Guild Wars 2

This discussion probably has already happened and points have probably been brought up but there’s many threads on the forums of course haha

There was a discussion elsewhere about the class balance preview, that made me think some and I’d like to offer some thoughts.

Class balance changes triggers a lot of response as always, however one particular response brings up a reoccuring issue we have with PvE, which is the zerker meta and some classes feeling completely left out and inferior, compared to speed runs done with zerker warriors, guardians, maybe some utility classes like summon weapon eles, a toolbox mesmer, etc. Of course opinions vary but for the most part, everyone will tell you zerker. Even to some extent it degrades the community to a very exclusive environment, asking what class you play, if you have zerker gear etc.

I play WvW as well, and I love it, and personally ever since i started WvW, (used to be zerker) i started running WvW roaming builds in PvE and do phenomenally, in any PvE situation, surviving well but dealing tons of damage as well. In fact my stats are close to my zerker stats while having survivability, but most people will not agree and will focus on “optimizing” big numbers by full zerker.

So the issue here is the balance between WvW / PvE really, PvP is slightly a different ball game but the same issue is here because i believe it’s the fact that PvE is actually lacking and too far behind

I don’t think balance between three game modes will ever be perfectly achieved, Arenanet has always taken on a lot of responsibility and set high expectations and goals for themselves, which I commend them for trying hard.

However, balance, imo, can be much closer and that way it would be more comfortable.

[Continued]

Suggestions: Mob Diversity & AI = Build Diversity
I know many are of the opinion that Conditions should be viable and so should CC, and other features you would use in WvW. If so, classes and builds will be more diverse and accepted, into a speed run for example, in order to deal with enemies.

An example of what I’m thinking would be nice is if there are different types of mobs that are REALLY different.

- Mob type that has aegis reapplying at a certain interval (maybe other skills) and tough armor that regular zerker gear can’t really put enough damage and condition damage would actually be faster on them (think if you took a condition build into a higher level zone while levelling up – i did this alot recently while levelling my condi warrior to push my limits and skills – your normal attacks would be glancing, but the condition still ticks for full and melted higher level mobs probably faster than a guy in low level zerker gear).

- On the other hand, have other type of mobs that would have condition removal every few seconds or even have more advanced AI that responds to condition stacks, but be weak towards direct damage.

- Furthermore, for the most part, in PvE, it doesn’t matter what condition you would do, there are only rare mobs that are “immune to burning”. I’d suggest to add more of this, where certain mobs are resistant (maybe not immune) to certain individual conditions while having weakness and being extremely vulnerable to other conditions. I.e. a mob in Frostgorge Sound like in HotW would be extremely vulnerable to burning and burning could inflict like X% more damage or something, while having – X% duration to chill. (Think Pokemon LOL).
If a party wants to do a speed run for CoF, then you would bring a class that can apply chill and it would actually damage them a lot and be faster than with full zerker teams.

- Bosses also can have a variety, ones that will be able to be CC’d but have an extremely large health pool and armor mechanics (like the clockheart boss, Dredge fractal mining suit boss or tequatl, building up armor etc), and zerker damage wouldn’t be effective through their armor, so that conditions are necessary for sustained damage, so that while you can CC it, you can’t kill them that easily, they will just hurt less.

- And the Bosses that we already have, where you can’t really CC with defiant stacks but you can aim for solid big damage.

- There are probably many other ways to create diversity and blend WvW/PvE class diversity together

- The point here in PvE is less about survivability but can be summarized as Direct Damage / Damage Over Time, to balance the two of those, so different classes and strategies that deal damage differently will actually be balanced

As potentially difficult to do something like that, as well as all the balancing that would need to be done afterwards, dungeons for example should still be able to be “speed run” but with different chemistry of classes for different dungeons (class balance should be on its own, and PvE should be balanced to reasonably fit your class changes) things like that will open up the diversity for players in PvE to be accepted, not excluded, create more thought behind attempting a PvE activity, like planning out a team (with condition classes extra effective against certain mobs) for dungeons, therefore changes done to classes and balances, won’t be too different in PvE, and we can enjoy more diversity and strategy.

I’m sure there’s those who supports optimizing Zerker, but what are your thoughts? I would love to see different ways of playing PvE be viable

$$$$ cash money zerk farm $$$
Ok dude first of all , how we can have build diversity if there’s no Tank? No healer ? If soldier gear was a requirement to survive anything that would be lame . I hate taking the dmg when I can dodge it . Look I agree that zerker i the only way to go but so what? You can farm your zerk set in cof\coe\arah very quickly .

It’s like refusing to adapt . Exemple in gw1 , you join a fowSC speed run and they want you to go T2 instead of MT, what’s wrong with changing your build to help your party?

a t s e.9614:

$$$$ cash money zerk farm $$$
Ok dude first of all , how we can have build diversity if there’s no Tank? No healer ? If soldier gear was a requirement to survive anything that would be lame . I hate taking the dmg when I can dodge it . Look I agree that zerker i the only way to go but so what? You can farm your zerk set in cof\coe\arah very quickly .

It’s like refusing to adapt . Exemple in gw1 , you join a fowSC speed run and they want you to go T2 instead of MT, what’s wrong with changing your build to help your party?

Lol it has nothing to do with me or people changing their build TO zerker. But the fact is that certain classes are excluded or more wanted, because they deal straight damage. Like classes like a necro are discouraged from speed run dungeons, because they dont zerker big numbers like a warrior. For example, people would prefer to run like five zerker warriors for a speed run… that’s excluding the rest of the community who likes to play other classes.

The build and class diversity is to be inclusive and encouraging to all players. Is everyone supposed to run a zerker warrior? There’s people who like to cast conditions, theres mesmers who like to use tricks and utilities, there’s other classes that are good at different things. Like thieves also feel they don’t have much use in dungeons or a WvW zerg. It would make PvE boring if everyone was supposed to run the same things, and Gw2 is about playing how you want, that’s why you have an open world PvE where people level and play the way they want, or else it would be a lobby with dungeon/instances.

There’s people who also don’t prefer to play dungeons and like to run other things. There’s people who don’t really farm either and prefer to look at scenery. The game has a variety of players. Saying zerker only speed run dungeons… is changing the game Anet designed. Then all I would have to say, is play a different game where that’s all it is.

Some people just prefer other ways of playing. Whats the harm in creating more diversity? What’s the harm in creating different challenges? it would be pretty cool if you could do a speed run with a team of zerker, condi, and other forms of players, all working together, yet can pull off fast runs, (assuming the mob / boss design has changed, because condis will actually speed things up)

And i’m by no means saying you need to run PVT armor… I’m saying different variety of situations for different variety of strategies.

Also, healers or whatever have nothing to do with this here, we’re talking about the damage and PvE AI just being plain health point pool to whack at. If anything, that is creating a more boring game.

The solution is rather easy, but two pronged(both forks are equally important!):

-Mob diversity, AI and such things. Mobs should really have more skills than a BOOM skill(big dmg) and a WHACK skill(CC). Maybe if they used more actual player skills? How about more conditions? Mobs that explode when killed(I have a creeping feeling that this should really be a part of a Cantha expansion. Idk why )? More than now, That’s for sure!

-the current situation in the attributes is appalling to say at least. It looks like following: DD stats>DoT stats>Defensive stats. THIS cripples(almost immobilises lol!) the build diversity greatly! It also means that the DD is in ABSOLUTE dominion over the Defense(Power>>Defense)! :O No comment. Anyhow it should be like following(ideally): DD=DoT=Defense or like following(realistically): DD >= DoT >= Defense(which means that it’s not in absolutes, but rather in relations). How to achieve this one? Well That’s a million quid question is it not? I feel that, unfortunately, it’s going to have to be done through the mechanic overhauls. Why is that unfortunate? Because it would undermine the balance which is pretty in tune right now and I’d be sad to see it go. Various other things could get broken in the process as well. But this is something that HAS GOT TO BE DONE. For the better or for the worse…

Ok but a 5 warrior party is beyond ridiculous , it has been proven that you don’t need more than 2 . I agree that some builds are left behind but they can’t change it , it would be too late and would take too much time to change all boss mechanics to discourage zerk . They could add harder dungeons in the future though .

Gorwe.9672:

…

Those are some great observations. For the second point, I’d say that might have to do with the mob AI however. if you don’t touch the classes so much, and you touch up the mob AI so that some varieties of mobs are susceptible to DoT more than DD like the examples I mentioned, for example, where they have strong armor and armor build up resistance against heavy damage, (like glancing on higher level mobs while levelling), but the condition (an example of DoT) will melt those kinds of mobs, then we will have a variety of needs for different types of players even in PvE

I don’t know if its possible tho, can we just touch up the NPC enemy mobs AI and designs, emphasize different types of mobs, i.e. give the mobs very detailed and characteristic class types, without touching the actual class balances which affects WvW/PvP, to make PvE have more variety

a t s e.9614:

Ok but a 5 warrior party is beyond ridiculous , it has been proven that you don’t need more than 2 . I agree that some builds are left behind but they can’t change it , it would be too late and would take too much time to change all boss mechanics to discourage zerk . They could add harder dungeons in the future though .

LOL yeah, i was exagerrating. Agreed, this post of mine is largely very speculative, i don’t know how possible it is to implement. Is it possible to change things over time or just change things for the future

In the newer living story, we see tequatl, fractals, clockheart etc, bosses that have more “advanced” mechanics needing different strategy, and we have that gimmicky (imo) things where the mobs need to be stomped after downed…. > < lol, maybe in the future there’s more variation

Or are there mobs, like we see the Toxic Bulwart, Toxic Sorcerer, blah blah, some mobs are characteristically ranged, and some are melee only etc, do they already have a mob class system in place where they can make some relatively universal changes to heighten the variety in their design

But i guess this is an issue that needs to be brought up and dealt with later

I don’t mind the changes to zerk mentality as long as they buff the rewards . I don’t feel like doing a dungeon 1 hour just because of some crap mechanics that prevents me from killing the boss.

Hate to say it atse, if you can’t kill the boss with nothing else than zerker, on any class even, you obviously don’t know your class. I really can’t say anyone else here does either. No one should really talk unless they have valid solutions with out any bias.

And on that point, I was suggesting in another similar threadto this that maybe anet should make 4 stats gear after lv 66 and has the same stats as we have now at 80 but an extra stat that complements the weakness of each stat set.

Like critical on pvt (5% or less), or vit on zerker (76 or less)?

So I need to learn killing stuff on my warrior with a cleric set to learn to play? Sounds great.

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

Hate to say it atse, if you can’t kill the boss with nothing else than zerker, on any class even, you obviously don’t know your class. I really can’t say anyone else here does either. No one should really talk unless they have valid solutions with out any bias.

And on that point, I was suggesting in another similar threadto this that maybe anet should make 4 stats gear after lv 66 and has the same stats as we have now at 80 but an extra stat that complements the weakness of each stat set.

Like critical on pvt (5% or less), or vit on zerker (76 or less)?

They screwed up on the 4 stat combos on the ascended trinkets, you think they won’t on a global scale? Zerker cant be fixed directly in any way. Things that Anet should have been working on from the get go to avoid what has happened is…

1. Rework Defiant on bosses
2. Improve the Healing Power coefficient on skills in PvE. They are doing this but at a snails pace.
3. Make condition builds less horrible in PvE

Number 3 is actually the tough one. Due to server limitations its hard to rework how condition stacks work.

I fail to see the point. The groups that I have seen that REQUIRES you to be serker optimal is minimal, and I doubt those are the only ones you see, the people who does that have a set-mind to just get it done and over with. I would say this is a minority.

Nothing stops you from playing a sub-optimal speed run build, in fact many people do, if you want to take the time to kill stuff then nothing is to stop you. If you are saying that because the serkers run dungeons faster because they opt for a higher risk build, and you want to have that same opportunity but stay safe, or at least not -forced- to buy a serker set, then you are being ridiculous.

Even in WoW, after content gets old, the old trinity isn’t optimal anymore, people run DPS/Tank build hybrid for tanking and Healer/DPS hybrid for quick runs, they’ve got the mechanics down and have no interest on wasting any more time than needed to get what they want.

Even if Anet changes the Mechanics, all they are doing is creating a new meta, that is what a meta is, finding the most optimal way to play. All you’re doing is makeing a set group of people change their gear to another set and then making that small elite few still repel others who don’t play thier style.

That’s the thing Keiel. I don’t see any non- “zerkers only” non speed-clear dungeon groups and I am the type of person that wants to experience the game and the challenge of trying to fight through a dungeon without skipping and dying because of a failed skip because I can’t move as fast (be it lag or connection or wrong class).

Also on the other side of things, I want to teach new players to play the game not the stats, so they do not fell intimidated and quit like we see in this game now. Its those that don’t want to play the stats that hate dungeons, they only believe its just a stats game now and this not fun.

I as a player do pretty well with the speed runs regardless (unless its TA). Did a lot of those for COF to get my two Gifts of Baelfire.

There is lot of non-zerkers and non-speedrun parties. When an ad simply says “LFM P1” without any hint like “dps builds” etc, then it is understood that anyone and any builds are welcome.

I think a lot of those against speedruns, or just want a fun casual runs should just start their own party with “LFM all paths” etc. We need a lot more of you guys willing to do that. These kinds of party fills faster than a zerker party anyways, so honestly do not see the complain regarding playing with like-minded players.

Visit TC then. I need to do a lot of Arah and other dungeons for stat types for my engi and guard.

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

Visit TC then. I need to do a lot of Arah and other dungeons for stat types for my engi and guard.

LFG tool is universal. If you are talking about people in /m then that’s a different story. The number of casual runs I see listed outnumbers the serker runs by at least 10:1

Dromar.1027:

They screwed up on the 4 stat combos on the ascended trinkets, you think they won’t on a global scale? Zerker cant be fixed directly in any way. Things that Anet should have been working on from the get go to avoid what has happened is…

1. Rework Defiant on bosses
2. Improve the Healing Power coefficient on skills in PvE. They are doing this but at a snails pace.
3. Make condition builds less horrible in PvE

Number 3 is actually the tough one. Due to server limitations its hard to rework how condition stacks work.

1. That needs to change, I agree.
2. “Don’t belittle the SUPPORT role by calling it heal. Healing is the least dynamic kind of support there is. It is reactive instead of proactive. Healing is for when you are already losing. In Guild Wars 2 we prefer that you support your allies before they take a beating.”
3. One dedicated condition dealer is a good addition to the party.

haviz.1340:

2. “Don’t belittle the SUPPORT role by calling it heal. Healing is the least dynamic kind of support there is. It is reactive instead of proactive. Healing is for when you are already losing. In Guild Wars 2 we prefer that you support your allies before they take a beating.”

Don’t assume I said that healing was the full spectrum of support. Healing is cherished by many, its a shame its botched in this game.

haviz.1340:

3. One dedicated condition dealer is a good addition to the party.

Yea… one.

Dromar.1027:

Don’t assume I said that healing was the full spectrum of support. Healing is cherished by many, its a shame its botched in this game.

But you want healing power buffed. This game doesn’t need more passive or reactive play than it already has.

haviz.1340:

Dromar.1027:

Don’t assume I said that healing was the full spectrum of support. Healing is cherished by many, its a shame its botched in this game.

But you want healing power buffed. This game doesn’t need more passive or reactive play than it already has.

Your opinion. Obviously the devs think otherwise since they keep buffing healing skills.

It has nothing to do with PvE , they buff heal skills for the PvP team play . In Pve there willnever be a healer , this is not Wow sorry . You must use active stuff like your dodges and blocks to survive, you don’t need more healing.

a t s e.9614:

It has nothing to do with PvE , they buff heal skills for the PvP team play . In Pve there willnever be a healer , this is not Wow sorry . You must use active stuff like your dodges and blocks to survive, you don’t need more healing.

It’s there in PvE whether you like it or not. The game needs variety and if it wasn’t meant to be there then you wouldn’t see healing outside of 6 so stop being biased.

I’m not sure if some of you read my OP (as long as it is) at all… But i think my solution addresses some of your concerns…

I’m not saying to play a less risky build, that is up to choice, however the current issue I was talking about is that all the damage that is effective in PvE is optimized by zerker.

Read my suggestions on the second OP. If the PvE mob/boss designs can change, what I’m looking for is variety, meaning you can’t zerker through everything. For a speed run, other classes with different play styles, like a glass cannon condition build will also be viable against certain mob designs. This means we need greater class variety and team work for certain situations for speed runs. Like you would bring an elementalist to summon gs and longbow for AC paths, you would need different classes for different strategies of damage for diff places

What we need is greater enemy variety with very specific characteristics where some classes would be more effective than others.

NOT changing everything to be UNIFORM, but changing so there is variety. Right now everything is pretty uniform that straight zerk damage is the only way and some classes that dish damage a different way feel left out.

We need to change this so that there are other viable strategies to deal damage, that can be just as fast. This would probably be changing the mobs up to have different strategies needed

Without even touching the player classes, we can probably achieve this if PvE enemy types are reworked