Guild Wars 2

MattyP.6954:

Wait, you are the elected representative of the Dungeon Community? That’s crazy… When was the election held?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Nomination-Best-of-2014-popularity-contest/first

Right around the start of the year. Thanks again to everyone who voted for me!

And yeah… people who play dungeons regularly are kind of in the “Dungeon Community”, unless you really are some sort of elected official who gets to determine membership in your club.

Nope. People in the community are in the community. Like I said, people who randomly follow the wvw zerg, don’t participate on TS and function as free kills to the opposing team aren’t really in the WvW community. People who do casual hot joins once a day aren’t in the sPvP community. There is a lot more to a community than doing some basic act. You can run as your primary exercise, but you aren’t in your local running community just because you do. Would you like more examples or are you getting it now?

(And yes, stacking benefits in providing instant contact to downed allies for res, sitting in combo fields without effort, and LOSing adds when they spawn, forcing them into melee range. If it wasn’t at all beneficial, people wouldn’t do it.)

Actually you can get all those benefits without corner stacking. Look at basically any of the current dungeon record runs. Heck, look at the VOD of my live stream sunday night. Out of a full night’s dungeon tour we stacked, like, maybe twice? None of the benefits you mentioned require stacking. In fact, the actual meta is encircling. When your team forms a 5 pointed star shape around a boss you get all the benefits of stacking with out the danger of the entire team eating a cleave attack and going down together.

And “people wouldnt do it if it didn’t do anything.” Actually they would. The reason bad pugs corner stack now is that they learned to do dungeons during the Fiery Greatsword Rush meta where corner stacking actually served a purpose. They have take the FGS away, but the pugs haven’t updated their tactics because… they are scrubs, not actually in the dungeon community and possess powerful group think. Sorry for giving a history lesson but your incorrect statement needed responding to.

Also, when 5 strangers randomly meet to run a dungeon, who gets to play dictator? Do we have to run an election?

If I list the LFG as “meta run zerker only” I am the boss and I will kick people who don’t comply. If someone else lists “anything goes no stacking no skipping” and I join, I expect to be kicked if I don’t comply. He who lists the LFG makes the rules, pretty logical.

DiogoSilva.7089:

That stacking is or is not the best strategy is not very relevant. The fact that it works – and by that, I mean the fact that you can very easily beat dungeon content while stacking, regardless if it’s the most effective strategy or not – is itself a problem.

5 Clerics Scepter Necros with no offhand can clear every dungeon content very easily too. It isn’t the most effective strategy but it works. I can’t tell what you’re arguing for actually? Do you want harder content? I do. You realize ofcourse, the harder the content the more exclusionary and strict the meta will be, right? Be careful what you wish for.

NikeEU.7690:

5 Clerics Scepter Necros with no offhand can clear every dungeon content very easily too. It isn’t the most effective strategy but it works. I can’t tell what you’re arguing for actually?

I’m sure there’s a difference in clear speed between a pug team that stacks and dps down a boss with zerker gear, and five cleric scepter necros with no off-hand doing it instead.

Pug stacking is relatively fast, easy to understand and it works well enough. If it fulfills all the needs for your average pugger, why should they bother for anything else? Keep in mind that I’m not defending their behaviour here, just illustrating what might be their line of thinking.

I understand that more challenging content might and probably will restrict the meta, but as long as that challenging content is designed around – and thus demanding of more stat diversity and skill diversity (more CC, more heal skills, condition damage), then the meta will only get more interesting.

Stat diversity won’t actually make anything more interesting. If all guardians are required to play Nomads in the new meta, why would that be more interesting than required to play Berserker? It wouldn’t be any different, there will be a single required gear set for acceptance. What you really want is a system where anything goes and all reasonable options are more or less equal.

Guess what: that’s the system we already have. You could play with 5 experienced players in Knights or Soldiers gear and your dungeon clear times would only be 10-15% slower than those same players in berserker gear, and the chance of wiping due to a mistake would be a lot lower.

NikeEU.7690:

Stat diversity won’t actually make anything more interesting. If all guardians are required to play Nomads in the new meta, why would that be more interesting than required to play Berserker? It wouldn’t be any different, there will be a single required gear set for acceptance. What you really want is a system where anything goes and all reasonable options are more or less equal.

Guess what: that’s the system we already have. You could play with 5 experienced players in Knights or Soldiers gear and your dungeon clear times would only be 10-15% slower than those same players in berserker gear, and the chance of wiping due to a mistake would be a lot lower.

I’m thinking more along the lines of scenarios that rely more on defense than offense to win or to clear a given objective, kind of like how bunkers work in pvp.

But what you stated about stat/ build diversity is more of a flaw with the way stats work in this game. There aren’t many active stats that can change your playstyle. Condition damage and healing power could, if they were more useful. Toughness and vitality, not.

NikeEU.7690:

Stat diversity won’t actually make anything more interesting. If all guardians are required to play Nomads in the new meta, why would that be more interesting than required to play Berserker? It wouldn’t be any different, there will be a single required gear set for acceptance. What you really want is a system where anything goes and all reasonable options are more or less equal.

Guess what: that’s the system we already have. You could play with 5 experienced players in Knights or Soldiers gear and your dungeon clear times would only be 10-15% slower than those same players in berserker gear, and the chance of wiping due to a mistake would be a lot lower.

My issue is with the Cult of Meta mentality, but I do find it interesting that your second sentence invalidates your first…

If all Guardians are required to play Nomad’s Stats, then there’s no diversity, is there? :-P

The issue with your defined “current state” is all of the rage you get for reducing their speed run by 10% by wearing Soldiers or Knights, even as they wipe from plentiful, plentiful gameplay mistakes.

MattyP.6954:

NikeEU.7690:

Stat diversity won’t actually make anything more interesting. If all guardians are required to play Nomads in the new meta, why would that be more interesting than required to play Berserker? It wouldn’t be any different, there will be a single required gear set for acceptance. What you really want is a system where anything goes and all reasonable options are more or less equal.

Guess what: that’s the system we already have. You could play with 5 experienced players in Knights or Soldiers gear and your dungeon clear times would only be 10-15% slower than those same players in berserker gear, and the chance of wiping due to a mistake would be a lot lower.

My issue is with the Cult of Meta mentality, but I do find it interesting that your second sentence invalidates your first…

If all Guardians are required to play Nomad’s Stats, then there’s no diversity, is there? :-P

the distinction being is I don’t care about gear diversity for the sake of diversity. I will play whatever is best regardless of the name of the prefix. I’m not hung up on fake diversity. The whole point, which you missed, is that the proposed solution to diversity was stupid and not only that, the goal of gear diversity in general is stupid.

The issue with your defined “current state” is all of the rage you get for reducing their speed run by 10% by wearing Soldiers or Knights, even as they wipe from plentiful, plentiful gameplay mistakes.

Form. your. own. groups. Stop joining berserkers only groups when you aren’t and you will avoid that rage.

BTW, so these bad berserkers are wiping all the time now? I thought they were EZ mode corner stacking spam skills to win? which is it? Or does the story change to suit your debate goal?

NikeEU.7690:

MattyP.6954:

NikeEU.7690:

Stat diversity won’t actually make anything more interesting. If all guardians are required to play Nomads in the new meta, why would that be more interesting than required to play Berserker? It wouldn’t be any different, there will be a single required gear set for acceptance. What you really want is a system where anything goes and all reasonable options are more or less equal.

Guess what: that’s the system we already have. You could play with 5 experienced players in Knights or Soldiers gear and your dungeon clear times would only be 10-15% slower than those same players in berserker gear, and the chance of wiping due to a mistake would be a lot lower.

My issue is with the Cult of Meta mentality, but I do find it interesting that your second sentence invalidates your first…

If all Guardians are required to play Nomad’s Stats, then there’s no diversity, is there? :-P

the distinction being is I don’t care about gear diversity for the sake of diversity. I will play whatever is best regardless of the name of the prefix. I’m not hung up on fake diversity. The whole point, which you missed, is that the proposed solution to diversity was stupid and not only that, the goal of gear diversity in general is stupid.

The issue with your defined “current state” is all of the rage you get for reducing their speed run by 10% by wearing Soldiers or Knights, even as they wipe from plentiful, plentiful gameplay mistakes.

Form. your. own. groups. Stop joining berserkers only groups when you aren’t and you will avoid that rage.

BTW, so these bad berserkers are wiping all the time now? I thought they were EZ mode corner stacking spam skills to win? which is it? Or does the story change to suit your debate goal?

If I didn’t know better, I would say that you were over-simplifying my words in order to mock them. Everyone makes mistakes, even meta cultists like yourself :-)

You’re also living in some sort of fantasy world were every pug group is formed using the LFG system (as opposed to, say, /say chat) and every group in the LFG system clearly states “stacking, zerker only, blah blah blah.” Cool story bro.

I can only speak from personal experience, where “AC exp all paths” really meaning “AC exp all paths and wear zerker and stack or we will rage at you” happens enough for me to avoid running without a guild group. It’s a broader community issue, as has been stated again and again.

Maybe, especially when you don’t specify stats in your LFG description or recruit in /map or /say chat, you shouldn’t rage at someone who wears a different gear set than you. For all of your sermonizing about the wonders of the True Dungeon Community™, you’ve spend an awful lot of time defending some of the more toxic aspects of the PuG Community and build elitism, sneering contemptuously at people who don’t conform to the current speed-running Meta.

That, my friend, is exactly the issue I was addressing.

I’m done with you though, so I bid you good day. Enjoy the last word.

DiogoSilva.7089:

I’m thinking more along the lines of scenarios that rely more on defense than offense to win or to clear a given objective, kind of like how bunkers work in pvp.

But what you stated about stat/ build diversity is more of a flaw with the way stats work in this game. There aren’t many active stats that can change your playstyle. Condition damage and healing power could, if they were more useful. Toughness and vitality, not.

I think that this is the core problem that restricts gear diversity. Offensive stats help everyone but defensive stats are selfish. Healing Power is the exception but it’s application is so niche as to be effectively redundant. There is just no way of gearing for anything other than pure damage while still making an effective contribution to your party.

Many people enjoy a playstyle that focuses primarily on support but the game mechanics just don’t allow it, at least at a comparable level of efficiency to a zerker DPS role. The fact that so many supportive skills (e.g. reflects, stealth, Might/Fury/Vuln stacking etc.) require no stat investment to be optimal exacerbates this. The linear scale of Offensive → Defensive gear options just reduces to an Efficient → Inefficient scale, and that’s what stifles gear diversity for players who want to be efficient.

Some people just whinge about not being able to put on Soldier’s gear and play as a tank, which I agree shows a lack of understanding regarding the combat system in GW2. However, tweaking the combat system such that there’s a roughly equal opportunity cost for a DPS role in zerker gear vs a support role in some kind of supporty gear could be achieved by increasing the scope of stats like Healing Power.

process execution.8014:

DiogoSilva.7089:

I’m thinking more along the lines of scenarios that rely more on defense than offense to win or to clear a given objective, kind of like how bunkers work in pvp.

But what you stated about stat/ build diversity is more of a flaw with the way stats work in this game. There aren’t many active stats that can change your playstyle. Condition damage and healing power could, if they were more useful. Toughness and vitality, not.

I think that this is the core problem that restricts gear diversity. Offensive stats help everyone but defensive stats are selfish. Healing Power is the exception but it’s application is so niche as to be effectively redundant. There is just no way of gearing for anything other than pure damage while still making an effective contribution to your party.

Many people enjoy a playstyle that focuses primarily on support but the game mechanics just don’t allow it, at least at a comparable level of efficiency to a zerker DPS role. The fact that so many supportive skills (e.g. reflects, stealth, Might/Fury/Vuln stacking etc.) require no stat investment to be optimal exacerbates this. The linear scale of Offensive -> Defensive gear options just reduces to an Efficient -> Inefficient scale, and that’s what stifles gear diversity for players who want to be efficient.

Some people just whine about not being able to put on Soldier’s gear and play as a tank, which I agree shows a lack of understanding regarding the combat system in GW2. However, tweaking the combat system such that there’s a roughly equal opportunity cost for a DPS role in zerker gear vs a support role in some kind of supporty gear could be achieved by increasing the scope of stats like Healing Power.

Really diversity is there, it will never be optimal in PvE though because there’s always fixed and expected things. Everything will always be scripted in some form, in some sequence, you’ll always know what the enemy is using. If you have the tools to deal with this the optimal thing is always going to be whatever does the most damage.

In WvW people use diverse gear all the time because mixing and matching is optimal for how their groups are made. There’s just too much aoe if you’re in the frontline, and guilds all like a certain toughness or vitality number and maybe add some healing power. Of course backline are generally all zerker, but that’s because they’re meant to be the main form of damage so.. Anyways generally you never know the size of the guilds/zergs you will be fighting and the fighting style they’ll use so you always have spare trinkets to change up accordingly.

People really just need to avoid zerker groups or make their own group. I know the dungeon guys get a bad rep but I don’t blame them for losing their minds repeating the same common sense day in and day out to people who think nerfing zerker will make the game better. No, it just means whatever will do the most damage next is the next armor.

A lot of the diversity pleas come from people experienced with the trinity, and seemingly have a hard time grasping what active defense means. The trinity is here in it’s unique form, it just doesn’t operate the same as they’re used to seeing. It doesn’t make the game bad, ‘harder’ content doesn’t mean zerker gear, or the next form of it wouldn’t exist, these people are literally trying to change how the game was made and is played for no reason but to see a certain role they want brought from another game or so they don’t feel pressured to run glassy.

GW1 did it best with stat diversity. All attributes in that game improved the effectiveness of your skills, including active defenses. Meanwhile, GW2 uses a holy trinity stat system in a non-trinity combat system. Because there are no tanks and dedicated healers, like in traditional MMOs, and because there are no stats that affect most of the active defenses, like in GW1, the best gear is whichever the one that most increases your DPS.

If challenging content was designed with several scenarios where a few tanky players were a necessity, where enemies would be completely deadly or durable without CC, where the AI would be able to kite and, thus, also contribute positively to the usefulness of CC and condition damage, while delivering as many short bursts of damage as long activation time attacks, in order to make healing and sustain more precious, then, suddenly, GW2’s meta would be a lot more interesting, even if at the cost of the “play how you want” philosophy.

GW1 wasnt really focused on active defence. It was completely different and much closer to a classic trinity game.

Many people will agree with you that the stat system in GW2 doesnt really match the combat system. We should have gotten statless gear. And just had traits, runes and sigils to customize. But its too late now.

The thing with active combat games which use active defence is that everyone deals damage no matter what other role they are doing. Which means the optimal is to always maximise as much damage as possible. But this idea of maximising group damage is the same in trinity games. The only difference is that dedicated healers and tanks dont have the luxury to contribute to damage as much as other roles.

You wont “fix” the meta no matter what you do. The only way to stop people trying to maximising damage is by creating encounters where you heal mobs to death or you remove active defence and go back to a classic trinity. Both of those solutions are rather absurd.

spoj.9672:

You wont “fix” the meta no matter what you do. The only way to stop people trying to maximising damage is by creating encounters where you heal mobs to death or you remove active defence and go back to a classic trinity. Both of those solutions are rather absurd.

What if active defenses relied more on stats? Have condition and boon duration more prevalent in gear stats, and buff them alongside healing power. Have some active defenses, like reflect, rely on support stats as well.

I know the stat system in GW2 is extremely restricting to do much more than that, thus why I suggested that hard content should have scenarios that demand more defensive plays from some players of the party. “Survive in 3 minutes”, “run from enemies”, “walk through a zone without killing anything”, etc. I believe some creativity in GW2’s content design can still save its stat system.

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1021848/Building-a-Better-Centaur-AI

I guess no revenant info btw based on the title.. Hopefully im wrong.

Having active defenses rely on stats creates the problem that you are already rewarded for running tanky builds with god-mode survivability. Why anyone would need “better dodging” from a gear set that has stats that allow you to never dodge is a weird thought. Again, the ideal place to buff active defense is in traits, runes and sigils. Which is where those buffs currently are already.

The real key is to design boss fights where you need to use your full took kit of active defenses too survive. Instead of a boss whose attacks are projectiles and can be trivialized with Wall of Reflect, the boss should have projectiles, dots, PBAOE attacks and melee attacks. That way one utility skill can’t turn the fight into EZ mode.

DiogoSilva.7089:

spoj.9672:

You wont “fix” the meta no matter what you do. The only way to stop people trying to maximising damage is by creating encounters where you heal mobs to death or you remove active defence and go back to a classic trinity. Both of those solutions are rather absurd.

What if active defenses relied more on stats? Have condition and boon duration more prevalent in gear stats, and buff them alongside healing power. Have some active defenses, like reflect, rely on support stats as well.

I know the stat system in GW2 is extremely restricting to do much more than that, thus why I suggested that hard content should have scenarios that demand more defensive plays from some players of the party. “Survive in 3 minutes”, “run from enemies”, “walk through a zone without killing anything”, etc. I believe some creativity in GW2’s content design can still save its stat system.

Thats forced diversity and leads into the problem of certain gear and builds being required to complete difficult content.

You can look at it from two angles. Defensive gear boosts active defence. This means defensive gear is even more overpowered and doesnt make sense (why would you need to dodge more in nomads?). Or offensive gear boosts active defence and the meta doesnt change. However if you go by the first option then you either have to nerf base active defence and force them to build defensive on more difficult stuff (bad idea because it goes against their play how you want and everything is viable philosophy). Or you keep base active defence the same as it is and nothing changes.

So you see. You cant really fix it.

You just need to accept there is always one single optimal way. And in an active defence based combat system its always going to be mostly offensive statwise and defensive utility/traitwise (when needed). Which is pretty good design because it allows everything to work but requires higher skill/knowledge to achieve the best results. We just need better encounters to emphasize that.

skowcia.8257:

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1021848/Building-a-Better-Centaur-AI

I guess no revenant info btw based on the title.. Hopefully im wrong.

You do know that talk was 3 months ago right?

What I meant is to have stats specialized on active defenses only. I’m not talking about vitality and toughness here, which already reward you with passive defense, but about buffs to healing power, condi/ boon duration, and perhaps even make those stats broader. For example, transforming healing power into a broader “support power” that affects the damage of reflects and retaliation, as well as the effectiveness of boons effect-wise (beyond regeneration). And then create an entirely new stat to improve non-damaging conditions and CC effects as well.

This would mean that while some players would specialize on full-damage zerker gear and, perhaps, condition damage, too, if it ever gets to be useful; other players would specialize on, say, support power and boon duration, and others on condition duration and control power. And Anet could simply design encounters to make sure that all three roles are important.

This is not the holy trinity, because there would be no tanking involved, and healing wouldn’t be the only means to support. Instead, it would be quite close to Anet’s own trinity, damage/ support/ control. It would also preserve the active nature of GW2’s combat.

@Spoj,

Thats forced diversity and leads into the problem of certain gear and builds being required to complete difficult content.

You just need to accept there is always one single optimal way.

I’d rather have dev-enforced diversity that is specifically designed for very distinct playstyles to be optimal, than player-enforced diversity where entire existing mechanics are negleted. In the end, the “enforcement” is there, one way or another.

What’s the alternative solution? Simply remove stats from this game? It would have been quite an elegant idea, if GW2 hadn’t launched yet. But as you have said, it is too late for that now, and Anet will have to do something about its stat system, or else it will always be highly misguiding and give the game a bad image to most of its community.

Forced diversity breaks the “play how you want” and “everything is viable” philosophy. You are asking for a really controversial thing by asking for forced diversity.

Existing mechanics are neglected currently because encounters are lacking. You dont need to nerf or buff any build related stuff to fix that. The meta can still be fully offensive but require the use of a wider range of mechanics to succeed.

And for new stats that effect active defence. I suppose you could do that. But thats just increasing the number of stat combos for no real benefit. It also over complicates things including balance. I also struggle to see how you would do that with a stat. Active defence isnt limited to something as simple as endurance regen. There are many different types.

spoj.9672:

But thats just increasing the number of stat combos for no real benefit. It also over complicates things including balance. I also struggle to see how you would do that with a stat. Active defence isnt limited to something as simple as endurance regen. There are many different types.

I can understand that, but then, what should Anet do to fix the stat system? Or should they just neglect it and leave it as it is?

Because that system is currently misguiding the majority of players and giving a bad vibe to the game. Even if encounters get fixed and this game becomes increasingly more interesting, if zerker gear continues to dominate, the community will continue to complain. And the only thing to blame for that, is GW2 itself, due to the way it promotes stat diversity. Stats are one of the most visible and simpler-to-understand components, and they’re everywhere in this game: in runes, in gear, in food, in crafting, etc. They’re highly self-promoting. The basic idea that any player that plays GW2 will get, is that stat diversity is meant to be important.

How can you convince the GW2’s community that the game is better off with zerker-gear, that real diversity lies somewhere else but not in stat building, and that the massive attention that the game itself gives to stats is nothing but an illusion?

My point is, if the stat system isn’t improved in some way by anet, it will continue to build a negative impression of GW2’s meta to its players, because the way the game presents it creates fake expectations of what diversity is or isn’t in this game.

They should leave it. With more interesting encounters there will be less emphasis on gear requirements. Because the success rate of pugs will probably drop if they continue to use gear they cant survive with. Its a people problem anyway. You wont ever solve that no matter what you do.

Its better to have it as it is now than to change it so people are kicking because of success or failure due to not having the right gear. Currently people only kick for trivial reasons like speed and percieved efficiency/usefulness. Thats a pretty lenient system. But as you can see even with those trivial reasons there is still rampant exclusion and encouragement to gravitate towards the optimum. But thats what people do. They dont need good reasons to make harsh requirements. Its their choice who they play with and how they play.

DiogoSilva.7089:

But as you have said, it is too late for that now, and Anet will have to do something about its stat system, or else it will always be highly misguiding and give the game a bad image to most of its community.

Anet doesn’t have to do anything. Where do you get the “most” statistic from? "Most of the community, as far as I know, isn’t hung up on a desire for gear diversity for the sake of gear diversity. “Most of the community” doesn’t have some bizarre mentality where every gear type has to be equally viable in PvE for the sake of… someone who screwed up and bought the wrong gear because he didn’t know any better? “Most of the community” says “berserker is optimal for pve, cool I’ll run berserker gear then” and thats the end of it.

If gear is meant to be nothing more than training wheels for players who aren’t still very good, then Anet should embrace that idea and present it as such.

DiogoSilva.7089:

If gear is meant to be nothing more than training wheels for players who aren’t still very good, then Anet should embrace that idea and present it as such.

That would be a very controversial move because not everyone considers gear as such. Some people choose certain gear for roleplay reasons. Or because they value their own personal enjoyment over the rest of their group. Some bad builds are fun (lifesteal necro and water staff healing ele for example).

spoj.9672:

DiogoSilva.7089:

If gear is meant to be nothing more than training wheels for players who aren’t still very good, then Anet should embrace that idea and present it as such.

That would be a very controversial move because not everyone considers gear as such. Some people choose certain gear for roleplay reasons. Or because they really enjoy those unusual playstyles that are considered useless.

But would that be more controversial than the current situation, where players are misguided into thinking that stat diversity is meant to exist in the pve meta, when it does not? There would be no need to remove other stat sets, just present them as weaker for practical pve purposes instead of giving them the illusion that they’re meant to be equally good. I’m sure that roleplayers or anti-meta folk would still pick alternative stats and play with them. It’s just that, for the remaining of the community, expectations would be in check if anet presented stats differently in their game.

It’s all about giving a clear idea of how their game works to their community.

The zerker meta could be killed instantly if they just implemented an automatic grouping function, which teleports people inside, just like every other MMO does it.

A penalty timer would be incurred for people who leave, thus making them stay in the group instead of bailing. There wouldn’t be much kicking either, because the chance of getting a non-zerker player would still be high, and in that case, they are just better off forming their own group.

An automatic dungeon tool would do wonders for new players and casual players. Believe it or not, people get intimidated when they see “80s only, zerker only, pros only”. It gives the impression that dungeons should be played a certain way, and that there’s no room for learning, especially 3 years into the game.

Seeing how anet is giving crit chances to many class (Chrono with slow, Guardian with Burning/OHSword, Reaper with Vuln, Revenant with +30% on Fury) and the condition revamp, the next meta will probably remove quite a bit of precision for condition damages or Toughness/Vitality (I’m not even sure Power/Ferocity/Condi exists…..).

spoj.9672:

water staff healing ele for example

/cough
Stop making me feel guilty.

DiogoSilva.7089:

NikeEU.7690:

Ofcourse they have. The stats on your gear either help you sustain or they help you do damage. Besides boon duration, which can be offensive or defensive, they are all one or the other. What else is there? Offense or defense. A simpleton could see that the only role for gear is offense or defense. You want there to be more, fine, but your wants are not the current reality.

Healing Power is support. Boon and condition duration are support, as well, although they come mostly from traits/ food and not gear. Toughness is meant to sustain against direct damage, vitality against sudden bursts and condition damage. All of those effects can be build-defining in a pvp environment.

It is true that current PvE’s reality is a failure in that regard, but Anet is still focusing on making different stats more meaningful. The changes to condition damage, new foes with tougher armor, new traits that give a massive amount of precision, boon duration on gear (although that one is currently useless) or the more varied foe attacks are all attempts to tone down the “zerker” gear meta.

process execution.8014 is absolutely right. “Offensive stats help everyone but defensive stats are selfish.”

Where’s the skill surviving an encounter just because you had sufficient: a) Vitality, b) Toughness?

Where is the dodge button and blocks and evades and reflects in all of this? Where do we draw the line that passive defense stats like Vitality and Toughness bring nothing to the table other than allowing more unskilled players to withstand harder encounters?

Why should active defense be rewarded less/the same as a player who doesn’t care about that and uses passive defenses?

I say that is dumbing the game down and that is why I disagree.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

DiogoSilva.7089:

NikeEU.7690:

Ofcourse they have. The stats on your gear either help you sustain or they help you do damage. Besides boon duration, which can be offensive or defensive, they are all one or the other. What else is there? Offense or defense. A simpleton could see that the only role for gear is offense or defense. You want there to be more, fine, but your wants are not the current reality.

Healing Power is support. Boon and condition duration are support, as well, although they come mostly from traits/ food and not gear. Toughness is meant to sustain against direct damage, vitality against sudden bursts and condition damage. All of those effects can be build-defining in a pvp environment.

It is true that current PvE’s reality is a failure in that regard, but Anet is still focusing on making different stats more meaningful. The changes to condition damage, new foes with tougher armor, new traits that give a massive amount of precision, boon duration on gear (although that one is currently useless) or the more varied foe attacks are all attempts to tone down the “zerker” gear meta.

Where’s the skill surviving an encounter just because you had sufficient: a) Vitality, b) Toughness?

Where is the dodge button and blocks and evades and reflects in all of this? Where do we draw the line that passive defense stats like Vitality and Toughness bring nothing to the table other than allowing more unskilled players to withstand harder encounters?

Why should active defense be rewarded less/the same as a player who doesn’t care about that and uses passive defenses?

I say that is dumbing the game down and that is why I disagree.

Think of it this way: Zerker stats increase the reward by making dungeon running more efficient. The way to create incentive to run other sets is to increase the risk (in making running that set require a higher skill cap) as the reward increases.

spoj.9672:

For PvE Berserker is a safe bet. .

Yup. That’s why I have a zerker set waiting and currently building a celestial set… read: sober set and drunk set respectively.

MattyP.6954:

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

DiogoSilva.7089:

NikeEU.7690:

Ofcourse they have. The stats on your gear either help you sustain or they help you do damage. Besides boon duration, which can be offensive or defensive, they are all one or the other. What else is there? Offense or defense. A simpleton could see that the only role for gear is offense or defense. You want there to be more, fine, but your wants are not the current reality.

Healing Power is support. Boon and condition duration are support, as well, although they come mostly from traits/ food and not gear. Toughness is meant to sustain against direct damage, vitality against sudden bursts and condition damage. All of those effects can be build-defining in a pvp environment.

It is true that current PvE’s reality is a failure in that regard, but Anet is still focusing on making different stats more meaningful. The changes to condition damage, new foes with tougher armor, new traits that give a massive amount of precision, boon duration on gear (although that one is currently useless) or the more varied foe attacks are all attempts to tone down the “zerker” gear meta.

Where’s the skill surviving an encounter just because you had sufficient: a) Vitality, b) Toughness?

Where is the dodge button and blocks and evades and reflects in all of this? Where do we draw the line that passive defense stats like Vitality and Toughness bring nothing to the table other than allowing more unskilled players to withstand harder encounters?

Why should active defense be rewarded less/the same as a player who doesn’t care about that and uses passive defenses?

I say that is dumbing the game down and that is why I disagree.

Think of it this way: Zerker stats increase the reward by making dungeon running more efficient. The way to create incentive to run other sets is to increase the risk (in making running that set require a higher skill cap) as the reward increases.

But Zerker does have higher risk than the other sets. Don’t believe me?

The reward of using zerker isn’t even that big as you make it be. Now take a step back and acknowledge that the real faceroll specs are full spec’d Tanks and full spec’d Healers.

I will say this again, Vitality and Toughness is, in a no-Trinity game, a selfish stat. In PVE it’s there as trainning wheels while you learn your class and the game.

They should never be on par with a full glass cannon spec.

What we can all agree is that the game needs to get harder.

Also, spoj said everything : “gear in this game should have been statless, just like GW1”

This ridiculous amount of gear “stat combination” and LvL 80 is a compromise that Anet made trying to make the game more available to the typical MMO. Some people only joined in because of that compromise, but then make demands to see such compromise developed into the game core mechanics, when it was never about that. It was simply a fishnet, and it caught a bunch of you in the ocean.

DiogoSilva.7089:

It’s all about giving a clear idea of how their game works to their community.

First of all, transparency is a problem caused by O’Brien’s company policy

Secondly, that would mean that they understand how their game works in the first place. It hardly seems the case, judging how a Dev showcased Thaumanova Fractal. He was using a P/P thief with PVT gear and Scorpion Wire, who proceeded to die at the first mob group that aggrod. If not for the gear/weapon/utility skills used alone, all of them together make even less sense at all and I’m not even going to try to point the obvious flaws in them. It really doesn’t feel like they play their own game enough, making them lose touch with key points.

Anet desesperately needs to recruit or trade feedback with one member of the dungeon community. That is, of course, if they were to spent any development effort in that area at all, which doesn’t seem likely. In that case, following current strategy, ignoring is the best option for them.

thread should have ended when someone asked if Nike was the president of the dungeon community