Guild Wars 2

Hi ArenaNet, Hi Community,

Because I think there are some problems in PVE, I would like to start a discussion about it. I think the main problem is that damage is everything that counts. And because conditions have a cap berserker gear is the best way to go. There a some reasons for this:

1. Bossmechanic:
   Nearly every Boss is designed, that players are able to dodge every attack he does. Nearly every Damage you get one or two hits you. It doesn’t matter how much health or defense a character has. If you don’t go on full damage you make your fight harder, because it takes even longer. All defensive attributes are useless. A dodge-roll every few seconds and even a heal isn’t really needed.
   To fix this issue, bosses need more small attacks and not only do a 1-hit every few seconds. Alternative some DoTs to get some continuous damage.
2. Condition damage and condition stacks:
   If you have more than 2 Condition-builds or even normal players get together, they reach the Condition cap with ease. In a Group of 5 Player there is nearly no place for one condition-build, because everyone spams conditions, because many classes have traits that give chances to apply conditions, skills that apply conditions, …
   This can be solved if every player gets a cap on conditions he can apply. That means they can deal their damage at every time, it doesn’t matter how many player are together. Every condition-build can deal his full damage like every other build too. With this cap per player skill like epidemic won’t be too strong, because it only fills the condition stacks of the player that casts the skill. It is not possible to stack conditions infinite. The impact on PvP/WvW needs to be checked, maybe here the old system is needed. But it shouldn’t be such a huge problem because the damage stays the same its only over time. Condition removes have to remove all sacks of one condition and not only from one player for instance.
3. remove berserker gear or give us an equivalent condition set:
   Right now berserker gear gives most damage and because all three stats buff each other. To increase build variety we are missing a condition equivalent. I know conditions need time to stack and you need some more defense to survive longer. But there is no combination that influences condition damage like berserker increase direct damage. Something like condition damage (main), precision and condition duration would do the job if 2 would be implemented as well. Otherwise the stacks only fill faster. Yes we have rampager equipment but power does only increase our base damage but there is no synergy between the conditions.
   In my opinion conditions have to do more damage than direct damage because they can be avoided the same way as direct damage (you don’t see it, because there is a delay, but it works) plus conditions removes. In addition the damage has to be build up until you get the maximum damage output. Yes you can reduce direct damage with toughness and that does not affect condition damage, but I that is a balance thing.
4. Downscaling:
   Player that are downscaled do way to much damage, because their armor has three stats instead of only one below level 20 or two below 60. So to close this gap ignore some of these stats in certain levels. Until level 20 only the main attribute later two and with level 60 all stats.
   Why do I think the current Systems is broken? because some of the lowlevel World bosses get killed within seconds, they are nothing special nor a challenge.

So what do you think about it, am I so wrong? Anything you’d like to add?

I forgot something.

5. Apply damage-multipliers to condition damage as well:
Have you ever considered that traits like http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Close_to_Death, http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Target_the_Weak_ or http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Berserker%27s_Power , … and consumables (potion of … slaying) could effect conditions as well? an other good example is the boss of the dredge fractal that only gets damage with the debuff. Killing him with 130 damage per bleed and <10k attacks takes a lot of time and doesn’t help the group at all.

everything you point out sounds logical. Buildvariaty and PvE dont fit at the moment.

1. Actually, you can feel the difference in zerker geared players and not-zerker ones. I understand what you’re trying to say, but it’s not exactly as you think.
   But I sure would like to see an increase in defensive stat value. Only one of my 8 characters is zerker.
2. That has been suggested hundreds of times. Condition is not capped to be “balanced”, but has tachnical reasons. Your suggestion doesn’t help here.
3. You can’t compare zerker gear to condition gear. For condition damage you only need malice and conduration. And since conduration is no common on prefixes, you can basically focus on malice, while zerker have to use 3 stats. With malice as major stat, you still have two prefixes available, zerkers only have one.
   Conditions need a small buff in PvE. This could be done to make a slightly higher impact from malice, but nothing else.
4. They already balanced it. I see no problem with the current system.
5. No.

@Nretep:
1. yes you feel the difference in dealing more or less damage, but one dodge-roll is more effective than every defensive attribute you have.
3. Mallice is the power of the conditionbuilds. You still need precision to increase your stacks (on hit effects). Now the zerker has crit-dmg which boosts the two other offensive stats. The more crit-chance you have the more impact crit-dmg has and the more power you have the more impact crit-dmg has. Condition-duration would have the same effect to conditions. Yes as zerker you sacrifice defense but its effective to do so in pve. Why are condition builds not allowed to do so?
4. is 1-hitting enemies balanced? The level 1-25 mobs are not designed to face players with more than 1 stat per armorpiece. At low level you can either go on power or pecision or anything else, but not get both stats. You still have the benefit of Exotic armor, which should be enough to feel stronger. Downscaling is described to be still chalanging for high-lvl players and this is not true.

The PvE is grossly imbalanced because of it’s design.

Ideally you want 3 routes for character progression in a game that has dps/support/control as it’s design core.
Balanced Route.
Min/max support route.
Min/max control route.
Min/max dps route.
And to be balanced, the more one min/maxs down a particular route, the more that player should face situations where different combinations of group synergy are required.

However, right now one can min/max down the dps route, and handle 99% of the pve content on their own because of how the PvE is being designed. Almost everyone is a lone-wolf as a result. The game isn’t challenging them to be anything more than that.

Oh, I don’t have to talk to myself anymore

@Nretep:
1. Yes there is a difference, but it is too small, that you can ignore it. Because that bit of more survivability you get isn’t enough to benefit in the much longer fights. Especially in boss fights, where you have to deal with this huge burst damage.
2. What are the other solutions? GW2 is released 11 month ago and they don’t have any idea how to balance this? That is ridiculous. If they can’t fix it then only one char has to be allowed to hit an enemy per second. Or remove condition damage completely, … please don’t.
3. No, a lot of the conditions are applied by critical hit, so you need precision as well. because of the lack of damage and the fact that stack have to build up, the fights are longer, so versus trash mobs you need some kind of survivability (toughness/vita) and therefore lose some damage. And as whyme said, to benefit most out of precision some power wouldn’t be that bad
4. What was balanced here? The bosses get more health and are now invulnerable for the first few seconds so everyone has a chance to see them with full health. But what happens on new servers, when there are no lvl 80s? I don’t think a couple of lvl <30 player will have fun with those redesigned bosses.
5. Best argument ever
I say YES. Why should a group of Conditions players be not able to kill a boss. If they even get that far because of §2 .
Why are traits that definitely are designed to increase the damage output of condition builds not affecting their main damage source (speaking of “Target the weak”)? who needs <10% more damage on normal attacks if you don’t have any power?

@whyme:
Exactly.

@Redfeather:
I have to agree, who needs anything else than pure damage?
control:
What benefits do i have here, when i can also slay lupicus within 17 seconds (extreme example). So he doesn’t need to be controlled in any way, because he can’t finish one attack (ok, he hits one time, but in his own face)

support:
Who need support, when the damage dealer doesn’t get any damage and (the group) can stack might etc. to 25 by his own?

Or the biggest problem right now, who needs anything else than direct damage when everything else will slow you down in the dungeon. (I don’t think so, but a lot of people do).

Oh and good loot is another thing you can forget as support/control, because a) you need to deal a min. amount of damage or b) you are so slow and inefficient.