Guild Wars 2

Are there any plans to shift away from the Zerker meta in HoT PvE domain?

there’s no way to tell yet. some of the recent content has been encouraging a bit more variety, so who knows.

I think they’re experimenting with it. The mordrem mobs do make condition gamplay critical, but with exception of husks it’s the non damaging condition – cripple, immobilize and chill that work wonders vs them.

We’ll just see what they bring out with their jungle patch.

That aside i will repeat that zerker meta is not the problem. The problem is with it being easy to run, while it should be a merciless, unforgiving test of player’s skill and makeshift defenses (since he abandoned proper ones for damage), along with condition damage model fixed (those 25 stacks cap per monster).

Why do I have a stock answer to this sort of question? Anyway, here goes:

Zerker will naturally cease to be the default for running the new content when it is released, assuming that it’s as challenging as advertised, regardless of the intent of the designers, since both the content and the tools available to players for tackling the content will be unfamiliar to players and it will take some time for them to adapt.

Otherwise, if the meta does change, it will change to include Rampager’s and Sinister gear, which are both similarly glassy but favour conditions.

The real problem you are complaining about has nothing to do with the Zerker meta.

Unless they add unavoidable 15k hits and 15k heals in every fight, the Zerker meta isn’t going anywhere.

Vizardlorde.8243:

Unless they add unavoidable 15k hits and 15k heals in every fight, the Zerker meta isn’t going anywhere.

Meta is only meta because it is the MOST. Zerker builds might not go away, but looking at the recent content, Arenanet is beginning to design content that will significantly reduce the amount of people who will use Zerker and that is also fine.

That doesn’t mean every useless stat combo will be viable because a new meta is going to develop. Meta is simply part of any online mmo since players prefer the path of least resistance. If Zerker gets weaken a new meta will appear.

How do you know what the meta will be at the beginning? Can I get that crystal ball?

On the more serious note, it’s far more likely that most people will play safely at the start because the content will be new (plus the work of the AI consultant). At the launch zerkers were considered cannon fodder and the meta was soldier because everyone was not familiar with the content. Zerker meta is simply the result of the general population getting comfortable with the content.

the thing with “zerker meta” (and rampager/sinister/assassin or any stat combo that doesn’t involve defense) is an AI issue. see, the AI is not aggressive enough. and i don’t mean it needs to hit harder, it needs to hit faster.

on sPvP and WvW, more defensive stats and support roles are important because there’s only so much you can dodge, but on PvE, since it takes forever for enemies to actually hit you, it’s easier to just kill them before they hit you enough, and worse, stack in a corner so that if someone gets downed, the other 4 can just pick the downed back up with less effort than it would take to keep them from going down, and at no DPS loss in the grand scheme of things.

i’m not about to derail this thread saying what i think should be made to change that situation, but the problem is at least 50% the AI being too easy on players (another large chunk being encounter design that allows corner stacking)

Vizardlorde.8243:

Unless they add unavoidable 15k hits and 15k heals in every fight, the Zerker meta isn’t going anywhere.

Mesmers can already come up with something like a total of 10,000 self-healing every 12 seconds with the right build, not counting the effect of healing power. It’s not considered overpowered because it involves mantras, which don’t cooldown fully on their own.

BrunoBRS.5178:

the thing with “zerker meta” (and rampager/sinister/assassin or any stat combo that doesn’t involve defense) is an AI issue. see, the AI is not aggressive enough. and i don’t mean it needs to hit harder, it needs to hit faster.

on sPvP and WvW, more defensive stats and support roles are important because there’s only so much you can dodge, but on PvE, since it takes forever for enemies to actually hit you, it’s easier to just kill them before they hit you enough, and worse, stack in a corner so that if someone gets downed, the other 4 can just pick the downed back up with less effort than it would take to keep them from going down, and at no DPS loss in the grand scheme of things.

i’m not about to derail this thread saying what i think should be made to change that situation, but the problem is at least 50% the AI being too easy on players (another large chunk being encounter design that allows corner stacking)

Don’t you need defensive stats in pvp because you have to fight on nodes? We have builds like shatter mesmer, all kinds of thieves, offguards and many others that are zerker enough?

Also, corner stacking is the echo of the past.

silvermember.8941:

Vizardlorde.8243:

Unless they add unavoidable 15k hits and 15k heals in every fight, the Zerker meta isn’t going anywhere.

Meta is only meta because it is the MOST. Zerker builds might not go away, but looking at the recent content, Arenanet is beginning to design content that will significantly reduce the amount of people who will use Zerker and that is also fine.

That doesn’t mean every useless stat combo will be viable because a new meta is going to develop. Meta is simply part of any online mmo since players prefer the path of least resistance. If Zerker gets weaken a new meta will appear.

Meta is meta not because people use it but because it’s the most efficient. If you can convince 60% of people to run 1 path of AC per hour using Nomad’s be my guest but that will not change the meta. The only fights where Zerk is not meta there is an direct damage reduction (Copper and mordrem husks in general) and when fighting structures where crit and ferocity are completely negated. Unless ANet plans to completely remove crit and ferocity or make those type of encounters equally frequent as encounters without those mechanics, Zerk will be THE meta.

velmeister.4187:

Are there any plans to shift away from the Zerker meta in HoT PvE domain?

Arena net has already been shifting away from Zerker. In Silverwastes Condi builds are more valuable then they normally are. The important thing to do is to make sure that they give value to other build without making zerker useless.

This game has only DPS spec which mean DPS stats will always dominate… It may not be zerker but assassins or something new or whatever equipment with most power, precision and ferocity on it.

rotten.9753:

BrunoBRS.5178:

the thing with “zerker meta” (and rampager/sinister/assassin or any stat combo that doesn’t involve defense) is an AI issue. see, the AI is not aggressive enough. and i don’t mean it needs to hit harder, it needs to hit faster.

on sPvP and WvW, more defensive stats and support roles are important because there’s only so much you can dodge, but on PvE, since it takes forever for enemies to actually hit you, it’s easier to just kill them before they hit you enough, and worse, stack in a corner so that if someone gets downed, the other 4 can just pick the downed back up with less effort than it would take to keep them from going down, and at no DPS loss in the grand scheme of things.

i’m not about to derail this thread saying what i think should be made to change that situation, but the problem is at least 50% the AI being too easy on players (another large chunk being encounter design that allows corner stacking)

Don’t you need defensive stats in pvp because you have to fight on nodes? We have builds like shatter mesmer, all kinds of thieves, offguards and many others that are zerker enough?

Also, corner stacking is the echo of the past.

yes, there are still zerker builds in PvP. we don’t want zerker gone outright, we want it to stop shining more than everything else.

as for defensive stats being used just to fight on point, no. even 2v2 TDM tournaments have people using non-zerker builds. it’s important to survive the pressure by staying on point, yes, but it’s also important to be able to pressure the enemy out of it, to keep your allies from going down (a one-player disadvantage can quickly escalate into a wipe if the losing team isn’t careful), and if they do go down, you need to be able to bring them back up, which is easier said than done when people start pressuring the body to prevent a rez. you also need CC skills to interrupt heals and other strong skills, to shut down vulnerable players, to prevent rezzes and stomps, etc.

in other words, the combat system, at its core, is really, really good. it just needs to be better designed in PvE to mimic what the PvP players experience when fighting.

as for stacking being an echo of the past, that’s funny. i still see people asking to stack (i hate stacking), even when i ran AC story with a friend and some pugs a few months back. a more recent example, sunday i ran fractals with some guildies, and this guy i hadn’t run with before had all the stacking spots. “stack here”, “stack there”, “stack and i’ll pull”, etc.

Like some People said it. Zerker Meta by itself isn’t the Problem, it is more of a Symptom than the Cause of a Problem. Mobs have terrible AI, attack slowly but hard, so you have no Problem to avoid almost all of the damage and just bash the Mobs down. Or, the Mob Design is the Problem.

Well at least Anet is experimenting with the Mob Mechanics and the Mordrem are a big Step in the right Direction. Positioning, Target Priorities and CC are more important than ever. Don’t want that nasty Teragrif to knock you down over and over? Cripple it and watch it trip. Don’t want to be eaten by that Wolf,? Show him your face. Also, not doing enough Damage on these Husks? Use Condition Damage.

It also seems that these kitteners have some Priorities. Everytime I man some of the Siege Weapon, the Wolves and Teragriffs decide to pay me a Visit.

To the Condi Damage, this sort of Damage has some Issues. Long built up to make some Damage ( which isn’t a Problem by itself ), Damage not comparable to Direct Damage, only 25 Stacks, your Stacks being removed by someone who is weaker at Condition Damage and Most Enemies with a Big HP Pool and low Armor..

Walhalla.5473:

To the Condi Damage, this sort of Damage has some Issues. Long built up to make some Damage ( which isn’t a Problem by itself ), Damage not comparable to Direct Damage, only 25 Stacks, your Stacks being removed by someone who is weaker at Condition Damage and Most Enemies with a Big HP Pool and low Armor..

condi damage is a problem with the enemy design as well. not to hark back to PvP, but that’s where things freaking work, so…

condi in PvP is mostly about pressure. once you’re hit with it, your hit points are going to go down, and fast (because players, unlike mobs, have very limited health), until you cleanse yourself or your support does it for you. but on PvE, mobs just have way too much health, and way too little toughness, so direct damage trumphs condi damage. mobs also don’t heal much, which makes poison rather useless, and don’t walk around often either, making torment stacking too weak compared to, say, lava font (it’s not like the mob will walk out of it).

the trick is finding a balance where condi damage deals on average as much damage as power damage, and require serious condi speccing to get high damage and maybe duration too. (like up the scaling curve so that the condis scale a lot with your condi damage but have very low base damage, removing the problem of power builds that stack condis by proxy)

Brahmincorle.1264:

This game has only DPS spec which mean DPS stats will always dominate… It may not be zerker but assassins or something new or whatever equipment with most power, precision and ferocity on it.

This game doesn’t have the DPS role any more than it has the tank role or the healer role. It just has the generic “everyone can do damage” principle that’s true of every MMO.

Funnily enough, in every other MMO, the only times people spec for anything but maximum DPS are when they don’t think they can survive content otherwise and when they expect the personal DPS they sacrifice to be more than made up for by a boost to someone else’s DPS. Sound familiar?

evilunderling.9265:

Brahmincorle.1264:

This game has only DPS spec which mean DPS stats will always dominate… It may not be zerker but assassins or something new or whatever equipment with most power, precision and ferocity on it.

This game doesn’t have the DPS role any more than it has the tank role or the healer role. It just has the generic “everyone can do damage” principle that’s true of every MMO.

Funnily enough, in every other MMO, the only times people spec for anything but maximum DPS are when they don’t think they can survive content otherwise and when they expect the personal DPS they sacrifice to be more than made up for by a boost to someone else’s DPS. Sound familiar?

This game does not have a tank role (a tank in MMO is someone who mainly and on purpose holds the aggro. If you cannot hold aggro you are a DPS. A DPS in tanking gear is just garbage DPS, not a tank). There may be arguably healing role but this role is obsolete due to lackluster heals on party members, dumb AI, dodges, self heals etc.

If they are going to change it up so that different builds work better in different places, I hope they come with a way to let you merge different armor types together so you can switch out the stats for the merged piece.

More player skill + weaker mobs = more zerkers. Content has to be harder; that’s the only way to build diversity.

Definitely the Mordrem attacks on forts in Silverwastes is the closest thing to a GW1 type PvE experience where you have a mix of mobs that combine their effect. Getting immob snared by a husk and unable to dodge teragriffs/wolves/troll bee swarms is deadly. Fail to finish off a target fast enough and menders might heal it. It’s still a very rudimentary level of cooperation, but it’s the right direction.

What would be great is mini-bosses along with the sea of trash mobs. Lieutenants? Harder to kill than Elites, but not as hard as Champions, and with unique skill sets that change the battle and work with the mobs.

For example, warrior with a large war horn that rallies mobs to it, the rally giving them swiftness and breaking immob/stun. Then another horn blast heals and gives might. Then they go on a “warpath” going after objectives togeher with occasional horn blasts that give quickness.

Just get rid of stacking and we will be fine

A video WoodenPotatoes made on his casual channel ConcreteDucks.

From the moment I first saw this video, I knew that this was what I want.
Many of the stats need to change in a way. Like WP says, things like healing power, Vitality, Thoughness and Condition Damage.

This ended up pretty long but I feel this belongs here, and this is my thoughts born from thoughts from other people in the community, like WP.

• Healing Power: Merging Boon Duration and Healing Power under a new “Healing Power” or “Healing Mastery”. should increase the speed you revive people (and still keep the traits that also do this) to make a it usefull for support builds. This can also still affect the regen you apply, and self healing abilitys like the Warrior Healing Signet. Another thing, the more healing power you have, the more skills (which would make sence to apply healing/regen) would apply regeneration. This would have some kind of scale where if your build have like 20% of the total stats assigned to healing power it would make Elementalist Staff 3 – Geyser do regeneration and pure healing, if you have 40% of total stats as healing power it will add more duration regen and heal for more just like now.
  Any profession heal skill should not heal alot maybe like around 20% unless you have healing power. This imo will make people who run healing power be needed since their skills that can heal and apply regen would heal for roughly the same or more than your own healing skill would do.

• Vitality: This should increase your health as it does now, but also increase Endurance regeneration on you and make some of your skills apply Vigor at the same rate as above. 20% skills start to apply vigor, the more % Vitality you have the more duration and/or skills will apply Vigor.
  And as WP said also, your endurance regen should be lower than it is now. Lets say it takes you 30 seconds to regen one full dodge out of the maximum two dodges avalible with full endurance. The more Vitality the faster it regens, and vigor applyed by allies will increase this regen at the same rate as now.

• Toughness: This should work as it does now, plus make skills that allready reflect, reflect or destory projectiles for longer/or more (if there is a limit on how many projectiles a skill can reflect/destroy). The base duration and limit of reflect/destroy should be really low, like 1 second Reflect Wall for Guardians and Swirling Winds for Elementalist be 1 second.
  Same goes for block. It should just be able to block up to a maximum of blocks or a duration that is really low at the start with 0% thoughness increase.
  EDIT!: Higher Thoughness also make you apply the boon Protection for longer when Thoughness is higher.

• Condition Damage: Merging Condition Duration and Condition Damage as “Condtion Mastery” This should work as it does now, apply stacks to the current cap (should maybe be raised to 30 or 35) or adds to the duration of condis like Poison and Burn. But like Healing Power in the first bullet point it will make skills that make sence apply the different condis stating at 10% Condition damage as max stat(Maybe higher to avoid people building condi damage not being able to apply stacks because random zerg guy is doing it because the threshold is so low) The higher the % of max stat goes the more stacks should be applyed, more damage, maybe more skills starting to apply condis aswell.
  This will only take place for the condis that do damage. So Vulerability, Blind, Imob, Cripple, Chill, Fear and Weakness could still be applyed by zerg/power builds, but also by condi builds. These control condis will also have a x% of max stat to be applyed but will come from the Condition Damage and Power with the same Scale. So say your condition damage is above 20% and power is above 20% you will have alot of skills that make sence to apply any of these control condis.

• Ferocity, Precision, Professtion Specific stat. Will still work the same way now. IF! The things above where to be implemented just for a one day test, I think pure damage would be pretty much in line with condi damage which is now just being applyed by people who build for it, or it could end up needing a buff.
  People who build for the Support/Control will only be doing the cc and support boons and feel like they are doing a role.
  A thing that would then need to be looked at is the Defiance which sometimes stack to 50+ which means you have to have 50+ players most likely to do a single cc on a champ scaled boss.

Manifibel.8420:

snip

i know people like WP (hey, i like him a lot too), but his ideas aren’t always right. his ideas in that video in particular would completely screw up GW2 on so many levels it’s ridiculous. i’m not kidding, if that got implemented, it would kill GW2 faster than the ANet servers catching on fire.

Walhalla.5473:

Like some People said it. Zerker Meta by itself isn’t the Problem, it is more of a Symptom than the Cause of a Problem. Mobs have terrible AI, attack slowly but hard, so you have no Problem to avoid almost all of the damage and just bash the Mobs down. Or, the Mob Design is the Problem.

Well at least Anet is experimenting with the Mob Mechanics and the Mordrem are a big Step in the right Direction. Positioning, Target Priorities and CC are more important than ever. Don’t want that nasty Teragrif to knock you down over and over? Cripple it and watch it trip. Don’t want to be eaten by that Wolf,? Show him your face. Also, not doing enough Damage on these Husks? Use Condition Damage.

It also seems that these kitteners have some Priorities. Everytime I man some of the Siege Weapon, the Wolves and Teragriffs decide to pay me a Visit.

To the Condi Damage, this sort of Damage has some Issues. Long built up to make some Damage ( which isn’t a Problem by itself ), Damage not comparable to Direct Damage, only 25 Stacks, your Stacks being removed by someone who is weaker at Condition Damage and Most Enemies with a Big HP Pool and low Armor..

Mob AI and design is clearly a problem, but the biggest issue is probably more about the encounter design than about the mobs themselves.

Most of the relevant fights in the current dungeon content are big legendary bosses, single threats to pay attention and use all the active defenses.
Small groups of enemies, the kind of fight that suits far better the current combat system, are relegated to be the dungeon thrash, often skipped or just pulled together (by either LOS or a few skills) and obliterated with AOE while some utilities like blindfields and reflects do the defensive work.
In the few cases where bosses involve adds, either they appear pretty much on top of the boss, being almost instantly cleaved down, or the boss is LOSed to some spot where those adds will run to suffer a similar fate.

As long as we don’t have a far better AI, which seems unlikely to happen, somewhat prolonged fights against several enemies (and without a clear terrain advantage) are the only thing I can imagine to weaken the meta without falling on a clear unfairness towards damage specs.

As I suggested here (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Specialization-Trinity/first#post4738182)a few days ago, I think that they’re going to be introducing a Trinity system in HoT. Why? Because it would rid the game of the current Berserker standard as well as set up for more challenging fights.

Siphaed.9235:

As I suggested here (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Specialization-Trinity/first#post4738182)a few days ago, I think that they’re going to be introducing a Trinity system in HoT. Why? Because it would rid the game of the current Berserker standard as well as set up for more challenging fights.

What is the part about the problem not being the zerker equip don’t you guys understand?
The problem is the content, and lets say they add content that you cant do in zerker gear, the meta will change to lets imagine p/t/v, now everyone will use that, the problem is still the same.
1 set of gear will always be preferred over the others, unless each class has its own and unique set of gear like they have in other mmos like WoW for example.

Every time I see this same tired and self serving argument, I just let out an involuntary groan. Why is it so important to some people to try and force others to play with/carry them? Why is it so hard to group with like minded people? Why do you want to take enjoyment away from others? Why can’t you just enjoy the game in your own way? If you don’t want to wear zerk gear or build with zerk traits/stats, then don’t. No one is forcing you to do that…so how about stop trying to invent ways to force zerk players to play/build your way. Whether it is by crying for content to one-shot anyone not wearing full nomads/clerics. Whether it is by a combination of having a manadatory healer/tank + wanting content to one-shot anyone not wearing toughness gear. Just stop it already. The only time it is even relevant to have this conversation is when either grouping with randoms/groups requesting a specific build type, or when you are in a guild that values that build type. Either way, that is clearly not the guild/group for you if you don’t share that preference….move on to a different group?

Does it actually bother you that there are people who are skilled enough to survive and thrive without the safety net of toughness/vitality/healing power? If the issue is members of random groups that die constantly due to low skill and wearing zerk…the opposite is equally true…low dps members making content take an inordinate amount of time. Both extremes cause the same issues…group frustration and delays in content completion. You don’t see the counter argument all over the forums every 2 seconds…asking for content to negate toughness/vitality/healing power…so why is it so important to take away zerk fun?

One of the biggest selling points of this game is its casual nature. You don’t have to exclude anyone to complete content. You don’t have to reserve groups slots for a specific build/profession. You don’t have to wait hours to get the right person to fill your group. One player in a group can ultimately solo an encounter if they have the skill to do so…while the rest of the group is face planted. Why would you want to ruin that? Just so you can kill someone else’s enjoyment?

Letifer.4360:

Siphaed.9235:

As I suggested here (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Specialization-Trinity/first#post4738182)a few days ago, I think that they’re going to be introducing a Trinity system in HoT. Why? Because it would rid the game of the current Berserker standard as well as set up for more challenging fights.

What is the part about the problem not being the zerker equip don’t you guys understand?
The problem is the content, and lets say they add content that you cant do in zerker gear, the meta will change to lets imagine p/t/v, now everyone will use that, the problem is still the same.
1 set of gear will always be preferred over the others, unless each class has its own and unique set of gear like they have in other mmos like WoW for example.

This is almost right, and in fact is right that there will be a gear type that people pick as ‘best’.

It’s wrong in thinking that it has, or will matter much. The “Meta” problem is ultimately a ‘you can change games, but you can never fix people’ problem, and there’s nothing Anet can legitimately do to make it better.

I think beserker style will always be the “theoretical” best. But I think the recent content shows that there able to start balancing it so that running zerk is actually high risk high reward. Where as now the sheer dps it offers cuts out most of the relevant risk. A zerker player caught between three charging teragriffs when a husk immobilizes them tends to have a bad time.

Shadelang.3012:

I think beserker style will always be the “theoretical” best. But I think the recent content shows that there able to start balancing it so that running zerk is actually high risk high reward. Where as now the sheer dps it offers cuts out most of the relevant risk. A zerker player caught between three charging teragriffs when a husk immobilizes them tends to have a bad time.

the idea is not to make zerks go away, it’s to design encounters where it’s just as fast/efficient/important to bring support/CC builds as it is to bring zerkers.

Letifer.4360:

Siphaed.9235:

I think that they’re going to be introducing a Trinity system in HoT. Why? Because it would rid the game of the current Berserker standard as well as set up for more challenging fights.

1 set of gear will always be preferred over the others, unless each class has its own and unique set of gear like they have in other mmos like WoW for example.

Trinity is a non-issue with GW2. In fact, this game does not need a trinity system at all. I’d not wait in front of a dungeon for 2 hours to find a healer in 2015. No, I won’t. I will pick another game where I will be able to jump right in. Trinity is so 2003.

I think the real issue w/ armor/weapon meta is how the system is currently designed. For a shift from any meta it will be very difficult with current equipment design. Most players have spent hours and invested 1000s to get their berserker stat armor and weapons, ascended and legendary versions. It will not really be wise to introduce a shift in game mechanics without addressing this aspect first. Ideally, ANET should allow unlock system of PvP in PvE as well. There is no need for each armor pieces to have stats as they are merely skins. They could simply make all armor and weapon stats selectable out of combat on ascended armor pieces.

It is true that 1 set of gear will be preferred over any other for classes and in the current equipment design model, it makes perfect sense. Can I imagine carrying 10 different sets of 6 piece armors into battle or continuously equip/unequip gear to suit a battle situation?