Guild Wars 2

I am sorry, after a long break and coming back to see the state of the game, im appalled actually. all you see is zerk zerk zerk. why? because the power creep has allowed for a MASSIVE amount of damage increase, with very little to compensate. So what you get is zerk wvw and who can do the most damage as fast as possible, versus skilled play. why skilled play? Because all you have to do spam damage as fast as possible and hope you outdamage your enemy as fast as possible. one stun, and its done, despite trying to load up on defense. Anet you have made armor/defense moot. I am sure I will be spammed and laughed at, but its ridiculous.

So DPS spike classes (thief, mesmer, warrior, and some eles) prosper why classes that can’t do the massive spike as efficiently suffer.

So terrible imo.

how long did you try wvw after coming back before you decided to rant on here, did you try to adapt? did you look at the new builds and setups to see what people are using? Or did you just go in with the same ptv gear you had in the past and go wtf just happened instead of trying to adapt. Things change, skills, traits, etc change over time with balance updates therefore what is considered meta one day, in a few months will be outdated. Learn to adapt its an mmo that means people are always changing.

Well damage in GW2 was always king. There have been changes to crit damage and more recently, might for example. So yes you might notice players running a bit glassier in order to burst down the increasingly common(IMO) condi bunker builds.

Btw every class can burst.

please, give us some context:

are we talking roaming? in that case condition builds are extremely strong in that scenario.

are we talking zerg fights? the only ones to run full zerk in those are necros and some snipers. those fights are also very different from what you think they look like.

are we talking… unorganised pug zerg fights? those are just a massive clusterkitten anyway and can be easily farmed by an organised group 4 times smaller.

explain in which scenario you seem to encounter only zerkers and i’m sure you’ll receive more accurate informations about the current state of the game in that situation.

You are right Gryph.

Power Creep- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxszx60ZwGw

Spectacle Creep- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKzJWoZWMOI

“Do MMORPG’s Need Power Creep/Gear Treadmills?”

http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Meleagar/122012/24287_Do-MMORPGs-Need-Power-CreepGear-Treadmills

“Most games that have ever existed were designed around a fundamental concept: a fair competition on a level playing field. They existed almost universally for thousands of years as an entertaining, fun, competitive activity. There was nothing equitable to a “gear treadmill” or “power creep”. In fact, the idea that someone in the game would have a significant artificial advantage over other players, or over the materials that served as the playing field, would be contradictory to the fundamental concept of a “game”. Even most video games do not employ power creep or vertical progression.

Yet, the MMORPG genre is comprised almost exclusively of games that employ ongoing power creep and gear treadmills, even though there is nothing inherent in the concept (or even the name) of the genre that implicitly or explicitly refers to vertical power progression. I will agree that the roots of the genre – fantasy role-playing – did employ some limited power progression, but that progression was hardly the defining characteristic of the genre.

The changing, fluid interaction of game-master created environment, including clues, puzzles, and conflict, vs the intelligence, wits, and luck of the adventurers in meeting interesting and challenging environmental goals and problems more defined the Dungeons and Dragons concept than what is now simply a gear-grind for it’s own sake.

For whatever set of reasons, the concept of a gear-grind power creep took hold in the MMORPG genre and essentially took it over, to the point that those who play, and those who develop games for the genre, apparently cannot even imagine an MMORPG being successful without it.

We’re all familiar with the term “content locusts” – players that consume vertical progression in a game and then either complain that there is “nothing to do” or move on to other games. Developers often attempt to keep up with vertical progression content locusts by churning out more vertical progression every few months.

Obviously, thousands of games have been successful without power creep or gear treadmills. People pour millions of hours and billions of dollars into games that have no power creep gear treadmills. So why the myopic and obsessive focus on that particular mechanic in MMORPGs? It’s obviously not necessary for a game to be successful, and you can make a pretty good case that it drives a lot of potential customers away for many reasons:

1. It destroys any sense of “fair competition” between players.

2. It “forces” players to do things in the game they do not want to do (hence the term “grinding”) in order to stay competitive.

3. It forces players to play the game as if it were their primary job in order to stay competitive.

4. It funnels game structure and design concepts down a very narrow path, basically making the game all about the grind, regardless of what else is offered in the game, which is psychologically off-putting for players that don’t want to grind to stay competitive.

5. It biases development time towards trying to keep content locust type players satisfied, which is off-putting for those who are not interested in grinding.

6. It ruins many other potentially profitable and fun systems thout could be in such a game, like WvW or PvP that is competitive from a player skill point of view.

I’m not saying that developing a game that serves the content-locust mentality is a bad thing, nor am I arguing that being a “content locust” is in itself a bad thing. All I’m asking here is: Why is the MMORPG genre so obsessed, from a producer/developer standpoint, with a game mechanic that is a very marginal concept when it comes to the gaming industry as a whole, when there is absolutely no such limitation/focus inherent in the concept of an MMORPG?

It’s like the genre has put itself in a power creep/gear treadmill straightjacket for no good reason and cannot conceive of anyone that wants to play an MMORPG without the strraightjacket on."

it doesn’t really apply to gw2 however, all the power creep we had was the introduction of ascended gear which is by no means mandatory (the stat increase is not that much) and doesn’t even affect spvp.

getting exotic (the baseline for good gear) in gw2 is LAUGHABLY easier than any other mmo out there and i would argue much easier than getting your runepages and runes up in LOL, a game which your video presents as a good example of healthy game design.

if anything we have seen plenty of nerfs.

the only “power creep” in gw2 was on an economic level, with the introduction of money from champion bags and dungeons that ramped up inflation a few orders of magnitude faster than it was before. i’m hard pressed to find it an actual issue however.

power creep? no. what you’re talking about is the increase in average skill level of the player base which is hitting you harder because you just came off a long break. you’re out of practice and the players who have become extremely proficient at playing power builds are not. both crit damage and might have been nerfed too. not sure what this “power creep” you speak of is.

However i need to agree to the fact that some classes deal alot more damage then other classes (ele+necro superior damage), this doesn’t mean that these “powercreeps” are neccesary OP. you can counter these aoe powercreeps by cc’s and retaliation. Infact wvw in gw2 is about the balance between the meleetrain and the casterbackline, (not taking ganksquad into account just to simplify it). The casterbackline deals the most damage, however they’re depending on the meleetrain for defence and buffing up. without either the casterbackline or the meleetrain a zerg cannot survive in combat. i know it can be frustrating to wipe in less then a second by a necrobomb, but this is just how wvw works nowadays, it’s a brutal unforgiving game, but yet because of that reason very excited. <3

^ What they said.

This game has surprisingly little Power Creep. Obviously we have Ascendended gear, and with the Rune / Sigil changes we got there was an otherall power increase, but other than that it’s really not that different to how it was originally.

It’s actually quite normal in games for people to move towards higher risk higher reward strategies as they get better at the game, which means as a game gets older and the average skill of the community increases more people adopt these strategies. In GW2 this plays out as more Zerker or other DPS focused builds. This is not a GW2 thing or even a MMO thing. In RTS games you see new / low level players tend to prefer booming tactics where they play defensively and build up slowly till they achieve their lategame techs, whereas more experienced players tend to go for early rush tactics which offer quicker and easier wins in executed well, but are harder to pull off.

All normal parts of a game and it’s community’s evolution.

@DarkSyze.8627: Nice article, though GW2 is probably the MMO least affected by this.

Yes, GW2 is probably the least powercreep’y MMO game I’ve seen so far. They announcement that there will never be any higher level gear, never higher levels etc, certainly reinforces that. And people still win fights in full Exotics in WvW, over people with ascended and legendaries. So no problem.

Considering that they have to balance the classes over 3 different game types, I think their are pretty "fairly" balanced.

Gryph.8237:

I am sorry, after a long break and coming back to see the state of the game, im appalled actually. all you see is zerk zerk zerk. why? because the power creep has allowed for a MASSIVE amount of damage increase, with very little to compensate. So what you get is zerk wvw and who can do the most damage as fast as possible, versus skilled play. why skilled play? Because all you have to do spam damage as fast as possible and hope you outdamage your enemy as fast as possible. one stun, and its done, despite trying to load up on defense. Anet you have made armor/defense moot. I am sure I will be spammed and laughed at, but its ridiculous.

So DPS spike classes (thief, mesmer, warrior, and some eles) prosper why classes that can’t do the massive spike as efficiently suffer.

So terrible imo.

I tried to kill my enemy with healing power, but for some reason it didn’t work

In the end I had to swap back to power

I just came back 2 months ago and already have 2 fully geared 80’s (1 in exotics and the other in full celestial) and working on a third and I am not all that hardcore though I do take my gaming serious. If your looking for easier than this good luck. If you hate dying fast research bunker builds here>http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki
There are some builds that are seriously hard to kill.

Gryph.8237:

So what you get is zerk wvw and who can do the most damage as fast as possible, versus skilled play.

Ahem … you’re so wrong with this …

(a) When you talk about roaming condition builds are (except for a few classes) MUCH better than zerker builds – especially when you expect to not only encounter NPCs (camp flipping, dolly killing, etc.) but a few 1 vs x encounters with players.

(b) In a Zerg fight NOONE but SOME backliners run berseker if you want to win and not get your Zerg wiped. And as for lack of skill … commander has to have the right classes with him in the frontline, has to do some nice movement to get to the backline and the whole Zerg must be on target with stuns and other cc, null fields + damage followed by regroup and heal via water fields. If executed in a decent manner you can easily defeat a Zerg twice your size if that Zerg is uncoordinated and you could possibly wipe a Zerg three times your size if they were all using berserker gear.

Zerg battles in WvW do require skill – don’t take EoTM Zerg fights as a reference – the bigger blob will always win there because you have 3 un-coordinated Zergs fighting each other with tons of upleveled people, non-complementing builds, lack of communication, etc.

In borderlands Zerg fights can be much more difficult – especially when a large public get-together-and-come-as-you-were Zerg encounters a much smaller but highly organized guild Zerg. I’ve seen 20 people roll through about 50 – with ease.

So DPS spike classes (thief, mesmer, warrior, and some eles)? Hahaha, you seen Static Discharge engi builds? And Warriors arn’t bursty compared to most other classes.

Anyway, you are using PvE as a benchmark and yes while it is zerk “meta”, that isn’t the case in all game modes.

wonder why theres alot of condi thiefs and condi necros, condi engis do they counter most builds?

what people complain as powercreep is how some classes with zerker gear are great while others strugle to beat them due class perfomance with X gear that makes class yeasy and cheesy to play, but that is not powercreep, its a model that Anet adopted to make their DPS game, pitty the result was not play how u want if u want to survive.

Gryph.8237:

So DPS spike classes (thief, mesmer, warrior, and some eles) prosper why classes that can’t do the massive spike as efficiently suffer.

• Zerker specs have become the norm in PvE.

• PvPers have gone with this concept, too, since some classes can’t effectively go to a hybrid, they have to be either tank or zerk (guardian, for example).

• PvPers have a place doing small ganksquads and soloing tanky builds in WvW (it’s easier than fighting other PvP builds in PvP).

• These vulture roles are perfectly valid, but IMHO the builds shouldn’t have such a dramatic effect as they do in determining whether a player lives or dies.

• I think it should be more down to the skill of the player and not their build.

We’ve had several “balance” passes done by the dev’s to alter the capacity our of characters. We’ve had additional runes, sigils, foods, ascended gear, new armor/weapon stats, and WvW rank bonus stacks. So yes, there’s no denying there’s been changes in the game. Certainly they’ve added a level of power creep too. For combat, yeah it’s boiled down to posting those big numbers.

HtFde.3856:

Zerg battles in WvW do require skill …

But not much…

Unless you think for example not having to decide your positioning (in any meaningful sense) as a melee and having your “driver” decide it for you takes skill.

Or that running in the melee ball where you have stability up most of the time covered by numerous boons that renders what should be one of the strongest aspects of PvP play – hard CC, a total joke most of the time.

and so on…

zinkz.7045:

HtFde.3856:

Zerg battles in WvW do require skill …

But not much…

Unless you think for example not having to decide your positioning (in any meaningful sense) as a melee and having your “driver” decide it for you takes skill.

Or that running in the melee ball where you have stability up most of the time covered by numerous boons that renders what should be one of the strongest aspects of PvP play – hard CC, a total joke most of the time.

and so on…

If you believe all of that, you are what we refer to as a “rally bot”. Every thing you stated is why players of similar mentality as yourself, in a zerg of 60, get one pushed by an organized group of 25, who understand their profession, their skill, and so on.

For example, you mention “stability up all the time”. Do you really think that just occurs naturally? That happens because players use “skill” that you claim doesn’t exist, to coordinate spacing, and timing, to use those at the right time.

Hard CC isn’t a joke. The problem is your mentality here. How unintelligent is it to try to CC the professions like warrior and guardian that have stability? Skilled players know that you damage focus them, while you focus your CC on the eles that are laying waters out for them to blast and heal.

They nerfed zerk hard a few months ago i do not think that power creep if any thing that the “power nerf”?
Any way condition are king in wvw for small fights and “bomb” are kind for big fights the dmg build on these bombs are less important then say the coronation and positioning of both teams. Your simply not going to hit a full zerg as an ele or necro due to the 5 target cap on most skills so you need to take chunks out of the other teams zerg much like how a fish of pray (any type of water animal of pray that works in a group dose this) attks a school of fish.
By use of soft and hard cc and some zone dmg you put the other team at a point where you can get the most out of an bomb but at the same time the other team can bomb you as you come in. Its a game of cat and also cat lol (mouse and cat depending on the timing).

I agree there has definitely been too much power creep in WvW. (And I include Condi Damage inside power creep). It comes from all sources though not just base zerk. We’ve got Ascended armor and trinkets with infusions sure but that’s not even that big of an increase by itself. But on top of that:

We’ve got food (some quite ridiculous), stones, sigils, runes, might, fury.

Since launch, in addition to ascended, they’ve added superior siege, masteries, bloodlust buff, torment, some I’ve probably left out.

Taken all together it does add up.

Johje Holan.4607:

I agree there has definitely been too much power creep in WvW. (And I include Condi Damage inside power creep). It comes from all sources though not just base zerk. We’ve got Ascended armor and trinkets with infusions sure but that’s not even that big of an increase by itself. But on top of that:

We’ve got food (some quite ridiculous), stones, sigils, runes, might, fury.

Since launch, in addition to ascended, they’ve added superior siege, masteries, bloodlust buff, torment, some I’ve probably left out.

Taken all together it does add up.

But it stopped and we not seen any real power creep for some time if any thing there was a down grad to crit dmg as the last “power creep” that your talking about. Beyond that there been nothing added that you can call true power creep.

coglin.1867:

zinkz.7045:

HtFde.3856:

Zerg battles in WvW do require skill …

But not much…

Unless you think for example not having to decide your positioning (in any meaningful sense) as a melee and having your “driver” decide it for you takes skill.

Or that running in the melee ball where you have stability up most of the time covered by numerous boons that renders what should be one of the strongest aspects of PvP play – hard CC, a total joke most of the time.

and so on…

If you believe all of that, you are what we refer to as a “rally bot”. Every thing you stated is why players of similar mentality as yourself, in a zerg of 60, get one pushed by an organized group of 25, who understand their profession, their skill, and so on.

For example, you mention “stability up all the time”. Do you really think that just occurs naturally? That happens because players use “skill” that you claim doesn’t exist, to coordinate spacing, and timing, to use those at the right time.

Hard CC isn’t a joke. The problem is your mentality here. How unintelligent is it to try to CC the professions like warrior and guardian that have stability? Skilled players know that you damage focus them, while you focus your CC on the eles that are laying waters out for them to blast and heal.

I think he has a point though. Zerg fights in GW2 are a lot more forgiving than small man stuff, the biggest culprits are the rally system and the AoE cap. Melee sticking on the driver and cycling stab is pretty basic at this stage I should think. In small fights your build and team coordination must be tighter. Stab isn’t going to save you from focused burst or condi bombs, while in a zerg it negates a lot of bad stuff happening to you.
——————

I assumed the OP was referring to roaming/small man since I don’t think anyone would be surprised at going from full to zero health if a lot of people are hitting them.

OP is clueless. They have effectively nerfed power dps builds twice already, once when they changed how crit damage worked and again when they nerfed might. The builds he’s crying about are actually worse now than whenever he quit.

Gryph.8237:

So DPS spike classes (thief, mesmer, warrior, and some eles) prosper why classes that can’t do the massive spike as efficiently suffer.

So why are the zergs in Tier 1 made of at least 1/3 Guardians? Lots of guilds won’t even enter WvW to raid until a minimum number of Guardians have logged on! Also, most groups are using at least some of their Eles for healing and support, and Mesmer is generally a support class in the big fights in WvW as well.

Are you specifically talking about 1v1’s you’ve had in WvW or something?

zinkz.7045:

HtFde.3856:

Zerg battles in WvW do require skill …

But not much…

Unless you think for example not having to decide your positioning (in any meaningful sense) as a melee and having your “driver” decide it for you takes skill.

Or that running in the melee ball where you have stability up most of the time covered by numerous boons that renders what should be one of the strongest aspects of PvP play – hard CC, a total joke most of the time.

and so on…

Ah … but having stability and boons up most of the time is what makes it tricky. Most enemy Zergs we fight somehow lose their stability and other nice boons rather quickly in exchange for a lot of conditions

gennyt.3428:

I think he has a point though. Zerg fights in GW2 are a lot more forgiving than small man stuff, the biggest culprits are the rally system and the AoE cap. Melee sticking on the driver and cycling stab is pretty basic at this stage I should think. In small fights your build and team coordination must be tighter. Stab isn’t going to save you from focused burst or condi bombs, while in a zerg it negates a lot of bad stuff happening to you.

To some degree yes – but if you ever had the misfortune to run into a VERY organized Zerg (my nemesis has been an encounter with [SO]) and your 30 man Zerg get’s more or less insta-wiped by a 20 man Guild Zerg … not really forgiving. The whole encounter took maybe 20 seconds

In addition to that in a smallscale fight you can evade, you can spot and try to interrupt/evade telltale skill animations …

So .. all fighting modes 1 vs 1, 5 vs 5 and Zerg battle have their advantages and disadvantages, require different team compositions and builds and provide specific challenges.

Otokomae.9356:

Gryph.8237:

So DPS spike classes (thief, mesmer, warrior, and some eles) prosper why classes that can’t do the massive spike as efficiently suffer.

So why are the zergs in Tier 1 made of at least 1/3 Guardians? Lots of guilds won’t even enter WvW to raid until a minimum number of Guardians have logged on! Also, most groups are using at least some of their Eles for healing and support, and Mesmer is generally a support class in the big fights in WvW as well.

Are you specifically talking about 1v1’s you’ve had in WvW or something?

Exactly that! A “good” Zerg has a ton of PTV Guardians and PTV Warriors (many of them shout build). Zerker are usually those eles not being responsible for water fields and Necros and Rangers. Thieves … usually in a Zerg also toughness build for stealth-finishing.

Many public (or PUG) Zergs are comprised of PvE players participating with their PvE armour and builds and they’re quite often the first to eat some dirt and provide rallies for downed enemies.

HtFde.3856:

Otokomae.9356:

Gryph.8237:

So DPS spike classes (thief, mesmer, warrior, and some eles) prosper why classes that can’t do the massive spike as efficiently suffer.

So why are the zergs in Tier 1 made of at least 1/3 Guardians? Lots of guilds won’t even enter WvW to raid until a minimum number of Guardians have logged on! Also, most groups are using at least some of their Eles for healing and support, and Mesmer is generally a support class in the big fights in WvW as well.

Are you specifically talking about 1v1’s you’ve had in WvW or something?

Exactly that! A “good” Zerg has a ton of PTV Guardians and PTV Warriors (many of them shout build). Zerker are usually those eles not being responsible for water fields and Necros and Rangers. Thieves … usually in a Zerg also toughness build for stealth-finishing.

Many public (or PUG) Zergs are comprised of PvE players participating with their PvE armour and builds and they’re quite often the first to eat some dirt and provide rallies for downed enemies.

Why you ask does a good zerg have 1/3 Guardians or tons of PVT Guards and Wars?

To deal with the power creep! They have to run these classes/builds to not get destroyed by the attack.

I only say that half in jest. I’m aware the hammer train has existed since early on – I think it may have been started on my server.

The main reason you need them is of course that there’s no dedicated healers. And without a Monk, the offensive classes/builds would eat everyone alive without some kind of defensive class. A class which can also share its defensive aspects. And you need a lot of them to make up for no straight up healers.

Johje Holan.4607:

HtFde.3856:

Otokomae.9356:

Gryph.8237:

So DPS spike classes (thief, mesmer, warrior, and some eles) prosper why classes that can’t do the massive spike as efficiently suffer.

So why are the zergs in Tier 1 made of at least 1/3 Guardians? Lots of guilds won’t even enter WvW to raid until a minimum number of Guardians have logged on! Also, most groups are using at least some of their Eles for healing and support, and Mesmer is generally a support class in the big fights in WvW as well.

Are you specifically talking about 1v1’s you’ve had in WvW or something?

Exactly that! A “good” Zerg has a ton of PTV Guardians and PTV Warriors (many of them shout build). Zerker are usually those eles not being responsible for water fields and Necros and Rangers. Thieves … usually in a Zerg also toughness build for stealth-finishing.

Many public (or PUG) Zergs are comprised of PvE players participating with their PvE armour and builds and they’re quite often the first to eat some dirt and provide rallies for downed enemies.

Why you ask does a good zerg have 1/3 Guardians or tons of PVT Guards and Wars?

To deal with the power creep! They have to run these classes/builds to not get destroyed by the attack.

I only say that half in jest. I’m aware the hammer train has existed since early on – I think it may have been started on my server.

The main reason you need them is of course that there’s no dedicated healers. And without a Monk, the offensive classes/builds would eat everyone alive without some kind of defensive class. A class which can also share its defensive aspects. And you need a lot of them to make up for no straight up healers.

That’s partially true – it depends what the enemy Zerg is composed of and how they are positioned. If they have a small backline but a large frontline you’ll have to play differently than when they have a large backline and only a small frontline.

I admit I was (and still am) totally against ascended weapons/armor and – even worse – buff food. But even if you’d take that away and revert to exotic stuff only, remove those applied strength and fortitude buffs and completely erase all types of buff food … you’d still be facing the fact that 20+ players will do A LOT of damage if they focus it on one spot.

And … be glad there are no dedicated healers. I’ve run my monk in GW1 and dynamic things like FA were HELL to play. Dedicated healers only work well in PvE where a tank can take and keep aggro or in smallscale PvP. I’d hate to play a monk having to deal with 30+ “party” members – and even if you’d have me manage only 5 … if my 5 survive but the other 25 die … will it make an impact that my 5 are still alive … ^^

Johje Holan.4607:

Why you ask does a good zerg have 1/3 Guardians or tons of PVT Guards and Wars?

To deal with the power creep!

In my experience, guardians value comes from AoE stability, AoE cleansing, and a very low cool down blast finisher on hammer.

coglin.1867:

Johje Holan.4607:

Why you ask does a good zerg have 1/3 Guardians or tons of PVT Guards and Wars?

To deal with the power creep!

In my experience, guardians value comes from AoE stability, AoE cleansing, and a very low cool down blast finisher on hammer.

Never forget empower and the group speed buffs + staff 5 for blocking non-stabilized opponents. For AoE cleansing I actually prefer shout warriors …

i dont get your point for wvw

the problem is that 1 power gives u by far more dmg than 1prec/fero does
1 meele blob with full pvt is nearly impossible to kill due the massive tankiness and 5 players cap. a full zerker blob is BY FAR less tanky than the pvt one. zerkblobs will do ofc more dmg but they will drop instantly while the pvt will survive the spike while doing decent dmg.
note : im talking about blobs (50+)

ViperBruiser.3852:

i dont get your point for wvw

the problem is that 1 power gives u by far more dmg than 1prec/fero does
1 meele blob with full pvt is nearly impossible to kill due the massive tankiness and 5 players cap. a full zerker blob is BY FAR less tanky than the pvt one. zerkblobs will do ofc more dmg but they will drop instantly while the pvt will survive the spike while doing decent dmg.
note : im talking about blobs (50+)

Also valid for smaller blobs as long as you’re above 10 players and are not outmanned 1:3 or more, in which case damage distribution matters little …