zerker group to my fractal 50’s any day over some PVT or condi spec garbage. I’ll take heavies over some necro or ranger as well. Nothing poses a risk if you can kill it before it becomes a threat and a guardian is feeding your group aegis+ reflect making you virtually immune to dying for enough time to wipe out the threat.

So, what are the current speed records for boss kills post FGS nerf?

A “block all attacks” mechanic would even hurt condi specs far more than power specs because most condi specs mainatain condi stacks through cd skills while power specs get the majority of their damage from autoattacks. A single blocked autoattack is not the same as getting a 8 sec cd condi skill blocked.

Or, the condi player would know the fight the way the DD player would and would save his CD. If it’s just blocking for the space of one AA, then it’s just a hiccup, not a roadblock.

AI SHOULD target playstyles. There should be mobs resistant to direct damage and mobs that spam conditions so that groups have a variety of specs in them instead of the usual full zerker.

If the game doesn’t encourage variety in group composition, then every single comp will just try to maximize damage.

Variety in what mobs bring to the table is fine. In fact, there are mobs resistant to direct damage. There are mobs that spam AoE and mobs that spam conditions. There’s plenty of opportunity for varied choices in play. Some of that stuff even occurs in dungeons.

People should face the facts. ANet got the message and is varying up AI. Thing is, they’re doing it in new content, and the dungeons have been abandoned.

IndigoSundown.5419:

the dungeons have been abandoned.

Oh man it totally feels that way.

Dungeon emblems isn’t even the best way to get exotics. You just edge of the mist level and you will have enough badges to get a full exotic set of armor.

Then go sPvP to get the skins.

xDudisx.5914:

Just look at the past changes:

-nerf to ferocity
-nerf to FGS
-nerf to norn racial elite
-tomorrow a nerf to might

The dmg that you think is ok and “skillful” is just too high compared with everything else that it bypasses the easy hp spong bosses. I am glad that Anet is slowly walking towards the direction of reducing the direct dmg output in the game. Next step would be add more unavoidable dmg like perma retal, auras, pulsing aoe, etc…

Sinister is a full offensive set but condis are still bad in a group. It is not the offensive stats that are broken right now, just zerker/assassin all the other stats are subpar.

This is so wrong in so many ways. The problem with bosses dying too quickly is not of zerk gears. It is the problem with the encounters scaling. Blaming dps is getting old and before you know it you’ll be dishing out damages by the scale of peas after all these nerfs.
-Nerf to ferocity is a minor nerf to zerk stats. Zerk is stat is primary power.
-Nerf to FGS is a long overdue bug fixed.
-Most elite skills in this game are next to useless due to long cooldown. There are no direct damage nerf here. Norn elite skills are used only for fun, no one is using it for direct damage dps.
-This latest nerf to might is much more of nerf to ppl wearing knight, soldier, rabid, carrion etc on pve sense in comparison to zerk. Might nerf doesn’t do much to zerk stats, just a minimum damage loss, keep in mind their crit is intact.
You see the problem with all these nerf changes? None of them addresses condition damage, which is the alternative to white damages (dominated by zerk(power+crit)).
If you nerved the damage output of white damages to the point of equivalent conditions damage (in current state), we’ll all be having problem killing stuffs, teq and 3xwurm for starters (given scaling doesn’t change too).

You are saying offensive stats not broken while pointing out condition dmg is useless in group and blaming zerk stats again. You are contradicting yourself there. There are two type of damage builds (relative to gears) in general in this game, you either go condi or white damage. Offensive condi is obviously broken due to game engine limitation.

It is very unlikely that any bosses couldn’t land a damage on a group, on instance like AC for example. The problem isn’t solely on zerk stats build killing too fast. There are lots other problems.
- Scaling of encounter is one. AC P2 boss still will die within time frame of 1 trap even without stacking on pillar, given the group know what they are doing. This is a scaling problem.
- People often forgot stacking on corner does not only optimize dps (limited range) by might stacking+other buffs, stacking also optimize (limited range) defensive buffs and healings, which often proc upon attacking. This is combat mechanic problem, it entices player to stack. Hence, Stack Wars 2.

This optimization of defensive and offensive buffs while stacking combine with poor encounter scaling cause bosses to die easily.