Guild Wars 2

I have a question.

What is the need for Enrage Mechanics in GW 2 Raids? What purpose it serves?
I thought that developers wanted to stay away from Zerk Meta? At the moment it seams not only that the raid has some tough mechanics ( which I love ) and are not the easiest, but on top of that you have that rush DPS DPS DPS! Which I find to be a dumb and boring mechanic as a fake difficulty. Is it just me?

I never got the impression that Anet wanted to kill the zerker gear. They just wanted to make some other stat options viable, too, like condi. There will always be zerker gear.

I think that adding a minute to the enrage timer would go miles towards increasing diversity in raids, because as it stand the builds people have been having success with are basically 1 tank, one druid for heals, and everyone else is either dps or might stacking for dps.

So yes, there is more diversity since before it would have been all zerker, but still need some tweaks

Celtic Lady.3729:

I never got the impression that Anet wanted to kill the zerker gear. They just wanted to make some other stat options viable, too, like condi. There will always be zerker gear.

I did mean META as in everyone who goes DPS must go Zerk. Not extra defence maybe or using different mix stats. So if you are not helaing or tank, you go zerk, or if needed condi. Sounds a bit boring to me with some many builds out.

Enrage timer is needed in order to prevent everyone running nomads and just tank all the way through. It’s been proven that successful group does not included everyone being zerker. A healer and a tank is required, it’s more about doing the mechanic perfectly and not to waste extra dps on circle and blue rocks.

Enrage timers are not bad per se. Monotonous and uninspired designs of encounters are bad and enrage times enforce this.

If encounters only check for the right amount of damage we end up with DPS metas. Clever encounters check also things like HPS and CC. As soon as more than one variable is checked we have metas with more variety and build diversity.

The challenge for the designers is to create broad spectrum of encounters where the values for DPS, HPS and other variables to beat the enrage timers show a high enough variety.

Raids in GW2 could also work without enrage timers. You could assign the rewards to the time you needed to finish the encounter. For example, you get full reward from the full loot table if you beat the guardian under eight minutes. Between eight and 15 minutes you obtain 50% less rewards from a reduced loot table. Above 15 minutes you gain only a minimal reward.
.

Say the Vale Guardian didn’t have enrage timers. What prevents a group from using full nomads, stacking in a corner, and spamming heals while ignoring all the mechanics for that fight?

Altair.8402:

Say the Vale Guardian didn’t have enrage timers. What prevents a group from using full nomads, stacking in a corner, and spamming heals while ignoring all the mechanics for that fight?

1. Add certain events that will wipe you/raid no matter what gear you have while leaving the rest of damage sources be more forgiving for more tanky players.
2. Remove enrage timers.
3. Introduce tiering for rewards. You kill it within 8 minutes, normal reward. You kill it within 10 minutes, lower the ascended drop chance to Tequatl levels. Your kill takes longer, drop 1 gold and some generic champion bag.
4. Slap some achievements and titles for different tiers for good measure.

Alchemist.7523:

Celtic Lady.3729:

I never got the impression that Anet wanted to kill the zerker gear. They just wanted to make some other stat options viable, too, like condi. There will always be zerker gear.

I did mean META as in everyone who goes DPS must go Zerk. Not extra defence maybe or using different mix stats. So if you are not helaing or tank, you go zerk, or if needed condi. Sounds a bit boring to me with some many builds out.

You mean glass gear, as in direct DPS uses Berserker and Condi DPS uses Sinister or Viper. Group content in an MMO means harder content, and the player mindset is always going to be about efficiency. You cannot get around this while playing with human beings. Those who like to optimize, will insist on it.

If the content is harder, then there’s more reason to optimize. So now, we have harder content that might actually require full use of the game’s mechanics, including build options that generate high damage. Why would you expect anything less? If content can be cleared by any build, then it will be really easy for the better builds. You’ll never get a balanced playing field where all or even most builds are equally effective without flattening diversity so that build choices are largely irrelevant.

The truth is, and this really is the truth… People wanted a group content environment in which the content could be cleared in a party with a wide variety of builds. They would have been better served to not agitate for change. That’s exactly what was available in dungeons. Those players had to accept, though, that they wouldn’t be able to just jump into any group at will, and they were not willing to give that up. Fwiw, you can still do dungeons in any group comp you want. However, the reward train has left dungeons, making them less desirable overall.

Bottom line. Now, in raids, you’ve got gear diversity in that not everyone wears DD Glass. You were never going to get a group content meta in which the best gear for a given role is not expected.

Alchemist.7523:

I have a question.

What is the need for Enrage Mechanics in GW 2 Raids? What purpose it serves?
I thought that developers wanted to stay away from Zerk Meta? At the moment it seams not only that the raid has some tough mechanics ( which I love ) and are not the easiest, but on top of that you have that rush DPS DPS DPS! Which I find to be a dumb and boring mechanic as a fake difficulty. Is it just me?

Its not just you, but a lot of people really don’t understand it’s purpose.

I’m going to describe this in trinity terms, but it applies here.

The success or failure of a tanks is visible and obvious every second of the fight. If they screw up you know INSTANTLY and often catastrophically. It’s demanding and even stressful (but correspondingly rewarding when done well).

The success or failure of healers is visible and obvious every second of the fight. If they screw up you know INSTANTLY and often catastrophically. It’s demanding and even stressful (but correspondingly rewarding when done well).

The success or failure of DPS is *$&@#ing INVISIBLE except in encounters that have adds that need to be spiked down. You end up with a lot of kittens who think they’re hot poop who talk a good game and actually suck massively and tend to blame the failure of any particular attempt on the other roles when in fact they took so dang long that the other folks ran out of resources buying time for the DPS contingent to down the target.

Enrage timers put DPS players under the same microscope the other roles have to endure all the time: do your job and DO IT WELL or we fail. They allow the tank to know how long they have to position the boss and endure the torrent of violence. They tell the Healers how long they need to keep everyone one up. And the tell the DPSers whether or not they’re as hard core as they always seem to think they are. If you hit the enrage timer you know exactly who screwed up, and its NOT the tanks and healers.

If you’re a GOOD DPS player enrage timers are nothing. It’s only the (many) bad DPSers that need be concerned.

Awe.1096:

1. Add certain events that will wipe you/raid no matter what gear you have while leaving the rest of damage sources be more forgiving for more tanky players.
2. Remove enrage timers.

Uh what?

Altair.8402:

Awe.1096:

1. Add certain events that will wipe you/raid no matter what gear you have while leaving the rest of damage sources be more forgiving for more tanky players.
2. Remove enrage timers.

Uh what?

How about quoting my entire post instead of cherry picking part which does not make sense on its own?

I like enrage timers

Alchemist.7523:

I have a question.

What is the need for Enrage Mechanics in GW 2 Raids? What purpose it serves?
I thought that developers wanted to stay away from Zerk Meta? At the moment it seams not only that the raid has some tough mechanics ( which I love ) and are not the easiest, but on top of that you have that rush DPS DPS DPS! Which I find to be a dumb and boring mechanic as a fake difficulty. Is it just me?

If there were no DPS checks then you could run Nomad gear on bunkers and one shot every boss after an hour of autoattacking. Enrage timers are necessary for difficult raiding. End.

Not a fan of enrage timers myself either, it does introduce the fake difficulty but oh well. In time people will find the best comps to do raids/individual encounters and I think the timers won’t even be an issue then.

Larynx.2453:

Alchemist.7523:

I have a question.

What is the need for Enrage Mechanics in GW 2 Raids? What purpose it serves?
I thought that developers wanted to stay away from Zerk Meta? At the moment it seams not only that the raid has some tough mechanics ( which I love ) and are not the easiest, but on top of that you have that rush DPS DPS DPS! Which I find to be a dumb and boring mechanic as a fake difficulty. Is it just me?

If there were no DPS checks then you could run Nomad gear on bunkers and one shot every boss after an hour of autoattacking. Enrage timers are necessary for difficult raiding. End.

You could still try in Nomads. Enrage only adds 200% of Damage, with enough Healers and everyone being tanky, Enrage might not matter that much.

Celtic Lady.3729:

I never got the impression that Anet wanted to kill the zerker gear. They just wanted to make some other stat options viable, too, like condi. There will always be zerker gear.

They have actually stated that they wanted to get away from the meta zerker.

I want the timer gone. The encounter is hard enough even without it. Certainly harder than some WoW raids. If ArenaNet created 20+ stat combinations, they all should have some use and they don’t. If they want just 4 stat combos to have purpose in game, they should delete all the other stats.

Alchemist.7523:

I have a question.

What is the need for Enrage Mechanics in GW 2 Raids? What purpose it serves?
I thought that developers wanted to stay away from Zerk Meta? At the moment it seams not only that the raid has some tough mechanics ( which I love ) and are not the easiest, but on top of that you have that rush DPS DPS DPS! Which I find to be a dumb and boring mechanic as a fake difficulty. Is it just me?

Enrage timers force people to keep up their damage dealing while being just defensive enough to stay alive.
They are the one thing that keeps you from stacking healers and tanks to a degree where everyone is immortal.
Don’t think this should be another thing that you can beat if you just try many times or force it down for hours without ever improving yourself or as a group.

Wouldn’t mind having a softer timer with 10min or 12min for all of the pug groups out there, though.
However, that should be less rewarding than completing it in 8min. People will probably hate that idea even more.

I can’t wait to see the tearsplotion when the weekend crowd gets on and tries the raid.

Enrage timer means dps rotations have to be executed well. Can’t just spam 1 and let the guardian carry you to victory like dungeons and even Fotm. Then go "oh what difference does a few seconds ( minutes or hours in reality across a tour) matter to you?
This is a good thing

I love how far my guildies have come after just a few hours against the vale guard.

Mortifer.2946:

I want the timer gone. The encounter is hard enough even without it. Certainly harder than some WoW raids. If ArenaNet created 20+ stat combinations, they all should have some use and they don’t. If they want just 4 stat combos to have purpose in game, they should delete all the other stats.

Spurious argument. We see 20+ sets and more added with HoT, and still people ask for stat combos that don’t already exist. Why? Because someone, in some game mode, wants to use them.

Sad news. Harder group content is not the entire game. If a set is used by players in one game mode, then that’s ample reason for it to be in the game.

circuitnerd.5863:

Celtic Lady.3729:

I never got the impression that Anet wanted to kill the zerker gear. They just wanted to make some other stat options viable, too, like condi. There will always be zerker gear.

They have actually stated that they wanted to get away from the meta zerker.

By which they meant a meta in which the entire group wore berserker gear. That does not mean they wanted a meta which eliminated direct damage glass. They wanted a meta which included tanking (i.e., aggro management) and healing, as well as condi dps.