Zerker meta: Possible solutions
Some time ago I suggested to diversify damage types and provide more viable builds:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Change-damage-structure/first#post3751947
Shortly : use 3 different modes – straight, piercing and condition one, based on different pair of attributes each. And add to bosses and mobs also vulnerability against one of that types.
Now, with the trait reset available any moment the idea seems even better – you will be able to respec for particular boss if needed.
Holy Trinity should be self-balanced within builds, and every character should bear with all 3 “way” all the time. Even if it seems like 1%HEAL+1%TANK+98%DPS, which becomes balanced to a minimal of 20%HEAL+20%TANK+80% DPS orientation due REAL BALANCE that never existed in Arenanet’s dictionary.
The “Holy Trinity” is just a methood that Game Designers used due “Let’s copy what they did, its success!”. But AN made the bigger step toward breaching this wall, and sadly unable to control. I can read and outwork very good suggestions for this, but looks like they don’t like those enough to make them real…
Whenever you see a CGI movie, Mages DO attack very well, and any other “class” the RPG community worked out within the decades. And its actualy Here in GW2.
Only problem is; There are unlogical restrictions that prevent easy but complex handling in the same time.
What do I mean?
- Timer on weapon swaping. It just breaks elite gameplay. No other logic.
- Cooldowns on weapon skills… biggest BS of all the time.
- Staff: Attack or Support? AN tries to make it Both, and its a very good idea! But they only try. It should work if staff and other “magic weapon” skills do DMG and BUFF in same time, so 5 skill becames 10, and that would be aaaawesome without being OP. Otherwise, people could use weapon swap to same weapon but with the other kind of spells. This is what Ele attributes try to do.
- Items have Stats. It’s an old fashion, but I have a hope some day there will be only builds & gamer skills, nothing like “I have better gear, food on, buffs on me, but I’m an OP Warrior/Thief anyway…”
P.s.: There are still 2 hit killer thieves, stunlocker warriors and 10k critter mesmer clones, 8k critter eles who invulnerable a lot, and condi bunkers who outheal an atomic bomb – and now they doesn’t care about armor breaking… So GG at “Ferocity”
“A man chooses; a slave obeys.” | “Want HardMode? Play Ranger!”
CC has nothing to do with your gear choice in PvE. Defiance is not broken. You just don’t understand it apparently. You can remove it. Good groups do remove it. You can remove it in your cleric’s gear the same way players in zerker gear can remove it.
… If you don’t spam CC skills for no reason and get the boss to 18 stacks of Defiance and actually take the time to coordinate and time your CC to interrupt attacks, you will find that it’s very useful in PvE.
does anyone actually do this? Yes I know it’s possible. It just isn’t very practical in any situation I can think of, other than that one guild bounty where everyone who knows what they are doing spams knockback and hopes it gets through all the idiots spamming every skill they have.
CC has nothing to do with your gear choice in PvE. Defiance is not broken. You just don’t understand it apparently. You can remove it. Good groups do remove it. You can remove it in your cleric’s gear the same way players in zerker gear can remove it.
… If you don’t spam CC skills for no reason and get the boss to 18 stacks of Defiance and actually take the time to coordinate and time your CC to interrupt attacks, you will find that it’s very useful in PvE.does anyone actually do this? Yes I know it’s possible. It just isn’t very practical in any situation I can think of, other than that one guild bounty where everyone who knows what they are doing spams knockback and hopes it gets through all the idiots spamming every skill they have.
Game over, yo.
in my oppion and observations
the meta for zerker in dungeons revolves around stacking so that out going AoE DPS is combined and obliterates whatever enters the kill zone with little challange (cept for some bosses you still have to dodge, but they still get melted fast)
im fully aware this is a legitamite stratagy since it does take advantage of the mobs dumb AI and not an exploit.
the fixes im thinking of are
A) mobs cant walk through eachother
B) new permabuff on some mobs
for A this seems like it be the hardest for Anet to implement but it would force mobs to not beable to all cluster into the killzone of stacking players, the downside i see is players forcing mobs into a narrow area and then aoe spam that area with 2 or 3 players preventing them from getting tothe people aoeing
for B this would also involve a lot of work on anets part, lets just call this permabuff on the mobs “skirmisher”. historicly skirmishers are military units that are just there to harass their foes. in total war series (been a while since i played one) i recall a mode called skirmisher for ranged units that would make them retreat if hostile units got close. thats where im going with this, ranged mobs would run away from the stacked players to harass them from afar.
aside from stacking getting bunced by the nerf hammer theres other things that could use buffing
condition damage is generally seen as useless in PvE though i’ve noticed it dominating in pvp. toughness/vitality, PvE wise they dont scale that well and only really shine in wvw and world bosses that are immune to crits, toughness is absolutly useless against DoT effects. Healing power also needs some scaling buff. honestly i dont really have any good ideas for this but im gonna just write down whatever shinadigan idea pops up
-toughness reducing DoT: based on the idea of toughness being physical durability, being a glutton of punishment with high resistance
-endurance recharge rate scaling with vitality: going with the idea is that vitality is physical condition, and having high vitality means your in really good shape thus allowing you to dodge more often
-rework aggro system: its very wonky at the moment and looking at the system, highest DPS out prioritzes highest toughness and shield (#4 on priority), though in observation when im playing on my ele whatever set im using i always seem to have aggro (i mostly use my pvt armor set on my ele since i personally think zerker is to squishy for my liking on ele, though i still have it around incase)
-buff up the armor from toughness and health from vitality
-healing power effects condition duration: basicly ur healing faster
-condition damage effects durration making them last longer and priority(condition stack priority goes to whoever has the highest condition damage) on stack: on my necro (who is lvl 41 right now) i can easily put 25 stacks of vulnerability on single targets, so im thinking if i wanted to go dire build (condition damage, toughness vitiality) i’d want that to last a lot longer to let my team eat up that 25% defence reduction. (PVE ONLY since condition builds are already good in pvp)
-every 500 condition damage=10%-15% chance of a condition (on the attack being used) being doubled: this means that condition builds would be able to build up thier conditions faster, think of it like critical strikes for conditions. (PVE ONLY since condition builds are already good in pvp)
-less “fake difficualty” sections: points where the game punishes you severly for a mistake no matter how much toughness/vitiality you have (ie alphanze’s pull/nuke (if that hasnt been fixed yet, havent ran arah p2 since early january)) its sections like these that make people think “vitality and toughness arent worth it”
You guys realize it’s not zerker GEAR that is the problem, but zerker TRAITS and SKILLS? If they got rid of all the stacking +% damage skills, raised base damage to compensate, and equalized damage across weapons better, I don’t think anyone would be complaining even if Zerker was still the only good gearset. The people complaining about “zerker meta” are either the “zerker is too hard for me” crowd (which we can’t really help) or the “I don’t want to be forced to spec DPS” crowd. If more builds/weapons actually did enough damage that they weren’t total trash, those people would probably be happy.
Bearbow will still suck though unless we drastically improve the range on kitten and get rid of LOS.