Guild Wars 2

pdavis.8031:

I stopped the argument because of A) it is off topic, continuing this conversation would only result in more personal attacks against each other, and anyone else who wanted to join in, and C) It’s counter productive. Clearly berserker DPS is the fastest way to clear content. Period. Ripping apart my build and/or any other build because you don’t like it for whatever reason only serves to create dissension, and nothing more.

Furthermore, it’s this attitude that I was referring to earlier. It serves no purpose other than to stroke the ego of such players who get their jollies from putting down other players. I understand its not the entire berserker community, not saying it is. But the fact remains that it is there, and does more damage to the game as a whole than any broken mechanics and meta builds will ever do.

Good man, good man. A lot better than I would have responded, in my current mood. =P

Remember, it’s just pixels and digital property we don’t own. No need to get a huge ego about it. And you can’t put “dungeon runner” on a resume, unless you’re trying to work for ANet or Blizzard. …though, can you then? Those make for good credentials when applying to an MMO producer.

pdavis.8031:

maha.7902:

If I hadn’t completely wiped the floor with every single thing you said, you wouldn’t have said anything like that, but thanks to your lack of counterargument, you now just want to slink away.

I stopped the aurgument because of A) it is off topic, B ) continuing this converstion would only result in more personal attacks against each other, and anyone else who wanted to join in, and C) It’s counter productive. Clearly beserker DPS is the fastest way to clear content. Period. Ripping apart my build and/or any other build because you don’t like it for whatever reason only serves to create dissention, and nothing more.

Furthermore, it’s this attitude that I was refering to ealier. It serves no purpose other than to stroke the ego of such players who get their jollies from putting down other players. I understand its not the entire beserker community, not saying it is. But the fact remains that it is there, and does more damage to the game as a whole than any broken mechanics and meta builds will ever do.

I don’t “dislike” your build. I am calmly explaining why your choices are suboptimal. Don’t use axe 4 because you have almost full fury uptime, don’t use axe 5 because it’s low DPS and you can use signet of fury or healing surge to fill adrenaline, and then with the obligatory “I soloed while dead zerkers were on the floor” I told you that I’ve soloed bosses on my berserker build character.

“Here is the “place” for valkyrie – you enjoy roleplaying a tank, you enjoy roleplaying “support”, you want to use your ascended drop, you’re too lazy to get berserker or you want to make some sort of statement about how valkyrie is fine (which it is, but it’s suboptimal). It’s one of those four which is why you take an armour set with a defensive stat.”
Here’s a nice example. You may not have noticed, but to the casual reader it looks like you’re trying to bully him into a zerker spec.

Except it doesn’t at all – I’m just giving the main reasons people use defensive stats in PvE, and I feel I probably encompassed 99% of players. If he doesn’t want to use berserker, I honestly don’t care – I don’t care what people in this game do in their dungeons because I’m not playing in their instances, I’m only interested in preventing the spread of misinformation and simply trying to teach people.

pdavis.8031:

maha.7902:

If I hadn’t completely wiped the floor with every single thing you said, you wouldn’t have said anything like that, but thanks to your lack of counterargument, you now just want to slink away.

I stopped the aurgument because of A) it is off topic, continuing this converstion would only result in more personal attacks against each other, and anyone else who wanted to join in, and C) It’s counter productive. Clearly beserker DPS is the fastest way to clear content. Period. Ripping apart my build and/or any other build because you don’t like it for whatever reason only serves to create dissention, and nothing more.

Furthermore, it’s this attitude that I was refering to ealier. It serves no purpose other than to stroke the ego of such players who get their jollies from putting down other players. I understand its not the entire beserker community, not saying it is. But the fact remains that it is there, and does more damage to the game as a whole than any broken mechanics and meta builds will ever do.

Why do people confuse the mindset so much?

It’s not that we like it therefore it’s efficient. We like efficiency, and then we figure out what builds are in favor of that. It’s PHIW’s that tend to bring up anything objective into something personal.

If people make builds which are suboptimal, and if they know it, I’m betting that they wouldn’t get flamed on as much if they just wrote a disclaimer: this is a “fun” suboptimal build for people to use if they want to.

None of us would touch that. But many suboptimal builds are being posted and are ignorantly suboptimal and then pretend that it’s the optimal choice only if you play it “properly”.

The problem here is not that there’s ‘berserker’ gear.

The problem comes from two issues:

1. How stats are picked and used.
If, for example, only armor could had defensive stats an only weapons could have offensive stats, while trinkets (and shields) had a mix of both, things would have developed in a better direction when it comes to this. When picking armor you would choose between things like armor, health, critical resistance and boon duration, while with weapons you would choose between direct damage, critical chance, critical damage, condition duration, and condition damage. You would choose your focus for offense and your focus for defense, instead choosing between offense and defense altogether.

Same with trait lines. There’s two stats on each line, and with some you pick only offensive stats, and in others you pick only defensive stats, and depending on profession, some are mixed, so you can’t pick you choice in offense and your choice in defense without picking something else, and always having to pick one of each, allowing players to pick just offense for many professions.

2. The content is too forgiving with berserker builds. They can kill so fast that make defense unnecessary in some cases. But if you made things take longer and require attrition, things can get way more boring and slow.

These two things add up into make berserker builds work too well in certain situations.

Rauderi.8706:

Scrambles.2604:

Rauderi.8706:

We wouldn’t even have these ‘zerker’ threads if speed-run groups had a better reputation for civility were accessible by everyone without having to expend effort or build skill.

I’m sensing some hypocracy in your zerker support modus operandus. -_-
And at the same time, I’m seeing evidence that supports my hypothesis.

Maybe I’m taking it the wrong way, but negating a statement about reputation and civility and turning it into a statement of blaming on “everyone” (read as “the bads”) with no “effort” or “skill” is exactly the kind of thing that turns people off.

Philosophically, you can’t call for “being nice to zerkers” in one breath and slam another group in the next and still be taken seriously. But maybe I misinterpreted, which is also possible.

I see what you are saying and no i did not mean it in that way or as a slight to a certain player base.

I don’t think it would make a difference what type of reputation speed-runners have. They could rudely tell you to leave, silently boot you, or politely ask you to depart, but none the less, the player will feel left out because they can’t participate in that group.

There is always a sense of animosity towards players that participate in exclusive content. If the content isn’t accessible for everyone, players get left out and get mad.

GW2 tried to avoid this by making all everyone in any gear viable for anything, and removing closed raids in favor of open world accessible raid-like content. Yet, the tid-bit of exclusionary content that exists is always under attack from people that can’t/wont participate in it.

Like i said in the quote i altered, this friction wouldn’t exist if any player in any gear could participate in speed runs. But unfortunately, the bar for speed-runs is set slightly higher, requiring you to optimally tune your character and gain the knowledge/experience/skills to do speed runs. Players are left out of this and get upset.

I’m sure there are speed-runners out there that are needlessly rude to players, just like there are players in this thread that are needlessly rude to speed-runners. But again, like zerkers, there is no reason to assume just because you are a speed-runner that you are also a jerk.

If zerker was fine, there wouldn’t be threads like this.

Iluth.6875:

If zerker was fine, there wouldn’t be threads like this.

Good heavens! Such logic.

Scrambles.2604

I see what you are saying and no i did not mean it in that way or as a slight to a certain player base.

My apologies, then.

I did some ruminating while I was on a constitutional, and it led to an additional thought, partially about in-group/out-group psychology you mentioned earlier.

Mayhap I’m simply too goal oriented to care much about the actual time of a speed run. Granted, the goal of a speed run is to finish the run in under a specified time, which of course makes Berserker necessary. (Why not Assassin, I wonder, but eh. :P)

As said by many before, we generally don’t have a problem with speed run requests. It’s when we see stuff like

you’re not an elite dungeon runner like some of us here are

that we start forming these impressions.

I also got to thinking about the use of the words like “elite” and “skill”. It’s literally terrible use of the words. “Practiced” is much more apropos. “Studied” perhaps? “Optimized” for certain. But not “elite.”

It’s got nothing to do with what gear people use.
So the title is right “Zerker is fine.”

FenrirSlakt.3692:

Iluth.6875:

If zerker was fine, there wouldn’t be threads like this.

Good heavens! Such logic.

Can’t tell if you’re being snide or not, but since this is the internet I’ll assume you are.

My reasoning is that, if it was fine, it would be accepted as fine and people wouldn’t be debating whether it was fine or not.

Fine is not an objective thing in this situation. And people cannot speak for other people and say anything in a videogame is “fine” and does not need change. For those who wear zerker gear, they would lose nothing if other people could use other gear and builds and still make a viable contribution to dungeons.

People who dont want diversity, they think it’s fine. Others who do, don’t think so.

Berserker really isn’t fine, though I suppose it depends on what game mode your in.

PvE, it probably doesn’t matter either way, as nearly everything can be done in zerker.

PvP, not sure how many people roll zerker gear in small scale combat and succeed..

WvW, this is where it glaringly shows how out of scale it is with the rest of the gear. If you pit 2 of the same classes against each other, then put one in full zerker gear and the other in full PVT gear; the PVT geared player does more damage.

Now seeing as that zerker gear is supposed to be the highest dps gear in the game, it makes no sense that a PVT geared person does more damage to them.

I really don’t think this was intentional on their part, but it proves zerker gear is not fine. Either that, or call zerker gear fine, and bring other gear in line with it, like lowering the amount of power on other gear and reducing the effectiveness of toughness.

DeadlySynz.3471:

Berserker really isn’t fine, though I suppose it depends on what game mode your in.

PvE, it probably doesn’t matter either way, as nearly everything can be done in zerker.

PvP, not sure how many people roll zerker gear in small scale combat and succeed..

WvW, this is where it glaringly shows how out of scale it is with the rest of the gear. If you pit 2 of the same classes against each other, then put one in full zerker gear and the other in full PVT gear; the PVT geared player does more damage.

Now seeing as that zerker gear is supposed to be the highest dps gear in the game, it makes no sense that a PVT geared person does more damage to them.

I really don’t think this was intentional on their part, but it proves zerker gear is not fine. Either that, or call zerker gear fine, and bring other gear in line with it, like lowering the amount of power on other gear and reducing the effectiveness of toughness.

I’m not sure how much WvW you’ve done, but the guys doing all the damage aren’t wearing soldier gear.

If you are actually being killed by guys in soldier gear while you’re in zerker, then it’s a problem on your part with build and lack of practice. I’m assuming we’re talking about fair fights here, or as fair as you can get in wvw anyway.

In my experience, wvwers tend to view soldier gear as their starter set. Unless they’re building specifically for bunkering in a zerg or something like that. The “meta” if there is such a thing, is either zerker or condi build.

DeadlySynz.3471:

WvW, this is where it glaringly shows how out of scale it is with the rest of the gear. If you pit 2 of the same classes against each other, then put one in full zerker gear and the other in full PVT gear; the PVT geared player does more damage.

I’d love to see the test data for this. It’s very likely that, in that scenario, PVT reduces full-zerk damage by enough to negate the natural burst from crits while giving enough passive Power bonus to break through the zerk’s lack of defense.

PvP and WvW are a lot harder to predict for optimum gear choices, though.

PvE is pretty simple: Zerk for dungeons and PVT for world bosses (since they reportedly don’t take crits)

Berserker’s IS fine.

Calling a build suboptimal FOR a speedrun is OK.

Calling a never meant to be optimal build “terribad” is the frequent lack of human decency in these forums. It has nothing to do with " telling how it is", but with utter lack of social graces, and it’s the one common reason there tends to be an “anti-zerk” bias with many players in the game. If some of these speed runners just stopped caring about what others wear, calling people ridiculous names (“casual carebears” and the such) and more about playing how they want (ironically THEY ARE “playhowiwants” too, as that’s precisely what they are doing), there would be less of an issue with this. I do feel bad for players who do enjoy playing Berserker’s gear and are decent people to each other, because both them and their favorite gear gets unnecessarily thrashed because of the bad reputation jerks give them.

Granted, being jerks to jerks is no sort of solution. But just darned play and let play, and please do not be convinced that the “right way” to play must be the way you have chosen to enjoy the game (this also applies to non-speedrunners.)

^
This is what I was trying to say. Well done.

Belzebu.3912:

Dalanor.5387:

As i asked you politely, watch the videos or leave the discussion. You obviously didnt do the former one, but i’ll answer for the last time.

Unfortunately I can’t watch the videos now since I’m at work, but I will as soon as possible, for now I have to answer from my experience.

Alright, I just watched the videos.
The Arah one is interesting, a build where it is so pug friendly that you can fight some bosses w/o dodging, BUT in a group where they know the mechanics, HUGE part of the healing wouldn’t be even used, actually would make the party suffer since the they would be hit longer.
That run took 1:20 to finish …

I still think the problem with the game isn’t that there is a “Best way to handle dungeons”, but that it’s so homogenous and terrible-looking. Also – it has unbalanced the value of exotic gear.

People wouldn’t have a problem if the ‘ideal run’ used a blend of different types of gear and sigils, while moving about the battlefield with coordination and distinct placement (IE – not stacking into a pile of clipped polygons, nor just running around like decapitated chickens)

Iluth.6875:

If the GW2 forum wasn’t full of clueless people, there wouldn’t be threads like this.

Fixed it for you.

Belzebu.3912:

Belzebu.3912:

Dalanor.5387:

As i asked you politely, watch the videos or leave the discussion. You obviously didnt do the former one, but i’ll answer for the last time.

Unfortunately I can’t watch the videos now since I’m at work, but I will as soon as possible, for now I have to answer from my experience.

Alright, I just watched the videos.
The Arah one is interesting, a build where it is so pug friendly that you can fight some bosses w/o dodging, BUT in a group where they know the mechanics, HUGE part of the healing wouldn’t be even used, actually would make the party suffer since the they would be hit longer.
That run took 1:20 to finish …

See? Tanky builds are more than viable. Fact. But people dont use it. Why? Because its so horribly slow … Of course, the players in the video are very good ones and the average pug would be just slower. But instead of learning how to berserker (oh my gawd its sounds so bad), they just complain. 00662 staff guardian isnt support, it wont bring anything to the table, its just simply slows down the run etc, you know all those bad builds.

But if you specificaly build for such gameplay, its viable and trust me, those mobs hits hard, most of them are truly one shot certain classes in zerker. Well, sure they got a lot of overhealing, but isnt really an issue here. The funny thing is, with perma protection they got so much defense that cant be even reach with gear. Slaying potions gives another 10% damage reduction and weakness can proc every now and then. If you stack up toughness and vitality beside that, you are immortal.

And this is what bothers a lot of us. People blame every berserker player for no apparent reason, maybe because they cant pull of such things and feel left out when they are kicked from dungeons, which is often just a learn to read issue. Also, a lot of player refuse to use such builds, which is fine on its own, but you can optimize “crappy” builds too, so you can benefit more to your group.
Simple example. Change your Signet of Might on warrior to For great justice. Instead of personal 180 power, you give 525 power partywide (5x 105) and fury. See? One click and you are more beneficial to your party, even if its not really noticable. But same examples can be said about every class.

tl;dr: Berserker gear and builds are fine, people and their attitude towards others who like to play in an efficient way (go trough content faster) is the issue again.

Darkobra.6439:

Sirendor.1394:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Xenon.4537:

The gear is fine.

The content being designed solely around it isn’t fine.

looks around for content designed solely for berserker gear

>.> <.<

can’t find

Come on lol… berserker gear is promoted because dungeons can be completed by stack and dps. The problem is definitely not the gear, but it definitely IS the content in the dungeon being too mind-numbing stupid.

For all those arguing otherwise… learn to think and stop being a zombie.

Did you just tell people to learn to think and “stop being a zombie” by playing the game in that EXACT manner? Hide in a corner and auto attack! Learn to think by not thinking!

Sun Tzu said that, didn’t he?

I think you completely missed my point. I disgust “that exact manner” (= stack and dps) and would like dungeons to involve strategy, teamwork and more things that disable everyone from using stack in a corner and dps.

Sirendor.1394:

Darkobra.6439:

Sirendor.1394:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Xenon.4537:

The gear is fine.

The content being designed solely around it isn’t fine.

looks around for content designed solely for berserker gear

>.> <.<

can’t find

Come on lol… berserker gear is promoted because dungeons can be completed by stack and dps. The problem is definitely not the gear, but it definitely IS the content in the dungeon being too mind-numbing stupid.

For all those arguing otherwise… learn to think and stop being a zombie.

Did you just tell people to learn to think and “stop being a zombie” by playing the game in that EXACT manner? Hide in a corner and auto attack! Learn to think by not thinking!

Sun Tzu said that, didn’t he?

I think you completely missed my point. I disgust “that exact manner” (= stack and dps) and would like dungeons to involve strategy, teamwork and more things that disable everyone from using stack in a corner and dps.

Video proof how you just stack and dps.
No dodge, no defense, just damage.
If you cant do it, you already exploit with pvt.

ps: Im curious, can you tell me what kind of encounter would need strategy and teamwork? An example from WoW or other well known MMO’s is fine too.

I write about these things every once in awhile. So, a few links. First, the berserker thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/To-clear-the-air-about-Berserker/first

This outlines what a few of the issues with berserker are. The short version:

#1: Anet has to balance rewards and difficulty around something. Balancing without zerker leads to inflation of gold, and boring/unchallenging content. Balancing with zerker in mind leads to unrewarding, overly difficult content that much of the playerbase can’t get in to. The ideal balance should be in the middle of the two, but with the distance so wide between reward times for gear choices, Anet will end up satisfying no one.

#2: The more diverse styles of gameplay that is encouraged, the more diverse the players the game will attract. Having multiple ways for players to express themselves is a good business model, and currently the PVE game doesn’t enforce this too well.

Unfortunately, the best solution so far seems to be to make the game harder in ways that are specific in their discrimination against pure DPS strategies. Such as adding higher ambient damage through faster attacks, and adding mechanics to the game that encourage smart use of movement skills, debuffs, and the various other mechanics that are currently only used in PVP. This pushes the zerker issue into that gray area where the solution just may be more harmful than the problem. At least in short term, anyway.

Now, about stacking: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Stacking-analyzed-and-ideas-for-mob-design/first

#1: The stacking issue is not a zerker issue. All the reasons people stack in zerker gear is the exact same list of reasons people will stack in cleric gear and soldier gear.

#2: Stacking as an issue is mostly a cosmetic one. This is, however, still an issue, and does reflect to a certain degree how generic many mobs are.

#3: Many of the issues attributed to stacking are really standalone issues. I.E. The spider queen not using her AoEs, which may be a problem, is an issue of enemy programming and not stacking.

Dalanor.5387:

ps: Im curious, can you tell me what kind of encounter would need strategy and teamwork? An example from WoW or other well known MMO’s is fine too.

AC path 2. It requires fairly exact coordination that’s frustrating as hell with a PUG.

…And that’s why speedrunners don’t do it. That path will never be “efficient”, so it gets ignored.

Basically, it doesn’t matter if all the dungeons suddenly had interesting mechanics and environmental triggers, the path of least resistance will get the most attention.

Even in WoW, there are some bosses that are little more than tank-and-spank. They serve as basic DPS gates to harder content.

Dalanor.5387:

See? Tanky builds are more than viable. Fact. But people dont use it. Why? Because its so horribly slow …

I see where are you going, I totally agree with you.
My point isn’t about zerker build, it is about zerker set. GW2 allow several different builds in PvE and that build be actually effective (not ideal, just effective) but unfortunately most builds can be made wearing zerker set, support guardian, warrior mesmer can be made in zerker and be as effective.

The problem I see is that another sets doesn’t really scale well with support builds while offensive sets scales A LOT with power builds, but tank builds ARE viable, just not as good as builds wearing zerker set.

Rauderi.8706:

Dalanor.5387:

ps: Im curious, can you tell me what kind of encounter would need strategy and teamwork? An example from WoW or other well known MMO’s is fine too.

AC path 2. It requires fairly exact coordination that’s frustrating as hell with a PUG.

…And that’s why speedrunners don’t do it. That path will never be “efficient”, so it gets ignored.

Basically, it doesn’t matter if all the dungeons suddenly had interesting mechanics and environmental triggers, the path of least resistance will get the most attention.

Even in WoW, there are some bosses that are little more than tank-and-spank. They serve as basic DPS gates to harder content.

That’s weird. My speed runner pals duo or three man path 2 and let me leech it daily on EU.

Rauderi.8706:

Dalanor.5387:

ps: Im curious, can you tell me what kind of encounter would need strategy and teamwork? An example from WoW or other well known MMO’s is fine too.

AC path 2. It requires fairly exact coordination that’s frustrating as hell with a PUG.

…And that’s why speedrunners don’t do it. That path will never be “efficient”, so it gets ignored.

Basically, it doesn’t matter if all the dungeons suddenly had interesting mechanics and environmental triggers, the path of least resistance will get the most attention.

Even in WoW, there are some bosses that are little more than tank-and-spank. They serve as basic DPS gates to harder content.

LFG speed runners =/= not real speed runners
http://youtu.be/drVphfN9N2o
http://youtu.be/8NpASgkmbes

And whats so strategic in that dungeon?
Spider is the same.
Kohler is the same.
Graveling event just requires minimal amount of cc to kill mobs with gimmick mechanics.
Skippy part.
Average los and kill part.
Gimmicky mechanic to prepare to last boss fight.
Boss melts, with or without fgs cornering.

If you cant do it it doesnt mean its hard.

Belzebu.3912:

I see where are you going, I totally agree with you.
My point isn’t about zerker build, it is about zerker set. GW2 allow several different builds in PvE and that build be actually effective (not ideal, just effective) but unfortunately most builds can be made wearing zerker set, support guardian, warrior mesmer can be made in zerker and be as effective.

The problem I see is that another sets doesn’t really scale well with support builds while offensive sets scales A LOT with power builds, but tank builds ARE viable, just not as good as builds wearing zerker set.

Thats the point. Gear just a bonus damage source based on your skill, and more or less your party.
Thats the main point in GW2 combat, roles are independent from gear. If you miss it, go back to WoW. Simple.

ps: Reflects scale with crit% and crit dmg, so berserker gear affects “support builds”.

Rauderi.8706:

Dalanor.5387:

ps: Im curious, can you tell me what kind of encounter would need strategy and teamwork? An example from WoW or other well known MMO’s is fine too.

AC path 2. It requires fairly exact coordination that’s frustrating as hell with a PUG.

…And that’s why speedrunners don’t do it. That path will never be “efficient”, so it gets ignored.

Basically, it doesn’t matter if all the dungeons suddenly had interesting mechanics and environmental triggers, the path of least resistance will get the most attention.

Even in WoW, there are some bosses that are little more than tank-and-spank. They serve as basic DPS gates to harder content.

I’d rather do p2 than p3 any day.

P2 > P3?
I question it because P3 is the same zergstack last boss as a lot of the other quick-run paths.
P2 has the environmental gimmick (which I loathe), that slows the fight down quite a bit.

Granted, we’re not going to see actual strategy combat until we get new dungeons/encounters that split up the players with simultaneous objectives.

Sartharina.3542:

I still think the problem with the game isn’t that there is a “Best way to handle dungeons”, but that it’s so homogenous and terrible-looking. Also – it has unbalanced the value of exotic gear.

People wouldn’t have a problem if the ‘ideal run’ used a blend of different types of gear and sigils, while moving about the battlefield with coordination and distinct placement (IE – not stacking into a pile of clipped polygons, nor just running around like decapitated chickens)

That’s ok if you think that, but its not totally true. Ya your right that for the gear specifically the choice is limited to berserker. But if you think that mean that its so homogenous, then your wrong. On my guardian i still can’t decide what I’m gonna play 2 years after the launch of the game. GS +S/F or GS + H. Two totally different weapons set that each give their advantage and disadvantage. Most speed clearer or meta user have almost all the weapons of their profession. I always have a GS, Sword, Focus, Hammer, Scepter and Staff in my inventory and several of use have different version of these weapons with different sigil depending what we are doing at the moment. Sigil of Night, Sigil of Force, Sigil of Accuracy, Sigil of Strenght, Sigil or Energy, Sigil of Bloodlust, Sigil of Perception, etc. You have several good option to choose here depending on your playstyle. For runes? Scholar or Strenght are the most popular, but Flame Legion and Ruby Orbs are some good options and they are cheap.

And when you come into trait, then you have some much possibility. 4/5/0/0/5, 4/6/2/0/2, 5/5/2/0/2, 3/5/0/4/2 and 5/5/0/40 and that are only build from Obal’s guide. I use 4/6/0/2/2 myself.

And for organisation and teamwork? When we speed run, my guildmate and I are talking and working together for the whole path, calling what each other will do to make sure that everybody know their part.

Rauderi.8706:

P2 > P3?
I question it because P3 is the same zergstack last boss as a lot of the other quick-run paths.
P2 has the environmental gimmick (which I loathe), that slows the fight down quite a bit.

Granted, we’re not going to see actual strategy combat until we get new dungeons/encounters that split up the players with simultaneous objectives.

P3 is so awfully boring because of the long timegated event on the burrows. Setting up one trap is nothing remotely close to the dreadfully boring p3.

It’s the same reason why CoF p3 is more fun than CoF p2.

xallever.1874:

P3 is so awfully boring because of the long timegated event on the burrows. Setting up one trap is nothing remotely close to the dreadfully boring p3.

Truuuue. I’d lapsed on that part. A lot of standing around waiting for spawns and killing lootless trash mobs. Un-fun. (And off topic. Sorry about that. XD)

Refrain: ’zerker is fine!

@Rauderi
I asked for you to tell me an encounter with strategy and teamwork involved, be it GW2 or other MMO example.
You said AC p2, which isnt true imo and you dont provided feedback.
So again, which encounter involves strategy and teamwork in this or other another game?

edit:

I have to correct myself. Those instance involved strategy (solved almost two years ago) and teamwork (thats why 5 of you going there), which is true for every dungeon, but going along with your logic, that way AC p2 doesnt involve strategy nor teamwork.

If you discount AC2 for being a “gimmick” fight, then I’m not sure what to tell you. (Granted AC2 is a huge gimmick fight and I loathe it for that…)

Most “strategy” encounters in MMOs usually involve managing an additional aspect of the environment or performing multiple actions in concert with your party/raid.

Since I recently raid-bombed some old WoW content with a buddy, I can prattle on about those:

Monolith A has 3 mobs that invoke different phases, provoking immunities or status effects unless the dps are positioned properly.
Monolith B creates adds that heal it if they get near the boss. It also creates a shield that damages the party if they don’t stop DPS.
Monolith C has turrets that are needed to damage it, requiring phases that protect it from a rush of adds.
Monolith D adds a special status that gets chipped away. If it breaks, the character turns hostile on the party, then dies. Meanwhile, others await the chance to dive into another part of the fight and weaken the boss.

Monolith A is a fight from WoW’s Ulduar.
Monolith B is Subject 6, GW2’s Thaumanova.
Monolith C is …no, not Tequatl, a boss fight from FF14’s Castrum Meridianum.
Monolith D is Yogg-Saron, WoW’s Ulduar. (Kitten Yogg-Saron. Kitten him in the face… -_-)

All of those fights have gimmicks: adds, adds + damage shields, turrets, sanity meters.

But they also require strategy to execute and none can be tank/stack-and-spank’d.

Rauderi.8706:

If you discount AC2 for being a “gimmick” fight, then I’m not sure what to tell you. (Granted AC2 is a huge gimmick fight and I loathe it for that…)

Most “strategy” encounters in MMOs usually involve managing an additional aspect of the environment or performing multiple actions in concert with your party/raid.

Since I recently raid-bombed some old WoW content with a buddy, I can prattle on about those:

Monolith A has 3 mobs that invoke different phases, provoking immunities or status effects unless the dps are positioned properly.
Monolith B creates adds that heal it if they get near the boss. It also creates a shield that damages the party if they don’t stop DPS.
Monolith C has turrets that are needed to damage it, requiring phases that protect it from a rush of adds.
Monolith D adds a special status that gets chipped away. If it breaks, the character turns hostile on the party, then dies. Meanwhile, others await the chance to dive into another part of the fight and weaken the boss.

Monolith A is a fight from WoW’s Ulduar.
Monolith B is Subject 6, GW2’s Thaumanova.
Monolith C is …no, not Tequatl, a boss fight from FF14’s Castrum Meridianum.
Monolith D is Yogg-Saron, WoW’s Ulduar. (Kitten Yogg-Saron. Kitten him in the face… -_-)

All of those fights have gimmicks: adds, adds + damage shields, turrets, sanity meters.

But they also require strategy to execute and none can be tank/stack-and-spank’d.

This is what we should be preaching to Anet. This is what we mean by improving the content instead of screwing with the gear.

Oh but wait, you called a game mechanic a “gimmick” and now everyone will instantly shun it instead of actually thinking about it…

The devs are slowly coming around to better encounter design. Slowly. :\

My inclusion of the word “gimmick” was to portray that ALL complex fights have a special component that must be navigated, as a counter to an above comment. Just because someone doesn’t like a mechanic, that doesn’t invalidate that it’s still there and a valid mechanic. ( No really, K-U Yogg-Saron. I still have scars. ;_; )

Some mechanics are simple, some are irritating, etc. That doesn’t change that Xenon and many others are right. Improve the content and don’t worry about gear load-outs.

’Zerker is fine.

The gear choice one is the greatest observable effect in game, reducing all other prefixes on rare and exotic gear to casuals, bargain-bin newbies, and salvage heaps, and ensure non-zerker exotics almost never enter the game. While multiple sigils see play because of the diversity in their effects, Runes of Strength cost twice as much as any other armor rune because of their dominance in PvE.

And I won’t deny that a proper speedrun (Even stacking) requires teamwork and coordination, the problem is that it’s an eyesore of clipping polygons and stacked particle effects and lightshows.

This community makes me sad. :<

http://kittentoob.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2012/02/sad-cat.jpg

spoj.9672:

This community makes me sad. :<

http://kittentoob.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2012/02/sad-cat.jpg

hug

I just wish people would… do more dungeons.

I’m still somewhat vexed by a few of the more bizarre notions circulating in this thread. Hopefully, I will be able to help some of the more misguided notions.

Character Building

Your “playstyle” is defined foremost by your weapon choices, skill choices and traits. If you choose utility skills of a support nature, along with melee weapons and use traits that give defensive benefits to your team, you are a support melee character. If you choose offensive boosting skills, ranged weapons and DPS boosting traits, you are a ranged DPS character. These things are true regardless of your gear prefix. Again, who you are is defined by your weapon choice, skill choice and trait choices.

The second component of character build, gearing, has nothing to do with playstyle. Gearing is a measure of the damage you expect to be unable to avoid in your chosen game mode. Additionally, gearing is primarily how you determine whether you will be direct damage or condition damage. But the primary function of gearing is an estimate the amount of damage you anticipate you will need to soak in your chosen content. If you feel you will be able to dodge every attack you would select a gearing that sacrifices passive defense for more offense. Alternatively, if you feel you will receive large amounts of unavoidable damage you would be well advised to bring gear with more passive defense. The only aspect of gearing that determines playstyle is direct vs condition damage.

What is a character in defensive (soldiers) gear with dps skills and dps traits? A dps character. What is a character in offensive gear (berserkers) with defensive support traits and defensive support skills? A defensive support character.

With that out of the way as an established fact, let’s debunk some of the weaker arguments in this thread…

“Build Diversity”: Since playstyle is determined by everything EXCEPT gear, the concept of changing a gear type to encourage different playstyles is literally an absurdism. If you want to actually make defensive support builds more viable, you have to change the things that actually affect the playstyle: traits and skills. Or change the content to make healing/boon duration more useful, but that runs the risk of creating a trinity system where teams require a specific profession using a specific build to complete content, which has a problem all its own.

“Stacking”: Nothing to do with gearing. Even if Apothecary gear became meta, stacking would still be done in places where stacking is done. This is not a gearing issue.

“Zerker trivializes content”: Depends. There are a few bosses who are killed very quickly with fiery greatswords and berserker gear in such a way that their mechanics are skipped. There are also other bosses that aren’t, or aren’t outside of a very organized group. This is partially a content issue, partially a downscaling issue, and partially a fiery greatsword issue. Very little of it has to do with berserker gear itself. In fact, I would argue that Fiery Greatsword is the biggest culprit. The damage it is capable of is so far beyond the scope of everything else that it allows even the least skilled players the ability to speed run certain dungeons. If fiery greatsword was nerfed, it is entirely likely that many people who are being carried by it would go back to complaining about dungeons being too difficult.

“The content is too easy”: No, the content is too old. I assure you, the first time you did Arah path 1 in September of 2012 was not as fast as it is done now, even if you are an elite dungeon runner now. Arah is very, very hard. Drop a new player into Arah with no experienced teammates and no video guides and suboptimal builds. He will fail very hard. In fact, drop the same player into any of the dungeons and they will likely struggle mightily. The content isn’’t too easy, it’s just too old. Even the more challenging raids in other games go on farm after two years of existence. The type of raid that took progression guilds two weeks to beat the first time around are facerolled by pugs after two years once the builds and strats are known. This is how MMO goes. If you want to decrease the berserker population, add brand new dungeons that don’t have established guides and community tactics yet and watch the casual berserker users put on defensive gear, or avoid the content altogether.

Zerker gear for the people who first start playing, and say: “Omg most damage on this, I must get!!!”

Thx

In all seriousness… It’s fine how it is. Game is not orientated around one stat combination. QQ or uninstall.

@Rauderi

Yes, AC2 is gimmick, because you don’t just fight, it has time gated events and puzzles.

A: Iron council? That is just trivialized with an additional tank and requires some situational awareness (step out from the red circles) as in every WoW fight. And btw the pirate crew is the same in the gauntlet now, try it.
B: Trivialized by control, if it starts to block.
C: Can’t comment on it, i don’t play it.
D: Oh gawd Yogg-saron … While the fight isn’t that hard, it has A LOT of mechanics going on which makes it challenging. Something like Liadri.

And btw dont forget, that its still GW2, you can’t get similar fight due to how the combat works. For example Ignis is just an average tank and spank, but you need competent healers when he take someone into his picket to avoid any death.
Sooooo now lets stay only in GW2. Which encounter involves strategy and teamwork?

Dalanor.5387:

Which encounter involves strategy and teamwork?

There are none in GW2 (or very few), and that’s the problem.

Whether or not a mechanic is trivialized, they must be dealt with. Again, just because you don’t like the mechanic, doesn’t make the mechanic not exist.

Marionette was a step in the right direction. But that’s not a dungeon encounter. And I have little experience with GW2 dungeons. I’ve been meaning to fix that, but what I’ve played so far was more irritating than “challenging.”

What GW2 lacks from what I have seen is multiple sets of mechanics to make fights engaging. And that comes from stepping away from solitary monoliths that require different attack phases (Watchknights… such a terrible thing) to generate any sort of play variability.

Tree.3916:

With that out of the way as an established fact, let’s debunk some of the weaker arguments in this thread…

“Build Diversity”: Since playstyle is determined by everything EXCEPT gear, the concept of changing a gear type to encourage different playstyles is literally an absurdism. If you want to actually make defensive support builds more viable, you have to change the things that actually affect the playstyle: traits and skills. Or change the content to make healing/boon duration more useful, but that runs the risk of creating a trinity system where teams require a specific profession using a specific build to complete content, which has a problem all its own.

“Stacking”: Nothing to do with gearing. Even if Apothecary gear became meta, stacking would still be done in places where stacking is done. This is not a gearing issue.

“Zerker trivializes content”: Depends. There are a few bosses who are killed very quickly with fiery greatswords and berserker gear in such a way that their mechanics are skipped. There are also other bosses that aren’t, or aren’t outside of a very organized group. This is partially a content issue, partially a downscaling issue, and partially a fiery greatsword issue. Very little of it has to do with berserker gear itself. In fact, I would argue that Fiery Greatsword is the biggest culprit. The damage it is capable of is so far beyond the scope of everything else that it allows even the least skilled players the ability to speed run certain dungeons. If fiery greatsword was nerfed, it is entirely likely that many people who are being carried by it would go back to complaining about dungeons being too difficult.

“The content is too easy”: No, the content is too old. I assure you, the first time you did Arah path 1 in September of 2012 was not as fast as it is done now, even if you are an elite dungeon runner now. Arah is very, very hard. Drop a new player into Arah with no experienced teammates and no video guides and suboptimal builds. He will fail very hard. In fact, drop the same player into any of the dungeons and they will likely struggle mightily. The content isn’’t too easy, it’s just too old. Even the more challenging raids in other games go on farm after two years of existence. The type of raid that took progression guilds two weeks to beat the first time around are facerolled by pugs after two years once the builds and strats are known. This is how MMO goes. If you want to decrease the berserker population, add brand new dungeons that don’t have established guides and community tactics yet and watch the casual berserker users put on defensive gear, or avoid the content altogether.

Agree that the content is old, not necessarily easy part.

However, disagree with the notion that playstyle is only decided by trait and weapon choices, because many traits and weapon choices lend themselves to different gear stats, and this is quite obvious when you look at the traitlines and some specific traits. Wearing Berserker’s for all possible builds isn’t actually optimal for some builds (which of course wouldn’t have been optimal for pure DPS, even with Berserker’s, but my point is that what you say and are convinced of is not actually true-at least not for many players.)

The above is not intended as an attack on Berserker’s gear, however. Just that in the end, gear chosen does simply also affect playstyles, though I am sure you firmly disagree given your post. Don’t be vexed, just agree to disagree. For me, it’s not logical to use a “bunker” build with Berserker’s gear, and the all offense build will probably be better off without Magi’s.

Rauderi.8706:

And I have little experience with GW2 dungeons.

Your whole comment about the topic became invalid. Sorry.

And as a reply to you and Sirendor.

“Whether or not a mechanic is trivialized, they must be dealt with. Again, just because you don’t see the mechanic, doesn’t make the mechanic not exist.”

How surprising, that only those players complain about dungeons, zerkers, whatever, who not even have experience about the topic …
Old content get trivialized now, people run it hundreds if not thousand times and figured out fast ways to deal with said content. Both gear, traits, skills and tactics involved in this. Tree made a great post about this above.
Try fractals, you would like the Grawl fractal endboss.
Otherwise, thanks for the discussion, but leave it. Thanks!

@Tree.3916 …on… “The content isn’t easy, it’s old.”

You’re absolutely right, and I feel silly for forgetting that. That’s semantics, however. More complex mechanics would go a long way in creating longevity. Everything was hard when it was new, but once people learned to stack+burn, things became trivial.

If we had, say, a 5-man version of (amber?) wurm where you had to dodge the boss while killing an add, absorbing it’s debuff, grab a harpoon, get swallowed, DPS the interior, escape, AND THEN stack+burn the now stunned boss…

That type of boss fight would arguably still be more fun 5 years from now (when everyone knows the mechanics) than the current stack+burn strat we have for everything else.

Dalanor.5387:

How surprising, that only those players complain about dungeons, zerkers, whatever, who not even have experience about the topic …
Old content get trivialized now, people run it hundreds if not thousand times and figured out fast ways to deal with said content. Both gear, traits, skills and tactics involved in this. Tree made a great post about this above.
Try fractals, you would like the Grawl fractal endboss.
Otherwise, thanks for the discussion, but leave it. Thanks!

Hahaha, no. Not that simple. First, I’m not, for the most part, complaining about dungeon content. So, missed point there. I dip into things now and again, but not enough to do speed runs or know the right sit-and-stack positions. Meh. That doesn’t negate my experience.

But anyway, yes, the content is old. Tree said that much more eloquently than I would have, and he’s definitely a voice of experience beyond GW2 dungoneering.

But again, to stay on topic, ‘zerk is fine. We just need dungeon/encounter content that matches GW2’s play style and available mechanics.

Star Ace.5207:

However, disagree with the notion that playstyle is only decided by trait and weapon choices, because many traits and weapon choices lend themselves to different gear stats, and this is quite obvious when you look at the traitlines and some specific traits. Wearing Berserker’s for all possible builds isn’t actually optimal for some builds (which of course wouldn’t have been optimal for pure DPS, even with Berserker’s, but my point is that what you say and are convinced of is not actually true-at least not for many players.)

The above is not intended as an attack on Berserker’s gear, however. Just that in the end, gear chosen does simply also affect playstyles, though I am sure you firmly disagree given your post. Don’t be vexed, just agree to disagree. For me, it’s not logical to use a “bunker” build with Berserker’s gear, and the all offense build will probably be better off without Magi’s.

I believe that Tree’s comment was not meant to include bunker builds, which are designed to do only one thing optimally, survive. S/he spoke of support builds. The supposed GW2 trinity of DPS, Support and Control can all be achieved regardless of gear choices. PvE roles are designed to allow for flexible assumption of those roles even during encounters. Gear has very little, if any effect on control and support. the trade-off re DPS is using traits and utilities solely for DPS or using some for support or control depending on your party.

The PvP trinity of Glass, Condi and Bunker requires gear allocation. In PvP, eking every last ounce out of one’s build is more necessary than in PvE. The problem with importing those roles into PvE is that condi gets worse depending on how many are using it, and glass/bunker builds can both be adapted to provide support and control, but you get more DPS from glass. Bunker builds with bunker gear can be viable in PvE, but they’re not speed-run choices.

You can bunker with active defence and berserker gear in pve. So that throws the bunker arguement out the window.

Star Ace.5207:

However, disagree with the notion that playstyle is only decided by trait and weapon choices, because many traits and weapon choices lend themselves to different gear stats, and this is quite obvious when you look at the traitlines and some specific traits.

This is what you want to be true, not what is true. If you’re playing a full on support guardian pve 0/0/6/6/2 build, but you know all the boss tells, you’re a fool if you don’t wear berserker. On the other hand, if you’re brand new, and you’re playing a full on 4/5/0/0/5 dps guardian and you can’t dodge anything, you’re a fool for not using Soldier’s gear. Gear doesn’t have anything to do with your playstyle besides determining whether you do direct or condition damage.

Wearing Berserker’s for all possible builds isn’t actually optimal for some builds (which of course wouldn’t have been optimal for pure DPS, even with Berserker’s, but my point is that what you say and are convinced of is not actually true-at least not for many players.)

This doesn’t make any sense. the optimal play is to bring the least amount of defense you need for each instance. If you need a lot of defense, the optimal is to bring a lot. This is my whole point: your gearing is a measurement of how much damage you expect to take, it does not have anything to do with your playstyle. I’m not seeing how what you’re saying in any way disproves what I said. In order to disagree with me, you would have to explain how a support build in the hands of a player who knows the content very well would be better off not wearing berserkers. Or how a person who has never set foot in a dungeon before running a dps build would be best off with berserkers. The conclusion is quite obvious, the gear you wear doesn’t change the functionality aka playstyle of your build.

The above is not intended as an attack on Berserker’s gear, however. Just that in the end, gear chosen does simply also affect playstyles, though I am sure you firmly disagree given your post. Don’t be vexed, just agree to disagree. For me, it’s not logical to use a “bunker” build with Berserker’s gear, and the all offense build will probably be better off without Magi’s.

Agree to disagree is something I do when the other person has an equally valid position and neither of us have evidence sufficient to convince the other. Your problem is there is no such thing as a “bunker build” in pve. There are defensive support builds. But nothing about them improves when you just stand there and absorb hits you could otherwise dodge. A full support 0/0/6/6/2 guardian, if thats what you wanted to play, should be wearing berserkers in PVE provided the player knows what he is doing. An all offensive trait build would not use Magi’s, you’re right, but not because defensive gear itself is a bad idea, but because Magi’s isnt the best way for a defensive geared DPS character to be equipped. If you aren;t experienced and cannot dodge well, and you want to play melee DPS, you should almost certainly be wearing defensive gear whether that is Soldier, Knights or even Zealots.

Xenon.4537:

@Tree.3916 …on… “The content isn’t easy, it’s old.”

You’re absolutely right, and I feel silly for forgetting that. That’s semantics, however. More complex mechanics would go a long way in creating longevity. Everything was hard when it was new, but once people learned to stack+burn, things became trivial.

If we had, say, a 5-man version of (amber?) wurm where you had to dodge the boss while killing an add, absorbing it’s debuff, grab a harpoon, get swallowed, DPS the interior, escape, AND THEN stack+burn the now stunned boss…

That type of boss fight would arguably still be more fun 5 years from now (when everyone knows the mechanics) than the current stack+burn strat we have for everything else.

This 100 times.

Sorry Dalanor, but I think we simply cannot agree on this one.
I don’t see all this “great mechanics” you speak about, and I’m faaaar from the only one, nearly all the people I play with have stopped playing PvE long ago, because of it’s triviality. PvE (and that includes dungeons) is stack and dps, even if dodges/luring sometimes comes into it.

I can say that GW1 content was a lot different because of the way combat worked there. Stats were not bound to armour so there wasn’t a “BEST” stat set. You could choose for a more tanky, more dpsy set-up but that was about it.

The thing Xenon describes is what I would like to see. Give us something that takes effort, and not simply a huge healthbag.

I understand that from here on it’s necessary to stop giving negative criticism and start giving positive in the form of a suggestion of HOW to make it better.

A good way to start would be this: give mobs a dodge option, give mobs 10 skills and an elite, give bosses their own special elite you can capture as a certain class. This alone would make dungeons 1000x more interesting.