Guild Wars 2

Windsagio.1340:

Melee zerk is not optimal for the harder Silverwastes content, just like carrion isn’t optimal for 5man dungeon content.

It actually is. But the content is new enough that people haven’t mastered all the mobs’ and bosses’ moves so they die. The only possible exception is the husk boss, where if you were soloing him you’d want Sinister. But the best DPS you’re going to do is with melee berserker, and so long as you don’t die thats what you should be doing. If you aren’t capable of not dying because you aren’t skilled enough thats a personal issue and has nothing to do with what’s optimal and what isnt.

Fransson.7910:

I just felt the need to say this… zerker warrior is kitten in the Silverwastes, conditions are better, so this is possitive development (good luck taking down those slingers by yourself with a zerkerwarrior with a GS)

Stop exaggerating it doesn’t help.

Verificus.4320:

I’m an old school MMO’r and I’m not at all happy with all this new innovative crap. I like tanks and healers. I’ve played a healer in WoW for years and in my personal opinion skill plays a far greater role in being a healer in WoW

Thanks for admitting what so many PHIW’ers won’t. You want a trinity game. Sorry bud, this isnt a trinity game, wasnt advertised as a trinity game and was sold to you as an action based combat game. Stop trying to ruin our action combat game and go back to wow, and I mean that in the niceest way possible.

ulchanar.4309:

Related question: hero panel shows rounded value for crit chance. Is the real number or the number shown used in combat calculation? In other words: does it make sense to add precise infusions until the number shown increases by 1% or not?

The game does not use even numbers for critical chance. If you have 89.5% crit chance you have 89.5%, not 90 and not 89. There are no “wasted points.”

http://dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/12997907-advanced-mechanics

Verificus.4320:

This is something I dislike too and I would rather see viable and most optimal be less than 10% difference of eachother

If you’re going to make the gear basically the same in output why not go whole hog and eliminate gear stats from the game? I mean, you’re talking about 10% as if that was some happy compromise. It’s just your arbitrary feeling. If the different functionality of different stats is the problem the solution isn’t to water the system down its to eliminate the system.

But wait: the stats aren’t the problem because there is no problem.

as Zerker does tend to get boring eventually.

I don’t know what this means. How does a stat set “get boring”? That’s like saying five dollar bills are boring so this week I’m going to spend one dollar bills only. Stat sets, regardless of the type, confer passive bonuses. Key word: passive. As in they don’t change how you do anything. You’re bored of meleeing in zerker, so how is meleeing in celestial not boring? You’re going to have to range bosses because typical YOLO melee strats “won’t work” in tanky gear (I disagree but for the sake of this lets go with it). You can range the boss in zerker too. It will be equally as exciting as ranging in Clerics because -bringing it all home- gear stats are passive and don’t change what you are doing.

perilisk.1874:

Active defenses are good gameplay, but they’re unrelated to stats, which is a lost opportunity for build diversity.

Stats aren’t designed to inform your playstyle beyond a preference for direct or condition damage. They are simply a measure of passive defense vs offensive output. That is the status quo as designed.

Saying that the current design is a “wasted opportunity” is basically meaningless. they were designed to serve a function, and they serve it. To suggest that the failure to serve some function they weren’t designed to serve is a problem is an absurdism.

Hammers were designed to hammer nails. The fact that they can’t also wash your clothes doesn’t mean that the hammer inventor wasted an opportunity to revolutionize laundry.

Jahroots.6791:

I can see why people have an issue with the min-maxing ‘meta’ crowd. They’re generally unpleasant to run with. Thing is, no one has to play with them if they don’t want to. Outside of Arah and Fractals the more casual groups typically outnumber those with strict requirements.

Whats funny is, the people who are actually in elite pve guilds almost always run in “anything goes” pugs and aren’t very particular, in many cases they want the other players to be raw since its more fun for them to carry those kinds of groups. The “zerk only 5k AP” people aren’t actually even close to real min-maxers.

Thaddeus.4891:

Once the cap problem is fixed, the community can put some time to create better PvE Condition build and see what problem still exist to make them competitive with power build.

So you think the current condition builds people use in pve aren’t 100% optimized?

DarkWasp.7291:

PvE is the issue. PvE just isn’t creating the situations where players are receiving so much chaos (faster enemy attack rates, CC spam, enemies that kite, reapplied conditions) that they have to tank and heal because they don’t have enough dodges. PvE isn’t providing situations where they have to split up and hold points against enemies who have a lot of dodges and neat tricks of their own.

The problem with this is that it presupposes….

1. …That the current state of affairs is broken. That is not a given by any stretch of the imagination.

2. …The proposed solution actually improves the game. It certainly changes the game. Making fights more chaotic and adding unavoidable damage that must be soaked is definitely different, but its equally definitely less skill testing and certainly by no means more fun necessarily.

3. …people’s roleplaying desires (I wanna play a pure healer in a game where there is no such thing as a pure healer but still feel like I contribute) should in any way influence game design. By this I mean, it’s great that you want something, but just wanting something isn’t a call to action. Imagine a guy who played ice hockey and was the goalie. Now he plays basketball. There is no goalie in basketball. But he wants to use the goalie skill set and feel like he contributes. How much respect do we have to give to his ideas to revamp the rules of basketball to allow goaltending?

If people are going to radically re-define the term viable in order to suit their needs it stretches the term to meaninglessness.

A viable build simple means a build that can complete the content. People seem to want it to mean optimal, or something very close to optimal.

Fun fact: every gear type performs exactly how it was intended to in PvE.

Tao.5096:

TA Marona – 3 Guardians and 0 Reflect Shield.
Happened few more times with different groups.

Did you just write this wall of text while thinking I’m some wannabe Guardian?

The taste, the touch. The sights, the sounds.

spoj.9672:

Jeremlloyd.6837:

Well Dub already made a video like that a while ago, but it was with cleric’s gear and without speedrun tactics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Rn7qtOLDJs or Arah P2 even: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2VhmwLwvrM

Its more of a suggestion to show that gear isnt as important as people make it out to be when it comes to speed. I think it would be fun to demonstrate just how fast you can go by using speedrun tactics and composition but with defensive armour instead. So you would still stack might and buffs but you wouldnt have the baseline berserker stats. I suppose you could even demonstrate it naked. That would be more challenging but the damage would still be on same level as a nomads party.

It would show that it really doesnt matter what gear you bring to a group in a pug as long as you use proper tactics and stack might. Then maybe we would get less picky pugs and less QQ. Wishful thinking.

Using Soldiers would be decent, since a full soldiers build is still like 60% of the dps of berserker with full party buffs. The dungeons that are more about running than fighting would hardly be slower at all.

Certain YOLO strats might not work, like fighting Alphard in the middle or stacking against Frost in CM1. But most dungeons should be basically the same.

dlonie.6547:

hybrid.5027:

P4 bosses fixed? Thanks to Grouch for passing it on to the QA team as a priority issue!

They fixed a major bug that trivialized half of the most difficult dungeon after more than two years.

And we call it “prioritized”. smh…

Well Grouch specifically forwarded it to QA as a priority bug in mid October. this is a fairly decent turnaround time.

WEXXES.2378:

hybrid.5027:

Defensive stats are already so OTT overpowered you can literally complete the hardest dungeons without dodging once. They surely don’t need any buffs. They are beyond viable already: they are basically god mode invincible.

This is the most false thing I have ever heard.

I’d like to see someone take all the hits without dodging once and beat it with no outside help.

The only reason why said person would be able to do such a thing is because theres 4 others that might take a hit or boons and stuff. That and the damage ends up killing the boss before anything bad might happen too quickly.

Since evidence of it has already been posted in this thread, telling me its the most false thing ever comes off pretty funny doesnt it?

P4 bosses fixed? Thanks to Grouch for passing it on to the QA team as a priority issue!

Looks like Arah p4 will remain on the menu for the next dungeon tourney.

Anyone able to test the sep2 still bugs out?

Defensive stats are already so OTT overpowered you can literally complete the hardest dungeons without dodging once. They surely don’t need any buffs. They are beyond viable already: they are basically god mode invincible.

STRanger.5120:

hybrid.5027:

STRanger.5120:

Zerker meta is caused by one and only thing, absence of essential “roles” in PvE, aka trinity or similar system.
So until the game gets total overhaul, there will be zerker meta. Anet is clearly ok with that, so there’s no way to change that.

tl,dr: take it or leave it.

Please see my post a few posts above wherein I show how wrong this is.

Please accept that not everyone have to share your opinion.
The post above is about your opinion (it’s definitely good to have one, nothing against that), but the truth is that everything PvE related is about DPS and nothing else. So that’s what created zerker meta and that’s the reason why it’s still there.
This is my opinion, you’re free to have your own of course.

However, the game is built that way, especially in the dungeon scenario, where most of the dangerous “mechanics” can be skipped/glitched/avoided, therefore are not existant for speedrunners and is possible to run those in full zerker gear because of this.

Just FYI, I didn’t give an opinion. My response to you was factual. I could give plenty of opinions on plenty of things in this thread but I would likely be infracted due to hurt feels.

My ele has a heavier looking battle worthy armor set up.

http://gw2style.com/look.php?id=2220

fireflyry.7023:

Djinn.9245:

Harper.4173:

I wonder if the people above going against the “meta” realize what meta means, what it is and why diversity is not and can never be a thing.

No, they don’t. If Berzerker gear is somehow made less favorable, something else will take its place.

That’s not about lack of understanding what “meta” means. It’s just that in this game it’s DPS first. Spam your chain with max DPS stats…period.

That’s not even remotely true. I can assure that when a Thief is using Black Powder or a mesmer casts Phantasmal Warden they aren’t doing it to increase DPS.

Thats the GW2 meta. Zerk.

Not really. Meta is the 2xele, 1xwarrior, 1x thief, 1x guardian team comp. The gear they wear isn’t nearly as important as the different weapon skills they have, using them in proper coordination and the judicious use of their utility kills.

Fact: the meta team comp with 5 skilled players wearing Soldier gear is superior to a group of the same 5 players using berserker gear and playing a bad comp of 4 mesmers 1 necro. Or even something lame like 3 warriors 2 rangers. Synergy of skills trumps secondary considerations like gearing.

In other games there is allowance for variation and diversity of skills, gear, classes, within that “meta”. That’s what it should be about. Allowing such diversity. To say it’s not and can never be a thing states absolute ignorance in regards to gaming history.

Actually you’re being ignorant since you clearly don’t understand the diversity as it exists in this game currently. The meta Ele build is 66200 S/F. Would you like me to explain all the different variations of this and why and how people change it to suit the situation or the group?

By and large “meta” is commonly recognised as a Greek prefix for “to go beyond” or more loosely to push boundaries or create and embrace diversity.

I don’t think anyone in gaming uses the term “meta” to mean what you’re doing. But hey, if you want to play pretend and make up whatever fake definition suits your needs go for it, but its an intellectually bankrupt maneuver.

I would solo a dungeon in Soldiers just to demonstrate it for you, but…

1. I don’t own a set of soldiers gear and
2. My time is more valuable than taking two hours to solo an arah path to prove a point that anyone who can think logically wouldn’t need visual proof of.

Azhure.1857:

hybrid.5027:

Azhure.1857:

- Support, while powerful, is not largely effected by stats. You can run full Zerk and still have near equal use of Support and Control functions.

You say that like it’s a bad thing, when it’s an incredibly good thing.

I do not see how a system that is so lopsided it makes any other choice subpar in comparison can be a good thing.

Because the system rewards increasing skill and coordination with increased time efficiency. This good game design. This is a system that is functioning properly.

People who are using berserker gear in disorganized groups with no coordination, synergy or properly implemented support skills are wasting their own time since they likely could have cleared faster in tankier gear. That’s hardly being optimal.

If you want to make the argument that the bar is too low for skill as a result of the content being so old that even bads know some of the advanced speed clear strategies go ahead I won’t argue. But that has nothing to do with gear and everything to do with content.

Azhure.1857:

- Support, while powerful, is not largely effected by stats. You can run full Zerk and still have near equal use of Support and Control functions.

You say that like it’s a bad thing, when it’s an incredibly good thing.

hows that for asinine?

Azhure.1857:

lioka qiao.8734:

I’m more tired of the skip-glitch-stack meta rather than the zerker meta. Doesn’t matter what gear everyone runs, they all skip past all the trash mobs and seek out bosses only. If anet doesn’t fix the zerk meta they can fix this meta.

• Make trash mobs keep aggro unless the dungeon mechanic specifically requires you to skip them
• Increase their loot drop rate to make them valuable to kill rather than skip.
• Add mechanics to bosses which penalize stacking (like a small powerful quick firing PBAOE that instagibs if it hits more than 3 people)

I’m in agreement with you there. Dungeon runs are so cheesy the way they are now.
But I also think the Zerk Meta needs to be addressed. I’m not saying it should be destroyed — Zerk will always have a place. Unfortunately, no matter how much you all yell and scream that we can play “how we want”, it is really hard to do some times with the current “Go Zerk or GTFO” mentality.

But with damage being the only thing rewarded and most encounters being so bloody easy that even those players that are multi-tasking other things outside of the game can get by without blinking — I don’t see it changing. Its a sad thing.

1. Make your own groups trumps “go zerk or gtfo.” So your point is countered.

2. Support is more powerful than DPS. so your other point is countered.

Thanks for offering an opinion though.

If people were opening boxes at the same rate they were a month or two ago this wouldn’t be an issue the TP would have enough to meet demand.

Unfortunately they are not so the TP is missing most of the recipes.

maddoctor.2738:

The “trinity” in the game is DPS/Control/Support, Control and Support need some kind of boost in PVE

Disagree. Support and control are insanely OP as it is. People complain PvE dungeons are “faceroll easy” and that is because of support, not DPS.

If there is a trinity in this game its…

1. Offensive buffing
2. Defensive buffing/reflects
3. Stealth and blinds

That’s the gw2 trinity. DPS, support and control is an assumption that organized groups make as a baseline, not a role.

I really want to congratulate Anet here actually. They have made a game that experienced players can master and refine into ever better levels of playskill. The best pve players have a refined “meta” and have defined the synergies and roles that make organized runs so great. The real joy of all this is that every instance in the game is ALSO completable by semi-conscious people who think using Guardian staff #1 is the end-all be-all of game play and click their endurance bar to dodge. The fact that the game can work for both groups reasonably well is really an accomplishment.

STRanger.5120:

Zerker meta is caused by one and only thing, absence of essential “roles” in PvE, aka trinity or similar system.
So until the game gets total overhaul, there will be zerker meta. Anet is clearly ok with that, so there’s no way to change that.

tl,dr: take it or leave it.

Please see my post a few posts above wherein I show how wrong this is.

A List of Things Most People Don’t Know

1. guild wars 2 has soft roles…
a. Offensive support (engineer, warrior, ranger)
b. Defensive support (mesmer, guardian
c. Might/fury Stacking (elementalist, warrior, engineer)
d. Stealth/Blinds support (Thief, engineer/ guardian)

2. Multiple classes can fulfill those roles using a wide variety of builds. If you think that the only viable builds are the ones listed on metabattle, you’re wrong.

3. You can fulfill those roles with ANY GEAR you want. If you, for example, play elementalist and aren’t confident in berserker gear and want to play with Soldiers or Celestial, so long as you stack Might properly and know when and how to use Ice Bow people really aren’t going to notice or care. You will be successful and be happy.

4. The problem is when people expect an elementalist player to fulfill one of the roles outlined above but the player would prefer to fulfill some role that doesn’t exist in guild wars 2: like CC bot, pure healer, mob kiter. When people don’t want to play with you because you don’t do the basic, non-gear related things you’re expected to do thats an issue with your own maturity as a player and how you react to it is an issue with your maturity as a person.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

You have to register, not be banned for no reason, and bow down to his majesty apparently. But apart from that “all refugees are accepted!”

Much like the old American healthcare system, we do discriminate for pre-existing conditions. Not even Obama himself can change that.

Feel free to join the discussion

http://www.dtguilds.com/forum/m/6563292/viewthread/17605104-official-forums-refugee-thread/page/1

All refugees welcome.

This video is a bit old and the record for Lupicus solo is with a condition damage spec, but this is close to the meta build, using full berserker.

http://youtu.be/7GX-lYH9zrg

As you can see, Dom uses active defense and good rotations to stay alive and deal DPS.

Honestly, buying a set of Rabid gear for WvW costs like 10g and changing traits is free so there is no reason to lock yourself into one build.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

hybrid.5027:

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The game is suffering from item inflation, not gold inflation. Your gold seems less useful because of item inflation. At launch an item you wanted would take 5-10 T6 mats and 1-5 ectos. Now if a new item is introduced it takes 250 T6 mats, 2 stacks of ectos, and 100g in common mats. So even if gold hasn’t inflated your buying power of completed items has still plummeted even while your buying power of mats has stayed the same.

Well thats not even true.

So you are saying that exotic gear uses roughly the same amount of mats as ascended gear?

You are saying that standard exotic back pieces use the same amount of mats as maydrey?

Foefire’s Essence isn’t remotely cheaper than crafting an amberite weapon. Immobolus isn’t exactly cheap.

End game mystic forge skins require end game amounts of mats. Compare apples to apples dude.

Cygnus.6903:

Wo thanks for the quick response!

I do have the cash for Strength right now, so I’ll think about wether or not to buy them straight away.

Thanks for the advice!

Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten.

The end game is grindy only if you value quantity over quality of your play. If all you care is about acquiring the most legendaries, getting ultimate dominator in wvw and champion title in every class in in pvp then it will be very grindy indeed.

Alternatively, if you care more about things like flawlessly soloing a dungeon, being a WvW commander who can defeat enemies even when outnumbered, or winning organized PvP tournaments it isn’t a grind at all.

In short, if the game is checking off boxes to you it will be a grind. if the game is about improving your playskill, it won’t be.

ZudetGambeous.9573:

The game is suffering from item inflation, not gold inflation. Your gold seems less useful because of item inflation. At launch an item you wanted would take 5-10 T6 mats and 1-5 ectos. Now if a new item is introduced it takes 250 T6 mats, 2 stacks of ectos, and 100g in common mats. So even if gold hasn’t inflated your buying power of completed items has still plummeted even while your buying power of mats has stayed the same.

Well thats not even true.

Silverwastes events mobs don’t drop loot so “tagging” isn’t even relevant when discussing it.

Xenon.4537:

It’s harder to find an Arah group

It absolutely isn’t. You can put up an “anyone welcome” LFG and fill in seconds/minutes. The sellers are not crowding out people looking to join a group.

What inflation, specifically, are you referring to?

Dungeon revamps would be fine. Even something as simple as updating the aoe circles to match the new orange ones you see everywhere.

Id also be for something simple like increasing all legendary bosses’ HP by 33% and decreasing the cool downs on their special attacks by a bit (25%?). These simple changes would make dungeons a good deal harder for people who don’t understand the mechanics, so increase rewards would be nice.

What’s funny is that if this thread was about Staff instead of Greatsword the resultant posts would have been almost identical, with maybe a few professions changed here or there.

Wethospu.6437:

Or just accept that not everyone is capable of factual discussion and instead get offended when faced with negativity. You can argue all day long how you are right but truth is that most people won’t accept it if they don’t like how you present it.

Cato the Younger wasn’t popular either. He certainly didn’t get elected Consul because he knew you had to be fake-nice and suck up to the voters. He was satisfied with having principle than winning popularity contests.

Azhure.1857:

hybrid.5027:

You could always just choose not to run with the zerg. How long until people learn that suggesting changing the game’s core mechanics to suit your personal playstyle is selfish and generally leads to unproductive conversation?

That same excuse is commonly used to fight any suggested change in this game, regardless if the reasoning behind the suggested change is valid or not.

Please do better.

I don’t need to do better when I am 100% correct. The core gameplay mechanic in WvW is using tight formations to defeat the AOE cap. That is what the game is. That is the status quo.

If you wish to change the status quo you not only have to suggest a viable change, but you have to advocate why the new system would be superior to the old system. and not only would it have to be superior, it would have to so far superior that the inevitable percentage of people who dislike any change are satisfied. This is a fairly tall order. The OP did not do this, nor even really try.

Since the burden of proof (explained above) is on the person making the change to status quo, I don’t actually need to “do better” since technically I don’t have to do anything in light of the OP’s failure to meet the minimum threshold needed to justify his wishlisting.

When I say 12k and 11.5k I am not trying to cite specific scientific numbers. I am just giving ballpark figures.

I use 15%. I did a dungeon tour last night using Healing Surge at the start of boss fights and while it was annoying to maintain scholar bonus without a heal it was still acceptable. My 52k hundred blades were nice.

edit: I also want to say its somewhat curious that warrior dps dropped by about 2.5% personally but Mace 4 was buffed in a way that amounts to a 2.5% party dps increase. Goes along with the concept of a warrior as a support class.

Leo G is hilarious. You’re a keen detective. You managed to uncover that the word “can’t” is a negative. My god please do not tell anyone this startling revelation.

FWIW, who cares if my “tone” was negative? Did I say anything factually wrong? Is my essential point correct? If you’re not mature enough to be able to process stern, frank conversation without being offended I suggest avoiding debate entirely.

You could always just choose not to run with the zerg. How long until people learn that suggesting changing the game’s core mechanics to suit your personal playstyle is selfish and generally leads to unproductive conversation?

Thaddeus.4891:

13 350dps for the warrior? You acknowledge that with the 13 380 number you didn’t took into account that vulnerability don’t influence condition dmg and that you based this number pre warrior nerf. So both of these only drop the warrior dps by 30? If that’s the case, why ppl scream about the dps nerf on the warrior? It seem to me that you only fixed the vulnerability on condition dmg issue.

You are mistaken.

The first number I cited (13,380) did not take into consideration the September nerf. But I also forgot to add condition damage after calculating the Vuln. There was no condition damage in that figure.

The second number (13,350) took into account the september nerf (which amounts to a 2.4% dps nerf) but I also added the condition damage in after calculating the direct damage + vuln portion. So this is the correct figure.

You mistakenly believe that in the first figure I added condition damage in and then multiplied by 1.25 for Vulnerability which I did not. I hope this settles your confusion.

Right, and saying you have better dps than a warrior (even if it isn’t true) isn’t anything to brag about these days.

I forgot the condition damage entirely, and the nerf to warrior so my mistake.

so with that…

Warrior: 13,350

Guardian 46202: 13036

And thats assuming 100% UC uptime.

Still worse. Like I said. Lets also consider the following: if you didn’t need master of consecrations, why would you bring a Guardian? Just wondering. the 66002 or 46202 build literally have no reason to exist. If you don’t need MoC you would just bring another Ele or thief or engineer. If you need MoC, then 45005 is better dps than other options. But that’s neither here nor there in a thread about warrior dps.

The bottom line is no matter what level of buffs you choose or what ridiculous dumb build or party comp choice you make warrior will do better DPS because Guardians have fundamentally weak skill coefficient/time and their DPS relies on a trait (UC) that is quite often totally useless and even on the best case scenario imaginable still does less DPS.

As far as ‘obal and dekeyz’ numbers, they are both dekeyz. She did both sets and any difference has to do with a refine DPS rotation and or assumption of timing.

In guild wars 1 the first character I made at launch was a necromancer. After realizing there were no viable pve build for necro besides MM I rolled warrior.

Guild wars 2 launch I rolled a warrior and necro. Didn’t take long to realize which one I should play more.

After 10 years I know better.

Thaddeus.4891:

hybrid.5027:

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

Why 4/5/0/0/5? That’s a support build? That’s the build I proposed to new ppl in my guild when they want to learn to play the guardian but have a hard time to stay alive.

Take 4/6/2/0/2 if you want to use UC or 6/6/2/0/0 if you want the number without UC.

9.0-9.1K is with the build 6/6/2/0/0 and with 4/6/2/0/2 its about 8.6-8.7k with UC at zero uptime. Again only with sword-auto attack.

Yes please insult me more. It really proves your point. Please don’t lecture me on builds and what they are used for. And please don’t brag to me about your guild and what you suggest to noobs.