Guild Wars 2

I’ve never heard of a trinity game that allowed 5 healers to finish the end-game content in a reasonable manner. Or 5 tanks. Or 5 utterly selfish DPS. Oddly, enough GW2 actually allows bad groups like that to succeed.

Lunar Sunset.8742:

spoj.9672:

Oh the resentment.

I have never been treated wrong by anyone here. I just don’t like any of you. Is that fair to say?

Not really. Generally speaking, when I know of places that exist where I dislike everyone, I tend not to go there to cause trouble. It’s reasonable to expect people in polite society to avoid conflict in that manner.

Leo G.4501:

hybrid.5027:

Leo G.4501:

hybrid.5027:

Here is my response: they should be a drain on their party. They should know that and they should feel somewhat bad about it. They should make an effort to learn best practices and implement them if possible. If they can’t, won’t, or don’t care that’s fine but they shouldn’t have their bad choice reinforced with positivity.

IMO, this is a far more selfish attitude. To me, it’s putting a ‘meta’ (oooh, the naughty word!) before players not because it is what’s best for the group, but what’s best to conform to some strategy…a strategy that might not be best suited for all the players of your team.

Encouraging people to use best practices is selfish? Laughable. For the record, I don’t care what stupid crap pugs do. If I join a pug I do it under the assumption that they will do stupid stuff and fail and I’ll have to carry. I don’t expect them to use the community strategies but when they do its a nice bonus.

To me, the way you worded it said “If you don’t abide by the best practices then you should be punished.”

If that’s not what you meant then you should word your intent better. Why would you want to make people feel bad playing a game? Reward the players that do things right, sure, but punish players that aren’t actively trying to do bad is crossing the line.

My exact quote was, "They should make an effort to learn best practices and implement them if possible. If they can’t, won’t, or don’t care that’s fine but they shouldn’t have their bad choice reinforced with positivity.

Wow quite a difference from your paraphrase huh? The point of the thread is this guy wanted a buff to the people who play suboptimally so they are more optimal. My reply was that best practices should be encouraged and bad practices not rewarded.

You warped that so far from what I actually said it’s clear you are debating in bad faith. You’re a disingenuous maledictor. You frequently accuse people of the worst abuses, yet look at your own actions here, its simply pathetic.

spoj.9672:

Ropechef.6192:

Taku.6352:

Ropechef.6192:

Tom Yzf.5872:

Where do we go for casuals anonymous? I’m a super casual who loves pugging as a necro <3

0.o

((hides his 3 Necromancers from the DuNgeeooonLeeetists))))

I really wish necros would have a decent role in PvE. By far my favorite light armor class but there’s just no point using it outside of casual lvl 20 fractal fun runs.

I know right.

I have a full ascended Zojja/Scholar Necromancer with 70 Ar… waiting…. for???

((sobs))

2 Necros. 2 ascended sets for necros (berserker & assassin). All weapons ascended. Kraitkin and howler for necro. And I will be making ascended sinister armour and weapons when that becomes available. Yes I really want necro to become good. :<

#changebackdhummfire2015

Thaddeus.4891:

hybrid.5027:

BTW I am Nike.

Ranger DPS got a massve buff from an additional 10% modifier AND the superior longbow burst at the start of a fight.

Warrior DPS before the nerf was around 12k fully buffed. Guardian was around 10k fully buffed with 100% UC uptime. Warrior is now about 11.5k, Guardian is still 10k.

As I said, Guardian DPS is AIDS.

You link my calculator but don’t tell us what inputs you use, and you don’t account for condition damage. It’s not as simple as all that. Dekeyz numbers as a baseline are very accurate the only thing that has changed really is warrior nerfs and ranger buffs and a better engineer rotation.

I’ll never questionned your number for Warrior. Didn’t know that hyrid was nike and it don’t change anything. If you say that Warrior’s DPS was 12k before and 11.5k now, i’m alright with that, I can’t argue about that.

What I can argue is your number for the guardian. Fully buffed, a Guardian do more dmg than 10K even without UC. Like I said. A guardian auto-attacking with sword (which is the easiest thing to calculate) is about 9k dps fully buffed.
- According to Dekeyz’s spreadsheet. Guardian dps is 9.2k fully buffed (but with 25% UC uptime and zero vulnerability) https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bAcpwAdwB24CxK_Ziy8ygISUHCkQepLfRMh2_PtP52o/edit#gid=1883199869

- According to Obal. Guardian dps is 10.8k fully buffed, but without any UC.
http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/12646847-guardian-dps-build-theory-by-obal-dekeyz

And If i do the math myself, I reach the same numbers. At this level the difference between Guardian and Warrior are not that high. We can argue, which one is higher in a specific situation, I have no problem with that. A slight error in the numbers and one can get in top of the other. But when you say that a Guardian with 100% uptime of UC do 10k dps, used to do 10K dps and continue to do 10K dps, then I’m gonna call it wrong. Just like you can call it wrong when I assume something about the Warrior since if you are Nike, you know more about that particular profession.

Edit : I’m stupid. It even easier than that. Like you said. Just take the numbers from Dekeyz spreadsheet. In a party with a DPS warrior and a Ranger, the maximum dps of a guardian is 9153. If you take into account vulnerability : 9153 × 1.25 = 11 441 dps.

And a warrior with those same buffs if 13,380. Soooooooooo?

So a Guardian 4/6/2/0/2 GS-Sw/F 25% UC fully buffed will have 11 441 dps. Not 10k dps with 100% UC.

And a warrior will have 13,380.

I was using 45005 because realistically thats what people actually run in most dungeons. I also don’t take into account rangers in DPS calculations because they aren’t in meta team comps. So that’s why our numbers differ.

The fact is Guardian dps in meta dungeon groups is less than warrior. You can argue over minutiae and which buffs you consider but the fact is at any level of group buffing warrior out DPSes Guardian.

I just did the math for the fun of it.

Guardian sword auto with 45005 and 5 boons and 100% UC uptime and full party buffs = 8,365 dps.

TEW STORNK

Guardian sword auto is terrible. Please refer to Dekeyz spreadsheet. Her numbers show guardian with 25% UC uptime. Take those numbers and add 15% to see what 100% uptime looks like. It’s still terrible even then and not at all realistic in practice. I know its hard to part with long held ideas but please do.

BTW I am Nike.

Ranger DPS got a massve buff from an additional 10% modifier AND the superior longbow burst at the start of a fight.

Warrior DPS before the nerf was around 12k fully buffed. Guardian was around 10k fully buffed with 100% UC uptime. Warrior is now about 11.5k, Guardian is still 10k.

As I said, Guardian DPS is AIDS.

You link my calculator but don’t tell us what inputs you use, and you don’t account for condition damage. It’s not as simple as all that. Dekeyz numbers as a baseline are very accurate the only thing that has changed really is warrior nerfs and ranger buffs and a better engineer rotation.

phoenix.3465:

More bullying in the dungeon forums. I am going to report this one, in the hope that this is not actually wanted here.
And to the OP, as you can see here, bullying people in dungeons is something that seems to be in style with certain people. And just like bullying in real life, most others stay quiet and just hope they are not the one’s being bullied next. It is a real shame that this is acceptable behavior in our GW2 community now.

I will be the first step up and admit I was bullied in this forum. Irisng made me give her my lunch money or else she would fight me at 3pm at the flagpole. Out of fear and regard for personal safety I gave her the lunch money. Later in the cafeteria I was hungry, and I saw her drinking two chocolate milks. I cried inside.

Guardian DPS with 100% UC uptime is less than 10,000dps. Warrior. even with the nerfs smokes that.

News flash: Berserker’s Power doesn’t work with burst skills anymore. Both Eviscerate and AS are kitten in PvE. 12k arcing slice is not believable in PVP.

Guardian dps is AIDS unless you can Smite a large hitbox. The guardian weapon skills that do good damage are on long cool downs and aren’t even that good.

Even with 100% uptime of UC guardians were/are barely equal to warriors.

Relentliss.2170:

hybrid.5027:

Relentliss.2170:

I think the Zerker meta makes for some of the worst pve dungeons in MMO’s today. Basically everyone stack up, spam a few blocks and blinds and burn pretty much everything down like that.

You’ve never been in a speed run. Don’t discuss what you don’t know.

Lately I’ve been doing them with my pve friends. So I do know of what I speak.

Doing fast-casual dungeon runs in a semi-organized group is not a speed run. Look at record runs if you want to see the difference.

A dialogue and constructive discussion requires both parties to be debating in good faith and also have a relatively equal understanding of the issues.. One party, yours, seemed not to understand the systems they were advocating change to, and also was not debating in good faith by refusing to defend points and not offering responses to honest inquiry.

Leo G.4501:

hybrid.5027:

Here is my response: they should be a drain on their party. They should know that and they should feel somewhat bad about it. They should make an effort to learn best practices and implement them if possible. If they can’t, won’t, or don’t care that’s fine but they shouldn’t have their bad choice reinforced with positivity.

IMO, this is a far more selfish attitude. To me, it’s putting a ‘meta’ (oooh, the naughty word!) before players not because it is what’s best for the group, but what’s best to conform to some strategy…a strategy that might not be best suited for all the players of your team.

Encouraging people to use best practices is selfish? Laughable. For the record, I don’t care what stupid crap pugs do. If I join a pug I do it under the assumption that they will do stupid stuff and fail and I’ll have to carry. I don’t expect them to use the community strategies but when they do its a nice bonus.

lolwot most dungeons are already solo enabled.

What you’re actually asking for is “easy mode.” Well since half the threads on the forums are about how easy dungeons are, I would highly doubt that is going to happen.

dlmoore.7293:

spoj.9672:

dlmoore.7293:

spoj.9672:

Seems you misunderstand. The meta would change to having lbow ranger (rapid fire is op now) and staff eles at max range with the rest of the party in melee. So yes my points are completely valid.

Are you actually going to answer my questions by the way? Because until you do you havent actually given a valid reason for such a change.

There isn’t a question that you have asked that I haven’t addressed. If you expect me to answer loaded questions the same way I respond to reasonable questions then please just stop posting here.

You said yourself that range does less damage than melee. Why would longbow ranger be the new meta then? As I pointed out, there are things that a longbow ranger wouldn’t have access to or be able to do for their team. For example, no guardian symbols or mesmer null field effects. Also they wouldn’t provide warhorn 5, or healing spring for the team (assuming they stay at 1000+ range).

Neither you or Leo have posted answers to the following questions.

Why should ranging have no disadvantages? And to be more specific. Why should it have no disadvantages in effectiveness when its the far safer option? Why should you be rewarded for causing problems for teammates who are meleeing?

I did not say that melee is better than range. Most melee weapons do have advantage of damage as Ena said. However the highest damage build in the game is staff ele. And the recent changes to ranger longbow made it incredibly powerful for burst. However the auto attack is designed for max range. With your suggestion both its 8 second cooldown burst and max range auto dmg become a pretty op combo.

“Why should ranging have no disadvantages?” is a loaded question. You really aren’t even considering the points that I am making so after this post I am no longer responding to you.

I read your OP. You want better boon sharing so that the guys hiding in the back at 1200 range aren’t as much a drain on their party.

Here is my response: they should be a drain on their party. They should know that and they should feel somewhat bad about it. They should make an effort to learn best practices and implement them if possible. If they can’t, won’t, or don’t care that’s fine but they shouldn’t have their bad choice reinforced with positivity.

Stooperdale.3560:

Sorry, well written post but you aren’t making the right assumptions.

1 – You can’t balance based on speed running dungeons. That is the extreme even if it seems common place for regular dungeon runners. Speed runners will always find an extreme and maximize it. Speed runners could wear any armor and tickle monsters to death with feathers and still get the dungeon done.

What else do you balance on? The suggestions I made impact pvp and wvw the least since it would be easy to make condis OP. there is no balance in open world PvE since there is no challenge. Instanced pve is the only pve worth balancing on.

2- The condition cap is the problem. Whatever else you do to conditions will fail when we get the obvious problem of three condition users in a dungeon group, let alone 30 condition users against an open world boss.

My goal isn’t to make 3 condition users in a group good. That’s a dumb goal that is likely impossible to do with the server technology. My goal is to make one condition user good. The current number is 0, so increasing it to 1 seems like a huge gain. If you pug and get 3 condi users in your group it sucks, but pugging sucks.

3- Conditions shouldn’t be broken in PvP just to ‘change the meta’ in PvE. Conditions need a long enough duration to makes condition cures important. Condition damage is strong in PvP already which suggests it would be strong in PvE too if it wasn’t held back by stacking duration, the condition cap, etc. Fixing the condition cap is the basic change to PvE that will not break PvP.

If you are ignorant of a topic, please inform yourself before comment. A maxed out full sinister build with perfect group buffs will make about 9k DPS for a warrior. A maxed out berserker build with perfect group buffs. will make about 12k. This invalidates the part I bolded. The condition cap will not change these numbers. Even if you removed the cap these numbers would still be true. Condition damage would still suck. Sinister warrior Condition damage builds need to do AT LEAST 12k dps to be worth using in PvE groups. The simple fact is 2576 condition damage, 25 bleeds, burning and 5 torment plus direct damage = 9k dps. Something has to make that 9k = 12k before we can talk about it being viable in pve.

phoenix.3465:

Simplest solution would be to increase enemies armor and decrease enemies health.

No one wants conditions to be viable more than me, but if the “solution” is a brute force idiotic nerf to direct damage builds I will pass on it.

Simon.3794:

hybrid.5027:

Simon.3794:

It is really sad that warrior has become this combat cleric who buffs his teamates but offensively, shouldnt that be the role of a guardian.

Guardian is the defensive combat cleric.

This is just bad design, really bad design.

I don’t agree with that. Bad design would be if they have no utilities for group buffing and weren’t in the meta at all.

Guardian should be both cleric, warrior is not a cleric. i did not make my warrior, so i can buff my teamates. not to mention guardian is offensively superior then warrior.

Pure passive off CD spam buffing is bad design. i don’t see how you can’t understand it.
If being in a broken meta for being a banner bot is good design im glad that you are not a designer.

Just because you don’t understand the class and what you “made it for” doesn’t mean anything. The class was designed as an offensive support class in pve. You don’t like it? Oh well.

You drop your banners off cool down? Weird. I drop mine tactically based on the timing of the dungeon so I can maximize uptime. I’m sorry you don’t like that warrior is an offensive buff bot. I’m sure you’re mad that elementalists are aoe dps and might bots and thief is a stealth spamming backstab bot.

Simon.3794:

It is really sad that warrior has become this combat cleric who buffs his teamates but offensively, shouldnt that be the role of a guardian.

Guardian is the defensive combat cleric.

This is just bad design, really bad design.

I don’t agree with that. Bad design would be if they have no utilities for group buffing and weren’t in the meta at all.

I think the best bet is probably a moderate increase in ramp up time and a moderate increase in damage.

To visualize it..

now

Direct DPS 10
Condi DPS: 8
Condi ramp up time: 10 seconds

balanced

Direct DPS: 10
Condi DPS: 12
Condi ramp up time: 8 seconds

Right now you’re ramping up all the way to… garbage tier DPS. They should make the ramp up a bit less and make reward to the ramp up superior tier DPS so there is some efficiency trade off. It should be like acceleration vs top speed. The direct builds have vastly faster acceleration (they start at their top speed) AND they have a higher top end. Condition builds should be rewarded for their slower acceleration with a higher top end.

Relentliss.2170:

I think the Zerker meta makes for some of the worst pve dungeons in MMO’s today. Basically everyone stack up, spam a few blocks and blinds and burn pretty much everything down like that.

You’ve never been in a speed run. Don’t discuss what you don’t know.

I disagree. If banners were removed from the game people would 100% bring rangers in the warriors place, no question about that. 112% group damage > 100% group damage.

Video for the people off put by wall o’ text.

http://youtu.be/2mpIYDZlRO4

Ignore it. I just discussed that a generous buff to the DPS capabilities of condition builds may create particular instances where one condition class is optimal even without tweaking ramp up time. This would definitely be the easiest solution. But it may not be best. It would create specialization where groups say “LF condi warrior, direct damage = kick” or vice versa. This would segment the community and force people into defined roles which Anet seems somewhat opposed to, and I personally look at as undesirable.. I view the “buff damage significantly ignore ramp up time” solution as the easiest but likely the least effective.

Reduce the duration of the stackable conditions like bleeding and torment that are inflicted by skills but increase the amount of stacks each skill iteration inflicts. Each Sword auto-attack swing will inflict 4 stacks of bleed instead of 1, but the duration will be 4 times less, for example. This will keep the same maximum damage output but allow you to hit the ramp up time much faster. The downsides to this might be pvp balance. It would allow condition damage builds to “burst” in pvp but hurt their sustain since most people in pvp aren’t going to let you hit them with your sword auto attack a whole bunch of times. Additionally, skills like Flurry for warrior might have to be revamped since 24 stacks of bleed that lasts 1 second would have weak pve applications, and might be too strong a burst in pvp.

In all likelihood, the best solution is a mix where condition damage is buffed to the point where at it’s peak it is decently better than direct damage but not hugely, and ramp up time is diminished to the extent that it still exists but the ramp up time is closer to 5-10 seconds than the current 15-20 seconds. A solution of that nature would likely lead to condition damage, for one sinister geared warrior or engineer at least becoming equally optimal in speed run groups to a direct damage counterpart of the same profession. In level 80 dungeons the condition damage character might be slightly preferred, in lower level zones the direct damage character might be slightly preferred.

Once we strike the balance I suggest and a condition damage character is able to output similar dps even in relatively short fights we would then run into the issue of multiple condition players in pug groups and condition cap issues. This would indeed be a problem, but no bigger problem than already exists now in disorganized pugs when two condition damage characters join. Currently, with two condition players both would do very little dps. With the changes I suggest they would still do suboptimal damage but it would be slightly better than before. I presume a major engine revision to change the cap is most off the table we should boil the “condi cap issue” down to: if you care about doing optimal dps, don’t pug. If you pug you take the risk of doing suboptimal dps, which is the case no matter what build you play anyway. From that point of view, the cap is mostly irrelevant.

I hope this helps clarify the actual issues facing condition damage builds in instanced PvE and also presents some realistic solutions that the developers can consider to make condition damage more viable.

Traits that boost direct damage by a fixed percentage (10% damage boost vs Bleeding Foes) increase condition damage by the same percentage. This would mean the meta condition build for a warrior would get a +5% condition damage boost from Dual Wielding and a 10% boost from Attack of Opportunity in addition to boosting the direct damage by the same percentage. Additionally, it would make Slaying Potions or Slaying Sigils meaningful to condition builds, since those would grant increases that are quite beneficial. This would bring condition damage builds nearly into line with direct damage builds. I do not feel that this would cause problems in PvP since most PvP builds tend not to use the DPS boosting traits for direct damage builds and would likely ignore them for condition damage as well.

Another option would be to make Vulnerability stacks increase the damage a mob takes from conditions. This would increase the dps of condition damage builds to near equality with direct damage builds. Both of these ideas together would make condition damage builds, once they have ramped up, have superior dps to direct damage builds which actually be desirable. I don’t see this as causing any particular problem in pvp since it’s rare outside of fighting a mesmer to get loads of vulnerability stacks.

Have priority for the conditions of the party member with highest condition damage. If I have 24 bleeds on a boss and I have 2000 condition damage and a warrior with 900 condition damage inflicts 5 bleeds, it should be prioritized so my 24 stacks remain and only one of his are applied. Along the same vein, the burning or poison damage should be determined by the highest condition damage of any party member who contributed to the current application of that condition. I recognize these are changes that would have to be done at the engine level, but it is pretty important, and most likely easier to effect than changing the cap.

The last option would be a straight buff to the coefficients of conditions and a buff to how their damage scales with an increase in condition damage. This could be tweaked to give the same DPS results as the above two suggestions, however it would cause a significant imbalance issue in PvP and WvW and I don’t see it as feasible. It would allow a full Dire WvW build to output significantly higher DPS and that is not something most would agree is desirable. I think it is more reasonable for the first two options since they encourage you to play builds with glassier gear and trait choices in order to increase your DPS and would maintain the risk/reward functionality.

The second issue is ramp up time. It may, infact, be better to ignore the problem of ramp up time altogether. If condition damage was buffed to a large enough extent (using both of my above viable options) it would have better dps than direct damage builds once it ramps up. This could create a risk/reward concept in team building where you decide whether you would prefer the quick burst front loaded dps of direct damage or the long term top DPS of condi for your group’s warrior. In most cases it would come down to the encounter. In a dungeon where bosses die quickly you would prefer the direct damage build, but if you were doing a fractal 50 where boss fight tend to take minutes rather than seconds a condition build would output better dps. This may be a solution. So let’s look at ramp up solutions.

continued…

Iris Ng.9845:

I blame the lack of Bingo posts and new challenge.
@Deathly, if you feel it’s unfair with the whole shenanigans with SEp1, think of Sandy’s feeling when people re-did his Arah p3. Be a bit more professional.

Or any of the other records that every guild has done, including LuPi, that were merely incremental improvements on previous ones. I don’t see anything different here than dozens of other new records.

You have good intentions, RS. But like I said, most of the complainers just want a cheap Dawn.

Philosophically speaking, why should players be rewarded for using passive stats or punished for using active defense? If you have to use defensive stats to survive, managing to survive the encounter is your reward. If you don’t need defensive stats to survive… why use defensive stats? If you have to tack on some functionality to defensive stats as a carrot in order to get players to use them, you clearly aren’t taking the hint.

It sounds like the goal here is buffing defensive stats for the sake of buffing defensive stats. Cool bro, but an easier solution than redesigning how gear works in the game is for people to be adults and realize what the game is and game isn’t and enjoy it for what it is. One solution requires more developer time and effort than you can reasonably expect and the other requires players to put on their big kid pants and repeat the mantra, “experienced players don’t need, and shouldnt want, defensive stats in PvE.” That’s what the game is. Stop bashing your head against the wall trying to change it. Breath deeply and accept the inherent truth, move forward and enjoy the game.

Also a pro tip for anybody who needs it. Rebind your dodge key to something easy to use like your #1 or a mouse button or spacebar. It doesn’t matter really, whatever works for you. Then you can follow my handy video guide for learning how to dodge most of the tells in GW2.

Then you can truly begin learning the game and the beauty and elegance of the combat system. You’ll never want to wear your Clerics armor again.

Thaddeus.4891:

Narkodx.1472:

So warrior went from 12k dps to 11.5k dps with banners untouched and we have 3 pages worth of discussion on how warriors are broken in PvE

WORD

Not really. It would nice to know if he make the math assuming that adrenaline is 100%, because that’s probably the biggest issue with the nerf. Adrenaline drop like crazy after only a couple of second without fighting. That drop even more the warrior dps in a dungeon settings.

Use Healing Surge if you’re concerned.

I don’t think anyone is philosophically opposed to precursor crafting so long as the time and effort and gold is commensurate with the median price of current precursors. For example, if the median price (just making this up) is 750g and the average grinder makes 10g an hour it should roughly take you 75 hours of dedicated gameplay to craft/scavenger hunt etc your precursor.

This would lead to pretty good market equilibrium, though in many cases any precursor under 750g would just get purchased off the TP rather than spend 75 hours crafting it.

the problem is not that a certain percentage of the “we want crafting” crowd really mean “we want crafting because we expect it to be easier/cheaper.” therein lies the problem and the source of their future discontent when it turns out to be difficult, expensive and time consuming.

Croc.5129:

hybrid.5027:

Croc.5129:

hybrid.5027:

You’re right what the game needs is one person to “tank” the boss while one person drops water fields and blast finishers on him and 2 of the other pew pew with their k-rad leet ranged dps builds and one person King DPS goes in and melees the boss opposite the tank. That guy will have to bring skills that force the boss to aggro the tank if he ever turns around to face him.

I think this is a good start yes?

Oh I have another idea!

How about we have 5 people playing whatever random no-thought-put-into-it builds fighting bosses in empty open rooms and they around around erratically like headless chickens spamming their skills and eventually boring the boss to death after a 5 minute fight to do 100,000 total damage. In case the boss ever does an attack at them luckily they will be able to easily avoid it because they are safely at 1200 range. This also sounds quite riveting.

I think either of these options are good.

That’s just intentionally bad encounter design used to describe unwanted situations, too vaguely outlined to be of any real value as examples, and cannot be related to any discussion of the flawed mechanics of the game.

You would have to go into more detail as to what mechanics are affecting the game and the bosses in order for these realities to come true, as well as go into more detail as to how the encounter would go to actually show that the encounter would be boring, shallow, unfun, etc. Because when people speak of changing the mechanics of the game, they are also speaking of changing ability interactivity and function along with it.

Simply changing the way stats work does nothing when the way abilities work are left untouched. Again, this is why the game is not likely to change, but if it is to be discussed, consideration for abilities working differently will need to be made.

I feel like your sarcasm detection abilities need to be discussed and considered. But one thing I do know is you are quite verbose so we can settle that issue right now.

It was obviously sarcasm.

I’m just saying it really doesn’t prove any point at all.

Please clarify the purpose of the sarcasm, if you feel it did prove a point of some kind, reveal a truth you wish to share. We are not enemies, we are just random customers of a game discussing mechanics.

The point it proves is that all the alternatives proposed thus far are significantly inferior to the mechanics that exist. It’s been settled long before this thread that the way to get bad players to use tankier gear or to require more defensive support in general is to introduce new content that is mechanically complicated. The reason bad players can get away with berserker gear now is because they have had two years to practice running these dungeons and rote learning when to dodge. Give them encounters they haven’t memorized and that will be all the change they need.

Advocating a trinity, soft trinity, or disorganized, passive gameplay (which are the only three options I’ve seen any of the nerf crowd offer) is a terrible solution to a non-problem. I mockingly offered a hyperbolic example of their own arguments so they can hopefully see how outlandish they sound.

Honestly, I think the entire discussion is a joke because it’s just that, a non-problem. This is like a doctor prescribing invasive solutions to illnesses a patient doesn’t have. We don’t have a berserker problem, we have an old content problem.

Bran.7425:

hybrid.5027:

Yeah, the melee bosses while using active damage avoidance, relying on team play and coordination of CC and support is really good actually. Thanks for agreeing with me.

hybrid.5027:

I feel like your sarcasm detection abilities need to be discussed and considered. But one thing I do know is you are quite verbose so we can settle that issue right now.

Not sure how you walked into that.

Your post wasn’t sarcasm. It was sounded exactly on point with the others, and fit in with the headless chicken meta crew. If you want it to be effective, you should go over the top with your hyperbole.

Ropechef.6192:

you know, thinking on it…. the whole thing bears repeating for this thread. SLightly out of date due to FgS being nerfed since this writing. But the point still stands.

---

I’m still somewhat vexed by a few of the more bizarre notions circulating in this thread. Hopefully, I will be able to help some of the more misguided notions.
Character Building
Your “playstyle” is defined foremost by your weapon choices, skill choices and traits. If you choose utility skills of a support nature, along with melee weapons and use traits that give defensive benefits to your team, you are a support melee character. If you choose offensive boosting skills, ranged weapons and DPS boosting traits, you are a ranged DPS character. These things are true regardless of your gear prefix. Again, who you are is defined by your weapon choice, skill choice and trait choices.
The second component of character build, gearing, has nothing to do with playstyle. Gearing is a measure of the damage you expect to be unable to avoid in your chosen game mode. Additionally, gearing is primarily how you determine whether you will be direct damage or condition damage. But the primary function of gearing is an estimate the amount of damage you anticipate you will need to soak in your chosen content. If you feel you will be able to dodge every attack you would select a gearing that sacrifices passive defense for more offense. Alternatively, if you feel you will receive large amounts of unavoidable damage you would be well advised to bring gear with more passive defense. The only aspect of gearing that determines playstyle is direct vs condition damage.
What is a character in defensive (soldiers) gear with dps skills and dps traits? A dps character. What is a character in offensive gear (berserkers) with defensive support traits and defensive support skills? A defensive support character.
With that out of the way as an established fact, let’s debunk some of the weaker arguments in this thread…
“Build Diversity”: Since playstyle is determined by everything EXCEPT gear, the concept of changing a gear type to encourage different playstyles is literally an absurdism. If you want to actually make defensive support builds more viable, you have to change the things that actually affect the playstyle: traits and skills. Or change the content to make healing/boon duration more useful, but that runs the risk of creating a trinity system where teams require a specific profession using a specific build to complete content, which has a problem all its own.
“Stacking”: Nothing to do with gearing. Even if Apothecary gear became meta, stacking would still be done in places where stacking is done. This is not a gearing issue.
“Zerker trivializes content”: Depends. There are a few bosses who are killed very quickly with fiery greatswords and berserker gear in such a way that their mechanics are skipped. There are also other bosses that aren’t, or aren’t outside of a very organized group. This is partially a content issue, partially a downscaling issue, and partially a fiery greatsword issue. Very little of it has to do with berserker gear itself. In fact, I would argue that Fiery Greatsword is the biggest culprit. The damage it is capable of is so far beyond the scope of everything else that it allows even the least skilled players the ability to speed run certain dungeons. If fiery greatsword was nerfed, it is entirely likely that many people who are being carried by it would go back to complaining about dungeons being too difficult.
“The content is too easy”: No, the content is too old. I assure you, the first time you did Arah path 1 in September of 2012 was not as fast as it is done now, even if you are an elite dungeon runner now. Arah is very, very hard. Drop a new player into Arah with no experienced teammates and no video guides and suboptimal builds. He will fail very hard. In fact, drop the same player into any of the dungeons and they will likely struggle mightily. The content isn’’t too easy, it’s just too old. Even the more challenging raids in other games go on farm after two years of existence. The type of raid that took progression guilds two weeks to beat the first time around are facerolled by pugs after two years once the builds and strats are known. This is how MMO goes. If you want to decrease the berserker population, add brand new dungeons that don’t have established guides and community tactics yet and watch the casual berserker users put on defensive gear, or avoid the content altogether.

The problem then when I originally wrote that and now is that the people it’s aimed at essentially respond with, “what you say is 100% correct but I still don’t like it and I still want to change it.”

You cannot rationalize with that mentality.

Bran.7425:

Almost as good as the stack in the corner cookie-cutter melee meta.

Yeah, the melee bosses while using active damage avoidance, relying on team play and coordination of CC and support is really good actually. Thanks for agreeing with me.

Croc.5129:

hybrid.5027:

You’re right what the game needs is one person to “tank” the boss while one person drops water fields and blast finishers on him and 2 of the other pew pew with their k-rad leet ranged dps builds and one person King DPS goes in and melees the boss opposite the tank. That guy will have to bring skills that force the boss to aggro the tank if he ever turns around to face him.

I think this is a good start yes?

Oh I have another idea!

How about we have 5 people playing whatever random no-thought-put-into-it builds fighting bosses in empty open rooms and they around around erratically like headless chickens spamming their skills and eventually boring the boss to death after a 5 minute fight to do 100,000 total damage. In case the boss ever does an attack at them luckily they will be able to easily avoid it because they are safely at 1200 range. This also sounds quite riveting.

I think either of these options are good.

That’s just intentionally bad encounter design used to describe unwanted situations, too vaguely outlined to be of any real value as examples, and cannot be related to any discussion of the flawed mechanics of the game.

You would have to go into more detail as to what mechanics are affecting the game and the bosses in order for these realities to come true, as well as go into more detail as to how the encounter would go to actually show that the encounter would be boring, shallow, unfun, etc. Because when people speak of changing the mechanics of the game, they are also speaking of changing ability interactivity and function along with it.

Simply changing the way stats work does nothing when the way abilities work are left untouched. Again, this is why the game is not likely to change, but if it is to be discussed, consideration for abilities working differently will need to be made.

I feel like your sarcasm detection abilities need to be discussed and considered. But one thing I do know is you are quite verbose so we can settle that issue right now.

Harper.4173:

hybrid.5027:

For entirely selfish reasons I would like PvE warrior DPS to back where it was before the greatsword nerf.

From a game design standpoint, I completely understand why the change was made.

Also from that standpoint I worry that further nerfs are coming. I am fairly certain anet will keep nerfing PVE warrior until they are interchangeable with Rangers in party compositions.

Why was the change made? How was warrior dps too good before?!

Before the war nerf ranger buff

warriors made 12k dps and banners improved party dps overall by 23%.

Rangers made 10k DPS and frostspotter improved team dps by 12%.

after the war nerf ranger buff

Warriors make 11.5k DPS and banners improve party dps by 23%

Rangers make 12k DPS and frostspotter improves party dps by 12%.

My opinion is that on the pve side Anet intends to have warrior and ranger fill roughly analogous roles (offensive DPS support). I don’t see them buffing ranger personal dps more, or buffing frost spirit or spotter more. So what options does it leave for bringing them to parity? Nerfing warrior personal dps or nerfing banners. If you nerf the warrior personal dps enough the 11% benefit of the banners vs. frostspotter will cancel out. Or they could just nerf banners harshly. Or do both and make Rangers meta in place of warrior.

I’m not for this, but then again I am not a Ranger player.

Leo G.4501:

Jerus.4350:

Leo G.4501:

IndigoSundown.5419:

There’s a distinct difference between the meta, and what PuG’s do. I still see the occasional 4 Warr + 1 Mesmer posts. Also, there’s stacking to share buffs and boons, and stacking by a wall to take advantage of FGS. I suspect it’s the latter that was referred to.

I’m going to assume anytime someone says “Stack here” in a dungeon is referred to as stacking.

That’s not all stacking though. Stacking is all gathering together. What you describe basically sounds like a LoS spot, which is a bit different, you stack to LOS but you don’t necessarily LOS when you’re stacking.

We stack at lupi on projectile reflects, but we don’t LOS lupi. just an example.

SEp1 we can pull the 3 golems together and stack to kill them, or we can stack in the corner to LoS them and drop a reflect and kill them that way. In both situations we’re stacking but one of them is using LOS and we’re saying “stack here” before hand.

We do a lot less LoSing now without FGS meta, but there is still a lot of stacking as it’s simply common sense to all get inside a wall of reflection, or gather up for cleaving, etc.

It is common sense in a…sense…but for a game touted for its active combat with hits on the go, moving outside of the reach of attacks and all that jazz that makes GW2 ‘unique’ and ‘special’, it’s a bummer and a shame that nearly every encounter, big or small, resorts the the exact same tactics with perhaps a slight change to which skills you use first. GW2 doesn’t have enough skills to do that and still not be boring after the 300th time you do that a day.

You’re right what the game needs is one person to “tank” the boss while one person drops water fields and blast finishers on him and 2 of the other pew pew with their k-rad leet ranged dps builds and one person King DPS goes in and melees the boss opposite the tank. That guy will have to bring skills that force the boss to aggro the tank if he ever turns around to face him.

I think this is a good start yes?

Oh I have another idea!

How about we have 5 people playing whatever random no-thought-put-into-it builds fighting bosses in empty open rooms and they around around erratically like headless chickens spamming their skills and eventually boring the boss to death after a 5 minute fight to do 100,000 total damage. In case the boss ever does an attack at them luckily they will be able to easily avoid it because they are safely at 1200 range. This also sounds quite riveting.

I think either of these options are good.

Are you all seriously arguing about “stealing tactics”?

Record runs are taking what other people have done before and doing one or two things slightly better or getting better RNG. That’s what it is. Complaining about refining one small thing or having better RNG is shouting at clouds.

How do you buy champ bags on the TP?

Why not 3 warriors 2 guardians for casual runs? Because that comp isn’t nearly as good or smooth as 1 guard, 1ps warrior, 1 staff ele, 1 thief and one mesmer/engineer. It doesn’t have the same dps or utility. I think your implication was it was even easier, but I would disagree.

Carighan.6758:

Harper.4173:

Find out what group comp does it the fastest.
That is the new meta – anything but that and kick.
How is that better than what we have today ?

It’s not, that was the point.

The only reasonable reply by a dev is to judge the difficulty of content wanted (by the dev team) versus the current “meta” output (remember, a player-made-up definition) and nerf or buff accordingly.

Then, slowly, buff other stuff to be roughly at the same level.

When the devs designed the original dungeons and fractals two years ago they couldn’t have expected them to still be difficult or challenging to experienced players two years down the road. So your whole premise of what they envisioned when they designed it and what the meta looks like 2 years and tens of thousands of runs by the community later is drastically flawed.

Ranael.6423:

The only thing I “like” in OP’s suggestion is the needed threshold for conditions…. but I think it would be better to find a solution for condi cap and the too wide distribution of them (well torment, confusion, and fear are fine) rather than over-complexifying the way the stats work…. simple things are always better.

Apart from that if you don’t like the meta, just don’t play it. It’s the magic of GW2, if you don’t play the meta you are not excluded from success of the content, you just make it longer. If you don’t care about the time you take for a dungeon then meta is not mandatory… this is a great improvement compared to other games….

Condition cap isn’t relevant in the discussion of why you don’t see condition builds in dungeons. The condition cap will only become relevant when we hit the point that condition damage is part of the meta and multiple people want to play condi in one group; so basically the condi problem will already be solved before that issue is an issue.

I’ve said before I’m not a fan of double ele set ups in fotm that aren’t trying for YOLO record run strategies. If you’re doing a casual run it will be smoother and faster with one staff ele, a PS warrior and an extra utility class.

For entirely selfish reasons I would like PvE warrior DPS to back where it was before the greatsword nerf.

From a game design standpoint, I completely understand why the change was made.

Also from that standpoint I worry that further nerfs are coming. I am fairly certain anet will keep nerfing PVE warrior until they are interchangeable with Rangers in party compositions.

tldr version of this thread…

Some people want to change the gearing system in the game because they don’t like having to dodge or because their “playstyle is support.” They don’t have any proof the new no-dodge heal spam meta would be more fun or more skill based, but they want it anyway.

What did I miss?

Sparrow.5936:

Sarahfull.4930:

Sparrow.5936:

I’m a big PVE player. Unfortunately most players out there are in it for the speed run grind/farm fests. That sounds so much fun! I can just stack at a boss and it melts in seconds with zerker gear and dungeon is over in 5-10 minutes. How about I just go back to work at that point, because that sounds more like mindless repetition rather than a fun game.

I was recently in Twilight Arbor and had a small revelation. We were at the spider boss Malrona or whatever her name is, which happens to be a boss that is hard to stack at because of it’s overlapping AOE attack then can wipe a group. I was mesmerized about how bad all the players were in my party at fighting a boss where you couldn’t stack. I had to solo her at the end and laugh to myself while everyone was confused about how to play a game where they don’t smash their face into keyboard to win.

So I think more bosses in this game should have some sort of attack that can wipe a group or severely damage players if they are just stacked on top of each other fighting like mindless nubs. ( maybe overlapping AOE that magnifies in damage when near other players or something similar).

The meta of stacking has sucked the fun out of the game and also crippled new players abilities as well. The learning curve is low. Players can’t hold their own anymore, and can’t think for themselves.

On the plus side, it makes picking off those same players in WvW much more easygoing.

No more stacking! Let’s make this game fun again!
To all those who will reply with “you don’t have to stack, let it be the players choice”. Well first off, you will get kicked out of 90% of all parties out there if you don’t. And let’s be real, you just want things handed to you on a silver platter in easy mode.

This game wasn’t designed to be played the way it is. Players found a way to make it disgustingly easy, maybe it’s time for the game to evolve and bring some GAMEplay back to it. Boss changes needed!

Hi,

If you don’t mind, can I ask a few questions and get your opinion them?
I’m not trying to be rude here, just wanta better understand your side.

Sarah

Sure , what did you wanna ask?

I don’t know what his question was but I have one.

Why do you feel that your playstyle is so superior and important that you want to alter the current game mechanics to suit your own wishes and at the expense of everyone elses?

To serve as an construct for why you are misguided, allow me to show you the following…

What we have now
Speed runners: I can join a speed run and use active defense and solid teamplay to speed run a dungeon.
Play How I wants: I can join a no-stacking no skipping party and play how I want.

what you propose
Speed runners: I am forced to join no-stacking no skipping parties because thats the only way to play.
Play how I wants: I can join a no-stacking no skipping party and play how I want.

So you see, as it currently exists we can BOTH be happy. Under your changes only you can be happy. Stop being so selfish.

An S/D ele makes like 13-14k DPS. PS warrior makes like 8-9k. Pretty vast drop off. For dungeons it’s not worth having your warrior respec assuming you have a scepter ele in group.

In fractals the PS warrior has a few advantages it doesn’t have in normal dungeons. The fights are very long which makes the banner cool down trait a very large team DPS boost. Stacking might with eles is harder since everyone is moving and not often able to stack and coordinate finishers. In fractals most people prefer a staff ele, especially in one ele groups so a PS makes a better compliment to a staff ele than a normal DPS warrior.