Guild Wars 2

Let’s Talk Build Diversity

With the multitude of stat sets in the game, everyone still only runs Berserker in PVE. I’d love to see some other stats actually become more viable. I’d love to build a Guardian Healer and Tank, or a Warrior Tank with some damage, or any sort of combinations, but there just isn’t a place for that in the game (excluding raids of course).

The other day I was gearing up my Warrior, and one my friends told me that I should go get some Soldier’s or Knight’s gear, but let’s be real, you really only need Berserker’s. Any group running full Zerk in a dungeon will be quicker at completing it then a group without full Zerk, which sucks, because it encourages everyone to build Zerk. This got me thinking and into a discussion where I thought about why people only run Zerker gear, and here’s what I came up with (there’s probably more, but these stood out).

The Rally System
Because you can just build pure damage, as long as you or someone near you kills the mob, you come back with a substantial amount of health. This allows players to play reckless and go all in without much penalty. I feel like the system needs to be revamped, at least in raids it’s a bit better and you can’t just go full DPS and mindlessly mash your keyboard hoping to rally.

Healing Power Is Broken
Why does it not scale with revive speed? This would encourage people to actually perhaps build it more; maybe allow it to have faster revive speed, or instant revive (maybe too OP, but you’re sacrificing damage for healing so why not?). In general healing power builds don’t feel rewarding because you don’t really ever have an idea of how much you really ARE helping the team or how much you really ARE making an impact. You just see a ton of green numbers.

Out of Combat Healing
Even if you run past a ton of mobs, you won’t die anyway because once out of combat your health shoots up anyway. And even if you do die, then you can have enough power probably to kill and just rally again. Why not make food a requirement to health regen, or having to go near a camp, or something. That would be more interesting IMO, and would require people to build a bit different maybe?

No Need for Threat Control, So No Tanks
The PVE content is already easy, and even if it wasn’t we don’t any major threat control abilities where we can pull mob aggro on the fly whenever we want. And there isn’t a need to even because everything dies so quickly. That’s why we see tanks only really needed in raids, because they CAN control the threat and those bosses don’t die instantly.

Those are just my thoughts and opinions, I may be wrong, but let me know yours. I’ve done a video on this topic where I talk a bit more in depth about the topic with more examples below if you’re interested:
https://youtu.be/zJRfWlgN8BU

I’m not going to watch, but as for your points:

I’m content with how rallying works currently. The discrepancy between the various class downed state skills is a bit bothersome, but that’s kind of off topic.

In terms of the game’s definition of Healing, you’re not healing someone when you’re reviving them, so I don’t see why Healing Power should factor into it. There are certain class traits and a Mastery line that make you revive allies faster.

I don’t think the OOC regen is a bad thing, and I personally don’t want to see it change.

I don’t miss having to have a tank to do most group content. I would like to see a more uniform and across the board guideline for how to maintain aggro, though.

maniamsmart.7981:

The other day I was gearing up my Warrior, and one my friends told me that I should go get some Soldier’s or Knight’s gear, but let’s be real, you really only need Berserker’s. Any group running full Zerk in a dungeon will be quicker at completing it then a group without full Zerk, which sucks, because it encourages everyone to build Zerk. This got me thinking and into a discussion where I thought about why people only run Zerker gear, and here’s what I came up with (there’s probably more, but these stood out).

Who knew that building pure damage lets you kill things faster? Dungeon boss’s die faster = faster dungeon clears. I…see no problem with that? It makes sense?

The Rally System
Because you can just build pure damage, as long as you or someone near you kills the mob, you come back with a substantial amount of health. This allows players to play reckless and go all in without much penalty. I feel like the system needs to be revamped, at least in raids it’s a bit better and you can’t just go full DPS and mindlessly mash your keyboard hoping to rally.

Rally is fine. If you go down 4 times, its instant death. Even 3 you might as well be dead too.

Healing Power Is Broken
Why does it not scale with revive speed? This would encourage people to actually perhaps build it more; maybe allow it to have faster revive speed, or instant revive (maybe too OP, but you’re sacrificing damage for healing so why not?). In general healing power builds don’t feel rewarding because you don’t really ever have an idea of how much you really ARE helping the team or how much you really ARE making an impact. You just see a ton of green numbers.

Only ratios need adjusted for classes that go full support healing. The problem is, this would cause PvP to become even more unbalanced and broken.

Out of Combat Healing
Even if you run past a ton of mobs, you won’t die anyway because once out of combat your health shoots up anyway. And even if you do die, then you can have enough power probably to kill and just rally again. Why not make food a requirement to health regen, or having to go near a camp, or something. That would be more interesting IMO, and would require people to build a bit different maybe?

No. I don’t want to have to wait to get back into the thick of things by sitting down to munch on something or run out of my way to a camp. No. I want to fight, respite, get back into the melee. Downtime is bad.

No Need for Threat Control, So No Tanks
The PVE content is already easy, and even if it wasn’t we don’t any major threat control abilities where we can pull mob aggro on the fly whenever we want. And there isn’t a need to even because everything dies so quickly. That’s why we see tanks only really needed in raids, because they CAN control the threat and those bosses don’t die instantly.

I dont get what you are saying here, sounds like stating the obvious. But do you know how annoying it would be to fight world bosses with taunt? How any tank would be taunting back and forth, causing the boss to spin around constantly? Or move to a wrong position? Players would be fighting each other more than fighting the boss, hence why its only needed in raids. Open world, it doesn’t work.

Those are just my thoughts and opinions, I may be wrong, but let me know yours. I’ve done a video on this topic where I talk a bit more in depth about the topic with more examples below if you’re interested:
https://youtu.be/zJRfWlgN8BU

Yes, much of your points are wrong and don’t take a step back to look at how systems work, or what faults can come to the changes you suggested, much how many people who hate zerker try.

What people need to understand is, PLAYERS ALWAYS GO THE FASTEST ROUTE. How fast can I complete stuff and what do I need to do it? Zerk gear and spec like this? DONE!

They nerfed Zerk gear? What’s the next idea then? Conditions? Spec and geared! DONE!

They nerfed conditions? Assassin gear is now top? Spec and geared! DONE!

In case people haven’t realized it yet, you nerf one meta, a new meta takes its place.

IT. NEVER. ENDS.

Honest answer? When GW2 no longer has active-counterplay, burst-avoidance based combat.

So never.

maniamsmart.7981:

With the multitude of stat sets in the game, everyone still only runs Berserker in PVE. I’d love to see some other stats actually become more viable. I’d love to build a Guardian Healer and Tank, or a Warrior Tank with some damage, or any sort of combinations, but there just isn’t a place for that in the game (excluding raids of course).

But there are like… Eight stat spreads that people use. Zerk’s, Assassin’s, Valkyrie’s, Sinister, Viper’s, Magi’s, Zealot’s, Commander’s.

Am I missing any?

All stat sets are viable. It’s just that berserker is more optimal for pure power DPS builds. Some may mix in assassin’s though.

I feel like this topic was more current Pre-HoT. These days, conditions are more viable than they’ve ever been, and HoT is challenging enough that glass cannons aren’t the no-brainer decision they used to be, to say nothing of raiding builds, which sound like they’re in a healthy place. Beserker will still be faster than everything else, when it can servive, because that’s what happens when you spec pure damage.

I like rally and “heal outside of combat” as they are, and I think it would be a mistake to break them in an attempt to make people use Knight’s armor in the open world. That’s a solution that’s worse than the problem.

It’s the nature of group play that promotes active defense like reflects/blind fields/aegis over passive defense like vit and toughness. In solo play there is a niche for vit and toughness as def option.

When will it change? Never. Why? Because it’s a result of not having holy trinity.

Rhyse.8179:

Honest answer? When GW2 no longer has active-counterplay, burst-avoidance based combat.

So never.

This.

As long as the main damage reduction in pve comes from non stats, there will never be a reason to build for something besides maximum damage.

So until then you will see: berserker, assassins, viper, sinister and other primary damage stat setups dominate.

None of the suggestions you offered would change this TC since you are not actually addressing the problem/reason, only the symptoms.

When players’ mentality changes and they realize that DPS is not everything. In other words: never.

ANet did a good job of providing a role system that is tied to a variety of profession choices, trait choices, weapon choices and stat choices. The thing they could not provide was a new mindset for players who either don’t see or discount all of that because they define diversity only in terms of the classic static roles and at the same time insist that gear stats have to match role choice. The only way to promote that kind of diversity would be to scrap the current game design and retool the game as an old-style trinity MMO.

The OP claims he would like to play a Guardian Healer/Tank or a tank-like warrior with some damage. GW2 absolutely allows him to do so. Moreover, the content allows him to do so, successfully, in dungeons or persistent PvE.

I can’t say with certainty that his choices would fly in raids, but then raids are based on more tightly defined roles in the first place. By definition, a meta build is that which is perceived best by players. There’s no diversity within the meta, except that enforced by defined, required roles. The same applies to meta-preference dungeon runs.

What can be done, ANet has tried. They’ve made condi viable. They’ve changed aggro mechanics (at least in HoT) so that aggro prioritizes toughness more. They’ve made mobs more difficult. They’ve used unavoidable damage, melee hate and other mechanics to get people to stop doing the exact same things with the exact same builds every time. No doubt they’ll do more of this type of design going forward. They may even think of new ways to shake players up.

Never because people would rage quit rather than buy new gear

“Any group running full Zerk in a dungeon will be quicker at completing it then a group without .”

I am not sure why it should be surprising that a group built around pure damage would kill faster than a group purposefully built to not do as much damage. Its like complaining that an M1 Tank isn’t as Fast as a Bugatti Veyron.

The diversity of options is there. Plenty of possibilities. If you prefer to play something other than a Berkerzer….do so. Enjoy being tougher. Not having to be quite as perfect in timing dodges. And, of course, not doing as much damage.

But asking, or implying, that you should have as much damage as a pure DPS build while not running such a build is as weird as me complaining that my Chevy Trailblazer can’t outrun a sportscar.

Probably when you see a dungeon where all bosses are condition spec, while doing stuns, mix with instant kill type skills(20k dmg). Its rare to see condition spec bosses and most of them have a gimmick related to the condition dmg they do. Most of the bosses are either tanks or glassy specs but to few condition specs.

I think part of the problem is Anet balances the game around zerk gear. Or at least I think they do maybe? Look at the hp pools of even just trash mobs. It can take a while to kill them in PVT gear for example depending on the class I would have to add. Or perhaps those HP pools are so large because they expect more than 1 person to attack and kill a creature.

Aprt from that, go to any wep/armour vendor in the game, any noob one you wouldn’t dare to normally and tell me what stats you see. That’s right, on our VERY first day to the game all we got to see and use and be able to buy from the vendors (white gear) was exactly that – power builds. It does not change at all either on your journey to lvl 80 so it’s like the game is telling you – this is what we intend you to use.

Having said all that I ran 7 of the 8 classes through world complete in PVT gear and am still only now going through the process of changing them all to zerk gear. I still use PVT ascended on my Engi main, simply because that’s my go to tank class and with my current build he pretty much kills at the same speed that any of my zerk gear guys do anyway (thanks to a nice mix of power/might and burn condi).

It was only my 8th (necro) and then also Rev that I dared to use zerk on for my playthroughs of world complete. Simply because I knew the world and challenges so much by then and came to realise, yup this certainly does work better (well for 8 of the 9 classes at least anyway) so why not?

Mea.5491:

When players’ mentality changes and they realize that DPS is not everything. In other words: never.

What else are you going to gear for? Funs per second?

maniamsmart.7981:

Let’s Talk Build Diversity

With the multitude of stat sets in the game, everyone still only runs Berserker in PVE. I’d love to see some other stats actually become more viable. I’d love to build a Guardian Healer and Tank, or a Warrior Tank with some damage, or any sort of combinations, but there just isn’t a place for that in the game (excluding raids of course).

The other day I was gearing up my Warrior, and one my friends told me that I should go get some Soldier’s or Knight’s gear, but let’s be real, you really only need Berserker’s. Any group running full Zerk in a dungeon will be quicker at completing it then a group without full Zerk, which sucks, because it encourages everyone to build Zerk. This got me thinking and into a discussion where I thought about why people only run Zerker gear, and here’s what I came up with (there’s probably more, but these stood out).

The Rally System
Because you can just build pure damage, as long as you or someone near you kills the mob, you come back with a substantial amount of health. This allows players to play reckless and go all in without much penalty. I feel like the system needs to be revamped, at least in raids it’s a bit better and you can’t just go full DPS and mindlessly mash your keyboard hoping to rally.

Healing Power Is Broken
Why does it not scale with revive speed? This would encourage people to actually perhaps build it more; maybe allow it to have faster revive speed, or instant revive (maybe too OP, but you’re sacrificing damage for healing so why not?). In general healing power builds don’t feel rewarding because you don’t really ever have an idea of how much you really ARE helping the team or how much you really ARE making an impact. You just see a ton of green numbers.

Out of Combat Healing
Even if you run past a ton of mobs, you won’t die anyway because once out of combat your health shoots up anyway. And even if you do die, then you can have enough power probably to kill and just rally again. Why not make food a requirement to health regen, or having to go near a camp, or something. That would be more interesting IMO, and would require people to build a bit different maybe?

No Need for Threat Control, So No Tanks
The PVE content is already easy, and even if it wasn’t we don’t any major threat control abilities where we can pull mob aggro on the fly whenever we want. And there isn’t a need to even because everything dies so quickly. That’s why we see tanks only really needed in raids, because they CAN control the threat and those bosses don’t die instantly.

Those are just my thoughts and opinions, I may be wrong, but let me know yours. I’ve done a video on this topic where I talk a bit more in depth about the topic with more examples below if you’re interested:
https://youtu.be/zJRfWlgN8BU

I agree 100 percent, ive known this was an issue since I got back into the game, regardless of what people like this is an rpg and gear should be diverse there is no uniqueness if anyone is using the exact same freaken gear, you can argue all day but it doesnt mean it is fun at all, you know exactly what build your going to be doing regardless because of the gear.

IndigoSundown.5419:

ANet did a good job of providing a role system that is tied to a variety of profession choices, trait choices, weapon choices and stat choices. The thing they could not provide was a new mindset for players who either don’t see or discount all of that because they define diversity only in terms of the classic static roles and at the same time insist that gear stats have to match role choice. The only way to promote that kind of diversity would be to scrap the current game design and retool the game as an old-style trinity MMO.

The OP claims he would like to play a Guardian Healer/Tank or a tank-like warrior with some damage. GW2 absolutely allows him to do so. Moreover, the content allows him to do so, successfully, in dungeons or persistent PvE.

I can’t say with certainty that his choices would fly in raids, but then raids are based on more tightly defined roles in the first place. By definition, a meta build is that which is perceived best by players. There’s no diversity within the meta, except that enforced by defined, required roles. The same applies to meta-preference dungeon runs.

What can be done, ANet has tried. They’ve made condi viable. They’ve changed aggro mechanics (at least in HoT) so that aggro prioritizes toughness more. They’ve made mobs more difficult. They’ve used unavoidable damage, melee hate and other mechanics to get people to stop doing the exact same things with the exact same builds every time. No doubt they’ll do more of this type of design going forward. They may even think of new ways to shake players up.

But your saying they would have to enforce the trinity, now lets say your right that part is true then where is the diversity in being able to choose more specific roles if one wants to? Sure you can build for more support like a tank or a healer but is it really needed? No it isnt since everyone goes bserker, you can balance it in such a way where it can be needed but still an option, of course im not saying anet should drop everything and focus on this but its certainly something they may be able to change in the future.

The point is you can sit there and say the holy trinity is bad since its not the intentional design but then again you cant claim there is real build diversity either which is also something the design was trying to do, which give players more variety of ways to play. So if everyone is going beserker and not using these other optional builds then the diversity just isnt there due to the meta of beserker.

I think it’s worth noting that not every gear has to be part of the meta to be used. Zerk might be ideal for people who know the encounters, know how to use evasive skills, and know when to dodge, but I’ve spent enough time helping friends up off the floor that I hesitate to make them even more glassy. The boss might get more swings in because we’re not killing it so quickly, but one-hit-ko’s aren’t the only thing that kill casual players.

To players really concerned about meta gear, very little of the open world is “hard,” but there are plenty of players who struggle with Orr, and take a trip through Verdant Brink at night with some serious gravitas.

Paulytnz.7619:

I think part of the problem is Anet balances the game around zerk gear. Or at least I think they do maybe?

It’s not a problem. It’s actually a result of how the game is designed.

1. Because we don’t have dedicated healers, tanks, etc… then there is no reason to optimize around being one. The only thing left is offensive gear.
2. Since your defensive actions and skills are a fundamental part of the profession, non-offensive stats are only enhance aspects of those defensive skillset. There is no need to enhance those stats if the defensive skillset is used properly.

I don’t use Berserker stats on any of my 24 characters.

Redenaz.8631:

I think it’s worth noting that not every gear has to be part of the meta to be used. Zerk might be ideal for people who know the encounters, know how to use evasive skills, and know when to dodge, but I’ve spent enough time helping friends up off the floor that I hesitate to make them even more glassy. The boss might get more swings in because we’re not killing it so quickly, but one-hit-ko’s aren’t the only thing that kill casual players.

To players really concerned about meta gear, very little of the open world is “hard,” but there are plenty of players who struggle with Orr, and take a trip through Verdant Brink at night with some serious gravitas.

That’s how I view gear in open world and dungeons.

New to the game? Not very good at using CDs or dodging? Use gear for more defense or healing.

Feel better adjusted? Take more of a risk and start going glass cannon

Mea.5491:

When players’ mentality changes and they realize that DPS is not everything. In other words: never.

DPS isn’t everything that’s why people use different utilities/traits in raids that aren’t always max DPS.

It’s all about HOW MUCH DPS you can put out while staying alive. In some cases, you don’t need any survivability and can max DPS. In other cases, you need healers or some level of sustain.

As for open world, half the people standing there aren’t in zerk or vipers. It’s pretty obvious they are running subpar builds, subpar stats and so on but it’s open world so they probably prefer doing their own thing which is fine. I never run PS/EA on my warrior when open world and run 25% move speed disc line even though it’s bad for DPS.

Even in dungeons nowadays nobody really cares what you run as long as your build is some what good enough to provide for the team. Such as, warriors should provide might, revs should provide some boons, chronos quickness etc. You could take a full magi healing druid into fractals and nobody would mind (just from my experience).

I’ll also add that when I did trio fracs, we would take a cleric guardian to tank and heal since it was far easier with it than having full zerk. A lot of builds are viable it just depends what you want to do.

This is a lot better compared to 2012 2013 zerk meta where you would be kicked from pug dungeons if you were not running warrior/guardian/mesmer with full lvl80 zerk gears. They’ve made a lot of progress already and has also completely destroyed PvP and WvW by balancing on PvE. What else do you really want?

maniamsmart.7981:

Out of Combat Healing
Even if you run past a ton of mobs, you won’t die anyway because once out of combat your health shoots up anyway. And even if you do die, then you can have enough power probably to kill and just rally again. Why not make food a requirement to health regen, or having to go near a camp, or something. That would be more interesting IMO, and would require people to build a bit different maybe?

I’m not going to suggest changing the way that works in GW2, but this part did get me thinking about the Out of Combat healing, and how CoH handled it.

Every character had a power called “Rest”. It was a toggle, you turned it on and your character would drop to one knee and stay still. After a couple of seconds, they’d start recovering health and endurance at a high speed. BUT, while using this power you could not move, activate powers/skills, affect those around you (even with constant buffs), you became easy to hit, and you took massively increased damage. This power also had a fairly long recharge, so it wasn’t something you really wanted to need between every fight.

Because of these limitations, healing between battles was very much a thing, even with Rest there to use at times. Quite a few characters invested part of their build in gaining at least some ability to self heal and/or heal others.

Now, as I said that’s not something I want them to put into GW2. Too much of the game is built with the assumption of the fast regen, and would possibly need rebalanced. BUT, it got me thinking… You don’t drop out of combat as long as you have a debuff on you, so debuffs keep you from getting your fast regen. What if there was a dungeon, raid, or even zone that gave you a constant debuff that served to keep that regen from kicking in? Needing to heal between fights would, like in CoH, suddenly become an issue. Saving your personal heal would be like saving the Rest power, you don’t want to be stuck waiting for it to recharge all the time, right?

If they put such an area into the game, do you think people would be willing to try it?

Ryou.2398:

you know exactly what build your going to be doing regardless because of the gear.

No you don’t. Weapons, traits, skills, runes, and sigils all vary wildly even within the same gear stat set.

Even now, there’s all sorts of build diversity. Vipers and Sinister show up on condi builds. In WvW, all sorts of gear is viable. A lot of people put some combination of toughness/vitality/healing power on trinkets.

maniamsmart.7981:

The Rally System
Because you can just build pure damage, as long as you or someone near you kills the mob, you come back with a substantial amount of health. This allows players to play reckless and go all in without much penalty. I feel like the system needs to be revamped, at least in raids it’s a bit better and you can’t just go full DPS and mindlessly mash your keyboard hoping to rally.

It’s a risk reward system. Every time you charge in recklessly and go down you do risk not being able to get back up or kill your opponent in time, each time shortening, so the tactic only has so much weight. Yes, it is a “Berserker” type behavior to rush in and attempt to obliterate everything with pure power and it does work to some degree but it has/d its demerits. One of the demerits, the cost repair gear, is gone though making it much more usable as a tactic.

Healing Power Is Broken
Why does it not scale with revive speed? This would encourage people to actually perhaps build it more; maybe allow it to have faster revive speed, or instant revive (maybe too OP, but you’re sacrificing damage for healing so why not?). In general healing power builds don’t feel rewarding because you don’t really ever have an idea of how much you really ARE helping the team or how much you really ARE making an impact. You just see a ton of green numbers.

Healing Power is an interesting stat. Generally speaking “action games” don’t have this stat and there is a reason for that. The marriage between the concept and the actual practice didn’t work out well of course as no one uses the stat except for the few who maybe decided to capitalize on an effect or two or are afraid to die or something. Though unused Zealot actually tried to fix the problem but it just was too late to really get a sound introduction despite not actually being a poor choice for people who want to deal damage and sustain as well. Scaling it to revival speed wouldn’t fix the problem since you don’t solve “actions” with “stats”; that’s why it doesn’t exist in other games of the action type to begin with.

Out of Combat Healing
Even if you run past a ton of mobs, you won’t die anyway because once out of combat your health shoots up anyway. And even if you do die, then you can have enough power probably to kill and just rally again. Why not make food a requirement to health regen, or having to go near a camp, or something. That would be more interesting IMO, and would require people to build a bit different maybe?

This is outright cumbersome. In order for this to work food effects would need to last hours not minutes and the cost of said things would be ridiculous. This is especially true in dungeons and other areas of interest where there are no external resources or rest stops. This is something you would do in a one-player game but honestly it’s like any other action game, your shield (health) goes down, you take cover and wait a second and voila you can keep playing. GW2 is majorly an action game even if it claims to be a marriage between action and RPG.

No Need for Threat Control, So No Tanks
The PVE content is already easy, and even if it wasn’t we don’t any major threat control abilities where we can pull mob aggro on the fly whenever we want. And there isn’t a need to even because everything dies so quickly. That’s why we see tanks only really needed in raids, because they CAN control the threat and those bosses don’t die instantly.

This is required for the world to be soloable. This cannot and will not ever change. I highly recommend you drop this one in the toilet and flush it.

If you want zerker meta to end all you have to do is increase damage output of enemies and damage resistance. Playing dumb won’t be fun anymore. You don’t run around in PvP like that for a reason whether it be WvWvW or sPvP and it is because other players have smarter tactics, hit considerably harder and damage management is required.

The thing is you really don’t want zerker meta to end. When you say “I want to see more viability and diversity” what you’re saying isn’t “make zerker weaker” it’s “make everything else stronger” which is the epitome of power creep methodolgy. Increasing the effectiveness of healing power, toughness, vitality, precision or ferocity means that power lags and then players want better power which in turn leads to the same lag story. There is no sweet spot because action games don’t really have stats in them for a reason and being an MMO made it considerably worse since player-side augmentation (you know them as mods but there are other elements included) isn’t possible.

Just kick back and play Berzerker: It’s how the game was designed and changing that design cannot ever happen because of what the game is at the core.

People fail to realize that the trinity is literally the same as a gear check for an all-zerk meta, just that it requires different stats.

It’s not that other sets are weak; actually, stat-per-stat, DPS is the least efficient way to play the game, but as a compromise, it’s the most time-efficient if clears are done skillfully. There was literally a guy who soloed Arah on a Magi’s warrior and never dodged once, even on Lupi. The durable gear let him literally AFK/facetank the fight. It took well over an hour, but he did it.

To get more sets used, the fights need to simply be more challenging. Not through one-shot mechanics or anything, because that’s just another gear check. But through making the fights themselves more difficult on the conceptual level, require more thought from the party, and need more teamwork.

People will always pursue the most time-efficient option to beat the game. The pursuit of efficiency is human nature. Why waste time on things you don’t need to? There are only so many hours in a day, so people want to cram as much accomplishment into their time as possible, especially those who work and have families or have little time to play. A trinity does nothing to change this philosophy. All it does is shift it to require certain people of certain roles to meet certain requirements, rather than just being a free-for-all of people being told to bring DPS to make it go by faster.

fishball.7204:

Mea.5491:

When players’ mentality changes and they realize that DPS is not everything. In other words: never.

DPS isn’t everything that’s why people use different utilities/traits in raids that aren’t always max DPS.

It’s all about HOW MUCH DPS you can put out while staying alive. In some cases, you don’t need any survivability and can max DPS. In other cases, you need healers or some level of sustain.

As for open world, half the people standing there aren’t in zerk or vipers. It’s pretty obvious they are running subpar builds, subpar stats and so on but it’s open world so they probably prefer doing their own thing which is fine. I never run PS/EA on my warrior when open world and run 25% move speed disc line even though it’s bad for DPS.

Even in dungeons nowadays nobody really cares what you run as long as your build is some what good enough to provide for the team. Such as, warriors should provide might, revs should provide some boons, chronos quickness etc. You could take a full magi healing druid into fractals and nobody would mind (just from my experience).

I’ll also add that when I did trio fracs, we would take a cleric guardian to tank and heal since it was far easier with it than having full zerk. A lot of builds are viable it just depends what you want to do.

But thats kind of the point others are trying to make, if a guardian can specialize in keeping others alive then why not? Why does everyone have to self survival when other classes can do it for you for people that enjoy that playstyle?

Sartharina.3542:

Ryou.2398:

you know exactly what build your going to be doing regardless because of the gear.

No you don’t. Weapons, traits, skills, runes, and sigils all vary wildly even within the same gear stat set.

Even now, there’s all sorts of build diversity. Vipers and Sinister show up on condi builds. In WvW, all sorts of gear is viable. A lot of people put some combination of toughness/vitality/healing power on trinkets.

Yes you do, and im talking about gear, and as far as builds go everyone is shohorned into dps specs partly because of the beserker meta mentality, so again you pretty much know what build your going to use, and choosing between condi and beserker is hardly a variety in choice. And I never said you cannot use that gear but because of the design and peoples mentality for the most part it isnt accepted, so if you went for a tanky build others would need to compinsate to that build to an extent.

DeceiverX.8361:

People fail to realize that the trinity is literally the same as a gear check for an all-zerk meta, just that it requires different stats.

It’s not that other sets are weak; actually, stat-per-stat, DPS is the least efficient way to play the game, but as a compromise, it’s the most time-efficient if clears are done skillfully. There was literally a guy who soloed Arah on a Magi’s warrior and never dodged once, even on Lupi. The durable gear let him literally AFK/facetank the fight. It took well over an hour, but he did it.

To get more sets used, the fights need to simply be more challenging. Not through one-shot mechanics or anything, because that’s just another gear check. But through making the fights themselves more difficult on the conceptual level, require more thought from the party, and need more teamwork.

People will always pursue the most time-efficient option to beat the game. The pursuit of efficiency is human nature. Why waste time on things you don’t need to? There are only so many hours in a day, so people want to cram as much accomplishment into their time as possible, especially those who work and have families or have little time to play. A trinity does nothing to change this philosophy. All it does is shift it to require certain people of certain roles to meet certain requirements, rather than just being a free-for-all of people being told to bring DPS to make it go by faster.

People who usually play mmorpgs or rpgs in general are people who like to spend time with the game and content, besides if gaming is that much of a waste of time then why game at all? Rushing through content asap is not human nature, thats just people who dont know patience or refuse to smell the flowers. For the most part mmorpgs are meant to take time when you do group content and such.

I have never seen an mmorpg with so many people who prefer to cheese through things doing the same exact tactics over and over. Now im not blaming the design but im blaming the community.

Ryou.2398:

DeceiverX.8361:

People fail to realize that the trinity is literally the same as a gear check for an all-zerk meta, just that it requires different stats.

It’s not that other sets are weak; actually, stat-per-stat, DPS is the least efficient way to play the game, but as a compromise, it’s the most time-efficient if clears are done skillfully. There was literally a guy who soloed Arah on a Magi’s warrior and never dodged once, even on Lupi. The durable gear let him literally AFK/facetank the fight. It took well over an hour, but he did it.

To get more sets used, the fights need to simply be more challenging. Not through one-shot mechanics or anything, because that’s just another gear check. But through making the fights themselves more difficult on the conceptual level, require more thought from the party, and need more teamwork.

People will always pursue the most time-efficient option to beat the game. The pursuit of efficiency is human nature. Why waste time on things you don’t need to? There are only so many hours in a day, so people want to cram as much accomplishment into their time as possible, especially those who work and have families or have little time to play. A trinity does nothing to change this philosophy. All it does is shift it to require certain people of certain roles to meet certain requirements, rather than just being a free-for-all of people being told to bring DPS to make it go by faster.

People who usually play mmorpgs or rpgs in general are people who like to spend time with the game and content, besides if gaming is that much of a waste of time then why game at all? Rushing through content asap is not human nature, thats just people who dont know patience or refuse to smell the flowers. For the most part mmorpgs are meant to take time when you do group content and such.

I have never seen an mmorpg with so many people who prefer to cheese through things doing the same exact tactics over and over. Now im not blaming the design but im blaming the community.

Your blame is misguided, though. That’s just the thing. Claiming a trinity would solve anything is naive and frankly, not in line with principles of modern game design. It’s actually straight-up contradictory to what’s going on here. Maybe you’re new around here. It’s also important to note that ANet has done very little to uphold interest in its PvE. The PvE content in the core game hasn’t changed at all since somewhere around 2013, and dungeons and fractals (and menial, repetitive tasks )were/are the best way to make cash for the layman.

We games play for fun Fun isn’t always productive, and thus, can be argued as a waste of time from a harshly objective point of view. Human nature is to inspect, invent, and improve, and to make menial tasks more efficient. I can speak for most people in that doing the exact same exact thing every single day, over and over, with next to no variation and expecting the same outcome, without looking to make the task more efficient, is not fun. That’s a very boring and truthfully soul-wearing job in most cases, and even that isn’t as scripted and similar in experience.

So we rush through the PvE content because PvE doesn’t change. It’s fun to take your time the first few tries. After a few years of doing the same thing every day for money, it gets real old, real fast. It becomes menial. And since it’s human nature to make menial tasks more efficient, people did. And then people who have been doing those menial tasks forever and were extremely bored of them started setting the bar at that efficiency.

The trinity is in no way different; you look for X number of tanks, Y number of DPS, and Z healers. You look for only certain professions who have optimal DPS, durability, and healing capabilities to facilitate the run. And then you check gear to make sure everyone can do the content, or kick the people who hold the group back. The trinity itself is very much a raw, hard mold on how to efficiently play the game in a specific matter of efficiency. And the requirements and expectations will perpetually rise as more people make the menial tasks performed by this trinity – this optimization – even further menial. You see, the berserker-only runs of dungeons are identical in philosophy; a non-berserker group could do the content, just as maybe taking another tank or another healer or maybe a party of DPS in a trinity-based game, but it’d be slower or subject to the individuals themselves over-performing at the expectation. It’s that the routine runs are indeed routine, and so people wish to avoid spending an excess of time on them.

There’s a reason why the grindy korean games that come to the western market all fail. It’s because the grind starts immediately, never ends, and frankly, is meaningless. It’s not that people are cheesing through things so much as people want money and want it faster so they can enjoy the things they do. For many, especially WvW players, this means grinding through PvE as fast as possible so they can get the money needed to play WvW and get back to the format they enjoy.

The game was sold as one which featured no trinity and where all content could be done by all players of all builds. The entire point was to get rid of the trinity, because that system is old, dated, and frankly, not suitable for an action-based game. It also inhibits severely what the developers can do in the future for its classes. Going against that is going against the foundation GW2 was built on. People trying to change that are honestly better told to play a different game. If it’s not the formula for success, then GW2 can fail and the lesson will be learned. If it has a market, it’s just not the game for those who want a trinity. Why? Because it wasn’t supposed to be made to be that way, and demanding such change is a slap in the face to the people who designed the game originally and to all of the players who have loyally supported that ideology so far.

Ryou.2398:

IndigoSundown.5419:

- snip -

But your saying they would have to enforce the trinity, now lets say your right that part is true then where is the diversity in being able to choose more specific roles if one wants to? Sure you can build for more support like a tank or a healer but is it really needed?

It isn’t really needed that one go glass, either. Perhaps you meant desired by meta players? If so, you should look at the concept of meta. It’s the build believed to be best — whether it is actually best or not. That means, by definition, that the only diversity in meta play is that enforced by the content. If the content requires a tank or healer, there will only be one best tank/healer build, per profession anyway. there will be one DPS build. There can only be one best.

No it isnt since everyone goes bserker, you can balance it in such a way where it can be needed but still an option, of course im not saying anet should drop everything and focus on this but its certainly something they may be able to change in the future.

No, you can’t balance it that way and affect the meta. Needed in these sense of “can’t do without” and “optional” are not compatible. Need in the sense of wanted, well , that’s possible now as long as you don’t care what other people think. In most of the game’s content, you can go bunker or healer and contribute, it’s just that your contribution won’t be valued by random people on the internet.

The point is you can sit there and say the holy trinity is bad since its not the intentional design but then again you cant claim there is real build diversity either which is also something the design was trying to do, which give players more variety of ways to play. So if everyone is going beserker and not using these other optional builds then the diversity just isnt there due to the meta of beserker.

Yes, I can and am claiming there is real build diversity. I can build my character as I see fit, in ways that are pleasing to me. I can use those builds to do anything I want in the game with varying degrees of success except I can’t be accepted by groups that don’t want that build. So what do I do? Well, I get off my dead kitten and find people that think like I do, and we play the way we want to. If “real” diversity is being accepted by meta groups then you will never find real diversity in an MMO unless the content enforce a particular type of build. Meta groups will never accept any non-optimum build that someone likes. Also, as I said above, for any role that is deemed necessary, there will be one build that is acceptable.

Typically, what’s behind most of these discussions is the desire to play a build you like, and to get into any group, and to be equally effective as other builds. This is a pipe dream. The only way to do that would to have all builds balanced so they are all equivalent. What can be done is to provide content that allows different builds to shine, such as with tanks/healers in raids, or mobs like Husks who are more susceptible to condi than direct damage.

Other responses above in italics.

Zerk is for damage. I mean, what would you build if you wanted highest damage output?
If you want survivability or condi, go for something else.

Edit:
Zerk risks more and easier wipes, while survival gear does not. It’s up to you.
Some events are timed, so high damage is a must.

DeceiverX.8361:

Ryou.2398:

DeceiverX.8361:

People fail to realize that the trinity is literally the same as a gear check for an all-zerk meta, just that it requires different stats.

It’s not that other sets are weak; actually, stat-per-stat, DPS is the least efficient way to play the game, but as a compromise, it’s the most time-efficient if clears are done skillfully. There was literally a guy who soloed Arah on a Magi’s warrior and never dodged once, even on Lupi. The durable gear let him literally AFK/facetank the fight. It took well over an hour, but he did it.

To get more sets used, the fights need to simply be more challenging. Not through one-shot mechanics or anything, because that’s just another gear check. But through making the fights themselves more difficult on the conceptual level, require more thought from the party, and need more teamwork.

People will always pursue the most time-efficient option to beat the game. The pursuit of efficiency is human nature. Why waste time on things you don’t need to? There are only so many hours in a day, so people want to cram as much accomplishment into their time as possible, especially those who work and have families or have little time to play. A trinity does nothing to change this philosophy. All it does is shift it to require certain people of certain roles to meet certain requirements, rather than just being a free-for-all of people being told to bring DPS to make it go by faster.

People who usually play mmorpgs or rpgs in general are people who like to spend time with the game and content, besides if gaming is that much of a waste of time then why game at all? Rushing through content asap is not human nature, thats just people who dont know patience or refuse to smell the flowers. For the most part mmorpgs are meant to take time when you do group content and such.

I have never seen an mmorpg with so many people who prefer to cheese through things doing the same exact tactics over and over. Now im not blaming the design but im blaming the community.

Your blame is misguided, though. That’s just the thing. Claiming a trinity would solve anything is naive and frankly, not in line with principles of modern game design. It’s actually straight-up contradictory to what’s going on here. Maybe you’re new around here. It’s also important to note that ANet has done very little to uphold interest in its PvE. The PvE content in the core game hasn’t changed at all since somewhere around 2013, and dungeons and fractals (and menial, repetitive tasks )were/are the best way to make cash for the layman.

We games play for fun Fun isn’t always productive, and thus, can be argued as a waste of time from a harshly objective point of view. Human nature is to inspect, invent, and improve, and to make menial tasks more efficient. I can speak for most people in that doing the exact same exact thing every single day, over and over, with next to no variation and expecting the same outcome, without looking to make the task more efficient, is not fun. That’s a very boring and truthfully soul-wearing job in most cases, and even that isn’t as scripted and similar in experience.

So we rush through the PvE content because PvE doesn’t change. It’s fun to take your time the first few tries. After a few years of doing the same thing every day for money, it gets real old, real fast. It becomes menial. And since it’s human nature to make menial tasks more efficient, people did. And then people who have been doing those menial tasks forever and were extremely bored of them started setting the bar at that efficiency.

The trinity is in no way different; you look for X number of tanks, Y number of DPS, and Z healers. You look for only certain professions who have optimal DPS, durability, and healing capabilities to facilitate the run. And then you check gear to make sure everyone can do the content, or kick the people who hold the group back. The trinity itself is very much a raw, hard mold on how to efficiently play the game in a specific matter of efficiency. And the requirements and expectations will perpetually rise as more people make the menial tasks performed by this trinity – this optimization – even further menial. You see, the berserker-only runs of dungeons are identical in philosophy; a non-berserker group could do the content, just as maybe taking another tank or another healer or maybe a party of DPS in a trinity-based game, but it’d be slower or subject to the individuals themselves over-performing at the expectation. It’s that the routine runs are indeed routine, and so people wish to avoid spending an excess of time on them.

There’s a reason why the grindy korean games that come to the western market all fail. It’s because the grind starts immediately, never ends, and frankly, is meaningless. It’s not that people are cheesing through things so much as people want money and want it faster so they can enjoy the things they do. For many, especially WvW players, this means grinding through PvE as fast as possible so they can get the money needed to play WvW and get back to the format they enjoy.

The game was sold as one which featured no trinity and where all content could be done by all players of all builds. The entire point was to get rid of the trinity, because that system is old, dated, and frankly, not suitable for an action-based game. It also inhibits severely what the developers can do in the future for its classes. Going against that is going against the foundation GW2 was built on. People trying to change that are honestly better told to play a different game. If it’s not the formula for success, then GW2 can fail and the lesson will be learned. If it has a market, it’s just not the game for those who want a trinity. Why? Because it wasn’t supposed to be made to be that way, and demanding such change is a slap in the face to the people who designed the game originally and to all of the players who have loyally supported that ideology so far.

Ok I feel your over explaining things here so I’m just going to reply to some key points, my blame iant misguided I’ve been playing mmprpgs for decades now so I have a really goos grasp in what goes on with these things, it isn’t human nature to do thing ls better when it is boring, your doing it because it is boring, nature has nothing to do with that. Korean grinders doesn’t even compare to to any western mmo I’ve played as far as grind goes so I don’t know why you even brought that up.

The reason I mentioned the taking time through content is because regardless of how much faster it is if your using the same builds, tactics and running the same content over and over its still going to be boring, if there was more room for roles and using diff tactics then it would be more fun. Hence the op made this topic well part of the reason anyways.

Your point on the holy Trinity is odd, people always assume it’s thebholoy trinity when it’s not, of you played certain mmorpgs then you would know there are a ton of roles that can be designed in an mmorpg it goes well beyond the simple holy trinity, having multiple classes and multiple roles adda tons of diversity in itself. Just look at the Mesmer its a utility class they have a role and a big one at that .

Anyways none of that changes the fact that it could be an option to have roles especially when we already have classes that can build fof those roles, if everyone is the same then no one is unique and just a clone of each other and that becomes stale.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Ryou.2398:

IndigoSundown.5419:

- snip -

But your saying they would have to enforce the trinity, now lets say your right that part is true then where is the diversity in being able to choose more specific roles if one wants to? Sure you can build for more support like a tank or a healer but is it really needed?

It isn’t really needed that one go glass, either. Perhaps you meant desired by meta players? If so, you should look at the concept of meta. It’s the build believed to be best — whether it is actually best or not. That means, by definition, that the only diversity in meta play is that enforced by the content. If the content requires a tank or healer, there will only be one best tank/healer build, per profession anyway. there will be one DPS build. There can only be one best.

No it isnt since everyone goes bserker, you can balance it in such a way where it can be needed but still an option, of course im not saying anet should drop everything and focus on this but its certainly something they may be able to change in the future.

No, you can’t balance it that way and affect the meta. Needed in these sense of “can’t do without” and “optional” are not compatible. Need in the sense of wanted, well , that’s possible now as long as you don’t care what other people think. In most of the game’s content, you can go bunker or healer and contribute, it’s just that your contribution won’t be valued by random people on the internet.

The point is you can sit there and say the holy trinity is bad since its not the intentional design but then again you cant claim there is real build diversity either which is also something the design was trying to do, which give players more variety of ways to play. So if everyone is going beserker and not using these other optional builds then the diversity just isnt there due to the meta of beserker.

Yes, I can and am claiming there is real build diversity. I can build my character as I see fit, in ways that are pleasing to me. I can use those builds to do anything I want in the game with varying degrees of success except I can’t be accepted by groups that don’t want that build. So what do I do? Well, I get off my dead kitten and find people that think like I do, and we play the way we want to. If “real” diversity is being accepted by meta groups then you will never find real diversity in an MMO unless the content enforce a particular type of build. Meta groups will never accept any non-optimum build that someone likes. Also, as I said above, for any role that is deemed necessary, there will be one build that is acceptable.

Typically, what’s behind most of these discussions is the desire to play a build you like, and to get into any group, and to be equally effective as other builds. This is a pipe dream. The only way to do that would to have all builds balanced so they are all equivalent. What can be done is to provide content that allows different builds to shine, such as with tanks/healers in raids, or mobs like Husks who are more susceptible to condi than direct damage.

Other responses above in italics.

Ok but we aren’t talking about that, of course you can find people to do this with but realistically the majority don’t and people who want something different won’t always be available when you are, so it still is an issue for many. As far as builds being effective they can be in different ways if you played other mmorpgs you should know it’s hardly a pipe dream and im not saying all builds.

DeceiverX.8361:

… actually, stat-per-stat, DPS is the least efficient way to play the game…

How do you figure? This cannot be true alongside this:

People will always pursue the most time-efficient option to beat the game.

Since no other resource but time is ever brought into question the only efficient way to play is through DPS. The Magi’s Warrior example swapped time for energy taking far longer but essentially standing around doing little to nothing quite happily. But since the reward system works off of time (Kills = loot, faster kills = more kills = more loot) there’s no real value to endurance/player-energy conservation (AFK gameplay).

Ryou.2398:

People who usually play mmorpgs or rpgs in general are people who like to spend time with the game and content, besides if gaming is that much of a waste of time then why game at all? Rushing through content asap is not human nature, thats just people who dont know patience or refuse to smell the flowers. For the most part mmorpgs are meant to take time when you do group content and such.

There are ppl out there who don’t enjoy fighting a boss for hours if he is no threat at all. But thats the thing that happens if you build arround defense too much. You lower your damage and the encounter gets more and more easier. At some point that ends in enable Autoattack and go afk for 2 hours.
What some ppl enjoy is getting better, getting faster while doing their daily dungeons/fractals/whatever. Some ppl don’t try to be fast for the sake of time, but for fun. And is that not a goal of playing a game?

Tornupto.2304:

Ryou.2398:

People who usually play mmorpgs or rpgs in general are people who like to spend time with the game and content, besides if gaming is that much of a waste of time then why game at all? Rushing through content asap is not human nature, thats just people who dont know patience or refuse to smell the flowers. For the most part mmorpgs are meant to take time when you do group content and such.

There are ppl out there who don’t enjoy fighting a boss for hours if he is no threat at all. But thats the thing that happens if you build arround defense too much. You lower your damage and the encounter gets more and more easier. At some point that ends in enable Autoattack and go afk for 2 hours.
What some ppl enjoy is getting better, getting faster while doing their daily dungeons/fractals/whatever. Some ppl don’t try to be fast for the sake of time, but for fun. And is that not a goal of playing a game?

Well yea of course but that’s not what we are discussing here, what I’m saying is there would no need to feel that way if there was a more demand for a variety of roles and tactics where it isn’t always the same.

Since the OP is one of the few still clinging to the idea of said meta I guess when they change the meta will as well.

I’m not sure if ppl forgot but the “zerker meta” was only created for dungeons only after they had been out for years without any changes and ppl had the encounters down to instinct and push the bosses so fast that they would skip actual boss mechs. It also involved a great great deal of skipping and very specific wep swapping and utility with certain classes as ppl were starting to get annoyed by ending up in a almost full group of ppl in say knights gear only to die to certain boss mechs because it took forever to kill.

Now we have way more than just Berserk gear with assassins sinister vipers etc that go for maxing out damage. Mobs of full zerker is not going to be your best friend in certain open world events where the incoming damage is more sporadic and such, sure it’s possible but expect to die quite quickly if your up on the front without some sort of healing support.

maniamsmart.7981:

I’d love to see some other stats actually become more viable. I’d love to build a Guardian Healer and Tank, or a Warrior Tank with some damage, or any sort of combinations, but there just isn’t a place for that in the game (excluding raids of course).

Your wish is granted. Here is a useful PvE Warrior Tank build I’ve developed and used to great effect. It uses no berserker’s gear, uses all exotics, and has a very satisfying amount of (condi) damage.

PvE Warrior Tank Build

There is room to customize it to your own play style, but this is largely the version that works with my play style. The point is to keep 3 stacks of AH up at all times, and reduce even spike damage by so much you can easily heal up any damage you do wind up taking. You get 3 sources of condi damage: bleed, burn, torment. If you need to sub in a ranged weapon for sw/sw, then use the rifle… but only sub out if you have to (you’ll be exchanging torment and a block for gunflame, an evade, and quick adrenaline built at range).

With this build I have:
*Stood in 2 overlapping fields of Teq, and continued to smack him even when everyone else scattered like flies.
*Stood in the Wyvern Matriarch’s corruption field and continued to smack her even when everyone else scattered like flies (and kept her aggro).
*In the Uncategorized Fractal take 3 hits from the deadly stairs before getting knocked to the bottom instead of 1 like everyone else.
*Solo face-tanked champs, even a majority of the HoT champs.

The classic role of the tank is to soak damage so the DPS can do their thing. That is what this build does. The oft-spouted criticism about high level armor having diminishing returns is irrelevant to the tank… because you’re tanking things that have high levels of damage, for which one wants as much damage reduced as possible. This gives you the room to heal back up just from all the sources of healing you’re bringing to the table. Your damage is also substantial enough that while you’re soaking everything coming at you, you’re also not feeling like the rest of the group is carrying you.

It’s also said that higher armor tends to draw aggro… In this build I draw aggro like crazy. I take aggro away from peeps in all ‘zerker gear with relative ease….freeing them up to do their DPS thangy-thang. This is all of course anecdotal, so take what I’m saying with that grain of salt… or heck, try it out for yourself. With the exception the Exquisite Passion Flowers this gear is relatively inexpensive on the TP last I checked.

~EW

I think PvE Zerker will not be the sole optimal meta when ANet gives us creatures/events/bosses who are not still decimated by physical DPS.

Make creatures/bosses whose main source of health bar is taken down by conditions. Make creatures/bosses who mainly lose health by such things as retaliation.
Give us creature/bosses who lose health when healers heal the other players.

I’m sure there are many different ways that other stats could become popular and join the ranks of the zerker meta if we had enemies to fight that required such.

The red guardian split from the Vale Guardian is a good example of a enemy that could make other stats more desirable.

Ryou.2398:

Sartharina.3542:

Ryou.2398:

you know exactly what build your going to be doing regardless because of the gear.

No you don’t. Weapons, traits, skills, runes, and sigils all vary wildly even within the same gear stat set.

Even now, there’s all sorts of build diversity. Vipers and Sinister show up on condi builds. In WvW, all sorts of gear is viable. A lot of people put some combination of toughness/vitality/healing power on trinkets.

Yes you do, and im talking about gear, and as far as builds go everyone is shohorned into dps specs partly because of the beserker meta mentality, so again you pretty much know what build your going to use, and choosing between condi and beserker is hardly a variety in choice. And I never said you cannot use that gear but because of the design and peoples mentality for the most part it isnt accepted, so if you went for a tanky build others would need to compinsate to that build to an extent.

DPS isn’t a spec anymore than “Winning” is a playstyle. There are all sorts of builds and specializations in Guild Wars 2. But you’re just clumping them all together.

What makes Guild Wars 2’s stats tend to be the same is how ‘direct’ they are. In other games, different classes have different bonuses from the same stats – Warriors would rely on “Strength”, casters would use “Intelligence” (Or “Magic”), Archers would use “Dexterity”…. and all those stats would also have secondary benefits for off-class uses.

jheryn.8390:

Make creatures/bosses whose main source of health bar is taken down by conditions.

There are such creatures out there. But even if they are not part of a specific encounter some condition based builds are wanted. I don’t get your point here…

Make creatures/bosses who mainly lose health by such things as retaliation.

So you need to get hit while the buff is up and many classes are just useless because they are not able to create retaliation? No, just no.

jheryn.8390:

Give us creature/bosses who lose health when healers heal the other players.

What the? Same as above. If you want to get healed you have to get hit first. If the design is to get hit by the encounter as much as possible it is a really bad design. It’s just the opposite of what you are trying in an actionbased game.

I’m sure there are many different ways that other stats could become popular and join the ranks of the zerker meta if we had enemies to fight that required such.

Even if there would be such an encounter. Many stats would be nowhere but there. Thats not diversity.

It’s pretty much an unavoidable result of the design — the player can choose between offence and defence. Imagine a different design where armor and weapon sets had different set stats. Weapons would let you choose between power and condi, while armor let you choose between toughness and vitality — which makes sense that weapons are offensive, while armor is defensive. However, in this hypothetical design, you never have to choose between offensive vs defensive stats — since people will choose offense every time. It would be better to let them choose what kind of offense or what kind of defense.

Wow you take things quite literal don’t you? My suggestions were not meant to be absolute or ideal, they were just random thoughts of different things that could make other things viable. Different types of creatures out there with different means of defeating them.

Tornupto.2304:

jheryn.8390:

Make creatures/bosses whose main source of health bar is taken down by conditions.

There are such creatures out there. But even if they are not part of a specific encounter some condition based builds are wanted. I don’t get your point here…

“There are such creatures out there.” Did I suggest that there were not? Didn’t I give the red vale guardian as an example? There are NOT enough out there to make condition damage stats on par with Zerker builds. That is my point. The point of this thread was asking if anything besides zerker will ever be the optimal meta?

Tornupto.2304:

jheryn.8390:

Make creatures/bosses who mainly lose health by such things as retaliation.

So you need to get hit while the buff is up and many classes are just useless because they are not able to create retaliation? No, just no.

Um… There are possibly fun builds out there that have garbage for DPS if NOT zerker. Are saying we cannot have creatures that have specific requirements to beat? Maybe you should focus less on the fact that I used retaliation as a determining factor and think about the possibility of something being beaten by other means than DPS and Conditions.

You are right there are many builds that do not have retaliation. Thus my saying “mainly.” Not that other things will not work, they just will not work as well. So, yes, just yes, I would like to see specialized creatures like this. It would make the game more interesting.

Tornupto.2304:

jheryn.8390:

Give us creature/bosses who lose health when healers heal the other players.

What the? Same as above. If you want to get healed you have to get hit first. If the design is to get hit by the encounter as much as possible it is a really bad design. It’s just the opposite of what you are trying in an actionbased game.

Did I say that you WANT to get it hit as much as possible? Did I say that the ONLY way to damage a such a creature was to heal other players? The answer is “no” to both questions BTW. They were assumptions on your part. Done right, it is not the opposite of what you want in an action based game.

Tornupto.2304:

jheryn.8390:

I’m sure there are many different ways that other stats could become popular and join the ranks of the zerker meta if we had enemies to fight that required such.

Even if there would be such an encounter. Many stats would be nowhere but there. Thats not diversity.

I suspect you are not much of the “Think outside the box.” type of person. The OP was looking for a time when Zerker is not the meta or is simply only one of the metas along side others. If you cannot see where having different requirements (whatever they may be) as diversity in fighting enemies in game, then I guess you will not understand why others would like to play something different than zerker.

Keep playing your zerker builds. It seems like that is where you are happy.

jheryn.8390:

There are NOT enough out there to make condition damage stats on par with Zerker builds. That is my point. The point of this thread was asking if anything besides zerker will ever be the optimal meta?

Conditions are already quite strong on some classes even stronger tahn any zerk build. I still don’t get the point why you think it’s not enough. It seems more that some ppl want zerk gear to vanish completely from the meta.

jheryn.8390:

“There are such creatures out there.” Did I suggest that there were not? Didn’t I give the red vale guardian as an example? There are NOT enough out there to make condition damage stats on par with Zerker builds. That is my point. The point of this thread was asking if anything besides zerker will ever be the optimal meta?

Viper and Zerker are both part of the meta, on roughly equal standing (Mixing in Assassin’s and Sinister for tweaking crit % for power and Duration for viper, respectively)