Guild Wars 2

I think the goal of PvE build diversity can be achieved with little more than the changes they are making to condition stacks. If ANet balances it right, this one change can make Sinister, Rampager, Rabid, Carrion, and Dire gear sets viable in group PvE.

As many have mentioned already, tank stats are already viable – you can contribute to a party and complete a dungeon with them. You may even fare better than a group of inexperienced zerkers. Nobody needs to join speed clears and nobody needs to contribute to a zerker group. If you want to PHIW and enjoy the intensity of long boss fights, who are we to judge? As it is, the game already lets you do that.

i for one hope they are gonna make dungeons easier, last time i did a dungeon (SF) i got killed way to fast. (and unfairly)
i can’t port back on death unless the whole team is ether dead or out of battle (which is extremely annoying), the enemies are way more powerful then the open world and that’s including scaling and the worst part is that you need to know the dungeon like the palm of your hand or you’ll die instantly.

i get that ppl want a challenge but then again, what’s wrong with just wanting to play a dungeon and not having such a huge difference in difficulty.
i can’t stand dungeons simply because they are exclusively made for hard mode players, anyone who doesn’t like hard mode can never play dungeons.

have a normal mode dungeon, one that only gives about 3 tokens throughout the entire dungeon run but has enemies more like open world enemies.
have them scale like open world so on your own it is as easy (or hard) as the open world, some elite enemies can be exchange in to veteran enemies.

again, if you like the dungeon the way it is that’s fine, doesn’t mean there can’t be any easier version of it.

sorudo.9054:

i for one hope they are gonna make dungeons easier, last time i did a dungeon (SF) i got killed way to fast. (and unfairly)
i can’t port back on death unless the whole team is ether dead or out of battle (which is extremely annoying), the enemies are way more powerful then the open world and that’s including scaling and the worst part is that you need to know the dungeon like the palm of your hand or you’ll die instantly.

SF? I’m guessing you are talking about SE. Could you also talk about how you are getting killed unfairly? I don’t remember about a Mob that kills you instantly or a Boss Fight there.

And that you can’t port back until all are dead or the Fight is over is done intentionally. Back then you could port back and join the Fight again, which was called Rezz Rushing. Was patched out because it cheesed the Fights too much and made it impossible for the Group to lose the Boss Fight.

Walhalla.5473:

sorudo.9054:

i for one hope they are gonna make dungeons easier, last time i did a dungeon (SF) i got killed way to fast. (and unfairly)
i can’t port back on death unless the whole team is ether dead or out of battle (which is extremely annoying), the enemies are way more powerful then the open world and that’s including scaling and the worst part is that you need to know the dungeon like the palm of your hand or you’ll die instantly.

SF? I’m guessing you are talking about SE. Could you also talk about how you are getting killed unfairly? I don’t remember about a Mob that kills you instantly or a Boss Fight there.

And that you can’t port back until all are dead or the Fight is over is done intentionally. Back then you could port back and join the Fight again, which was called Rezz Rushing. Was patched out because it cheesed the Fights too much and made it impossible for the Group to lose the Boss Fight.

sounds like someone needs to stop trying to run full zerker.

good ol’ graveyard zerging!
I remember the days when that was needed. I’d forgotten we could do that mind you. Just shows how easy we had it learning this stuff

Hello guys and sorry I didn’t do my homework : read everything, because it’s too long, but anyway here are some figures that can help us to understand things :

Damage done = (Weapon strength) * Power * (skill-specific coefficient) / (target’s Armor)
(From wiki)

And

Average damage = Damage done * (1 + Critical chance * (Critical damage – 1))
(From my brain, so might not be true)

Sooo… I did some calculations in excel (ascended stuff, level 80, no traits, and jewels instead of runes/sigils for simplicity), and here we are : in one hand with zerker stats you have a dps 3.5 times better, but in the other hand damage reduction with toughness can be 1.4 to 1.6 times better and health quantity can be 2.0 to 2.4 times better depending on which one is the main.

For healing power, forget it, you can get a multiplier of maximum 1.2 approx. for the health regained from a skill. Anet wants to be sure there are no healers in GW2 obviously.

Min/maxers alreay know the stat break down. But no, ANET probably doesn’t want someone standing at the back doing kitten all other than spamming heals on a tank. Nor do most of the players who bought into the game looking for a break from the tired old trinity.

Heal power and defensive stats are far from weak though and it’s amazing people feel that defensive stats are, when in fact they trivialize most of the content in the game.

Just tried to be objective (so I didn’t talk about active defense). Do you know where I can find this already known stuff? can’t find that on the wiki.

About healing stuff, well I agree about the break from the tired old trinity but in the other hand, maxing this stat increase my skill 6 from 4500 to 5200 heal and I got 18000 hit points, I don’t know anything else about healing power cause never used it but these numbers do not really appetize me.

Considering the toughness of the dungeons, according to the wide range of stats we can access I think it can be really hard for zerkers (but faster) and still quiet for others except that the zerk-stack-in-a-corner strategy is ruining this theory (well… back to the beginning)

Exun.7825:

Just tried to be objective (so I didn’t talk about active defense). Do you know where I can find this already known stuff? can’t find that on the wiki.

About healing stuff, well I agree about the break from the tired old trinity but in the other hand, maxing this stat increase my skill 6 from 4500 to 5200 heal and I got 18000 hit points, I don’t know anything else about healing power cause never used it but these numbers do not really appetize me.

Considering the toughness of the dungeons, according to the wide range of stats we can access I think it can be really hard for zerkers (but faster) and still quiet for others except that the zerk-stack-in-a-corner strategy is ruining this theory (well… back to the beginning)

not considering active defense is a large flaw, most of your defense is actually active.

Exun.7825:

Just tried to be objective (so I didn’t talk about active defense). Do you know where I can find this already known stuff? can’t find that on the wiki.

About healing stuff, well I agree about the break from the tired old trinity but in the other hand, maxing this stat increase my skill 6 from 4500 to 5200 heal and I got 18000 hit points, I don’t know anything else about healing power cause never used it but these numbers do not really appetize me.

Considering the toughness of the dungeons, according to the wide range of stats we can access I think it can be really hard for zerkers (but faster) and still quiet for others except that the zerk-stack-in-a-corner strategy is ruining this theory (well… back to the beginning)

There are plenty of guides and links with regards to theory crafting et al, a simple google search should turn up a fair few.

A good place to start is the dungeon forums in general, websites of top level guilds like http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/viewforum/4280860/m/6563292, sites like http://gw2dungeons.net/ as well as http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki and youtube stuff from the likes of Goku, miku, nike, obal, sesshi and a host of others.

Defensive gear/builds means you can pretty much face tank through w3, open world pve and dungeons in this game with little to no effort or thought for having to be proactive/highly reactive in your game play. Back when the game first game out I actually ran an AH and then a clerics spvp bunker guard and my first dungeon mob solo was AC spider queen, facetanked it, took zero effort really (oh the shame of it!). If I had ran a full glass meta build then (as I always do now), then I would have eaten dirt. The defensive gear/build carried me through the content whilst I was still learning.

Heres a classic from rT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2VhmwLwvrM

Yes you can still eat it in certain circumstances, but with the way people talk on these boards you would imagine defensive gear is weak… it isn’t.

phys.7689:

not considering active defense is a large flaw, most of your defense is actually active.

As it should be given the combat system, it certainly isn’t a flaw. And yet defensive gear and builds carries people not very good at (or simply not interested in) active defense through the content and is often part of the meta within certain aspects of the game (or are you bunkering down on point or frontlining as a full glass dungeon zerk meta guard with great success?).

Thanks Fenrir this is a very complete answer, much more than I expected actually.

@Phys : Actually I am on the side of active defense, dodge etc.. this is just that for the last post it would have been messy since I was focusing on numbers.

phys.7689:

reflect is just based on the enemy damage, not player stats.

Completely false statement.

and no, stats effecting utilities would not make them useless, it would change their effectiveness based on your stat investment, which works just fine in other games, one of which would be Guild wars 1. Notice dps stats already do this, other stats are either heavily throttled, or no effect at all.

Any utility that isn’t effective at performing its function is useless. Hence why people don’t use certain utilities at all…because they are sub par. Changing utilities to not working well unless loaded up with defensive stats therefore makes said utilities useless for players not loaded up with said defensive stats. What you are lobbying for is the exact opposite of what ANET has been trying to accomplish with buffing under used utilities. ANET wants all utilities to be used…and not just by a subset of players.

If stats serve a purpose, they should actually effect skill use, which is the dominant factor in how this game is played.
If stats dont effect skill use, their effect is negligeble in a game without guaranteed stat checks(unavoidable dmg/effects/condi/skills), and are more trouble than they are worth.

Its illogical to expect defensive stats to be able to affect defensive skill/utility use. That would mean that all defensive skills/utilities need to be rendered completely ineffective to anyone not loaded up with toughness. What good is a block that doesn’t actually block the damage completely….may as well use protection instead. What good is that block, in the face of overwhelming one shot mechanics, when it still doesn’t block the one shot?

This whole argument about wanting defensive stats to affect utilities makes no sense…how can you make a block or reflect stop more than 100% incoming damage? That’s what they currently do…they stop 100% of the incoming damage. They do this for anyone…including for you in your toughness gear. As I said in a previous post, this is on top of your toughness…because when the block/reflect is over…you still have your passive damage reduction from toughness. Are you really asking for immortality? Or is this entire argument really just about trying to find a way to make zerk players die again? Enlighten me if there is some other purpose to this argument about wanting defensive stats to determine the effectiveness of defensive utilities/skills.

Fenrir.3609:

Exun.7825:

Just tried to be objective (so I didn’t talk about active defense). Do you know where I can find this already known stuff? can’t find that on the wiki.

About healing stuff, well I agree about the break from the tired old trinity but in the other hand, maxing this stat increase my skill 6 from 4500 to 5200 heal and I got 18000 hit points, I don’t know anything else about healing power cause never used it but these numbers do not really appetize me.

Considering the toughness of the dungeons, according to the wide range of stats we can access I think it can be really hard for zerkers (but faster) and still quiet for others except that the zerk-stack-in-a-corner strategy is ruining this theory (well… back to the beginning)

There are plenty of guides and links with regards to theory crafting et al, a simple google search should turn up a fair few.

A good place to start is the dungeon forums in general, websites of top level guilds like http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/viewforum/4280860/m/6563292, sites like http://gw2dungeons.net/ as well as http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki and youtube stuff from the likes of Goku, miku, nike, obal, sesshi and a host of others.

Defensive gear/builds means you can pretty much face tank through w3, open world pve and dungeons in this game with little to no effort or thought for having to be proactive/highly reactive in your game play. Back when the game first game out I actually ran an AH and then a clerics spvp bunker guard and my first dungeon mob solo was AC spider queen, facetanked it, took zero effort really (oh the shame of it!). If I had ran a full glass meta build then (as I always do now), then I would have eaten dirt. The defensive gear/build carried me through the content whilst I was still learning.

Heres a classic from rT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2VhmwLwvrM

Yes you can still eat it in certain circumstances, but with the way people talk on these boards you would imagine defensive gear is weak… it isn’t.

phys.7689:

not considering active defense is a large flaw, most of your defense is actually active.

As it should be given the combat system, it certainly isn’t a flaw. And yet defensive gear and builds carries people not very good at (or simply not interested in) active defense through the content and is often part of the meta within certain aspects of the game (or are you bunkering down on point or frontlining as a full glass dungeon zerk meta guard with great success?).

it was a flaw on analysis of comparitive defense, not a flaw in game design.

When considering how strong a boxers defense is, you dont consider just how many punches he can stand and absorb, but how much he can avoid, or mitigate.

ODB.6891:

phys.7689:

reflect is just based on the enemy damage, not player stats.

Completely false statement.

and no, stats effecting utilities would not make them useless, it would change their effectiveness based on your stat investment, which works just fine in other games, one of which would be Guild wars 1. Notice dps stats already do this, other stats are either heavily throttled, or no effect at all.

Any utility that isn’t effective at performing its function is useless. Hence why people don’t use certain utilities at all…because they are sub par. Changing utilities to not working well unless loaded up with defensive stats therefore makes said utilities useless for players not loaded up with said defensive stats. What you are lobbying for is the exact opposite of what ANET has been trying to accomplish with buffing under used utilities. ANET wants all utilities to be used…and not just by a subset of players.

If stats serve a purpose, they should actually effect skill use, which is the dominant factor in how this game is played.
If stats dont effect skill use, their effect is negligeble in a game without guaranteed stat checks(unavoidable dmg/effects/condi/skills), and are more trouble than they are worth.

Its illogical to expect defensive stats to be able to affect defensive skill/utility use. That would mean that all defensive skills/utilities need to be rendered completely ineffective to anyone not loaded up with toughness. What good is a block that doesn’t actually block the damage completely….may as well use protection instead. What good is that block, in the face of overwhelming one shot mechanics, when it still doesn’t block the one shot?

This whole argument about wanting defensive stats to affect utilities makes no sense…how can you make a block or reflect stop more than 100% incoming damage? That’s what they currently do…they stop 100% of the incoming damage. They do this for anyone…including for you in your toughness gear. As I said in a previous post, this is on top of your toughness…because when the block/reflect is over…you still have your passive damage reduction from toughness. Are you really asking for immortality? Or is this entire argument really just about trying to find a way to make zerk players die again? Enlighten me if there is some other purpose to this argument about wanting defensive stats to determine the effectiveness of defensive utilities/skills.

people pointed out the crit/ferocity angle awhile back

As far as utilities being useless unless they give maximum benefit, that is completely and totally false.
would endure pain be useless if its base duration was 2 seconds, or its recast went down to 30 seconds based on stat investment? not all.

If the base dodge regen was 30 seconds, and vitality increased it to 16, would people stop dodging? not at all.

whether a skill is useless with minimal stat investment would be a matter of balance.

Taking it to the flip side, doesnt it follow that most of your dps skills are useless without berserkers? (based on your premise)
Sounds like, a system with no stat effects at all, would be a more optimal system for you, than one that has stats.

Thats fine, like i said,
either stats should actually effect gameplay (all stats) to similar levels
or stats should not exist.
a vote for not exist is fine with me.
vote for actually being choices is also fine

the false choice that it currently is (difficulty slider vs time to complete) is a bad function for stats, and a really ineffecient means of difficulty adjustment

Exun.7825:

Thanks Fenrir this is a very complete answer, much more than I expected actually.

@Phys : Actually I am on the side of active defense, dodge etc.. this is just that for the last post it would have been messy since I was focusing on numbers.

yeah i understood that it would muddy things, just pointing out that in this case, the muddyness is an extremely large part of the equation

“I have all the characters because even with the ability to play different roles the different professions play differently, I feel like I can play dozens of different professions. "

I can agree with most of what you said but I don’t quite align with this though. The weapons feel somewhat distinct, the way the utilities work are temporary so, more or less, they all feel a part of a character, not a distinct build. Many of the traits feel too watered down but a lot of the new traits and updated traits feel nice. I hope they change all the traits to be as drastic as to feel like a large distinction…but I still think it pales in comparison to games like CoH and likely what I’ve heard GW1 is like.

“I can be the might stacking warrior, I can be the DPS warrior, I can be the Solo warrior leaving everyone in the dust and Yoloing everything.”

Well 2 of those are quite similar. I’d likely put the boon dispensing, regen/heal warrior but yeah, that requires a bit of gear swapping. There’s also the burst dps or condi-bomb dps warrior. Seems like about 3-4 warriors. I’m trying my hand at a CC heavy physical warrior but will likely wait until after some more changes to PvE CC to see if it’d be nearly as decent as in PvP.

I’d say, if stats could improve certain aspects of the game, you can make even more builds but I’d think more fundamental changes to not only make certain aspects more distinct but to also play differently too.

“to add, I did this as much as I could in my old game DCUO, hell I actually almost never played full healer for the last year or so of the game. I found a DPS heavy (60% of the “dps role” potential) that I could still solo heal any raid with, I like trying to get everything possible out of my character and living on the edge trying to do it with minimal safety nets while still feeling comfortable that I can handle it (I still often go Energy sigil here, and I still took some “unnecessary” healing there)"

Heh DCUO has nothing (but graphics) on CoH. As far as the healer in CoH, if you wanted to be a healer, you could but they just made other things you could focus on just as useful. Sure, lots of people would shout for healers for their raids, but debuffing mobs or controlling them combined either with great dps also worked…so did just tanking along with enough buffs or just using lots of bodies (pets)…basically, you could blend elements of dps (AoE, burst, damage buffs, defense debuffs, pets) with sustain (heals, defensive buffs, offensive debuffs, pets, control) to make multiple combinations of players succeed. You didn’t need to really swap to a specific set-up, you could just approach fights differently depending what your group composition was like. You could actually make a full team of blasters (pretty much all burst damage) work, you just had to coordinate bursts and rotate novas. Having a few generalized capabilities helped too.

phys.7689:

it was a flaw on analysis of comparitive defense, not a flaw in game design.

When considering how strong a boxers defense is, you dont consider just how many punches he can stand and absorb, but how much he can avoid, or mitigate.

Boxers are known for having a “jaw” or not.

Fenrir.3609:

phys.7689:

it was a flaw on analysis of comparitive defense, not a flaw in game design.

When considering how strong a boxers defense is, you dont consider just how many punches he can stand and absorb, but how much he can avoid, or mitigate.

Boxers are known for having a “jaw” or not.

notice i said “just”

you can consider meatbag defense, but you also should consider other factors, how heavily you weight each depends on what type offense you have to defend, and the limitations of each type of defense

phys.7689:

As far as utilities being useless unless they give maximum benefit, that is completely and totally false.
would endure pain be useless if its base duration was 2 seconds, or its recast went down to 30 seconds based on stat investment? not all.

Would prefer if Endure Pain just had a limit; endure 33-50% of your max HP in damage. 33% of 18k is 6k dmg which seems kind of low so maybe 50% (9k damage) is better? And if you have higher HP? That means EP endures more pain and if how much damage you’ve taken is calculated rather than just nullified, it’d count your armor which would make the pain you endure less thus making EP scale either with toughness, vitality or perhaps both.

I’d ask posters, would that seem fair? Beyond the answer of “No, why would it be fair to cap the possible damage absorbed when it can null it all for a duration?”. Well, that’s certainly not incorrect but seems kind of hax (although you can still be CC’ed and take condition damage)…it’d be like having a signet that doubles your toughness passively but turns your toughness to 2x power and ferocity for a duration. There are no offensive utilities (barring meta circumstances like Ice Bows) that comparatively does for offense what some things available does for defense.

If the base dodge regen was 30 seconds, and vitality increased it to 16, would people stop dodging? not at all.

Currently, passive endurance allows 1 dodge every 10sec (or 2 dodges over 20sec). I wouldn’t want to put that too high unless perhaps more mechanics were introduced that consumed endurance. I’m curious what people’s thoughts on such an idea is.

Taking it to the flip side, doesnt it follow that most of your dps skills are useless without berserkers? (based on your premise)
Sounds like, a system with no stat effects at all, would be a more optimal system for you, than one that has stats.

Yeah, how strong is an Ice Bow or a simple Discipline Banner/FGJ on a dps geared character vs a nomad geared character? I mean, if I could use utilities to make up for a decent fraction of not gearing for dps, it would make a different build that, while not optimal is competitive.

As for the prospect of no stats, I’m surprised no one has tried a write-up of what such a system might looks like. It’d be interesting to consider what it’d be like, at least.

Fenrir.3609:

phys.7689:

it was a flaw on analysis of comparitive defense, not a flaw in game design.

When considering how strong a boxers defense is, you dont consider just how many punches he can stand and absorb, but how much he can avoid, or mitigate.

Boxers are known for having a “jaw” or not.

Realistically, RPG stat systems tend to be aimed to simulate reality. Various aspects of the character’s stats are all taken into consideration. Their toughness or defense doesn’t just define how many hits they can take but also how easy it is to maintain their varying defenses whether that’d be shaking off a dizzying barrage, taking a serious blow and buckling down or simply blocking with their arms.

But it’s not horrible to simplify a system but in relation to GW2, it’d be like every boxer having an arm block that nullifies everything, even a wrecking-ball blow when, from a RPG simulation perspective, only someone with the proper defenses could manage something like that.

phys.7689:

As far as utilities being useless unless they give maximum benefit, that is completely and totally false.
would endure pain be useless if its base duration was 2 seconds, or its recast went down to 30 seconds based on stat investment? not all.

If the base dodge regen was 30 seconds, and vitality increased it to 16, would people stop dodging? not at all.

whether a skill is useless with minimal stat investment would be a matter of balance.

Taking it to the flip side, doesnt it follow that most of your dps skills are useless without berserkers? (based on your premise)
Sounds like, a system with no stat effects at all, would be a more optimal system for you, than one that has stats.

Thats fine, like i said,
either stats should actually effect gameplay (all stats) to similar levels
or stats should not exist.
a vote for not exist is fine with me.
vote for actually being choices is also fine

the false choice that it currently is (difficulty slider vs time to complete) is a bad function for stats, and a really ineffecient means of difficulty adjustment

I’ll just skip right past the part about the current set up working exactly as intended and get right to the heart of the matter. There needs to be a worthwhile reason for them to make changes. What exactly is this worthwhile reason? Is this reason that players in defensive gear have difficulty completing content? Is this reason that players in defensive gear aren’t getting exactly what they invested in from defensive gear? Is this reason that defensive utilities are not providing top level effectiveness for players in defensive gear? I’m pretty sure the answer to all these questions is a resounding no. I’m 100% positive that players in defensive gear are getting 100% return on their gear investment. They are getting the maximum passive survival increase that ANET is/has been willing to allow…in addition to the shared survival that all gear types get from active defenses. So again…where’s the worthwhile reason that ANET should allocate resources to changing this system that, quite frankly, isn’t broken? What’s the point of reducing the base effectiveness of defensive utilities for players not in defensive gear? What exactly is the goal you would want to accomplish by doing that? Are you trying to improve the survivability of players in defensive gear? If so, how much survivability is enough? Where’s the limit on being unkillable? Why would you want to hurt group survivability by reducing the effectiveness of party protection utilities because a zerk players uses them instead of a toughness player uses them? That sounds pretty selfish. Sounds like an attempt to make toughness a required stat for parties. That does not sound like the phiw mantra at all, that so many players with similar requests have flooded the forums with. Why should everyone have to suffer with nerfed and ineffective utilities because they don’t bring players along in specific gear? I’ll pose the same question that I asked in my last reply…that was not addressed btw. Is this just another request to nerf zerk?

I’ll agree with you on the poor implementation of the difficulty slider. ANET chose to do it by putting in “training wheels” gear instead of implementing a difficulty setting in the game. They confused players who don’t read about game mechanics before making gear investments. They failed to isolate inappropriate gear choices to the appropriate game modes. They have failed to correct or even openly acknowledge these issues to this date. Instead they proceed to give placebos to the unwashed player masses in the form of an unnecessary nerf to ferocity, omission of small group/instanced content in the upcoming expansion, and hints of “more challenging” content that “encourages players to migrate to non zerk gear”. I’m pretty sure I didn’t get an exact quote on what they said in the HoT info regarding the zerk meta, but that’s was the gist of it. Yes, I agree, that ANET could have done a much better implementation of providing a difficulty slider. I think the current implementation does work however. It just does not provide the necessary tools to not have it frustrate the player base. We need better filtering options for small groups in the LFG tool so that we can actually form functional party compositions with like minded individuals. The only time any of this is an issue is when talking about 5 man instanced content. That means dungeons and fractals, since that is the only venue where anyone is even remotely concerned with what another player is wearing.

phys.7689:

notice i said “just”

Nope, actually I didnt, put that down to a lot of ale on a weekend night.

Leo G.4501:

As for the prospect of no stats, I’m surprised no one has tried a write-up of what such a system might looks like. It’d be interesting to consider what it’d be like, at least.

I can guarantee a river of phiw tears if ANET removed all stats because then there would be an even playing field for all players…no more excuses to hide behind for failures. I suggested something, in the past, that would have had the same result….reducing the game to one gear set in pve. Including a mininum of passive survival on it…similar to how magic find is currently implemented. That way, the passive safety net is not completely eliminated, but it would also mean that you have no choice but to have a minimum of damage stats at the same time…guaranteeing a baseline amount of actual party contribution. This is essentially the same situation they had with magic find…there were what I called “magic find mules” leaching off of parties. They were essentially non contributors there to simply tag mobs and collect maximum loot. The current situation is not anywhere near that, but if you really want to completely even the playing field, Either the no stats solution or the one size fits all approach would work. I just have this overwhelming feeling that those wearing defensive gear are doing so for intentional reasons and would not appreciate having their maximum safety net removed.

ODB.6891:

phys.7689:

As far as utilities being useless unless they give maximum benefit, that is completely and totally false.
would endure pain be useless if its base duration was 2 seconds, or its recast went down to 30 seconds based on stat investment? not all.

If the base dodge regen was 30 seconds, and vitality increased it to 16, would people stop dodging? not at all.

whether a skill is useless with minimal stat investment would be a matter of balance.

Taking it to the flip side, doesnt it follow that most of your dps skills are useless without berserkers? (based on your premise)
Sounds like, a system with no stat effects at all, would be a more optimal system for you, than one that has stats.

Thats fine, like i said,
either stats should actually effect gameplay (all stats) to similar levels
or stats should not exist.
a vote for not exist is fine with me.
vote for actually being choices is also fine

the false choice that it currently is (difficulty slider vs time to complete) is a bad function for stats, and a really ineffecient means of difficulty adjustment

I’ll just skip right past the part about the current set up working exactly as intended and get right to the heart of the matter. There needs to be a worthwhile reason for them to make changes. What exactly is this worthwhile reason? Is this reason that players in defensive gear have difficulty completing content? Is this reason that players in defensive gear aren’t getting exactly what they invested in from defensive gear? Is this reason that …..

Well, they probably will never change it, because it would change so many things.

Which means, if they want stats to have value, they will have to go the simulation route, and nerf active defense, either directly, or by making the content such that active defenses have less effect.

Which seems to be the direction they are going to try to go.
which imo is a bad direction, but thats the only way they can make these stats useful without a large scale change to the foundation.

i personally would rather no stats at all to the tons of unavoidable damage, have to have X skill to win type scenarios that that solution would take.

the other problem with the current system, is that the range of dps/defense/special skills is too wide.
and the only solution for that, within the current framework is to start designing content that makes more roles/skills mandatory. The future is hard dps checks, and survivability checks, and specific skill set checks. This makes it so its more predictable what stats/skills players will have, and thus easier to design.

Which i find inferior to a system with less of a range(in stats) but more real choices, and ways to succeed.

so yeah, the reason to change? because building on this foundation means bad things. However i doubt they will change the foundation, they will just make the game more simulation like. I find that to be a lot less entertaining, but maybe thats just me.

The core of the issue is simple

they designed a stat system based around simulation playstyles, where you are guaranteed to take damage, have to recover HP in order to win.

the only way to make stats like that work is if you make the game play in a simulation style.
currently the game is designed where the stat system does not match the gameplay, they are probably going to change the gameplay to match the stat system.

I would rather they change the stat system to match the gameplay.

ODB.6891:

Leo G.4501:

As for the prospect of no stats, I’m surprised no one has tried a write-up of what such a system might looks like. It’d be interesting to consider what it’d be like, at least.

I can guarantee a river of phiw tears if ANET removed all stats because then there would be an even playing field for all players…no more excuses to hide behind for failures. I suggested something, in the past, that would have had the same result….reducing the game to one gear set in pve. Including a mininum of passive survival on it…similar to how magic find is currently implemented. That way, the passive safety net is not completely eliminated, but it would also mean that you have no choice but to have a minimum of damage stats at the same time…guaranteeing a baseline amount of actual party contribution. This is essentially the same situation they had with magic find…there were what I called “magic find mules” leaching off of parties. They were essentially non contributors there to simply tag mobs and collect maximum loot. The current situation is not anywhere near that, but if you really want to completely even the playing field, Either the no stats solution or the one size fits all approach would work. I just have this overwhelming feeling that those wearing defensive gear are doing so for intentional reasons and would not appreciate having their maximum safety net removed.

None of those issues you brought up seem to be of much consequence. Yeah it’s a huge change but I’d find the most difficult aspect of such a change is that it’d limit/invalidate the gear building/obtaining portion of the game. Without that, there’s a lack of a “grind”, so to speak. Without a goal of gear upgrades to reach toward, you only have skins to worry about which is kind of what we do now at max level but some still aim for ascended and such.

Leo G.4501:

“I have all the characters because even with the ability to play different roles the different professions play differently, I feel like I can play dozens of different professions. "

I can agree with most of what you said but I don’t quite align with this though. The weapons feel somewhat distinct, the way the utilities work are temporary so, more or less, they all feel a part of a character, not a distinct build. Many of the traits feel too watered down but a lot of the new traits and updated traits feel nice. I hope they change all the traits to be as drastic as to feel like a large distinction…but I still think it pales in comparison to games like CoH and likely what I’ve heard GW1 is like.

“I can be the might stacking warrior, I can be the DPS warrior, I can be the Solo warrior leaving everyone in the dust and Yoloing everything.”

Well 2 of those are quite similar. I’d likely put the boon dispensing, regen/heal warrior but yeah, that requires a bit of gear swapping. There’s also the burst dps or condi-bomb dps warrior. Seems like about 3-4 warriors. I’m trying my hand at a CC heavy physical warrior but will likely wait until after some more changes to PvE CC to see if it’d be nearly as decent as in PvP.

I’d say, if stats could improve certain aspects of the game, you can make even more builds but I’d think more fundamental changes to not only make certain aspects more distinct but to also play differently too.

“to add, I did this as much as I could in my old game DCUO, hell I actually almost never played full healer for the last year or so of the game. I found a DPS heavy (60% of the “dps role” potential) that I could still solo heal any raid with, I like trying to get everything possible out of my character and living on the edge trying to do it with minimal safety nets while still feeling comfortable that I can handle it (I still often go Energy sigil here, and I still took some “unnecessary” healing there)"

Heh DCUO has nothing (but graphics) on CoH. As far as the healer in CoH, if you wanted to be a healer, you could but they just made other things you could focus on just as useful. Sure, lots of people would shout for healers for their raids, but debuffing mobs or controlling them combined either with great dps also worked…so did just tanking along with enough buffs or just using lots of bodies (pets)…basically, you could blend elements of dps (AoE, burst, damage buffs, defense debuffs, pets) with sustain (heals, defensive buffs, offensive debuffs, pets, control) to make multiple combinations of players succeed. You didn’t need to really swap to a specific set-up, you could just approach fights differently depending what your group composition was like. You could actually make a full team of blasters (pretty much all burst damage) work, you just had to coordinate bursts and rotate novas. Having a few generalized capabilities helped too.

One of my buddies was actually screwing around with a GS/Hammer PS war, since you don’t really need the axe/mace offhand (helps but vuln can be handled other ways), it was quite interesting in a few places and actually very helpful, just locking down some more nasty things. And for traits, I hear ya, some are huge, some not. Like taking invigorating precision + S/P on thief makes it so you can facetank things, pretty powerful trait there, but then a lot of traits are more minor of an effect.

And btw, what you describe in CoH was actually one of the things I loved about DCUO, we had the same (they had a quadrinity in it, and couple other SOE games). Though the main selling point was the “fighting game” style gameplay with a block/blockbreaker/interrupt rock/paper/scissors type system which much like gw2 meant a lot of added bonus just for being a good player and being able to catch those counters. (imagine taking CoH and combining it with say Tekken/SF/MK type game).

I am always surprised why ppl dont bring perma regen banner albeit zerk warrior to lvl 50 grawl shaman or mai trin. I do this every time myself – just makes life so much easier. Gives ppl that margin for error even for experienced players / nubs like myself.

Some of these suggested “improvements.”

Wearing gear that is better at soaking damage (aka not needing to dodge) improves you ability to dodge. OK. That makes all the sense.

I’m happy to leave the game design to the professionals after reading really good suggestions like that.

NikeEU.7690:

Some of these suggested “improvements.”

Wearing gear that is better at soaking damage (aka not needing to dodge) improves you ability to dodge. OK. That makes all the sense.

I’m happy to leave the game design to the professionals after reading really good suggestions like that.

no one stat makes you not need to dodge.
you mean stats designed to improve your survival, improve your ACTIVE survival? CRAZY.
did you ever notice they link acrobatics to vitality on theif? the trait line with vitality, and giving you effects like swiftness on dodge, and endurance return on dodge, vigor on heal?

Did you ever realise you dont need to dodge as much if you take toughness and vitality. And its more important to dodge if you take glass gear. If you are going to make stats effect active defence why dont you do it in a way that makes sense from a risk verses reward perspective. Precision gives faster endurance regen for example.

But i guess thats unnacceptable because then berserkers would be even more powerful…. Stats effect things equally currently. I really dont see why you want to break that just to get some gear diversity for the sake of diversity.

spoj.9672:

Did you ever realise you dont need to dodge as much if you take toughness and vitality. And its more important to dodge if you take glass gear. If you are going to make stats effect active defence why dont you do it in a way that makes sense from a risk verses reward perspective. Precision gives faster endurance regen for example.

because defensive stats should increase your defense, and offensive stats your offense?

well even if one wasnt using that paradigm, i wouldnt put it on precision, which is already a super strong stat.

the idea of stats is that they do different things and you choose/balance them.

increasing defense is decreasing risk, IE getting more dodges, or effectiveness from dodge, is reducing your risk,

which means it shouldnt be on the same stat that increases your reward, if you look at it from a risk vs reward standpoint.

spoj.9672:

Did you ever realise you dont need to dodge as much if you take toughness and vitality. And its more important to dodge if you take glass gear. If you are going to make stats effect active defence why dont you do it in a way that makes sense from a risk verses reward perspective. Precision gives faster endurance regen for example.

But i guess thats unnacceptable because then berserkers would be even more powerful…. Stats effect things equally currently. I really dont see why you want to break that just to get some gear diversity for the sake of diversity.

they dont effect things equally, some are way more effective than others, thats why berserk is the generally the high end stat choice.

The point of having stats at all is diversity, otherwise why have different stats?

I mean i get you guys just want to be the best with minimal item investment, but that type of thinking is in direct opposition to having stat selection at all.

Thats only because all 3 offensive stats work really well together. And defensive stats dont quite do this as well. The fault is having very high vitality works against healing and sustain. However having high defensive stats is incredibly effective overall. You should know this if you have ever played in nomads. You are practically immortal already. You dont need more active defence. And by making defensive stats give more than they currently do will seriously break the balance. Its giving them way too much of an advantage.

Berserker is the high end choice because it is the fastest. People value speed and want their rewards faster. Thats all it comes down to. If people didnt care about time then there would be no complaints. Its the most effective because time is what most people value. For people that value safety as more important then defensive stats are far more effective. And perfectly balanced in comparison. They just serve a different role which is less popular. And theres no way you can fix that. We all have time restraints of some sort.

People have actually suggested WoW ing it up and removing stats from gear.

spoj.9672:

Did you ever realise you dont need to dodge as much if you take toughness and vitality. And its more important to dodge if you take glass gear. If you are going to make stats effect active defence why dont you do it in a way that makes sense from a risk verses reward perspective. Precision gives faster endurance regen for example.

I’m sorry but that doesn’t make sense.

That’s like saying “glass characters need active defense so having better damage should let their endurance regen faster. Also, bunker characters need more personal damage so toughness should add to their weapon damage mulitplier.”

I’m surprised people don’t recognize parallels like this. I’m not trying to advocate a non-active playstyle (in fact, the opposite…I think toughness shouldn’t let you face tank anything but it should make defensive measures you actively use more efficient, not redundant), but this is common sense.

spoj.9672:

But i guess thats unnacceptable because then berserkers would be even more powerful…. Stats effect things equally currently. I really dont see why you want to break that just to get some gear diversity for the sake of diversity.

Whether things are equal has yet to be seen. People tend to not try to prove things like this with facts but demean people with insults…both sides do that, mind you.

Please prove they are not equal then. Because ive seen more evidence of passive defence being far stronger than offensive stats. Simply because there is no skill/knowledge requirement to succeed with passive defence.

And i know that didnt make sense. It makes as much sense as the opposite idea. Which is why i brought it up and i do recognise the parallels (im not stupid). I could of expanded it and said defensive stats should boost weapon damage but decided not to take the mockery that far.

But your idea is completely baffling to me. “I have passive defence so i can take extra hits so i need the ability to avoid more hits!”. Yeah thats a really logical train of thought.

It just looks like you want two extreme opposite spectrums. Invest in defence and you are immortal. Invest in offense and you do loads of damage but cannot survive at all. I really dont see how this is a good direction. Its forced diversity which destroys the current “everything is viable” philosophy.

And if you are actually saying active defence remains as it is for glass but is stronger for defensive stats. How can you get more effective than full damage mitigation? And how can you justify breaking the passive offense vs passive defence balance we have now just for a slightly more obvious incentive for gear diversity.

By the way if you dont nerf base active defence for glass gear then your solution breaks balance between spectrums by making defence too strong but doesnt solve the glass meta dominance. And if you do nerf base active defence then you destroy anets “everything is viable” philosophy. So whats the point in it? What are you trying to do?

Jerus.4350:

And for traits, I hear ya, some are huge, some not. Like taking invigorating precision + S/P on thief makes it so you can facetank things, pretty powerful trait there, but then a lot of traits are more minor of an effect.

Invigorating Precision is one of my favorite Thief traits! It’s likely one of my staple parts of my favorite build. Although I do heal with my heal, I often time delegate the utility of my heal instead of the recovery it provides because IP can be such a neat form of active and passive sustain. Usually builds without it start to feel different in how they play. Just need more stuff like that.

Jerus.4350:

And btw, what you describe in CoH was actually one of the things I loved about DCUO, we had the same (they had a quadrinity in it, and couple other SOE games). Though the main selling point was the “fighting game” style gameplay with a block/blockbreaker/interrupt rock/paper/scissors type system which much like gw2 meant a lot of added bonus just for being a good player and being able to catch those counters. (imagine taking CoH and combining it with say Tekken/SF/MK type game).

I think the beauty of CoH, as described by someone on one of the kickstarter forums to remake CoH, the style of gameplay feels like a comic book choreography style where you direct the flow of the action rather than just twitch react to it. It’s a different style and not for everyone but it’s an apt description of why I enjoyed the gameplay so much and not quite the likes of CO. I haven’t played DCUO myself but the action does look alright. Not keen on their variety of costumes though.

spoj.9672:

And i know that didnt make sense. It makes as much sense as the opposite idea.

That’s the reason I mentioned it though. The opposite does make sense because it’s been a staple of RPGs for decades. Not saying that’s the reason something should change, just mentioning the notion you said didn’t make sense to me even in the context of GW2.

spoj.9672:

But your idea is completely baffling to me. “I have passive defence so i can take extra hits so i need the ability to avoid more hits!”. Yeah thats a really logical train of thought.

Well, my idea is to lessen the passive effect of stats and link them to their representative effects. People shouldn’t just 1111 with their toughness, they’d have to actively use utilities and skills that would be enhanced to stay alive. But yeah, it’d be easier if you get greater benefit from such utilities than if you got a lesser effect from those utilities.

spoj.9672:

It just looks like you want two extreme opposite spectrums. Invest in defence and you are immortal. Invest in offense and you do loads of damage but cannot survive at all. I really dont see how this is a good direction. Its forced diversity which destroys the current “everything is viable” philosophy.

The way I see it, it’s a form of build control that then extends to encounter design. The level of survivability attainable as a baseline is too high. I wouldn’t want to outright just nerf everything to make it harder to live, but regulate that to builds that are built to live. And being built for such should feel as active as glass builds are for damage, requiring knowledge and coordination to manage well.

spoj.9672:

By the way if you dont nerf active defence for glass gear then your solution breaks balance between spectrums by making defence too strong but doesnt solve the glass meta dominance. And if you do nerf base active defence then you destroy anets “everything is viable” philosophy. So whats the point in it? What are you trying to do?

Well if you read my write up, you’d know what I’d try to do. I don’t know how else to tell you but to copy and paste what I’ve already written.

spoj.9672:

Please prove they are not equal then. Because ive seen more evidence of passive defence being far stronger than offensive stats. Simply because there is no skill/knowledge requirement to succeed with passive defence.

And i know that didnt make sense. It makes as much sense as the opposite idea. Which is why i brought it up and i do recognise the parallels (im not stupid). I could of expanded it and said defensive stats should boost weapon damage but decided not to take the mockery that far.

But your idea is completely baffling to me. “I have passive defence so i can take extra hits so i need the ability to avoid more hits!”. Yeah thats a really logical train of thought.

It just looks like you want two extreme opposite spectrums. Invest in defence and you are immortal. Invest in offense and you do loads of damage but cannot survive at all. I really dont see how this is a good direction. Its forced diversity which destroys the current “everything is viable” philosophy.

And if you are actually saying active defence remains as it is for glass but is stronger for defensive stats. How can you get more effective than full damage mitigation? And how can you justify breaking the passive offense vs passive defence balance we have now just for a slightly more obvious incentive for gear diversity.

By the way if you dont nerf base active defence for glass gear then your solution breaks balance between spectrums by making defence too strong but doesnt solve the glass meta dominance. And if you do nerf base active defence then you destroy anets “everything is viable” philosophy. So whats the point in it? What are you trying to do?

imagine for a second, that it wasnt about having all of one stat, or none of it, that you wanted all your stats for different reasons, and choosing different stats would actively effect your gameplay.

Well, thats what having stats is actually supposed to be about.

as to this “I have passive defence so i can take extra hits so i need the ability to avoid more hits!”
you are missing the understanding, these stats are supposed to effect defense, how well you can defend. the ability to avoid hits is a type of defensive play.

why would a person want more dodges? the same reason they want more hp so they are more survivable.

changing the effect of stats would of course have to be balanced, it doesnt have to follow any ones brainstormed exact method. The idea is more important than execution at this stage (the idea stage)

that idea is stats should effect skill usage and active play more.

btw, nerfing glasses defense would not destroy the everything is viable thing, unless it was over nerfed. There is a fairy large window there, of course all glass teams may not end up being the optimal setup(or may require a higher skill cieling) anymore. But that was always a questionable decision.

or, you could get rid of stats all together, if you dont really want to have real choices and diversity.

to be honest, neither of these things is likely to happen, as i said before. What you will see is more simulation style gameplay most likely, more unavoidable dmg.
because simulation is the easiest answer, though, imo the worst.

Leo G.4501:

Jerus.4350:

And for traits, I hear ya, some are huge, some not. Like taking invigorating precision + S/P on thief makes it so you can facetank things, pretty powerful trait there, but then a lot of traits are more minor of an effect.

Invigorating Precision is one of my favorite Thief traits! It’s likely one of my staple parts of my favorite build. Although I do heal with my heal, I often time delegate the utility of my heal instead of the recovery it provides because IP can be such a neat form of active and passive sustain. Usually builds without it start to feel different in how they play. Just need more stuff like that.

Jerus.4350:

And btw, what you describe in CoH was actually one of the things I loved about DCUO, we had the same (they had a quadrinity in it, and couple other SOE games). Though the main selling point was the “fighting game” style gameplay with a block/blockbreaker/interrupt rock/paper/scissors type system which much like gw2 meant a lot of added bonus just for being a good player and being able to catch those counters. (imagine taking CoH and combining it with say Tekken/SF/MK type game).

I think the beauty of CoH, as described by someone on one of the kickstarter forums to remake CoH, the style of gameplay feels like a comic book choreography style where you direct the flow of the action rather than just twitch react to it. It’s a different style and not for everyone but it’s an apt description of why I enjoyed the gameplay so much and not quite the likes of CO. I haven’t played DCUO myself but the action does look alright. Not keen on their variety of costumes though.

Not to derail the thread, but that was an entire professions role We had Controllers who were CC/Mana pumps. I hear ya on the twitch reaction, I have bad reaction times but they did well in that game making everything within a reasonable amount that even I could handle it >.< That’s enough about DCUO though, they did some major changes that had me quit the game, it’s not what it used to be. (still worth the free download and at least play through leveling if you like superhero stuff and are bored sometime though, I just wouldn’t really promote past that).

There is a way to make defensive stats used. Mechanics like pulsing damage auras that are defense checks. That go through aegis.

It’d be problematic as a fix though, because if you want a game where people are going to be downed by intent if they do not have the specific build/gear, you need to change the way downed works where bosses just aoe bomb the living hell out of downed people.

Nobody currently needs to support besides rotating aegis and maybe blasting a water field. All those traits with rezzing bonuses, traits that increase group damage mitigation, boons like regen and swiftness are virtually worthless in a combat environment because the way most encounters function in this game is you do outrageous DPS to an HP sack and hope to kill it before you run out of aegis/endurance.

When they actually bother to create more complex encounters that involve more multutasking, imagine an encounter like Priestess of Dwayna Arah p4 where constantly in the encounter somebody needs to collect tears, another person eneds to kite an add to a certain spot for another person to kill it, and open a window for the other people to DPS the boss.

Basically, split people up with tasks and critical execution checks during an encounter. More encounters that don’t just trivially allow a group to sit behind a reflection wall rotating aegis.

More bosses with adds that corrupt boons so 25 might stacks isn’t easy to maintain and can make you vulnerable, more adds who can daze/interrupt skills.

Defensive stats/builds do already impact upon gameplay and improve your survive. They are utilized by large numbers of players across a wide spectrum of the content in this game. Moreoever, they are far, far from being underpowered.

Now if someone wants to make it so defensive stats impact upon active defense (which is simply not needed), then ALL passive gain from said stats should be removed. No passive toughness gain, and no passive vit health gain, whilst the current baseline for active defense should remain for non defensive builds.

Now if people want to give up all their passive defensive gain from their nomads/pvt and clerics in order to gain some more active defense than go for it. Oddly enough, I doubt many will.

Fenrir.3609:

Defensive stats/builds do already impact upon gameplay and improve your survive. They are utilized by large numbers of players across a wide spectrum of the content in this game. Moreoever, they are far, far from being underpowered.

Now if someone wants to make it so defensive stats impact upon active defense (which is simply not needed), then ALL passive gain from said stats should be removed. No passive toughness gain, and no passive vit health gain, whilst the current baseline for active defense should remain for non defensive builds.

Now if people want to give up all their passive defensive gain from their nomads/pvt and clerics in order to gain some more active defense than go for it. Oddly enough, I doubt many will.

I would support such a revamp. But I would readjust the baseline for active defense and boons in general too.

Fenrir.3609:

Defensive stats/builds do already impact upon gameplay and improve your survive. They are utilized by large numbers of players across a wide spectrum of the content in this game. Moreoever, they are far, far from being underpowered.

Now if someone wants to make it so defensive stats impact upon active defense (which is simply not needed), then ALL passive gain from said stats should be removed. No passive toughness gain, and no passive vit health gain, whilst the current baseline for active defense should remain for non defensive builds.

Now if people want to give up all their passive defensive gain from their nomads/pvt and clerics in order to gain some more active defense than go for it. Oddly enough, I doubt many will.

i wouldnt be against it, if it was well executed.

it would probably make for a more interesting game.

but realistically they will probably just make people take more damage.

I find it funny how many meta-mentality players think zerker stacking is the ultimate playstyle for dungeons, and other equipments are just a ladder until you get “pro”. This is completely wrong, how come you trash all other gear in a game that has no treadmill? Cleric should have its place, it should be wrong to have a full zerker party. It simply trashes all itemization, which is a core fundamental part of RPGs.

It does have its place. Just not in groups that want to go as fast as possible.

Valento.9852:

I find it funny how many meta-mentality players think zerker stacking is the ultimate playstyle for dungeons, and other equipments are just a ladder until you get “pro”. This is completely wrong, how come you trash all other gear in a game that has no treadmill? Cleric should have its place, it should be wrong to have a full zerker party. It simply trashes all itemization, which is a core fundamental part of RPGs.

Why should clerics have a place? — Justify please.,
This is not a RPG it is an Action MMO (e.g. Like a first person shooter with lots of players).

If you think its RPG – play another game.

Valento.9852:

I find it funny how many meta-mentality players think zerker stacking is the ultimate playstyle for dungeons, and other equipments are just a ladder until you get “pro”. This is completely wrong, how come you trash all other gear in a game that has no treadmill? Cleric should have its place, it should be wrong to have a full zerker party. It simply trashes all itemization, which is a core fundamental part of RPGs.

they think it is, because it is. If the meta required different builds, thats what they would do.
The pro versus handicap situation is the way they designed the stats, and the encounters.

Im not saying it should be this way, thats up for debate, but right now, thats the way anets design has played out, and it is a logical result of the way they designed things.

i will say, i personally dont believe you should be required to bring a bunch of specific stat sets in order to succeed. But right now the benefit of DPS stats is great, and other stats arent relatively as effective.
and they are a whole lot less entertaining.

Zenith.7301:

There is a way to make defensive stats used. Mechanics like pulsing damage auras that are defense checks. That go through aegis.

<snip>

Nobody currently needs to support besides rotating aegis and maybe blasting a water field. All those traits with rezzing bonuses, traits that increase group damage mitigation, boons like regen and swiftness are virtually worthless in a combat environment because the way most encounters function in this game is you do outrageous DPS to an HP sack and hope to kill it before you run out of aegis/endurance.

<snip>

Basically, split people up with tasks and critical execution checks during an encounter. More encounters that don’t just trivially allow a group to sit behind a reflection wall rotating aegis.

You make it sound like rotating aegis´ and utilizing reflects at the right times is easy, but believe me when I tell you that there are A LOT of really, really bad Guardians out there who have no idea how to do these things properly. I had the pleasure of having to explain to some Guards what Wall of Reflection is and does a couple of times already.
And then there are probably even more people out there who have no idea of how to use combo fields and blast finishers, like absolutely no idea at all. I´m so sad every time I drop a smoke field when PuGing with my Thief and nobody helps me blasting. And when you ask them blast your fields they either don´t reply to you at all or yell at you “use the stealth house thingy!!” or something like that =P

Keeping that in mind, I think asking for more “puzzle-like” encounters that require good coordination and exact knowledge of what needs to be done would be terrible for PuGs (not so much for organized groups of course). You can easily observe that when you try to pug TA aetherpath for example. If you are unlucky and end up in a group with only one or two competent players you´ll most certainly have a pretty bad time running that path.

So even if it sounds hackneyed and/or arrogant, I genuinely think it´s the l2p issues of players who get carried by good teammates (and fail hard if they don´t get carried) that will keep anet from introducing more difficult/harder content to the game. GW2 has a rather casual playerbase after all and this has to be and will be acknowledged by the devs when they design future content.

Zenith.7301:

More bosses with adds that corrupt boons so 25 might stacks isn’t easy to maintain and can make you vulnerable, more adds who can daze/interrupt skills.

That being said, I´d really welcome some changes like that personally. I think the, lets call it, “one-dimensionality” of dungeons/fractals and probably PvE in general is solely a matter of encounter design and (maybe) they way conditions are handled, both for you as player as well as mobs (how fast/often they can be applied and how easily they can be cleansed etc.).

But yeah as I said, I do not really expect instanced PvE content for small groups to get significantly harder anyways (if we get new dungeons/fractals at all T_T), so I guess the best thing to do is calm our jimmies, sit tight and see what HoT will bring to the table.

Is HoT going with condi stacks higher than 25? Would that help in builds/group comps to maybe maximize bleeds between a few team members instead of everyone go zerk?

Confusion meta in HoT. :>

Probably still berserker though.