Guild Wars 2

i see so many threads about how horrible this and that is designed, all because players don’t want everything to be a DPS zerg fest.
but instead of complaining, what about coming up with some ideas to improve the gameplay while staying away from DPS fests.

to make things easier, first ask your self a few simple questions:

• does it benefit the story?
• can every profession do this?
• does gear mater?
• does it improve the overall gameplay?

i ask the questions for a simple reason, it’s the same reason why dev teams make lists like this, to keep in mind certain factors so one problem isn’t replaced with another.
so now the question remains, how would you make things better?

I’d make things better by listening to my veteran community that plays my game extensively and has more background knowledge than I have from just creating it.

zerk dps is an answer to a non trinity combat system. some people just dont get that.

You’d think that all the players dropping like flies in the Lions Arch events would review their builds, but they don’t seem to catch on very quickly.

inb4:
elitists; play how you want; thread locked

You do realize that not all enemies can be DPS’d, right? Existing mechanics for certain ones require Condi damage. Zergs of people who don’t understand this tend to have a hard time killing them.

Are we talking about zerg events here (as in requiring large groups of people) or just the zerk gear meta?

Hey OP, I posted this long ago. but some reason this suggestion was ignored.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Solution-to-the-GW2-Trinity-Design-flaw/first#post3531471

Read it. Or better yet I will post it here again.
=========

I posted my suggestion for fixing GW2’s flawed Trinity system.
Check this out. post here as well.

In Guild Wars 2, the Trinity was supposed to be
Control/Support/Damage

Each part working together to win the PvE encounter.
Problem was the Overpowered way Control skills work, as well as the limited usefulness of Support skills, developed Damage into becoming the ultimate role in the game.

Well I have developed a solution to this. My goal is to make ALL THREE ROLES equally useful in the PvE encounters. So of course some changes would need to be made if this solution were to be used. I will try to explain them each.
====
~GENERAL~

Gauged Ultimate skills:
this is a timer , that once depleted will make the Defiant NPC more powerful, and unleashing powerful skills that can do lot more harm to players. There are different levels of Gauged Ultimates. As the timer depletes, if the mob’s HP isnt past a certain percentage, the Defiant unleashes an Ultimate.

==
~CONTROL~

Control, or CC as some call it, is a skill that disables or reduces/controls movement in some way.
Examples from the wiki
Daze
Fear
Float
Chilled
Knockback (Push)
Immobilized
Launch (Blowout)
Pull
Blind
Sink
Crippled
Stun
Petrified

The overpowerness of this comes when players make control builds in numbers. It risk NPC being locked out and becoming just a training dummy with large HP pool.

Unshakeable and Defiant was added to counter this, while the side-effect of this was the elimination of the Control role from the trinity.

My solution to this:

Add a new stat-line to the game called “AUTHORITY”. this stat would be found a new gear set made for Control role.

Defiant: (NPC Boon)
Defiant is a bit different now. Unshakeable is gone. Defiant doesnt make NPC immune to Control effects. But what it does do now is reduce all Control effect’s duration to 0. this is different from Immunity, since it still effects the target mob.

Authority: (New Stat)
this stat increases the duration of all Control skills on Defiant mobs by a Percentage of a second. More Authority equipped, the longer the duration of your CC will last on Defiant mobs.

Fortitude: (New Stat)
Reduces damage from Gauged Ultimate skills, as well as reduce damage from Defiant NPC by percentage.

Toughness:( stat)
Increase Armor, as well as reducing the duration of Control effects used against you.

Players that want to play a control role in the group, need to stack some Authority in their gear/trait build. This will allow their CC skills to have a duration on Defiant mobs, at the sacrifice of a bit of damage stats / damage skills.
Defiant NPC now have a Gauged Ultimate skills that they can use once timer goes down, that has some powerful effects. So group still needs to balance around both Control and Damage. Kill the Defiant NPC before the Gauged Ultimate goes off, while controlling the fight well before the Gauged Ultimate goes off, otherwise NPC will do major damage to players and groups. Players can build up a more defensive control build that is a hybrid of Fortitude and Authority to control the fight as well as resist against mobs of power.

====

~DAMAGE~

Damage role is vital for the group, when it comes beating down a Defiant before Gauged Ultimate timer depletes. But Damage dealers will rely on Control players and Support players to to stay up and max effectiveness during the fight and between Gauged Ultimates.

=

~SUPPORT~

Deals with maintaining a healthy, and powerful group. Specializes in:
Healing, Rezzing, Booning, Cleansing, weakening.

Some changes made.

Healing Power: (stat)
Effects all sources of healing similar to current system.

Rejuvenation: (New Stat)
Increase the healing effect of Regeneration, and reduces the revival time of down and defeated allies by a percentage.

Wisdom: (New Stat)
Increases the duration of Boons by a percentage of a second.

Support players will be a major part of a group, and helps enhance both damage and control players in the group.

=

(continued)

===

~HYBRID~

Since these new stat changes are built around players making builds and gear to fit their build.
Players can also spec into hybrid gear/build roles, to apply their effect to the needed role.

example. a Player may want to be a combo of Control/Support. They can stack Fortitude/Authority/Rejuvenation and help prevent Defiant from getting to their group for shorter durations than Full Control build players, but can also toss some good regenerations on allies when they need it. Or they could have stacked some
Fortitude/Authority/Power/Wisdom/Toughness, and make a control build that would be all about doing damage to the target while keeping Defiant mobs away from allies, with more defense, at the sacrifice of better damage or better healing.

There are so many ways to combine stat builds, as well as skill builds using this system to keep things unique and interesting.

but Damage would no longer be a role that is most important. Other Stats and other roles are more important in this system to make it so that everybody has a role in the battle. This could lead to some interesting battle fights.

Should my team take 3 control players 1 Damage player, and 1 Support player at the risk of less damage (more Gauged Ultimates in the fight) but less damage in between Ulitimates.

Or should we bring 1 Control player, 3 damage, 1 Support player, in which the control player helps control the Defiant, with Damage players bursting down NPC HP before Ultimate goes off, with the Support player keeping the Damage players up and active as they will be taking more damage.

Or we can make a 2 support player, 2 damage player, 1 control player, into the fight, less CC, but with 2 support players we should be able to negate the Ultimate a bit from the less damage.

Or 2 support players and 3 Damage players, damage down the Defiant, before Ultimates go off, while two support help keep the party up and active, while enhancing boons to improve the damage players.

so many ways to form a party. Risk and Reward.

^^ I mostly read the classical trinity here. OK CC instead of tank, but still… I bet people are going to love LFGs with “looking for 1 support guard link gear” as much as “zerk only”.

Basically CC and support aren’t gear based. You can go into DPS gear and still have use of CC skills. Everyone has enough active defense and own healing skill to stay alive. So the only thing you can and should invest in, is the amount of damage you do.

I like how the blue hologram IGNORES power-based DPS until you use conditions to knock its shield down. The Berserkers can go fight the other colors, because they’re pretty much a handicap on that corner of the triangle.

Wanderer.3248:

You’d think that all the players dropping like flies in the Lions Arch events would review their builds, but they don’t seem to catch on very quickly.

You’d think people would realise the events fail so often because 90% of them have trash dps. But nope, just keep spamming that low dps ranged auto attack with clerics gear. Its really contributing to getting the boss done.

cranos.5913:

^^ I mostly read the classical trinity here. OK CC instead of tank, but still… I bet people are going to love LFGs with “looking for 1 support guard link gear” as much as “zerk only”.

Basically CC and support aren’t gear based. You can go into DPS gear and still have use of CC skills. Everyone has enough active defense and own healing skill to stay alive. So the only thing you can and should invest in, is the amount of damage you do.

Did you not read my idea?

I said, bosses reduce all CC to 0 without CC stats on gear which isnt on zerker gear.

So people would have to choose how to spec for the fight. Either roll a Control spec role, or a hybrid Control role, or else group gets creamed from massive attacks.

i was personally thinking of a more co-op friendly way to take a boss down, one where you first need to do one in order to do the other.

let’s say we have a HUGE boss that has it’s arms and torso as separated target, each of them is shielded.
each shield is connected to a node, this node is guarded by enemies and has it’s own shield.
so the situation we have is as followed:

• there are three nodes for each body part
• it’s protected by it’s own shield
• there are enemies protecting the nodes
• the only way to take down the boss is by destroying the nodes

but now comes the co-op part, taking down the nodes is not a matter of DPS the hell out of it, each node is weak against a certain condition.
so let’s say we have it this way:

• node one can only be taken down with confusion
• node two is a walking one and can’t stand standing still, take it down with immobilize.
• node three is a bloody one, take it down with bleeding

when the nodes are taken down you can damage the boss, after 1/4 it’s health per part is lost the shields recharges it self and there are 3 new nodes.

this kind of boss fight makes players cooperate allot more then just spamming DPS attacks, it also makes the battle more about taking down the enemy as a group and less about a zerg.
i see players say that condition builds are useless in PvE because DPS is allot ore important, this kind of battle makes DPS only useful when condition builds did their part.

just an idea :P

holy hell some people are seriously living in denial.
control (tank) – support (heal) – dps (ditto) IS the holy trinity, something that gw2 abandoned. (in pve)
they said that gw2 followed this “new” trinity system to get sales.
they lied to you. GET OVER IT

Stand The Wall.6987:

holy hell some people are seriously living in denial.
control (tank) – support (heal) – dps (ditto) IS the holy trinity, something that gw2 abandoned. (in pve)
they said that gw2 followed this “new” trinity system to get sales.
they lied to you. GET OVER IT

you’re right about one thing, there is a trinity.
DPS has 3 letters, it has to be the trinity you’re talking about.

Stand The Wall.6987:

holy hell some people are seriously living in denial.
control (tank) – support (heal) – dps (ditto) IS the holy trinity, something that gw2 abandoned. (in pve)
they said that gw2 followed this “new” trinity system to get sales.
they lied to you. GET OVER IT

The trinity they promised is dps-support-cc. The cool thing is, that you can do high dps, while still supporting your team, while still delivering crucial cc in some situations. There are no roles, every class does everything in it’s own way.
A Warrior that deals low dps is bad, thats right, but a 5 signet warrior who doesn’t bring support is bad, too.

Nobody lied to you. Exept if you main necro, then you’re screwed.

Spoj The Second.7680:

Wanderer.3248:

You’d think that all the players dropping like flies in the Lions Arch events would review their builds, but they don’t seem to catch on very quickly.

You’d think people would realise the events fail so often because 90% of them have trash dps. But nope, just keep spamming that low dps ranged auto attack with clerics gear. Its really contributing to getting the boss done.

I don’t care about your condescending tone and hate for others not playing the way you want.

Where did you get your facts that 90% of people use “trash DPS” gear/builds? And isn’t pointing such a thing out not done out of feeling superior to them, the so-called “casuals”? Play how YOU want (DPS or die), and let them play with whatever valid gear ANet put into the game (they didn’t design Cleric’s; ANet did.)

Don’t tell me your toxic, rude post is meant to “improve the community’s playstyle” because it’s nothing more than feeling part of a “special” group of people who “knows” how “PvE GW2” must be played. This is open world content, like it or not ; not a dungeon speed clear, and many people with different playstyles and gear will play with you-again, like it or not.

I listen to classical music, but far be from me to tell people what to listen to, as if I knew “better” than they did. And equally disgraceful is to force others to like what you like, or to belittle them, just because it works for you, but perhaps not for them-either in life or in a game.

DPS is great, just not the only darned way to play this game. Min/maxers shouldn’t feel “superior” to the “casual masses” just because they are prone to build for efficiency. The game wasn’t designed solely for min/maxers, and the sooner they realize this the better, so all this silly “casual hate” finally ends.

(I like efficiency to a point, but it gets absurd in this forum. Seems like some people don’t acknowledge the fact that players are individuals, and like/enjoy different things.)

Molch.2078:

Exept if you main necro, then you’re screwed.

Touche good sir, touche…