PVE: Is the "glass cannon" declining/going to diminish in popularity?

It appears to me that with the release of HoT and especially PoF content that blithely adopting Berserker gear types may be less attractive than it was in the past.

I see some inherent design choices by the Devs in elite specs and trait lines as well as mob attack mechanics that nudge the player into becoming something more than a one-trick pony.

I predict that as the game further develops we will see more of reason to have well rounded characters or at the very least, something more resembling the Holy Trinity arising in the game.

This goes hand in hand with the horizontal progression trend of the game, I think content will start branching out further into situations where:

• There will be a greater variety in builds and focus attributes

• DPS will no longer be the primary consideration

• Healing will become more important

• Toughness will no longer be shrugged off as superfluous

• Boon duration, condition duration will be more than just "extras" for consideration

I guess, for me personally, I never thought that GW2 went far enough in imposing significant "downsides" to gear/trait choices but, I can see how this may be finally happening as the content progresses.

If by "Glass Cannon" you mean the pure Zerker DPS meta, it already has, like almost 3 years ago.If you mean pure DPS builds, that's a different story. DPS builds will always be relevant, and glass cannon builds will always be useful. But since raids came on the game 2 years ago, pure DPS comps have stopped being the meta, and now even Fractals use a more balanced approach with a mix of support and DPS builds.

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:If by "Glass Cannon" you mean the pure Zerker DPS meta, it already has, like almost 3 years ago.If you mean pure DPS builds, that's a different story. DPS builds will always be relevant, and glass cannon builds will always be useful. But since raids came on the game 2 years ago, pure DPS comps have stopped being the meta, and now even Fractals use a more balanced approach with a mix of support and DPS builds.

Yeah, I came back to GW2 after some years away, starting over on a new account.

But I still often see the Berserker Gear being thrown about as the one size fits all solution in many of the Profession topics. I personally haven't felt that it works particularly well in the newer content areas of the game because the mobs are more punishing - I think this started in the Silverwastes and continued on from there.

There's still no need to use anything else than glass gear (be it berserker or viper) in open world. Sure, if you run into a zerg event with ridiculously upscaled mobs, you may eat one or two oneshots that could have been avoided with more tanky gear, but that's easily compensated for by killing other stuff much more quickly. As long as there isn't a total overhaul to the combat systems, there will never be a need to complement offensive attributes with defensive ones outside very specific cases in instanced content - defensive attributes being close to useless is a direct consequence of active defense.

Well, in open world Berzerker is still probably the best solution, since mobs will drop pretty fast hence power damage for it's instant spike damage is the best.It's end game content, instanced content, that will require proper buildcrafting from you, and it's there that Condi damage and support builds will shine.

zerker meta died ages ago, before i even started playing the game...however zerker (or equivalent viper and whatever the support meta is now) works - for instanced group PvE content, if you're skilled enough to pull it off, and if your support teammates are doing their jobs properly. those are 3 * that always have come with using it.

if you ever read any "what stats should i use" type thread on this very forum, you'll always see a lot of people that say "well toughness is useless but most who aren't toxic elitist will let you use x stat combo which includes toughness". won't ever make toughness/vitality meta though unless they make a boss which does big damage reguardless of success in mechanics/player skill- cus rn tough/vit is useless in pve because almost the only thing that kills you if you're not facetanking attacks are mechanics which you're supposed to succeed at anyway. (keyword is almost- that's true for most if not all raid bosses, not sure how many not-mechanic things can kill you in t4 fractals tho.)

Nah, people will still want to do The Most Damage Possible even if it means they die every 10 seconds, then they'll just make threads about certain fights being too hard because they couldn't one-shot an enemy, and how they think condi builds are being favored now. The desire that MMO players have that drives them to try to do everything as quickly as possible will prevent them from venturing outside their comfort zone of a herd of zerker warriors.

Imo the main problem is stacking defstats isn't really effective. Sure you maybe will survive a few more hits but often you died nevertheless because you don't get the mobs downed fast enough. The whole game is build about using active defense like dodge or using defskills like aegis and blinds. It's more effective to use defensive traits or skills than building a deforiented build around gear.

@"Lexi.1398" said:zerker meta died ages ago, before i even started playing the game...however zerker (or equivalent viper and whatever the support meta is now) works - for instanced group PvE content, if you're skilled enough to pull it off, and if your support teammates are doing their jobs properly. those are 3 * that always have come with using it.

if you ever read any "what stats should i use" type thread on this very forum, you'll always see a lot of people that say "well toughness is useless but most who aren't toxic elitist will let you use x stat combo which includes toughness". won't ever make toughness/vitality meta though unless they make a boss which does big damage reguardless of success in mechanics/player skill- cus rn tough/vit is useless in pve because almost the only thing that kills you if you're not facetanking attacks are mechanics which you're supposed to succeed at anyway. (keyword is almost- that's true for most if not all raid bosses, not sure how many not-mechanic things can kill you in t4 fractals tho.)

That's not exactly true. A lot of Raid encounters will usually have a High toughness mesmer to work as the tank, i personally use Minstrels (tough, vit and Healing power and Concentration), others use Commanders (Power, precision, Tough and Concentration). Toughness in GW2 determines aggro, which is why you shouldn't encourage many players to have it, since you want the boss to focus on the tank, it doesn't mean it's not useful.

Vitality is still very important in PvP modes, and useful in PvE as well. For example, instead of full zerker (the meta) on my DH i use Zerker and Valkyrie, which gives extra HP without dispensing any damage, since i get 100% crit rate from traits and retaliation and the zerker items i have (Valkyrie is zerkers with vitality instead of precision). Which gives me a bit more sustainability.You do facetank a lot of stuff btw (greens, Old Tom, etc), usually it's up to healers and supports to keep you alive, but having a bit of extra health is helpful, especially if you can take it without sacrificing damage (as is the case with DH).

@SmirkDog.3160 said:Nah, people will still want to do The Most Damage Possible even if it means they die every 10 seconds, then they'll just make threads about certain fights being too hard because they couldn't one-shot an enemy, and how they think condi builds are being favored now. The desire that MMO players have that drives them to try to do everything as quickly as possible will prevent them from venturing outside their comfort zone of a herd of zerker warriors.

I'd gather you don't play much group content, do you?

@"Elva.6372" said:It appears to me that with the release of HoT and especially PoF content that blithely adopting Berserker gear types may be less attractive than it was in the past.

I see some inherent design choices by the Devs in elite specs and trait lines as well as mob attack mechanics that nudge the player into becoming something more than a one-trick pony.

I predict that as the game further develops we will see more of reason to have well rounded characters or at the very least, something more resembling the Holy Trinity arising in the game.

This goes hand in hand with the horizontal progression trend of the game, I think content will start branching out further into situations where:

• There will be a greater variety in builds and focus attributes

• DPS will no longer be the primary consideration

• Healing will become more important

• Toughness will no longer be shrugged off as superfluous

• Boon duration, condition duration will be more than just "extras" for consideration

I guess, for me personally, I never thought that GW2 went far enough in imposing significant "downsides" to gear/trait choices but, I can see how this may be finally happening as the content progresses.

The Trinity is already in the game - in the instanced content. I don't think that translates well to open world, though. It will be tricky to balance for an unknown number of players and unknown distribution of roles inside the group. And players have no control over either as well, unlike in instances. So I don't expect we'd be seeing proper mechanics stimulating the use of actual combat roles there. Cooperation, coordination - that's about the extend you can go. When you start requiring something more specific of the player in the open world, they tend to start failing. See Serpent's Ire.

Oh yeah, the Zerker Meta...is dead a long time ago...the funny part is that people asked for this changes so other kinds of builds could have a place on the Meta(anything on Dungeons was viable, people in full clerics could just auto attack and dont even hit the dodge key and be able to clear Arah, and that was the "hardcore" dungeon at the time) and yet, with Raids you can easily say that people are 100% more etilist then they used to be...we went from "Play how you want" to some old boring more Trinity MMO, which is basically the antithesis of what GW2 should be.

I don’t know about you guys, but personally I find that just switching my traitlines around to include Defense is more than enough extra beef to allow my Warrior to tackle the more demanding solo PvE bits while still wearing “glass cannon” gear.

Maybe that’s just a Warrior thing though. Maybe other classes don’t get enough effect out of their passive/active defenses but I kinda think they do. Like the extra health bar the Necro gets via Shroud(s).

@"Felipe.1807" said:Oh yeah, the Zerker Meta...is dead a long time ago...the funny part is that people asked for this changes so other kinds of builds could have a place on the Meta(anything on Dungeons was viable, people in full clerics could just auto attack and dont even hit the dodge key and be able to clear Arah, and that was the "hardcore" dungeon at the time) and yet, with Raids you can easily say that people are 100% more etilist then they used to be...we went from "Play how you want" to some old boring more Trinity MMO, which is basically the antithesis of what GW2 should be.Oh right, the was no elitism at all during the "10k+ AP" times ... oh, wait.

Actually, nothing has changed at all.

Imho Marauder>Berserker in open world. I prefer to live just a tiny bit longer instead of dying after something sneezes at me.

@"SunTzu.4513" said:Imo the main problem is stacking defstats isn't really effective. Sure you maybe will survive a few more hits but often you died nevertheless because you don't get the mobs downed fast enough.

Sorry but I disagree. I play Celestial Firebrand, Ele and Engi. I use every core stat. I managed to solo the whole story without deaths on all 3 of them. I don't know what you mean by "fast enough" but the speed feels perfectly fine while my HP rarely gets under 50%. Also, when 10-20 people get downed in Palawadan during the toilet flush attack and I get hit too (because I'm stuck at the wall, happens a lot), I still survive with 20-25% HP. :) So according to my experience, having defensive stats is not a bad thing at all.

@"Elva.6372" said:It appears to me that with the release of HoT and especially PoF content that blithely adopting Berserker gear types may be less attractive than it was in the past.

I see some inherent design choices by the Devs in elite specs and trait lines as well as mob attack mechanics that nudge the player into becoming something more than a one-trick pony.

I predict that as the game further develops we will see more of reason to have well rounded characters or at the very least, something more resembling the Holy Trinity arising in the game.

This goes hand in hand with the horizontal progression trend of the game, I think content will start branching out further into situations where:

• There will be a greater variety in builds and focus attributes

• DPS will no longer be the primary consideration

• Healing will become more important

• Toughness will no longer be shrugged off as superfluous

• Boon duration, condition duration will be more than just "extras" for consideration

I guess, for me personally, I never thought that GW2 went far enough in imposing significant "downsides" to gear/trait choices but, I can see how this may be finally happening as the content progresses.

As far as the PvE game goes, the "non-trinity" design drives the DPS meta. What else are you going to do? Tank? It's precisely because you can't tank (no usable threat mechanics!) that the vast majority of the time your impact in group play is determined largely by your damage output. Want to carry a group in a dungeon/fractal or open world boss? You can't do it by soaking damage with toughness/vitality. Enemies can still decide to walk over and kill your allies whenever they like, so you're really only protecting yourself! And you have to do so for a longer period of time because you aren't dealing as much damage.

The action combat design further drives the DPS meta. The better you are at utilizing active damage prevention, the less you need to rely on passive defenses like toughness/vitality. Here's a good example video of the very best active defense class (Mirage) leading a small squad against a legendary boss:

I'm wearing full Viper (a "glass cannon" set) gear in this video, but mirage has great active defenses so I'm able to hang in there and keep dealing damage while staying alive. If I had worn a tanky set like Dire, I could have made things easier on myself but my allies still would have struggled because my tanky stats do nothing to protect them. We would also have taken significantly longer to defeat the boss as I was dealing nearly half the damage for the squad.

Damage output had a clear impact here, where tanky stats could only have made the fight take longer.

In every mmorpg, PvP means stacking health and burst damage.

You're kind of silly to go glass cannon, just asking to be steamrolled when you can do more if you survive longer.

I do everything in marauder gear. Pretty much all game modes apart from PvP

@Mea.5491 said:

@"SunTzu.4513" said:Imo the main problem is stacking defstats isn't really effective. Sure you maybe will survive a few more hits but often you died nevertheless because you don't get the mobs downed fast enough.

I also disagree that tanky stats won't help you to survive better. They absolutely will in most cases. In fact, there are even cases where I've performed better in a tankier set in terms of actual damage output because I'm able to play more aggressively (This really only applies in very specific cases in solo play, though!). Here's an example of that: I wasn't able to defeat this boss using berserker stats, so I tried zealot to boost my healing output. It worked, but I was able to produce a significantly better time by using celestial (All stat) gear. Check out the celestial video:

That's an effortless kill. The tankiness is so good I can literally facetank her and stand in her area effects to finish those monster 4 second overload casts. It just doesn't matter. She has no chance of downing me before I heal back any damage she deals!

On the other hand, I could do it in half the time with a glass set like Viper:

In solo play especially, it's all about how you want to play it. But as my previous post illustrates, you will generally have more impact with better damage output in group play.

@"AliamRationem.5172" said:What else are you going to do? Tank? It's precisely because you can't tank (no usable threat mechanics!)

Great post, but if I may ask (honest question, not a setup) doesn't toughness act somewhat as aggro magnet?

Wiki: "Toughness is one of the contributing factors in determining NPC aggression."

Only to mobs that have an aggro behaviour tied to toughness. Most don't and consequently don't give a fuck about who has how much toughness.

@Elva.6372 said:

@"AliamRationem.5172" said:What else are you going to do? Tank? It's precisely because you can't tank (no usable threat mechanics!)

Great post, but if I may ask (honest question, not a setup) doesn't toughness act somewhat as aggro magnet?

It's a factor, but not a reliable one. Proximity is generally more reliable that way. In other words, if you had a player stand at melee range they would be more likely to attract the boss's attention than the guy standing at 1200 range. But there really isn't an effective (reliable) way to maintain enemy hate in this game, and that's by design.

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@Mea.5491 said:

@"SunTzu.4513" said:Imo the main problem is stacking defstats isn't really effective. Sure you maybe will survive a few more hits but often you died nevertheless because you don't get the mobs downed fast enough.

Nice vids! :) Of course Celestial is slower but the video proves how "safe" and comfortable it is, that's why I love it so much.

I guess I can't envision playing my Reaper or Dragon Hunter without heavy Toughness as focus.

...

@Mea.5491 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@Mea.5491 said:

@"SunTzu.4513" said:Imo the main problem is stacking defstats isn't really effective. Sure you maybe will survive a few more hits but often you died nevertheless because you don't get the mobs downed fast enough.

Definitely! Although, I felt that broke down a bit with PoF. Enemies like the fire hydras, which have attacks that force you to play defensively to avoid all of their stuns, yet have a built-in easy button for DPS builds (knock 33% off their health bar to remove a head and stun them!). But also the bosses. Consider that the champions-on-demand for HoT had about 500-800k health, while PoF bounty champions have closer to 2 million and also get a random defensive/healing buff from the unstable magic list. Yet they share the same 10 minute timer. You could carry others through Balthazar or Mushroom Queen on ANY build simply by staying alive. You can't do that with PoF bounty champions.

The issues with high mob density and long aggro range also favor higher damage. The less you let those hydras charge around, the less chance of attracting more hydras!

I'm not saying you can't do well with a tanky build these days, but I certainly don't see the game favoring tanky stats in PvE at all. If anything, the DPS meta is stronger than ever.