Guild Wars 2

I’m just going to leave a topic about zerkers here.
You all know the discussion points.

Most people agree that the fastest and easiest way to clear pve is to go all out dps.
Is it a “meta” we want?
Should non zerkers be buffed? How?
Should zerkers be nerfed? How?
Are healers and pure support too rubbish in comparison? Is that intentional?
Same for people who focus on crowd control? Is that intentional?

Etc.

fadeaway.2807:

I’m just going to leave a topic about zerkers here.
You all know the discussion points.

Most people agree that the fastest and easiest way to clear pve is to go all out dps.
Is it a “meta” we want?
Should non zerkers be buffed? How?
Should zerkers be nerfed? How?

Etc.

What we need is not nerfs or buffs. The first thing must happen is dealing with the condition cap it will open room for more condition type players. On top of that do you need to increase the dificulty of pve so that different type of builds are promoted. I think fractals could be an example of that.

By increasing the condition cap, conditions would be broken in pve aswell

How could it be broken in pve? The condition cap limits the amount of condition players that can fight efectively not the damage of a single player.

I don’t think raising the condition cap would do much to pve dungeons and fractals.
The reason being – it is already viable to bring 1 condition user to your dungeon runs. They will probably get fairly close to the cap themselves and do a decent amount of single target dps. What they often can’t do though is burst and cleave.. both of which are incredibly important.

Besides, I think if conditions were just as effective as direct damage… we would be having the talk of “is dps too powerful?” rather than simply “is zerker too powerful”.

For open world bosses though.. if the cap were removed, conditions would instantly be the top dps specs. Generally damage over time has the higher damage inflicted per second spend doing it assuming it’s not cleansed in this game.

I think the issue is that evasion is way too good in GW2, it allow the glassiest build avoid a damage completely. So why should a player build for survivability if with a click I can ignore the damage and killing the mob faster = less damage taken?

Something should be done in PvE to rise the attrition against players, that way if you want to build for max damage you’ll be sure that death will be always very close to you.

Zerkers are the product that the rules of the game have created, if the stat combo didn’t exist we would use the next best stats or combination of stats.

Are we talking gear only or traiting for damage too? Because this then becomes a discussion of playstyle which is play the way you want. People can and should play how they want but if the way they want to play isn’t popular then what? The player chose to play the way they wanted to, when a person makes a choice they take responsibility for the choice they made, unless they have been given bad information.

I won’t say I’m pro damage, but I will say I’m for the method that ends the fight the quickest which is usually damage, especially in GW2.

Belzebu.3912:

I think the issue is that evasion is way too good in GW2, it allow the glassiest build avoid a damage completely. So why should a player build for survivability if with a click I can ignore the damage and killing the mob faster = less damage taken?

Something should be done in PvE to rise the attrition against players, that way if you want to build for max damage you’ll be sure that death will be always very close to you.

what about higher attack speed of mobs and bosses?

Berserker gear feels like it has two primary stats. It gets huge bonuses to both Power and Crit Damage which scale exponentially with one another. I’d suggest nerfing the Power to a secondary stat or nerfing the critical damage by 1-2% per piece. This unfortunately also means nerfing the crit damage on Assassin’s gear and the crit damage or toughness on Cavalier’s gear to keep them in line with Berserker’s.

3 thing they should do

1. Remove condition cap wich could allow a spec to do more then 25 stack of bleed
2. double the effectiveness of toughness
3. give the ability to gain damage based on power to pets like the tooltips pretend to

wich would result in a boom in pet using build in party (turret enginer beastmaster ranger minion master necro phantasm mesmer) revalue control speciality based on the use of summons and actualy make dots spec actualy worth playing in pve when it comes to running dungeon with maximum damage effectiveness aka conditionmencer necro shortbow ranger and enginer. DOT class can get their condition dispelled so why in hell are they limited in the number of stack they can do? while physicals can crit for 60ks

Tim.6450:

Belzebu.3912:

I think the issue is that evasion is way too good in GW2, it allow the glassiest build avoid a damage completely. So why should a player build for survivability if with a click I can ignore the damage and killing the mob faster = less damage taken?

Something should be done in PvE to rise the attrition against players, that way if you want to build for max damage you’ll be sure that death will be always very close to you.

what about higher attack speed of mobs and bosses?

Dodging is a very important mechanic, it’s also skill based and I find it quite fun to learn the attacks of enemies and then avoid them with well placed dodges. I don’t think changing the attack speeds will help because people will adjust. It’s a core mechanic, that is fair for the most part people shouldn’t be punished for dodging. Unless they make a condition that damages you when you dodge that would be interesting and annoying.

Tim.6450:

what about higher attack speed of mobs and bosses?

Yes, that would be a start.
Maybe more condition damage from mobs, some bosses have environmental debuffs, and so on, that would incentive the use of different builds, not only focus on direct raw damage, you could use more healing power or toughness or vitality, depending on your class/gamestyle but also focus on damage if you like.

maybe then the solution is to add unblockable ability to bosses wich deals heavy damage to players without thoughness every now and then.

As much as I would like more skills and build variety, introducing a soft trinity is not the way to do it. If you make “tanking” or “healing” required you ruin the unique thing about GW2 in the first place and what the devs were trying to avoid. I feel the game should stay the way it is with the dodge or die mechanics but with adjustments to class balance.

kyubi.3620:

maybe then the solution is to add unblockable ability to bosses wich deals heavy damage to players without thoughness every now and then.

Problem with that is it screws classes with low baseline armor/health over.

TurtleDragon.3108:

As much as I would like more skills and build variety, introducing a soft trinity is not the way to do it. If you make “tanking” or “healing” required you ruin the unique thing about GW2 in the first place and what the devs were trying to avoid. I feel the game should stay the way it is with the dodge or die mechanics but with adjustments to class balance.

I do too, because of this, the game offers something that other games do not and makes GW2 unique. Trading blows with mobs isn’t what I call fun. This one simple mechanic pushes the game into being more like an action RPG than a turn based one.

fadeaway.2807:

Uncategorised fractal ogre (harpy level, first boss) is a good example of this. This would increase the usefulness of mitigation such as toughness and replenishment of health via heals.

He one shots most of the classes with his autoattack.

Yes, what fadeaway said is true, another problem in PvE is that most bosses/areas are all or nothing, it is too easy so defense is useless or it is so hard that makes defense also useless since you’ll get 1hit anyway.

Adding mobs more conditions, especially weakness and blind, could solve some of the problems.

I’m not doing much PvE, but i would see part of the issue in how “challenging” is defined in this game. Most big bosses just got a lot of hp and damage that high, that it nearly doesn’t matter, how good your armor is.

I think Aetherblade Retreat was a good step in the right direction, as it introduced some mechanics that put it apart from the usual “stack together and dps”. There need to be more tricky fights where it’s not just a matter of dps.

Granted, this will make playing with “randoms” much harder since you will have to communicate more and use certain strategies to win said fights, but i think this is a price worth paying.

fadeaway.2807:

Part of the problem also stems from the fact that in challenging pve (for example fotm49) bosses will oneshot a lot of people most of the time, even in pvt gear. If you’re not oneshotted, if you are not playing properly you will die instantly as a zerker or within a few seconds as a tank. Take grawl shaman for example, during his add phase. If you don’t stand on a reflect when those adds spawn, you have moments to live whatever spec you are – so why gear for defense?

I’d like to see overall damage changed from 1 massive one-shot hit every now and again to multiple smaller hits, thus reducing the reliance of dodge/aegis/blind… but then implementing 1 fairly hard hitting yet dodgeable (or CCable – remove defiant stacks for a few seconds) attack every now and again. Uncategorised fractal ogre (harpy level, first boss) is a good example of this. This would increase the usefulness of mitigation such as toughness and replenishment of health via heals.

I agree if you’re gonna go down in a one shot you may as well be ripping the highest numbers you possibly can out of the enemy.

People need to quit thinking this game is your traditional trinity type MMO: it’s not. Once you understand that, the concept of “meta” goes out the window. Instead, it’s all about efficiency and maximum group utility(in many cases just pure dps).

Instead, people post stuff like “please nerf Berserkers”…why? so you can sit there in Cleric armor with AH on your Guardian and do nothing? lol.

berserker and assassins is fine. if you are a good player you will be able to survive. if you are bad, you wont.

its skill based. and the problem isnt berserkers. the problem is that the pve content is too easy in this game.

As has been essentially stated before me in this thread, all out damage specs and gear being the most optimal is the result of the ability to dodge. If you start giving bosses less powerful but faster attacks, you are minimizing the effectiveness of a huge game mechanic. By lessening the effectiveness of dodges, some players might take this as a “soft trinity” and not feel the need to dodge when it should be done because he or she can “tank” the damage.

For a game like this, to not trivialize and destroy dodging, bosses need to be designed differently. Lavra pointing to Aetherblade retreat was a good example.

I, personally, don’t think there is a very effective way to un-meta-ing “stacking zerkers” without impacting dodges. Even if conditions were buffed, they can still be applied in melee range.

NoTrigger.8396:

berserker and assassins is fine. if you are a good player you will be able to survive. if you are bad, you wont.

its skill based. and the problem isnt berserkers. the problem is that the pve content is too easy in this game.

I agree. PvE content is fairly easy and the only really hard content is Teq and he requires a group of over 100 to complete. I think they should just increase the difficulty of higher level dungeons. The only problem is Arah. The dungeon is so hard that people just skip through all the mobs. And by hard I mean 1 hit kill ranged attacks, scores of incredibly high level enemies, and other badies that has incredibly damaging attacks. So to sum it up. Buff dungeons levels 60+ while giving them all different/more interesting mechanics.

bobomb.5209:

I agree. PvE content is fairly easy and the only really hard content is Teq and he requires a group of over 100 to complete. I think they should just increase the difficulty of higher level dungeons. The only problem is Arah. The dungeon is so hard that people just skip through all the mobs. And by hard I mean 1 hit kill ranged attacks, scores of incredibly high level enemies, and other badies that has incredibly damaging attacks. So to sum it up. Buff dungeons levels 60+ while giving them all different/more interesting mechanics.

How could dungeons be possible changed without a dungeons team?

What would you say to frequent low damage attacks which are enough to kill you via attrition if you don’t bring enough toughness/healing, mixed with a dodgeable high damage attack?

fadeaway.2807:

What would you say to frequent low damage attacks which are enough to kill you via attrition if you don’t bring enough toughness/healing, mixed with a dodgeable high damage attack?

That would mean I cannot play how I want anymore which is the selling point of this game.

fadeaway.2807:

What would you say to frequent low damage attacks which are enough to kill you via attrition if you don’t bring enough toughness/healing, mixed with a dodgeable high damage attack?

There’s a few of these out there; most notably flame legion that carry flamethrowers. I always enjoy fighting them with a relatively durable guardian build that can use retaliation and afford to stand in the line of fire. They tend to overwhelm players that can’t CC them or take a bit of damage, though, due to their ability to continue spraying fire pretty much uninterrupted for extended periods of time. More enemies of this type would certainly help.

The problem isn’t as much as the classes, stats and anything with the players. The problem is that the PvE mobs lacks the AI complexity to make use of support and control roles, and it’s mostly due to the lack of holy trinity, cause with it you can dumb down your PvE encounters.

The PvE mobs are way too clumsy and stupid compared to how fluent and fast-paced GW2’s combat is without the holy trinity. Most of the mobs and bosses have way too few abilities to counter the players and also fall for the “stacking” tactic.

What we need is mobs with more abilities that can combo eachother, more bosses like the Molten Facility where two bosses complement eachother or environments that complement the boss and we need mobs updated with a anti-stack tactic.

I’d love to see mobs that avoid standing on eachother or players, and when too clustered, runs away or moves to the side, and can even flank the players if they stand still. What more, we could need more mobs that dodge and perhaps even try to finish off a player when downed, which would promote stuns. If the mobs did this, we’d also see conditions such as weakness, immobilize and cripple be used.

I am not proposing all mobs to be updated, but future hardcore dungeons, dungeon revamps and higher fractal level. If the PvE NPCs started to counter the players and use tactics themselves to break down groups with full DPS, then we could see more groups that would utilize a mix of control, support and DPS I believe.

This would require a more complex AI for the PvE mobs, and I think this is worth investing into. As I said earlier, GW2’s combat is way too action based for stale “chase and attack” mobs to work and even prove a challenge.

Lead Game Designer already said they aren’t going to fix the pet AI on the Rangers because it is tied to the general mob AI because it would “break a million things” so don’t expect any overhaul of mob AI any time soon.

Here is something to consider:

What is wrong with the zerker meta? How is doing high damage with low survivability requiring situational awareness and player skill not exciting?

And lets take a look at this from another angle: How, in ANY game where you get rewards after you kill monsters would they incentivize you to kill monsters slower?

I would agree that adding more variety for MAXIMUM DAMAGE would be nice, fixing conditions stacks in group play and making “structures” vulnerable to them would be nice (at the same time, they should be vulnerable to crits as well).

Here’s the tricky balancing act:

Making it obvious that support characters bring enough extra team damage to the table that a pure support character is welcome but not required.

Change Defiant mechanics in a way that makes control characters welcome but not required. (If you think a serious nerf to defiant wouldn’t make an all stun warrior meta then you haven’t done Bjarl the Rampager when someone brought a knockdown consumable.)

One Shot Mechanics have got to go if we want to see anything other than DPS/Zerker gear only builds. Otherwise as others have said, there’s no point in running anything else. Because of this lovely mechanic, classes are pigeon holed into their DPS/Zerk builds.

With the way things are now, build diversity is a novelty.

I for one vote to change this.

haviz.1340:

fadeaway.2807:

What would you say to frequent low damage attacks which are enough to kill you via attrition if you don’t bring enough toughness/healing, mixed with a dodgeable high damage attack?

That would mean I cannot play how I want anymore which is the selling point of this game.

But with a few more changes, the toughness/healing wouldn’t even be required. Going full zerker but having a group with blinds, interrupts, weakness, & protection would still allow for full zerkers to “tank” weaker hits at a riskier level. Burning through the enemies would be less hits in the long run. Faster weaker attacks would also make retaliation tank builds less useless. Confusion also wouldn’t be as bad in PvE. So I see this as a win win for everyone.

Enemies just need to behave like & have player abilities. They should be in diverse enemy groups rather than a single target boss. More than 3 enemies = melee cleaves will randomly hit enemies unless targeted. Tanky enemies would soak up those random hits. Enemies should have glass cannons so focus fire rather than blindly cleaving would be more useful. If enemies had stronger heals/healers, poisons/interrupts would be nice while also offering an alternative target to focus fire. So even though we don’t have a hard trinity, doesn’t mean the enemies can’t have some of it.

AI from Gw1 hardmode had enemies disperse if they took too much AOE. Full zerker stacking groups could utilize CC skills but someone might need to swap to hammer instead of GS etc. If CC was screwed up then the zerkers would have a much tougher time recovering. So, more play styles/weapons become viable while requiring more thought to zerker stacking.

Get rid of defiant. Give enemies stability instead. Or have them be defiant when they are not using an attack. This would prevent CC spam to trivialize an enemy but would allow for well timed CC builds to be more rewarding. Again, doesn’t prevent full zerker, just opens up more usefulness of other classes/builds/weapons.

If enemies refreshed retaliation on themselves, it would be harder to stack and burst. Alternatively, it would require to maybe swap to slower heavier hitting weapons or single target weapons. Just more boons in general for enemies would be good. Zerker warriors could go with their boon hate while necro/mesmer might be brought for stripping instead. Furthermore, protection wouldn’t hit condi builds as much so in an indirect way, they are buffed.

TLDR: Making enemies “weaker” but “smarter” would raise the bar on a full zerker group but it could still be done. It would also make other builds not as bad. So the selling point of the game would be more valid than it currently is. Most of these suggestions don’t require a major change in enemy AI, just changing their skill bar so that problem could be avoided.

Shinki.8045:

Here is something to consider:

What is wrong with the zerker meta? How is doing high damage with low survivability requiring situational awareness and player skill not exciting?

Except that it isn’t exciting or skill-based because stacking exists. What is fun about bunching up in a corner and spamming one with the occasional habitual dodge? What in that takes skill? Absolutely nothing, but the prevalence of stacking is a large part of the reason that the zerker meta is so successful.

You want players to feel like playing full berserker is dangerous make them fight mobs that are found there http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fallen_Halls_of_Glory
scale the hp/damages up there you go, no stack , no facetank. Now will pve players not be QQ about it in the forums that’s the question.

Varying attacks from mobs between quick, low damage attacks and high damage ones that are easily telegraphed would be a nice start. Discourage stacking with more PBAoE and get rid of damage scaling with reflects alongside that and you’ll probably start to see a lot more build variety in PvE.

Of course, that would actually require the developers to be willing to rework the current PvE, but it seems like for now at least they’d rather dedicate the bulk of their manpower to living story instead.

You won’t see build variety, you’ll see bads cry about it being too hard. Zerkers will just adapt their meta builds, provided it’s even necessary. Why discourage stacking? Is running around in circles at range more interesting? High dps? More skill intensive?

mahariel.4981:

You won’t see build variety, you’ll see bads cry about it being too hard. Zerkers will just adapt their meta builds, provided it’s even necessary. Why discourage stacking? Is running around in circles at range more interesting? High dps? More skill intensive?

Yes, no, and yes.

If you start increasing attack frequency you alienate more classes. For example warriors and mesmers have plenty of evades, invulns, blocks and access to vigor. Some classes are very limited in that regard so they will be forced into more tanky roles or just not picked at all. I dont want my necro to be pigeonholed into some boring bunker build for pve. You would hurt diversity more by increasing attack frequency. Just buff classes so they are more desirable even when playing non optimal specs. The issue isnt that its full zerkers everywhere its that the effectiveness of other builds is so minor that it actually hurts groups more when they take those builds.

Things like healing power scaling, condition reworks and so on could help without destroying the dps meta. If you want to play non zerk builds you can, they just wont be optimal. But they can still be good with some improvements to class balance and pve mechanics. I dont think people should be aiming to destroy the current meta they should be asking to make other builds more useful. This means the optimal groups will still be taking full dps if it works and if you arent in a speedrunning guild it doesnt effect you so you have no reason to complain.

More variety with creature design would be the best thing. Right now power+%crit damage destroys all. With more creature variance offensively and defensively more variety would be required, and I think more variety on both ends is better.

Thanks for your thoughts guys. Very proud that it has not turned into a flame fest <3

I think the majority of players are saying that there should be a reward for being able to dodge those big attacks. Currently that comes in the form of higher Dps.

If the idea is to balance out stats so that things other than damage stats matter in PVE, it coul dbe done with mechanics like pulsing, unavoidable damage to make defensive stats matter, since the avoidable, telegraphed damage of mobs, etc… is too easy to avoid. Of course, people hate that as well because they think it’s not ‘skills-based’, which is true, but then again, how fun is it to play the same builds in the same dungeons with your eyes closed all the time?

Perhaps some more randomness … a dungeon could have fixed boss encounters but throw random things at teams as they progress, like traps but with random placement. That way, certain areas would require more balanced stats attainable by swapping gear or require some more clever thinking to get through.

I think bosses should be harder.
Or to be accurate- smarter like real pvp player scenarios.

1) mobs should MOVE. faster and all the time. This would require an immobilze coordination for 100cheezslices.

2) constant melee dmg and interrupts. U know. Like any real pvp scenario

I think we need to get rid of melee zerkers, and try to reach a mix of zerker ranged/ melee more tanky / cc support

Flumek.9043:

I think bosses should be harder.
Or to be accurate- smarter like real pvp player scenarios.

1) mobs should MOVE. faster and all the time. This would require an immobilze coordination for 100cheezslices.

2) constant melee dmg and interrupts. U know. Like any real pvp scenario

I think we need to get rid of melee zerkers, and try to reach a mix of zerker ranged/ melee more tanky / cc support

I’ve entertained the idea of AI that behaved more like players. Right now mobs are simply far too predictable to require any sort of genuine skill to defeat, and making them more mobile, quick, and sporadic would do wonders to promote more active play in PvE.

Black Box.9312:

Flumek.9043:

I think bosses should be harder.
Or to be accurate- smarter like real pvp player scenarios.

1) mobs should MOVE. faster and all the time. This would require an immobilze coordination for 100cheezslices.

2) constant melee dmg and interrupts. U know. Like any real pvp scenario

I think we need to get rid of melee zerkers, and try to reach a mix of zerker ranged/ melee more tanky / cc support

I’ve entertained the idea of AI that behaved more like players. Right now mobs are simply far too predictable to require any sort of genuine skill to defeat, and making them more mobile, quick, and sporadic would do wonders to promote more active play in PvE.

Just as I mentioned in my post above. This, all this. Mobs needs AI overhaul or atleast some improvement. I don’t know how much work it requires and how it’s right now, but this would fix a lot of zergs.

The combat system is only fully realized in PvP, and since we lack holy trinity, you need more advanced mobs so that anything but damage becomes crucial.

So far we’ve seen more diversity in mobs, and I hope it improves with the LS. Mobs need utility that is anti-zerg and especially anti-stacking. Mobs in dungeons SHOULD TRY to finish off a downed player, which would require knockbacks and stuns.

Later on, they should add movement on mobs. Not the “chase and attack” tactic, but actually spreading out when they are clustered, ranged kiting the players and weaker mobs trying to flank the player group and get up behind.

Black Box.9312:

Flumek.9043:

I think bosses should be harder.
Or to be accurate- smarter like real pvp player scenarios.

1) mobs should MOVE. faster and all the time. This would require an immobilze coordination for 100cheezslices.

2) constant melee dmg and interrupts. U know. Like any real pvp scenario

I think we need to get rid of melee zerkers, and try to reach a mix of zerker ranged/ melee more tanky / cc support

I’ve entertained the idea of AI that behaved more like players. Right now mobs are simply far too predictable to require any sort of genuine skill to defeat, and making them more mobile, quick, and sporadic would do wonders to promote more active play in PvE.

If mobs in this game didn’t require any skill, then terribad pugs would be able to blitz through content.

But of course, they can’t. So clearly there is skill involved.

fadeaway.2807:

I don’t think raising the condition cap would do much to pve dungeons and fractals.
The reason being – it is already viable to bring 1 condition user to your dungeon runs. They will probably get fairly close to the cap themselves and do a decent amount of single target dps. What they often can’t do though is burst and cleave.. both of which are incredibly important.

Besides, I think if conditions were just as effective as direct damage… we would be having the talk of “is dps too powerful?” rather than simply “is zerker too powerful”.

For open world bosses though.. if the cap were removed, conditions would instantly be the top dps specs. Generally damage over time has the higher damage inflicted per second spend doing it assuming it’s not cleansed in this game.

Pffft almost funny…

Bleed Ranger + Necro with a bunch of random conditions + Epidemic = win.

I ran around with 4 necro and a guardian in wvw one day. All of them had the aoe fear skill and epidemic. We killed groups of 10-20.

All that shows is that WvW players are too dumb to slot in stability.