Guild Wars 2

So we all know the “break bar” is on it’s way to gw2, seeing as how the break bar can only be depleted by cc’s and Condi’s do you think we might see a change in the zerker meta that currently plagues pve? Do you feel like heavily implementing break bars into the current dungeons could end the stacking and content skipping ?

x/p thieves are going to be popular when this hits.

On topic: No the break bar will not change the zerker meta

How hard is it for zerkers to include cc and conditions in their specs??

If they make the break bars strong enough. It could put enough pressure onto utlity cc and Condi builds to pop back into the game. So it seems at least

Sagat.3285:

How hard is it for zerkers to include cc and conditions in their specs??

Not hard I agree but if the break bar is strong enough. Having a full team of zerks might crumble under enough damage while waiting for the bar to break. This is my hope st least

Take the kholer fight in AC for example. If the break bar is strong enough, trying to stack through kholer could turn into a pretty daunting task. Forcing the group to kite, actually dodge his grab, so on so forth. I just see a lot of potential here

meeflak.9714:

Sagat.3285:

How hard is it for zerkers to include cc and conditions in their specs??

Not hard I agree but if the break bar is strong enough. Having a full team of zerks might crumble under enough damage while waiting for the bar to break. This is my hope st least

Well the thing to consider would be how important is it to break the break bar? If players can dodge out of the way, of position themselves correctly to not get hurt CC might become unimportant.

meeflak.9714:

Take the kholer fight in AC for example. If the break bar is strong enough, trying to stack through kholer could turn into a pretty daunting task. Forcing the group to kite, actually dodge his grab, so on so forth. I just see a lot of potential here

But they’d still have to design fight with a distinct anti-zerker mindset. Current content probably won’t be impact a lot though.

Break bar works like defiance. Only difference between them is that break bar will regenerate. Conditions that will affect it have no damage and are not affected by condition stats.

Sagat.3285:

How hard is it for zerkers to include cc and conditions in their specs??

Conditions that will be considered CC and good old CC skills already included sooo i guess very easy.

meeflak.9714:

Take the kholer fight in AC for example. If the break bar is strong enough, trying to stack through kholer could turn into a pretty daunting task. Forcing the group to kite, actually dodge his grab, so on so forth. I just see a lot of potential here

Four icebow 5 at the same time is a very hard hitting CC that will break any boss. Even if it will be nerfed to the ground we will be able to use blind. Thanks to ability to reapply it very fast with thief and sandstorm from ele break bar will melt in few seconds. And if break bar will be so strong that 5 players need 1 minute to break it people will just ignore it. Pull in corner, drop wall of reflection and kill it the old way.

The breakbar is only on a limited amount of bosses. Looking at the Wyvern fight it depleted quickly anyways, without putting effort into it.

I like this as a gimmick, but nothing more. It is as difficult to go around as to put stand your ground on your bar (if you haven’t allready) as a guardian for the golem mark II. So minor tweaks to the skillbar might be needed (which can be done when getting ready for the fight, e.g. during the pre-event chain), but it won’t hurt the zerker meta at all.

mercury ranique.2170:

The breakbar is only on a limited amount of bosses. Looking at the Wyvern fight it depleted quickly anyways, without putting effort into it.

I like this as a gimmick, but nothing more. It is as difficult to go around as to put stand your ground on your bar (if you haven’t allready) as a guardian for the golem mark II. So minor tweaks to the skillbar might be needed (which can be done when getting ready for the fight, e.g. during the pre-event chain), but it won’t hurt the zerker meta at all.

They did say they were considering adding the break bar to all the old dungeon bosses (if not all champs in old content) but also added that the results of breaking the bar would probably be something simple. Possibly a short stun on the boss. They didn’t commit to anything of course.

It would be interesting what other mechanics are also attach to the break bar;

• Invulnerable
• Immune to physical dmg
• Immune to crits
• Immune to condition dmg
• Bar only effected by certain conditions or CCs but not all.
• Medium to large heal regen
• Contant condition application (poison, weakness, cripple, chill…)
• Contant damaging field (physical, condition…)
• Summoning waves of reinforcements
• Endurance draining field
• Unblockable attacks

The largest part about Zerker is the ability to survive through active defend. If encounters start to effect this minimum active defence other build option might open up.

It would also be interesting if some areas & encounters locked skills & weapons with only some area were you still could swap. This might mean you can’t optimise for individual encounters but need a kit or group composition which varies from standard zerker to complete the whole challenge.

Bezagron.7352:

It would be interesting what other mechanics are also attach to the break bar;

• Invulnerable
• Immune to physical dmg
• Immune to crits
• Immune to condition dmg
• Bar only effected by certain conditions or CCs but not all.
• Medium to large heal regen
• Contant condition application (poison, weakness, cripple, chill…)
• Contant damaging field (physical, condition…)
• Summoning waves of reinforcements
• Endurance draining field
• Unblockable attacks

The largest part about Zerker is the ability to survive through active defend. If encounters start to effect this minimum active defence other build option might open up.

It would also be interesting if some areas & encounters locked skills & weapons with only some area were you still could swap. This might mean you can’t optimise for individual encounters but need a kit or group composition which varies from standard zerker to complete the whole challenge.

I like that idea, the way the breakbar is currently in the beta, i do fear for the majority of the content it will be flat out ignored

Zerker has very little to do with it, it is merely the stats someone has on their gear. The choice of weapons and utility skills will be affected.

So a Warrior, f.e., might want to bring a mace or a hammer to a fight, or slot some utility skills for inflicting CC. He can still be full zerker, but weapons/utility skills might not feasibly be fully aimed at more pewpew.

I seem to distinctly remember that was the goal for GW2 when it originally came out. Players were to change their weapons and utility skills “on the fly” if the circumstances demanded it.
In practise we’ve only seen very little of this, but it seems anet is going down the route more firmly in HoT.

That is entirely against the core principles of GW2 which allows all builds to complete all content.

The “break bar” in old content will be generic. They have comfirmed this. As it works now you’ll just get a generic 5sec stun (basically the equivalent of a DF). Current meta has a lot of CC already. Warrior already uses mace, thief pistol, ele has several depending on the weapon used, guardian GS 5 or possibly hammer (not to mention bane signet) and then we haven’t talked about blinds yet.

Considering Anet wants a soft-trinity instead of “lf 1 CC” in the LFG, I sincerely doubt they will make it so hard to bring the bar down that we’ll need 1 completely CC based build and even if we do, there’s no reason said build won’t wear zerker.

meeflak.9714:

Take the kholer fight in AC for example. If the break bar is strong enough, trying to stack through kholer could turn into a pretty daunting task. Forcing the group to kite, actually dodge his grab, so on so forth. I just see a lot of potential here

Kohler dies in less than 10 seconds to a proper DPS group. Then again, proper DPS groups don’t stack against Kohler. Then again, I don’t see the fun in kiting like a decapitated chicken compared to using team synergies and play skill to defeat bosses.