Guild Wars 2

spoj.9672:

Thats not good design. Dont understand why people hate skilled players being able to do the content in zerker gear. Mechanics need to be improved and condition damage/debuffing needs to be improved.

By making fights like that you are encouraging people to face tank and heal through bosses. Thats going against the devs plan and their reflex based combat system. Defensive gear is for learning the encounters/less experienced players. Skilled players who know the attacks should be able to completely avoid all damage from bosses with utility/evades.

The problem isn’t skilled players doing content in zerker’s gear, it’s the fact that it’s actually easy to shirk defensive stats all together due to most classes (necro being the only real exception) can simply avoid 100% of the damage dealt by enemies in PvE. This is because the attack rate is so slow that they never actually feel any pressure; they always have a block or evade ready by the time the enemy attacks again. Increasing the attack rate will actually reward the skilled players more as they will know when to back out, what precisely to avoid, and play with actual tactics rather than “lol, just DPS him down and dodge/block his few attacks”.

In addition, it rewards those players who actually built with defensive stats and healing power by being valuable members of the group. Right now, they just don’t work out that well because those stats aren’t needed and Berserker’s just works better.

People that go Berserker’s gear in WvW and PvP and do well are much, much harder to find than those in PvE. The attack rate has everything to do with it. Players are attacking almost constantly, so you simply can’t avoid everything. Eventually you run out of avoidance and get hit. Your lack of defensive stats means those hits take a good chunk of your life.

As an aside, there are some encounters, like Lupicus, where I feel no adjustment is necessary. I have never seen a video of Lupicus getting soloed where the player didn’t take significant damage.

Increasing the attack rate of the PvE enemies, but lowering the per-hit damage means that glass cannon is simply no longer THE way to do things. Truly skilled players will still do very well in berserker’s gear, but it will actually be a high-risk/high-reward set instead of its current status of “same risk/highest reward”

I think you need to make an important distinction here. Yes, it is true that in organised groups “full zerker everyone” is currently the way to go. One of the main reasons for that is that, if all party members do their job and are on the same line, the risk for everyone is greatly reduced and thus encounters become a lot easier (shorter duration, right support at the right time, etc.).

That swings both ways though: playing a glass canon spec in a group that isn’t playing that way is A LOT harder. As such I can’t agree with the sentiment that “at least he’s trying to do it properly and improve himself”: as long as you haven’t thoroughly mastered your glass canon spec in an organized group, you have no business bringing it into a random pug and then blame others for your inability to judge the right and wrong place to use your build. You’re not doing anyone any favors by doing it and it’s really pretty easy to just join one of the plentiful speed runs, that are clearly advertised as such, that will suit your needs…

I take my gc builds into pugs and never have a problem. If anything it teaches you more and allows you to properly carry a group.

@Drarnor
Its not easier, its quicker. In some instances that is easier but people dont realise the amount of teamwork that goes into a real speedrun. And in more casual dps runs a lot of experience and knowledge of encounters is required for it go smoothly. Even then theres chances for things to go wrong and when they go wrong its almost impossible to prevent a wipe.

You shouldnt be rewarding or encouraging players to play in crutch gear. Your suggestion isnt totally wrong but your suggesting it for the wrong reasons. Slightly more frequent hard hitting attacks would be better. More complex mechanics and cc and conditions need to play a more important role.

Your suggestion will most likely hurt casual players more than it will to experienced players. No matter what happens though, the speedrunners will always adapt and run whats quickest and if that means running 5 cleric guards (please no!), they will.

My issue isn’t with speed running, it’s that some specs are just comparatively bad and for most classes, there’s no reason to not go glass cannon. Those that chose to build more defensively (such as those that play WvW and don’t have multiple sets of armor) should feel like they made a viable choice in dungeons while right now it’s very clearly sub-par. When you’re easily avoiding the majority of the damage anyway, why do you have defense stats?

That said, the attack rate and damage adjustments should not be huge. Something like 75% of the current time between attacks, but each attack does 75% of the damage (on average, not all attacks need to be dropped down like this). The net result is that avoiding everything becomes far more difficult, so you have to make sure you dodge the right attacks (which may very well have not been toned down), but the DPS of the enemies is the same.

Making it more difficult for unskilled players is, in my opinion, all right. Dungeons are supposed to be difficult, after all.

TLDR: current PvE enemy design makes Berserker’s gear go from high risk/high reward (what it should be) to same risk/high reward. That is what I would like to see changed first, and adjusting the attack rate of enemies (and damage for equal DPS) would accomplish that task.

It would also make Retaliation and Confusion more useful in PvE as a nice side-effect.

spoj.9672:

Zerk warrior is so easy to survive with lol. Fat hp pool just like necro and regen an extra dodge from eviscerate. Also ww attack.

spoj.9672:

Its not easier, its quicker. In some instances that is easier but people dont realise the amount of teamwork that goes into a real speedrun. And in more casual dps runs a lot of experience and knowledge of encounters is required for it go smoothly. Even then theres chances for things to go wrong and when they go wrong its almost impossible to prevent a wipe.

Don’t forget to oversell it… Sure you need to have some knowledge about the encounters and a be a bit decent at dodging, but past that there’s is really nothing hard about it. Really, you were right the first time… given you do it in an environment that you have the proper skill for (see my previous post). I’ve done my fair share of speedruns on warrior in various dungeons and I’m yet to see a single encounter that comes even remotely close to Liadri in terms of skill needed (and I’m not event talking about 8-orbs Liadri)…

spoj.9672:

I take my gc builds into pugs and never have a problem. If anything it teaches you more and allows you to properly carry a group.

Now you’re just being sillly. You can bring 10 times the dps of the rest of your group combined, if you go down regularly you’re not carrying anyone. It doesn’t even matter if you end up contributing most, people have had to stop playing their own game and start picking you up from the floor (so in a way, all dps past that is theirs…) If that happens regularly, you’re just being a drag and are ruining people’s fun in the game (including your own).

Also, what the hell kind of ego tripping idiot are you if your goal in the game is to ‘carry the group’? I can assure you that most of the people in the game would much rather play with people that are roughly at the same skill level as they are. Which is pretty much the point of this thread: randoms aren’t asking to for some guy that wants to try to carry them and then fails… they’d much rather play the dungeon 10 minutes longer and have a more smooth experience than having to pick you up 24/7; and really, I can’t see why you want to continue arguing with that?

spoj.9672:

You shouldnt be rewarding or encouraging players to play in crutch gear.

That it’s crutch gear is your opinion. Imo, it’s pretty clear that dungeons are rather balanced around using ‘crutch gear’ than using ‘zerker gear’. Having a full zerker party pretty obviously ‘breaks’ a lot of the encounters in the game and as such one could argue that you’re basically meta gaming. Not sure why you think that should deserve better rewards…

You are assuming I go down alot in zerker gear when pugging. I dont. It really makes barely any difference. If the groups bad you are going to go down no matter what gear you have. If your skilled its better to be in dps gear to finish the fight faster even if that means soloing it.

Teq dwagon fight, ohhhh yesssss!

CC importance on mobs! Spread/ranged AoE importance.

Next month, promises of making condi more viable in PvE. Minions that might work in PvE on non-trash, and vamp rework… Ohh please!

spoj.9672:

You are assuming I go down alot in zerker gear when pugging. I dont. It really makes barely any difference. If the groups bad you are going to go down no matter what gear you have. If your skilled its better to be in dps gear to finish the fight faster even if that means soloing it.

/facepalm

Show me one sentence where I assume that YOU go down a lot? The topic (seeing your comment includes soloing, I doubt you still know) is about random zerkers that go down repeatedly and then blame the team. Your claim is that ‘at least they are trying to do it properly, not like you baddies’. My claim is ‘if you need an organized team to stay on your feet as full zerker, then don’t play full zerker in an unorganized team…’. Nowhere have I made any claims about which category you are part of.

With the buffs to dark fields and life steal and working on Power. Necromancers will be able to make a very awesome healing life steal build, especially combined with there wells and such.

In fact I can’t wait for groups with this, because the more power they and you have the more damage that life stealing is going to do, and most dungeoners use berserker gear.

You don’t even really have to spec for critical, because you can drop a well and go into death shroud for 50% critical chance.

I play a Necromancer/Thief/Warrior, and I know the classes pretty well, just because they don’t want you in the group doesn’t mean your not viable and you can’t get a spot, it just means that the people are still stuck in there ways and they probably won’t be fun to group with, or good players anyways, I think you dodged a bullet getting out of there group that easily myself.

((I use a necromancer in all my dungeon groups because its fun.))

Arvid.3829:

spoj.9672:

You are assuming I go down alot in zerker gear when pugging. I dont. It really makes barely any difference. If the groups bad you are going to go down no matter what gear you have. If your skilled its better to be in dps gear to finish the fight faster even if that means soloing it.

/facepalm

Show me one sentence where I assume that YOU go down a lot? The topic (seeing your comment includes soloing, I doubt you still know) is about random zerkers that go down repeatedly and then blame the team. Your claim is that ‘at least they are trying to do it properly, not like you baddies’. My claim is ‘if you need an organized team to stay on your feet as full zerker, then don’t play full zerker in an unorganized team…’. Nowhere have I made any claims about which category you are part of.

Here.

Now you’re just being sillly. You can bring 10 times the dps of the rest of your group combined, if you go down regularly you’re not carrying anyone. It doesn’t even matter if you end up contributing most, people have had to stop playing their own game and start picking you up from the floor (so in a way, all dps past that is theirs…) If that happens regularly, you’re just being a drag and are ruining people’s fun in the game (including your own).

You might not of been referring to me directly. Doesnt matter what gear you have, if the group is bad you will down anyway. Beserker is not going to make you down much more often as most things which down beserkers down pvt players aswell… Obviously going melee on something when the rest of the group ranges is gonna get you killed, but I would think most people have common sense. Ive never understood why giving yourself bad gear just for pugs is something people do. There is really no need. Bringing ten times the dps is the best thing you can do to help a pug group go smoother.