Guild Wars 2

So, I don’t dispute the effectiveness of Berserker stats in light of the game’s real defenses (dodge roll, aegis, and blind) not scaling with attributes, but what happens when you kick one of the legs out from under that chair? 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. That is a savage nerf given how vulnerable slow attack-cadence bosses were to blinds and it’s going to have an effect. Not on TTK but on the risks people experience during the fight and the corresponding likelihood of taking damage.

It’s going to be interesting…

(And it’s no coincidence that the Wyvern’s primary damage mechanic appears to be knock into multi-tick fire patches that will drill through Aegis.)

Have you ever read the text for defiance? It already treats blind as a control mechanic, reducing it to a 10% chance of missing an attack, and the blind is still removed in the very likely event that the attack hits.

For a long time, Berserker has been looking shady for open world content. It started getting sketchy to run it around the time of the Tequatl Rising update, and from then on, more content has been released that has made it less viable. Now we’ve seen the stuff in HoT, if I see anybody in my open world parties to do world bosses/events running Berserker, in HoT, they’re getting kicked. Im not picking up corpses off the floor for half of HoT.

I think Berserker will still be good in dungeons, but for open world content: Not appropriate, not viable, buy a real armour set.

Adding to Conncepts post, I just assume good players wearing zerker will not be knocked into those firefields since they can dodge/block, or keep an ace up their sleeves for when it does happen to them (teleport, invulnerability…).

Conncept.7638:

Have you ever read the text for defiance? It already treats blind as a control mechanic, reducing it to a 10% chance of missing an attack, and the blind is still removed in the very likely event that the attack hits.

I have read the text for defiance. I had for gotten that gem buried in the text for Unshakable though . Thanks for the reminder to go check.

Unshakable is an effect that grants resistance to control effects. Most champion and legendary rank creatures have this effect, especially dungeon bosses. Unshakable will grant one stack of Defiance for each player in the area (minimum 3) when the creature has no stacks of Defiance and is targeted by a crowd control skill. Blindness is applied and removed as usual and has its usual duration, but it only causes the next attack to miss 10% of the time; the condition is still removed even if the attack hits.

Blind isnt used on bosses anyway. Its for trash clearing. Now it will atleast have some use on bosses.

Galespark.7835:

Adding to Conncepts post, I just assume good players wearing zerker will not be knocked into those firefields since they can dodge/block, or keep an ace up their sleeves for when it does happen to them (teleport, invulnerability…).

I entirely agree, with the key word being “good”. There are a lot of mediocre people in Berserker gear because the game’s a lot more forgiving than folks realize. If I have an agenda its not to see Berserker rendered useless, it’s to see it rendered risky enough that people accept that even if they personally have spider-sense and can hit every crucial dodge, not everyone should roll that way for fear of excessive floor-licking.

blind never worked on bosses anyway, since it had a 90% chance of not doing anything. if anything, blindness is getting buffed by now being considered a control effect.

“Ten Ton Hammer: Do you envisage players moving away from pure Berzerker builds thanks to things such as Defiance?

Jon: I think the hope is that the more we can do that – we don’t want to discourage it. There are places where we want you to do that, it’s more about diversity. Undoubtedly it will but when you fight the Wyvern, even if you bring maximum damage you don’t always use your maximum damage skills and will use crowd control instead. When the Wyvern takes off you really want him to get knocked down. Although this isn’t finalised, when you pull him out of the sky you deal triple damage to him until he gets up. It’s way more important in this fight that you deliver on spiking that crowd control when he takes off than consistently dealing damage. You start to create builds that are good at spiking damage – they can do a heavy amount over a few seconds but you then have to wait thirty seconds. Those builds are really good against the Wyvern because when he gets pulled down, they can unload more than anyone else can. When he gets back up it’s not as important to be doing as much damage because he’s really tough."

http://www.tentonhammer.com/interview/guild-wars-2-interview-jon-peters-and-kevin-stocker-talk-defiance-wyvern

If anything, this boss actually encourages high, burst damage.

If anything it’s more a direct blow on frost bow 5.

Windsagio.1340:

If anything it’s more a direct blow on frost bow 5.

This ^
Now instead of simply heaving an ele initiate with icebow 5, you’ll need to have a coordinated “spike” at the start of the fight leading up to the icebow skill.

Pugs will be worse, but organized runs shouldn’t suffer too much.

It’s more than that, defiance by the description uaually treats all CC the same except for how much bar it drains. As I remember, in their examples the enemies, when broken, do something totally different than the effect of the skill.

Windsagio.1340:

It’s more than that, defiance by the description uaually treats all CC the same except for how much bar it drains. As I remember, in their examples the enemies, when broken, do something totally different than the effect of the skill.

Wait really? Then whats the difference between an icebow and a thief’s BP? Both will just propel the defiance bar to the same predetermined outcome?

That seems beyond lame and I really hope that’s not how it’s going to be. To have unique cc skills/effects work only on trash would be seriously boring.

Lorgus.6148:

Windsagio.1340:

It’s more than that, defiance by the description uaually treats all CC the same except for how much bar it drains. As I remember, in their examples the enemies, when broken, do something totally different than the effect of the skill.

Wait really? Then whats the difference between an icebow and a thief’s BP? Both will just propel the defiance bar to the same predetermined outcome?

That seems beyond lame and I really hope that’s not how it’s going to be. To have unique cc skills/effects work only on trash would be seriously boring.

No, that is how Defiant currently works. Once it switches over to the new system, Ice Bow 5 will strip off much more than blinding powder.

As for what the outcome is, we really don’t know. On some enemies, it will be something specific. On others, who knows?

If the end result is, say, a 5 second stun, does it really matter that Ice Bow 5 doesn’t do anything special to the break bar?

This will hurt Solo a lot more than groups.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Lorgus.6148:

Windsagio.1340:

It’s more than that, defiance by the description uaually treats all CC the same except for how much bar it drains. As I remember, in their examples the enemies, when broken, do something totally different than the effect of the skill.

Wait really? Then whats the difference between an icebow and a thief’s BP? Both will just propel the defiance bar to the same predetermined outcome?

That seems beyond lame and I really hope that’s not how it’s going to be. To have unique cc skills/effects work only on trash would be seriously boring.

No, that is how Defiant currently works. Once it switches over to the new system, Ice Bow 5 will strip off much more than blinding powder.

As for what the outcome is, we really don’t know. On some enemies, it will be something specific. On others, who knows?

If the end result is, say, a 5 second stun, does it really matter that Ice Bow 5 doesn’t do anything special to the break bar?

It certainly makes all the garment-rending about ‘taunt’ seem silly ><

I bet you’re right though, some champs will have a special effect (like the wyvern, or the shell they mentioned), others will likely just have a window of vulnerability…

… especially the old world champs, I presume they don’t want to design specific effects for all of them.

So I just read the article http://www.tentonhammer.com/interview/guild-wars-2-interview-jon-peters-and-kevin-stocker-talk-defiance-wyvern . I don’t know if I’m interpreting this correctly, but a read statements intimating that they are back peddling on the no trinity core of this game?

“When we wrote the original combat blog post, a lot of people assumed we didn’t want the trinity. It wasn’t an anti-trinity, it was more of a case of “this is how we want to do this type of combat and we want these roles and we want them to be flexible.” not ‘Hey, we don’t want people supporting!’”.

They have already announced a “taunt” skill and now this.

I also read this exchange:
“Ten Ton Hammer: Do you envisage players moving away from pure Berzerker builds thanks to things such as Defiance?

Jon: I think the hope is that the more we can do that – we don’t want to discourage it."

I get the impression that they are purposefully trying to force players into “tankier” builds?

They also appear to be trying to seriously diminish casual play? “this new system is about players working together and coordinating. Our new Defiance bar regenerates and generally on the core stuff, it’s going to regenerate pretty quickly. It’s a lot more about working together to time your crowd control skills to create that moment.” We all know how coordinated the average group of randoms can be in this game. I’m even reading that the old content will be updated with this new philosophy. This just seems like an odd and poorly thought out example of forum balancing…since making cc more useful and redesigning encounter mechanics has been a rallying cry on the forums, for non zerk, for quite some time now. I don’t think the people calling for this have really thought out how much this will also negatively affect them. They are actually less organized in most cases than zerk players…as most of them will just try to do their own separate things in encounters…whereas zerk usually coordinates the exact same strategy. I’m thinking this new break bar and coordinated burst phase strategy is going to garner a river of unexpected tears until the same top tier of players comes up with the optimal strategy and causes it to revert to the same status quo current content is at. Ultimately, I think this is going to put phiw in a worse situation than it currently is due to the coordination requirements.

I’m just waiting to see how these, not so subtle, moves towards the trinity play out as well. I’m not sure I want to buy a GW2 version of the trinity when there are so many games out there that are actually designed around the trinity specifically. Especially since I bought this game, in large part, to escape the trinity and its pitfalls.

ODB.6891:

~snip~

In that same paragraph concerning berserker, they talk about making builds that provide spike damage for small time periods that the boss is vulnerable. With the information supplied so far, CCs against defiance are more about depleting the bar so that something specific happens to the boss, instead of the effects of the CC.

BrunoBRS.5178:

blind never worked on bosses anyway, since it had a 90% chance of not doing anything. if anything, blindness is getting buffed by now being considered a control effect.

It was always considered a control effect. Source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Mistlock_Instability:_Losing_Control

ODB.6891:

~ snip ~

This is not the trinity crawling in, not even close. If this were the trinity you would be required to have a tank and a healer to do anything group-based. This is not what is getting in the game at all. I’m sure you’ll be able to do all content without anyone having to use Taunt.

This here is just Arenanet throwing a bone to the portion of their players with more defense/support playstyles so they can appreciate the game too and not feel like a complete waste of a party spot because they’re geared with Cleric/Shaman gear or whatnot in a dungeon.

I don’t understand why people fret so much about Taunt. As long as it doesn’t force others to play that way and isn’t necessarily required to do most things, what does it do to other people if my warrior gets to Taunt to save another player who’s getting pummeled.

And besides, since Taunt is supposed to be a CC effect it might just work to deplete the “Breakbar” and have no effect at all otherwise, effectively being mostly unusable on bosses. I hope they change Taunt to a condition so it can work through Defiance because as one of those “defense” players I would like to be able to Taunt bosses.

Nike.2631:

Galespark.7835:

Adding to Conncepts post, I just assume good players wearing zerker will not be knocked into those firefields since they can dodge/block, or keep an ace up their sleeves for when it does happen to them (teleport, invulnerability…).

I entirely agree, with the key word being “good”. There are a lot of mediocre people in Berserker gear because the game’s a lot more forgiving than folks realize. If I have an agenda its not to see Berserker rendered useless, it’s to see it rendered risky enough that people accept that even if they personally have spider-sense and can hit every crucial dodge, not everyone should roll that way for fear of excessive floor-licking.

You do realize the majority of players are not in zerker gear right?

@ODB – taunt is a new PvP-related mechanic. Just like fear pushes you away from a player Taunt will force an attack.

I don’t see it being similar with Taunts in trinity games in any way except for maybe the name. I think it’s designed to create more “clutch” pvp moments where you get it in at just the right time.

Seems consistent with the unending desire to make this an e-sport.

As far as “forcing people into tankier gear” – I really don’t see it. I’ve been hearing this ever since LS season 2 came out and I’m still in zerker gear and still doing fine.

Harper.4173:

Nike.2631:

Galespark.7835:

Adding to Conncepts post, I just assume good players wearing zerker will not be knocked into those firefields since they can dodge/block, or keep an ace up their sleeves for when it does happen to them (teleport, invulnerability…).

I entirely agree, with the key word being “good”. There are a lot of mediocre people in Berserker gear because the game’s a lot more forgiving than folks realize. If I have an agenda its not to see Berserker rendered useless, it’s to see it rendered risky enough that people accept that even if they personally have spider-sense and can hit every crucial dodge, not everyone should roll that way for fear of excessive floor-licking.

You do realize the majority of players are not in zerker gear do you?

This^

I pretty much pug exclusively because I prefer the convenience of just grabbing a quick random fractal group, whenever I happen to be online. I would say more than 60% of players I’ve encountered are wearing something other than zerker gear. That 60% is probably and understatement. It amazes me how players are so caught up in trying to find and justify ways to penalize players who wear zerker gear. Its not as if the entire PvE model isn’t based on one shot mechanics already….that by default…penalize zerker gear more than any other gear type.

I’m actually in favor of mechanics that involve strategy…versus always staying in a stack…not that I don’t like the stack either though. Just so long as the strategies aren’t gimmicks that become tedious after the first couple of times or that require you to gear differently to avoid getting an unavoidable one shot.

I don’t see the taunt mechanic as being a PvP only thing…as someone else pointed out…it will apparently be a contributor to the defiance/break bar in PvE apparently. I’m just wary of the slippery slope of introducing more and more things into the game that could eventually lead to requiring groups to bring someone to control aggro…hence an eventual tank requirement.

zerker will never be dead for me. i’ll always use it

ODB.6891:

Harper.4173:

Nike.2631:

Galespark.7835:

Adding to Conncepts post, I just assume good players wearing zerker will not be knocked into those firefields since they can dodge/block, or keep an ace up their sleeves for when it does happen to them (teleport, invulnerability…).

I entirely agree, with the key word being “good”. There are a lot of mediocre people in Berserker gear because the game’s a lot more forgiving than folks realize. If I have an agenda its not to see Berserker rendered useless, it’s to see it rendered risky enough that people accept that even if they personally have spider-sense and can hit every crucial dodge, not everyone should roll that way for fear of excessive floor-licking.

You do realize the majority of players are not in zerker gear do you?

This^

I pretty much pug exclusively because I prefer the convenience of just grabbing a quick random fractal group, whenever I happen to be online. I would say more than 60% of players I’ve encountered are wearing something other than zerker gear. That 60% is probably and understatement. It amazes me how players are so caught up in trying to find and justify ways to penalize players who wear zerker gear. Its not as if the entire PvE model isn’t based on one shot mechanics already….that by default…penalize zerker gear more than any other gear type.

I’m actually in favor of mechanics that involve strategy…versus always staying in a stack…not that I don’t like the stack either though. Just so long as the strategies aren’t gimmicks that become tedious after the first couple of times or that require you to gear differently to avoid getting an unavoidable one shot.

I don’t see the taunt mechanic as being a PvP only thing…as someone else pointed out…it will apparently be a contributor to the defiance/break bar in PvE apparently. I’m just wary of the slippery slope of introducing more and more things into the game that could eventually lead to requiring groups to bring someone to control aggro…hence an eventual tank requirement.

One shot mechanics promote zerker meta. If there is someone wearing full zerker and someone wearing full pvt but both insta-down to the same one-shot attack if they dont dodge, then whats the point of having any toughness or vitality stats. There should be a viable option to build for sustain otherwise atleast where pve is concerned, all those fancy traitlines and stat combinations are just for show and obselete.

Zetsumei.4975:

ODB.6891:

Harper.4173:

Nike.2631:

Galespark.7835:

Adding to Conncepts post, I just assume good players wearing zerker will not be knocked into those firefields since they can dodge/block, or keep an ace up their sleeves for when it does happen to them (teleport, invulnerability…).

I entirely agree, with the key word being “good”. There are a lot of mediocre people in Berserker gear because the game’s a lot more forgiving than folks realize. If I have an agenda its not to see Berserker rendered useless, it’s to see it rendered risky enough that people accept that even if they personally have spider-sense and can hit every crucial dodge, not everyone should roll that way for fear of excessive floor-licking.

You do realize the majority of players are not in zerker gear do you?

This^

I pretty much pug exclusively because I prefer the convenience of just grabbing a quick random fractal group, whenever I happen to be online. I would say more than 60% of players I’ve encountered are wearing something other than zerker gear. That 60% is probably and understatement. It amazes me how players are so caught up in trying to find and justify ways to penalize players who wear zerker gear. Its not as if the entire PvE model isn’t based on one shot mechanics already….that by default…penalize zerker gear more than any other gear type.

I’m actually in favor of mechanics that involve strategy…versus always staying in a stack…not that I don’t like the stack either though. Just so long as the strategies aren’t gimmicks that become tedious after the first couple of times or that require you to gear differently to avoid getting an unavoidable one shot.

I don’t see the taunt mechanic as being a PvP only thing…as someone else pointed out…it will apparently be a contributor to the defiance/break bar in PvE apparently. I’m just wary of the slippery slope of introducing more and more things into the game that could eventually lead to requiring groups to bring someone to control aggro…hence an eventual tank requirement.

One shot mechanics promote zerker meta. If there is someone wearing full zerker and someone wearing full pvt but both insta-down to the same one-shot attack if they dont dodge, then whats the point of having any toughness or vitality stats. There should be a viable option to build or sustain otherwise atleast where pve is concerned, all those fancy traitline and stat combinations are just for show and obselete.

This reply neatly summarises the main reason people use zerk. If you are going to get one shotted no matter what you’re wearing, why bother trying to be tankier?

It’s the fundamental problem with not having defined roles aka ‘the trinity’. In order to make events and bosses ‘challenging’ they have to devise cheese mechanics, one shot attacks, etc that make for twitch encounters that become very boring as soon as people learn which cheese it is.

Zetsumei.4975:

One shot mechanics promote zerker meta. If there is someone wearing full zerker and someone wearing full pvt but both insta-down to the same one-shot attack if they dont dodge, then whats the point of having any toughness or vitality stats. There should be a viable option to build or sustain otherwise atleast where pve is concerned, all those fancy traitline and stat combinations are just for show and obselete.

Not really, a lot of the mechanics that one shot a zerk geared player will not one shot someone wearing pvt/cleric/nomad. For example, Mai Trin’s shadow shot, the cannon phase on Mai Trin, Mai Trin’s melee attack. That’s just the main boss I see the difference on, but yes…there are some one shots that will down anybody…regardless of what you are wearing or how you’re built. The main way I’ve been able to discern who is and is not wearing zerk type gear is by seeing players trying to pick up another player…and take attacks like Mai Trin’s to the face…and their hp bar barely move. If my zerk guard takes any of those without aegis or protection…I’m either down or barely hanging on to a few hp points. So no…I can’t really agree that one shot mechanics themseleves promote the zerker meta….its the active defense system in this game and the ability that gives to avoid one shots that promote the zerker meta.

If you take away active defenses and the one shots that active defenses allow you to avoid, then we may as well be playing a coordinated dance game…as there will be no excitement or challenge. That probably wouldn’t hold anyone’s interest if you could just stand around immune to death.

Just knowing what to avoid does not make it boring…you also have to actually execute on avoiding it. That’s the same thing that makes all action based mmo combat exciting…executing on the strategy…even if you have researched it already. Even in trinity based games…you still know what’s coming…you just have to execute on the strategy to overcome it. I’d even say trinity based games are even more cheesed and scripted. They are even more like a coordinated dance…you just have different players doing different dances at the same time, versus the GW2 version of everyone doing the same dance individually.

Zetsumei.4975:

One shot mechanics promote zerker meta. If there is someone wearing full zerker and someone wearing full pvt but both insta-down to the same one-shot attack if they dont dodge, then whats the point of having any toughness or vitality stats. There should be a viable option to build or sustain otherwise atleast where pve is concerned, all those fancy traitline and stat combinations are just for show and obselete.

Could you list all those one shot mechanics that affect full pvt geared players?

Thats funny because last i checked a cleric guardian can facetank fractal 50 bosses that would otherwise 1 shot a zerker player TWICE if he has two lives.

rotten.9753:

Zetsumei.4975:

One shot mechanics promote zerker meta. If there is someone wearing full zerker and someone wearing full pvt but both insta-down to the same one-shot attack if they dont dodge, then whats the point of having any toughness or vitality stats. There should be a viable option to build or sustain otherwise atleast where pve is concerned, all those fancy traitline and stat combinations are just for show and obselete.

Could you list all those one shot mechanics that affect full pvt geared players?

Not sure if he meant it literally.

But pretty sure he means that the way mobs are designed encourages allot more reliance on dodging, blinds, evasion & otherwise avoiding damage over support & being able to take the blow.

Unless they make mobs do allot more untelegraphed attacks at a quicker pace (faster but less damage per hit) and have them more frequently use conditions this problem is unlikely to change & zerk will still reign supreme.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Lifestealer.4910:

Thats funny because last i checked a cleric guardian can facetank fractal 50 bosses that would otherwise 1 shot a zerker player TWICE if he has two lives.

Think you might be exaggerating that a bit.

Fractal 20 maybe but 50 ? Most bosses & a decent number of the mobs there tend to r@pe you there no matter what gear you have on unless you evade most of their attacks.

Not exaggarating, my speedrun guild has ran one cleric guardian on many occasions to make the zerkers life easier. The guardian can pretty much stand in front of mossman or archdiviner and facetank every single hit.

One of our strategies for Mai Trin is to have a cleric guardian out there tank and burning off the shield stacks and keep aggro during barrage phase while the rest of the party stealths on the other end to wait.

the best players will always use the most optimal set for their skill level and game knowledge.

bad players will always copy-paste what good players do.

no matter what you do, people will get better at the game. and there will always be people who can run around in berserker gear and get away. unless they make this game a wow trinity game, which is not going to happen.

ODB.6891:

They also appear to be trying to seriously diminish casual play? "this new system is about players working together and coordinating. I don’t think the people calling for this have really thought out how much this will also negatively affect them. They are actually less organized in most cases than zerk players…as most of them will just try to do their own separate things in encounters…whereas zerk usually coordinates the exact same strategy.

this will force people to wake up and l2p. once you have to earn your rewards in this game instead of getting everything for running around in circles mindlessly, the player base will become much better at playing it.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Unless they make mobs do allot more untelegraphed attacks at a quicker pace (faster but less damage per hit) and have them more frequently use conditions this problem is unlikely to change & zerk will still reign supreme.

Zerk will probably always reign supreme because even if you force player into more defensive, it’s cheaper, faster and more effective to trait more defensively than to spend hundreds of gold on a new set of ascended gear. Need an additional condition removal for the specific boss fight? Instead of getting defensive gear that just increases your initial survivability, people would retrait slightly or change skills/weapons.

In other words, zerker is just a gear, not a build.

Lifestealer.4910:

Not exaggarating, my speedrun guild has ran one cleric guardian on many occasions to make the zerkers life easier. The guardian can

Yes, but that is a specific profession. And therein lies the crux of the problem.

If a boss does, let’s say, consistent 500dmg per second to everyone before toughness. That would have a wildly different outcome depending on each profession.
A warrior with zero toughness, vitality or healingpower on gear could still outlast that in full zerker. But a full zerker Ele would be dead pretty quickly, because the Ele has less consistant healing, less toughness to mitigate damage and a much smaller healthpool to last on.

Professions were not made equally. If I take an Engineer, give half his gear toughness as one of the stats and the other half of his gear vitality as one of the stats. That engineer still has less armor and less health than a full zerker Warrior who has zero of either toughness or vitality.
Just to give one example.

That is the sad reality behind one-shot mechanics, they don’t discriminate much and thus allow everyone to just go full damage. Dialing these back in favor of more consistent damage will only result in the following.

Profession A can do the content with full zerker, while Profession B is forced into t/v to get the same level of sustain.
And this causes Profession B to now also fall behind in damage because more stats are spend into not dealing damage.
The end result is, screw bringing Profession B and only bring Profession A. At least in the doctrine of Perfect Pugging that some people subscribe to.

Terrahero.9358:

Lifestealer.4910:

Not exaggarating, my speedrun guild has ran one cleric guardian on many occasions to make the zerkers life easier. The guardian can

Yes, but that is a specific profession. And therein lies the crux of the problem.

If a boss does, let’s say, consistent 500dmg per second to everyone before toughness. That would have a wildly different outcome depending on each profession.
A warrior with zero toughness, vitality or healingpower on gear could still outlast that in full zerker. But a full zerker Ele would be dead pretty quickly, because the Ele has less consistant healing, less toughness to mitigate damage and a much smaller healthpool to last on.

Professions were not made equally. If I take an Engineer, give half his gear toughness as one of the stats and the other half of his gear vitality as one of the stats. That engineer still has less armor and less health than a full zerker Warrior who has zero of either toughness or vitality.
Just to give one example.

That is the sad reality behind one-shot mechanics, they don’t discriminate much and thus allow everyone to just go full damage. Dialing these back in favor of more consistent damage will only result in the following.

Profession A can do the content with full zerker, while Profession B is forced into t/v to get the same level of sustain.
And this causes Profession B to now also fall behind in damage because more stats are spend into not dealing damage.
The end result is, screw bringing Profession B and only bring Profession A. At least in the doctrine of Perfect Pugging that some people subscribe to.

You avoid that by making bosses more like players and therefore needing a varied party comp for the unique things each profession brings to the table. I think people too often forget to compare with PvP when talking about changing Pve. For example if bosses relied on having a skill which applies a very long stability buff to them rather being invulnerable to CC or having long protection and regen rather than lazily slapping on a bigger health bar then professions like necros and mesmers would be needed for their boon strip. You can see what I’m getting at.

Terrahero.9358:

Lifestealer.4910:

Not exaggarating, my speedrun guild has ran one cleric guardian on many occasions to make the zerkers life easier. The guardian can

Yes, but that is a specific profession. And therein lies the crux of the problem.

If a boss does, let’s say, consistent 500dmg per second to everyone before toughness. That would have a wildly different outcome depending on each profession.
A warrior with zero toughness, vitality or healingpower on gear could still outlast that in full zerker. But a full zerker Ele would be dead pretty quickly, because the Ele has less consistant healing, less toughness to mitigate damage and a much smaller healthpool to last on.

Professions were not made equally. If I take an Engineer, give half his gear toughness as one of the stats and the other half of his gear vitality as one of the stats. That engineer still has less armor and less health than a full zerker Warrior who has zero of either toughness or vitality.
Just to give one example.

That is the sad reality behind one-shot mechanics, they don’t discriminate much and thus allow everyone to just go full damage. Dialing these back in favor of more consistent damage will only result in the following.

Profession A can do the content with full zerker, while Profession B is forced into t/v to get the same level of sustain.
And this causes Profession B to now also fall behind in damage because more stats are spend into not dealing damage.
The end result is, screw bringing Profession B and only bring Profession A. At least in the doctrine of Perfect Pugging that some people subscribe to.

You do realize a guardian has as much base hp as a ele right?.. yes they have more armor but that is to be expected from a heavy armor profession.

Also ele can be built to sustain and face tank monsters, the reason they don’t do it as well in a pve setting compared to a guardian is because guardian provide more team support in dungeons, it isn’t survivabiltiy that is the reason why cleric or cele ele is not used.

For a comparison, a celestial ele is almost as tanky as a cleric guardian hence why pvp meta has celestial ele as the main bunker role instead of guardian. Alot of the team support that guardian provide in a pvp environment isn’t as necessary compared to pve environment.

EDIT: I think I missread your post, you are correct in that a zerker ele has a hard time sustaining compared to a zerker warrior which is why zerk warrior is considered the easiest profession to play out of all the classes. The problem with your line of thinking is that zerkers aren’t meant to sustain hits, warrior are naturally tanky so they can but most other classes cannot. Thats where player skill come into play, knowing how to dodge and time defenses. A zerk ele can still survive fractal 50, its just not easy.

Those things don’t take big investments however. But it seems to be the direction arenanet is heading towards. I think dealing with stacking in a corner, facetanking, tactic is a far bigger problem.
But I don’t see why a full zerker group couldn’t also bring enough CC to spike something like the Wyvern, and having higher damage as a zerk benefit from the great increase in damage.

Haishao.6851:

This will hurt Solo a lot more than groups.

If the defience bar does not scale with the number of players in dungeons then bosses will be impossible to CC solo. There won’t be enough spike cc from 1 player to drain the bar and it will regen with time. I like this change because dungeons were not designed for be completed solo anyway. An example of this is cof p1 where you need 5 to activate the orbs and kill the controller.

Lifestealer.4910:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Lifestealer.4910:

Thats funny because last i checked a cleric guardian can facetank fractal 50 bosses that would otherwise 1 shot a zerker player TWICE if he has two lives.

Think you might be exaggerating that a bit.

Fractal 20 maybe but 50 ? Most bosses & a decent number of the mobs there tend to r@pe you there no matter what gear you have on unless you evade most of their attacks.

Not exaggarating, my speedrun guild has ran one cleric guardian on many occasions to make the zerkers life easier. The guardian can pretty much stand in front of mossman or archdiviner and facetank every single hit.

One of our strategies for Mai Trin is to have a cleric guardian out there tank and burning off the shield stacks and keep aggro during barrage phase while the rest of the party stealths on the other end to wait.

This (block tanking Mossy/Archy/Mai) can be done on a zerker guardian also with mace/focus. Which they are probably using even on cleric gear.. I find archy/Mai significantly easier to do it with than Mossy mind you.

Not that its easy with a boatload of particle effects.

I just wanted to add this segment of the interview from tenthonhammer to the conversation as the interviewer touches on this subject for a moment:

“Ten Ton Hammer: Do you envisage players moving away from pure Berzerker builds thanks to things such as Defiance?

Jon: I think the hope is that the more we can do that – we don’t want to discourage it. There are places where we want you to do that, it’s more about diversity. Undoubtedly it will but when you fight the Wyvern, even if you bring maximum damage you don’t always use your maximum damage skills and will use crowd control instead. When the Wyvern takes off you really want him to get knocked down. Although this isn’t finalised, when you pull him out of the sky you deal triple damage to him until he gets up. It’s way more important in this fight that you deliver on spiking that crowd control when he takes off than consistently dealing damage. You start to create builds that are good at spiking damage – they can do a heavy amount over a few seconds but you then have to wait thirty seconds. Those builds are really good against the Wyvern because when he gets pulled down, they can unload more than anyone else can. When he gets back up it’s not as important to be doing as much damage because he’s really tough."

I think their answer is a bit of a deflection in part because the interview is mostly supposed to focus on the new mechanics. How zerker specifically fits into all that is a much bigger discussion. In particular, not addressing why you should use other gear stats that bring less damage and the same level of crowd control, active defense as zerker. But, it’s there for your perusal.

xDudisx.5914:

If the defience bar does not scale with the number of players in dungeons then bosses will be impossible to CC solo. There won’t be enough spike cc from 1 player to drain the bar and it will regen with time. I like this change because dungeons were not designed for be completed solo anyway. An example of this is cof p1 where you need 5 to activate the orbs and kill the controller.

Some of the dungeons were designed to be soloable. Besides, you can do the controller with 4 people and a pet.

Zetsumei.4975:

ODB.6891:

Harper.4173:

Nike.2631:

Galespark.7835:

Adding to Conncepts post, I just assume good players wearing zerker will not be knocked into those firefields since they can dodge/block, or keep an ace up their sleeves for when it does happen to them (teleport, invulnerability…).

I entirely agree, with the key word being “good”. There are a lot of mediocre people in Berserker gear because the game’s a lot more forgiving than folks realize. If I have an agenda its not to see Berserker rendered useless, it’s to see it rendered risky enough that people accept that even if they personally have spider-sense and can hit every crucial dodge, not everyone should roll that way for fear of excessive floor-licking.

You do realize the majority of players are not in zerker gear do you?

This^

I pretty much pug exclusively because I prefer the convenience of just grabbing a quick random fractal group, whenever I happen to be online. I would say more than 60% of players I’ve encountered are wearing something other than zerker gear. That 60% is probably and understatement. It amazes me how players are so caught up in trying to find and justify ways to penalize players who wear zerker gear. Its not as if the entire PvE model isn’t based on one shot mechanics already….that by default…penalize zerker gear more than any other gear type.

I’m actually in favor of mechanics that involve strategy…versus always staying in a stack…not that I don’t like the stack either though. Just so long as the strategies aren’t gimmicks that become tedious after the first couple of times or that require you to gear differently to avoid getting an unavoidable one shot.

I don’t see the taunt mechanic as being a PvP only thing…as someone else pointed out…it will apparently be a contributor to the defiance/break bar in PvE apparently. I’m just wary of the slippery slope of introducing more and more things into the game that could eventually lead to requiring groups to bring someone to control aggro…hence an eventual tank requirement.

One shot mechanics promote zerker meta. If there is someone wearing full zerker and someone wearing full pvt but both insta-down to the same one-shot attack if they dont dodge, then whats the point of having any toughness or vitality stats. There should be a viable option to build for sustain otherwise atleast where pve is concerned, all those fancy traitlines and stat combinations are just for show and obselete.

Only hardly anything one shots a player in defensive gear even on fractal lvl 50. Sure there are a few attacks you don’t want your pvt hero to facetank, but all in all you have a much easier time.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

rotten.9753:

Zetsumei.4975:

One shot mechanics promote zerker meta. If there is someone wearing full zerker and someone wearing full pvt but both insta-down to the same one-shot attack if they dont dodge, then whats the point of having any toughness or vitality stats. There should be a viable option to build or sustain otherwise atleast where pve is concerned, all those fancy traitline and stat combinations are just for show and obselete.

Could you list all those one shot mechanics that affect full pvt geared players?

Not sure if he meant it literally.

But pretty sure he means that the way mobs are designed encourages allot more reliance on dodging, blinds, evasion & otherwise avoiding damage over support & being able to take the blow.

Unless they make mobs do allot more untelegraphed attacks at a quicker pace (faster but less damage per hit) and have them more frequently use conditions this problem is unlikely to change & zerk will still reign supreme.

Before we learned to fight Subject Alpha, we went down a lot… but me in my pvt gear could take sometimes two hits and still be alive, depending. Even now, if we mess up a dodge, I can take it, a zerker usually cant. Of course, with stacking and a group knowing what they are doing, SA is now trivial, but I’m using it as a case in point.

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Lorgus.6148:

Windsagio.1340:

It’s more than that, defiance by the description uaually treats all CC the same except for how much bar it drains. As I remember, in their examples the enemies, when broken, do something totally different than the effect of the skill.

Wait really? Then whats the difference between an icebow and a thief’s BP? Both will just propel the defiance bar to the same predetermined outcome?

That seems beyond lame and I really hope that’s not how it’s going to be. To have unique cc skills/effects work only on trash would be seriously boring.

No, that is how Defiant currently works. Once it switches over to the new system, Ice Bow 5 will strip off much more than blinding powder.

As for what the outcome is, we really don’t know. On some enemies, it will be something specific. On others, who knows?

If the end result is, say, a 5 second stun, does it really matter that Ice Bow 5 doesn’t do anything special to the break bar?

Yes. Because a lot of bosses are moved using knockback fears. If breaking the defiance bar just stuns them and they still can’t be moved, I don’t like the change at all. I’d prefer to count stacks and use the CC’s actual effect.

Argon.1563:

For a long time, Berserker has been looking shady for open world content. It started getting sketchy to run it around the time of the Tequatl Rising update, and from then on, more content has been released that has made it less viable. Now we’ve seen the stuff in HoT, if I see anybody in my open world parties to do world bosses/events running Berserker, in HoT, they’re getting kicked. Im not picking up corpses off the floor for half of HoT.

I think Berserker will still be good in dungeons, but for open world content: Not appropriate, not viable, buy a real armour set.

This statement is as bad as the statements made by those toxic zerker meta elitist, Sorry but any elimination done without giving people an opportunity to learn and grow is plain stupid I don’t care what the rest of you say.

And if Vinewrath is anything to be hinted at, AKA a DPS check + whatever active support mechanic needed, I am fairly sure optimal damage is going to be something to consider seeing as the new defiance mechanic will most likely have people consider front loading a lot of damage to capitalize on the opportunity window.

maybe with HOT we get harder enemys, curious about that. If not than i dont see for what the change

IllegalChocolate.6938:

Argon.1563:

For a long time, Berserker has been looking shady for open world content. It started getting sketchy to run it around the time of the Tequatl Rising update, and from then on, more content has been released that has made it less viable. Now we’ve seen the stuff in HoT, if I see anybody in my open world parties to do world bosses/events running Berserker, in HoT, they’re getting kicked. Im not picking up corpses off the floor for half of HoT.

I think Berserker will still be good in dungeons, but for open world content: Not appropriate, not viable, buy a real armour set.

This statement is as bad as the statements made by those toxic zerker meta elitist, Sorry but any elimination done without giving people an opportunity to learn and grow is plain stupid I don’t care what the rest of you say.

And if Vinewrath is anything to be hinted at, AKA a DPS check + whatever active support mechanic needed, I am fairly sure optimal damage is going to be something to consider seeing as the new defiance mechanic will most likely have people consider front loading a lot of damage to capitalize on the opportunity window.

totally agree with that and i hope for burst moments become a thing of timing.

He lost me anyway by saying get a real Armor ….

NoTrigger.8396:

ODB.6891:

They also appear to be trying to seriously diminish casual play? "this new system is about players working together and coordinating. I don’t think the people calling for this have really thought out how much this will also negatively affect them. They are actually less organized in most cases than zerk players…as most of them will just try to do their own separate things in encounters…whereas zerk usually coordinates the exact same strategy.

this will force people to wake up and l2p. once you have to earn your rewards in this game instead of getting everything for running around in circles mindlessly, the player base will become much better at playing it.

Or they complain hard enough for it to get nerfed.

As long as zerker is the highest DPS option, it will be top choice for PvE. And since the entire idea of ‘berserker’ is a glass cannon, I don’t think it will ever not have the highest damage output in general.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

NoTrigger.8396:

ODB.6891:

They also appear to be trying to seriously diminish casual play? "this new system is about players working together and coordinating. I don’t think the people calling for this have really thought out how much this will also negatively affect them. They are actually less organized in most cases than zerk players…as most of them will just try to do their own separate things in encounters…whereas zerk usually coordinates the exact same strategy.

this will force people to wake up and l2p. once you have to earn your rewards in this game instead of getting everything for running around in circles mindlessly, the player base will become much better at playing it.

Or they complain hard enough for it to get nerfed.

sometimes it wouldnt be too bad if anet acted like wildstar devs:

https://twitter.com/stephanfrost/status/463005512066281472