Guild Wars 2

every class has a strong point, I can understand building any class to full beserker only if you have the one character, but in reality if you have several professions to 80 I see no reason to build for example a sub optimal dps guardian or a healing spec thief those just don’t make sense at all, they may look viable but they under perform heavily when compared to other classes which have an emphasis on what you’re trying to build.

my toons for example, I always center the build around the particular class strength.

PVE only builds:

-guardian: full support AH build.
- warrior: full zerker DPS.
- elementalist: D/D DPS/support hybrid.
- Thief: full zerker Burst DPS.
- engineer: cond dmg / support hybrid.
- mesmer: full zerker Burst DPS / utility build.

in PVE building tank / CC character specs just doesn’t work because of defiant, which is what is primarily wrong with PVE mechanics and limiting build variety.

Look at WvW and sPVP, that’s the only place where actually building a balanced character is both desirable and rewarding.

you gotta have enough armor, you gotta have enough DPS to apply pressure and you need sustain, balancing these 3 alone takes some time and class knowledge, and I haven’t even touched on CC yet.

WHAT IS REALLY WRONG WITH PVE IS DEFIANT, IT IS A FLAWED SYSTEM

if you think about it, the rushed implementation of the flawed defiant system is what is dragging this great game down

SOLUTION TO DEFIANT

_defiant should be reversed in how it works, instead of negating all CC from the start it needs to build up resistance to CC as the boss is CC’d, and it should decay if the boss is not being CC’d, a system like this would allow for planned CC chains at particular points in the fight while making it impossible to keep the boss chained CC’d permanently, thus making control specs desirable again.

It’s so easy even SWTOR could do it, if you haven’t noticed I just described swtor PVP resolve system in a nutshell here, sure their resolve system wasn’t perfect but it was a great idea, let’s see you do better anet_

Your guardian and engineer builds sound terrible.

I’m not exactly sure what the point of Defiant is, either.

I guess Arena.net feels that if a zerg can simply stun/daze a legendary or champion mob to death that it would be too easy. Personally, if a zerg can coordinate their interrupts and CC that well to render such a mob impotent… more power to ’em.

colesy.8490:

Your guardian and engineer builds sound terrible.

they may look like that to you :P
those are highly specialized builds made for specific reasons and only used in those situations.

anyway you’re missing the point read the rest !

Is the specific reason “to be bad”?

Didn’t even bother reading the rest of the OP, it’s just going over something we all know is flawed already, just like condition caps and condition damage not scaling to be on par with direct damage in PvE.

chemiclord.3978:

I’m not exactly sure what the point of Defiant is, either.

I guess Arena.net feels that if a zerg can simply stun/daze a legendary or champion mob to death that it would be too easy. Personally, if a zerg can coordinate their interrupts and CC that well to render such a mob impotent… more power to ’em.

that’s what I mean in BETA before defiant bosses were stun locked for the whole fight, that is obviously not good, but negating 99% of CC is also equally as bad nobody plays a CC spec, whenever bosses are involved at all.

they have some systems that could be modified to replace defiant already look at tequatl scale armor, or the new TA path end boss shield mechanic those are clever ways to go about it, but they still have defiant as well.

like I said in OP, a swtor style resolve system could do wonders for PVE build diversity.

Another way is to just leave bosses as they are but to introduce heavy need to CC for other parts of dungeons etc, so a party NEEDs to be CC built to complete some dungeons.

colesy.8490:

Is the specific reason “to be bad”?

Didn’t even bother reading the rest of the OP, it’s just going over something we all know is flawed already, just like condition caps and condition damage not scaling to be on par with direct damage in PvE.

notice how you picked on the to builds that are NOT full zerker builds !
that is what is wrong right now, I myself love playing zerker on my warrior but….

build diversity is important, not everyone likes to deal damage or have to play twitch response, both of which are a requirement to playing full zerker builds to survive.

Xae Isareth.1364:

Another way is to just leave bosses as they are but to introduce heavy need to CC for other parts of dungeons etc, so a party NEEDs to be CC built to complete some dungeons.

with your idea CC becomes a requirement, just like healers were in trinity based games.

the point is to make it viable NOT required !

Latinkuro.9420:

colesy.8490:

Is the specific reason “to be bad”?

Didn’t even bother reading the rest of the OP, it’s just going over something we all know is flawed already, just like condition caps and condition damage not scaling to be on par with direct damage in PvE.

notice how you picked on the to builds that are NOT full zerker builds !
that is what is wrong right now, I myself love playing zerker on my warrior but….

build diversity is important, not everyone likes to deal damage or have to play twitch response, both of which are a requirement to playing full zerker builds to survive.

There is build diversity.

Warriors have 30/25/0/0/15 and 30/0/0/10/30 as the two PvE meta builds.

Guardians have 10/30/30/0/0, 10/30/0/30/0, 0/30/0/30/10, 10/30/0/5/25, 10/30/0/20/10 and a few more I can’t remember centred around hammer.

Mesmers have 10/30/0/30/0, 0/20/0/25/25, 10/30/0/0/30, 10/30/0/20/10.

This game was clearly advertised as not having a trinity, which is why “support builds”, “heal builds”, “control builds” are all trash because a zerker can go do it just fine.

It’s over a year since release and people still can’t get over the fact that conventional build concepts are bad in this game.

The problem with trinity designs are not that there is a trinity of roles to build encounters around, but that said roles are padlocked to certain classes. Meaning that to play a end game healer you have to play that healer from A to Z leveling. This leads to less people leveling healers and similar because they are “boring”. Meaning they are harder for PUGs to find.

But in theory GW2 have the ability for us to switch roles as we feel like it.

I say in theory, because the game have very few tools to aid us in this. And it also have a few elements that work against it.

For instance, we have no ability to save trait layouts.

And our stats are so dependent on gear, that to have multiple roles means we have to maintain multiple full gear sets (weapons, armor, trinkets).

And i don’t think it is just Defiant that is a issue with PVE, it is also the general trend in mob designs. They do not apply pressure, they do damage in spikes. This favors dodging over defensive builds. And they are health fat rather than using boons and heals to stay alive.

One problem with reversing defiance could be missed interrupts. So if you would really like to interrupt that big attack, and your teammate just spams his interrupts and puts on some defiant stacks, it could become impossible for you to actually land the interrupt on the big attack.

Reversed defiance may still very well be better than what we have so far though.