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Frankly, I’m not too concerned with which stat affects what card here. What might be important though, is thinking about how these cards function without their governed stat/trait to help them. Like Reflect, IMO is too powerful and I’ve thought as such for a long time. IMO, reflect should only 100% reflect the first shot at best! Reflect should have been watered down a while back, either by making it less infallible or decreasing how much damage it can reflect. Whatever would improve reflect incrementally, should push close to current reflect when focused by perhaps at 66% current effectiveness.
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I think it should be both trait and stats. Traits should just require certain hoops like Warrior’s Building Momentum trait would give endurance for landing a burst skill so they can dodge, burst and have another dodge right after…or they can build toward vitality so they have 2 dodges and consistent stamina recovery…or maybe a hybrid of offense/defense so they can do more dodging and damage to be self sustaining.
My idea for reflect functionality would also tie into a new designation for projectile attacks, categorising them as either minor or major projectiles. You can have the stat affecting the reflection skill to determine how much damage is reflected back, up to 100% when fully invested, investing further to increase the number of hits at which the reflection mitigation stays at 100% (achievable without going beyond exotic gear), and then have traits which further allows a character to be able to reflect the greater projectiles without the barrier getting destroyed.
Without the trait, the major projectile would destroy your barrier and push on through to damage you, with the major projectile’s damage being reduced by only a quarter of the mitigation value of the barrier you put up.
These greater projectiles are also likely to come with some nasty secondary effects. This allows for the option to either dodge out of the way, or put up a superior barrier and give the enemy a taste of their own medicine. Only at 100% reflection would the full effects of the projectile attack affect the projectile’s caster though, otherwise there is just the mitigation from the barrier and the rest of the damage, plus the nasty effect, going through as normal. So if you miss your window to block the full effect of the projectile, dodging will be your best recourse. Or have your cleansing ready to deal with whatever is being shot at you.
The interplay here would be whether it is worth it to keep the barrier in reserve until they make a shot with their greater projectile, relying on your other protective boons and healing to see what attacks they will use, because unless heavily invested into the governing stat, only the first projectile will be mitigated at the maximum of your barrier power before diminishing returns on mitigation percentage settles in, and this is at the maximum investment into the regulating stat. This would also require that these attacks have a tell for attentive players to react to in combat, so that they can know to get their barrier or block ready instead of continuing to bash their enemy in the face. Even better, such a powerful ability would also leave the enemy winded momentarily, making them vulnerable to further assault under the system you proposed.
A counter to reflection barriers could be boon stripping, if barriers could become targetable by players and mobs. If these are used on the barrier, then the barrier’s mitigation will be diminished in proportion to the condition regulating stat of the boon stripping caster, with stats balanced so that when fully invested the shield will still provide some decent protection at its lower level, and uninvested the mitigation of the barrier is rendered negligible. In either case, the duration of the barrier would also be affected
A trait would also allow boon stripping effects to cause these barriers to explode instead of just weaken. The same trait which which allowed the barrier to resist greater projectiles would also protect the barrier from this overload effect, as well as grant protection for the mitigation, but still decrease the barrier’s duration. Or leave the duration as normal but still diminish the mitigation. I would need to consider that some more.
There is also the use of AoEs and conditions, which are unaffected by barriers.
As for a stat affecting stamina recharge, given how powerful dodges are in the game, an investment like that would need to be balanced carefully so as not to seem mandatory. The reliance on merely dodging the greatest dangers in the game makes it soundvery enticing, and I am hesitant to just have that ability be managable by stacking a certain stat. Would dodge function differently somehow, or would it just come down to encounter design in your scenario?
Croc, gear is your base offense or defense stats. That’s it.
Why do people feel that gear should be the primary source of depth? Why is the trait system, weapon choices, sigils and runes constantly ignored?
Ask Anet, since your damage stats affect how much damage your attacks and offensive utilities are capable of, while you have no way of increasing the effectiveness of boons, non-damage conditions, and block abilities through gear. All traits do is modify the effects, sigils add extra stats and nifty effects, but power of the ability is something that is handled by stats, according to the design.
I also feel that many traits are rather boring, but that is another issue.
In a world where you can’t force the enemy to attack you, what is the point of increasing your health or your armor? And again, why can’t you increase the effectiveness of your support and control abilities to make a difference?
And yes, further depth through the game’s core mechanics would be wonderful too, such as the idea of certain attacks causing vulnerability states after hitting a target mentioned earlier, but it still does not mean that ability power having different rules for one set of effects compared to another is cohesive design.
Edit: Upon further reflection, I rethought my position on the effect of stats themselves undermining trait interaction. The problem is not the stats existing, but rather the traits not all having significant enough effects, which is a matter of just designing better traits. But the lack of cohesiveness in design regarding the stats we do have still remains, and is the focus of my issues in relation to this topic.
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Philosophically speaking, why should players be rewarded for using passive stats or punished for using active defense? If you have to use defensive stats to survive, managing to survive the encounter is your reward. If you don’t need defensive stats to survive… why use defensive stats? If you have to tack on some functionality to defensive stats as a carrot in order to get players to use them, you clearly aren’t taking the hint.
It sounds like the goal here is buffing defensive stats for the sake of buffing defensive stats. Cool bro, but an easier solution than redesigning how gear works in the game is for people to be adults and realize what the game is and game isn’t and enjoy it for what it is. One solution requires more developer time and effort than you can reasonably expect and the other requires players to put on their big kid pants and repeat the mantra, “experienced players don’t need, and shouldnt want, defensive stats in PvE.” That’s what the game is. Stop bashing your head against the wall trying to change it. Breath deeply and accept the inherent truth, move forward and enjoy the game.
Also a pro tip for anybody who needs it. Rebind your dodge key to something easy to use like your #1 or a mouse button or spacebar. It doesn’t matter really, whatever works for you. Then you can follow my handy video guide for learning how to dodge most of the tells in GW2.
Then you can truly begin learning the game and the beauty and elegance of the combat system. You’ll never want to wear your Clerics armor again.
My problem is not dodging, my problem is that I feel like the game has the depth of a puddle on a hot summer day. That video is pretty much par for the course of what I remember before I stopped playing.
What do you see the purpose of gear being then? Why should boon intensity remain the same across all gear loads? Why can’t non-damage condition effectiveness be governed by gear, just like attack power governs the damage you inflict with your direct attacks? Just put aside any thoughts about toughness and vitality, pretend they do not exist, just stats that increase the effectiveness of boons, non-damage conditions and blocks, health and armour increases do not factor in at all.
Why can you increase attack power but you can’t increase the effectiveness of these abilities? The whole game is built around proper use of abilities, so why not expand on that even further to promote actual diversity?
And its not like we’re banging on Anet’s door wielding torches and pitchforks. These are hypotheticals. If the conversation frustrates you and you do not want to participate, just do not participate and leave the blind fools to their sorry waste of time.
More points:
- The same trade-off for offensive v. defensive stats that exists in GW2’s two PvP modes also exists in PvE. More defense means a player can make mistakes. Yet, I don’t hear complaints about defensive stats being pointless in PvP.
- Sure, players don’t attack at the same speed as mobs. Sure, players are less predictable than mobs. However, that just means it take more skill to get away with glass.
- Sure, in sPvP, there is a role for defensive stats, as a point holder. But, what role do defensive stats play in WvW — other than as a means to bolster survivability for players who need it?
- So, why the double standard? Because the opportunity cost is higher and fewer players can play glass in PvP? That’s essentially what you’re pushing for PvE to become if you’re pushing for defensive boons to be reduced if one has offensive stats.
The system would boil down to using your abilities properly or die a horrible death because your timing is attrocious and you let the enemy’s attacks get through instead of baiting them into wasting said attacks.
Consequences for a failed attack on an opponent creting an opening sound like it would add a greater amount of interplay in the mechanics.
And WvW is still supposed to ideally be a team game, so create opportunities for your allies to take advantage of. This is assuming a system where only your abilities would be increased, not your armour and health.
I think he’s right : it is not a problem just because people complain.
Imagine a world where people could buy a car that goes fast but without GPS system or cars with GPS that go slower. It is a matter of choice : those who can orient easily will go for the rapid car and those who get lost will opt for the GPS. Everyone can go from point A to point B. Some quicker than other generally but if someone without GPS makes a mistake on his way he’ll lose more time than everyone.
Since people like speed and are always in hurry, there will be a huge trend for the sport cars (as in meta).Is this a problem ?Now here, people ask for roads to have surprise holes or false roads so that the use of GPS become mandatory if you don’t want to have bad surprises on the road. Basically the fact that people who have a nice orientation should be punished for their skill.
Why should people be punished because they are good at avoiding aoe, timing their dodge …. ? Is there any content that is not doable in cleric/magi/nomad stuff ? I don’t see one but if people complain it must be because there is …
In that situation, the sports car would have its regular roads it can travel at high speeds while the gps cars would have their tricky roads to travel and navigate using said gps and they would both get from point a to point b at the same time through different methods and different skill sets.
Bosses are allowed to have multiple mechanics to interact with at once.
Having only the single road is a bore, especially when its a flat, smooth road with no obstacles in sight.
The point it proves is that all the alternatives proposed thus far are significantly inferior to the mechanics that exist. It’s been settled long before this thread that the way to get bad players to use tankier gear or to require more defensive support in general is to introduce new content that is mechanically complicated. The reason bad players can get away with berserker gear now is because they have had two years to practice running these dungeons and rote learning when to dodge. Give them encounters they haven’t memorized and that will be all the change they need.
Advocating a trinity, soft trinity, or disorganized, passive gameplay (which are the only three options I’ve seen any of the nerf crowd offer) is a terrible solution to a non-problem. I mockingly offered a hyperbolic example of their own arguments so they can hopefully see how outlandish they sound.
Honestly, I think the entire discussion is a joke because it’s just that, a non-problem. This is like a doctor prescribing invasive solutions to illnesses a patient doesn’t have. We don’t have a berserker problem, we have an old content problem.
Content which requries more defensive support will not matter for depth as long as there is no gear to improve your defensive capability. Traits improve function, gear improves power. Boons, non-damage conditions and blocks are the only things which are completely cut off from being affected by gear, and that is a problem when it comes to gearing.
I don’t care about health and armour. The game increases your health and armour enough through level up to work with, and they never should have been a choice for increase in the first place when no manner of turning those stats into power was included in the game.
I am talking about stats, whatever they would be called, which would increase your boon intensity, your non-damaging conditions effectiveness, and the strength of your blocks and reflections. Stats which would actively increase your control and support abilities just like you have stats which increase the effectiveness of your damage abilities. Your gear should be an indication of the focus you have chosen if it is to matter at all, and the strength of these skills should reflect this. What is the purpose of gear otherwise?
If the only reason gear exists is to let bad players not get destroyed in content, then I see that as being a problem. It’s not a line for improvement, it’s sidestepping the difficulty of the game, which is easy enough as it is.
There should be different tiers of difficulty at high level which must be conquered not by allowing for more mistakes to be made because of gear, but by having the use of your abilities tested. Mistakes are for when you’re learning the content. It’s at that point where you go over what you did wrong, try again, and succeed when you’ve learned well enough.
It would all be a matter of balancing, but as long as this difference in gearing effect holds, there is a limited number of ways in which encounter mechanics can improve the situation.
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That is a possible point to adjust. Another might be a change toward action oriented offense where a target is normally in a neutral state (taking normal damage but critical hits do much lower damage) until they change states either through the intervention of players (control type skills could play a part here) or the target puts themselves in such a state by using a strong or special attack which makes them vulnerable or leaves them vulnerable for a time afterwords. In that vulnerable state, the amount of damage they take from crits is multiplied to extreme bursts if you are build toward it. Then the concept turns to biding your time, fleshing out those tougher attacks and then striking hard when vulnerable. The catch would be most of those state changing attacks have to hit something in order to change the target’s state.
On the flip side of the charging coin, defensive utilities such as reflects, invulnerability, blocks, dodges, etc would require some investment to get similar or better functionality than they so now, for instance: you need to invest in a trait or condition boosting stats to weaken the target enough with weakness or blind to survive such his easier; you need vitality if you want more than 1 dodge a min; block only absorbs certain amount of damage dependant on toughness; aegis is the same but reliant on the boon caster’s healing powers; etc etc.
I understand the reasoning behind the attacker having to hit something to change state, and agree with it as a condition, but in this model do you also include blocks as a hit that counts towards the change in state?
Traits tend to work as effect modifiers for a class’ skills, while gear works to determine the power of a skill. So the value of a non-damage condition can be determined by gear, while traits can be used to further increase their range of use in combat.
As for stats which affect blocks and reflections, I was thinking that the same stat used to increase boon intensity would also be used to govern those abilities. Not only do classes just have different block and reflection capabilities which makes investment in that kind of mitigation wildly varied in levels of enticement for classes, the issue with health and armour in the game is that, without some way to deflect the damage of the enemy on to yourself in a consistant manner, or force the enemy to have to face you, those stats cannot be turned into power for the group, and with the increased importance of investing in your defensive boons and blocks, I feel any more mitigation would diminish the importance of your defensive abilities.
I am also not sure whether stamina regeneration should be something governed by one’s gear. I feel it would be more appropriate for it to remain relegated to the trait lines, with actions performed by the specific class triggering increased stamina regeneration. More room for individuality among the classes there.
Looking at the issues under discussion, it seems to me that:
- GW2 is a hybrid game. It’s somewhere between an action game (AG) and an old-style MMO (OSMMO).
- GW2 has a stat set-up like one sees in an OSMMO. In an OSMMO, offensive production is a combination of stats, traits/talents and rotation, with a little positioning (move out of the fire). In an AG, offensive production is largely a function of weapon selection (some weapons are better) and attack up-time via skilled play. GW2 has both stat-based and some attack up-time requirements to produce damage. Rotation is important for things like Might stacking. GW2 also uses boons to increase the damage stats and to aid with up-time (e.g., reflection). Boon-sharing is the biggest teamwork factor in GW2.
- In an OSMMO, defense is largely a function of stats, with limited actions (often, uber-defensive skills on long CD). There are even stats that reduce the possibility of being critically hit. In an AG, defense is largely active. While passive defense exists in GW2, active defense plays a much greater role.
Thus, I can see why GW2 offensive stats affect attack skills and why defensive stats don’t affect defensive skills. It’s because in the GW2 hybrid, offense is more like what happens in an OSMMO and defense is more like an AG.
Which is why there should defensive ability stats on armour which would affect defensive skills only and leave vitality and armour untouched. GW2 seems to have a slightly schizophernic design in leaving boon intensity, non-damage condition effectiveness, and shields untouched by armour.
If boons, reflections and non-damage conditions were changed to accomodate this varying effectiveness, then wearing offensive gear would actually be a choice with consequences, giving up something in exchange for the power to hit your enemy really, really hard.
You’re right what the game needs is one person to “tank” the boss while one person drops water fields and blast finishers on him and 2 of the other pew pew with their k-rad leet ranged dps builds and one person King DPS goes in and melees the boss opposite the tank. That guy will have to bring skills that force the boss to aggro the tank if he ever turns around to face him.
I think this is a good start yes?
Oh I have another idea!
How about we have 5 people playing whatever random no-thought-put-into-it builds fighting bosses in empty open rooms and they around around erratically like headless chickens spamming their skills and eventually boring the boss to death after a 5 minute fight to do 100,000 total damage. In case the boss ever does an attack at them luckily they will be able to easily avoid it because they are safely at 1200 range. This also sounds quite riveting.
I think either of these options are good.
That’s just intentionally bad encounter design used to describe unwanted situations, too vaguely outlined to be of any real value as examples, and cannot be related to any discussion of the flawed mechanics of the game.
You would have to go into more detail as to what mechanics are affecting the game and the bosses in order for these realities to come true, as well as go into more detail as to how the encounter would go to actually show that the encounter would be boring, shallow, unfun, etc. Because when people speak of changing the mechanics of the game, they are also speaking of changing ability interactivity and function along with it.
Simply changing the way stats work does nothing when the way abilities work are left untouched. Again, this is why the game is not likely to change, but if it is to be discussed, consideration for abilities working differently will need to be made.
I feel like your sarcasm detection abilities need to be discussed and considered. But one thing I do know is you are quite verbose so we can settle that issue right now.
It was obviously sarcasm.
I’m just saying it really doesn’t prove any point at all.
Please clarify the purpose of the sarcasm, if you feel it did prove a point of some kind, reveal a truth you wish to share. We are not enemies, we are just random customers of a game discussing mechanics.
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You’re right what the game needs is one person to “tank” the boss while one person drops water fields and blast finishers on him and 2 of the other pew pew with their k-rad leet ranged dps builds and one person King DPS goes in and melees the boss opposite the tank. That guy will have to bring skills that force the boss to aggro the tank if he ever turns around to face him.
I think this is a good start yes?
Oh I have another idea!
How about we have 5 people playing whatever random no-thought-put-into-it builds fighting bosses in empty open rooms and they around around erratically like headless chickens spamming their skills and eventually boring the boss to death after a 5 minute fight to do 100,000 total damage. In case the boss ever does an attack at them luckily they will be able to easily avoid it because they are safely at 1200 range. This also sounds quite riveting.
I think either of these options are good.
That’s just intentionally bad encounter design used to describe unwanted situations, too vaguely outlined to be of any real value as examples, and cannot be related to any discussion of the flawed mechanics of the game.
You would have to go into more detail as to what mechanics are affecting the game and the bosses in order for these realities to come true, as well as go into more detail as to how the encounter would go to actually show that the encounter would be boring, shallow, unfun, etc. Because when people speak of changing the mechanics of the game, they are also speaking of changing ability interactivity and function along with it.
Simply changing the way stats work does nothing when the way abilities work are left untouched. Again, this is why the game is not likely to change, but if it is to be discussed, consideration for abilities working differently will need to be made.
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The way toughness and vitality currently work are at odds with the current game design by way of acting as health and armour modifiers. They should have been ability modifiers instead, with health and armour being relegated to the care of only your base class stats.
As long as there are a gear stats that actually improve your abilities and other gear stats that have no interaction with your abilities, the meta will always exist in the state it is now, at best growing to encompass conditions in pve once Anet figures out how to fix that. All the content in the world will not change the attractiveness of damage versus other stats as long as the base mechanics remain this way. The path of mastery remains the same.
Forcing people to change to tankier gear with harder content just means they are artificially sidestepping the difficulty, something that should be determined by your ability, not by gear. They can start getting used to it bit by bit this way until they shed their weakness, but it again relegates certain stats to stop gaps, which should be something determined by gear tier, not type.
This is why the focus of stats should have been exclusively on the effectiveness of one’s abilities, rather than base stat numbers, with abilities being modified to accomodate these changes. Power does this just fine with attack damage, even counting your most basic weapon attack, and condition damage has this but is screwed over by game mechanics. You have all of these stats avialable which exist only to improve the effectiveness of your abilities.
Except for toughness and vitality.
What mechanics in the game are left decoupled from armour stats as well? Boons(outside regeneration), blocks, and non-damaging conditions.
Boons, blocks and non-damage conditions? Modifiable extra effects coming from traits and runes, which is good.
Same effectiveness no matter what gear you put on? Not inherently bad, except Anet needs to commit to this idea for the game instead of giving the impression you can actually use the non-damage focused gear types to contribute towards an alternate path of mastery.
Damage is the thing you can improve with gear, so damage is “king”, because all that other stuff you can do to support your team? Still capable even in berserker gear, while still giving out decent damage. No significant give-and-take. Just trait up, get your sigils, get your runes, and destroy the enemy.
I personally find it shallow, but many people do enjoy the game exactly because there is no fuss about gear and ability effectiveness in this regard. A fundamental change to the game’s whole system would be necessary to actually promote true diversity, so it really boils down to a take it or leave it situation.
I think something more akin to Guild Wars 1’s ability points would have worked even better, but I am trying to make an argument with consideration to the system which is currently in place. And I do not believe for a moment that change of this magnitude will ever come to the game, though I do hope for some improvement somewhere that will catch my interest again one day, at least with better encounter design and content in general.
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Immobilize is a condition, not affected by defensive stats.
Reflects would still need to be used properly or be wasted.
Blocks will run out, and need to be employed properly.
Blind is a condition, not affected by defensive stats.
Cooldown reduction should be the realm of traits, not stats, just like now. I never even considered that an option.
That being said, when I started thinking about the ways that the game could make tanky gear a more compelling choice, I realised that it would require far too many changes to the base game design itself and the way abilities currently function. Reflects, boons, weapon interactions, addition of new character parameters to be affected by stats. It would suit my desires, but it would be a different game.
I don’t like the way the game is now, I find it shallow and unrewarding, but just because I don’t enjoy the game does not mean others can’t enjoy what they have.
Different tastes.
I still think making stats available to players based on gear was a mistake when taking the design philosophy into consideration, and a focus on traits would have been ideal. Gear type should never end up in a situation where it is considered training wheels for another set of gear. But I think I just don’t care any more.
The way the game is now, no, there are not any really compelling options to work with. You’d have to be a counter attacker and buffer right now, but that still does not resolve the offensive playstyle which all builds should have be able to support. And just reacting to enemy attacks is dull. Having those stats turn into compelling offensive options would require an overhaul to the game itself.
Just not for me, I guess.
I really would prefer to have toughness and vitality play a role in our active defenses though, and to have healing scale up a bit more. I feel it would add avenues of growth for further encounter design in the game’s future, and promote the likes of Soldier and Nomad gear from ‘safety net’ and ‘useless’ respectively (in popular perception) to ‘path of mastery’.
And just why exactly should gear stats that let you afk eat hits be the optimal gear for anything?
Because the stats do not jive well with the rest of the design philosophy of the game. They are a choice, and if Anet does not want to work to make the choices actually optimal in some form, then they should not bother.
Who here actually enjoys having gear that you can point to and say they’re only for use until you get better?
And the exact problem I have is that toughness and vitality do nothing BUT allow you to swallow extra hits. Why in the world can they not make your abilities more powerful too, like actually make your active defenses more powerful in some way? Make it interesting by encouraging more uses of better shields, counters, boons, etc, instead of just making you take more hits.
In a well designed game, you would not be able to just sit back, afk, and eat the hits, even with the extra durability. You will be able to naturally take more hits as a consequence of the stats, just like power makes your auto-attacks do more damage as a consequence of its effects, but without proper ability usage, you still end up dead.
I feel this video clearly demonstrates why non-damage gear is more skillful than anything else out there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNMltxyvAvo
I feel that the boss needs to be more dynamic to avoid being cheesed like this.
The spider should have more tools to counter just being wacked in the face, and the player should have more interesting avenues to using those stats besides just getting hit more. Healing power being able to keep you up is one thing, but the boss needs ways to counter that stream of healing that the player would need to pay attention to. Then crush them for not paying attention.
In that situation, player with high healing power can take care of the damage from regular poison and normal attacks where others would need to cleanse more and not get hit, but spider will bum rush them, web them up, put down an even more damaging fields of corrosion, all good things to get them to move about and pay attention, because all the healing in the world will not help if you’re overwhelmed.
Why is the promotion of variety such a bad thing? Power, Precision and Ferocity work so well because they feed into the effects of your damaging skills and utilities. Why can’t toughness and vitality do the same for their own appropriate abilities? Why are they stats if they don’t follow the same design philosophy which supports the active gameplay of the game?
A real choice between having to beef up your active offensive capability or your active defensive capability would make for more interesting interplay than just putting on the best dps gear possible and not having to worry about the effects on your utilities.
I don’t care that dps players can clear dungeons more quickly, I care that the other options are just so dang uninteresting because of their disconnect from your character’s abilities.
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Why have stats on gear though?
Why not just expand the rune/sigil system for armor and weapons and let your abilities be fully dictated by traits?
[snip]
Probably to late for Anet to even consider this,
Wouldn’t really change anything anyway, if we got the same state boost from the Traits and such as we now get from gear now.
[snip]
It would just end up being the same like now.
Player’s would still mostly stick to the traits/runes/sigils, which are widely considered “optimal”.Not to mention how much it would make non-PvE content very one-dimensional.
I’m remembering it, like it was yesterday, when anet proudly stated, that for each dungeon and path, there is an “optimal” composition of classes and builds, which needs to be used with high amount of communication and tactic.
Well…
My main issue is that toughness and vitality are disconnected from your abilities, your active offense and defence, in a game that promotes more timing from dodges and timing on activation of abilities as its ideal.
The idea behind more reliance on traits, sigils and runes, and the complete elimination of stat boosts from trait lines and runes, was that at least in this case, your active abilities would all be affected by your decisions, as I would hope the traits under this system would be even more substantial than the current traits available to us, and the runes and sigils would be used to complement your chosen style, with the ability to have a whole armory of variously socketed weapons and armor at your disposal for collecting.
Damage can be callibrated to compensate for the stat change.
Traits that enhance offensive and defensive capabilities, and affects on utilities, would be applied in ways that would enhance your abilities not by increasing stats, but by adding buffs which lead to greater damage or usefulness, like a trait which allowed for an occasional extra swing of a weapon, or an extra activation of aegis when hit . Just things similar to what we have now, but with more thought put into it throughout whole trees, as they would be an even greater basis for how your character will play.
But you’re right in that the heart of the issue is that some abilities will just not be useful because encounter design works in such a way that some strategies work so optimally that there will be a preferred meta. I just make the argument for getting rid of stats because at least under that system, all the traits would ideally be used to affect your attacks and utilities in some form or another.
In other words, at least your ACTIVE abilities would be molded by all of your available choices, rather than having choices disconnected from the current system in place.
Also, if healing power is not going to be scaled up to allow for properly healing others, it should at least instead have more traits and runes available to make your heals add extra effects that can further aid yourself or your allies. This exists in the game, of course, but there is room for more. Maybe even in a way that scales with healing power?
I really would prefer to have toughness and vitality play a role in our active defenses though, and to have healing scale up a bit more. I feel it would add avenues of growth for further encounter design in the game’s future, and promote the likes of Soldier and Nomad gear from ‘safety net’ and ‘useless’ respectively (in popular perception) to ‘path of mastery’.
Just a way to project those stats outward in some meaningful fashion, instead of just letting you get hit more, would help in better rounding the stat experience in the game. I do recognise that the game still has hurdles in regards to its balance and design that would require much more work to fix, and I hope Anet is considering ways to change things up within the system they already have.
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Why have stats on gear though?
Why not just expand the rune/sigil system for armor and weapons and let your abilities be fully dictated by traits?
It would be more in line with the vision of moving away from vertical progression in regards to gear, allow people to customise affects for their attacks and utilities, and ensure greater support for a player’s active defenses, since Anet does not want toughness or vitality to directly affect one’s abilities.
If stats on armor are meant to be entirely removed from your actual combat capability, then there should be no stats at all. Just have runes, sigils, and traits and be done with it.
There is no direct interplay between your stats and your defenses. Rolls and roll stamina are affected by trait effects, reflects are only affected by traits, boon/condition duration are the only stats which do anything to the effectiveness of the non-regeneration boons and non-damaging conditions you generate, with traits adding extra avenues by which you can apply them, as well as different bonuses for applying them.
Why not allow for defensive stats to have an effect on boon intensity? Or on some appropriate utilities? Or even create new stats to do that very same thing. Have some actual interplay with stats that allow people to really be better at different things. The current system is boring to me precisely because I know I’m not giving up anything meaningful by wearing a full set of berserker armor. The boons I give will have the same intensity no matter what, meaning proper timing on application of boons limits the need for even more boon duration. It acts more like a crutch rather than a tool to expand my skill, to the point where requiring less and less boon duration is a mark of greater mastery over my character’s abilities.
If the only use vitality and toughness have is to just keep my health bar bigger after getting hit by another brainless AI, without anything meaningful to do with that extra time I don’t need to roll around, then it is all just uninteresting gameplay because I can’t apply those strengths directly to aiding my allies or punishing my enemy.
I can be just as helpful rolling around in less strudy armor and keeping myself aware of my environment. Even more so, as I’m not giving up my offensive capabilities in order to breath a little easier.
What I’m saying is, if a system where people did not consider going through a dungeon in soldier gear “training wheels” could be put in place, where all that toughness and vitality could translate into abilities which would help actually defend the group or interefere with the enemy in some manner. Creating bosses that are immune to critical hits is also not what I would consider a viable solution. Armor is never the problem, encounter design and a system that does not want to fully commit to its own ideas are the issue here.
I’m also not a big fan of a lot of the traits available to the classes, but that’s another matter. Also note that most of this argument applies to how PVE works. PVP is not my forte, and I cannot comment on possible imbalances this would bring.
TLDR; Make other stats more useful to ability effectiveness or get rid of the stats entirely.
I am a great believer in the idea that support abilities are so divorced from most stats at all that it just makes sense to use armour with offensive stats, since it doesn’t hurt your ability to stack might, provide aegis, protection, dodge attacks, all that good stuff. It makes gear choice in PVE feel a bit redundant at a certain level of play, because you get to a point where improvement in ability means switching out the defensive stuff to take it to the next level.
I don’t want to feel like PVT gear is ‘training wheels’, or whatever nonsense is bandied out from time to time, when I reach that stage, but it has a very noticeable point where there’s just nowhere else to go while wearing that gear.
Becoming more supportive comes down to traits, runes, and weapon ability, but where one can use gear to improve their outgoing damage potential, one’s ability to outwardly aid their allies is not supported through the current relationship between gear and utilities.
Might will always have the same amount.
Protection will always have the same percentage.
Wall of reflection and its ilk work based on traits, and outside of traits there is no way to improve upon it.
Gear choice, in an ideal world, would be used to reinforce the path you have chosen, but things like vitality and healing are limited in the interactivity they have with the abilities you use to stay alive, or help keep others alive. While dps sets reinforce your path towards obliterating your enemy, with traits and weapons and runes giving options on how you will further go about doing that, while still allowing you to throw out supportive abilities.
(edited by Croc.5129)
The heart of the matter is, everybody is already capable of using boons and control skills with any gear. It makes other stats feel redundant in PVE where the ease of gameplay and the Defiant system reduces the value of defensive gear and control skills while simultaneously being incapable of improving the effectiveness of many of your skills, while in Berserker gear you can get some kitten fine damage and still have complete access to dodges, protection, aegis, and enough healing to self-sustain properly.
What I would prefer is that healing power and toughness become actually capable of increasing the power of one’s boons, like aegis at certain toughness thresholds granting an extra block, shields being able to absorb more damage before failing, or the protection you give out adding a percentage to its total based on your character’s toughness, maybe have healing power contribute to boon duration as well for added utility. Add in more abilities that allow a player to take damage for their fellow players at a reduced amount, put it on a cooldown and limited timer to make it a reactionary ability, but something that can still be used often enough to be useful.
Allowing ranged characters to more consistently benefit from boons would be nice too.
The thing that makes the gear choices stale is that lack of direct interactivity with one’s own abilities. You can talk about how the effectiveness of boons on an individual character are improved by their own stats, but I find the lack of interactivity unfun, especially when grouping with others and seeing that all of their boons would do the exact same amount all the time for everyone in the party, with boon duration being about the only differentiating factor among them.
Which would still leave the issue of the game not being challenging enough to warrant the extra support and control, but I would at least like to see some more direct interactivity between abilities and stats.
I think a question that has to be asked is, why do people consider things like PVT armour to be ‘training wheels’ while the berserker set is considered something for everybody to aspire towards in PVE.
The fact that it is flat out better than anything else goes beyond just speed clearing. Boons are the same power no matter what, toughness contributes to nothing ability wise, vitality contributes nothing ability wise, healing power scales poorly for many skills, and you have to sacrifice so much in order to get any useful level of healing power, and it isnt even of great benefit because everyone is worrying about their personal survival anyway.
The fact that the game is so easy that you can complete any dungeon with any combination should not blind us to the fact that compared to berserker in pve, there is not much return on investment in other armour sets.
You will always have the same dodge, or the same aegis, or the same wall of reflection, no matter your armor. And how does being a little tougher in PVE contribute, when you are in no position to 100% ensure you will be taking blows for your squishier party members. You all dodge, you all use your utilities, you all do damage, and you triumph.
So yeah, other builds can work, but to me it feels like trying to get something different out of a game that does not support it. And I always felt like a heel when I played my soldier gear guardian in dungeons, because as berserker I had the same type of utility, just dodged everything, and did more damage. I just performed better overall, but I was not enjoying my success.
I have not run into enough jerks to hate the players, but I do have my issues with the game mechanics as they currently are. Which is exactly why I think the berserker nerf was useless. It accomplished nothing. Everything will depend on the followup from Anet
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