I wouldn’t consider fractals a waste of time. If you think about it you’re getting an ascended weapon or armor piece valued between 50-100g every 6 runs or so. Something’s off about armor chests though. Since their introduction I’ve gotten about 8 or so healer chests, 5 malicious chests, a few defender chests, and absolutely 0 raider (useful) chests. Oh well guess I can throw those on my alts for wvw.
Assuming the drop rate for asc. armor is 10% and the only outcomes are drop or no drop then the probability of getting one in 6 runs should be around 47%. That’s not bad, I agree with you there. But then you have to take into account exactly what you said in the second half of your post: no PvE player needs most of the chests. The theoretical value of an item I can’t sell nor want to have is zero. I’ve had this exact discussion with a friend of mine who hates my kittening about fractal drops but those 60g I would have spent on a piece of clerics armor mean nothing to me.
This is the reason why I am so kittening frustrated. ANET could have come up with a token or progression system long ago. It would have been fairly easy to find a balance between not showering lvl 50 fotm runners with ascended zerker armor and not kittening them off. But they never even tried. Its been so long since the release of fractals and they couldn’t even been bothered to think of something that minor.
Too bad they dont record “nothing” as a reward
Fractals used to be, will always be and are currently a huge waste of time. Unless you’re still in it for the challenge.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Av4NvDVKEaOzdHJPaTlsRU5LeEJWN3hodklXWGFCU1E&usp=drive_web#gid=0
Posted this a while ago. Since it’s still a major issue I wanted to submit it again:
Currently the waypoints and POIs, pretty much every map icon, is rendered at the wrong depth and wrong location. In order to navigate the world map you have to deactivate 3D mode. I used to work a few patches ago, so I am guessing it’s just on oversight.
Using Nvidia 3D Goggles
Because PvP has some of the most rude and spiteful people in the entire game. Not showing ranks it just removing a reason for them to blame the new guy for their inadequacies. The problem is their is no shortage of reason for a kitten individual who is looking to blame someone and insult them so themselves can feel better.
Might be the case, but like others stated you find this kind of behaviour in more efficiency minded PvE environments as well.
My major complaint isn’t about them removing the ranks, it’s rather that they did this but left the personal score untouched. It’s obvious they thought about how to improve player behaviour by changing the scoreboard and no one came up with the idea to improve TEAMplay by getting rid of INDIVIDUAL scores? Kitten kitten : | (I actually wrote kitten)
I know this is probably the 100th topic like this, but I can’t help it: Who at ANET thought it was a good idea to remove rank from the scoreboard, but leave the personal score in? Okay, I get that some single digit rank will now be happy that he can kitten up the match without automatically being the scapegoat, but people will still chase after opponents, double cap and do all that pointless crap they used to for personal score.
I am sick of being a teamplayer only to get remarks like “I can’t hear you from the bottom of the scoreboard”.
I would have hoped that the developers responsible for such decisions would think things through to the end and not chicken out halfway through.
In a perfect world (bunnies, flowers, lollypops) you only see class and name. In a realistic world you see their rank, win/loss, leaderboard score BUT NOT THE GOD kitten PERSONAL SCORE which is completely insignificant.
Yes, I am looking at you, roaming thief with 200 points.
Also: Why does solo q still give less rewards than team q? Everyone knows that most players in team q are solo or maybe duo simply because why would I bother with kitten maps AND less rewards at the same time? It baffles my mind how all this can still be in the game after 626 days.
Bumping the bumps.
Good points, especially the part about fury. But at the end of the day, we’re all primarily looking for fastest clears so in this case Staff would probably be the way to go, would it not?
Or would the lack of partywide fury lead to less DPS in the end? I should really be able to calculate stuff like that on my own…
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Is there any way to alter the base D/F build in a way that gives it a little more DPS by sacrificing might stacking?
I tend to run Fractals with a phalanx warrior quite often. Our party does okay, but we’re in no way organized enough to keep up the maximum might stacking potential of a D/F Ele (meaning the phalanx might stacks outweigh the warrior’s DPS loss). Additionally, our hammer guardian tends to disrupt the stacking.
I could just run one of your staff builds, which I do quite often, but staff feels boring when compared to the very active and agile d/f style.
So, in a world where the ele doesn’t need to stack any might at all, should I just camp the staff? I could of course play the D/F build and simply not stack might, but something inside of me cringes when I think of playing a build and not utilizing one of its strengths.
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50 Dredge, not even a ring. Why do I run fotm?
Front Page /chars
Or get rid of RNG and just let us choose the ascended stats if we get that insanely rare chest from fotm or another useless clerics ring. I’d rather have that. Or let us exchange asc gear for some kind of token. Your solution seems to address the symptom rather than the cause.
They postponed it because they want to focus on fixing the rewards first. Then they postponed that as well, because fixing Shockwave Skipper takes precedence. Then they introduced the patch that increased decreased ascended chest drop rates, so they have to fix that first. ETA: Guild Wars 3 2nd Addon
Bump
This should get more attention
Played guardian for 90% of my time in PvP. Started using this build on r41 in tpvp without ANY ele experience in PvP or wvw at all. I do run an ele in pve as my 2nd main though. I had to read the wiki articles to know what the skills and traits actually do. I still managed to win most of my games be it organized premades or solo team q. I’d say that I am better with ele than with my guardian atm mostly because I refuse to play a boring bunker guardian and meditation builds – powerful and fun – still suffer under the condi meta. The build is easy to learn if you’re willing to dive into it. It has sustain and damage, can do very well in 1v1 but you can just as well go mid and real havoc. Lots of room for error as well.
…
PvE: Obal (heads and shoulders above every other PvE Guardian)
…
+1
Any developer response? Maybe just acknowledge that youre looking into it that you’ve seen this thread :x
Did a full AC run with a PUG a few hours ago. Everyone was full zerk, we had 3 Ele’s, 1 Guard and 1 Mesmer. Took us 36 minutes for all three paths, probably one of the best runs of my life. Those FGS just rule the world.
My LFG, my rules. Abide or get kicked, it’s that simple.
Same here. Disconnects and sends me to the character select. Seems to happen more often in the evening. I can instantly reconnect and there is no problem with my internet in general.
High risk, low reward. Timeless classics.
Thanks for the research! Let’s hope your voice gets heard.
I think its nearly impossible to create build diversity in any MMO in PvE. Its static content so players will always look for the most efficient way to deal with it. In most games there’s always a certain flavor of the month for PvE encounters. Theoretically you can play whatever build you like in PvE, you don’t have to adhere to the zerker meta down to the last detail. Plus, playing full berserker in PvE might be the easiest way to clear fotm but it still requires a certain level of individual skill. Anyone can survive in standard AHEM with PTV gear. The run might be terrible but no one would blame him or herself because they’re never dying! As a full zerk you have to have some knowledge of mitigating and dodging damage otherwise you’re gonna bite the dust constantly which is frustrating for newer players. Therefore I do believe that high risk high reward builds should always have a superiority over safer builds and that is totally the case in GW2. Bottom line here: I think there should be a very small number of viable builds while the majority of the traits etc. are for people who are less ambitious to have fun and just enjoy the game the way they want. Guardians only have one or maybe two of those so that might be a little short of optimal.
I’m not going to blame the fact that I was in structured PvP at the time and the statistics there vary from other areas of the game. It’s more like that I just suck. It just feels like my Blinds and Blocks don’t do much of anything and that a few conditions just eat away at what little health I have. I can stay on target relatively easy except Mesmers that cloak. I always lose them. I watch my cooldowns and make proper use of my Meditations to insure that I can get health back when necessary.
Now this is really not meant to be an offense but maybe you need more time and practice to fully appreciate what a meditation glass cannon can do. Especially the part where you complain about getting confused by cloaked mesmers makes you appear to be rather inexperienced in tPvP but feel free to correct me.
I suppose what I’m getting at is that there should be a reason to use every ability in combat. I can never really find Virtues useful without going far enough into the appropriate trait line. None of the Virtues feel like there’s a huge benefit for the cooldowns each offers. Hammer #3-5 skills are all about control, and control means nothing in…
Okay now this stretches things a little too far. Did you even try obals build or learn the meta build? You can’t seriously say that virtues are useless! Virtue of resolve when traited removes three conditions, virtue of justice when traited is a PERMA blind when killing squishy trash and now comes the grand finale virtue of courage negates an entire attack. This is so strong against enemies like Arch Diviner, Mossman etc. Have you ever done a serious AC run? Aegis+Protection followed by condi removal is the difference between Kohler being a walk in the park or a major pita.
I can switch my utilities for when the situation calls for it, but it never impacts my build enough to rely on those utilities.
You’re saying Wall of Reflection and Purging Flames don’t impact your build? Maybe you’re just getting carried by everyone else because a guardian who doesn’t remove conditions (AC), doesn’t bring reflects (everywhere but e.g. Malrona) and doesnt feel like aegis (everywhere) or stability (harpies, Leurent among others) affects his gameplay is really just a wasted party slot.
Your facetanking will a) fail completely in high level fractals and b) not help the party at all. You’re not really holding aggro, you’re not dealing significant enough damage so its really up to your party to do everything for you. I’d like to see you tank Arch Diviner or Fire Shaman in fotm 40+. Facetanking is really for people who unbind dodge and haven’t learned the value of damage mitigation. Okay I really apologize for the turn my post took but after going through your replies with more care there’s only one conclusion to be drawn: your lack of experience and knowledge is the reason for your perceived boredom of the guardian class. I was like that as well so I know how one can come to this conclusion but some of the things you said are really tempting me to throw you a lame l2p response – which would be uncalled for but still….
I can out-heal anything thrown at me. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the tanking aspect, but I find that there are a lot of skills that offer nothing in the build. It’s quite literally “press #1 to win.”
No its press 1 to stay alive while four people are getting you the shinies.
As a meditation glass cannon I am having surprisingly little problems with necros. Thanks to sword 2,gs 3 (or scepter 3 followed by whatever) and judges intervention I can always gap close and focus them down. JI acts as my fear breaker of choice and a meditation heal cast before engaging can give me enough sustain to burst him down. I simply ignore the minions.
Thanks for your very detailed answer. As I understand it they can make do without the additional blast finishers since their party as a whole provides sufficient might and double stacking is no more as you already mentioned. I asked my question on reddit as well, its in the comments section, but I’m just going to quote the part of the answer that I consider relevant:
The groups that Dan and I run with usually don’t need the extra utility so we just have the eles on pure DPS. A lot more squishy but things blow up a lot faster.
To me this implies that his (or her) staff build will have a greater overall DPS than your D/F. On the other hand what you are saying in regards to cleaving and meteor shower casting time seems very compelling.
Thanks for your note on EP vs DPS by the way, this quote is the reason why I appeared to be oblivious of this difference (and I have to admit that I was).
Now bottom line: Since I’ve seen your fractal videos countless times I would think that you run max DPS builds with your DnT mates as FotM doesn’t get any more organized than that. In such groups you wouldn’t need the defensive utilities or the constant might uptime since your party can generate its might with a few coordinated blasts.
Which build would you think leads to a higher overall party DPS in organized runs disregarding surviving in PUGs?
I apologize if I seem to be waving that new build at you expecting you to do all the thinking for me its just that this level of in depth knowledge and number crunching is above my current knowledge of elementalists. If this is annoying I am sure you know how to point that out and feel free to do so.
I run a full on glass cannon build in tPvP. 10/30/30/0/0 all meditations including healin skill with GS and Sc/F for group fights at mid. Let’s say I am doing very well and I eat necros in most 1v1 situations for breakfast. Due to the current condi meta I am running purity sigil on one weapon set. It’s about the strongest guardian build I have seen so far but then again I am just r40.
What I can’t understand is why you’re complaining about guardians in pve. Okay, we only have one viable build which is obals meta DPS but it’s so much fun to play! You are essential to high level fractal runs! I am constantly changing out my utilities (from a pool of about 6-7) and I have to use them consciously or else I might be the reason why an encounter goes horribly wrong. For example something as easy as harpies on 49 requires the guardian to watch his party since without chaining stability reflects blocks and weapon skills such as blind/projectile absorb your party mates will be sent flying off the platforms. It’s nothing major and certainly not an unbelievable challenge but it’s the kind of active play style I enjoy about this build. Elements lists have a large variety of builds they can use but they all revolve around nailing your rotation. It’s somewhat less dynamic in regards to reacting to enemy skills and watching the rest of the party and more about adapting your rotation to the encounter to hit the sweet spot between max might and fury and dealing max DPS (while not dying).
All in all I think you should stop running that face tanking build if you’re bored of the class. Who cares about build diversity in pve if our meta build is actually interesting and dynamic.
In tPvP there’s actually a number of builds although I think that’s true for every class. At least from a guardians perspective it requires nailing every one of your utilities and weapon skills or you will melt under the condos.
Just my humble two cents though.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/23841f/lod_elementalist_build_breakdown_post_feature/
Is your recommendation for D/F based on the added utility/survivability as opposed to the raw DPS outlined in this table? It seems odd that you two would end up recommending such different builds for fractals.
Fresh Air with Dagger/Focus should still be the Go-To build for FotM Ele’s. I’ve been running Dungeons with D/F all day (cant be bothered to swap builds) and the damage is still superb.
Also: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-DPS-Elementalist-for-PvE/page/3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmMN1UH6ymo
(edited by Veydar.5017)
Don’t get it. Are you guys talking about… no still can’t think of something relevant here. Maybe, if you’re all talking about Boon Duration builds in WvW, then I can relate to your disappointment.
In any other case: My Guardian is still as essential to Dungeons and Fractals as before. Nothing has changed, absolutely nothing at all. I still run GS + Sw/F in Dungeons and Hammer + Sw/F or GS in Fractals. Staff stills sucks unless you really need the utility for a specific encounter, a shield is still an instant kick from the party and Scepter is still laughable due to its single target DPS and the fact that most people who use it are terrible and stand out of the blast finisher range.
For meta Guardians it’s still a great world to live in.
And I hope those mentioning AH and EM are talking WvW only. Don’t encourage the use of these skills in PvE, just like you shouldn’t tell anyone to bring a staff right from the start and camp that weapon. Of course playing Guardian seems boring if you’re trying very hard to be outright terrible.
(edited by Veydar.5017)
Just because Guardians come with numerous support skills, doesn’t mean you can’t play them in a selfish way. First of all, listing all the skills that benefit your party in any way is pointless since most of them are crap. Yes, the Bow of Truth might help your party but it’s still a wasted slot. Altruistic Healing requires 30 points in Valor which automatically means that you’re sacrificing a lot of DPS. Right now, DPS is the most important support any class has to offer. The only reason why people use AH in PvE is because they can’t dodge/mitigate damage and for all it’s worth I cant blame them since it is, after all, just a game. But under the very theoretical assumption that everyone is trying to be the best Guardian possible, choosing AH would make you a selfish Guardian. It heals you, while the party suffers from the DPS loss.
Now maybe AH was just a random example so here is a more general answer: Most selfmade builds revolve around higher toughness/vitality and maybe ranged weapons (staff/scepter) because the player isn’t able to survive in full berserker gear. So at the end of the day, his or her choice of gear/skills/build is first and foremost a measure to stay alive. It will always go hand in hand with less contribution to the overall effort.
You could argue that dead people don’t do kitten but to that I’d always answer that learning to stay alive with berserker/scholar gear really isn’t difficult so you might start by trying to learn it instead of switching to gear that’s supposed to mask your own shortcomings.
(edited by Veydar.5017)
Don’t even remember from which LS part I got it but since I consider it one of the most hideous things in the game I destroyed it. I’d rather fill that bank slot with yet another stack of ascended material waiting to be refined…
Connection Error(s) Detected Retrying [merged]
in Account & Technical Support
Posted by: Veydar.5017
Because it’s all over Twitter. See the following:
https://twitter.com/search?q=st%C3%B6rung%20telekom&src=typd&f=realtime
http://xn--allestrungen-9ib.de/stoerung/deutsche-telekom/karte/
https://www.facebook.com/telekomhilft
No ETA, no official statement. Don’t expect to play GW2 tonight. If we’re lucky they’ll fix it before New Years is around…
Connection Error(s) Detected Retrying [merged]
in Account & Technical Support
Posted by: Veydar.5017
Just in case any of you are from Germany, specifically NRW, then it is most likely Telekom’s fault. They have massive server issues which prohibits some peering with servers located abroad.
We on GH are currently trying to take down the Great Junglewurm! We have established a guild for organizational purposes ([WURM]) that does not require any representing – ever!
Please send an ingame mail to Veydar.5017 with your account name so I can add you to the guild. We try to do one run every saturday and sunday around 4pm GMT. Since it is a community effort we currently do not impose any strict requirements, but you’ll receive some guidance in regards to equipment and skill on the Teamspeak server.
The guild has ~180 members right now and the commanders will whisper everyone who is online about an hour before the event.
It is Gunnar’s Hold only by the way ; ) since there’s already a very successful multi server slayer guild.
http://www.gunnars-hold.eu/threads/1986-WURM-Gunnar-s-Weekly-Wurm-slaying-events!/page2
Landing on a Laser during Hologram fight
in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath
Posted by: Veydar.5017
I’m sick of these achievements and I won’t bother trying them again.
You can’t see what is a laser attack and what not, you get hit randomly without any warning, you enter the portal right on a laserbeam… there is no chance to even get the achievement.The other one where you have to hit the hologram with the right attunements (Tune in, I guess) is even worse. It encourages players to NOT do any attacks. You just have to get the prime light attunement once, hit a few times for participation credit and then you try to not attack anything at all. :/
Besides that, it’s a good fight, but the achievements really destroy ist somehow.
Good point. Last time I tried to get both achievements (ended up getting In Tune although I never got hit BUT hit the Prime Hologram during the last stage where you cant deal damage to it) I spent 75% of the time just rezzing people and giving might. I couldnt dodge through lasers as I was afraid of getting hit so it was more or less impossible to get the three attunements. When I did, I made sure to stop attacking a few seconds before the buff would run out and only AA since you never know what you hit during phase 2 with AoE attacks like Scepter 2 on a Guardian.
So my contribution to the overall event was 0
Landing on a Laser during Hologram fight
in Battle for Lion’s Arch - Aftermath
Posted by: Veydar.5017
I like the event but this is driving me mad. Everytime I enter the portal I land on a laser which instantly destroys any chance at getting the No More Tricks achievement. Sometimes I let others enter first and wait 2 seconds to see if the map chat gets flooded with “fml laser ty gg” messages, but that just sends me to a deserted Hologram fight which is even worse. These things are the kind of annoyances that are completely unnecessary (unless I am missing something here in which case I apologize).
Stability does not work, invulnerability does seem to work. I would record a video but … can’t be bothered right now ; ) I’m on a Guardian so I used all the stability and blocks in the world, but they dont work.
The problem I had for the first couple of tries was that I would evade her big AoE and then stomp her the second she pulled of the next AoE. The animations would literally overlap, yet I would fail.
That’s why it’s helpful to dodge sideways. So again: After the cutscene run up to her, dodging the first grenades she might throw, and start your stomp. She then does the huge AoE which you dodge only once, to the side. Dont double dodge back. Right after the dodge, hammer your f key and just watch her vanish.
The cutscene ends:
- Run to her, start the finisher
- The entire ground is now covered in orange
- Wait about 0.5s, DODGE ONCE TO THE SIDE, immediately start the finisher.
- Dodging to the side eliminates the time it takes to activate the finisher again!
This does not require any class or skill, any profession can do it!
Razer Deathadder 2013
Had a mouse with a more complex button layout before that (Roccat Kone XTD) but it didn’t really benefit me. It is surprising how many incompatibilities you discover in regards to which mouse button you can map with what, to not bug out the camera movement among other things. In the end I settled on the mouse with the best ergonomics for my hand and the best “feel”. Really, there’s nothing more important than trying the mouse before you buy it.
Some super awesome gaming mouse might have a scrollwheel that you deem too hard to click, or left and right buttons that are too easy to trigger on accident and stuff like that.
So, in my opinion, focus on ergonomics and feel and make “mmo specific buttons” a second or third priority. Don’t forget that you will have to relearn your skill layout and depending on the complexity of your setup this can take a considerable amount of time.
How can this even be up for discussion? The average 5k AP player is probably more skilled than the average 1k AP player. And dont give me one of those “but I’ve met that one guy who…” answers. Its all just statistics and probability when you’re running dungeons every say of the week and want those runs to be efficient. Since there is no alternative I always ask for full zerlk 5k+.
(edited by Veydar.5017)
Dear Anet,
Customer support redirected me to the Suggestion Board and afterwards pointed me here, since the Suggestion Board was moved to the archives. I am using Nvidia 3D Vision Goggles with the Helix mod!
Even though the game in general looks breathtaking in 3D, there are still a few minor and two rather major bugs:
- Mouse Cursor Depth: The cursor jumps around while hovering over objects rendered at different levels of depth. I really noticed it while fighting the Nightmare Tree. It makes precise targeting rather hard. It would be great if the cursor could have the same depth as the interface and remain at that level regardless of what’s happening in game.
- Map Icon Depth: Waypoints, POI’s etc. are completely off. You have to disable 3D to navigate the world map unless you can locate the WP’s blindly (Which I can – should I be worried about the amount of time I spend in Tyria?)
Minor issues:
- Give the interface depth! Goes hand in hand with the mouse cursor issue. It’s not a problem but rather a visual improvement. Helix Mod addresses this but any screen border will then be several pixels away from the actual border of the screen (underwater, red border in combat etc.)
- Background in cutscenes (will be retired but still…), background in loading screen (Bad first impression when you are using 3D Vision for the first time) are missing any depth. (Fixed by Helix)
- Some shadows with ultra settings
Suggestion:
- Give us an immersive mode that’s built into the game! I don’t need my skill bar to be visible all the time etc. : )
(edited by Veydar.5017)
I agree with you. Like other players have stated in numerous posts here, the story instance is also excellent and I love that it’s told in game and not via these GW2-type cutscenes. That’s NOT just because I am a dude and dig the dialogue between Kasmeer and Jory by the way : P
This must be bugged or I am doing something wrong. I have completed the Marionette fight twice. I almost never get hit by anything I don’t even have to dodge the circles most of the time, you can just walk out of it. My lane has only once failed their portal phase, in all the other (8?) runs, they always succeeded and I have NO DODGE ACHIEVEMENT whatsoever.
To me, this is one of the best releases so far, maybe because I wasn’t around when Teq showed up. I think it’s great that there’s two large scale events, one for more casual players and one for the organised. Maybe the Marionette will get people interested in that kind of stuff, maybe not.
I have been part of several Wurm Attempts and I would do it again any time of the day. Not for the loot, not for the achievement, simply for the challenge. Coming from someone like me, who usually has trouble enjoying things because of my “get things done the efficient way” attitude, this means a lot.
We had several discussions on this forum about why a game needs challenging content as well as easier stuff. It should be evident to everyone that ANET should and will come out with more content that is geared towards TTS kind of players while also catering to the casual crowed to whom they advertised this game.
Does anyone know what removes the Powder Kegs? We managedto stack 20 once but for some reason after that we couldn’t even get above 6, they vanished too fast
Including the Superior Sigil of Generosity? By combining four Major Sigils that is.
I would like to side with this. It is SO frustrating to start a game knowing that there is pretty much no chance whatsoever that this will NOT end in a total disaster. Additionally, there’s a lot of people who will quit the game or afk upon seeing that their time is behind 100 points. Especially on maps like Temple I’ve seen more than one crazy comeback with tranquility&stillness.
I do realize that some people might actually have disconnects but there has to be some way that this does not affect the entire team. Give us a buff, make the game not count statswise for the losing team except for the quitter. Take away some of his glory, reduce his rank, kill his cat whatever…
But PLEASE address this issue.
Balance is always impossible as long as a game allow different professions, stats and skills.
For a game to be completely balanced you would need to be able to select a grand total of 1 specific class, with a grand total of 1 specific skill-set and be unable to effect your stats in anyway.Anything other than that will always have balance issues.
Pretty much my thinking but a lot of people seem to interpret the manifesto in such a way that “Play as you want” means everything is or should be equally viable. I’d really like to know if that’s really the case. Does the playerbase want a certain build that trumps everything else but is really hard to play or is that viewed as an unfair deviation from the initial manifesto?
I would also suggest that every class should put an emphasis on a certain role without being locked into it. As a guardian I would achieve maximum efficiency by playing something that is rather heavy on group support and survivability without sacrificing everything else completely. This is associated with one rather grave danger however: If not done correctly, this could make certain classes completely useless because their area of expertise isn’t needed. Basically, like it is right now ; ) That’s why I suggested that every class should be able to pull off the high risk high reward thing.
I have read the threads regardings the upcoming yet still unknown changes to the meta. The discussion often seems to revolve around the fundamental issue of “Play how you want” and the fact that there must not be a “Holy Trinity” in Guild Wars 2.
This made me wonder: How can such a game be designed so it caters to all players while still adhering to the above mentioned principles? (and still being fun!)
Right now you can clear all PvE content with whatever stat combination you like, zerker is just a little faster while still fairly easy to pull off. The obvious answer would be to alter boss (and mob) mechanics so playing a full glass cannons requires more skill or that other stats bring more to the party. If we assume that this would realize the goal of making every build equally viable… then what? Every encounter would be purely skill based since the stat combination would not matter anymore. Your class, your gear, all of this would just be about looks and personal preference without any impact on the game. This sounds pretty boring to me. (Note that this is strictly theoretical, achieving such a balance is of course nearly impossible!)
If you want equipment to matter, there has to be content that caters to certain stat combinations. Theoretically, you could have dungeons that require survivability, others that require conditions and so forth. Still, you would end up with a game that is primarily about horizontal progression. Stats would be different but never better.
I actually enjoy looking for a certain build that gives me maximum efficiency in most situations. Like most people (at least as far as I know) I like feeling superior.
So, in the end, to me the question is actually: Do we want skill to be the primary factor that determines how good you are – or – should the theoretical aspect behind it (equipment, build) matter as well and how much?
Personally, I would like the idea of zerker builds being high risk high reward or better/faster than the rest as long as every class has a viable zerker option. The only thing that needs adjustment right now is the skill cap. What I don’t want is a game in which every class can do everything and nothing really matters. (Dramatization)
What do you think?