Guild Wars 2

So we all know Berserker-based builds are by far the most effective for most PvE, and I do think it’s clearly a problem in need of a solution since it restricts experimentation and leads to a lack of diversity. It also tends to make dungeon content in particular a lot less compelling due to the total absence of distinctive roles (and no, I am not an advocate for a traditional trinity.)

Direct nerfs to zerker are not the solution. Many of us know this already. Zerker isn’t significantly superior to other combos, as can be seen by the greater diversity present in PvP. The problem instead lies in a few very simple quirks of PvE game-play:

Offense is largely passive while Defense is largely active, making off stats worth more
Conditions face crippling Diminishing returns from greater numbers of players
Healing Power is generally under-tuned and lacks synergy with other support
You can optimize DPS while retaining access to all needed utility
AoE is folded into generic DPS instead of featuring in separate control builds

Here’s the deal – there’s no reason it needs to be that way. Some people advocate a total overhaul of mob AI. Sure, that might help, but I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary either. An approach that would do wonders would be to adjust PvE combat to work more like PvP combat and by introducing some or all of the following changes:

- Reduce mob health pools
- Grant mobs an evade mechanic to let them mitigate attacks occasionally*
- Tweak Precision to subtly affect to-hit rates for players
- Increase frequency of standard mob attacks
- Reduce damage of standard mob attacks
- Track conditions per each player instead of across all targeting players
- Modestly increase scaling from Healing Power for all healing skills
- Increase synergy between healing and boon support for some professions (perhaps a new stat combo) to allow for greater presence of support+healing builds
- Reduce effectiveness of utility for heavily optimized DPS builds
- Introduce a way to specialize in AoE (control) OR localized DPS instead of both together.

Note – Mobs would only evade a minority of attacks, regardless of Precision. Overall, mobs should take the same time to kill, or even a bit less than they do currently. Players should have neither the ability nor the desire to dodge all incoming attacks. Active defense should center around particularly potent (usually telegraphed) attacks, with lower-damaging attacks just being absorbed by passive defense. Completely non-offensive builds should be available for some professions through an effective combination of healing and boon support.

So op realizes that this is a pve problem and that attempting to “revamp” a system that is rooted in the game’s foundation is the same as scraping that game and making a new one.

blakdoxa.7520:

So op realizes that this is a pve problem and that attempting to “revamp” a system that is rooted in the game’s foundation is the same as scraping that game and making a new one.

If you’re finished with your hyperbole, we can discuss this like adults.

Being hostile is the reason why the other thread got closed, so let’s be more respectful this time please.

Lazaar.9123:

Being hostile is the reason why the other thread got closed, so let’s be more respectful this time please.

I always initiate with very benign/friendly posts but for some reason always get borderline belligerent responses. I don’t really understand why. Is this the norm for other people?

Anyway, it seems obvious to me that something needs to be done about the Zerker issue, if for no other reason than the impact it has on dungeon farming.

Dungeons have all but been written out of this game and it’s obvious it’s because Anet aren’t satisfied with the implementation and either don’t know how to fix it or aren’t motivated to. But, I would argue that the dungeon experience is very important to any MMO, and it should be supported by a functional role system, even if it is soft.

It’s a worthwhile discussion to take seriously.

I want to elaborate on the OP by explaining what the zerker meta doesn’t entail as opposed to what it does entail.

First of all, elitists aren’t the problem with the zerker meta. No matter what the meta is, elitists would ask that you carry that particular meta build. Zerker just happens to be the current meta, but if we were to replace it with something else, elitists would be just as vigilant in making sure that their party members kept to the new meta. In short, the zerker meta doesn’t spawn elitists, MMO’s do.

Secondly, a simple nerf to zerker gear would do absolutely nothing, zerker gear isn’t overpowered. Let me explain. The current meta is to kill as quickly as possible, using non-stat defenses such as blinds and aegis to keep damage off the players. If we were to nerf zerker gear, the new meta would be whatever stat set did the most damage. Nerfing stats won’t do anything except shift the name of meta to whatever stat set is currently doing the most damage.

As the OP said, the reason zerker meta is such a problem is the lack of build diversity. There’s 1-2 builds per class that would excel in our current dungeon meta, and none of them run any other stats except damage stats.

Before anyone says it, we understand that you CAN find a group with casual players who don’t require zerker gear, and that zerker gear isn’t necessary to complete dungeons. That’s hardly the point. The point is, for veteran players, there comes a point where build diversity closes itself off to the easiest, fastest option. The zerker meta. And when that happens, dungeons become tedious and boring.

With Heart of Thorns being released, it’s been speculated that new instances will open, whether they be dungeons or raids matters little to me. What I’m hoping is that regardless of whatever instanced challenges may come, that we’ll see a fix in the zerker meta and narrow build options before then.

I’m just not having my head in the clouds about this. Down to Earth and realistic.
Yeah you want changes but have no idea what actually is taking place behind the scenes.

PvE isn’t just some module you can pull out tweak and/or swap out. They’d have to do a complete overhaul which could take up to 1-2 1/2 years. Having all those resources (money, time, people) is going so suck the marrow out of the rest of the game.
It’s likely they won’t do something major like that until maybe 2 more years or maybe even GW3.

blakdoxa.7520:

I’m just not having my head in the clouds about this. Down to Earth and realistic.
Yeah you want changes but have no idea what actually is taking place behind the scenes.

PvE isn’t just some module you can pull out tweak and/or swap out. They’d have to do a complete overhaul which could take up to 1-2 1/2 years. Having all those resources (money, time, people) is going so suck the marrow out of the rest of the game.
It’s likely they won’t do something major like that until maybe 2 more years or maybe even GW3.

It…… really would not take that long. It’s not as kittenome of the feature updates they’ve already made.

Capitol City.4856:

I want to elaborate on the OP by explaining what the zerker meta doesn’t entail as opposed to what it does entail.

First of all, elitists aren’t the problem with the zerker meta. No matter what the meta is, elitists would ask that you carry that particular meta build. Zerker just happens to be the current meta, but if we were to replace it with something else, elitists would be just as vigilant in making sure that their party members kept to the new meta. In short, the zerker meta doesn’t spawn elitists, MMO’s do.

Secondly, a simple nerf to zerker gear would do absolutely nothing, zerker gear isn’t overpowered. Let me explain. The current meta is to kill as quickly as possible, using non-stat defenses such as blinds and aegis to keep damage off the players. If we were to nerf zerker gear, the new meta would be whatever stat set did the most damage. Nerfing stats won’t do anything except shift the name of meta to whatever stat set is currently doing the most damage.

As the OP said, the reason zerker meta is such a problem is the lack of build diversity. There’s 1-2 builds per class that would excel in our current dungeon meta, and none of them run any other stats except damage stats.

Before anyone says it, we understand that you CAN find a group with casual players who don’t require zerker gear, and that zerker gear isn’t necessary to complete dungeons. That’s hardly the point. The point is, for veteran players, there comes a point where build diversity closes itself off to the easiest, fastest option. The zerker meta. And when that happens, dungeons become tedious and boring.

With Heart of Thorns being released, it’s been speculated that new instances will open, whether they be dungeons or raids matters little to me. What I’m hoping is that regardless of whatever instanced challenges may come, that we’ll see a fix in the zerker meta and narrow build options before then.

At the very least you get it. People seem to really fail to recognize optimization strategies always exist and are almost always based upon time of completion or time to achieve a goal; I.E., by boosting success chance of something you may only be allowed to try a limited number of times per unit of time.

The problem is sadly unsolvable; if not berserker GS warriors, for instance as some people declare it to be (despite it not being so for most content), it’ll just be something else in place of it (such as might rifle engis) once discovered.

Trinity or no trinity, options or not, there will always be a single optimization strategy that is just better than the rest. The only thing to do to counter this is to force encounters to take a pre-specified, fixed amount of time, in which case, DPS is out by many, and durability is in for reliability’s sake.

A noble aspiration, but an impossible one.

Einlanzer.1627:

blakdoxa.7520:

I’m just not having my head in the clouds about this. Down to Earth and realistic.
Yeah you want changes but have no idea what actually is taking place behind the scenes.

PvE isn’t just some module you can pull out tweak and/or swap out. They’d have to do a complete overhaul which could take up to 1-2 1/2 years. Having all those resources (money, time, people) is going so suck the marrow out of the rest of the game.
It’s likely they won’t do something major like that until maybe 2 more years or maybe even GW3.

It…… really would not take that long. It’s not as kittenome of the feature updates they’ve already made.

We are talking about all of PvE and even condition damage. I’d rather not have the game plagued with runtime errors or crashes…

It’s huge and you’re telling me anet should knead it, flip it, fold it, bake it and expect it to come out fine.

It’s good that you have your proposal but as GW2 is now, it’s not really feasible. Undertaking such a project could spend quite a large portion of their budget that they could have used for an “expansion.”

The whole zerker issue is actualy easy to fix. Just give certain bosses the same ability as Tequatl, not being able to be critical hit.
This will allow more more classes to be more usefull and prevent this whole “zerker only issue”.
Dont get me wrong i do use zerker build, they are the only way to farm and ensure you get loot with the weak PvE mobs who die before they even spawn when faced with even a minor zerg.
But with 46 different charaters is have tryed lots of other ways to play, and find it a shame that the game design tend to force people into the zerker way. When there are so many fun ways to build your charater and still be very usefull.

Calcanius.5048:

The whole zerker issue is actualy easy to fix. Just give certain bosses the same ability as Tequatl, not being able to be critical hit.
This will allow more more classes to be more usefull and prevent this whole “zerker only issue”.
Dont get me wrong i do use zerker build, they are the only way to farm and ensure you get loot with the weak PvE mobs who die before they even spawn when faced with even a minor zerg.
But with 46 different charaters is have tryed lots of other ways to play, and find it a shame that the game design tend to force people into the zerker way. When there are so many fun ways to build your charater wnd still be very usefull.

Yeah… Eliminate 2 stats from being useful at all! That’s the way! Wearing PVT gear creates such a different play style, why can’t it be the best dps?! kitten zerk meta ruining everything.

DeceiverX.8361:

Capitol City.4856:

I want to elaborate on the OP by explaining what the zerker meta doesn’t entail as opposed to what it does entail.

First of all, elitists aren’t the problem with the zerker meta. No matter what the meta is, elitists would ask that you carry that particular meta build. Zerker just happens to be the current meta, but if we were to replace it with something else, elitists would be just as vigilant in making sure that their party members kept to the new meta. In short, the zerker meta doesn’t spawn elitists, MMO’s do.

Secondly, a simple nerf to zerker gear would do absolutely nothing, zerker gear isn’t overpowered. Let me explain. The current meta is to kill as quickly as possible, using non-stat defenses such as blinds and aegis to keep damage off the players. If we were to nerf zerker gear, the new meta would be whatever stat set did the most damage. Nerfing stats won’t do anything except shift the name of meta to whatever stat set is currently doing the most damage.

As the OP said, the reason zerker meta is such a problem is the lack of build diversity. There’s 1-2 builds per class that would excel in our current dungeon meta, and none of them run any other stats except damage stats.

Before anyone says it, we understand that you CAN find a group with casual players who don’t require zerker gear, and that zerker gear isn’t necessary to complete dungeons. That’s hardly the point. The point is, for veteran players, there comes a point where build diversity closes itself off to the easiest, fastest option. The zerker meta. And when that happens, dungeons become tedious and boring.

With Heart of Thorns being released, it’s been speculated that new instances will open, whether they be dungeons or raids matters little to me. What I’m hoping is that regardless of whatever instanced challenges may come, that we’ll see a fix in the zerker meta and narrow build options before then.

At the very least you get it. People seem to really fail to recognize optimization strategies always exist and are almost always based upon time of completion or time to achieve a goal; I.E., by boosting success chance of something you may only be allowed to try a limited number of times per unit of time.

The problem is sadly unsolvable; if not berserker GS warriors, for instance as some people declare it to be (despite it not being so for most content), it’ll just be something else in place of it (such as might rifle engis) once discovered.

Trinity or no trinity, options or not, there will always be a single optimization strategy that is just better than the rest. The only thing to do to counter this is to force encounters to take a pre-specified, fixed amount of time, in which case, DPS is out by many, and durability is in for reliability’s sake.

A noble aspiration, but an impossible one.

I don’t agree. Well, at least not in the sense of it being such a black and white issue. I also don’t think you interpreted the quoted poster accurately.

Sure, there will always be a meta and always be elitism, but the problem is currently allowed to be much more egregious than it could be because simply because only one role is valuable in dungeons – raw, direct offense. That is not an un-fixable problem.

For a variety of reasons not including the sheer potency of Berserker, there is no build diversity and no compelling reason to build anything other than Zerker. There is no reason it must remain so, because encounters and builds can be conceived that work with within the framework of a distinctive role structure – support, healing, control, or even tanking. Meta could be allowed to develop around these roles rather than just around the current single pure, direct DPS role.

In other words, with a smart approach, it can be constructed in a way that basically results in numerous metas rather than a single meta.

There is another good post somewhere on the forums, about why this shouldn’t be called a zerker meta, but an efficiency meta. No matter what you do players will run the most efficient build. If you nerf stuff to the point soldier is better, guess what… Soldier Meta! LF3M must have soldier gear. Without a drastic rework of game mechanics or a fix to conditions so condition players can be effective without their conditions being overwritten you won’t be seeing diversity. Buff healing? Doesn’t matter because the good dungeon runners are dodging and their utilities take care of the rest.

Zerker meta isn’t hurting anyone, I have full zerker/apothecary/dire sets and I play whatever build I want and I’ve never had an issue with anyone. Knowing the fights and playing your build to the best of your ability is all the matters. If you don’t care about efficiency then don’t be expect to do it as fast or let it bother you.

You’d all complain more if the efficiency meta was some combo like 3 zerker 2 condi, because people would get kicked left and right for those last two spots and we’d have even longer waits.

Final tip, post your own group. If you are waiting for somone to post there are bunch of people doing the same thing. Just be clear of your intentions, there are lots of people who could care less about what you run, as long as you are kind, ask questions if you don’t know, can handle friendly advice, and do your best. Who knows, you might run across me when I feel like playing banner war. Then we can all faceroll our way through the dungeon literally, while I heal for 1k + per second and give 0 kittens about what is happening…

Stop opening these threads…this is like the 3rd one today…

Sube Dai.8496:

Stop opening these threads…this is like the 3rd one today…

Nah, they need to be opened because it deserves serious discussion. Plus, it’s a free board.

hazenvirus.8154:

There is another good post somewhere on the forums, about why this shouldn’t be called a zerker meta, but an efficiency meta. No matter what you do players will run the most efficient build. If you nerf stuff to the point soldier is better, guess what… Soldier Meta! LF3M must have soldier gear. Without a drastic rework of game mechanics or a fix to conditions so condition players can be effective without their conditions being overwritten you won’t be seeing diversity. Buff healing? Doesn’t matter because the good dungeon runners are dodging and their utilities take care of the rest.

Zerker meta isn’t hurting anyone, I have full zerker/apothecary/dire sets and I play whatever build I want and I’ve never had an issue with anyone. Knowing the fights and playing your build to the best of your ability is all the matters. If you don’t care about efficiency then don’t be expect to do it as fast or let it bother you.

You’d all complain more if the efficiency meta was some combo like 3 zerker 2 condi, because people would get kicked left and right for those last two spots and we’d have even longer waits.

Final tip, post your own group. If you are waiting for somone to post there are bunch of people doing the same thing. Just be clear of your intentions, there are lots of people who could care less about what you run, as long as you are kind, ask questions if you don’t know, can handle friendly advice, and do your best. Who knows, you might run across me when I feel like playing banner war. Then we can all faceroll our way through the dungeon literally, while I heal for 1k + per second and give 0 kittens about what is happening…

None of that is the point. The point is that having little to no build diversity because there is only one role to rule them all is not good for the game. Regardless of how much or how little you care about that, it’s not really a defensible status quo.

Einlanzer.1627:

So we all know Berserker is by far the most effective build for most PvE,

Stopped there, no reason to continue with the rest if the beginning of the thread is completely flawed. “Berserker” is NOT a build, it’s your gear Stats. Let’s take a deep breath and repeat this as many times as it is required to understand it, gear stats DOES NOT equal your build.

There is no real problem with build Diversity in the game, good players switch their build on the fly to suit their party’s need. There is no problem with Support and Control either since the best players are using a LOT of both in any given run.

Unless of course you put Might Stacking, Aegis, Stability, Protection, Condi Cleanse, Stealth, Blind, Weakness, Reflects, Banners, Passive Stat Boosts, Spirits, Time Warp and all other Support/Control abilities, that are used in every single dungeon run, in “Damage” for some obscure reason.

Where exactly is the problem?

Einlanzer.1627:

hazenvirus.8154:

There is another good post somewhere on the forums, about why this shouldn’t be called a zerker meta, but an efficiency meta. No matter what you do players will run the most efficient build. If you nerf stuff to the point soldier is better, guess what… Soldier Meta! LF3M must have soldier gear. Without a drastic rework of game mechanics or a fix to conditions so condition players can be effective without their conditions being overwritten you won’t be seeing diversity. Buff healing? Doesn’t matter because the good dungeon runners are dodging and their utilities take care of the rest.

Zerker meta isn’t hurting anyone, I have full zerker/apothecary/dire sets and I play whatever build I want and I’ve never had an issue with anyone. Knowing the fights and playing your build to the best of your ability is all the matters. If you don’t care about efficiency then don’t be expect to do it as fast or let it bother you.

You’d all complain more if the efficiency meta was some combo like 3 zerker 2 condi, because people would get kicked left and right for those last two spots and we’d have even longer waits.

Final tip, post your own group. If you are waiting for somone to post there are bunch of people doing the same thing. Just be clear of your intentions, there are lots of people who could care less about what you run, as long as you are kind, ask questions if you don’t know, can handle friendly advice, and do your best. Who knows, you might run across me when I feel like playing banner war. Then we can all faceroll our way through the dungeon literally, while I heal for 1k + per second and give 0 kittens about what is happening…

None of that is the point. The point is that having little to no build diversity because there is only one role to rule them all is not good for the game. Regardless of how much or how little you care about that, it’s not really a defensible status quo.

There is one role to rule them all because every player does them all at once. It is each player’s responsibility to perform every roll as needed. Healing (self healing counts), support, and damage. I do all three by picking the best utilities for the content around the build I choose to play and then I go crush some dungeons because I don’t have to wait around while we get a healer and a tank and support because I can do all of them if I need to and so can everyone else. Certain builds and classes may excel in one area or another and you can hone a build to excel in an area, but at the end of the day you need to be doing all those things or you probably won’t be very successful.

There is nothing wrong with zerker gears.
As long as they remove the whole stacking thing , this game is fine as it is.

PS: you have no idea how hard mai trin gets when zerker players insist on wearing zerker but can’t dodge any single skill shots.

Jon Peters; MMO Champion Interview

We built this game so that the professions act as play styles, not as roles. Each profession can support, control, and do damage. We believe that this creates more dynamic combat and more distinct professions because there are more play styles than roles.

Professions and the combat mechanics are working as intended. Hard roles were never intended to be a thing in this game. Exclusion is a people issue. No game mechanic solution will ever remove exclusionary behavior from games.

While I have noticed that some dungeon bosses are boring, it’s not because there are no roles. They’d be boring if there were roles because “big sack of health with three attacks and nothing else” is only interesting (maybe) the first couple of times you do the encounter. Support is actually a big part of the game, it just isn’t something that requires specific gear. Frankly, I see nothing wrong with the mechanics of combat and the way professions bring different things to the table. What I see is people who can’t let go of the way things work in other games.

I’m fine with more interesting encounters. In fact, ANet is producing more varied mob mechanics, they just aren’t touching dungeons. Nor do I expect them to. The best you can hope for, I believe, is that guild raids (if/when) provide harder content with better mechanics or that ANet changes its stance on dungeons and produces new paths with more varied mechanics. I sincerely hope, though, that they stick to their guns and keep the diversity that the Jon Peters quote provides, and stay away from hard roles.

I don’t expect posters to get their heads away from the role paradigm from other games, but wish they would realize that gear = role only works if there are roles. If there are no roles, then gear serves a different purpose. I know that the stat system mimics that in games that have those roles, but that is not the intent with stats in this game.

Einlanzer.1627:

- Reduce mob health pools
- Grant mobs an evade mechanic to let them mitigate attacks occasionally*
- Tweak Precision to subtly affect to-hit rates for players
- Increase frequency of standard mob attacks
- Reduce damage of standard mob attacks
- Track conditions per each player instead of across all targeting players
- Modestly increase scaling from Healing Power for all healing skills
- Increase synergy between healing and boon support for some professions (perhaps a new stat combo) to allow for greater presence of support+healing builds

None of these would change anything. Well, you might get more condi builds, but that makes absolutely no difference, they’d still operate in the same way as zerker does.

Einlanzer.1627:

I always initiate with very benign/friendly posts but for some reason always get borderline belligerent responses. I don’t really understand why. Is this the norm for other people?

Anyway, it seems obvious to me that something needs to be done about the Zerker issue, if for no other reason than the impact it has on dungeon farming.

The reason why you get belligerent responses is because you’re are saying zerker is an issue. This kind of thread has come up every day for like two years now. There is nothing wrong with berserker being the best stat combination out there. Its not easy to use as most people who complain about it say it is and it focuses on damage so why wouldnt it be preferred for running fast dungeons. The only reason why people are so kitten by berserker is because theyve either been kicked for being full cleric in AC p1 or because they see people saying zerk only and feel excluded. You can wear and run whatever build you want to, no one but peer pressure is stopping you.

Change the title to “Discussion on Diversifying Builds”, move away from attacking Zerker and you will have an honest discussion. There is no zerker problem, but they’re is a lack of diversity. Should healing be buffed, imo it has been and it should not be necessary because it makes the game less fun. Should condition damage, semi support builds, and certain weapons and runes be buffed. Definitely. I don’t think anyone would argue against that.

I don’t think you really are attacking zerk so much as you are asking for harder challenges that require different builds. That’s true with all anti zerk threads except people dont seem to realize that. The tricky thing is to not have bosses require any builds just it to be easier for pugs to have certain builds. Ofc once dungeons have been repeated it will go back to zerker, but then Anet could release MORE DUNGEONS and theyre may be use for support once again to figure out how to get through them. That’s really the only way i can see this working. Having bosses where for unorganized group support is necessary in some way, having bosses where condition damage excels so having one or two condis is extremely beneficial, and constantly getting new and tough content that people may start liking support builds so they can ease theyre way through stuff.

No, zerker is fine, we already figured that those saying otherwise don’t know too much about the game. And I hope anet won’t listen to them, rather give me some more NPEs or whatever so these threads won’t pop up every other day.

Jana.6831:

No, zerker is fine, we already figured that those saying otherwise don’t know too much about the game. And I hope anet won’t listen to them, rather give me some more NPEs or whatever so these threads won’t pop up every other day.

+1

Op is obviously new.

Since there are people that want to get rid of the zerk meta. I want to ask a fews thing, which gear set do you think would actually improve gameplay over zerk?.. is it pvt?.. cleric?.. celestial?

Another question is do these gear sets actually change the way your class plays?.. does a valkyrie thief play so different from a beserker thief?.. or a pvt warrior vs zerker warrior?

I honestly would prefer Anet buffing class skills, weapons and traits because those are the things actually changes the playstyle of the class, not the stat stick that your dood is wearing.

The dungeon meta is already very healthy, its just horribly misunderstood by the pug community. If people were to understand that “gear” is not a build, its the weapon, traits and skills you use, then everyone would know dungeon folsters constant adaptation of these systems.

Lifestealer.4910:

The dungeon meta is already very healthy, its just horribly misunderstood by the pug community. If people were to understand that “gear” is not a build, its the weapon, traits and skills you use, then everyone would know dungeon folsters constant adaptation of these systems.

Yep. Dungeons are fine, the dungeon “meta” is fine, there is quite a lot of build diversity and a lot of options available for players to make their prefered builds.

Honestly when someone is talking about “Berserker builds” it’s a clear indication that they are either new to the game or completely ignorant. The first thing everyone that wants to talk about “zerkers” should do, is learn the difference between gear and build.

Builds are completely fine in the game.

Please merge with existing thread : This thread needs merging with : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/This-Meta-has-to-end/page/29#post4646986

Being good at the combat in this game and being able to avoid damage spikes via active defenses should reward you with being able to do more damage. I remember on release when zerkers were kicked from dungeon groups because everyone thought pve was so hard. It wasn’t, people just hadn’t learnt it yet. It’s working as intended imo.

There are a few things I think you’ve overlooked.

Offense is largely passive

This is false – offense depends very much on the proper rotation you use and how well you can time and execute that. This is an active component.

DPS = Passive offense ( stats ) + active offense ( rotation execution).

Track conditions per each player instead of across all targeting players

I’m not sure a lot can be done about conditions. The state of conditions in PVE has been a subject of complaint ever since a few months after release.
If they could fix it as simple as 1-2-3 I’m sure they would have by now.

n approach that would do wonders would be to adjust PvE combat to work more like PvP combat, with the following changes:

The thing with this one is – and this might come as a shock – PVE players don’t want to play PvP in their PVE.
It’s as simple as that. People who play PvE don’t want the kind of tension and gameplay they get by playing PvP.

If they did they would probably be playin PvP to begin with.

Only a minority of players in this game play PvP on a regular basis. Some of them enjoy it and some of them do it for the track progression that was newly added.

Anet tried crossing over some PvP elements into PvE with the toxic alliance living story patch. The feedback was mixed but ultimately a lot of people hated the new mobs ( which behaved more like you describe them) and I believe that was the reason the idea was dropped.

Players should have neither the ability nor the desire to dodge all incoming attacks. Active defense should center around particularly potent (usually telegraphed) attacks, with lower-damaging attacks just being absorbed by passive defense. Completely non-offensive builds should be available for some professions through an effective combination of healing and boon support.

What this does is :

1)It makes combat more boring since a lot of it now revolves around the passive mitigation of damage through gear which requires no skill or player input.

2)Completely non-offensive builds that work are something that Anet doesn’t want to put in the game.
The whole concept of GW2 is that you can’t specialize into roles such as tank or healer – with each player having to manage healing and staying alive individually.

So why would they allow people to become full-blown healers in a game that was advertised as having no healers? It makes no sense.

The overall tone of your suggestions indicate towards a raise in difficulty level in PvE.
I’m pretty sure the average casual GW2 player doesn’t want or need that.

Einlanzer.1627:

Lazaar.9123:

Being hostile is the reason why the other thread got closed, so let’s be more respectful this time please.

I always initiate with very benign/friendly posts but for some reason always get borderline belligerent responses. I don’t really understand why. Is this the norm for other people?

Anyway, it seems obvious to me that something needs to be done about the Zerker issue, if for no other reason than the impact it has on dungeon farming.

Dungeons have all but been written out of this game and it’s obvious it’s because Anet aren’t satisfied with the implementation and either don’t know how to fix it or aren’t motivated to. But, I would argue that the dungeon experience is very important to any MMO, and it should be supported by a functional role system, even if it is soft.

It’s a worthwhile discussion to take seriously.

1)The borderline belligerent responses are coming from players who’ve seen this thread done and redone over and over and for no good reasons. This thread and all threads like it sound like “please change the game for everyone so it can be made more enjoyable for me”.

2)Dungeons have been written out of this game because they’ve shifted focus entirely to open world PvE.
There’s no real “zerker” issue or “farming issue” – the only issues are poor scaling ( see AC) and old content that’s been done hundreds of times and people know it by heart.

The dungeons work – and they work well – but they work well the way when they are done in a way they were intended to be done :

1)By characters of the appropriate dungeon level
2)By characters that aren’t in best in slot gear
3)By players that aren’t that experienced with the game and its mechanics
4)By players that don’t know the content by heart and can write up every line of dialogue in a dungeon even if you woke them up at 3 am.

The dungeons are fine – the only problem they have is that content is static and can’t keep up with players.

At release nobody was farming dungeons – they were farming Orr – but soon after people got better: they got better gear, got to level 80, learned their classes and pretty soon learned the dungeon content so then – they started to farm it.

You can’t stop player progression through improvement of their characters and themselves.

Regarding roles – the whole approach to content in this game is this : No roles required for anything – any group can complete in any gear with any classes.

This is their core philosophy. Why change it? So that some people feel more wanted?

Also OP you should realize that “zerker” is not a role. It’s a type of gear that you wear.

Full zerker parties have roles – there are people doing support – because in this game your role is not tied into your gear.

You can go full support and still wear zerker. You can go full CC and still wear zerker.
Roles are defined by traits and skills and not by gear.

Please understand that just because you think that a 5 man zerker party is “all dps” that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re right.

Look deeper into high-end PVE and you’ll figure it out for yourself!

There’s already a way to slow down zerkers and fix AI in general.

Wvw guards → try fight those npcs. You will notice that they heal, albeit with an obvious animation, they still heal.
They also got either hard cc or blinds.

To fix Npcs and zerker meta you need ONLY 3 changes.
1 – higher attack rate with medium high damage
2 – npcs will randomly heal, cleanse conditions or use boons.
3 – npcs have two layers. (Think deathshroud), first layer represent armor. You deal less direct damage but it is not as high as the normal healthpool, second is the “life” which is huge, but you now do more direct damage.

Do this and every group must build more tanky or have a purely dedicated heal, or rely on excessive active defense spam, either way it will give you more, but better choices.

Prysin.8542:

There’s already a way to slow down zerkers and fix AI in general.

Wvw guards -> try fight those npcs. You will notice that they heal, albeit with an obvious animation, they still heal.
They also got either hard cc or blinds.

To fix Npcs and zerker meta you need ONLY 3 changes.
1 – higher attack rate with medium high damage
2 – npcs will randomly heal, cleanse conditions or use boons.
3 – npcs have two layers. (Think deathshroud), first layer represent armor. You deal less direct damage but it is not as high as the normal healthpool, second is the “life” which is huge, but you now do more direct damage.

Do this and every group must build more tanky or have a purely dedicated heal, or rely on excessive active defense spam, either way it will give you more, but better choices.

All those changes does is make thieves even more mandatory than they already are for dungeons, blind field + smoke screen to keep those attacks from getting thru and then headshot when they are about to heal.

Parties will be advertised as “LF thief” and not “LF tank and healer”

I have an idea .. Why not just program the AI for build recognition and if a player insists that a berzerker high dps is the only way to play then the AI in the game adjusts to the player / players and spikes for ten, no fifty times more damage than the player can recover from, allowing a balanced player a more balanced spike of five times what they can recover from. That would mean you would never be “bored” because you would spend months trying to figure out why you keep getting ganked.

I will put this in a nice and simple way

PVE = ZERK GEAR

PVP / WVW = BUILD DIVERSITY

ok understand now ???

OKAY

Let’s get it straight and limit to facts as there is a loooot of “Zerker meta is a problem” thread poping.

1) The game was designed to get rid of the “holy trinity”. This mean no dedicated tri-role HEALER/DPS/TANK. It’s at the very core of the game’s philosphy.
2) This imply that every class is able to perform every role to some extent.

Proof of that :

“We built this game so that the professions act as play styles, not as roles. Each profession can support, control, and do damage. We believe that this creates more dynamic combat and more distinct professions because there are more play styles than roles.” Jon Peters

Dedicated roles are NOT going to happen.

3) Whatever the system is there will always be ONE optimal solution. OPTIMAL mean the best. There can’t be two. You can try to fight that, but that’s pointless.
That being said, other options can be VIABLE depending on your standards (Don’t want max speed for clearing content ? It’s fine you know, a lot of people doesn’t care, myself included). Think Clearics/Soldier/whatever are not viable ? Watch the next proof in this post.
4) Berserker is a gear stat combo, IT IS NOT a build. A build is Traits + Weapons (of any stat combo, only the type of weapon matters) + Utility skills. You can roll a meta build and still wear Nomad’s or whatever you prefer.
5) Berserker gear is NOT mandatory to complete ANY content in this game. Knowledge and skill is. It means that you can roll whatever stat combo you want to do any content (maybe one exception would the Three Headed Wurm, but that’s it)
6) Actually, defensive stats combo AND build are very efficient to complete content easily.

Proof of that :

Lupicus meta build + clerics : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qc-h49HeqU
Solo Spider Queen cleric : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-zKXILTkQo

And many more on youtube, actually, you can even find a Warrior soloing Lupi in full cleric missing a lot of dodges that would mean insta death in phase 3 in Berserker and instead face tank it.
The healing power/thoughness/vitality is already fine, you can run that if you want. It’s very effective to maintain you alive without active defenses.

7) Looking for a group in the LFG tool is quite easy. NON META groups actually fills faster than Meta groups with gear check. For proof of that, go ahead and for any paths, try “Path x” and “Path x Meta builds/gear check” in the lfg tool.
8) Asking for a particular setup is fine. Not wanting to play in a certain way is fine. If it’s clearly stated before the run start, only people like minded should join. Non Zerkers joining Zerkers groups AND Zerkers forcing non Zerkers group to play Zerkers are BOTH wrong (and derserves to be kicked out of the group).
9) There is 2 ways of dealing damages in this game : Direct and Condition. It’s true that condition in PvE are not as good as direct damages in organised groups (due to ramp up time and cap), and ArenaNet know it and is working to fix this, they stated it multiple times already.

CONCLUSION AND TL;DR:

Don’t like Berserker “Meta” ? Don’t play it. You are not FORCED to play it. You CAN do it how you want it. This mean the so called META is NOT a problem. Dedicated roles ARE NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. If that’s what you are looking for, you are in the wrong place.

This thread has gone in two directions again:
1) PHIW being excluded from zerk only groups – they are not good enough, cannot use active defenses (can’t recognise and don’t want to that zerker groups use these) , don’t want to trait up in an optimal way (weapons,food,utils,traits) don’t understand there professions full potential and will protest until they are blue in the face.
OR
Just want to have good runs and be carried by others (eg zerkers)- and can’t be asked to form a PHIW group running what the hell you want and will protest until they are blue in the face.
OR
Don’t want to be told what to run and don’t want to learn from others – and will protest until they are blue in the face.
2) I cannot understand GW2 trinity (damage,support and control)- which all professions can do and want the (heal,DPS and tank)- cause that is all I understand from years of playing other MMOs. They will protest that GW2 is all wrong and needs to be changed until they are blue in the face.

If you fit any of the above- I hear that the smurfs 3 are looking for more actors.
As you’re blue in the face already you could land the star role !

Zerker gear should be nerfed heavly. Till zerk gear exist there will be no balance in this game.

Darkness.9732:

Zerker gear should be nerfed heavly. Till zerk gear exist there will be no balance in this game.

And then assassins stat set becomes the new meta. Will you then nerf that? And then Valkyrie becomes the new meta, will you nerf that after also? Nerfing stats does nothing, please actually use logic here.

Lazaar.9123:

Darkness.9732:

Zerker gear should be nerfed heavly. Till zerk gear exist there will be no balance in this game.

And then assassins stat set becomes the new meta. Will you then nerf that? And then Valkyrie becomes the new meta, will you nerf that after also? Nerfing stats does nothing, please actually use logic here.

Ssssh it’s the 11k Eviscerate guy

He only does 11k?

Geeze – I suppose it’s better than the 1 million flamethrower dude
That flamethrower so OP right now

" I don’t like being useful for my group, nerf the ability to be useful so I don’t feel guilty !"

The further the thread goes the clearly you get that people do not go far from AC much less other game modes. Please close thread?

I think the best mobs are in EotM, if they take some of those and add them to dungeons it will lead to some interesting fights. Only reason EotM mobs look “easy mode” is because players are overloading them with great numbers, however if you attack those mobs with fewer players (or solo) they can prove a challenge.

Lots of those mobs have good control skills (knockbacks , knockdowns, immobilize, cripple) and almost all of them have a healing skill that mimics player healing skills. Trolls convert damage to healing, Grawl use poison heal skill, Ogres activate damage immunity etc etc

Those mobs (and the bosses) have the best encounter design in the game, too bad they are wasted in a map where 200 players attack a single one of them making their great skillsets useless.

I just wanted to remind everyone of this interesting little tidbit from the devs back when the much loathed ferocity change was launching.

“We want to make support roles more viable so they are not supporting other players by just killing things faster.”

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/b/496005243?t=8m40s

In that video, the devs discussed briefly their motives for making the change which was partly because player damage was considered way too high by the balance team and in part because of player criticism with how “support” was being defined by part of the player base. Anet understands the issues with condition damage imbalance, they understand why players complain about the best group support, and they probably agree with some but not all points on this many faceted issue mentioned in these numerous threads. It’s also hard to say whether or not they agree with certain balance issues given the pace of balance updates. A pattern is difficult to discern.

It’s been discussed at length that the current optimized builds and gameplay can change for the better and it’s only a matter for Anet to determine what they feel better is. This meta that we’ve settled into has its pros and cons. When continuing to discuss what we have and what we could have, remember that balance as it is can be improved upon. It always can.

Can we stop making those thread? There is clearly one side that thing there is a problem with the system while the other system thing the system is awesome and we only need new challenging content.

This will never end.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/How-to-Give-Good-Feedback/first#post3383470

Read – this is why this post and many others will get shot down:

Turn down the negative tone.
There’s a difference between being critical and being negative. Learn this difference and avoid the latter. Select words that show you’ve thought about the effects of the problem rather than simply presenting your gut reaction.

NO: “I can’t see around that ridiculous ball of puke-colored light.”
YES: "The light around this character obstructs the view from most camera angles and is an unpleasant shade of yellow.

No one knows best.
Avoid taking an inflexible position or positioning yourself as the authority. Proposals should be accepted on their merits and practicality. Disagreements should be settled after careful consideration. Using forceful, pretentious language hurts your point. If your argument is “You need to do it my way because I know best,” then we probably won’t because it seems you don’t.

NO: “I’ve played games like this since I was ten. Trust me: you have to include polearms.”
YES: “In games I’ve played with polearms, I’ve enjoyed the variety they provided in attack speed and length. I think we could use that.”

Don’t speak from inexperience.
Avoid making suggestions for things you didn’t try or ask about. If you suggest there be an error when trying to equip a hat on your feet, and that error already exists, your suggestion will be taken as seriously as one from a person with a hat on their feet.

Avoid inaccuracies.
If your feedback includes information that is inaccurate, the recipient may discard it whole. If you mention how the character can equip only a sword when it’s also possible to equip an ax or bow, the reader may stop reading before getting to your awesome suggestion about new sword attacks.

Known issues are just that: already known.
There may be a time and place to discuss well-covered issues, but if it’s not explicitly pertinent to your feedback, avoid bringing up other known issues.
NO: “Then we crashed again. There was another crash. There certainly was a lot of crashing today. I think the game would be better if we had fewer crashes.”
Note: This is not to say that you can’t echo suggestions from other people, nor is it to say that you need to drop an issue once it’s been responded to.

Your thread meets all the criteria in bold so far.

I think “in speedrun PUGs” needs to clearly be added to any comment about zerker creating lack of diversity.

Most players do not care about your build. In fact, I’ve only ever seen it come up once where gear needed to be pinged. And that was a specific speedrun group.

I experiment builds all the time. Last night my guild ran FoTM32. We had a heal spec elementalist (Nomad, omg awesome btw, makes things so much easier), a might stack build Guardian (PVT w/ clerics trinkets, GS/staff, this was me, I’m playing around with it), a celestial ranger, a PVT rifle warrior (wasn’t a huge fan of this one), and Assassin build thief. We didn’t wipe once. Not one of us was zerker. And we finished in ~1hr (harpy, charr, dredge, mai were our rolls).

There’s nothing wrong with zerker. Zerker is for a specific play style. If you don’t want to run zerker, don’t. If you want highest DPS, and don’t mind needing to be extra aware of dodges, run zerker.

Now if you want to join a speedrun group, you need zerker for the most part. That’s a specific style of play. You can’t have both. If you want the fastest possible method of killing things, there’s only one stat combo that will be the best for that. If you want to be able to test out new builds, you need to be OK with killing things slower.

Sometimes I feel you guys want to somehow have the freedom to try different stat combinations yet still be at the top end of DPS. That isn’t possible in any MMO that uses stat formulas to figure damage output.

krixis.9538:

I will put this in a nice and simple way

PVE = ZERK GEAR

PVP / WVW = BUILD DIVERSITY

ok understand now ???

It’s more like this:

PvE = zerk gear
PvP = celestial gear
WvW = who cares, it’s ZvZ