Guild Wars 2

NoTrigger.8396:

Manuhell.2759:

NoTrigger.8396:

Manifibel.8420:

Some of you guys talk like the zerg gear is going to be useless. Its not, they wont nerf it to the ground and make Controle and Support build the only viable options. You will still be able to do dungeons in zerg gear. Now with your brain too

Farming new gear? I dont mind. The money we make have to be used sometime. I like haveing a lot of sets to do different things.

sorry son, but you do realize that this post makes you look like you are stupid, right?

you HAVE TO use your brain when using berserker gear.
you HAVE TO dodge at the right moment.
you HAVE TO use blocks and other stuff at the right time.

tanky gear lets you turn off your brain.

get your facts straight.

Nothing of the things you listed depends on berserker’s gear, though.
Oh, sure, one good player can do those things. But he could do them with any other gear as well, they aren’t gear dependant at all. And the opposite is true, too. There are quite many bad berserker players that live lying on a floor.

it doesnt depend on berserker gear. but its strange how non berserker players have trouble to dodge at the right time.
maybe because they are tanky enough to ignore the dodge key and thats why they never learn to use that skill the way its meant to be?

and yes, bad berserker players die alot. thats right. and thats exactly what i was talking about. you have to use your brain if you want to play berserker.

and manifibel said its the opposite basically.

Because you are wrongly assuming that tanky players won’t dodge as well, as in, they are bad just because they aren’t using berserk gear.
Whereas not only they need to dodge as well, but as the fight is longer, they’ll have to do it many more times compared to a zerker party of equal ability.
The mitigation given by tanky stats can’t be compared with the reduced reliance on dodges, defensive skills and other things given by finishing the encounter in a third of the time. Having to do less of them also means there are less chances to screw up.
Whereas a tanky gear will make you survive maybe a couple hit more, or will be outright useless in some other cases, but will have a longer fight and quite many more occasions to screw up something.
Basically, berserkers are so fast at killing compared to other gear types that any risk they should have is comparatively better than the risks the other gears must endure in the longer fights.

I don’t think you understand. They didn’t dodge the entire run. Tanky players physically do not need to dodge.

There are 2 different topics discussed in the same thread.

1) Some people are talking about a change to the core mechanic of the game not to have the trinity. They want trinity, they want the combat built around that and the dungeons mechanics built around that. It goes against the manifesto, but hey, we can discuss about that.

2) Some people would like to do the same dps as glass cannons while sitting in bunker builds/equipments. Sorry folks, if you want to do the best damage you have to run zerker and take all the risks. You can give up a lil and go with the zerker/cavalier/knight mix that suits you best. Still getting beaten by the game? Run your soldier gear and hopefully the group will carry you through the contents.

Only problem here is the condition branch of the dps.

mahariel.4981:

I don’t think you understand. They didn’t dodge the entire run. Tanky players physically do not need to dodge.

Neither do people that walk out of lupicus’ aoes before they hit or that protect themselves from alphard’s electrical spheres by not being in their line of sight when they’re casted. Or people who use blocks, skills like endure pain and similar. Or even protection, for that regard.

But that has nothing to do with tanky gear anyway – heh, it has nothing to do with gear at all, apart maybe from protection, due to boon duration on certain gears.

Assuming i can even trust such a convenient tale.

Krugash.4920:

Only problem here is the condition branch of the dps.

As far as my opinion of “Berserker” itself goes, I think this is to do with how encounters play out – especially when most dungeons consist of simply stacking and melee whacking the boss to death in 10 seconds. Give Bosses more powerful PBAoE attacks that punish that mindless behaviour. Raise auto attack rates. Bring back mobs that dodge and kite, I say!

As far as Condition Damage goes, I agree entirely. I believe its implementation is inherently flawed. I made a post about it here but I am not trying to “hijack” this post! just don’t want to copy it all again. I think if we address the fact that Condition Damage is so lacking in a manner similar to this suggestion, then we can partially address the “Zerker meta” without having to nerf Berserker stats or gear, by making other builds more viable.

But I think Zerker playstyle itself should be addressed; Zerker is King – Zerker is “high risk=high reward”. However there is very little risk now.

Krugash.4920:

There are 2 different topics discussed in the same thread.

1) Some people are talking about a change to the core mechanic of the game not to have the trinity. They want trinity, they want the combat built around that and the dungeons mechanics built around that. It goes against the manifesto, but hey, we can discuss about that.

2) Some people would like to do the same dps as glass cannons while sitting in bunker builds/equipments. Sorry folks, if you want to do the best damage you have to run zerker and take all the risks. You can give up a lil and go with the zerker/cavalier/knight mix that suits you best. Still getting beaten by the game? Run your soldier gear and hopefully the group will carry you through the contents.

Only problem here is the condition branch of the dps.

This reminds me of all those LFG-starters that consist of 2 non-heavies, most likely as you described, who ask for 3 zerk warriors in caps. Probably ready on the kick-button if someone isn’t up to snuff. Always give me a good laugh as I have all 8 classes geared and know how few PUGs outside Warriors that actually spec or at least make an effort to do damage, for dungeons.

Manuhell.2759:

mahariel.4981:

I don’t think you understand. They didn’t dodge the entire run. Tanky players physically do not need to dodge.

Neither do people that walk out of lupicus’ aoes before they hit or that protect themselves from alphard’s electrical spheres by not being in their line of sight when they’re casted. Or people who use blocks, skills like endure pain and similar. Or even protection, for that regard.

But that has nothing to do with tanky gear anyway – heh, it has nothing to do with gear at all, apart maybe from protection, due to boon duration on certain gears.

Assuming i can even trust such a convenient tale.

We did NOT use strong defensive abilities. The only defensive skill that was used was arcane shield which blocks like 3 attacks ever 75 seconds. I had the defy pain trait, I admit that, but then again, you don’t have control over it and you can still get downed without it triggering.
We took a lot of lupis aoe’s to the face, but that was barely an issue. Even Elementalists, the class with the lowest base health aswell as thoughness were able to survive most of lupis AoEs. And that with 4+ grubs.
The daggerstorm from alphard wasnt an issue. We took more hits of it then any party should be able to take in the first place. Bombs that exploded multiple times in a row however were kind of a problem. For the record, these bombs oneshot 20k hp 2.2k armor targets, with the defensive setup they only cost me ~1/3 of my hp.
Protection, regeneration, shoutheals, healing fields… These boons/skills do nothing unless you start stacking them up heavily along with extremely defensive gear. Then however you will achieve an almost godmode status. Thats truly engaging gameplay.

I agree that something should be done to address the “DPS IS KING” meta, although like some have suggested, it should be done in a way that makes the other builds more viable, rather than just a flat-out nerf of the Zerker build (although some nerfs will probably be unavoidable).

Agony.3542:

digiowl.9620:

ODB.6891:

Black Box.9312:

This. This, this, this. There’s nothing wrong with zerker gear being high risk, high reward. The problem is that that risk ratio should be even with the percentage of damage gear substituted for defensive gear. Right now such a ratio only extends to a certain point, beyond which it actually becomes LESS risky for your party to spec more into damage and less into defense. This is incredibly counter-intuitive, and should be more than enough proof that zerker gear is (comparatively) too powerful.

Yes, this is incredibly counter intuitive. The reason being that tank gear exists in pve in the first place and this game is not meant or designed to have tanks. The same can be said for healing gear and healers. These gear types are very useful in pvp environments…that is where they should have been restricted to from day one. Now you have all of these players mad that their tanking gear and healing gear is not accepted in pve content.

It comes back to how differently PVP and PVE plays out mathematically.

A warrior in soldier can actually outlast a win in a direct PVP slugging match with a warrior in berzerker.

But this is never possible in PVE because most mobs above fodder can match or exceed a soldier warrior. This while the majority of their damage output is found in the spike they do every 3-4 seconds (i think i calculated one of those silver rimmed toxics to doing about 3-4x the damage of their normal hit in their spike, and this seems to be the pattern across the PVE board).

And dodge is also the least expensive defensive move in terms of recharge time pr use. 10 seconds after a dodge it is ready to be used again. Most other defensive moves in the game have 3x or longer recharge time between uses.

End result is that it is the go to defensive move unless there is some kind of gimmick involved (projectiles that can be reflected back or similar).

We see the same problem with elite skills. Sure they are massive, but their recharge is so long that people hesitate to use them at all in case they misjudge and so waste it.

But dodge is so readily available it can be virtually spammed.

You can clear dungeons without having to use the dodge key at all. You don’t even need to utilize those “op reflections” for it nor really anticipate a move and react accordingly. Hell even defensive cooldowns can become obsolete once you stack up enough defensive stats and boons. This is a TRULY brainless playstyle.

We ran arah p2 without dodging at all (dodge key unbound) or using strong defensive abilities (shieldstance, renewed focus etc). Just walking through it. NO reflections used at alphard or lupicus. We wiped like 2 times. Once @Alphard because of 4 (or 5) consecutive explosions after a single pull (seriously?!) and once while skipping to the last boss because of … reasons.

video or it didn’t happen?

Denar.3950:

Krugash.4920:

Only problem here is the condition branch of the dps.

As far as my opinion of “Berserker” itself goes, I think this is to do with how encounters play out – especially when most dungeons consist of simply stacking and melee whacking the boss to death in 10 seconds. Give Bosses more powerful PBAoE attacks that punish that mindless behaviour. Raise auto attack rates. Bring back mobs that dodge and kite, I say!

As far as Condition Damage goes, I agree entirely. I believe its implementation is inherently flawed. I made a post about it here but I am not trying to “hijack” this post! just don’t want to copy it all again. I think if we address the fact that Condition Damage is so lacking in a manner similar to this suggestion, then we can partially address the “Zerker meta” without having to nerf Berserker stats or gear, by making other builds more viable.

But I think Zerker playstyle itself should be addressed; Zerker is King – Zerker is “high risk=high reward”. However there is very little risk now.

How many bosses done by PUGs do you see burned down in 10 seconds, apart from the Slave driver champion maybe? And melee whacking in zerk gear will down you if you aren’t paying attention w/e you claim, feel free to try it sometime. There’s always 1-2 or more slackers, and I feel the instances are already balanced around that timewise. No need to punish people who run organized speed-groups because they’re good at dodging stuff in combat, one of the few primal sell-points to this game still in play.

Rewamping to harder content, IE more PBAoE, what will happen to all those PUGers that are already having a hard time in their PVT gear? Kick and replace? Not very casual-friendly. And won’t that just make ranged classes OP instead if the boss is covered in circles all the time? Also, old content is boring content. Who in their right mind doesn’t do it as fast as possible after a few runs.

I agree with the conditions, they shouldn’t have a shared cap. And I already feel a well-played conditioner can be a great asset to a team, shame that they’re so freaking rare though. And the no-dot damage to objects is another thing that should have been fixed long ago.

I think all the recent zerk-complaints come from the annoyance originating in the, often, different gearsets needed for PvE vs PvP. Specially now with expensive Ascended armors, people want to craft a PVT, spec for WvW, and still be as powerful as a zerker in PvE. Maybe, I hope, Anet are changing Ascended armor gear stats to be changed OOC like legendaries, it would kill a lot of the QQ and save the headaches of deciding what aspect of the game to waste that much gold on for a minor update.

NoTrigger.8396:

Manifibel.8420:

Some of you guys talk like the zerg gear is going to be useless. Its not, they wont nerf it to the ground and make Controle and Support build the only viable options. You will still be able to do dungeons in zerg gear. Now with your brain too

Farming new gear? I dont mind. The money we make have to be used sometime. I like haveing a lot of sets to do different things.

sorry son, but you do realize that this post makes you look like you are stupid, right?

you HAVE TO use your brain when using berserker gear.
you HAVE TO dodge at the right moment.
you HAVE TO use blocks and other stuff at the right time.

tanky gear lets you turn off your brain.

get your facts straight.

>talks about facts
>gives opinion

I turn my brain off when playing in Berserker’s all the time. Last time I checked I could clear high end fractals with one hand on my ‘….’. Content in this game will forever be too easy without seeing some serious patchwork.

Take what you said, and apply it to PvP or WvW when running in 10v10/15v15 coordinated GvG’s, and I’ll say it’s true. Apply it to PvE and I’ll laugh in your face.

Soulseek.2867:

I think the underlying issue is the removal of the “trinity”. There is no point to have five damage-dealers where two of them are geared for toughness and another one for healing power. All of them will go zerk as this makes them effective in their role.
Actually, by removing the “trinity” you only got rid of tanks and healers. DPS were left untouched. I realise this idea is a bit hard to grasp but it is nevertheless perfectly true.

This. Further, for example, support currently consists of providing boons and buffs to dps for the group. If I was playing staff ele, and decided to swap to water for support, the heals and regen are largely ineffectual, even when traited and geared for it. Moreover, my dps contribution will suffer, resulting in the fight taking longer and a greater need for heals (should party members be eating hits, that is) that are not really effective. Support abilities have high cooldowns, and while the cleanses are nice, they are not unique to the class – the regen is negligible, and most players can provide that for themselves.

The zerk meta makes sense, considering that it’s logical to assume the more damage, the shorter the fight – and less chance of dying as the boss will die before an attack that can easily knock you to 25% health or lower. (The grindy nature of dungeons – valuable loot restricted to large amounts of tokens- result in players seeking to get their run of dated content over faster). Aside from those who have mastered the build, I think it offers a challenge as the zerk player will have to demonstrate awareness of mechanics and timing to dodge a hit that could one shot them. This is why those who are interested in going zerker are told to do it piece by piece, so as to adjust to the significant reduction in defense in exchange for higher damage.

When traditional support is meaningless (cc, heals) it is detrimental to the group to try to replicate a trinity mode of play – tanks, healers, dps. It’s simply ideal to go zerker to kill things before they can kill you when high defensive builds result in significantly longer fights, without notable mitigation, and the support to manage incoming damage is ineffectual.

Are suggestions of changing the meta a reflection of players struggling to see beyond the trinity? As it stands, if no one can actually “tank” or eat/mitigate damage, and no one can effectively heal a group, what point is there in traiting for lackluster support and dps? How would they make a defensive build viable and desirable? How would that change not be moving toward a trinity? Players can certainly choose how they want to play, what is effective on the other hand.. Further, are we taking into consideration the shared support and defense in the group dynamic (via utilities)?

If an “average” player takes hours to get through Arah, 45 minutes or more for the less challenging dungeon paths, or 1-3 hours for a fractal, what happens if the dps output is reduced? It will liven up the challenge for experienced players, perhaps – although are they not seeking speed runs for convenience? – but will it run the risk of deterring the inexperienced from trying?

On another note: I fully support the reworking on condition mechanics (especially stack caps and issues with burning) and the ability to cc enemy champs.

I will not repeat what the majority of players stated above .What the community implies requires a huge amount of work from Arena Net,utterly huge amount,redesigning most of their game mechanics,the living story patches cannot even scratch the surface of these problems unless the team is made to work 24/7 full time.

You killed diversity in PvE due to limited game mechanics that promote unity instead of trinity or diversity or w/e you wanted and you destroyed your chances of revitalising this game with your consistent denial of an expansion for reasons that will haunt you when you start losing money by the millions.The amount of work necessary to correct this game can only be done through an expansion….

You have hard MMO’s coming out the block very soon,1.5 years have passed and the game is on the verge of imploding,with the WoW expansion,Elder Scrolls Online and EverQuest soon here only a huge amount of work input as in an expansion or shutting the game down for some time to do all the reprogramming necessary can make a difference.

In other words,it was fun,time to pack our bags and let them work on Guild Wars 3..

Gambit.8425:

Also, old content is boring content. Who in their right mind doesn’t do it as fast as possible after a few runs.

Key point. You have groups that have been running this content on a regular basis for over a year. They know the mechanics, and they want to get it over with and move on to their next instance/daily. It’s no longer for the fun, the challenge, or the experience of it (…) but rather for some tokens and quick gold. It’s not like they have a reasonable chance at getting a great drop they can use (as it is in other games) but rather they have to grind the instance over and over and over again to get the armor/weapons/legendary gift they want, or for a reliable way of getting gold through gameplay.

There are many additional factors contributing to the zerk meta, and the desire to get through content quickly. This is one of them.

Ciucan.5092:

I will not repeat what the majority of players stated above .What the community implies requires a huge amount of work from Arena Net,utterly huge amount,redesigning most of their game mechanics,the living story patches cannot even scratch the surface of these problems unless the team is made to work 24/7 full time.

You killed diversity in PvE due to limited game mechanics that promote unity instead of trinity or diversity or w/e you wanted and you destroyed your chances of revitalising this game with your consistent denial of an expansion for reasons that will haunt you when you start losing money by the millions.The amount of work necessary to correct this game can only be done through an expansion….

You have hard MMO’s coming out the block very soon,1.5 years have passed and the game is on the verge of imploding,with the WoW expansion,Elder Scrolls Online and EverQuest soon here only a huge amount of work input as in an expansion or shutting the game down for some time to do all the reprogramming necessary can make a difference.

In other words,it was fun,time to pack our bags and let them work on Guild Wars 3..

Sorry but.. WoW xpac won’t revitalize their combat system, and ESO is pretty dismal in terms of combat – simplified, and hindering rather than engaging. Also lacks a hard trinity with far more diversity in builds, and thus bad builds, than GW2 does. Not to mention an unfortunate crafting/gathering system. GW2 may not suit your needs, of course, but I don’t think it’s a dead game, by any means – nor do the others outshine it in my experience.

islarose.7356:

Ciucan.5092:

I will not repeat what the majority of players stated above .What the community implies requires a huge amount of work from Arena Net,utterly huge amount,redesigning most of their game mechanics,the living story patches cannot even scratch the surface of these problems unless the team is made to work 24/7 full time.

You killed diversity in PvE due to limited game mechanics that promote unity instead of trinity or diversity or w/e you wanted and you destroyed your chances of revitalising this game with your consistent denial of an expansion for reasons that will haunt you when you start losing money by the millions.The amount of work necessary to correct this game can only be done through an expansion….

You have hard MMO’s coming out the block very soon,1.5 years have passed and the game is on the verge of imploding,with the WoW expansion,Elder Scrolls Online and EverQuest soon here only a huge amount of work input as in an expansion or shutting the game down for some time to do all the reprogramming necessary can make a difference.

In other words,it was fun,time to pack our bags and let them work on Guild Wars 3..

Sorry but.. WoW xpac won’t revitalize their combat system, and ESO is pretty dismal in terms of combat – simplified, and hindering rather than engaging. Also lacks a hard trinity with far more diversity in builds, and thus bad builds, than GW2 does. Not to mention an unfortunate crafting/gathering system. GW2 may not suit your needs, of course, but I don’t think it’s a dead game, by any means – nor do the others outshine it in my experience.

Wow already had major changes with its expansions and be it as it may,ESO bad or good,the entire community is complaining about the predominance of zerker and you cannot offer them anything else when you have transformed your PvE content into something players do just for the gold/tokens…after doing the same content for so long and having no viable diversity to maintain interest for long periods of time how can you think this game is not going down slowly but steadily.
No new dungeons, some new fractals after all this time which are still a mediocre effort…a broken system that does not offer the posibility of a viable defensive stat build except in an organized party and you think this game will be here for long… this is not to get me started in the condition damage discussion….

I love this game ,and I try to find new things PvE wise to keep me here,but mark my words,in a couple of months ,with nothing major coming from Arena Net in the near future guild wars will exponentially lose it’s interested player base,it has already begun for some time now..,and when you have other alternatives people tend to go for the new and interesting no matter how poorly designed the other games are…

Hope to see some great improvements on AI of the bosses, mobs and fight mechanics. Actually they’re just “punching bags” where you have only to attack them. In Fractals of The Mists the Bosses are a lot better and are less “punching bags” than Bosses of normal Dungeons.
My advices are:
- It’s preferable to not nerf the Berserker Gear. This will only cause a lot of enraged people and will destroy the playstyle of who (like me) enjoy using berserker gear!
- Fix all the bugs/glitches that let players SKIP parts in Ascalonian Catacombs, The Ruined City of Arah, Twilight Arbor and all the others I dont know.
- Did you when you developed the dungeons thought them like “Those mobs are skippable, those one not.”? This allows players to skip parts of dungeon where a berserker gear would be useless.
- Limit bleeding (and other conditions) stacks in PvE only means that parties don’t want 2 Condition Players. I can easily stack 20 stacks of bleeding with my Cond. Character but if there’s another Condition Player I’m limited.
Hope you follow my and other community’s advices.
Greets

There is a main design flaw about AI that I’ve mentioned lot of times.
NPCs are dumb and their stupidity compensated with million HP & one shot killer spells.
To prevent all of this & make Zerker guys (like me) need to be skilled for a real risk of sacrificing defenses, AI needs to be mutch more dinamic, mutch continously (no moar standing still!) animated and simply Faster.

Imagine when you fight a huge risen abomonation and its just Smashing Smashing Smashing the ground with knockdowns & knockbacks, there you really need to dodge & concentrate on fight.
In other example, why should dragons stand still and watch over instead of chasing you down meanwhile you can use their giant size to collapse terrain, damaging them greatly?
I believe its a mutch more fantasy-friendly methood than shooting everything with a big laser beam…

My conclusions are;

• Don’t bother with DMG nerfs, useless & ragewell
• Improve AI’s velocity of skill using and animations
• Get people more than 2 dodge (~4 with bit faster regen)
• Change combat mechanism to Initiative & Adrenalin use fusion, recharges aren’t as dinamic and logical.
• Above all of it, focus on make contents entertaining Longer with bigger rewards, prevent speedclearing for 2blues1green. Customers will complain less about unrewarding and contentless updates then.

As i said elsewhere DPS is not the issue..

Why LFG is full of LF heavies?
Because 5 zerk eles on AC would mostly fail horribly unless in the hand of really good players.

You can instead get that 1000 AP warrior and expect to do his job…..or just fill the 5th slot with another profession…you can Always keep them alive with guardians, ress and boost their dps with banners…..

aelfwe.4239:

The only issue is that moving pve meta from zerk to some other kind of gear isnt balance at all.

Its just a way to make easyer an easy content like istances in way to make 2 finger people able to stand alive without dodge and stop they to complain to not find place in party because unable to stand alive in zerk.

A great balance, gg xD

That’s not how balance has to be, though.
What if zerker setups were simply nerfed to no longer provide such a big advantage? Indirectly, too. By making it so that they cannot avoid a certain portion of damage, damage which more defensive setups could easily soak, but a berserker team will have to stop attacking and rezz each other instead?

(Intentionally exaggerated)

Thing is, that’d make PvE more difficult. Defensive setups would largely be where they are now, we only nerfed the stuff which has the ezmode right now (and I play that, and yes, it’s far too easy).

Ofc it’d be better to modify the mob-AI instead and make them able to intentionally gank easy kill high damage targets. But mob-AI is apparently a problematic thing to change as per the devs, so my next thing on the list would be nerfing berserker defence. Make dodge a less reliable way to skip incoming damage, at least in high-risk setups.

Carighan.6758:

That’s not how balance has to be, though.
What if zerker setups were simply nerfed to no longer provide such a big advantage? Indirectly, too. By making it so that they cannot avoid a certain portion of damage, damage which more defensive setups could easily soak, but a berserker team will have to stop attacking and rezz each other instead?

(Intentionally exaggerated)

Thing is, that’d make PvE more difficult. Defensive setups would largely be where they are now, we only nerfed the stuff which has the ezmode right now (and I play that, and yes, it’s far too easy).

Ofc it’d be better to modify the mob-AI instead and make them able to intentionally gank easy kill high damage targets. But mob-AI is apparently a problematic thing to change as per the devs, so my next thing on the list would be nerfing berserker defence. Make dodge a less reliable way to skip incoming damage, at least in high-risk setups.

Ah yes. The legendary hard mode of playing with tanky setups.

Well hehe, in a way. I noticed that if I try out absolutely stupid trait-setups (lacking the gear but wanting to test certain trait/skill interactions), then PvE starts feeling… balanced.

This makes me wonder whether the problem is not in the baseline power level (lowest character power you can produce) but in the variance, in how high you can get.

As such I’d rather nerf everyone. IMHO, anything above a rubbish build is too easy right now, and I’d like to bring down the margin instead of buff everyone up. That’d just make it too easy for everyone, independent of spec.

Carighan.6758:

Well hehe, in a way. I noticed that if I try out absolutely stupid trait-setups (lacking the gear but wanting to test certain trait/skill interactions), then PvE starts feeling… balanced.

This makes me wonder whether the problem is not in the baseline power level (lowest character power you can produce) but in the variance, in how high you can get.

As such I’d rather nerf everyone. IMHO, anything above a rubbish build is too easy right now, and I’d like to bring down the margin instead of buff everyone up. That’d just make it too easy for everyone, independent of spec.

A group of friends tried to run yesterday Arah path 2 with extreme tanky setups. One rule – dodging button unbound and you are unable to use it. Last time I heard, video is coming up.

drkn.3429:

It’s not zerker that is OP, it’s the dodge and block mechanics that are OP and other builds that are UP.
In PvE, that is.

Truth. Because everyone has access to damage mitigation through dodges, blocks, blinds… there’s no need to have armour. Armour reduces hits only veeeery slightly, doesn’t reduce condition damage at all, while having a huge penalty on your damage. Similarly heals are close to useless, because damage slices right through your health and the only way to keep the damage off you is by dodging, blocking…

This is what made the combat system fail and pushes everyone in ‘get highest damage’ (either zerk or condi) because your main defense is dodge/evade and not armour.

You say, in PvE, well it’s much the same in WvW, except that people don’t go full out damage, but high damage combined with ‘average’ tough/vit/heal.

Sirendor.1394:

Truth. Because everyone has access to damage mitigation through dodges, blocks, blinds… there’s no need to have armour. Armour reduces hits only veeeery slightly, doesn’t reduce condition damage at all, while having a huge penalty on your damage. Similarly heals are close to useless, because damage slices right through your health and the only way to keep the damage off you is by dodging, blocking…

This is what made the combat system fail and pushes everyone in ‘get highest damage’ (either zerk or condi) because your main defense is dodge/evade and not armour.

You say, in PvE, well it’s much the same in WvW, except that people don’t go full out damage, but high damage combined with ‘average’ tough/vit/heal.

By “veeeeery slightly” you mean 35% you have by wearing soldier’s gear. That’s without any trait points spent at all.

Condition damage is mostly non-existent in pve, most mobs attack solely with direct damage componenent.

On the topic about heals being weak, take a look at this clip. Facetanking the hardest hitting boss in the game because of the heals that are “close to useless” and armour that reduces hits “veeeery slightly” is not my definition of a logical sentence.

haviz.1340:

On the topic about heals being weak, take a look at this clip. Facetanking the hardest hitting boss in the game because of the heals that are “close to useless” and armour that reduces hits “veeeery slightly” is not my definition of a logical sentence.

But you gain nothing, that’s the balance issue. A Berserker build will survive just as well (a combination of active defence and shorter fights), but well, shorten the fight! More stuff dead in less time. And less time in which a player could die or cause a wipe by making a mistake.

It doesn’t survive just as well, you’re just flat out lying.

Carighan.6758:

But you gain nothing, that’s the balance issue. A Berserker build will survive just as well (a combination of active defence and shorter fights), but well, shorten the fight! More stuff dead in less time. And less time in which a player could die or cause a wipe by making a mistake.

The game was advertised with active combat. Why would someone who completely disregard that be rewarded the same as someone who puts more effort into it and has less room for errors?

LordByron.8369:

As i said elsewhere DPS is not the issue..

Why LFG is full of LF heavies?
Because 5 zerk eles on AC would mostly fail horribly unless in the hand of really good players.

You can instead get that 1000 AP warrior and expect to do his job…..or just fill the 5th slot with another profession…you can Always keep them alive with guardians, ress and boost their dps with banners…..

It’s quite the opposite: 5 zerk eles on AC would be amazing.

Carighan.6758:

That’s not how balance has to be, though.
What if zerker setups were simply nerfed to no longer provide such a big advantage? Indirectly, too. By making it so that they cannot avoid a certain portion of damage, damage which more defensive setups could easily soak, but a berserker team will have to stop attacking and rezz each other instead?

So basically, you want zerk to be on par with speed/efficiency with tanky specs. So you want zerk to be high risk/high reward and tank to be low risk/high reward?

stof.9341:

So basically, you want zerk to be on par with speed/efficiency with tanky specs. So you want zerk to be high risk/high reward and tank to be low risk/high reward?

Just like in pvp.

stof.9341:

Carighan.6758:

That’s not how balance has to be, though.
What if zerker setups were simply nerfed to no longer provide such a big advantage? Indirectly, too. By making it so that they cannot avoid a certain portion of damage, damage which more defensive setups could easily soak, but a berserker team will have to stop attacking and rezz each other instead?

So basically, you want zerk to be on par with speed/efficiency with tanky specs. So you want zerk to be high risk/high reward and tank to be low risk/high reward?

And on top of that, he also wants Warriors and Guardians to be THE definitive PvE classes, full stop (sacrificing much less EHP while maintaining damage output). Smart. /s

Really, how can anyone possibly suggest things like “unavoidable damage” or “flat-out nerf Berserker and buff Toughness”? Do you have ANY idea how badly that would ruin the status quo between the classes? If you just encouraged the use of defensive stats, then everyone would run a heavy armor class and keep offensive gear. Think for a minute. There are better ways to shake up the meta than that.

purgatoryz.6038:

LordByron.8369:

As i said elsewhere DPS is not the issue..

Why LFG is full of LF heavies?
Because 5 zerk eles on AC would mostly fail horribly unless in the hand of really good players.

You can instead get that 1000 AP warrior and expect to do his job…..or just fill the 5th slot with another profession…you can Always keep them alive with guardians, ress and boost their dps with banners…..

It’s quite the opposite: 5 zerk eles on AC would be amazing.

aside the fact 5 zerk eles ith the common build dies at spiderqueen at the first immob….

A zerk ele of the most common builds lack stability, cond cleanse and healing
Also has 1-3 seconds skills leaving you unable to evade…

4 eles+ 1 guard (or any def support profession) = Amazing
5 ZERK eles = wipe

That in easy dungeons….when it comes to fractals you start to see less zerk eles expecially in pugs…..
Unless you have guards keeping them alive.

I have to say also that due to the huge loss of dps i don t consider ele X/F to be a zerk build.

Start reviewing the guard support compared to other professions.
Go on giving short range frequent debuff fields to boss…
Give parties a reason to spread…

Give players a reason to bring something that is not guardian and warrior also….
(EXPECIALLY PUGS: its a mmorpg…if you develop for the few that plays only with friends on TS you should expect only them to remain…..having a 200 players population doesn t sound so fun ….).

If anything even if disgusting a s solution give a buff for 5 different professions in the party.

LordByron.8369:

aside the fact 5 zerk eles ith the common build dies at spiderqueen at the first immob….

A zerk ele of the most common builds lack stability, cond cleanse and healing
Also has 1-3 seconds skills leaving you unable to evade…

4 eles+ 1 guard (or any def support profession) = Amazing
5 ZERK eles = wipe

I solo’d her on my first try as a 30/30/0/0/10 ele without using walls (so no exploits). So how exactly 5 eles equals to the wipe?

haviz.1340:

On the topic about heals being weak, take a look at this clip. Facetanking the hardest hitting boss in the game because of the heals that are “close to useless” and armour that reduces hits “veeeery slightly” is not my definition of a logical sentence.

3 warriors, 1 guardian and 1 ele. I could stop here. I mean, that is as meta as it could get, if it weren’t for the elementalist.
Or point out the thread about healing signet…because it is far too easy for warriors to have such a sustain, compared to the other classes. Even when not having healing power, as the signet itself has such an high base (and relatively low factor for healing power).
Or the threads about the dominance of heavy classes. Heh, while not as good as a zerk build, the warrior can still dish out some nice damage even while tanky. Unlike other classes.

Also, in the video we can still see people reflecting damage via blocks due to the trait. More than half the party can do that, as there are 3 warriors. On a relatively short cooldown. And that as well doesn’t depend on gear, yet it blocks a lot of attacks that would have been heavy even for a “tanky” build, speeding also up the fight with the damage reflected. And you block any of those ranged attacks for its duration, as the skill stops blocking after a melee hit – that won’t come until he ends that aoe.
Here’s the catch, though: you can do it only with a few bosses, and only few classes can do it. It wouldn’t have been feasible if it weren’t for the classes chosen, and for a certain degree, that exact boss.

Even then, this video is quite useless as far as the matter in question go.
This game has dodges and has all those “strong” defensive abilities, even if they weren’t used on the video.And a powerful boon like protection that greatly reduces damage – albeit, only some classes can reliably give it – but nothing so effective for increasing the damage of a tankier build, and even if there were, it would just exacerbate the issue.
You can make up for the lack of defense via stats because there are a lot of active ones. The same isn’t true for the lack of offense. Especially since control and support aren’t as effective as pure dps, also due to some game mechanics (defiant…meh).

how long did it take?
You answered by yourself…

5 ZERK eles stacking have issues with conditions.
Equip a focus and your dps drop madly as long as you don t get a conjured (at that time your focus won t help).

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

I would be embarrassed to admit I was in favor of the potential changes, simply because it would reveal to everyone that I was bad at the game and don’t know how to dodge. I guess some people have very little shame.

Also, no matter what happens, there will still be a best way to clear dungeons. And guess what: scrubs won’t be any better at that way either. What does that mean? It means you will still get kicked from group, and your crap builds will still not be looked for on the LFG. I feel like a lot of bad players feel like whatever this change will be is going to usher in a golden age of “anything goes” and every player in the game will be on exactly equal footing. Sorry to tell you: no matter what happens bad will still be bad. There will be a meta. It might be Rabid, it might be Rampager, it might be Zerker still. And regardless, there is no reason to believe if you hate the meta now you’ll like the next one at all.

Probably one of the best posts in this thread. People, no matter what ArenaNet do to the game your bad bearbow snowflake build will still be bad and you will still be bad. The lack of shame in this thread is cringe-worthy to say the least, but the amount of delusion displayed by the bads, who think their awful builds will suddenly become legitimate, is truly staggering. You will still be bad even if Rampager becomes the new Zerker no matter what you tell yourself each time you lie dead with your face in the dirt.

EDIT: The amount of hatred bads have for good players in full zerker in the GW2 community is frightening. Learning to dodge is a thing and frankly more of you should try it. Wearing tank gear or playing bad builds, like the ones Nemesis advertises, at this point in the game’s life cycle is akin to grown men riding bicycles that still have training wheels for children attached. It’s unbecoming and somewhat sad. You need to learn to dodge just like you learned to balance yourself when riding a bike. Stop defending people who don’t want to improve and yearn to be carried all day while at the same time claiming that those people that play the highest risk vs reward spec are somehow stubborn, they’re not…

Manuhell.2759:

3 warriors, 1 guardian and 1 ele. I could stop here. I mean, that is as meta as it could get, if it weren’t for the elementalist.
Or point out the thread about healing signet…because it is far too easy for warriors to have such a sustain, compared to the other classes. Even when not having healing power, as the signet itself has such an high base (and relatively low factor for healing power).
Or the threads about the dominance of heavy classes. Heh, while not as good as a zerk build, the warrior can still dish out some nice damage even while tanky. Unlike other classes.

Also, in the video we can still see people reflecting damage via blocks due to the trait. More than half the party can do that, as there are 3 warriors. On a relatively short cooldown. And that as well doesn’t depend on gear, yet it blocks a lot of attacks that would have been heavy even for a “tanky” build, speeding also up the fight with the damage reflected. And you block any of those ranged attacks for its duration, as the skill stops blocking after a melee hit – that won’t come until he ends that aoe.
Here’s the catch, though: you can do it only with a few bosses, and only few classes can do it. It wouldn’t have been feasible if it weren’t for the classes chosen, and for a certain degree, that exact boss.

Even then, this video is quite useless as far as the matter in question go.
This game has dodges and has all those “strong” defensive abilities, even if they weren’t used on the video.And a powerful boon like protection that greatly reduces damage – albeit, only some classes can reliably give it – but nothing so effective for increasing the damage of a tankier build, and even if there were, it would just exacerbate the issue.
You can make up for the lack of defense via stats because there are a lot of active ones. The same isn’t true for the lack of offense. Especially since control and support aren’t as effective as pure dps, also due to some game mechanics (defiant…meh).

Whole path 2 was done similarly with 2 eles, 1 nec, 1 guard, 1 war. That’s rather far from meta.

Omg people who bother to spec dps, dodge and form dedicated speed clear groups are doing content faster than me on my full clerics support toon. Nerf them, nerf them all!

digiowl.9620:

Agony.3542:

digiowl.9620:

ODB.6891:

Black Box.9312:

This. This, this, this. There’s nothing wrong with zerker gear being high risk, high reward. The problem is that that risk ratio should be even with the percentage of damage gear substituted for defensive gear. Right now such a ratio only extends to a certain point, beyond which it actually becomes LESS risky for your party to spec more into damage and less into defense. This is incredibly counter-intuitive, and should be more than enough proof that zerker gear is (comparatively) too powerful.

Yes, this is incredibly counter intuitive. The reason being that tank gear exists in pve in the first place and this game is not meant or designed to have tanks. The same can be said for healing gear and healers. These gear types are very useful in pvp environments…that is where they should have been restricted to from day one. Now you have all of these players mad that their tanking gear and healing gear is not accepted in pve content.

It comes back to how differently PVP and PVE plays out mathematically.

A warrior in soldier can actually outlast a win in a direct PVP slugging match with a warrior in berzerker.

But this is never possible in PVE because most mobs above fodder can match or exceed a soldier warrior. This while the majority of their damage output is found in the spike they do every 3-4 seconds (i think i calculated one of those silver rimmed toxics to doing about 3-4x the damage of their normal hit in their spike, and this seems to be the pattern across the PVE board).

And dodge is also the least expensive defensive move in terms of recharge time pr use. 10 seconds after a dodge it is ready to be used again. Most other defensive moves in the game have 3x or longer recharge time between uses.

End result is that it is the go to defensive move unless there is some kind of gimmick involved (projectiles that can be reflected back or similar).

We see the same problem with elite skills. Sure they are massive, but their recharge is so long that people hesitate to use them at all in case they misjudge and so waste it.

But dodge is so readily available it can be virtually spammed.

You can clear dungeons without having to use the dodge key at all. You don’t even need to utilize those “op reflections” for it nor really anticipate a move and react accordingly. Hell even defensive cooldowns can become obsolete once you stack up enough defensive stats and boons. This is a TRULY brainless playstyle.

We ran arah p2 without dodging at all (dodge key unbound) or using strong defensive abilities (shieldstance, renewed focus etc). Just walking through it. NO reflections used at alphard or lupicus. We wiped like 2 times. Once @Alphard because of 4 (or 5) consecutive explosions after a single pull (seriously?!) and once while skipping to the last boss because of … reasons.

video or it didn’t happen?

Here you go: http://youtu.be/ZFZwEBDaL2w . Dub has a video of the full run, including alphard and with better quality. I exspect that one to go up soon aswell.

LordByron.8369:

how long did it take?
You answered by yourself…

5 ZERK eles stacking have issues with conditions.
Equip a focus and your dps drop madly as long as you don t get a conjured (at that time your focus won t help).

It was solo and it took about 2 minutes, without any stacking, external buffs and food. Would take much faster with scepter plus lh. With fgs it takes about 1 minute.

Your dps doesn’t drop madly if you equip focus instead of off-hand dagger. You mostly lose kitten cooldown firegrab while getting few less damaging skills but with faster recharge. I think few month back one guy showed the difference, or rather the lack of it, in the kill of vet giant with d/d and d/f. And don’t even start on saying this is burst test because d/d is more burst set than d/f is.

Vargamonth.2047:

Zerker is working perfectly fine for the most part.
You trade survival for damage, which makes you completely reliant on active defenses and increases the punishment for any mistake you could made. As a tradeoff, you kill things and complete dungeons faster for a better gold/time ratio.
Risk vs Reward, plain and simple.

The only issue, and the only fair complaint against DPS setups I can understand, is about insane amount of DPS making all that risk suddenly disappear.

We could take a look at Lupicus speedkills to show this.
There’s an undeniable show of high skill in almost any solo video out there. Just during the first phase players need to be in almost constant move to avoid being hit by locust swarms while evading every grub summon and every subtle kick animation (which is a oneshot for many classes on zerker).
IMHO this kind of gameplay absolutely deserves better results than bringing defensive stats so kicks can be endured and healed or stacking at range where this attack doesn’t even happen.

When you bring in a full DPS group, however, the fight goes in a completely different fashion.
First of all, there’s more than enough cleaving DPS to rip locusts apart before they can do anything; all need for movement is gone. Second, if the DPS is high enough, the phase can be finished so fast that kicks can be easily covered with aegis, which are long lasting enough to be precasted against an obvious pattern without worrying on them being wasted on any other minor damage source.
Players just need to avoid grub casts, which are really slow and obvious, and keep DPSing the boss. After that, a mesmer Feedback is enough to direclty finsih off phase 2, and even the whole fight with a few tricks that have been already shown to us.
There’s some organization and coordination here that should be rewarded, that’s for sure. There’s also tactic development, but that merit would belong only to those that used it for the first time and/or showed it to the world, not to any random player (like me) watching a video on youtube.
The coordination is far from high demanding, the execution is quite simple and the risk … the risk is just gone, completely nonexistant. It’s an obvious case (and there are a lot more) where playing full DPS not only doesn’t involve the risk is supposed to, but allows the execution of a tactic which removes all of it and still receives the full reward of a speedkill.

This shouldn’t be about how to make full DPS setups useless, even unplayable, as many suggestions along this thread try to accomplish.
It shouldn’t be a debate about which playstyle pleases us more and how our preferences aren’t as much rewarding as others, or about ways to bruteforce diversity.
and bring our loved specs into optimal groups.
Actively reacting to enemy animations is harder than facetanking and filling bars. It just involves more player skill over passive play and thereby deserves better rewards (in this case, freeing room for damage stats so faster runs can be achieved), and this comes from someone who has played healer/support for most of his MMO
Damage becoming the best form of defense, that’s what kills the idea of risk vs reward and the real problem we should be discussing about.

There’s only one easy and fair fix for this, and it’s just increasing the time it takes to kill things, be it through a raw increase on NPC HP/armor or demoting (promoting) every gear, from lvl 1 to 80, to double stat combinations, which is pretty much the same but also handles some downscaling issues. Needless to say that I don’t expect most people to like the idea :P
A selective nerf on full offensive combos is not reasonable at all when there’s a whole PvP enviroment that shares gear and doesn’t exactly suffer from this (most likely from the opposite if anything).

Other than that, there’s only the developing of more complex encounters and more polished AIs (LoS stacking should probably disappear); of making PvE more like PvP, where some specs use zerker but others don’t (and almost none zerker + DPS traits) and where every character capability (power burst, sustained damage, conditions, control, support, …) has its place.
Desirable? Absolutely. Likely to happen? I really doubt it.

A good read right here.

A small note about increasing mob HP: anet definitely has tried that and the only thing it ever did was making the need for firepower even more severe. However, in fights that didn’t use a direct HP increase to extend the length of the fight (such as Mai Trin shield, or Bookworm ice shield) it was a promising direction.

About the AI: if only ranged mobs/bosses would circle around a stack of players instead of charging at them around a corner, this single change would fix most of the stacking encounters. If melee mobs would learn to stagger their charges and phase in/out it’d fix even more.

Omg, evade exploit. Must buff pvt immediately! We must not rest until we can stack enough passive defense to not even look at the screen.

http://youtu.be/aZgRUtK7LkM

Dodge key disabled. No blocks, reflects or invulns. Only time we downed was when we face tanked 5+ aoe hits right under lupi.

Does anyone really want to see this to become the new meta?

Manuhell.2759:

haviz.1340:

On the topic about heals being weak, take a look at this clip. Facetanking the hardest hitting boss in the game because of the heals that are “close to useless” and armour that reduces hits “veeeery slightly” is not my definition of a logical sentence.

3 warriors, 1 guardian and 1 ele. I could stop here. I mean, that is as meta as it could get, if it weren’t for the elementalist.

This video gives the wrong impression by calling it casual. If I define “casual” to mean that I can pick 4 other random players and achieve the same effect (no matter how long it takes to kill lupi), then this video will not qualify.

As Manuhell pointed out, the 3 warriors and 1 guardian +1 other is pretty much the meta. Why? The guardian is their prime “mitigator” by providing perma-prot. What’s more a hammer guardian can even heal with the Symbol of Protection. The warriors can shout heal whilst providing might, and the elementalist in the video was also in water attunement quite a fair bit.

In other words, it could possibly have been a team of 1 mitigator/support healer, and 4 dps/support healers. This is a setup which is not exactly casual, and requires a specific build combination. If we were to lose the hammer guardian, can that player be replaced by any other random profession with any other random build?

The current “DPS meta” also gives the false impression that everyone ONLY does DPS. This isn’t exactly true as most people have noted, a group of 5 pure berserkers only doing a dps rotation cannot survive every encounter, no matter how fast they can kill. There will always be someone doing some form of mitigation.

In COF1, you could have 4 zerk warriors and 1 mesmer. The mesmer is there for Timewarp and Feedback. The Feedback is important to protect the warriors from the effigy projectiles and let the warriors do their job. In terms of dps output, the mesmer hardly compares to that of the 4 warriors. In this case, damage from the Slave Driver is shared amongst the 4 warriors who have the healthpool to do so.

Can the same be done with 5 zerk warriors? Yes, but with much less guarantee of success than with 4 war 1 mez. Want a even smoother ride? 3 war 1 guard 1 mez, which is the most common combination for COF1 and pretty much the meta. Why is it so successful? The projectile reflect which negates the damage from the effigy.

Blinds, blocks, reflects, and dodge are the “hard” mitigators. They completely prevent damage. Protection, Weakness (also possibly Vigor and Stability) are the “softer” mitigators by reducing damage. Obviously for most effective play, a group would prioritize having as much hard mitigators as possible, with the softer ones to fill in between.

This leaves the professions which do not have easy, or more accurately, convenient access to those abilities rather lacking in PVE. With the phrase “DPS meta”, one would expect the profession with the most focus on DPS would be most prevalent, however the Thief is not what people are looking for in LFG.

Without the access to mitigators to reliably prevent damage, it would be better to allow the ability to reliably heal damage reactively. A group which can’t find a reflect mesmer or a hammer guardian should be able to replace them with maybe a healing venom thief, a water elementalist, a spirit ranger, or some other support build.

Of course if blinds became more effective by causing misses the entire duration, instead of being expended, then stealth blind thieves and well necros would be added into the fold since they can reliably are hard mitigators too. Likewise if earth staff elementalists could use Stoning to inflict Weakness in a radius similar to the blast radius of Fire1/Water1/Air1 (with increased radius when traited), they could be a soft mitigator as well.

To properly balance all the classes, they should all have access to traits/skills which achieve the same effect, be it preventing damage or healing the damage. It’s not necessary to give everyone blocks, or reflects, but it’s necessary to give everyone something which is just as good.

If anet insists on removing the zerker meta, and the meta is changed to a different armor set. Then I demand a free 1 time stat change on all 8 of my characters, not only because it would remove the way I want to play, but also because all 8 of my characters are equiped in full exotic armor/weapons and it costs way too much gold/real money to get all of the armor again + transmute it with transmutation crystals

Exedore.6320:

And a comment on the MMO trinity: GW2 got rid of it, but they didn’t change the style of PvE encounters with it. It still plays like it should have a trinity. Almost every single PvE battle is still a group of trash mobs that get AoE’ed down or a boss that’s an HP punching bag with some easy gimmic. What if more content was like the dredge where they have group protection and daze/knockdown (preferably without the endless dredge clown cars)?

Exedore hit the nail on the head with this statement. This game plays like it has a trinity. Supposably it has a trinity. Damage, control, and support. Right now, control is nearly non existing, support is belittled by absolutely crap scaling with stats like Healing Power, and damage is the only worth while way to beat an encounter quickly.

What ANet needs to do is take a serious look at their boss encounter designs and ask themselves “How can we make healing, condition removal, damage prevention/reduction, and CC valuable in this encounter?” In my opinion, giving heals the ability to critically heal would be a great start to making supporty characters more valuable. Counter play to healing criticals would be giving poison the additional effect of preventing heals from critting.

As for control, I’m at a loss. I understand why ANet implemented Defiant; they don’t want bosses permastunned. But right now defiant is so restricting bat anyone that wants to be mainly controlling of the battlefield is pidgeon-holed because they can’t do their job 80% of the time.

TL;DR – Give support and control more meaning in your encounters if you want people to even bother running those types of builds. This game has a trinity, and plays like it has one, so stop pretending it doesn’t.

Anicetus.1253:

Does anyone really want to see this to become the new meta?

If people bothered to LFG for pure berserkers and expect to succeed, it’s only fair to expect that a group of people who bothered to LFG for a group which have lots of protection/blinds/weakness to also be able to succeed.

What’s key is to prevent to dominance of any one meta. A berserker focued group should be as good as any other balanced group.

Amiron.1067:

Exedore.6320:

And a comment on the MMO trinity: GW2 got rid of it, but they didn’t change the style of PvE encounters with it. It still plays like it should have a trinity. Almost every single PvE battle is still a group of trash mobs that get AoE’ed down or a boss that’s an HP punching bag with some easy gimmic. What if more content was like the dredge where they have group protection and daze/knockdown (preferably without the endless dredge clown cars)?

Exedore hit the nail on the head with this statement. This game plays like it has a trinity. Supposably it has a trinity. Damage, control, and support. Right now, control is nearly non existing, support is belittled by absolutely crap scaling with stats like Healing Power, and damage is the only worth while way to beat an encounter quickly.

What ANet needs to do is take a serious look at their boss encounter designs and ask themselves “How can we make healing, condition removal, damage prevention/reduction, and CC valuable in this encounter?” In my opinion, giving heals the ability to critically heal would be a great start to making supporty characters more valuable. Counter play to healing criticals would be giving poison the additional effect of preventing heals from critting.

As for control, I’m at a loss. I understand why ANet implemented Defiant; they don’t want bosses permastunned. But right now defiant is so restricting bat anyone that wants to be mainly controlling of the battlefield is pidgeon-holed because they can’t do their job 80% of the time.

TL;DR – Give support and control more meaning in your encounters if you want people to even bother running those types of builds. This game has a trinity, and plays like it has one, so stop pretending it doesn’t.

This is so true. We cannot ignore the undeniable facts:

1. Enemies have HP. We need to deplete it. We need DPS.
2. Enemies do damage. We need to prevent it. We need Mitigators.
3. We have HP. We need to refill it. We need Healing.

GW2 mixes things up more by having a whole lot of Buffs and Conditions/Cleanses which we then call “support”.

The lynchpin in the game at the moment are the professions which are better at providing party-wide mitigation. Everyone can dps, albeit some better than others, but no one can safely continue dpsing without the mitigators. Even more power to those whose mitigation abilities are tied to DPS traits and abilities.

GW2 just doesn’t have “tanks” because there is no definable aggro system in the game to hold the attention of enemies. This is where the “control” should come in. And yes, Defiant (and all other blanket “I am a boss I am immune go suck a lemon” mechanic) really should be removed.

Instead maybe give the boss a stacking buff on the next attack after getting interrupted (like a temporary Enraged) to display its anger at getting knocked down, etc. This creates increasing risk when trying to use chain interrupts, but extremely rewarding to groups that can successfully pull it off.

Even better when the person who successfully interrupts attracts the ire of the boss and gets instant aggro. In which case the boss is actually “enraged” at the interrupter and would make sense to purposely try to inflict increased damage to him/her.

Or instead of an “Enraged” buff on the boss, it could be a debuff on the interrupter (let’s just called it “Focused” for now) which increases damage taken from the boss and indicate aggro. This debuff could be on a timer and be transferred to the next player that interrupts the boss. If the same player consecutively interrupts the boss, the timer could reset, or the debuff could stack and increase damage taken.

Whatever it is, make control viable somehow…dump Defiant.