Guild Wars 2

Having active defenses rely on stats creates the problem that you are already rewarded for running tanky builds with god-mode survivability. Why anyone would need “better dodging” from a gear set that has stats that allow you to never dodge is a weird thought. Again, the ideal place to buff active defense is in traits, runes and sigils. Which is where those buffs currently are already.

The real key is to design boss fights where you need to use your full took kit of active defenses too survive. Instead of a boss whose attacks are projectiles and can be trivialized with Wall of Reflect, the boss should have projectiles, dots, PBAOE attacks and melee attacks. That way one utility skill can’t turn the fight into EZ mode.

HotHit.6783:

NikeEU.7690:

Sagat.3285:

Wut?? No to that and no the rest, this is strictly PvE issue don’t affect PvP and WvW when you simply need tough non HP sponges mobs, the issue with faster condition application is that condition can be created easier than burst either through fields,sigils or runes(more of them), etc.

In PvE if your condi build can’t sustain 20+ bleed stacks solo it’s a failure. The problem with that is it takes time to get to 20+. By then the boss is dead, or close to it. So even with high toughness bosses condition ramp up time is a big problem.

It’s fine to have a motor that is slow to accelerate so long as their is a high top end. the problem is the top end of condi builds are low too. So its slow and weak. Tough enemies wont change that.

Nike, I think you’re missing your own logic there. If two enemies have the same physical effective health (Armour*Health) and a condition build has the same DPS as a physical build against a “standard” target, if their armour stats are different the higher armour enemy will die faster to the condition damage build. As such, not only would high toughness enemies have higher effective health and make fights last longer, their high toughness would make the top end of condition damage builds deal more effective damage.

If every enemy had infinite toughness, our only possible source of damage would be conditions. Likewise, if every enemy had effectively 0 toughness everything would die from a single blow. If the perfect balance is met and every enemy has exactly the right amount of toughness to put condis on par with Zerker gear, we have meaningless diversity where your choice doesn’t matter.

To truly break from the “Zerker” meta, we need a wider variety of goals. Even if it just starts with one other goal, building tanky to hold off a group of enemies, being conditiony to take down husks or dedicating yourself to healing an NPC. If one player putting all of their stats into breaking break bars turns out to be the fastest way to do things in HoT, that’s the meta we’ll have.

I’m not missing anything, believe me, I’ve thought this through significantly more than almost anyone else.

the best condi builds takes 10-15 seconds to ramp up to their max personal DPS. That means for the first 10-15 seconds a direct damage build is doing ridiculously higher damage even against Tough mobs. But guess what? Once the condi build hits 15 seconds and is fully ramped up it still does less DPS than the direct damage builds, even against Tough enemies, especially since Sinister stats are hurt by high Toughness too. The big problem is that Vulnerability doesn’t affect condition damage. If it did, condition damage would ramp up to actually higher DPS than direct damage which is whats needed.

alternatively, I suggested massively increasing boss HP rather than Toughness. This has a few advantages. In a 30 second boss fight, the 15 second condi ramp up time is a massive disadvantage. In a 5 minute boss fight the 15 second ramp up time is negligible, which solves that problem. A high toughness boss is fun for condi builds but not fun for direct damage builds. It probably isn’t good boss design to have a boss be purposefully unfun. A high HP boss is fun for everyone. The only danger is you make giant HP sponges that you afk attack for 5 minutes until dead. Ideally the bosses are cool, have interesting mechanics and a 5 minute fight is exciting and rewarding. If the bosses are designed horribly so that fighting them for 5 minutes is completely awful… well that is a problem that goes far beyond balancing for condition builds.

Windsagio.1340:

Man you really really really want to argue about this nike.

If so make a thread, if I notice it you can trust I’ll comment.

I don’t need to argue anymore, I’ve said what needs to be said. Now its incumbent on you to get smart and accept it.

MattyP.6954:

NikeEU.7690:

Stat diversity won’t actually make anything more interesting. If all guardians are required to play Nomads in the new meta, why would that be more interesting than required to play Berserker? It wouldn’t be any different, there will be a single required gear set for acceptance. What you really want is a system where anything goes and all reasonable options are more or less equal.

Guess what: that’s the system we already have. You could play with 5 experienced players in Knights or Soldiers gear and your dungeon clear times would only be 10-15% slower than those same players in berserker gear, and the chance of wiping due to a mistake would be a lot lower.

My issue is with the Cult of Meta mentality, but I do find it interesting that your second sentence invalidates your first…

If all Guardians are required to play Nomad’s Stats, then there’s no diversity, is there? :-P

the distinction being is I don’t care about gear diversity for the sake of diversity. I will play whatever is best regardless of the name of the prefix. I’m not hung up on fake diversity. The whole point, which you missed, is that the proposed solution to diversity was stupid and not only that, the goal of gear diversity in general is stupid.

The issue with your defined “current state” is all of the rage you get for reducing their speed run by 10% by wearing Soldiers or Knights, even as they wipe from plentiful, plentiful gameplay mistakes.

Form. your. own. groups. Stop joining berserkers only groups when you aren’t and you will avoid that rage.

BTW, so these bad berserkers are wiping all the time now? I thought they were EZ mode corner stacking spam skills to win? which is it? Or does the story change to suit your debate goal?

Sagat.3285:

NikeEU.7690:

You don’t even need high toughness mobs to make condition builds more viable. You just need mobs with lot’s of HP, making Vulnerability affect condis and faster condition application. If it takes you 15 seconds to hit your personal bleed cap condi will never be better even with high toughness mobs. If it takes you 5 seconds to stack your bleeds to your sustained cap condi becomes much more viable.

Wut?? No to that and no the rest, this is strictly PvE issue don’t affect PvP and WvW when you simply need tough non HP sponges mobs, the issue with faster condition application is that condition can be created easier than burst either through fields,sigils or runes(more of them), etc.

In PvE if your condi build can’t sustain 20+ bleed stacks solo it’s a failure. The problem with that is it takes time to get to 20+. By then the boss is dead, or close to it. So even with high toughness bosses condition ramp up time is a big problem.

It’s fine to have a motor that is slow to accelerate so long as their is a high top end. the problem is the top end of condi builds are low too. So its slow and weak. Tough enemies wont change that.

Windsagio.1340:

A countermeme that’s just as inaccurate as the base meme isn’t a great selling point, I don’t think. Saying stacking is EZ MODE REQUIRED PLAY is not much more silly than saying “NOBODY STACKS EVER”. They’re both inaccurate.

I watched my last dungeon tour vod to count the times we corner stacked. Once. 16 dungeon paths, one instance of corner stacking. Take that data point for what it is. Within the community of players who know what they are doing, corner stacking isn’t really a thing, which isn’t an exaggeration at all. Forgive us for reacting to it so vociferously, but when every… less educated poster says, “LOLZ DUNGEONS R EZ STACK IN CORNER AND SPAM SKILLZ ALL U DO” responding with accurate information is required. Plus who knows, maybe someday the knowledge of how to do dungeons properly will trickle down to the PUG level. It took a while for HEAVIES ONLY pug groups to die, didn’kitten Where did all the posts about HEAVIES ONLY META NEEDS TO DIE go? Oh thats right, pugs eventually wised up, got better and stopped promoting that fallacy.

For reference, I use the Warrior skill “Fear Me!” in dungeons just as often as we corner stack. The Thief uses Needle Trap as often as we corner stack. Pun intended: these are corner case scenarios.

MattyP.6954:

It probably won’t be a hard-nerf, as has been stated above. It will probably just be a reduction in the relative strength of the stat set when compared to other sets, resulting in a more diverse meta.

The meta will still be Berserkers even if Berserker was only 1% better than the next best.

Windsagio.1340:

you guys keep overselling the no more stacking thing. It’s not like using LOS to control an enemy’s position isn’t a thing.

“You guys” keep bringing up stacking as though it was some EZ mode exploit. Whenever someone says stacking and exploit in the same breath forgive us for being compelled to correct their ignorance.

maha.7902:

Spartacus.3192:

Jerus.4350:

Spartacus.3192:

Add more mobs like in SW that have high toughness but susceptible to condis. Makes for more useful hybrid builds, less zerker.

Inc sinister meta… such diversity

And zerker meta is more diverse?

It would be a refreshing change to build my guard and war for more condi damage unlike the full zerk gear that i have right now.

Would also be more interesting in WvW when fighting kiting classes.

oh man, my gear has a different prefix

this is making my gameplay so much more interesting!

oh wait i’m just doing the same thing and can’t actually see the prefix while in combat

Swinging your greatsword in Celestial gear is way more fun than swinging your greatsword in Berserker gear because DIVERSITY. See? Just say the word DIVERSITY and the game is instantly 10x more fun even though the physical actions you preform are the exact same!

Stat diversity won’t actually make anything more interesting. If all guardians are required to play Nomads in the new meta, why would that be more interesting than required to play Berserker? It wouldn’t be any different, there will be a single required gear set for acceptance. What you really want is a system where anything goes and all reasonable options are more or less equal.

Guess what: that’s the system we already have. You could play with 5 experienced players in Knights or Soldiers gear and your dungeon clear times would only be 10-15% slower than those same players in berserker gear, and the chance of wiping due to a mistake would be a lot lower.

DiogoSilva.7089:

That stacking is or is not the best strategy is not very relevant. The fact that it works – and by that, I mean the fact that you can very easily beat dungeon content while stacking, regardless if it’s the most effective strategy or not – is itself a problem.

5 Clerics Scepter Necros with no offhand can clear every dungeon content very easily too. It isn’t the most effective strategy but it works. I can’t tell what you’re arguing for actually? Do you want harder content? I do. You realize ofcourse, the harder the content the more exclusionary and strict the meta will be, right? Be careful what you wish for.

MattyP.6954:

Wait, you are the elected representative of the Dungeon Community? That’s crazy… When was the election held?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Nomination-Best-of-2014-popularity-contest/first

Right around the start of the year. Thanks again to everyone who voted for me!

And yeah… people who play dungeons regularly are kind of in the “Dungeon Community”, unless you really are some sort of elected official who gets to determine membership in your club.

Nope. People in the community are in the community. Like I said, people who randomly follow the wvw zerg, don’t participate on TS and function as free kills to the opposing team aren’t really in the WvW community. People who do casual hot joins once a day aren’t in the sPvP community. There is a lot more to a community than doing some basic act. You can run as your primary exercise, but you aren’t in your local running community just because you do. Would you like more examples or are you getting it now?

(And yes, stacking benefits in providing instant contact to downed allies for res, sitting in combo fields without effort, and LOSing adds when they spawn, forcing them into melee range. If it wasn’t at all beneficial, people wouldn’t do it.)

Actually you can get all those benefits without corner stacking. Look at basically any of the current dungeon record runs. Heck, look at the VOD of my live stream sunday night. Out of a full night’s dungeon tour we stacked, like, maybe twice? None of the benefits you mentioned require stacking. In fact, the actual meta is encircling. When your team forms a 5 pointed star shape around a boss you get all the benefits of stacking with out the danger of the entire team eating a cleave attack and going down together.

And “people wouldnt do it if it didn’t do anything.” Actually they would. The reason bad pugs corner stack now is that they learned to do dungeons during the Fiery Greatsword Rush meta where corner stacking actually served a purpose. They have take the FGS away, but the pugs haven’t updated their tactics because… they are scrubs, not actually in the dungeon community and possess powerful group think. Sorry for giving a history lesson but your incorrect statement needed responding to.

Also, when 5 strangers randomly meet to run a dungeon, who gets to play dictator? Do we have to run an election?

If I list the LFG as “meta run zerker only” I am the boss and I will kick people who don’t comply. If someone else lists “anything goes no stacking no skipping” and I join, I expect to be kicked if I don’t comply. He who lists the LFG makes the rules, pretty logical.

You’re tilting at windmills. If you don’t want to pug with wannabe elitist pugs you don’t have to. Most LFG descriptions are very accurate and you are free to start your own anything-goes, no-stacking group. Your complaints are essentially that you don’t want to be told how to play when you join other people’s groups, which I’m sorry to say, is a personal issue not a game issue.

Why would anet need anti-stacking mechanics when stacking doesn’t do anything? Do you understand why people stack and what it accomplishes or doesn’t accomplish? Are you going to continue to be kitten about a topic you clearly don’t understand?

I didn’t realize I was so lucky as to be speaking to the duly-elected representative of the Dungeon Community. That being said, the majority of the community probably doesn’t keep up to date with metabattle.

The irony is you first sentence is dripping with sarcasm but you have no idea that its basically true. The second part of your sentence reveals your flawed thinking: wannabe elitist scrub pugs aren’t in the dungeon community any more than the rally bots who follow commanders in WvW and dont come on TS are in the WvW community.

You don’t even need high toughness mobs to make condition builds more viable. You just need mobs with lot’s of HP, making Vulnerability affect condis and faster condition application. If it takes you 15 seconds to hit your personal bleed cap condi will never be better even with high toughness mobs. If it takes you 5 seconds to stack your bleeds to your sustained cap condi becomes much more viable.

Base stats

Weapon Strength 1100.00
Power: 2500.00
Crit Chance: 0.50
Crit Damage: 1.20
Damage Mods: 1.00
Coefficients: 1.00
Base DPS: 1057.69

Total DPS: 1692.31

4 in Str

Weapon Strength 1100.00
Power: 2700.00
Crit Chance: 0.50
Crit Damage: 1.20
Damage Mods: 1.10
Coefficients: 1.00
Base DPS: 1256.54

Total DPS: 2010.46

4 in Arms with 9 Might

Weapon Strength 1100.00
Power: 2770.00
Crit Chance: 0.60
Crit Damage: 1.20
Damage Mods: 1.00
Coefficients: 1.00
Base DPS: 1171.92

Total DPS: 2008.68

Conclusion: if all you care about is offense, I would say the 4 in Strength has a fairly good advantage unless you have might duration boosting gear in which case the Arms might be superior since at least some of the FGS Might would carry over into the Hammer set which will boost your Hammer damage by a fair amount.

Just popping in to say that…

Weapon Strength 1100.00
Power: 2500.00
Crit Chance: 0.50
Crit Damage: 1.20
Damage Mods: 1.75
Coefficients: 1.00

Base DPS: 1847.72

Total DPS: 2956.36

with 10% more damage mod…

Total DPS: 3251.99

how much Might is needed to equal this dps?

8 stacks = 3240
9 stacks = 3275

It’s very debatable in a PvP / WvW scenario that you will get 8-9 stacks of might from FGS consistently enough to make it better without strength or hoelbrek runes.

But above you can see I used hypothetical stats for each build (2500 power which isnt a real number and crit chance 50% which isn’t accurate either) if you would like I can calculate DPS for each build if you provide me with the accurate unbuffed base Power / Crit chance / crit damage for each.

DiogoSilva.7089:

NikeEU.7690:

Ofcourse they have. The stats on your gear either help you sustain or they help you do damage. Besides boon duration, which can be offensive or defensive, they are all one or the other. What else is there? Offense or defense. A simpleton could see that the only role for gear is offense or defense. You want there to be more, fine, but your wants are not the current reality.

Healing Power is support. Boon and condition duration are support, as well, although they come mostly from traits/ food and not gear. Toughness is meant to sustain against direct damage, vitality against sudden bursts and condition damage. All of those effects can be build-defining in a pvp environment.

It is true that current PvE’s reality is a failure in that regard, but Anet is still focusing on making different stats more meaningful. The changes to condition damage, new foes with tougher armor, new traits that give a massive amount of precision, boon duration on gear (although that one is currently useless) or the more varied foe attacks are all attempts to tone down the “zerker” gear meta.

Since party healing is minimal, healing power is mostly sustain for personal healing skills and regeneration. Boon duration is is either defensive sustain or offensive buffing. Condition Duration is offense. Additionally, condition duration isn’t really a gear stat besides Giver’s weapons, which don’t even have an ascended version because anet knows they are extremely OP in PVE.

I don’t know who “we” is, but almost all pugs I’ve run with shout “STACK” for almost every fight (off of the top of my head, in AC, SE, and Arah—all explorable), with many gearchecking for zerker gear.

“We” are the dungeon community. Whatever silly tactics bad pugs do in bad pug runs isn’t indicative of the best, easiest or most efficient way to run dungeons. Pugs genuinely think corner stacking actually makes the fights easier or “cheeses it” or whatever. I see that you do too. Unfortunately, you’re all quite wrong. Corner stacking is almost always slower, less efficient and arguably more dangerous than fighting on top. You have very strong opinions, and you seem quite set in them. But you also don’t understand the game very well yet, and I don’t say that as an insult. My advice is to moderate your opinions about game balance and difficulty until you actually understand the game well enough to offer more insight.

MattyP.6954:

NikeEU.7690:

MattyP.6954:

NikeEU.7690:

Scar.1793:

quite sad it’s always the same old stats even after 3 years

Why is that sad? We have the same dodge button and we have had 3 years to get good at the game. What would really be sad is if 3 years later we all still needed/wanted to wear tanky gear because we were so bad at the game.

It’s sad because there is very little actual player choice when it comes to gear. In a game that prides itself on character customization, the fact that most player choice is illusory is quite sad.

Gear doesn’t determine your playstyle. It’s a linear spectrum of defense -> offense. If you want it to be more than that you’re creating the illusion, not Anet.

Straw men are made of straw. I never stated that gear determines your playstyle (if anything, it should be the opposite).

However, in a game that touts its capacity for character customization, the fact that the content so heavily favors a select few stat combinations has the effect of severely limiting player choice.

Furthermore, don’t pretend that wearing zerker gear means you know how to play the game well—the established strategy for dungeons has been “wear zerker, stack in the corner and spam your skills” for way too long. It’s a brainless faceroll that isn’t fun or rewarding (at least to me), and it takes less skill and effort than an early WoW five-man.

I’m not sure what you think we do in a daily dungeon run, but if you think the sum total is stacking in a corner and spamming skills I can safely say you have no clue. You want the choices to be meaningful, well, they are. You can choose to be tanky or choose to be glassy. That’s your choices. Again, if you feel there is supposed to be more to it than that, YOU are the one creating the illusion for yourself based on what you want to be vs what is.

If Anet intended for gear stats to have a natural progression from defense to offense, they would have presented it as such. But they haven’t,

Ofcourse they have. The stats on your gear either help you sustain or they help you do damage. Besides boon duration, which can be offensive or defensive, they are all one or the other. What else is there? Offense or defense. A simpleton could see that the only role for gear is offense or defense. You want there to be more, fine, but your wants are not the current reality.

MattyP.6954:

NikeEU.7690:

Scar.1793:

quite sad it’s always the same old stats even after 3 years

Why is that sad? We have the same dodge button and we have had 3 years to get good at the game. What would really be sad is if 3 years later we all still needed/wanted to wear tanky gear because we were so bad at the game.

It’s sad because there is very little actual player choice when it comes to gear. In a game that prides itself on character customization, the fact that most player choice is illusory is quite sad.

Gear doesn’t determine your playstyle. It’s a linear spectrum of defense → offense. If you want it to be more than that you’re creating the illusion, not Anet.

Scar.1793:

quite sad it’s always the same old stats even after 3 years

Why is that sad? We have the same dodge button and we have had 3 years to get good at the game. What would really be sad is if 3 years later we all still needed/wanted to wear tanky gear because we were so bad at the game.

Voted.

FWIW, I voted “no” to allowing Arah p3 door. Everything else I voted in line with the current usage of restricted ruled.

tigirius.9014:

Some of us are hoping the Zerker will be the thing of the past once this launches because it does nothing but detract from actual strategy.

How would you know? Have you ever participated in a proper speed run? No? Do you think we go in with no strategy and our plan is to just yolo DPS to make records? I’m sorry, you probably didn’t mean to be offensive, but when you make comments like that from a place of ignorance it is hard to avoid.

Roles are a strategy folks not burst dps,

We have roles in speed runs already. You just want old school trinity roles. Too bad. This isn’t a trinity game. Go play WS or Final Fantasy. If you don’t like having to use your dodge button and would prefer to be kept alive by someone spamming heals on you this isn’t your game.

So for now honestly OP I wouldn’t worry about the Zerker meta because I don’t think it will last much longer from the looks of it.

Wanna bet? I’ll put 5000 gold on you being wrong.

meeflak.9714:

Take the kholer fight in AC for example. If the break bar is strong enough, trying to stack through kholer could turn into a pretty daunting task. Forcing the group to kite, actually dodge his grab, so on so forth. I just see a lot of potential here

Kohler dies in less than 10 seconds to a proper DPS group. Then again, proper DPS groups don’t stack against Kohler. Then again, I don’t see the fun in kiting like a decapitated chicken compared to using team synergies and play skill to defeat bosses.

I’d say it has more to do with history. In the history of MMO, there are dozens of examples of excellent boss fights designed around “epic scale, complex scripted mechanics” that were amazing. To date, I can’t think of a single raid/dungeon boss that behaves like a player that would qualify as “amazing.”

Granted, just because something has never been done doesn’t mean no one should try it. But it does mean that it is more likely than not to end in failure.

spoj.9672:

Loads of people quit right after GW2 was released because they didnt know what to do for endgame. Its fairly common for games to have a bit of a flop after the initial hype and level rush. Then it picks up again when the remaining players discover things to do and info spreads. Obviously the scale of the flop depends on the quality of the game. As does its ability to recover.

I remember right after GW2 launched and fractals were fairly new all the “WHERE IS THE END GAME?” threads in the forums. I would always say, “are you dungeon master? Are you fractal 80? Are you an experienced WVW commander? Did you hit rank 80 pvp?” The answers were always no, but they didn’t get the point usually because all those things are optional. They want the developers to say “THIS IS THE END GAME DO THIS”

fracture.9754:

Considering I enjoy pretty much fractals and dungeons only in GW2, would WS be interesting for me?

Yes, but Wildstar raids and dungeons are the definition of try-hard.

fracture.9754:

I don’t like tryharding in my dungeon runs

Plenty of open world and living story content for you then.

phys.7689:

the point of enemy evasion/blocks/movement in a game is to make it so you have to “catch” the enemy for maximum benefit. instead of just unleashing your maximum dps at will, or after a specific interval, you have to force the enemy to react, and then react when it puts itself in a disadvantegous situation.

And this is your idea of good pve boss design? Really?

sure if they design so its just a random invulnerability with no consequences/resources/etc then it would be stupid, but it would be just as stupid for them to have the enemy have an aoe damage skill that hits everyone in the room no matter what they do randomly.

evasion in a fight no more equals random unstoppable limitless dodges
than
damage equals random unstoppable limitless damage.

I don’t even have the least understanding what this means. Is this some non-existant either/or scenario? These aren’t our only two options. This false dilemma you’ve constructed is bizarre and completely irrelevant to the discussion.

We don’t really need to conjecturize, we have examples already in game. Lupicus is a boss designed how I suggest they be designed for one. Kohler is a boss designed like you would have it be with frequent evade frames until you CC or immob him. One is fun the other is annoying. You can be contrarian and say that KOhler is probably more fun to some people than Lupicus is, which while true is no different than saying some people prefer dirty dishwater to expensive wine and therefore we should offer more dirty dishwater for drink in restaurants.

You can tell me my statements are opinions, as if that somehow invalidated them, but the fact is that my opinions are based on a lot of experience in this game and others. You don’t have to take my opinions as gospel, but by the same token you’d be a fool to think they were unfounded and be dismissive.

For what it’s worth, Kohler’s dodges and the CM archers and the inquest assassins and any other pve enemy with built in random dodges are objectively poor game design for all the reasons I and others outlined. As Spoj alluded to, boss mechanics without legitimate counterplay are stupid. Good PvE game design is based around the concept of question and answers. The boss asks a question and you either have the answer or you fail. the boss can ask a lot of questions. The boss can ask really hard questions. But they should still be questions. If there is no answer (lol auto evade every 3rd attack nothing you can do about it) that’s just uninteresting design and fake challenge.

I already explained why enemies who dodge or snares are bad pve design. Try reading that again and catch up to the discussion and stop trolling.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/General-Dungeon-Discussion-Thread-Part-2/5077603

phys.7689:

Mightybird.6034:

So super well said from the other thread I had to quote it.

Personally I consider Lupi a great fight and he doesn’t act like a player. I want more fight’s like lupi. If one boss mob; multi stages and patterns of attack. if multiple mobs; synergystic abilities between them that makes a pattern but not player like kiting or snaring or dodging

*ahh had quoted NikeEU but it was too long.

Some people prefer that style, but its not inherrently better.

basically you dislike moving, because dodge isnt different than a skill that gives evasion/blocks or invuln, other than the fact that they change the positioning.

I think players should have to work to have an enemy let them stay in an advantageous position sometimes.

“dislike moving.”

If you’re going to misrepresent a position, please refrain from entering the discussion. If you’ve ever seen a modern raid in a raiding game the players are CONSTANTLY moving. No spot is ever safe for more than a handful of seconds. Modern raid design is all about moving. This has been explained to you before but you keep repeating the same incorrect statement so I assume you’re a troll.

Kelly.5293:

I don’t know. I kind of like the idea of more challenging, changing content. The fact that it’s a bug is a bummer but i would stand behind this being a permanent intended change along with a nerf to reflect damage on lupi. Maybe even unpredictability in phase 1 phase 2 phase 3. Make it all one crazy random phase. I don’t like the idea that it’s bugged but i don’t want it to be such a joke of a fight anymore either. Sometimes we’ll even let him eat grubs to make it more of a challenge. I would even support the idea of scaling dungeons like fractals.

If they want more challenging content they should develop more challenging content. Arguably ruining existing content is not the best way to do it.

I got an infraction for bumping that thread as well. I appealed and they showed in the terms of service for the forums where it does say it is a rules violation to bump a thread without adding any content. So if you want to bump that thread I would suggest adding some brief anecdote rather than saying “bump 15 characters”

Kinda up to date list…

Ele, Engie, Guard: flame legion
Mesmer, warrior, necro: Infiltration or Rage
Ranger: Ranger
thief: Rage

It boils down to this… Current bosses can be killed, for the most part, one of two ways.

1. Melee (fast and dangerous)
2. Range-kite (slow and easy)

So long as option two exists we can never have a challenging encounter. If there is some EZ mode option you can default to, it completely ruins any challenge.

That’s one thing I like about the mordrem troll breach boss. He is pretty punishing to melee players due to a fast moving semi-complex aoe pattern and also punishing adds, but he has a massive aoe attack that kills everyone at range that even a double dodge won’t save you from. Unfortunately there are still ranged safespots. A boss like this could easily be tuned to eliminate the safespots and could be tuned to do his AOE ranged death attack more frequently. Could also be given a 20% increased attack speed. Could be given about 25x more HP. Could be put in a 10 man instance. Could be given two more phases with different mechanics in each phase. Could be given amazing rewards for being beaten.

One can dream.

Cheezy.2039:

NoTrigger.8396:

phys.7689:

NikeEU.7690:

Or you could just look at what well designed raid or dungeon bosses look like in other games. If you think I’m advocating static “everyone stack in one spot and don’t move for the duration of the fight” combat you clearly don’t understand.

i am not opposed to the type of orechestrated design you are talking about when it is well executed, but reactive and dynamic combat where you get your best benefits for properly reacting to/predicting/setting up your opponent is also the other means of good PVE design.

does this aoe pattern promote enough reactive gameplay for you?

note the aoes are moving in different directions -> clock wise and counter clock wise and you cant just run around the boss because the autoattacks will wreck you.
eat 1 tick of the aoe -> you die.

Introducing Super Hexagon into GW2

That game looks insanely hard.

Re: moving bosses. Mossman and archdiviner are terrible bosses for the most part. They can be perma-snared and killed with range weapons without getting a player in serious danger. the only reason we look at them as a challenge at all is because the dungeon community prides itself on not range-kiting bosses. That’s our personal pride getting in the way of actually trivializing content. Those bosses are hopefully NOT the direction legitimate challenging content goes in the future.

phys.7689:

NikeEU.7690:

Or you could just look at what well designed raid or dungeon bosses look like in other games. If you think I’m advocating static “everyone stack in one spot and don’t move for the duration of the fight” combat you clearly don’t understand.

i am not opposed to the type of orechestrated design you are talking about when it is well executed, but reactive and dynamic combat where you get your best benefits for properly reacting to/predicting/setting up your opponent is also the other means of good PVE design.

It’s pretty simple. Take the orchestrated combat type raid bosses and instead of tanks and healers you have to use active defenses to survive and you have the right formula for an active combat game to have high end PvE. GW already sorta has this in Lupicus and even some of the Silverwaste breach champions, the troll being the best of the bunch. The problem is ofcourse they are all designed to be beaten by newbs in random gear with random traits rather than designed to push experienced players to their maximums.

Edit: in your arguments against FGS you used to say that such burst trivialises combat. Don’t you think that static mobs also trivialises combat?

I’ve seen wildstar, wow and swtor raid bosses who were static and anything but trivial and who had anything but simple mechanics. and the players themselves were anything but static.

Or you could just look at what well designed raid or dungeon bosses look like in other games. If you think I’m advocating static “everyone stack in one spot and don’t move for the duration of the fight” combat you clearly don’t understand.

phys.7689:

NikeEU.7690:

Good PvE doesn’t require now, nor has it ever required in the past, good AI. The best raid bosses in the history of MMOs don’t even have what could be called AI. They just spit out their mechanics in a semi-scripted order and challenge you to deal with them or die. Better AI is what you ask for when you want PvE mobs to act like players, which really isn’t the strength of good PvE encounters in the first place.

Are you saying that the distinction, for you, is whether the enemy adapts to what the player is doing or not?

I would say good PVE design either has a really well designed script, that requires you to execute pretty well, and make you feel good when you do execute well, or having an enemy that better responds to player behaviors, or a combination of those things.

I will say GW2, in both styles is fairly lacking.

Please see this post as to why I find “make pve mobs behave like pvp players” to be a really dumb idea…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/General-Dungeon-Discussion-Thread-Part-2/page/52#post5077603

Good PvE doesn’t require now, nor has it ever required in the past, good AI. The best raid bosses in the history of MMOs don’t even have what could be called AI. They just spit out their mechanics in a semi-scripted order and challenge you to deal with them or die. Better AI is what you ask for when you want PvE mobs to act like players, which really isn’t the strength of good PvE encounters in the first place.

They haven’t shown the Revenant Power trait line, Power legendary form or Power melee weapon and you complain they have bad damage. Duh.

From what everyone is saying, Ele dps is too valuable to sacrifice by wasting time Deep Freezing.

Clearly the solution is to start fights with Bane Signet active.

http://dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/19418960-math-balancing-power-precision-ferocity-based-on-ep

We solved this one a while back.

There are other aspects to consider, though, such as on crit procs which are likely more valuable than straight dps.

Some additional reading and extreme min.max discussion if this sort of thing interests you: http://dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/18718546-post-patch-assassin-mix-ep-evaluation

In regards of D/F vs staff “complexity.”

Staff requires you to do a lot of actions right at the start of a fight. D/F the actions are less frenetic at the beginning of a fight but are sustained more throughout whereas with staff the action settles down once you get to the fire camp stage. So basically, staff ele front loads all its fun.

Palindrome.8904:

All it would take is a smattering of encounters that are effectively impossible without a couple good condi builds. We already have tough bark husks that melt under conditions but take a long time to whittle down directly. Just expanding on this (and if in dungeons preventing people from bypassing large portions of enemies – looking at you TA).

How do you expect that forcing people to kill more mobs is going to be a nerf to the best gear for killing mobs?

Quells.2498:

I appreciate how constructive this thread is but Anet is never going to balance for the min/max crowd. Necro is perfectly relevant for the majority of players and unfortunately the “meta” and min/max is a minority.

The problem with that is, things trickle down. If the min/max community is all saying “dude necros are in a great spot now, everyone digs them” that will eventually trickle down to the rando-pug level about 6 months later. It helps to have the more influential players happy with a class.

Unless they change the auto attack back to how it used to be you’ll want 56030 and an energy weapon on your main hand to make it easier. Otherwise it will be a real struggle for a first timer.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Phadde.7362:

One crude suggestion: What would be the result if there was a hard limit of 1 profession per ‘raid’? (Total groupsize of 9, or perhaps with room for a double of one profession.)

It would become very hard to form groups.

What kind of raid is it if you can pug it easily?

Offhand warhorn is so significantly better for open world anything that it isn’t really comparable.

Enjoy your Aetherkey pieces, PVPers.