Guild Wars 2

“Death to the Berserker meta. We want the ability to be healers, tanks, control and condition damage!” was the community outcry.

Flash forward to day 1 of the raid and all you have is Berserker trying to play the raid.

I guess what the outcry from the community meant was “Death the the Berserker meta. I want to play Berserker, while other players fill out the diversity roles.”

Sir Morgan Malory.2069:

“Death to the Berserker meta. We want the ability to be healers, tanks, control and condition damage!” was the community outcry.

Flash forward to day 1 of the raid and all you have is Berserker trying to play the raid.

I guess what the outcry from the community meant was “Death the the Berserker meta. I want to play Berserker, while other players fill out the diversity roles.”

Lol. +1

NIMBY
(not in my back yard)

Sir Morgan Malory.2069:

“Death to the Berserker meta. We want the ability to be healers, tanks, control and condition damage!” was the community outcry.

Flash forward to day 1 of the raid and all you have is Berserker trying to play the raid.

I guess what the outcry from the community meant was “Death the the Berserker meta. I want to play Berserker, while other players fill out the diversity roles.”

Blame the guild of average gentleman Anet allowed to test raids who happen to be the loudest proponent for zerker.

Sir Morgan Malory.2069:

“Death to the Berserker meta. We want the ability to be healers, tanks, control and condition damage!” was the community outcry.

Flash forward to day 1 of the raid and all you have is Berserker trying to play the raid.

I guess what the outcry from the community meant was “Death the the Berserker meta. I want to play Berserker, while other players fill out the diversity roles.”

Have you tried to play the raid? I spent 8h trying to kill the first boss with a lot of different comps and we quit because he can’t die withing the timer if you play other specs than zerker. So the problem is anet did a very poor job again balancing it.
If you go with a mix group, even one bunker and one healer will slow you down enough in a way that you wont be able to kill and wipe when he get the 200% dmg buff.

We tried, a lot, not to play all zerkers but it happens that it doesn’t work for the raid. Next try we’ll probly be going full zerker and sinister since we’re very aware of the mechanics now.

To be perfectly fair berserker is only a name that is seen “negatively” for a certain type of playstyle that is not helping build diversity.

That is a build that is PURE GLASS for maximum damage and nothing else. It doesn’t matter if it was berserker stats/assassin stats/Sinister stats/Viper Stats it is all the same problem rooted in the fact that there is a timer on the fight and you cannot hope to complete it without going full damage.

Enemy damage has to mean something but not enough for people to forgo tanky stats because you get one shot anyway (problem with fractals and zerker meta pre HoT). And of course the timer needs to be lengthened considerably or removed.

In all honesty anet’s version of “difficult” reinforces the zerker meta because you need to do more damage to even beat the thing. It is somewhat conflicting because if you make things easy, yes everybody can do it with a wide amount of builds but then ppl complain it is too easy. On the other hand if you make it overly difficult the only viable specs are pure damage builds.

That said I don’t have a problem with some classes going pure glass dps. If that is their role in the raid that is fine and they should be allowed to do that. For example your Power damage dealer and Condi damage dealer. But when you have classes that are supposed to tank or heal and they cannot go tanky or heal without possibly failing the event you have a problem. It all goes back to trying to give people challenging content but ultimately that conflicts with build diversity.

ive been seeing as A LOT of people beat the first boss on day 1, your problem seems to be a l2p issue. i have seen full class clears staying alive with water field blasts that beat it in record time, i have seen decicated healer and tanks that beat it in exactly the time and i have seen people who dont learn the kittening mechanics complaining in the forums. its day 1 guys calm down

We spent the night testing different builds and tbh we have come to the conclusion that the majority of Comp needs to still be zerk to complete within the time limit. I personally think it was a cruel joke to lead us on that we needed to be more diverse. One free Stat change on our ascended gear would be quite helpful for those of us that bought in and changed from zerk to be more diverse.

I do enjoy the difficulty of raids but I wish they had actually made different builds viable for more then the Healer and “Tank”.

Zerk meta in full swing still

The timer is kittening stupid design and im sad that ANet EVER thought it was a good idea…

EVERY RAID in every game has a an enrage timer. gw2 only has the weak version a soft enrage timer that only increases the damage by 200% not even a hard enrage that instantly wipes. if there would be no enrage timer why would u not simply take 10 nomads? it would be like dungeons atm. its really easy to beat them its only hard to them fast. you not being able to grab this concept shows that you are not very familiar with CHALLENGING group content. this is not supposed to be beatable by the vast majority at all. and dont get me started on calling it "zerker meta" when half of the group NEEDS to be condi to even kill the kitten first boss.

I don’t know why the OP is surprised. The entire reason why the Holy Trinity often hurts gaming communities is that it’s easy to get DPS and sometimes tanks; it’s hard to get dedicated healers. GW2 isn’t immune from the preference to contribute huge damage numbers and end fights as quickly as possible (faster kills = more time to do something else that is fun).

However, I think lots of groups will find over time that you can have different comps that will succeed quickly enough. This is only the first day.

To be clear, Zerker meta is not the same as zerker gear : it is maxed out dmg output above all else.

That said, I think Anet have a rather tough problem with making non-max damage builds appealing with how GW2’s combat works. The faster you kill something, the less time it has to damage you, healing other players being rather lackluster for most professions plus being able to evade attacks entirely and the CD on that makes killing things fast the best way to mitigate damage in most cases. If the fight takes longer the enemy has more time to damage you and potentially hit you while you’re unable to dodge.
How to fix that I wouldn’t know. Maybe have defense traited builds do even less damage but be a lot more harder to kill ? Have healing builds be very good at keeping others alive, but rather squishy and unable to keep oneself alive ? Nerf damage builds so that defensive and supportive builds do as much damage ? No clue … but then again I am not a game designer

Goldenrevolver.4371:

EVERY RAID in every game has a an enrage timer. gw2 only has the weak version a soft enrage timer that only increases the damage by 200% not even a hard enrage that instantly wipes. if there would be no enrage timer why would u not simply take 10 nomads? it would be like dungeons atm. its really easy to beat them its only hard to them fast. you not being able to grab this concept shows that you are not very familiar with CHALLENGING group content. this is not supposed to be beatable by the vast majority at all. and dont get me started on calling it “zerker meta” when half of the group NEEDS to be condi to even kill the kitten first boss.

That youve played sure, dont make pointless exaggerations to attempt to justify your statement.

While yes I agree that the enrage stops people from doing a slowly trickling war of attrition, there are certainly other methods ANet could have explored to better the Raid and make it a unique experience where a variety of builds are at least somewhat viable.

Rather they said “We want to get rid of the zerker meta” but really they just repurposed it and laid it down as the groundwork for raids (at least for this first boss that is, maybe the other ones will shake things up?)

Goldenrevolver.4371:

and dont get me started on calling it “zerker meta” when half of the group NEEDS to be condi to even kill the kitten first boss.

Sinister is just a condi zerker, that’s basically the same thing: you have to max your damage out if you want to succeed. So far, raids are meant to zerk( & sinister, woah, revolution there!) meta. Otherwise you just don’t have enough DPS to kill the boss
I like the boss mechanics and everything, but that timed thing…

Raelag Arkhen.6347:

Goldenrevolver.4371:

and dont get me started on calling it “zerker meta” when half of the group NEEDS to be condi to even kill the kitten first boss.

Sinister is just a condi zerker, that’s basically the same thing: you have to max your damage out if you want to succeed. So far, raids are meant to zerk( & sinister, woah, revolution there!) meta. Otherwise you just don’t have enough DPS to kill the boss
I like the boss mechanics and everything, but that timed thing…

while i get what you’re saying, i also kinda think they didn’t want to stray too far from fractal/dungeon comps w/ the first wing….i’ll take condi having a place (and moments of necessary concentrated cc) as a step in the right direction. hopefully, later wings will require more varied comps.

The first boss abolutely requires zerker (dps) builds. I am fairly sure the others will too. You can tank and heal all you want but that wont get you through the boss.

FogLeg.9354:

The first boss abolutely requires zerker (dps) builds. I am fairly sure the others will too. You can tank and heal all you want but that wont get you through the boss.

the first boss is easy because we already know its mechanics from the beta events. i mean a lot of groups have beaten it on day one. you could have a healer, a tank and multiple downs and still beat it. its more about how familiar the people are with the mechanics. the second boss is a lot harder. you will always need dps to kill something and i dont know why people are crying about it

We just want to be free to play something else than zerk/sinister. I think the time thing could be usefull for a super hard mode, or a achievement that requires you to get a specific stuff to kill the boss. Otherwise, the content should be hard based on the fight machanics – it is, I like this part -, and only on this, not based on the huge amount of LP that should be taken down in a certain amount on time.
This way, zerk meta groups could play world records, specific achievements, this kind of stuff. And everyone would still have a rough time with bosses, but with some learning, they could kill it with the build they want to play, not the one they have to

Raelag Arkhen.6347:

We just want to be free to play something else than zerk/sinister. I think the time thing could be usefull for a super hard mode, or a achievement that requires you to get a specific stuff to kill the boss. Otherwise, the content should be hard based on the fight machanics – it is, I like this part -, and only on this, not based on the huge amount of LP that should be taken down in a certain amount on time.
This way, zerk meta groups could play world records, specific achievements, this kind of stuff. And everyone would still have a rough time with bosses, but with some learning, they could kill it with the build they want to play, not the one they have to

so you want more easy farmable dungeons?

No. I want fights based on mechanics, not just pure DPS. On this particular fight, there are nice things, but DPS still appears to be more important than the knowledge of the boss mechanics.
I sort of hate the meta-zerk thing, especially those zerk-farmers who trashtalk anyone who doesn’t spend 20h a day farming everything, so you’ll never see me asking for more easy farmable dungeons :p

so instead of having damage as the main role and heal/tanking/control as side roles u want to kill bosses by only healing them and/or only controlling them completely removing the aspect of damage output a class can do invalidating 2/3 of all classes for every encounter? because there arent that many methods u can actually hurt a boss other than...u know... damage. i know im exaggerating here but im curious what u expected? this is as optimal to having a soft trinity as u can get as almost every group now has a healer and a support and needs to master the mechanics while still doing damage. this is challenging group content

Goldenrevolver.4371:

i know im exaggerating here

Thank you Lord RNGsus!
About your questions, I already answered them.

It is only the first encounter I know so far. I hope the following ones are not DPD-centerd to the same extent. The key element is to create encounters with a great variety and higher complexity of mechanics.

If only DPS counts you have a highest DPS meta. If only support and healing matters you have a highest DPS meta. The golden way is to find an equilibrium between the extrema and variate the encounters around it.

For the first encounter the devs could have replaced the green circles by “heal-able” pillars that you have to heal at certain moments in a certain time.. A simple change that would create another dedicated role beside the DPS guys.

The classes in GW2 can spec and equip themselves for very different roles and tasks. The upcoming elite specialisations will strengthen this. The devs should make more use of this fact.

Goldenrevolver.4371:

this is not supposed to be beatable by the vast majority at all.

Good to know the majority of the playerbase is subsidizing content they’re explicitly not supposed to be able to complete!

A lot of my time leading a Raid group was getting the people dying in one hit to change their gear from Berserker into something reasonably sane.

Random.4691:

We spent the night testing different builds and tbh we have come to the conclusion that the majority of Comp needs to still be zerk to complete within the time limit. I personally think it was a cruel joke to lead us on that we needed to be more diverse. One free Stat change on our ascended gear would be quite helpful for those of us that bought in and changed from zerk to be more diverse.

I do enjoy the difficulty of raids but I wish they had actually made different builds viable for more then the Healer and “Tank”.

Zerk meta in full swing still

How about boon stripping and condition damage? works quite well