Guild Wars 2

Looks like the DPS meta builds are about to get a lot less meta:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvE-Revising-the-DPS-Meta/first#post3480529

Unless they completely redesign enemy AI and attack patterns, I doubt we’ll be saying goodbye to anything. And seeing how much work they have done to dungeons, I’m not expecting much to change.

I’m actually more worried about them trying to fix the DPS meta and inadvertently screwing over everyone else than I am worried about the DPS meta.

Yep, but I get the impression from reading several posts by devs that they don’t like the DPS meta since that’s build restrictive.

Oh noes, my ascended zerk gear! TRANSMUTE!

So now we will have to THINK about build diversity rather than mindlessly zerg down telegraphic bosses like lupi? crazy talk!

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Yep, but I get the impression from reading several posts by devs that they don’t like the DPS meta since that’s build restrictive.

Yet majority of pugs don’t run the meta builds with zerker gear… If they screw up the “DPS meta”, there will be a new gold standard that min-maxers will move to, and for people to complain about.

The flow of tears will never stop. Just a new reason for why they flow.

Arenanet has said a lot of things in the past.
Nothing will change. They’ll probably do something stupid like increase mob hp because zerkers burn through it too fast. That or remove everyone’s easy access vigor and call it a day.

Whatever happens, the new meta will be whatever gives the highest dps.

fadeaway.2807:

Arenanet has said a lot of things in the past.
Nothing will change. They’ll probably do something stupid like increase mob hp because zerkers burn through it too fast. That or remove everyone’s easy access vigor and call it a day.

Whatever happens, the new meta will be whatever gives the highest dps.

Negative, not if you make encounters around heavy AoE and condi pressure where survival rather than DPS wins the encounter.

Hunter.4783:

Negative, not if you make encounters around heavy AoE and condi pressure where survival rather than DPS wins the encounter.

So they’d have to redesign all dungeons? When the only thing they have done with dungeons in the past year was add that Aetherblade POS path?

They aren’t fixing anything. Probably just give some benefit to having more toughness or something stupid like that.

So what exactly is the problem? I recall reading a few threads over the weekend that Devs mentioned they are looking into something and will announce later this week regarding Zerker stats. However, I can’t see much from it when everyone rushed to build ascended sets and that isn’t cheap by any means.

Speed kills, so what. Is there a honest problem with a group of 5 killing a boss before x amount of time? Do the developers get paid based on boss or mob longevity? Maybe they should take a step back, look at the product they offered at launch then every month thereafter and look at the power players evolution.

Players get smarter. Bosses don’t. Smart players look for every edge to finish faster. Time is money in real life and virtual reality. Arena Net needs to relax a little bit and find bigger fish to fry. This isn’t one of them. Maybe looking at their traits in general and how they don’t work should be looked at first.

fadeaway.2807:

That or remove everyone’s easy access vigor

One thing’s for a very strong possibility is this because that’s another thing they’ve been vocal about not liking before.

Honestly, I expect the critical damage on berserker/assassin to be split into half crit damage half vitality, pretty much like in sPvP.
Nothing really gamechanging like better AIs or harder encounter design.

I won’t pretend to know how or if it will change but if it does, I look forward to experimenting with different builds again. I’m having difficulty with posters that are complaining about it. I don’t think an objective opinion on such a change would cause anyone to complain.

Probably just make toughness/vitality scale better and condition damage/healing power better

Painbow.6059:

Probably just make toughness/vitality scale better and condition damage/healing power better

That wouldn’t change a thing and would actually make WvW even more unbalanced.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Painbow.6059:

Probably just make toughness/vitality scale better and condition damage/healing power better

That wouldn’t change a thing and would actually make WvW even more unbalanced.

Heck, let us do this! WvW is already a train wreck we might as well throw up more silverware and random code at the problem hoping it will balance everything out…

I’m glad I did not craft my ascended armour yet …

Goodbye DPS Meta

Hunter.4783:

fadeaway.2807:

Arenanet has said a lot of things in the past.
Nothing will change. They’ll probably do something stupid like increase mob hp because zerkers burn through it too fast. That or remove everyone’s easy access vigor and call it a day.

Whatever happens, the new meta will be whatever gives the highest dps.

Negative, not if you make encounters around heavy AoE and condi pressure where survival rather than DPS wins the encounter.

Or just do something more simple like making other stats scale to the point where they seem to make a more noticeable difference.

This’d probably have to be PVE specific though, because they’re fine in PVP.

OMG what will we doooo!!! Oh, right, change the meta, build for new meta, and let the QQ start over.

But i don’t think thats gonna happen, they will just cap the crit damage like in PVP and nothing will ever change. Maybe if bads could l2p instead of crying on forums…

Hunter.4783:

Negative, not if you make encounters around heavy AoE and condi pressure where survival rather than DPS wins the encounter.

So.. 4 zerkers and a perma prot guardian then?
The new meta will be whatever gives the highest dps while keeping you alive – just like now. You sacrifice as much defense as you are comfortable with for offense. If you need more mitigation, people will turn to protection before they turn to mitigation stats.

I really don’t think it’s just going to be something so simple as increasing other stats. Sure, it might be included, but I don’t think that’s going to be the main “fix.”

One of the things we’re going to see is a major change to Vigor, endurance regen, and all the gear/upgrades that help restore it, much akin to the way Quickness was “fixed” and then there will be an outcry.

And then there’s mob AI. Sure there’s been a lot of joking about not being able to fix it, but look at the recent updates. They haven’t exactly been the traditional mobs in them.

Josh Davis.6015:

Citizens,

This Friday at 2PM PST (22:00 GMT) we’ll be hosting another episode of Ready Up. I’ll be joined by Game Designers Jon Peters, Jon Sharp, Karl McLain, and Roy Cronacher.

In this episode we’ll be talking about a few of the things the Skills and Balance team is working on for the next balance update, including:

• Runes and sigil rework
• Critical damage changes
• New stat combinations for PvP (amulets)
• High-level overview of planned balance changes

You can catch the livestream at www.twitch.tv/guildwars2

We will have to wait until Friday to see if there are any more changes. Right now it looks like their only fix is adjusting critical-hit damage (probably making it lower). It’s possible they just wanted to reduce the discrepancy between Berserker builds and other builds.

Something important to understand about the meta is that it didn’t end up this way because some people decided what was best and everyone else hopped on the bandwagon. It’s the “meta” because people are looking for what is best for overcoming the game’s mechanics. Berserker builds are the best because the DPS increase far exceeds the loss in eHP and they still bring all the support.
Players finding out what works best is healthy for the game because it lets the devs look at it and say “Hey. That’s what players have found is most effective. Is that the way we wanted the game to be played? If it’s not, how can we fix it?”

Players like Brazil have done a fantastic job over the past year finding out what is effective and what is not. We’re now at a state where all classes except Necromancer have at least one build that is considered “meta” and does high DPS while contributing great support to the team. The devs can now look at that and say “How can we make it so even more classes have effective builds?”

Wharrgarbl.9263:

OMG what will we doooo!!! Oh, right, change the meta, build for new meta, and let the QQ start over.

But i don’t think thats gonna happen, they will just cap the crit damage like in PVP and nothing will ever change. Maybe if bads could l2p instead of crying on forums…

I’m sorry, but no. Right now, you don’t get to toss around the words “bad” and “l2p” in regards to PvE. It’s too mindless. You can practically afk through most encounters.

When and if stacking is removed and players are forced to actually play the game as it was intended – THEN you can throw some measure of “skill” and elitism into PvE.

Duke Blackrose.4981:

I’m sorry, but no. Right now, you don’t get to toss around the words “bad” and “l2p” in regards to PvE. It’s too mindless. You can practically afk through most encounters.

When and if stacking is removed and players are forced to actually play the game as it was intended – THEN you can throw some measure of “skill” and elitism into PvE.

You gotta stop doing AC runs all day. Venture into arah and higher level fractals.

That’ll really mess with the pvp condi meta and wvw bunker meta.

if crit ended up effecting condi damage, there will be no reason to even attempt a non-condi damage build in wvw………….and the 25 stack limit and “weak attack overwriting strong” makes it still bad in pve groups.

having heals crit would be kinda awesome tho.

Relshdan.6854:

if crit ended up effecting condi damage, there will be no reason to even attempt a non-condi damage build in wvw………….and the 25 stack limit and “weak attack overwriting strong” makes it still bad in pve groups.

having heals crit would be kinda awesome tho.

They really need to separate WvW and PvE changes. Let players carry their gear to the mode, not the same exact balance.

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Relshdan.6854:

if crit ended up effecting condi damage, there will be no reason to even attempt a non-condi damage build in wvw………….and the 25 stack limit and “weak attack overwriting strong” makes it still bad in pve groups.

having heals crit would be kinda awesome tho.

They really need to separate WvW and PvE changes. Let players carry their gear to the mode, not the same exact balance.

Treat WvW like sPvP and use the locker. This also removes the ascended argument.

Someone earlier posted that has the game evolved so did the players knowledge which sort of muddies the waters. Maybe not said just like that but you get the idea. Players skill increase over time has does the knowledge of the game. Personally I feel players shouldn’t be penalized for this but it isn’t my call.

The onus is on the developer and designers to be aware ahead of time and not make a knee jerk reaction just because a small percentage of the player base is doing something different and faster than what you anticipated. Is this the case of one dungeon, two dungeons, or all. Is this a issue of the WvW meta. Is this something even bigger. If it is bigger than I’d say take a step back and evaluate it before you do anything.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Painbow.6059:

Probably just make toughness/vitality scale better and condition damage/healing power better

That wouldn’t change a thing and would actually make WvW even more unbalanced.

Not if they made toughness reduce condition damage as well.

Yaki.9563:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Painbow.6059:

Probably just make toughness/vitality scale better and condition damage/healing power better

That wouldn’t change a thing and would actually make WvW even more unbalanced.

Not if they made toughness reduce condition damage as well.

No this doesn’t need to happen. Conditions damage is fine, toughness is fine as it is. What happens is outside of the spvp spectrum Anet allowed consumables, stackable wvw buffs and runes and sigils that aren’t present in spvp.

In short, spvp is for the most part decently balanced. When you move outside of that realm then things become rather messy. Its questionable why Anet chooses to balance for pvx instead of individual aspects of the game, since they added and allowed things which aren’t allowed in spvp.

Not yet … typing this as they are presenting so … not all details in here.

Livestream Summary

1. Zerks is still THE DPS gear set, but overall, it’s taking a 10% damage reduction
2. New trait replacing crit damage: Ferocity. Still increases crit damage but is a stat that uses a conversion rate, like all other stats. Will allow for better way to balance crit rate optimized/unoptimized gear slots.
3. 2H weapons will have 2 sigils to make them more fair with 1H setups
4. Each Sigil will have it’s own cooldown e.g. battle and energy can be used together but not energy/energy.
5. Increasing stat weights in the higher teirs (4,5,6 level bonus) and adding more durations to specific sets. A little subtle but I understand the goal is to promote the use of whole sets instead of mixing/matching to maximize boon duration, for example.
6. Fixing Rune bugs, like procs that don’t work or just junky things.
7. Open to suggestions to new PVP stat combos, runes and sigils … nothing was proposed as new stat combos in the livestream.
8. Next patch will have balance changes as well as feature changes.

Guardian balance changes: (if they fooled around less, I would have this information by now …)

1. Litany of Wrath: reduced cast time to 3/4s, option to 1/2 later because it’s reactionary
2. Vig Precision: 5 to 10 second cooldown
3. Healing Breeze rework: Didn’t catch the numbers but it’s a bigger upfront heal with ticks with good scaling to healing power and increased to allies too.

PVP is not affected by the crit changes … they say they like how crits work in PVP, so the PVP stats will not change.

Vigorous Precision now has a 10 sec cd.

Litany of Wrath cast time is now 3/4 sec, may go down to 1/2 sec if needed.

Healing Breeze gives a initial 3200-4.5k heal and then the rest of the heal comes from ticks.

So guardian is ignored as usual.

Vigorous Precision nerf was to be expected. Is it still worth it with a 10 second cooldown? Might be a meta shift coming up.

The buff to Litany of Wrath is a nice improvement. Although ideally I would like to see it instant cast like all the other meditations. But perhaps that would make it too strong.

About time Healing Breeze gets buffed. Might be okay when stacking in dungeons.

Meta was already shifting to 20/25/0/0/25 for non-hammer guardians, this pretty much makes it official.

I would be fine with the game shifting away some from dps, if the game’s reward system rewarded anything but dps.

I don’t understand why people don’t like dps dominance? More dps = stuff dies quicker = gold quicker am I not right? people want to play healers not needed in gw2 people want to play tank not needed in gw2, defensive gear not needed in gw2, making these specific roles would damage the game as it would mean you need a tank and a healer and dps roles with no mid points, if a group just specs for max dps and brings 1 guard along with them using a 20,25,0,0,25 build that is enough support for anything outside fractals along with good damage

Painbow.6059:

I don’t understand why people don’t like dps dominance? More dps = stuff dies quicker = gold quicker am I not right? people want to play healers not needed in gw2 people want to play tank not needed in gw2, defensive gear not needed in gw2, making these specific roles would damage the game as it would mean you need a tank and a healer and dps roles with no mid points, if a group just specs for max dps and brings 1 guard along with them using a 20,25,0,0,25 build that is enough support for anything outside fractals along with good damage

People don’t like dps dominance because it:

Invalidates the majority of gear sets (in PvE).
Reduces team composition variety.
Removes entire professions from the equation in many groups.
Removes the option to play roles other than dps – kills the “play your way” philosophy of the game.

Basically, I bolded every part of your statement that IS in fact, a problem with the current game design. Guild Wars 2 was not intended to not have any roles – it was designed to allow everyone to play every role effectively regardless of their class and for groups to not require any particular combination of roles to function. There’s a pretty distinct difference. The way things are intended to be would allow anyone to (theoretically) make more-or-less comparable contributions while playing the way they wish do. The way that the game currently is – the way which you blindly seem to support – makes every playstyle that isn’t dps entirely redundant (in PvE).

Time to reconsider Knights vs Zerker gear in PVE

Tenor Madness.6784:

So guardian is ignored as usual.

Nope. If you had a Guardian roamer you will be in much worse situation, due Guardians don’t have condition builds.

The changes only nerfs builds based in physical damege; doesn’t matter if we talk about burst builds like Guardians based on meditations or tank builds based on more HP and Armor. Both will suffer due both rely on physical damage and both use evades and had evade healing (most of times).

Instead, builds based in conditions like the dire/carrion Warrior will be as fine as before, if not better.

Painbow.6059:

I don’t understand why people don’t like dps dominance?

I like DPS dominance but I don’t like it more than having DPS build choice. Maybe I just talked myself into it but if Anet is giving us 10+ combo sets, it seems the the intent is not fully realized if only one of those provides me an optimized PVE build. There are so many knock on effects (unbalanced demand for mats for example) because of this. I really can’t imagine it was intended to work the way it does at the moment.

The only changes I’m likely making are no more RHS so -5 radiance and then +5 Zeal and Bloodlust stacks instead of precision stacks. 20/25/0/0/25

#longlivethemeta ^_^.

Thankfully I didn’t make assassin’s pieces. <3 Zerker!

J Eberle.9312:

The only changes I’m likely making are no more RHS so -5 radiance and then +5 Zeal and Bloodlust stacks instead of precision stacks. 20/25/0/0/25

#longlivethemeta.

Thankfully I didn’t make assassin’s pieces. <3 Zerker!

Yup. instead of having a few builds to consider. Its an obvious choice to run 20/25/0/0/25 now. Good job Anet. Way to give us even less diversity :O

Hunter.4783:

Time to reconsider Knights vs Zerker gear in PVE

Why should anyone do that? Defensive stats are still useless.

Did they mention any changes to empowering might? I saw someone post about it but couldn’t find any more info.

Haven’t seen anything and I can’t really believe they said something. There weren’t so many guardian changes under which it could have got lost. Of course, increasing its range to something like 600 would be a great step (and the one that’s necessary to make it useful).

With 25 points in virtues, the vigor still lasts 7.5/10 seconds. Why is 100% vigor uptime a must have and really good, but 75% uptime not?
This doesn’t make sense.

This won’t hurt the PvE DPS meta a single bit. Worst possible fix. Instead of revamping the PvE encounters they think they can fix it by making crit damage less effective? lol?

Molch.2078:

With 25 points in virtues, the vigor still lasts 7.5/10 seconds. Why is 100% vigor uptime a must have and really good, but 75% uptime not?
This doesn’t make sense.

It’s more like 6.25 :P