Guild Wars 2

I missed the livestream due to work but why did they opt to change Critical Damage which (to me) had zero perceivable problem attached to it instead of addressing the Unshakable effect which completely negates the very idea of Control as well as ignoring the condition cap and stacking effects that highly discourage Condition based builds? On top of that Support builds alone are already incredibly lack-luster and DPS based builds are already falling out of favor in small scale WvW. (they already rarely saw use in large scale WvW). Why did we feel the need to remove something as iconic as Critical Damage only to replace it with something which is just frankly (again, to me) poorly named and purposeless?

Was this change even aimed at addressing the Zerker meta or was it just another one of those many things ANet decided to address out of the blue?

I really dont care, as long they as they make non zerker builds in dungeons more viable or popular.

I am sick of charging in and smashing stuff all the time.

People need to chill out~ these dungeons are short enough anyway.

Real issues would be: Champion trains and lack of directional content at 80. And yeah, engineers are still rubbish in PvE…

Condition damage is completely broken and has been since launch. I really feel that this should be the first on the list of things to fix. All damage, whether direct or over time, needs to be managed by player. I really don’t understand how they thought the current implementation would fly.

In terms of zerker builds and the perceived problems with them, they exist solely because DPS is the only meaningful combat role and zerker best fits the role. It is not a problem with the gear, but rather with the conception of combat and combat roles.

There is already a thread with over 600 contributions regarding this topic however the real issue is I cannot get a one piece Quaggan suit.

Because they are working on multiple issues at once and this one was ready for implementation?

Unshakeable/defiant will not be removed because they dont want 5 hammer + mace/shield warriors going into boss fights in places and just stunlocking it permanently.

Travis the Terrible.4739:

Unshakeable/defiant will not be removed because they dont want 5 hammer + mace/shield warriors going into boss fights in places and just stunlocking it permanently.

This is really no different then how the AI works already in the game. Basically almost every single encounter can be trivialized into back boss into corner. Then DPS boss until his health reaches zero making sure to dodge the 1 hit kills. Sadly the AI in this game is whats making zeker’s so dominate.

That said I still think they need to rework the rest of the stats also.

The game is reaching the 2 year mark there really isn’t anything special about it. I am not really sure how to say this so I guess I say it it the best way I can. Its like playing half a MMO. Dungeon AI is extremely simple, stats are extremely simple with very little complexity, and the damage mitigation are extremely simple.

The living story over the past year has in my opinion kinda fallen flat. I am excited for changes coming up after March if I am still around to see them. I am kinda at the point where if I find something new or better I going to move on. No point in holding my breath for changes that may never come.

They should have fixed the real issue. Condition damage. That’s how people are getting insta-gibbed – despite having super armor. It forces you into certain runes, sigils, traits and food. Spec and eat for condition control or die. Nerf condition damage so it can’t be exploited to the kind of bursts possible now.

jweez.7214:

Because they are working on multiple issues at once and this one was ready for implementation?

This is indeed what they stated.

But one could always question how or why a stat revamp came around so quickly compared to what people have been complaining about since the dawn of the game itself which is mediocre encounters and a lack of meaningful combat & risk/reward.

It does seem rather odd that the first thing that came to mind was hey, lets gut crit damage before changing the encounters, even if the premise is that it allows for smoother transitions for them. Would be nice to get some detailed insight into how they plan to change encounters outside of stats to make support and control more frequently utilized.

I personally have to hope that there’s a lot more coming down the chute than what was talked about on the livestream – mainly because of when they said something along the lines of “We’ve a lot of great stuff for rangers, now lets ignore that and talk about the nerfs!” and then he never talked at all about the great stuff..

TexZero.7910:

jweez.7214:

Because they are working on multiple issues at once and this one was ready for implementation?

This is indeed what they stated.

But one could always question how or why a stat revamp came around so quickly compared to what people have been complaining about since the dawn of the game itself which is mediocre encounters and a lack of meaningful combat & risk/reward.

It does seem rather odd that the first thing that came to mind was hey, lets gut crit damage before changing the encounters, even if the premise is that it allows for smoother transitions for them. Would be nice to get some detailed insight into how they plan to change encounters outside of stats to make support and control more frequently utilized.

There is 1 law and 1 law only.
“If it affects us/economy negatively or players positively, insta fix or nerf.
If it affects the player negatively or the economy/us positively, forget about it”

The intention was not to make condition builds viable (unless this was the biggest balance fail of all time). The intention was to make zerkers have less DPS so fights are longer, so they are forced to deal with more boss mechanics than before.