Guild Wars 2

ronpierce.2760:

Jerus.4350:

Achrisos.1360:

Increasing healing power effectiveness would also solve a lot of problems….

Just saying.

Aye, I hate having to dodge, gimme some of that sweet sweet healing.

Being able to avoid all issues yourself just makes the evil of the world look generic and weak. It’s not bad to have defining roles other than SLASHY SLASH SLASH #loot! I’d love if they could move away from everything being a silly 1 shot mechanic or weak just to accommodate the “play as you want” and beserker crowd.

I don’t think you understand GW2 mechanics.

Slashy Slashy, dodge, slashy slashy, dodge, block, shashy slashy, reflect, slashy slashy, aegis, slashy dodge, slashy slashy circle around the enemy.

Active defense is what I love about this game. It makes it more than tank and spank.

The places where Slashy Slash Slash works are the places I avoid

Achrisos.1360:

Increasing healing power effectiveness would also solve a lot of problems….

Just saying.

Aye, I hate having to dodge, gimme some of that sweet sweet healing.

Achrisos.1360:

ODB.6891:

Ferever.7014:

While I’m up for the trinity I don’t want GW2 to break word on its promise of people being forced into roles just to complete content. If I can clear content as a tank , healer then I should do able to do it in a all DPS group to as well.

This^

Stop catering to cry babies over imagined slights ANET. Balance your game on numbers and facts…not forum balancing. Recognize the game dynamics you created (that we purchased) and stop trying to nudge us into a trinity.

The problem though is having no trinity creates the other side of the coin where elitism exist since a single play style (zerk meta) can clear pretty much all content and many develop the attitude of “no zerk gtfo”. The game needs to rebalance its current content to have better variety catering to some condi or support builds required to have a smoother experience rather than zerk always being the meta for everything.

GW2 has no more elitism than any other MMO. The main difference is that in other MMOs they actually supply us with high end content. This means your casual player rarely encounters the elitism because they’re in a completely different set of content.

GW2 forces everyone to play together no matter how much their viewpoints on things conflict. “you’ll play together and get along and you’ll like it!”

But, look how well that’s turned out…

Of course a little respect and communication could go a long way. YOu know, zerk people playing with zerk people, and non zerk’s playing with non zerks, and when you bump into each other you just give a head nod and move on away from each other so you don’t have to deal with points of view that may annoy you. But hey, this is getting silly, we all know respect and communication are two things that will never happen

SlyDevil.3952:

They said if they are adding more content it will probably be in the form of fractals as designing a whole dungeon path like aether was too much work.

Then they said that no new fractals/dungeons are coming with HoT, they’re looking at alternatives for the “challenging group content”.

But, yeah, I actually agree with the idea of not doing new dungeons, especially not custom maps. Seems silly to waste resources like that when at the heart of dungeons it’s the fights and encounters not a pretty new place. While I like pretty new places, I’d be even happier if they just took Glint’s Lair and made it into a worthwhile fun instance. And/Or, cut out the Silverwastes maze and make it into a dungeon with shifting wrong turns and dead ends and bosses that track you and all that kind of stuff.

But yeah… why waste my time dreaming?

Ayrilana.1396:

I wonder if it’s a syncing issue. You sometimes see this with the skritt bandit when you attack the model but he’s actually not there according to the server. I also had a similar issue when doing the Asura stealth one (impossible to attack him when stunned without being spotted) which I found a workaround for.

No all Structures have had their hitboxes affected in some way. Most notably is the Elemental Source in the Snowblind Fractal where you can no longer damage the swirler anymore. But it’s not limited to just these two cases.

We’re talking ANet here though, so, you know, SNAFU

Try moving around, they really screwed up “structure” hitboxes a while ago and never fixed it as far as I know. He counts as a “structure” and therefor was affected. You should be able to hit him somewhere, it just might not necessarily make sense where that is.

change might and vuln cap to 100 too?

It’s really not as strict as people make it sound. Though, you have try-hard kittens who don’t actually understand it, but just mindlessly follow and repeat whatever they saw on some video.

Gear, you have Zerk/Assassins and even Sinister will be making a big play soon I think, at least being a decent option. You don’t need defensive stats so why take them? And healing power is purposefully bad.

Traits/weapons, well every profession has a variety of good PVE builds, I almost never see people complain when I run speedy kits on engi because it’s not optimal. Nor do I get complaints when I lazily stay in 45005 guard build even when it’s not needed. I run D/F Ele because I find it the most enjoyable and, nope, not once have I been booted from a group or even asked to change my setup. I honestly can’t even remember anyone commenting on it.

So no, gear people have an expectation, build they want some form of intelligent PVE build, IE don’t run a PVP build like shoutbow or those 00266 Ele build or whatever they are. They just don’t help much because if you play well you don’t need mitigation in PVE the vast majority of the time.

dlonie.6547:

Hume.2876:

Neox.3497:

dlonie.6547:

Obtena: A lot of us are done holding out. I was very interested in Wildstar, but not for $60. Now its $20 with a free trial and soon F2P. Been playing it for about a week, and having a blast.

Haha exactly like me just that it wasn’t only the initial price but the very bad performance.

Meh. I played Wildstar from the start. It’s not that good. The combat is actually fairly primitive if you look beyond the graphic splash..

I’ll mostly agree with that. I have yet to find a game that does fluid, twitchy combat as well as GW2, including Wildstar.

However, it’s still much much better than most of the other MMOs I’ve tried (e.g. FFXIV, ArcheAge, etc). ESO being somewhat actiony as well.

At this point, I’m willing to accept a slightly less fluid combat system if the developers behind it are actually interested in pushing the system as far as they can, rather than just repeatedly nerfing content so people can get their shinies with less effort WS has quarterly updates with significant amounts of replayable content, regular fixes, and a development team that actually engages, listens, and values their community.

It is a trade-off, but it definitely feels like a win from my perspective

DCUO is the only other game that has the quality of systems that GW2 has that I’ve played. Though, instead of neutering their content they neutered their systems to cater to the less active player (going from 5+ actions per second at times to an average of 1 action every second or two)… such a pity.

Hume.2876:

Raids and Dungeons for MMOS are halo content. Few people will every do them – but its important to have them because so many players THINK they will. People need a goal and something to aspire too in MMOs. And you want the hardcore in your game.

So I think GW2 is hurting themselves by not adding any instances. Toyota sells mostly Camrys and Prii but that doesn’t mean they don’t make RC-F sport or the FR-S. Not everyone is going to be elite – but that doesn’t mean the elite is not helpful.

MMOs benefit hugely from the elite class with evangelizes their game. Where to I get my builds from? Well Nike and his elite PVE players and guild.. I always appreciate the good players – they make the game so much more fun.

I can’t help but feel the need to quote this just so it’s posted again Very well put.

Vayne.8563:

Scipio.3204:

Vayne.8563:

What do you think will happen if it’s made really hard? Or content is introduced that most people will never play? How does that really benefit the game?

One word: reputation.

Not long after release, a large amount of players started complaining because of the lack of endgame, but there was endgame, but it was different. I think it’s reasonable to think that what they actually missed was hard, rewarding content. Anyway, word spread fast and GW2 quickly became “the MMO without endgame”, and not in a good way. This quite obviously affected the game sales too over the years.

By creating hard content they target a quite large audience: the ones who left the game because the lack of it, and the ones who never bought the game because it didn’t have any. The purpose of hard content isn’t to let as much player complete it as possible; its there to challenge the players to buy the game and try to beat that content.

Well that’s sort of my point too. It DID get that reputation and that’s what drives some of us TO this game. That’s the game some of us play. You can’t go now mid stream and change that reputation.

It’s like a restaurant that gets a great name as having lots of great vegetarian dishes, and suddenly advertising steak. Even if all the vegetarian dishes are there, vegetarians might well be turned off by the change….even though they don’t plan on having steak. The more meat dishes you serve, the more you kitten off your vegetarian clientele.

There are people, a lot of people, who have a negative associate with raids in general, fairly or unfairly. There’s the elitist mentality people who feel raids would make people less friendly and open to helping new players, again fairly or unfairly. It’s a perception that’s not likely to change.

So yes, you’re right, this game had a certain reputation that attracts certain people. And now you can’t go and change the reputation to get other people without rocking the boat.

:D, I’ve been using the flip side of that argument to explain my view on Challenging Content. It’s the vegetarian dish at a steakhouse. It may not be your bread and butter, and it may be a minority clientele, but by having that one or two meals on your menu you’ve suddenly made yourself an option for any group of people that has vegetarians in it. It has an impact.

I look at challenging content the same way. Always have that one challenging bit of content. Of course one instance or whatever won’t last forever, people will get bored of it, and it’ll lose it’s challenge as people perfect it and the strategies are spread. When your general PUG group is walking through it with ease, then it’s time to serve up a new bit of content.

NikeEU.7690:

Sigh. Time for a history lesson.

Anet says the trinity in GW2 will be DPS, Control, Support. And so it is.

People play 4 warrior 1 mesmer groups because its easy to farm the easiest dungeon with. People complain there is no control and no support. They QQ that “dps is all that matters.” Players say that DPS is overpowered.

The meta shifts as players improve. People utilize Deep Freeze and Defiant stripping to strongly CC bosses. Players complain that CC is overpowered.

The meta shift also includes and emphasis on defensive support in the form of Blinds, Stealth and Reflects to neutralize enemy attacks. People complain these support skills are overpowered.

So now we are at a point where people say that DPS, CC and Support are overpowered because… they work as their roles are intended to work. Actually it’s not true, some of the complainers still deny CC and Support are in the game but those people are truly ignorant we can ignore them.

We have finally reached a point in the development of the community playskill where most decent pug groups are utilizing the actual intended GW2 trinity of DPS, Control and Support and the predictable result is: these things are too good. In a little under 6 months the crybaby community went from “Control and Support don’t exist” to “Control and Support so powerful they are exploits.” It’s truly remarkable in a way.

I am really sad for the developers that they have a sizeable chunk of the player base who barely understand the game, barely understand that the developers said “DPS, support and control are our trinity” years and years ago, and cry to this day about Healers and Tanks. It must be deflating to deal with that. I only hope the devs know how to see the signal through the noise and phase out these sad people.

Aye, players have grown to understand the game pretty well, too bad there isn’t new stuff to use that knowledge on.

It’s kinda funny that many players are just recently fully utilizing the strength of CC and it’s completely changing on bosses soon >.<

This suggested change would make the game feel much less smooth and far more clunky for me. As Oxtred mentioned for non DS focused Nec builds flashing DS for fury can be quite a notable increase in damage.

An optional system to prevent this issue would be great, but preventing quick play for everyone… well… no thanks.

GS would probably be better because it has the burst damage, but both are much less than a hammer build for weapon camping.

If you really like staff being handy on your weapon swap I’d suggest Hammer/staff though try to minimize your staff usage while in fights.

Rising Dusk.2408:

SlyDevil.3952:

Also, Dusk, have you heard any mysterious rumors surrounding lupi’s AA? Last I read you thought they were implying it was intentional and they were going to think about the change.

I’m seriously pretty PO’d about the whole thing. Poor Lauren has been trying so hard to give us more information, but gets stifled by higher-ups. I really don’t know what’s going on beyond what I’ve already reported, but I will dig into it again.

It’s the reason ANet can’t be trusted to put out anything of value. Really all the issues are wrapped up nice and tight with that whole scenario. Even people working for the company can’t find out why a single change was made? What do their offices look like? Do they lock them up and prevent any talking? Are there no notes on changes made? What kind of crap company is this?

Tim.6450:

Skoigoth.9238:

@Tim: I don´t even understand why you bring this up, but as a Warrior you can easily get up to 50-60% crit chance without having a single point of precision on your gear through Fury, Banner of Discipline, Signet of Fury and Truffle Steak/Steak and Asparagus Food, all of which are staples of most PvE Warrior builds.

Besides that, I am well aware that different stat sets are differently effective when used in conjunction with certain builds. I said it multiple times in my previous posts (passive defense at the cost of offensive capabilities and vice versa), I´m not disputing that.
What I´m saying is that they do not determine or dictate the way you play those builds. It really cannot be that hard to grasp that.

Maybe you and I just have rather different understandings of what “playstyle” means, idk.

I consider playstyle the skills and effects you set up and how/when you choose to use said skills. I believe that stats increase/decrease the effectiveness on aspect of builds and based on these effictiveness of skills you decide to use or not use certain skills, therefor changing your plastyle.
I mean you can’t call yourself a dps’er becuase you choose a dps weapon, traits , runes and sigils but are outdamaged by a tank?

btw are you not confusing food/gear with stats this time I said precision not non zerker?

That’s why we don’t call ourselves DPS’ers, we just call ourselves players.

Gerrand.3085:

I was idly browsing the web for any hints on how to make my PvP bomber engineer slightly more viable.

What I was not expecting to find was that engineers have a combo which provides a long duration “Invisible” buff to the engineer and nearby allies.

Apparently dropping the large explosive utility belt thing (which you get from the bomb kit), dropping a smoke bomb and then activating your shield skill 4 in the smoke area gives you two doses of “invisible”.

This happens because you land up activating two blast finishers inside a smoke field. Or at least, I assume that is what happens.

Which left me wondering. Do you know about the different elemental fields and how they work? Should some sort of tutorial be added to explain them in game or is there already sufficient explanation which I have missed?

Since you’re an Engi this might be helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6WOrSAivlg , you can substitute Smoke Field in and do similar rotations, note that you can swap utilities if you’re quick for more blasts.

http://gw2dungeons.net/Combos

Great resource for the more dungeon focused combo fields but also just in general.

The question is not who pays more, but if dungeoneers pay enough to support that development. And then, there’s the whole chicken vs egg thing, because I’m sure most dungeoneers have long since entertained the idea of supporting ANet.

At this point I’m just curious what the “challenging content” they seemed so set on existing will be. I’ve long since lost my motivation to play what’s currently in game.

There’s certainly something satisfying about blowing things up and making it look easy. It’s just… well… is this really the best they can do?

And thanks for the math on PS, honestly sounds fine then, even with FGJ we’ll see drops and more just bursts of 25 then drop to ~20 sounds like.

Sins.4782:

It’s even more fun when you use Bomb Kit’s Kit Refinement proc to group mobs together in the absence of a guard/mesmer. Everyone’s like “wtf, since when does engi have AoE pulls?”

YES, so looking forward to the changes to speedy kits. Though I still wish they’d make the kit refinement in combat only or remove the global recast (recast per kit) but… either way should be cool.

That said, loving Whiteside server, can’t say I like the systems better, but the content… so refreshing.

Windsagio.1340:

MarkoNS.3261:

Can we just stop all this nerf zerk talk, dont punish old players because new ones are “forced” to go zerk if they want to join a party that doesnt suck and can clear dungeons fast.

The proper discussion isn’t about punishing anyone, it’s about making the game mechanics as well-balanced as possible.

~~~

As I’ve said before, there are a large number of things on the HOT horizon that could strongly effect the preferred playstyle.

Exactly, it’s about better game mechanics…

Focusing on gear is simply annoying, we should be looking at making more BUILDS viable through better content, this focus on gear is nothing but a scapegoat pointed out by people who don’t understand the game as a whole.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Jerus.4350:

@Rising, the problem is the passive nature of PS. It’s simply too much for too little. And as far as the DPS loss… well look at the new traits, unless the elite spec is just amazing we’re looking at a PS + DPS build meta, no more fast hands but who cares when you can just GS camp your way to victory.

There are surely many benefits to it that you’ve pointed out, but it still trivializes something that used to be one of the marks of good coordination.

I’m not sure how I’d change it, but to me it’s just one of the steps towards less skilled play. As I said above, my group was using it the day it came out because it fit so well into our “braindead meta” which we called that for a reason. We stopped using it because it just got boring.

I can certainly appreciate the desire for a more active rotation. I know that GS camping is boring for me and that weapon camping in general is something people dislike, so I made some points to ANet about that a bit ago and they’re trying to rework stuff to encourage the fast hands rotations we all enjoy with Warrior while still keeping things like PS as they are. It’s for this same reason that I’m pushing to keep Scepter builds relevant with ANet on Eles; I know some people prefer that kind of gameplay, and those builds should absolutely retain relevance.

I was thinking about it on my long car ride today. I just can’t help but feel that max stacks from PS is too much. Perhaps taking .5s off (or maybe the boon duration loss will be enough?) such that 25 stacks requires outside sources and can’t be maintained much at all. Right now it’s like 20-25 stacks pretty easily from a PS war with strength sigil, pretty much constant 25 from strength runes on top of that.

I just feel that ideal 25 stacks should require more than just PS faceroll play style. Most of the benefits you discussed would still be there with ~20 stacks sustained, but limiting it to that would mean that you have to do more and be more active. PS war could hit it with FGS but it’ll fall off. Ideally though I’d look at code and make it such that Might (and vuln and any capped boon/condi) only replaces a stack if it’s a greater duration than the stack it’s replacing, but that’d certainly mean a much larger strain on the system having to cycle through 25 stacks to find one it can replace… or not replace.

Either way, I already find warrior play style pretty boring even with fast hands swapping. I also am not a fan of staff Ele play style, while it’s an intricate start after that initial burst you’re basically done, so if they add more sustained fights… well it’ll just be kinda boring.

And I’m concerned with Guardian, I fully believe that they’ll have a fun GS+Mace/focus rotation, possibly even slipping Torch in there though likely not. But, I’m very curious how the Hammer builds will compare. If the braindead Meta (Hammer Guard + PS War + Staff Ele +2 others) becomes even more efficient… well, kitten man, easymode + consistency, it’ll just be disappointing that more active and intricate play won’t be rewarded to the level IMO it should be.

dlonie.6547:

d’aww

Have to say one of my greatest pleasures when playing engi is hearing “wait, engi’s can stealth?”

It almost always means “wow, thanks for imparting knowledge on me, please teach me more, I’m open to anything you say.” And, I love teaching people, it’s my second most favorite things in games, the first being learning those things. I suck at execution so I just find joy in trying to be an encyclopedia.

IndigoSundown.5419:

It’s funny how perspective works. I’ve created healers in every online game I’ve played since GW that features group play. I don’t view GW2’s combat system as obliging me to do damage, I view it as freeing me to do damage.

EXACTLY, I’m still able to play my support but now I do damage as well and constantly have to watch for hits, I get to do it all.

Every game I played for a long time has had the “DPS issue” of killing it so fast you trivialize encounters. Only the better designed content could break it. Point being that it’s not just GW2, it’s just that GW2 doesn’t have very much content and certainly not much good content.

But, Liadri I actually took off my zerk gear and threw on Soldiers, whittled her down for my first win (refused to use the lifesteal exploits). So i wouldn’t say it doesn’t exist, just that I’m unable to think of many examples, or really any other than that.

I can think of tons of examples where I change my build though, but you’re right that there are a lot of underutilized tools. Some ramped up content could really help with that though. I mean if I can’t say that I’ll be able to avoid all the damage suddenly weakness/protection uptime and a bit of healing becomes something I want. If a fight is longer with the condi cap changes I think they’ll make a play, I mean already for some professions Condi builds are the top kill times for say Abom or Lupi solos.

But, again, I don’t see “Zerker” as a problem, I simply see another instance of the “DPS issue” that I’ve seen in every game I’ve played, and the solution is content, not nerfing damage.

maha.7902:

i remember when people were like lol PS is bad

sure is a good thing rT tested it out and then dub told me about it so i could pass it on to NA

and now it’s “overpowered”, oh my sides

My buddies and I were using it the day it came out… of course we were baddies also using Hammer guard because then we didn’t have to worry too much about dodging

@Rising, the problem is the passive nature of PS. It’s simply too much for too little. And as far as the DPS loss… well look at the new traits, unless the elite spec is just amazing we’re looking at a PS + DPS build meta, no more fast hands but who cares when you can just GS camp your way to victory.

There are surely many benefits to it that you’ve pointed out, but it still trivializes something that used to be one of the marks of good coordination.

I’m not sure how I’d change it, but to me it’s just one of the steps towards less skilled play. As I said above, my group was using it the day it came out because it fit so well into our “braindead meta” which we called that for a reason. We stopped using it because it just got boring.

Thing is gear doesn’t change gameplay. It simply enhances the gameplay choices you make.

Toss Clerics gear onto a GS+Axe/mace 65003 Banner Warrior and the way you play it optimally doesn’t change at all.

This is the reason why I feel the anti-zerk stuff to be silly.

Wanting support builds to have more use in PVE, sure, but it’s the BUILD we’re talking there, not the gear. And, honestly, it is quite powerful. Check out Skady’s Cleric Guard Fractal videos, it’s quite impressive. Now yes, the content doesn’t require it, nor do you really see any benefit in a quality team, but it sure can carry like a champ.

I’d love to see content that has us considering more BUILD options, but focusing on gear is just stupid because they’re just stats. Nerfing zerker (and all 3 offense stat gear, there’s 4 of them remember) won’t change my play style, it’ll just change the name of my gear… maybe.

Nike.2631:

cranos.5913:

I don’t get why ppl want to force guardian in a pure support role.

Making a support-focused character of any profession equally desirable to a 5th DPS lone wolf isn’t going to take away from the value of a DPS guardian spec’d, gear’d and run by a skilled player. And if someone tells you “You’re on a Guard, you have to be our support guy” I’ll be right here with you in spirit flipping them the bird.

The fun of GW2 is that everyone can DPS and has their unique class abilities to provide support/control to the fight.

No… That’s the fun for players who like to DPS. Believe it or not, all those players in other MMOs who run tanks, healers and CC masters…? Some of them actually enjoy THAT and GW2 basically takes a big dump on those customers at every turn.

You will probably never understand the sheer glee I’ve had in Stronghold spending the first 1/3-1/2 of the match pushing hard into the enemy camp and then falling back and using heals and support skills to make our Lord unbeatable against 3 and sometimes even 4 players while the rest of my team keeps the pressure on. A Lord fully healed and ready to laugh at them again by the time they pick their buttocks up and come back for a second (and third, and fourth…) try. Hallelujah! Only 3 years to get a mode where healing doesn’t get you spit on by competitive players.

:D, I’ve always been a main CC guy, with tank and healer as my typical primary alts. DPS has never been what I liked best outside of just needing a break from support.

What I love about this game is I’m all that wrapped up together.

But, of course I always tried to do that in other games. I wasn’t lazy when I played healer, I’d DPS my butt off when healing wasn’t necessary even building some pretty awesome hybrid stuff when I knew what my minimum healing level required was. Likewise I did the same on tank, trying to minimize my defenses to eek out damage. My Bard in EQ I even got to a point where I’d be a regular on our top DPS chart all while performing my given role (CC>Cleansing>Buffing>DPS in that order).

I was playing High End in those other games though, where we expected players to do more than just their role. We all wanted to be more than just good.

Cheezy.2039:

I almost died from laughing, their wording in the opening line(s) was so funny

we’ve discussed a legend and weapon set that are focused on defense and survivability, as well as a more condition-focused setup. Now we’ll be going over the healing-focused setup for the revenant

It’s almost like ANet doesn’t know their own game

Oh well, maybe there will be another one that will actually focus on power based damage?

No, they know it, they just don’t care at all about the things we do. I’m sure what they’ve talked about is making many PVP/WvW folks happy as well as the little snowflakes.

I’m failing to see what’s bad about that. It makes someone have to be aware. It’s one more build option for my Engi, bring bombs and have people help me blast fire fields to keep might going, assuming we don’t have a better option.

It’s clear that your hate for might is based more on personal feelings rather than objective viewpoints.

The only thing remotely wrong with Might is Phalanx Strength and it’s facerolling awesomness.

MattyP.6954:

Belenwyn.8674:

Another problem is that Arenanet has designed trinity-encounters for a non-trinity system. All encounters are centered around damage and kill of a boss target. This is fine for a trinity system where damage dealers can only deal damage.

In a non-trinity system where all classes can fill all roles trinity encounters lead to monotony and metas. GW2 needs non-trinity encounters with multiple tasks that favor different approaches to reach the goal. There could even be a decent fraction of encounters where DPS has no/low relevance and a full zerk groups would finish the encounter much later than a full giver or nomad group.

I remember the WoW boss that you had to heal to death. It really threw my guild for a loop when we first ran it.

Had plenty of stuff like that in EQ as well (had that exact thing on at least one raid).

Thing is those are gimmicks. They aren’t intuitive and certainly not part of the core mechanics.

Now, they could certainly use some of that kind of stuff to make things more interesting, but it’s not like they’re throwing out content at any kind of regular pace.

Nike.2631:

I like a certain amount of planning over pure twitch. It’s a spectrum. There are more skills in the worlds of gaming than just reflexes and reading an attack telegraph animation.

Mhm, that’s why I adjust my build for different fights. Like I don’t go into a Lupi Solo using EG/FT/Nades with 66002 S/D and Rifle. Naw I load up on my defensives with Toolkit/Nades/Bombs with 64022 perma vigor build, and Pistol/shield. With all that I can always have something to answer any attack.

Planning exists It’s just not done passively through gear stats you actually have to do stuff still.

It even goes as simple as bringing your WoR/SotA on guard, or traiting reflects on Mesmer. Phalanx Strenght on War if the party lacks might. Having blasts ready for black powder stealthing with a thief…

But, hey, I’ve been playing Wildstar lately, and seems like it’s done what the anti-zerk people want. Passive damage and active defenses aren’t 100% effective other than just good positioning. And, it’s Trinity!

No thanks, a bunch of unavoidable damage. Yup, lets take this system and remove skill and make it simply about wearing the right gear…

General chat is for trolling or wasting time, nothing constructive ever happens there.

Yeah, I find it quite funny how much PHIWs herald any change that will affect the meta regardless. I foresee much crying about the breakbar when they realize that they now have to time attacks correctly instead of just pew pew.

DeceiverX.8361:

Belzebu.3912:

Amineo.8951:

Zerk is kinda useless against world bosses right?

Kinda.
Most world bosses can’t be crit, so the precision and ferocity isn’t used, but still have the highest DPS possible.

This is blatantly untrue. Soldier’s gear always offers better DPS no matter what build you play against crit-immune targets, especially if food is considered, so much so to the point where the soldier’s gear can garner an upwards of 20% more damage.

Berserker-stat gear is not the be-all-end-all DPS set. With the condition cap changes, I would largely expect sinister gear to replace it in dungeon runs because it will strictly offer better DPS values from some classes if the stacks are not competed for by players.

Umm, zerk and soldiers has the same power, so, no, it doesn’t offer better DPS.

And Sinister only helps condition damage for the loss of ferocity, meaning without solid quick applications of conditions zerk will still be superior.

The burst thing is important. You have to think about practical application. If we’re killing things in 10s do you have time to ramp up your condition damage? nope, still better to use power damage.

Sinister surely has potential for some professions, but there are still issues (vuln usage and ramp up time being two big ones).

Aye, if you put out content that actually stressed us enough to consider bringing mitigation and healing stuff beyond what is inherent to our builds… well, GL to those that are crying currently.

But, like just speed Lupi up by like 50% and suddenly it’d be pretty hard to keep up with dodges (ignoring reflect abuse), and some healing to counter missteps would surely be nice, and a little extra passive defense on some professions may be warrented for less skilled individuals.

Basically I think just generally harder versions of what we have now would go a long way.

PVP builds generally suck in PVE. Doesn’t mean you have to go get a whole new set of gear, but I’d surely change my build.

If I see a warrior with Hoelbrak runes but willing to Phalanx Strength, nope no problem.
Ele in Celestial but shifts to a 64XXX staff build with applicable utilies (AB,AW,GoS,IB).
Mesmer can do a lot of stuff, honestly if they can manage reflects and general utility, all good, not like they can be awesome on DPS anyways

Now, honestly I don’t kick people anyways and I don’t usually post LFGs but when I do I don’t do the zerk thing. But, I do expect people to try and do the most they can for a group and PVP builds simply focus a lot on mitigation and defense which is simply fluff in PVE where you’re able to avoid most all attacks.

I would say that it’s completely fair to kick people who join a “zerk” group not wearing zerk gear at the very least (it’s also implied that you’re in a good build as well, IE Hammer war without banners… not a good idea).

I do assume most people who run Meta in PVP would be open to the idea of building yourself for the content and willing to make the tweaks if asked… though I’ve certainly met those less desireables kittenpond with things like “lol PVE is easy” as they continually suck… so it’s not always true, just something I believe should be true enough that I refuse to accept the truth

NikeEU.7690:

Too many anti-zerker threads lately. Spoj and I can’t do it all. Reinforcements needed.

:D yeah I stayed out of the rev one, too much fun in the others.

But, I’m all for diversity, as long as it isn’t forced diversity. Make content that makes me want to look at other options and is actually fun, it absolutely can be done.

So am I, but I find a babe in a bow tie to be sexy as hell, bow ties are cool.

MrWubzy.3587:

I’d say let Guardians keep the Aegis animation and model, but turn it off for other classes? It’s the only happy medium I can come up with right now in my tired state.

The people who are upset are so because they can’t take pretty screenshots without their aegis animation.

Fermi.2409:

I like how Aegis looks though, especially with GSes.

This is my opinion as well. Always liked the idea of a little shield with a GS. Guardians can have it.

Oops, yeah, my bad. Flip flopped them in my head.

And either way, I shouldn’t have even mentioned that about the trinity, just did for whatever stupid reason. That’s not what this game is about.

Windsagio.1340:

Jerus.4350:

Windsagio.1340:

Jerus.4350:

The problem is getting the details right. Having those jabs take off 25% of your health, well, suddenly they’re not really jabs, they’re on the level that you want to avoid them if at all possible. So it’d take some math to figure out how hard they want them to be based on mitigation available, heals available and the amount of damage over time that the jabs will do. Make it so much pressure that I’m just gonna back out to range and take the potential damage loss because in the end having to heal and do all that stuff is pushing me below ranging would be bad, it’s complicated, takes some figuring out.

This is where gear can become an interesting question again though.

If say taking a 2+1 stat set makes it so that you can take a few more jabs while staying in your preferred damage range, it makes it a viable choice vs an all-offense stat set.

The balance on this is very tight, as you say, but the model really solves a very large number of problems.

2+1 stat set, or ranged combat? which is better?

Depends on the encounter, class and build, yes? That’s where the potential for more varied party comps/strategies comes in.

Ranged might be better for a ranger (no pun intended) but a PS warrior would probably want 2+1 to get the benefit of forceful greatsword for the party.

This does have the effect of “forcing” true optimizers to carry multiple gear sets, but a lot of people won’t (need to) bother.

Absolutely.

I know know some of the more attrition type fights right now are just… well, not what I picture when I talk about this jab type thing. The first boss in CoF1 for example, once he starts throwing that whip out, I either have to back out, or spend the entire time blocking/dodging. If I put on Valkyrie or Knights gear, I wouldn’t be able to just stand toe to toe with him suddenly, no it’d just take me longer and I’d actually lose efficiency in the “kill him before he kills me” race, so yeah, fine line of balance to make this whole idea actually work.

I know, hehe I probably should ahve left that part out, but I was just saying that you could even have the trinity aspects in this game, you can make tanks and healers, they just aren’t very good.

But you could do entire raids without devoted tanks you just take out the general health loss and only leave in the special attacks… which is basically what they’ve done with all of PVE in this game. Less attacks and meant to be avoided.

And MattyP, it’s actually pretty surprising how much healing is actually possible, I imagine an Engi + Ele team after these trait updates will be pretty amazing in their potential (staff ele, Alchemy+Explosion Engi).

Nuzt.7894:

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Nuzt.7894:

You will NEVER have a WoW like raid in GW2 without the Holy Trinity, not a complaint, just stating facts. WoW raids are designed for the Trinity, I am having a really rough time envisioning how they (Anet) could make enjoyable raid content (on WoW’s level) without any form of Trinity.

It will never be close to a WoW raid standard …

No one is asking anet to copy paste wow raids in gw2 lol.

Read the OP post. He insinuates (he’s not wrong) that WoW does raids very well and he would like to see something along those lines here, in GW2. While he may not be asking for carbon copies of WoW raids, he would like something “like” WoW raids which won’t happen without a trinity.

You very well could make something to that regard. Advanced mechanics with more sustained fights. Environmental mechanics. Really the only things you wouldn’t have is a tank, I men you even could potentially have people relegated to healing duties, and even then you could have mechanics that allow people to act as tanks even if only temporarily. (I suggest you look up Skady’s Clerics gear Fractals).

Windsagio.1340:

Jerus.4350:

The problem is getting the details right. Having those jabs take off 25% of your health, well, suddenly they’re not really jabs, they’re on the level that you want to avoid them if at all possible. So it’d take some math to figure out how hard they want them to be based on mitigation available, heals available and the amount of damage over time that the jabs will do. Make it so much pressure that I’m just gonna back out to range and take the potential damage loss because in the end having to heal and do all that stuff is pushing me below ranging would be bad, it’s complicated, takes some figuring out.

This is where gear can become an interesting question again though.

If say taking a 2+1 stat set makes it so that you can take a few more jabs while staying in your preferred damage range, it makes it a viable choice vs an all-offense stat set.

The balance on this is very tight, as you say, but the model really solves a very large number of problems.

2+1 stat set, or ranged combat? which is better?

Aomine.5012:

Jerus.4350:

Aomine.5012:

Ideas that can indirectly solve the Zerk problems in PVE without affecting anything else:

1. Add more Bark Skin type of enemies who’re only vulnerable to conditions.
2. Add enemies that have damage reflection for certain %, so going full zerk will actually hurt yourself more, and higher vit and healing will be more optimal.
3. Add stages that’d dish out damage to the whole map periodically. The damage can be reduced by armors, making toughness very important.
4. Add foes that’d apply weakness to all players in the radius, so zerk classes are greatly punished, and condition spec is more viable.

Did you misspeak, because those seem pretty directly focused at hurting zerk.

Can’t say I’d be interested in playing content like that.

If they add “exclusive rewards”, like the HoT new armor sets and weapon sets, then you’d have to do them to get the goodies. You’d have to adjust your build for the content, which is the right direction of a more in-depth game contents.

You’re making many assumptions, I’ll just leave it at that.

I’m with ya on the concern dlonie, but at the same time I think it’s a good idea, have the MMO focus on you know… multiplayer?

I can always load up the seemingly infinite amount of single player games on steam if I want to just chill out by myself.