Guild Wars 2

dlonie.6547:

I’m not really hurt, bud. If negative posts bother you, feel free to skip mine — I won’t be offended :-) Maybe try reading a subforum for an area of the game that hasn’t been cultivating negativity for a couple years if you’re looking for more positive reading material? Yes, it’s a pity party, but no one is forcing you to involve yourself with it. You’re here voluntarily and have the power to report/ignore posts that you feel aren’t appropriate.

Don’t like this PUG? Drop party and make your own group. Make a “Nike’s Rainbows and Sunshine Dungeon Discussion Thread”. Go nuts :-)

I only replied because, from your rather condescending post, you seemed curious why we stuck around if we’re not enjoying the game. I was trying to clear that up for you: there’s something we’re waiting to see. That’s all.

I’m not a white knight for anet. I have plenty of criticisms, I’m genuinely unhappy with a ton of stuff. But I learned a long time ago, no one cares. In case you missed LunarStarlet’s comment read it again, but read it with the intended sarcasm. Being endlessly negative and whiney isn’t attractive. Don’t take it as a criticism from me about you, take is as some good advice for here and for life in general: don’t wallow in self-pity it doesn’t ever end well.

And no, I’m not curious at all while you’re still here. You’ve put in a ton of time to the game, its a sunk investment. Its why people don’t leave bad relationships, its why we stayed around Vietnam for so long. People invest in something, it doesn’t work out and they don’t want to pull out because they’ve put so much into it. It’s basic human nature. So no, I’m not surprised at all that people who are unhappy after thousands of hours are still here.

spoj.9672:

I seriously think we would benefit from going back to a standardised ruleset with less restrictions and less open to interpretation. People didnt have a problem with it before until the harpy feather absurdity and the jumping puzzle crap in arah.

I think you’re wrong. The community again and again has come down in favor of the restricted rules and has consistently opposed loosening them. I really wish you would end your crusade for changing Restricted from what it was designed to be and spend your time working on getting the Unrestricted rules to a place where people care about them if you have so much energy.

And I don’t think you were participating in records at the time so you might not remember, but when Keep Running did their CoE series with all the door jumps etc the reaction from most of the community was “if this is what records are going to look like from now on, we aren’t really interested in participating.” Then the Harpy feathers happened so we said screw it and did he Arah p3 jumping puzzle record and the community finally had enough.

You’re free to discuss the game as you wish. I’m free to tell you that your discussion is bothering people, not sure why you are so hurt by me pointing out that to you. Forgive me for pointing out your pity party is a pity party.

Man some of you guys are such a bummer. This is like reading a version of the story of your friend who is dating a girl who is treating him badly and he wants to break up with her but doesn’t because he is afraid he’ll never meet anybody else.

The solution is ofcourse they need to break up since they are both miserable. Everyone knows it. Everyone told him to dump her. But he won’t do it. So when he starts another story about how she treated him wrongly you just want to say, “dude, shut up. I told you to dump her months ago and you didn’t so stop complaining about her to me.”

Rising Dusk.2408:

I’m also pretty disappointed by the leap distance normalization, both from a PvE and a PvP perspective. I think speedy leaping enabled great build structuring for skips, and in PvP scenarios (a little off-topic) it enabled play/counterplay for engages and escapes.

What does everyone else think?

I was disappointed because this balance patch is pretty much considered a buff, which means we don’t have to reset the meta records. Unfortunately this is probably a bigger nerf than FGS or Icebow would/will be. I do not think, for example, the Arah records could ever be touched thanks to all the running involved unless there was a radical new set of tactics. P2 the warrior run to Alphard will be hugely slower.

Why do people bring up necros as if they were a strong condi class?

Very nice. I see a place where you could have saved a handful of seconds like 3-5. Plus better RNG at the last boss ofcourse.

Enko.6123:

When the split between Unrestricted and Restricted first happened, there were a lot of people who didn’t want Unrestricted to exist or participate in it because it was seen as just who can glitch the most.

I’m glad someone remembers.

Restricted seems to be moving in that direction anyways.

Which I predicted would happen when the community opted to organize things as they are.

This may all just come down to exactly what Restricted and Unrestricted are supposed to represent.

Because the people who want to do Unrestricted type records know that no one gives a crap about them. If someone posts an 8 minute unrestricted Arah path 4 that will be met with a collective “who cares” from the community. The only way to get people to care is to do restricted records, and so rather than work within the unrestricted framework there is a constant push by segments to ruin the restricted rules.

Julie Yann.5379:

NikeEU.7690:

Julie Yann.5379:

I don’t find it boring, I just don’t take well to being told what and how to play by a bunch of demanding little pugs.

What is the difference between using PS/EA or not on a dungeon run anyway, 30sec? 60sec? 2 minutes on some longer harder paths? Unless you are trying to break speed records why does it matter? If 30 to 120 seconds is what ruins your gaming experience you got issues.

Hey, your position is normal. There are plenty of people in the world who put their desires to do whatever the heck they want above the common good. I suppose you can get away with that forever if you really want to. Don’t feel surprised when people treat you as if you were a highly selfish person, though.

The pug which is demanding you play a certain way is also putting his desires ahead of yours. He/she is just hiding it behind the “for the common good excuse”. This is the reason I don’t play with pugs anymore. The truth is, PS/EA are not needed to have a smooth timely run, people just like using it as a crutch for their incompetence.

Sure but if everyone agrees that at some level it will be the best and easiest way for the group to succeed, then why not do it? If you know its the best but choose not to do it anyway thats on you not them.

In the marketplace well all pursue our own selfish agenda, but it works out because a fair bargain for me is a fair bargain for you and its in both of our selfish interests to bargain fairly. So when you say he is being selfish by demanding PS, sure he is, but he is being selfish in a way that benefits everyone.

How about this: I assume you brought Banners right? What if you wanted to play 5 sig warrior and the pug demanded you bring banners. Would you have made this post? Would anyone be defending you? This isn’t in any appreciable way different at all. The only difference is the community has a very much stronger consensus that banners = good and 5 sig = bad so it’s much harder to justify selfishness in that area.

Julie Yann.5379:

I don’t find it boring, I just don’t take well to being told what and how to play by a bunch of demanding little pugs.

What is the difference between using PS/EA or not on a dungeon run anyway, 30sec? 60sec? 2 minutes on some longer harder paths? Unless you are trying to break speed records why does it matter? If 30 to 120 seconds is what ruins your gaming experience you got issues.

Hey, your position is normal. There are plenty of people in the world who put their desires to do whatever the heck they want above the common good. I suppose you can get away with that forever if you really want to. Don’t feel surprised when people treat you as if you were a highly selfish person, though.

spoj.9672:

NikeEU.7690:

Which way do I have to vote to be against people jumping the door to the first alpha?

Vote for B on the second question?

I voted for option A. That allows Arah p3 but doesn’t allow for COE.

If somehow the rules are construed to allow jumping the door of COE I’m going to have a lot more to say about all of this.

Morfedel.4165:

maha.7902:

how to get rid of stacking

step 1: make a group specifying no stacking
step 2: complete dungeon without stacking

mission successful

did you happen to notice another post in here where he tried that and couldn’t get a group to join him?

It worked when I did it.

Glad to see all the responses in this thread from people who are completely clueless about the game’s mechanics or game design in general.

Which way do I have to vote to be against people jumping the door to the first alpha?

Oh boy here we go with the “it’s boring to play” canard. Boring? PS has the same DPS rotation as the DPS build PLUS it gets to use Arcing Slice. So if anything, it’s less boring. Unless you’re saying that getting a 32k hundred blades is somehow less “boring” than a 26k hundred blades, which is ridiculous too.

It’s really a new low for the community when kill times and party synergy are less important than damage floaters.

Morfedel.4165:

I have no problem with the idea of zerker, as long as they are threatened for that choice. Just as full bunkers are not contributing as much due to lower dps, zerkers should be threatened enough to make them at least pause and consider their choices.

Berserker’s are threatened by the choice. Put on Berserker gear. Go melee Mossman at level 50. Unless you use active defenses, you will die, period.

This is, incidentally, how almost every fight in the game is. Two things make that a lot less transparent. Scaling in low level dungeons is so crazy that Legendary level bosses melt in seconds in teams of five which is a big issue. And many bosses in high level dungeons only have single target attacks meaning at average you’re only going to get 20% of that boss’ potential damage on you. What you find out when attempting to solo or duo a lot of this “faceroll content” is that it isn’t that easy afterall and if you don’t play well you die very quickly in Berserker gear.

Jerus.4350:

In current gaming the more complex the AI the more open to manipulation it becomes.

This is correct. For every “if / then” scenario you put into their script you’re just adding one more thing that can be used to the player’s advantage.

Here is a Wildstar raid

As you can see, the AI of the raid boss is quite limited or even non-existant. Yet, it’s still several times more challenging than the hardest fight in GW2. You don’t need better AI, you just need challenging mechanics.

Julie Yann.5379:

NikeEU.7690:

Lev.2048:

I think a lot of you are over hyping PS/EA. i also did this when until i watched a pod-cast yesterday with Brazil, Nemesis, and some other guy… anyways the party wide dps increase is nice if your fellow players can manage good dps uptime and they know how to play their class ex. they could be a staff ele with one of the highest theoretical dps’s over a 30 second period of time, but as soon as they die or as soon as they dont know that they should be using Meteor storm or 100% uptime lava font etc… the effectiveness of PS/EA drops significantly. PS/EA will not make bad players good. It will make mediocre players look better and it may even detract from a team where an engi or ele is solo stacking might before a fight. PS/EA is a band-aid for mediocre players. Good players will combo field and bad players dont benefit enough from PS/EA to make it useful imo.

This is pretty terrible logic. “Don’t run party buffs because the rest of the party has bad dps.” That’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even with 4 other players in Nomads you being on PS is increasing the overall party Power by 3,600 which is like having a second Berserker geared player on the team. Switching to DPS warrior isn’t going to provide that kind of upgrade.

As far as “mediocre players” go, most speed clear guilds run PS+EA so take that for what it’s worth.

Most speed clear guilds know what/when to dodge and what/when skills should be used to maximize dps. Most pug groups don’t. What is the point of buffing the the entire party if they can’t maximize on that buff?

Because its better than the party completing the content unbuffed?

Lev.2048:

I think a lot of you are over hyping PS/EA. i also did this when until i watched a pod-cast yesterday with Brazil, Nemesis, and some other guy… anyways the party wide dps increase is nice if your fellow players can manage good dps uptime and they know how to play their class ex. they could be a staff ele with one of the highest theoretical dps’s over a 30 second period of time, but as soon as they die or as soon as they dont know that they should be using Meteor storm or 100% uptime lava font etc… the effectiveness of PS/EA drops significantly. PS/EA will not make bad players good. It will make mediocre players look better and it may even detract from a team where an engi or ele is solo stacking might before a fight. PS/EA is a band-aid for mediocre players. Good players will combo field and bad players dont benefit enough from PS/EA to make it useful imo.

This is pretty terrible logic. “Don’t run party buffs because the rest of the party has bad dps.” That’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy. Even with 4 other players in Nomads you being on PS is increasing the overall party Power by 3,600 which is like having a second Berserker geared player on the team. Switching to DPS warrior isn’t going to provide that kind of upgrade.

As far as “mediocre players” go, most speed clear guilds run PS+EA so take that for what it’s worth.

Guardian uses the Consecrated Ground trick to get two casts of Sanctuary back to back. This gives a lot of lock down. When the last sanctuary is running out, the first ele uses Tornado. When that is at like 85% the second ele uses his. When that tornado ends use Ice Bow #5. With good DPS it should be relatively easy. A few profession specific things…

Ele = Use tempest defense since the Husk will be CC’ed for 100% of the fight its a big DPS boost.

thief = Use Thieve’s guild but bear in mind they will put defiant on the boss and possibly mess up your Ice Bow freeze.

Guardian = Make sure you have Unscathed Contender since you should have 100% uptime its a big boost.

Warrior = use Phalanx strength and drop your Battle Standard at the start of the fight to ensure your team doesn’t run out of Fury or Might. With the double Sancturary followed by Tornados it will be difficult for teh ele’s to blast fire fields during the fight at all.

All we need is a really good sink for guild merits. Every guild has been 250/250 for years now. Give us a reason to spend them faster than we earn them and suddenly the pressure to do a tier 3 and complete it is strong.

ZeftheWicked.3076:

The proper zerk nerf is called “good mob A.I.”

Not really. AI, even complicated AI, is a system. Systems have rules, rules can be learned and weaknesses detected and preyed upon. It would be a nerf for about a week.

Rising Dusk.2408:

For what it’s worth, I probed into this and was told yet again that they literally cannot tell me anything about it right now, but that it’s still being looked at.

I know this isn’t about you or your effort, but what topics can they give you information on in any sort of detail that might be of interest to the dungeon community? Maybe you could get a dev to talk with us about Lightning Hammer or something.

Nemesis also said Anet intended there to be tanks and healers in the game.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/guild-wars-2-has-no-healers-or-tanks

The man is such a genius, he should go live in a lamp.

ForeverAway.5948:

what in gods nme r u talking about man

of course zerk OP dmg is the problem just look at thes forum. number one complant always zergmeta

ppl want to use other build not just zerk corner 111111 stay awake. we should need hp and armor or heal build to make the game more funner

and the problem MIGHT be stacking? of course stacking is a problem! that is why zergmeta is bad

i r8 ur b8 8/8 m8

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.

Silhouette.5631:

Modify the rally mechanic and have healing power increase revival speed. See how fast people want a cleric in their party

I can answer that: the same disinterest in having one as now.

If the warrior doesn’t run PS, it means the elementalist(s) have to swap off staff to be the party might stackers. In an absolutely perfect scenario the two ele’s would have perfect rotations and everyone would have 25 Might always and no one else’s combo fields would overwrite the fire fields.

This is a challenge to do absolutely perfectly in organized teams doing record runs. Pugs? Forget about it.

PS = easy Might stacking for the whole party and lets the Ele’s run staff for higher dps and easier to play playstyle.

tldr; it requires a lot less effort and coordination to run a PS warrior based team comp so people tend to prefer it in pugs where the ability to coordinate is lower.

One of the minor Tactics traits gives 10% boon duration so Strength Runes will give a total of 55% which is slightly more than we get currently with Scholar + Dumplings. Should be OK.

Don’t forget Guardians will be getting Empowering Might in Honor which is worth 4-5 Might stacks so they will be able to fill in the gaps if any.

Tim.6450:

spoj.9672:

It doesnt determine it though. It only supplements it in certain ways.

Let’s say you have this situation you used impale and after one 1 sec you realized that you’re only chance to pull it our is now or you will have to let stick for the remainder for the duration. As a zerker will you use rip? What if you are a dire user? I would pull out with zerker and leave it with dire. Same skill different playstyle all because of gear.

The choice of what to do was already made when you pick your traits, and when you chose your skills. Your example isn’t clever.

And that isn’t even a change of playstyle. In both examples you’re melee dps because you equipped a melee weapon that has no function other than DPS and blocks. It’s not like Rip becomes a healing skill the second you put on clerics gear. It’s not like the block skill gives team-wide Aegis when you equip Nomads. It’s melee dps. Period. How effective you are at outputting DPS it determined by your gear… but that’s what I’ve already said.

Belenwyn.8674:

NikeEU.7690:

Tim.6450:

NikeEU.7690:

If only anet had told us that the game would have active combat. If only they told us ahead of time all characters would be DPS. If only they told us ahead of launch that there would not be any dedicated “tanks, healers and CC masters.”

If only.

OH WAIT..

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/guild-wars-2-has-no-healers-or-tanks

Please reply with apologies only.

Then were is my control gear or support gear?

Gear doesn’t determine playstyle. You pick gear based on how tanky vs glassy you want to be. If you want to play control or support you pick traits, weapons or utilities that further that goal. These are two seperate choices that are almost 100% independent of each other.

Gear will stronger support and even open some playstyles in future. Keep in mind that traits will not longer provide longer boon and condition duration. This will influence some build and playstyles. It can even cause the use of different runes and stat combos to compensate it.

Gear prefix will never be a determinant of playstyle. Want proof?

Which is the better healer…

1. Warrior with GS+Longbow with full CLERICS gear, 65003 traits and physical utility skills

or

2. Warrior with Mace/Horn full BERSERKER GEAR 00662 traits specced for shout heals and banner regen with 2 shouts and tactics banner as utilities?

As you can see, your weapon choice, traits and slot skills are what determines the style you play, not the silly prefix on your gear.

Sthenith.5196:

I did Mai Trin as melee, boy did that hurt. I got downed more often then doing damage because of her sudden teleport. Not to mention that cannon contantly shooting at me.

The fight is significantly faster in melee. And if done properly, easier. You can practice and improve your playskill and not need ranged weapons.

Trust me, ranged has it’s purposes. But rifle, that’s for looks and when you want to switch to ‘point and shoot’ mode in open pve.

Dub is correct. There isn’t a single boss in the game you are better off ranging. If you think you need to range a boss, its because you haven’t practiced enough.

Tim.6450:

NikeEU.7690:

If only anet had told us that the game would have active combat. If only they told us ahead of time all characters would be DPS. If only they told us ahead of launch that there would not be any dedicated “tanks, healers and CC masters.”

If only.

OH WAIT..

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/guild-wars-2-has-no-healers-or-tanks

Please reply with apologies only.

Then were is my control gear or support gear?

Gear doesn’t determine playstyle. You pick gear based on how tanky vs glassy you want to be. If you want to play control or support you pick traits, weapons or utilities that further that goal. These are two seperate choices that are almost 100% independent of each other.

Nike.2631:

Has the Dungeon meta-game meaningfully changed in the last 2 years?

Yeah, in May of 2013 most dungeon teams were 4 warriors 1 mesmer. Some groups were experimenting with using Elementalists and Thieves for DPS and stealth but “heavies only” was extremely common especially at the pug level.

I’ll bite. Walk me through what a “Support Specialist” and a “Control Specialist” look like.

Right now, the meta guardian build is 45005 and specs into Virtues for support. They focus their utility kills on defense with things like Wall of Reflect and Purging Flames rather than focusing on personal DPS by running a 66200 or 66002 build with Bane Signet for max DPS.

Control as a role in the speed run meta is divided between Elementalist and Thief as specialists. The thief equips pistol offhand to strip defiant stacks quickly and the elementalist delivers a 5 second long CC with Deep Freeze. This is the core interaction at the heart of the dungeon and fractal speed clear meta. Thief sets them up, ele knocks them down.

Nike.2631:

NikeEU.7690:

Hahaha you realize Control is the most overpowered mechanic in PvE right now right?

If you define PvE as dungeons and nothing but, sure.

I don’t know what kind of groups you play in, but in organized groups of experienced players Control is so overwhelmingly powerful it defines the entire tactical approach we take.

It’s always nice to hear about the weather up on Mount Olympus. Down here in the scrublands things are maybe a bit different .

Secondly, I know you chose to ignore it but the message of that article is crystal clear: no one is a “dedicated control player.” Everyone is a “fighter” who also brings support and control.

And my message equally ignored was “Hey, it’s be nice if I COULD focus more on non-DPS aspects and not get spit on.” “Everyone is a fighter” only appeals to “fighters”.

Third, your definition of “support” is insanely narrow and not even accurate.

And clearly you didn’t understand me because (possibly because of the thin air up on the peak of awesomeness from which you survey the lowly) when I was pointing out might stacking ISN’T support, its DPS. We agree completely on the elements that do make up support. Which again probably would have been clear if you had any goal other than picking a fight.

Our “meta” groups bring DPS, Support (of all varieties) and overload on Control; we just divide up the duties among the 5 of us and don’t mandate any single character dedicate to a single role. You can admit it if you are honest enough: we are playing the game as it was designed to be played.

I agree you are playing the game excellently as it in fact IS. I can also point out plenty of cases where the game that IS is not what it was designed to be. And in a thread about changes, the status quo is not intrinsically better than all proposals (even if 90% of proposals ate not the top ten percent either …)

It is you, the person who advocates for dedicated support, healer, tank, control roles that is trying to upset the apple cart and ruin a good thing.

I am the person saying they clearly want to make control and support more of a thing you can focus on and I think arranging things so specialists deliver enough benefit that they could be one more tool in the toolbox of the elite is building on and adding to the goodness of the good thing we have now.

Again, reply only with apologies.

You seem to have the written equivalent of a verbal tic going. You might want to look into a writing coach. Or maybe get a proofreader. Its not nearly as clever as you think it is.

You keep trying to defend yourself. I linked the article. It’s as clear as day there was never to be dedicated control or support roles, only a mix of the three. Which is what we have. Instead of replying line by line with insults and polemic, just take a deep breath and understand the point I’m making is correct and the original comment you made I responded to is wrong. Simple as that.

Nike.2631:

Nike.2631:

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.

NikeEU.7690:

If only anet had told us that the game would have active combat. If only they told us ahead of time all characters would be DPS. If only they told us ahead of launch that there would not be any dedicated “tanks, healers and CC masters.”

If only.

OH WAIT..

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/guild-wars-2-has-no-healers-or-tanks

Please reply with apologies only.

Hmm. I’d have thought “Control” and “CC master” would be synonymous without me having to spell it out – especially for someone who is basically a bright person when they don’t want to just pick a fight. …Of course Control has worked out so well as a point in the GW2 triangle so far that is HAS been completely redesigned. So lets maybe stick to articles a little closer to demonstrable reality rather than pre-launch hype? And for the most part boosting DPS by mutual/cross buffing gets called “Support” just so we can pretend it exists.

Hahaha you realize Control is the most overpowered mechanic in PvE right now right? I don’t know what kind of groups you play in, but in organized groups of experienced players Control is so overwhelmingly powerful it defines the entire tactical approach we take.

Secondly, I know you chose to ignore it but the message of that article is crystal clear: no one is a “dedicated control player.” Everyone is a “fighter” who also brings support and control.

Third, your definition of “support” is insanely narrow and not even accurate. Yes, offensive buffing is support. So is all the defensive buffing and projectile defenses we bring. Stealth and blinds are also support, which our teams are tailored to bring.

Our “meta” groups bring DPS, Support (of all varieties) and overload on Control; we just divide up the duties among the 5 of us and don’t mandate any single character dedicate to a single role. You can admit it if you are honest enough: we are playing the game as it was designed to be played. It is you, the person who advocates for dedicated support, healer, tank, control roles that is trying to upset the apple cart and ruin a good thing.

Again, reply only with apologies.

Nike.2631:

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.

If only anet had told us that the game would have active combat. If only they told us ahead of time all characters would be DPS. If only they told us ahead of launch that there would not be any dedicated “tanks, healers and CC masters.”

If only.

OH WAIT..

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/guild-wars-2-has-no-healers-or-tanks

Please reply with apologies only.

TheRandomGuy.7246:

nezroy.8492:

The pure-DPS zerker approaching being bar-none the most effective/efficient way to clear dungeons? Without might stacking it might not be nearly as viable, or at least not optimal for EVERY fight.

How is nerfing damage will make highest damage gear less effective?

He hasn’t considered that a Might stacking nerf would hurt the DPS of non-berserker sets more than berserker sets.

To be fair, it’s not just him. Pretty much every “I HAVE THE SOLUTION TO THE ZERKER PROBLEM” thread involves some convoluted “solution” that would almost always have the unintended consequence of making berserker even better relative to everything else.

Nuzt.7894:

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. I’m just having a really hard time seeing how they could roll out something that would be exciting and fun without the trinity. Personally I wouldn’t even care if they brought in the Trinity, but, they would receive all kinds of backlash if they brought in the Trinity.

Just because you can’t figure out how to design challenging content with a lot of mechanics in an active combat doesn’t mean its impossible. Don’t be small-minded.

He asked what the problem was, and you described a healthy active combat system. Sounds like the problem is your desire in terms of what you want the game to be.

The thing is, sure your gear is suboptimal for PvE but why do you have to use bad traits? It would take 5 seconds to re-trait your mesmer and benefit your party a ton. I think we are all cool with you using a Berserker+traveler rune mesmer, but why can’t you change traits?

GROUP LF ONE MORE CLERICS VENTARI MUST USE STAFF OR KICK

Cygnus.6903:

The fried dumpling food is new to me, I should try to keep track of new foods a little better (like the one I use on my Sword/GS build).
Do the boonduration and might duration from my runes apply to the might on crit as well?

Yep, though I really think if you go Strength runes you want Lemongrass to avoid condi hell. But if you ever want to yolo strength runes, + fried dumplings would be 8.25s might stacks from GS crits.

Spear dropped for me on Monday. Mace and Torch are all thats left.

Enko.6123:

Matt.7413:

Enko.6123:

I’m still of the opinion that there should be a standardized set of rules across everything. We’re literally making up a new rule set for every single dungeon now.

This would mean that you couldn’t have a voting system, otherwise the argument would still come up as in what’s a breech of the rules and not, its quite easy for each person to interpret something differently. You would have to have one person who decides whether it is a violation otherwise (in my opinion) one set of rules just wouldn’t work, hence my previous comment. I didn’t mean it in a bitey way or an offensive way, was just a jokey comment, I apologise if it came across like that

What I mean by a standardized ruleset is that there is a general ruleset that covers everything. Specific questions can be answered for specific dungeons like what was being done previously. My issue here is that for the last two questions, they are both out of bounds issues yet some people said yes to one but no to another which makes it inconsistent. Out of bounds should be pretty cut and dry. All the other issues on this weeks discussion are all in line with the previous restricted ruleset.

It’s only inconsistent if you view them as both equally egregious. Personally, I am against both of them, but I can fairly say the Arah p4 JP is worse.

If the mobs in silverwastes seem to you so hard that you need to go ranged you should probably realize that if dungeons seem easy it’s because you’re being carried.

Honestly, the best thing you can be doing for your DPS, especially if you go into Arms for FGS, is use Might stacking runes and sigils. Sigil of Battle even in nerfed form is so overwhelmingly more powerful than any other sigil in conjunction with Fast Hands and Might duration runes that it seems criminal not to use it.

Now, I don’t know your builds if you use Melandru runes (I think Shin does) but if you can get the Toughness from a few pieces of Cavaliers instead of berserker or the condi reduction from food you should really think about it swapping it around to focus on Might stacking a bit more. If the condi-reduction of melandru is irreplaceable it is what it is, but I would be inclined to do whatever I could to use a Might stacking runeset and sigil of battle in a build using Forceful GS.

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

DiogoSilva.7089:

But as you have said, it is too late for that now, and Anet will have to do something about its stat system, or else it will always be highly misguiding and give the game a bad image to most of its community.

Anet doesn’t have to do anything. Where do you get the “most” statistic from? "Most of the community, as far as I know, isn’t hung up on a desire for gear diversity for the sake of gear diversity. “Most of the community” doesn’t have some bizarre mentality where every gear type has to be equally viable in PvE for the sake of… someone who screwed up and bought the wrong gear because he didn’t know any better? “Most of the community” says “berserker is optimal for pve, cool I’ll run berserker gear then” and thats the end of it.

Tim.6450:

NikeEU.7690:

The real solution is, as I said, stressing the active tool kit: dodges, blocks, reflects, coordinated blasts of water fields, positioning, key interrupts etc. Most encounters right now only make you do one or two of those things at most to succeed. New encounters that put all of your resources to the test are the solution.

To achieve that one you do need attacks that can’t be or shouldn’t be avoided otherwise you can use damage migitaion instead. I also think that that one will make vitality/toughness an option to make the other one less neccessairy.

Everything should be avoidable or preventable with the right dodges, right utility skills, right positioning, and right interrupts. Coordinated team healing can fill in the inevitable gaps created by mistakes. And again, the key is “coordinated team heals” not “one support character using his healing skills on cool down.” It’s the DPS staff ele switching to water attunement, dropping a water field and using arcane wave while the thief swaps to short bow to cluster bomb it and the other ele drops a Dragons tooth on the boss who happens to be in the field due to good placement and does damage and heals at the same time.

Black Box.9312:

You don’t have to eliminate active defense to discourage the zerker meta. You just have to eliminate the ability to negate everything with it. Give mobs small, quick hits combined with larger, more telegraphed ones, and suddenly it becomes a choice of what you can avoid and when to avoid it, rather than just waiting every 3 seconds or so for the next big attack to dodge or block with aegis. Combine this with smarter mobs that make use of mobility and CC, and you have more room for build diversity that encourages (at the very least) more sustain alongside your damage.

How does having unavoidable damage promote skilled gameplay when the solution you want to it is more passive defense? The “quick fast attacks” thing has been repeated for so long by so many that no one has bothered to think about the implications. Wearing tanky gear to solve your defensive problems in a combat system like this is a solution that requires no play skill and thus encourages no play skill improvement. The solution to this is not to dumb the game down with unavoidable damage and passive stats, but to actually make it harder by require use of more of our active tool kit.

The real solution is, as I said, stressing the active tool kit: dodges, blocks, reflects, coordinated blasts of water fields, positioning, key interrupts etc. Most encounters right now only make you do one or two of those things at most to succeed. New encounters that put all of your resources to the test are the solution.