Guild Wars 2

This exact thing happened to me my first time through.

The conversation that starts right after you defeat the golem never finishes. It gets part way through, but the seraph commander never comes over to trigger the rest of it, which leaves you stuck.

CptAurellian.9537:

This would mean that any halfway competent player loses a massive amount of DpS and gains nothing at all in return. And no, don’t start with boon duration, that one is useless even for boon-heavy classes, too. This means that the same old, stale encounters will simply last the double time.

There are some valid points here. If Boon Duration is really lacking, it could be scaled up to be more effective. Similarly, enemy Health and Armor would need to be adjusted to compensate for the change. Although, according to Vargamonth’s calculations:

Vargamonth.2047:

Chose a berserker meta build and replace weapons and armor with soldier (which is exactly the more even distribution you’re proposing) and you don’t even lose 20% of your damage output.

So, encounters taking “double time” is probably a bit of an exaggeration.

DHK.8406:

This cannot be addressed via gear, or traits, it will either take a a fundamental change to the dodge mechanic, or fundamental changes to almost all PvE encounters.

I agree with you. This would not fix everything.

Normalizing equipment stats relies on other things being fixed as well. There are many issues with the way PvE encounters work and it will take many changes to many systems to get it to where it needs to be. What it would do, though, is help prevent any single gear type from becoming the dominant one. Otherwise we’ll end up with a Whac-a-Mole fixes: adjust Critical Damage here, Condition Damage there, and the meta (and everyone’s equipment) shifts all around in response. I suppose you could consider this an attempt to improve Equipment diversity / viability more than anything else because, without other improvements, that’s all it would amount to.

Swagg.9236:

HOW TO FIX GEAR STATS IN GW2
Step 1

• Remove all stats from weapons and armor.
  …

I like Swagg’s idea and would like to see it explored further. It’s a more radical departure from the current system than I was willing to put forward.

The Rise of Mix and Match
It is reasonable to expect that, in a system like this, more players would have heterogenous equipment. A full set of Berserker’s would give a huge amount of Power, but no Precision or Critical Damage to round it out. This would be fine for raw damage output, but if you also want on-critical effects, maybe you’ll need to slot in a few Assassin’s items to boost your critical rate.

Control
It’s worth noting that nothing in this proposal has really touched on Control. This is because Attributes don’t really apply to it in any meaningful way. Attributes are almost entirely a matter of damage vs. survivability and Control is largely about skill selection (and effective usage). Any enhancements to Control-heavy play would have to come from another solution.

Nomenclature
Some Attribute combinations may no longer seem to “fit” their names; these would need to be renamed to better reflect their new bonus configurations. However, for the sake of simplicity in discussing these changes, all original naming has been retained.

PvP Disclaimer
The changes proposed here are focused on solving a PvE problem. PvP equipment awards Attribute bonuses exclusively through amulets. Because this is effectively a different system, PvP amulets could (and perhaps should) remain unaffected by all of this. Balancing PvP is an entirely different beast and no one really wants PvE changes creeping into PvP or vice versa.

However, it might be worth discussing the consequences of extending this (or something similar) to PvP equipment. As PvP is not really my domain, I will defer to other PvP players for their expertise on the ramifications of this.

Outro
There’s been some talk about “destroying Zerker”. I think it’s fair to say that this would qualify as such, but it also “destroys” pretty much everything else, so that brings a sort of balance to it. This is not about fixing/nerfing/destroying Berserker’s. A spotfix like that would only cause another king-of-the-hill combination to emerge. Instead, this overhauls the entire Equipment Attribute system in such a way as to prevent any single Attribute combination from being the dominant one.

Let me be clear: I am 100% in favor of experienced players maximizing efficiency and running content “as quickly as possible”. It is the will of the players (and perhaps just human nature) to seek out the shortest / fastest route to a goal. Nothing is going to change that.

The important thing here is to shift the emphasis from passive values to player activity.
We still want to reward good players; good players will still clear content (and earn rewards) faster than less-capable ones. But we should be rewarding skillful play, not skillful play and “good gear”. Ultimately, the less bearing gear has on the equation, the closer to that goal we’ll be.

3 Attribute Approach (70/30)
http://tinyurl.com/l684rfr

Here equipment still retains its familiar 3-Attribute bonuses, but they have been reworked to have an offensive bias. Now, each item provides:

• 1 Major Offense
• 1 Minor Offense
• 1 Minor Defense

Additional Notes:

• All combinations that originally had an offensive Major bonus retain that bonus.
• All combinations that originally had a defensive Major bonus have had that converted to a Minor bonus.
• Wherever possible, combinations retain their Minor bonus(es) as well. Some, like Valkyrie, Knight’s, and Cavalier’s, are even unchanged!
• While this approach does have a 70/30 ratio, it’s because of the forced Major + Minor offense vs. a single Minor defense. The actual scaling of Major and Minor bonuses (relative to each other) has not actually been changed.
• Celestial does not get 7 Minor bonuses; it is only included for demonstrative purposes. In reality, Celestial more or less already follows the pattern for “balanced” equipment.

An Example
Sentinel’s Pearl Broadsword (80 Exotic Greatsword)

Note: this uses 70/30 weighting (see: above).

2 Attribute Approach (50/50)
http://tinyurl.com/lpfz5m2

This takes the previous 3 Attribute idea and pushes it a little further, trimming each combination to just 2 Attribute bonuses. With this, there are no Major or Minor bonuses; they are all equal. (This would not be true if the ratio were adjusted to be something other than 50/50.) Each item provides one offensive Attribute bonus and one defensive Attribute bonus.

Additional Notes:

• All combinations retain their original Major bonus.
• Wherever possible, combinations retain one of their Minor bonuses as well.
• Celestial, ever the exception, is unchanged as it more or less already follows the pattern for “balanced” equipment.

I personally prefer this one because it produces a more elegant result. It also corresponds nicely with Trait line Attribute bonuses which also comes in pairs. On the other hand, it is the most significant departure from the status quo and basically does surgery with a chainsaw on a lot of items, so I don’t expect it to be too warmly received.

An Example
Sentinel’s Pearl Broadsword (80 Exotic Greatsword)

Note: this uses 50/50 weighting (see: above).

The Actual Conversions
The following document illustrates the specifics of the proposed approaches:
http://tinyurl.com/l3s7mfc
That document contains multiple sheets: one demonstrating the state of the game as it is today and one for each approach outlined below. To best understand what’s going on, be sure to check them all (links to the relevant sheet are provided for each approach)
Disclaimer: this document only addresses “high level” (3 Attribute) items, but could easily be extrapolated to lower level items.

I’ve tried to keep the new Attribute sets as close to the originals as possible (within the constraints described above). Unfortunately, it’s not possible to make a sweeping change like this without some things getting the short end of the stick.

Offense vs. Defense (A Note on “50/50”)
The notation used (X/Y) indicates the weighting of item’s Attribute bonuses. So, 50/50 means 50% offense (damage output) and 50% defense (survivability). Today, there are multiple full damage sets (e.g. Berserker’s) and no full defense sets (Sentinel’s or Giver’s (armor) are about as close as you can get), so it would seem that an asymmetrical ratio (e.g. 60/40, 75/25) with a bias for damage output is probably a better fit than the 50/50 that is used here. The actual ratio to use is subject to debate; the important thing is that it consistent across all combinations (i.e. all sets give X% offense and Y% defense).

3 Attribute Approach (50/50)
http://tinyurl.com/kogrrl5

Here, equipment retains its familiar 3-Attribute nature, but has been reworked to provide a mix of offense and defense. Each item provides 1 Major and 2 Minor, with the Minor bonuses being of opposite nature to the Major. So, either:

• 1 Major Offense and 2 Minor Defense
• 1 Major Defense and 2 Minor Offense

Additional Notes:

• All combinations retain their original Major bonus.
• Wherever possible, combinations retain their Minor bonus(es) as well. Some, like Soldier’s, Knight’s, and Cavalier’s, are even unchanged!
• Celestial does not get 7 Minor bonuses; it is only included for demonstrative purposes. In reality, Celestial more or less already follows the pattern for “balanced” equipment.

An Example
Sentinel’s Pearl Broadsword (80 Exotic Greatsword)

Note: this uses 50/50 weighting (see: above).

Re: Berserker’s (AKA: “Why did I get Boon Duration? Seriously!?”)
Because Berserker’s is the flagship / whipping boy for this issue, it’s worth (preemptively) discussing it in a bit more depth.

Here’s the thing about Boon Duration. It’s being treated as a defensive attribute as far as slotting it for combinations. But in reality, many boons help your damage output too. Might, Fury, and Retaliation all boost your DPS in very obvious ways and Stability increases it indirectly under the the right circumstances.

So combinations with Boon Duration actually have a higher damage potential than if they had another strictly defensive Attribute instead. “But,” you might say, “doesn’t this mean that everyone will just run that?” Well, that’s a possibility, but because boons are fleeting (limited durations, subject to stripping, etc.) and must be activated (unlike Attributes, which are passively applied and always-on), this seems like a tolerable amount of deviation.

The other expected issue with Berserker’s is that it has Healing Power. The only remaining alternatives are Toughness and Vitality, which are both about immediate survivability, that is, the ability to absorb incoming damage without dying. Healing Power, on the other hand, is about recovery after the fact and is a much more active concept.

While it may not be the Zerker of yore, it still represents the “spirit” of Zerker (maximum damage potential with minimal defense) pretty well.

An external copy of this post (with additional formatting): http://tinyurl.com/kwkhhfj

Preface / Overview
This is an attempt to address the oft discussed “DPS / Zerker Meta” and provide a solution that improves build diversity across the board. Following, there are actually 3 different approaches described, each built around the same principles.

The initial targets of this discussion:

• The idea as a whole and any issues that it fixes or creates.
• The individual approaches and their pros / cons relative to each other.

This is not intended to be a comprehensive solution to all that ails us. The overall viability of conditions, Defiance, AI, and numerous other things would all still need to be addressed even if this were implemented.

The Problem
There are two important points to consider:

• First, the primary source of defense is player agency (Moving, Dodging, Blocking, Reflecting, etc.). This is a good thing and a large part of what makes this game fun. Reducing the efficacy of player agency will make the game less fun by shifting the focus from active interaction to raw stats.
• Second, the content can be “learned” such that an experienced player can avoid harm with relative impunity. This is a common form of expertise in single-player games (e.g. Mega Man), but those games are not meant to be played indefinitely (at least not in the same manner that an MMO is).

This means that (defensive) player agency should not be reduced, but, so long as it remains effective, experienced players will have no incentive to invest in anything that isn’t damage output. Over time, more and more players will become “experienced” and the meta inevitably degenerates into a “maximize DPS or bust” mentality.

This has already been discussed at length (along with many potential solutions) in several other threads. A few of the larger (and recent) ones:

• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/PvE-Revising-the-DPS-Meta/first
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/To-clear-the-air-about-Berserker/first

The Solution
In a single sentence:
Convert all existing Attribute combinations on items to have a uniform offense to defense ratio.

A bit more detail:
This means that there would no longer be “offensive” (e.g. Berserker’s) or “defensive” (e.g. Sentinel’s) Attribute sets. Instead, both damage output and survivability would be provided in equal measure. This change does two significant things:

• It changes the nature of deciding what equipment to use. It is no longer about damage output vs. survivability and, instead, is about the type of damage and type of survivability. This shift encourages players to give their Profession (and their personal playstyle within it) more weight, fostering build diversity within a Profession and Equipment diversity among the playerbase as a whole.
• It provides a more reliable “base” of Attributes for all players. By ensuring every player has some offense and some defense, it helps to deliver on the original promise of “everyone can fulfill every role” — it’s just a matter of how they do it.

Ultimately what this is doing here is narrowing the band of variance on the theoretical Damage / Survivability scale, which sounds a lot like restricting customization (which it is). But this is not without precedent. Consider the fixed set of weapon skills that the player is given — a basic set of tools that gives the player a solid foundation on which to build their character. Item Attribute combinations should be guided by the same principle: each is useful and well-considered with no “bad” options.

Players who want to “unbalance” their character (either by skewing toward damage or survivability) can still do so with Skills, Traits, Runes, Sigils, and Consumables.

No doubt many who play full DPS would be upset. No doubt many who play full survivability would be upset. They would feel that something has been “taken away” from them, but they would also be getting something else in return. This is really just a matter of comfort. No one likes to have their things messed with. An advantage of doing this across the board instead of just targeting a specific combination (e.g. Berserker’s) is that no group of players is singled out. After going into effect, every player would go through the same transitional period together as a community while the equipment system normalizes.