Guild Wars 2

I see a lot of people here saying that the only way to kill the Zerker Meta is to make dungeon content harder (less stacking in corners, and less DPS stats), forcing people to run builds with more survive-ability instead of full Zerker. This isn’t the solution. Have you ever tried going into a dungeon with “tankier gear” instead of Zerkers?

Assuming that the entire party runs a more Tankier setup (more HP, more Armour, less DPS) it’s safe to also assume that the fights will last longer. Less DPS means Mobs will grind you out longer than you can grind them out. In current content, this is what happens when fights last longer:

a) You have limited amounts of dodges and blocks which means you will take more hits over a longer fight. Because Mobs hit so hard, it’s more efficient to run Zerker and kill everything quickly before you run out of ways to avoid damage.

b) Not stacking in corners is simply not feasible. Because there is no reliable aggro mechanic, and no reliable way to “tank” damage (due to limited blocks and dodges), fighting mobs becomes a chaotic mess. We’ve all been part of those fights where everyone is everywhere, no co-ordination, different mobs attacking different players, players getting downed all over the place. Combat is a mess unless you stack neatly in a corner and nuke everything. This isn’t the players’ fault for exploiting. From what it looks like to me, it seems as though there is no design intent when it comes to Dungeons. The players simply came up with the best system to combat an otherwise very disorderly and chaotic mess. I don’t know what Anet’s original design intent was, but I don’t think they intended for us to “not” stack in corners. It’s too chaotic if you don’t. This is why people ask for the Trinity back. Because at least there is order to the chaos with a Trinity.

c) The Zerka meta has been a thing for a while now. If we tried to run anything different in current content, we would soon realize that Dungeons are indeed designed to be pretty tough. We think Dungeons are easy now because we can cheese through them with Zerker Gear, but we’ve forgotten that the bar has been set pretty high already. If we demand harder content in HoT, we will set the bar even higher, and we will get utterly destroyed in dungeons. You want mobs to hit harder? How would that invalidate Zerker Meta in any way? The whole point is to kill Mobs before they kill you, and in this new hypothetical Meta where Mobs hit harder, they will be able to kill you even faster, and that puts even more reliance on Zerker Meta.

Here’s the thing. Our characters are balanced around the fact that skills have a recharge time, we have only 2 dodges available to us, and we have a single Heal on a long cooldown. By design, we are a closed system. We are like a pre-built computer and it’s impossible to upgrade or improve the specs because our CPU/Case cannot support any new parts. Coincidentally, the one thing that CAN improve is our DPS. Right now DPS is the best scaling stat, because its the only stat that pushes our characters beyond the confines of “limited dodging, blocks, and healing”. Once we go through our rotation, and we’ve used all the tools at our disposal, the only thing that matters at that point is how much DPS we can produce. Zerker gear takes advantage of this “closed system”. Essentially, Zerker gear allows us to dish out as much damage as possible before we run out of utility, and by the time we do run out of utility, the Mob should be dead. Yes you can increase your armor and your HP, but when you can’t dodge or block anymore, you need to kill that Mob before it kills you. That is how the game is designed. There’s no way around that.

The only way to improve the Zerker Meta is to simply allow other stats to scale better, change the way Utility is used, and design encounters with more order to them. The developers need to allow other builds to emerge. They need to give us a better way to “tank” damage, and also a way to “heal” through it. No one is going to run Clerics Gear when it scales so poorly. It simply doesn’t work in this “closed system”. It’s counter to what the current design philosophy is with the whole “no trinity” thing, but it’s time to realize that this experiment of “no trinity” has detracted a lot from our game play.

Anet really needs to communicate to us how they want us to play the game. They need to talk about it openly. IF they truly don’t intend for us to stack in corners, they need to describe to us how we are supposed to cope without a Trinity. And if they want to lessen reliance on DPS, how will they go about doing that?

cletiscake.9173:

b) Not stacking in corners is simply not feasible.

This is wrong. When I used to dungeon run with friends, we never used to stack.

cletiscake.9173:

Here’s the thing. Our characters are balanced around the fact that skills have a recharge time, we have only 2 dodges available to us, and we have a single Heal on a long cooldown. By design, we are a closed system.

What about things such as:

• Protection?
• Aegis?
• Blind?
• Weakness?
• Interrupts?
• Reflects?

cletiscake.9173:

Anet really needs to communicate to us how they want us to play the game. They need to talk about it openly. IF they truly don’t intend for us to stack in corners, they need to describe to us how we are supposed to cope without a Trinity. And if they want to lessen reliance on DPS, how will they go about doing that?

You cope without the Trinity by not frontloading everything you have into damage if you’re not sure what your team is bringing.

Back when I first run the dungeons before we knew what was going on, I’d sacrifice some DPS for control – I’d take a Hammer and the Leg Specialist trait on my Warrior. That way if SHTF, I’d have a backup that allowed me to get the boss away from a team-mate that was down and Immobilise him for a second while others got them back up.

You can’t really lessen reliance on DPS, since DPS is how you win the fight.

Also, in reference to your title, gear stats =/= builds. Builds are the totality of what you bring to a fight. The way to mix this up isn’t to make the fights numerically harder, but:

• give the fights mechanics players haven’t played against before.
• make sure that you have to pay attention to the boss mechanics.

To make more builds feasable they have to in some ways make the game harder.

Pure glass is currently always preferable because it’s very easy to stay alive as pure glass, so you don’t get DPS loss via faceplant even at lower skill levels.

Most other builds and gear specs have an additional focus on passive defenses (sometimes active), which aren’t necessary for most people.

As TheDaiBish said we have conditions and boons to use against our enemies. Those are necessary in dungeons if you want to overcome your enemies, without going full zerker or stacking in corners.

I can agree that ArenaNet haven’t been very informative how dungeon combat and tactics work or could work. I’ve seen many mmorpgs where there are videos of the developers doing playthroughs of content to show how it’s done and been pretty informative.

The key to good dungeon gameplay is the use of combos. Use combo fields to create effects that affecting the whole team or affect all enemies. If you want to play very effective in a team without stacking in a corner with full zerker, GW2 combat is pretty difficult to do right and should be rewarded.

The stacking in a corner full zerker mentality type of players are using their surroundings to their advantage, but how it’s done and how effective it is is a joke. ArenaNet should have fixed this kitten a long time ago and they slowly have done so for some dungeons and dungeon paths. Really they should just revamp all dungeons.

I think you make some great points, OP. Dungeons are my favorite part of MMOs, and this is the only area I think ANET falls way behind on. I don’t mind the lack of trinity, but they really should make other builds more viable. I run tons of dungeons, and zerker is about 85% of the builds I see. That can’t be the best way to do things.

I did arah a week ago, I think it was path 5 and I hadn’t been playing GW2 for like 3 months. I played on my zerker warrior using GS + S/SH and I only went down once. If you time your dodge, block and evades when you need to + use boons and conditions you won’t have a big problem. Also if you use combo fields it will be even better, but I rarely see people use them. Also, we didn’t stack at all through the entire run.
You can play normally with a zerker build and win but it requires you to be a pretty good player.

To do good combo fields and support a lot you will have to sacrifice dps and you can’t be a full zerker. Actually I think a good steady team would do better with maybe 2 support and 3 zerkers. Less risk but more time spent. While a full team of zerkers will have higher risk but spend less time if successful.

Zoid.2568:

To do good combo fields and support a lot you will have to sacrifice dps and you can’t be a full zerker.

Untrue, for example Guardian will have berserker gear (this is just stats) and trait in the virtues line + use supportive utilities (the build). while you do sacrifice DPS from traits and abilities, your support is the same no matter what type of gear you wear.

As for combo fields, I highly doubt you even see that often outside of zerker parties.

cletiscake.9173:

b) Not stacking in corners is simply not feasible.

I don’t know why anybody should listen to your opinion after that, since you don’t really know much about dungeon it seem.

Corner stacking is not only unnecessary, it’s only a bad strategy in 90% of the situation. True speed and records run corner in 4-5 situation for ALL dungeon path. You can add 2-3 other spot that records run skip entirely, but that most ppl kill because of the loot (aka Kholer).

Corner stack post Fiery GS nerf is a bad habit that pugs can’t seem to shake off. It’s also a easy but less efficient strategy for some fight for pugs.

Zoid.2568:

To do good combo fields and support a lot you will have to sacrifice dps and you can’t be a full zerker.

Ok and can you point me to a stats that you get from armor/weapons/trinkets that will improve you capacity to do good combo fields or support?? I’ll tell you, there is 3.

- Boons Duration from giver’ss armor and snowflake trinkets. They give so small amount of it, that it’s almost never worth it. If you really want boon duration, take food or runes but never replace you zerker gear for that reason
- Condition Duration from giver’s weapons. Condition duration mean more vulnerability and more condition that trigger damage multiplier. That’s pushing it, that’s not very efficient as a support stats and the only profession that use that for now is Engineer and like boon duration will do a far better job.
- Healing Power. I won’t go into lengthy explanation here. We all know that healing power isn’t worth it in PvE.

So again which gear should replace zerker to do better support or combo??

cletiscake.9173:

a) You have limited amounts of dodges and blocks which means you will take more hits over a longer fight. Because Mobs hit so hard, it’s more efficient to run Zerker and kill everything quickly before you run out of ways to avoid damage.

good players can use berserker gear even in longer fights.

cletiscake.9173:

b) Not stacking in corners is simply not feasible. Because there is no reliable aggro mechanic, and no reliable way to “tank” damage (due to limited blocks and dodges), fighting mobs becomes a chaotic mess. We’ve all been part of those fights where everyone is everywhere, no co-ordination, different mobs attacking different players, players getting downed all over the place. Combat is a mess unless you stack neatly in a corner and nuke everything. This isn’t the players’ fault for exploiting. From what it looks like to me, it seems as though there is no design intent when it comes to Dungeons. The players simply came up with the best system to combat an otherwise very disorderly and chaotic mess. I don’t know what Anet’s original design intent was, but I don’t think they intended for us to “not” stack in corners. It’s too chaotic if you don’t. This is why people ask for the Trinity back. Because at least there is order to the chaos with a Trinity.

in HoT there will be taunt to reposition mobs.

cletiscake.9173:

c) The Zerka meta has been a thing for a while now. If we tried to run anything different in current content, we would soon realize that Dungeons are indeed designed to be pretty tough.

back when i started to play gw2 we ran dungeons in soldier or knights gear. and it was just as easy. the only difference back then was we werent as experienced as we are today.
i got my dungeon master title 3 weeks after my first char hit 80 and the only experience i had was leveling from 1-40, because i crafted the other 40 levels.
how can gw2 dungeons be hard?
in wildstar we wiped to a single dungeon boss for hours, HOURS.

cletiscake.9173:

We think Dungeons are easy now because we can cheese through them with Zerker Gear, but we’ve forgotten that the bar has been set pretty high already. If we demand harder content in HoT, we will set the bar even higher, and we will get utterly destroyed in dungeons.

first of all we dont cheese through dungeons and secondly without berserker gear the dungeons are even easier because there is more room for error.

for HoT instanced content, i want content that utterly destroys me for weeks and months, just like in wildstar. i want to do pulls for weeks on a single boss to figure out the fight and get a perfect execution done.

cletiscake.9173:

You want mobs to hit harder? How would that invalidate Zerker Meta in any way? The whole point is to kill Mobs before they kill you, and in this new hypothetical Meta where Mobs hit harder, they will be able to kill you even faster, and that puts even more reliance on Zerker Meta.

hit harder doesnt mean more difficult or complex. i want complex boss fights, with lots of complex mechanics. hit harder doesnt do anything, especially it doesnt make the content more interesting.

cletiscake.9173:

Here’s the thing. Our characters are balanced around the fact that skills have a recharge time, we have only 2 dodges available to us, and we have a single Heal on a long cooldown. By design, we are a closed system. We are like a pre-built computer and it’s impossible to upgrade or improve the specs because our CPU/Case cannot support any new parts. Coincidentally, the one thing that CAN improve is our DPS. Right now DPS is the best scaling stat, because its the only stat that pushes our characters beyond the confines of “limited dodging, blocks, and healing”. Once we go through our rotation, and we’ve used all the tools at our disposal, the only thing that matters at that point is how much DPS we can produce. Zerker gear takes advantage of this “closed system”. Essentially, Zerker gear allows us to dish out as much damage as possible before we run out of utility, and by the time we do run out of utility, the Mob should be dead. Yes you can increase your armor and your HP, but when you can’t dodge or block anymore, you need to kill that Mob before it kills you. That is how the game is designed. There’s no way around that.

im sorry bro but there are alot of videos out there of speedrunners completing dungeons in full “tank” gear without dodges. people even unbind dodges for the videos. and you know what? it makes you fall asleep and its easy.

cletiscake.9173:

The only way to improve the Zerker Meta is to simply allow other stats to scale better, change the way Utility is used, and design encounters with more order to them. The developers need to allow other builds to emerge. They need to give us a better way to “tank” damage, and also a way to “heal” through it. No one is going to run Clerics Gear when it scales so poorly. It simply doesn’t work in this “closed system”. It’s counter to what the current design philosophy is with the whole “no trinity” thing, but it’s time to realize that this experiment of “no trinity” has detracted a lot from our game play.

the “no trinity” and the “how the combat system in this game is designed and works”
is king. its entirely skill based. and class canon gear is the only gear option that can make, or even better, needs to make full use of the depth of the combat system.
why would you change it? just for the sake of roleplaying a tank or a healer?

in gw2 the tank is your active defense, and active defense from your group members.
in gw2 the healer is your personal healing skill, defensive boons and combo fields + blast finisher from your team mates.
your guardian focus 5 isnt just a dps or defensive skill, it turns into a heal skill as soon as you blast a water field with it.
thats how the game works.

if you arent an experienced player or simply struggle for whatever reason, by all means, use defensive gear and try to improve. there is nothing wrong with gear that works like training wheels. but there is seriously no reason to destroy the best part of gw2, because some people (actually its the majority) dont understand how the combat works.

anet just needs to give us content for the combat system.

‘cept it’s not skill based, because the ‘high skill/high risk’ option can be used by all skill levels.

with tanky gear and easy mode fights its not skill based. with harder content and dps checks it could/will be.

an example would be a boss fight where more healing than your personal healing skill is required + an enrage timer. how will people react to this? constantly blast water fields while opimizing their dps so they can kill the boss before enrage hits + the basic stuff like dodging telegraphs and other mechanics.
if you tune the numbers right, this will be tough.

or you know, without an enrage timer bad players would simply equip nomads instead of becoming better at the game and afk fight the boss and win.

I’m pretty sure that we would respond by increasing the amount of protection/weakness/vigor/sigil of energy. We still have a lot of room for support that restraint our dps by a very small margin.

that depends what the source of incoming damage is. it could simply be a permanent debuff. but standard support like protection should be the norm anyway.

cletiscake.9173:

I see a lot of people here saying that the only way to kill the Zerker Meta is to make dungeon content harder (less stacking in corners, and less DPS stats), forcing people to run builds with more survive-ability instead of full Zerker. This isn’t the solution. Have you ever tried going into a dungeon with “tankier gear” instead of Zerkers?

Yes I have, and if I am a heavy wearing tanky gear I can face tank most dungeon mobs/bosses without dodges. (using AC as example) Spider pools? no problem sit down in a stack of them. Kholer spin? Dont make me laugh 1-2k damage of of 7. And I heal it back almost instantly..

Only really ever need dodge vs those super long cd smash bosses (couple in arah off top of head). But all you do is simply move behind him (and have plenty of time to do it as its a VERY long wind-up).

So I for one am on the side of harder dungeons or please just add underworld and fissure of woe from gw1. Being able to throw caution to the wind and face tank most things is a sign its a bit too easy. Doesn’t surprise me at all that zerker is so popular when all it makes you do is add an extra dodge here and there.

build diversity exists in form of changing traits, weapons and utility skills. that said, once the content is so hard, complex and challenging that people like me stand in front of the boss after a few pulls and think “we will never beat this guy”, thats when 99% of the players who wear berserker now will change to a more defensive gear set.

in silverwastes, the underground troll was actually a test case for a tactic to change things up.

The ‘damage rings’ spreading outward look to be a way to force people out of their optimal damage areas, largely without regard to gear (the tracking bees on the normal trolls are similar).

Attacks like that are pretty taxing on active defenses, and ‘hard’ versions of the fights could severely change the skill calculation.

— at risk of making the game too hard for everyone to beat, which is ultimately why we have the current situation.

Only two types of damage exists both should be viable and share optimal presence. No conditions are not viable, tanks and healers are viable but not condition specs, glass equals risk for greater reward glass condition is not viable, stop with the defensive vs offensive stats war only damage kills. Nothing to do with challenging content if mobs have over 9000 vitality and negative 9000 toughness of course zerker is winning don’t forget the condition cap as well.

condition damage is more than viable with the removed condition cap in HoT

NoTrigger.8396:

condition damage is more than viable with the removed condition cap in HoT

*Increased and tested AKA not finalized. Burning and poison are still on the bench.

If it is so then this thread can end.

To my understanding, personal condi still caps lower than personal DD.

Increasing the cap helps, but doesn’t solve the problem on its own.

~~~

The difficulty question is about pure glass vs. mixed defensive stats. You can’t reasonably increase the value of the defensive stats without increasing difficulty.

I guess we just have to wait for HoT and see what anet changed.
Well in case we get any new dungeons. Ha.

I think Anet needs to take a few pages from Carbine and how they designed their dungeons and raids for Wildstar.. Difficult but still really fun to play. The fights were so complex and required all party members to contribute otherwise you’ll fail.

Zerker meta is around because the only goal in dungeons is blow your target up. Even if you get downed, you just focus fire something and rally (except in the case of a boss, you either wipe trying to focus rez or you succeed and continue your rampage).

Make encounters depend less on simply bursting your enemy and it will solve a lot of dungeons as far as increasing their difficulty. They still have to revamp their rewards for the dungeons and look into adding more side objectives either for independent rewards or for assistance in later encounters within that dungeon to really make them shine. Also find some way to remove stacking as a method of killing, and in return, lower these mobs’ damage or lessen their mechanics to be a bit more reasonable in an open field. It’s nice that there are a few classes that can pull groups together and take advantage of stacking but when mobs do it naturally it defeats the purpose of any real effort.

There are several things that could make dungeons harder and make zerker sub-optimal:

- First, lock items when entering a dungeon, no swapping on the fly, this means the group has to handle all encounters in the same gear.
- Introduce mobs with very high toughness but low hp. The Husk copper at Red in the Silverwastes is a prime example. This means that to clear efficiently you will need at least 1-2 condi builds in the group. Zerker can still do it, but it will take much longer, effectively defeating the purpose of zerker
- Introduce mobs with damage mechanics like the mordrem troll champ in sw, this makes it very clear that stacking is not viable for the fight. Any kind of telegraphed high damage AoE would do really, as long as it forces movement. Ranged attacks that don’t need LOS also completely invalidate stacking (threshers … really you can see they were trying to go this direction with Silverwastes).
- Introduce some encounters with automatic damage, or very hard to dodge damage that is highly mitigated by toughness (I think the terragrifs were an attempt at this with their huge hitboxes on charge). This might not force warriors out of zerker but it will incentivise at least some survivability for most classes. Retaliation can also serve this purpose.
- Introduce encounters that deal with the “downed” state. Currently even a zerker build has a whole lot of hp when downed, maybe make a fight or two where you go straight to dead or a fight where a “Rally!” spawns a bunch of mobs (boss feeding off life force or something). This would make zerker require perfect runs as opposed to just having people stealth/invuln and rez easily when they miss a dodge.

The result of all that wouldn’t be that zerker is useless, but more that you want a couple soldier pieces or valk or knights or cavalier on each player, and each group will want a couple of condi/celestial builds to deal with the condi bosses. Given that most classes can gear/trait swap from zerker damage to condi before entering a dungeon, this is not nearly as constraining as a trinity system.

Zerker meta is around because the only goal in dungeons is blow your target up.

pretty sure this is the goal in every single RPG/MMORPG ever

the way how to reduce the corner zerker meta is to add more mechanics and fix bugs…

add a skill with increased dmg with each bounce, this would require people to split, at least in the right time if not all the time…

staying in the corner also often provides immunity to some secondary mechanics or boss skills, there shouldn’t be any blind spots, fix them…

I think those two things would have huge impact on corner stacking with zerker gear…

and I think that we could come up with more interesting mechanics which would make full dmg burst less viable and encounter more complex

Many people forget is that the first dungeon after release and any consecutive dungeons have much more advance techniques and won’t work with simple stacking (well not everywhere).

We still talk about the same old 8 dungeons, why discuss this to death? Dungeons in other MMOs are silly run though instances as well. The problem is that most other MMOs have raids or other hard instanced content which this game here lacks.

I’m affraid the OP is quite wrong. The meta is zerker not because it’s the only viable spec but because it’s the most efficient. You can play whatever build you want you’ll be able to clear any dungeon. It will only cost you a bit more time.

What’s make the difference is whether the player is able to use the proper strategy for each and every boss in game.

Here is an exemple with people using cleric
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2VhmwLwvrM (it work fine, it’s just longer)

The 2 things interesting that are up to come with HoT are an increase in condition cap and a new defiance system (which should help a lot more builds to shine a bit more)

MaXi.3642:

the way how to reduce the corner zerker meta is to add more mechanics and fix bugs…
<snip>

“Corner zerker meta” seriously? I´d say ~70-80% of the corner stacking spots people frequently use in PuGs are remnants from the old FGS-burst days and not worth using anymore since FGS was fixed, which happend like a year (!) ago if I remember correctly.

For some reason this hasn´t gotten through to a lot of people it seems. My guess would be that these people are either too lazy to learn new strategies or they never even understood why stacking in corners became a go-to strategy in the first place.

Simple solution:

Remove gear stats.

Bam. All problems solved.

There are so many things to solve stacking:

• Displacement: Give the boss a unique mechanics to lock people out of the fight for a period of time. Archdiviner from Fractals lock people in jails, whereas TA’s story mode Cadeyrn phase people out of the fight by turning them into sylvan hounds which HAVE to kill other hounds to snap out of the transformation. This effectively “disables” party members.
• Harmful debuffs: In SE p1, one of the golems in the trio encounter shoots a lightning debuff that keeps ticking. The receiver gets a little damage, while other party members are badly damaged, so stacking is harmful. The blue cat golem from Uncategorized Fractal applies positive/negative charges to players, staying close to equal (I guess?) charges damages the players.
• Revenant’s upkeep: Since revenants have a unique skill mechanics called upkeep, bosses could use this too. Upkeep are a skill mechanics in which the caster uses a skill and has to “maintain” it with a limited resource (hence upkeep), bosses could have harmful effect around themselves to discourage stacking.
• Risen Abomination rage: Pretty classic. You encounter this in many places, for example CoE p2 and p3. Whenever the Risen Abomination hits someone, it gets a rage stack that greatly increases speed and damage. Try facing it with 25 stacks for the funs, you will learn how important it is to dodge/CC/evade moves!
• Main Trin: Should I really explain how you have to think a bit in this battle? Sure you have to stack to lure her into lightning fields, but reflections play a role, and standing there can kill you. To solve the puzzle you must time your movements correctly. (disclaimer: I know, she is bugged atm, teleporting to awkward places)

Other things can be thought of, there ARE solutions but they require more thinking and smartness.

Do the people proposing “solutions” realize that there is no actual problem here, and thus no need for a solution?

NikeEU.7690:

Do the people proposing “solutions” realize that there is no actual problem here, and thus no need for a solution?

If there is no problem and zerker is fine being optimal for EVERY situation in PvE:

1. Why are there other gear stats in the game?
2. How come this thread pops up in some form weekly?

NikeEU.7690:

Do the people proposing “solutions” realize that there is no actual problem here, and thus no need for a solution?

Right. Just develop my suggestions above into 95% of the bosses. Let’s just have funs with mechanics, k? If there’s no problem, zerkers will get over it.

Just to ensure everyone reads it: STACKING IS A BAD BEHAVIOR BECAUSE IT DUMBS DOWN THE GAME. #kthxbai

1. Why are there other gear stats in the game?
A: as training wheels – once you understand the mechanics you can progress to zerker/assassin. You will be taking a lot more dmg and going down in a single. Hit where before you could have face tanked bosses.

2. How come this thread pops up in some form weekly?
Answers:
*people are struggling to learn to play there class efficiently.
*think they are playing a class well until they are directed to a non-selfish build and move to a more team orientated build.

• frustrated how zerker teams with high skill are rolling through content with times much quicker than they could dream of. This is the casual daily runs (eg CM < 6 mins / CoE < 10 mins/Arah <15 mins) for organised zerker teams with silly errors happening

Take your pick why people are failing badly and asking for there own selfish solo player build to be more effective over a group team orientated build.

From the GW2 website under dungeons “Dungeons in Guild Wars 2 reward players who enjoy organized parties, epic challenges, and delving deeper into the secrets of Tyria.”

Watching zerker runs is as boring as kitten, and is just a showcase of how ridiculous gameplays can become if you dumb down the game AI/mechanics. Zerker stacking invalidates mechanics because it’s just a matter of melting HP, this must frustrates game developers who worked on planning mechanics just to see them trashed.

Bubi.7942:

NikeEU.7690:

Do the people proposing “solutions” realize that there is no actual problem here, and thus no need for a solution?

If there is no problem and zerker is fine being optimal for EVERY situation in PvE:

1. Why are there other gear stats in the game?
2. How come this thread pops up in some form weekly?

1. WvW, PvP to a large extent. In PvE, your gear determines two things: whether your damage is direct, condi or hybrid and how glassy or tanky you are. That’s it. Gear names are roleplaying monikers for what is really a linear range of Tanky → Glassy. Tanky gear has a place in pve: for players who can’t or won’t or don’t want to use their active defenses to avoid damage. If you cannot dodge and you’re in my group I would prefer you wore Soldier gear. A 40% dps loss is preferrable to you dying every boss attack. Training wheels, crutches, difficulty slider. Take your pick of names.

2. Because people joined a game advertised as action combat, no-trinity, no hard roles and then pitch a fit when they can’t play a tank or healer. People come to GW2 encumbered by the relics of other games they played and they cannot adapt to the fact that this is an action combat game. Again, it is an action combat game, if you don’t understand that now is as good a time as any to learn it.

As soon as Areanet implement “boss encounters” where DPS plays a neglectable/minor role we will see more diversity in builds and equipment. Maybe it would also help to get rid of the “one single end boss model” and replace it with a “multi end boss model”

Valento.9852:

Just to ensure everyone reads it: STACKING IS A BAD BEHAVIOR BECAUSE IT DUMBS DOWN THE GAME. #kthxbai

Have you played other MMO? Every game in the genre uses line of sight to control trash mobs.

Belenwyn.8674:

As soon as Areanet implement “boss encounters” where DPS play a neglectable/minor role we will see more diversity in builds and equipment.

Why would anyone want no skill passive combat game play to ruin the game?

NikeEU.7690:

Belenwyn.8674:

As soon as Areanet implement “boss encounters” where DPS play a neglectable/minor role we will see more diversity in builds and equipment.

Why would anyone want no skill passive combat game play to ruin the game?

Applying boons and conditions at the right time to the right target in the right amount and duration is a very active process and combat.

It doesn’t matter what mechanics game developers come up with, people are trashing them with zerker stacking, they need a way to fix this. Mind you, balancing stats/damage mitigation are integral part of the process of developing challenges. I wouldn’t complain if zerker stacking was part of some encounters, but it happens too often to accept.

Belenwyn.8674:

NikeEU.7690:

Belenwyn.8674:

As soon as Areanet implement “boss encounters” where DPS play a neglectable/minor role we will see more diversity in builds and equipment.

Why would anyone want no skill passive combat game play to ruin the game?

Applying boons and conditions at the right time to the right target in the right amount and duration is a very active process and combat.

Berserker builds already do that. Try again.

NikeEU.7690:

Belenwyn.8674:

NikeEU.7690:

Belenwyn.8674:

As soon as Areanet implement “boss encounters” where DPS play a neglectable/minor role we will see more diversity in builds and equipment.

Why would anyone want no skill passive combat game play to ruin the game?

Applying boons and conditions at the right time to the right target in the right amount and duration is a very active process and combat.

Berserker builds already do that. Try again.

But berserker builds are optimised for applying damage not boons or conditions. An opitimised build for maximal application of a huge variety of boons with maximal boon duration would require different traits, utility skill, weapons and gear. Take your favorite class and put the main focus on maximal boon duration and strength and maximal variety of boons. Compare this build with your berserker build. How different would it be?

Valento.9852:

it: STACKING IS A BAD BEHAVIOR BECAUSE IT DUMBS DOWN THE GAME. #kthxbai

There is a difference between mindless stacking on every occasion which, as I said in my previous post, is a remnant of the old FGS fiery rush meta and smartly manipulating enemy AI to increase the effectiveness of your AoE and cleave damage when it is appropriate.

Besides, all of this discussion about stacking has nothing to do with “zerker builds”. Bunching up trash mobs you can´t or don´t want to skip, in general, (doesn´t matter HOW exactly it is done) will always be beneficial, regardless of what gear and what build you are using (max. target AoE/cleave damage, easy AoE CC, easy AoE blinds, easy boon application, …).

Not this again.

Belenwyn.8674:

But berserker builds are optimised for applying damage not boons or conditions. <snip> Take your favorite class and put the main focus on maximal boon duration and strength and maximal variety of boons. Compare this build with your berserker build. How different would it be?

1. Wrong, almost all of the current meta builds for dungeons sacrifice some personal DPS in favor of more utility, boon or condition up-time (might, fury, vulnerability, blind, protection, …)
2. It wouldn´t look much different. Take e.g. a PS Warrior or a Hammer Guardian build for high level fractals, or a Thief build using off-hand pistol. Builds like these do pretty much exactly what according to you “berserker builds” don´t do. They ensure that the desired boons/condition have (near) 100% up-time, or are available when desired.

Valento.9852:

Watching zerker runs is as boring as kitten, and is just a showcase of how ridiculous gameplays can become if you dumb down the game AI/mechanics. Zerker stacking invalidates mechanics because it’s just a matter of melting HP, this must frustrates game developers who worked on planning mechanics just to see them trashed.

The funny thing is there is a lot of the trinity being used : support, control to enable DPS to be performed. You may see a boss melt – but what active defenses are being used : wall of reflection, stability, purge conditions etc to enable this to happen?
The mechanics are not dumbed down they are being actively countered to enable a DPS burst. This honestly sounds like a quote from someone above who may not understand the planning / practice and effort a team has put in to learn the encounter and successfully combat it.

Remember after 3 yrs the hardest bosses will seem trivial with good groups who have practiced this daily. For new players there is still the oh “how do I beat this boss” learning curve and what skills do I bring for active defenses?

@TPMN, NikeEU:

1. Why not erase all gear then (like I previously proposed)? Have a dumbed-down training mode for all dungeons (basicly story mode), and have the expert mode. There, training done. If everyone is wearing zerker, it doesn’t matter, would be easier to actually balance dungeons.

2. I thought gear and builds were different. You can go all heal traitlines and runes with zerker gear too.
IMO the thread pops up every week cause people get sick and tired of pressing 1 in the corner, and see it as a flaw of the game.

Also this: “Remember after 3 yrs the hardest bosses will seem trivial with good groups who have practiced this daily. For new players there is still the oh “how do I beat this boss” learning curve and what skills do I bring for active defenses?”

This would be nice if it worked so, the thing is, 1 experienced player can breeze through any dungeon with PuGs (granted they listen), simply by saying: “stack here, use reflect” or “invis, skip”.