Guild Wars 2

Painbow.6059:

20,25,0,0,25 is going to be the new meta

Better get used to no vigor lads!

Yup, I agree. And grabbing the extra 5% damage to GS might also help with the damage loss from crit damage change.

a t s e.9614:

Wait there’s a flaw in your argument . In your recent posts you said that if you’re good enough you are berserker because it has no defense and offensive stats only but if zerker is for good players how do it makes a bad at the same time ? Berserker is for bads or for pros ? I cant even follow the whole thing anymore .

Not sure if trolling… His point was that given enough time, any bads can farm something that they do for long enough. Which is why zerker wasn’t always a must on every class. But now that everyone knows how to do the dungeons and have done them 100’s of times, it is farm mode in zerker gear.

Jski.6180:

Cat Has Ducks.1982:

Jski.6180:

The game is not balanced with 1v1 in mind it made for teams. So if they did add in duel one to two classes will be the best and that is what happens in the wvw dueling.

So I have to transfer to a different server to duel my friend? Forget that. Just give us the option, and let that be that. Also a nice way to quickly test WvW builds, by being able to duel your friends, and they give you accurate feedback.

Or spvp to test idea builds. If your testing a wvw build on one person your already have a major flaw in your test for a wvw build and make show that the build your testing is unusable in a wvw setting.

PvP can’t come close to the stat diversity and stat ceiling achievable in WvW or PvE. Which is good, but bad since you can’t test your exact build in there. And notice how I put a plural there, “Friends”. I have many who play many classes, and testing out bursts or condi pressure vs them would be nice since trying to find a competent person to 1v1 in WvW can be quite difficult. And for the record, I don’t WvW to run around in a zerg ball.

Arah P1 is not possible without 4. I can’t think of others, I’m tired lol.

Lookey here http://gw2lfg.com/

spoj.9672:

3* types of players.

Im someone who plays the content I find fun and only if I find it fun. But I wouldnt play this game if it werent for the cosmetic side aswell.

This is definitely me. It is also why I will never have a legendary. I can’t be bothered to do map completion. Watching paint dry is more enjoyable than doing that crap.

I bought this game because there was no trinity… Oh and active defense. The dodging attacks was huge selling point for me.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Mixchimmer.7230:

I like the idea of roles because it is my opinion that when every single role is DPS, it’s boring.

Every character in a dungeon is [DPS+ _. DPS+Banners. DPS+Reflects. DPS+Stealth.

Lets look at it like a math problem. If each side of the equation is dps, we can cancel it out and then you have the roles: Banners/Offensive support, Reflects, Stealth, Defensive Boons etc.

I’ve said it until I’m blue in the face: your traits, class and weapons determine your playstyle. Your gear is simply a reflection of how much damage you intend to have to soak up.

TL;DR: Everyone’s role is dps, regardless of gear. Everyone has to wack on the boss. The actual playstyle is determined by non-gear factors.

As an aside, not regarding your post directly… I see people saying “I don’t want dps to be my playstyle I want a more tanky playstyle.” Do you not understand what this means? This literally means, “I don’t want to contribute my 1/5th of the team dps, and I’d rather not be bothered to dodge most attacks.” When you realize that is what you’re saying, you can imagine a little bit why the reaction from some people is less than positive.

Just quoting this so people who hate reading the whole thread see it. This is the point here. The only issue I see needing some fixing, is making condi builds slightly more viable. Not on par with zerker, since condi builds can build for tank and damage at the same time.

Only suggestions I have is to remove 10 from valor, and put it into virtues to pick up MoC. Then swap out smite condition for Purging flames, so you can do team condi removal, and have the shorter cool down on both WoR and PF.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Linking gear to playstyle does nothing more than pidgeon hole builds and push us closer to a classic trinity.

A lot of people on these forums want that sadly…. They want to be “the healer” or “the tank”. Even though gw2 was suppose to be completely against that..

Its called a druid build. And its terribad. Fun to kill open world PVE trash with. But complete kitten.

Guards in high level groups often run 20/25/0/0/25 forsaking vigor since their team is good enough to not need it. If you take vigor away you do 2 things.

1.) Punish guards who aren’t in a good group.
2.) Destroy bunker guards in PVP, who use dodges as a life line.

stale.9785:

Roe, Norjena, they balance WvW and PvE as one thing (other than the pet health). The conversation is moot.

It should be they balance WvW and PvE together, except pet health AND CONDITION DAMAGE. Imagine if they made condi way more potent in PvE. Like increase its potency X amount for every point in condition damage you have for PvE. I don’t think that would be terrible thing to do. It would make condition builds worth a kitten in dungeons.

Mixchimmer.7230:

[snip]

In order for the meta to change, they must completely rework encounters with the AI. The AI must be smart, and punish players more. Anet would have to do a ton of work.

Instead, it seems they are just going to nerf some stats, and some gear, which will fix nothing. The gameplay will still be, kill everything as fast as you can. It will just be up to us to figure out what gear does it the best, which probably still be zerker unless they hit it so hard conditions become relevant. Either way, its still a dps race.

Most who are arguing against changing anything, already knows anet won’t do the necessary steps to properly shift things, since it would require a whole rework of all encounters, and all PVE mobs. Nerfing zerker won’t change the meta, it will still be kill stuff as fast as you can and learn 2: dodge, reflect, block and blind.

Alexwalsham.2648:

What if we did something radical….

What if stats on Armour were removed? Keep trinkets and keep stats on weapons, But what if the main stat numbers were on the trait lines. What would people do then? Would people favour shooting for an optimal trait on a toughness line or going into the power or precision lines for the stats?

That would then of course help role diversification. An Elementalist would then have to decide between going into to Arcana for all the tricks and traits and attunement recharge and water for Shared Aura and other support and party skills or would it go into the fire line for the raw damage and the damage focused traits that maybe wouldn’t help the party as much. Of course he could go 30 Water for shared aura and then air for fury and swiftness on auras but he would therefore cause a reduction in his damage.

Then when the meta for each class only contains one build, you will really see the tears starting. People will always complain, I just hope Anet doesn’t screw up the game by going full reetard.

Fext.3614:

Well, look at the wiki:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Altruistic_Healing
“Applying area-of-effect boons will trigger healing for each ally affected (including yourself) and skills that apply boons repeatedly over time, such as symbols, will trigger healing with each pulse. "

The wiki is correct. You are just reading it wrong. I shall break it down:

“Applying area-of-effect boons will trigger healing for each ally affected”

-This means for each each ally affected by a boon, it counts for your healing.

EX: I give retaliation to the party. So that’s 5 boons I just gave, one to me and one to each party member. So you take the healing of AH which say is 80 healing and times it by 5. 5×80 = how much healing the guard gets to himself.

-“and skills that apply boons repeatedly over time, such as symbols, will trigger healing with each pulse”

EX:And for something like staff #3 on guard, that swiftness pulse. Each time it pulses another stack of swiftness, it will do the multiplication for healing again for every pulse, since its like adding new boons.

AND for dungeons, AH blows. Its a bad crutch for the guard. No team benefit.

Jski.6180:

The game is not balanced with 1v1 in mind it made for teams. So if they did add in duel one to two classes will be the best and that is what happens in the wvw dueling.

So I have to transfer to a different server to duel my friend? Forget that. Just give us the option, and let that be that. Also a nice way to quickly test WvW builds, by being able to duel your friends, and they give you accurate feedback.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

The problem is that the content is old and on farm. There are good tactics for every dungeon and fractal and even bad players have done the content enough that they don’t need the tanky gear anymore. This isn’t because Zerker gear is magically turning them into good players. It’s because even bad players can learn content given a long enough amount of time.

If an xpac dropped tomorrow, with 5 new dungeons/elite zones with many bosses that had good and unique lupicus style mechanics, all the bad players who currently get away with zerker would go back to faceplanting regularly and nobody would argue that Zerker is too powerful.

This x1000. People are complaining for the wrong reasons.

I hope Anet doesn’t go through with any nerfs to crit damage or zerker gear. That would just be the lazy way to appease the masses crying for change, when the real change needs to be in adding content to the kitten game. No more LS, but give us more dungeons.(InB4 more scarlet dungeons that no one runs….)

Dolan.3071:

My average map completion for alts is to the first WP in any dungeon map, and a beeline to the Temple WP’s and it’s usually uncontested neighbour (e.g Lights Waypoint) as well as typical meta waypoints like Earthquake and Old Sledge Site.
I always thought you were meant to learn professions as you levelled them via map completion, glad to see I’m not the only one who disagrees xD

This is exactly what I do. My Warrior’s map looks like a giant blurred out mess except for a tight line to dungeon entrances lol.

Xillllix.3485:

This will end up being a nerf for elementalists as always, since:
1- They are a burst class which depends on critical damage to balance their low survival
2- Air is the best offensive trait line they have (crits)

I will probably just stop playing this game if they do such a ridiculous nerf.

As long as they don’t touch your FGS, or might stacking abilities, you’ll be alright.

Travlane.5948:

i stand there with my guardian at priest of grenth in my clerics armor and solo him. np bs. no joke. i SOLO him. yes there wree other people there but they died left and right after 1 or 2 attacks. i prolly did over 60% of his total hp. with my thief and his crit zerk build (and thief is what i play 99%) i could only do dmg for about 10 secs b4 being downed. i try s/p and p/p and d/d ive tried them all there just to challenge myself.

Yup, that’s proof that cleric gear, not zerker gear is OP!

Dolan.3071:

Delay.6908:

Dolan.3071:

Because teaching people who barely know their own class

How was i able to teach you then?

OI YOU LISTEN ‘ERE MUTT.
I knew the dungeon, not the class, it’s different :P
AND WE WERE ON TS, AND IM AWESOME, GOD.
Level alts via swapping in at the end of dungeon, completely gear in full Zerker scholar, ascended trinkets, stacking and night/undead/force combos for weapons, then learn the profession. That’s how you do it right?…Right?

This post troubles me if that’s not how you do it. I use arah tokens to buy all my weapons and armor, get scholar rune and my sigils. Then run dungeons to learn a new class. Have I been doing it wrong!? :O

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

I find my pug groups fail the P3 skip more than P1 skips :>

I will give you, that in advanced groups, a person is more likely to die in the p3 skip than the p1 skip. The thing about p3 skip, is if on person doesn’t make it, its not a big deal since you can four man mage crusher then get the WP for your teammate.

In P1, the party members HAVE to make the run, unless they wait for lupi to die lol. So that puts pressure on new people to actually make it.

I think 15 in radiance and 10 in virtues are must haves for a Guardian build. That blind spam for trash mobs is quite beautiful. As well as mini might stacks you get as you keep clearing mobs thanks to the 15 in radiance combined with 5 in virtues.

Obtena.7952:

I’m not so convinced a Guardian bringing team condition removal has as much value as everyone thinks, depending of course who you team with. If you want to have team condition removal, it’s a skill swap away and even then, it’s pretty conditional depending on who’s standing where when you use it. Putting traits to it makes me feel really hand-tied.

25 in vitures gives you a nice dps boost, and give you the master trait for condi removal, or you can use it as a second stability, or give you longer shield of avenger when you need it. That Master trait in virtues is very good to have in my opinion, and I hate running builds without it. So you see it as hands-tied, but 20 in virtues gives you alot of on the fly trait swapping for different situations, then for 5 more you get nice damage modifier.

Thanks for the PM kind sir. That is pretty funny. I can imagine it now.

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.

Same me too 15char

All is vain.

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.

LittleLepton.8915:

She says you don’t stack on her enough.

Man I have some good replies, but don’t feel like getting some infraction points. Speaking of which I need to edit my earlier post to avoid more lol.

LittleLepton.8915:

I stack on dat spider queen all day err day. Mmmm she sexii.

That’s my girl, you better back off!

LittleLepton.8915:

Just make your own groups, have fun, stop imposing ideas on people who don’t actually want them. Stackers don’t want to hear they’re bad from non stackers and non stackers don’t want to hear it from stackers.

Agree to disagree.

Peace and love.

No! Anyone who disagrees with me must burn and die! Stacking is lame.

I’m so pro, I can do all dungeons no stacking. And you should be forced to do the same!

Just an FYI. A ranged Ranger will always be hated, unless he has a trait, that gives more precision to teammates based on how far he is away. In which case, I’d leave him in the starting zone and get my buff lol.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Painbow.6059:

no blind spamming or master of consecrations or condition removal?

Did you actually read anything past the build calculator?

I’m guessing he means team condition removal. Either way, I’m not a fan of such a selfish build. But to each his own.

Iris Ng.9845:

I thought the easiest one is P1, since the ooze can be killed with stacking, and the skipping part is relatively easy. But P3 is easy as well. I need to work on my skipping skills.

New people to P1, die all the time on that second skip. That is a pug killer. But the real problem with P1 in pugs, is if you wipe on lupi, you must run the whole way back to him. Not a problem in premades. But definitely is for pugs.

fadeaway.2807:

Improved spirit weapon duration : Enough with the small army of spirit weapon traits. I’m going to go copy paste what I wrote for the last several spirit weapon traits : they are trash!

If you think this trait is trash, then you don’t know how to play guardian vs alphard. This allows your shield of avenger to last for 30 seconds instead of 20. That’s 30 seconds of not having to worry about her hooking you. Running the x/x/0/x/25 build, you can swap your master skill to this when you need long shield duration, then swap it off when you are done. This is a very powerful skill when you change it for a certain situation.

Black Box.9312:

I paid money for this game. I shouldn’t have to find my own ways to have fun in it. The only thing really keeping me here is my guild and my buddies to socialize with. Dungeons are just a way for me to be somewhat productive while I socialize, because right now they’re so braindead that even I can do them without much thought.

When things haven’t changed for a year, it tends to get brain dead. Do you expect to still be on the edge of your seat, after doing a dungeon for the 500th time?

Stacking or no stacking, the same old stuff is still the same old stuff. The only dungeon I truly enjoy is arah, all the other ones are there just for the gold.

kyubi.3620:

Running sword only on ranger also is a state of mind as justified as it is.

His point was, that ranger’s using ranged weapons are the state of mind of the general masses. Which is why so many run it. I wish people had the mindset of running sword. For the most part, they do not. Which is why there is so much Ranger hate.

LittleLepton.8915:

I think the easiest path to pug is path 3? Or else it used to be. Also, if you see the thread on dungeon mentors, you can easily get folks to take you into Arah, any path.

Yeah its P3. Hardest thing in there is the first boss, because I’ve seen pugs muck up dealing with the poison. Other than that, it has easy skips and the rest of the bosses are simple(assuming your pug group knows lupi). I’d recommend youtubing the first skip though, it can be tough if you have no idea the exact route.

Fror.2163:

I’m not asking for work-around, but rather a fix. Shouts should not force me in combat mode, no matter what option I may or may not have.

Stop yelling at the enemy. You’re the one provoking them.

NoTrigger.8396:

Sirendor.1394:

I don’t record my gameplay. And well as that may be, why are you complaining about tank/heal? Their damage is maybe 1/3th of yours, so by the time they finish a dungeon they’re old and have a beard. There is no tank/heal meta. There is however a zerk meta.

there is a tank/healing meta.
or do you have any other explanation why most of the people i meet in pugs run full hulk?

I have to agree…. 90% of pugs I run into are using cleric or PVT gear. Cleric/PVT needs a serious nerf, so people can stop mindlessly running through dungeons not even dodging.

For PVE:
I run meta zerker builds, but I will try my best to keep some spirit of tankiness.

Made some changes.

-15 into radiance is huge for blind spamming on trash kills for your teammates. You need this in dungeons, it is invaluable.
-I changed your Honor Master trait to Writ of Persistence since this is a nice dps increase camping hammer.
-I took away POV and AH since you don’t need either of them. The hammer and knights gear will make you plenty tanky.
-I moved 20 into virtues so you can get 3 condi removal with Virtue of Resolve. That plus Purgin flames is great condi removal.
-You can change the shout around depending on what your team needs. Or take wall of reflect off if its not needed in that moment. But always change skills around for encounters
-I left 10 in Valor so you can get more toughness and give it to teammates
-I recommend using the staff for its warding and that’s about it, then just stay on the hammer auto attack for the perma protection.
-I changed your runes to beryl orbs, since you are lacking crit damage, and I figured you probably don’t want scholar in there since they are pricey to put in gear you will probably switch down the road.(scholar is best choice)
-Oh and I changed your hammer to force sigil. Night works as well.

Just my suggestions:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJASWlUg6CnFyMEfIFSODRCBtPAQYKwIP6qQCB-jgyAYLA8GE9BiKAkALiGbfoIas6aMlbS1wAq4IDA-e

phys.7689:

I feel like a lot of people here are getting lost in some idea seperation here.
Berserker is not a way of life, it is a stat set up. The problem here is that one stat setup far outperforms most other stat set ups. This basically boils down to other stats not being valuable.
lets keep the discussion to PVE here, because pvp is a totally different beast.

One of the big issues is defensive/control/support skills are not effected that much by stats. This means a berserker is usually as good a support charachter as 95% of other armor sets. He is as good at active defense as 95% of other armor sets. He is as good at control as 85% of other armor sets.

as long as this is the case, berserker versus other sets will generally be a measure of how much dmg you can avoid, rather than what playstyle or role you prefer.

Exactly. So just buff the other armor so it does what its suppose to do better. Make high toughness gear last longer(and hold aggro), make cleric gear heal more, and make condi gear make the conditions wayyyyyy more potent in PVE, so they will find worth in dungeons. I’m talking fat ticks per second(only for PVE, since this would wreck WvW. And it will make each stack more potent, since there is that dumb 25 stack limit).

The gameplay of the game won’t change, and zerker gear will probably be the most “optimal”, but most people don’t play to be min-maxers. So buff the other armor, and give people reasons to play that armor.

For clarification, my suggestion on buffing the armor were just random stuff, but that’s the idea. I think the condi one is pretty good though.

Bron.9647:

+1

I like this idea. Maybe it would result in less speed runs and people actually wanting to fight their way through the dungeon instead of running past every non-necessary mob.

You feel like fighting all the silver and champion mobs right before Lupi? Wonder how long that’d take a pug. I bet the price for arah would sky rocket though! Oh the gold that could be made..

Reaper.5698:

Explain to them kindly why berserker is the best gear, why it is necessary and how they can play their game when they are alone, dont kick them because they have bad gear

Cant wait till they fix this. This game shouldn’t revolve around Berserker gear. enough said

There is always optimal gear in any game. Majority of pugs don’t even run zerker. Make your own groups in LFG “Any gear welcomed” and get over it.

I was about to say I didn’t even know it was possible to have shouts put you in combat lol. But I haven’t used auto targeting since I was a lowbie leveling.

Turtle Dragon.9241:

chaosdeity.6287:

Wow this thread, I had no idea people despise ranger so much

I am now going to use my ranger in more dungeon runs just so that I can help fight the negative stigma people have with ranger. Alot of these mistakes are pretty terrible and I do know how to support a group in a dungeon and I want to help improve the community and change things.

I’ve seen one Ranger having to explain everytime they join a party that
“I am not a bowbear, I have Spotter and Frost Spirit”

That Ranger will always be welcomed to my party.

The discrimination is not against Rangers, but against Bowbears.
The fact that a lot of Rangers are using Bowbear make people assume Bowbear the moment they see a Ranger in party. People tend to remember negative experiences more than positive ones, and since having a Bowbear in your party is a really horrible experience, people tend to remember that.

This x1000. Run the right stuff, and people will love you. If you make an Lfg, put that you are a spotter ranger. People will join quicker.

Hide behind dodges? How is having to have good reflexes and enemy awareness hiding behind a mechanic? I think hiding behind armor is pathetic. You should be rewarded for being able to dodge properly. Why should standing there with safer gear, give you same benefit as people who run zerker?

I always melee lupi on my 11k hp guard. I’m down instantly by many of his attacks if I miss a dodge, while pvt counter parts can eat the attacks very efficiently. So why should I be punished, when I take a greater risk of one missed dodge costing me my life.

1.) This game was built around active defense, so why would anet nerf the main draw of this game?

2.) Majority of players don’t run zerk. When I pug higher level fractals, I rarely run into any zerkers. And unless I specify it in LFG, I get Cleric, knight or PVT gear in my dungeon runs.

3.) To make running other builds more viable, a complete combat overall is necessary(which shouldn’t happen).

4.) With the condi stack limit, the problem of reaching cap on a condition is still the main problem.

5.) Go talk to the spider in AC, or the variety of ranged only attacks lupi does.

Better ways to change things. Make enemies actually aggro on higher toughness and stay locked onto them, so tanky builds can at least be some what useful. Scale healing better in PVE, so people can actually do enough heals to not be completely useless. Other things, like maybe guardian aegis blocks two attacks if you have X amount of armor, or other class specific things that can contribute to getting certain benefits if you run certain types of builds.

What I don’t want to see, is a complete change in gameplay philosophy and this get turned into a cheap version of every other MMO out there.