Guild Wars 2

I keep seeing people talk about bunkers as though there is something wrong with a player being able to tank 2-3 people for significant amounts of time. I do think that the amount of time bunkers can currently last is excessive, but I don’t think that there is anything wrong with bunkers holding out for some amount.

This game has no real healers. (Healing geared ele’s can come close when they have all their cooldowns up, but once those run out no one is going to mistake them for a healer.)

That means that if everyone was in a dps build, fights would be over in a matter of seconds. There would be a huge random element to keeping points. Did you dodge their Thief’s backstab? Did you have your stun break up when that Guardian stunned you? Did their Mesmer have his Moa or Quickness up? Etc.

What bunkers do is give teams a safety valve. They let teams keep a point reliably against small and moderate sized groups. There is still a lot of random chaos involved in downing dps players, but at least keeping points is organized.

If this game doesn’t have bunkers, there is no way for a team to really have a consistent strategy. Dps vs. dps fights are too chaotic and unpredictable. The only way to play would be with a reactionary strategy. Bunkers give teams a way to play an interesting, organized meta game.

Maybe bunkers need to be toned down just a bit, but removing them would be a huge mistake.

Another thing point defenders add to a match is the necessity to be aware of who and where you’re fighting. I think the reason a lot of people hate bunkers so much is they keep on starting long, pointless duels with a bunker on a node the bunker’s team controls. Or, long, pointless 1v2, 2v2, 3v2, etc.

I think Anet will (and should) add a team deathmatch so that people can just run to the middle of the map and fight the other team. I don’t mean that to sound condescending—most people prefer deathmatch style, and it’s no less competitive than objective-based matches. However, some people (like myself) really enjoy that other element of having to constantly decide where to fight. Those decisions usually win or lose the game. On top of that, some people go bunker because they dislike fights that are over too fast.

Why call for the nerf bat when what people really want is to not have to worry about capping points?

fishes is to sea equals bunkers is to point cap game.

well you are assuming that ever player that isnt a bunker is pure glass cannon, and its not like that at all.

The main problems aren’t glass cannons or bunkers, it’s that the scoring system encourages both styles. In sPvP, glass thieves farm more glory… in tPvP, bunkers decide more matches.

Nobody builds balanced classes because they want to kill other players, and balanced builds don’t do that easily. Balanced builds support, CC, counter-cap, do all the important things in the game that a necessary for a premade team, but for pug play, there is very little incentive to run supportive builds or CC builds because your team usually doesn’t make good use of it.

As the meta develops, perhaps people will get used to this enough to know that the Engineer knocking people off the point and counter-capping is to be valued… or the necro boon-stripping the bunker for their team… but as it is, it’s all about killing, because you farm more personal glory that way, and win fewer matches by focusing on player-killing in tPvP, so it’s counter-productive on both counts.

I’m a firm believer that game balance is pretty good, but scoring balance is horrible. I wish I knew a formula to fix it, but aside from ditching hotjoin 8v8 to begin with I’m not sure I know hot to.

What’s wrong IMO, is the game is basically 1 extreme or the other.

Either you’re unkillable (or nearly) or you just die instantly to burst dmg.

Should tone both down and have it be a little more consistent, no one should be dying in 1-1.5 seconds no matter how glass they are unless theres 2 or more people bursting said person or something. And on the flip side, no one should be able to hold off 3 people for a long period of time unless it actually takes skill (or there is a difference in skill).

Allowing bunkers to be unkillable in 1v1 is just bad design and I hope it gets fixed. I wouldn’t have a problem with bunkers if they were tanks i.e. high toughness, low damage, low HEALING. The problem is that right now they have both high toughness and high HEALING.

Iam sure you all are only talking about Guardians or are you talking about other classes aswell ? I have different expiriences here with surviveability, some tanks can be downed quiete fast with high incomming dmg even wiht high toughness and armor ratings.

It is not my expirience that you are unkillable with with every tank/bunker build of the prvided classes. Thats a part of the balance problem.

Bunkers are fair game for “Conquest.”

The problem isn’t bunkers so much as there are almost no reliable ways to counter them.

If someone wants to spend all their points for a pure bunker build, there should be builds that completely counter them but are not great at other things.

Right now, the main counter are builds that can turn boons into conditions. The problem is that many bunkers have ways to drop all conditions on lower cooldowns then the abilitys to turn the boons. And the abilitys still bug out and do nothing what so ever when used.

Bunkers that erase conditions are weak to CC. Bunkers that are strong to CC are weak to condition damage.

FYI.