Guild Wars 2

Will ANet ever make some changes to allow room in pve for something other than berserkers to be the bestoption?

Berserker really ruins the overall feel of classes like Necromancer, Thief and Mesmer, who have so much condition potential.

I’d love to see dungeons hit harder, retaliation do far more, and stacking to be actively made difficult. PvE (with the exception of a few world bosses) is nothing but a dps-fest when it could be so much more.

In my opinion, everything should be made to hit far harder unless you have toughness. Make Guardians Guard things, make thieves actively have to use their evades, make mesmers actually need their illusions.

I’ve actively started ignoring a lot of pve in favour of pvp now due to the massive versatility of builds you can find in pvp, and how well each of those builds can do in their own niche, instead of everyone being a clone of everyone else.

Not having the trinity is nice, but pve being nothing but a dps fest is really quite a downer

1. Nothing stops you from equiping other gear sets.
2. Nothing stops you from changing your build, including skils and traits.
3. Nothing stops you from finding a group of likeminded individuals via the LFG tool.
4. Nothing stops you from making friends in game to hang together.

Nothing stops you, only yourself.

ps: There is a huge thread already about a similar topic, please merge/delete the thread.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/This-Meta-has-to-end

As has been said time and time again, there will always be an optimal style of play, and people will always converge upon it. The different stat combinations exist so you the player can find whatever style of play you like best, but with the caveat that for any given activity, one of them will be the most efficient.

By the way, DPS will always be the most optimal for PvE, regardless of how it is achieved, because maximizing DPS is the way to minimize time spent.

This is what is commonly called the zerker ‘meta’. I’m not particularly interested in the term but will use it for clarity in this game. What many don’t realize is that Anet could change it in a heartbeat. Sadly it would then simply be ‘zerker’ by another name. I suppose this might make for interesting variety, kinda like when the hunter population in WoW would switch from survival to marksmanship to beastmaster, en masse, with any given patch.

Contrary to the opinion above, the ‘meta’ really has nothing to do with player behaviour, other than players recognizing what works best and adopting it. Whatever ‘meta’ we have is solely a product of game design.

I think what rapthorne is saying is that he does acknowledge that berserker’s is the most efficient way to play, and he plays this way because he wants to be an efficient player. He wasn’t asking for the condescending remarks that it’s his choice on how to play. I’m pretty sure everyone in these forums knows that it’s our choice on how to play a video game.

I do think it would be neat to see what would come of a smarter AI system like you mentioned rapthorne, but like Andred said, once people figure out how to beat that the most efficient way everyone will flock to those stats and we’ll have ourselves another “meta.”

Andred.1087:

As has been said time and time again, there will always be an optimal style of play, and people will always converge upon it. The different stat combinations exist so you the player can find whatever style of play you like best, but with the caveat that for any given activity, one of them will be the most efficient.

By the way, DPS will always be the most optimal for PvE, regardless of how it is achieved, because maximizing DPS is the way to minimize time spent.

Whoa, wasn’t expecting an accurate assessment. But yes, the game is about depleting an enemies health before yours is, and players will always find the most efficient path to this end. It happens in every game everywhere and should really not be viewed here as atypical and problematic. Check out worldofwargraphs.com and look at the builds of all the top WoW PvE players in the world. They are virtually identical except for those abilities that represent differing raid utility. And, WoW is not unique in this either. In games with a more complex build system you will find more shades of variation, but not true build diversity. Build diversity is simply a myth that only exists as a design goal of most games. It sounds good but a quick review of reality should disabuse one of the notion.

I’m just going to quote my response to the last “Get rid of the zerkers” thread.

Let’s say there are some fields that kids like to play on, and Marty wants to play Soccer (football for those of you outside the US). The sign outside the fields says that you can play whatever you want, and so Marty goes over to the kids playing baseball and says that they should all play soccer. The kids tell him that they don’t want to play soccer, they want to play baseball. There are some kids a few fields over playing soccer, but instead of going and playing with them, or finding some other kids to play soccer with, he keeps arguing with the kids who want to play baseball. “The sign says I can play what I want, and I want to play soccer!” He tells the other children, and so the other children ignore him and go back to their game of baseball. Marty tries to play soccer on the same field as the children playing baseball and runs into another child. The children kick him off of the field they’re playing on, and go back to their game. Instead of going and playing soccer with the children who are still playing soccer, he goes to the parents, and tells them how the other children are bullying him and excluding him. The parents scold their children for excluding poor Marty. Marty still isn’t satisfied, and demands that the parents make their children play soccer with him. What do you think the parents are going to do?

Dalanor.5387:

1. Nothing stops you from equiping other gear sets.
2. Nothing stops you from changing your build, including skils and traits.
3. Nothing stops you from finding a group of likeminded individuals via the LFG tool.
4. Nothing stops you from making friends in game to hang together.

Nothing stops you, only yourself.

ps: There is a huge thread already about a similar topic, please merge/delete the thread.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/This-Meta-has-to-end

I’m not addressing popularity of the build and whether I can party with people when not using a berserker set (I use Soldier as a guardian) but rather addressing the fact that nothing has been done by ANet to make other builds as effective as berserker in pve

rapthorne.7345:

Dalanor.5387:

1. Nothing stops you from equiping other gear sets.
2. Nothing stops you from changing your build, including skils and traits.
3. Nothing stops you from finding a group of likeminded individuals via the LFG tool.
4. Nothing stops you from making friends in game to hang together.

Nothing stops you, only yourself.

ps: There is a huge thread already about a similar topic, please merge/delete the thread.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/This-Meta-has-to-end

I’m not addressing popularity of the build and whether I can party with people when not using a berserker set (I use Soldier as a guardian) but rather addressing the fact that nothing has been done by ANet to make other builds as effective as berserker in pve

Assasin’s and Sinister says hi.
And you can’t expect to bring defensive sets on the same level as full offensive ones. It’s just simple logic. They differ, they work differently, therefore they will get different results.
Even if ANet removes stats from items to give an equal footing to players the different traits, weapons (with their base damage and scaling) will still yield different results.
Also PvE is more balanced around with encounters. You can buff or nerf berserker’s however you want but you won’t ever make a single crit on Teq for example.

By the way how you want to make other “builds” more “effective”? I’ve seen plenty of examples about viable builds that aren’t damage oriented.

Damage will always be king, because it allows you to finish the content quicker, and get your rewards faster. World of Warcraft balances it by having roles that need to be filled, but the average Guild Wars 2 player doesn’t seem interested in roles, and so by having the “Mix-N-Match” parties damage will remain king. Even in strategy games like Fire Emblem I go all damage because it allows me to accomplish the goal of killing everything faster.

other stats can’t be as effective as berserker

the reason beserker is so good is because you sacrifice all defensive stats for pure power because you are good at dodge rolling

Sinister is pretty much the effective “zerker” form for condi damage, but you still have to realize that condi dmg is bleeding them out rather than big hits.

If you have the skill to dodge roll, you are doing yourself a dis-service by using soldier’s gear.

Soldier’s and Knight’s are for people who need a little more Vitality and Toughness because sometimes they make mistakes when dodge rolling, or their skill build is lacking condi removal and evasion skills.

i guess they would need to do dungeons/fractals with:

-> some enemies are for example 70% immune to direct dmg (not the best solution to just make zerker ineffective though…)
-> some areas where you have to survive for a certain time while being damaged constantly from an area effect —> clerics gear and sustainbuilds
-> more things like fractal instabilities that support condition play

ofc that would only be in that one area where they implement it then… and every other part of the game would still be zerker only…
but it would still be a nice thing

another idea:
weekly area effects for dungeons
for example:
-> 50% increased condition dmg (+duration?)
-> everytime you deal condition dmg your whole group gets healed by 10% of the dmg

etc. etc.

can have other nice effects too ofc and not only condition supporting
i just wish for some fun things that make people have to take a step out of their safe meta build box… and think of new builds to beat the dungeon with the weekly effect

for example: everytime you get retaliation you also get stability for the same amount of time but you also get poisoned and 1 stack of bleeding
—> guardian gs 4 is great area stability then but you have less heal and take some dmg

throw more ideas in if you have any

i just thought for 2 minutes for these few things… im sure there are some awesome effects that could make dungeon play a lot more interesting
those effects in a weekly (more/less?) rotation could be really really nice

and anet could make it optional so you can chose to play the dungeon with the weekly area effect for some extra rewards (maybe +20 tokens + 25 silver?)
so noone has to complain if he doesnt like it
but people who like challenge and variety could have more fun again when trying to beat the old content that they played through thousand times already ^^

edit: got a bit offtopic here in the end xD i will probably make an extra topic for this idea since i really like it now that it came to my mind

I agree with OP,, The idea isn’t about choosing what to play or damage being more effective. It’s the illogical way it’s done, that is why berserker is “king”.
I.e., for fire elementalists, zerker SHOULDN’T be more efficient than carrion, for example. Why? Because their damage is a condition – burn. It’s not about what force they throw the fire with (power) or how accurate (precision) or how much critical (ferocity) but how much burning . So for an elementalist, carrion gear should work the best. It doesn’t. IF it were a gear with TWO main attributes and one secondary (i.e. condition+ferocity primary, power secondary) that would be the ideal for an elementalist. Also, it should be so that certain traits should be complementing certain stats on gear depending on the class and type of weapon used, and they don’t.

The thing is that the gear attributes should be actually applicable to the class’s strength, not just one-size-fits-all-even-if-it-doesn’t-make-sense-because-it’s-easier-on-devs. THEN you will see real skill and real customization of characters, not cookie cutter.

As much as they went away from the cookie-cutter with the elimination of the “trinity”, they went back to it due to the poor implementation of gear statuses coordinating to class traits.

Jordo.5913:

other stats can’t be as effective as berserker

the reason beserker is so good is because you sacrifice all defensive stats for pure power because you are good at dodge rolling

Sinister is pretty much the effective “zerker” form for condi damage, but you still have to realize that condi dmg is bleeding them out rather than big hits.

If you have the skill to dodge roll, you are doing yourself a dis-service by using soldier’s gear.

Soldier’s and Knight’s are for people who need a little more Vitality and Toughness because sometimes they make mistakes when dodge rolling, or their skill build is lacking condi removal and evasion skills.

Has condition damage changed in this game? I honestly don’t know as I haven’t played in ages. There was a cap previously and in any given grouping you were likely to be applying zero damage (beyond ‘white’ damage) with a condition build. It would be great if they fixed this. And, in terms of zerker you don’t sacrifice all defensive stats as you still have defensive stats with zerker gear, just less of them. It’s simply that, in the current game universe, zerker gear offers the optimal dps/survivability ratio. That is, the highest dps given the ability to stay alive. We hold player ability constant and assume players can play the class in order to understand changes in the other variables.

Anyandrell.6238:

I agree with OP,, The idea isn’t about choosing what to play or damage being more effective. It’s the illogical way it’s done, that is why berserker is “king”.
I.e., for fire elementalists, zerker SHOULDN’T be more efficient than carrion, for example. Why? Because their damage is a condition – burn. It’s not about what force they throw the fire with (power) or how accurate (precision) or how much critical (ferocity) but how much burning . So for an elementalist, carrion gear should work the best. It doesn’t. IF it were a gear with TWO main attributes and one secondary (i.e. condition+ferocity primary, power secondary) that would be the ideal for an elementalist. Also, it should be so that certain traits should be complementing certain stats on gear depending on the class and type of weapon used, and they don’t.

The thing is that the gear attributes should be actually applicable to the class’s strength, not just one-size-fits-all-even-if-it-doesn’t-make-sense-because-it’s-easier-on-devs. THEN you will see real skill and real customization of characters, not cookie cutter.

As much as they went away from the cookie-cutter with the elimination of the “trinity”, they went back to it due to the poor implementation of gear statuses coordinating to class traits.

there is one that just got introduced called Sinister

+Condi main
+ Power sec
+ Precision sec

Yes but it’s still not well applied and doesn’t trump zerker. They should work on the condition to work like might in groups, with a cap of 25 and all that.

The way I see it, each class should have it’s strength that should add to the group, be it might, condition, boon or debuff. Each gear status to be actually applicable to that and coordinated to the class traits and weapon used. THEN you will really have skilled play and balanced PVE and balanced dungeon groups, where no class will be left behind the way it happens now. Imagine a dungeon group where the warrior provides the might, the ranger the precision, the thief the evade, the necro the debuff, the ele the conditions, the mesmer the confusion and the guardian the boons. With each class able to provide a secondary strength but in a lower percentage than the main one (i.e. guardian boon primary might secondary or ele condition primary precision secondary)

Anyandrell.6238:

Yes but it’s still not well applied and doesn’t trump zerker. They should work on the condition to work like might in groups, with a cap of 25 and all that.

The way I see it, each class should have it’s strength that should add to the group, be it might, condition, boon or debuff. Each gear status to be actually applicable to that and coordinated to the class traits and weapon used. THEN you will really have skilled play and balanced PVE and balanced dungeon groups, where no class will be left behind the way it happens now. Imagine a dungeon group where the warrior provides the might, the ranger the precision, the thief the evade, the necro the debuff, the ele the conditions, the mesmer the confusion and the guardian the boons. With each class able to provide a secondary strength but in a lower percentage than the main one (i.e. guardian boon primary might secondary or ele condition primary precision secondary)

Your roles are independent from gear. That was the goal in build creation.
People should realize your weapon, skill and trait choices aren’t effected by gear in the past 2 years, but how naive i am … Go back to WoW if you miss the reliance on gear.

I am not talking about reliance on gear…. I am talking about the gear complementing the class and the traits and the weapon – a whole package. The build creation was a wonderful idea but stopped way short of the mark.

I think YOU should go back to WoW because you don’t even realize that you are actually promoting their cookie-cutter style, exactly on the no-brainer-gear-reliance (in our case zerker). The model of “we’ll give them something to feel strong the easy way, to he** with skill and individuality”, make cash fast.

With the way things are now pretty much all gear that is not berserker is more or less useless, and just the affordable thing for players who don’t have much gold. The Sinister is a joke as long as the condition applier doesn’t work properly and is trumped by zerker no matter the class.

As soon as Arenanet starts to design encounters that do not favor direct damage other stat combos will rival Berserker.

rapthorne.7345:

Dalanor.5387:

1. Nothing stops you from equiping other gear sets.
2. Nothing stops you from changing your build, including skils and traits.
3. Nothing stops you from finding a group of likeminded individuals via the LFG tool.
4. Nothing stops you from making friends in game to hang together.

Nothing stops you, only yourself.

ps: There is a huge thread already about a similar topic, please merge/delete the thread.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/This-Meta-has-to-end

I’m not addressing popularity of the build and whether I can party with people when not using a berserker set (I use Soldier as a guardian) but rather addressing the fact that nothing has been done by ANet to make other builds as effective as berserker in pve

Yes, you can gin up scenarios where zerker and soldier’s gear are equal. However, as soldier’s and zerker represent different trade-offs they will never be equal in terms of optimal dps given survivability. They are different choices with different results. And, as has been mentioned before, in this game dps is king—logically there will always be an optimal solution to the dps/survivability problem. Players have found it in zerker gear. Realistically, yes, Anet can change the meta, but only by establishing a new meta. Different gearing choices can’t be equivalent as they represent different options (trade-offs).

Not a single one of my 20 characters runs a Bezerker build, yet they are all still alive!

Let’s put it this way: the solution isn’t by tweaking the stats but rather by re-working the entire game so the bosses and other kind of monsters can function in a way, requiring other types of damage instead of direct damage. Additionally, the monsters’ damage have to be descreased to allow healing/support classes to be effective since it doesn’t really matter how much you can heal nowadays when the boss can one-shot you anyway.

Now, even if this was done perfectly by Anet where the game ends up being about action combat and yet about different classes. The result is basically a more complex game which is not the selling point of GW2. Hardcore players are simply not the targeted playerbase, GW2 is targeted towards casual people and therefore such a change will probably never happen.

Raine,

Allow me to disagree. IF the algorithms calculating the damage depending on traits/gear/weapon/trinkets are different for each class, then there will be no meta. There will be SEVERAL metas, applicable for each class and for different types of encounters (be them PVE or PVP), i.e. a different DPS/survivability build for each class for Orr, let’s say (where you have mobs with heavy condition appliers) compared to let’s say Harathi Hinterlands or the CoF. Would that make the necessity for larger storage for each type of gear per character? Yes. Would that make more work to make an “ideal” main you bring to various events/dungeon/PvP? Yes. Would that require more money spent per lvl 80 character and more work to get what you need? Yes.

Would that make the game (and especially the end-game) more interesting and challenging? In my opinion, yes. Of course, opinions differ.

nGumball, I think you nailed it. Unfortunately. The ideal game for hardcore players is still not out and probably will never be – unless we have some hard-core players who are skilled in game developing and would work to make that happen without being bought out by bigger companies.

penelope, same here. But that doesnt’ mean they’re optimal.

Anyandrell.6238:

I think YOU should go back to WoW because you don’t even realize that you are actually promoting their cookie-cutter style, exactly on the no-brainer-gear-reliance (in our case zerker). The model of “we’ll give them something to feel strong the easy way, to he** with skill and individuality”, make cash fast.

Quite the opposite. If i need to rely on gear, i would run some tanky stuff with passive defense to make up the lack of skill i would have. But since i’m fine without any additional defense i can get more offensive potential. Plain and simple. After these none of my support or control options are affected, i just became more beneficial to the party overall instead of being a hinderance by stacking personal damage mitigation which doesn’t benefits to the group at all.
Also i play for fun, no need to insult the whole community for being a greedy kitten and running only for cash.

With the way things are now pretty much all gear that is not berserker is more or less useless, and just the affordable thing for players who don’t have much gold. The Sinister is a joke as long as the condition applier doesn’t work properly and is trumped by zerker no matter the class.

Which is simply not true. Should i link the famous no dodge Arah video where the party facetanked every encounter or the afk spider queen solo in clerics gear? Or the superior solo videos with condi builds? Play the game please and get a better understanding with the current situation before going full hurr durr on the forums, ’kay?

And still, why you “anti-zerkers” are so bothered with zerkers? Every other build works like a charm, excluding conditions in group scenarios, so whats the problem again?

You again want to change just for the sake of changing something, but making zerker suboptimal would just make another meta option for said content, like it happened with Teq. Should i spam threads daily about “nerf PVT meta i want full celestial boss encounters!!4!!!!!44four!4!!!!!4” or what?

Anyandrell.6238:

Would that make the game (and especially the end-game) more interesting and challenging? In my opinion, yes. Of course, opinions differ.

Stacking passive defense is interesting and challenging? lol? Please?
Point it out for me where is this interesting or challenging?

rapthorne.7345:

Will ANet ever make some changes to allow room in pve for something other than berserkers to be the bestoption?

Berserker really ruins the overall feel of classes like Necromancer, Thief and Mesmer, who have so much condition potential.

I’d love to see dungeons hit harder, retaliation do far more, and stacking to be actively made difficult. PvE (with the exception of a few world bosses) is nothing but a dps-fest when it could be so much more.

In my opinion, everything should be made to hit far harder unless you have toughness. Make Guardians Guard things, make thieves actively have to use their evades, make mesmers actually need their illusions.

I’ve actively started ignoring a lot of pve in favour of pvp now due to the massive versatility of builds you can find in pvp, and how well each of those builds can do in their own niche, instead of everyone being a clone of everyone else.

Not having the trinity is nice, but pve being nothing but a dps fest is really quite a downer

The short answer to you question, no.

PVE mobs, especially bosses are made to be bags of HP so DPS will always be king in PVE. In the toughest fights nothing works better than getting the enemy dead fast.

penelopehannibal.8947:

Not a single one of my 20 characters runs a Bezerker build, yet they are all still alive!

That’s because Berserker makes it harder to survive, but increases the speed you can get through the dungeon. It’s nice when you’re farming because by the time you’ve done CoF/Se/CoE the 100th time you just want it done.

Other stat sets already rival zerker, just not in terms of raw damage.

Dalanor, you didn’t get a thing of what I was talking about, did you? No, I will not point out anything. If you had issues understanding the basic concept of what I was talking about, it would be a waste of my time to try and explain further.

Zerker meta is just max dps for best efficiency, if they made all npc have 10k armor and hit super fast then everyone would just go all condi with just enough toughness to survive. But build variety would still be minimal.

Defensive stats will never be a critical part of the “optimal” pve meta due to the combat mechanics of this game. Specifically dodge/evade. The ability to mitigate 100% of damage on such a short cool down makes any defensive stat useless in pve.

Now there are ways to remedy this, but what would result would be another “meta” with the same amount of static builds/gear and also elitism. Which i believe is the key complaint against the “meta”.

To put this in perspective, the whole meta thing exists because a large portion of players are playing for the rewards, rather than the actual game play fun, which is fine. But understand that this mindset puts heavy emphasis on efficiency, as content is merely an obstacle on the path to said rewards.

While there are players that play “just for fun”, it is impossible to deny that one of the key mechanics that drive players to spend so much time effort and money on a mmo is the rewards (and the feeling of progression/superiority rewards bring).

Just ordered a cinema catering size popcorn bag. Who wants some?

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Just ordered a cinema catering size popcorn bag. Who wants some?

Me, since my points got dodged for whatever reason.

Morsus.5106:

I’m just going to quote my response to the last “Get rid of the zerkers” thread.

Let’s say there are some fields that kids like to play on, and Marty wants to play Soccer (football for those of you outside the US). The sign outside the fields says that you can play whatever you want, and so Marty goes over to the kids playing baseball and says that they should all play soccer. The kids tell him that they don’t want to play soccer, they want to play baseball. There are some kids a few fields over playing soccer, but instead of going and playing with them, or finding some other kids to play soccer with, he keeps arguing with the kids who want to play baseball. “The sign says I can play what I want, and I want to play soccer!” He tells the other children, and so the other children ignore him and go back to their game of baseball. Marty tries to play soccer on the same field as the children playing baseball and runs into another child. The children kick him off of the field they’re playing on, and go back to their game. Instead of going and playing soccer with the children who are still playing soccer, he goes to the parents, and tells them how the other children are bullying him and excluding him. The parents scold their children for excluding poor Marty. Marty still isn’t satisfied, and demands that the parents make their children play soccer with him. What do you think the parents are going to do?

This is gold! Lol.

Don’t be an Anti-Meta Marty, be a Zerker Zach!

Artemis Thuras.8795:

Just ordered a cinema catering size popcorn bag. Who wants some?

I could take some to the other two “meta” threads on the first page!

…Seriously, this is more infectious than the other m-word (with five letters). I realize people are getting irked by kittens who don’t read or write good LFG descriptions (on both sides, let’s be honest), but all the whining and snotty elitism isn’t solving anything.

The most we’ll likely see is ANet taking heed of prior design flaws and making their new content better. I’d love for them to do a redesign on the existing dungeons (increase armor, lower HP, increase speed but lower damage), but they won’t.

So can we stop spawning these anti-zerk threads? Or at least merge them? :\

This question again:

No, because the only true role that remains from the trinity is DPS and berserker is the best way to do it.

Ugh…why don’t people get this….

Look at other MMOrpgs, look at how there are guides and gearing and how PvP is done. THERE IS ALWAYS A META.

What happens if your play style suddenly becomes the meta? You’ll be happy right? You’ll defend it against other people who want it needed or changed. And if/when it happens, then a new meta will arrive.

This is how it works. This is how it will always work. Stopping one meta only gives rise to another.

Do we really need another post abt this? There’s already a long discussion abt this on another thread.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/This-Meta-has-to-end

I think this thread needs to be merged with the other one as mentioned above.

Someone pass me the extra large popcorn and soda pls.

Belenwyn.8674:

As soon as Arenanet starts to design encounters that do not favor direct damage other stat combos will rival Berserker.

Yes!!! Then we can start heal mobs to death with our Nomad!

Assassin/Zerk combo is actualy bit more effective for some builds then pure Zerk.

rapthorne.7345:

I’m not addressing popularity of the build and whether I can party with people when not using a berserker set (I use Soldier as a guardian) but rather addressing the fact that nothing has been done by ANet to make other builds as effective as berserker in pve

What is this berserker build?

We don’t need to fix the zerk meta, we need anet to fix/modify the lfg tool so it forces people to party with the people they actually want to party with. Isn’t that the real problem here? The “elitism” that everyone complains about all the time coupled with the people who lie about wearing zerk to get into zerk parties?

I’m not saying it’s as simple as this, but how about we start with something simple like players can start a lfg and check a box with the gear that people are allowed to join with. And if anyone changes to a gear set that isn’t what was checked at any time there is an announcement in party chat and a vote is called to kick that player.

Then everyone can happily play with ONLY the people who are wearing the gear they enjoy playing with. Problem solved!

And before you all go “we don’t need gear checks”. It’s not a gear check. It’s grouping people with like minded individuals. Isn’t that what everyone REALLY wants?

cranked.3812:

We don’t need to fix the zerk meta, we need anet to fix/modify the lfg tool so it forces people to party with the people they actually want to party with. Isn’t that the real problem here? The “elitism” that everyone complains about all the time coupled with the people who lie about wearing zerk to get into zerk parties?

I’m not saying it’s as simple as this, but how about we start with something simple like players can start a lfg and check a box with the gear that people are allowed to join with. And if anyone changes to a gear set that isn’t what was checked at any time there is an announcement in party chat and a vote is called to kick that player.

Then everyone can happily play with ONLY the people who are wearing the gear they enjoy playing with. Problem solved!

And before you all go “we don’t need gear checks”. It’s not a gear check. It’s grouping people with like minded individuals. Isn’t that what everyone REALLY wants?

Or use the current system, start your own group with the path you are taking and " all are welcomed" or “don’t have to be zerk” etc?

I find it more that people are too lazy (or scared) to make their own groups and just come here to complain.

Or join a guild that runs dungeons with like minded people. I’ll walk you through the process:
1. Go to any wp in LA
2. Type in map chat “looking for guild that runs dungeons”
3. Sort through the whispers and pick a guild, or heck, pick four. You can join four guilds.
4. Profit

@Serophous: Your missing my point. I understand your cookie cutter response that is typically given by everyone. But, it doesn’t work that way in practice.

We all know it doesn’t matter what you put into the description, people don’t read and join anyway and now with the lack of a party leader system there is no real way to kick people who don’t fit the description.

Make it enforceable by the game and people who run zerk will play with people who run zerk. People who run cleric’s will run with people who play cleric’s and so on. Most complaining about zerk elitist should go away.

I do not care for the use, misuse and abuse of the meta. I’ve ran with zerk groups, good zerk groups are very nice. Good “non-meta” groups (which includes a big portion of the non zerks who still want to play fast can be very powerfull as well. It is a different playstyle.

Zerk tend to be either very focussed with powerresses if needed, good stacking, good might boosting and so on, but good non zerk parties tend to be even more effective in stacking and buffing. And they will use food bettter then zerks. in whcih case they tend to rival with non-fed zerkers….. I sometimes wonder why people do not want a +10% dmg boost and -10 dmg recieved when they are already at 3500-3700 power.

Problems arise wiith newer players as they can break stack, get frustrated by dying a lot or otherwise not staying up.

More problems tend to arise when you find multiple people playing semi or full condi. Someone running a decent build with power and conditions will always be a loss of dps. 2 people make it a lost cause as they tend to block eachother out. the lack of dps on the condition applying weapons is a big factor in this. I can stack 25 stacks of bleeds but if the bleeds are not applied the dmg of a sword for warrior is hopeless, you still have 1 or 2 skills whcih tend to do some dmg, but at huge cooldowns,

But I still prefer 2 zerks 1 zerk guardian , 1 zealots or zerk ele and a semi condtions player, with preferably poison chill and confusion and/or interupts. They’ll never be as fast as zerks, due to the lack of some fercocity for some helaing and some conditions….

Oh and for full dmg : there are 4(5) stats sets viable in the present meta:

[] Zerk (5/5)
[] Sin (assasin) (4,5-5/5)
[] Sin (Sinister) (4/5)
[] Zealot (4/5)
()(Celestial (3,75/5))
—————————————————————————-
Valkyrie (3,5/5)
Knights (3,5/5)
Cavaliers (3,5/5)
Rampagers (3,5/5)
Carrion (3/5)
Soldiers (2,5/5)
Clerics (2/5)
Sentinel (1,5/5)
—————————————————————————-
Defensive sets/full condi sets. Well Not to be rude but these stats have not function in dungeons other than to stay alive no matter what, But remember Toughnes does nothing vs conditions…
———————————————————-
(remotely viable)
Rabid (3,5/5)
Dire (2,5/5)
——————————————————-
Settler (1,5/5)
Shaman (1,5/5)
Aphothecary (1/5)
Giver’s (0/5)
Magi (0/5)
Nomad (0/5)

4 big problems need to be adressed before other stats get viable,

1 the dmg scaling should be so other characters wanting to play condition do enough dmg, Healing Scaling should be adressed as well..
2) conditions should be able to affect objects. (see also 3)
3) the “condition weapons” need some sort of basic attack which does scale with strength AND/OR condition dmg, sword still is a mediocre dmg weapon for warrior for example… I would like to see that buffed, I’d like it buffed by just having the condi dmg added to the dmg calculations even if it was only a %.
4) something should happen with excess conditions. I do not mind secondary conditions like heamoraghing, brain freeze, immolation, additional thing for poison…,broken armor for a couple of second when stacks are full… as long as dmg is possitively affected. This as the caps seem to be made wiotrh reasons and we still need something to circumvent this.

rapthorne.7345:

Will ANet ever make some changes to allow room in pve for something other than berserkers to be the bestoption?

Nope. Not possible without a complete overhaul of the combat engine and principles, which we will never see.