Guild Wars 2

None of them, run full zerk.

It is generally a bad idea to increase system complexity and/or add in restrictive mechanics when there is little to no need for them.

phys.7689:

Fenrir.3609:

Profit from dungeons scales with skill/knowledge. You can make very large amounts of gold per day from speedrun tours and path selling.

Which flies in the face of some of the arguments raised thus far. The gold you can gain from top end pve is more than enough to efficiently aquire luxury items. Moreover I would be interested to see people explain exactly how they are flipping out multiples of the amount you can make speedrunning/selling, on a regular, consistent, daily basis.

wanze just said he makes about 200 gold a day from buy orders. When i was trying to finish my legendary, i think i made about 60 gold a day from TP/merchanting/transforming items, and about 30-40 gold a day from pve, i spent way more time in pve than flipping.

The cap on dungeon direct earning is 36.5 and since dungeons primarily are good at awarding gold, they will scale poorly with inflation. The only way to not scale poorly is to offer some unique product. thats 25 paths, if each path takes an average of 10 minutes to beat(and move to the next one), thats 250 minutes, or 4 hours and 10 minutes or 8.37 gold per hour. you do make some more money in drops, lets say you make 10 gold an hour.
pretty skilled work, long hours
but from what i remember, selling everything(lowest seller), my calculations on frostgorge champ train was somewhere around 9 gold an hour. you arent really getting paid that well for that level of skill, except possibly in selling paths, and thats mostly because you are bringing something to market, even then i would love a breakdown of how long it takes you on average to solo the dungeon up to the boss (without exploits of course) and how long it takes to fill the party.

I was not a TP player of high skill, and i was beating highly skilled dungeon runners in earnings in less time, while i was at the same time making money from gold grind farms

Skilled dungeon play has a ceiling in rewards, and they cannot really raise it, because it currently would throw off other rewards, aside from path selling.

The current means of skilled dungeon play only track speed, they dont track deaths, they dont track what objectives you completed, and they dont track enemies killed, or quality of the enemies killed, it also doesnt track well to dungeon path difficulty. As a means of tracking your skill/success it is kind of shallow.

Aside from the gold awarded, the other items have little value attached (in general)

and just think, dungeons is probably the best awarded game activity aside from TP playing, that most scales in skill, just imagine the value of everything else besides it.

1. You didn’t refute the point that dungeons scale with skill really, I guess that is because they clearly do. They do also scale with inflation more than you seem to suggest given a large chunk of the potential rewards comes from non direct gold sources which are, wait for it, market driven.

Yes you can make a very large amount from open world faceroll farming as well, but that doesn’t alter that fact that player A who is doing dungeon speedrun tours and selling paths is going to be making a boat load more than player B in his lolPVT gear and pug groups.

That said, I would love to see dungeons improved and (for a change) not neglected.

2. I claimed that you can make more than enough from pve to afford luxury items. Your 30-40G a day backs that claim up if anything.

3. Again if someone is claiming to make 200G+ each and every day from flipping, or 60G a day from casual TP activities whilst pveing, well we are going to have to see some evidence to back up that claim.

Now I am 100% for rewarding skilled play, I would love new “hardcore” modes/content and ways of distinguishing the top players. That would be amazing. But let’s be honest here, yes you can make a large amount of gold via pve and yes, anyone who claims that “but but you can make like 1321230G per day from the TP and it is out of whack” needs to show evidence because it smacks of horse $%^*.

Profit from dungeons scales with skill/knowledge. You can make very large amounts of gold per day from speedrun tours and path selling.

Which flies in the face of some of the arguments raised thus far. The gold you can gain from top end pve is more than enough to efficiently aquire luxury items. Moreover I would be interested to see people explain exactly how they are flipping out multiples of the amount you can make speedrunning/selling, on a regular, consistent, daily basis.

phys.7689:

in an action adventure game smacking people upside the head is more legitimate. If i decide to start a 3 on 3 basketball tournament, i should really give the trophies/prizes to people who play the best, not the ones who are winning in the side fantasy football league.

It’s an mmo, a game which caters to a wide variety of playstyles. So no, it isn’t more “legitimate” at all and your basketball example doesn’t fit, surely you can see that right?

As for feedback in other forums, this was in general first, it got moved here.

Could that be perhaps because it is entitled “Trading post flipping…” and because it is whining about the trading post…. It has been explained before why threads like this one (i.e. ones which just whine about the TP) would get moved to this section. Although it would be better if they just got moved straight to trash in all honesty.

Dungeon forums have not been commented on, or had any request for feedback, or had much actual changes in content, or reveal of any plans for a long long time. At this point im beginning to feel anet doesnt really believe in dungeons as a product any more. If there was an items and rewards subforum, i think it would get tons of feedback,

I agree with this part, I don’t see how spamming up the BLTC forum with “waaaaah flippers!!” threads is going to resolve that issue however.

but as of right now, this is the closest forum, and where most of these type of discussions get moved. Which makes sense, because economy is ultimately the balancing of needs, wants, supply, value of services, standard of living, etc.

Again threads which are entitled “kill the flippers” and go on to moan about the TP get moved here. If you started a thread called “New Fractal Rewards” and spent the thread talking about how to add new content to fractals, then I would be somewhat surprised if it got moved here. Even if it did, it would be a heck of a lot more condusive to constructive discussion than threads like this.

The fact of the matter is that a) we are seeing the same anti-TP arguments recycled by the same people yet again (which is going to get us exactly nowhere at all) and b) we see arguments which are skill activity/content/reward centric (i.e. non gold alternative route reward) and which could actually be constructive, being buried in a thread that will no doubt get binned because they are being espoused in a thread wholly unsuited to them.

I swear these anti-TP arguments get progressively worse with each new thread (an impressive feat).

1. There is no evidence that the current mechanics need changing.

2. You can make more than enough to get luxury items without “playing” the markets.

3. If you want more ways of gaining rewards outside of gold (i’m all for that), then perhaps spend less time in threads like this crying about the TP and use that time creating threads in the general/dungeon/pvp forums outlining what sort of new content and rewards you would like to see.

4. No one gives a flying about what you consider to be “legitimate” or not. The market is part of the game, getting actively involved in said market is no less or no more legitimate than someone smacking mobs upside the head or having RP tea parties.

Scientia.8924:

Funny that you talk about common sense and then make the same mistake you’re trying to put other people down for. I’m not talking about loot Rarity in that post, and wouldn’t even make sense in that context since Exotics and below don’t share the same equip characteristic.

If it were actually unique it would be impossible to buy more than one. and only one person would have it.

It is really rather obvious that a 30+ laurel item available on a merchant is not going to be an item which is a complete one off which once bought, no one else in the game world can own.

Perhaps they should replace “unique” with “one per character”, i’m just somewhat surprised that people can’t work it out for themselves.

Scientia.8924:

There is nothing ‘common sense’ about Unique being restrictive to only one equip. All it indicates is rarity.

If it related to rarity it would say “unique” on legendary or ascended weapons/armour, it doesn’t.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

emikochan.8504:

It says unique on the ring.

It’s a really small tag at the bottom of the stats, barely noticeable. And how are people supposed to know what this ‘unique’ tag actually means?

It’s called paying attention, reading something and applying common sense. But no, there should clearly be a fifteen page PDF guide to walk people through this.

jheryn.8390:

I’m only “white knighting” because…

I’m sure someone who loves 0/0/6/2/6 hambow could spend ages saying how much he loves that build. It is still bad for dungeon speed runs though and whether they appreciate me telling them that or not is of little consequence.

There are good builds for x content and there are bad builds for x content, no amount of white knighting or “sensitivity” will change that fact.

I might really, really love 6/6/0/2/0 full glass zerk warrior, that doesn’t mean it is not a shockingly bad build to run if I was asked to bunker down in an spvp match. I could be the best player in the world with it, it is still a bad build to use in that remit. Just as facetanks and bearbows are for speedrunning dungeons etc.

The simple fact of the matter is a large number of players gear/build badly for the content they are doing. Fair play to them, they enjoy it, they don’t care, they have fun and they get on with it. All power to them and I would hate for them to be forced to change that. But that is the reality of the situation, there are demonstrably bad builds.

I get the griefers who are just being jerks….how are they to learn?

People would still be able to do the content and still be able to learn if the 0.00001% of the “challenging” open world content had an additional private instance option. 90% of the time (everyone loves made up statistics) i’d be in there in the “open world” helping them as would most “elitists”.

I have seen many people treated so poorly.. Not good.

You are warping the argument here. Not good. I have said people are getting kicked/griefed because the system is bad, not because they should. Which points to me being correct in the first place (a world first lol!). The system is bad because it leads to this. A good system would see people being able to do the content as and when they want (as it is now) and also allow organized teams to do it in private instances.

Dungeons and Fractals are limited to 5 people. The pavilion has a scale of 15 to 20 times that. Hardly something you can party up for. Not only that, anyone seen as new or not up to standards which you seem to want would be excluded. Again, not good.

A dungeon can quite easily have more than 5, i.e. it can be a raid.

As for excluded, in what sense? They would not be excluded from the content, they would though be excluded from my group from time to time. So what?

Well keeping both sides of the community happy.. The experienced players would be happy. Everyone else would be angry and rightfully so.

They would be able to do the content, if they can’t learn to organise and overcome the content in time, well why should they expect to be carried exactly?

I truly think it is great if you want raids. Keep suggesting it. Maybe it will happen.

It won’t happen, it flies in the face of what Anet have set up for the game.

I believe I already did that. I said effectively that I find it challenging to get the optimal goal with the players that you have on hand. Good or not so. I think everyone should have the chance to play with more experienced players in order to learn. I also think it is good the way it is because elitist players can’t exclude people in large format challenges that do not live up to their standards.

The option to lead, teach and otherwise help players should be exactly that, an option. I enjoy doing it, but I don’t think it should be something thrust on you every time you want to do some content.

Wanting to have the option to run content from time to time with other experienced players is not “elitist” nor is it bad.

Yes it is. But it is still open world content.

And it is still the wrong format to be adding in “challenging” content as is.

jheryn.8390:

“It’s bad design because it is bad design” is like saying “I am right because I want to be right.” I don’t think it is bad design at all. So therefore, it is an opinion not a fact. I am sure many would agree with you, but I know plenty that would agree with me as well.

Placing content which requires organization within an environment where you are unlikely to see the required organization or where organization is easily hampered is bad design. Whichever way you look at it. But yes, that is ofc my opinion.

Also a build isn’t necessarily good because it is efficient. Many players choose skills that others may not simply because they enjoy what the skill does or because it fits in with their role playing, or it fits their personal play style. It doesn’t make their builds bad because they may not be as efficient as you would like them to be.

Except a build is indeed “good” if it is optimal/efficient for the content you are using it for and there are indeed “bad” builds dependant upon the content you are doing.

I’m not sure why you are seemingly white knighting so much here (I mean that with no offense intended), there are indeed “bad” builds for specific content and no amount of “but they might like it for RP” will change that fact.

I hardly doubt that ANet’s motivation was: “Oh look, let’s make these organized groups deal a load of people throwing a spanner in the works, that will teach them!” More like, “Here is the content. Let’s see as a whole how they pull it off.”

It is pulled off by carrying people and/or by quite often trying to kick/boot or otherwise remove them from the map all the while causing grief.

And it isn’t odd having to deal with independent, odd, and difficult people. That is life in the real world and in open world content on any MMO.

Great, lets make dungeons and fractals totally random as well then, so you have zero choice who you group with. I am all for having the option to elect to simply go and do the content with random people, but there should also be the option of doing “more challenging” content within the remit of a private instance with a premade.

And I get it. You want raid content. That does not mean that everyone wants or cares about it. I don’t care either way. Obviously, at least right now, neither does ANet. I’m content to deal with things the way they are until something changes, then I will deal with it the new way. It doesn’t mean I don’t think you should voice your wants and opinions, but I also do not consider it bad design because it isn’t set up the way you would like to have it.

Whilst I think it is bad design, I honestly couldn’t care less about raids. When I do open world content I just get on with it and help as much as I can. I just find this whole approach (trying to shoehorn “harder” content into it) to be a bad one.

Again, Open World Content. Personal Story, Fractals and Dungeons are not open world content. Everything else is. That is the way the game is designed. It is the environment which the game is intended to be played. The game isn’t, and in my opinion shouldn’t be, designed to be able to choose instances/raids whenever we want to. Defeats the open world concept.

One of the reasons dungeons and fractals are instanced due to the fact it allows you to promote challenging content. Now if you are going to try and make larger scale “challenging” content then it should follow the remit of raids/instances, otherwise you set yourself up for problems.

I’m also not advocating making all open world content instanced, far from it. Merely that the tiny fraction of it that is challenging be made available via an optional raid format. That way we can see increased difficulty and keep both aspects of the community happy.

And again, I will say it being a “bad design” is your opinion not a fact. If it were a fact, everyone would feel the same and not everyone does.

Even if something is a fact, not everyone here would agree on it in fairness. Instead of just saying “it’s your opinion” how about you explain why you think trying to shoehorn difficult content into an open world remit within a game which does little to nothing to promote “skilled” play is a good idea?

Also, who are and who are not “good players” is also an opinion. You are “forced” to play with those you consider not good because it is an open world concept. It was not a secret going into the game and has been that way for two years. After two years, I think everyone would get that by now.

The move to include “harder” open world content is relatively new to the game.

jheryn.8390:

Again, it isn’t poor design because it isn’t how you think it should be. Also “not very good builds” is a matter of opinion.

I’d suggest it’s bad design because it is bad design, not because of my opinions on the matter. Trying to shoehorn content which requires organization into an arena in which it is prone to be spoiled is clearly pretty poor design, especially when no alternative private raid/instance is offered.

Whether a build is not very good or not has nothing to do with opinion when it comes to efficiency etc. That is not to say people using non meta builds are bad, far from it.

I think raid/instanced content wouldn’t be bad, but it isn’t how this game is designed. I think it tells a lot about how good players are when they are forced to work around these “do what they want” players.

It’s not how the game is designed, you are right. That though does not mean that said design is not bad or that raid content should not be added. I doubt it will personally but there we go.

“Forcing” good players to work around “do what they wants” is not a good thing. “Oh look, let’s make these organized groups deal a load of people throwing a spanner in the works, that will teach them!” in some odd notion of testing them is a bit odd.

So you don’t like when players run around doing things their way or how they want? I know a couple of those types of players that think that all these “organized” ways of handling things are boring. They think the people that follow along in them are sheep.

I have never at any point said that people should not be able to do things “how they want”. I have simply stated that those people who want to organize should be able to group with like minded players and partake in the content in private raid/instances.

I’m all for bearbows and cleric wearing staff spamming guards running around in dungeons for example. Go for it I say, all power to them, as long as I am not forced to group with them when they do it. Now if larger scale pve content is going down the more challenging/organized route, then it needs to offer the same instanced/raid options as dungeons do.

So again, I say it isn’t bad design. It just is what it is. How a person deals with the design they have been given is a true test of good or bad.

Again, it’s bad design and again the idea that you “test” good players with bad design is an odd one.

jheryn.8390:

It isn’t poor design. It’s designed so people can play any way they choose.

There also isn’t a way bosses should or shouldn’t be killed. Yes I have done the pavilion a lot. I also know the most effective ways to make sure gold is achieved the fastest way possible.

That being said, any player can choose to play however they like. I may not like the way he/she is going about it, but I have no right to tell that player how to play.

Your way, my way, or anyone else’s way of playing is subjective and personal. There is no right or wrong. And certainly you do not get to decide what is right for other people.

Except it is poor design because you often have some random running around like a loon mucking it up for people trying to organise, whilst hiding behind the “play how I wantz!” mantra.

Good design would see this kind of stuff in a raid/instanced format (or the very least offer that option as well) in which you can group with like minded players. Want to do it in an organised manner? Group with like minded people and run the content. Want to run about and “play how I want!”, group with like minded players and run the content.

Moreover whacking stuff like this in the open world means Anet has to dumb it down as you have to take into account all kinds of player ability and organization levels as well as people running not very good builds. By adding content in the form of raids/instances more challenging/interesting larger scale content could be added as well as the usual faceroll fests.

Allow the option for people just to jump in a random map and go at it (like it is now) and add the option for organized groups to run their own, closed instance.

This is all down to Anet and their bad design.

They made a big mistake by not going down the raid/instanced route for larger scale content which requires organization, but alas there is zero chance of them admitting that mistake.

If you are running 6/6/0/2/0 (6/6/0/0/2) or 6/5/0/0/3 with full ascended zerk then force is more optimal than accuracy.

Without a sigil of accuracy if you factor in Fury your crit chance should be close to or above 100% making sigil of accuracy a bit pointless if you are running an optimal build.

If you have 100% crit rate and 210% crit damage, dropping to 93% crit rate and getting 5% total damage from force would actually improve your dps, not lower it.

Assume 100 attacks with a base damage of 100 per attack.

Set up A (accuracy sigil, 100% crit chance, 210% crit damage):
100*210 = 21000 total damage. Basically 100 critical hits.

Set up B (force sigil, 93% crit chance, 210% crit damage):
(93*210)+700 = 20230 + 5% from force = 21241.5 total damage. Here we have 93 crits, 7 standard hits and and 5% additional total damage from force.

You want to be running curry butternut squash if you are going for the optima, if you are not 100% certain about the top set up check the following link:

http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/12497977-dnt-warrior-build-41514

If you are running with “decent” groups might uptime should not be an issue.

If you run in a premade –
Runes: Scholar.
GS Sigils: Force + Night.
Swap Set: Night or Force + x where x can be something like energy, bloodlust etc.

If you run in PuGs or solo -
Runes: Strength.
Sigils: Battle + x where x can be energy, bloodlust, night or force.

Basically if you are in a premade you run scholar because you will always have 25 (or close to it) might, most likely provided by an ele.

In that case Scholar is better (10% damage + power + ferocity is better than 7% damage + power + a redundant might mechanic).

It is also why sigil of strength becomes redundant and why force/night is more optimal.

If you are going for maximum dps in a pug group with zero/poor might stacking or running solo, then runes of strength is a better alternative due to the might stacking and the fact that you will not always be at 90% health or more. Still even in that case I would not run sigils of strength personally.

Moreover if you are running in a premade and are running as a dps warrior you might want to consider switching to 6/6/0/2/0 and camping GS, your dps output will be larger. If pugging or solo 6/6/0/0/2 or 6/5/0/0/3 or the pug carry PS/EA build as you say are more optimal.

In terms of pve they all go well with axe main and it is best to have sword, mace and warhorn available in order to simply switch in the one which best fits the encounter.

I tend to carry A/S for my secondary set with GS as primary weapon and swap in mace or WH as and when they are necessary.

The game is for the main part really rather easy and is predominantly aimed at a hypercasual playerbase (now I am not saying that is a bad thing, not every game should be a twitch full loot FFA game, a massively strategic strategy or something insanely deep and complex like EVE or UO). But it should come as no surprise that there are skill/knowledge issues.

99% of the time you don’t need to think or do anything other than autocleave and half the playerbase seemingly cba to engage their brain or research (warning totally made up statistics alert!).

If only the “top 5% min/maxers” are able to work out how how to effectively blast fields or when and why stacks fails etc, then that reflects worse on the players than on the game really, given those kinds of things are hardly deep/complex issues to work out.

Just look at how often people use knockbacks at ridiculous moments when a melee train is trying to nail a mob. It’s common sense not to do that, it shouldn’t need a long old tutorial to realise that is for the main part an idiotic thing to do, and yet it happens time after time after time again.

Whilst I think that being able to dramatically tone down particle effects and the like would be great, I don’t feel that dumbing down the encounters even more by having oversized mobs and massively telegraphed attacks is a good idea.

For all that, it is hard to argue against putting more accessible and clear information up in the form of a manual. It is also hard to argue against adding in more early level content which attempts to guide the player through a process of looking at their skills, synergies, gear and stuff like combo fields. I just don’t think it will make any difference at all…. Unless the majority of the content starts demanding the player has a reasonable level of skill/knowledge, then the situation will not improve and there will always be a large gap between the faceroll content and the non faceroll content.

Aviston Darkstar.1278:

Also, I’m not sure where I might have screwed up, but I get pretty beat up by anything more than a standard enemy. Bosses/Champions down me in a hit or two. I know this build compared to my previous build lost me some toughness and vitality, but wow… I really get smacked around. Any ideas?

Dodge and use Riposte. Well that or try condi warr which is also good for soloing and is more forgiving (imo).

kratan.4619:

Dusty Moon.4382:

Fenrir.3609:

People are crying about this, really? Good lord. They are trying to reward skilled players whilst promoting pvp. Oh noes!

This playerbase needs to get a grip and drop the insane levels of self entitlement.

If anything they should introduce a great deal more content like this, skill based only, items/rewards that should only be available by winning spvp tournaments or soloing dungeons etc.

So true!!!

This sounds like the guys who stand around town on their rare mount wearing tier 25 armor trying to impress someone over their “skill” at a video game. Just hoping for whispers from people who want to know how they got their “cool” stuff to justify their own self-importance.

Asking for rewards for more challenging or skill centric content, how utterly awful of us. We must clearly stand in LA all day swinging our kittens right…

Rolyate.6753:

Simple solution then is to ensure the minis aren’t account bound.

If the item is rewarded essentially for just turning up, sure, but if it is rewarded for doing well, then no.

There should be items in the game which are awarded to skilled players who complete content/win something, not to players with free gold to burn.

Although the Liadri encounter was easy, the mini still has a fair bit more gravitas (with many) than the other minis simply because it demonstrated that you could actually do something, other than simply going on the TP or gem exchange and spending gold/money.

The game needs more skill centric specific, non tradeable rewards, not less of them.

Let’s say you get a special skin for soloing a dungeon or winning a tournament, said skin would demonstrate you are capable of doing said feat. It would mean something (in game terms). Now, as soon as that skin becomes tradeable, it is devalued in skill/exclusivity terms because any old random could farm gold and buy it.

People are crying about this, really? Good lord. They are trying to reward skilled players whilst promoting pvp. Oh noes!

This playerbase needs to get a grip and drop the insane levels of self entitlement.

If anything they should introduce a great deal more content like this, skill based only, items/rewards that should only be available by winning spvp tournaments or soloing dungeons etc.

Xenon.4537:

This means finding out a few things.
1. What aspect of GW2 would raiding best fall under?
2. What kinds of players might raid?
3. What kinds of rewards could a raid offer that the rest of the game does not offer?
4. Should a raid even have rewards that aren’t offered in other areas?
5. How hard should it be?
6. How many players can/should a raid involve?
7. What exactly would a raid be? (i.e. the activity)
8. What kind of mechanics should there be?

1. PVE, although a wvw enabled one would be good.
2. The more organised pve players with an interest in instanced content.
3. Raid specific items, er tokens, unique skins etc.
4. Yes.
5. You could have a range of difficulties depedant on the specific raid. It would be nice to see “hard” ones though.
6. There should be no lower limit to how many can try it, but I guess 10-40 or so. Again you can vary it based on the specific raid.
7. Could be anything from a big old dungeon romp to a large “open” map filled with content. I must add though, they don’t all have to be insanely long affairs, difficulty and taking six hours to do are not the same thing.
8. Er, fighting and stuff!

They really need to introduce more “hard” content via instances where you can have more control over who you are grouped with.

Ranael.6423:

But theoritically isn’t it sufficient fur buff purposes to be in a 600 diameter circle? And that can be made with having people on different sides of the boss no ? Stacking on a single point is most of the time used for LOSing (or concentrate ennemy’s zones in some cases).

I don’t know if it fits with the initial intent of the topic but what I feel about stacking is that it is counter intuitive. Playing devil’s advocate here since I stack too but recently a friend joined us on the game and he was destabilized by stacking (and skipping too but that’s another story). Stacking melee while playing with a ranged weapon is not intuitive at all (and then discovering you should prefer melee weapon though you don’t like them is frustrating… that is the kind of emotions he went through over the last 2 weeks).

As I said, whilst one more often than not leads to another, that does not make them the same thing.

haviz.1340:

In a game with no collision detection the former leads to the latter.

That is undoubtedly true, but they are not the same thing.

haviz.1340:

Isn’t LoSing stacking? You stack mobs in one place so you can nuke them easily.

You can LoS and stack, but they are not the same thing.

Stacking is just having characters or mobs stand on top of each other within each others hitboxes, that’s it really.

Ropechef.6192:

tl;dr
“stacking” is created when the mob comes to you. non stacking would be you going to them.

That’s “pulling” not stacking.

“Stacking” is simply the act of multiple characters or mobs standing within an extremely small space which would be impossible to do with functional collision/hitbox detection, in order to derive a combat, buff or some other advantage.

Hard mode maps/instances/dungeons would be great. Can’t see it ever happening though.

Purple Miku.7032:

I stay 65003 almost all of the time. Much more fluid gameplay with fast hands and especially in pug groups, you’ll have a much more difficult time soloing without it. From personal experience, that’s just what ends up happening; people wiping.

I’m certainly not doubting you but it seems a bit odd a group wiping because a warrior doesn’t have fast hands. Unless you are talking highly specific instances.

Naevius.3185:

Fafnir.5124:

Naevius.3185:

Again, the consequences of failure are unrelated to the difficulty of the problem.

Would a jumping puzzle get harder if we charged you 1 gold for every fall? No.

Your palms might sweat more, but that is a different issue.

and if there was 5 gold at the end wouldn’t that make you try harder?

Still doesn’t affect the difficulty.

Death penalties, if you boil it down, are just time sinks. Which is why they are more common in subscription MMOs.

They can be more than just time sinks, they add an element of tension that some people enjoy.

Moreover they can actually impact upon the difficulty of a task as people panic.

That said, in this uber casual mmo, harsh death penalties would make zero sense.

Star Ace.5207:

Also, this talk of carrying others is stupid arrogance. Nobody carries anyone in Dungeons, regardless gear. I rather not play in ANY group where a guy/gal claims he/she is carrying the group.

Wrong, there is plenty of carrying going on in dungeons.

Sartharina.3542:

A Warrior has almost twice as many hit points for 50% greater survivability all of the time.

lol

So you joined a group asking for only “ele, warr or guard” as a ranger and now you are crying on the forums because you got kicked?

Just type “gw2 hambow” in google.

2/0/6/0/6 or 0/0/6/2/6 will be base build.
Dogged March, Cleansing Ire, Merciless Hammer.
Signet Mastery, Destruction of the Empowered, Burst Mastery.
HS, zerk stance, dolyak signet, signet of stam, SoR (although you can use Balanced Stance and/or Endure Pain instead in there if you want).
Zerk or Soldier Amulet.
Runes of Strength.
Sigils are up to you but you want Battle in there somewhere.

Ofc there are different variations of it but a quick google search and you will have the idea.

Thereon.3495:

So because in ‘every’ MMO (im guessing youve played them all to know this) you can solo bosses that means every MMO going forward has to be the same? How are games meant to evolve if you keep giving excuses based on what other games have done in the past?

Its great for you that you have the knowledge on how to solo a boss such as Lupi. But its not exactly showing the game in a good light.

First off, gratz OP

It doesn’t reflect badly on the game, it reflects positively on the player.

There isn’t an issue when multiple builds/classes can solo a boss. There is an issue when any random casual can.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I think I covered this a few times myself, but I the OP is right, 100%.

What so many people are used to is a system of negatives. The traditional trinity is based upon not being able to do things. DPS doesn’t do support and can’t survive, tanks don’t deal damage, and healers can’t do anything but heal. The system of negatives is restricting, and in being restrictive a player is punished for trying to hybrid gear, or hybrid equipment, because then they end up failing at both.

GW2 is mostly a system of positives. Zerker gives you additional damage, Soldier’s gives you additional survivability, Dire gives you an alternate means of damage, etc. I say “mostly” because there are many stat exchanges going on that I don’t like. But, the end result is, people aren’t used to being able to do everything, and their inability to see nuances causes them to only see a single role game.

Yeah the OP is bang on correct, but I’ve always just attributed freedom and flexibility to the net result, rather vauge terms. Whilst the net result is exactly the same, looking at it in terms of a shift from a negative system to a positive system seems like a good way of defining that more clearly.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Some angry ranting.

1. Surviability becomes an issue when you are talking about similar kill speeds. Some people have been suggesting condi kill speed should be brought in line with zerk kill speed. Ergo yes, the “mean kill” speed would be comparable and the survive would be higher.

It doesn’t really matter which way you look at it “but.. but zerkers can solo lupi” is simply a terrible argument.

Again, banging on about PVT still makes no sense. At all.

3. At the elite level, yes condi would still be nigh on useless within the speedrun remit. Changing the condi cap would not change that, it would however greatly increase the damage and ease outside of that remit (i.e for most of the playerbase) . I don’t think that is neccessarily a good idea.

Oh btw, removing the cap would clearly increase damage. That you think otherwise is somewhat odd.

The rest of your post is an overly aggressive mess frankly, i’m all for altering the condi system to make them more viable in pve groups but don’t think just removing the cap is the way to do it, so if that is the best you are going to come up with then perhaps this little back and forth is best being brought to an end.

VodCom.6924:

Let us stay focussed on pvp shall we. No one ever argued that zerker was dominating sPvP nor WvW.
The issue we are arguing about over and over again is : “Zerker are dominating PvE and a lot of people are getting mad about it.”

It is dominating a small, non competitive speedclear niche.

People are getting mad because their tanky builds are not as fast as zerkers or that their notion of some kind of cleric heal spammer is not the meta.

Can you then explain then WHY they nerfed the AC spider ? To screw up casual players while still allowing the soloers to cornerstack ? Do you think this is a credible reason ?

I’m not sure exactly how that works in relation to the comment you quoted. But if you want to talk about the SQ, they didn’t nerf it, they attempted to buff it.

Said buff came due to people in threads like this one moaning about how stacking was cheating. Funnily enough making the mob harder meant it was harder for the very casuals crying about it, whilst the top players have no issue at all. I’m all for making the content harder with better AI, let’s see how that increase in difficulty pans out with the casual player.

Quoting a few posts in this thread : “You can do a dungeon the normal way but it will take 10 times longer”. In other words, you have ONE SINGLE WAY of dealing efficiently with dungeons. Question: Isa game that let you choose between the one true efficient method and the masochist method a good game ?

I’m fairly confident that the countless non full zerk, non meta parties running through the dungeon content right at this very moment are non “masochists”. Perhaps they are not bothered it is possible to do it faster and they would rather use the playstyle they like. All power to them.

What bugs some people in GW2 is this:

In a dungeon a marginal loss of dps results in an exponential increase of completion time.
‘Cause you can’t one shot the spider before it can spit the poison anymore.

In a normal world things would be more like this (assuming player skill remain constant in between):

In a dungeon a marginal loss of dps results in a marginal increase of completion time.
Which is what actually happens in aetherpath. You kill bosses slower if you downgrade from zerker to valkyrie or knight, but the strategy remains the same. In this case, you can have variety of gear so that people that are less skilled/have a shaky connection can play.

I understand that you have a lot of success in the actual meta (and you have spent lots of gold on your equipment), that is the reason why you do not want it to change significantly. That does not mean there is no problem. However, like it or not Anet wants strategy not to be entirely tied to wargear.

The same strategy should be applicable with either berserker, zealot, valk, assassin or other power dmg oriented gear. This lack of diversity is detrimental to the game in the end.

I’m not sure I am following you on this part, I apologise if i’m getting the wrong end of the stick Strategy should clearly be tied to your party comp/build/gear. Why would you approach an encounter with exactly the same strategy when you have a different set up?

I think that line of thinking (everything should be the same regardless) is part of the major problem here. Look it is easy to switch traits/builds, gear is cheap (at the exo level) and any class can spec for any kind of quasi role and/or spec for specific content. Now it seems to be that we have a situation in which, any build/class/gear set up is viable/able to do the content and we also have a situation which means that if you want to be meta/efficient, you can easily tweak/change your set up for the content you are doing. That is fantastic.

And yet some people seem to feel they should be able to take their PVT tank from wvw into dungeons and not only do them, but be as efficient as the dungeon specific zerk meta. Which is a bit of an odd line of thinking to my mind.

I will say again that I am all for making the content more difficult and I would quite happily bin all my current gear if it meant dungeon content was made challening and interesting. But the suggestions i’ve seen thus far don’t strike me as being right, nor does any of the current “anti zerk” sentiment I see. But then, maybe I am biased/wrong. Who knows.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Not being able to manage shouldn’t be the only reason to spec a different gear.

It isn’t the only reason, but it is a very viable one.

Yes, you spec any gear you want because you desire to. But there is no incentive to.

The incentive is because you want/desire to and can do the content and meet that desire. You want to play in valk gear, cool, why is that exactly? Oh it suits your playstyle, great. Go do the content then and stop worrying that mean old zerk groups don’t want you.

You seem to be getting close to “oh well it’s not the very best so there is no incentive”. Which is a very strange case to make.

Thus the ‘zerk or gtfo’ mentality, which causes issues… Again, going back to the mesmer example… the “typical” group isn’t going to take the one in valk gear.

There is only “zerk of gfto” in pure zerk groups, perhaps if you want to play in valk, don’t join a pure zerk group? There are countless groups taking on countless players with different builds and gear.

wvw and spvp are different animals, they don’t have the same issues as basic open world pve (which is what i’ve been discussing this whole time). now, if pve AI was more like a real person’s and they had fully functional skill bars, that would fix the issue too…

we wouldn’t have the zerk gear, stack in a corner meta…

spvp and wvw are all part of the same game, the trouble is people seem to look at a tiny niche (instance dungeons), look at one meta and think the sky is falling. That you can use any set in said dungeons, that other sets dominate other aspects of the game, that there is a great deal of variety across the spectrum seems to pass some people by.

But yes, i’m all for increasing the AI in the game. Having said that, we would still have an instanced pve meta and it would still be dominated by stacking as much damage as possible given the content you are trying to do.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

There isn’t any incentive to run any other armor set up beyond wanting to, which isn’t how it should work.

Actually that is exactly how it should work. You can run whatever build you want and do the content i.e. “play how I want”. If though you want to partake in the niche that is speedrunning or setting records then amazingly enough you should have to build for that and understandably in an action combat game, bringing more dps to the fore and using active mitigation is optimal.

There is another reason for not going full glass, some simply can’t manage it.

Different armors should have desirability for different functionality, but we lack that with the current set up.

Well no, we don’t lack that and trying to tie stats to roles more would remove freedom not promote it. Are you face tanking in zerk? Are you bunkering down on point in zerk? Are you wvw roaming in clerics?

Aomine.5012:

Great, you totally ignore every single points that I posted because on default your position is that the current system is fair and no change should be done.

I haven’t ignored any of your points, or at least, certainly not intentionally.

Basically you just dodge all questions and discussion by throwing:
“It’s pointless, it’s not necessary, current system is fine”, without explaining anything.

In fairness, I have given reasons numerous times in threads like this now.

The current system allows for large flexibility: You are not tied down to a specific role based on your class, you are not tied down to a specific role based on your gear.

There is great variety in who can do the content: You are able to do pretty much all of the content regardless of your gear, build, class or party composition. You are able to take more glassy, higher damage gear and still provide the neccessary cc/support should you have the skill and ability to use it. Promoting the active combat system for those players with a higher skill base.

There is a great range of metas across the game: From open world pve to instanced pve (with different meta builds within that context, to multiple wvw and spvp metas (roaming, bunkers, point caps/decaps etc).

Across pve and spvp/wvw, simply put, there is plenty of variety. What we have is a few people who are crying because whilst they can do content, they can’t do it as quickly as the zerk meta can in the niche of instanced pve speedrunning. Well tough really, I see zero issue with that. I don’t take my pve spec into wvw or spvp and cry endlessly about the fact it is not optimal, instead I realise that you build to be content specific if you want to be as optimal as possible.

Conversely tying people into restricted “roles” based on their gear stats or class reduces freedom and flexibility and would do nothing to alter the fact that:
a) there would still be a meta (so the same people would still complain and ask for nerfs).
b) there would still be gear checks (so the same people would still complain about “muh elitists”) .
c) people would still cry when their “play how I want” build falls outside of said meta.

Now I’m all for an increase in difficulty (as I have mentioned multiple times now), but I feel that should be achieved by an across the board increase in the quality of mob AI. Not done by simply whacking in ret to punish dps players or by buffing the dps of tanks.

If we see mobs adpating to a groups attack pattern, if we see them retreating and buffing, if we see mob AI positional counterplay, if we see them applying a larger range of skills and utilities and being proactive in combat. Well then we would have “harder” and more enjoyable gameplay. But all that has nothing to do with the argument really has it, the simple fact is people just like a good old cry about the zerker boogeyman.

There’s no point in discussing with you because you only deny points, but never provide any counter argument as to why not.

You must be a great politician.

Fair enough.

RSLongK.8961:

Warrior, only dodge damage.

Ha, tempted to try that.

Aomine.5012:

Not like you give any other alternative.
All you do is pointing out the flaws, and how the problem exist, but you never provide any concrete idea of how to solve it.
How about enlighten us how should it be done? I’m all ears

I don’t think there is a problem with zerk outside of the fact that a few people who can’t use it seem to like to cry about it repeatedly on the forums.

You want diversity yet you want to make content easy enough for any gears to succeed.

What? I’m starting to think you have me confused with someone else at this point. I think there already is diversity (just not at the elite speedrun level) and that the content already is easy enough to clear with any gear.

Anet put timer on bosses, this action by itself already pushes people to use max DPS gear. Anet adds mechanic that leading to boss live longer = harder, already pushing people to use zerker gear to succeed.

And yet the content can still be done with other gear and builds.

So tell me, why now pushing you to more defensive/ condition base gear suddenly become unacceptable? They already did it for zerker!
Plus a zerker may still succeed under these new mechanic, just “less efficient and harder” than other gears, working in the same way when the mechanic favors zerkers. (You use cond and defensive gear, harder, but doable)

Because it is pointless and unnecessary, as I have already said.

Or you’re just lazy to change gear because all your characters are alrdy full zerk?

I gear and trait to be as optimal/efficient for the specific content I am doing and switch out equpiment and traits mid content as and when it is needed. So trying to suggest I am somehow lazy is a bit odd (just as it was odd that you seemed to be trying to imply that I didn’t like hard content earlier).

Aomine.5012:

But hey! People are complaining about contents being too easy that zerker can do everything that a non-zerker can do (survive, give support like others), while hitting way more damage.

So introducing this “hardcapped” mechanic that does not favor zerker too much is a fair trade-off right? Or suddenly you guys regret saying the fault is because mechanic and contents being too easy ? Tbh, not too many people like hard contents, so “fixing” the encounter may not be the best idea.

Also I fixed my original post of power healing distribution and make it fair to power build. (2/3 power, 1/3 healing). Also I pick healing as an example because it is one of the most unlikable stats in PVE. (And probably for good reasons)

None of that makes sense as a response to my post. You suggested changes to buff tanks and nerf zerk, I stated that said changes are unwarranted and now you are going on about difficulty?

You think throwing in loads of ret and buffing tank damage makes content harder, really?

Now I’m all for difficulty and enjoy soloing/trying to solo dungeons and fractals but two things occur here. First your original ideas (the ones I commented on) are bad ways of trying to achieve “harder” content. Secondly, you seem to be using “make it harder” as an excuse for basically, just trying to shaft zerk users and get some kind of hard trinity in the game.

Aomine.5012:

Ok let’s find an easy way out then.
Make all bosses have constant retaliation base on the percentage of the damage you dealt to him. End of story. No messy and stuff that turns the balance up-side-down.

Oh, to make other stats more useful, toughness will decrease the retaliation damage, and condition damage will not take the retaliation. (Making Cond a safer option to dps down the boss)

Happy now?

Why would I be happy with totally unnecessary changes? Although I do applaud your efforts to come up with solutions, even though I don’t see the need for or point in them.

Other stats are extremely useful btw, the trouble is some people seem to think that their facetank should be part of a highly niche speedrun meta. When the reality of the situation is, there is absolutely zero justification for them to be part of said meta.

Exciton.8942:

I think your idea is brilliant.
Some classes should scale their damage base on other attributes that favor its play-style.

For example, a guardian may scale it’s attack power base on his healing power and power, that each of them contribute to half of it’s dps.
I know this will make the stat distribution more complicated, but that’s one of the few ways to balance out things.
(And for anyone who’ll argue that healing power could potential become OP because it does 2 things now, you can mostly choose from 3 main stats, so if you go for power and healing, you’ll then sacrifice either precision or ferocity, thus, losing slight damage. However, choosing healing will give you damage AND healing capability, making it a more supportive play-style while not losing too much damage.)

Exactly this.

But it definitely takes the most effort from dev team since it will completely change the game meta.

So you see a base decrease in damage to glass cannon sets with no increase in defense and an increase in damage to tank sets with no decrease in defense. That is a truly awful idea.

Btw, “favor it’s playstyle”? I wasn’t aware I was supposed to be playing guardian as some kind of tanky heal spammer who stacks toughness and heal pot.

VodCom.6924:

Here is what puzzles me : the ratio of toxic vs “non speed clear” is surprizing for the lfg tool. You sure can use the lfg to find like minded ppl, that’s why there is one in the first place. However, if you look at the announcements, there are lots of high requirement groups vs “come as you are”. Correct with exposition time and sampling etc…

The reason you see a lot of “zerk experienced!” groups on the LFG tool is because they linger there due to taking longer to fill. In the mean time countless non zerk, non req groups are getting filled and running the dungeons.

I’d like to again point out you are using the word “toxic” for no real reason. Using the LFG tool to look to group with other like minded/like set up players is not “toxic”, at all.

Edit : statement valid for arah. AC has path sellers but they make money out of teaching how to solo the dungoen, which I have no problem with. Dredge P1 as a similar problem.

For Arah and one or two other instances, the case is somewhat different. But this is not a zerk issue, it is purely down to the timeframes involved. Few experienced players are going to want to spend x hours running one of these dungeon paths with a bunch of non optimal, non experienced players.

You might already be aware of this but just incase it helps check out -

http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/12497977-dnt-warrior-build-41514

For the best current meta builds and guides.

VodCom.6924:

As I said, the problem is not dps race or that berserk is most efficient. It’s gearcheck and class segregation.

There is nothing wrong, toxic or elitist about being able to use the LFG tool to group with like minded/geared players.

A/A + LB looks pretty bad and i’m not sure how switching from 6/6/0/2/0 to 6/6/0/0/2 adds more defense in a bad group, that switch is usually made for soloing in order to keep up Fury up time when you are likely to have less boons on you than in a group.

As for HS and full zerk, it works just fine.