Guild Wars 2

hybrid.5027:

Balekai.6083:

However, it’s a false choice to begin with as gear, trait and weapon choices aren’t mutually exclusive. The majority of build power and diversity comes from gear stats in GW2. There are many traits and skills that are useless unless you gear for them correctly.

This isn’t true. GW2 PvE build diversity comes from weapon choice, traits and utility skills. Build effectiveness comes from stats. Wall of Reflection still reflects regardless of your gear. Shake it Off removes the same condition in berserker gear or Knights gear. Are we even playing the same game?

And “build diversity” is not referring to the number of possible builds, but the number of viable or optimal builds. Scepter/Dagger Terrormancer in Zerker gear is not even close to being viable. I am not joking when I say Necro Scepter in Zerker gear still sees half of its damage output from the bleeds and poison that have no condition damage to back it up.

Gear is intertwined with the rest of the build. Viability is heavily dependent on synergy, optimal status even more so. You cannot talk about builds without also discussing gear as part of it, as the gear largely determines if a build even works.

Also, Reflected projectiles use the Reflector’s Precision and Ferocity stats, so yes, they do still scale with gear.

Not to mention the only time anyone I know brings up meta is when we’re talking dungeons and/or fractals. Outside of that, in PVE, who gives two flips about what someone else is running because it’s just going to be zerged down anyway? I’m willing to bet, the hardcore speed running dungeon/fractal runners are a small portion of the PVE population anyway. PHIW are a much much larger portion, or so I would bet on, that PVE farmers are right up there in number with the PHIWs. Niether of which cares about being optimal, but they all care about being viable… which, btw, viable and optimal are two different things.

hybrid.5027:

A second point I’d like to make on variety.

You are looking for variety in gear. Why not look for variety in traits? Or weaponsets? that all exists. There are plenty of PvE viable builds using weapons that aren’t strictly meta. Or trait set ups that are completely viable and outside the meta builds. Why is gear variety the goal you wish for? Ask yourself this: would the game be better if more gear types were near-optimal, or if more trait choices were near-optimal? which answer would result in greater playstyle and gameplayer variety: more gear prefixes, or more viable weapon/trait choices?

Think carefully before you answer that.

Here is my carefully thought response :

Some builds rely on gear to work properly while others don’t. Since we are talking about “quasi-optimality” in PvE, it’s safe to assume that stats will matter all the time. Thus, in my eyes, asking for more gear “near-optimal” variety in PvE is equivalent to asking for more “near-optimal” trait sets and weapon sets. I apologise for the confusion.

In the realm of optimality or quasi-optimality, statistics have their role to play. All damage oriented builds rely on power or condi damage to function properly. If these statistics are too low, the build cannot work. Other builds (namely support oriented builds) do not rely on healing power that much, since healing comes from blasting water fields and the heal skills do not scale very well with healing power.

Direct damage builds have one or two optimal gear sets : berserker and assassin (assassin for mesmers to be precise, berserker for everyone else). They also have their “near-optimal” sets : valkyrie and knight. (Some say zealot for guards but I’m not really sure about this).

Now when I say : "Sinister gear should be near-optimal " it also means that the condition glass canon trait set that synergise with it AND the associated weapon(s) set(s) should be near-optimal as well in any party setup. I’m not claiming sinister should work on direct damage builds because it’s counter intuitive and not the way the devs intended it. Corollary : carrion/rabid/dire are alternative (and less efficient) options for sinister.

What about weapons ?

I understand that some weapon sets are designed to be tanky or CC oriented and these have no place atm in PvE, but they have their moment of glory in PvP/WvW. Condition oriented weapons should however see more use in “near-optimal” environment as per their associated gear and trait setups.

TL;DR : When I say : “more gear variety”, it implies more trait setups variety and weapons. In PvE you can hardly have one without the two others.

Note : you have a point when you say that the roaming scene is not very competitive. However ranked arena is.

Actually no build depends on gear (excluding runes/sigils). Gear contributes to its effectiveness and nothing else. Obviously using condi gear for a healing build doesnt make sense. But it does still work. Its just far from as effective as it could be if you used appropriate gear.

Theres nothing wrong with the gear stats in the game currently. Variation in traits, weapons and utilities is enough for a healthy game. Improved encounters will encourage this variety. But in terms of balance its mostly fine already. Theres just not enough well designed encounters yet.

The only problem which wont be solved by better encounters is condition damage. And thats not really because of gear. Thats simply because conditions are poorly designed. They do not reach as high potential damage as direct and they suffer from the stack limit, overwriting and slow build up time. They are very poor in open world. And this is something thats unlikely to change due to technical limitions.

hybrid.5027:

Balekai.6083:

However, it’s a false choice to begin with as gear, trait and weapon choices aren’t mutually exclusive. The majority of build power and diversity comes from gear stats in GW2. There are many traits and skills that are useless unless you gear for them correctly.

This isn’t true. GW2 PvE build diversity comes from weapon choice, traits and utility skills. Build effectiveness comes from stats. Wall of Reflection still reflects regardless of your gear. Shake it Off removes the same condition in berserker gear or Knights gear. Are we even playing the same game?

To a point. I noticed in your example it was pretty much a best case scenario for warrior between optimal DPS and tougher build. Using two gear sets that accomplish the same build priority (power). One using a tougher set and the other a lesser set. Not to mention all classes have completely different access to traits, play styles and design that doesn’t translate as well set to set. To state gear doesn’t matter is basically ignoring the reality of the game we play every day. There wouldn’t be the vast time/effort gap between zerkers and identitcal builds using different gear sets in PvE if that was the case. I definitely feel the difference in PvP/WvW going against people with similar builds but different gear/amulets. To the point one can be really easy to disposed of and the other not so much. Gear matters and defines viability of builds and performance ingame.

Of course many active defenses (blocks, reflects, dodges etc.) are independent of stats, but active defenses do not make an entirety of a build or playstyle. Especially for classes and builds that have little to no access to said active defenses.

Now the fact that these active (and passive) defenses exist the way they do can be used to fix PvE, because good PvE design should have enemies exploiting these and we players having to counter them and vice vera. Make it so the difficulty of content isn’t how fast you can burn down a boss’s health or not, but how successfully you as a team can counter AI active and passive defense in addition to countering AI pressure and spike damage (and again, vice vera). This would take less important away from pure DPS.

For example, what’s a better PvE encounter that promotes more fun, combat engagement and build variety?

Current way of things:

Trash mobs throughout a particular instance are made harder by giving them 100% more hp and 100% more damage. Because trash active/passive defenses are non existent and AI skill usage limited, the only thing that really changes for skilled players is the hp/armor. The skilled zerker team originally killed each trash mob in 10 seconds and now it takes 20 seconds. The skilled defensive team took 30 seconds and now takes 60 seconds (3x slower). If this change adds another 10 minutes to the time it takes to complete the content for the the zerker team, then it takes another 30 minutes for the defensive team.

Without changing gear/builds, that’s 20 more minutes in the instance for the defensive team, still using the exact same strategy/builds as zerker team, because the mobs have 100% more hp and they’re simply not as fast in their gear. Now what happens when the trash gets 200% more hp, or 500%?

Or:

Trash mobs in a particular instance are made harder by gaining the ability to cast protection, aegis and heal themselves 20% hp, instead of getting a flat 100% more hp. They also use weakness now and throw some AoE pressure out there instead of 100% more damage to easily avoided attacks. For simple arguements sake, lets say the new pressure and active/passive defenses make the zerkers and defensive teams take the same amount of time as the example above. The same amount of time because they’re still focused on avoiding that simple attack they were accustomed to. The zerker team still comes out on top and nothing changes (10 minutes more for the zerker team, 30 minutes more for the defensive team).

But what if both teams strip that protection/aegis and interupt the trash heals? Or clear the weakness and mitigate the pressure, completely negating the fact the trash gained those abilities? All of a sudden the 60 seconds it would have taken the defensive team to kill the trash still took around 30-35 seconds, but more challenging. The zerker team takes about 10-15 seconds instead of 20 seconds, but more challenging. Zerker meta maintains its time advantage as it should, while the defensive meta holds its ground time wise, instead of getting worse at completing the content as mobs get more and more health.

Now gear matters less and builds with active and passive play matter more, promoting build diversity because the gap between completion time failed to grow based on player skill. That’s just addressing artificially high health being used as a replacement for difficulty.

There are actually many fight mechanics in other MMOs that, among other things, work to soft-limit DPS. These include phases (push a phase at the wrong moment and you make the transition harder to handle), tricks like groups of enemies that have to all die at the same time, stunts like adds that have to be killed but do raid-wide damage when you kill them, and so on. Some MMOs even go so far as to tune tank TPS to make it almost impossible to hold aggro against a DPS going all-out.

Many of these techniques should be both effective in GW2 and compatible with the underlying philosophies of the game. It might sound like this is “punishing players for being good”, but in reality, there are a lot of skills that a game can and should be testing. It should never just be about DPS, HPS, and TPS.

Note that none of this is about actually nerfing DPS, and giving a player more mechanics to deal with is not going to make fights easier to deal with than they were before.

thefantasticg.3984:

Outside of that, in PVE, who gives two flips about what someone else is running because it’s just going to be zerged down anyway?

I cry whenever I see a warrior wielding an axe or a greatsword trying to kill husks in the Silverwastes, so, uh, hi?

It’s especially fun when they’re ignoring a dozen trolls, teragriffs, thrashers, and menders to try and kill a few husks.

spoj.9672:

Actually no build depends on gear (excluding runes/sigils). Gear contributes to its effectiveness and nothing else. Obviously using condi gear for a healing build doesnt make sense. But it does still work. Its just far from as effective as it could be if you used appropriate gear.

What you said is very true if we were not talking about build efficiency.

However since we are discussing about effectiveness of condi builds (among many other PvE meta related stuff), gear does matter. It’s not the be all end all like trait setup or rune setup is, yet it still matters.

Think about this as how the tiny Lilliput in Gulliver’s Travels bind Gulliver by using hundreds of ropes. Each rope contributes individually to a tiny fraction but it is still important. If a build in GW2 could be represented y 1000 ropes, the weapon would be Worth 250 ropes, the traits are worth 250 ropes, the runes 250 ropes as well and the gear covers the last 250. By downgrading your beserker to valkyrie, you lose 100 ropes out of 1000.

I talked about gear throughout the thread because it’s the most visible and easily understandable side of the problem. (Also it’s what people have been complaining about for ages, ignoring that berserker gear is the only tip of the iceberg). Ultimately I’d like to see more optimal (or quasi-optimal) traits setups and weapons in use. As I said before, when you want to optimise (i.e, get to 1000 ropes), you can’t have one without the others.

evilunderling.9265:

thefantasticg.3984:

Outside of that, in PVE, who gives two flips about what someone else is running because it’s just going to be zerged down anyway?

I cry whenever I see a warrior wielding an axe or a greatsword trying to kill husks in the Silverwastes, so, uh, hi?

It’s especially fun when they’re ignoring a dozen trolls, teragriffs, thrashers, and menders to try and kill a few husks.

I dunno. On the SW maps I’ve been on it’s still just zerging them down.

evilunderling.9265:

thefantasticg.3984:

Outside of that, in PVE, who gives two flips about what someone else is running because it’s just going to be zerged down anyway?

Otherwise, there are actually many fight mechanics in other MMOs that, among other things, work to soft-limit DPS. These include phases (push a phase at the wrong moment and you make the transition harder to handle), tricks like groups of enemies that have to all die at the same time, stunts like adds that have to be killed but do raid-wide damage when you kill them, and so on. Some MMOs even go so far as to tune tank TPS to make it almost impossible to hold aggro against a DPS going all-out.

Many of these techniques should be both effective in GW2 and compatible with the underlying philosophies of the game. It might sound like this is “punishing players for being good”, but in reality, there are a lot of skills that a game can and should be testing. It should never just be about DPS, HPS, and TPS.

You’ll also note that none of them are about actually nerfing DPS, and giving a player more mechanics to deal with is not going to make fights easier to deal with than they were before.

Yeah, but this isn’t those others MMOs so I don’t care what the other MMOs are doing or have available. If condi did the most DPS, I’d be running a condi build. Whatever got me through the content the fastest I would be running it because after the 1000th COF p1 run I’m not there for the story or “fun” because I got the “fun” part 100% squeezed out by the 500th run… Now I’m just there for the loots/golds… and anything that makes it take longer than it use to or should is bad. Very bad. It’ll certainly put me off of doing that same thing again. Eventually it’ll put me off of playing GW2 altogether. Then there goes my gem purchases and I’m sure Anet doesn’t want that to stop.

thefantasticg.3984:

Now I’m just there for the loots/golds… and anything that makes it take longer than it use to or should is bad. Very bad. It’ll certainly put me off of doing that same thing again. Eventually it’ll put me off of playing GW2 altogether. Then there goes my gem purchases and I’m sure Anet doesn’t want that to stop.

I hate to say this, but at that point, you’re almost asking for Progress Quest with pretty graphics. If you’re not enjoying yourself, why play at all?

And this isn’t about your thousandth CoF p1 run, anyway. Maybe that dungeon will get a comprehensive revamp one day, maybe it won’t.

spoj.9672:

Actually no build depends on gear (excluding runes/sigils). Gear contributes to its effectiveness and nothing else. Obviously using condi gear for a healing build doesnt make sense. But it does still work. Its just far from as effective as it could be if you used appropriate gear.

Theres nothing wrong with the gear stats in the game currently. Variation in traits, weapons and utilities is enough for a healthy game. Improved encounters will encourage this variety. But in terms of balance its mostly fine already. Theres just not enough well designed encounters yet.

The only problem which wont be solved by better encounters is condition damage. And thats not really because of gear. Thats simply because conditions are poorly designed. They do not reach as high potential damage as direct and they suffer from the stack limit, overwriting and slow build up time. They are very poor in open world. And this is something thats unlikely to change due to technical limitions.

That is true, but only to the degree that it doesn’t really matter what gear you’re running at all.

Morsus.5106:

Nike.2631:

Namely, Blind is now effectively GONE from dungeon running with the new break bar drinking it down as just another CC effect that does nothing to bosses.

Do you even know how the current defiance works? Unshakable makes Blind 10% as effective. It wasn’t used on bosses before, it won’t be used on bosses now. No leg has been kicked out from under the “Zerker Meta”.

Wow. If you’d read the first post responding to the thread you’d see that someone already asked that. And if you’d read to the 4th post you’d see that no, I DIDN’T know that and said so without any particular arm twisting. Though I do think people are kinda underplaying the safety net value of even 10% of the mega-hits just whiffing into the void actually represents. That just means the change is an adjustment in what I feel is the right direction, and not a major rework of all boss fights in its own right.

Imagine my surprise the thread is still tearing along 6 pages later… Especially as since then we’ve had it direct from the Devs own lips in interviews that the monomaniacal Zerker meta is a concern for them they’re looking at dealing with. Its under scrutiny and that’s good enough for me.

Nike.2631:

Imagine my surprise the thread is still tearing along 6 pages later… Especially as since then we’ve had it direct from the Devs own lips in interviews that the monomaniacal Zerker meta is a concern for them they’re looking at dealing with. Its under scrutiny and that’s good enough for me.

And in interviews they also said they do not want to discourage it, on the first page.

Then people have nothing to worry about, now do they?

They have been trying to make steps to address the dominance of power since 2013, I have been saying this since last year.

Lazaar.9123:

Nike.2631:

Imagine my surprise the thread is still tearing along 6 pages later… Especially as since then we’ve had it direct from the Devs own lips in interviews that the monomaniacal Zerker meta is a concern for them they’re looking at dealing with. Its under scrutiny and that’s good enough for me.

And in interviews they also said they do not want to discourage it, on the first page.

I believe their eternal desire is for everyone to come together just for the sake of coming together which is why literal optimization that is attribute to “zerker meta” or in factuality the “efficiency meta” may not being getting hit the way we think, as a matter of fact will be desirable for optimization within team CC stun phases.

This is within PHIW ideology as you are literally allowed to optimize as much as you want (its play how you want, if you wanna optimize yourself in a manner go right ahead). The difference here is that you cannot reject other people who are thinking outside of the accepted efficiency build meta ideology neither can you form an opinion on someone before you have gotten a chance to really know who this person just because he has a stat setup on his armor which is attribute to zerker meta antics.

To put this in perspective, I run a full zerker 6/6/0/0/2 runes of strength build on my engineer in fractals and if a nomads support minion mancer came into my party I would then outline combat etiquette that would allow both of us to take advantage of the composition for the sake of the goal of success and enjoyment, I would appreciate what he can bring to the table as long as he did his best to get the most out of his choice of tools. I guess at this point its more accurate to call this meta “Play What You Want” instead of “Play How You Want” because the new content will still require you to conform to strategy or to “outplay” the content which is perfectly fine.

At the end of the day I think its safe to say that they just want us all to be happy and to grow together for the sake of killing dragons. The Pale Tree’s vision comes to mind when exploring the possible future adventure into Orr, a statement that in summary basically states “United we stand, Divided we fall”. We can metaphorically compare this to our PvE community in which we can state that a unified ideology will make us a stronger community over a community that is separated.

This new unified ideology could literally be “Play What You Want”. Make your choices, just be the best that you can be with what you’ve chosen and succeed, Look, Listen, Learn, then React. With the “amount of AI Work” they have done this may be the new thing depending on how the AI takes advantage of Utility Functions (Can be compared to procedural decision making based on popular combat tendencies), and how extreme the stat variances are for enemies come expansion.

Windsagio.1340:

spoj.9672:

Actually no build depends on gear (excluding runes/sigils). Gear contributes to its effectiveness and nothing else. Obviously using condi gear for a healing build doesnt make sense. But it does still work. Its just far from as effective as it could be if you used appropriate gear.

Theres nothing wrong with the gear stats in the game currently. Variation in traits, weapons and utilities is enough for a healthy game. Improved encounters will encourage this variety. But in terms of balance its mostly fine already. Theres just not enough well designed encounters yet.

The only problem which wont be solved by better encounters is condition damage. And thats not really because of gear. Thats simply because conditions are poorly designed. They do not reach as high potential damage as direct and they suffer from the stack limit, overwriting and slow build up time. They are very poor in open world. And this is something thats unlikely to change due to technical limitions.

That is true, but only to the degree that it doesn’t really matter what gear you’re running at all.

And that brings us back to page 2 of this thread (or somewhere around there), that gear doesn’t matter, cause PvE is supereasy.

Zoltreez.6435:

rotten.9753:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

-snip-

Mate, pve meta in this game applies only to dungeons/fractals. Since this is the old content and everyone and their mothers will play HoT where there will be mostly (or only) an open world content, it doesn’t matter what the meta is/will be. People run dungeons not for fun but for gold. It doesn’t matter how you farm gold because it’s mundane. All you want is gold.

WoW i didn’t know im the only person in this game that does the dungeons for fun……

Nope, but that’s also typically why I don’t run any dungeon other than Arah and stick to mainly pugging and teaching runs of that or Fractals. The only time I do other dungeons is when asked to teach or with my speed run guild because they make it fun by pushing ourselves to go faster than we feel comfortable doing so.

Bubi.7942:

And that brings us back to page 2 of this thread (or somewhere around there), that gear doesn’t matter, cause PvE is supereasy.

As opposed to sPVP where you’re rewarded for failing, or WvW where you’re rewarded for gathering in a giant blob or not at all. Sure, PVE is pretty easy if you’re just trying to complete it, but at least you have to be successful and in dungeons/fractals your contribution matters has a pretty large impact. In general i think it would be fair to say that GW2 is supereasy.

DeathPanel.8362:

Also you don’t get to speak for other people because there’s no evidence they actually think that way and there’s no way to confirm your claim.

But you do? Oh, the irony.

Jerus.4350:

Bubi.7942:

And that brings us back to page 2 of this thread (or somewhere around there), that gear doesn’t matter, cause PvE is supereasy.

As opposed to sPVP where you’re rewarded for failing…

I’d love some elaboration on this.

Jerus.4350:

or WvW where you’re rewarded for gathering in a giant blob or not at all.

Blobbing up is a way to play, yes, but there are different types of gameplay styles in WvW. Some require more skill than others, and are way more effective than blobbing. Generally the unskilled or people not really wanting to put in effort blob up. I recommend trying roaming.

Jerus.4350:

Sure, PVE is pretty easy if you’re just trying to complete it, but at least you have to be successful and in dungeons/fractals your contribution matters has a pretty large impact. In general i think it would be fair to say that GW2 is supereasy.

Uhm… aren’t dungeons stack in the corner mash 1? With like little to no chance of dying, ever? Or glitching through stuff, or skipping half the dungeon with invis, or always going for the cheap-o semi-exploits (eg.: lupicus half health gone with 1 reflect)? I do not want to offend dungeon running people or anything, but “knowledge” mostly boils down to 1 guy saying “stack here”.

As for Fractals, I guess some may find those difficult, I don’t really. And I’m a guy who has been resetted from lv 58 to 30 and went back up to 50 again.

Astralporing.1957:

DeathPanel.8362:

Also you don’t get to speak for other people because there’s no evidence they actually think that way and there’s no way to confirm your claim.

But you do? Oh, the irony.

Note I never claimed to speak for other people. So you apparently don’t know what irony, or a strawman argument means.

Jerus.4350:

Bubi.7942:

And that brings us back to page 2 of this thread (or somewhere around there), that gear doesn’t matter, cause PvE is supereasy.

As opposed to sPVP where you’re rewarded for failing, or WvW where you’re rewarded for gathering in a giant blob or not at all. Sure, PVE is pretty easy if you’re just trying to complete it, but at least you have to be successful and in dungeons/fractals your contribution matters has a pretty large impact. In general i think it would be fair to say that GW2 is supereasy.

Your understanding of how WvW works is overly simplistic and basically wrong unless you spend all your time in EOTM.

DeathPanel.8362:

Your understanding of how WvW works is overly simplistic and basically wrong unless you spend all your time in EOTM.

Shame it’s the same thing with the people claiming “stack and mash 1”.

Well… if you just look at WvW, PvP and PvE build diversity (which this thread is about), it kinda proves that PvE is in fact, overly simplistic.

Bubi.7942:

Well… if you just look at WvW, PvP and PvE build diversity (which this thread is about), it kinda proves that PvE is in fact, overly simplistic.

PvP is always more complicated than pve. Besides, are we talking about build diversity or gear diversity? And where would this diversity not be applied? Because the vast majority of the content (plus what is on the horizon) makes me believe the builds in pve are much more diverse than in pvp. Ask anyone in open world about their build, there’s no meta, everyone plays whatever they want.

rotten.9753:

Bubi.7942:

Well… if you just look at WvW, PvP and PvE build diversity (which this thread is about), it kinda proves that PvE is in fact, overly simplistic.

PvP is always more complicated than pve. Besides, are we talking about build diversity or gear diversity? And where would this diversity not be applied? Because the vast majority of the content (plus what is on the horizon) makes me believe the builds in pve are much more diverse than in pvp. Ask anyone in open world about their build, there’s no meta, everyone plays whatever they want.

Heh, I guess you are right, I may have not worded it right.

Ok, so I am talking about gear diversity, not build.

And you are probably right that there are all kinds of gear in PvE – the question is, why?

The anwser: cause you can do any content in any gear, or even naked with ease (except Tri-wurm). To maximize your efficiency however, there is only one gear to consider: berserker. Again, why?

Cause it doesn’t matter what content you are doing, even in zerker gear, you can survive easily (bosses with slow, predictable attacks, etc..).

In PvP, and mainly in WvW there are tons of builds that go with your playstyle and your class (solo, scout, duo, small group, skill group, zerg). Why?

Because you actually have to adjust to your surroundings to be most effective, and being most effective changes from situation to situation.

Bubi.7942:

Uhm… aren’t dungeons stack in the corner mash 1? With like little to no chance of dying, ever? Or glitching through stuff, or skipping half the dungeon with invis, or always going for the cheap-o semi-exploits (eg.: lupicus half health gone with 1 reflect)? I do not want to offend dungeon running people or anything, but “knowledge” mostly boils down to 1 guy saying “stack here”..

Whose stacking in corners anymore? Still not sure why people are doing this since FGS was nerfed to non-use.

Bubi.7942:

Jerus.4350:

Bubi.7942:

And that brings us back to page 2 of this thread (or somewhere around there), that gear doesn’t matter, cause PvE is supereasy.

As opposed to sPVP where you’re rewarded for failing…

I’d love some elaboration on this.

Jerus.4350:

or WvW where you’re rewarded for gathering in a giant blob or not at all.

Blobbing up is a way to play, yes, but there are different types of gameplay styles in WvW. Some require more skill than others, and are way more effective than blobbing. Generally the unskilled or people not really wanting to put in effort blob up. I recommend trying roaming.

Jerus.4350:

Sure, PVE is pretty easy if you’re just trying to complete it, but at least you have to be successful and in dungeons/fractals your contribution matters has a pretty large impact. In general i think it would be fair to say that GW2 is supereasy.

Uhm… aren’t dungeons stack in the corner mash 1? With like little to no chance of dying, ever? Or glitching through stuff, or skipping half the dungeon with invis, or always going for the cheap-o semi-exploits (eg.: lupicus half health gone with 1 reflect)? I do not want to offend dungeon running people or anything, but “knowledge” mostly boils down to 1 guy saying “stack here”.

As for Fractals, I guess some may find those difficult, I don’t really. And I’m a guy who has been resetted from lv 58 to 30 and went back up to 50 again.

Which is easier, stacking in a corner pressing 1 or playing a turret engineer in pvp and afk while raking in the wins?… See I can nitpick a certain part about a game mode and make it sound skilless too.

Lifestealer.4910:

Which is easier, stacking in a corner pressing 1 or playing a turret engineer in pvp and afk while raking in the wins?… See I can nitpick a certain part about a game mode and make it sound skilless too.

Good on you, but that doesn’t make it true.

Oh, no, but it is true. I’ve done it. Specced my engie to rifle turret via metabattle and followed the guide. It really was just as it said. Dropped turrets where it said to on the tutorial. It was just as easy or easier than the “stack and mash 1” as you say and as easy as Lifestealer is making it out to be.

Wait… wait….

Are you… I don’t even… are you seriously implying, that PvE in GW2, as a matter of fact, Dungeons, in GW2 are hard / on the same required skill level as PvP/WvW?

Bubi.7942:

Uhm… aren’t dungeons stack in the corner mash 1? With like little to no chance of dying, ever? Or glitching through stuff, or skipping half the dungeon with invis, or always going for the cheap-o semi-exploits (eg.: lupicus half health gone with 1 reflect)? I do not want to offend dungeon running people or anything, but “knowledge” mostly boils down to 1 guy saying “stack here”.

Dungeons are what you make of them, just like pvp or wvw. You can corner stack and mash 1, just like you can advance pvp rank and reward tracks by going into farming maps and taking turns standing in circles (or join unranked queue and loose every match by not contributing), or advance wvw rank by joining the EotM zerg and karma training around that map, again mashing 1.

All of these playstyles are viable to advance in the respective part of the game, and can be done by a lot of people without investing much brain power, attention or practicing. None of them are anywhere near optimal.

Being able to run dungeons optimally, with people that understand their own abilities as well as the dungeon mechanics, requires a bit more thought and effort, just like getting a decent win rate at ranked pvp requires though and effort.

Once you are at the point where you are the one that has enough understanding and experience to make the dungeon run look easy for others, are able to deal with unexpected situations on the fly (ice bow 5 not hitting due to unexpected early defiance stacks? you’d be surprised how many people have problems dealing with that on certain bosses ), and know the mechanics well enough to duo or even solo most dungeons, that’s when you’ll realize that stacking in a corner spamming 1 is not much different from jumping into unranked queue without a clue. You’ll get your advancement without effort, but it’s far from optimal.

Bubi.7942:

Wait… wait….

Are you… I don’t even… are you seriously implying, that PvE in GW2, as a matter of fact, Dungeons, in GW2 are hard / on the same required skill level as PvP/WvW?

Are you seriously not getting that PVP and WVW can be made just as easy as dungeons/fractals?

Bubi.7942:

Wait… wait….

Are you… I don’t even… are you seriously implying, that PvE in GW2, as a matter of fact, Dungeons, in GW2 are hard / on the same required skill level as PvP/WvW?

If you go for the most easy and rewarding way than pvp has no right to talk. Or did I imagine those win-trading servers?

But we beat around the bush. Some ppl cleary want more gear diversity to be more optimal. But how do you think this will happen?

Power, Precision, Ferocity are optimal because they have a clear role and it’s one of the main role. DPS

The other two role are support and CC and none of those have stats to improve them.

Healing power could count, but anet deliberately balance it for sPvP and don’t plan on balancing it for PvE because it could bring back a trinity, which isn’t what neither Anet nor most of the players want.

Toughness, Vitality. How could they become optimal? Only if you have tank. Ppl think that hard content will force ppl to use them more, but that’s bullkitten. When we had fractal 81, ppl were doing it in zerker. When ppl are soloing Arah, we are doing it in zerker. If we face harder content, we gonna use more support : protection, weakness, blind, aegis, reflection, sigil of energy, vigor, etc. Not passive defensive stats.

Condition Damage. That’s the point about gear diversity that we can all agree. Don’t think that anybody would be against condition damage being good in PvE, if done right by Anet.

For me this conversation about gear diversity is only about condition damage. Once that problem is fixed, we can get back to what Nike talked about and worry more about real build diversity (trait, runes, weapons, utilities, etc). Stuff that alter how you play.

Rasimir.6239:

Being able to run dungeons optimally, with people that understand their own abilities as well as the dungeon mechanics, requires a bit more thought and effort, just like getting a decent win rate at ranked pvp requires though and effort.

Once you are at the point where you are the one that has enough understanding and experience to make the dungeon run look easy for others, are able to deal with unexpected situations on the fly (ice bow 5 not hitting due to unexpected early defiance stacks? you’d be surprised how many people have problems dealing with that on certain bosses ), and know the mechanics well enough to duo or even solo most dungeons, that’s when you’ll realize that stacking in a corner spamming 1 is not much different from jumping into unranked queue without a clue. You’ll get your advancement without effort, but it’s far from optimal.

Exactly. But in dungeons that doesn’t come from actaul skilled play, it is just playing through the dungeon a few times (2-3X), learning the boss patterns, findig the right semi-exploit spot, and whack at it with zerker gear.

If you’d wear full zerker in WvW, you’ll end up dead pretty soon as you can’t negate all damage with cheap tricks (or the opponent doesn’t have luaghably low damage and attack speed to begin with). Thus diversity.

@thefnatasticg, Terrrhero:

Sorry, what are we talking about? Is this conversation which game mode is easiest to exploit or “is zerker meta in pve gonna change?”. I tought it was the latter. We can talk about rewards in another thread if you want to, but let’s stick to what we have here, shall we (or you can look up my rants and suggestions on PvP rewards if you wish).

My point still remains: because PvE is too easy, zerker remains the only optimal choice. Make it harder, and you’ll see build diversity, maybe even roles (like in WvW skill group).

Bubi.7942:

Lifestealer.4910:

Which is easier, stacking in a corner pressing 1 or playing a turret engineer in pvp and afk while raking in the wins?… See I can nitpick a certain part about a game mode and make it sound skilless too.

Good on you, but that doesn’t make it true.

Thats funny because what you say about dungeon being corner stacking and pressing 1 is not true either. So i guess my point that pvp is about afking as turret build is as valid as yours.

Bubi.7942:

@thefnatasticg, Terrrhero:

Sorry, what are we talking about? Is this conversation which game mode is easiest to exploit or “is zerker meta in pve gonna change?”. I tought it was the latter. We can talk about rewards in another thread if you want to, but let’s stick to what we have here, shall we (or you can look up my rants and suggestions on PvP rewards if you wish).

My point still remains: because PvE is too easy, zerker remains the only optimal choice. Make it harder, and you’ll see build diversity, maybe even roles (like in WvW skill group).

It doesn’t matter. As long as there is a healthbar whatever kills the fastest is going to remain the optimal choice. No one I know/play with wants encounters to take as long as possible. Maybe there are some that do. Just because there’s one optimal gear choice for PVE doesn’t mean that the other gear seats aren’t viable. I can still do content in PTV just like I can PPF, it just takes a lot longer, so why would I run PTV when I can run PPF and do it in half the time? Diversity is there. People just don’t like that it’s not optimal, I guess, but it’s like Highlander.. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE… at least as long as the goal is to kill things as fast as possible. When the goal is no longer kill something then everything is optimal because gear/builds become irrelevant. And who wants that?

Bubi.7942:

Wait… wait….

Are you… I don’t even… are you seriously implying, that PvE in GW2, as a matter of fact, Dungeons, in GW2 are hard / on the same required skill level as PvP/WvW?

They are all easy. I used to pvp alot and yes it was challenging at first but as I learned the meta, the specs people play and how they would react to certain things, it wasn’t hard to win fights and matches at all. I then went to WvW and realise its probably the biggest joke mode in terms of “required skill level”, just massive zergfest and most of the players are awful, destroying people in a 1v1 while roaming was seriously not hard at all because as I said most players in WvW aren’t really good.

Bubi.7942:

My point still remains: because PvE is too easy, zerker remains the only optimal choice. Make it harder, and you’ll see build diversity, maybe even roles (like in WvW skill group).

No it wouldn’t. Like I said, we would use protection, weakness, vigor, reflect, sigil of energy, aegis, blind, etc. But we would still use berserker gear. Those are far more efficient defensive choice than anything gear can bring. And as a plus side, it way more fun to play. Active defense > Passive defense.

Btw, we all want harder content.

thefantasticg.3984:

I guess, but it’s like Highlander.. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE… at least as long as the goal is to kill things as fast as possible. When the goal is no longer kill something then everything is optimal because gear/builds become irrelevant. And who wants that?

If there can be only one, how is it that other game modes manage that there isn’t only one?

@Lifestealer:

Most people are avarage. In anthing, thus most people cannot be bad players, or good or anything, What you are saying is that you are better than an avarage player, that’s great.

The good thing about PvP (oh man, how did I even end up defending PvP?) is that you’ll get matched up with people on your skill level. At least that is how match up’s should work. So you’ll always have roughly around 40-60% win rate (unless your #1 or the last guy). If you met people that suck… then guess what…

Organized WvW or Roaming require quite a bit of skill if you are playing “optimally”. Yes, you can 20v1 an upleveled, or you can solo roam a Dolyak, but actual “serious” WvW player ten to enjoy outnumbered fight or even fight with other skill groups. Blobbing up, once again, is just wasting your resources. And we are still talking about optimal situatuions, not how it could be played.

Thaddeus.4891:

Bubi.7942:

My point still remains: because PvE is too easy, zerker remains the only optimal choice. Make it harder, and you’ll see build diversity, maybe even roles (like in WvW skill group).

No it wouldn’t. Like I said, we would use protection, weakness, vigor, reflect, sigil of energy, aegis, blind, etc. But we would still use berserker gear. Those are far more efficient defensive choice than anything gear can bring. And as a plus side, it way more fun to play. Active defense > Passive defense.

Btw, we all want to harder content.

Past experience proves otherwise.

Remember people crying about the mordrem wolves retaliatin which killed “the zerker” crowd? Sadly the solution was not letting them figure out – " oh man, we actually have boonrips skills and other gear!" but instead removing retaliation alltogether.

And don’t get me wrong, I don’t want everyone running PTV or Nomad, no. But it would be nice, if not everyone and their pet parrot would run zerker, cause there is no risk involved. Again, raising difficulty (which they promised to do), will hopefully make the “not so skilled” people think about gear choice.

Bubi.7942:

thefantasticg.3984:

I guess, but it’s like Highlander.. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE… at least as long as the goal is to kill things as fast as possible. When the goal is no longer kill something then everything is optimal because gear/builds become irrelevant. And who wants that?

If there can be only one, how is it that other game modes manage that there isn’t only one?

Sorry, what are we talking about? Is this conversation which build is optimal/viable for different game modes or “is zerker meta in pve gonna change?”. I thought it was the latter.

thefantasticg.3984:

Bubi.7942:

thefantasticg.3984:

I guess, but it’s like Highlander.. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE… at least as long as the goal is to kill things as fast as possible. When the goal is no longer kill something then everything is optimal because gear/builds become irrelevant. And who wants that?

If there can be only one, how is it that other game modes manage that there isn’t only one?

Sorry, what are we talking about? Is this conversation which game mode is easiest to exploit or “is zerker meta in pve gonna change?”.

The latter. Care to anwser?

Your question doesn’t apply because the conversation is about PVE zerker meta… not WVW or PVP Zerker meta. Therefore it needs no answer because it is not applicable to the current conversation. Care to rephrase the question so that it is relevant to the current conversation about PVE ZERKER META? No? Then said question is written off.

thefantasticg.3984:

Your question doesn’t apply because the conversation is about PVE zerker meta… not WVW or PVP Zerker meta. Therefore it needs no answer because it is not applicable to the current conversation. Care to rephrase the question so that it is relevant to the current conversation about PVE ZERKER META? No? Then said question is written off.

Chill dude, this is just a forum.

Actually this has relevance, unlike the reward system you and the other guy mentioned earlier. I’ll anwser it for you then:

There is more gear ‘optimal’ diversity in PvP and WvW because there is wider variety of challanges there, with different difficulty (being it’s versus humans). Thus there is no ‘most optimal gear’.

Next question: How can this be applied to PvE?

Bubi.7942:

And ppl used to complain that AC is too hard. People that are bad don’t care about what is optimized. When we talked about optimized build and gear we talk about good player that know their rotation and don’t just press 1.

You’re not getting it. You can’t apply WVW and PVP challenges to PVE. Why? PVE goals have healthbars and because of this the only goal will be to drain that healthbar as fast as possible regardless of what the “challenge” is. You can’t introduce build/gear diversity without changing the goal of PVE, which literally means changing the goal from killing things to not killing things because as long as there is a healthbar the ultimate goal will be to kill it as fast as possible. This literally means you have to make PVE exactly like WVW or PVP with the same goals as WVW and PVP.

Of course, when I say zerker meta I’m referring specifically to dungeons/fractals… beacuse open world, who cares what people run? It’s just going to get zerged down anyway. I really don’t understand why people think there’s a zerker meta in open world pve. There’s not. And if we had a gear check you’d see that… or if Anet would release those stastics we could see that most people run non-zerker build/gears. The only people I know that run true zerker gear/builds are the hardcore dungeon/fractal people.

EDIT:
And like Thaddeus says, the majority don’t like content that is really hard. That’s why Orr mobs got nerfed 2+ years ago and that’s why AC got nerfed.

Thaddeus.4891:

And ppl used to complain that AC is too hard. People that are bad don’t care about what is optimized. When we talked about optimized build and gear we talk about good player that know their rotation and don’t just press 1.

Yes, way back when the game came out, then in another wave when AC got revamped.

Clever people however quickly found workarounds. If you meentioned AC. Eg.: Path 2, stack on the rock while 1 guy pulls the traps, so the mobs don’t reach you but will aggro you, or the Endboss where you have to stack behind the corner so the dumb AI walks into you and you cen zerk it down it seconds.

And boom. Bad players succeeding with zerker. All they had to do, is observe it once.

thefantasticg.3984:

You’re not getting it. You can’t apply WVW and PVP challenges to PVE. Why? PVE goals have healthbars and because of this the only goal will be to drain that healthbar as fast as possible regardless of what the “challenge” is. You can’t introduce build/gear diversity without changing the goal of PVE, which literally means changing the goal from killing things to not killing things because as long as there is a healthbar the ultimate goal will be to kill it as fast as possible. This literally means you have to make PVE exactly like WVW or PVP with the same goals as WVW and PVP.

Of course, when I say zerker meta I’m referring specifically to dungeons/fractals… beacuse open world, who cares what people run? It’s just going to get zerged down anyway. I really don’t understand why people think there’s a zerker meta in open world pve. There’s not. And if we had a gear check you’d see that… or if Anet would release those stastics we could see that most people run non-zerker build/gears. The only people I know that run true zerker gear/builds are the hardcore dungeon/fractal people.

If a boss kills you, and you are downed/dead, you are not doing significant damage. Thus your damage output is not optimal if you died because of your gear.

It would be better if you used PVT, or maybe you can use Knights, or some Condie gear, or maybe the guards in your party could go with some Boon duration runes and Healing Power gear etc..

Depending on boss/encounter mechnics different builds could be better for those (like husks taking more condie damage etc.).

Currently in PvE the only go to build is zerker.

thefantasticg.3984:

You can’t introduce build/gear diversity without changing the goal of PVE, which literally means changing the goal from killing things to not killing things…

Not true. The end goal in PvE is to finish the dungeon as fast as possible. How you can achieve that will depend on the encounter. Sometime it’s faster to have a thief to stealth you and skip mobs. Other time, its faster to have reflection to kill a boss. It can be faster to bring a guardian to keep your party alive just enough time to burst the boss down. It can be faster to bring a Mesmer to pull mobs together and make portal. Pure GS warrior is a better dps, but we bring Axe/Mace because it give more vulnerability. There is already a good diversity in build. (On my guardian and Elementalist I use about 6-7 different build in dungeon, on my thief there is 4 differents places where I put my last three pts depending on what I need). But it could be improve. The best example for that was Phalanx Strenght. They just added 1 trait and that created a new family of build for the warrior. What restraint them to do more of that?

But that build diversity (which could be improve) don’t translate into gear diversity because the gear don’t improve what is good in this game. Direct Damage is the only thing worth it right now from gear. Condition damage should be another one. But there is no boon duration that is worth taking (runes, food yes, but gear give you such a small amount). You can’t improve you endurance regen with armor/weapons, you can’t improve your support with stats (healing power yes, we it doesn’t scale well in PvE), you can’t improve your cc with stats, etc.

That’s the reason, there is no gear diversity. But that doesn’t mean that I view that as a problem (except for condition damage).