Guild Wars 2

Lord Kuru.3685:

But if they keep things the way they are, the game gets stale.

Only gets stale if you dont add new content.

Quickfoot Katana.8642:

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

So long as dodging and blocking exist as the primary means of damage mitigation in the game, PvE will be dominated by dps builds. Look at Fractal level 40 and 50, passive unblockable damage that puts you in combat isnt even enough to get people to play healing builds unless they made that damage massive high.

They could easily make Condition Damage good. They can’t make direct damage bad without radically changing the game design.

One thing I theorized, is Defiant stacks giving bosses direct damage reduction, say 5% per stack to a max of 25%. That would lead to some interesting choices, but who knows.

I’m not sure I’m following you Nike. Wouldn’t that just end up with players reducing the boss Defiant’s stacks to 0 (0% reduction), and then proceed to DPS normally? The only thing this would effectively nerf is the opening Mesmer “Into The Void” pull into a corner to dps.

Is that your only goal with that change?

That would slow the initial burst of dps after the opening CC and also help condition damage ramp up faster. It would get worked off as the fight went on, but by then the condi build is fully ramped up.

I’m not saying what I think will happen or what I want to happen, just throwing out a possibility that wouldnt require massive changes.

I think we can rule out anything major like revamping the boss mechanics of every boss in the game. Something like that would be extremely unlikely.

Next most likely, but still unlikely in my opinion, would be nerfing Precision so its 28 Precision per crit chance instead of the current 21. This would definitely slow down direct dps but I dont think its super likely since a lot of condi builds rely on crits too, especially any that would ever be pve meta. Or they could reduce Fury to 10%.

Next would be a way to make bosses more resistant to physical damage or less resistant to condi, and I offered one example of how they could do it.

Another possibility would be to have Might add 50 condition damage instead of 35 per stack, which would give a shot in the arm to condition builds in pve without nerfing direct damage. However, it wouldnt work well in pvp since it would make HGH engineers insanely OP. But right now 1 power = 1 condition damage in the game engine and I could easily see it decoupled a little bit to make them a bit more comparable. 1:1.15 would make condition damage much more competitive in pve.

What I do not see them doing is revamping all the encounters in the game or adding passive unblockable damage in all existing dungeons or fractals. I don’t see them revamping the game engine. I don’t see them changing the fundamental design philosophy of “dodge = invuln.” So when those are your limits you can start coming up with possibilities that make sense.

So long as dodging and blocking exist as the primary means of damage mitigation in the game, PvE will be dominated by dps builds. Look at Fractal level 40 and 50, passive unblockable damage that puts you in combat isnt even enough to get people to play healing builds unless they made that damage massive high.

They could easily make Condition Damage good. They can’t make direct damage bad without radically changing the game design.

One thing I theorized, is Defiant stacks giving bosses direct damage reduction, say 5% per stack to a max of 25%. That would lead to some interesting choices, but who knows.

Most likely it will be a buff to condition damage, or something like defiant stacks granting damage reduction. They are certainly not going to change the stats of items, not going to manually change the skill set of every boss in the game, and they aren’t going to change the npc AI. So the only thing that makes sense is a nerf to Precision, a buff to Condition Damage or something where bosses get a reduction to phsyical damage. Or some kind of debuff where bosses take 50% more damage from conditions.

A typical condi spec for pve can max out at like 8-9k dps, with 25% of that being direct damage so a 50% boost to condition damage would make their dps comparable to a berserker’s direct damage.

Nothing makes me love pvp more than when I win a 1v1 and I get a whisper saying “GO BACK TO PVE NOOB” plus a few expletives thrown in.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I try to come up with unorthodox stuff all the time but I at least try to make sure there are valid reasons to run it over what is considered meta. Check out my warrior build on Guru or something, you’ll see what I mean. This is basically a “different just to be hipster” build which is why it’s getting so much flak.

On an unrelated note, anet just added a profession balance forum, might be fun.

Well, by the standards set in this thread then, you’re a blight to the Warrior community by putting the build on Guru.

There is a vast difference between GK’s EA warrior build and this scepter torch nonsense. Where GK deviates from the meta he does so to increase efficiency in another, also useful, area. Where Nemesis deviates from the meta he does so to no advantage and in an extremely capricious manner.

Exotic soldiers gear will be perfectly fine for wvw. For fractals, eventually, the extra AR will matter. Therefore the upside of ascended pve armor outweighs the upside of ascended wvw armor, not to mention the runes you would use on either are very different and you’ll want two sets anyway.

Finnway.2183:

I agree with all Nemesis’ points too though. I don’t think stacking was intended, and the way the game is currently designed kills diversity.

How’s that? Every class in the game except necro is viable in pve. There is plenty of diversity.

Unless you mean diversity of ways to kill bosses, but until you can heal them to death unfortunately melee will be the superior way to kill them.

Gnat.9405:

This goes for both sides of the argument. Everyone, groups of elite players and casuals alike, are playing how they want. Do they have to be agreeable? Of course not. Will they get through content that they want to complete? Every time.

This is a good point. The problem arises when you have a player, like TapDatMouse, who posts OTT things like “THIS BUILD WILL REVOLUTIONIZE PVE GUARDIANS AND IS THE BEST BUILD EVER” and clearly he is wrong, and he is told he is wrong. That friction can lead to arguments if the person making the ridiculous OTT claims tries to actually defend his or her absurdity.

TDM had the good sense to not argue and just said, “hey if you dont like it, its cool.” and that was pretty much the end of it. Nemesis and his fanboys try to actually defend the stuff, and it just gets ugly because informed people generally won’t tolerate willful ignorance.

This is purely my opinion on the various issues at dispute and this is what I would advocate if I was asked to be part of a panel on setting new rules.

Consumables: Nothing except food and dungeon potions/skale venom/oils. No gem store boosters, no town clothes, no harpy feathers, no embers etc, no watchwork portal devices.

Start of the run: I am fine with the current rules regarding timing the runs from the first npc interaction, the only dungeon where this is an issue is arah (and possibly CM?). I think the best way to encompass any dungeons like that would be to insist that all members of the party be adjacent to the player who talks to the first npc aka they cannot be further up towards a door or beyond a door. This might be too clunky and abuseable but I think it could be worded in a way to prevent abuse.

Maps: No going outside the map, jumping puzzles, or bypassing closed doors. If a boss is skippable through “normal” gameplay it is optional. example would be the champ in TAF before the bubble room. You can pass him and continue on without fighting. A non-optional boss is the Mage Crusher in Arah p3.

FGS: I have absolutely no problem with this anymore. Sure, it hurts build diversity somewhat to have 2x eles in every group for the foreseeable future but I think at this point its safe to say anet doesn’t consider it an exploit so there is no reason for us to.

Portal: Perfectly legal. If the mesmer can run somewhere easier than the rest of the party and portal people up to gain advantage, so be it. This is no different than stealth on a thief. There is a time investment in stopping to stealth on a thief so it has to be worth it, same for a portal. I think without harpy feathers, the usefulness of the mesmer running ahead and porting everybody up tactic will be greatly diminished anyway.

Boss glitching: This is harder to determine. I feel like it should be clearly wrong to glitch out Simin, but is that very much different than meleeing the spider queen? I understand it IS different but how to enforce it? Would need some careful wording.

Fractals: I think for speed runs, we should use 49 since that seems to be the level everyone does for dailies, though I would have no problem with 30 either just so mistlock instability doesnt somehow limit build diversity.

Your problem is you keep saying “playstyles are so seriously broken” as if that was an established fact. There is nothing inherently, or obviously, broken about it. At very worst the topic is highly debatable and controversial, but you treat it as a fact and you make conclusions derived from it being a fact. Please understand that we don’t disagree with you because we don’t share the same language or because either party is less intelligent: we disagree because your premise is faulty to begin with since you base it on a “fact” that isn’t a fact at all.

BeoErgon.9107:

Needing to time controls, add to the overall DPS or dodge is not exclusive to those sitting on the toes of the mob as much as you would like to believe. Sometimes those at distance need to dodge even more and be proactive.

But no, I don’t want trinity. I want dynamic equal roles among the different specs. That a control/condi/support/distance specced toon becomes a plus and not a minus. Or even better : not a plus, simply an equal than a stacking zerk.

It’s really the use here in this forum to put words in the mouth of people?

What you’re missing, either intentionally or through ignorance, is that those things you’re talking about: buffing, CC etc are all things people do in speed runs and they are largely class specific. Just because everyone is meleeing does not mean that there is no CC role in combat, no buffing happening in combat etc. Nikaido said this already, I am just restating. The only thing I can understand is if you want to do CC or buffing or healing but you don’t want to be in melee combat, which unfortunately, is not this game.

BeoErgon.9107:

But why do you have to consider other playstyles but zerk as ‘afk bot’? Aren’t you being a little condescending here? When you ask for respect you should start by giving some and stopping your assumptions on what other people want.

He is correct though. When people say, “I want healing builds to be viable” what they are really saying is, “I want to sit behind the rest of my party, basically out of combat, spamming heals on the people fighting and making green bars go up.”

Or when people say, “I want control builds to be viable” what they are saying is, “I want to run around with my hammer knocking down bosses, not dealing any particularly good damage, but just CCing them using a simple chain of skills because I like the aesthetic of knocking down big bosses with a hammer.”

Or when people say, “I want support builds to be viable” what they are saying is, “I want to sit at the back (next to the healer) out of combat casting buffs on my party and debuffing the enemy.”

The commonality all these things have is they don’t really want to be involved in any of the fighting, they don’t want to have to dodge attacks and they dont want to use twitch skills. These are people who want the old trinity system where weak players can get carried through raids by being buffbots or healbots and not having to try especially hard to help the group succeed.

That was never the best dps build.

Nemesis.8593:

Uberkafros.5431:

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Uberkafros.5431:

The stupidity in this thread is epic.
If people believe that speed running times is what makes the Elite in pve for gw2 people are more deluted than i ever believed.

Even the way we kill the 3 acolyte waves on the lamest of pugs on cof1 is an exploit and not they way it was meant by the devs.And people still defend skiping 90% of a dungeon with legit ways.

Since I’ve been “deluted” maybe you can tell me what makes the elite in pve for gw2?

Oh and while you’re answering for me, when you were at the design meeting where the Acolyte event was created, can you please explain what, specifically, the devs intended? I mean, since you know their intentions you were obviously there, right?

Lastly, you seem to think skipping trash mobs is skipping the challenge. What if, and this is a crazy thought, skipping some mobs is actually more challenging than fighting them, and thus a greater demonstration of skill?

I’m speechless…
Are we doing a low % metroid speedrun here? Or are we playing an mmo?
And if you are happy that your Elite content in gw2 is to speed run with 4wars and a mez be my guest. It sure aint mine though.

And yes im 100% positive that the devs didn’t intend for us to just make mobs evade on the acolyte event of cof1 until the rest acolyte wave spawns.
Neither did they say “kitten yeah!!!Our awsome gamers found an inovative way to do this event.GG team”

I am a bit concerned that if action is not taken soon to prevent this kind of gameplay, more and more people will be converted into this…
Since… no new dungeons, same old same old… why would i even bother doing it right, when so many are doing the “fast way”, if you can’t beat them join them…

This will eventually create an elitists community that is far worse then if we had a damage meter. When damage meter is present people strive to be top 5, with the lack of one… or the ability to raid in 40 man group… people go for the next best thing which is “How fast ?…”

“How fast ?…” means that it doesn’t matter the means… only the result, exploits don’t show on the damage meter…

It’s going to create a very toxic community filled with people that don’t really play an MMO for the MMO’s sake… and every day there’s fewer of us then it is of them…

PS: it shouldn’t matter what i do in my free time, or post on the free internet… the reason i am getting hate is because as they have said “they can’t get this kind of exposure”… they don’t even realize that if they had gotten this kind of exposure, and advertise the thing they are doing, that would have crippled guild wars 2’s stream of new players really really severely.

Think about it… you are a new player, wanting to get into an MMO… you see GW2, and you search for some footage… and you see fight after fight of big bosses being killed in under 10 seconds, first thought… is this a private server ? Are they hacking ?… Are they fighting lower level mobs then them… but why ?… What’s with this game ?
This is the actual game ?… seriously ??

If i were to do a compilation of boss speed kills, and at the end say “Guild Wars 2 best MMO of all times” and post that online i would get banned from the game

Yeah I get it. I’ve seen your footage. Clearly you are onto the right way to play: terrible builds and ranging down mobs doing as little damage as possible in order to lengthen the “experience.”

I apologize for being wrong and trying to do things the most effective way I can, what was I thinking?

This is a bowbear build. A full zerker bow bear, sure, but a bowbear nonetheless.

Uberkafros.5431:

The stupidity in this thread is epic.
If people believe that speed running times is what makes the Elite in pve for gw2 people are more deluted than i ever believed.

Even the way we kill the 3 acolyte waves on the lamest of pugs on cof1 is an exploit and not they way it was meant by the devs.And people still defend skiping 90% of a dungeon with legit ways.

Since I’ve been “deluted” maybe you can tell me what makes the elite in pve for gw2?

Oh and while you’re answering for me, when you were at the design meeting where the Acolyte event was created, can you please explain what, specifically, the devs intended? I mean, since you know their intentions you were obviously there, right?

Lastly, you seem to think skipping trash mobs is skipping the challenge. What if, and this is a crazy thought, skipping some mobs is actually more challenging than fighting them, and thus a greater demonstration of skill?

If you must…

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQJASRjkO9uZPKPMRCAzjfAqoLDooSLIVoMA-jgBBYfBi8LQZmFRjt4qIas6aYKXER1BBMK-e

That is probably the best DPS hammer build available. Fast hands not so needed since you don’t have Sigil of Battle and the Greatsword is best for a quick burst of 2-3-4-5 swap and then hammer autos until target is dead.

Wasbunny.6531:

Since both Obal and Nemesis set out to make an ‘ultimate’ pure non-supportive DPS guardian build and arrived at two different solutions

Incorrect. Obal set out to make the best DPS build possible that also provided all the necessary and expected support that Guardians possess. Nemesis set out to make a non-support ranged dps build that contributes nothing to the group. Both accomplish their goal.

The problem is Obal’s build is actually, you know, good and useful whereas Nemesis build is a blight on the GW2 community.

This is a time when you have to ask yourself if being optimal/efficient is more important than aesthetics. There is no right or wrong answer, so long as you are aware of the implications of the choice.

As far as the build goes, you can run a sword mainhand most effectively in pve with a 20/30/0/0/20 with a full zerker, full rampager, or a mix.

Alternative you can go full conditions and use a S/S+longbow build with full Rabid gear and undead runes.

Tap Dat Scion Nemesis Gaming

Learning to dodge and meleeing bosses is an exploit? Wow, you are confused about a great many things.

Shield is absolutely worthless in PvE. Everything it does, offhand Sword does better.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

I just find it ironic how its 10/25/0/10/25, or the like, or “it’s DIAF you n00b!!!!!!!!!!1!!11!!1111111111” when it was the same way with AH and how it’ll be the same when the future builds change the current meta.

I don’t see anything ironic about that. People want to run the most effective builds, and they hope that other people in their team run effective builds. Just because the perception of “effective” changes over time doesn’t mean people were necessarily wrong at the time for requesting people run the most effective build at the time. You seem to think that because in the future there will be a different meta build that we are stupid for advocating the current meta build. That seems like a drastic misunderstanding of how and why these builds are even run in the first place.

You’re missing the key piece there. It’s the attitude that’s the irony. Simple as that. You’re putting extra meaning in. If what you said is what you think, I’d suggest re-reading what you quoted.

The key piece you’re missing is the definition of the word ‘irony.’ A real example of irony similar to what you proposed would be people saying “DIAF GTFO” because the warrior didn’t run Shout Heals or the Guardian didn’t camp staff. The irony would be that players are acting exlcusionary elitist about known bad builds. In your example, players are acting exlusionary elitist about known good builds, which isn’t ironic at all and is exactly what you’d expect actually.

Getting what you expect from a situation is the exact opposite of irony.

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

I just find it ironic how its 10/25/0/10/25, or the like, or “it’s DIAF you n00b!!!!!!!!!!1!!11!!1111111111” when it was the same way with AH and how it’ll be the same when the future builds change the current meta.

I don’t see anything ironic about that. People want to run the most effective builds, and they hope that other people in their team run effective builds. Just because the perception of “effective” changes over time doesn’t mean people were necessarily wrong at the time for requesting people run the most effective build at the time. You seem to think that because in the future there will be a different meta build that we are stupid for advocating the current meta build. That seems like a drastic misunderstanding of how and why these builds are even run in the first place.

If your intent is to range bosses down with 0 chance of ever being hit, why spend any trait points on defense at all?

@Kai: And when a better build than the current meta makes itself apparent, we will all change to that too. When presented with new facts, we change our minds, what do you do?

Note to self: must make my build videos 3x longer and include footage of me killing trash mobs while gushing exuberantly over my epic deeps. Also, would help my view counts if I talked in a Transylvanian accent.

Eir Jordan.2156:

As Guang stated above, this is still better than Strife’s anchor guardian build which he created after 1000+ hours, a build DnT members defended on Guru against numerous critics that pointed out that full zerker Guardian specced for damage was far superior. I understand that plenty of people came to trash Nemesis for his build which he made with 0 prior experience with Guardian but where were you guys when Strife was posting his anchor nonsense? Yeah…

The game was far from ‘solved’ at that point. It should also be noted that many DnT players were using full zerker guardians at the time as well, and Strife’s build was not the consensus even within our guild.

Mistakes made over a year ago are water under the bridge, anyway. Whats the excuse for this build now?

I don’t mind dungeons being ignored. If the Aetherpath is any indication, any changes made would almost certainly be for the worst, so staying with the dungeons we have is for the best.

Run the meta traits with tanky gear if you must.

I don’t want to pile on, so I’ll keep this general and make a statement about things like MMO builds and metas etc.

Crowdsourcing is powerful. It is even more powerful than peoples’ innate resistance to change. Even if you are the smartest guy in the game, which Nemesis may be, the chances of coming up with something so different than the meta and superior to the meta, is next to zero. A lone genius might have a eureka moment sure, but the chances of that are significantly smaller than thousands of slightly-less-than-geniuses collaborating together finding a superior solution are.

http://youtu.be/zFHZGbu3fTM

This is the standard warrior build for PvE dungeons and fractals.

Dungeon token vendors would also be a huge upgrade.

I’ll rephrase, “what’s up with the sarcastic comments?”

Whats up with your condescending attitude?

Night + Force

Undead + Force

Best option, requires 3 ascended weapons. When in HotW or CM the plan is: DNGAF.

Or perhaps it is best even in the 40’s and still currently best. I’m pretty sure that this is a subjective question rather than anything which could be decided black and white.

Target.6379:

And as for the Scale Venom, sorry god of dungeons. How dare I blaspheme .

That’s kind of a kitten thing to say. You asked a question and I answered it. Perhaps in the 40’s skale venom isn’t really better than potions, but I found in the 60’s and 70’s having perma weakness perma protection was the difference between life and death.

Or you could just add 10 power and subtract 10 precision and vice versa if you want to see the result of switching a glove.

Anierna.6918:

1) Aggregate of gear, rather than breakdown by individual armor piece. The Gear 1 column assumes all Zerk, the Gear 2 column assumes all Assassins. Neither one of these is the optimal Zerk/Assassins mix for almost any build. This is an inherent problem with the design of the spreadsheet; the gear section ought to have been expanded to allow for mixing-and-matching, which would result in optimization for higher EP.

I didn’t add the gear section, that isn’t from my spreadsheet. My spreadsheet you simply manually adjust the Power and Precision.

3) The Dmg Modifiers given in the spreadsheet are unclear, and some of them are incorrect.
- The final Dmg Modifier number under Weapon is composed of multiplying the following 3 Dmg Modifier cells together (this cell’s fine):
- The Dmg Modifier under Gear is: 1.1 (obviously Scholar Runes, this one’s OK)
- The Dmg Modifiers under Base are: 1.05, 1.05, 1.05, 1.1, 1.1
- The Dmg Modifiers under Buffs are: 1.1, 1.1, 1.25

Looking at the Dmg modifiers for Buffs: 1.1 = Dungeon Potion, 1.1 = Night Sigil, 1.25 = 25 stacks Vuln. This one’s fine.

Since in Error 2 it was found that DEKeyz assumed a 30/30/x/x/0 build, I’m guessing she meant 30/30/10/0/0, which is one of her d/f builds (although it still doesn’t show anything about her scepter hammer, staff, or other 2 d/f builds).

Looking at the Dmg modifiers for Base: 1.1 = Earth VI, 1.1 = Air X, 1.05 = Force Sigil. So there are 2x 5% modifiers that can’t be accounted for, and a 10% modifier from Fire 25 that’s not included. I know this trait was updated in the Dec 10th patch, so DEKeyz probably just hasn’t updated the spreadsheet yet. The other issue is that it doesn’t make any sense for the Force Sigil to be in Base when the Night Sigil is in Buffs.

These aren’t issues with my spreadsheet, but sound like either confusion on your part or a mistake on Dekeyz’ part.

And Vulnerability additive? What?

Anierna, my spreadsheet does what it is designed to do. Any failures you get from it are the result of user error and bad inputs. Try being more careful when you theorycraft and you’ll avoid this issue.

Target.6379:

And is inflicting perma weakness worth losing 10% DPS?

Yes 15 charss

Step 1. Reroll to a clerics water ele if you want to be a healer.

Step 2. Don’t join my party please and thanks.

Fractals: Skale Venom

Unless you waste dodges your base amount of dodges is sufficient for Alpha. If you are using an FGS in the group it should die within two dodges. Also, you have Shelter as your heal which can tank an AOE if you run out of dodges as well as your elite skill.

Elrey.5472:

i hope stacking gets fixed.

What other tactics would you like fixed? Should they remove the ability to melee bosses? How about reflecting projectiles? Maybe pre-stacking Might is too OP? What about removing OP stuff like dodging the one hit kill boss attacks rather than tanking them?

Sadly, nowadays the only way to run a dungeon the way it was intended to be run is almost impossible.

No offense, but you’re not a dev and you have no idea how the dungeon was intended to be run. This isn’t your personal roleplaying experience designed to present a cinematic quality to immerse you in your character and his story. If you want to role play a dungeon, transfer to TC and join an RP guild and run dungeons with people who pretend to be surprised by the Spider Queen when it pops out the first time they run AC on a new character.

hybrid.5027:

FIND A NEW BOSS TO KILL

THIS IS BORING

GO KILL JOTUN STARGAZER WITH NO REFLECTS OR SOMETHING, JUST DRAG HIS ORBS THROUGH HIM

CAPS LOCK

4/10. If this was a true Reddit style response it would have been…

GUARDIANS OFCOURSE I AM NOT IMPRESSED WHY DONT YOU TRY IT ON RANGERS AND TELL ME HOW THAT GOES THANKS ANET

::obal links the 5 ranger kill::

YEAH WELL IF YOU USE REFLECTS SO WHAT IM NOT IMPRESSED

::obal links the bear bow solo::

Crickets.

The game is a year and a half old, people should know.

Ayrilana.1396:

Don’t use enemy specific potions as they’re currently bugged. A potion that says you take 10% less damage from a specific enemy types actually means you take 10% more instead.

This is true, but I would still use potions in dungeons because the dps gain is worthwhile. The extra damage you take is irrelevant when bosses all have 1HK attacks. In fractals I use Skale Venom since most challenges in fractals are trash mobs.

Smooth Penguin.5294:

This game does have multiple ways to play. Meta builds are the most used because it’s usually the one that takes the least amount of skill to use. When you look at other “viable” builds, they require you to play a certain way for them to be just as effective. This is why skilled players don’t follow the Metas you usually see.

What are you talking about? This isn’t even true in PvP, let alone PvE.