Revising Attributes

[yusayu.3629]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@"yusayu.3629" said:Why?

Imo active defense is much more interesting than "just stack this stat and you no die" and makes the game more exciting. It's one of the advantages GW2 has with its dodges over "stand still and press buttons"-games like WoW.

Again - this has been reviewed extensively in this thread. It's a fallacious argument because a.) no one is suggesting to remove active defenses, and b.) the poor balance of active vs passive defenses actually causes combat to be more shallow than it would be with a more equal contribution of both.

This is for PvE.

Stats don't matter for open world or anything below CMs, really, so we can put that out of the picture as well.

Giving classes more "tankyness" (which is essentially what you're describing by fixing the stats) means that you either give players an "easy mode" by playing unoptimal builds in a currently unintended way (because you would use passive tankyness instead of active tankyness) OR you'd make bosses harder which would just be the same as it is now, except that the meta would then be to still just take Berserker gear, and we'd have harder bosses. For that you don't need to fix tanking stats, though, harder bosses would just be fine as is. And people with tanky gear would then just be punished less and allowed more mistakes, which goes against the whole idea of the game again.

How can passive defense add to the combat at all? It just makes it easier by punishing you less for your mistakes.

[sniperman.1738]

@Airdive.2613 said:The passive defense is actually fine where it makes a difference.The thing is, in a game revolving entirely around cooldown times, that one extra second of passive survival, while seemingly unimportant, may let you cast your healing skill again, at which point you're obviously going to survive even longer. With every extra one small second that you live, all your skills become closer to being available again - including defensive and healing ones. It's very easy to overtune passive defenses and send players into a feedback loop of endless survival. And that would be the most boring thing ever, really.Either that, or all healing and defensive skills would need a complete overhaul just to achieve the same state we see now (that is, to make it harder to achieve immortality).

actually its not boring to have fights and stuff last longer because people live longer, thats what makes combat fun and makes people actually use strategy, its tiring to hear some people say that long fights and stuff are boring, quick fights require no skill, long fights do. I wish people would realize that instead of trying to rush to end something quickly, cause for me when its quickly done and over thats boring cause then it ended to fast didn't learn a thing, so it would be nice to see a defensive rework where defense actually did its job and mitigated damage properly like it should and I mean all damage so we don't need a condi resist boon anymore. Longer fights would show some of these kids these days why we veterans got good at the game because we didn't care if a fight took long because we learned along the way to become better and how to make it end quicker without begging for higher damage, or cough nerfed wall and gate health. I'm sorry but WvW was ment for strategy it was never ment for let me break through just so I can kill everyone, killing everyone is more of a Spvp thing, while WvW was supposed to be a cap this keep tactfully.

[Airdive.2613]

@sniperman.1738 said:Longer fights would show some of these kids these days why we veterans got good at the game because we didn't care if a fight took long

You mean the exciting HoT PvP bunker meta?Anyway, that's not the point. You can have your fights a fair bit longer right now if you so prefer. Now, if defenses would just get buffed, you could become able to sustain indefinitely in a lot of encounters, now that's certainly not fun; there's no skill in repeating the same skill combos tens and hundreds of times over again without any change of context.I know I quit the fight when I had been soloing the legendary viscount (one of the Mad King's labyrinth bosses) for about 20 minutes and realized he's still got 50% health left.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:This misconception has already been addressed numerous times in the thread. In short, this is a refrain that holds no water - it's the dominance of active defense (i.e. poor balance between passive and active defense) that makes combat more shallow than it should be.it makes it more shallow to you. Personally, i think increasing effectiveness of any sort of passive effect is what will make the combat more shallow. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, as it will decrease the disparity between high and low skill. On the other hand, having personal skill count for less is not what a lot of skilled people would want. Basically, your proposal harms skilled players, and helps unskilled ones - and those are less likely to care about the depth of the combat system. It also makes the combat more shallow.

It leads to a lack of strategic depth in character building - something that's critical for horizontally focused games, and it creates a situation where the only counterplay in combat is hitting the v button when you see a telegraph.You say lack of stategic depth in character building, i say more tactical depth in actual combat.Besides, no, there won't be any strategic depth. People will simply calculate the new "best" builds and switch to those. No, people will not be changing gear every encounter, because almost noone actually wants that.As far as that "depth" goes, there's no practical difference if all meta power builds are running berserker or if they all will be running soldier.

The rest of your post makes just as little sense, really. Condition damage was obviously designed as armor penetrating to begin with, so I don't understand why you're trying to act like that's a made-up claim. Conditions were always on short durations in GW2, so, yes, being armor-penetrating was a huge part of their identity and clearly a big separator between Toughness and Vitality as defensive stats.Conditions are a GW2 derivative of Hexes, not of shadow damage or life steal. Yes, they do ignore armor, but that's not their primary identity. That was always being a persistend negative status (not even damage over time, as a number of conditions don't even deal damage). They are here to apply pressure, not to do bursts.

Like i said, what you want is not condition damage. What you want is shadow damage. Those are two completely different things. Could the game use some of that kind of mechanic as well? Possibly. If you think so, advocate for it. Do not try to hijack conditions for that, though. Even if you succeeded, the game would still need some DoTs anyway, so we'd soon be back to starting point.

Arenanet even openly admitted they were overtuned, but then when they went to rebalance them they took it in the wrong direction by extending durations instead of reducing damage - something that makes no sense as short as the average fight in GW2 is and given the fact the distinction of armor penetration was already built into conditions.It may make no sense to you, but it's been very consistent with the "pressure, not burst" vision for conditions devs had since the beginning of the game. Yes, it didn't always work all that well, but that vision is not something new.

But, we're straying away from the point of the thread with the topic of conditions. It's a separate topic.Agreed.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:I'm not really suggesting improving scaling on Toughness and Vitality as a fix for any issue in the game now. In fact I think that would be the exact wrong approach to balance. Any overhauls need to be more comprehensive than that. The list of things I would do are mentioned above.

And like i said, the overhauls you mentioned are not comprehensive enough for what you'd want to accomplish - but they are big enough to blow the current combat system up and require a complete rework of practically everything. Something that would likely take years (and then some more years to balance properly). And the end result would be something completely different than what we have now. Which many of the curent players would not like. Ther's not even a guarantee that you would like it, by the way.

So, are you going to sacrifice large part of the current active game population for a hope that maybe some new players will come? Because what i see is a huge gamble that requires a lot of effort and time, will cost the game plenty, and isn't likely to pay off.

[Astralporing.1957]

@sniperman.1738 said:Longer fights would show some of these kids these days why we veterans got good at the game because we didn't care if a fight took long because we learned along the way to become better and how to make it end quicker without begging for higher damageNo, that's how we ended with a third of population not having their traits set and not dodging at the time Marionette rolled out. The people got good at the game because they did care how long the fights took, and so learned how to kill enemies faster, faster, faster and faster. The defensive reworks is something for players that do not care to learn how to utilize their active defences and want to take it easier by stacking up on defence stats.Notice, by the way, that it can be done already. There are builds that are practically unkillable and can survive anything except for oneshot mechanics. That's partially how solo raid boss kills were done. Yes, they could take upwards of 2 hours, which is why almost noone actually tries those tactics for serious.

Some people just want to have both - great defence and survivability coupled with fast kill times and great damage. Let's just say that's not likely to happen.

[ArchonWing.9480]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@ArchonWing.9480 said:The longer the fight, the more mechanics you have to deal with. As a result, dps will always be king in these regards. And there is also dodging.

This is strategically shallow and not good for the game. That's the argument being made.

I am merely stating facts. You can't really argue without taking the game in context. And this is a huge point. If you don't understand why this issue happens, then how can you expect to coherently solve it? In pve we do not usually take defense stats because they don't help with damage. Even if defensive stats were equal or greater it wouldn't matter. On the other hand defensive stats are common in wvw because the alternatives are just rallybotting.

Despite all this you still have healers and tanks in some content. Is this not a sign there is more variety than assumed?

For something so shallow it seems really hard to grasp. ;)

Also I don't see an argument, merely subjective statements about how things should be.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@ArchonWing.9480 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@ArchonWing.9480 said:The longer the fight, the more mechanics you have to deal with. As a result, dps will always be king in these regards. And there is also dodging.

This is strategically shallow and not good for the game. That's the argument being made.

I am merely stating facts. You can't really argue without taking the game in context. And this is a huge point. If you don't understand why this issue happens, then how can you expect to coherently solve it? In pve we do not usually take defense stats because they don't help with damage. Even if defensive stats were equal or greater it wouldn't matter. On the other hand defensive stats are common in wvw because the alternatives are just rallybotting.

Despite all this you still have healers and tanks in some content. Is this not a sign there is more variety than assumed?

For something so shallow it seems really hard to grasp. ;)

Also I don't see an argument, merely subjective statements about how things should be.

It would actually matter if it was designed well. I'm not sure why this attitude of "it's broken but it can't be fixed so it's working" is so prominent here. I have also made a ton of arguments in this thread, including laying out exactly how I would change the attribute system.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@ArchonWing.9480 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@ArchonWing.9480 said:The longer the fight, the more mechanics you have to deal with. As a result, dps will always be king in these regards. And there is also dodging.

This is strategically shallow and not good for the game. That's the argument being made.

I am merely stating facts. You can't really argue without taking the game in context. And this is a huge point. If you don't understand why this issue happens, then how can you expect to coherently solve it? In pve we do not usually take defense stats because they don't help with damage. Even if defensive stats were equal or greater it wouldn't matter. On the other hand defensive stats are common in wvw because the alternatives are just rallybotting.

Despite all this you still have healers and tanks in some content. Is this not a sign there is more variety than assumed?

For something so shallow it seems really hard to grasp. ;)

Also I don't see an argument, merely subjective statements about how things should be.

It would actually matter if it was designed well. I'm not sure why this attitude of "it's broken but it can't be fixed so it's working" is so prominent here. I have also made a ton of arguments in this thread, including laying out exactly how I would change the attribute system.

I think the main issue is this: most people do not agree it's broken.

Not all stats need to hold equal value in every game mode. Spvp for example lacks access to certain stat combinations which are available in pve and wvw and those were removed specifically to balance that game mode. Pve and wvw lack access to certain stat combinations which are available in spvp (though this might be more due to not having them added yet). PvE and WvW see very different value in stats with more defensive stats being more sought after in WvW and offensive stats in PvE. Working as intended.

As such: no, I personally do not believe the stat system is broken if certain stats are of less value in this games combat system. On the contrary, I find it refreshing that different game modes offer unique build challenges unlike many other MMOs where your final gear works everywhere.

[Opopanax.1803]

I think toughness and vit matter more in PvP and wvw.I think currently they are less effective in pve for the following, primary reason:There aren't many gear stats that are a good blend of dmg and def.

Let me elaborate: we need more gear sets that have primary damage, but good secondary defense.A good damage to defense set would be something like: power, precision > vit , tough.

The problem in pve currently is that you either have things loaded way towards berzerks/offense, or super defensive (wanderers, soldiers).

If you look at the gear available in Power, they are all heavily skewed toward o or d. If you look at toughness the issue is nearly the same, as is condi damage gear.

Currently the most balanced sets with offense greater than defense are commanders (power, prec > tough conc... though this depends on class and if you have protection for boon dur to be defensive), Carrion, and trail blazers(depending on if your spec requires crit to proc condis).

What is like to see before any revamp is considered are the following stats in pve:Power, Prec. Vit, tou (paladin amulet)Power, fer. Vit, Tou.Condi, exp. Vit, tou.Power, condi. Vit, tou.Power, prec. Heal, toughPower, prec. Heal, vit

These stat sets set both majors as dps, with the minors in defense. This gives defensive weight a more appropriate ratio by keeping them in the minors while keeping dps in the majors.I

As a side note, I hate that they have pigeonholed most defensive stat combos into toughness. It doesn't help to funnel toughness as a major in pve because it draws aggro. Better to differentiate and put some of those combos with vitality instead.

[Trise.2865]

Defense exists to lengthen an encounter, and offense to shorten it. What types of encounters are better served by being lengthened?

[Vadavim.6409]

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@DaFishBob.6518 said:Just 2 simple changes need to be made, just 2:

1. More retaliation on mobs and bosses.
2. Retaliation damage is affected by toughness.

Done!

Can't dodge retaliation, but current retaliation ignores toughness despite being power damage. These changes instantly make toughness needed when fighting more things with retaliation if toughness actually reduced retaliation damage received.

Boon strip/corruption would still be better. So active still beats passive.

But wouldn't that be a good thing in PvE? Right now, boon stripping / corruption is not very rewarding in PvE outside of specific scenarios. If adding boons like these would encourage players to gear more defensively or bring appropriate countermeasures, then I think that would go a long way in adding more variety to PvE...

[Dreamreaver.4908]

To me, there isn't a problem with the stats. As a matter of fact, I love stats. All of them! Well... almost all of them. I've always felt Precision should've never been a thing and instead critical hits should come from more active things like being guaranteed if you hit someone in the back or who's disabled, or has the chance of happening depending on Fury on you (which can be stripped) or Vulnerability on an enemy (which can be cleansed). Buuut, that's not what I wanted to address! (I like my MMOs with less RNG like GW1 had, thank you very much--Also, you'd get another stat.)

As has already been addressed and is well known, in PvE you tend to go all out on offense, and you'll be quite effective against the mobs. WvW, you go all out on offense, and you'll be quite effective against the mobs too! ... Against other people? NOPE. You'll get destroyed unless they're AFK. So you put on defenses, because your dodges and your 100% mitigation utilities have a finite existence, can be baited, and in general, people attack much, much faster than any mob ever could. Since OP mentioned that this was mainly about PvE, I feel the balance between the stats isn't in the stats themselves but in how the mobs are programmed.

By the way, I'm just using WvW as a comparison since the whole topic is about stats, and WvW and PvE share stats.

Almost all mobs attack something like three times slower than a player, and to compensate, they usually hit harder. They also just sit there as snooze-inducing health sponges where most of the time the only validity against them is high damage output. Heck, a lot of them are unconditionally immune to control effects and conditions too! I mean, if you can't weaken it, blind it, CC lock it, etc., and when it hits you, it takes off almost all of your health bar, it leaves you with lesser solutions (and I guess that's where the "shallow" argument comes into play); kill it before it one-shots you, while slapping on Toughness makes it ... 1.2 shot you.

Horrible example, but I never claimed to be smart: If you put two warriors against each other, one in full Berserker's, and one in full Nomad's, gave them axes, no traits, Healing Signet only, "Final Destination," and they could do nothing but auto attack each other, Berserker's would win (easily) every time.

So, given--offense is stronger (not saying the above proved a thing), and I believe it should be, but if mobs in PvE dealt less damage but attacked as fast as the player, were coded more often to go after highest DPS or SOFTEST target/ or healer (like in GW1) instead of having no visual consistency of what they're doing save when they specifically seek Toughness (further dissuading Toughness as then you'll be 1.2 shot by crowds), and, also were coded to use their own active dodges against your big hits, well then I feel all out offense with little to no defensive planning outside of dodge rolling wouldn't go over so well. Very few of them even have healing skills either. I mean, you can 1 vs 5+ mobs in PvE and do fine. It feels good, too! WvW, you can barely 1 vs 2 unless there's just that big of a skill difference between peeps.

In GW1, mobs in PvE had and used the various skills players could choose. In a sense, it was a bit of a trainer for that game's PvP. It also had superior AI. Maybe GW2 could've used some of that.

[Khisanth.2948]

@Vadavim.6409 said:

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@DaFishBob.6518 said:Just 2 simple changes need to be made, just 2:

1. More retaliation on mobs and bosses.
2. Retaliation damage is affected by toughness.

Done!

Can't dodge retaliation, but current retaliation ignores toughness despite being power damage. These changes instantly make toughness needed when fighting more things with retaliation if toughness actually reduced retaliation damage received.

Boon strip/corruption would still be better. So active still beats passive.

But wouldn't that be a good thing in PvE? Right now, boon stripping / corruption is not very rewarding in PvE outside of specific scenarios. If adding boons like these would encourage players to gear more defensively or bring appropriate countermeasures, then I think that would go a long way in adding more variety to PvE...

No defensive gearing doesn't necessarily help against retal. Exact result depends on details.More defensive gearing also means less damage to whatever you are hitting... which means you have to hit the target more times... which means you trigger retal more often... which means you have to take more damage from retal

So it depends on how much damage the target's retal does.

Cranking up damage is one of the things that has rendered defensive stats useless. Continuing down that road will only make them more useless. For example the other day I got whacked for 50,000 damage due to a 150% x 300% multiplier on the mob. Could I have survived that with defensive gear? Maybe with full sentinel but would I have survived the next hit?

@Opopanax.1803 said:I think toughness and vit matter more in PvP and wvw.I think currently they are less effective in pve for the following, primary reason:There aren't many gear stats that are a good blend of dmg and def.

Let me elaborate: we need more gear sets that have primary damage, but good secondary defense.A good damage to defense set would be something like: power, precision > vit , tough.

The problem in pve currently is that you either have things loaded way towards berzerks/offense, or super defensive (wanderers, soldiers).

If you look at the gear available in Power, they are all heavily skewed toward o or d. If you look at toughness the issue is nearly the same, as is condi damage gear.

Currently the most balanced sets with offense greater than defense are commanders (power, prec > tough conc... though this depends on class and if you have protection for boon dur to be defensive), Carrion, and trail blazers(depending on if your spec requires crit to proc condis).

There is nothing requiring you to run 100% of a particular stat combo.

What is like to see before any revamp is considered are the following stats in pve:Power, Prec. Vit, tou (paladin amulet)Power, fer. Vit, Tou.Condi, exp. Vit, tou.Power, condi. Vit, tou.Power, prec. Heal, toughPower, prec. Heal, vit

These stat sets set both majors as dps, with the minors in defense. This gives defensive weight a more appropriate ratio by keeping them in the minors while keeping dps in the majors.I

As a side note, I hate that they have pigeonholed most defensive stat combos into toughness. It doesn't help to funnel toughness as a major in pve because it draws aggro. Better to differentiate and put some of those combos with vitality instead.

It would help if people stopped spreading that misinformation. Sometimes it does but then so does the amount of damage you are doing and the distance you are from the mob or it is just plain random with some.

[Knighthonor.4061]

@"crepuscular.9047" said:it's pretty much an issue from day 1, feeling toughness and vitality so useless against mobs, hence better just burst them with Beserker

"hey this boss can one shot me in defensive gear. My only real defense is dodge/CC and kill fast. So why should I wear those defensive stats over these berserker stats?"

[Opopanax.1803]

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@Vadavim.6409 said:

@Khisanth.2948 said:

@DaFishBob.6518 said:Just 2 simple changes need to be made, just 2:

1. More retaliation on mobs and bosses.
2. Retaliation damage is affected by toughness.

Done!

Can't dodge retaliation, but current retaliation ignores toughness despite being power damage. These changes instantly make toughness needed when fighting more things with retaliation if toughness actually reduced retaliation damage received.

Boon strip/corruption would still be better. So active still beats passive.

But wouldn't that be a good thing in PvE? Right now, boon stripping / corruption is not very rewarding in PvE outside of specific scenarios. If adding boons like these would encourage players to gear more defensively or bring appropriate countermeasures, then I think that would go a long way in adding more variety to PvE...

No defensive gearing doesn't necessarily help against retal. Exact result depends on details.More defensive gearing also means less damage to whatever you are hitting... which means you have to hit the target more times... which means you trigger retal more often... which means you have to take more damage from retal

So it depends on how much damage the target's retal does.

Cranking up damage is one of the things that has rendered defensive stats useless. Continuing down that road will only make them more useless. For example the other day I got whacked for 50,000 damage due to a 150% x 300% multiplier on the mob. Could I have survived that with defensive gear? Maybe with full sentinel but would I have survived the next hit?

@Opopanax.1803 said:I think toughness and vit matter more in PvP and wvw.I think currently they are less effective in pve for the following, primary reason:There aren't many gear stats that are a good blend of dmg and def.

Let me elaborate: we need more gear sets that have primary damage, but good secondary defense.A good damage to defense set would be something like: power, precision > vit , tough.

The problem in pve currently is that you either have things loaded way towards berzerks/offense, or super defensive (wanderers, soldiers).

If you look at the gear available in Power, they are all heavily skewed toward o or d. If you look at toughness the issue is nearly the same, as is condi damage gear.

Currently the most balanced sets with offense greater than defense are commanders (power, prec > tough conc... though this depends on class and if you have protection for boon dur to be defensive), Carrion, and trail blazers(depending on if your spec requires crit to proc condis).

There is nothing requiring you to run 100% of a particular stat combo.

What is like to see before any revamp is considered are the following stats in pve:Power, Prec. Vit, tou (paladin amulet)Power, fer. Vit, Tou.Condi, exp. Vit, tou.Power, condi. Vit, tou.Power, prec. Heal, toughPower, prec. Heal, vit

These stat sets set both majors as dps, with the minors in defense. This gives defensive weight a more appropriate ratio by keeping them in the minors while keeping dps in the majors.I

As a side note, I hate that they have pigeonholed most defensive stat combos into toughness.

It doesn't help to funnel toughness as a major in pve because it draws aggro

. Better to differentiate and put some of those combos with vitality instead.

It would help if people stopped spreading that misinformation. Sometimes it does but then so does the amount of damage you are doing and the distance you are from the mob or it is just plain random with some.

If you pick a stat set that has toughness as a major, yes, you will likely be the one drawing aggro. And if you go look at gw2skills at the toughness gear items, you will see it is only behind the Power category.

So yes, toughness as a major is a terrible choice in pve...unless you are a raid tank.

Ps, if course you can split gear, but again, the point is that there are almost no gear sets with two major offensives and 2 minor defensives. What ones are there that you can link for me?

[Nephalem.8921]

@"DaFishBob.6518" said:Just 2 simple changes need to be made, just 2:

1. More retaliation on mobs and bosses.
2. Retaliation damage is affected by toughness.

Done!

Can't dodge retaliation, but current retaliation ignores toughness despite being power damage. These changes instantly make toughness needed when fighting more things with retaliation if toughness actually reduced retaliation damage received.

Anet already tried that at start of living story season 2. Got removed pretty quickly because nobody liked it. Playing anything with multi hit attacks was almost impossible. Players were forced to run around until heal comes up again or just spam slow hard hitting attacks.Engaging gameplay right?Most professions dont have access to boon corruptions. Requiring those will just force them to run sigils to strip them.Required boon removal already exists. Take no pain no gain for example and ask your ren friends how much they like camping mallys and doing no dps.

On topic: Trailblazer is just broken in pve. Anyone saying that defensive gear has no effect should really try soloing some champions in full vipers and then in full trailblazers. It almost feels like cheating. Defensive stats are op. There were videos back in the day showing a staff ele afk soloing bosses in full defensive gear. I really don't see how requiring glassy gear makes strategies dull or something. Tanky gear does.Dodges and blocks are limited, requiring the players to use those at great effect is what adds depth instead of the wow approach which is just: "this mob oneshots you without any counter because you are not a tank".Defensive stats are so strong that nomads isn't even accessible in pvp. The bunkers would be unkillable.

[otto.5684]

Well, dead mobs deal no damage. Also, why would you want defensive stats in PvE anyway. You want to spend 30 mins soloing a champion?

[DaFishBob.6518]

@Nephalem.8921 said:

@"DaFishBob.6518" said:Just 2 simple changes need to be made, just 2:

1. More retaliation on mobs and bosses.
2. Retaliation damage is affected by toughness.

Done!

Can't dodge retaliation, but current retaliation ignores toughness despite being power damage. These changes instantly make toughness needed when fighting more things with retaliation if toughness actually reduced retaliation damage received.

Anet already tried that at start of living story season 2. Got removed pretty quickly because nobody liked it. Playing anything with multi hit attacks was almost impossible. Players were forced to run around until heal comes up again or just spam slow hard hitting attacks.Engaging gameplay right?Most professions dont have access to boon corruptions. Requiring those will just force them to run sigils to strip them.Required boon removal already exists. Take no pain no gain for example and ask your ren friends how much they like camping mallys and doing no dps.

On topic: Trailblazer is just broken in pve. Anyone saying that defensive gear has no effect should really try soloing some champions in full vipers and then in full trailblazers. It almost feels like cheating. Defensive stats are op. There were videos back in the day showing a staff ele afk soloing bosses in full defensive gear. I really don't see how requiring glassy gear makes strategies dull or something. Tanky gear does.Dodges and blocks are limited, requiring the players to use those at great effect is what adds depth instead of the wow approach which is just: "this mob oneshots you without any counter because you are not a tank".Defensive stats are so strong that nomads isn't even accessible in pvp. The bunkers would be unkillable.

When has Anet ever allowed retaliation damage to get reduced by toughness? Yeah I know the mobs from LS2 had more retaliation which is as annoying as possible so all that's needed there is to make retaliation affected by toughness and defense to make it less annoying and defense stats more valuable in that case.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

I think some people misinterpreted my post. I didn't mean that active defenses are bad, I meant that they are poorly implemented and have too many advantages, for example if a successful dodge only reduced damage by 50%, the game would be alot healthier.

This is how it works in other games, and while I'm glad GW2 tries to be different, they occasionally miss the mark.

[Nephalem.8921]

you are mistaking valuable with necessary here. defense stats are already strong enough. unavoidable damage is just annoying and unfun in solo play. the latest fractals have tons of it making a healer almost mandatory.Try fractals with a lot of trailblazer scourges. It works and requires no skill at all. Why do you wnt to force everyone to get defensive stats? Both ways work. The defensive safer way is just slower as it should be.

[maddoctor.2738]

Go tank a Raid boss without using any Vitality/Toughness and come tell us how it went.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@ArchonWing.9480 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@ArchonWing.9480 said:The longer the fight, the more mechanics you have to deal with. As a result, dps will always be king in these regards. And there is also dodging.

This is strategically shallow and not good for the game. That's the argument being made.

I am merely stating facts. You can't really argue without taking the game in context. And this is a huge point. If you don't understand why this issue happens, then how can you expect to coherently solve it? In pve we do not usually take defense stats because they don't help with damage. Even if defensive stats were equal or greater it wouldn't matter. On the other hand defensive stats are common in wvw because the alternatives are just rallybotting.

Despite all this you still have healers and tanks in some content. Is this not a sign there is more variety than assumed?

For something so shallow it seems really hard to grasp. ;)

Also I don't see an argument, merely subjective statements about how things should be.

It would actually matter if it was designed well. I'm not sure why this attitude of "it's broken but it can't be fixed so it's working" is so prominent here. I have also made a ton of arguments in this thread, including laying out exactly how I would change the attribute system.

I think the main issue is this:

most people do not agree it's broken

.

Not all stats need to hold equal value in every game mode. Spvp for example lacks access to certain stat combinations which are available in pve and wvw and those were removed specifically to balance that game mode. Pve and wvw lack access to certain stat combinations which are available in spvp (though this might be more due to not having them added yet). PvE and WvW see very different value in stats with more defensive stats being more sought after in WvW and offensive stats in PvE. Working as intended.

As such: no, I personally do not believe the stat system is broken if certain stats are of less value in this games combat system. On the contrary, I find it refreshing that different game modes offer unique build challenges unlike many other MMOs where your final gear works everywhere.

Right, and it's the shoulder-shrugging idea that it can't function well in PvE that's the problem. Just because that's the current design doesn't mean it's effective or that it shouldn't change.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@ArchonWing.9480 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@ArchonWing.9480 said:The longer the fight, the more mechanics you have to deal with. As a result, dps will always be king in these regards. And there is also dodging.

This is strategically shallow and not good for the game. That's the argument being made.

I am merely stating facts. You can't really argue without taking the game in context. And this is a huge point. If you don't understand why this issue happens, then how can you expect to coherently solve it? In pve we do not usually take defense stats because they don't help with damage. Even if defensive stats were equal or greater it wouldn't matter. On the other hand defensive stats are common in wvw because the alternatives are just rallybotting.

Despite all this you still have healers and tanks in some content. Is this not a sign there is more variety than assumed?

For something so shallow it seems really hard to grasp. ;)

Also I don't see an argument, merely subjective statements about how things should be.

It would actually matter if it was designed well. I'm not sure why this attitude of "it's broken but it can't be fixed so it's working" is so prominent here. I have also made a ton of arguments in this thread, including laying out exactly how I would change the attribute system.

I think the main issue is this:

most people do not agree it's broken

.

Not all stats need to hold equal value in every game mode. Spvp for example lacks access to certain stat combinations which are available in pve and wvw and those were removed specifically to balance that game mode. Pve and wvw lack access to certain stat combinations which are available in spvp (though this might be more due to not having them added yet). PvE and WvW see very different value in stats with more defensive stats being more sought after in WvW and offensive stats in PvE. Working as intended.

As such: no, I personally do not believe the stat system is broken if certain stats are of less value in this games combat system. On the contrary, I find it refreshing that different game modes offer unique build challenges unlike many other MMOs where your final gear works everywhere.

Right, and it's the shoulder-shrugging idea that it can't function well in PvE that's the problem. Just because that's the current design doesn't mean it's effective or that it shouldn't change.

You missed my point: I think it works just fine in PvE.

[Einlanzer.1627]

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@ArchonWing.9480 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@ArchonWing.9480 said:The longer the fight, the more mechanics you have to deal with. As a result, dps will always be king in these regards. And there is also dodging.

This is strategically shallow and not good for the game. That's the argument being made.

I am merely stating facts. You can't really argue without taking the game in context. And this is a huge point. If you don't understand why this issue happens, then how can you expect to coherently solve it? In pve we do not usually take defense stats because they don't help with damage. Even if defensive stats were equal or greater it wouldn't matter. On the other hand defensive stats are common in wvw because the alternatives are just rallybotting.

Despite all this you still have healers and tanks in some content. Is this not a sign there is more variety than assumed?

For something so shallow it seems really hard to grasp. ;)

Also I don't see an argument, merely subjective statements about how things should be.

It would actually matter if it was designed well. I'm not sure why this attitude of "it's broken but it can't be fixed so it's working" is so prominent here. I have also made a ton of arguments in this thread, including laying out exactly how I would change the attribute system.

I think the main issue is this:

most people do not agree it's broken

.

Not all stats need to hold equal value in every game mode. Spvp for example lacks access to certain stat combinations which are available in pve and wvw and those were removed specifically to balance that game mode. Pve and wvw lack access to certain stat combinations which are available in spvp (though this might be more due to not having them added yet). PvE and WvW see very different value in stats with more defensive stats being more sought after in WvW and offensive stats in PvE. Working as intended.

As such: no, I personally do not believe the stat system is broken if certain stats are of less value in this games combat system. On the contrary, I find it refreshing that different game modes offer unique build challenges unlike many other MMOs where your final gear works everywhere.

Right, and it's the shoulder-shrugging idea that it can't function well in PvE that's the problem. Just because that's the current design doesn't mean it's effective or that it shouldn't change.

You missed my point: I think it works just fine in PvE.

Except it doesn't, because using passive defense makes your attrition worse due to the major hit your offense takes. I'm really unsure how anyone can argue that's "just fine". It's a very clear, very blatant mistuning of the combat/attribute system and encounter mechanics.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@ArchonWing.9480 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

@ArchonWing.9480 said:The longer the fight, the more mechanics you have to deal with. As a result, dps will always be king in these regards. And there is also dodging.

This is strategically shallow and not good for the game. That's the argument being made.

I am merely stating facts. You can't really argue without taking the game in context. And this is a huge point. If you don't understand why this issue happens, then how can you expect to coherently solve it? In pve we do not usually take defense stats because they don't help with damage. Even if defensive stats were equal or greater it wouldn't matter. On the other hand defensive stats are common in wvw because the alternatives are just rallybotting.

Despite all this you still have healers and tanks in some content. Is this not a sign there is more variety than assumed?

For something so shallow it seems really hard to grasp. ;)

Also I don't see an argument, merely subjective statements about how things should be.

It would actually matter if it was designed well. I'm not sure why this attitude of "it's broken but it can't be fixed so it's working" is so prominent here. I have also made a ton of arguments in this thread, including laying out exactly how I would change the attribute system.

I think the main issue is this:

most people do not agree it's broken

.

Not all stats need to hold equal value in every game mode. Spvp for example lacks access to certain stat combinations which are available in pve and wvw and those were removed specifically to balance that game mode. Pve and wvw lack access to certain stat combinations which are available in spvp (though this might be more due to not having them added yet). PvE and WvW see very different value in stats with more defensive stats being more sought after in WvW and offensive stats in PvE. Working as intended.

As such: no, I personally do not believe the stat system is broken if certain stats are of less value in this games combat system. On the contrary, I find it refreshing that different game modes offer unique build challenges unlike many other MMOs where your final gear works everywhere.

Right, and it's the shoulder-shrugging idea that it can't function well in PvE that's the problem. Just because that's the current design doesn't mean it's effective or that it shouldn't change.

You missed my point: I think it works just fine in PvE.

Except it doesn't, because using passive defense makes your attrition worse due to the major hit your offense takes. I'm really unsure how anyone can argue that's "just fine". It's a very clear, very blatant mistuning of the combat/attribute system and encounter mechanics.

Not true for trailblazer gear. Not true for Marauder gear. Not true for Diviner gear. Some stat combination are not yet available.

You don't like the amount of trade off you get, but that is a purely subjective issue.

As mentioned, go tank some raid bosses with different levels of toughness. I guarantee you you will notice a difference in survivability, a huge one.