Guild Wars 2

Nerfing precision wouldn’t change anything it would just switch what gear type is most effective. In the long run you would just be back complaining about whatever the new best combo is.

maha.7902:

how is it a problem that people can survive three year old content without having to use defensive stats?

Because it’s not 3-year-old content, it’s current content.

This isn’t WoW. We aren’t multiple tiers of equipment higher. That content isn’t significantly easier now than it was then. It is still current content, so yeah, it’s a problem.

Gagle Dan.6571:

Nerfing precision wouldn’t change anything it would just switch what gear type is most effective. In the long run you would just be back complaining about whatever the new best combo is.

That’s simply untrue and illogical.

There’s no logical/rational reason to believe it would merely make a different gear-type optimal in the way Zerker is now. If you could make it so Zerker wasn’t optimal, we’d actually be likely to see multiple different gear types be optimal for different builds, and we’d be likely to see some considerable gear diversity.

Eurhetemec.9052:

That’s simply untrue and illogical.

There’s no logical/rational reason to believe it would merely make a different gear-type optimal in the way Zerker is now. If you could make it so Zerker wasn’t optimal, we’d actually be likely to see multiple different gear types be optimal for different builds, and we’d be likely to see some considerable gear diversity.

Why does gear diversity matter? In what possible way does it improve the game?

If Soldier gear became the new Meta and people were wearing it would the game change at all?

I can understand wanting CC to be more important, or Conditions more viable but not just changing the stat combination you’re wearing.

Great… another one of these.

Ezekel.6394:

Astralporing.1957:

No, the real problem is that going glass cannon does not significantly reduce survivability, but it certainly significantly increases damage dealt. There would have been no problem at all, if offensive, defensive and utility stats were balanced against each other. You’d need to make a meaningful choice then when selecting your stats.
Too bad that the system Anet designed doesn’t really allow for it.

So what is your suggestion?

At this moment i have none that would not require redoing large parts of the system. It’s an inherent problem of trying to couple old, classic, static boost-type stat gear with active combat system. It just doesn’t work. To make it work, either one or the other would need to go, and both options have their negative sides (not to mention requiring a lot of work to pull off).

Ezekel.6394:

Eurhetemec.9052:

That’s simply untrue and illogical.

There’s no logical/rational reason to believe it would merely make a different gear-type optimal in the way Zerker is now. If you could make it so Zerker wasn’t optimal, we’d actually be likely to see multiple different gear types be optimal for different builds, and we’d be likely to see some considerable gear diversity.

Why does gear diversity matter? In what possible way does it improve the game?

If Soldier gear became the new Meta and people were wearing it would the game change at all?

I can understand wanting CC to be more important, or Conditions more viable but not just changing the stat combination you’re wearing.

Gear diversity matters because it’s a symptom of play-style diversity, which is inarguably a good thing, of there being more than one way to win in a reasonable fashion. It also matters because players are directed towards diverse gear by the game, but it’s a trap choice, right now. It should not be a trap choice, or if it is intended to be, they should clearly mark it. Building for survival in PvE should actually help with survival more than building for max DPS, yet, in practice, it does not.

If Soldier became the new meta, the game would change, yes. It would become more accessible to newer players, and generally work a bit better. But I’d rather see the “meta” be various different stat combos for different classes, different situations, and so on.

You seem to still be stuck in the totally irrational mindset that “THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE!” like gear is Highlander. Actually, there can be more than one – it’s just a matter of reducing the delta between Zerker and “everything else”.

Of course changing Precision might not be the best way to do this – redesigning monsters and encounters so Dodging was less “god mode”, no longer a way to avoid virtually all damage, and so on, might get people thinking “Maybe I don’t want all-Zerker, all the time”. Redesigning conditions has already started this process.

Gear diversity is already a thing.
Outside of dungeon instances.

PvP has sufficient counterplay between assault builds and bunker builds, WvW has its own preferred tactics that often smear Berserker-geared builds, depending on play style.

And a huge chunk of open world content is better off using Soldier’s gear over anything with Precision or Ferocity, because huge bosses like Tequatl and Shatterer are coded as objects can can’t be crit on.

So, if this thread is just another anti-zerk-dungeon, anti-speedrun thread, it’s probably time to close it. :\

Eurhetemec.9052:

Gear diversity matters because it’s a symptom of play-style diversity, which is inarguably a good thing, of there being more than one way to win in a reasonable fashion.

Except gear doesn’t impact play-style. But that was said a million times and some people just won’t accept it.

rotten.9753:

Eurhetemec.9052:

Gear diversity matters because it’s a symptom of play-style diversity, which is inarguably a good thing, of there being more than one way to win in a reasonable fashion.

Except gear doesn’t impact play-style. But that was said a million times and some people just won’t accept it.

When it comes to critical, it does heavily. More so now that traits are losing stats.

With certain gear, you’ll be able to keep 100% ciritcal chance. With other you won’t.

MithranArkanere.8957:

rotten.9753:

Eurhetemec.9052:

Gear diversity matters because it’s a symptom of play-style diversity, which is inarguably a good thing, of there being more than one way to win in a reasonable fashion.

Except gear doesn’t impact play-style. But that was said a million times and some people just won’t accept it.

When it comes to critical, it does heavily. More so now that traits are losing stats.

With certain gear, you’ll be able to keep 100% ciritcal chance. With other you won’t.

How exactly does that effect play style? Explain how it effects your rotation if your crit chance was dropped by 50%.

At best a change in Precision would do nothing to most of classes, outside of severely negatively impacting classes like Engineer or Mesmer who benefit most from a super high precision.

Certainly it would lower DPS, but that is about it. It might make conditions more viable, but you don’t have to nerf Power damage for that to be the case. They are removing the stacking cap and making conditions like Burning and Poison stack intensity and not duration, which should fix most of the issues with condition damage in PvE.

Now we still don’t know the exact numbers but it certainly seems like ANET is dealing with the problem.

The Breakbar should also make CC more valuable, but then time will tell.

rotten.9753:

Eurhetemec.9052:

Gear diversity matters because it’s a symptom of play-style diversity, which is inarguably a good thing, of there being more than one way to win in a reasonable fashion.

Except gear doesn’t impact play-style. But that was said a million times and some people just won’t accept it.

My god. Read the words you quoted. Symptom not cause. You understand what the difference is?

Rauderi.8706:

Gear diversity is already a thing.
Outside of dungeon instances.

PvP has sufficient counterplay between assault builds and bunker builds, WvW has its own preferred tactics that often smear Berserker-geared builds, depending on play style.

And a huge chunk of open world content is better off using Soldier’s gear over anything with Precision or Ferocity, because huge bosses like Tequatl and Shatterer are coded as objects can can’t be crit on.

So, if this thread is just another anti-zerk-dungeon, anti-speedrun thread, it’s probably time to close it. :\

Soldiers is preferred on un-crittable world bosses, I agree.

That is not gear diversity. That is one narrow situation where it’s better.

In day-to-day PvE, zerging, etc. – Zerkers is generally what you want. I’ve tried PvEing in my exotic Zerkers and a bunch of other exotic outfits with a variety of other characters, and Zerkers is ludicrously more efficient.

PvP and WvW, I agree, but that’s the point entirely. That gear can be diverse there shows it can be done in PvE.

As for “OMG CLOSE THREAD”, er, bro, hate to break it to you, but “PEOPLE HAVE OPINIONS I DO NOT LIKE!” isn’t a reason to close a thread.

Also, more importantly, the issue is what will be valid in HoT content (this is the HoT forum), not what was valid in dungeons. Unless changes to either gear, or enemy behaviour are made, it seems likely to remain Zerker, and that’s not good long-term. However I suspect that enemy behaviour and the condition changes will help quite a bit with making PvE actually more diverse.

Ezekel.6394:

Certainly it would lower DPS, but that is about it. It might make conditions more viable, but you don’t have to nerf Power damage for that to be the case. They are removing the stacking cap and making conditions like Burning and Poison stack intensity and not duration, which should fix most of the issues with condition damage in PvE.

Lowering your DPS has some really significant gameplay impact. Specifically, you can rely less on Dodging alone (and the odd Aegis) for surviving an encounter. If you can’t Zerker-style burst down an encounter, Dodging is less godly, Aegis/Block needs to be more reusable, and other survival stuff becomes more important (of all kinds, but esp. sustained survival stuff).

I’m not saying power damage needs a nerf, incidentally – that’s just one way to achieve this – you could also buff enemy HP, buff enemy armour (already some Mordrem have this), give enemies more un-dodge/block-able stuff, and so on.

Save condi builds! Nerf one of the main ways condi builds proc condis!

Eurhetemec.9052:

As for “OMG CLOSE THREAD”, er, bro, hate to break it to you, but “PEOPLE HAVE OPINIONS I DO NOT LIKE!” isn’t a reason to close a thread.

Also, more importantly, the issue is what will be valid in HoT content (this is the HoT forum), not what was valid in dungeons. Unless changes to either gear, or enemy behaviour are made, it seems likely to remain Zerker, and that’s not good long-term. However I suspect that enemy behaviour and the condition changes will help quite a bit with making PvE actually more diverse.

“Gear diversity” and “solving the zerk problem” threads are all over the forums. It’s a shame the legit search function is broken, because otherwise, you could have found one of those threads.
Assuming they haven’t been closed, like almost every other ranty anti-zerk thread. I don’t even care for the zerk-meta, but I have yet to see anything new. So yeah, /thread is warranted.

Flipside, I’ve been asking for balance passes on older enemy numbers so that zerk isn’t so prevalent. Higher Toughness, lower HP. Bigger cleaves, faster but less damaging auto attacks. Most mobs, especially in dungeons, just aren’t designed to support much else besides the zerk-meta. Not slamming the efficiency experts on it, it’s just a fact and facet of design that needs changing to keep end-game play interesting.

And we’re starting to see some of that leading up to HoT. Different Mordrem mobs with vastly different Toughness/HP values and varying CC tactics to negate them. The work on breaking condition caps is highly encouraging, since condition builds’ greatest barrier is finally getting removed. That alone is enough.

As it is, condi builds sub-focus on critical rate/precision so they can trigger sigil and trait effects. It’s not a good time to call for nerfing them when they finally become a reasonable choice. (You could say nerf Ferocity, but they’ve already done that once and the qq would be epic.)

Dropping ferocity (instead of precision) altogether could actually have some benefits, if the massive overall drop in damage would be somehow addressed. That is, drop ferocity, but add a flat multiplier to all damage to account for the loss.

New highest damage stat combo would be rampager or sinister, but the extra damage from conditions would likely be relatively small (compared to ferocity), so using defensive stat instead of condition damage would not be a large dps drop.

Could get a few interesting hybrid builds popping up, and people who aren’t comfortable without running a defensive stat would be relatively more useful.

Eurhetemec.9052:

My god. Read the words you quoted. Symptom not cause. You understand what the difference is?

Since gear has no effect on a playstyle it’s neither a symptom nor a cause. In this game you achieve playstyle diversity through a choice of your traits and skills. This has been repeated a thousand of times.

Removing Ferocity entirely and having better interaction between critical hit chance and conditions would vastly improve the game, especially in terms of diversity. Like I said before, 3 compounding dps stats together does nothing but force stacking them because it’s too much of a dps loss when you’re missing one of the 3 because of the way they stack in effectiveness when used together. Ferocity was a terrible idea.

rotten.9753:

Since gear has no effect on a playstyle it’s neither a symptom nor a cause. In this game you achieve playstyle diversity through a choice of your traits and skills. This has been repeated a thousand of times.

Repeating something that’s obviously nonsensical doesn’t make it true. If your logic held, everyone would wear identical gear in PvP/WvW.

Rauderi.8706:

Flipside, I’ve been asking for balance passes on older enemy numbers so that zerk isn’t so prevalent. Higher Toughness, lower HP. Bigger cleaves, faster but less damaging auto attacks. Most mobs, especially in dungeons, just aren’t designed to support much else besides the zerk-meta. Not slamming the efficiency experts on it, it’s just a fact and facet of design that needs changing to keep end-game play interesting.

And we’re starting to see some of that leading up to HoT. Different Mordrem mobs with vastly different Toughness/HP values and varying CC tactics to negate them. The work on breaking condition caps is highly encouraging, since condition builds’ greatest barrier is finally getting removed. That alone is enough.

You seem to be agreeing with me entirely (I’m not particularly calling for a Precision nerf). I’m confused. I’m more concerned about stuff going forwards than the probably-soon-to-be-obsolete dungeons.

Ferocity nerf is interesting – but the solution to the “problem” with triggering Sigils is a really simple one – if Precision gets nerfed, up the proc rate of the Sigils accordingly.

Eurhetemec.9052:

You seem to be agreeing with me entirely (I’m not particularly calling for a Precision nerf). I’m confused. I’m more concerned about stuff going forwards than the probably-soon-to-be-obsolete dungeons.

Ferocity nerf is interesting – but the solution to the “problem” with triggering Sigils is a really simple one – if Precision gets nerfed, up the proc rate of the Sigils accordingly.

There are quite a few sigils and traits that are simply “on crit.” 100% of the time, so long as the crit happens. Can’t raise the success rate if crit chance/precision gets lowered.

Other games usually have decreasing gains on critical chance, but I don’t see that in GW2. Rather than devaluing Precision, it’s up to player responsibility to stop using it after they hit that 80%, or they waste gear points on it.

As it stands, I’m of the mind to see where enemy designs move going forward before mucking with a general thing like Precision, which impacts all game modes. Not to say it should be ignored, but observed until action is needed to balance it. Even then, unless it becomes a huge issue in WvW or PvP, expect them to tweak creature values first.

Both precision and ferocity are fine, what needs to be addressed is toughness. This currently scales much more in effectiveness.

Reason: You take 2 equal classes; place one in full berserker gear and the other in all toughness. The player in full toughness does more damage to the player in full zerk.

How exactly does a defense build out-damage a full dps build? Seems to me that both power and ferocity should scale higher while simultaneously reducing toughness effectiveness.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Repeating something that’s obviously nonsensical doesn’t make it true. If your logic held, everyone would wear identical gear in PvP/WvW.

Effectiveness and a playstyle are not the same.

Rauderi.8706:

There are quite a few sigils and traits that are simply “on crit.” 100% of the time, so long as the crit happens. Can’t raise the success rate if crit chance/precision gets lowered.

Sure you can! Just give one guaranteed and XX% chance for another (works in HoT – wouldn’t have worked back when not all conditions really stacked).

Rauderi.8706:

Other games usually have decreasing gains on critical chance, but I don’t see that in GW2. Rather than devaluing Precision, it’s up to player responsibility to stop using it after they hit that 80%, or they waste gear points on it.

Firstly, that’s simply not true, virtually all major MMOs use a linear crit-stacking profile just like GW2, which, like GW2, only has diminishing returns in a complicated sense.

In those games, though, crit is far more “expensive”, stat-point-wise than Precision is, so getting it to 30 or 50% is amazing, very often.

Rauderi.8706:

As it stands, I’m of the mind to see where enemy designs move going forward before mucking with a general thing like Precision, which impacts all game modes. Not to say it should be ignored, but observed until action is needed to balance it. Even then, unless it becomes a huge issue in WvW or PvP, expect them to tweak creature values first.

Er, well so long as it happens before it goes live, I’m fine. But one can spend too much time “observing”, and Anet have been guilty of it before, particularly in GW1, but also fairly grossly in GW2 with Conditions, which should have been approached literally years ago.

Did you actually type, “ruining the game”? With a straight face?

Please be VERY specific about who’s game has been “ruined” and in what way?

I have no problem with a discussion about some sort of “condition critical” addition to the combat system, but making outlandish and exaggerated claims about the general state of the game just makes everything you say seem ridiculous.

MithranArkanere.8957:

Yes. Dungeons are completed too fast on average right now. Most enemies are made trivial and negligible by certain builds and setups.

You might have not noticed this but… they are 2+ kittening years old. People did them million times and learned every little thing about them. This is how content in mmo games works.

MithranArkanere.8957:

People is being rewarded without actually doing enough to deserve it.

cough silverwastes cough chestfarm cough cough drytop cough worldbosses cough openworld cough

MithranArkanere.8957:

Elite enemies meant to slow down players are either killed in little time or merely skipped altogether.

Like devs said it is ok to skip trash. You can waste time by killing everything that moves or you can run past them. OPTIONS \o/

I agree. There should be a difference between crit and power builds. We revisit this ever every time a thread pops. There’s no way we should be able to crit as much as we do. I too, like most, run zerk, only because it make since to run other wise, but if Anet could . Setting a cap on Precision is good alternative to scraping ferocity. But they have to find a way to separate power builds from spike/burst builds. It should resemble the difference between heal over time/passive heals vs. Burst heal. Beating a target down and spiking a target down? Currently, the amount of dmg we are allowed to do doesn’t equal the risk for not bring defense on our gear. I believe HoT will address some of that, but I will patiently wait and see.

So when you get 100% crit you sacrifice a LOT of other helpful stats and avenues your build can go in.

I mocked up a 100% crit build on my thief and it was like, uhh…nevermind.

You shouldn’t have a problem taking down people with 100% crit because in order to get their they have to make themselves pretty glassy. Just punch 100% crit players in the face and you’ll do fine.

Right but running zerk-esque builds should be pricey in all game modes. And as you should know, running a thief in wvw,spvp,and pve are different animals. As the playerbase continues to master dmg mitigation, PvE will continue to push the zerk Meta. GW2 has to catch up to us since we caught up to them a long time ago. I’m hoping, the changes to come will challenge us, away from pure zerk, and not just challenge us to dodge and block better. With the past changes to ferocity and might(not bold enough) and relase of stats from traits along with other upcoming changes, I think they want to head in that direction. I also hope that they plan to do more than just add more Husk-like attributes to PvE

If it is possible i would like a different type of damage dealers:
High raw damage from power
High crit chance with damage from ferocity and on crit hit procs (fire nova,…)
High condi damage

If possible i would like to split power builds from critical hit builds. There should be some changes then to the internal cooldown on some sigils and traits to increase damage for crit builds to make them equel to the power builds.
A possible way to realize this is to make the difference between the major stat and the minor stats larger in the armor stat. And some for in between.

The fastest way to make condi and normal damage builds is to remove ferocity and make it at +50% normal damage with modifiers from traits and runes.

But for now i will wait for the changes that will come with hot

Ackos.7942:

If it is possible i would like a different type of damage dealers:
High raw damage from power
High crit chance with damage from ferocity and on crit hit procs (fire nova,…)
High condi damage

If possible i would like to split power builds from critical hit builds. There should be some changes then to the internal cooldown on some sigils and traits to increase damage for crit builds to make them equel to the power builds.
A possible way to realize this is to make the difference between the major stat and the minor stats larger in the armor stat. And some for in between.

The fastest way to make condi and normal damage builds is to remove ferocity and make it at +50% normal damage with modifiers from traits and runes.

But for now i will wait for the changes that will come with hot

You cannot make a high damage Power build without focusing on either Crits or Condition damage. You would have to choose some non-damage stat which means your damage should be lower than somebody who has 3 damage stats.

If we got Ferocity main-stat gear, that could open up some interesting options, probably just mixed in with other gear though.

What would nerfing precision accomplish exactly? I can see it would slow down the content, make it more tedious, and kittenins gear out of the meta… but what are the positive effects? You’ll need zerker gear more than ever since damage will be lower everywhere. It certainly doesn’t make the other gear sets stronger or more desirable.

All I can see this accomplishing is reducing the number of viable builds and making the game less fun. What do people asking for this specifically think it will accomplish and why? I keep hearing people throw out “build diversity” but I fail to see how reducing our damage does anything except remove assassins from the meta. It certainly won’t magically make defensive builds more viable because there is still plenty of boon spam to keep my active defenses up 100% of the time.