Guild Wars 2

TPMN.1483:

Hasn’t ANET wasted enough time having to perform an initial zerker nerf as indivudla already felt it was too powerful ?

Yes they did, people missed the part where balance was restored.

Jerus.4350:

Windsagio.1340:

Jerus.4350:

Windsagio.1340:

spoj.9672:

I think we should avoid further generalisations at this point.

The alternative to generalizations is specifics, which we’ve touched on some but…

The specific is that many people have experience with folks that insist on zerk meta pugs in game that are exceptionally unpleasant people to deal with, and that there’s a definite link between those demands and the unpleasantness. We can dance around that issue all we want, and put a face on it, but that, I think, is the core problem.

There’s a sub question of ‘why do people insist on dealing with them then?’, but I think that has more to do with human nature in general than with anything else

And on the flip side we have people in nomad/pvt/clerics gear joining groups asking for zerker and being equally unpleasant.

Pointing fingers gets us nowhere though.

People need to take responsibility for themselves.

Don’t join a group you don’t fit in. Don’t join a group with no criteria and expect there to be some. If nothing is up that fits what you want, make your own group.

If you get kicked for not fitting the criteria of the group, stop and think “why was I kicked” and don’t do it next time.

I’m the first to say that this community is pretty kittenty in that kicking is far far too common, but being kicked for failing to read or ignoring LFG notes is one of the few occasions I don’t feel bad about it at all.

Let’s get even more specific. I, if given a choice, never join “Zerk Only” groups. I have zerk gearsets for all my characters and for most of them run zerker or sometimes assassin. If there’s a problem in those groups, it’s not me.

I can run in groups, I do fine, and yet I avoid those groups. That is because in my sepecific experience, those groups are trouble. There’s far more a chance of drama and general unpleasantness, and the players are much more likely to be humorless.

As always, it’s possible it’s projection, but even acknowledging that, it’s certainly my observation.

When I use to run with a pretty set group. My buddies always posted “80 zerk exp, no ranger/necro double guard/mes”… I always felt it was a waste of time because the bad players we wanted to avoid didn’t bother to read anyways but that’s what they did. Those groups were always smooth and went by quickly and with little effort. We got a lot of compliments from the 4th/5th members that would join us.

I say this because I feel you’re still generalizing and making assumptions based on bad experiences. It’s said that for every bad experience you have you need 10 good ones to cancel it out, people simply remember the bad far more than the good. I can’t help but feel that has happened here.

In the end, that’s fine though, but I question, why even post this? Why do you continue to try and badmouth and point fingers? It simply feels like your goal here is to talk kitten on people who run in zerk groups.

It’s kind of developed that way. The basic position is that a zerk preference is just that; a meaningless preference.

The insistence of this being a huge difference the insistence on exclusivity and the smattering of people posting from a pseudo-elitist position definitely lends itself to a negative cultural position though.

Jerus.4350:

Windsagio.1340:

spoj.9672:

I think we should avoid further generalisations at this point.

The alternative to generalizations is specifics, which we’ve touched on some but…

The specific is that many people have experience with folks that insist on zerk meta pugs in game that are exceptionally unpleasant people to deal with, and that there’s a definite link between those demands and the unpleasantness. We can dance around that issue all we want, and put a face on it, but that, I think, is the core problem.

There’s a sub question of ‘why do people insist on dealing with them then?’, but I think that has more to do with human nature in general than with anything else

And on the flip side we have people in nomad/pvt/clerics gear joining groups asking for zerker and being equally unpleasant.

Pointing fingers gets us nowhere though.

People need to take responsibility for themselves.

Don’t join a group you don’t fit in. Don’t join a group with no criteria and expect there to be some. If nothing is up that fits what you want, make your own group.

If you get kicked for not fitting the criteria of the group, stop and think “why was I kicked” and don’t do it next time.

I’m the first to say that this community is pretty kittenty in that kicking is far far too common, but being kicked for failing to read or ignoring LFG notes is one of the few occasions I don’t feel bad about it at all.

Let’s get even more specific. I, if given a choice, never join “Zerk Only” groups. I have zerk gearsets for all my characters and for most of them run zerker or sometimes assassin. If there’s a problem in those groups, it’s not me.

I can run in groups, I do fine, and yet I avoid those groups. That is because in my sepecific experience, those groups are trouble. There’s far more a chance of drama and general unpleasantness, and the players are much more likely to be humorless.

As always, it’s possible it’s projection, but even acknowledging that, it’s certainly my observation.

spoj.9672:

I think we should avoid further generalisations at this point.

The alternative to generalizations is specifics, which we’ve touched on some but…

The specific is that many people have experience with folks that insist on zerk meta pugs in game that are exceptionally unpleasant people to deal with, and that there’s a definite link between those demands and the unpleasantness. We can dance around that issue all we want, and put a face on it, but that, I think, is the core problem.

There’s a sub question of ‘why do people insist on dealing with them then?’, but I think that has more to do with human nature in general than with anything else

Harper.4173:

VodCom.6924:

Artemis Thuras.8795:

VodCom.6924:

Remember that there are two types of “elite” player in GW2 :

• The ones who can solo the path anyway and thus do not see a problem to create the “anything goes” group.
• The ones that can’t solo paths and need zerkers with them to be able to do the path in the first place. These dudes are much much more numerous than soloers.

The former players are nice to play with, the later are a pain in the kitten .

I think some people get confused with these two types of players and tend to argue over different things/people.

So to paraphrase this:

Its more fun playing with people who can do the dungeon for me, than with people who expect me to do my share of the effort.

mhmm, and this is why there is argument. People think they should be carried by others. In which case, you should be paying those “solo” players (oh wait, there is QQ about that too).

Don’t make me say what I’ve never thought. I’ve never been carried nor have I paid to be carried.

I’m just saying that some self proclaimed elite players are pain to play with because unless everyone in their group is playing meta they fail miserably. Thus these people resent heavily to carry newbs (simply because they can’t) and newbs then complain about their toxicity. That’s where all this argument comes from.

Don’t make false assumptions or statements about me please.

Wow – just wow.

So you’re saying if people were incredibly good they should carry newbs just for the heck of it?

Even if I could solo dungeons in such an easy way that it took one press of a button to complete it and could basically run it instantly I wouldn’t be taking people along so they can leech off me.

The whole idea that “truly skilled players carry those of lesser skills” is preposterous.

I think what he’s trying to get at is that they can’t handle playing out of style. The really good players can, but the guy that insists on a zerk only pug can’t.

You can play as zerker using the standard accepted methods or not using them, but the standard methods are heavily centered on a number of things that greatly mitigate the risk.

A lot of folks can’t play zerker ‘high risk’, so they need to play within the set format or they fail.

~~~

Honestly that’s the irony of the situation. The 3-offensive stat gear sets are supposed to be high risk/high reward, but the active defenses (especially the ones built on skills) are just so effective when used in groups to the point that they break the risk/reward calculation.

This allows super fast runs with theoretically high risk builds, and combined with the problems around condition damage (although they’re overstated, that’s a whole different 20 page thread), that leads us to the zerker meta.

We can’t do much to nerf those skills or they become almost useless in solo/duo play, so it’s just something that we have to deal with.

~~~

That being said there’s a huge number of people who can’t function in the truly ‘high risk’ environment.

Lifestealer.4910:

Lydell.8713:

“Weasel out fix” : make a set of zerker armor and trinkets, keep that in your inventory and link it to your pick up team when they gear check. Keep on rolling with your own stuff. They’ll never know the difference and one day you might even find a use for the zerker stuff.

the people who doesn’t know the dungeon encounter well enough won’t tell the difference. If i post a zerk only group and i see you facetank a rocket turret as a thief and not be downed instantly in cm, i will know you aren’t in zerk and boot you right at the final boss for wasting our time.

If you see him facetank the turret I’d hope you’d want to get rid of him either way. This is what I’m saying :p

Edit:
It makes me think of a thief I was doing the Mai Fractal with. Considering how quickly he went down as he frotted her, I totally believe he was in zerker. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t a weasted slot though.

Saint.5647:

Windsagio.1340:

spoj.9672:

Wouldnt be an issue if people just started their own groups. :P

Agreed! Well half-agreed.

The zerk only thing I feel has a ‘chilling effect’ in the classic sense. It gives people who don’t know better the idea that they can’t do the content or are playing ‘wrong’ and discourages people from using the content.

It’s better now, a lot fewer people are demanding zerk, but the damage is largely done.

Only if we assume all players who don’t know any better are mindless sheep. I don’t think this is the case. Ignorance in a subject can allude to but does not confirm general stupidity or lack of desire to educate one’s self.

In short, people have the ability to question and to learn. When confronted with zerk only groups, a newer player should question why this is the case. I think we owe it to them, as the existing community, to give a fair assessment and argument as to why the game meta currently stands as it is.

I think we may agree to disagree on the dissemination of information as a disservice or “damage done.” The interpretation is entirely up to the beholder, as it were. In that regard I think the experienced PvE community has done a lot to provide that information to the general GW2 community.

I think that most zerk meta players are pretty much working off of what they were told was necessary, so take that as you will.

Goes into the same issue, you can’t fix players.

spoj.9672:

Wouldnt be an issue if people just started their own groups. :P

Agreed! Well half-agreed.

The zerk only thing I feel has a ‘chilling effect’ in the classic sense. It gives people who don’t know better the idea that they can’t do the content or are playing ‘wrong’ and discourages people from using the content.

It’s better now, a lot fewer people are demanding zerk, but the damage is largely done.

spoj.9672:

Actually the meta is different for different things. Its just pug groups dont quite go as far as specifying exact party compositions and specialised builds. You should be grateful for that. :P

And in almost all cases it’s effectively meaningless. Pugs usually aren’t picky because they know it’s a dumb thing to be picky over. Pugs usually break down in this way:

Basic dungeon content where build doesn’t matter
Hard dungeon content where build matters a little bit (no thieves in full Nomads)
Low Fractal where build doesn’t matter
Med-High Fractal where there’s a general assumption that if you’re joining a 30+ fractal you know what you’re doing.

Really high fractals almost never pug, and don’t apply to the conversation.

The smattering of people demanding Zerk or Zerk/Heavy (lol) is fairly even across those categories. You see the most zerk demands in my exeperience in the harder non-fractal dungeons, but not by a vast degree.

I think it’s a problem because (partially due to zerk demands) the LFG for some dungeons is effectively dead. If the only person who has a party up is someone who thinks zerk is important you have to either put up your own group (which people are way too unwilling to do) or conform…. or lie and see if they notice (I don’t suggest the last choice, as a general rule).

Edit: And the focus becomes absurd, it leads to things like ‘guides’ that forget to mention common weapons entirely.

Sparks The Rescue.5043:

Harper.4173:

Windsagio.1340:

Harper.4173:

Windsagio.1340:

The core issue is that the “Berzerker Meta” is all about rejecting other gear combinations and styles, that’s why it generates so much annoyance.

It’s more about rejecting people who aren’t part of “the meta”.

Now – the real issue is – how do you get people to stop rejecting other people? You can’t.

It’s every player’s right to play the way they want and with whom they want. If that means rejecting people based on whatever criteria – be it gear, class, AP or even character race there’s nothing people can do about it except complain.

Which isn’t going to help.

Potato potahto, as you say itself, it’s about rejection.

The rejection is why people complain.

They only have a point insofar as the rejection is kind of pointless.

~~~

The weird thing is that you read this as if people are going to force you to run with them. You can always reject people if that’s what gives you jollies, even the most extreme requests in the thread (nerfing zerker and changing gear balance) still won’t force you to play in what you think is a suboptimal way.

Yes but you are missing the point.
It’s not rejecting certain types of gear but certain types of people. The core issue is rejection.

If zerker was changed the people being rejected right now because they’re not meta would still be rejected for being non-meta and not wanted .

You want to fix “the meta issue” and I’m trying to explain why you can’t. People will reject people they don’t like or don’t want to play with. You are not fixing the problem by changing the zerker meta.

I think both of you might be a bit logically confused. Rejection is merely the ;reaction to the problem, not the problem, in itself. By arguing that rejection is somehow the problem, it would logically follow that the natural course players should to take to fix the problem is adopt the mindset that we should all just play together regardless of armor type – which, I think that we can all agree, doesn’t fix the problem. It’s a facade over the problem, it gives us the illusion that we can all play together in a world without vote-kicks, but that doesn’t mean groups that have formed that have players in full berserker gear will not still be more efficient at clearing content than those that do not.

Obviously, the core issue is at how effective berserker is in clearing content over other offensive armor combinations. If conditions could deal relatively close damage per second to a full power, berserker build, then it would be allowed in meta groups – but it can’t. For content that is geared towards speed-clearing, the only thing that can generate the same damage per second close to berserker is assassins, and that’s what’s wrong with the current state of the game.

My understanding is as follows:

The ‘zerker meta’ problem is a social problem not a gameplay problem. Both the people who insist that people who don’t play their way are ‘bads’ and the people who insist on trying to join those groups (for whatever the reason) are parts of the problem.

The exclusiveness of group 1 severely poisoned the dungeon scene and discouraged people in general, but the people in group 2 are just being bullheaded.

I simply can’t grok peoples’ attitudes on the subject, it’s like they’re desperately searching for something to distinguish themselves and scale and/or significance aren’t even part of the calculation, as long as it’s something they can grasp onto.

Lifestealer.4910:

Windsagio.1340:

Lifestealer.4910:

zerker playstyle is lazy?… is this guy trolling or what?…either way i heard so many dumb things in thread, like how soloing dungeon in pvt is harder than zerk etc so i probably shouldn’t be too surprised to hear such nonsense, reading the replies from these “anti zerk” people is gonna give me ebola at some point.

Dungeon meta zerker stacking is lazy as kitten. In a way that’s fine, one of the ways players optimize is by making it as simple and low-risk as possible, but let’s not fool ourselves here.

The ‘zerker meta’ exists because it became clear that using the various tools it became very easy and low-error rate to stack abilities and burn, especially when the damage rate was much much higher. Regardless of builds, doing a proper stack is still the safest way to do most dungeon content, and it’s done in almost all dungeons — and it’s lazy.

To be clear it’s lazy because it doesn’t have to be very reactive. It replaces gameplay with planning and foreknowledge.

The developers are pretty clearly trying to make that lazy style of play unattractive.

I don’t want to be an ego stabber, but the ‘zerker meta’ is received wisdom of the ‘best way to play’. Being functional in it isn’t a good source of pride.

~~~

And honestly both pvp modes are case-in-point. When the AI-exploiting tactics aren’t reliable, berker gear and builds suffer heavily. You can’t be lazy there because players are better at reacting to and exploiting your patterns, and most of them aren’t going to run aroundt he corner into los and stand in your melee and AE’s.

stacking isn’t even an optimal strat 99% of the time, only pugs do it now. Also, stacking and zerk are two different things, you can stack in full nomad gear and achieve the same result, it just takes longer. Not only that, stacking doesn’t automatically make you immune to damage so again you have to time your defences unlike any other build.

PvE is all about planning and foreknowledge, thats the only “skill” to have regardless of builds. Only pvp can reactionary skill be a thing, and even then most popular pvp games, knowledge and planning still plays a huge part in how well things go.

PvE can have reaction elements, it just takes careful design, and it takes really tight behavior patterns… if players find a hole in the pattern they’ll use it (as dungeon runs show).

In all honesty I think people still ask for zerker only (ie the ‘meta’ still exists, even as a terrible misuse of the word) because they’re all telling each other it’s the only way to go and they thing insignificant differences are significant. As I’ve said, I’m fine with that (if a little judgemental). I’ve been playing MMO’s long enough to know that people that sweat that stuff can be pretty kitten unpleasant to play with so it’s a handy filter.

The OP is wrong in that Arenanet doesn’t need to fix the berzerker meta, and probably can’t, because it’s largely a contsruct… and people will just replace this construct with another one if this one becomes actively detrimental.

They can encourage active play, which they’re doing, and they can fix clear balance issues, as they did with +Crit%, but they can’t stop people from focusing on largely meaningless tuning (and they probably don’t want to, it drives the economy in a number of ways).

Lifestealer.4910:

zerker playstyle is lazy?… is this guy trolling or what?…either way i heard so many dumb things in thread, like how soloing dungeon in pvt is harder than zerk etc so i probably shouldn’t be too surprised to hear such nonsense, reading the replies from these “anti zerk” people is gonna give me ebola at some point.

Dungeon meta zerker stacking is lazy as kitten. In a way that’s fine, one of the ways players optimize is by making it as simple and low-risk as possible, but let’s not fool ourselves here.

The ‘zerker meta’ exists because it became clear that using the various tools it became very easy and low-error rate to stack abilities and burn, especially when the damage rate was much much higher. Regardless of builds, doing a proper stack is still the safest way to do most dungeon content, and it’s done in almost all dungeons — and it’s lazy.

To be clear it’s lazy because it doesn’t have to be very reactive. It replaces gameplay with planning and foreknowledge.

The developers are pretty clearly trying to make that lazy style of play unattractive.

I don’t want to be an ego stabber, but the ‘zerker meta’ is received wisdom of the ‘best way to play’. Being functional in it isn’t a good source of pride.

~~~

And honestly both pvp modes are case-in-point. When the AI-exploiting tactics aren’t reliable, berker gear and builds suffer heavily. You can’t be lazy there because players are better at reacting to and exploiting your patterns, and most of them aren’t going to run aroundt he corner into los and stand in your melee and AE’s.

Hume.2876:

Lifestealer.4910:

So what i get from this thread is people want healing power and toughness to be viable so they can run their full cleric build and face tank mobs/bosses that could one shot a zerker right?.. why is this good for the game exactly?.. cleric guardian can already facetank fractal 50 mossman like nobodies business, or take 2-3 lupicus swipes to the face and live. This makes me think that all the people that opt for these “diverse” builds are just bad players.
.

I think this is basically the gist of this thread. They do it under the guise of ‘build diversity’ …which seems to add nothing to the play experience.

The litmus test for game changes should be – does it making playing the character more fun. Does it reward skill – more in actual game play? If the answer is no – then its likely Arenanet got it right.

There’s kind of 2 parallel themes. There’s the folks that are arguing that the zerker meta is totally real!!! and anet needs to nerf, and then there’s the people that are arguing that the ‘zerket meta’ is dumb and pointless and just want it expunged from the conciousness.

It’s natural to focus on the former, but the latter is the real deal :p

Harper.4173:

Windsagio.1340:

The core issue is that the “Berzerker Meta” is all about rejecting other gear combinations and styles, that’s why it generates so much annoyance.

It’s more about rejecting people who aren’t part of “the meta”.

Now – the real issue is – how do you get people to stop rejecting other people? You can’t.

It’s every player’s right to play the way they want and with whom they want. If that means rejecting people based on whatever criteria – be it gear, class, AP or even character race there’s nothing people can do about it except complain.

Which isn’t going to help.

Potato potahto, as you say itself, it’s about rejection.

The rejection is why people complain.

They only have a point insofar as the rejection is kind of pointless.

~~~

The weird thing is that you read this as if people are going to force you to run with them. You can always reject people if that’s what gives you jollies, even the most extreme requests in the thread (nerfing zerker and changing gear balance) still won’t force you to play in what you think is a suboptimal way.

The core issue is that the “Berzerker Meta” is all about rejecting other gear combinations and styles, that’s why it generates so much annoyance.

Hume.2876:

Windsagio.1340:

Hume.2876:

Windsagio.1340:

Hume.2876:

Here is the deal – this game is supposed to be all about active ways to stay alive.

“Meta” as understood in the dungeon sense is the ultimate in passive play though, you know your specified role and you do it exactly as you’ve done it every previous time. It totally freaking works, but let’s not pretend it’s active play. It’s less active than old-style ‘get out of the red circle!’ raid fights

And switching to all Nomad fixes this how? Don’t confuse bad encounter design with boosting of the passive mitigation stats. Like I said if you understand how combat works – you will understand why Zerker is the best case scenario for the game designers.

If you want to enable the content designers to put the focus on active abilities – you are smart to devalue passive mitigation.

I didn’t say that though :p

It’s fixed the way Anet is trying to fix it, by designing encounters with that kind of playstyle in mind.

Specifically they have to try to force active play. This isn’t, as you say, a stats thing, it’s in the enemies.

The Dungeon meta is about ability/trait combination allowing quick, low risk, passive play (usually in stacks). They have to force people out of the fields/mutual coverage and into actual combat. This is why so many new opponents drop continuing ground effects, they’re trying to force players to split up and actually play instead of sitting just around the corner so the enemies LOS run into 100 blades.

It’s also why those new mender enemies have an extremely powerful large radius AE heal that’s interrupted on any hit that also slide back a bit when they’re hit. The whole point is to force players to use pulls to grab them or more often to go out and target them. Again, it’s promoting active play rather than passive ‘let the enemies come to me’ play.

I play Zerk guys in Silver Wastes – it’s not a problem. Zerk gear just puts the emphasis on active and not passive mitigation. You have to dodge at the right time, use your bleeds etc etc. Use pulls and interrupts etc. You can’t just blindy run into a crowd of Teragriffs and hope to live in full zerkers. It’s a better design.

GW2 is not doing away with the Zerk meta. . All the passive stats do for armor is take the skill out of the game in PVE. Have a bunch of unkillabe noobs and let them randomnly hit keys to the mobs are dead. That’s not good game design.

In PVP its a different story. PVP hits aren’t so big that you can be one shot – so non zerker gear and even bunker builds have their place. You still want to use your active mitigation but its about blocking/reflecting/blinding the big upcoming attacks.

It’s a bit different but its a good system. People in this thread who want to tear it down don’t fully understand it. Forcing people to switch to a new meta or requiring people to have the ‘right’ gear for the right situation (ala Molten Core with its fire resist) is not a good game design.

You don’t want to lock people out of content. The real problew GW2 has is that people who go all tanky or healy and get rejected don’t seem to understand how lack of DPS hurts the team. The Zerk meta is fine. All we need is for GW2 to teach people how their combat is supposed to work early on – and then it will be self explanatory why Zerker is the way to go.

Well again, it’d be wrong to make zerker worthless, it’s just more in line with everything else.

The ‘zerker meta’ developed because players developed methods to get the advantages of the high damage output (especially when the balance was off) and mitigate the risks. Of course Zerker ‘works’ in Silverwastes, it just (as you said) takes more active skill to mitigate damage, and in some cases there’s a damage balance between being able to stay in on an enemy a little longer or having to clear out to recover.

People in this discussion need to quit misunderstanding the issue. The problem is’t that Berzerker is too good, it simply isn’t. The problem is that when these extremely lazy playstyles work, zerker breaks scale because damage is the only thing that matters at all.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Unless you’re referring to Caithe taking the egg. Which is only treason against the Pact if she’s trying to help the Elder Dragons – in which case, she’s been corrupted.

It is in fact referring to the egg, specifically to the part where the Tree is clearly alarmed that Caithe has it and not you. The line is something like “No! You were meant to have it, that’s why I gave -you- the vision!”

Every character name from cats was taken the first day of launch.

I just redid the story (for my third pair of pants) and I"m sorry, Faolain is so consistently cartoonishly evil in the parts where Caithe is right there there’s simply no justification. “Oh my friends I’m so sorry!” “Some friend you are, they gave you shelter and look what happened!”

also “I’m no kin to animals and I’m tired of Ventari’s Nonsense. You need to come with us, NOW!”

I’m sorry, I’ve been stupid in love but there’s absolutely no justification for staying with her at all. It wouldn’t pass as camp.

Does the ranged fire spot not work anymore?

Just get at least one other person and trade off.

Harper.4173:

If those who insist on “the zerker meta” are jerks – why do non-zerkers insist on being in our parties so much?

Why do they submit themselves to our “jerk moods” when they could simply play with other people like them and leave us alone?

Because they’re dumb? I don’t know. I run zerk when appropriate, but I avoid groups that advertise ‘zerk only’ like the plague, because they are the plague.

Sometimes, the only group in the thing you want to run has a ‘zerk only’ label. People are often shy of advertising their own groups (which is on them), so they join the group that’s there knowing it usually doesn’t matter.

Or, they’re kittened off and self-righteous over the advert and join anyways because ‘kitten those guys’. That’s also on them though.

~~~

In general though, people have this idea that it’s the way it was like before the ferocity fix. Back then there was a large, compelling difference because the output was so much higher.

Now, after the fix, there’s an at best nominal advantage (presuming people aren’t just being dumb about it and doing something like a warrior in nomads), but folks are stuck in their ways and think that it’s still this big deal… or that it’s a way to filter out people who don’t care.

Ultimately, to me, it’s as I said. I’m happy to have people that think Zerker meta matters filter themselves out. It’s a useful tool in avoiding tools.

The real important element is on Arenanet’s part, and they’re doing the right thing in designing the new encounters to encourage a greater variety of builds and styles.

Hume.2876:

Windsagio.1340:

Hume.2876:

Here is the deal – this game is supposed to be all about active ways to stay alive.

“Meta” as understood in the dungeon sense is the ultimate in passive play though, you know your specified role and you do it exactly as you’ve done it every previous time. It totally freaking works, but let’s not pretend it’s active play. It’s less active than old-style ‘get out of the red circle!’ raid fights

And switching to all Nomad fixes this how? Don’t confuse bad encounter design with boosting of the passive mitigation stats. Like I said if you understand how combat works – you will understand why Zerker is the best case scenario for the game designers.

If you want to enable the content designers to put the focus on active abilities – you are smart to devalue passive mitigation.

I didn’t say that though :p

It’s fixed the way Anet is trying to fix it, by designing encounters with that kind of playstyle in mind.

Specifically they have to try to force active play. This isn’t, as you say, a stats thing, it’s in the enemies.

The Dungeon meta is about ability/trait combination allowing quick, low risk, passive play (usually in stacks). They have to force people out of the fields/mutual coverage and into actual combat. This is why so many new opponents drop continuing ground effects, they’re trying to force players to split up and actually play instead of sitting just around the corner so the enemies LOS run into 100 blades.

It’s also why those new mender enemies have an extremely powerful large radius AE heal that’s interrupted on any hit that also slide back a bit when they’re hit. The whole point is to force players to use pulls to grab them or more often to go out and target them. Again, it’s promoting active play rather than passive ‘let the enemies come to me’ play.

There was one case where Anet was specifically punishing zerkers, when the Mordrem Hounds did that extremely powerful AE retaliation. It wrecked zerker built/geared players, but they took it out preumably because it wasn’t something that was going to meaningfully change player’s behaviors.

Edit: Don’t worry though, they’re not changing the old dungeons, there will always be zerker meta there. It’ll still be essentially meaningless, but for people of the appropriate mindset the advantage isn’t going away.

Hume.2876:

Here is the deal – this game is supposed to be all about active ways to stay alive.

“Meta” as understood in the dungeon sense is the ultimate in passive play though, you know your specified role and you do it exactly as you’ve done it every previous time. It totally freaking works, but let’s not pretend it’s active play. It’s less active than old-style ‘get out of the red circle!’ raid fights

spoj.9672:

The meta isnt just about stacking. Stacking is a strategy heavily used within the meta. You cannot define the meta with such a broad and unfair generalisation. The “zerk meta” as you describe is literally just the builds and an efficient approach. It may involve stacking, it may not. It entirely depends on the situation and what is the fastest approach.

Do you understand why people stack? They do it to share buffs or to group up trash mobs so they can AOE them down. This still works on the new content. It might be difficult for bad players but it is still the most efficient way to deal with large groups of enemies quickly. The only difference in the meta now is that the meta doesnt involve wall stacking bosses because fgs was nerfed. But we still stack for buffs and go melee. And we still wall stack some groups of trash mobs to LoS pull them together.

Stacking is part of what makes it so effective in dungeons though, if it weren’t for the buff-sharing/field-sharing/defenses-sharing (including things like black powder), it wouldn’t be effective.

You’re wrong about the effectiveness of stacking though, for a number of reasons… Primarily that stacking relies on the enemy coming to you, and many enemies simply won’t now. Even more, the environments are such that you won’t consistently have a good los/stacking spot anyways, and if it does exist, you can’t stay there for game reasons (If you’re stacking in a corner while people are trying to save a NPC, they’re going to be a little annoyed at you not helping)

The ultimate evidence is that people simply don’t stack (in the dungeon sense) in drytop or the silverwastes. If it were effective they would, it’s not exactly an unknown tactic.

But… they don’t. They don’t because it’s not terribly effective, and because it’s easy to get killed by the new opponents who are a lot less likely to obediently come into the blender.

Ok I Did It.2854:

Its bugged for all parties, including dungeons/fractals also, its like instant refresh, I don’t know how that got past the testers………

Load testing certainly. Their test pool likely wasn’t consistently large enough to see the full effect

troublemaker mode

No don’t you see guys? It’s a hint that they’re adding torches as usable weapons for engineers!

They added the flash/scroll in thing this last patch, it’s terrible.

I’ve bugged it because it makes the tool impossible to use if there’s a high volume, I’d encourage evveryone to do that.

IndigoSundown.5419:

At which point we’d be seeing posts about how the “Knight’s meta” needs to end.

There’s a certain class of player that will always cleave to their received wisdom best play. If there wasn’t a meaningful gear advantage people would just switch over to classes (see the pvp meta).

Ultimately the ‘meta’ discussion is a people problem not a gameplay problem.

EDIT:

Jahroots.6791:

Besides, meta game has nothing to do with stats guys, it’s something that exists in all of us, the players.

Excellent simultaneous posts there

It always goes back to part 2. When you get out of the vision, would it have killed them to have your character say, “That was kittened up. Caithe has some things to answer for.” instead of just waving it off?

I didn’t like it much because I’ve always found Caithe irritatingly submissive, and she’s about 100x worse in this one. It’s like she gets off on being told what to do (which maybe makes sense, sylvari cant have sex as much, so fetishes must be huge)

spoj.9672:

Windsagio.1340:

spoj.9672:

Really? Thats news to me. I havent seen anything which we cant complete using the meta.

We are already using support and control to survive in the meta.

Can’t is where you got caught up there. GW is designed sot here’s very little a particular build can’t complete.

Much of the mordrem content is harder for zerkers than for other builds:

More Chain CC,
More Chain Condition application,
Special defense and resistance (husk’s high toughness, front armor on threshers)
more rapid attacks to eat things like aegis
content that’s extremely inefficient for groups.
High yield enemy healers
Very stack-unfriendly attack patterns (root attacks from tetragryphs and the healing threshers, spin/ground AE passthrough from the other threshers, the bug swarms from mordrem trolls, the mass retal howl before they nerfed it)

Again, it’s not impossible for them, but it’s just a touch harder… and an oldfashioned stack is idiocy for a multitude of reasons.

Which means that your previous statement was incorrect. They are not designing encounters that the meta doesnt work with. They are just upping the difficulty slightly. Although people are seriously overestimating the danger of mordrem and the new bosses. They are barely any different to what we are used to. The only difference is some condition attacks and high damage attacks on trash mobs which have huge tells. In some ways its even easier because we can see the attacks coming. This is difficult to do when dealing with a large group of molten alliance in the molten fractal. And stacking is still perfectly safe to do. You just have to treat them like you would treat fractal mob groups (CC and blinds).

Mordrem are only hard for people who dont read tells and dont dodge or CC correctly. So it seems people who already run and understand the meta arent really seeing much of a difference in difficulty. But other more casual players are.

No, you see, it doesn’t not work with the ‘meta builds’, it doesn’t work with the ‘meta’.

In the new content zerk/stack isn’t superior, stacking was obviously heavily targeted in the design, it’s almost always a bad idea now. Zerk is kind of bad for some enemies, okay for others (ie hounds are fine now. 2 months ago it was fun watching zerkers killt hemselves on them though).

There is no zerk meta for the newer content

There is in the case of the old content (for people who claim to care about that 5m/run), but there isn’t in the new content.

~~~

Also, I didn’t exactly say that mordrem are hard, I said that they negate the advantages of the zerker meta. And it certainly does. You can still pew pew big numbers if you want, but it isn’t clearly superior or even a time saver.

Harper.4173:

Windsagio.1340:

There are different levels of filtering though, someone can lie about being zerk just as well as they can lie about being ‘EXP’.

Zerk especially won’t protect you from your example, because it’s well known and kind of human nature. The guy in brand-new bought zerker gear will kitten up CM2 just as much as the same guy in Magi’s

That’s why you don’t just look at gear.

If party DPS drops – you can suspect a non-zerker.
If someone doesn’t drop as fast as they should in full zerk after getting hit you can know he’s lying and easily kick.

The guy in that brand-new bought zerker gear can’t be more than 5000 AP so as a general rule of thumb try to find people with high AP to play with and you won’t have this problem ( Yes I know you can get terrible people at high AP but there’s a lower chance they’ll be bad than the person who’s sitting at 1000 AP).

-I look forward to everyone telling me about their 500-1500 AP friend who’s absolutely godlike at this game and how my statement is so false-

I never said I filter just by gear – just that it’s one of the criteria.

(emphasis mine)

This is why people hate ‘zerk meta’ folks. You’re immediately in a place where someone not dying is an easy kick. It’s so focused on the theoretical meta that they’ll punish people for not failing.

Simiarly, heartless up there is using the term ‘bads’.

The essence of it comes down to that the thing that makes people mad isn’t the zerker meta itself, it’s that people that insist on the zerker meta are almost inevitably jerks.

spoj.9672:

Really? Thats news to me. I havent seen anything which we cant complete using the meta.

We are already using support and control to survive in the meta.

Can’t is where you got caught up there. GW is designed sot here’s very little a particular build can’t complete.

Much of the mordrem content is harder for zerkers than for other builds:

More Chain CC,
More Chain Condition application,
Special defense and resistance (husk’s high toughness, front armor on threshers)
more rapid attacks to eat things like aegis
content that’s extremely inefficient for groups.
High yield enemy healers
Very stack-unfriendly attack patterns (root attacks from tetragryphs and the healing threshers, spin/ground AE passthrough from the other threshers, the bug swarms from mordrem trolls, the mass retal howl before they nerfed it)

Again, it’s not impossible for them, but it’s just a touch harder… and an oldfashioned stack is idiocy for a multitude of reasons.

spoj.9672:

Actually they are all completely viable. They just arent all optimal. Both tanking and healing is op in PvE. Its just not fast so its not part of the meta. Condi is the only thing which is genuinely weak in GROUP pve. Because it has low max damage and high ramp up time. However condi is at least fairly decent or often superior when soloing.

Berserker isnt too good. Its been nerfed several times but its still the meta because meta is about being as fast and efficient as possible. You wont change the meta no matter what you do unless you want to completely break the game.

Except what they’re doing, which is designing encounters that the dungeon meta doesn’t work with.

There are different levels of filtering though, someone can lie about being zerk just as well as they can lie about being ‘EXP’.

Zerk especially won’t protect you from your example, because it’s well known and kind of human nature. The guy in brand-new bought zerker gear will kitten up CM2 just as much as the same guy in Magi’s

The trick is that people are realizing ‘marginally better’ just isn’t worth the dullness and aggro. There are always people who care about minutia like whether people are ABSOLUTELY META OR NOT it’s good for them to isolate themselves.

GW2 content isn’t hard enough that meta actually matters.

OK I’ll take it seriously then.

If you’re not using LFG then what you do with your friends is up to you.

If you are using LFG, you’re probably losing more time than you gain via waiting (and again the time gained is tiny on most runs).

And again, our experiences vary, I’ve wiped a tiny % of runs in most cases, and ‘meta’, if it seemed to be a factor, seemed to be worse, but that could be because the wait time is irritating and people who care about running meta are more prone to raging out and yelling at each other and quitting if anything is even remotely not to their liking.

Edit: And just to be clear, I think that’s why you’re seeing fewer and fewer “Meta” demands in the LFG. People are realizing it’s a waste of time and an undue chance of flameout, so they’re dying out.

Harper.4173:

5-8 minutes matter to some people. They matter to me.

If I wasted 5 minutes on each dungeon – provided I ran 3 per day that’s 15 minutes a day. That’s one hour every 4 days.
Assuming I played GW2 for about every day since release ( let’s say 350 days/year) that means 7 days – 7 entire days of my life wasted by slow dungeon runs.
It is a lot.

Also it’s not just the fact that the runs are slow – but wipes and taking a long time personally kill the experience for me. There’s no enjoyment in doing AC p1 in 30 minutes.

Rad post

I presume the first part is satire, but there’s a chance you’re actually serious on the second part;

If you think Meta/not Meta is making your group wipe AC path 1, that’s… God I don’t even know, just so sad.

Star Ace.5207:

To summarize, I believe many players “hate” the meta due to past bad experiences with the LFG tool. Being insulted by a random jerk that has no clue of who you really are has to be super annoying, and surely a way to turn-off players from even doing Dungeons (or whatever else). Further aggravated by the immense amount of players who do use a random “meta” that actually isn’t, or are just sheep without the skill to pull out what they saw on a video-but still have the gall to insult others for “lack of skill”, and other pettiness. Thus the problem is not people who like “Berserker’s meta”, but the idiots that like to belittle others for doing things differently than they do (meta isn’t the problem-jerks are.)

Another regrettable aspect of this “debate” is quite often seeing the really good players refer to loose, non-meta builds as “atrocious”, “terribad”, etc., as if their forum audience were all part of their guild or speed run mentality. If these players just proclaimed the builds they dislike/would never use as merely “sub-optimal” (which truly they may be) vs calling alternate builds nasty epithets (a “bad” build for speed running may be fantastic for another player who is not even contemplating to speed run-which is a LOT of your readers) many would be less angry at people who enjoy their “meta-ness”.

In short, be fair to people, so they don’t bite you back. Nobody should enjoy being the object of ridicule for playing their way/being different than many/most. No need to treat others as inferiors for enjoying the game differently than you do (being a “snowflake” is actually a fair choice, and one not to be ridiculed.)

That said, I do not agree that the meta “shouldn’t exist”, because many players are drawn to that playstyle. Wisely make your own groups or only join those who at least appear to share your own vision of the game.

Rather, nobody likes a jerk or to be told they’re playing wrong.

The real ugly truth about the matter is that for all of this content the gains for playing meta (presuming they’re real) are utterly minimal. Saving 5-8 minutes on a dungeon has always struck me as a bizarre way to do it, especially if it means boring play.

If it were a difference of hours, or completion, sure there might be a point. In the vast majority of cases there isn’t.

I actually came in here for the same reason, it’s more they changed it so that when it refreshes it does that annoying scroll-in animation that makes them unreadable and unclickable. It used to refresh without doing that, and that’s the real problem.

That was a bad change, and it’s made worse by the current nightmare of SW hopper LFGs making the list change every .5 seconds.

The only meta I know at this point is that groups in LFG that demand Zerk or demand heavy are inevitably huge PITA’s to finish.

There’s nothing so frustrating as getting a box for something you already have 3 of though.

Maybe let us sell boxes for 250 badges? The badge merchant shouldn’t say ‘no’ to a 300% markup!

Andred.1087:

Heavens forbid they ever push the player into uncomfortable situations…

The feeling of helplessness is expected, and the Tree does specifically say ‘hey remember this will feel like you have volition but you won’t.’

The big issue for a lot of people is that in both the last episode and this one we want our character to say “Man, kitten Caithe.” And we’re not allowed to.

Having the character react wrongly (compared to our own thoughts) to Caithe’s kittenry is what I really think gets people going.

perilisk.1874:

Windsagio.1340:

Both for stealing the egg and for her part in Faolain’s crimes that there is now a prominent, highly respected witness to?

From our character’s perspective inside the tent, while Faolain was definitely being provocative, the centaurs attacked her first.

As for the egg, you’d have to prove a property right for it to be considered theft. Since our entire group including Caithe had just found it after the death of the previous owner, and the Master of Peace didn’t leave a written will, that would be tricky.

“I call to the stand… (dramatic pause) … THE PALE TREE!”

I’d say though, my position being clear on Caithe’s actions, the point isn’t to punish her or get revenge, it’s to show that bad actions are actually examined and aren’t just dismissed out of hand.

To me, they can let her off, but it’d be good to know the heroes aren’t above examination.

dsslive.8473:

Schwarzseher.9873:

dsslive.8473:

We don’t know her reasoning yet for running off with the Egg, for all we know she’s doing it for a good reason.

AS to the slaughtering of the centaur, Caithe didn’t do anything wrong. As far as she knew the centaur attacked Faolain, the person she loved, and she acted in defense when they became hostile.

So no she shouldn’t be put on trial for anything.

Normally I hate those four legged abominations but in this case Im siding with them. They havent sone anything wrong. It was Faolain provoking them to attack her. Also Caithe should have known that their escort wasnt just there for their “protection”. They were a full killer squad.
And even when Caithe says that she simply followed Faolain and her orders its not a excuse for slaughtering other people.
She should be put on Trial, stripped off all her rights and executed in the most degrading way possible for high treason, murder of innocents, endangering her allies and conspiracy against whole Tyria. Stealing the egg just made the it more severe.
At this point the only reasonable options for us are either kill or capture her. Preferably with a unmanned asuran drone.

Caithe was naive at that point in her life, yes Faolain provoked the centaurs, but caithe did not know that. Her love for Faolain made her choose her side when it came to her attention that they were attacking her. Choosing between a group of complete strangers or the person you love, tends to be an easy choice made.

The escort for “their protection” wasn’t that hard to believe. They had only just saved their own from asura who used them in their experiments. They had no reason to take risks, so Caithe wasn’t being daft assuming it was really for their protection, as their previous experiences with other races didn’t go quite as well.

“I was Naive” doesn’t automatically protect you from culpability, I’d argue. That would be one of the advantages of a trial, figuring out how to assign guilt.

Erukk.1408:

Windsagio.1340:

Verificus.4320:

Trial for what? Slaying beasts? They are centaurs, savages. Faolain wasn’t wrong.

Your RP aside, there’s also Treason vs the pact and arguably Treason vs. the Pale Tree

Until we know what she’s done with the egg, you can’t free charge her with treason. As for the treason charges itself, we don’t know if she (or the other DE members) are technically Pact members. They help sure, but I very much doubt they are actually members themselves. I would probably say DE are allied with the Pact, with Zojja being more of a consultant on tech.

The treason charges against the Pale Tree/Grove would be dropped as well. She hasn’t done anything against the Pale Tree interests, or consorting with enemies of the Pale Tree, as a whole… that we know of.

She knew the Pale Tree’s vision was for you (not her) to get the Egg, and the discussion in the story (with the Tree) makes it clear that it’s not only bad, it’s potentially apocalyptic. That’s probably the most upset I’ve heard the tree be.

~~~

And remember a trial isn’t a conviction or a punishment. It’s just an attempt to determine guilt. She might get off for mitigating circumstances.

The question of whether we’d find her innocent or guilty is an entirely different subject.

Jurisdiction is an interesting question though; The pact probably doesn’t have it, but the Sylvari have some legal system, as we see in the PS with Renvari.

Verificus.4320:

Trial for what? Slaying beasts? They are centaurs, savages. Faolain wasn’t wrong.

Your RP aside, there’s also Treason vs the pact and arguably Treason vs. the Pale Tree

Stupid 45 character limit in titles; If you were a writer in the LS2 story, would you push for Caithe to be tried and/or punished for what’s happened?

Both for stealing the egg and for her part in Faolain’s crimes that there is now a prominent, highly respected witness to?

CETheLucid.3964:

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Yeah I didn’t really like it either.

I kept thinking “why on earth would I be attacking these centaurs” and then remembering that I was Caithe… And then continuing to question it because there is absolutely no motivation for Caithe to do that or blindly follow what Faolin is doing/saying.

It just came across and really poorly thought out and not a whole lot of fun to witness…

20+ years ago, Caithe would do anything for Faolain. Basically they had a mission to bring Wynne home.

Show Spoiler

hide spoiler

Faolain brought an armed regiment into the territory and generally made a kitten of herself, bringing heavy suspicion.

Wynne didn’t want to go. Centaur tribe offers her protection from what can reasonably be assumed as coercion on Faolain and Caithe’s part.

Centaur chieftain and Caithe attempt reason, something goes down outside, hell breaks loose.

It happens. Not all diplomatic overtures end amicably. Our characters fairly sum it up. Things escalated, violently.

They didn’t have a mission, Faolain decided that she wanted to go get Wynne