Guild Wars 2

Scrambles.2604:

If you want build diversity look to Pvp

Zerker is a natural consequence of the elimination of the trinity.

Traditionally you would spec to optimize your role — tanks would stack hp/def, healers would stack mana/healing stats, and dps would go for all out DPS.

Remove the tank, remove the healer, and all your left with is people speccing for all out DPS. Add in mechanics that eliminate the need to mitigate what damage you do take (dodge, personal heals, traits, utility) and you will find people that want to build optimally don’t need any defensive stats.

Which I think is AWESOME and its the main reason why I think that GW2 is a great game.

Aomine.5012:

phys.7689:

Many people talk about this, but the key is not really to nerf zerker,
all you are doing by nerfing zerker is making zerker more of a high skill cap weapon set, it will still be superior.

two major ways to deal with the idea that dps is the only thing that matters
1) more skills need to scale off other stats, including defensive and support skills (a berserker is just about the same at every non condition dmg skill as any other gear set, and close enough for pve at durations.
2) better enemy design and encounter design.
enemies need to have more attacks for less damage, and be more mobile/adaptive

any number tweaks will simply make it so its still the best, but you have to be really good to make good use of it.

I think your idea is brilliant.
Some classes should scale their damage base on other attributes that favor its play-style.

For example, a guardian may scale it’s attack power base on his healing power and power, that each of them contribute to half of it’s dps.
I know this will make the stat distribution more complicated, but that’s one of the few ways to balance out things.
(And for anyone who’ll argue that healing power could potential become OP because it does 2 things now, you can mostly choose from 3 main stats, so if you go for power and healing, you’ll then sacrifice either precision or ferocity, thus, losing slight damage. However, choosing healing will give you damage AND healing capability, making it a more supportive play-style while not losing too much damage.)

I totally disagree with that. I found that completely stupid in SWTOR and I think this would completely crush the identity of GW2.

You guys talk about its bad, its only zerker dude bah. But then you turn around and said, well Guardian = healing power. How this will give more diversity in gear? Each stats should give 1 advantage and only 1. If a stats is useless change the stats and what you can get from it, just don’t make him just another power with some healing in it.

You need to remove auto-targeting from your option. You also need to make sure you don’t target the enemy when you use the Skill 4.

Dual.8953:

I’m gonna bump this because no one seems to be challenging it.

Boff, not much to say. I agree with the sentiment and global meaning of the post. I can see what you put in bold, and these specific stuff are not really true so just for you Dual, i’ll challenge it

1) in the absence of a strong trinity you WILL see a pure damage oriented meta.
In a trinity you have 1 healer, 1 tank and then a pure damage oriented meta. Damage is the main thing in any combat game anyway.
2)Diversity of the meta is what matters here.
Nothing wrong here. I approve 100%
3) No diversity of DPS build in GW2
Not enough diversity would be more appropriate. Support is also a big part of that diversity, but true that only direct dmg count, nothing else (or almost nothing else).
4)Gearcheck SUCKS
Gearcheck sucks. I don’t deny the other for doing it, but i never really like it. It usually take more time to fill up and a lot more time to enforce it. By the time the group is ready, i’m usually half way through the dungeon. But like i said, i’ll never try to deny ppl the possibility to gearcheck if they want. I’ll play how i want and let you play how you want.
5) In the end the game relies too much on zerkers enforcing gearcheck
I think gearcheck is very limited in this game.

No much challenging. Some specific stuff, I’m not agreeing 100%, but the global idea behind that post is pretty good.

VodCom.6924:

Lilith Ajit.6173:

Your dungeon run rewards have nothing to do with how fast you complete it or how fast another completes it. That was my point.

You’re right, the speed of a dungoen run is not the problem. The problem is: “If you don’t have 5k AP and full berserker gear, you can’t PUG for arah”.

This is what drives some people (including me) mad. It is very difficult to find a group for arah during my time play that does not have these requirements.

The fundamental issue is that if I switch from zerker to valkyrie armour, the completion time increases from 30 minutes to 1hour and a half because you can’t corner stack anymore. The group is forced to do the dungeon the “classic” way which is way slower.

Thus the toxic gearcheck.

I join about 2 or 3 gearcheck run in the last 2 year. There is no need to that. But anyway, ppl that put that kind of requirement are ppl like you. They have limited time to play because of work, school, kids, etc. But they are good at the game and want to complete an arah path from time to time. But they can’t have the run last 1 hour because, the path will be less enjoyable for them and this will limit the amount of stuff they can do in the game in their limited amount of time. So they ask for ppl at the same level as them (AP and gearcheck is not the best way to do that, but that,s the only way to do that). I have no problem with that. There is a lot of ppl out there just like you, that want to do arah, but don’t because they never find a group. Why? Because those group fill out quicly. They don’t stay long on the LFG so nobody can see them. Each time i put a LFG up, it fill within second. Add the fact that Arah is usually done in guild group and there you see why ppl have difficulty to enter Arah. Its the last dungeon, of course its not an easy one (especially the first times you try to go in).

Lilith Ajit.6173:

You sure about that? please take a look at the meta… what are the best teams doing? The same thing just faster. The faster you can complete something, the better you are at playing. Unfortunately we come to this.

Your dungeon run rewards have nothing to do with how fast you complete it or how fast another completes it. That was my point.[/quote]

Tbh, the faster you can complete a dungeon, the more dungeon you can run in the same amount of time. So even the total reward is the same, the speed influence the amount of gold per hour you can get. So ya, in reality the speed influence the reward.

But i still don’t get why its a bad thing? Its faster or slower? It can’t be something else. Nobody want to push toward slower right? So faster it is.

Being able to complete stuff faster is always a nice addition to a game. Its not needed, but i don’t see a reason for that to being a bad thing.

Mesket.5728:

Since you touch a racing game, let me answer you with another racing game example:

If Mario Kart is designed the same way GW2, everyone would be using Bowser and Kong cause they were the fastests (with bad driving and acceleration, but still the fastests). All other characters would just be learning characters but once you knew how to play, the races would be just lots of Bowsers and Kongs in very straight courses.

Since the guys designing Mario Kart knew better than ANet team, they made a game where even slower characters had their advantages because the courses were also designed in such way.

Currently our dungeons have no “curves” so we can all play Bowser and think its fine.

Interesting point. I used to play mario kart back when I was a kid. But sadly i didn’t play for a long time (it was such a nice games to play with my friends ) So i can’t really talk about the deeper gameplay and character selection in it.

But you are right, there shouldn’t be only 1 way to do stuff. Right now GW2 PvE is limited to DPS and Support (but not in gear). It not only 1 choose or we would have only Ele in our runs. No, Warrior and Ranger bring offensive support, Guardian bring defensive support, Thief bring stealth, Mesmer bring utilities.

Could diversity be improve? Ya of course. But Anet din’t broke the game by eliminating diversity. They only limited it. We have a bunch of diversity in the game (that not everybody can see sadly because of ZERKER), but there is so much place to improve that to bring that game farther.

projectcedric.6951:

Thaddeus.4891:

Also, if you can come up with a good way to make toughness and vitality the best way to go in a game. Tell me, i never found one.

One way is to revert back to the Trinity System. Here, toughness and vitality is crucial for the tank, which is crucial for the DPS to do his job.

But we don’t want that do we?

So, there could be other options even given GW2 system. For example, maybe part of killing a dungeon boss is that for a set period of time, the boss is invulnerable, and that everyone in the room is dealt with some condition damage they cannot evade. If the whole party is wiped, the boss will go back to full health and party cannot proceed any further. So there must be at least one person with enough vitality to withstand it.

Its a very ugly idea, I know. But what I’m saying is that, there are ways in which combat-centric gameplay can be designed so that build diversity becomes crucial in high level end game, EVEN IF in the end its still DPS that does the final job.

Exactly. Its an ugly idea, and I can only find other ugly idea. Its hard to make personal survivability meaningful in a group settings except if its for tanking. DPS, Support and CC is suppose to be the GW2 trinity, and all those help a group. But survivability don’t. It only help the player that run it and is only useful if the content is hard enough. But it doesn’t change anything if we get the content harder. More ppl will need survivability if content is harder, but there will always be ppl good enough to play without it. You can move the bar, but its will still be there and the optimal way of playing will still be without survivability gear, the optimal will only be harder to reach. That’s all.

VodCom.6924:

In the end the game relies too much on zerkers enforcing gearcheck
How to get rid of this ?
1) An alternative way to see big numbers with an alternative optimized gear (conditions damage is the prime candidate but suffers from engine limitation).
2) The end of corner-stacking though redesign of the old dungeons.

Completely approve number 1)

Number 2 is also good, but partially. Stacking is nice sometimes. If you need to do some stuff to be able to do it. I like to stack ALL the spiders in TA up (the spiders before Malrona). It can be really hard. But, if the party have a good amount of DPS and the party can put a good amount of blind, aegis. Then it can be done. That a hard stack to do, I don’t want to get rid of stacking together.

Stack should still exist, just not be the way to go for most fight.

projectcedric.6951:

This makes it sounds more like toughness and vitality has no place in higher level end game, and that is why its not ok because… (fast forward to your point about no gear diversity)… its exactly the reason why there is no gear diversity, because there is no significance to toughness and vitality in higher level end game, as much as dps is significant.

Why it is not ok? Toughness and Vitality have a role. They are learning gear in PvE. Why everything must be good at high level end game? Look at it like F1 racing. They put everything in the speed. In F1 the perfect engine would broke 1sec after the car pass the finish line. Why? because tough engine that last longer are bigger and have more material on them. Thicker side, thicker engine part to be more resistant. But the weight of a more resistant engine will cost you speed and the victory.

Same thing here. In the high level end game, you want to have as less personal survivability as possible, because that cost you some dps. Personnal surviablity only profit you and only you. Its not like the support i talked about that profit all the party and improve the overall capability of the group. That’s why survivability is rarely included in meta, but support is. And I think its a good, no great thing.

Also, if you can come up with a good way to make toughness and vitality the best way to go in a game. Tell me, i never found one.

Sirendor.1394:

Fenrir.3609:

Why should those able to use higher risk dps gear have the same kill speed as those in crutch loltank gear?

Because zerk isn’t ‘higher risk’ at all. If you can dodge on a PVT warrior, you can dodge on PPF warrior, it doesn’t matter how high your armour is. In fact, it’s easier with PPF because it takes less time to kill the boss, meaning you have to do less dodges than someone with PVT gear.

Skill on zerk is at the same level as skill on any other gear set, and some gear sets are probably harder than zerk, for example cleric, just because it’s lower damage.

That’s not true. You can argue that its not harder enough to go Zerker compare to soldier, but that’s definitively harder and need more skills. Did you saw the Arah video where a group of cleric tanky guys disable the dodge button and facerolled everything in it. They didn’t dodge once. It took them SO MUCH TIME, but they did it. I can’t count how many time I saw ppl at CoE now dodge the Subject Alpha aoe. They could just take the dmg man. I couldn’t believe it the first time, but it true. Did you try a full DPS ele? That’s the hardest thing i never did in that game lol.

You can survive with a meta build, but its not as easy. Like i said, you could say that its not harder enough. But for the numbers of ppl wihtout full DPS build that i found in pugs, i guess that a large majority of ppl can’t or don’t want to play full dps.

projectcedric.6951:

So from this its safe to say that (even in PvE) its no longer true that “DPS (hence zerk) is king”?

That’s some very deep explanation you give in the last paragraph that I appreciate, but it also means that actually, even though in the end its still the damage output that matters, there are certain ways to increase the total optimal damage output by not going for the best DPS build for one individual (in this case the semi support guardian). Am I right?

If so, this changes things, because now the statement “the game still rely too much on zerk/dps” has a different meaning.

It always been that way. Even a year ago then the ’’optimal’’ party composition was 4 warrior and a mesmer. The warrior were view as the best way to bring good DPS with vulnerability, might and fury. While the mesmer could bring portal, timewrap (which was twice more powerful then) and feedback. We already saw tradeoff between personal dps for more support stuff (but back then is was only offensive support for the most part).

A good group composition will try to get 25 stack of vulnerability, 25 stack of might, constant fury, blind, aegis, reflect, weakness, protection and a good amount of stats increase like banner, EA, spotter, frost spirit, etc. Maybe not all of those, all the time in all situation. But you want to bring the utilities that are best in some situation. DPS is the main focus and even those support are there only to bring the overall DPS of the group up. But to think that meta is only ZERKER, DPS, STACKING, FGS is totally wrong.

projectcedric.6951:

Yeah it only make sense that the trade off in armor is only between dps and survivability, after all we only have five primary stats – 3 of them to dps, 2 to survivability.

The question though is what do you do with that survivability? Zerk is optimal because, yes you can survive a little bit longer with toughness-vitality, but then so what?

This is also the point where game mechanics fundamentally has to change, because many things in game don’t put so much significance on that minute difference in survivability.

I think that part of the game is ok. Toughness and Vitality are there for
1) Learning the game. So much stuff you need to learn when you start the game, having some passive survivability will free up you focus to learn the games mechanics and the encounter. (Also go for veteran players in new hard content, that don’t really exist right now )
2) For player that are less good. And I’m not saying that in a bad way. Player that play not enough to develop the skills, player that are just casual enjoy the game and having fun, etc.

And that’s good. Now where its less good is for
Support : Like i said, its stupid right now. 1% per piece if i remember, with the other 2 stats being useless.
Healing power : It a hard balancing. You don’t want it to be too powerfull for not getting back to having a healer, but right not is so useless because of the so bad scaling.
No gear diversity : Only zerker is good right now, which is a shame. Its not build diversity because most profession have several ways to reach a good build. But ppl only see zerker. ‘’OMG there is only zerker that’s is good that’s bad’’. If they could bring a bit more diversity into gear (making condi useful in party, boons duration, condition duration, etc.), that would at least change a bit the situation.

projectcedric.6951:

maha.7902:

projectcedric.6951:

maha.7902:

projectcedric.6951:

maha.7902:

projectcedric.6951:

Xenon.4537:

projectcedric.6951:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

you can see it most obviously in dungeon runs. most groups want that person in zerker gear who can provide the better dps, but can still offer reflects or protection or w/e adequately. they are going to take that person over someone in anything else because the support that person offers is sufficient.

Pray tell what kind of build this is on what profession. Im interested now. It seems like an OMNI GODLIKE build to bring to spvp.

He’s referring to something like a zerker guard who can still apply reflect wall, aegis, and protection. Or a zerk mesmer who can perma reflect (assuming the kitten warden doesn’t bug out). These builds can be great in dungeons. Spvp is a different story.

Hmmm… are those efficient builds when it comes to dps? They sound very karate-middle to me.

http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/viewforum/4280860/m/6563292

we have builds for every single class

No, what I meant is that would a zerk guard provide the optimal DPS relative to say a zerk warrior and STILL be able to provide all those aegis/reflect?

Im more inclined to think that because he is able to do something (CC etc) he should sacrifice a little bit for DPS.

the difference between the “support” warrior and full dps warrior builds are around ~600DPS, the difference between full DPS guardians and “support” guardian is around that benchmark too.

What about the difference between full DPS guardians and full DPS warriors?

And can the full DPS guardians still do those things (protect aegis reflect)?

30/30/0/10/0 GS war – 12.9k dps (dps build)
20/30/10/0/10 gs + sw/f guardian – 12,080DPS (dps build, assumes no unscathed contender which is a 20% damage modifier, so I guess if you throw that in it goes up to like 14.5k)

full DPS guardians lack the extra 15 points in virtues which means they miss out on the second trait, but the master trait tends to not actually matter that much unless the dungeon is condition heavy.

I suppose that means full DPS guardians = no protect aegis reflect?

If so, what this basically means (and what I’m trying to say) is that full dps guardian can go on par with full dps warrior, but in order for him to be able to do something else like CC, protect, reflect whatever, he will have to give up some of that DPS.

And since in pve, dps is king, whats the point of that? If you’re running a zerk build, you might as well go full dps, no protect whatever.

And now you reach the balance between DPS and good support

The full DPS guardian can still give as much blind as a more support guardian. He can also give some aegis and reflect, just not as much.

I’m talking about good support, because they help to have a better run. Reflect is really powerfull, since it allow you to reflect projectile back to the boss so that,s more dmg and you protect your team that can melee the boss, not waste dps by dodge too much, keep you party alive and keep your party at 90%+ hp for the runes of scholar. Same thing with blind and aegis. You can stack more ennemies at the same time with those, giving you the ability to attack more mobs at the same time for a faster run. In dungeon like CoF or CoE, the need for more support is limited, but in dungeon like SE, CM or Arah, more support will allow you for a better, faster run than if you would bring the minimum support you can.

DPS is king, but even the king need a court to help him reign. The meta is not about maximizing DPS and only DPS. Its about giving the best build possible. On the guardian, there is a hammer meta build so you can give perma protection to your team. That’s not the best DPS the guardian can give, but it allow you group to fight in melee some of the toughness boss in the game, so increasing the total dmg of the party.

projectcedric.6951:

maha.7902:

projectcedric.6951:

Xenon.4537:

projectcedric.6951:

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

you can see it most obviously in dungeon runs. most groups want that person in zerker gear who can provide the better dps, but can still offer reflects or protection or w/e adequately. they are going to take that person over someone in anything else because the support that person offers is sufficient.

Pray tell what kind of build this is on what profession. Im interested now. It seems like an OMNI GODLIKE build to bring to spvp.

He’s referring to something like a zerker guard who can still apply reflect wall, aegis, and protection. Or a zerk mesmer who can perma reflect (assuming the kitten warden doesn’t bug out). These builds can be great in dungeons. Spvp is a different story.

Hmmm… are those efficient builds when it comes to dps? They sound very karate-middle to me.

http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/viewforum/4280860/m/6563292

we have builds for every single class

No, what I meant is that would a zerk guard provide the optimal DPS relative to say a zerk warrior and STILL be able to provide all those aegis/reflect?

Im more inclined to think that because he is able to do something (CC etc) he should sacrifice a little bit for DPS.

But that’s only true for armor and weapons. A Zerk guardian have to sacrifice a bit of dps to bring more support.

4/6/2/0/2 is a more DPS oriented guardian build with Unscathed Contender. But you can go 4/6/2/2 for more Aegis and stability. You can change Unscathed Contender (dmg) for master of consecration (support).

A full DPS warrior will have a particular build, but right now, most of the time that warrior will sacrifice a bit of personal DPS in order to bring EA, 2 Banners, etc. Or a phalanx warrior will also sacrifice DPS to give more might to the party.

So there is already a tradeoff to choose. The problem is that tradeoff come from runes, sigil and trait only. With the armor, the tradeoff is between DPS and Surviability. You can choose a bit of support from your gear with boons duration, but these gear give you so little amount of boons duration that its useless and anyway the 2 other stats are pretty bad. There is no Power/Ferocity/Boons duration gear that you could choose 2-3 piece to gain a good amount of boons duration to be more support. Or a Power/Precision/Condi Duration for a character that could keep 25stacks of vulnerability during longer fight. Its a hard thing to balance and that’s why Anet went for the easy way and gave us 1% boons duration for each piece. Its easy to not break the game if you give useless stuff. Its harder to give good support on gear without breaking the balance and that’s why gear is only a tradeoff between dps and survivability.

That’s a place where they could improve.

Edit :

30/30/0/10/0 GS war – 12.9k dps (dps build)
20/30/10/0/10 gs + sw/f guardian – 12,080DPS (dps build, assumes no unscathed contender which is a 20% damage modifier, so I guess if you throw that in it goes up to like 14.5k)

full DPS guardians lack the extra 15 points in virtues which means they miss out on the second trait, but the master trait tends to not actually matter that much unless the dungeon is condition heavy.

I think guardian with unscathed contender, the overall dps would be more like 13-13.5k dps, since you won’t have aegis all the time. I guess you could have about 14k for some boss fight if you have a good managing of your blind and your focus block to keep your aegis on most of the fight, but still. 14.5k would only be the theoretical maximum.

maha.7902:

making a mesmer literally blocks you from taking part in any speed run ever

Well it depend. If you go for the perfect compo no. Even if Mesmer is the best for ccing bosses in the right place, other profession can still do that. Timewrap is useful, but not as needed as it use to be. And by the time a mesmer reach is DPS peak with 3 phantams, the fight is usually over. But you can still enjoy a speed run with a Mesmer. It’s a game afterall, i’m playing only record runs. As long as the ppl that play with me make at least an effort to play better build and improve, that’s all I ask.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

support is only ‘extremely desirable’ in that you can provide it adequately while still running zerkers. that’s not precisely what im talking about.

one of the main issues with zerkers being the king of all sets is simply due to the fact that you can max your dps while still fulfilling the needs for support and cc without specing for it. thats not precisely how it should work, and what causes the majority of the issue at hand. in instances where you need support, you should need someone that is specced that way, or at least a couple of hybrids. the roles are not balanced in their need of having someone specced for it.

you can see it most obviously in dungeon runs. most groups want that person in zerker gear who can provide the better dps, but can still offer reflects or protection or w/e adequately. they are going to take that person over someone in anything else because the support that person offers is sufficient.

Not totally true. Support is extremely desirable, but there no gear stats that improve support, meaning that nothing in the gear you choose, will help you support better. But, you improve your support from Trait, Runes, Sigils, etc and you see quick if someone don’t get the meta, because most meta have a high amount of support in their build. Just think a second. When you just a composition for you group, what are you looking at? DPS only? If that was the case, then you would choose 5 elementalist. But not. You say, oh i want a warrior because of FGJ, Banner, EA. I want a guardian for blind, aegis, reflect. I want a thief for stealth, vulnerability, blind. I want a ranger for spotter, frost spirit and reflect. I want a Mesmer for Time Wrap, portal, reflect, pull. Even Ele are there for support too with might and fury. Every profession can do dmg and should concentrate a good deal into that. But that’s the support that give a identity to each profession. That’s a BIG part of all those meta, but a great deal of people just forget or just don’t know about that. Meta = DPS only. Meta = the best builds the community can come out with.

Now, you can push that further. Anet can give us more meaning in Condition damage so that’s not staying useless in PvE like it is now (with some exception). They can create armor and weapons stats that can upgrade your support capability like you can do with runes, trait and sigil right now. They can make CC more meaninfull and engaging (since I my opinion, they seem to figure out that CC was too powerful against bosses at the end of the production and simply put Defiant to fix the situation, destroying a big part of CC with that). But even with all that. DPS will still be a major part of the game and should stay the same. Toughness and vitality should still be a stats for learning or for player less good. Healing power shouldn’t overpowered to make a Healer possible in the game. Give more diversity for some meaningful support, cc, condition build, but don’t nerf zerk just because you hate it.

If you have an Ele, Guardian, Warrior, Thief or Mesmer you’ll be more than welcome in pretty much everything.

Ranger is as good as the other profession, but only with 1 build and most of them don’t like to play that build so you have a high proportion or bad ranger. That give the profession a bad reputation so even if you play a good ranger and bring probably more to the part than a bad warrior or a bad elementalist, they could still kick, which is sad.

Engineer is a good profession that can do everything, but there is always someone else to do it better.

Necro is also a good profession, but the support it bring is more PvP oriented and he’s more of a single target DPS, making him the weakest profession of them all in PvE. Still, I would take a good necro anytime in my party (except for organized guild speed run).

I run a dmg frontliner for my WvW organized group. Its soldier armor with mostly zerker trinket (some use other trinket like cavalier or soldier to stay alive).

agentmooncat.5134:

I feel Like people are getting away from support guards in the new meta, which is unfortunate.

Charak.9761:

Support guard? pfft.
Dead people can’t hurt your friends.

Slow down. Meta guardian don’t have support?? It the other way around. Several meta exist but here some trait that some meta use.

- Master of consecreation : Better support
- Inspired Virtues : Better support
- Absolute Resolution (group condi removal) : Better support
- Superior Aria : Better support
- Writ of Persistance (for perma protection ) : Better support
- Justice is Blind and Renewed Justice : Better support
- Blind exposure : Better support

Meta guardian have good dps, but the main reason to bring that in a speed run is for the group support. Blind, Aegis, Reflect, etc to keep not only your team safe, but also keep it at 90%+ hp for better overall dps.

The meta guardian is DPS/Support. Just not tanky/support (less good for your team) or healing/support (not really good).

I did CoE path 2 and 3 two days ago. Its was fine for path 2, but bugged at path 3. We had to quit the dungeon.

Yesterday i did a path 1, but again couldn’t complete it because of the bug.

1) To play with my guildmates (a lot of them are irl friends and other became my friends).
2) WvW Raids. I love doing that with my organized group and there still so much room for improvement.
3) I simply enjoy the game.

Jumpin Lumpix.6108:

So its been posted to death that everyone is somewhat sick of people saying go zerker stat or get out.

Ironically, ppl also gettting sick to death about post of how to fix zerker or how to fix meta.

Jumpin Lumpix.6108:

So in light of this I’ve come up with a solution to fixing the zerker meta we are all so familiar with, in order to grant some build diversity to the game. (your welcome arenanet) \(>.^)/

This ‘’fix the zerker meta’’ always rub me the wrong way. Still, build diversity is alway snice, especially if you can add gear stats diversity that is relevant to the game. So i’ll give it a try and continue to read.

Jumpin Lumpix.6108:

so in the classic meta setup, for a dungeon group you run 5 berserker stat group members (class combination is optional looking at u warriors/mes/guard’s).

OHHH I see he’s a pug that don’t understant how the game work or think that Warrior is the best DPS of the game. So 2012. I think you should at least understand the meta and group composition before throwing a 1 year old compo that’s is not used that much today. Especially, if you gonna say that its the optimal class compo lol.

Jumpin Lumpix.6108:

Simply add a flag to each character which recognizes the primary armor/trinket/weapon stat combination each character has. If more pieces of gear come up as being Power/precision/ferocity, flag that character as a berserker character. (additionally flag any character as whatever there primary stat is, rabid, apothecary ect.)

If 3 (number of group is optional) or more characters are flagged in a group as a berserker character (or any stat combination if you prefer) Then the boss/mobs gain a debuff (we’ll call it enrage) where if you do too much damage to it too quickly, (or if just too many group members in the party have the same stats), the boss/mobs gain stacks of enrage thus making the mob/mobs hit harder and do more damage or inflict more conditions (ie make the fight harder or unbeatable).

If the group slows down dps then the stacks wane or dissipate, thus drawing the fight out, as the group will have to throttle there dps and balance between hurting the boss and gaining stacks of enrage. However as a berserker, this makes the fight much harder as most berserker groups rely on fast dps to kill before most boss mechanics really kick in.

The majority of dungeon groups who stack berserker members with this mechanic will either wipe, because they dps too fast and the boss will enraged from gaining too many stacks. Or they throttled there dps and thus will most likely be killed by the regular mechanics being drawn out, as berserker stats grant no defenses.

This will allow for more build diversity at the very least as groups will be forced to take members with other stats (perhapse 1 or 2 to avoid enrage stacks) or to simply not dps any boss/mob too quickly (whichever mechanic you prefer). Thus forcing groups to take a more balanced build/group to tackle the majority of the content.
.

WOW, worst idea ever. And for zerker solutions, that not a light thing to say. That’s not ADDING deep to the game, that’s just artificially limiting the use of optimal solution.

Wicked Rin.1972:

You guys forgot the main exploit! Stacking is wrong that’s why the spider queen in AC does aoe regardless of your position. She aoes for you to stop using the stack exploit.

It wasn’t about that you know. Most good player are happy with the Spider Queens change. We’ll kick her kitten in 5sec compare to the usual 3sec, no big deal for us.

This is about some projectiles that can now pierce through reflect (Malrona, Triple Wurm, etc). That’s freaking bad.

It won’t change much. The first will take a couple more second when i run with my guild. In pugs, i’ll bring my guardian and not my elementalist any more. That way, even with a bad pugs I can still solo the queen. Maybe i’ll practice a bit with my Ele to be able to solo her with that profession. Don’t know yet.

Lenn.6347:

ICEing.9237:

Is this true? I always thought warriors were higher in dps and Eles are higher than warriors. How are guardians higher?

they arent, guardians arent made for damage, and have no utility to sustain it, notice how all the “guardians #1” posters are using hypotheticals like “probably,” “maybe,” and “it’s possible.”

not real arguments, not real proof, just people who play guardians popping off conjecture

Of course they are not. You don’t bring Guardian for damage you bring it for the defensive support (blind, aegis, reflect, etc). Like you don’t bring a warrior for damage, you bring it for offensive support (EA, FGJ, Banners, etc). If you want pure dmg, you talk about Ele and Thief, profession like that.

And yes of course we are using in Theory, or its possible. Why? Because guardian can’t bring offensive support by themselve. So if they are in a party wihtout warrior, then they will never have better DPS than a warrior, while the warrior can do as much damage as he can without any guardian in his group. The warrior can take care of fury, might, and banner while doing good DPS, while the guardian can give himself a couple of might and that’s all. But if the guardian have the same amount of offensive support provided to him by the group, then he will out-dps a warrior. Still, its not really a issue, since both profession are brought because of their support and not their damage.

Ya for runes the two best cheap options are either Flame Legion Runes or Ruby Orbs. Flame Legion is superior, but you accumulate Ruby Orbs like crazy (i have like 150 in my bank) so you can choose to use those if you want, the lost in dps from using them is not enough so you won’t feel the difference if you are a casual using soldier gear anyway.

For the trait of the two build I talked about.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQBgi4BJrx2+5VdBw85WA-e
and
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fVAQBYi4Bx2PvqNQDMfuF-e

Writ of Persistance will allow you to give perma protection since the symbol on the Hammer auto-attack will last as long as it take you to cast it.
Master of consecration if for more support. Its good for some situation (Fractal, SE, CM, Arah, etc) But when you don’t need that (CoF, CoE, AC, etc) you can switch that trait to Unscathed Contender.
Radiant Fire can seem like a really weird choose since you don’t use a torch and its not a condi build. You take that only because the 5th pt in Radiance is so good, but you have no good option in Radiance trait for a GS + H build. So you take Radiant Fire for the increase burn duration. After all you have a trait that give you 10% dmg against a burning foe so you want to have that 10% active as much as you can

Quick tips. Don’t interrupt the Hammer auto-attack chain. The third strike in the chain is your best dmg and its the one that give you protection, so each time you interrupt the chain you lose a good amount of dps. Also, GS is good mostly for the burst attack (skill 2, 3, 4 and 5), other than that try no to use the GS auto-attack and try to swith to hammer instead. The Hammer is the opposite and you will have only little use of all the hammer skill except for the auto-attack, which is really good. Standard utilities skills are usually retreat (new player view that skill as only swiftness, but it also give you and your team an aegis), wall of reflection (when needed) and purging flame. But stand your ground, hallowed ground, shield of avenger and signet of bane are all good utility skill that you may wanna use from time to time.

Xenon.4537:

Brutal Arts.6307:

David.9807:

maha.7902:

what are you talking about more bosses being designed for zerk warriors? you do realise they only have middle tier dps right?

Hmm middle tier dps? Thieves do NOT produce more dps than warriors, elementalists without fgs neither. And there are banners, fgj, and a lot of damage increase traits with warrior. QQ

What am I reading

Indeed. I went to bed last night knowing that warriors were one of the highest most sought-after DPSers. I wake up today and they are suddenly crap; only good for their banners? Then I read things like… this….

maha.7902:

…Necromancers… are on-par or maybe even slightly higher [than warriors].

What.

Well Necromancer do have good DPS. I didn’t make the comparaison Necro vs Warrior in particular but it still obvious that they are close. Still the Necro is not popular either with pugs or organized group and he’s view as one of the worst PvE profession. The reason is, he don’t cleave, making him useless except against bosses. The Warrior DPS is not enough, but the warrior bring a lot of offensive support, on the other hand the Necro have the same amout of DPS, but don’t bring much to the group. The thief have the same problem of not cleaving enough. But the thief have higher DPS, can bring blind, can stealth, have enough damage modifier to be a good FGS user and can give a good amount of vulnerability. On the other hand, Necro don’t have much good on for him. All the support he have is better in PvP and PvE.

mtpelion.4562:

Adding more options will do nothing because food/potions currently provide standard stat boosts just like any other piece of equipment. With the current design, there will always be 1 BiS food/potion type for each type of content (PvE,WvW,PVP, etc.).

This is why I think food/potions should not directly buff any stats and should instead be used to customize HOW you play not how much damage you can deal/take.

More gear slots is not “better”… it’s just more gear slots.

I aggre with part of the global intention of that. True that more gear = just more gear slots. But that,s only in PvE. In PvE, you have 5 kinds of gear. Direct Damage stats (power, precision, ferocity), condition stats (condition damage, condition duration, precision), surviability (toughness vitality) and support (healing power). Condition is broken in PvE group play and healing power scale so badly that its pretty much useless. That leave us with surviablity and direct damage. One is the good options and the other one is only for learning or casual player. Which mean that there will always be a BiS gear that is Zerker. But that doesn’t work that way in PvP. In PvP you need to balance between direct dmg, condition, surviability and healing power. This get a bit restricted in sPvP when you choose you amulet and trait. I like to have these 6 armor + 6 trinket to make the best mix of stats i can. At this point, more piece would give us nothing more, but I still feel limited in sPvP.

You point is even worst for F&N. There is no BiS like zerker work in PvE. Ya there is some best option, but it depend on a lot of factor. Will i choose Lemongrass to go with my Melandru runes and almost be immune to condition? Or i’ll choose less dmg when stun again the guys that run a Hammer train. Will I choose dps food to burst down my opponent on my thief? Or i’ll get some Omnomberry compote to keep my hp high in a massive ZvsZ. F&N don’t just bring stats, they bring a lot of stuff that you can’t get from nowhere else or with difficulty.

I agree that F&N shouldn’t focus too much on standard stats, but be more influencial of your gameplay. But i think they already do that (maybe not enough), and i’ll push this farther and say that they need that on gear too. I would like to the kind of stuff you can get from food on gear (and not something stupid like the 1% condition duration to replace 100 stats points like we see now) in a meaningful way. That way, Zerker would not be the only option.

I love GW2 and I’m really not about getting back to the holy trinity. But I would still like more variety in gear. I would like to see a condition player have a role in a PvE group with condition duration allowing him to give weakness and vulnerability to support the group, I would like a might duration gear for a might stacking character, i would like boons duration gear for more protection, vigor and other good boons. Right now, we pretty much have only 2 good choice. DPS and Support. I’m ok with that, but gear only affect DPS, not really support (at least the good kind of support).

No Pulse.2967:

Thaddeus.4891:

I also prefer PS warrior for a pug. The problem is, without Rune of Strength, PS warrior is not that good and I CAN’T wrap my head around buying those rune for my Warrior. When i bring it with my guild I run Scholar since i’m not the might source (from Elementalist). So i end up playing 30/25/0/0/15 instead for pugs.

Sigil of Strength and boon duration food should be enough.

Not enough to keep 25 stacks of might. If I can’t get big numbers of might i want big numbers of damage That’s the only way I enjoy the warrior in dungeon right now (I prefer to play my guardian or my Elementalist anyway).

-Is it really adding to your overall experience? : In combat, not really. But it give you one more option to specialized your build. With gear, trait, sigils and runes, F&N are just a additional way to improve or optimize you build with is a good part of my experience in the game. In WvW, this even more part of the game since this can bring stuff that you would have a hard time to get like less condition duration on you or less received damage when stunned, etc. And in WvW, you really feel how it play a role and allow you to change your build to synergize with your F&N.

-Does it make things too easy? Its better stats, of course it make things easier. Does it make stuff trivial? Not at all. This is not the main aspect that could make stuff ‘’too easy’’. With the trait, gear, infusion, vulnerability, damage modifiers, might, fury, sigils and runes. F&N are only a small part of a big picture.

-Do I always use it? Why? : I rarely use in it in PvE, except when i think about it or when I’m doing a serious speed run. But in WvW I alway use it. Why? Because i’m part of a group that count of one another. In a serious speed run I expect the others to bring their best and I’ll do the same. Same things with WvW raid, I count of my other raid member to bring their best and be better than the ennemy and F&N helps in that regard.

-Do I usually win 1v1 fights against those who don’t use it? I rarely check that out. I’m playing a backstab thief, so I keep my attention on the weapons and movement of the other guy, but on my thief i don’t often use F&N, even if that would give me a good advantage. If i was a condi or stun player, then i would definitively check for those nasty Food that could make my build really bad lol.

-Do I craft my own for fun? Or just buy it off the TP? It depend. Some food cost less when you craft it, other cost more if I craft it. I usually check it out before ordering or crafting a good stack of those. If its only for a try to something quick, then i usually buy it.

-Do I offer it to other people when I see them without it? Why? Depend on the content. On high level fractal, when i’ll give my friends some at specific fractal like dredge or volcano, because these can be longer or harder if you don’t have enough damage.

I wouldn’t mind too much if they remove it from the game, but i still think that it’s a good thing in the game. Just for the additional choice you make on your build.

?? Guardians were never just for that. But again, last year the community (myself included) were really bad at understanding the game and each professions lol.

For dungeon, guardian have a pretty good DPS and bring the best defensive support. They are there for damage mitigation : blind, aegis, reflect, condi removal and protection. They boost the group overall dmg by keeping everybody at 90% + hp to trigger things like Rune of scholar.

For WvW Zerg, guardian with warrior still form the backbone of any zerg. They good a good burst for a tanky profession and are the main source of stability, boons and condi removal, which serve the melee train well.

Use whatever runes, because that build is not really a good idea at the first place. I won’t pushing you into the meta or anything. I’m just saying, there is a HUGE variety of good build for the guardian and your is not one of those.

How what game mode to you plan on using that build? PvE I suppose, since you took the take to select PvE mode on the build website. You are playing GS + H, that’s a good weapon combinaison, if you like it, there is some really good build.

- 3/5/0/4/2 : Is a good all around build.
- 5/5/0/4/0 : Is more DPS oriented.

But at this point, you don’t need to go full zerker if you don’t want. You can use a mix of soldier, knight, valkyrie, etc. Enough to make you feel good with your own survivability. That’s nowhere near the DPS of a true meta, you still don’t have the gear, the runes, the sigils, the foods, etc. But at least you have a solid build that will give A LOT of support to you team. You will be able to blind, put aegis on your team, reflect projectiles and give almost perma protection.

I also prefer PS warrior for a pug. The problem is, without Rune of Strength, PS warrior is not that good and I CAN’T wrap my head around buying those rune for my Warrior. When i bring it with my guild I run Scholar since i’m not the might source (from Elementalist). So i end up playing 30/25/0/0/15 instead for pugs.

It’s been a long time since I had any problem with skill points. I have a kitten ton of those. But back in the days when I crafted several mystic forge weapons and my first legendary, i needed some, so I went on skill challenge hunt with my characters. Just run to skill point only. Not only, this will give you about 200 skill points (depend if you already did on bunch of skill challenge with that character), but it will bring that character closer to map completion if you need it in the future.

Right now, like i said i don’t have any more problem with skill points, but lately I organized a couple of Gold Boss Blitz, mainly to get more gauntlet ticket, and I ended up with a huge amount of skill point scrolls. I didn’t make a precise account of all the skill point I gained doing that, but the last time i probably got about 40-60 skills points in about 3 hours. I’m not sure the exact number, but i remember having a lot of them. It can be hard to find a Gold Boss blitz, but you can find some in the Open World LFG where ppl serve as taxi for the map. It seem to me as one of the fastest way to gain skill point, and you will get a good amount of gauntlet ticket, festival tokens, tier 6 et other stuff.

P.S. : The skill points scrolls come from all the champion bags you get from the boss blitz.

No profession is useless in any game mode if you build it right. But some are better than other, and some profession like necro, ranger and engie have a bad reputation in PvE.

But if you remove those 3 you still have Guardian, Warrior, Thief, Elementalist and Mesmer that can do really good in any game mode.

Thief and Mesmer are on top for sPvP and Roaming. But when it come to Dungeon and WvW zerg they both have good and bad things. They are good profession, but you need only a few of them, because they mainly bring something that you only need once. In a WvW zerg, you really only need 1 or 2 thief or mesmer, while in dungeon you want only 1 of them (depending on some situation).

Ele are the number 1 profession in PvE right now. They are also really in demand for WvW zerg. When it come to sPvP and Roaming, they used to be a the bottom of the food chain, but since i stopped using my ele for these game mode i’m not up to date. I hear that in the last patch they boosted a bit the Ele in that game mode, but i’m really not sure. I still eat Elementalist like chips with my Theif so….

It leave us with Guardian and Warrior. If you want a profession that can be good in all game mode, I think that Guardian and Warrior are safe bet. They form the backbone of every WvW zerg, they have a special place in dungeon (pugs and organized) and are not at the bottom when it come to sPvP.

You’ll still need 3 build if you want to play good in all 3 modes with 1 profession.

Don’t use that build in PvE lol. That’s a WvW build. Of course, you can use whatever you want but…

Wolfwood.7608:

Ow That’s a shame because the guardians looks so much like a tank… Is it viable building it more like a support, for buffing the party??

Don’t see it like that. See it like :

A tank build in GW2 PvE = Selfish personal survivability build. Why? Because toughness and vitality only give survivability to you and give nothing to the party. Healing Power could be good for the party, but it scale really badly and at the end give really small advantage to the party.

What you want is a DPS/Support Build. Your lucky because that’s where the guardian is the best for and because of that, the guardian have the best trait diversity of most meta buid. When you concentrate on dps is easier to get what is best. I have less dps with option B over option A, so i’ll use option A and there is no reason for option B. But for the guardian, option A give you more DPS, while option B give you more good support for you team.

Whatch out because there is good support and bad support in PvE. Healing is usually a bad support. Its nice to have it, but if you can replace that with some DPS or other support, its usually better. But the guardian can bring a lot of good PvE support. Whatever your choice in term of trait, you want full beserker gear (since support come from trait and not gear).

A full DPS build for a guardian could be something like 6/6/2/0/0 or 4/5/0/0/5 the first give you more average DPS, but the second have more potentiel damage with trait like 20% dmg with Aegis and 1% dmg for each boons. But 4/5/0/0/5 can also be a more supporting build if you switch 2 trait in virtue for master of consecration and absolute resolution for more party condi removal and more reflect. You can also put 2 pts in honor to get less cooldown on your shout so you can use retreat more often to put aegis on your team. The best support from guardian (that every pve guardian should use) is F1 blind spamming. 3 pts in Radiance and you are good to go, if you add to that Blind Exposure, that’s even better.

That’s where you want to get your support. You can get a full support guardian with a 2/5/0/2/5 build and still have a good amount of DPS. You will keep your party clear of condition, you will have a lot of blind, aegis and reflect and you will still have better DPS than most guardian. And don’t be afraid by the low amount of HP you will have, with all the dmg mitigation you, you will feel like you dying even less than with a tanky/support build. And that is only for a GS + S/F guardian. If you go hammer instead, you will be able to give your party almost perma protection which is one of the most powerful support boons you can imagine.

Black Ninja.4325:

Oh and i was wondering if i could switch between a tanky/support and an offensive build with this gear ? Thank you !

Not really. You can switch for some offensive trait, that would help you. But your gear is pretty much tanky, leaving really little place for improvement without changing your gear or at least part of your gear.

What you can do to improve you DPS without changing too much?
Take zerker trinket. Ascended trinket don’t cost too much (except earing if you don’t do guild mission) and they don’t need to waste a transmutation charge to put a good looking skin.

Well ya a Guardian can out-dps a warrior, but there is several reason why this rarely happen in game. You need to understand that Warrior is the easiest profession to bring DPS, its not the best at it, but when the game started, nobody really knew how the game played. Ppl just saw they had better DPS with a Warrior than with anything else. But in reality, the Warrior DPS come from raw stats and they have a lot of those. While on the other hand, most other profession don’t have good raw dmg, but have access to more Damage Modifiers than a warrior. That mean that, other profession have more potentiel DPS, but they need the right build and the right gameplay. While the warrior have good DPS even if your not that good.

Guardian can out-dps the warrior, but they need Aegis to activate the 20%dmg and all boons for another 9% dmg. But in game, you usually have aegis only from time to time since you use it to keep your party alive and you usually only have 3-4 boons on average. Add to that the fact that the Warrior only have to concentrate on his damage most of the time to make sure that its rotation is good, while the guardian will use blind, aegis and reflect in the dungeon decreasing the capability of the player to concentrate on the perfect rotation. All that, make the Warrior ’’usually’’ put more damage in game than a guardian.

Back to the question of sdt (I almost wrote std, ouf). The guardian is not a TANK. It should be played tanky or with defense stats. Its more support oriented, that’s true. But not all support is good and the guardian is not the best for all kind of support. Some player see the guardian as this tanky support character. They go for things like toughness, vitality and healing power and they try to keep the party alive with staff, mace and shield. That are some of the worst way to play the guardian in PVE. The guardian (like all profession in PvE), will concentrate on DPS. But for the guardian, he will also concentrate on some support. The guardian is good at damage mitigation. He give boons like Protection and Aegis, condition like blind and utilities like Reflect to limit or completely negate incoming damage to the party. He don’t try to keep the party alive by healing the party after it been damage. He try to play actively to prevent the party from being hit. That’s a huge difference from standard MMO that a lot of ppl have a hard time to understand, find stupid, not fun, or elitist.

This make the Guardian an easy profession to play since he have all this damage mitigation. But it become more engaging and more fun, when you don’t keep all that damage mitigation for you, but provide it to the party. Guardian is not the hardest profession to play. But if some group, ppl can lean on the guardian to keep them alive in some specific situation and if the guardian fail, the party could easily wipe because its not prepare for that. For example, you can stack Malrone in TA and burst her down. But if the guardian don’t put a wall before her big attack, while the party was counting on the reflect, then the party could wipe because they didn’t dodge or were too close of the boss to dodge fast enough.

Ya D/D is not the best option for my stacking. But you can stil do better than you do now.

Ring of Fire, then Frozen Burst, Churning earth, Earthquake, arcane brilliance and Arcane Wave. This will give you 5 blast so 15 stack of might. Not as good as the 18 stack of might from S/X, but for 3 might that’s not a big deal

dlonie.6547:

OK, ok, not to pick on Kain too much, but this cracks me up.

Every. Time. someone jumps in to defend necros they always end up pointing out how they do, in fact, suck by the end of their statement.

Well, they are good in WvW and sPvP, but they are no that good in PvE. Not that big of a deal.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Thaddeus.4891:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

The other two classes are fine, those are just an issue of bad players and not bad class design.

Well for ranger you pretty much have 1 good build and that’s all and Sword can be pretty hard to master for the standard player. It’s a good build that can join a speed run wihtout any problem. But A LOT of people can’t or won’t learn to play the sword correctly, leaving you with less and less powerful build as they change from sword to greatsword or to bow. Add the fact that a lot of Ranger’s utilities are bad and you get a limited profession compare to others. Ranger absolutely need more good options, because 1 isn’t enough, especially when its not that easy to get into it.

Most classes only have 1-2 good builds and lots of them are pretty hard to play. I don’t see how rangers are any different.

Well not really. Warrior you have GS + A/M for personnal DPS, you have Pure Axe for EA and Banner for party buffing and you have Phalanx build for might stacking.
Guardian you have GS + S/F and GS + H only, but you have a LOT of option for the traits. From pure DPS to more aegis, more reflect, etc. Elementalist can play Staff or S/X + LH or D/F. Mesmer can play phatasm or shatter build with Sw/Sw, Sw/F, Sw/P. Most profession have 2-3 good Meta build that they can use. But Ranger, its only 1. And not only that, but that a build that is not easy to play for most new ranger. If you practice a bit you can get into it, but most player will simply say, kitten that, i’ll play another weapon or profession. And since the Ranger was so much advertise as the bow profession by Anet, the good PvE build for the ranger is not that attractive for several ranger player.

EDIT : And i’m 100% on Lilith side on that issue. You can dislike and find some specification childish, but the guys or girls that started the LFG have all the right to make what they want of this group as long as they specified it in the description.

Of course it’s not black and white. I usually right speed run and exp in the description. But what experienced or speed run mean? Does It mean meta? Does it mean Zerker? Does it mean that someone experienced can’t make a single error? Does it mean that if i play a good build, but i keep a ranged weapon as a secondary just in case, i can’t join? I play since the game launched and I still discover or learn new tactics or spot in the dungeon. Does it mean that i’m not experienced if i don’t know a particular stacking spot? Experienced for someone could mean something totally different for someone else. But that’s normal, its live, its messy and unclear all the time, so it will be the same in a video game

Miroe.2054:

Greatsword
… weapon that will probably be tied with fire since that would easily fit a lot of the armor in GW2.

That look too much like Volcanus.

Miroe.2054:

Staff
Having two opposites that combine into one. I could come up with following opposites: ice&fire, Tech&Nature, Life&Death, Wisdom&Impuls, different opposing emotions. Since I think that the legendary GS will have a fire theme and a “tech staff” would probably not be very liked amongst the caster classes, Ill go and guess there will be a tree-like life-staff and a vicious death-staff combining into one that symbolizes the circle of life and death.

Good idea. I aggree with the ’’tech’’ not being a popular choice for a Staff. But pls no Death Staff. We already have so much of those : Bloody Prince Staff, Deathwish, Final Rest, Ogre Warstaff, Orrian Staff, Pact Quarterstaff, Sclerite Staff, Scythe Staff Skin, Spire of the Sunless , The Crossing, etc These are all dark/death themes. Fire vs Ice/Water/Air are theme that for some reason are not that present for the staff (even if there is a lot of those for other weapon. A Electric staff with effect similar to bolt would be epic on my Elementalist (ELEMENTALIST we need more elemental theme staff since Necro have all the love right now). Of course, the current legendary staff is more Ele/Mesmer oriented so even if Necro have so many exotic skins, they will probably cry if they don’t have a necro theme Staff lol.

Mace? Most mace are usually use with Meta PvE Warrior or sPvP node protection Guardian. PvE Warrior will want a more darker, flame weapon that fit with GS and Axe like Volcano, Twilight, Titan Vengeance, etc. While sPvP Guardian would indeed want more something blue and water related. Tough choice, but there is more Warrior using Mace than Guardian using Mace in this game.

Miroe.2054:

Shield
Grand, wooden Norn shield with a totem-theme, Maybe an animal head that moves or growls at times.

Hammer
Something stupidly fabulous, with only 2 classes having access, this weapon will probably fit its sPvP-troll theme. How about “The Tooth fairy” a huge shooting star, that sprays glitter wherever it hits.

I like these two idea. Some Wolf head moving and emerging of the shield and howling. That’s cool as hell lol. And I agree with the Hammer. BEWARE of the tooth fairy banish hammer in EOTM mouhahaha. But joke aside, there is already some epic looking hammer with Juggernaut, Enthropy, Foefire, Genesis, etc. And with the limited amount of profession that can use these weapons, I don’t think there is a serious theme that need to be filled for the Hammer. A fabulous/shiny/funny theme like the Moot, Bifrost or Dreamer could be appropriate. But don’t go with the Rainbow, i’m sure Anet can be a little bit original than that now. I would take your Idea for the Longbow and use it on the shortbow instead.

Shortbow : I would like them to go more around Hunter/Assassin theme. Dreamer is light and joy, but a lot of Thief and Ranger would like something more darker now i think. Death, Fire, Dark. On my thief I want to kill stuff, not shoot unicorn at them

Pistol : Same as Shortbow. The next legendary need to overcompensate for the first one. Purple joke shooting confetti. You need something darker that feel like a weapon and not a toy.

Focus : There really need to do something good with that one. Not only does the current Focus legendary is really not legendary, but there is VERY limited good option for a focus. There is a lot of theme that need to be explore here. Focus is a popular weapon for Guardian, Elementalist and Necromancer, but there is still very few good option. This weapons really need more love, they can’t mess up the future Focus legendary.

If you want a good answer to that, you need to give more info.

1) What game mode? PvE, WvW Zerg, Roaming, sPvP?
2) What level you are aiming for : Do you want to play casual with an easy build or go more in deep with a good build.

The problem is that most of the guide or source of information will only help you for medium to high level of precision. You need to know what you want more information on to get that information. If you don’t know what content there is in the game, then it will be hard for you to get information on. My best advice (and I write that a lot on the forum) is : ‘’get yourself a guild and get invested into it’‘. That will help SO MUCH. We had a new player that joined a couple of months ago. It was always on or VOIP and wanted to get good at the game, not just casual and with a ’’i’ll get there when i get there’’ attitude. We brought him to speed real fast, and after 1 or 2 months he played most of the content at least once and he starting to get the end game gear. A guild is your best option for informations.

The best help you could get is from a Guild. Since you left, a lot of little stuff were added to the game, so its hard to make a compilation of everything. Plus, there is like A LOT of this kind of thread, so once in a while, someone really into it will make a good recap of everything, but he usually won’t do that for another thread because that’s a lot of job. At this point, I don’t think that a lot of regular on the forum will do that again lol. But ya a guild will allow you to ask question on a regular basis and get information in small dose when you need it. Otherwise, you will have to go through of lot of writing or find out by yourself in the game (unless you have some precise question for the forum).

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

The other two classes are fine, those are just an issue of bad players and not bad class design.

Well for ranger you pretty much have 1 good build and that’s all and Sword can be pretty hard to master for the standard player. It’s a good build that can join a speed run wihtout any problem. But A LOT of people can’t or won’t learn to play the sword correctly, leaving you with less and less powerful build as they change from sword to greatsword or to bow. Add the fact that a lot of Ranger’s utilities are bad and you get a limited profession compare to others. Ranger absolutely need more good options, because 1 isn’t enough, especially when its not that easy to get into it.

A bit outdated for runes, sigils and trait. But of course that normal in a MMO where there is several change with patch.

The first part is really good for player that want to learn the basis for running a better build and using offensive support in the game.

Ya, plenty of guide out there for people to figure out the best way to play a profession. At least for the most popular. But of course, new player can know which guide to follow. Plenty of bad guide out there and guide like those of Nike (Warrior), Obal (Guardian) and Dekey (Ele) are often view as Elistist or high risk build, even if they pretty much all acknowledge the use of knight gear as a way to learn the base while using a good build.

Disclaimer : I only mentioned Nike, Obal and Dekey because they have popular complete guide that cover several type of build in one guide and are easy to find. Plenty of other great guide out there.

nagr.1593:

don’t listen to this guy, he doesn’t really know what he’s saying. thieves only have better single-target dps, and aren’t useful for most dungeons except when needing to stealth through mobs. Eles have probably highest dps potential for speedruns, but they are squishy as hell especially if theres no guard to mitigate dmg for them. Eles are actually less useful for pugs because for the harder content (not including AC) they are downed or die a lot, so stacking warriors is better then. Warrior dps is far from mediocre, in fact for solo situations warriors usually out dps eles and thieves, because they can stack might/fury easier and sustain it longer. With phalanx trait, warriors can also stack more might for the group than Eles. so the argument that the only reason to bring warriors is for banners is wrong. In fact other classes wouldnt reach their highest dps potential without a warrior in group. For pugs, I’ve seen stacking warriors (3 or so warriors in group) leads to much faster times than stacking guards, thief, ele etc. in the end it doesn’t matter which class does most dps but which is more useful for situations.

PLEASE don’t blend everything together.

1) In a party setup, Ele will have a lot more DPS than a Warrior. Stop
2) Glass Ele vs Glass Warrior, the Warrior will have more surviability. Stop.
3) For pugs, Warrior have a better potentiel since Ele is a high risk, high reward element. So for a pugs, where you can’t limit the risk as much as an organized group, ya Warrior is a pretty good pick. Stop
4) Exactly. Thief have high single-target dmg. But he also have huge damage modifiers AND can give vulnerability like crazy on crits which if mix together with a FGS can give you a huge advantage in Boss situation. Its not the best options for everything, but its a good option in some situation. Stop.
5) Warrior have average DPS only. But like you said, they bring by themselve a lot of offensive support that the thief CAN’T bring. Now Warrior vs Ele in solo situation, that a pretty kitten tough answer. The Ele will still have better overal DPS, but the Warrior will bring more offensive support than most Ele and he will have more surviability. But the point here is only that Warrior could be a better solo profession for some ppl, nothing else. (If you are good on your Ele and know the encounter Ele will be a better Solo profession because of the speed you can down ennemies) Stop.
6) Warrior can bring more might than Ele and sustain it for longer. Ya. But Ele can stack a good chunk while still having more DPS than a full DPS Warrior. On the other end the Warrior will have to decrease even more its personnal DPS to gain the group stacking capability that Ele can give. PS Warrior are awesome in pugs and for offensive support, but lack the DPS to populate a organized group with more than 1 (with some exception, because there is always some exception). Stop.
7) For pugs you had faster stacking with 3 warriors than with anything else? Of course, Warrior are pugs king. They are not the best at anything except offensive support, but its easy to be more than decent with one. Compare to an Ele, which have the potential to ridicule the DPS of a warrior, but can only do so in the good hands.

That’s 7 different good point that you bring. But that doesn’t change the fact that Ele have more DPS than a warrior and that good organized group, are usually better off with only 1 Warrior.