Guild Wars 2

Azhure.1857:

hybrid.5027:

Azhure.1857:

lioka qiao.8734:

I’m more tired of the skip-glitch-stack meta rather than the zerker meta. Doesn’t matter what gear everyone runs, they all skip past all the trash mobs and seek out bosses only. If anet doesn’t fix the zerk meta they can fix this meta.

• Make trash mobs keep aggro unless the dungeon mechanic specifically requires you to skip them
• Increase their loot drop rate to make them valuable to kill rather than skip.
• Add mechanics to bosses which penalize stacking (like a small powerful quick firing PBAOE that instagibs if it hits more than 3 people)

I’m in agreement with you there. Dungeon runs are so cheesy the way they are now.
But I also think the Zerk Meta needs to be addressed. I’m not saying it should be destroyed — Zerk will always have a place. Unfortunately, no matter how much you all yell and scream that we can play “how we want”, it is really hard to do some times with the current “Go Zerk or GTFO” mentality.

But with damage being the only thing rewarded and most encounters being so bloody easy that even those players that are multi-tasking other things outside of the game can get by without blinking — I don’t see it changing. Its a sad thing.

1. Make your own groups trumps “go zerk or gtfo.” So your point is countered.

2. Support is more powerful than DPS. so your other point is countered.

Thanks for offering an opinion though.

Thank you for being so delightfully asinine. I’m sure it was warranted, right?

You can “counter” what I say all you like but it makes my opinions no less valid for it. The Zerker Meta isn’t a perfect system. Yes, there will always be a meta and berserker is just the one that fits in the game at present. But why does the idea of opening discussion on improvements in that system be such a horrible thing? Why do you and so many others react so vehemently to the very thought? There could possibly be a solution out there that doesn’t send those of you that have put time and effort into ascended zerk gear into a panicked frenzy. It is POSSIBLE. Probable? No. But still possible.

Because you say nonsense like “Go Zerk or GTFO”, when there’s an “Advertise Your Party…” button right there.

Jana.6831:

Making boss mechanics harder would mean that those new to dungeons wouln’t stand a chance. My first words after my noob guild and I were wiped when we stepped into a dungeon were “And people really have fun doing this?”.

Anything new that players try and have no experience in should be challenging in some way. Because its NEW. You learn and adapt. I’m not a fan of dumbing down the game for “new players”. It hurts me to see ArenaNet devs use that excuse.

I remember my first few dungeons. We usually finished the dungeon with completely broken armor and were left naked. It was long. It was difficult. But all of us had fun doing it. There were laughs. Then we did it again and again until we got faster (and kept our clothes on). Why is the idea of learning from past encounters so horrible?

Dumb this game down anymore and everything will be “just afk and press 1”. Sad that most of it already is.

dlonie.6547:

Azhure.1857:

hybrid.5027:

Azhure.1857:

lioka qiao.8734:

I’m more tired of the skip-glitch-stack meta rather than the zerker meta. Doesn’t matter what gear everyone runs, they all skip past all the trash mobs and seek out bosses only. If anet doesn’t fix the zerk meta they can fix this meta.

• Make trash mobs keep aggro unless the dungeon mechanic specifically requires you to skip them
• Increase their loot drop rate to make them valuable to kill rather than skip.
• Add mechanics to bosses which penalize stacking (like a small powerful quick firing PBAOE that instagibs if it hits more than 3 people)

I’m in agreement with you there. Dungeon runs are so cheesy the way they are now.
But I also think the Zerk Meta needs to be addressed. I’m not saying it should be destroyed — Zerk will always have a place. Unfortunately, no matter how much you all yell and scream that we can play “how we want”, it is really hard to do some times with the current “Go Zerk or GTFO” mentality.

But with damage being the only thing rewarded and most encounters being so bloody easy that even those players that are multi-tasking other things outside of the game can get by without blinking — I don’t see it changing. Its a sad thing.

1. Make your own groups trumps “go zerk or gtfo.” So your point is countered.

2. Support is more powerful than DPS. so your other point is countered.

Thanks for offering an opinion though.

Thank you for being so delightfully asinine. I’m sure it was warranted, right?

You can “counter” what I say all you like but it makes my opinions no less valid for it. The Zerker Meta isn’t a perfect system. Yes, there will always be a meta and berserker is just the one that fits in the game at present. But why does the idea of opening discussion on improvements in that system be such a horrible thing? Why do you and so many others react so vehemently to the very thought? There could possibly be a solution out there that doesn’t send those of you that have put time and effort into ascended zerk gear into a panicked frenzy. It is POSSIBLE. Probable? No. But still possible.

Because you say nonsense like “Go Zerk or GTFO”, when there’s an “Advertise Your Party…” button right there.

“Go Zerk or GTFO” was in reference to what I’ve seen in LFG and chat channels on multiple occasions. But if it makes you all feel justified in trying to knock me down, please proceed.

Just carry around a zerk set of gear to ping and wear what you want, I do.

hybrid.5027:

2. Support is more powerful than DPS. so your other point is countered.

This is a debate about stats (gear stats, mainly), not roles or abilities. DPS benefits strongly from (some) stats. Support does not. Therefore, whether you are bringing might, vuln, aegis, blind, CC, reflect, portals, or whatever, you still have no incentive to pick anything but DPS stats. Since conditions suck in PvE and have no synergy, and direct damage has three stats that synergize, “DPS” means berserker or assassin.

The mechanics behind conditions and boons would have to change for the condition and boon related stats to become useful in PvE. For toughness/healing to become useful, enemies would have to use a mix of rapid, minor hits and big hits, such that you would need to be picky about when to use active defenses (big hits), and when to tough it out and heal up (piddly spam hits).

GrimmR.3541:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

GrimmR.3541:

“soloing a dungeon in soldiers takes more skill“ – Are you serious ?
Have you ever soloed a dungeon, have you ever compared berserker to soldiers !? I don’t know what you see as skilled but being able to facetank more hits isn’t skill for me.

Honestly, this one is a candidate for the statement of the year!

It is actually easier to solo in berserker in many occasions. Those thugs that heal in CM? have fun dealing with that without the damage. Pretty much any encounter where quick take downs are preferred, full berserker is the easier option, the harpy destroyer in the grawl fractal is a good example of this.

Mossman is way easier in full zerker just for the sheer fact that you can kill the wolves in fewer hits.

Well, i guess that’s a fair point. But i think that having to dodge/avoid more attacks takes more skill than simply having to fight longer while being tankier.

Berserker: Less space for mistakes. You need to manage your dodges/avoids.
Soldiers: More room for mistakes. You can fail a dodge and still be perfectly alright.

So for me personally; lacking DPS doesn’t proove skills, more like the opposite!

We can also counter argue that none berserker oriented setups need to commit to a near perfect dps rotation with no interruption to even keep up less players get overwhelmed by the same situation. Preventing the grawl from pushing the women over comes to mind or our favorite lime jelly from the Reactor fractal also comes to mind here.

It all really depends on what your skill ceiling is at. If you already know the ins and outs of the entire fight to the point that you can autopilot, berserker can be seen as an easier approach as you don’t have to commit as much effort to killing each target.

Azhure.1857:

dlonie.6547:

Azhure.1857:

hybrid.5027:

Azhure.1857:

lioka qiao.8734:

I’m more tired of the skip-glitch-stack meta rather than the zerker meta. Doesn’t matter what gear everyone runs, they all skip past all the trash mobs and seek out bosses only. If anet doesn’t fix the zerk meta they can fix this meta.

• Make trash mobs keep aggro unless the dungeon mechanic specifically requires you to skip them
• Increase their loot drop rate to make them valuable to kill rather than skip.
• Add mechanics to bosses which penalize stacking (like a small powerful quick firing PBAOE that instagibs if it hits more than 3 people)

I’m in agreement with you there. Dungeon runs are so cheesy the way they are now.
But I also think the Zerk Meta needs to be addressed. I’m not saying it should be destroyed — Zerk will always have a place. Unfortunately, no matter how much you all yell and scream that we can play “how we want”, it is really hard to do some times with the current “Go Zerk or GTFO” mentality.

But with damage being the only thing rewarded and most encounters being so bloody easy that even those players that are multi-tasking other things outside of the game can get by without blinking — I don’t see it changing. Its a sad thing.

1. Make your own groups trumps “go zerk or gtfo.” So your point is countered.

2. Support is more powerful than DPS. so your other point is countered.

Thanks for offering an opinion though.

Thank you for being so delightfully asinine. I’m sure it was warranted, right?

You can “counter” what I say all you like but it makes my opinions no less valid for it. The Zerker Meta isn’t a perfect system. Yes, there will always be a meta and berserker is just the one that fits in the game at present. But why does the idea of opening discussion on improvements in that system be such a horrible thing? Why do you and so many others react so vehemently to the very thought? There could possibly be a solution out there that doesn’t send those of you that have put time and effort into ascended zerk gear into a panicked frenzy. It is POSSIBLE. Probable? No. But still possible.

Because you say nonsense like “Go Zerk or GTFO”, when there’s an “Advertise Your Party…” button right there.

“Go Zerk or GTFO” was in reference to what I’ve seen in LFG and chat channels on multiple occasions. But if it makes you all feel justified in trying to knock me down, please proceed.

It’s not about trying to knock you down, no need to take it personally. A lot of people seem to think that because some groups only want zerkers, they have to use it, which was the view that your earlier post was expressing. It’s simply nonsense, no one is forcing you into those groups.

Start your own LFG with “All welcome” and you’ll be amazed at the results.

IllegalChocolate.6938:

GrimmR.3541:

“soloing a dungeon in soldiers takes more skill“ – Are you serious ?
Have you ever soloed a dungeon, have you ever compared berserker to soldiers !? I don’t know what you see as skilled but being able to facetank more hits isn’t skill for me.

Honestly, this one is a candidate for the statement of the year!

It is actually easier to solo in berserker in many occasions. Those thugs that heal in CM? have fun dealing with that without the damage. Pretty much any encounter where quick take downs are preferred, full berserker is the easier option, the harpy destroyer in the grawl fractal is a good example of this.

Mossman is way easier in full zerker just for the sheer fact that you can kill the wolves in fewer hits.

And that is why berserker’s is preferred. You don’t want to drag on fights in GW2. You want to finish them as quickly as possible before your defensive skills and dodges completely run out.

The trade off between doing more damage or having more defense isn’t equal in PvE and dungeons.

Using full nomad gear with defensive traits and weapons won’t make the game easier. Monsters will have a harder time killing you and so will you. And as the fight drags on, you’ll slowly run out of dodges, the recharge of your defensive skills will make your survival harder and the odds of you dying will keep rising.
With full berserker’s and offensive traits, you can take a few defensive skills and kill your enemy before your defensive skills are all on recharge and you have no dodge left.

Defensive gear is a crutch until you can move to offensive gear.

Regarding traits, it depends on what you are trying to achieve.

But the whole discussion of “I want to play how I want” is terribly annoying. “I want to use my scepter tanking/healing guardian” is something I find extremely confusing. Why do you want to use a scepter ? “I like ranging”…there are better professions for that “I also want to be a tank” wrong game.
I understand players ranging because they don’t want to die. Maybe they are new, maybe they aren’t too good, maybe they aren’t comfortable with their class. But saying it’s something they want to keep doing is saying they do not want to improve.
And before someone says “it’s a game, not a test”, we are talking about group content. Not wanting to improve is basically saying “others will do the work”.

It reminds me of a group of players we used to play with. They would push monsters we pulled, range everything and barely do anything to help the group in the end. We tried to give them subtle hints (we aren’t dictators), but one day we had enough and decided to do the same thing.
After some “painful” 40 something minutes to complete AC p1, they were kittened because they didn’t understand why it took nearly 3 times longer than normal.
Another time one of them had the nerve to complain that we recently we were playing terribly and started blaming us for their death.

Something to keep in mind with GW2 : most dungeons in this game aren’t hard. You don’t need godlike reflexes. Or hundreds of hours of grinding. You simply need to it down for a minute and understand what’s happening.
But because GW2 barely has fail conditions and because a group of 3 really good players can easily make up for 2 terrible ones, a lot of players don’t bother learning anything.

And general PvE isn’t helping.

“delightfully asinine”…“panicked frenzy”…yah, those are not ways I would describe that post at all. He countered your points, and you didn’t give any counter argument. You didn’t explain why making your own group is not a legitimate solution. You didn’t explain how support is not utilized. You say he is the one shutting down discussion, but you aren’t engaging in back and forth. Your just screaming “BE OPENED MINDED”, that’s not a discussion.

@perilisk – I’m pretty sure hybrid would agree with you about it being better to see condi’s become viable. That’s not necessarily an element of support, though it would be nice for gear diversity. Defensive gear however does not need a place in the meta – its not useless, its just that wvw shares gear with pve. There are already bosses in game that have more attacks then you can reasonably dodge and big attacks that need defensive prioritization, and people still run glass. Tazza is a good example.

Azhure.1857:

Why do you and so many others react so vehemently to the very thought?

They don’t want to spend the money on new gear-ping insurance. =P

Kidding aside, I usually tip my hat to those who are comfy running Berserker or Assassin. ( Or condition, but that’s just not allowed in PvE )
I’d like is an increasing variety in monster design (which we’re starting to see) and a balance pass on dungeons (which we’re not seeing) to push more balance on stats. But really, I really just want an anti-jerk meta.

Its because people like you seem to think that its all about dps. And you dont realise how much support and control comes into play in the meta. You have tunnel vision and you cant see past the gear stat. “Oh glass gear so they must only be doing damage!”

Rauderi.8706:

But really, I really just want an anti-jerk meta.

Jerks are going to exist whether there’s a trinity, a berserker meta, a nomad’s meta, a condition meta, or anything. You’re always going to have jerks here and there because it’s the internet, and you’re just going to have to master the art of dealing with them when they do raise their heads.

Azhure.1857:

Why do you and so many others react so vehemently to the very thought? There could possibly be a solution out there that doesn’t send those of you that have put time and effort into ascended zerk gear into a panicked frenzy. It is POSSIBLE. Probable? No. But still possible.

Because most of these post are like :

This ’’Meta’’ has to end ; It has killed the diversity too long ; everyone wants to do speed Zerker clears and kicks you ; there is no real need for teamwork ; The root problem with the zerker is the lack of trinity ; Zerker meta is caused by one and only thing, absence of essential “roles” in PvE ; current “Go Zerk or GTFO” mentality.

And that’s from this thread only.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Rauderi.8706:

But really, I really just want an anti-jerk meta.

Jerks are going to exist whether there’s a trinity, a berserker meta, a nomad’s meta, a condition meta, or anything. You’re always going to have jerks here and there because it’s the internet, and you’re just going to have to master the art of dealing with them when they do raise their heads.

Yeah, I know. It’s sadface.

If ANet could deliver a tweak on the party system, I’d be just fine making my own groups and running dungeons with confidence, regardless of party composition.

• Majority-only kick. Right now, 2 of 5 people can wipe a group and force the rest to start over. Trolling at its utmost.
• Kick-vote cooldowns. Probably paired with a selectable party-approval process to protect speed-run groups from getting mobbed by people trying to squeeze their way in.
  ..and so forth. Brain’s not 100% working on the details at the moment.

RedStar.4218:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

GrimmR.3541:

“soloing a dungeon in soldiers takes more skill“ – Are you serious ?
Have you ever soloed a dungeon, have you ever compared berserker to soldiers !? I don’t know what you see as skilled but being able to facetank more hits isn’t skill for me.

Honestly, this one is a candidate for the statement of the year!

It is actually easier to solo in berserker in many occasions. Those thugs that heal in CM? have fun dealing with that without the damage. Pretty much any encounter where quick take downs are preferred, full berserker is the easier option, the harpy destroyer in the grawl fractal is a good example of this.

Mossman is way easier in full zerker just for the sheer fact that you can kill the wolves in fewer hits.

And that is why berserker’s is preferred. You don’t want to drag on fights in GW2. You want to finish them as quickly as possible before your defensive skills and dodges completely run out.
—

If defenses run out how people can solo bosses when fights last at least 400% longer while they have at least 50% less defenses?

GrimmR.3541:

Berserker: Less space for mistakes. You need to manage your dodges/avoids.
Soldiers: More room for mistakes. You can fail a dodge and still be perfectly alright.

The counter argument to that is the longer the fight is, the more mistake you can make. And the longer the fights, the more cooldown you have on your active defense(blind/aegis/wall of reflection etc).

I wear nomad gear and I can’t even kill some trash mobs in fractal. While I can easily do that in berseker gear, since I can just blind/aegis and kill them fast enough. If I kill slowly, my blind and aegis would be on cooldown.

I wear nomad gear, and many boss become really difficult. While if I wear berserker gear, I can just put up a wall of reflection/spirit shield, and burst the boss down while my reflection is still up.

Wethospu.6437:

RedStar.4218:

IllegalChocolate.6938:

GrimmR.3541:

“soloing a dungeon in soldiers takes more skill“ – Are you serious ?
Have you ever soloed a dungeon, have you ever compared berserker to soldiers !? I don’t know what you see as skilled but being able to facetank more hits isn’t skill for me.

Honestly, this one is a candidate for the statement of the year!

It is actually easier to solo in berserker in many occasions. Those thugs that heal in CM? have fun dealing with that without the damage. Pretty much any encounter where quick take downs are preferred, full berserker is the easier option, the harpy destroyer in the grawl fractal is a good example of this.

Mossman is way easier in full zerker just for the sheer fact that you can kill the wolves in fewer hits.

And that is why berserker’s is preferred. You don’t want to drag on fights in GW2. You want to finish them as quickly as possible before your defensive skills and dodges completely run out.
—

If defenses run out how people can solo bosses when fights last at least 400% longer while they have at least 50% less defenses?

I dont’ think it’s the same situation. Those people have skills. Like some of your video, when your defense is down, you move out of the way.

For people who dont’ have skills like me, we just stack in a corner and if we dont’ kill fast enough we die.

B-B-B-BINGOOOOOOO!!!!!

Oh wait, wrong forum.

rfdarko.4639:

“delightfully asinine”…“panicked frenzy”…yah, those are not ways I would describe that post at all. He countered your points, and you didn’t give any counter argument. You didn’t explain why making your own group is not a legitimate solution. You didn’t explain how support is not utilized. You say he is the one shutting down discussion, but you aren’t engaging in back and forth. Your just screaming “BE OPENED MINDED”, that’s not a discussion.

“delightfully asinine” was aimed at the first poster that replied to my first post. Reread it again and tell me with a straight face that he/she wasn’t being just that. As for “panicked frenzy” – that was aimed at the general attitude of those against the very idea that we are even discussing this in this thread and others. I shouldn’t even have to type that out if you had read it correctly the first time.

As for continuing the “discussion” that you believe was happening there, some have already shared some good ideas that I have +1ed as a result.

I’m not strictly talking about the LFG system, as some are. Berserker is Meta in this game outside of dungeons too. The general elitist attitude is prevalent, unfortunately. Its expected, really, that the gear stat is favored so very much.

Reasons that I see why we have a Berserker Meta and why its a sad state for the game:

- DPS is what is rewarded.
- Support, while powerful, is not largely effected by stats. You can run full Zerk and still have near equal use of Support and Control functions.
- There is no fear of failure. Almost all of the content is far too easy.
- There is no fear of death. None. There isn’t even an armor repair anymore. So a berserker dies? So what? They still got their hits in, they still got their credit.

Discussion on the issues above will always be heated, I fear, but its good that we strive to improve the game where we can. If we can. The devs will decide in the end. I like the thought of improving enemy AI greatly. Its needed. I would also like Support in all its forms influenced more heavily by certain stat combinations. Whatever we can do to balance things a bit better would be welcome in my opinion. As would anything that requires people to think about what they’re doing.

Azhure.1857:

Reasons that I see why we have a Berserker Meta and why its a sad state for the game:

- DPS is what is rewarded.
- Support, while powerful, is not largely effected by stats. You can run full Zerk and still have near equal use of Support and Control functions.
- There is no fear of failure. Almost all of the content is far too easy.
- There is no fear of death. None. There isn’t even an armor repair anymore. So a berserker dies? So what? They still got their hits in, they still got their credit.

- DPS is what is rewarded. Not just dps, but i’ll agree that its the main thing. And its not sad of broken. Its a good thing for a lot of ppl. That’s what make these discussion difficult because part of the community tolerate this state in the game but don’t like it, while the other part like it very much and just want to improve the current system, not change it. For this part of the community (myself included), know that DPS is the main aspect of the game and don’t want that to change.
- Support is powerful and is not linked to the stats. But its linked to the runes, trait, weapons and skills. Again, a part of the community think its a bad thing and the other part think is ok and trying to change this fundamental stuff will break the game.
- There is no fear of failure, everything is easy. Those meta elistist will ALL agree with you. We all play zerker meta because its the most efficient and we can survive wihtout anything else. But we already see a different meta in fractal level 50 where we talk about hammer guardian for protection or skale venom for weakness. More challenging content will make the game better (if they make challenging mode and not just boost the difficulty of game since new player will be crushed and quit).
- There is no fear of death. True. It could be nice if there was a system that reward ppl not dying in a dungeon. Like a scaled reward depending if you died zero, once or more maybe. This could force ppl to reach a balance between survivability and dps. But it could bring more drama between players. Someone angry when he die because he rezzed someone and lost part of his reward for example.

Every Meta has to end someday….. Only to be replaced by another Meta.

Many people here are under the false assumption that the Lack of Trinity is the reason for our current Zerker Meta. But it is not the Lack of Trinity that is responsible for the meta. It was the Lack of Experience with the Lack of Trinity. Many Mobs and Bosses have Low Armor with high HP, they attacks are Slow, hard hitting and not really scaling with the Toughness Stat so they can kill defensive Players almost as fast as Zerkers.

Combine it with the poor AI and you have the ideal situation for the Zerker Meta.

Luckily Anet is aware of this and the Mordrems are a step in the right direction for more diverse Mob Encounters. They still can hit hard but only under some circumstances, have low HP to the point that even Lvl 84 Mobs can be killed rather quickly, are more condition friendly. ( It feels like, all of them have higher Armor than the Mobs earlier in the game ) and they even can react to some conditions. ( Hello crippled Terragriff )

So these Mobs are a step forward and if Anet keeps improving on these, maybe we will see another meta, or the Zerker Meta will be upgraded with some other kittenibilities.^^

After rereading my own post I can’t help but notice how it sounds like I’m trying to bring back the ‘Holy Trinity’ into this game. While I do miss it sometimes, its not exactly what I wish for here. I enjoy diversity. * shrugs * I really do. Just wish other sides of the new Trinity: Damage, Support, and Control could be more distinguished. More rewarded. Not to such a severe degree that we have the traditional tank/dps/healer system… but enough to where wearing something other than Zerk and stacking dps traits would be warranted.

I mean what is the point of even having other gear stats at all, at this point?

Azhure.1857:

- Support, while powerful, is not largely effected by stats. You can run full Zerk and still have near equal use of Support and Control functions.

You say that like it’s a bad thing, when it’s an incredibly good thing.

hows that for asinine?

hybrid.5027:

Azhure.1857:

- Support, while powerful, is not largely effected by stats. You can run full Zerk and still have near equal use of Support and Control functions.

You say that like it’s a bad thing, when it’s an incredibly good thing.

I do not see how a system that is so lopsided it makes any other choice subpar in comparison can be a good thing.

My suggestions for adjusting the PvE meta:

• Add more enemies throughout the game that only take condition damage (like wurm husks)
• Add a new condition called Hemorrhage that gets applied whenever Bleed reaches 25 stacks. Hemorrhage is twice as strong as Burning and lasts 3 seconds and does not stack. It is only meant to proc when Bleed gets too high on PvE mobs, and give an actual benefit to condi players working together.
• Rework Defiant along with Toughness. Make it so that Toughness has thresholds at which CC skills remove more than 1 stack of Defiant, up to 5 stacks at 2500 Toughness. This will allow CC builds to be a real thing.
• Rework Endurance so that it regenerates about 50% slower by default. Rework Vitality so that it increases endurance regen by 50% at 2500 Vitality. This is aimed to make vitality more attractive in PvE and force pure zerkers to be a lot more careful about wasting a dodge. Even with Vigor, pure zerkers would still have a net gain of 50% faster regen.
• Add more enemies that deal low damage, yet high speed attacks. The point is to counter them through protection and regeneration, not dodging. This will also allow Retaliation and Confusion to be more viable.

GrimmR.3541:

“soloing a dungeon in soldiers takes more skill“ – Are you serious ?
Have you ever soloed a dungeon, have you ever compared berserker to soldiers !? I don’t know what you see as skilled but being able to facetank more hits isn’t skill for me.

Honestly, this one is a candidate for the statement of the year!

Do it and tell me if it is even possible to solo a dungeon in soldier’s.

Azhure.1857:

Jana.6831:

Making boss mechanics harder would mean that those new to dungeons wouln’t stand a chance. My first words after my noob guild and I were wiped when we stepped into a dungeon were “And people really have fun doing this?”.

Anything new that players try and have no experience in should be challenging in some way. Because its NEW. You learn and adapt. I’m not a fan of dumbing down the game for “new players”. It hurts me to see ArenaNet devs use that excuse.

I remember my first few dungeons. We usually finished the dungeon with completely broken armor and were left naked. It was long. It was difficult. But all of us had fun doing it. There were laughs. Then we did it again and again until we got faster (and kept our clothes on). Why is the idea of learning from past encounters so horrible?

Dumb this game down anymore and everything will be “just afk and press 1”. Sad that most of it already is.

You can only do dungeons (successfully) in this game if you have read about that dungeon or have a very experienced player in your group who explains you stuff. You can do the story yet the explorable mode is completely different, there’s no learning how to do it by doing it – in my opinion.
We had broken armor but hadn’t had that much fun because we felt like bad players and we had to leave dungeons more than once because we just couldn’t finish them (and were frustrated).
I had a nooby friend in this game (lvl 80 necro, was really good in open PvE). She came to the queens gauntlet and tried the first opponent and failed because she couldn’t figure out that the hammer swing was really bad. So I tried to encourage her to try again and wanted to explain how it works – she blocked, said she was a bad player, left and left the game forever.
There’s more to it, would be a whole new discussion whether or not this game is dumbed down.

Azhure.1857:

hybrid.5027:

Azhure.1857:

- Support, while powerful, is not largely effected by stats. You can run full Zerk and still have near equal use of Support and Control functions.

You say that like it’s a bad thing, when it’s an incredibly good thing.

I do not see how a system that is so lopsided it makes any other choice subpar in comparison can be a good thing.

Because the system rewards increasing skill and coordination with increased time efficiency. This good game design. This is a system that is functioning properly.

People who are using berserker gear in disorganized groups with no coordination, synergy or properly implemented support skills are wasting their own time since they likely could have cleared faster in tankier gear. That’s hardly being optimal.

If you want to make the argument that the bar is too low for skill as a result of the content being so old that even bads know some of the advanced speed clear strategies go ahead I won’t argue. But that has nothing to do with gear and everything to do with content.

KSIBBQ.8123:

This Zerker meta has to end. It has killed the diversity too long. This game has such a unique build system, and you should truly be able to play how you want. However, unless you have a pre made, then people will kick you. Start building your toon the way you want to!

Assuming this is not a troll post.

The meta ( whichever one it is) will never end.

The concept of meta means that something will always be better than the other options and then people will use that and force others to adhere to the meta.

The idea of “diversity” is absurd to begin with.
You can nerf zerker – people will move to the next best thing and that will be the new meta. And then you and people like you can complain about “this other set of stats” that ruined diversity.

Please try to understand things before posting.

I’m sorry in order to end this so hated zerk meta, why don’t we just place every single boss in every single dungeon as Lupi and see how it goes? Because according to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qc-h49HeqU even 5 cleric settings can kill lupi. So for those who thinks dungeon is just stack and press 1 should be able to replicate this right? This satisfy everyone, for those who wanted to run non meta, for those who can easily prove themselves in one of the most difficult bosses. Problem solved

TheFamster.7806:

I’m sorry in order to end this so hated zerk meta, why don’t we just place every single boss in every single dungeon as Lupi and see how it goes? Because according to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qc-h49HeqU even 5 cleric settings can kill lupi. So for those who thinks dungeon is just stack and press 1 should be able to replicate this right? This satisfy everyone, for those who wanted to run non meta, for those who can easily prove themselves in one of the most difficult bosses. Problem solved

I don’t have a hate for berserker. My only point is there should be a meaning for different gear, else why even put it in the game(beside saying there are also pvp and wvw).

And you said even cleric can do Lupi, which make it sounds like cleric is the inferior set which shouldn’t be able to do lupi in it. Isn’t cleric suppoose to be the safer set?

And my only problem with berserker is it should be more dangerous to wear berserker, but many times it really isn’t because you can avoid every damage by timing your skill right. And since all active defense skills have the same potency weather you you are in berserker or nomad, it really arn’t more dangerous to wear berserker.

The only reason I hope to have gear diversity is to make the game more interesting. For example if potency of aegis or length of reflect skill for guardian scales with toughness etc, that’ll give more meaning to gears beside berserker.

laokoko.7403:

TheFamster.7806:

I’m sorry in order to end this so hated zerk meta, why don’t we just place every single boss in every single dungeon as Lupi and see how it goes? Because according to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qc-h49HeqU even 5 cleric settings can kill lupi. So for those who thinks dungeon is just stack and press 1 should be able to replicate this right? This satisfy everyone, for those who wanted to run non meta, for those who can easily prove themselves in one of the most difficult bosses. Problem solved

I don’t have a hate for berserker. My only point is there should be a meaning for different gear, else why even put it in the game(beside saying there are also pvp and wvw).

And you said even cleric can do Lupi, which make it sounds like cleric is the inferior set which shouldn’t be able to do lupi in it. Isn’t cleric suppoose to be the safer set?

And my only problem with berserker is it should be more dangerous to wear berserker, but many times it really isn’t because you can avoid every damage by timing your skill right. And since all active defense skills have the same potency weather you you are in berserker or nomad, it really arn’t more dangerous to wear berserker.

The only reason I hope to have gear diversity is to make the game more interesting. For example if potency of aegis or length of reflect skill for guardian scales with toughness etc, that’ll give more meaning to gears beside berserker.

+1
Thank you, Laokoko.

Different gear in PVE is to give a difficulty scale honestly. Do you want more passive defense to make up for your inability to perfectly use your active defense? then grab soldiers or something.

As you become a better player you shift towards more offensive gear.

It’s simply one element of your overall build and people get caught up on it too much. People need to shed this thinking they’ve developed from other games where your gear choice is crucial to your overall role. That’s not GW2, GW2 your traits, your runes, your weapon selection and even sigils will determine your play style far more than the gear you wear. The gear is simply a slider of offensive potential and passive defensive potential.

And while I sound like a broken record at this point, not everyone would be using zerk gear if it weren’t for the fact that all new content is innately easy and the few bits of challenging content is old enough to have been perfected by players and the tactics are so widespread it doesn’t take long for newer players to pick them up and catch up.

Could they have built the game with more dependency on gear for your overall build, sure, but they didn’t.

I wonder if the people above going against the “meta” realize what meta means, what it is and why diversity is not and can never be a thing.

Rauderi.8706:

Deamhan.9538:

The root problem with the zerker is the lack of trinity. Every character brings enough to ‘support up to 5’ that if all the players spec zerker and stack, they can survive just fine and maximize dps.

Sadly, no. The problem is the lack of variety in encounter design. With many bosses being singular monoliths that exist as low-armor HP sponges, there is little reason to do anything else.

They attack slow, hit hard enough to murder a full-defense character, and often have wonky aggro rules that focus on the first person to hit them, so burning down a boss ASAP is usually the only real option.

Just how could they design the encounter that would break the meta?

Make bosses do some kind of attack that cause stacking to be bad or fatel for the group? Boss marks a single player with a condition which will damage the player and any other player within xxx units of distance as soon as the condition falls off. The damage dealt is also multiplied by the number of other players within range.

May sound like a good way to keep people from stacking but it’s not. That one person would just move from the stack until the condition falls off then return. Or worst yet, that person doesn’t leave on purpose just to cause everyone to wipe.

They could also have bosses that kind of feed off the players’ stats. So if everyone goes with zerker, the boss’ defense may get buffed or a boss’ attack may do more damage to someone with high precision. Of course, none of these will actually work. Bosses can already one shot multiple players. So long as everyone stacks, anyone who goes into downed state is revived almost instantly. I’ve been doing the world boss train recently to get the rares I need to salvage for ectos to finish off my huntsman profession. Many time I try and revive someone and get the message ‘there are too many revivors’.

So I’d really like to know of an encounter mechantic that would break the zerker dogpile.

Take WoW dungeon/raid encounters. With a trinity system there is a co-dependence between them. The tank keeps aggro and takes the damage, the healer heals the damage taken and the dps deals the damage to the enemy. There is another name for this besides “trinity”. It’s called “unity”.

So with WoW, they can design the encounters with this unity in mind. Throw in attacks that hit the whole party or ring attacks that hit those in the back line instead of the front line. Maybe even have a boss that considers excessive healing an aggro pull. Where one wrong move means the party wiping. It gets people to move, think, take it slow and learn how the boss works. The trinity is what makes this possible.

None of those designes would work with GW2’s as the zerker dogpile would beat them all. There is no encounter design to counter it because the problem isn’t with encounters. It’s with GW2’s “trinity” of dps,support, and control.

The bosses are immune to control. You get one shot at interrupting something then it gets a couple dozen stacks of immunity that have to be stripped before you can do it again. That attack you interrupted, the boss will get to do before those stacks come off. Not sure what they can do here though. Make the bosses vulnerable and then the boss would be spammed with interrupts and locked down making them a cake walk (more so than they already are).

As for support, that’s why people stack. The support often has a limited range from the player who is casting it, and is limited to 5 players (which does party members first I think). So everyone parties up, stacks up and by specing dps, support is both secondary and shared and is therefore adequate enough.

With raids and the classic trinity, the purpose of more than one tank and/or healer was because either the tanks would have to pass aggro back and forth or the healers would have to pass the responsibility of healing back and forth or both. That’s where having a tank, healer, dps, condition/control, and support would be good. The tank keeps aggro while the healer keeps everyone (mostly the tank) alive. Dps does the damage. Condition/Control (aka CC) does dps too but does it through conditions where the dps does is through physical. The control would be doing the one interrupt on that one nasty boss move. The immunity would then go up but instead of stacks needing removal, it would be time based and comes off when the boss is ready to try and do that particular move again. Finally you would have the support who aids the other members. Providing buffs.

Meta is a player made construction. That has nothing to do with the game itself. In this game, most content doesn’t time you, or cares about how much gold you collect. If you think the gear you’re wearing is limiting your ability to clear something faster, that’s your own problem for competing in a rat race that only exists in your head.

It makes as much sense as seeing a Super Mario speedrun, and then seeing that since they don’t use any powerups (because they don’t need to), then thus powerups are a broken mechanic and are useless. Then one would come up with convoluted ways to force people to use them, because if speedruns don’t use them, it clearly doesn’t matter.

In any case, considering the difference between a bad zerker and a good zerker, it makes it clear that gear is not the deciding issue but how well you understand the mechanics of the fights. I don’t really have a problem. As for other stat spreads being so called useless, it’s not like you can’t complete the content in them.

And sure, you can choose to not work together, but you can still work together for even better results.

Jerus.4350:

Different gear in PVE is to give a difficulty scale honestly. Do you want more passive defense to make up for your inability to perfectly use your active defense? then grab soldiers or something.

I feel this is just an excuse. Why grind in a dungeon for tankier armor if you couldn’t already complete the content? Why have that as a reward for dungeon completes if you needed it to complete dungeons?

I say just stop trying to sugar coat it and just say armor choice in most PvE is shoddy at worst and just lack of forethought at best. And I doubt the devs intended for content to be burned down as quickly as it is today or could foretell how players’ tactics would gravitate to specific AI exploitation.

If I was given free reign to fix things, without regard for the work involved or resulting rebalance task, I’d probably drop gear stats altogether, and focus more on armor giving role-related buffs like traits or food.

I’d also rework base armor stats so that armor has both a defense range (directly subtracted from damage) and a durability stat (the number of hits it can take before being disabled and losing the defense and the buff). Durability would reset when ooc.

I’d collapse attributes into just 5, one for each traitline. Power (boost direct damage), Accuracy (boost critical rate — criticals tend to hit low-defense armor or bypass it, but don’t actually do more damage), Focus (boost condition and boon duration), Vitality (boost health), and Endurance (boost “Energy”, which would be a combination of Initative and what is now called Endurance; so more attacks and dodges).

• Power would be ineffective against high-defense foes, but it would help squash squishies.

• Accuracy would counter defense strongly, but wouldn’t be useful otherwise except for things that proc on crits.

• Conditions would all stack in duration. Damage, if any, would be a % of health (on elites and above, %s would be smaller and durations would be cut substantially). Thus, Focus would counter Vitality. Armor would semi-counter conditions, since some conditions (esp bleeds) would only attach if the associated attack did at least 1 direct damage, and the condi component would not contribute to breaking defense. Vulnerability would not stack, but instead cause the next hit to bypass armor.

• Vitality would boost health. Fairly straightforward — heals would all be % based, so it would help there, but would not help in healing others.

• Endurance/Energy would govern how often you could dodge (which would compete with attacks), and what skills you could use. It could theoretically boost different strategies — evasive, spamming attacks to wear durability, more access to bit attacks to pierce armor, more conditions or boons.

uberkingkong.8041:

You do play how you want.

It’s just with the developers making this game easymode, repetitive and all. Its just a lot faster to go full dps and breeze through everything.

I mean… They listened to you guys and tried to steer away from the meta by making world bosses harder, like SB more portals, tequatl you have to go through all the phases now, etc.
What you guys do when they tried to make it a bit harder so full dps build isn’t preferred?

You guys whined.

You guys are just as bad as the WvW community.
We want new modes, new things to do, server merges.

They give you exactly what you asked for, EotM, you guys whined.
People even whined about EotM not being like traditional borderlands WvW, they added siege disablers to help people play defense more often. Guess what??? People whined about siege disablers. People whined about EotM changing trends to bag farming instead of karma farming. People still whining about server merges, they merge servers in EotM.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Time-to-merge-populations/page/2#post4602340
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/New-trend-in-EOTM/page/2#post4597334
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Siege-Disablers-Ruined-the-Game/page/2#post4585398

Also just as bad as the PvP community.
We want deathmatch style games, we want new game modes, people to have to change there build/meta.

They give you EXACTLY what you asked for, Courtyard, you guys whined.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/people-are-leaving-courtyard-on-purpose/first#post4602422
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Why-Courtyard-why/first#post4603253

Nothing but a big bunch of babies whining. They keep listening to you, but your not the right person to listen too. They need to start listening to THE RIGHT PEOPLE.

Nobody asked for EotM. People asked for the devs to spend time on wvw so its not just a karma train flipping towers. People asked to make it more worth while to defend towers rather than let them get taken so they can get the reward for retaking the site. What did they give, an even worse karma train zerg with increased rewards because of how small the map is and they made it have no affect on wvw. It actually is like a training ground for karma flipping since everyone knows its the place to level up your character.

The problem isn’t that they are listening to the wrong people playing the game its that they aren’t listening to anyone playing the game. I do agree though that those asking for zerker nerfs are not the people to listen to.

kratan.4619:

Just carry around a zerk set of gear to ping and wear what you want, I do.

That’s not going to fly, especially when I can tell what you’re wearing without even asking.

Wethospu.6437:

If defenses run out how people can solo bosses when fights last at least 400% longer while they have at least 50% less defenses?

I think somewhere there’s some sort of misunderstanding. Combined with some sad truths, especially when some players can solo content faster than 5 players.

I’m not going to teach you anything, but to make my reasoning clearer :
Nomad gear (taking the extreme) will give your more toughness, vitality and healing power. Of those three attributes the only one that’s going to influence your skills is HP, which will mainly influence the amount of health you gain with regeneration and your healing skill.
The recharge of your skills or you endurance regeneration will not be affected.

Thus from time to time you might take a hit. With defensive gear that hit will hurt less than with berserker’s and your healing skill with heal a lot more. But because you do really less damage, you are also going to take more hits through out the fight and will need to focus for a longer time.

I guess I tried to shorten my reasoning too much and ended up writing something incorrect.

That falls through when you realise that many bosses can hit some classes for 90% of their hp when in berserker. But if you use a defensive gear stat you can take quite a few extra hits. So basically if you mess up a dodge its not completely over if you mess up the next one.

Its way easier to to solo with defensive gear. The question is do you have the patience and endurance to do it with that low damage. If you have the endurance to keep it up for a berserker kill then you should definately be able to do it with defensive gear and it will be easier but slower. Because its more forgiving.

Azhure.1857:

After rereading my own post I can’t help but notice how it sounds like I’m trying to bring back the ‘Holy Trinity’ into this game. While I do miss it sometimes, its not exactly what I wish for here. I enjoy diversity. * shrugs * I really do. Just wish other sides of the new Trinity: Damage, Support, and Control could be more distinguished. More rewarded. Not to such a severe degree that we have the traditional tank/dps/healer system… but enough to where wearing something other than Zerk and stacking dps traits would be warranted.

I mean what is the point of even having other gear stats at all, at this point?

Reasons for other geat sets:

• WvW
• PvE players who want more survivability or whatever
• PvE players who need more survivability or whatever
• PvE players who have an image of how their character performs
• PvE players who couldn’t t care less about the meta
• PvE players who like to experiment

Gear sets do not exist only for high-end play. You might also ask, “What is the point of traits, weapons and utility skills that are not used in the meta?” If you did, I’d provide the same answers.

Anet grafted an old-style MMO stat system onto a flexible skill system vaguely similar to the skill system they used in GW. Seeing the “standard” MMO stat types, people expect standard MMO diversity rooted in gear choices. Instead, diversity in GW2 team play is — as others have stated — based on what your character brings to the group to complement what others are bringing. That’s the disconnect.

I wonder sometimes if we are just looking at things in the wrong way when we go on about “solutions” to these type things.

Maybe the armor stat varieties are fine and it’s just the combat AI of the mobs that need some changing.

DPS is king, we all know that, and let it remain king, but let’s not forget there’s a whole bloody royal court of other primary attributes that should matter.

Simply put, if people are choosing DPS over survival stats then that tells me the mobs aren’t supplying enough pressure in the right ways, meaning the mobs needs to have some varied methods of dealing out damage.

If Toughness and Vitality doesn’t matter enough, it’s not because “Zerk Gear” is wrong, it’s that those two stats have no real value in combat.

Perhaps it’s a case of the player that attempts to gear with Toughness/Vitality is being penalized too severely in the DPS department.

Or, maybe the Zerk-geared Player is getting a little more survivability than is justified?

If the player chooses to focus on survival, it should really count as something meaningful and not preclude the player from progressing in combat at a reasonable pace.

By all means, allow Zerkers to reign supreme on damage. Sometimes the absolute best survival (other than outright damage avoidance) is killing the enemy fast and as effortlessly as possible.

But, the survival/tanky types need some love and maybe this can be done by allowing one or both of the defensive stats to mitigate Boss level damage more effectively and noticeably.

Xander.9024:

<——-Soloist. Never have to worry about what all the “cool kids” are doing. :p

Hey,
try dragon age, neverwinter nights or any other offline RPG.
Just a tip.

Kuldebar.1897:

I wonder sometimes if we are just looking at things in the wrong way when we go on about “solutions” to these type things.

Maybe the armor stat varieties are fine and it’s just the combat AI of the mobs that need some changing.

DPS is king, we all know that, and let it remain king, but let’s not forget there’s a whole bloody royal court of other primary attributes that should matter.

Simply put, if people are choosing DPS over survival stats then that tells me the mobs aren’t supplying enough pressure in the right ways, meaning the mobs needs to have some varied methods of dealing out damage.

If Toughness and Vitality doesn’t matter enough, it’s not because “Zerk Gear” is wrong, it’s that those two stats have no real value in combat.

Perhaps it’s a case of the player that attempts to gear with Toughness/Vitality is being penalized too severely in the DPS department.

Or, maybe the Zerk-geared Player is getting a little more survivability than is justified?

If the player chooses to focus on survival, it should really count as something meaningful and not preclude the player from progressing in combat at a reasonable pace.

By all means, allow Zerkers to reign supreme on damage. Sometimes the absolute best survival (other than outright damage avoidance) is killing the enemy fast and as effortlessly as possible.

But, the survival/tanky types need some love and maybe this can be done by allowing one or both of the defensive stats to mitigate Boss level damage more effectively and noticeably.

Those of us in the dungeon subforum have been saying this the whole time. But everyone seems to ignore it and continue to blame the gear. Weve been saying the solution is making the content harder.

But the problem with doing that is it will most likely alienate lower skilled players. And you definately dont want to go so overboard that glass gear is no longer possible and roles are forced. Thats a sure fire way to kill half your playerbase by making their gear unuseable.

I definately would support higher pressure so it is more difficult for people to get away with full glass but only in instanced group content. But that would surely have to come in through new content such as dungeons, fractals and raids. Changing it in the current dungeons might not be best as there are still some people that have difficulty with them, they are only easy because they have been around for 2 years so everyone knows every trick and tactic. And we already know that dungeon development has been axed so that means the only hope is raids and fractals.

Each time I read “zerker wrong, meta to be changed” I think

Why?

Do you feel left out when not running zerk? I have several builds which are dps oriented but not zerk. I break into zerk parties, I normally get exotic chests.. sometimes people mind but generally it’s not noted.

But what am I running:
Warrior 1: Pug Carrier DPS Or Hammer/GS WvW (4/4/0/6/0)(Meta? Maybe)
armor/trinkets list1) Zerk/Strength 2) Soldiers/Trooper (Asc) Zerk trinkets (Asc) Zerk weapons
Warrior 2 (shout heal) Hammer/Rifle (Meta? No) (0/0/6/6/2)
armor/trinkets list1) Soldiers/Trooper 2) Zealot/Trooper (Asc) Soldiers Trinkets (Exo) Zealot Trinket, Zerk weapons
Warrior 3 Hybrid DPS/ Hybrid Tanky SS/LB (Meta? No) (2(0)/6/0(5)/4(0)/2(3))
armor/trinkets list1) (Asc) Sinister Armor/Strength 2) (Asc) Rabid Armor/Strength (Asc)Rampagers trinkets (Asc) Sinister trinkets (Asc) Rampager weapons
Guardian 1 Healer/buffer or buffer tank (or OLD META) (0/0/6(4)/6/2(4))
armor/trinkets list1)Clerics/Monk 2)Nomads/Trooper (3)Zerk/Scholar) (Asc) Clerics (Asc) Nomads (Exo) Zerk (Asc) Clerics Weapons (Exo) Zerk Weapons
Guardian 2 Pug Carrier DPS (2/5/0/6/1) (Meta Maybe)
armor/trinkets list1) Zerk Strength 2) Zealot Hoelbrak (Exo) Zealot trinkets (Asc) Zealot weapons (Exo) Zerk Weapons
Elementalist 1 Staff DPS (6/2/2/2/2) (Meta? Maybe)
armor/trinkets list1)Zerk/Scholar 2)Zerk/Divinity 3)Celestial/Divinity (Asc) Zerk Trinkets (Asc) Celestial Trinkets (Asc) Zerk Weapons (Asc) Celestial Weapons
Elementalist 2 Water Staff Support (0/2/0/6/6) (Non-Meta)
armor/trinkets list1)Zealot/Monk (Mix) Zealot/Zerk (Asc) Zealot Staff
Necro 1 (Tanky) Hybrid (/Zerk DPS) (Non-Meta) (4/6/0/4/0)
armor/trinkets list1) Sinister/Strength 2) Rabid/Strength (3) Zerk/Scholar) (Asc) Rampagers trinkets (Exo) Zerk trinkets Rampagers weapons Zerk weapons
Necromancer 2 (WvW Condimancer) Non-meta (for PvE) (0/5/5/4/0)
armor/trinkets list1) Rabid/Undead (Asc) Rabid Trinkets Rabid Weapons
Ranger 1 LB/GS DPS META? (6/4/0/4/0)
armor/trinkets list1) Zerk/Scholar (Asc) Zerk Trinkets (Asc) Zerk Weapons
Ranger 2 Hybrid/CondiRanger (Non-meta) (2/4/2/0/6)
armor/trinkets list1) Sinister/Strength 2) Rabid / Krait (Asc) Rampagers trinkts (Exo) Rabid Trinkets Sinister weapons Rabid Weapons
Mesmer 1 Condi Mesmer(PU) Non-meta(0/5/5/0/4)/(0/5/6/0/3)
armor/trinkets list1) Rabid/Perplexity (Asc) Rabid trinkets (Asc) Rabid Weapons
Thief 1 PP/SP DPS Pew-pew thief / Hybrid (Non-Meta) (0/6/0/3/5)
armor/trinkets list1) Zerk/Strength (2) Rampager/Krait) (3) Rabid/Krait) (Asc) Zerk trinkets (Asc) Rampager trinkets (Exo) Zerk wepons (Exo) Rampagers wepons

Not played (less then 100 hours):
Mesmer 2 (shatter or phantasm) META
armor/trinkets list1) Zerk/Scholar (Exo) Zerk trinkets (Exo) zerk weapons
Engineer 1 -MULE- Not played (cannot seem to get the hang of it)
armor/trinkets list(exo) zerk/scholar (exo) zerk trinkets (exo) zerk weapons

In the end most characters carrying zerk gear could get a -META- build but only a few characters actually comply with -META- in some sort of way, most are how I like to play them, and that is DPS but a bit more stable, I love dps
In the whole list are some condi armors but most builds rely on power , most do not have defensive stats , and most are very viable in pve and /or dungeons.

Generally born from a wish to be ‘different’, and experiment.

There is no more Meta, ANet dissolved the dungeon team so that form of content is a dead end.

The new Meta is open world events with LS, WvW, and their ESports pipe dream.

With that being said you can play this now trivial content how ever you like since it’s no longer on the table.

Feel free to start your own casual runs, why wait on one.

Leo G.4501:

Jerus.4350:

Different gear in PVE is to give a difficulty scale honestly. Do you want more passive defense to make up for your inability to perfectly use your active defense? then grab soldiers or something.

I feel this is just an excuse. Why grind in a dungeon for tankier armor if you couldn’t already complete the content? Why have that as a reward for dungeon completes if you needed it to complete dungeons?

I say just stop trying to sugar coat it and just say armor choice in most PvE is shoddy at worst and just lack of forethought at best. And I doubt the devs intended for content to be burned down as quickly as it is today or could foretell how players’ tactics would gravitate to specific AI exploitation.

I’m making excuses? You’re saying people are grinding dungeons for weeks instead of dropping 25-30g on a crafted set? Seems silly. Dungeon gear is for alternate sets of gear, alt characters, styles and now collections. If people are getting their first sets of exotic that way, they’re doing it wrong.

Also it’s been recently shown that in lower level dungeons Rare gear (and I believe even green IIRC for AC) is just as good as exotic due to scaling. just a little side note.

Piratoz.8627:

Until several major things change, zerker meta will stay as the prevalent build for all classes in GW2. Why is that you say?

1. No holy trinity. The holy trinity remains as the primary way of designing a combat system in MMOs. It works well and is easy to make content for. However, in guild wars 2 the 2 sides of the trinity: tanking and healing either don’t exist or just kind of suck. There is no way to reliably control aggro, tank stats are pretty useless other than for personal survival. Healing power scales extremely poorly for PVE and is largely seen as useless as every class has a heal skill with high base healing. Instead the “trinity” of gw2 was advertised as DPS, support, and control. However this leads me to my second point…

2. No matter what you build, your CC and boon giving abilities are pretty much the same. The zerker elementalist is going to give roughly the same amount of boons as the full soldiers elementalist. Outside of boon duration, there is really no way to make your support or control abilities stronger. By building any stat except for damage you are really just gimping your party in a way unless you can’t survive. However this leads me to my third point…

3. Content in guild wars 2 is easy. There. I said it. You can view it how you want, but in my opinion, content in guild wars 2, especially older content is fairly easy compared to other popular MMOs because of one mechanic: Dodge. I love dodging in this game, however the ability to have evade frames for a good second at any time if you have the endurance to pay for it makes it so that even the glassiest of characters can survive almost all encounters in the game. I have a feeling that Arenanet won’t change this as they have the motto of “play how you want”. While some players may make this excuse to take strange or “unoptimal” builds, it works both ways. The full cleric guardian should theoretically be able to complete the same content as the 11k hp elementalist. This leads me to my final point…

4. Because of these reasons, there is no real need for teamwork . This is by far one of the biggest gripes I have with the game. Your thief and elementalist are dead or downed? Guardian AFK? Thats okay! Chances are, if you or the other person are good enough you could probably solo or duo the boss. Every class is self sufficient. While this does have its strengths, it really detracts from the most challenging aspect of MMOs, and in my opinion, the part that is the most fun: working as a team to beat challenging content.

I’m not saying that I hate Guild Wars 2. I love playing the game. However like most things, there are many things that could be improved in this game, one of which is the combat. There will be many people who disagree with me, however one of the best parts about playing an MMO is working with other people, often people that you don’t know. The holy trinity was an easy way to make it so that it was necessary to play the different roles and work with other people.

TLDR: I do believe that gw2 can find a way to make their “soft trinity” combat system work, but right now PVE really needs some love from the developers. Until there are major changes to combat or the way encounters are designed, the only trinity in the game is power, precision, and ferocity.

Exactly this. Teamwork is not blasting your buddy’s fire field – you can screw that up and maybe the fight takes 20 seconds longer. Teamwork is something that if you fail at, your entire party fails. GW2 does have much teamwork at all… only forces via the environment (i.e. two people stand on a pressure plate).