Guild Wars 2

It should. That’s how it works for other universal skins.
If you’re unsure just get it for who you want it most.

So so far just QoL changes? Nothing new?

What do you want from dungeons in the future?
Be as detailed as like.
Would you want unique encounters? Special rewards? A certain setting or theme?
A need to utilize varied tactics, new types of bosses?
Go to town.

Stooperdale.3560:

Are you really going to argue that a class should need utilities to make a weapon set work, just for 5-10 seconds?

Nah. Just saying if the rules change, you adapt.

Stooperdale.3560:

Xae Isareth.1364:

Stooperdale.3560:

“The problem is the enemies that willfully stay in black powder or that willfully keep using projectiles on WoR.”

Thieves have only two off hand weapons and they can throw one of them away if AI mobs don’t stand in black powder, really! Combo finishers might as well not be there once enemies are not in the fields. There are also going to be other problems with players using aoe fields just to make enemies run around until they die. It isn’t a simple fix to mend the AI.

Immobilize, cripple, knockdown. You should need to make enemies stay in fields, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Heck, it’d actually make cripple and immob more useful in PvE, which is brilliant.

If enemies get trolled like that, then you could make the AI better. Add in conditions in the code like only moving from certain AoEs.

You’ve clearly never played a thief since the offhand pistol field is so small it’s there’s no point spending 0.5 seconds on a utility skill to cripple an enemy just to give extra 0.5 seconds moving away (even if we forget that weapon sets should be functionally complete without utilities). Thieves are also clearly not going to use tripwire traps to knockdown enemies just so they are blinded while knocked down!

This is just one example that the PVE game doesn’t just change slightly when mobs run out of fields, it completely unbalances the design of many skills.

Heh. You could take Devourer Venom or Caltrops, or just Ice Drake Venom. You don’t even need to give up 6/6/0/0/2.
Or if you’re gonna go /ruined forever, Go x/D and for a mere 2 points in Shadow Arts, you can get the little gem of a trait known as Cloaked in Shadow.
If you really look at thief, you’ll find they have a lot of means to make sure they enemy won’t run and just as many ways of blinding. Thieves have a lot more of offer than being simple smugglers and thugs and even it becomes harder to be effective, it’s not like Thieves are in any danger of completely dropping out of the meta.
Adversity is the mother of innovation.
Metas are at their best when there’s room for improvement.

To clarify the concept, the idea isn’t to make Zerk’s not optimal, just up the risk factor across all armour sets. Skilled Zerkers will thrive, sloppy zerkers will be punished for their sloppiness. What I’m aiming for is an alternative mode of play in which players looking for a challenge can thrive. I want it to be about challenging yourself and earning your bragging rights, so I’d rather not see Hard Mode dungeons become something people farm.
As for the mobs, I can’t say I know exactly what I’d like it to look like, but I’d like meleeing them to be an intense struggle, something that gives you a rush to fight. They’d need to not be as easy to manipulate as our current mobs. I think the main thing I’d like to to see is from them is more action game, less rpg.
As for whether or not the rewards should be non-monetary (account bound) status symbols, if they decided to make them status symbols, I’d like them to have the stones to tell the whiner’s no.
If they make the rewards like their normal mode counterparts with bigger numbers then sell away.
The whole thing is up to Anet in the end anyway.

I saw how they do boss fights in a certain other NCSoft game, and it was a beautiful sight to behold, dancing around patterned AoEs, always in motion. I wish Anet would introduce encounters more similar to that, or a certain Sega MMO who’s predecessor got me into the genre in the first play.

Dalanor.5387:

Again, a nonsense idea against legit path sellers … Envy?
Btw blind, aegis, blocks, invulnerability, projectile defense etc still negates 100% incoming damage and the combination of protection and weakness reduce damage by a lot too, so whats the point of increasing mob damage? It’s just dumb. Overwhelm the instance with unvadoidable damage is dumb and lazy solution. Discriminating really good players by locking the instance is just rude. Stop with the playhowiwant attitude pls.

This isn’t play how you want. Hard mode throws that concept out the window. And you’re thinking way to small.
I never said unavoidable damage or just increasing. I said make it so you have to be an outstanding player to be a melee Zerker in hard mode, if you’re able to go zerk right off the bat and succeed, then fine, you’ve proven you’re outstandingly skilled.
What I have in mind for meleeing in hardmode is akin to hard mode in a bullet hell game. Really hard to do, but still doable if you have the skills.

In other words, rather than simple stat changes to mobs, they need new attack patterns, new AI, wider access to skills and other combat facets like boons, evades and debuffs. If these are to be hardmode mobs, the designer better be doing something innovative while channeling their inner sadist. The restrictions that hold the bar low enough for the playhowyouwants are gone, the goal is to make the most grueling, unforgiving yet doable challenge possible.
Explain to me how such a challenge is playhowyouwant. It sounds more like you just don’t want to adapt, which is fine, you can still do your normal mode speed runs, and probably be richer at the end of the day.

The reason I said no path selling in hard mode is because my idea of the hard mode rewards are status symbols. If you let any old joe buy their way to the end, then those status symbols lose their meaning.
I mean look at the Dungeon Master title, no one cares that you have it, and they probably suspect you bought paths to get it.
Look at the Legendary weapons, they’re supposed to be the ultimate status symbols in this game, and yet since it’s possible to buy them off the TP, they mean nothing to the playerbase.
If you want a status symbol to keep its prestige, you can’t allow player’s to bypass the challenge that the symbol represents.

haviz.1340:

Dual.8953:

I’ve got a thought on why things are they way they are. GW2 needs desparately for there to be a hard mode. And it needs to be so hard that Zerker parties will be virtually impossible.
This game is too easy, it’s easy to the point that the elite players in this game have to find ways to severely handcap themselves just too challege themselves.
The reason for that is the game was designed so that full glass cannon parties can be viable.
That considered, hardmode needs to be designed to counter the meta. Enemies need to be hard enough and fast enough that a glass cannon will be at high risk if they melee. They need to not fall for simple tactics like stacking. These dungeons need to operate outside the boundaries that the current dungeons limit themselves to.
The reason why it should be virtually impossible to do in a glass cannon build is because as long as a dungeon is so easy that any team comp works, it can not be truely challenging.
The reason this should exist is there’s a hardcore audience in this game and they are currently not being catered to in any noticable way. They’ve reached the top level of skill this game for asks and now struggle to find ways to squeeze more challenge out of the game.
The reason hard mode needs to be very harsh on the damage meta is, the damage meta forms when the player base has completely mastered the given content. It is the pinnacle of player development. If the content has been mastered to the point that damage meta can exist, the players of that content have nothing more to strive for and the content stagnates. As long as the content is balanced so that glass cannon parties are viable, the content is unable to be truely difficult.
The existence of this content, which defies the game’s current design philisophy, should be permissable because the rest of PvE has already been designed to cater to be playable by everyone. Hardmode is to be a haven for the hardcore players to stretch their legs and push themselves to the limit, which is an experience the main game cannot provide.

So full zerker is now impossible, I swap from it to pvt and now I can complete a content. What has changed for me except that I have to spend money on another set of gear?

I never said impossible, I said virtually impossible. Soldiers, would be what people would run when they’re still learning not to die. Ideally what would happen is the majority of players would eventually become skilled enough that they could do it in Knight’s (or something around there, there’s a lot of gear that’s similar to Knight’s), a small handful could do it in Zerkers, and the best of those ones could go Zerker Melee.
The beauty of having the majority of players at a Knight’s skill level is Knights is something of a middle ground, meaning most player base will have to consider defense just as important as offense. The beauty of that situation is that’s where most of the build variety is.
Make things hard enough and all the things that the current glass cannon meta scoffs at becomes more appealing, meaning more valid weapon choices, upgrade choices, trait choices and skill choices.
The other thing to consider is, if you really must Zerk speedrun, you can still go to normal mode.
In fact I’d prefer if they designed hard mode’s reward structure different from normal mode’s.
First, I think that hard mode shouldn’t offer more gold and mats than normal mode. Hard mode shouldn’t be something people go to farm, but rather a place for players to test their skill.
Rather that gold and such the rewards in hard mode should be status symbols. Unique skins and titles.
I think the best way to distribute them would be track rewards rather than tokens or RNG.
That way when players see you strutting around with your (say for example) Flaming Zhaitan’s Fang Greatsword, they’ll know you endured Arah Hard Mode 5 times to get that.
If they do it this way and account bind the skins, the rewards from hard mode dungeons would be arguably more of a show of your prowess as a player than Legendaries.
On a last note, in order to preserve the integrity hard mode, I think they’d also need to make it so you can’t change party members during a run. This’d be to stop players from selling the slots or kicking for guildies.

With all that said, I’ll assume that I have successfully disgusted the entire speed run community, and to them I give a sigh, and start reminiscing about days long past, when beating Contra without the konami code made you the coolest kid on the block.

Harper.4173:

Dual.8953:

The reason for that is the game was designed so that full glass cannon parties can be viable.

That’s not actually it. The reason is that they designed the game to have a very low skill ceiling required to play and complete content successfully.

This was done in order to keep a good retention rate of hypercasual players – the kind of player that isn’t very good at games and can’t be very good ( because he’s got a job and spends most of his time outside the game) but who might be inclined to spend money on the gem store ( because he has a job and can afford it).

The indirect ( and unavoidable) side-effect of this is that very skilled players ( the kind that play the game for thousands of hours on end because they have the time – or just the kind that are good at games in general) are capable of mitigating every threat the game poses through skill and don’t need defensive gear because they can compensate the lack of passive defense with their own ability as a player.

This is what lead to the viability of full glass parties.

Still if they make a hard mode they should make it with the top players in mind rather than the bottom. At least imo. Otherwise I see the Hard mode content becoming just as trivial as the regular content.

@Bezagron: I’m hoping they hard enough to bestow bragging rights.

@Dalanor: In pve, all challenge is artificial.
Hard mode should be exist so the hardcore playerbase can actually challenge themselves. A good analogy believe would be swimmers. Gw2 pve is currently like a 1 meter deep kiddy pool, which is perfect for casual swimmers. The issue is competitive swimmers exist too and they can cross the kiddy pool in 5 seconds. They known the butterfly stroke but the kiddy pool is too small to do the breast stroke. They have all this raw skill and nowhere to use it.
This is where hardmode comes in, hardmode comes in. Hardmode is a full sized olympic pool where the competitive swimmer can put all his skills into practice and hone his skills till he fully realizes his potential.
Also when I said it should be virtually impossible to zerk, I mean the enemies strong that you’ll have to play almost perfectly to zerk. Nightmare mode bullet hell hard, but at the same time be fair to those that can manage it. The idea is to make a challenge so hard that the meta that has developed will not work there. Everyone will be knocked down a few pegs. Some as low as Sentinels. Over time as players improve, they’ll shed more and more defense, but ideally the challenge will be so hard that a great deal of players, simply won’t have the capabilities to run zerker melee.
The reason this kind of challenge would be allowed to exist it wouldn’t be a main part of the core gw2 experience. I could take it a step further and say hardmode dungeons shouldn’t reward players in the same way that normal dungeons do. The rewards should be things like rare dungeon exclusive skins. And getting these skins shouldn’t be through rng but rather either currency or a reward track. These skins would be status symbols. Players who play hardmode would play for the prestige these skins bring and the satisfaction of a good challenge, farming should be left to the normal dungeons. (It may also be prudent to disallow changing party members in hardmode, to keep them from being sellable)
Also they shouldn’t allow skipping or anything else that promotes farming. I know it sounds like just another jab at the meta, but the reason is allowing players to skip in a hardmode dungeon it will deminish the value of completing the run. Who’s going to care that you completed the challenge in it’s entirety when that other guy got the same reward as you for half the effort?

Good lord I write long posts on my phone.

I’ve got a thought on why things are they way they are. GW2 needs desparately for there to be a hard mode. And it needs to be so hard that Zerker parties will be virtually impossible.
This game is too easy, it’s easy to the point that the elite players in this game have to find ways to severely handcap themselves just too challege themselves.
The reason for that is the game was designed so that full glass cannon parties can be viable.
That considered, hardmode needs to be designed to counter the meta. Enemies need to be hard enough and fast enough that a glass cannon will be at high risk if they melee. They need to not fall for simple tactics like stacking. These dungeons need to operate outside the boundaries that the current dungeons limit themselves to.
The reason why it should be virtually impossible to do in a glass cannon build is because as long as a dungeon is so easy that any team comp works, it can not be truely challenging.
The reason this should exist is there’s a hardcore audience in this game and they are currently not being catered to in any noticable way. They’ve reached the top level of skill this game for asks and now struggle to find ways to squeeze more challenge out of the game.
The reason hard mode needs to be very harsh on the damage meta is, the damage meta forms when the player base has completely mastered the given content. It is the pinnacle of player development. If the content has been mastered to the point that damage meta can exist, the players of that content have nothing more to strive for and the content stagnates. As long as the content is balanced so that glass cannon parties are viable, the content is unable to be truely difficult.
The existence of this content, which defies the game’s current design philisophy, should be permissable because the rest of PvE has already been designed to cater to be playable by everyone. Hardmode is to be a haven for the hardcore players to stretch their legs and push themselves to the limit, which is an experience the main game cannot provide.

Game doesn’t need to force everyone to play a certain way, but it does need content where glass cannons are not optimal. They could still do it but they’ll either be wiped a lot or have to take it slow.
Why should these be allowed to exist? Because they’d be niche encounter for those who value finesse over brute forcing. It wouldn’t be the whole game, but it would be a place for players who prefer techinque over force to thrive. It wouldn’t matter if it’s unfair to the damage focused player. They have all the rest of PvE to play in.

haviz.1340:

Dual.8953:

Then get kicked for not bringing banners, just like they’d kick a venom Thief for not being a dps/stealth thief.

What? Just yesterday I played fully traited venom thief with an awesome epidemic necro and mobs had like 20-25 stacks of torment all day. So much dps was going around it was unimaginable.

Why not go share said build on the dungeon forum asking for a critique?

I’d say it’s a pride thing. If he doesn’t play the meta, he’s willfully making himself a 2nd rate player. A lot of dungeon runners to dungeons for prestige, but there’s no prestige to be had in GW2’s dungeons aside from being the speediest speed runner.
So if you want to be respected by your fellow dungeon runners, you have to follow the meta.
You can argue that if you like, but the dungeon community, at least on these forums is none to kind to those that don’t follow their meta.
I recall one incident with a certain youtuber who made fun build guides, they pretty much chased him off the forums because he refused to make meta guides.

I think the biggest thing is attitude the meta has created. The PvE scene has gone from a situation where player skill = skill to where player build = skill. If you aren’t meta, you’re considered unskilled and second rate. Just because of your build.

@Tree: Good luck with shoutcasting.

haviz.1340:

Dual.8953:

If they use the standard tactics and stream it, I wonder how this’ll make GW2 look to the casual viewer.

And how do you think gw2 pvp tourneys look to a casual viewer? Teamfights are clusterkitten, everyone plays an asura making it even bigger clusterkitten and even if one team can win most of the fights they can still lose cause of capping points mechanics. Moreover, commentators usually pay attention to only one part of the map making you miss a lot of action.

At least a clusterkitten is more impressive looking than a stack. Spectacle is what’s going to make people who stumble upon the stream want to play this game, and let’s face it, the only thing pretty about stacking against a wall is the big numbers only the players will be seeing. To the layman, you’ll look like your cheesing it, which will reflect negatively on the game as a whole.

IndigoSundown.5419:

@ Bezagron: I’d be happy to discuss those four play styles.

• Defensive-minded: Outside of a trinity game, where do you see defensive gear coming into play? It gets used in GW2 PvP because game-play objectives require players to hold points solo. It gets used in WvW if a player wants more survivability. To give defensive gear optimal status in PvE, you’d have to provide objectives for someone to hold in group play while the rest deal with something else — or similar mechanics. However, if all encounters were like that, that would just mean that the meta now required one bunker. If it were only on some encounters, you’d get some players carrying two gear sets and switching. Alternatively, you could make survivability more of an issue, but then you’d just be creating anything from a full survival meta to a hybrid (e.g., 75% Glass/25% Survival) meta.

• DoT Minded: No arguments from me. ANet’s treatment of condition damage in GW2 PvE borders on the ridiculous. They’ve as much as said, "You guys that want DoT play need to play PvP, or solo. Forget group play and forget group events. Worst case I’ve seen of designing a game feature without the behind-the-scenes architecture to make it work across all game modes. If there’s any system in GW2 that deserves a failing grade, conditions in group PvE is it.

• Support: Honestly, I don’t think a dedicated buff-bot can be made to work in high end PvE in this game. Buff-bot as a main play style would require drastically lowering the effectiveness of support for other builds. This would break many builds used in PvE, WvW and PvP. Are dedicated buff-bots really used in small group play in any of the post-WoW MMO’s? I can’t think of one. I know that Rift has the Archon Soul. However, meta wisdom there said Archon was only valuable in raids where the buffs would affect enough players to make up for the Archon’s lower DPS. Playing one in a dungeon was not desired. I believe people are just going to have to accept that a full-time dedicated support role is just not going to happen in GW2. Support buffs are an integral part of what makes various professions and builds tick. Too much of the game would have to be redone to re-balance these builds and professions to produce a dedicated role that the game was never intended to have.

• Control: If you’re playing high end PvE, I don’t see an issue with requiring a coordinated group to strip Defiant stacks. The game could use more encounters where control is desirable. However, making control required across the board is going to sink a lot of bring-what-you-want non meta groups. I don’t see how that would be good — for them. I also don’t see why control has to be a dedicated role used in every encounter.

1. Every PvE combat encounter in every MMO requires players to defeat the mobs.
2. Optimal DPS is required in high end PvE in every MMO’s meta. Every one. And it always will be. Players doing less than the best DPS are only brought along because the game requires tanks and healers, or because specific encounters require an ability only one build has (e.g., Instructor Razuvious in 25-player Wrath Naxxramas).
3. Dedicated roles were not intended to be part of GW2.
4. Players are expected to be much more self-sufficient in their ability to sustain themselves in GW2 than in older MMO’s.

Given 1-2 above, how is it going to be possible to force players in GW2 PvE meta groups to accept lower DPS without sacrificing either 3 or 4?

You could add things like alternate routes on the same dungeon path with unique challenges rewarding different roles. It’d be the same A and B in the end. (Would take active tweaking to balance)
They should also add more boss AI types, and be mindful of thier arenas.

I’d take it a step farther. They should use the current dungeons as examples and try to design future dungeons with the aim of providing completely unique challenges to those provided in earlier entries. An aim to make the optimal playstyle for that dungeon, unique to it. Maybe slip in things that reward players for using a skill or weapon that is usually unfavored. Like normally you have to go this way, but if you have the someone with a long range CC, you can go this way. Ideally they’d try to make a fair spread these niche tricks.
Bottomline, just design new dungeons so their optimal style will be something unique to those dungeons, so there will be room for other playstyles to shine.

Bezagron.7352:

But Jerus again using dungeon as an example should the time difference be so great and yes there should be a tellable difference. We’re also talking about high end PvE so players skill should not be in question.

So high end PvE amplifies the problem with item stats other then zerker. This is also half the problem with high end PvE rewards. As again an item drop not having zerker stats is automatically less rewarding, it saving grace is you can sell to WvWers for worth while gold, as with out them no one would be buying them.

Every player has different mind set and play styles unfortunately at high end PvE unless you’re offensive focus you’re exclude to only play at mid to low end PvE. Were these players have no problem performing in high end sPvP & high end WvW. So why isn’t there a place for them in high end PvE.

That last point really resonates with me. In the PvP modes there’s room for different focuses. In PvE, there one top strategy without rival. It can’t change like the PvP metas because the enemies can’t change themselves and they’re all so similar to one another.
Since the enemies are static and similar, there is an universal, optimal playstyle, which is to be offensively focused. Everything else makes you second rate regardless of your personal skill level.

Veckna.9621:

Dual.8953:

If they use the standard tactics and stream it, I wonder how this’ll make GW2 look to the casual viewer.

The casual viewer would not comprehend anything that was going on and would be left thinking “Man, this looks pathetically easy…” but the community is not aiming to please the casual viewer, we aim to prove that PvE can generate considerable interest as well and deserves to be given some love by the devs and not overlooked as a bit of stale content.

Everyone that will watch this tourney will be instrumental in helping us, as a community, secure a prosperous future for the content we love which is PvE.

I’ll try to watch too. With any luck the combination of generating interest in PvE, and the negative feedback to the meta’s lack of spectacle together would make the devs go “okay, we need to start working on this” at least them working to fix it would be ideal. I shrudder thinking about what they’d say about gw2 pve on a podcast like Cooptional. They’re already needlessly harsh on mmos as it is.

What I’m hoping for is “find the lost Seraph exhibition party.” And a new zone with hopefully some old faces like Behemoths, Scarrabs and Stalkers.

If they use the standard tactics and stream it, I wonder how this’ll make GW2 look to the casual viewer.

With the no rez rule of the tourney in place, what kind of team comps and strategies do you expect to see in the tourney. The same old meta or teams taking a bit more defense as some assurance?

Wanderer.3248:

A warrior built entirely around shout healing can probably out heal most other classes. You can max out at around 3000 heal per shout which you can practically spam if you take the right traits. Add a war horn and a war banner and you become a support machine.

Then get kicked for not bringing banners, just like they’d kick a venom Thief for not being a dps/stealth thief.

I’d like to see Guardians adjusted to a point that they aren’t Monks anymore. Argue with me if you like but can you name a party situation in this game where you wouldn’t save one slot in your party for a Guard, outside of WvW roaming?

Bezagron.7352:

So what is the point of having gear stat choices in PvE then. When I see talk about dungeons it’s all about offensive. You want damage, support that increase damage (Reflects, might, fury, quickness vulnerability). All the meta dungeon builds I see are all focus on damage or maxing your damage with a small lost that you greatly increase the groups damage output.

Now yes dungeons can be complete with any group but looking at the completion times it’s a joke (5-6min Meta to Oo 1-2hrs) and were talking about high end gameplay.

What I think people are complaining about when they talk about roles is in high end PvE gameplay were is the condition minded, the defensive minded or the control minded players. This player base is cut off from high PvE gameplay. They typically don’t use zerker gear (bar zerker condition but condition have their own problems in PvE). So you have:

• Player like’s defensive play and maxing their defence. No high end PvE for you.
• Player like’s damage over time play (conditions) but conditions take time and there’s no point to condition if you kill the Boss in less then 10sec. No high end PvE for you too.
• Player like’s controlling their enemies. Defiance, Unstoppable says hi. No high end PvE for you as well.
• Player like’s supporting their allies excluding all else. But your not pulling your own weight (leeching off / being carried). No high end PvE here too.

This is only mainly a problem in PvE as each of these play styles is available in sPvP & WvW. For me I believe this is the heart of what players are talking about with roles in PvE. The high end PvE meta is all offensive focused, yes you can bring support & control but as a side not a focus.

So all player base that likes to focus on conditions, support & control are excluded from high end PvE and that’s the problem.

Edit: missed support focus in dot points, now added.

That’s one of the things that bugs me. Aside from the occasional Headshot defiance burn, there’s no reason for me on my thief to do anything but straight DPS most of the time with a little blind on the side. Sure Pistol Whip has a stun, but that’s not why I use it. Thieves have a lot of unique control options in their utilities and traits, but the only thing people that us to bring is our stealths for skipping, what’s even worse is when I’m not assisting a skip, I’m usually expected to run nothing but stat boosting signet passives. No reason to bring chill, cripple, pull, immobilize and cripple to a dungeon, soft CC is pointless in a stack and the ever present monks cough I mean Guardians render most of my CCs and Support options redundant.
One could go as far to say unless you’re a Guardian, pretty much the only support you’ll do is buffing group DPS. (The only exception being a handful of AoE condi clears, blinds and reflects)

PS. Can we just rename Guardian, Monk already? They have a lot of the same skills and themes and the same party presence across all modes.

Bezagron.7352:

But what is the advance to interrupting a thief if they can just reuse that skill. They I believe already bypass the increase recharge time for skills due to chill (weapons skill only) but interrupts are also reduce in effect to a thief compared to the same effects on other professions.

I’ll agree not sure how to apply the chill increase recharge time to thief’s weapons skills but I believe if you are able to interrupt a skill it should have a recharge time applied.

I agree interrupts shouldn’t effect initiative as that is too high a cost due to the mechanic. So for a thief getting interrupted adds a cooldown to the interrupted skill. In this way I feel it’s true to what an interrupt is denial of that skill, interrupting & disabling a skill or combo for a time.

The advance is that they’ve wasted their universal resource, however I admit that’s probably not what most people are looking for in interrupt, and the exact effect can be replicated with blind, aegis, and evading. It’s rather touchy really, once they burn all their initiative, not even weapon swapping can save thieves (unless you take 6 in acrobatics), but at the same time skilled thieves are good at avoiding this.

I’m happy they’re full weapons. They made it possible to get a cheap ascended weapon if you get enough tickets.

Doubt they’ll do anything, as they deliberately patched power block to not effect initiative skills.
I’m gathering it’s because unlike any other class in the game, when you interrupt a Thieves’ weapon skill, they lose the maximum cost they can, and it affects all their other skills.

Initiative is hard to compare to cooldowns, so I’m guessing they went of a percent loss when making this decision. The Thieves’ lose from an interrupt is always 100% loss when it’s a weapon skill. An interrupted cooldown skill’s loss becomes lesser, the longer the skill’s cooldown. ie. an power block interrupt vs a 30 sec cooldown skill is 33% loss.

At least I think this may be anet’s logic on the matter. That and swapping weapons to a fresh set of cooldowns is a foreign concept to thieves, which only adds to the percent loss that interrupts afflict thieves with.

petyr baelish.9675:

Everybody that claims gw2 pve is stack and burn and that you kill the boss before it becomes a threat doesn’t run arah or fractals much. There really isn’t anything more to say about this.

There needs to be more than Fractals, Arah and the Aetherpath. Sure you can go ahead and keep the original dungeons as they are, but future dungeons should be specifically crafted to push players out of their comfort zone.

Harper.4173:

Dual.8953:

Ropechef.6192:

Xae Isareth.1364:

haviz.1340:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

i guess nobody wants boring tank’n’spank boss mechanics.
but i assume that with the trinity you can actually create fun, challenging and balanced content with way less work compered to the time anet have to spent in order to make the same content fitting for their system

And you can’t without trinity? I’m thinking it’s more to do with anet designers than lack of trinity. Games like dark souls (active gameplay) are popular, challenging and fun to play.

The problem is that often GW2 just took the trinity, gutted out tanks and healers and just left DPSs in, in a tank and spank scenario. So you just end up with everyone spanking, which isn’t exactly fun.

and sitting there AFK with Macro for Aggro management and healing is???

Guild Wars 2 “trinity” being Damage, control and support is VERY much in use. Myself and many people that I know use it every single day

Are you really praising the way encounters are right now, where the best answer to almost all situations is find a little hole in the terrain and burn all mindless enemies that funnel in down before they can pose a significant threat. Where we can get our DPS so high that defense begins to become irrelevant. Yes, we all know how you go on and on and one about how great you are at active defense, but if the fight lasts less than 20 seconds, are you really showing you’re pro at active defense or are you showing you’ve found this DPS sweetspot where you can end the battle so quick that even active defense has minimal effect.

GW2 doesn’t need Tanks and Healers, but it does need encounters that require going beyond the standard Stack n’ Burn the game has adopted. They have so many unique elements in that never get a chance to shine in PvE.

They also need a way reward players for dedicating themselves to playstyles other than DPS or DPS/hybrid. Technical Encounters where finesse or hardiness trumps brute force. Sure some encounters can still be brute force but not all of them.

One I thought of is, you’ll have to defend a control console from a stream of infinite enemies, while two of your party members have to navigate 2 separate obstacle courses to reach a set of off switches.

Stack and burn has been adopted as the standard by the players because that’s what the players want – to burn down the content as quickly as possible and get those rewards.

You can argue against me that I’m wrong and that’s not what the majority want but the very fact that this is now standard and common practice proves I’m right.

I don’t recall ever going in a dungeon and hearing : “Oh boy – too bad we killed that boss before it became a meaningful threat” or " maaaaan I wish this encounter was harder and more threatening, we should wipe more often".

@And just to prove that every design idea can be played in unintended ways – to your proposal I say this :

-Before said part of the dungeon 1 guardians switches from zerker’s to Cleric’s and just keeps himself in the center holding mob aggro while 4 players ( split into 2) rush the obstacle course ressing each other and bruteforcing their way to the end.

What player’s want my kitten.
If that’s all players want we wouldn’t be having these debates, everyone would slot Zerks without question and no one would complain about it. What’s your obsession with wanting the game’s PvE to be stagnant and one note?

I argue it’s the standard because it’s the easiest. Well if they add more variety to the challenges there will be a new easiest and people will go with that. The improvement is there won’t be one be all and end all easiest to everything in the game.

As for your counter example, they could fail proof it by making it so only one person can be on a course at a time. They could also make it so the mobs ignore players only caring about the console.

Oh, and I haven’t heard “we should wipe more often” but I have heard a very dissappointed “that was it?” At the end of SE path 1.

Ropechef.6192:

Xae Isareth.1364:

haviz.1340:

Felices Bladewing.3914:

i guess nobody wants boring tank’n’spank boss mechanics.
but i assume that with the trinity you can actually create fun, challenging and balanced content with way less work compered to the time anet have to spent in order to make the same content fitting for their system

And you can’t without trinity? I’m thinking it’s more to do with anet designers than lack of trinity. Games like dark souls (active gameplay) are popular, challenging and fun to play.

The problem is that often GW2 just took the trinity, gutted out tanks and healers and just left DPSs in, in a tank and spank scenario. So you just end up with everyone spanking, which isn’t exactly fun.

and sitting there AFK with Macro for Aggro management and healing is???

Guild Wars 2 “trinity” being Damage, control and support is VERY much in use. Myself and many people that I know use it every single day

Are you really praising the way encounters are right now, where the best answer to almost all situations is find a little hole in the terrain and burn all mindless enemies that funnel in down before they can pose a significant threat. Where we can get our DPS so high that defense begins to become irrelevant. Yes, we all know how you go on and on and one about how great you are at active defense, but if the fight lasts less than 20 seconds, are you really showing you’re pro at active defense or are you showing you’ve found this DPS sweetspot where you can end the battle so quick that even active defense has minimal effect.

GW2 doesn’t need Tanks and Healers, but it does need encounters that require going beyond the standard Stack n’ Burn the game has adopted. They have so many unique elements in that never get a chance to shine in PvE.

They also need a way reward players for dedicating themselves to playstyles other than DPS or DPS/hybrid. Technical Encounters where finesse or hardiness trumps brute force. Sure some encounters can still be brute force but not all of them.

One I thought of is, you’ll have to defend a control console from a stream of infinite enemies, while two of your party members have to navigate 2 separate obstacle courses to reach a set of off switches.

From my understanding they’ve decided to do balance patches much less frequently. Give the meta a chance to develope by itself and what not. As for other things I think they’re having the game in a brief intermission till season 2.

Azhure.1857:

Zoid.2568:

I’m pretty sure we will get 3-4 new zones in Season 2.

Wow. How very optimistic of you.
Here I was only daring to hope for one new zone. I wouldn’t really be that surprised if, even after giving a teaser image of a zone portal, ArenaNet decided to go “PSYCH!” on July 1st and flip us off for expecting something like that.

However if 3-4 zones are opened up on July 1st – I think I may go into a happy state of shock.

I’m thinking he meant 3-4 over the course of the LS2. I doubt they’d do them all in one patch, as it’d spread everyone too thin.

That said, talking on these forums about the LS feels like that first mission on Claw Island.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Dual.8953:

The meta players say "we have tons of build variety.
Then I get on my Thief and see all are as close to 6/6/0/0/2 as possible (the only deviations are 5/6/0/0/3 and 5/6/0/3/0, and they’re for Thieves who want to run at tad safer at the cost of some damage), Shadow Arts, our most supportive line is considered useless.

Utility choices? If we’re skipping, stealth. If we’re fighting, Signet passives.
Venoms, Traps and Tricks are all considered useless.
Weapon Choices?
Skipping is Shortbow
Trash Mobs and Adds is Sword/Pistol
Boss is Dagger/Dagger

The most optimal way to play the most mobile class in the game in PvE is to move as little as possible, only dodge when necissary. Rukittengnet build and just DPS.
The skips are there but they’re more just a one not trick.

Let’s move onto Runes, this game as tons of them. What’s optimal?
Scholar and Strength. The meta only allows for a runeset that is basically a glorified ruby orb and the rune set that has been so overbuffed that it’s the taken over PvP and PvE. (And is likely due for a nerf, then we’ll be back down two one rune set. Oh joy, glad I don’t have to think about that)

Build diversity in the meta my kitten.

What game’s meta has build “diversity” that does not consist of tank build, heals build and the one best DPS build for one’s class? That’s not diversity, it’s enforced roles.

Well tell that do the meta guys saying “we have tons of diversity in the meta”.

Saint.5647:

pdavis.8031:

Yes thats essentially what im saying. Just do a google search: gw2 (insert whatever) build youll find various results with various trait allocations, but fall under beserker build, (or cleric, soldiers, etc.)

I understand that a build is more than just the gear, but it seems that labeling it according to the gear set (I.e beserker gs build) is a common naming convention. Thats all I was trying to say. It would also appear the naming convention differs according to varipus groups as well.

A common convention among people who don’t know kitten about builds. The same people that flood these forums about nerfing berserkers and removing dodges and adding RNG/unavoidable damage.

The same people who don’t know kitten about how the game works and don’t give a kitten enough to learn.

Berserker’s is a gear set. That. Is. It. If someone was running 0/0/6/6/2 but wearing a Berserker’s set, they are not using a “#zerkexploitbuild”.

Traits + Skills + Gear = Build

If you’re running 0/0/6/6/2 in Zerk, you’ll get kicked just as fast as a bearbow in cleric’s if someone notices. Least that’s the case with most classes. Asside from some select utility niches it’s pretty much 6/6/0/0/2 or go home.

Wethospu.6437:

Dual.8953:

I hear yah on this.
The meta players say "we have tons of build variety.
Then I get on my Thief and see all are as close to 6/6/0/0/2 as possible (the only deviations are 5/6/0/0/3 and 5/6/0/3/0, and they’re for Thieves who want to run at tad safer at the cost of some damage), Shadow Arts, our most supportive line is considered useless.
Utility choices? If we’re skipping, stealth. If we’re fighting, Signet passives.
Venoms, Traps and Tricks are all considered useless.
Weapon Choices?
Skipping is Shortbow
Trash Mobs and Adds is Sword/Pistol
Boss is Dagger/Dagger

The most optimal way to play the most mobile class in the game in PvE is to move as little as possible, only dodge when necissary. Rukittengnet build and just DPS.
The skips are there but they’re more just a one not trick.

Let’s move onto Runes, this game as tons of them. What’s optimal?
Scholar and Strength. The meta only allows for a runeset that is basically a glorified ruby orb and the rune set that has been so overbuffed that it’s the taken over PvP and PvE. (And is likely due for a nerf, then we’ll be back down two one rune set. Oh joy, glad I don’t have to think about that)

Build diversity in the meta my kitten.

If only complaining achieved something. I see zero ideas in your post.

Well for one we could have more boon heavy mobs. Then S/D could come back.
Moving and healing Mobs would make venoms useful. Kiting snipers would bring use to Scorpion Wire.
Maybe some added damage pressure for Shadow Protector

Zypher.9536:

Thanks guys! So I can just do that in any dungeon, and it doesn’t matter which level my alt is?

If you can get them there without dying. This game over-aggros underleveled players.
As stated just make sure your group is in agreement. I’ve known a few people that level this way.

Xae Isareth.1364:

maha.7902:

It’s not “zerker or screw off”, you are allowed to play exactly what build and gear you want.

ANet “nerfed” it like they did the spider queen because people continued to cry over and over

and over

and over

and over

and over

and over

and over

and over

again about berserker for literally no reason than that their terrible builds aren’t accepted in to faster LFG groups.

Its zerker or screw off if you want to be optimal, a people want to play optimal. If you don’t bother with optimal or not optimal, then you don’t need any balancing to start with because you wouldn’t give a kitten about what’s overpowered or not overpowered.

You have people crying because their builds aren’t accepted, but you also have people complaining because build crafting isn’t very interesting with only 1 variable to consider.

Unless you mean that staring at your trait list and realising most of those traits are utterly pointless in PvE, and then looking at gear choices and realising you should only aim for one is a good thing.

A MMORPG lives and dies by its character customisation and build diversity, because that’s what makes the inevitable doing the same thing over and over less boring.

I hear yah on this.
The meta players say "we have tons of build variety.
Then I get on my Thief and see all are as close to 6/6/0/0/2 as possible (the only deviations are 5/6/0/0/3 and 5/6/0/3/0, and they’re for Thieves who want to run at tad safer at the cost of some damage), Shadow Arts, our most supportive line is considered useless.
Utility choices? If we’re skipping, stealth. If we’re fighting, Signet passives.
Venoms, Traps and Tricks are all considered useless.
Weapon Choices?
Skipping is Shortbow
Trash Mobs and Adds is Sword/Pistol
Boss is Dagger/Dagger

The most optimal way to play the most mobile class in the game in PvE is to move as little as possible, only dodge when necissary. Rukittengnet build and just DPS.
The skips are there but they’re more just a one not trick.

Let’s move onto Runes, this game as tons of them. What’s optimal?
Scholar and Strength. The meta only allows for a runeset that is basically a glorified ruby orb and the rune set that has been so overbuffed that it’s the taken over PvP and PvE. (And is likely due for a nerf, then we’ll be back down two one rune set. Oh joy, glad I don’t have to think about that)

Build diversity in the meta my kitten.

Who cares if the Bifrost is has rainbows? It’s based on the kitten rainbow bridge of the gods from Viking lore.
kitten viking raiders believed in this thing.

That said, I suppose more of every legendary would be nice. Especially class themed.
As kitten as Rainbow unicorns than explode into more unicorns that also explode is, I’d like an alt to the dreamer and the other thief legendaries.

The only way I think Eles should get OOC swapping is it the can’t do it in PvP or WvW. Reasoning is because I can see Eles breaking combat just quick swap when they’re caught with their pants down.

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Miroe.2054:

Ranael.6423:

you should balance it with a buff for people losing damage for survivability.

Thats what Im already trying to do here. The Idea is, that at the moment there is an imbalance and this is trying to make defensive builds more viable.

The other way would be to add actual undodgeable attacks or bosses who’s attack patterns are a lot more aggressive so your defensive stats are just as valuable as your offensive ones

Id prefer a mechanic that turns your defense into an advantage then your offensive into a disadvantage but right now we have exactly that – timed bosses that do exactly that – rend your defense useless and promotes dps races.

Why can’t you see defensive gear works as it’s intended? It obviously cannot do as much damage as a glass cannon. Go look at the dodge unbound full cleric Lupicus kill! If anything, defensive gear trivalizes content because it makes it unnecessary to dodge.

With our current system, you can LITERALLY wear whatever you want and get the job done. Of course it will be faster with a full damage group, why shouldn’t it be?

Please, God of Logic… help me.

I’m gather because he thinks gears like Knights and Valk should be considered the standard, Cleric’s and Soldier should be considered fine or welcome, and Zerks should be for those crazy people looking for a rush.
At least, that’s what years of gaming has conditioned them to expect. Then along comes GW2 and it isn’t All-round balanced spec that’s most desired, but the high risk glass cannon. Gives the illusion that something’s amiss. I don’t think the lack of an aesthetically pleasing meta strategy helps it any.

@Shockwave: I was talking about across the whole game.
Guardian is firmly seated in pretty much every team in SPVP,
In dungeons you always want at least one Guardian. In WvW your zerg can never have too many Guardians.

They’re considered as needed for teamplay in this game as Monks were in GW1.

“Agree with me or else” is such a compelling arguement. I’ll with you when Theives become as essential to everything as Guardian.

Zacchary.6183:

Walker.3056:

Zacchary.6183:

Dual.8953:

It’s guys like this that make me miss Columba and Burnfall. Moreso Burnfall. His posts were always a treat.

I am under the firm impression that Sanduskel is banned from the forums for kittening off so many players.

I do not miss him. :P

Maybe this is an Alt acc???

….. oh… my… kittening… god.

Nah.
San had this "not sure if trolling feel. (Him and his 40 thieves who killed all the other dragons and that’s why we get mordremoth next or something)
That and he, Columba and Burnfall all knew where the shift key was.

Harper.4173:

I could have sworn I posted this before. Something must have gone wrong.

OP – what I believe is that you can’t really fix bad players because they won’t put in the time and effort to get good.
How do you fix the " it’s just a game man, doesn’t matter if I’m good or not, I play it for the lulz" mentality?

Though it’s true you can’t make an unskilled players want to hone their skills by throwing a few tutorials at them, you can educate them. An Educated unskilled player is far better then an ignorant unskilled player.
They could do it like GW1 where the first thing they dropped every player into was a tutorial mission. They could modify the PS stories they start in to demonstrate the basics of combat. Show them the fact that you can dodge, show them how combo fields work, all the basics that somehow have eluded even some of our level 80s. To make sure it’s not a slog, insentivize it. In gw1 the extra loot and experience of the tutorials was enough for me to the tutorials over whenever I roled a new character.

If not the start missions they could also revamp then first hearts in the starter zones to demonstrate these key skills.
For instance they could make the worms at the farm in queensdale try to strike you from underground with a red AoE circle, if you dodge it they stay above ground, if they hit you, you’re knocked down and they go back under.

When you think about it, since it would be Anet putting it on , what if they made something new to challenge the contestants.
They could make an arena where Teams would face challenges and foes of ever increasing difficulty. The winner is the team that gets the farthest the fastest, and no revives from defeated. They could tool the enounters so it isn’t a straight kill all the enemies slog.

Alternatively it could be their way of introducing Hardmode dungeons and make the challenge, see how many dungeons can you complete without wiping.

It’s guys like this that make me miss Columba and Burnfall. Moreso Burnfall. His posts were always a treat.

I wonder why you’d go to the trouble when you can just have a party with 2-3 eles, stack against a wall and hit the mobs with 4-5 simultaneous fiery rushes, with half the coordination