Guild Wars 2

Yeah, many may use the zerker meta, yeah many like and or hate it. the problem is not the gear, its the mobs, they need better AI, dodges, a form of retaliation, much like the knights during the assault on LA, temporary immunity to physical damage etc.
if the zerk gear is the problem, then after its nerfed/ changed the new meta would just be Valkyrie, slightly slower but slightly less damage…so think about that. Players new coming to the game are under the impression of play how you want, yet the most efficient way of getting through content says otherwise. Having a penalty to zerker gear as armor(not trinkets) such as doing a % of the damage back to yourself(armor ignoring) similar to Agony, would allow the possible formation of anyone else wanting to assist in keeping those berzerkers alive or another form of damage.

possibly add Random tilesets in dungeons and other content to where not every dungeon run is the same, always giving a fresh challenge, or adding different mob types / abilities, so not all are the same in order to push uniqueness in that specific dungeon or content. Having seeing a Flame Legion Igniter…we all know he burns and spray and prays, right? well what if we changed that, each igniter could have a different weapon set / ability introducing said new challenge.

looking on other mmo games such as the free to play “warframe” the tileset idea works…and clicks, now not saying its an entirely great game, but they nailed having that as an idea. similar to fractals but the map layout and mobs there have different effects / have a random gambit for dungeons applied…

was just throwing that out there.

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

Players new coming to the game are under the impression of play how you want

This is the real problem here.

2 years and this still is one of the main issues with the game. GW2 is not an RPG. It’s an online assasin’s creed kind of game. Its an arcade. Its not a game about teamplay. We are all single players on the same map. Get it in your head. They won’t fix it.

I have glass and bunker characters. I use them as I see fit. I don’t run cleric’s setups because I’m not willing to do that little damage. That was said just to establish that I am not a glass-only player.

What posters do not seem to realize is that the glass meta is more than just an AI issue.

• The arguments are mostly about the convenience of using the LFG tool and not having to go out of one’s way to get a party composition one wants. Anyone who wants to ensure group composition is to their liking will form parties from guild and friends’ list. What that leaves is people arguing about what play-style should own LFG parties.
• Changing game mechanics to allow for diverse builds to be equally desirable is a fool’s errand. Change all the mechanics you want, there will by definition be a “best” setup — which will drive the new meta. Make glass builds take a portion of their damage to the point where they need a healer for maximum efficiency, the new meta will be 4 glass, one cleric. This would not be an improvement.
• The argument that there is no teamwork is fallacious. What’s really going on is that certain dungeon paths and some open world content is easy, and players can do what teamwork is required there in their sleep after nearly two years of repetition. Teamwork exists and gets used by some groups all the time.
• The current setup in the game as a whole is “play how you want.” Any setup or combination of setups can complete a dungeon. Altering the way the game is played so that other setups than glass are required will have more of an impact on the “play as you want” crowd than on the meta-drivers. Meta-drivers will just adopt the new meta and non-meta groups will now require certain builds to succeed – unlike now, as “laissez-faire” groups can accept anyone and finish.
• No matter what you do to the game, some players are going to exclude others. Let them. “Play how you want” extends to them, too.

That said, I like the idea of content that is not the same every time you do it. However, I wonder whether the resources to produce enough variations to make that viable would be better spent on regular new content instead.

Lithril Ashwalker.6230:

Having a penalty to zerker gear as armor(not trinkets) such as doing a % of the damage back to yourself(armor ignoring) similar to Agony, would allow the possible formation of anyone else wanting to assist in keeping those berzerkers alive or another form of damage.

I love forum posts that begin from the premise that non-berserker gear is insufficient, faulty, and suboptimal. Then the solution they pose is to punish those who wear berserker gear. Ah, the stupidity. If other gear sets are bed, why not come up with ways to improve them? Why degrade berserker sets? What a well-reasoned plan.

I think one of the big problems with the “Zerker Stacks” meta isn’t that it’s “The best”, but that it’s bland. People wouldn’t mind another “The Best/Fastest” metagame strategy if it required diversity in gear and builds, (So that, sure, five zerkers can get through a dungeon… but a Zerker/Rampager/Carrion/Shaman/Cleric run does it faster.), and a more dynamic and visually appealing battlefield.

People need to stop looking at the stat combo and look at the traits, that’s where the actual builds are. In organised groups we run a support warrior with empower allies (or even phalanx strength if using low-might compositions or fractals), our guardians take support traits in virtues rather than more in zeal and points in valor for extra DPS, our mesmers can either trait for DPS or reflect support, and eles have a ton of builds, dps, might stacking, conjure builds, etc.

So generally what happens is that we have five characters in berserker gear, but we’ll have a warrior and guardian using support builds while the other three can just go pure DPS traits.

maha.7902:

So generally what happens is that we have five characters in berserker gear, but we’ll have a warrior and guardian using support builds while the other three can just go pure DPS traits.

That is the main issue, GW2 allow you to be supporter with the DPS gear w/o any penalty, protection, retaliation, aegis,vigor … all that doesn’t get any benefit from any stats besides boon duration, get protection from a full zerker guardian or a full cleric guardian is indifferent, so why not gear with the highest DPS set?

Boons and protective skills should be affected by defensive stats, like protection reduce 15% damage + certain % of caster healing power, or something in that line.

You perceive it as an issue, I don’t.

Being able to support your team no matter what your gear is what gives you so much freedom to build how you like, you don’t need to have a minimum of gear X in order to apply boon Y. Same with DPS, you can run full cleric but pile on a bunch of damage modifiers through traiting.

Belzebu.3912:

Boons and protective skills should be affected by defensive stats, like protection reduce 15% damage + certain % of caster healing power, or something in that line.

I can definitely agree with this, to make Healing Power a proper defensive counterpoint to Condition Damage.

Belzebu.3912:

maha.7902:

So generally what happens is that we have five characters in berserker gear, but we’ll have a warrior and guardian using support builds while the other three can just go pure DPS traits.

That is the main issue, GW2 allow you to be supporter with the DPS gear w/o any penalty, protection, retaliation, aegis,vigor … all that doesn’t get any benefit from any stats besides boon duration, get protection from a full zerker guardian or a full cleric guardian is indifferent, so why not gear with the highest DPS set?

Boons and protective skills should be affected by defensive stats, like protection reduce 15% damage + certain % of caster healing power, or something in that line.

Sure, it allows it, but you arent building for it. You’re building for maximum damage with support. I run a PVT guardian (kitten all of you haters) with a x/x/6/6/x setup for everything. As it stands now, I’m currently looking at 30k health, 2.5-3k armor/toughness, same power as a zerker set, -2 condis every 10 seconds, condi clear on shouts, and (with food) an extra 200 power when below 50%. And that 50% health mark comes out to about 80% health of a zerker build. On top of all that, I’m built to be the one to take the inevitable hits in dungeons and fractals while everyone else in my party can freely deal damage without worrying over the need to mitigate damage.

Boons, and defensive stats as a whole, definitely need to be reworked. Healing power has a stupidly low skill coefficient, making it pitifually weak.

maha.7902:

You perceive it as an issue, I don’t.

Being able to support your team no matter what your gear is what gives you so much freedom to build how you like, you don’t need to have a minimum of gear X in order to apply boon Y. Same with DPS, you can run full cleric but pile on a bunch of damage modifiers through traiting.

I’m not saying you couldn’t support with any gear, I mean you should get benefits using other gears.
We only have 2 options, support and cause high damage or support and cause lower damage, of course you’ll pick the 1st, but if you offer support a bit but cause high damage or support a lot but cause lower damage … now you have to think what you want to do.

Aidan Savage.2078:

On top of all that, I’m built to be the one to take the inevitable hits in dungeons and fractals while everyone else in my party can freely deal damage without worrying over the need to mitigate damage.

Must have missed that ANet introduced taunt skills and removed cleave from enemy attacks. Where do I find the taunts?

Aidan Savage.2078:

bullkitten

You are awesome!

On top of all that, I’m built to be the one to take the inevitable hits in dungeons and fractals while everyone else in my party can freely deal damage without worrying over the need to mitigate damage.

Can you enlighten us, berserker peasants how you do this in Guild Wars 2? I mean, we talk about GW2 right?

Stop with the qq.
There will always be a best way to do things. Everywhere. In every game, in every real life situation. Not knowing the best way doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Best way meaning the most effective way to accomplish something given the posibilities i.e. capabilities(skill) of the people and an acceptable risk/reward ratio.
Making healing power scale better and other support aspects will do nothing to the curent “meta”. People don’t run berserker because support is bad, they just don’t need it.

On top of all that, I’m built to be the one to take the inevitable hits in dungeons and fractals while everyone else in my party can freely deal damage without worrying over the need to mitigate damage.

But if the mobs and bosses are using AOE and cleave, your whole party is taking damage. Secondly, minus fringe situations there’s no way to reliably hold aggro in this game, and let’s assume you do (to offer you examples, belka likes to go for ascended, lupicus goes for either ascended or the squishiest player, champion ettin in fotm aggros to toughness, and so forth) why not just use offensive gear and carefully use your blocks and other cooldowns to “tank” the damage than just go full PVT? That way you deal a ton of damage but can hold the aggro well too if you were to say, take knight’s gear instead.

I’m not saying you couldn’t support with any gear, I mean you should get benefits using other gears.
We only have 2 options, support and cause high damage or support and cause lower damage, of course you’ll pick the 1st, but if you offer support a bit but cause high damage or support a lot but cause lower damage … now you have to think what you want to do.

Now let’s assume that you have to chose between the two. Let’s also assume that “speed runners” now take four berserkers and a whatever-the-optimal-support-set-is. How is this any more interesting? You have five people doing exactly what they used to do, just one of them now does terrible damage. I just don’t see how this solves anything.

CptAurellian.9537:

Aidan Savage.2078:

On top of all that, I’m built to be the one to take the inevitable hits in dungeons and fractals while everyone else in my party can freely deal damage without worrying over the need to mitigate damage.

Must have missed that ANet introduced taunt skills and removed cleave from enemy attacks. Where do I find the taunts?

My bad, I forgot to mention that I dont run dungeons and fractals with filthy casuals. Cleave? They arent dumb enough to stand next to me or the boss. Taunts? As much as love to have them added (maybe as some sort of shout-applied condi?), the vastly higher vitality and toughness, consequently armor, my guardian has compared to everyone else puts me at the priority point of aggro quite often.

The reason I dont wear other sets Maha, is because I also run other content, particularly Tequatl and THW. For that content, zerker armor is of limited usefulness because Tequatl and phase 1 THW are both classed as structures (thus immune to critical hits), and incidental damage from mobs that spawn can quickly down people wearing zerker. Anyone who’s been to Teq knows just how painful those poison fields are, and a moment of inattention means death in seconds.

“Zerk” is a style of play that is geared to one end, rewards as fast as possible without delay. Players who use it are not playing the game to play, they are playing to extract as much digital monetary excitement as they can get. It is that simple.
The casual gamer in any other gear set is playing the game to have fun, and relishes the rewards he gets.

Sligh.2789:

“Zerk” is a style of play that is geared to one end, rewards as fast as possible without delay. Players who use it are not playing the game to play, they are playing to extract as much digital monetary excitement as they can get. It is that simple.
The casual gamer in any other gear set is playing the game to have fun, and relishes the rewards he gets.

Not using zerker isnt restricted to casual gamers either.

Sligh.2789:

“Zerk” is a style of play that is geared to one end, rewards as fast as possible without delay. Players who use it are not playing the game to play, they are playing to extract as much digital monetary excitement as they can get. It is that simple.
The casual gamer in any other gear set is playing the game to have fun, and relishes the rewards he gets.

I play to have fun, and to meet personal goals:

Do you think I did that for money? Do you think I basically sat in an Arah instance for two nights in a row fighting one boss that I was doing it for gold? I don’t even finish these instances when I get recorded solos, I just leave because I don’t care enough to sell the path or get my daily.

“zerk” is not a style of play, it’s a gear stat combination, just how “soldier” is not a style of play, or “cleric” is not a style of play.

I think it has more to do with the game mechanics. Other gear setup other than zerg just doesn’t offer anything meaningful. Stats other than power, precision and ferocity need to be buff so that they are more attractive option. I would expect it is no easy task since any changes to those stats could easily break wvw or pvp side of game.

Aidan Savage.2078:

Cleave? They arent dumb enough to stand next to me or the boss.

This keeps getting better

The reason I dont wear other sets Maha, is because I also run other content, particularly Tequatl and THW.

Because carrying around 2 armor sets is too much to ask right? I can use the blunt end of a screwdriver to hammer a nail, no need to carry around a hammer then.

The reason I dont wear other sets Maha, is because I also run other content, particularly Tequatl and THW. For that content, zerker armor is of limited usefulness because Tequatl and phase 1 THW are both classed as structures (thus immune to critical hits), and incidental damage from mobs that spawn can quickly down people wearing zerker.

My entire guild uses full berserker builds for dungeons and open world. For the few times I did 3HW I used full berserker too. All of the attacks are pretty clearly choreographed so you can just dodge, not stack vitality. For trash mobs you just blind them on guardian.

Anyone who’s been to Teq knows just how painful those poison fields are, and a moment of inattention means death in seconds.

Which is why you dodge out of them

—

It honestly just sounds like you’re not overly interested in learning to actively mitigate boss mechanics, you’d rather just passively soak up damage at the cost of dealing any damage yourself. Personally I prefer to be able to prevent the damage and deal damage.

Zorby.8236:

Because carrying around 2 armor sets is too much to ask right? I can use the blunt end of a screwdriver to hammer a nail, no need to carry around a hammer then.

Given the price of high-level armor? Yes, it can be.

Sartharina.3542:

Zorby.8236:

Because carrying around 2 armor sets is too much to ask right? I can use the blunt end of a screwdriver to hammer a nail, no need to carry around a hammer then.

Given the price of high-level armor? Yes, it can be.

Given that I use Ascended tier because of how often I frequent Fractals? Yes. I dont have 300-400g and a month’s worth of laurels to drop on an armor set I’ll wear maybe once a day.

@Aidan
1. So your team mates ranging everything. Kudos to you. At least you can melee.
2. You do less dps on burn phase however for no meaningful reason.
3. Active defense is the new exploit mantra now? Whats this trend with this “i dont want to be efficient” thing?

@maha
Agree.
Remind me of this old thread.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Why-do-people-try-to-be-tanks-in-dungeons

@Sartharina
Anyone who cant afford 30g for a set of armor has some gold gaining issues. Or have little to nothing playtime available, but if you go slowly it shouldnt be an issue either.

I have only one problem with the traits arguement. Is there really build freedom with traits in the dungeons. I mean sure guardian’s can go into support/dps territory, but what about classes like thief?
It seems from my pov only a handful of classes can actually multi-role. Everyone else is supposed to only take traits that contribute to the dps. Like you’d never see a thief go 5/0/6/0/3 or 0/6/4/4/0.
I know this isn’t the speedrunner’s fault. They’re just taking the best tools for the job Anet has presented them. I just find the “your build is your traits” arguement rather flimsy.

It’d be cool in the future if Anet broke the mold with some of their encounts, like maybe have a boss that starts out without unshakable. You have to chase this boss down a hall full of hazards, and it has stunbreaks and cc cleanses, but still can be cc’d. If it reaches the end of the hall it becomes a much stronger boss, but if you can stop it from reaching there, it’d be significantly easier. Something unique like that.

@Dalanor: You sure you’re not a little out of touch with the price of zerkers these days? I went through like 40g (plus like 950 commendations) gearing my mesmer in full zerk exotics, and I don’t even have the runes and sigils yet. And I know quite a few players that can barely manage 3g.
30g will pretty much get you a just the zerk armour package.

Actually… Is PVT damage significantly lower than Zerker? Both have identical Power output. ALl that’s missing is a bit of crit ability.

Dalanor.5387:

@Sartharina
Anyone who cant afford 30g for a set of armor has some gold gaining issues. Or have little to nothing playtime available, but if you go slowly it shouldnt be an issue either.

Gold-gaining issues are definitely a problem for anyone who’s not a champ-training/zerk-stacking farmbot.

…and dang. What happened to the metagame that existed back during that thread?

@Sartharina: Actually, the precision and crit make a huge difference. A full zerks set will deal well over 200% crit damage and crit at least 50% (not to mention, many meta comps are capable of achieving over 100% crit chance.) of the time. It’s the reason pvper’s say bunkers do no damage.

I would like to see more variety other than ‘all zerker’. A zerker should be ‘high risk, high reward’ gameplay, but there’s not enough risk to compensate the reward.

out in PvP and WvW, you can easily predict whatever your opponent is running. Yes, I know some traits and weapons are best suited to this one setup, but that’s the issue. There’s only one setup. There’s no guessing, no hidden weapon, and no surprise attack. There’s very little variety. It’s all ‘damage, damage, and more damage.’

Part of the reason is because we can just evade any incoming damage that would break a glass cannon. Now don’t get me wrong – I love the dodge system. I can never play another game that lacks this mobility. But glass cannons simply don’t get hurt enough.

I miss playing tank classes from trinity-based games. I got PTV gear for my mesmer – used for soloing champ fights, because I find that fun. But I would not use it for WvW, PvE, or dungeon farming, simply because it’s ineffective.

Given that I use Ascended tier because of how often I frequent Fractals? Yes. I dont have 300-400g and a month’s worth of laurels to drop on an armor set I’ll wear maybe once a day.

You don’t even need ascended armour to do fotm 49, just trinkets, infused rings and weapons.

I have three armour sets on warrior (ascended berserker, strength runes, exotic rabid, undead runes, exotic berserker, scholar runes) along with ascended berserker trinkets and exotic named rabid trinkets. On mesmer I have exotic assassin with strength runes, exotic berserker with scholar and I used to have a centaur running set. Weapons-wise, on mesmer I must have something like 5 swords, 5 foci, 2 pistols, 1 greatsword, 1 scepter, 1 torch. Warrior I have four swords, hammer, legendary greatsword, ascended greatswprd, three axes, two maces, two warhorns, two longbows.

The point is – cost isn’t an excuse and I have literally not farmed anything for months.

I have only one problem with the traits arguement. Is there really build freedom with traits in the dungeons. I mean sure guardian’s can go into support/dps territory, but what about classes like thief?
It seems from my pov only a handful of classes can actually multi-role. Everyone else is supposed to only take traits that contribute to the dps. Like you’d never see a thief go 5/0/6/0/3 or 0/6/4/4/0.

That’s because you see vitality, healing power, toughness, boon duration and make the link that these are support trait lines. Thieves in this example already have support in the 30/30/0/0/10 build with improvisation and thrill of the crime traits. Improvisation can proc smoke screen cooldown in a low projectile absorption group, thrill of the crime is AOE might, fury, swiftness.

I know this isn’t the speedrunner’s fault. They’re just taking the best tools for the job Anet has presented them. I just find the “your build is your traits” arguement rather flimsy.

It basically is. Sure, you can have some 0/0/30/30/10 shout heal warrior in berserker, but that’s just a bad build not even worth calling a build (PvE that is – PvP/WvW shout heals are fine). All optimised builds run berserker, but it’s trait choices which distinguish them, so it’s traits which make the build, not the gear which is basically homogenous across all builds.

It’d be cool in the future if Anet broke the mold with some of their encounts, like maybe have a boss that starts out without unshakable. You have to chase this boss down a hall full of hazards, and it has stunbreaks and cc cleanses, but still can be cc’d. If it reaches the end of the hall it becomes a much stronger boss, but if you can stop it from reaching there, it’d be significantly easier. Something unique like that.

You’d either take a guardian dropping traited sanctuary followed by untraited sanctuary, then line of warding, ring of warding and burst it down or you’d have one guy throwing rocks and the other four just purely dealing damage.

You need to think outside the box – you’re probably picturing your idea as “this will make for an interesting encounter”, I’m showing you how it can be completely trivialised. It doesn’t matter how well they design their encounters, once people have done them enough times they’ll just go on farm.

I would like to see more variety other than ‘all zerker’. A zerker should be ‘high risk, high reward’ gameplay, but there’s not enough risk to compensate the reward.

Fail to dodge a kick, 12k damage. Fail to dodge a swipe, 17k damage. Fail to dodge AOE, dead on the spot. Fail to dodge life suck, 16k damage. Fail to dodge life drain, 16k damage.

“no risk” indeed.

@maha: I have no problem with them finding someway to burst it, you even mentioned guardian running staff, which is currently a big no no. At the very least it would provide a different challenge than what your average stack and spank pug is used to. If they made the stunbreak+stability trigger shortly after it’s cc’d and made it run at +25% combatspeed, I think it’d provide much more of a challenge then you seem to think.

maha.7902:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTafFOu4jL0

Fail to dodge a kick, 12k damage. Fail to dodge a swipe, 17k damage. Fail to dodge AOE, dead on the spot. Fail to dodge life suck, 16k damage. Fail to dodge life drain, 16k damage.

“no risk” indeed.

Arikyali.5804:

Part of the reason is because we can just evade any incoming damage that would break a glass cannon. Now don’t get me wrong – I love the dodge system. I can never play another game that lacks this mobility. But glass cannons simply don’t get hurt enough.

Hey, as another player who likes soloing champs, I know how much risk one hit can take. But that was Lupicus – this is a solo fight. Zerker or not, there was risk. I’m not talking about that – there’s ‘no-risk’ going zerker in WvW, PvE, etc. It all comes down to how much DPS can one player dish out.

Whenever someone wants to try something new, general attitude is ‘shoot it down and bury the idea’. Anything not following the zerker meta, is dubbed a troll build, or ineffective. But there’s a reason why it is.

Zerker is the automatic answer to everything. “I want to use this weapon set” – go zerker. “I want to farm dungeons” – go zerker. “I want to roam in WvW” – go zerker. “I want to survive in PvE” – kill everything before it hits you. Go zerker. “I want to watch my enemies burn” – oh. Ok, go condi.

There’s nothing that can be done to change this. The game promotes movement, quick response, and positioning. And hey, that’s great, it’s one thing I like in this game. But if you don’t get hit, why bother using any other setup that doesn’t contribute to damage?

Mesket.5728:

2 years and this still is one of the main issues with the game. GW2 is not an RPG. It’s an online assasin’s creed kind of game. Its an arcade. Its not a game about teamplay. We are all single players on the same map. Get it in your head. They won’t fix it.

GW2 is a RPG, there are roles, but ANet still has to figure out a good way to update mobs from the standard average joe zerker feed.

The amount of damage zerkers did was a mistake by the ANet, they never intended it to be too strong.

Heck, my longbow ranger with full zerker exotic and +200 power/30seconds on kill, +70 ferocity (Was +10% crit damage before) and sharpening stone:
3.5k crits before zerk nerf on average joe zerker feed mobs
3k after zerk nerf…

They will fix it, like they did with GW1, it took alot of time before even that game had some skills no one used. Tho monks still cannot use smiting prayers well, dervishes got their primary attribute tinkered anew and paragons were constantly called “imbagons”, perhaps are still rather strong AoE party support.

Who knows, we might get more heavy armor foes and so on, than just your average joe zerker feed. Perhaps also some foes which can prolong themselves while damaging players, making support also more viable.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/To-clear-the-air-about-Berserker/first

I thought about this issue once. Though most of the good stuff is in the first 3 posts, there’s quite a bit throughout the whole thread. Though note: the original comparison was made before the ferocity nerf, so the build links won’t tell the same story.

Something to note in your original assessment, BRA – Active defenses tend to be time-locked, rather than strictly ablative. A ‘tankier’ character has more time for his active defenses to come back up – the longer a person survives, the more moves the enemy needs to make to get through the active defenses. And, a tanky character’s passive defenses still let him survive twice as long (Passively) as a zerker.

But… ultimately, though, the survivability of a tank isn’t overall time, but only in the downtime of active defenses. They really need to find a way to quantify the active defense’s value, and rebalance damage output between PVT and Zerk so that the difference in the TTK an enemy corresponds to the difference in the time to TTK them. Then again… active defenses are a lot more haphazard in their protection than passive ones, given the number of times I’ve dodged into a knockdown attack (And got approached by five more knockdown mobs while my Stability abilities were on cooldown. I guess I didn’t want to get up anytime this battle anyway.)

Belzebu.3912:

maha.7902:

So generally what happens is that we have five characters in berserker gear, but we’ll have a warrior and guardian using support builds while the other three can just go pure DPS traits.

That is the main issue, GW2 allow you to be supporter with the DPS gear w/o any penalty, protection, retaliation, aegis,vigor … all that doesn’t get any benefit from any stats besides boon duration, get protection from a full zerker guardian or a full cleric guardian is indifferent, so why not gear with the highest DPS set?

Boons and protective skills should be affected by defensive stats, like protection reduce 15% damage + certain % of caster healing power, or something in that line.

This is exactly the source of the Problem. And your solution is a thing I’ve seen a few times here. Why Anet wouldn’t implement this, is beyond me.

@maha: I have no problem with them finding someway to burst it, you even mentioned guardian running staff, which is currently a big no no. At the very least it would provide a different challenge than what your average stack and spank pug is used to. If they made the stunbreak+stability trigger shortly after it’s cc’d and made it run at +25% combatspeed, I think it’d provide much more of a challenge then you seem to think.

pre-nerf Alphard and Lupicus are “a different challenge” – and how have the community responded to these? They don’t do the dungeon or they just buy the paths. Aetherblade TA path is “different” too – even worse, nobody does that besides a very small minority.

different =/= good

Hey, as another player who likes soloing champs, I know how much risk one hit can take. But that was Lupicus – this is a solo fight. Zerker or not, there was risk. I’m not talking about that – there’s ‘no-risk’ going zerker in WvW, PvE, etc. It all comes down to how much DPS can one player dish out.

You should see some of the pugs I’ve done it with. Full tank warriors soaking up bubbles, kicks, swipes, everything. Stacking toughness and vitality honestly makes a lot of the hard hitting attacks blanks. When I solo on berserker a swipe hits me for 17k, in my rabid condi solos it hits for 12k.

Whenever someone wants to try something new, general attitude is ‘shoot it down and bury the idea’. Anything not following the zerker meta, is dubbed a troll build, or ineffective. But there’s a reason why it is.

Zerker is the automatic answer to everything. “I want to use this weapon set” – go zerker. “I want to farm dungeons” – go zerker. “I want to roam in WvW” – go zerker. “I want to survive in PvE” – kill everything before it hits you. Go zerker. “I want to watch my enemies burn” – oh. Ok, go condi.

“zerker” is not the answer at all. “here is the best dps build” is the answer. This can mean berserker or assassin, it can mean scholar, strength or ranger runes. I also have a faster condi solo of a heavy armour boss (2:57) than I do with a berserker build (2:59) – conditions are very viable in solo settings.

There’s nothing that can be done to change this. The game promotes movement, quick response, and positioning. And hey, that’s great, it’s one thing I like in this game. But if you don’t get hit, why bother using any other setup that doesn’t contribute to damage?

Everyone gets hit. This is why “just dodge” tryhards annoy me – nobody mitigates 100% of the damage dealt to them. Just pug dungeons, they’ll eat the floor all the time if someone isn’t carrying them. Sure, if you can learn to mitigate damage there is no need to use a defensive setup. But if you find yourself taking damage, that’s when you can go sure, maybe I need some knights or soldiers gear. The minority of people who can mitigate most of the damage dealt to them lie in a handful of elite speedclear guilds, 99% of players aren’t at that level and I wish people would stop pretending they are – the average player in this game is bad, can’t dodge and cares more for simply getting a dungeon done than getting it done efficiently.

Belzebu.3912:

maha.7902:

You perceive it as an issue, I don’t.

Being able to support your team no matter what your gear is what gives you so much freedom to build how you like, you don’t need to have a minimum of gear X in order to apply boon Y. Same with DPS, you can run full cleric but pile on a bunch of damage modifiers through traiting.

I’m not saying you couldn’t support with any gear, I mean you should get benefits using other gears.
We only have 2 options, support and cause high damage or support and cause lower damage, of course you’ll pick the 1st, but if you offer support a bit but cause high damage or support a lot but cause lower damage … now you have to think what you want to do.

You do already get other benefits. Take PVT/clerics and you become immortal. I dont really see the issue. The best thing about this game is that support and control is independant of gear stats. The only stats which effect support is boon and condi duration. But you can build around those without devoting an entire gearset to them. This is whats great about the build system. The real problem is the game is too easy and theres no new endgame content.

I think this has wandered off from the original post, which is not solely about the gearing itself. The fundamental problem is not just an AI issue but also a mob issue.

Many veteran players of GW1, including myself, will remember how the mobs were built in those games. You never came across mobs that would stupidly mob you. Single class mobs were also a relatively rare occurrence. They also had, compared to GW2, smarter AI so that they wouldn’t just all rush into melee with you. Some truly mixed mobs would contain melee, healers, other support casters and they would spread out in such a way that cleaving them down was impossible. This leads to the point that GW1 relegated AOE melee attacks to certain skills. So veteran warriors may remember Cyclone Axe and Triple Chop being an AOE attack but the basic axe attack was single target only. Sword attacks did not have cleave at all.

The AI also was smart enough that the mobs would not stay in mass AOE for that long and would withdraw and spread out after a certain number of ticks. This led to players having to combine professions and skills to snare mobs, after they had been aggroed, such that AOE and DoT spells would have better effects on the targets.

So, basically, the zerk meta by itself is a reflection on the comparatively dumber AI and combat mechanics of the game. This shouldn’t be about penalising zerkers or buffing everything else (that just leads to power creep). What should be the driving force of meta change is a massive improvement in AI and mob composition.

A couple of things that could start that change is
1. Cleave targets reduced to 2.

2. Mix up the composition of mobs to have difference “classes”. An obvious example are all the Moa flocks that run around. Invariably, Pink Moas will all have dazing screech, but why not include other moas? Ones that give fury, fear, etc. Also, to that extent, mobs should also have access (if it makes sense for them to do so) to have more defensive skills.

3. Improve the skill composition of mobs. Because of the limitations of single type mobs, they will all have the same set of skills. Also, because of the game design they will most likely only have a rotation of 4 skills all of which will have a cool down that will be longer than the fight will last. With the improvement in point 2, there will be an improvement in how mobs synergise their skillsets. If players can synergise their skill sets, why shouldn’t mobs?

4. Another change that should be made is certain mobs should have cleaving attacks. Many players hate dredge simply because of their wide variety of classes in a given mob, which tends to the large side. This means that it takes time to burn them down and requires target prioritisation. Rather than nerfing dredge, other mobs should be improved to similar standards so that rather than blitzing through every area, players have to think about what their party needs to bring for the encounter. The balance between this and an simply unnecessarily drawn out fight is very delicate. Being a lone adventurer aggroing a cave full of bears should result in a life threatening fight, while a whole party of adventurers should be reasonably challenged and not cake walk it as it is today.

5. Correct the mobbing and line of sight issues the lead to stacking being prevalent. Stacking takes advantage of the flaw in the AI pathing to maximise damage. This is the nature of the game but it shouldn’t be. Mob AI should be improved so that if the players are in very close proximity, their attacks (particularly if mobs have a mix of classes from point 3) should start with AOE’s or snares. Or at the very least should be mixed up enough to not be predictable. This needs a delicate balance. The fights need to be challenging without simply being drawn out.

5. This is one of the biggest gripes that most players will have. Boss fights. Bosses in general, but particularly world bosses, need to have enough mechanics in it such that simply zerging and pressing 1 is not viable. However, that’s for another ramble for another day

@above

From what I gather from forums. They can barely beat these world bosses just pressing 1. You want more? I can imagine the rage. Also IIRC some bosses did have more skills and those were nerfed because community too hards. As others have said look at Aetherpath

@Dual
Oh, i tought we speak about armor only, sorry. But with limited playtime you can still do a few dungeons or world bosses. Rares are throwed at players, salvage them for ecto and sell it. 3 AC path can be done fast and it gives ~5.5 gold + other loot. So again, gold shouldnt be an issue. Laziness and “idontgiveaskritt” is.

@Sartharina
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Critical
PVT is inferior in damage compared to Berserker, due to how critical damage work and as it has been said, some classes can reach the 100% crit chance cap with high crit damage.

@Arikyali
Variaty is there, people are just ignorant and dont use it. Full defensive setups are the same as zerker builds, you need to optimize to get the most benefit from it.
Get a hammer guard for perma prot for example.
Or again. Laziness. They want to get stuff done, so they join in to “speed run” groups.

@Belzebu
It wont change anything. Until zerker gets heavily nerfed into the ground (i have no idea why it should happen) or Anet makes content that makes zerker gear obsolate (Teq and other structure based enemies) it will be superior, providing the most damage output while still give support and control via traits, weapons and utilities.
Or if content requires to not deal damage, but to survive and it encourages passive defense it will happen, but i dont think it would make sense in an action based game. Role play tanks elsewhere.

You don’t nerf a stat, which sadly they already stupidly did. You also don’t add something stupid like damage return %, that’s the dumbest idea I’ve seen on these forums to date.

This is what you do:

You buff the AI scripting so they aren’t COMPLETELY stupid (think GW1, some of the best AI ever scripted).

You buff the AI, giving them things the players have, like dodges, stomping downed players, healing, and team support.

This will make other stats viable.

Will either of these happen in GW2? No. You’re better off not posting suggestions because ANet doesn’t care. It’s all about gem store profits, not making a good game.

2. Mix up the composition of mobs to have difference “classes”. An obvious example are all the Moa flocks that run around. Invariably, Pink Moas will all have dazing screech, but why not include other moas? Ones that give fury, fear, etc. Also, to that extent, mobs should also have access (if it makes sense for them to do so) to have more defensive skills.

3. Improve the skill composition of mobs. Because of the limitations of single type mobs, they will all have the same set of skills. Also, because of the game design they will most likely only have a rotation of 4 skills all of which will have a cool down that will be longer than the fight will last. With the improvement in point 2, there will be an improvement in how mobs synergise their skillsets. If players can synergise their skill sets, why shouldn’t mobs?

4. Another change that should be made is certain mobs should have cleaving attacks. Many players hate dredge simply because of their wide variety of classes in a given mob, which tends to the large side. This means that it takes time to burn them down and requires target prioritisation. Rather than nerfing dredge, other mobs should be improved to similar standards so that rather than blitzing through every area, players have to think about what their party needs to bring for the encounter. The balance between this and an simply unnecessarily drawn out fight is very delicate. Being a lone adventurer aggroing a cave full of bears should result in a life threatening fight, while a whole party of adventurers should be reasonably challenged and not cake walk it as it is today.

arah all paths, ac path 2 traps

try doing those, mobs that synergise with each other and have various skills do exist in this game.

This is what you do:

You buff the AI scripting so they aren’t COMPLETELY stupid (think GW1, some if the best AI ever scripted).

You buff the AI, giving them things the players have, like dodges, stomping downed players, healing, and team support.

This will make other stats viable.

Other stats are already viable. even if anet do everything you listed here, berserker will still be the best choice.

Sartharina.3542:

Actually… Is PVT damage significantly lower than Zerker? Both have identical Power output. ALl that’s missing is a bit of crit ability.

Zerk = 1.4 * Soldier (give or take depending on traits and boons)

as a point of reference – in optimal conditions a 20/25/0/0/25 berserker guardian deals almost 2x the damage of a full berserker 0/0/30/30/10 AH guardian, and deals almost 4x the damage of a 0/0/30/30/10 cleric guardian.

relevant video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-7gVxk_b2M

Get your logic and math out of a whine thread! -wink wink-

maha.7902:

as a point of reference – in optimal conditions a 20/25/0/0/25 berserker guardian deals almost 2x the damage of a full berserker 0/0/30/30/10 AH guardian, and deals almost 4x the damage of a 0/0/30/30/10 cleric guardian.

relevant video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-7gVxk_b2M

If you’re wearing zerker, would it not make more sense to go 4 (20) into Honor for Superior Aria and Empowering Might? If you do have a team composition with the ability to reach a high critical rate, wouldnt the ability to stack what amounts to a permanent 5 might (along with the shout recharge) on the team be better than what you get in Virtues beyond the Adept minor?

You can either take a phalanx warrior for perma-25 stacks of might or your ele just does a might stacking rotation every now and then to keep might up, you don’t need a guardian for might. If you cut the 20 in honour and stick it in to virtues you get an X% damage modifier from power of the virtuous which averages at around 4-5%, and access to much more useful traits like master of consecrations, unscathed contender, the IX that cleanses condis or increased spirit weapon duration.

spoj.9672:

You do already get other benefits. Take PVT/clerics and you become immortal.

In WvW you can die in a zerg, for sure, WvW roaming you won’t die but you won’t kill anything, if the target see that can’t kill you, they just leave.
In PvP will be just like WvW roaming, but that is kinda good to hold an area.
In many PvE bosses you find 1 hit KO mechanics that doesn’t matter how tanky you are, you’ll die. So in those scenarios you’ll only drag the party down by not killing the boss faster.