i like how we have a “meta” for something that isn’t even out yet.
+1
OP is just throwing out baseless assumptions and calls for nerfs/buffs when things were extremely out of whack this past BWE3 (at least for Druids). Druids were able to heal an entire 10 man raid while facerolling their keyboards because the class is very buggy/broken/raw at the moment which is why you saw Druids in most of the clear videos. There was no reason for any other class to step up healing wise when one druid made healing entirely trivial.
I don’t know enough about Scrapper to comment on them but it doesn’t surprise me that the two OP classes (condi scrapper/healing druid) in this past beta were the two classes that had the least amount of beta development time.
Faye Oren – Mesmer
Lee Oren – Ranger
Eve Oren – Revenant
I find it both sad and funny that while only a short while ago the “zerker meta” was the most evil thing in GW2 right now this whole “class imbalance” has risen to take its place somewhat.
The same people that thought the “zerker meta” was exclusionist and terrible now find themselves in a spot where exclusion is harder, the criteria stricter and all of this happened as a result of people crying out for ‘more diveristy’ blindly failing to see that you’ll never have a more diversity rich environment than the one in which any class and any gear combo could complete (dungeons).
Welcome to HoT. Enjoy your stay – here’s your complimentary engineer.
This. For a long time now, some people have been saying, “Be careful what you ask for, ANet might give it to you.”
Raids are likely going to please people who: (a) want harder content than dungeons offer; and/or (b) want to play the dedicated tank or healer, with all that hard content entails. This includes: having the correct gear for your role; having the correct profession for your role; and having the correct build for your role. Raids will not be the panacea for anyone whose beef was “gear diversity” or “I want PuG groups to want my build no matter what it is.”
Excactly, raids is not the place where you can play your turret Engi, or use your own little builds. Raids are, by what Anet says, the most challenging (PvE) content in GW2. This will be a place where you will need top notch dps, the best healing there is to find and someone who can sustain tank a boss, not to mention you will need reliable teamwork and cooperation skills. When people know how to farm the raids in maybe a year, maybe you can play a bit more casual. But as of now, we will use the strongest classes to fulfill certain role to try to beat the raid.
I don’t want Rangers to not be relevant. I’d love for us to stay in a good spot (my second oldest character is a Ranger), as for Necro.
And you may want to check it again, since condi damage is now important and Rengers have a lot of it (not in Druid spec, of course). Reaper is just awesome, so yeah, check again.
But, just to be clear, Druid was in every single group that beat the first raid boss.
That’s a fact. This is not “being relevant”, this is “being mandatory”.
It was the only healer of choice. No other healer could have done the same. If Druid is nerfed then we are screwed. So please just buff other healers and put a cd on Cele Avatar, otherwise the class is just immune to conditions (lol) and it’s “sustained burst” instead of “burst” as intended.
There is a HUGE difference between “in a good spot” and “mandatory”.
I just want a second choice when making a group.
Not really
I know at least one group that had no druid and used eles and engys for heal and blast and they beat the boss with it.
I think that the thing that will force the meta is the enrage timer. If you get rid of the timer then raid groups no longer need to enforce specific professions for specific tasks so rigidly. Getting rid of the timer doesn’t get rid of any of the skill requirement, the raid will still wipe if they don’t do the right things at the right time but it will give other professions a look in … and that’s no bad thing in my opinion. Beating the raid should be about player skill, not whether or not you are playing BiS. If groups want to speed clear then more power to them, for a speed clear you’ll need the BiS professions, you’ll need full ascended, and that’s great … and something I’d be interested to see. But dropping the enrage timer while keeping the difficulty high will allow more “casual” groups to win through … they might take a few minutes longer but as long as they have the skill to deal with the challenges, I don’t see why they should be excluded.
Also please anything to get rid of the kitten zerker meta, let’s see some of the other armour types getting a look in!
I think that the thing that will force the meta is the enrage timer. If you get rid of the timer then raid groups no longer need to enforce specific professions for specific tasks so rigidly. Getting rid of the timer doesn’t get rid of any of the skill requirement, the raid will still wipe if they don’t do the right things at the right time but it will give other professions a look in … and that’s no bad thing in my opinion. Beating the raid should be about player skill, not whether or not you are playing BiS. If groups want to speed clear then more power to them, for a speed clear you’ll need the BiS professions, you’ll need full ascended, and that’s great … and something I’d be interested to see. But dropping the enrage timer while keeping the difficulty high will allow more “casual” groups to win through … they might take a few minutes longer but as long as they have the skill to deal with the challenges, I don’t see why they should be excluded.
Also please anything to get rid of the kitten zerker meta, let’s see some of the other armour types getting a look in!
Odd since of all the guilds that beat the raid boss not a single one used all zerker gear. In fact I don’t think any guild used more than 50% zerker gear. So much for your zerker meta.
Also getting rid of the enrage timer most certainly makes the fight easier and take less skill. The boss can’t kill you if your whole party is in the nomad meta. You can literally just face tank the boss and lightning damage in nomad’s gear with no threat at all. Of course killing it will take 20-30 minutes, but without an enrage timer why bother risking a wipe if you can get a guaranteed kill in 20 minutes.
I think that the thing that will force the meta is the enrage timer. If you get rid of the timer then raid groups no longer need to enforce specific professions for specific tasks so rigidly. Getting rid of the timer doesn’t get rid of any of the skill requirement, the raid will still wipe if they don’t do the right things at the right time but it will give other professions a look in … and that’s no bad thing in my opinion. Beating the raid should be about player skill, not whether or not you are playing BiS. If groups want to speed clear then more power to them, for a speed clear you’ll need the BiS professions, you’ll need full ascended, and that’s great … and something I’d be interested to see. But dropping the enrage timer while keeping the difficulty high will allow more “casual” groups to win through … they might take a few minutes longer but as long as they have the skill to deal with the challenges, I don’t see why they should be excluded.
Also please anything to get rid of the kitten zerker meta, let’s see some of the other armour types getting a look in!
Odd since of all the guilds that beat the raid boss not a single one used all zerker gear. In fact I don’t think any guild used more than 50% zerker gear. So much for your zerker meta.
Also getting rid of the enrage timer most certainly makes the fight easier and take less skill. The boss can’t kill you if your whole party is in the nomad meta. You can literally just face tank the boss and lightning damage in nomad’s gear with no threat at all. Of course killing it will take 20-30 minutes, but without an enrage timer why bother risking a wipe if you can get a guaranteed kill in 20 minutes.
I think NA was like 60% zerker, 30% Sinister 10% rabid.
I think that the thing that will force the meta is the enrage timer. If you get rid of the timer then raid groups no longer need to enforce specific professions for specific tasks so rigidly. Getting rid of the timer doesn’t get rid of any of the skill requirement, the raid will still wipe if they don’t do the right things at the right time but it will give other professions a look in … and that’s no bad thing in my opinion. Beating the raid should be about player skill, not whether or not you are playing BiS. If groups want to speed clear then more power to them, for a speed clear you’ll need the BiS professions, you’ll need full ascended, and that’s great … and something I’d be interested to see. But dropping the enrage timer while keeping the difficulty high will allow more “casual” groups to win through … they might take a few minutes longer but as long as they have the skill to deal with the challenges, I don’t see why they should be excluded.
Also please anything to get rid of the kitten zerker meta, let’s see some of the other armour types getting a look in!
Odd since of all the guilds that beat the raid boss not a single one used all zerker gear. In fact I don’t think any guild used more than 50% zerker gear. So much for your zerker meta.
Also getting rid of the enrage timer most certainly makes the fight easier and take less skill. The boss can’t kill you if your whole party is in the nomad meta. You can literally just face tank the boss and lightning damage in nomad’s gear with no threat at all. Of course killing it will take 20-30 minutes, but without an enrage timer why bother risking a wipe if you can get a guaranteed kill in 20 minutes.
I think NA was like 60% zerker, 30% Sinister 10% rabid.
This, several of those who managed to clear it posted what they used, specifically stating the zerkers to rub anet’s nose in the fact they didn’t get rid of the meta, they reinforced it!
The 1st boss is easy on conditions and CC. That probably won’t be the case for the others. Melee damages could also be denied for some bosses too.
And for those hoping for a druid nerf, don’t count on it. Base heal will be reduced while h.power scaling will be increased so overall a cleric druid will heal more than during BWE3 and they’ll also modify Astral Force generaton so that you’re not forced into staff, meaning that druids will also be able to DPS. I’d rather have them improve h.power scaling for other classes, in PvE at least.
The 1st boss is easy on conditions and CC. That probably won’t be the case for the others. Melee damages could also be denied for some bosses too.
And for those hoping for a druid nerf, don’t count on it. Base heal will be reduced while h.power scaling will be increased so overall a cleric druid will heal more than during BWE3 and they’ll also modify Astral Force generaton so that you’re not forced into staff, meaning that druids will also be able to DPS. I’d rather have them improve h.power scaling for other classes, in PvE at least.
This will effectively nerf their all around usefulness. They will have to go full clerics (or some form of healing power gear) and thus will be lacking in other departments, they can ignore Healing Power and their heals will be Meh, or the smart ones will find the happy medium with Celestial or the mixing of different types of Gear/Jewlery/Weapons. The last one of the three options will probably see a small decline in Healing output but it probably wont be game breaking and they will be able to do more than just heal.
So it will still be a nerf, even if it’s only a small one.
…So basically everyone in raid will look for Scrapper and Druid, and kick almost everything else…
Until ANet implements a set of tweaks that nerf overpowered abilities, buff up underpowered ones, adjust the cool down on some skills, etc.
ANet WANTS us to bring in diverse groups into raids. They were paying attention to what was happening during the Beta. They are paying attention to these forums. There will be tweaks by the time HoT goes live. There will be tweaks after. Many, many rounds of tweaks. That’s just the nature of MMO’s.
Instead of complaining and prophesying doom (which won’t happen), how about providing some constructive criticism and ideas? Yes, things will be unbalanced at first, but they will get better.
I find it both sad and funny that while only a short while ago the “zerker meta” was the most evil thing in GW2 right now this whole “class imbalance” has risen to take its place somewhat.
The same people that thought the “zerker meta” was exclusionist and terrible now find themselves in a spot where exclusion is harder, the criteria stricter and all of this happened as a result of people crying out for ‘more diveristy’ blindly failing to see that you’ll never have a more diversity rich environment than the one in which any class and any gear combo could complete (dungeons).
Welcome to HoT. Enjoy your stay – here’s your complimentary engineer.
This. For a long time now, some people have been saying, “Be careful what you ask for, ANet might give it to you.”
Raids are likely going to please people who: (a) want harder content than dungeons offer; and/or (b) want to play the dedicated tank or healer, with all that hard content entails. This includes: having the correct gear for your role; having the correct profession for your role; and having the correct build for your role. Raids will not be the panacea for anyone whose beef was “gear diversity” or “I want PuG groups to want my build no matter what it is.”
Excactly, raids is not the place where you can play your turret Engi, or use your own little builds. Raids are, by what Anet says, the most challenging (PvE) content in GW2. This will be a place where you will need top notch dps, the best healing there is to find and someone who can sustain tank a boss, not to mention you will need reliable teamwork and cooperation skills. When people know how to farm the raids in maybe a year, maybe you can play a bit more casual. But as of now, we will use the strongest classes to fulfill certain role to try to beat the raid.
Pretty much.
It’s the people that as Indigo said wanted to play any build they liked that flooded the forums with “death to zerker” and “force build diversity” and now they have. Only that this “diversity” will end up excluding more people than zerker ever did.
I’m curious as to where all the “down with zerker, we want forced roles” people went – I haven’t seen any praise threads regarding raids and how they’ve fixed the “zerker meta”.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
I think that the thing that will force the meta is the enrage timer. If you get rid of the timer then raid groups no longer need to enforce specific professions for specific tasks so rigidly. Getting rid of the timer doesn’t get rid of any of the skill requirement, the raid will still wipe if they don’t do the right things at the right time but it will give other professions a look in … and that’s no bad thing in my opinion. Beating the raid should be about player skill, not whether or not you are playing BiS. If groups want to speed clear then more power to them, for a speed clear you’ll need the BiS professions, you’ll need full ascended, and that’s great … and something I’d be interested to see. But dropping the enrage timer while keeping the difficulty high will allow more “casual” groups to win through … they might take a few minutes longer but as long as they have the skill to deal with the challenges, I don’t see why they should be excluded.
Also please anything to get rid of the kitten zerker meta, let’s see some of the other armour types getting a look in!
Odd since of all the guilds that beat the raid boss not a single one used all zerker gear. In fact I don’t think any guild used more than 50% zerker gear. So much for your zerker meta.
Also getting rid of the enrage timer most certainly makes the fight easier and take less skill. The boss can’t kill you if your whole party is in the nomad meta. You can literally just face tank the boss and lightning damage in nomad’s gear with no threat at all. Of course killing it will take 20-30 minutes, but without an enrage timer why bother risking a wipe if you can get a guaranteed kill in 20 minutes.
Yeah – some used zerker and didn’t use sinister because it wasn’t in the available choices.
When the content comes out I guarantee you most players will be zerker or sinister ( which is full dps condi).
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
I think that the thing that will force the meta is the enrage timer. If you get rid of the timer then raid groups no longer need to enforce specific professions for specific tasks so rigidly. Getting rid of the timer doesn’t get rid of any of the skill requirement, the raid will still wipe if they don’t do the right things at the right time but it will give other professions a look in … and that’s no bad thing in my opinion. Beating the raid should be about player skill, not whether or not you are playing BiS. If groups want to speed clear then more power to them, for a speed clear you’ll need the BiS professions, you’ll need full ascended, and that’s great … and something I’d be interested to see. But dropping the enrage timer while keeping the difficulty high will allow more “casual” groups to win through … they might take a few minutes longer but as long as they have the skill to deal with the challenges, I don’t see why they should be excluded.
Also please anything to get rid of the kitten zerker meta, let’s see some of the other armour types getting a look in!
Odd since of all the guilds that beat the raid boss not a single one used all zerker gear. In fact I don’t think any guild used more than 50% zerker gear. So much for your zerker meta.
Also getting rid of the enrage timer most certainly makes the fight easier and take less skill. The boss can’t kill you if your whole party is in the nomad meta. You can literally just face tank the boss and lightning damage in nomad’s gear with no threat at all. Of course killing it will take 20-30 minutes, but without an enrage timer why bother risking a wipe if you can get a guaranteed kill in 20 minutes.
I think NA was like 60% zerker, 30% Sinister 10% rabid.
This, several of those who managed to clear it posted what they used, specifically stating the zerkers to rub anet’s nose in the fact they didn’t get rid of the meta, they reinforced it!
Let me just point it out here – since many people seem to be oblivious to this.
Anet never said or wanted people to abandon zerker gear or give up on running it. They wanted to get rid of the “zerker meta” of old – which is basically going FULL damage, with mostly damage-related utilities and not worrying about staying alive because you’ll kill whatever you’re fighting before it will kill you.
It negated mechanics because you would kill things before they were “ready” or “capable” of fighting you.
This raid encounter did in fact address and fix this “zerker meta” as defined above – because there is no way you can avoid mechanics or burn the boss down before it has a chance to kill you or get off its dangerous attacks.
The old “zerker meta” is over for raids -or should I say it never appeared in raids. We now have a “new zerker meta” which focuses on doing as much damage as possible WHILE staying alive but the boss’ mechanics can’t be negated or avoided now – you must stay alive by being skilled and knowing what you are doing.
That old meta is gone – the new meta is similar but is significantly harder to pull off.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
I think that the thing that will force the meta is the enrage timer. If you get rid of the timer then raid groups no longer need to enforce specific professions for specific tasks so rigidly. Getting rid of the timer doesn’t get rid of any of the skill requirement, the raid will still wipe if they don’t do the right things at the right time but it will give other professions a look in … and that’s no bad thing in my opinion. Beating the raid should be about player skill, not whether or not you are playing BiS. If groups want to speed clear then more power to them, for a speed clear you’ll need the BiS professions, you’ll need full ascended, and that’s great … and something I’d be interested to see. But dropping the enrage timer while keeping the difficulty high will allow more “casual” groups to win through … they might take a few minutes longer but as long as they have the skill to deal with the challenges, I don’t see why they should be excluded.
Also please anything to get rid of the kitten zerker meta, let’s see some of the other armour types getting a look in!
Odd since of all the guilds that beat the raid boss not a single one used all zerker gear. In fact I don’t think any guild used more than 50% zerker gear. So much for your zerker meta.
Also getting rid of the enrage timer most certainly makes the fight easier and take less skill. The boss can’t kill you if your whole party is in the nomad meta. You can literally just face tank the boss and lightning damage in nomad’s gear with no threat at all. Of course killing it will take 20-30 minutes, but without an enrage timer why bother risking a wipe if you can get a guaranteed kill in 20 minutes.
I think NA was like 60% zerker, 30% Sinister 10% rabid.
This, several of those who managed to clear it posted what they used, specifically stating the zerkers to rub anet’s nose in the fact they didn’t get rid of the meta, they reinforced it!
Let me just point it out here – since many people seem to be oblivious to this.
Anet never said or wanted people to abandon zerker gear or give up on running it. They wanted to get rid of the “zerker meta” of old – which is basically going FULL damage, with mostly damage-related utilities and not worrying about staying alive because you’ll kill whatever you’re fighting before it will kill you.
It negated mechanics because you would kill things before they were “ready” or “capable” of fighting you.
This raid encounter did in fact address and fix this “zerker meta” as defined above – because there is no way you can avoid mechanics or burn the boss down before it has a chance to kill you or get off its dangerous attacks.
The old “zerker meta” is over for raids -or should I say it never appeared in raids. We now have a “new zerker meta” which focuses on doing as much damage as possible WHILE staying alive but the boss’ mechanics can’t be negated or avoided now – you must stay alive by being skilled and knowing what you are doing.
That old meta is gone – the new meta is similar but is significantly harder to pull off.
Based on the one boss, it also seems like Anet achieved their design goal in one respect. Heals were being regularly dropped, and there was someone who was doing that. I’m unsure whether that group was “using the combat system to its fullest.” However, designing one encounter to encourage use of all options available would be a tough ask. Hopefully, different encounters will feature different mechanics and call for different buffs and skills. One thing’s for sure though, with enrage timers, Might will be stacked regularly.
I think that the thing that will force the meta is the enrage timer. If you get rid of the timer then raid groups no longer need to enforce specific professions for specific tasks so rigidly. Getting rid of the timer doesn’t get rid of any of the skill requirement, the raid will still wipe if they don’t do the right things at the right time but it will give other professions a look in … and that’s no bad thing in my opinion. Beating the raid should be about player skill, not whether or not you are playing BiS. If groups want to speed clear then more power to them, for a speed clear you’ll need the BiS professions, you’ll need full ascended, and that’s great … and something I’d be interested to see. But dropping the enrage timer while keeping the difficulty high will allow more “casual” groups to win through … they might take a few minutes longer but as long as they have the skill to deal with the challenges, I don’t see why they should be excluded.
Also please anything to get rid of the kitten zerker meta, let’s see some of the other armour types getting a look in!
Odd since of all the guilds that beat the raid boss not a single one used all zerker gear. In fact I don’t think any guild used more than 50% zerker gear. So much for your zerker meta.
Also getting rid of the enrage timer most certainly makes the fight easier and take less skill. The boss can’t kill you if your whole party is in the nomad meta. You can literally just face tank the boss and lightning damage in nomad’s gear with no threat at all. Of course killing it will take 20-30 minutes, but without an enrage timer why bother risking a wipe if you can get a guaranteed kill in 20 minutes.
I think NA was like 60% zerker, 30% Sinister 10% rabid.
This, several of those who managed to clear it posted what they used, specifically stating the zerkers to rub anet’s nose in the fact they didn’t get rid of the meta, they reinforced it!
Let me just point it out here – since many people seem to be oblivious to this.
Anet never said or wanted people to abandon zerker gear or give up on running it. They wanted to get rid of the “zerker meta” of old – which is basically going FULL damage, with mostly damage-related utilities and not worrying about staying alive because you’ll kill whatever you’re fighting before it will kill you.
It negated mechanics because you would kill things before they were “ready” or “capable” of fighting you.
This raid encounter did in fact address and fix this “zerker meta” as defined above – because there is no way you can avoid mechanics or burn the boss down before it has a chance to kill you or get off its dangerous attacks.
The old “zerker meta” is over for raids -or should I say it never appeared in raids. We now have a “new zerker meta” which focuses on doing as much damage as possible WHILE staying alive but the boss’ mechanics can’t be negated or avoided now – you must stay alive by being skilled and knowing what you are doing.
That old meta is gone – the new meta is similar but is significantly harder to pull off.
Based on the one boss, it also seems like Anet achieved their design goal in one respect. Heals were being regularly dropped, and there was someone who was doing that. I’m unsure whether that group was “using the combat system to its fullest.” However, designing one encounter to encourage use of all options available would be a tough ask. Hopefully, different encounters will feature different mechanics and call for different buffs and skills. One thing’s for sure though, with enrage timers, Might will be stacked regularly.
Seeing water fields tossed onto the lightning fields and blasted even from a tank half the arena away (orbital strike) sure seems pretty great. Considering healing was really the only overlooked element in much of PVE (honestly you’ll hear a lot of people talk about using clerics guard in fractal trios so… yeah) I think they did a pretty great job.
We have the CC to break bars and keep seekers from destroying people.
We have healing for all the elements of the raid and surelyfocusing for when people needed to absorb the lightning fields.
We had damage focus with limited time to finish
We had someone stacking toughness to pull agro and hold the boss as well as position him around the room.
And we have to rotate around the room keeping on the move. We have to bring condi damage, and mobility requirements to get to the lightning fields. Not sure what’s missing?
you guys trying to give feedback and all but is all pointless. why ? cuz pvp.
if anet dont separate pvp and pve we wont see the changes all the classes need, cuz pvp.
They need to seperate WvW from PvE more, it is far more like PvP and is by far the most unbalanced part of the game.
PvP uses it’s own stats and has amulets containing all of the main stat boosts. There is no foods or similar buffs in PvP, as such it is better balanced than most areas.
The thing is there will always be profession imbalance. It’s just that hard enrage timers exasperate this further encouraging forced role/builds & which professions can fill them.
This typically comes down to DPS & only the playstyles that can fulfil the DPS in the time limit over player skill of role/profession & execution of the encounter mechanics. This excludes other non DPS focused groups from this content as although they might be able to execute the encounter mechanics perfectly due to the time limit they fail.
What I would prefer which would also for greater playstyles (skill requiring skill) is soft enrage timers that begin to make the encounter more & more difficult. This then means as time goes on it becomes harder & harder to survive. This allows for greater role/build/profession diversity. What this could be is at different enrage levels theirs different metas:
Un-enrage completion – Speed clears
Enrage tier 1 – Standard guild clears
Enrage tier 2 – Pug clears
Enrage tier 3 – Survival clears (if after punishment)
Each providing different challenges & level of rewards with the hardest being the un-enraged & enraged tier 3. Objectively the boss could get at each level:
Increase attack damage (starts hitting harder)
Larger AoEs (less room to position)
More adds (greater pressure on everyone)
New mechanics (encounter changes)
This is still at the hard level of content but having it a soft enrage provides sub challenges & greater re-playability while also allowing that role/build/profession diversity.
I think that the thing that will force the meta is the enrage timer. If you get rid of the timer then raid groups no longer need to enforce specific professions for specific tasks so rigidly. Getting rid of the timer doesn’t get rid of any of the skill requirement, the raid will still wipe if they don’t do the right things at the right time but it will give other professions a look in … and that’s no bad thing in my opinion. Beating the raid should be about player skill, not whether or not you are playing BiS. If groups want to speed clear then more power to them, for a speed clear you’ll need the BiS professions, you’ll need full ascended, and that’s great … and something I’d be interested to see. But dropping the enrage timer while keeping the difficulty high will allow more “casual” groups to win through … they might take a few minutes longer but as long as they have the skill to deal with the challenges, I don’t see why they should be excluded.
Also please anything to get rid of the kitten zerker meta, let’s see some of the other armour types getting a look in!
Odd since of all the guilds that beat the raid boss not a single one used all zerker gear. In fact I don’t think any guild used more than 50% zerker gear. So much for your zerker meta.
Also getting rid of the enrage timer most certainly makes the fight easier and take less skill. The boss can’t kill you if your whole party is in the nomad meta. You can literally just face tank the boss and lightning damage in nomad’s gear with no threat at all. Of course killing it will take 20-30 minutes, but without an enrage timer why bother risking a wipe if you can get a guaranteed kill in 20 minutes.
I think NA was like 60% zerker, 30% Sinister 10% rabid.
This, several of those who managed to clear it posted what they used, specifically stating the zerkers to rub anet’s nose in the fact they didn’t get rid of the meta, they reinforced it!
Let me just point it out here – since many people seem to be oblivious to this.
Anet never said or wanted people to abandon zerker gear or give up on running it. They wanted to get rid of the “zerker meta” of old – which is basically going FULL damage, with mostly damage-related utilities and not worrying about staying alive because you’ll kill whatever you’re fighting before it will kill you.
It negated mechanics because you would kill things before they were “ready” or “capable” of fighting you.
This raid encounter did in fact address and fix this “zerker meta” as defined above – because there is no way you can avoid mechanics or burn the boss down before it has a chance to kill you or get off its dangerous attacks.
The old “zerker meta” is over for raids -or should I say it never appeared in raids. We now have a “new zerker meta” which focuses on doing as much damage as possible WHILE staying alive but the boss’ mechanics can’t be negated or avoided now – you must stay alive by being skilled and knowing what you are doing.
That old meta is gone – the new meta is similar but is significantly harder to pull off.
Based on the one boss, it also seems like Anet achieved their design goal in one respect. Heals were being regularly dropped, and there was someone who was doing that. I’m unsure whether that group was “using the combat system to its fullest.” However, designing one encounter to encourage use of all options available would be a tough ask. Hopefully, different encounters will feature different mechanics and call for different buffs and skills. One thing’s for sure though, with enrage timers, Might will be stacked regularly.
Seeing water fields tossed onto the lightning fields and blasted even from a tank half the arena away (orbital strike) sure seems pretty great. Considering healing was really the only overlooked element in much of PVE (honestly you’ll hear a lot of people talk about using clerics guard in fractal trios so… yeah) I think they did a pretty great job.
We have the CC to break bars and keep seekers from destroying people.
We have healing for all the elements of the raid and surelyfocusing for when people needed to absorb the lightning fields.
We had damage focus with limited time to finish
We had someone stacking toughness to pull agro and hold the boss as well as position him around the room.
And we have to rotate around the room keeping on the move. We have to bring condi damage, and mobility requirements to get to the lightning fields. Not sure what’s missing?
Cool, then. Seems like there are opportunities in this one fight for multiple different tactical options to see play. I didn’t pick that up in the videos because I have a hard time with the particle effects and didn’t do multiple viewings.
This is also a critical issue – with raids requiring much more coordinated and on-point play from players I find the particle effects have got to get scaled down. The level of flashy useless stuff on the screen has reached an all-time high.
If here they fall they shall live on when ever you cry “For Ascalon!”
I think that the thing that will force the meta is the enrage timer. If you get rid of the timer then raid groups no longer need to enforce specific professions for specific tasks so rigidly. Getting rid of the timer doesn’t get rid of any of the skill requirement, the raid will still wipe if they don’t do the right things at the right time but it will give other professions a look in … and that’s no bad thing in my opinion. Beating the raid should be about player skill, not whether or not you are playing BiS. If groups want to speed clear then more power to them, for a speed clear you’ll need the BiS professions, you’ll need full ascended, and that’s great … and something I’d be interested to see. But dropping the enrage timer while keeping the difficulty high will allow more “casual” groups to win through … they might take a few minutes longer but as long as they have the skill to deal with the challenges, I don’t see why they should be excluded.
Also please anything to get rid of the kitten zerker meta, let’s see some of the other armour types getting a look in!
Just NO! I’m so tired of every causal argument being a finger pointing episode of talking about “zerker”. You guys seriously need to start looking at yourselves and stop trying to find excuses for your issues. The enrage timers are there because it is absolutely crucial to have a dps check to stop you guys from trying to faceroll content in full nomad groups. You guys seem obsessed with finding the “safest” possible way to get a guaranteed win. That is the opposite of what raids are about. Raids are “challenging group content”. They can’t be a challenge if all you have to do is faceroll in full nomad parties. Of course dropping the enrage timer will drop the skill requirement…what kind of skill is needed to faceroll in unkillable nomad groups? I think it is way past time to start examining your own skill/builds and stop crying about “zerker” every time things aren’t easy.
This is also a critical issue – with raids requiring much more coordinated and on-point play from players I find the particle effects have got to get scaled down. The level of flashy useless stuff on the screen has reached an all-time high.
There have been multiple threads about this, it’s been said in every raid thread, but it can’t be repeated enough. I find it hard to see many bosses animations with just 5 people, double that? ohh my.
This is also a critical issue – with raids requiring much more coordinated and on-point play from players I find the particle effects have got to get scaled down. The level of flashy useless stuff on the screen has reached an all-time high.
Yes, please. I find myself not wanting to play much of what the the game offers due to the visual assault.
Not enough people are like you. I also scratch my head at these posts and wonder why someone would be outraged about something that A:) Hasn’t happened yet. and B:) Relies on there being no changes from the Beta. And C:) They have no real way of knowing.
Not enough people are like you. I also scratch my head at these posts and wonder why someone would be outraged about something that A:) Hasn’t happened yet. and B:) Relies on there being no changes from the Beta. And C:) They have no real way of knowing.
If people must wait till the release to express their concerns, then, by the same logic, no one should pre-purchase since you don’t know what exactly you will get.
Let’s be fair. He’s mad because he thinks it’s going to be Scrapper or Druid or GTFO, based on the balance he’s seen in a beta. Every class has something of value to offer in a group scenario now. I seriously doubt that this community will become WoW where players are looking only for certain classes for raids. Really, the meta right now is Warrior, Guardian, Thief, Elex2, but I rarely see people demanding that for anything.
I’d say, be patient, we’ll know what problems exist when HoT comes out. We can wait, 2 weeks, before hyper dramatizing balance issues based on our experiences in a beta test.
I love how people who desperately wanted to be accepted into meta groups ended up kicking off a chain of events that created a meta more hostile to them than the big bad zerkers they hated could have ever been.
