Guild Wars 2

ANet is going to take a hit by players being angry as kitten.

I do not plan to stay long enough to see this abomination of a “balance”-patch going live, breaking the game even more. I for one have spent enough time with this game, seeing it going South from November 2012. In the end, it just helps me to let go.

The gras is always greener for some time when things are new and shiny. Time to get the thrill of something new.

No you cannot have my stuff, I still have the irrational hope that maybe in some years, ANet will come to their senses (or at least fire the whole Dev team), and this game will become the game we were promised…

Condition gears are for PvP they aren’t meant for PvE. All classes can be glass cannons and do tons of damage while not every class can be condition because condition are used for PvP, and at PvE only AoE purpose only. You can’t make others stats do the same dps as berserker. Each stats has its own purpose like Soldier for tanking, Clerics for supporting/healing, Rabid for AoE/PvP, Berserker/Assassin to nuke and suicide and etc.
Let’s give an example for necro.
Cond necro=normal damage+nice for aoe
Berserker Necro=nuke damage with low survival and less aoe damage.
Why would both do the same damage? if they’ll do the same damage means Cond will be stronger cuz he has pluses for aoe and surviva while berserker has low survival and less aoe and would make berserker useless.

mergi.1407:

LittleLepton.8915:

Mimizu.7340:

Kontrolle.3514:

Nobody cares about PvE where no one cares if youre exotic or ascended.

With this attitude, why should anyone care about your problem?

I think they stated it poorly, but I think they meant in pve no one cares in your armor is ascended or exotic whereas in wvw they do (I don’t know if that’s true, but I think it came off much more… Angry? Than they meant.) and thus pve players won’t care enough to complain about the change.

The forum is full of detailed threads stating that ascended is not required to do any game content at all, now it is a requirement to do WvW or PvP?

Cannot have the argument both ways, cannot be pro ascended saying stats don’t matter its such a small difference then complain when there is a much needed balance to stats that is such a small difference.

Anet are giving you choices without making Zerker redundant, again what is the problem?

It sounding like some folks want to dominate others with stats and gear to me.

Again, that’s why I prefaced it with saying I didn’t know how wvw heavy guilds and such view ascended gear. I was I simply saying that I think that was what they meant (they might be in a guild or group which requires it)

We now, very literally, have our gear treadmill: We grind to higher stats, and then Anet nerfs our damage down.

Draco.9480:

Condition gears are for PvP they aren’t meant for PvE. All classes can be glass cannons and do tons of damage while not every class can be condition because condition are used for PvP, and at PvE only AoE purpose only. You can’t make others stats do the same dps as berserker. Each stats has its own purpose like Soldier for tanking, Clerics for supporting/healing, Rabid for AoE/PvP, Berserker/Assassin to nuke and suicide and etc.
Let’s give an example for necro.
Cond necro=normal damage+nice for aoe
Berserker Necro=nuke damage with low survival and less aoe damage.
Why would both do the same damage? if they’ll do the same damage means Cond will be stronger cuz he has pluses for aoe and surviva while berserker has low survival and less aoe and would make berserker useless.

This is true, however the developers themselves, I think, want to dispel the hardcore meta. They want everyone to play how they want with everyone else (so if that means 5 necro condi parties, they can run it too! Because that’s how they want to oplay)

I agree that since condition builds are powerful in 2/3 aspects of the game it seems silly to see the berserker pve meta as a problem. However, there are I reasons and personal issues coming in to affect the developers decisions on this, and I can PM you the reason if you like.

Gnat.9405:

Ironically enough the builds that are being most kitten by this are the hybrid builds that stretch for crit dmg in the first place, and berserker groups will be more prominent and necessary in speed runs.

Agreed

They stated this is the first step of many changes to address, but it still sucks for non zerk dps builds.

This first step will likely cause thousands of people to grind out new ascended gear to adjust for the change… and then get kittened off again when the next change is made.

I can already taste the schadenfreude

LittleLepton.8915:

mergi.1407:

LittleLepton.8915:

Mimizu.7340:

Kontrolle.3514:

Nobody cares about PvE where no one cares if youre exotic or ascended.

With this attitude, why should anyone care about your problem?

I think they stated it poorly, but I think they meant in pve no one cares in your armor is ascended or exotic whereas in wvw they do (I don’t know if that’s true, but I think it came off much more… Angry? Than they meant.) and thus pve players won’t care enough to complain about the change.

The forum is full of detailed threads stating that ascended is not required to do any game content at all, now it is a requirement to do WvW or PvP?

Cannot have the argument both ways, cannot be pro ascended saying stats don’t matter its such a small difference then complain when there is a much needed balance to stats that is such a small difference.

Anet are giving you choices without making Zerker redundant, again what is the problem?

It sounding like some folks want to dominate others with stats and gear to me.

Again, that’s why I prefaced it with saying I didn’t know how wvw heavy guilds and such view ascended gear. I was I simply saying that I think that was what they meant (they might be in a guild or group which requires it)

Sorry LittleLepton I was typing this before I saw your reply there mate. I am not singling you out there just generalizing.
And I agree with you there are now groups that require ascended which is one reason why I thought it was a terrible idea to implement it to begin with.

The Lost Witch.7601:

Fair point.

I guess the full ascended berserker wearing characters with precision and ferocity in the same line would be at a disadvantage. But only if they insist on sticking to 100% berserker gear. They could replace their runes and perhaps a few pieces of gear to minimize the disadvantage.

And even then the berserker gear wouldn’t necessarily lose it’s value, since it allows the wearer to get into different traitlines without losing that much damage potential.

Don’t get me wrong, you are right in that there is a disadvantage to it. But I believe that it may be acceptable. (Given what it delivers) And it would ofcourse be possible to balance these traitlines in a way that it makes up for the effective ferocity lost. (Perhaps a minor trait or even a rune that would convert X% of your ferocity to another stat.)

And then there is the point that Ensign makes: when critical damage is converted to ferocity, it is unlikely that the traitpoints will have as big an impact on your critical damage as they currently have.

That final point will depend on whether Ferocity follows a linear progression or a curved one (as you said), and where the curve starts (if there is one). Speculation as to the ratio of Ferocity to crit damage is premature until those questions are answered. Saying the “Top DPS builds will lose 10%” is not the same as saying that “all crit builds will lose 10%.” However, while that could mean a curved ratio, it could also be ANet reps using vague terms rather than precise ones.

mergi.1407:

LittleLepton.8915:

mergi.1407:

LittleLepton.8915:

Mimizu.7340:

Kontrolle.3514:

Nobody cares about PvE where no one cares if youre exotic or ascended.

With this attitude, why should anyone care about your problem?

I think they stated it poorly, but I think they meant in pve no one cares in your armor is ascended or exotic whereas in wvw they do (I don’t know if that’s true, but I think it came off much more… Angry? Than they meant.) and thus pve players won’t care enough to complain about the change.

The forum is full of detailed threads stating that ascended is not required to do any game content at all, now it is a requirement to do WvW or PvP?

Cannot have the argument both ways, cannot be pro ascended saying stats don’t matter its such a small difference then complain when there is a much needed balance to stats that is such a small difference.

Anet are giving you choices without making Zerker redundant, again what is the problem?

It sounding like some folks want to dominate others with stats and gear to me.

Again, that’s why I prefaced it with saying I didn’t know how wvw heavy guilds and such view ascended gear. I was I simply saying that I think that was what they meant (they might be in a guild or group which requires it)

Sorry LittleLepton I was typing this before I saw your reply there mate. I am not singling you out there just generalizing.
And I agree with you there are now groups that require ascended which is one reason why I thought it was a terrible idea to implement it to begin with.

Down with ascended gear!

(Whoops, should have predicted this a year and a half ago and signed a petition or something, lol)

I really don’t understand the change either. Aside from making people do less damage, it doesn’t do anything at all.

The reason everyone who can uses zerker gear in PvE isn’t because zerker gear is so overpowered and amazing compared to other set-ups, its because there’s barely any point in using any other setup.

Most of the content is either too easy, so that you can just faceroll through it, so you may as well contribute everything to damage to get through it faster; or you just take so much damage that even in more defensive set-ups, you’ll drop like a fly if you screw up, so you may as well again contribute to everything to damage so that you have less opportunities to screw up.

IndigoSundown.5419:

The Lost Witch.7601:

Fair point.

I guess the full ascended berserker wearing characters with precision and ferocity in the same line would be at a disadvantage. But only if they insist on sticking to 100% berserker gear. They could replace their runes and perhaps a few pieces of gear to minimize the disadvantage.

And even then the berserker gear wouldn’t necessarily lose it’s value, since it allows the wearer to get into different traitlines without losing that much damage potential.

Don’t get me wrong, you are right in that there is a disadvantage to it. But I believe that it may be acceptable. (Given what it delivers) And it would ofcourse be possible to balance these traitlines in a way that it makes up for the effective ferocity lost. (Perhaps a minor trait or even a rune that would convert X% of your ferocity to another stat.)

And then there is the point that Ensign makes: when critical damage is converted to ferocity, it is unlikely that the traitpoints will have as big an impact on your critical damage as they currently have.

That final point will depend on whether Ferocity follows a linear progression or a curved one (as you said), and where the curve starts. Speculation as to the ratio of Ferocity to crit damage is premature until that question is answered. Saying the “Top DPS builds will lose 10%” is not the same as saying that “all crit builds will lose 10%.” However, while that could mean a curved ratio, it could also be ANet reps not being completely accurate.

Yeah, it’s just guesswork until they give out more details.

After the change Celestial isn’t worth it as a distribution stat and it will only be for niched cases if they don’t do something to it.

Here is the math:

Post patch (full Celestial vs full Berserker/critical damage)
Celestial => 468 Furocity/New Crit Dmg Stat
Berserker => 745 Furocity

Celestial is 60-64% compared to any critical damage stat set like Berserker or Valk.

Lets assume 12 Furocity = 1% critical dmg (it doesn’t really matter what the conversion rate is)

Celestial => 39% Crit Dmg
Berserker => 62% Crit Dmg

======
Pre Patch (Currently – full Celestial vs full Berserker/critical damage)

Celestial => 62%
Berserker => 71%

As you can see the difference for the proposed changes are HUGE compared to what they are now. This will have a significant impact and unless ArenaNet adds something to the Celestial Stat set. In fact some people use like say Chest piece or something to gain extra critical damage. Post patch with the proposed changes you will not have this extra critical damage since it is based on Furocity now.

I dont care what other groups demand but in a pvp setting i for sure want the best equipment available espacially if you always fight outnumbered.

And after i obtained the equipment i calculated and slottet all WvW infusions (70-80 laurels for 1 set…) they just come around and kill my whole build like that.
The total cost of 1 set is 150! Laurels and this only if you got rings and accesiores by pve….

Here is the math:

Post patch (full Celestial vs full Berserker/critical damage)
Celestial => 468 Furocity/New Crit Dmg Stat
Berserker => 745 Furocity

Celestial is 60-64% compared to any critical damage stat set like Berserker or Valk.

Lets assume 12 Furocity = 1% critical dmg (it doesn’t really matter what the conversion rate is)

Celestial => 39% Crit Dmg
Berserker => 62% Crit Dmg

======
Pre Patch (Currently – full Celestial vs full Berserker/critical damage)

Celestial => 62%
Berserker => 71%

As you can see the difference for the proposed changes are HUGE compared to what they are now. This will have a significant impact and unless ArenaNet adds something to the Celestial Stat set. In fact some people use like say Chest piece or something to gain extra critical damage. Post patch with the proposed changes you will not have this extra critical damage since it is based on Furocity now.

CuRtoKy.8576:

Celestial => 39% Crit Dmg
Berserker => 62% Crit Dmg

======
Pre Patch (Currently – full Celestial vs full Berserker/critical damage)

Celestial => 62%
Berserker => 71%

Ouch. I didn’t jump through the time-gated hoops to get a set of Celestial, but I’d be none too happy if I did.

I have spent about 200-300 laurels in ascended-celestial gear.
Not the mention the armor pieces with costs unoly amount of gold and of course the infusions on all items.

So basicly all my WvW toons get build-killing nerfed because beserk gear is to strong in (lol) pve.

The Lost Witch.7601:

They said that this was the starting point of other changes.

Yeah, they’re really good at promising things.

Ensign.2189:

The ferocity change is helping by making critical damage consistent across pieces of gear. There will no longer be the 17:1 trade-offs on some pieces of gear between secondary stats and critical damage, and 4.5:1 trade offs on other pieces of gear. This is how it should have worked from the beginning.

A (valuable) side effect is that the worst offenders (ruby orbs and friends) are losing a ton of critical damage, such that they do not grossly outshine everything else. Ruby orbs will have the same sorts of stat trade-offs as every other piece of gear post-patch.

They did a really incredibly bad job of explaining this – they should have just said the net effect was a nerf of ruby orbs and a reduction of crit damage from traits. Instead we get dozens of threads about people’s berserker gear getting nerfed. This is why communications is important people.

It will still be inconsistent between traits, gear and most likely runes.

Hi all as the change to critical’s is a hot topic now I’ve createdPvX-Critical-gameplay-Changing-criticals in the profession balance sub-forum which looks at further changing how critical’s work and could effect all areas of combat gameplay. I was wondering on people’s thoughts and ideas. If interested please have a look and comment.

It will make the boss fights longer. By about 10%… GG

Almost all my characters use hybrid builds with a moderate amount of crit… “-10%” doesn’t affects full berzerker so much, but hits people who use mixed set hard.
How this should promote diversity? :S

(I could be wrong, maybe I didn’t totally got how the change will work, but for now this is what I’m thinking reading those info :S)

im for this as well i dont wanna be zeker no more after the nerf give us free change arena net u hurting the game play

Asko.4120:

I’m happy that celestial crit.dmg might be getting nerfed. It makes no sense whatsoever that an ascended celestial GS gives 11% crit dmg. and ascended zerker gs that I got many copies of only gives 10% crit dmg lol

it does make sense, celestial has less power and precision so it gets an extra 1% crit damage >,>

To gain a little perspective here; with 50% critical chance and 100% critical damage (reduced to 90% critical damage) the overall DPS is lowered by 2.8%.

That’s reducing the highest physical damage stat combo in the game by 2.8% DPS.

So before anyone starts marching in the streets or throwing away their ascended berserker gear just make sure -2.8% is really worth it.

EDIT: Sorry, I should add too that the 2.8% reduction in DPS is assuming that 100% of your damage is composed of physical damage with no damaging conditions. If for instance 25% of your total DPS is bleeds/burns then the DPS reduction is 0.7%

All of this is really just solving a problem that doesn’t exist.

People speedrun zerker gear because in order to kill stuff faster, you need to do more damage faster. (duh!)

If you’re not speccing for max damage (while being able to maintain survival) then you don’t care about speedrunning. This game isn’t about speedrunning content. Nor does not speedrunning stuff impact your game in any possible way except for making gold faster. And this affects stuff that isn’t dungeons too, like open world and wvw. Wow, you spent 5 minutes longer clearing this area. I don’t care how fast you think should clear it.

You need to learn mechanics in order to run with “max” dps. Bad zerkers are worse than useless. Thus a difference in skill can be observed.

The true problem is the inferiority of toughness and vitality in actually absorbing damage. When you die in 2-3 hits anyways, you wonder why you even bothered with these defenses anyways.

The other problem is the inability of conditions to be competitive in PvE. That’s the elephant in the room that destroys build diversity, and as long as they hide behind technical limitation excuses, pve will never offer true variety.

Wasbunny.6531:

To gain a little perspective here; with 50% critical chance and 100% critical damage (reduced to 90% critical damage) the overall DPS is lowered by 2.8%.

That’s reducing the highest physical damage stat combo in the game by 2.8% DPS.

So before anyone starts marching in the streets or throwing away their ascended berserker gear just make sure -2.8% is really worth it.

Tell the devs that then, they said that it will be a 10% reduction in damage.

LittleLepton.8915:

Draco.9480:

Condition gears are for PvP they aren’t meant for PvE. All classes can be glass cannons and do tons of damage while not every class can be condition because condition are used for PvP, and at PvE only AoE purpose only. You can’t make others stats do the same dps as berserker. Each stats has its own purpose like Soldier for tanking, Clerics for supporting/healing, Rabid for AoE/PvP, Berserker/Assassin to nuke and suicide and etc.
Let’s give an example for necro.
Cond necro=normal damage+nice for aoe
Berserker Necro=nuke damage with low survival and less aoe damage.
Why would both do the same damage? if they’ll do the same damage means Cond will be stronger cuz he has pluses for aoe and surviva while berserker has low survival and less aoe and would make berserker useless.

This is true, however the developers themselves, I think, want to dispel the hardcore meta. They want everyone to play how they want with everyone else (so if that means 5 necro condi parties, they can run it too! Because that’s how they want to oplay)

I agree that since condition builds are powerful in 2/3 aspects of the game it seems silly to see the berserker pve meta as a problem. However, there are I reasons and personal issues coming in to affect the developers decisions on this, and I can PM you the reason if you like.

PM the reason I want to know Anet head.
And I don’t want rookies to leech off me, because I want to play hard encounters with reasonable people who know what they do and are full damage.
The balance between casual and hardcore ruins the game, hardcore shouldn’t get down to casual level it’s casual shall rise to hardcore level.

It is inherently a bandaid fix. They can tweak a number much more quickly and easily than to rebalance entire trait and ability lines and world content in fundamentally all zones.

This isn’t the be all end all fix to the DPS meta and giving more importance to condition/CC builds in PvE. They have more things coming, Ferocity is just the first step.

They need to nerf berserker more if they want people to actually use other gears for pve.

Other gears to do WHAT exactly? Not do damage?

Julie Yann.5379:

This isn’t the be all end all fix to the DPS meta and giving more importance to condition/CC builds in PvE. They have more things coming, Ferocity is just the first step.

I hope it’s the last step as well. You should understand when the first step is to nerf like this, one shudders to think what the next step will be.

It has not in any way given more importance to condi/CC in PvE because they are still just as bad. Zerker is still the most powerful and highest damage. Since they avoided actually fixing the PvE itself, highest DPS is still the way to go. Condi and CC are still unimproved.

They want you to think that because they nerfed zerker, other builds are more viable. Don’t be fooled. If we reduced the height of all people over 6’3" by 3 inches, the people 5’ tall, wouldn’t be any taller. They would still be just as short as ever. The only thing we’ve done is inconvenience the people who were over 6’3".

LittleLepton.8915:

Oniyui.8279:

Draco.9480:

You want the hardcore players to use lower damage like others so others won’t die?

That’s exactly what we want.

Tbf hardcore players using less effective gears doesn’t change casuals who die anyway in their gear (regardless of the stats). Nerfing berserker really doesn’t change the effectiveness of soldier armor, it just makes our hardcore dungeon runs a few minutes longer.

There is still going to be a divide between casual and hardcore… So really what they should have done is buff other gear types to make them worth using, specifically condition gears.

Lep, I’d argue that the divide will grow even larger. More steps in this direction will make wounds that can never be healed. If folks were being lax about gear checks before this, you can bet that it will indeed be “zerk or gtfo” without exceptions. We can no longer afford a PVT sneaking in and riding along.

There will also be a lot of anger toward non zerkers by folks as well. Most of which is undeserved I think (since it’s probably an annoying minority on these forums that QQd for this to happen).

Chris RJ.1843:

LittleLepton.8915:

Oniyui.8279:

Draco.9480:

You want the hardcore players to use lower damage like others so others won’t die?

That’s exactly what we want.

Tbf hardcore players using less effective gears doesn’t change casuals who die anyway in their gear (regardless of the stats). Nerfing berserker really doesn’t change the effectiveness of soldier armor, it just makes our hardcore dungeon runs a few minutes longer.

There is still going to be a divide between casual and hardcore… So really what they should have done is buff other gear types to make them worth using, specifically condition gears.

Lep, I’d argue that the divide will grow even larger. More steps in this direction will make wounds that can never be healed. If folks were being lax about gear checks before this, you can bet that it will indeed be “zerk or gtfo” without exceptions. We can no longer afford a PVT sneaking in and riding along.

There will also be a lot of anger toward non zerkers by folks as well. Most of which is undeserved I think (since it’s probably an annoying minority on these forums that QQd for this to happen).

I absolutely agree.

I’m bracing myself for the cat storm about to hit the dungeon forum.

Hah it doesn’t look like it will be such a huge hit but we don’t yet know all the ramifications of it. I am sure full zerk parties will still blaze through content (seems the sigil rework may work in our favor) but I really think this will do irreparable damage to the community.

No one likes being forced to play a certain way. The LFG tool and this damage nerf are really sending horrible messages to the speed community. Of course some of the more vocal members there will certainly throw stones. It’s just a bad move to force people to play together if they don’t have the same goals.

I was always very clear in my LFGs about who I was looking for and for the most part people payed attention to that. I didn’t very often get random joins or poorly geared players. That said, I think now I will actually need to gear check more often to make sure.

This does the exact opposite of what they wanted…

Now since zerk does less dmg groups will almost have to run full zerk to keep dmg up. If you run anything but zerk you’re going to slow down the group… GG

Treborlavok.3504:

This does the exact opposite of what they wanted…

Now since zerk does less dmg groups will almost have to run full zerk to keep dmg up. If you run anything but zerk you’re going to slow down the group… GG

Something, I’m sure, the brain-trust at Anet hasn’t thought about. LoLz. GG Anet.

Well, it has done something for conditions and cc in pve, the ratio of how bad they are compared to DPS builds has gone down slightly. But it doesn’t fix the real core issues that have caused Berzerker to be the meta. It’s really a problem with AI and core combat mechanics, but I doubt we see much movement on that front.

They are re-balancing a re-balance. Unrelated they nerfed skills and traits into the ground already based on the old power curve. Now they are going to remove the old one and just insert a new power curve into their game that wont mesh well with the extensive changed they made based on the old one.

Then they will turn around and realize this and do some more power creeps and nerf warriors some more and turn this into a condition game, where only condition builds are viable with auto proc petting zoos and etc…

This change is not making any sense, cant they at least give us 10% more hp as compensation for 10% nerfed critical damage.

Alukah.2063:

Semi off-topic, is there any summary of all changes mentioned in that live stream? I’m kinda lost with the crit nerf ._.

reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/1vharm/ready_up_livestream_notes/

imsoenthused.1634:

Ferocity is going to be about 10% less damage than the crit damage stat it is replacing, according to what they said on the stream. It’s most definitely not a buff.

I meant nerf, doh!

Lol really Anet you make ascended gear and after that you do this?-.-
I hope i can stil change my trinkets wasted laurels i gues?-.-
We will see what happens.

darkace.8925:

Ouch. I didn’t jump through the time-gated hoops to get a set of Celestial, but I’d be none too happy if I did.

Well, I did that. My armor and trinkets are all celestial ascended, including my back piece. My weapons are ascended berserker and my main is a mesmer. With the deceptive evasion nerf too, I’m looking at a loss of 15% of my damage over time.

My mesmer will be useless in WvW because warriors can faceroll dungeons.

Why don’t they just nerf it and tell people they change the formula for the calculations rather than just change the name hence it’s not a nerf -.-.

The problem isn’t crit damage, it’s everything else. Condition damage is useless because of the 25 stack hard cap and the way it’s calculated and tanky gear sets are useless because encounters don’t call for it.

Curious since I don’t understand how the math works, how is this going to effect Valkyrie gear? Thanks to anyone who let’s me know!

No, critical damage is not being nerfed.

Trinkets (in particular, the jewel you stuck in a trinket) were way over their power budget on critical damage, and those are being brought into line with everything else.

You will also be receiving less critical damage from your traits.

The stat is otherwise unaffected.

Great job on letting us grind and craft for weeks for a set of amor you will destroy afterwards. I’ve spent a ton of gold on an armor for my ele.
I had celestial for the crit dmg and boon duration runes with sigil of battle to compensate for the lack of power. With the boon duration nerf this will be the nail in the coffin for my build.

So my whole build will be ruined just like that.

GW2 NGE…

People have spent too much effort and time on gear which Anet is going to render useless overnight.