Guild Wars 2

Xae Isareth.1364:

Dub.1273:

Loses up to 40% personal damage compared to an ele.
Provides 7 more stacks of might, all might with ~20% higher uptime and less (no) chance for failure (fire fields being covered by light fields, etc). Also brings Empower Allies and permanent Banners. Overall, an ele is somewhat better in an organized group on TS that doesn’t mess up. A PS warriors is A LOT better in any unorganized group or for fractal runs, let alone HotW.

You really aren’t losing 40% DPS. You’re losing something like that off the DPS meta build, but you’d have at least 1 warrior run an EA build in an optimised party anyways.

An ele has already higher dps than a warrior.

To anyone saying that organized teams won’t use that trait because eles are better suited for might stacking – I would like to see how eles might stack correctly during encounters like 2nd archdiviner in 2nd phase when most often those teams use a hammer guardian which only makes blasting harder than it already is because of rather fast attacks of that boss. Instead, you can change your build to phalanx since it’s now relatively fast to do and change your ele to a staff or dagger builds which both have higher damage potential and are more safer to play while bringing more utility.

I’ve been running similar build for some time now and it’s astonishing how easy might stacking in fractals became. At higher scales, typically, a guardian has a hammer which makes stacking mights during some fights quite an issue. With this trait you can delegate your eles to staff builds and yolo through everything by spamming your attacks. Support was never that brainless but I guess that’s what people want.

ApplePearOrange.9281:

I think this is very relevant.
One thing the whole “there will always be a meta/optimal build” argument ignores is that although it is true that a “meta” would always exist, the said “meta” for different situations/encounters need not be the same.

Let’s get more ascended sets for each encounter. Pure fun.

Tommyknocker.6089:

Make the PvE mobs dodge and avoid player aoe again like they used to do in the beta, gradually after level 15 (example) would be fine IMO. They could still make mistakes of course, I’m not asking for a dodge bot, but once in a while like the toxic enemies would make CC much more usefull.

Dodging would be fine.

Make toughness scale higher and not just make all the enemies in PvE just high hit point meat bags. Making high toughness effect physical damage in the same way as condi damage will damage structures (what fun) would make more builds viable in PvE.

Toughness scale properly:

http://youtu.be/b2VhmwLwvrM

I have nothing against zerger builds (got a warrior I use in PvE only for it), but I too would like to see more builds become viable in PvE.

It’s zerker, not zerger. Those 2 are completely different thing. (think != thing)

mooty.4560:

To OP; What the game actually needs is more punishing cooperative PvE content that forces players to utilize a bit more defense. In most trinity style games, a squishy player does not want to draw the aggro of foes because they’ll get walloped, thus relying on a tank. It wouldn’t be quite the same in GW2 but if you give foes more CC, more damage and more conditions, you would entice players to reconsider being full-on glass. If you give foes an absurd amount of armor, players will realize they need conditions to do damage(thus encouraging build variety, etc.). It’s all in the design of PvE enemies.

There are a couple of issues, though. The players who feel the need to be defense oriented now are going to have a tough time of it against enemies that are less forgiving. There’s also a problem with retrofitting dungeons with new and more dangerous types of foes. Players who like the design as it is will gripe about this. So the solution would be to add it into new content. It may be the case that the oldest content is the weakest and easiest to conquer when it’s all said and done, which would require scaling rewards back for older stuff. It’s never cut and dry.

Again, if you make such that you need condition damage dealers you will reduce build diversity because now you have to get them. You don’t have a choice.

Aiglos.2907:

I think the fundamental issue is the PvE game mechanics? Mobs hit too hard and too infrequently for defensive stats to truly be worth much. Currently, there are many ‘active defense’ options, which means that if you are skilled enough, high damage will always be optimal. Even if unskilled, I don’t think toughness/vitality would allow for significant margins of error because… things hit hard and they don’t do much else.

However, in cases of attrition and sustained attacks by mobs, I think the defensive stats are better in these situations. So personally, I think there needs to be a bit more mob diversity that would facilitate different roles? Or maybe… small, occasional persistent effects that require vitality/toughness to deal with.

No need to go completely nuts or anything, but something truly meaningful would be appreciated.

Defensive stats are worth much. You just need to get more sustain in order for them to shine. Unless you think disabling your dodge button in arah path 2 and literally facetanking bosses like giganticus lupicus is not enough.

Harper.4173:

So how is GW2 lacking build diversity?

It doesn’t lack it.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Having rapid attacks doesn’t mean that mobs will no longer have big, dangerous attacks that you need to dodge.

Having rapid attacks means your party requires now better sustain which means you are now forced to run certain builds because you won’t survive without them. How’s that going to increase build diversity? I can only see it would actually decrease it.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

I was trying to come up with different solutions from the norm. Like the combining precision and ferocity into one stat. My only aim was to approach the subject from a different viewpoint to invite discussion and maybe get a different perspective on things. My goal was not to complain or flame, or anything of the sort.

What I don’t understand is why people in this community always adopt such a volatile reaction to people trying to discuss possible new ideas. You all seem to think that if it isn’t your way, it’s the highway and that if things aren’t to your liking, then they cannot be considered at all. I never once implied that my ideas were perfect or correct. They’re just ideas that I had hoped would invite healthy and constructive discussions. Instead, all I am getting is a lot of negativity and a lot of snide responses.

Honestly, if this is the state of the community on these forums, then I really don’t want anything to do with it anymore. I’ll just carry on playing the game while you all have your mud slinging contests, and beat each other down into the dirt.

Take a look at pvp. Power builds are not dominating there and bunkers are relatively hard to kill. If you somehow touch this fragile balance in order to attempt to make pve “more diverse” you make defensive gameplay too strong and too easy. People already hate defensive gameplay in pvp, let’s not make it even worse.

We’ve seen hundreds of proposals, each not exactly thought through.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Because I honestly don’t play WvW or PvP as much as PvE, so I’m not as knowledgeable as others in that regard. There are others more qualified to talk about PvP balance than I.

Why don’t you make a thread about it if it matters to you so much?

There are literally tens of threads about zerkers popping out every day. It’s beating a dead horse way too much for my taste. On top of that, most, if not all of the people, that create those kind of threads start their thesis with complete false opinions and their way to fix the apparent problem always leads to even worse situation.

Sarie.1630:

And there was me thinking all you needed in this game was 5, max width, Norn warriors spamming Skill 2!

I’d strongly recommend to read basics about support.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

What kind of solution do you want to see? A buff? A nerf? A rework?

Also, lots of people care about PvE. Hence why a majority of players spend most of their time in PvE. O_o

Complete eviscerate of condies in pvp. Why don’t you make a thread about that?

Sarie.1630:

So yes, I think little hits, more often, is a very reasonable way of beginning to make support more useful.

Support more useful? Support is already extremely strong, you just have to know how to build your character.

Asmodeus.5782:

Monsters should hit weaker and more often, that’s one simple and useful adjustment. You won’t be able to dodge it all – tough/vit/healing suddenly become needed in the team.

It’s amusing that you actually ask for less build diversity.

Asking for build diversity is pointless because by definition there is only one optimal set of playstyle that is superior to everything else.

Also, I find it rather amusing that most people asking for build diversity wants some kind of trinity back.

It’s a great trait for groups that are not able to stack might properly which probably includes most of the pugs plus most of the groups for high scales fractals.

And the bonus thing is that none of the other builds can stack might as good as phalanx strength warrior underwater.

hendo.1940:

Risen sentinels use rings of warding and drop banners of strength
Risen putrifiers pull you in
Risen hunters buff their allies with stability, might and throw a bouncing axe and spawn eagles
Risen elementalists apply protection to themselves
Risen mages use knockdown and damaging fields as area denial
Risen illusionists apply retaliation, aegis and massive area denial with chaos storm
Risen devastators deal high damage and CC

These are unskippable at a number of points in Arah.

Do you know who enjoys fighting these? Not your average player.

Don’t forget that rise mages heal themselves and their allies with those area denial attacks.

CuRtoKy.8576:

I think you just proved the point. Organized group even if they full party wipe is rare compared to PuG. Doing that would just punish PuGs even more causing more toxicity and people raging at PuGs in LFGs even more. Nobody wants that.

What would be better then? Unavoidable damage that reduces build diversity by a large margin? Wipe = game over means you actually have to play more defensive or take a greater risk with better (faster) rewards.

That is the point. GW2 is too easy it doesn’t mean that non zerk is the best for open world it just means that what you bring doesn’t really matter since it is extremely easy. That isn’t to say non zerk is the best it just means that you can get by with anything really.

Open world, I agree. But when someone says that fotm50 is too easy it probably means he runs with too much defense (guardians). PvE has a lot of balance issue which can appear as the game being too easy.

You said you don’t see zerker used as a meta but I’m saying you do see it for certain professions. It is meta for them. There is just more a bit more you can do in PvP in terms of builds but either way you can’t expect a single game mode to have all play styles and builds available for you that is the point. Decap engi works in PvP can you use it anywhere else? No. Trying to complain or make it so that you can use that build and be viable in PvE and WvW is just silly. Some things will be better in one game mode versus the other.

People in this forum complain that everything except zerker is useless to use. My counter argument is that in other game modes it’s different. Bringing up the examples of zerker builds in pvp is pointless because it doesn’t achieve anything..

You have to have zerker or dps in your group otherwise you do kitten for damage anyhow really. So how isn’t that meta just because other people choose to use something else because of their skill level. Same happens for PvE. Like 1v1 you would use zerker that is meta since if you are skilled you only need dps and some utilities. Small group play you would have zerker like 10v10, 20v20 or something since you won’t take damage from a large amount of people and it is easier to survive through utilities or dodges. It is part of the meta. Meta =/= only 1 thing. Now in a 60v60 blobfest or 100v100 map blob skill lag fight then yeah you might run some tanky stats too since if you fail you get hit like by 30 people or something. Either way that doesn’t change what is good or not (meta) since blobfest you can really get by using anything since AoE cap and skill lag.

Sorry but according to my definition of word ‘meta’, meta refers to the most popular techniques. Is zerker the most popular in wvw? I honestly doubt that.

Using active defenses means you can use more offensive stats and by that definition it means a move to zerker. Condition build are a different story since they only need 1 stat to be effective hence they don’t need to build anything else really so they can go tanky stats without punishment. I don’t think you understand my point since you said that zerk groups get owned more than defensive group. But that is untrue it depends on the level of skill.

I thought that was a logical conclusion that offensive groups with comparable skill level to defensive groups wipe more often. I cannot imagine it being the other way. If your group has enough defence, wipe might not be achievable at all.

The Kurt.2518:

And were increadibly time-consuming to get, and if you got them or not was based on luck

3 sets out of 8 were obtainable within few tpvp wins.

fadeaway.2807:

Dredge wouldn’t be so bad if you could blind them and the respawns were more reasonable. My biggest problem with zerg enemies with a high rate of attack is that well timed blocks, dodges and blinds aren’t rewarded.

I know it’s a debatable subject but I miss the trinity and feel it allows for far more interesting fight mechanics. Sunstrider, vashj, shade of aran, alar, reliquary, gorefiend etc.. I see no fights in gw2 which are as intricate or as fun as that. If the no trinity system truly allowed for better pve, why haven’t we seen it yet?

Try melandru in cursed shore before megakittens come there.

Fafnir.5124:

World bosses shouldn’t be killable with a small 5 man group. something that can step on you to kill you is really going to die from choping at its feet. Fire elemental especially which should be intangiable dying from sword swings is a joke. Fale mechanisms shouldn’t be timer base but trigger base/preventable. If you don’t do something uber attack happens or dps from boss becomes so high it wipes you when you enter or new stage of difficulty arises with time fighting the boss. I beleive that events shouldn’t scale based on numbers but that there should be rankings of world bosses with set difficulties and rewards that reflect the effort necessary for completion.

Incorporate randomization of boss that spawns/same boss to incorporates different attack mechanics to keep people thinking on there feet.

Indeed, world bosses should be zergable. It’s much more enjoyable to defeat a boss which you cannot even see with 100 people than to actually react to what it does with 5 people.

RoxBuryNine.4210:

In my opinion, mega servers are not garbage. The are more players on maps making events, skill-points, vista and points of interest easier to complete.

My question is, was the entire NSP server population involved with completing the events listed or was it a select guild or two? Several statements in the OP indicate that one or two guilds were affected.

What’s wrong with doing the events with other players? Stop being selfish and greedy. As hafiz said “PvE is still face roll” so get out there and roll your faces.

I’m currently trying to unlock trait by defeating lyssa priest and for the past hour I’ve been simply afking there. Before I could simply guest to vabbi and solo/duo it in 10 minutes.

I’m sure anet wants players to feel the living (not empty) world but every single boss in this game, when zerged with 100 people, is hardly visible, let alone enjoyable to kill.

lordkrall.7241:

You are aware that these rewards are made specifically for sPvP:ers right?
And most of those probably haven’t even run most of the dungeons.

Are you aware that dungeon armours/weapons skins were obtainable in pvp for over 1.5 year?

squallaus.8321:

No it wasn’t. Just because you’re from a highly dense populated server doesn’t mean everyone else is.

If you actually think pve is so easy, I’d challenge you to complete melandru temple with 3, lyssa with 2, dwayna with 2, grenth with 5, balth with 8. If you’re bored enough you can also try to solo ulgoth, foulbear and the eye of zhaitan world events.

Lets see how you fare when you actually have to work for the loot.

You can solo most of those events. In fact, it makes those events somewhat bearable.

PvE is still faceroll.

beGreen.4190:

I’ve spent quite a bit of time in my guardian (been playing since half a year and he is my only character) and trust me i know what I am talking about.

Support abilities not being gear dependent is actually massive BS

Gear dependent: Healing Breeze, Healing Meditation, Staff’s Empower, all of the symbols, Orb of Light, Selfless Daring trait, Virtue of Resolve – all of those abilities have two things in common firstly they scale with healing power and secondly they are not worth using (with virtue of resolve being remotely useful)

Also i used AH build not because i thought AH heals my team but because it promoted supportive gameplay while not being laughable.

Logically speaking, why is that massive BS? If you want to change your build, you don’t have to get 500g+ to get new ascended armour/weapons/trinkets.

Snuckerpooks.2019:

There are many builds that gear can overlap. But if you go from a build where the source of the damage is from crit/power and change to a build where it is through confusion or other conditions, are you carrying stats that don’t compliment the build? There are never wasted stats, but there could be better choices for stats.

Sure, changing traits and weapons changes how you play, but changing the stats makes those builds with different damage sources shine brighter than they normally would have.

Your gear doesn’t compliment your build but the gameplay-wise there’s is a lot of difference. And that’s what people want, right? Different gameplay, not stack&100b.

Dalanor.5387:

Same as in pvp? But how would you solve the loss in stats? Or Anet should rebalance everything outside of pvp?

“Just” increase the stats gain from traits.

Dalanor.5387:

edit:

Also asking me why dont I run support build with zerker is stupid. It doesn’t feel right, it’s clearly not what creator of the game intended and you guys know it

I suggest you to read trough this to get familiar with your class.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_guardian_skills

Most of your support abilities aren’t gear dependent and since you wear Knight armor i assume you don’t care about healing, not if it is good or anything.

Recently, I’ve been trying phalanx strength for lulz and I’ve been running it without changing gear. It’s a supportive trait and when devs were introducing it on ReadyUp they haven’t said it’s for support warriors that do not wear zerker gear. I don’t get OP’s sentiment at all.

Remove stats from gear, all stats should come from traits and passive signets. There you go, no more complains about zerkers.

Pyroathiest.4168:

People just don’t seem to understand that warlocks hit like trucks.

In PvE, my warlock will regularly crit for over 18k damage on bosses with large numbesr of conditions. This phantasm has an insanely high damage potential.

4k-6k crits on players in PvP is absolutely ordinary.

Should white raven double hit for 2×3k with every attack?

Alice.8694:

The mechanic to encourage better build diversity already exists within guild wars 2.

It’s called retaliation.

However during beta, bosses that reflected damage utterly destroyed hundreds of players. And since then it’s been very rare to see a boss with Retaliation or Damage reflection up.

Why would you call a necessity to pick healing as diveristy? There would be virtually no diversity when you have to get more sustain. Please, think before suggesting something, introducing unavoidable damage will never increase diveristy, it would only reduce it because now you have to run a certain build in order to complete a content.

CuRtoKy.8576:

Skilled players wouldn’t wipe to begin with anyhow. Wipe = reset just punishes everyone else like PuGs and such.

Humans aren’t machines, even the best pve guilds can wipe, not to mention typical zerker pugs.

PvE is mostly zerk. The only time you wouldn’t use it is say a structure like Tequ then PTV is acceptable. Even then Zerk is still called upon for adds at Tequ or burn phase for Wurm. So it still matters.

PvE instanced is mostly zerk, open world is too casual to even care about that. And most people play open world.

PvP your zerk amulet has vitality by default and you can’t really have full zerk but as you can see zerk amulet is used often. Thiefs, S/D Ele, S/F Ele, Supcutie Shatter Mesmer, and a number of other builds. If you say zerk + dps trait lines then I have to say look at the guardian build. It doesn’t just go say 6/6/x/x/x it is 4/5/0/0/5 so as you can see the traits account for the defense and survivability part just like what you will see in any WvW or PvP build.

My point, not everything is zerker. Condie engies, spirit rangers, bunker guardians, condie wars, bunker wars, decap engies, etc.

WvW group run a mix of tank, tanky dps, and high dps. Zerk groups wipe as much as defensive groups. The difference is skill. A skilled group of dps can take down other groups simply through skill. A defensive group with low skill will get wiped regardless.

Again, meta isn’t zerker. You just admitted my point.

As your skill increases where you can use more active defenses at the right time: Stability, Aegis, Protection, Dodges, Evades, etc. The less you need of defensive stats and the more offense you will have available to you since you are using a lot of defense stats.

I’m not sure you understood my point at all.

When I feel bored I simply change traits to something different and the gameplay is completely different. You still have zerker gear but the gameplay, utilities, weapons and overall tactics is completely different. Why can’t people understand that swapping gear changes absolutely nothing?

Go 0/0/5/6/3 or something like that for a warrior for instance and now you can support your team as well as get those controls. There’s virtually no difference if you play this build with zerker or with settlers.

I’m talking mostly about fractals. But if you would say that in fractals zerker meta isn’t that prevalent, why do people want to get rid of it when it’s prevalent only in 1 game mode? You don’t see zerker meta in pvp, wvw and the rest of pve.

Also, I can promise you that zerker groups wipe more often than more defensive groups and most of the people cannot adapt when something unexpected happens. One mistimed dodge and a vast majority of people can’t react to a following change of circumstance.

Do you know the other reason why zerker is so popular? There’s no punishment for wiping. You can simply redo the encounter. Ask anet to change it so the wipe means start from the scratch (like in gw1).

That should increase the viability of defensive stats. I would anticipate a lot of QQ-ing about that but think about that. If someone would QQ, he’d be just told to get more toughness/vitality/healing power. OP’s objective would be met without any nerfing, balance changes or gameplay design.

Tman.6349:

how many players have made it to Cursed Shores on a lvl 30 char. There are a few professions actually capable of this, but 1 hit on the way you’re guarenteed to die. I would love to do Arah with anyone who is actually capable of making it there with a level 30 char b/c that says a LOT about them tbh.

It’s not a problem for most of the classes. Maybe except necro cause his mobility is just bad.

Dee Jay.2460:

“Zerker meta” is about gear choices, not class performance.

Ah, so the gear choice is about dps but the rest isn’t. Gotcha.

Power block was able to disable autoattacks so according to this logic players’ design is also kittenty.

Guardian brings more than just reflects.

I keep hearing that nothing but dps matters. In that case, why would you ever bring a guardian or a mesmer? Just run with eles, one war and thieves.

Your second paragraph does look like a description of dredges.

And the answer they would receive would probably be in line with “get more toughness, vitality and healing power”. Which is what they want right now.

If someone intends to use ele to stack most of the might for a group, can I see a video where your group stacks might correctly during the encounters like archdiviner at fotm 41+ when you often have a hammer guardian?

Let’s be practical, for dungeons ele is the definite choice for might stacking but eles can’t do it so well in high scales fractals. If you see your party stack mights correctly, it takes few seconds to change your build.

And most importantly, can ele stack mights underwater as good as PS warrior?

Wipe means nothing. You can simply redo it. With wipe = gameover a lot of people would have to start running more defensively.

Do you stop for a second to chat when someone pms you?

Anyway, this game would be much better with that, so much controls! Just imagine stunlocking every boss.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

You can stun lupicus, or at least you used to be able to. I don’t know if the sigil of paralyzation nerf made it impossible now, I never went and tried again.

Back when I was a nub and Dub was teaching me how to play, we used to use shield for lupicus kills. I had a para sigil on mine because who knows why, and shield bash would stun him.

About 1 month ago I could still troll an entire team so I guess it still works.

Attack stat was completely unnecessary. It was never used in any calculations.

You can interrupt him though.

You can have all you party members in melee but not stacked during our beloved-spider-queen-example fight and she still won’t use her AoE.

Heck, just go solo. Meeleing her should be forbidden. /s