Guild Wars 2

Is that how Guild Wars 2 is meant to be played?

No matter what class you play, or what the classes are capable of, or what weapons they can use….

spec and gear for the absolute highest DPS you can get, to the exclusion of any and everything else. and just hit Q before a big attack.

that’s the correct way to play this game?

sadly I feel that only Warriors and Necromancers can get any real use out of Vitality and toughness to be tanky

and Elementalist is the only one that benefits enough from healing power to worth something.

anything else full dps or go home.

JMadFour.9730:

that’s the correct way to play this game?

No.

Zoltreez.6435:

sadly I feel that only Warriors and Necromancers can get any real use out of Vitality and toughness to be tanky

and Elementalist is the only one that benefits enough from healing power to worth something.

anything else full dps or go home.

disappointing.

I suppose I’ll be a “bad” thief, because the only weapons i find fun to use on them are dual pistols. and from what I hear, they’re bad dps.

guess I’ll end up making a full-dps warrior like everyone else at some point.

Bleeds/Conditions are decent in sPvP, I run a condition p/d build and it works pretty kitten well. Others seem to say that’s not the case for sPvP either.
For PvE, full damage is generally the case…
For WvW, last I remember, I either used pvt armor or full zerker….

Oh yeah warriors for sure out-dps thieves….

JMadFour.9730:

Is that how Guild Wars 2 is meant to be played?

No matter what class you play, or what the classes are capable of, or what weapons they can use….

spec and gear for the absolute highest DPS you can get, to the exclusion of any and everything else. and just hit Q before a big attack.

that’s the correct way to play this game?

Only in pve at least. The true value of the game is in pvp and somewhat wvw, where you learn to really appreciate every skill you can use and every stat and every trait.
And at the end of the day, who cares? Play what you want. No one has the right to tell you dps or gtfo, if they do… ask for a duel and put the pve scrub to shame.^^

Pure DPS is WvW is just thief bait. Or asking to get one shotted by a ballista.

Honestly play how ever you have the most fun. I don’t use berserker gear on any of my characters and I do just fine in dungeons, fractals, pvp, open world, anything. Sure you might not have an “optimal” build/gear but if you enjoy it then go for it that’s what a game is all about, having fun. The only time you’ll need pure dps is for speed runs if you’re into that kind of thing(I despise speed runs personally).

Berserker is too good in PvE. Players are able to generate close to 100% crit chance and 100%+ critical damage. This means they are doing 2.5x base damage on just about every hit. Survival builds on the other hand are running around with crit chances below 20%, and doing 1.5x base damage when they do crit. Berserkers trade some survivability for this, but the mitigation tools given to every class make the opportunity cost for doing 2-2.5x the damage of a survival build trivial.

JMadFour.9730:

Is that how Guild Wars 2 is meant to be played?

No matter what class you play, or what the classes are capable of, or what weapons they can use….

spec and gear for the absolute highest DPS you can get, to the exclusion of any and everything else. and just hit Q before a big attack.

that’s the correct way to play this game?

IMO this is how the game is meant to be played at the moment in groups doing dugeons. Why because in group play you do whatever you can to help each other and that means taking dps because thats the best solution for dungeons. But if you are doing solo content go ahead and take whatever you want. Or if your doing open world content/wvw/pvp. watch that condition warrior lupicus solo in 6 mins.

the problem i have is when people take builds that are absolutely terrible and slow groups down alot. It doesnt bother me that much usually because even when theres one tank the rest of the group is either condition or dps based so its not that noticable. But when i step away from a fight to see how much damage my group is doing and it barely matches my contribution then there is a problem….

The problem with conditions isn’t the conditions themselves. Against mobs that can’t be crit, or mobs with higher than normal defense, conditions CAN actually shine.

The problem is the limit to condition stacks, that make it completely unfeasible to have more than 1 or 2 in any given group, no matter how large that group is.

It depends on where/what you are trying to accomplish. “Play how you want” can only get you so far. Aside from open world, in every aspect of the game (wvw, dungeon, spvp), there’s an optimal way of doing it. If you wanna smell the flowers while running dungeon, that’s fine but don’t expect to be as efficient as those who run specific builds/gears.

Well, new Tequatl is immune to crits, thus rendering precision and crit. damage useless, on top of that encounter requires quiet a lot of survivability from players, otherwise they will become just meat and a liability. But outside of this, 99% of PvE in GW2 is about dps, yep. WvW is differnt story though.

In PvE, the general rules are:

1. Go full dps.
2. Learn when to dodge.

For dungeons:

1. Go melee.
2. Go full dps.
3. Learn when to dodge.

Last time we wiped at least 10 times on Slick and Sparki in the new dungeon path.

Then I went from glassy DPS to total support guardian with staff, scepter/shield, supportive traits, shout, even merciful intervention. We managed to get it done at the first try.

AtoBoss.2906:

Only in pve at least. The true value of the game is in pvp and somewhat wvw, where you learn to really appreciate every skill you can use and every stat and every trait.
And at the end of the day, who cares? Play what you want. No one has the right to tell you dps or gtfo, if they do… ask for a duel and put the pve scrub to shame.^^

That’s… a perfect reason to add a duel function in the game

Gandarel.5091:

Last time we wiped at least 10 times on Slick and Sparki in the new dungeon path.

Then I went from glassy DPS to total support guardian with staff, scepter/shield, supportive traits, shout, even merciful intervention. We managed to get it done at the first try.

Why didn’t you just swap in the support traits without screwing your DPS?

Sounds to me like you just stopped playing bad, not that using poor weapons and bad gear saved you.

You can play like you want but zerker is more efficient because:

A side of really high level fractals, the actual game offers a maximum of difficulty created for level 80s with rares, so going to a dungeon with exotic armor is alredy overkill, even more if you go to low level dungeons (because the scaling isnt perfect).

The result is something like a: level 90 running a level 80 dungeon, or a level 55 running a level 35 dungeon without scaling.
So theres really not need to have good compatibility between builds or need to have none dps armor (and condition is limited for technical issues that dont allow to get more than 25 stacks).

Of course that assuming all players have the skills to complete any arah path in rares, without anykind of strategy like stacking or the boss cant atack and i can because i am behind a enviroment object and he not move or my atacks can pass for a wall, etc (thats using game flaws in the mobs AIs and phyxics like collision, etc – in other words: the developers didnt plan it that way, but forgot to make imposible that kind of situation or couldnt do it for certain limitations).

In reality: 99% of the zerkers think they help the group, but are noobs dying and making the group get posibly killing and not doing dps for ressing them, without forgeting they dont do much damage downed(yeah the true can hurt lol).

My cheers for the 1% of zerkers that know how to play.

maddoctor.2738:

AtoBoss.2906:

Only in pve at least. The true value of the game is in pvp and somewhat wvw, where you learn to really appreciate every skill you can use and every stat and every trait.
And at the end of the day, who cares? Play what you want. No one has the right to tell you dps or gtfo, if they do… ask for a duel and put the pve scrub to shame.^^

That’s… a perfect reason to add a duel function in the game

PK (player killing).

It depends on how you like to play.

I don’t like full dps builds. They are boring. I build all my characters in a hybrid way so that they are durable, fun, and have enough dps for my needs. I don’t do dungeons so I am free to play my chars how I like. :P

as a dev said long ago, not in verbatim: pad up if you need to. if you trust your team you can go full dps.

I don’t see why it’s a problem for more skilled players to get better rewards, in this case faster clear times. Isn’t it only logical that more damage = faster kill?

Sure some players wont want you in their party, but why would you want to party with people who don’t want you in the first place?

maddoctor.2738:

AtoBoss.2906:

Only in pve at least. The true value of the game is in pvp and somewhat wvw, where you learn to really appreciate every skill you can use and every stat and every trait.
And at the end of the day, who cares? Play what you want. No one has the right to tell you dps or gtfo, if they do… ask for a duel and put the pve scrub to shame.^^

That’s… a perfect reason to add a duel function in the game

Would not prove a thing, as mobs have no concept of a health to damage tradeoff like character builds do.

Ya in pve, pvp is completely different

Bread.7516:

as a dev said long ago, not in verbatim: pad up if you need to. if you trust your team you can go full dps.

I don’t see why it’s a problem for more skilled players to get better rewards, in this case faster clear times. Isn’t it only logical that more damage = faster kill?

Sure some players wont want you in their party, but why would you want to party with people who don’t want you in the first place?

You meant always wear mostly berserker/assassins, right? Because I do not believe it’s wise to tell pugs to “pad up”. Especially when most of them couldn’t proc might or fury to save their lives.

JMadFour.9730:

Is that how Guild Wars 2 is meant to be played?

No matter what class you play, or what the classes are capable of, or what weapons they can use….

spec and gear for the absolute highest DPS you can get, to the exclusion of any and everything else. and just hit Q before a big attack.

that’s the correct way to play this game?

No, but it’s the most efficient way to play… In PVE that is…

Chopps.5047:

Bread.7516:

as a dev said long ago, not in verbatim: pad up if you need to. if you trust your team you can go full dps.

I don’t see why it’s a problem for more skilled players to get better rewards, in this case faster clear times. Isn’t it only logical that more damage = faster kill?

Sure some players wont want you in their party, but why would you want to party with people who don’t want you in the first place?

You meant always wear mostly berserker/assassins, right? Because I do not believe it’s wise to tell pugs to “pad up”. Especially when most of them couldn’t proc might or fury to save their lives.

well, i really don’t care what they wear as i only run with people with a similar mindset or subculture if you can call it that.

if they want to strive to be better in the sense of accomplishing more in a shorter span of time, a lot of people in the community offer this information freely.

but if they expect specific group setups to accommodate for their heal/tanky builds when not wanted…they really shouldn’t force people to party with them. Why would anyone want to party when unwanted anyway?

Best way to “fix” berserker gear is to make bosses immune to crits – by that i mean to make them like dragons.

Berserker gear doesn’t need fixing.

Scoobaniec.9561:

Best way to “fix” berserker gear is to make bosses immune to crits – by that i mean to make them like dragons.

“Some people play the game differently than me and are better/more efficient than me for doing so. Please take away their efficiency and fun, I don’t like it that people are better than me.”

You do realize that if they nerfed Berserker’s gear that the min/maxers that are currently running full DPS would just find the next best thing and all start running that, still being the best/fastest and not much would have changed.

Zero Day.2594:

Oh yeah warriors for sure out-dps thieves….

In theory, but thief has a quick burst while warrior goes immobile for greatest DPS. Not just a problem with moving targets, but you especially realize it when you start your trillion blades of horror attack and it turns to zero blades of disappointment because some ranger was standing behind you and is laughing because he/she knocked it away with the long bow supper grief of kittens weapon skill attack. Then by the time you recharge and catch up to the target, you see it fly off into the distance once again.

But to the point of the thread, pretty much. Where old school games you had a trinity, here it’s mainly everything dps. The better you can dodge, the less of anything else you need. You will still need some other things to some degree, but DPS is king, and you can usually adjust through gear etc.

Zoltreez.6435:

anything else full dps or go home.

Rangers can’t go full DPS in most of the content being added lately.

A big portion of their DPS is typically dead and limping around in front of them like the saddest animal clip you’ve ever watched on youtube … like a constant reminder that there’s nothing else you could have done. This is the way it’s going to be until you reroll it as a better class…

If your only objective is to farm easy content as quickly as possible, full damage is the best choice.

Zhaitan.2578:

If your only objective is to run dungeons like arah, or solo content, or do anything in pve, full damage is the best choice.

FTFY

utility > damage

How about utility and damage?

colesy.8490:

How about utility and damage?

wha whaaat!!!!!! no way

kittening mind blown….

Vayne.8563:

The game is meant to be played how you want to play the game. That’s how it was meant to be played.

In ANY MMO, there are more and less efficient ways to play. That’s why everyone in every profession basically ends up with the same build.

Here, however, it’s a bit different. Because I don’t go full DPS and yes it takes me longer to clear content and I don’t care. Furthermore, I play with other people who don’t care. Ergo, I can play with any weapons I feel like playing…any armor.

We clear content. We get through everything. And we’re not farmers making runs again and again and again for profit, so efficiency doesn’t trump fun.

The moment you let efficiency trump fun, you’re no longer “playing”.

This….

effybuttonmoon.4607:

Vayne.8563:

The game is meant to be played how you want to play the game. That’s how it was meant to be played.

In ANY MMO, there are more and less efficient ways to play. That’s why everyone in every profession basically ends up with the same build.

Here, however, it’s a bit different. Because I don’t go full DPS and yes it takes me longer to clear content and I don’t care. Furthermore, I play with other people who don’t care. Ergo, I can play with any weapons I feel like playing…any armor.

We clear content. We get through everything. And we’re not farmers making runs again and again and again for profit, so efficiency doesn’t trump fun.

The moment you let efficiency trump fun, you’re no longer “playing”.

This….

True.

The only thing that makes Vayne’s post tolerable is the fact that he says he plays with people who don’t care for optimisation.

If you are playing with randoms though, it’s just rude and selfish not to use offensive gear, and “play how you want” falls out the winow when doing group content, I don’t run a phantasm build in WvW guild raids because even though I like it, it’s not in their best interest. Same with PvP, same with dungeons. Run what works best, not your stupid “super tanky” build that does jack all because you can’t tank in this game.

Vanye’s carebear guild doesn’t run this stuff even on a monthly basis.
So he might as well not even be counted as “DOING” the content.

Doing it once, and then rarely ever again is not Replayability. MMO’s are like Rent-to-Own. If you don’t own that part of the content then you really have no credibility in the first place to be giving lectures on it

<—-Another one on the “fun always outweighs efficiency” bandwagon.

The thing is that yes, DPS is the way to go if a)you’re in a hurry or b) you want to farm. Since this is a GAME and not a JOB, I prefer to experiment, have fun, look good while I’m doing it, and the haters can sod off.

Don’t get me wrong, if I join a group with the express intent of getting through something as quickly as possible, then I will run whatever gets the job done (i.e DPS, Zerker, etc.,) but it’s not my preferred way of playing. The key is to communicate beforehand, and if the group is not to your liking, wait for the next, or start your own. Life is too short to play in a way that isn’t fun TO YOU.

ilr.9675:

Vanye’s carebear guild doesn’t run this stuff even on a monthly basis.
So he might as well not even be counted as “DOING” the content.

Doing it once, and then rarely ever again is not Replayability. MMO’s are like Rent-to-Own. If you don’t own that part of the content then you really have no credibility in the first place to be giving lectures on it

Vayne’s carebear guild doesn’t even exist.

The thing is that yes, DPS is the way to go if a)you’re in a hurry or b) you want to farm. Since this is a GAME and not a JOB, I prefer to experiment, have fun, look good while I’m doing it, and the haters can sod off.

Or how about if you’re someone who enjoys playing well? Aren’t we allowed to have fun?

I really hate this forum sometimes.

Lucius.2140:

effybuttonmoon.4607:

Vayne.8563:

The game is meant to be played how you want to play the game. That’s how it was meant to be played.

In ANY MMO, there are more and less efficient ways to play. That’s why everyone in every profession basically ends up with the same build.

Here, however, it’s a bit different. Because I don’t go full DPS and yes it takes me longer to clear content and I don’t care. Furthermore, I play with other people who don’t care. Ergo, I can play with any weapons I feel like playing…any armor.

We clear content. We get through everything. And we’re not farmers making runs again and again and again for profit, so efficiency doesn’t trump fun.

The moment you let efficiency trump fun, you’re no longer “playing”.

This….

True.

But then you’ll fall behind, it’s all about grinding gear now. Great if you have unlimited amounts of time, but most don’t. So now you need to maximize your efforts, cut the huge amount of time it takes to grind gear. If you are currently running all your characters in yellow or green gear, sure, very true for youm for what content you can do. But everyone else in in exo gear for a reason, and trying to maximize damage now. Just like those players have no choice but to move to the new gear tier. And if you haven’t started that yet with just weapons (not even at armor yet) you will be in for a rude awakening when you do feel compelled to start.

And it’s not theoretical, there has already been temp content where players really could have benefited from full ascended gear. The coming temp content will be the same, but full ascended gear will maybe just barely cut it while exo gear will just be trash like rare gear is now. So in the end, by not maximizing your time, you are excluding yourself from the coming new content. If you are fine with that, than more power to you, but everyone will be there in ascended and you will be bored like I was every time temples cleared out for new temp content.

ITT:

People who come from other, more traditional, MMOs and just can’t wrap their heads around GW2’s different mechanics.

I played a year of vanilla WoW back in the day, and extensively did hardcore raiding in Everquest 2 for a long time. Yes, in those games, the bosses, the dungeons and the various classes were designed to benefit from having different armor with different stats. In a nutshell, only rogues and dps casters went for glass-cannon dps, while all the tanks and utility classes had their own stats. It worked because everyone had a very specific role to fill.

In GW2, because of the lax role specification, any class can fill almost any role – or at least be more versatile than the classes in the traditional MMOs. This includes being a damage dealer. However, because of the way GW2 scales difficulty (more difficult in this game equates to mobs having more HP and dealing substantially more damage), you’ll get to a point where the only viable way to survive is to out damage the mobs – really, really fast. Crowd-control and stuff like that begin to mean little as bosses are resistant to such utilities. The only thing they’re not resistant to is damage.The longer your fight lasts, the likelier than someone will miss a dodge or get snared and cause the group to wipe.

This brings us to Berserker gear, which is currently the gear that lets us achieve this -t he gear that all classes are recommended to use.

So why is it so difficult to understand that GW2 plays drastically differently from other MMOs. In their original vision to simplify a lot of the “complex” class mechanics of other MMOs and to not force classes into pre-defined roles, ANET inadvertently shoehorned all of us into just one role – DPS.

Good or bad, that’s the state of GW2 now. We can either deal with it and use all zerker and optimize for DPS, or we can be stubborn about it and insist that running healer builds are/should be just as viable and bring kitten leecher builders into dungeons.

Vayne.8563:

The game is meant to be played how you want to play the game. That’s how it was meant to be played.

In ANY MMO, there are more and less efficient ways to play. That’s why everyone in every profession basically ends up with the same build.

Here, however, it’s a bit different. Because I don’t go full DPS and yes it takes me longer to clear content and I don’t care. Furthermore, I play with other people who don’t care. Ergo, I can play with any weapons I feel like playing…any armor.

We clear content. We get through everything. And we’re not farmers making runs again and again and again for profit, so efficiency doesn’t trump fun.

The moment you let efficiency trump fun, you’re no longer “playing”.

Will you give me a break?
With your condescending " i know how things are " attitude?

Efficiency IS fun for me. If I do CoF P1 in just a bit over 6 minutes – that’s fun. If it takes longer than 10 or so I’d much rather not have done it at all.
Same for every dungeon. I have fun running dungeons FAST. MELTING BOSSES. Getting that gold in the least amount of time and blasting through content as fast as I can. There are a LOT of people like me.
Stick to your own definition of fun, play the way you want, stop harassing us on the forums.

Bright.9160:

Scoobaniec.9561:

Best way to “fix” berserker gear is to make bosses immune to crits – by that i mean to make them like dragons.

“Some people play the game differently than me and are better/more efficient than me for doing so. Please take away their efficiency and fun, I don’t like it that people are better than me.”

You do realize that if they nerfed Berserker’s gear that the min/maxers that are currently running full DPS would just find the next best thing and all start running that, still being the best/fastest and not much would have changed.

Also – very true.

I’m pretty easy going with who i do content with. I don’t really care for loot, what i’m after is messing around with others but of course i generally go for full damage. Its obvious zerker is objectively better.

The superiority of zerker gear is a problem for PvE build diversity but it has nothing to do with zerker gear its to do with the predictable nature of the AI. That is what needs fixing.

well, i made this thread because I am leveling up and was trying to use the class forums to find advice, and what i read on those forums made me curious about the overall design of the game.

from the information given and the way this game is said to be designed, I sadly, don’t see the point(in PVE) of all but two classes, the majority of the weapon types, and 90% of the available gear.

everyone should just be Warriors and Thieves in “Zerker” gear.

now i am not saying that this is necessarily the truth. it is just the impression i get from forum posters.

I guess I’ll just move on to WvW as soon as possible and do the personal story sparingly. I can tell that dungeons and high level PVE won’t be for me unless ANet come up with something besides DPS Meter Race for major encounters.

edit it’s not necessarily a matter of me being “bad” or having to be carried or whatever. it’s more, for me, a matter of HAVING to play with a weapon set or playstyle that is not enjoyable to me. for example, I don’t like Staff on Elementalists. I don’t enjoy it. the abilities there aren’t fun to me. I wouldn’t enjoy having to use the Staff if it were that it did the highest dps. I like dual pistols on Thieves. that is what I am leveling with, and I enjoy it immensely. however, in high level pve, I’ll be forced to use whatever the FOTM melee weapon is at the moment, despite the fact that Thief melee is not enjoyable(to me).

yep op and not just that but that’s the only method they use for determining your rewards. who cares if you have players lying on the ground in the downed position, ignore them and keep firing because you don’t want to lose your place in the DPS line behind the scenes.