Guild Wars 2

I have nearly 6,000 PvP games and have been playing around since beta.

I must say proudly annoucing a cash prize in an unbalanced and buggy mess is an insult to Esports. Adding more insult to injury is the very small PvP community.

Stop it ArenaNet.

PvP doesn’t have an issue with overpowered. If anything people been dying slower this time around.

It has an issue with CC spam, hyper support bunkers, skills and traits that do to much, chill spam, glassy classes with a lot of defense, large AoE CC spam, across class imbalances like The Facet of Nature is more powerful than the elite Signet of Rage.

It is the messiest PvP.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Cogbyrn.7283:

Nova Stiker.8396:

ozzy.8059:

the only way to kill someone as a reaper is with condis this meta.. when i go power all i see is nothing because they just kite for days or

block immune evade block immune evade block immune evade block immune evade block immune evade block immune evade block immune evade block immune evade.

need something to tick past all this junk!. did you know mesmer’s can be immune for 20s while dealing damage?

I wouldn’t be taking Diamond skin if it wasn’t for Reapers. Chill just destroys Elementalists hard and now there is an elite spec that applies perma chill.

Diamond Skin is a hard counter to the hard counter.

If it wasn’t for Diamond Skin, Reapers would have taken Elementalists completely out of the meta.

What ever happened to team cleansing that seemed to basically keep condi Necros out of the meta entirely for a long time?

It was called shoutbow.

So a shout-based Warrior was carrying the team-fight condi cleansing? But now a shout-based Warrior can’t adequately fill that role?

It sounds like you’re building your comp with a vulnerability to that sort of condi pressure, so now there’s a place for that sort of condi pressure. Does that make it imbalanced?

EDIT – Do people think their class/team should have no vulnerabilities? Is that what the game has conditioned players to think?

Before the traits changed, shoutbows completely nulled pure condition based builds. That was the build that made condition necros disappear completely for so long.

Also, building a comp? What are you talking about?

Lastly, it’s not about vulnerabilities, it’s about counters. Diamond Skin does not make Reapers vulnerable.

Right now the elite specs simply do to much, this is why the meta is in one giant mess. A mess of AoE CC, a mess of CC spam, a mess of snares and condition spam, a mess of splash damage. It needs to tone down, skills need to stop doing so much, traits need to be toned back.

This isn’t the worst meta, but it’s by far the messiest.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Nova Stiker.8396:

ozzy.8059:

the only way to kill someone as a reaper is with condis this meta.. when i go power all i see is nothing because they just kite for days or

block immune evade block immune evade block immune evade block immune evade block immune evade block immune evade block immune evade block immune evade.

need something to tick past all this junk!. did you know mesmer’s can be immune for 20s while dealing damage?

I wouldn’t be taking Diamond skin if it wasn’t for Reapers. Chill just destroys Elementalists hard and now there is an elite spec that applies perma chill.

Diamond Skin is a hard counter to the hard counter.

If it wasn’t for Diamond Skin, Reapers would have taken Elementalists completely out of the meta.

What ever happened to team cleansing that seemed to basically keep condi Necros out of the meta entirely for a long time?

It was called shoutbow.

ozzy.8059:

the only way to kill someone as a reaper is with condis this meta.. when i go power all i see is nothing because they just kite for days or

block immune evade block immune evade block immune evade block immune evade block immune evade block immune evade block immune evade block immune evade.

need something to tick past all this junk!. did you know mesmer’s can be immune for 20s while dealing damage?

I wouldn’t be taking Diamond skin if it wasn’t for Reapers. Chill just destroys Elementalists hard and now there is an elite spec that applies perma chill.

Diamond Skin is a hard counter to the hard counter.

If it wasn’t for Diamond Skin, Reapers would have taken Elementalists completely out of the meta.

There is a lot to consider when considering something is OP, but right now there is the issue of too much.

Too much stuns, too much AoE, too much X on skills that don’t need X.

Like Dragons Maw for example, it’s already a very powerful CC with a very powerful condition, yet it can land a 3k critical? Why does it need damage?

Executioner’s Scythe is a stun, an execution skill and a AoE snare that lasts for 5 seconds. ArenaNet this is why traits exist to get more from your abilities or did you just forget that?

ArenaNet needs to take a step back and limit how much skills and traits do.

Daharahj.1325:

You mean CChronomancer?

Nothing wrong with a 10 second AOE stun, really.

Continuum Split should never have been a thing.

Correction: Shatters should have never been a thing with Chronomancer. Why didn’t ArenaNet redesign F1-F4? It’s like the balance team loves shooting themselves in the foot.

Same thing with Reapers, how can you healthy balance something with perma chill?

TheLargeUnit.2793:

It’s awful. Would 100% rather have shoutbow vs DD ele then this kitten.

Na, Dhuumfire meta is the worst. It was the day a single trait killed most of the PvP community it was that bad.

There are a ton of stuff that needs to be fixed, nerfed and buffed. ArenaNet is aware of this, I just hope they understand what needs changing.

Chaith.8256:

I thought the most fair way to decide who gets credit if condition tick downs the beast would be to simply credit the person who had the biggest damage rolling for that fatal condition. So the player who can stack the highest, or have less stacks but superior condition damage numbers.

Edit for clarity:

The person who gets the neutral boss kill has the highest condition damage ticks for the last tick of whatever condition kills the beast. So if the Boss dies to burning, the game would credit the person who did the biggest slice of that last burning tick.

It’s a good idea, just one major obstacle and that would be programming it. It would have to keep track of all 10 players, track every condition including chill and fear, finally accurately identify who had the killing blow from the 10 players.

Now what if it dies to hitting multiple people with retaliation-oh dear… Got to track retaliation too.

There is just no easy fix. In a game where the stuck bug is still around. And the stomp bug. And the revive bug. This problem is low priority.

Guild Wars 2 is far, far, far from Esports. Best solution would be remove this map from tournament map rotations and put in Temple of the Silent Storm.

Does that mean they just fart out traps?

Chaith.8256:

I thought the most fair way to decide who gets credit if condition tick downs the beast would be to simply credit the person who had the biggest damage rolling for that fatal condition. So the player who can stack the highest, or have less stacks but superior condition damage numbers.

That sounds reasonable but still has the same issue, say if two burn guards contest over the Chieftan, one burn guard can actually get killed as the other finishes it off. Because the dead burn guardian did more burn damage, he is guaranteed the kill despite being dead.

Bleeding out from downed state would happen a lot more often if the NPCs have a downed stated as its easy to contest the NPCs. It would make the randomness happen more often.

In my opinion this is not much as a problem as players will spike down the NPC with physical damage, it should be on a list to be fixed later though. I am more concerned about the finish and revive bug.

ReaperJr.5967:

As chaith said, it’s B.

I hope so, I’m bouncing back and forth between A and B as they are the most likely designed that way.

If it really is B, that would be a good thing. That would mean condition damage can be instantly altered. That would mean condition damage is designed to count the ticks by the single number, even though they are clumped in groups.

I guess that would make sense if you have a sharing mechanic that many players would affect you’d have to go by the single number.

At least, that would make sense, is not possible to test as there is not a single rune or trait that will grant resistance at a heath threshold, preventing anyone from seeing if it works like Final Shielding and seeing if the damage ticks can surpass the designated health threshold.

messiah.1908:

but what will happen if group X put condi dmg and group Y put direct dmg
who get the kill rewards and who should?
atm it seems direct dmg wins ….

It depends on what does the final damage tick. So… yeah, that is self explanatory.

That being said, if both teams share the same conditions AND conditions land the final damage tick, the boss will randomly pick whoever got the last hit.

This is not that big of a deal as most players will try to get the final hit with physical damage but if you miscalculate the final hit and the conditions take the final tick, it will end it in a 50/50 chance depending on what conditions are shared.

Chapell.1346:

Chaith.8256:

The answer to your scenario totally depends on what mechanic is giving you resistance. It has nothing to do with Resistance itself.

FYI, the moment you get resistance, condition ticks happening while you have it are instantly negated, IE: In your scenario, any burning ticks that fall in that short window of resistance, their effects will simply be skipped.

So yes, if you get resistance during an immobilize or fear, you regain control and or movement, even while afflicted by the conditions.

Nova Stiker.8396:

resistance is only given by a player skill

Getting schooled? a disappointment.

extremely difficult to accurately test.

Why don’t you buy HoT play Revenant and become elite? clearly, you stand no chance against the World champ.

Nova Stiker.8396:

to calculate and control.

You knew i play Thief, those things are matters.

Okay? Who are you, what’s your problem and why do you speak in broken English?

Chaith.8256:

The answer to your scenario totally depends on what mechanic is giving you resistance. It has nothing to do with Resistance itself.

FYI, the moment you get resistance, condition ticks happening while you have it are instantly negated, IE: In your scenario, any burning ticks that fall in that short window of resistance, their effects will simply be skipped.

So yes, if you get resistance during an immobilize or fear, you regain control and or movement, even while afflicted by the conditions.

There are currently no mechanics that grant a passive resistance, other than a rune, resistance is only given by a player skill, so my example would technically not exist and would be extremely difficult to accurately test.

Still though, when it comes to theory crafting it would be good to know. Like if ArenaNet decides to change Diamond Skin from pure immunity to resistance granting.

Resistance is a grossly underused mechanic and in my opinion much healthier than high amounts of condition removal. Just like quickness is a healthier boon mechanic than might is as it’s much easier to calculate and control.

Evan Lesh.3295:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Hold on, so what you are saying is if X team gets 10 stacks of bleeding, 5 stacks of burning and 4 stacks of poison and team Y applies 1 stack of bleeding, if his health reaches 0 by condition ticks it will be a 50/50 chance?!!

In this case, if the game is currently processing bleed damage, and 10 stacks from team X would kill the monster OR 1 stack from team Y would kill the monster, whichever damage does the killing blow first is random. If bleeding is processed first, but it doesn’t do enough damage to kill the monsters, but then burning DOES deal enough, then team X would get the last hit.

Makes sense, it’s not game breaking but it’s disheartening. You have a better chance at stealing the NPC if you not only try to last hit but have the same condition application of the enemy team regardless of how much you apply.

Like critical hits I suppose…

That being said, here is another amazing question for you: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/How-does-Resistance-work/first#post5778846

Ryld.1340:

A.

It’s why I don’t take the auto-Arcane Shield as Elementalist. Maybe times I just die before hitting the 20% part since I only have a max of ~12k health.

That would make sense but resistance doesn’t work the same way. Arcane Shield doesn’t negate the damage from happening, so if you get hit by a 12k gun flame, you are not going to block 2k of the 10k damage and live.

The thing is resistance rules is unclear, does it function like Arcane Shield and triggers AFTER or is it INSTANT negation?

If you get resistance in the middle of a fear, it’s instantly negated, what does that mean for damage ticks?

Chapell.1346:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Evan Lesh.3295:

Checked the code, it appears to be effectively random.

Hold on, so what you are saying is if X team gets 10 stacks of bleeding, 5 stacks of burning and 4 stacks of poison and team Y applies 1 stack of bleeding, if his health reaches 0 by condition ticks it will be a 50/50 chance?!!

Eeeespuuurts -_-

You can’t blame someone who can see all the condition stacked/floaters in his screen.

There is an easy fix, when he reaches 1 health he gains 1 second of resistance.

People want Science and you gave them an easy Mathematics, im out.

There is a much better fix that will separate the damaging condition ticks so that the system can identify which conditions belong to which player teams.

That also requires significantly more time to make, not to mention problems can occur if players swap sides or DC’s.

Sometimes the best fixes are the easiest ones.

I know that it negates the effects of conditions, that being said, how does it negate it exactly?

Unique scenario:

Player is at 30% health, currently under 5k burning ticks. The player has a rune/trait when the player reaches 25% health, they will gain resistance.

So what will happen?

A. Resistance will be applied but AFTER taking the 5k burning tick to trigger the resistance rune/trait, putting the player lower than ~5% health.

Or

B. The players resistance will trigger AT 25%, thus negating the 5k damage from burning, HOWEVER, the burning damage will be PARTLY negated from the resistance to put the player AT 25% health from 30%, but nothing lower.

Or

C. Because the conditions put the player well under 25% health, the condition damage and resistance is triggered at the exact same time, because of the same trigger, the resistance is applied before the burning did the damage, thus negating the 5k burning entirely from 30% health with a 25% health trigger.

So which is it?
Future negation?
Partial negation?
Instant negation?

Evan Lesh.3295:

Checked the code, it appears to be effectively random.

Hold on, so what you are saying is if X team gets 10 stacks of bleeding, 5 stacks of burning and 4 stacks of poison and team Y applies 1 stack of bleeding, if his health reaches 0 by condition ticks it will be a 50/50 chance?!!

Eeeespuuurts -_-

There is an easy fix, when he reaches 1 health he gains 1 second of resistance.

That means the very next physical hit will take the kill. It will suck that you cannot get the final blow with condition ticks but at least it will no longer be a 50/50 chance.

thrag.9740:

omg could we just stop with this garbage. Just craft your armor, equip it, and do what normal humans do: enjoy the game never thinking about it again. Seriously, why is the prefix on your armor so interesting to you? The core of your build is your traits/utilities/weapon choices anyways, not some passive stat bonus.

oh, we are. But we sure ain’t happy about it, especially ArenaNet lying to everyone. Some of us were actually looking forward to trying out our custom raid gear setup only to discover you got to swap back to your dungeon armor.

spoj.9672:

I think this is more of a player skill problem. You are failing your damage rotations in a difficult encounter so you have less leeway. As it should be.

I used to think that until we got to Gorseval, he gave us a very interesting problem.

Here is the story: We are a pretty skilled PvP group with great damage rotations, only 4 of us were not vipers or zerkers. We had a soldier revenant, two hybrid dps and a Tempest running celestials. We could only get Gorseval to 25% health with better damage rotations than most people in the game.

After a couple hours of battling we could only really knock him down to 25% each time, the Enraged spirits were giving us issues, each fight ended with him with 5-8 stacks. So focus and quickly kill the Enraged Spirits? Sure! But now our DPS is going to be lower to focus on Gorseval, thus giving the enrage timer plenty of time to get to 0 resulting in a wipe.

So just group them together with pull skills like Temporal Curtain or Binding Blade? Our full zerker warrior hoped onto his cleric guardian and success! Thanks to the CC we were able to quickly group the enraged spirits and keep the boss fight at 0 stacks.

Success? Right? Well no, we lacked the DPS because our warrior had to swap. Upon discussion and chatting we discovered no one had a pure zerker guardian or chronomancer ready at hand. So we were stumped, to take care of the biggest issue at hand, we have to sacrifice DPS, because we did, the boss becomes unbeatable.

tl;dr Lets pretend our entire group had optimal DPS rotations, except in soldiers gear. The bosses would be impossible to defeat. Even if our team were complete kitten s with their damage and spamming 1 and 2, if they were pure zerkers, it would still provide better results than a full soldiers.

Purple Miku.7032:

This community is probably one of the most obnoxious MMO communities I’ve ever seen strictly because of how many people demand for damage to be normalised across all gearsets.

There’s literally no way to make these people happy other than removing power, precision, ferocity and condition damage from the attributes.

-gives up and walks away-

What the hell are you talking about?

This is a thread about the zerker meta staying around despite ArenaNet saying they want to limit the viability of zerker gear.

Apparently you missed it.

What happened in raids is ArenaNet did their exact opposite intentions, zerker armor is no longer just viable, it’s NECESSARY. So much so that any defensive stats can prevent victory.

So far there is no possible way to beat the first two bosses without more than half your team in zerker armor. The other half in vipers/sinisters.

Instead of making difficult mechanics to concur, they made rage timers. Lazy.

frifox.5283:

Nova Stiker.8396:

I am fine with zerker.
I am fine with sinister.

I am not fine with 80% of your team must be zerker or sinister. As it is an absolute MUST.

Let me put it for you in simpler terms.

- Anet made raids targeting zerker and viper specs.
- You want Anet to follow their word.
- Anet failed.
- Raids are not for you, unless you are zerkers and vipers
- Go play Dark Souls 2 for the hardcore experience.
I am going to kiss butt and ignore the pathetic ‘hardcore’ experience Anet made.

Let me fix that for you, you’re welcome.

The fact is instead of making challenging content that brings out the most of players skills, utilities and abilities they created a timer to do that for them. Anything can be harder with a time limit, its lazy design.

Gorseval is a complete push over than can be beaten by minor coordination and teamwork, but is suddenly really hard because of that time limit. Imagine that.

Rika.7249:

I’m completely fine with Berserker being needed, and Sinister being needed.

I’m not fine with needing to step down from my Herald Zerker, when my group needs condition damage, because Sinister Revenant isn’t viable, compared to Sinister Engineer.

I am fine with zerker.
I am fine with sinister.

I am not fine with 80% of your team must be zerker or sinister. As it is an absolute MUST.

bladex.9502:

Nova Stiker.8396:

TheFamster.7806:

Land of Cheese.2584:

You bring DPS to a raid because the goal of the raid is to damage the boss until he is dead. Anything else is secondary. In MMOs with a traditional trinity, the tank and healers are there to support the DPS. The healers keep the tank alive so the tank can keep the aggro and the DPS can do their job.

That red bar over every mob’s head is a health bar. You need to decrease the amount of red to 0 to win. This is what DPS does. If your role is DPS and you are not wearing optimized DPS gear then you should not be there, period.

There is no such thing as “balance” between “doing all the DPS in DPS gear and doing all the DPS in healing gear.” That’s not possible. That’s not possible any more than it’s possible to hammer a nail with a feather.

If you want to bring your nomads to a raid and “do DPS” you are delusional. There is something fundamentally wrong with your critical thinking skills.

InB4 you get flamed and asked “have you beaten the vale guardian?”
I told OP I beat it twice, and I have the proof, and I bet him 9000 gems to prove him wrong, yet he completely ignores my posts and complains that raids shouldn’t not be about killing the boss but singing happy songs while dancing around the mythical creature. I don’t think OP knows what raiding or even the concept of killing mobs to get loot.

Omg would you shut up. You have done nothing but brag that you beat the Vale Gaurdian, welcome to the club. Welcome to the zerker meta.

The issue is the DPS balance is out of wack, as I stated, if you have 8 out of the 10 people that have anything into vitality, healing power or toughness, you most likely not have enough damage to beat raids.

The issue isn’t DPS, the issue is it’s ONLY zerkers. ONLY vipers or sinisters.
That 1200 power you get from soldiers? Not enough.
Cavaliers? Still doesn’t give enough DPS.
Rabids for condi! Sorry, all that toughness is holding you and your entire team back.

Time to find another more casual game maybe, have you tried Maple Story? maybe Runescape, they have nice casual raids that allow you to afk in tank gear.

Raids in every MMO have always been focused on DPS, as soon as people understand the content they will just stack as many DPS as possible, even in holy-trinity based games.

Also its rather funny you say he has done nothing but brag about killing Vale Guardian, yet all you do is brag about how you got to Gorseval and talk down on people that didn’t.
I’m sorry Anet stepped on your tiny weenie, but you’re just either gonna have to adapt or look for another MMO

You are confusing DPS focused with zerker focused. Get it right. Well, I doubt you can get it right.

TheFamster.7806:

Land of Cheese.2584:

You bring DPS to a raid because the goal of the raid is to damage the boss until he is dead. Anything else is secondary. In MMOs with a traditional trinity, the tank and healers are there to support the DPS. The healers keep the tank alive so the tank can keep the aggro and the DPS can do their job.

That red bar over every mob’s head is a health bar. You need to decrease the amount of red to 0 to win. This is what DPS does. If your role is DPS and you are not wearing optimized DPS gear then you should not be there, period.

There is no such thing as “balance” between “doing all the DPS in DPS gear and doing all the DPS in healing gear.” That’s not possible. That’s not possible any more than it’s possible to hammer a nail with a feather.

If you want to bring your nomads to a raid and “do DPS” you are delusional. There is something fundamentally wrong with your critical thinking skills.

InB4 you get flamed and asked “have you beaten the vale guardian?”
I told OP I beat it twice, and I have the proof, and I bet him 9000 gems to prove him wrong, yet he completely ignores my posts and complains that raids shouldn’t not be about killing the boss but singing happy songs while dancing around the mythical creature. I don’t think OP knows what raiding or even the concept of killing mobs to get loot.

Omg would you shut up. You have done nothing but brag that you beat the Vale Gaurdian, welcome to the club. Welcome to the zerker meta.

The issue is the DPS balance is out of wack, as I stated, if you have 8 out of the 10 people that have anything into vitality, healing power or toughness, you most likely not have enough damage to beat raids.

The issue isn’t DPS, the issue is it’s ONLY zerkers. ONLY vipers or sinisters.
That 1200 power you get from soldiers? Not enough.
Cavaliers? Still doesn’t give enough DPS.
Rabids for condi! Sorry, all that toughness is holding you and your entire team back.

NovaanVerdiano.6174:

Nova Stiker.8396:

NikeEU.7690:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Easier said than done, if we focus to much on the enraged spirits when they spawn, the rage timer will tick down to 0 making him unbeatable.

The same issue keeps coming up. I could do X to help beat Y, but we lose the DPS/condi we need.

It is definitely easier said than done, which is why the fight is absolutely brutal and beautiful.

The push – pull of having to give up DPS to deal with mechanics and not having enough dps to beat the enrage is what makes raids compelling content. Keep doing pulls and you’ll get better and better.

Gorseval is a much better fight than the stupid guardian however 8 pure DPS is barely enough, that’s the biggest issue.

We cannot battle the mechanics for victory because we cannot lose a single dip in DPS, we have the skill, we have the characters and mechanics we need.

We just lack the zerker gear on our characters in the ‘raid that are to end the zerker meta’

---

I cannot tell you how many times we swapped characters for the best results, that I liked. I tried my daredevil, chronomancer, ranger and warrior for Gorseval. With Gorseval, the challenging part was the kitten orbs and enraged spirits.

What I don’t like is the same issue ALWAYS appears. Sorry, I cannot bring half my characters because we would lose the damage we need for victory.

It’s a sad state when Soldiers will not cut it for DPS, I’m not saying DPS is not important, but for GW2 raids, it’s the MOST important. So important you need 8 people to not have a single stat into healing power, toughness or vitality.

---

There are much better ways to design fights that does not include a timer.

Soldiers has two defensive stats, with its only offensive stat being raw power. I’d argue that this is a defensively balanced statset. Maybe a Valkyrie or a Cavalier-set might be more suited? Maybe even a mix of either with Knights, though that’s might not cut it either. You’d still be lacking precision, however you can get at least a decent chunk from party buffs. Insignias and Inscriptions for those sets should be cheap, so crafting/stat-changing shouldn’t be too expensive; Raids shouldn’t allow any type of gear to make it.

Out of curiosity though, what kind of design would be better in your opinion? I can only guess that Gorseval doesn’t wipe the party once the timer runs out either, but I don’t know what buff he gets; I only know the Vale Guardian deals 200% (more?) damage upon Enrage, which is clearly no instant-wipe.

If I were to remove the rage timer from Gorseval, give the enraged spirits more damage and prioritizes attacking the targets with the least toughness. Applying conditions like Confusion, Blind and Vulnerability to the targets they are attacking.

Overall, Gorseval is a very good designed fight. Already extremely hard and the issue my guild has was the enrage timer just stopped us from being creative on what we contribute.

You can also remove the 10% damage increase for each one he consumes to he gains periodic boons like might, retaliation, regeneration, protection and resistance. A perma retaliation can be devastating, which, ArenaNet PvP team knows that but apparently the PvE team completely forgets.

Gorseval also needs more health, he felt much squisher than the Vale Guardian. Not to mention he needs condi for some of his attacks. Some poison, boon stealing and blind would make the fight much more challenging as without the spirits Gorseval can be a complete and easy pushover.

The issue I have with Gorseval fight is Gorseval is not much of a threat at all, only the spirits that he eats. Gorseval just needs to be strong, not become strong. Losing the fight in 1 minute vs the 8 minute rage timer still results in a loss

As for the Vale Guardian, that would be a 20 page essay long of personal changes…

NikeEU.7690:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Easier said than done, if we focus to much on the enraged spirits when they spawn, the rage timer will tick down to 0 making him unbeatable.

The same issue keeps coming up. I could do X to help beat Y, but we lose the DPS/condi we need.

It is definitely easier said than done, which is why the fight is absolutely brutal and beautiful.

The push – pull of having to give up DPS to deal with mechanics and not having enough dps to beat the enrage is what makes raids compelling content. Keep doing pulls and you’ll get better and better.

Gorseval is a much better fight than the stupid guardian however 8 pure DPS is barely enough, that’s the biggest issue.

We cannot battle the mechanics for victory because we cannot lose a single dip in DPS, we have the skill, we have the characters and mechanics we need.

We just lack the zerker gear on our characters in the ‘raid that are to end the zerker meta’

I cannot tell you how many times we swapped characters for the best results, that I liked. I tried my daredevil, chronomancer, ranger and warrior for Gorseval. With Gorseval, the challenging part was the kitten orbs and enraged spirits.

What I don’t like is the same issue ALWAYS appears. Sorry, I cannot bring half my characters because we would lose the damage we need for victory.

It’s a sad state when Soldiers will not cut it for DPS, I’m not saying DPS is not important, but for GW2 raids, it’s the MOST important.

So important you need 8 people to not have a single stat into healing power, toughness or vitality.

There are much better ways to design fights that does not include a timer.

NikeEU.7690:

There is an achievement for killing him without any enraged spirit stacks. That should be your goal every pull.

Easier said than done, if we focus to much on the enraged spirits when they spawn, the rage timer will tick down to 0 making him unbeatable.

Not to mention it’s no easy task to quickly focus them down when you got 4 or 5 running around. It would be nice if we could get a guardian with a greatsword pull to group them all together.

However we’d lose our DPS and won’t be able to win as none of us had a pure zerker or condi guard >:( we got him to 25% with 0 stacks but the timer would hit 0. Compared to other times we still had nearly 3 minutes but 5 stacks.

I could have gotten my chronomancer and use Temporal Curtain but no one could fully replace my healing/tank role on my Tempest.

The same issue keeps coming up. I could do X to help beat Y, but we lose the DPS/condi we need.

MasterBlaster.6827:

Nova Stiker.8396:

NikeEU.7690:

Gorseval is really really challenging and in my opinion will remain unpuggable until the game gets significantly more power creep. But people should refrain from complaining about the tuning until they understand the fight.

Honestly Gorseval felt easier than the Vale Guardian, we got him to 33% nearly everytime, but those kitten enraged spirits make the final stretch very hard.

33% is where the fight becomes challenging tbh, gotta look for so many different things at the same time, it’s just awesome.

Gorseval rage timer is ultimately pointless though, if you don’t have enough DPS the enraged spirits will make him significantly harder to basically unbeatable.

Despite getting him to the final phase many times, only a handful of times we wiped because of the rage timer, even then, he already had 4 of 5 stacks :\

NikeEU.7690:

Gorseval is really really challenging and in my opinion will remain unpuggable until the game gets significantly more power creep. But people should refrain from complaining about the tuning until they understand the fight.

Honestly Gorseval felt easier than the Vale Guardian, we got him to 33% nearly everytime, but those kitten enraged spirits make the final stretch very hard.

bladex.9502:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Ranael.6423:

Fair question : Can some DPS wear a mix stuff like Knight armor and weapon + Zerk Jewels ? Or Apothecary armor, giver weapon and sinister/viper jewel?
If yes then the diversity is achieved.

What I mean is that the minimal requirements is not just a prefix, but stats.

If someone comes and say that a DPS players needs (maybe I’m way too far) 2200 Power, 60% crit (or less crit but more ferocity) then I guess it is up to the player to find the more suitable itemization for his character. If you want to bring HP, more damage, condis, toughness then you have the choice… hence diversity.

If someone has tried I’d be curious to hear about it.

For my experience, my guild felt like going hybrid damage was not only pointless but punishing. I know we had a full ascended soldier herald, I was celestial/commander Tempest and one other was Rabid/shaman mix engineer.

When we got to Groseval it really felt like we lacked the damage as the Enraged spirits would be eaten before we got the chance to kill them. Granted, it was late and we all were tired. I should have snagged my zerker chronomancer before going to bed and giving that a try.

But in the end, it felt like us 3 did not have enough DPS for our team who was already zerker/vipers. Groseval enraged is significantly worse than Vale Guardians, making DPS the prime source of success.

So you need to give up defenses for more DPS in order to beat content?
Welcome to raids my friend

Welcome to the zerker meta, again.

Ranael.6423:

Fair question : Can some DPS wear a mix stuff like Knight armor and weapon + Zerk Jewels ? Or Apothecary armor, giver weapon and sinister/viper jewel?
If yes then the diversity is achieved.

What I mean is that the minimal requirements is not just a prefix, but stats.

If someone comes and say that a DPS players needs (maybe I’m way too far) 2200 Power, 60% crit (or less crit but more ferocity) then I guess it is up to the player to find the more suitable itemization for his character. If you want to bring HP, more damage, condis, toughness then you have the choice… hence diversity.

If someone has tried I’d be curious to hear about it.

For my experience, my guild felt like going hybrid damage was not only pointless but punishing. I know we had a full ascended soldier herald, I was celestial/commander Tempest and one other was Rabid/shaman mix engineer.

When we got to Groseval it really felt like we lacked the damage as the Enraged spirits would be eaten before we got the chance to kill them. Granted, it was late and we all were tired. I should have snagged my zerker chronomancer before going to bed and giving that a try.

But in the end, it felt like us 3 did not have enough DPS for our team who was already zerker/vipers. Groseval enraged is significantly worse than Vale Guardians, making DPS the prime source of success.

Sorin.4310:

Nova Stiker.8396:

circuitnerd.5863:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Veneratio.1980:

I hate the timer and if they must have one I see no reason for it to be so low. The mechanics of the fight are great and tough enough that you wipe without worrying about time. If there must be one then 12mins would be a good spot imo.

Oh, I’m not talking about the Vale Guardians timer. Oh no, Gerovage? … Gorvoge? … the boss after him is hands down reaches 0 = GG.

Three of our party members can confirm running Soldiers, Rabids or Cavalier’s will most likely prevent you from beating the second boss.

For the DPS role raids you HAVE to run zerkers, vipers or sinisters. Anything else will hinder yourself and your entire team.

When you say zerker, vipers or sinisters does this mean zerker armor, weapons AND trinkets? or just armor and maybe weapon?

Full glass, right now the biggest challenge is battling the timer. Unless ArenaNet stops kitten ing around and realizes how stupid the enrage timer is, you are punished for playing defensively.

Read: bringing more defensive gear adds some challenge in terms of beating the timer, while taking away some challenge associated with staying alive. In some circles, we call this balance.

Read: Groseval punishes teams that don’t have enough DPS without a timer (even though he has a stupid timer) A full nomad team can never beat Groseval in a million years because of the enraged and charged spirits.

In other words, it’s not more challenge.

There are many more ways to reward DPS outside a timer. Apparently you fail to understand that.

softblackcarbon.1537:

Nova Stiker.8396:

softblackcarbon.1537:

-snip-

This is coming from a guy that NEVER beaten the Vale Guardian.

The only build diversity raids are creating is punishing players using Soldiers, Rabids and other things.

Spoilers: You don’t need a tank! You can trap the guardian at the blue pillar and wail him down in seconds until phase 2. Which, in phases 3 and 5 the same strategy doesn’t work.

I’m sorry but until you fight Grosval, everything you just said about DPS checks just gets tossed out the Window. You’ll realize how utterly pointless they are once you fight Groseval, which, has 3 DPS checks in his fight alone. The enraged spirits, the charged spirits and ANOTHER Enrage timer.

So the DPS check timer at the Vale Guardian is utterly pointless.

Hell, the DPS check timer at Groseval is also utterly pointless because the enraged spirits will make him too strong if you don’t have enough damage.

---

You were saying?

Wait I’m confused. First of all, I don’t think the fact that I haven’t killed the boss means any of my points have been invalidated?

Re: DPS checks. These are what make the fights challenging. Here’s the logic:
Case 1: Any gear and build is viable (i.e. “diversity” according to you):
There can be no enrage timers —> DPS doesn’t matter – you can kill the boss at whatever speed you want. --> Players can run very tanky builds to make the mechanics easier to overcome. —> The fight becomes much less challenging (sloppy play is allowed)
Result: Not a fun high-end encounter

Case 2: Everyone must go power zerker (i.e. complete lack of diversity):
There are incredibly hard enrage timers —> DPS is all that matters --> the only mechanics can be kiting —> The fight is much more challenging, but the mechanics have to remain fairly simple
Result: While this certainly leads to a more challenging encounter, it can’t be as interesting.

Case 3: Most people play some form of zerker build, some play more support-oriented builds (i.e. diversity according to me):
There are fair enrage timers —> DPS is highly important --> some players fill specialized roles in the group that are not zerker —> mechanics are complex and cannot be ignored --> DPS must be maintained while performing other actions, or mechanics must be overcome quickly for quicker return to DPS —> the fight is engaging and challenging

I hope that helps explain why DPS checks are so important. Essentially every other MMO uses either soft or hard enrage timers to provide challenging content. And to top it all off, Anet has gone with soft enrage timers (meaning, the boss can technically still be beaten once the enrage timer is reached as opposed to an actual guaranteed wipe mechanic at timer) which again provides slightly more flexibility within builds.

Needing lots of DPS in raids isn’t a new concept. The praise Anet deserves here is that they managed to design encounters that don’t require the group to be made of 9 zerk warriors and a zerk mesmer (cough cof cough). The fact that not every single build in the game is 100% viable for raiding content doesn’t mean we lack diversity.

So explain to me how raids isn’t just more zerker meta?

For everyone that is DPS, why does success depend on you carrying berserker and not Soldiers, Cavaliers or any gear that isn’t raw damage?

And I’m talking about DPS stats, not DPS roles.

What you’ve done is successfully explained what ArenaNet was going for and exactly why it fails so hard.

10 hours of against the Vale Guardian with pugs and 2 guild teams. The team that I beat it with had the most raw damage. Only 3 players on the team had gear with a toughness or vitality stat, the remaining 7 was zerker and vipers.
Oh, Groseval we couldn’t beat, our team was torn between more zerkers or more vipers because our DPS just wasn’t high enough. (That and 3 hours we just got tired.)

ODB.6891:

hurrado.2346:

A-net logic to kill the zerker meta… Add timers to the boss so you have to dps like mad to win.

Clearly you don’t even understand what the zerker meta was even about. I’ll enlighten you. The zerker meta was to bring ALL zerker geared players…no healers, no tanks, nothing but top direct damage (builds, gear, etc). That is clearly not what is happening now as you have healers, pseudo tanking, and condition damage builds/gear. Please stop regurgitating things that you don’t understand.

Stop posting when you never gotten past the Vale Guardian.

I can tell you for a fact, after dozen hours of fighting, trying different builds, professions I will tell you what you need for success:

• 1 Tempest Auramancer to tank and heal.
• 1 zerker Revenant
• 2 condi trap rangers/bomb engineers
• ZERKER EVERYTHING ELSE

I cannot stress enough how taking Soldiers, Celestial, Shamans can mean you and your team will never beat raids. If you cannot beat phase 1 in 2 minutes, your team does not have enough DPS.

Good game design?

P.S. A full nomad team would be more build diversity
P.S.S. A fully defensive team will never get past Grosval anyways, so defending the rage time is really stupid.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The solution is to balance the classes, not make the raids stupidly easy so meta classes can sleep through it.

Anyone can survive for 8 minutes. 8 nomad’s players with 2 druid healers can completely ignore the green circles and just face tank it for 8 minutes. The timer is there for a reason.

You’ve never gotten to the next boss. Guess what? He’s another DPS check and bringing Nomads WILL get you killed because he summons these Enrage Spirits that will increase his damage unless you kill them quickly.

Oh, and he’ll 1 shot you if he consumes any charged spirit. Plus he also has an Enrage timer because… ?

So you have no point. ArenaNet already has a boss that cannot be beaten by overly defensive groups.

softblackcarbon.1537:

-snip-

This is coming from a guy that NEVER beaten the Vale Guardian.

The only build diversity raids are creating is punishing players using Soldiers, Rabids and other things.

Spoilers: You don’t need a tank! You can trap the guardian at the blue pillar and wail him down in seconds until phase 2. Which, in phases 3 and 5 the same strategy doesn’t work.

I’m sorry but until you fight Grosval, everything you just said about DPS checks just gets tossed out the Window. You’ll realize how utterly pointless they are once you fight Groseval, which, has 3 DPS checks in his fight alone. The enraged spirits, the charged spirits and ANOTHER Enrage timer.

So the DPS check timer at the Vale Guardian is utterly pointless.

Hell, the DPS check timer at Groseval is also utterly pointless because the enraged spirits will make him too strong if you don’t have enough damage.

You were saying?

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Skoigoth.9238:

Hmm, weird, I was never under the impression that anet has a problem with the “zerker meta” in particular, yet a lot of people seem to think they do. Did I miss something?

1 dev said that “berserker not gonna cut it” few months ago. People heard “trinity is coming to gw2” but in reality it was “direct damage will not be effective everywhere”.

Groseval is the condi DPS check.

Hell, Groseval is EXACTLY how Nomad groups cannot win.
…
Why the kitten do we have Rage timers if we have a boss that is about killing things fast enough already?

The one to Rule.2593:

Raids will change nothing.

I disagree, ArenaNet just loves to put massively high toughness on everything. Groseval is a perfect example of trying to create the condi meta.

TheFamster.7806:

It’s obvious that OP wants something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6DKZ45a0VU so that he can raid while doing other things.
Got forbid people actually have to learn the mechanics of the game in order to play

Please, you never beaten the Vale Guardian.

Gorseval already has some bullkitten mechanics, but reasonable.

What is unreasonable is that my guildies feel like their armor STATS prevents us from having enough damage to beat the rage timer. We can preform perfectly and yet lose because 4 of our DPS didn’t have the most powerful DPS stats.

Basically what I am saying is full ascended soldiers is WEAK. Full ascended Rabids is WEAK. Going a hybrid of zerkers and valkyrie is WEAK. Going full ascended celestial is WEAK.
We beat the Vale Guardian through excellent team coordination but Gorseval is just DPS check #2 thanks to a second rage time and those spirits you have to quickly kill before he gains more damage.

Unless you are support or tanking aggro, any stats that is not berserkers, sinisters or vipers WILL prevent you from having a successful raid. The only mechanics to learn is to be punished for not bringing enough DPS.
Period.

circuitnerd.5863:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Veneratio.1980:

I hate the timer and if they must have one I see no reason for it to be so low. The mechanics of the fight are great and tough enough that you wipe without worrying about time. If there must be one then 12mins would be a good spot imo.

Oh, I’m not talking about the Vale Guardians timer. Oh no, Gerovage? … Gorvoge? … the boss after him is hands down reaches 0 = GG.

Three of our party members can confirm running Soldiers, Rabids or Cavalier’s will most likely prevent you from beating the second boss.

For the DPS role raids you HAVE to run zerkers, vipers or sinisters. Anything else will hinder yourself and your entire team.

When you say zerker, vipers or sinisters does this mean zerker armor, weapons AND trinkets? or just armor and maybe weapon?

Full glass, right now the biggest challenge is battling the timer. Unless ArenaNet stops kitten ing around and realizes how stupid the enrage timer is, you are punished for playing defensively.

Veneratio.1980:

I hate the timer and if they must have one I see no reason for it to be so low. The mechanics of the fight are great and tough enough that you wipe without worrying about time. If there must be one then 12mins would be a good spot imo.

Oh, I’m not talking about the Vale Guardians timer. Oh no, Gerovage? … Gorvoge? … the boss after him is hands down reaches 0 = GG.

Three of our party members can confirm running Soldiers, Rabids or Cavalier’s will most likely prevent you from beating the second boss.

For the DPS role raids you HAVE to run zerkers, vipers or sinisters. Anything else will hinder yourself and your entire team.

I don’t think ArenaNet understands how to design PvE. Raids enforced the very thing they wanted to stop.

In other words, unless you beat phase 1 before 6 minutes, 30 seconds you will not have enough damage.

Same here, as well as other boosters.

If you use a booster in the raid it will become consumed and you will not get the bonus.

ARENANET WTF GUYS?!

Shemie.4286:

Mogar.9216:

If they match making is working and all the solo Qers are just mistaken then Anet simply need to show ppl`s mmrs . Bang all qqing will vanish. I expect the reason they don`t show everyone`s mmr is because either match making is flawed or mmr itself is flawed and they fear the truth.

As I hate to say it, you’re right(Sometimes it’s fun to see people whine cause you rekt them really hard, hidden rating ftw). Every other E-sport game have their mm/rating visible at all times for anybody to see.

LOL, show MMR in Guild Wars 2? What a waste…
- Ranked mode still down.
- Stomping sometimes fails.
- Sometimes abilities won’t show up.
- All the thief and warrior mains are completely screwed over.

Skill level is the LEAST of Guild Wars 2 problems, the most anyone can do is show how many games they’ve played.

Lets not forget SoloQ is disgusting with premades.

I’ll take players better at rotating, than players that have better skill.

The only skill I judge is when players stick around fighting a 2v1 at home point and continue to fight until the single enemy player is dead or leaves.

Learn to 1v1 scrubs, let your teammate win his battle or weaken the enemy player enough for you to safely leave. If your ally is at 100% and the enemy player heal is on cooldown your job is done. Go mid or go scout.

Also, pointless thread is pointless. I assume you never played Dota, Counterstrike, League of Legends or any Esport game.
(Guild Wars 2 is not Esports)

Crinn.7864:

Nova Stiker.8396:

Serious Thought.5394:

Idea: Give players break bars. Hear me out.

Each player has a breakbar, and stability enhances break-bar regen. Higher stack, higher regen. Thoughts?

Pointless, just put the crowd control under control.

No there should be a system in place that penalizes excessive CC spam.

The problem is that there is currently 0 penalty to just spam CC. We need a system where after getting subjected to so much CC you get some immunity, and this can be as simple as "after being subjected to X number of CC effects, you get Y number of stability stacks.

I heavily disagree, Guild Wars 2 always had CC spam, the reason why it’s a problem now is the CC has way to big of an AoE and lasts way to long.

For the longest time CC had a max AoE range of 300. Earthquake, Earthshaker, Supply Crate had an AoE of 240. The biggest CC belonged to the Big Ol’ Bomb of 300 range and a 3 second delay.

Now we have skills that are twice the size of the biggest AoE prior to HoT. In fact, we have 10 skills that are beyond or at the 300 AoE CC.

• Tides of Time
• Facet of Chaos
• Chilled to the Bone
• Terrify
• Grasping Darkness
• Spear of Justice
• Hunters Ward
• Jade Winds
• Lunar Impact
• Glyph of Equality

All of these can hit multiple foes, CC multiple foes AND has bigger or as big CC prior to HoT.
That is not even including Dragonhunter traps, which are just as stupid broken but ironically does not fall under the 300+ list here.

Out of control CC.
Finishers that can randomly fail.
Some attacks not visually showing.
ArenaNet is running a PvP tournament right now.

“One of these things is not like the otherrr, one of these things just doesn’t belong, can you guess what it is before I finish my sooooong?”