Guild Wars 2

hendo.1940:

What makes me sick about this whole thing is how drawn this community is by spite. They don’t care that it’s not going to make people want their builds, they literally just want berserker gear users nerfed out of spite. It’s wrong, sad, and I really hope ANet don’t scale back on damage when it’s going to change nothing besides make it even harder for glass specs in WvW to take on tanky players.

That’s jsut the issue right there. Spiteful people who refuse to change and make themselves desirable so that they can run with good groups.

hendo.1940:

So basically a trinity of direct DPS, condition DPS and a healer.

How about you get the hint, realise this game isn’t for you and play something else?

Did you not play the hologram fight? The current is flowing my way, so who needs the hint?

Nike.2631:

hendo.1940:

So basically a trinity of direct DPS, condition DPS and a healer.

How about you get the hint, realise this game isn’t for you and play something else?

Did you not play the hologram fight? The current is flowing my way, so who needs the hint?

The hologram fight didn’t need any healer or condition user tbh :P
They were likely to slowdown the kill (and maybe make it fail) at best.

Vargamonth.2047:

The hologram fight didn’t need any healer or condition user tbh :P
They were likely to slowdown the kill (and maybe make it fail) at best.

Sure. Healers were, as usual completely tertiary to the process . The melee / ranged requirements were soft, but they were still there. You didn’t need condition damage, but if you didn’t have the conditions volume to bust the blue fragment’s shield consistently, your entire platform was going to fail and no amount of ’Zerk was going to change that.

TFMurphy.5136:

Your mistake is that the percentage loss you’re recording is the reduction in “extra average damage that Critical adds on top of normal damage”. You’re ignoring the base 100% damage you’d get if you had no criticals at all.

facepalm I’m not sure how I missed that.

I redid the calculation this time including a base damage number of 1,000, and here’s what I came out with:

Let’s say you do 1,000 damage per attack without a critical hit.
Now let’s say you have a 78% critical chance and compare 163% critical damage and 125% critical damage:

163% critical damage would increase your damage by 127.14% on average.
(0.78 * 163)
125% critical damage would increase your damage by 97.5% on average.
(0.78 * 125)

127.14% damage would increase your damage by 1,271.4.
(1,000 * 1.2714)
97.5% damage would increase your damage by 975.
(1,000 * 0.975)

Now, if you add this up and look at the final damage:
1,000 + 1,271.4 = 2,271.4
1,000 + 975 = 1,975

Now, what is the percentage difference between these two?
Final damage after ferocity = a
Final damage before ferocity = b
(b – a = c)
(b / 100 = f)
(c / f = damage decreased)

A = 1,975
B = 2,271.4
C = 296.4
F = 22.714
Damage decreased = 13.04922074%

And using the same method for 188% critical damage vs 141% critical damage with 98% critical chance:

A = 2381.8
B = 2842.4
C = 460.6
F = 28.424
Damage decreased = 16.20461582%

I’ll go and update my OP with this and if I made any mistakes, feel free to point them out.

EDIT: Fixed a few number mistakes.

Nike.2631:

Vargamonth.2047:

The hologram fight didn’t need any healer or condition user tbh :P
They were likely to slowdown the kill (and maybe make it fail) at best.

Sure. Healers were, as usual completely tertiary to the process . The melee / ranged requirements were soft, but they were still there. You didn’t need condition damage, but if you didn’t have the conditions volume to bust the blue fragment’s shield consistently, your entire platform was going to fail and no amount of ’Zerk was going to change that.

You always have that volume on a zerg event. You usually have it even on a small party (and if not, you can easily get it changing some wepon / trait / utility if needed).

That’s jsut the issue right there. Spiteful people who refuse to change and make themselves desirable so that they can run with good groups.

The funny thing is, you can advertise for a good group on LFG all you want, but it basically never happens. Maybe my standards for “good” are high, but whenever I pug dungeons it’s so blatant just when I watch what they do that my skill level exceeds theirs, even if I wrote experienced only (note – I never do anymore).

These people complaining about zerk only groups … run with guildies. Zerk only LFG groups are normally either trash, or your average player, but with zerker gear. So instead, you could just run with people you actually like, and are most likely more compatible with your play style. If you don’t have anyone in guild interested, just advertise for a path.

Did you not play the hologram fight? The current is flowing my way, so who needs the hint?

I remember that fight, I went with my usual glass cannon, melee’d two of the holograms and then completely ignored the other one because my direct damage did nothing. Didn’t need a healer. Didn’t need “support” which couldn’t be provided by berserker users (condi cleanse, aegis, etc. etc.).

If you apply these same mechanics to instances, literally all you’ll get is “lf 1 condi” which is no better than “lf zerks” or “lf healer”.

All you’re asking for is trinity. ANet wrote in a blog post that this game would not have a traditional trinity, and yet you’re pushing for it. Why play the game? Why should the people who played this game to get away from that generic crap have to suffer because you can’t adapt to a different type of MMO?

Vargamonth.2047:

You always have that volume on a zerg event. You usually have it even on a small party (and if not, you can easily get it changing some wepon / trait / utility if needed).

And you’ve just described why it was a good test. It let them see if the general audience could understand the requirement in a situation where there were lots of people with mixed builds and skill levels. As opposed to trying it for the first time in a dungeon and watching the meta-party bug slam into the have-conditions-or-fail windshield at 90 miles an hour and declare the content/path unplayable and never come back.

Nike.2631:

If they lower damage output to the point where all DPS groups can no longer consistently kill the boss before accumulated errors/damage wipes the party, you’ll see an absolute shift towards either self-sustain or party sustain.

from this post alone i can tell that you dont have a clue and have never tried berserker gear.

the “berserkers kill bosses before the bosses can kill them” bs was made up by stupid people who dont like other people to be faster.

if you had tried berserker gear you would know that berserker players cannot kill bosses before the bosses have a chance to kill the berserker players.

i can kill lupicus solo and naked. it took me between 15 and 16 minutes. do you really think i will ever need a defensive player in my group or a healer and defensive gear for myself?
no.
do you really think my naked damage was so op i killed lupi before he had a chance to kill me?
no.

wake up please.
gw2 is obviously not the game that you wanted to play. so either move on to another game or stop playing.

hendo.1940:

Did you not play the hologram fight? The current is flowing my way, so who needs the hint?

I remember that fight, I went with my usual glass cannon, melee’d two of the holograms and then completely ignored the other one because my direct damage did nothing. Didn’t need a healer. Didn’t need “support” which couldn’t be provided by berserker users (condi cleanse, aegis, etc. etc.).

And if the entire platform had been a party of you, the scenario would fail. Because somebody had to do the blue one.

I’m not saying don’t do what you do. I’m even saying, “nice job, meleeing the ranged fragment is non-trivial”. But I’m also saying expect more content like that where somebody is gonna have to bring something to the table you don’t. If for no other reason than there is a real limit on the number of times your content can be “yet another direct-DPS race sprinkled with dodges” before the stagnation damages your player numbers.

The direction we’ve seen the game moving shows the Devs are aware of that and taking action.

Nike.2631:

Vargamonth.2047:

You always have that volume on a zerg event. You usually have it even on a small party (and if not, you can easily get it changing some wepon / trait / utility if needed).

And you’ve just described why it was a good test. It let them see if the general audience could understand the requirement in a situation where there were lots of people with mixed builds and skill levels. As opposed to trying it for the first time in a dungeon and watching the meta-party bug slam into the have-conditions-or-fail windshield at 90 miles an hour and declare the content/path unplayable and never come back.

The general audience did understand that the blue hologram had a really high armor and a condition based shield, but would have not moved a finger on its own initiative and would have failed repeteadly if the condition volume weren’t applied naturally.
The general audience also understood that Knight fights were pretty much a DPS check but kept failing them over and over and complained on the forums until the health was reduced.

I tried to convince some people on these forums about the Knight fight, while probably inappropiate for the LS finale, being good in the sense of encouraging players to use consumables (like that Vigil Valiance buff that most player tend to ignore despite all the indications in the map chat) and tweak their build a little bit. Needless to say I had to give up.

NoTrigger.8396:

Nike.2631:

If they lower damage output to the point where all DPS groups can no longer consistently kill the boss before accumulated errors/damage wipes the party, you’ll see an absolute shift towards either self-sustain or party sustain.

from this post alone i can tell that you dont have a clue and have never tried berserker gear.

And from yours I can tell you don’t know me or anything about me, but feel free to keep guessing.

Yes Lupicus can be solo’d and yes it takes a while and during that time you have to not consecutively screw up. The faster a boss dies, the fewer “did you choose wisely” checks you have to make. Skilled players can and do get it right enough times to win. But that doesn’t mean the checks aren’t happening and fewer checks is always going to result in more successful outcomes than more checks when looking at all the players making the attempt.

i can kill lupicus solo and naked. it took me between 15 and 16 minutes. do you really think i will ever need a defensive player in my group or a healer and defensive gear for myself?
no.

In the current environment, no. But in a environment with enough undodgable damage, yeah, I can ABSOLUTELY write a scenario you can’t survive without help. And I know the ANet Devs are pondering just that because Toxin was clearly written to challenge your play-style more than it challenges mine.

Slowpoke.2749:

Mattargul.9235:

@Slowpoke – This is about crit damage, not chance…?

As far as I know, critical chance will also be lowered. The last news I heard about this implied that at least. Is that no longer true?

(As a sidenote, what is the reasoning behind this change? All critical damage will be lowered so all characters are punished equally but it still leaves berserker as the optimal PvE build. Unless I’m missing something, it seems they just made killing things slower and thus more boring.)

Supposedly this is the first part of their plan to eliminate the zerker or go home mentality. We’ll see how it pans out I guess.

Nike.2631:

Harper.4173:

The majority of the community didn’t want this.

Of course not. Because in any MMO population you can rule of thumb that only about 20% enjoy support/healing gamplay, and about 10% enjoy the demands of good tanking (which is far more about positioning and control than it is about survivability)

So, let me get this straight. Your estimation is that 20% of the people like playing tank/support roles. Nevermind the fact that this game doesn’t have those roles and was designed so that every class has the ability to do all those things.

So, basically, you want the minority of the players to have everyone play the same builds they do? What ever happened to the concept of democracy?

I have a feeling you run god awful builds and you were one of those players that keeps trying to join zerk only groups and was subsequently kicked. How about you and others learn to read and make your own groups instead of ruining other people’s fun? I just don’t get the people like you who QQ about this stuff. I put up lfg posts all the time with or without restrictions and they fill almost instantly. Why don’t people like you do the same thing?

It’s no wonder society is the way it is…..

Nike.2631:

If you think playing a quality healer in most MMOs doesn’t require a keen eye towards efficiency, I have no idea what MMOs you’ve been playing.

It doesn’t matter in this MMO as it is now. So no party will have them. I don’t much care for any other MMOs. I realize good healers are in demand in other MMOs.
I realize they’re players that like to play that kind of game – but a speed clear in GW2 as it currently is – is not the place for them.

If the meta changes and forces a healer down our throats – that’ll be a big issue in a game that was supposed to go against this idea of predetermined roles.

And yes – I do believe it is impossible to make an encounter / dungeon / whatever challenging while making any person viable.
There will always be an optimal way to do it – and why would you use any other way? You’ll get the 5 people that you need for that encounter and if someone doesn’t stack up to what you need kick and replace.

Each player has a right to play how he/she wishes. Some play for fun, some play for the social aspect, some play for profit and bragging rights.

Nike.2631:

That’s NOT going to change. What’s going to change (hopefully) is that challenges will incorporate enough elements that no single build can cover all of them effectively – so that group content will demand a certain degree of diversity. Again we see signs – the hologram fight features a segment that favored melee, a segment that favored range, and a segment the absolutely demanded conditions.

You must not have played GW1. What you’re describing was the case there. There was no one build that could do all content ( at least not for one profession – excepting permasin and spirit rits).

The problem with this situation you’re describing is that you’ll now be forced into playing roles that you might not want to play.
Serious groups will demand that you play build x for class y which are the meta for that encounter. Sure – other encounters will require other builds for your class but ultimately you’ll be forced into roles just like people feel forced into zerker today.

And the funny thing is that with the new trait system new players might not have the optimal traits to roll that build making them even less desirable to have in a party.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

So, why does everyone get much bigger numbers? This is ultimately about standards, really. When Anet sought to balance zerker gear (which I argue was fine in the first place), they did so to the letter. They looked only at the gear, and nothing else. No boons, no traits, no sigils, no team composition, and no consumables.

The community, however, looks at more things. Curry Butternut Squash Soup and Banner of Discipline receive heavy nerfs, getting their crit rates cut from 10%/15% to 4.6%11.3% respectively. Likewise, the more precision bonuses one gets (fury, spotter, sigils, other banners), the more severe these changes to crit damage become.

Whether focusing on just the build was the right move is debatable. I can see both sides of the argument, but since I opposed the zerker change in the first place, this is like seeing both sides of which foot gets stomped on.

Their statement that “Top DPS builds would lose 10% damage” argues otherwise. Or should I believe that they are so out of touch with what a top DPS build is that they don’t realize that factors other than gear figure in? When I hear, “top DPS build,” I think, “Using every means available to eke out more DPS.”

Never mind, you’re probably right, and the 10% statement was just another example of ANet making vague statements that are misleading whether that is intended or not. Imo, this is just another in a series of community relations gaffes.

Harper.4173:

Nike.2631:

That’s NOT going to change. What’s going to change (hopefully) is that challenges will incorporate enough elements that no single build can cover all of them effectively – so that group content will demand a certain degree of diversity. Again we see signs – the hologram fight features a segment that favored melee, a segment that favored range, and a segment the absolutely demanded conditions.

You must not have played GW1. What you’re describing was the case there. There was no one build that could do all content ( at least not for one profession – excepting permasin and spirit rits).

The problem with this situation you’re describing is that you’ll now be forced into playing roles that you might not want to play.
Serious groups will demand that you play build x for class y which are the meta for that encounter. Sure – other encounters will require other builds for your class but ultimately you’ll be forced into roles just like people feel forced into zerker today.

And the funny thing is that with the new trait system new players might not have the optimal traits to roll that build making them even less desirable to have in a party.

Ideally, if / when they go down this route, they’ll make it so players don’t have to completely change their build, rather simply modify it. Maybe swap a skill / trait or two out.

For example, if you need to apply Immobilise to stop the boss building up stacks of a buff that increases damage. Warriors could simply change one utility out for Throw Bola and put 10 points in Tactics for Leg Specialist. It doesn’t change the fundamental build all that much (since you still got the 30 points in whatever lines you want, and you’re still using the weapons and most of the skills), but it does require you to adapt a bit to the situation.

Slightly off topic, but this is also the point of Horizontal Progression in the form of gaining skills and such. If there isn’t content that doesn’t require you to think about how to use your toolset, then that type of progression is pointless.

Nike.2631:

Of course not. Because in any MMO population you can rule of thumb that only about 20% enjoy support/healing gamplay, and about 10% enjoy the demands of good tanking (which is far more about positioning and control than it is about survivability)

cranked.3812:

So, let me get this straight. Your estimation is that 20% of the people like playing tank/support roles.

I’d love to see you show your work on how 20% + 10% = 20%, but do go on…

Nevermind the fact that this game doesn’t have those roles and was designed so that every class has the ability to do all those things.

K, first off, the game does have a healing support role and a ton of tools to realize it. And I’m as happy as anyone it doesn’t have a tanking because tanking is conceptually stupid. What it does have is Control which is really the property you wanted out of your tank most days anyway. And you’re quite right that all professions are able to bring these elements to the table. Not sure how that’s an argument they don’t exist…

So, basically, you want the minority of the players to have everyone play the same builds they do?

Not at all. I’m saying I look forward to content the can be handled by any group if they are sufficiently skilled but yields most easily to various combinations. I don’t want one-meta-fits-all. I want “the meta for each scenario is the meta for that scenario.”

What ever happened to the concept of democracy?

You mean mob rule where since most people like humans we just dump the other races and since there are more Ranger player than any other profession we can safely dump all other professions? That sounds fun… for people who like human rangers… You’re making the exact same arguments for roles – “there are more damage dealers so we should ignore everything else.”

I have a feeling you run god awful builds and you were one of those players that keeps trying to join zerk only groups and was subsequently kicked.

And I have a feeling you hope that so you can belittle and ignore me… or that my assessment of what is going on in the game is untrue so your particular little boat need not fear being rocked. It doesn’t matter what I play, we’re talking about the game that IS and the direction it can already be seen to have been going. The sand is over there, feel free to stick your head in it.

I have, simply because I like the role in other games, tried max-healers built on every profession. Some are much stronger than others but all of them are unnecessary in most content, and active negative in some. I moved on to what works because its what works. I’m a min-max monkey above all other role allegiance. But boring simplistic meta is boring and simplistic. A lot like human rangers.

Nike.2631:

In the current environment, no. But in a environment with enough undodgable damage, yeah, I can ABSOLUTELY write a scenario you can’t survive without help. And I know the ANet Devs are pondering just that because Toxin was clearly written to challenge your play-style more than it challenges mine.

So how come people zerkered their way through that tower ( myself included) without bothering to team up or switch gear?

Toxin was a flavor addition, not a external pressure factor.

The fact remains – you can only push players so much away from what they want/like and towards something else before you break their desire to keep playing.
Currently most players of GW2 want to be the ones doing the awesome dps and killing everything in sight with their awesome DPS build that kills things so hard.
What do you think happens if you push that mob too much that they’re no longer able to enjoy themselves?

Do you think they’ll change and adapt? Yes and no. Some will, most won’t.
It’s easier to drop the game and pick another one up than realize your entire playing paradigm is no longer viable and rewire yourself to become more adapted for your new environment.

Nike.2631:

You mean mob rule where since most people like humans we just dump the other races and since there are more Ranger player than any other profession we can safely dump all other professions? That sounds fun… for people who like human rangers… You’re making the exact same arguments for roles – “there are more damage dealers so we should ignore everything else.”

Surely you must mean Human Warriors.
Warriors are the most prevalent profession.

Right method now, but a few mistakes with numbers. Highlighting them here.

Bri.8354:

127.14% damage would increase your damage by 1,274.
(1,000 * 1.2714)

Should be 1271 or 1271.4 depending on precision.

Bri.8354:

A = 1,975
B = 2,274
C = 229
F = 22.74

2274 – 1975 is 299. But with the correction to B required, you’d want 296.4 instead.

Bri.8354:

A = 2381.8
B = 2842.4
C = 470.6
F = 28.424

Similarly, 2842.4 – 2381.8 is 460.6, not 470.6.

Otherwise, yes, I agree with the maths used.

Harper.4173:

Surely you must mean Human Warriors.
Warriors are the most prevalent profession.

Ah, you’re right . At launch Rangers were second according to the infographic.

Harper.4173:

So how come people zerkered their way through that tower ( myself included) without bothering to team up or switch gear?

Because some people are better at it than others .

Toxin was a flavor addition, not a external pressure factor.

Oh, I’d think the dead glass cannons might disagree .

Look, there’s clearly some disconnect going on here.

I LOVE me some top shelf DPS hard-cases. Superb DPS players are a goddang gift when putting together parties or raids in all the MMOs I’ve ever played. The truth as I know it is there are a whole buttload of posers who think they are amazing DPS and don’t even come close to what a real pro can do. In my experience no other role has so many people deluding themselves that they’re hot poo. And I don’t just mean pushing the damage numbers. Real DPS pros are all-aspect team players who never take more from others than they need and know when to give to keep the total operation moving smoothly. As a person who prefers healing but above all else prefers being the best team player they can be, the difference between healing a pro DPS player and a slack-jawed blade-dork is night and day. There are days you just let the blade dork die because he’s screwing up, he keeps screwing up, and your time and mana are simply better invested elsewhere. When you see a pro DPS’s life bar plummet you trust and you know he saw something that absolutely had to be annihilated and the right call is backing that play even if you never saw what started it.

Myself, I’m raid-passable DPS, but I’ll never be premier grade. I work at it. I run parses, test builds, refine rotations, and generally have an excellent technical understanding and the best gear the game allows. I have a thirst for victory that makes me a good raid-caller and the guy that writes the strat-guide the rest of the guild reads. I love to win… but I just do not have the blazing eyes and the killer instinct that defines the best.

Frankly, if I want to make life a little harder for DPS, it’s to cleans out the chumps and the posers .

blakdoxa.7520:

Nerelith.7360:

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blakdoxa.7520:

Nerelith.7360:

Zoid.2568:

Who cares if it’s 10% or 20% or 30%. As long as berserker is getting nerfed so other builds are more wanted. Like support, CC builds and tankish builds.

snipped for bervity…

And I think you meant “crap dies too slow” to conditions.

I said. " Crap dies too fast. to Bleed, poison, or burn anything." the last word is there for a reason. What I mean is…. that why bother bleeding, poisoning, or burning anything when crap dies too fast for that to make a difference?

snipped for brevity

So. In addition to making the fights last longer by reducing damage, the margin of error increases. That in turn increases the chances of player deaths and possibly wipes. Not only does that make things even longer, players may very well abandon the fight or instance.

The game doesn’t become harder but more tedious.

Also, I don’t understand whether this is a thing about people being rejected from parties Instead of making their own parties with friends or guildies.
If you’re going to PUG one is expected to adhere to the meta…

There’s “enjoyment” and “fun” found by not playing with people who stick to the meta but now it’s “throw the meta under the bus” because no one (the meta) accepts my spec and playstyle?

You can play your build, your way. You just won’t be able to play it with everyone out there because you’ll run into people who are definitely adverse to your build and playstyle.
So?
Just play with others and go at PvE at your own pace with those that play in a similar way to you.

I’ll say it clear, if you haven’t picked up on it, you don’t have to adhere to the meta.

It’s killing me that this is turning into some personal vendetta against the meta…

If the devs see that the meta is " wear zerker’s and zerg!" and decide that maybe other gear should be as viable, or other playstyles should be a viable. Maybe Conditions… etc. And if the devs decide that the way to counter the meta is to weaken zerker gear, and nerf Crit damage..( as it appears they are doing, but that is just my opinion.) you need to accept that " The Meta" is Not something Holy, and sacrosanct.

One can almost hear your tone… may as well scream.." they do not woreship the meta…HERESY!!!"

I will say it clearly. If the Meta has to change or go under the bus, so that other playstyles aree as viable. And as it appears the devs agree…then the Meta changes.

The whole" Zerkers and Zerg"…if making the game fun for everyone else means this Meta gets tossed under the bus. it gets tossed Under the bus.

I Love how when a game change threatens something worshipped by some , the threat " we are gonna quit." seems to come up. I am glad that game developers realize that those are empty threats. And for everyone that leaves because they dislike changes that make the game enjoyable for everyone, there are probably 8 to 10 people that seeing that their playstyle is Now more viable…choose to stay.

Just saying…. 3,000,000 players is a lot of players. Some zerker wearing zergers… not all…seem to be entitled and spoiled. if they leave, i sincerely doubt they’ll be missed. The rest… you included I imagine, will simply, in a mature manner accept the changes to the meta, and adjust. or not.

Vargamonth.2047:

Nike.2631:

Missing the point – you’re describing content/changes that have failed. Any time the best solution is “an entire party of me” the content design has failed to encourage diversity. Ideally you want the prefight check list to read more like:

“Ok, we need two people who can dish conditions to bust the shield, a straight direct damage Zerk on the adds because their armor is paper but they hit like trucks so burn them quick, a ranged character who can both hit the boss while the shield is down and still stay by the switch, and some soft heals mostly with the Zerk on those adds but ready to react if anything goes off the rails. Take a minute to double check your traits and consumables, then we rock this.”

You’re describing a content that I would wholeheartly welcome but which, sadly, is far beyond the capabilities of GW2 playerbase.

I agree. Most players only know , " zerg,zerg,zerg." So the question becomes. Is Zerg,zerg the playstyle the devs want for the game? if not, what will they do to encourage more diversity?

Then the next question becomes if the devs wish to encourage diversity, will the community embrace the changes because it leads to a Much better game for all? or whine cause their prefered Playstyle is being nerfed?

Personally I would embrace and adapt to something that would improve the gaming experience for all.

Yes there are players that as of this moment could not play as they would be expected in the example above. But I would still welcome the changes that would make the Playstyle in the example a More common thing. At that point..the " all i know is zerg zerg zerg." can ask themselves…" do i wish to improve, and expand how i play? or do i wanna whine Like a spoiled entitled individual,….or quit?"

Nerelith.7360:

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If the devs see that the meta is " wear zerker’s and zerg!" and decide that maybe other gear should be as viable, or other playstyles should be a viable. Maybe Conditions… etc. And if the devs decide that the way to counter the meta is to weaken zerker gear, and nerf Crit damage..( as it appears they are doing, but that is just my opinion.) you need to accept that " The Meta" is Not something Holy, and sacrosanct.

One can almost hear your tone… may as well scream.." they do not woreship the meta…HERESY!!!"

I will say it clearly. If the Meta has to change or go under the bus, so that other playstyles aree as viable. And as it appears the devs agree…then the Meta changes.

The whole" Zerkers and Zerg"…if making the game fun for everyone else means this Meta gets tossed under the bus. it gets tossed Under the bus.

I Love how when a game change threatens something worshipped by some , the threat " we are gonna quit." seems to come up. I am glad that game developers realize that those are empty threats. And for everyone that leaves because they dislike changes that make the game enjoyable for everyone, there are probably 8 to 10 people that seeing that their playstyle is Now more viable…choose to stay.

Just saying…. 3,000,000 players is a lot of players. Some zerker wearing zergers… not all…seem to be entitled and spoiled. if they leave, i sincerely doubt they’ll be missed. The rest… you included I imagine, will simply, in a mature manner accept the changes to the meta, and adjust. or not.

After the update is very unlikely the status quo will change. If the devs wanted to really change the meta they would make crit damage a flat multiplier (crits are 50% or 75% increased dmg) with no way to increase it. This means all critical hits would do the same damage and nothing more. Removed from all gear/food/etc and replaced by some “cheese” stat like vitality, toughness, or healing power.
This might allow other builds into the meta since it’s not all about crit dmg anymore.

Instead we have Anet being indecisive and we have this straddling the fence to appease both side, those against “zerk” and those for “zerk.” They aren’t making any real significant change to force the shifting of the meta.

blakdoxa.7520:

Nerelith.7360:

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If the devs see that the meta is " wear zerker’s and zerg!" and decide that maybe other gear should be as viable, or other playstyles should be a viable. Maybe Conditions… etc. And if the devs decide that the way to counter the meta is to weaken zerker gear, and nerf Crit damage..( as it appears they are doing, but that is just my opinion.) you need to accept that " The Meta" is Not something Holy, and sacrosanct.

One can almost hear your tone… may as well scream.." they do not woreship the meta…HERESY!!!"

I will say it clearly. If the Meta has to change or go under the bus, so that other playstyles aree as viable. And as it appears the devs agree…then the Meta changes.

The whole" Zerkers and Zerg"…if making the game fun for everyone else means this Meta gets tossed under the bus. it gets tossed Under the bus.

I Love how when a game change threatens something worshipped by some , the threat " we are gonna quit." seems to come up. I am glad that game developers realize that those are empty threats. And for everyone that leaves because they dislike changes that make the game enjoyable for everyone, there are probably 8 to 10 people that seeing that their playstyle is Now more viable…choose to stay.

Just saying…. 3,000,000 players is a lot of players. Some zerker wearing zergers… not all…seem to be entitled and spoiled. if they leave, i sincerely doubt they’ll be missed. The rest… you included I imagine, will simply, in a mature manner accept the changes to the meta, and adjust. or not.

After the update is very unlikely the status quo will change. If the devs wanted to really change the meta they would make crit damage a flat multiplier (crits are 50% or 75% increased dmg) with no way to increase it. This means all critical hits would do the same damage and nothing more. Removed from all gear/food/etc and replaced by some “cheese” stat like vitality, toughness, or healing power.
This might allow other builds into the meta since it’s not all about crit dmg anymore.

Instead we have Anet being indecisive and we have this straddling the fence to appease both side, those against “zerk” and those for “zerk.” They aren’t making any real significant change to force the shifting of the meta.

Just because a solution to the meta problem is Not the solution you propose doesn’t mean it is not a solution to the meta problem. I can see How the devs wish to weaken the " zerkers and zerg" meta, while Not tossing out the baby with the bath water. They want to give players the chance to decide how much crit damage they do. That is not the problem. The Problem is, that crit damage and zerging is so effective, nothing else makes sense In some situations.

The best way for this to change is for the devs to adjust Mob AI, and Mobs so that " Zerker’s and zerg " without any CC or healing becomes suicide. But I think this would be harder to do , than simply adjusting Crit damage, and nerfing Zerker gear.

Also…. while nerfing zerker gear, and adjusting crit damage so it is less …which would make other geat and playstyles more viable is NOT a perfect solution, it is a step in the right direction.

I played gw1 since it was released. Anet knew what they were doing then, they know now. And I have faith this is Not the ONLY thing that is gonna be done to reduce the effectiveness of " zerkers and zerg." just the first. And as with all good things, they want to tweak the game… not bash it and destroy it, so changes will be implemented slowly… and play-tested… and play-tested some More.. maybe they weaken crit gear more… maybe less…but slowly, a real, and effective solution to the meta problem will arise. " Zerker’s and Zerg" is only good for zerkers. And… Zerkers are not the only players paying to play this game.

Nike.2631:

Nike.2631:

Of course not. Because in any MMO population you can rule of thumb that only about 20% enjoy support/healing gamplay, and about 10% enjoy the demands of good tanking (which is far more about positioning and control than it is about survivability)

cranked.3812:

So, let me get this straight. Your estimation is that 20% of the people like playing tank/support roles.

I’d love to see you show your work on how 20% + 10% = 20%, but do go on…

Nevermind the fact that this game doesn’t have those roles and was designed so that every class has the ability to do all those things.

K, first off, the game does have a healing support role and a ton of tools to realize it. And I’m as happy as anyone it doesn’t have a tanking because tanking is conceptually stupid. What it does have is Control which is really the property you wanted out of your tank most days anyway. And you’re quite right that all professions are able to bring these elements to the table. Not sure how that’s an argument they don’t exist…

So, basically, you want the minority of the players to have everyone play the same builds they do?

Not at all. I’m saying I look forward to content the can be handled by any group if they are sufficiently skilled but yields most easily to various combinations. I don’t want one-meta-fits-all. I want “the meta for each scenario is the meta for that scenario.”

What ever happened to the concept of democracy?

You mean mob rule where since most people like humans we just dump the other races and since there are more Ranger player than any other profession we can safely dump all other professions? That sounds fun… for people who like human rangers… You’re making the exact same arguments for roles – “there are more damage dealers so we should ignore everything else.”

I have a feeling you run god awful builds and you were one of those players that keeps trying to join zerk only groups and was subsequently kicked.

And I have a feeling you hope that so you can belittle and ignore me… or that my assessment of what is going on in the game is untrue so your particular little boat need not fear being rocked. It doesn’t matter what I play, we’re talking about the game that IS and the direction it can already be seen to have been going. The sand is over there, feel free to stick your head in it.

I have, simply because I like the role in other games, tried max-healers built on every profession. Some are much stronger than others but all of them are unnecessary in most content, and active negative in some. I moved on to what works because its what works. I’m a min-max monkey above all other role allegiance. But boring simplistic meta is boring and simplistic. A lot like human rangers.

When I first heard of the release of gw2, what drew me most was the idea that there would be No predefined classes assigned to The Holy Trinity. Instead there would be Damage, Control, and Support as roles, that any class could fill, and would be able to change to any role it felt Like filling. That seems to be where the devs are going with the upcoming changes.

That is what I expected when I pre-ordered. It is mostly true in open world PvE. But Not as Much in dungeons. The question to me is… Is this idea of 3 roles … playable by any class, to be abandoned the moment someone enters a dungeon simply because the current environment encourages a meta of " zerkers and zerg"? or should the environment be changed, adjusted, so that it falls in line with what the devs intended On release?

Nerelith.7360:

There are many of us out there, that do not wish to ONLY wear zerker’s or get lost. We also payed to play this game.

Then start you own LFG. It’s that simple. I promise.

Nerelith.7360:

I agree. Most players only know , " zerg,zerg,zerg." So the question becomes. Is Zerg,zerg the playstyle the devs want for the game? if not, what will they do to encourage more diversity?

Then the next question becomes if the devs wish to encourage diversity, will the community embrace the changes because it leads to a Much better game for all? or whine cause their prefered Playstyle is being nerfed?

Personally I would embrace and adapt to something that would improve the gaming experience for all.

Yes there are players that as of this moment could not play as they would be expected in the example above. But I would still welcome the changes that would make the Playstyle in the example a More common thing. At that point..the " all i know is zerg zerg zerg." can ask themselves…" do i wish to improve, and expand how i play? or do i wanna whine Like a spoiled entitled individual,….or quit?"

Some players only know to use berseker gear and survive by killing things before they become a real threat while others are completely awful at dodging and only know to play things like PVT shoutheal and survive thanks to passive tools. Both gameplays are horrible.

I would like encounters like the proposed one because it’s mechanicaly more complex than what we usualy get.
I don’t think neither the condition users (almost every class can apply a good amount of conditions and with proper might stacking and other tools a power spec easily goes over 1k condition damage) nor the soft heals (heals tend to require stat investment, while other forms of support and control, which should more than enough to handle adds, don’t) are needed.
The encounter would be perfectly doable by a full berserker group properly using support (might stacks in order to raise the condition damage) and control (in order to handle the adds) and that’s the beauty of the game.

The problem with berserker is not about 5 berserker players being the best option; that’s the ideal situation for an action based combat and should never change.
The problem is about performing with this setup not being challenging at all for too much content and relying on the same “LoS and destroy” tactic too often.

About the build diversity … any game offering a wide build diversity will be subdued to a quite harsh meta. That’s the nature of PUGs.
Some specs will always singergize better with others, so players will massively go for a, both efficient and easy enough to perform with, meta setup..
Full berseker/damage teams being that meta is kinda weird as it shouldn’t be exactly an easy to play setup (PUGs still tend to go for suboptimal setups with tons of warriors because they survive easier) but most encounters are just too simple mechanic wise and extreely easy (for any spec).

Nike.2631:

Harper.4173:

So how come people zerkered their way through that tower ( myself included) without bothering to team up or switch gear?

Because some people are better at it than others .

Toxin was a flavor addition, not a external pressure factor.

Oh, I’d think the dead glass cannons might disagree .

Look, there’s clearly some disconnect going on here.

I LOVE me some top shelf DPS hard-cases. Superb DPS players are a goddang gift when putting together parties or raids in all the MMOs I’ve ever played. The truth as I know it is there are a whole buttload of posers who think they are amazing DPS and don’t even come close to what a real pro can do. In my experience no other role has so many people deluding themselves that they’re hot poo. And I don’t just mean pushing the damage numbers. Real DPS pros are all-aspect team players who never take more from others than they need and know when to give to keep the total operation moving smoothly. As a person who prefers healing but above all else prefers being the best team player they can be, the difference between healing a pro DPS player and a slack-jawed blade-dork is night and day. There are days you just let the blade dork die because he’s screwing up, he keeps screwing up, and your time and mana are simply better invested elsewhere. When you see a pro DPS’s life bar plummet you trust and you know he saw something that absolutely had to be annihilated and the right call is backing that play even if you never saw what started it.

Myself, I’m raid-passable DPS, but I’ll never be premier grade. I work at it. I run parses, test builds, refine rotations, and generally have an excellent technical understanding and the best gear the game allows. I have a thirst for victory that makes me a good raid-caller and the guy that writes the strat-guide the rest of the guild reads. I love to win… but I just do not have the blazing eyes and the killer instinct that defines the best.

Frankly, if I want to make life a little harder for DPS, it’s to cleans out the chumps and the posers .

This is something that’s true and that I can see being beneficial.
If this change means that when I post " lfg x dungeon zerk only " I get other zerk player that know what they’re doing perfectly then the update might have done something good.

Still the amount of damage loss from hybrid builds still makes me annoyed.

Vargamonth.2047:

Nerelith.7360:

I agree. Most players only know , " zerg,zerg,zerg." So the question becomes. Is Zerg,zerg the playstyle the devs want for the game? if not, what will they do to encourage more diversity?
(snipped for brevity)
At that point..the " all i know is zerg zerg zerg." can ask themselves…" do i wish to improve, and expand how i play? or do i wanna whine Like a spoiled entitled individual,….or quit?"

Some players only know to use berseker gear and survive by killing things before they become a real threat while others are completely awful at dodging and only know to play things like PVT shoutheal and survive thanks to passive tools. Both gameplays are horrible.

I would like encounters like the proposed one because it’s mechanicaly more complex than what we usualy get.
I don’t think neither the condition users (almost every class can apply a good amount of conditions and with proper might stacking and other tools a power spec easily goes over 1k condition damage) nor the soft heals (heals tend to require stat investment, while other forms of support and control, which should more than enough to handle adds, don’t) are needed.
The encounter would be perfectly doable by a full berserker group properly using support (might stacks in order to raise the condition damage) and control (in order to handle the adds) and that’s the beauty of the game.

The problem with berserker is not about 5 berserker players being the best option; that’s the ideal situation for an action based combat and should never change.
The problem is about performing with this setup not being challenging at all for too much content and relying on the same “LoS and destroy” tactic too often.

About the build diversity … any game offering a wide build diversity will be subdued to a quite harsh meta. That’s the nature of PUGs.
Some specs will always singergize better with others, so players will massively go for a, both efficient and easy enough to perform with, meta setup..
Full berseker/damage teams being that meta is kinda weird as it shouldn’t be exactly an easy to play setup (PUGs still tend to go for suboptimal setups with tons of warriors because they survive easier) but most encounters are just too simple mechanic wise and extreely easy (for any spec).

Hence why I have said before. I would prefer to see the Devs improve Mob AI and Mob armor… maybe give them more toughness so that straight damage is not the answer… regen like the skelks is an option, to the point where the “Zerkers and Zerg” dynamic becomes less a speed-run and guaranty, and more iffy… because of the lack of Toughness and Vitality. (maybe more conditions? maybe less LoS stacking of Mob AI?). I feel that while this game does not demand The Holy Trinity in terms of dedicated classes… ie. Warrior Tank, Water Elementalist Back line dedicated healer, Thief, Fire Elementalist, etc DPS…

It does provide everyone the tools to play Damage, Control, Support.

As such, the Control and Support aspects are Under-utilized because the Damage is too effective. So nerfing Zerker’s and changing the Crit damage mechanics is but a good first step, the job is not done. They need to change Mob AI so that Control becomes something important to a group. So that Support has a place in dungeons.

Should an all damage group find it impossible to tackle a dungeon alone? No…but it should be more iffy. Players should know going in, that because of lack of toughness, and Vitality in their gear random deaths are likely. And that if they brought either players to handle support, or control… or Just have a build that brings these elements themselves. the dungeon would then be much more dependably finished, even if it’s not a speed run. In my opinion, no dungeon should be a walk in the park speed run.

To the extent that a dungeon can be soloed, can be duod, can be run as a walk in the park speed run by a group in full zerkers doing Nothing but zerkers and zerg all damage all the time… The devs are not giving us the product they promised, nor the product we deserve. We do deserve better, even if some…not all " zerkers and zerg or leave" type players think the Meta is holy. Someone suggested giving Mobs a Hotbar with skills like they had in Gw1. I think this would make the game better.

Ultimately this meta is bad for the game.

[quote=3797691;hendo.1940:]

I wish the people who can’t/won’t dodge obvious boss tells would stop trying to ruin the game for the people who can/do.

Harper.4173:

If this change means that when I post " lfg x dungeon zerk only " I get other zerk player that know what they’re doing perfectly then the update might have done something good.

Most of the time if I’m using the LFG tool at all I won’t intrude on a “zerk only” party listing because I’m not in berserker and I can read . But if for some reason I was super eager to get into a particular dungeon and pressed ‘join’, pretty much the first thing that happens on arrival is letting them know~

“Hi, I’m not in all-zerker. I have mostly zealots (Power + precision/healing) and a few group support traits. I know the content and I’ll give you a nice clean run with minimal mistakes.”
“If you want to keep waiting for someone who’ll give you a run 2 minutes faster, no problem. I’ll bow out.”

I’ve left groups during the intro and negotiation phase (with no hard feelings), but no one’s ever had to kick me. Communication is the biggest buff in the game.

How does this change build any type of diversity beyond making all-berserker groups take 10-20 seconds longer now? Because of this dps-loss, won’t groups be even MORE stringent on what they allow into the group? I would suspect that more “P3, zerker only or get kicked” groups will arise rather than fewer since groups want to make up for the dps loss, whereas before it was like “well we can handle one condi-necro as long as the other 4 berserker heavies do their job”, now that same group will be incentivised by this change to bring 5 berserkers to make up for the nerf.

The problem with the other dps metas, condition mainly, is that they aren’t just X% less than berserker, its that they don’t work at all in way too many boss situations.

World bosses – conditions largely useless since your conditions rarely get applied due to caps.

5-man bosses – Same as world bosses to a lesser extent

Trash – Condi’s do best against trash I think but they still have ramp-up time, and on level 50 fractal trash the best approach is to burst them down before people die to 1-shots (toughness gear or not).

I would much rather they address these condition shortcomings and bring them UP to berserker level to make people WANT to use them rather than FORCING people to not use berserker.

If they’re actually worried about organized groups steam rolling content, they’d be much better off fixing broken mechanics like Fiery Great Sword fiery rush stacking in corners to do obscene damage.

I’m confused as to why there are no dev responses to this post.

Facepunch.5710:

I’m confused as to why there are no dev responses to this post.

The decision speaks for itself?

Nike.2631:

Facepunch.5710:

I’m confused as to why there are no dev responses to this post.

The decision speaks for itself?

+1, so sad.