Endgame

[Rouien.5234]

Been playing GW2 very casually over the years and in fact, I spent most of my time in PvP lobby. The last time I did PvE stuff was when scarlet died, and I just stayed in the PvP scene on and off for a few years.

 

Finally decided to leave and do some PvE and I'm a little upset I hadn't done it sooner. It's pretty relaxing to just zone out and do over world content.. I even maxed out cooking just so I can go to lower level places and leave ascended feasts in the area.

 

But, what really bothers me is that while I go through the game and lower level stuff I see people telling newer players that the end game is "Top gear" or "Raids" and that they need to min-max in order to be relevant and it's kinda upsetting.. I told one person that I gave away like perhaps 8k + Materials and gold cause all I did was PvP and didn't need gear or money or have use for it and they said I was stupid, my time was wasted and I was useless for any endgame content. In reality, I had fun along the way and I was at my perspective "endgame."

 

In fact, I see a lot of people who kind of throw around that ideal of "You need to do..." and IDK, I see GW2 as a really casual game where if you're having fun doing overworld content in nothing but rare gear every other month you feel like logging on, your time and experience is just as valid as someone who spends 20 hours min-maxing. Like, of course you should be expected to have so and so gear and money and experience for the stuff that requires it. But, if it's NOT something that you want to do, and there are other pieces of content for you, then that doesn't make your view of what's "fun" or "endgame" any less of a thing.

 

But, yeah I know. Online spaces are always gonna have that, I guess I was just wanting to rant. Thanks for reading.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

You are absolutely correct.

I'm sure there are plenty of players that agree.

[Fueki.4753]

You don't need to raid or min-max anything the top 1% of the players do.

Those people that think people need to min-max and play so-called Meta-builds are a very small minority, no matter how loud they are.

You should just ignore them and maybe tell others to also ignore them.

[anninke.7469]

Well, I'm the kind who plays a core necro with scepter because I love how the skills LOOK and how fun they feel to use. Same for my dagger/dagger soulbeast with fern hound and... pretty much all my other characters. :)

[Dawdler.8521]

The forum is the true endgame.

 

[Infusion.7149]

The above is why I think people should stop asking for gear powercreep.

 

It's freeing for players when there is no gear treadmill. You can make your own endgame whether it is PvP (for fun/gizmos if you're good/titles/backpiece/armor/amulet), WvW (for fun/backpiece/armor/ring/titles/etc), or PvE (legendaries & collections, raid clears, fractal god, map complete & exploration, living story achieves, etc).

[Westenev.5289]

The longer a fight goes on, the more mistakes a player will make, and the more damage they'll take. That's why I'll always try to dissuade players from making their builds "tanky", and try to guide players towards using "better" skills or weapons - even using a simple DPS rotation to burst your enemies down is both safer, faster and easier than trying to handkite npc's and micromanage dodges and defensive cooldowns.

 

"Meta" gear isn't exactly hard to figure out either. While some raiders do min/max gear through different stat combinations, realistically you can get away with flat Berserkers/Sup Rune of Scholars or Vipers/Sinister/Sup Rune of the Renegade. Why? Because the game already provides enough defensive utility that you may as well just play glass, and there are very few builds that benefit from having balanced stats.

 

Plus, Sigil of Force / Impact / Accuracy / Night / Bursting / Malice far outperform any other situational sigil.

[Fueki.4753]

> @"Westenev.5289" said:

> The longer a fight goes on, the more mistakes a player will make, and the more damage they'll take. That's why I'll always try to dissuade players from making their builds "tanky", and try to guide players towards using "better" skills or weapons - even using a simple DPS rotation to burst your enemies down is both safer, faster and easier than trying to handkite npc's and micromanage dodges and defensive cooldowns.

>

> "Meta" gear isn't exactly hard to figure out either. While some raiders do min/max gear through different stat combinations, realistically you can get away with flat Berserkers/Sup Rune of Scholars or Vipers/Sinister/Sup Rune of the Renegade. Why? Because the game already provides enough defensive utility that you may as well just play glass, and there are very few builds that benefit from having balanced stats.

>

> Plus, Sigil of Force / Impact / Accuracy / Night / Bursting / Malice far outperform any other situational sigil.

 

This should only be done if people **ask** for tips on improvement themselves.

Telling someone which gear and skills would be better for them should **never** happen without someone explicitly asking for it.

After all, many people enjoy subpar weapons and easily are annoyed by random people coming out of nowhere and telling them to use less enjoyable weapons.

 

I'd never suggest runes of the Scholar either, as players asking to improve are very likely to spent more time fighting below 90% health than they spent time above.

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"Fueki.4753" said:

> This should only be done if people **ask** for tips on improvement themselves.

 

This depends if the player joins a group with other players or not. If they are playing alone in the open world nobody should give them "tips", if they join a group, then the other members of the team need no permission to give any tips.

[Luthan.5236]

The one great thing about GW2 is that you make progress pretty quick up to a point where you don't "need" to to most stuff anymore. You can just play the way you like.

Most content can be played with level 80 char + full exotic gear. I play mostly open world, story and PvP and I'm fine with my exotics and the few ascendeds earned through achievements and a few drops from PvP chests.

 

I guess only for raids and fractals you need Ascended (fractals for agony infusions) but that might be okay to farm it since those content is designed to be played repeatedly (and while repeating you automatically farm certain stuff).

 

Edit: And for the "the longer a fight goes on": I you go full dps and it might lead to you becoming a glasscannon ... maybe you won't even have time to make more mistakes ... of the first small mistake kills you ... while more tankiness allows for more mistakes. Depends on what you like to play and how good you are. Of course pros will max their dps 100 percent while still staying at high health because of clever using of dodges, condition cleanse/heal and skills to avoid damage.

[Westenev.5289]

> @"Fueki.4753" said:

> > @"Westenev.5289" said:

> > The longer a fight goes on, the more mistakes a player will make, and the more damage they'll take. That's why I'll always try to dissuade players from making their builds "tanky", and try to guide players towards using "better" skills or weapons - even using a simple DPS rotation to burst your enemies down is both safer, faster and easier than trying to handkite npc's and micromanage dodges and defensive cooldowns.

> >

> > "Meta" gear isn't exactly hard to figure out either. While some raiders do min/max gear through different stat combinations, realistically you can get away with flat Berserkers/Sup Rune of Scholars or Vipers/Sinister/Sup Rune of the Renegade. Why? Because the game already provides enough defensive utility that you may as well just play glass, and there are very few builds that benefit from having balanced stats.

> >

> > Plus, Sigil of Force / Impact / Accuracy / Night / Bursting / Malice far outperform any other situational sigil.

>

> This should only be done if people **ask** for tips on improvement themselves.

> Telling someone which gear and skills would be better for them should **never** happen without someone explicitly asking for it.

> After all, many people enjoy subpar weapons and easily are annoyed by random people coming out of nowhere and telling them to use less enjoyable weapons.

>

> I'd never suggest runes of the Scholar either, as players asking to improve are very likely to spent more time fighting below 90% health than they spent time above.

 

I will give advice under 5 conditions.

 

1) A person asks for it.

2) I see a superior rune of the golemancer user. That thing scatters mobs like confetti, and has no beneficial purpose. I hate this rune so much.

3) If someone uses excessive knockbacks, especially if I've just pulled the mobs.

4) They die in every encounter, because I've been there and it's not fun for anybody.

5) I'm in a group where I literally do everything, and the group hits a roadblock. Usually I will ask players to slot and use class related buffs I find useful, like basilisk venom from a thief or frost spirit from a ranger. Or I will politely ask the power sword/shield warrior to please pick up a real weapon.

 

 

Honestly, my personal benchmark for builds is pretty low. So long as your build does SOMETHING and I can clear the content without needing to exceed my own abilities, I really don't care what you or anyone else uses. I can even begrudgingly tolerate rune of golamancy, since it does provide some breakbar damage.

 

I suggest players start glass so they learn how to avoid damage. Getting defeated over and over is a great teacher, from experience. The reason I suggest scholars is because it's a good rune in instanced content where support builds will keep you topped up, and because I don't expect new players to have the resources to obtain multiple armours or replace runes. It's also a rune that has been a staple for years, and is unlikely to be phased out or replaced.

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

In terms of efficient gameplay they are 100 % correct. BUT it does not matter for the biggest part of the game:

- Story (Personal/LivingWolrd/Expansions) = No

- Open World = No

- Dungeons = No

- Fractals = No. Even T4 is manageable without relying on the meta. It is obviously not as fast/brain-afk, but it is not as boring either.

- Strike Missions = Not really. There are 1-2 atm which rely on a greater DPS output, but the rest can be done with regular builds.

- sPvP = Skill and Experience beat every optimized build.

- WvW = Zerg > everything.

- Raids = Yes. They were designed to fit into the meta-scheme.

 

Nowadays, a lot of new players want to go for Endgame within their first week. So they are automatically guided towards the meta and its undeniable truth of maximum efficiency. gw2skills.net and every "helpful" page that offers builds and guides uses ascended-gear for standard. Except for high-tier Fractals, Exotic works fine. What do we see in the game? Players with less than a month of gameplay working on their first ascended set, converting tons of gems into gold to powerlevel crafting-disciplines.

 

Last player I tried my luck, was so desperate to reach raiding and confused by the guides, he built Bolt I before even finishing the first exotic-set. Still no clue what damage-type he wanted to play. Finished Bolt I and then quit the game the other day. My fault of course, I was not able to calm them down. No matter what I said, no matter what I explained, that player was almost like in trance. Ascended/Legendary gear at all costs, nothing else matters. I guess 2-5 % of those players actually become a future-raid member, else they would not continue with this madness. But all the players who quit on the way, who quit after a few months or even weeks, is it really worth it?

 

This system devoured a lot of nice players who would have stayed in the game for years. A lot of players we never met in the field, never had a chance to run a Dungeon with or welcome to our guilds.

 

[Westenev.5289]

> @"HnRkLnXqZ.1870" said:

> In terms of efficient gameplay they are 100 % correct. BUT it does not matter for the biggest part of the game:

> - Story (Personal/LivingWolrd/Expansions) = No

> - Open World = No

> - Dungeons = No

> - Fractals = No. Even T4 is manageable without relying on the meta. It is obviously not as fast/brain-afk, but it is not as boring either.

> - Strike Missions = Not really. There are 1-2 atm which rely on a greater DPS output, but the rest can be done with regular builds.

> - sPvP = Skill and Experience beat every optimized build.

> - WvW = Zerg > everything.

> - Raids = Yes. They were designed to fit into the meta-scheme.

 

People do low man or even naked raid runs all the time, so experience will always trump gear in PvE. That's a non issue here though, since new players lack experience and don't need the extra challenge of using laughably bad equipment on top of learning the game.

[Mortifera.6138]

> @"Dawdler.8521" said:

> The forum is the true endgame.

>

 

If you're not QQing, you aren't doing it right.

[kharmin.7683]

Here I thought that Fashion Wars was the true endgame.

[Nephalem.8921]

The toxicity comes from both sides. There are a lot of players asking for content nerfs instead of fixing their builds first. Multiple easy story bosses nerfed into snoozefests because of such players.

A lot of players struggling run complete random stuff they dropped and would complain about difficulty before fixing their builds. Endgame is everything at 80 and this includes gear and traits for anything except spvp. But instead of that good players need to play without armour/traits in open world or story to add artificial challenge. And story is the only content anet is still supporting with more than 1-2 employees.

[Taril.8619]

> @"kharmin.7683" said:

> Here I thought that Fashion Wars was the true endgame.

 

Yeah, but that's only possible if you can log into the game.

 

**Cries in EU Servers**

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > @"Fueki.4753" said:

> > This should only be done if people **ask** for tips on improvement themselves.

>

> This depends if the player joins a group with other players or not. If they are playing alone in the open world nobody should give them "tips", if they join a group, then the other members of the team need no permission to give any tips.

 

Nobody needs "permission" to say anything. That doesn't mean they should say it. How do you like joining up with randos in open world and they immediately start critiquing your build and telling you about every mistake you're making? They don't need permission to do that, but it's still about as welcome as a hangnail!

[maddoctor.2738]

> @"AliamRationem.5172" said:

> > @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> > > @"Fueki.4753" said:

> > > This should only be done if people **ask** for tips on improvement themselves.

> >

> > This depends if the player joins a group with other players or not. If they are playing alone in the open world nobody should give them "tips", if they join a group, then the other members of the team need no permission to give any tips.

>

> Nobody needs "permission" to say anything. That doesn't mean they should say it. How do you like joining up with randos in open world and they immediately start critiquing your build and telling you about every mistake you're making? They don't need permission to do that, but it's still about as welcome as a hangnail!

 

Those randos telling you about every mistake you make in the open world must be really dedicated to watch your every move, and also to know the exact build you are using. In instanced content with a group though it's different, your ability to play well or not will impact everyone around you so giving out tips, even when not asked for, is a lot of the time essential. Saying that you should give tips only when someone asks for them makes absolutely no sense in a group setting

[Randulf.7614]

> @"anninke.7469" said:

> Well, I'm the kind who plays a core necro with scepter because I love how the skills LOOK and how fun they feel to use. Same for my dagger/dagger soulbeast with fern hound and... pretty much all my other characters. :)

 

I've played this way for 8 years.

[Raknar.4735]

You‘re completely right OP.

 

LS and OW being the most developed endgame content is what makes GW2 special to me. It actually uses the massive persistent world as something more than just a glorified quest hub until it becomes nothing more than an overdimensioned hub for instanced content like in so many other games (notable mentions are WoW and FFXIV, even though FF has also been changing their direction to not hyperfocus on instances and raids).

 

The true endgame in a game is what you make out of it. Anything can be the endgame, as long as it is fun for you.

[mindcircus.1506]

> @"Rouien.5234" said:

> IDK, I see GW2 as a really casual game where if you're having fun doing overworld content in nothing but rare gear every other month you feel like logging on, your time and experience is just as valid as someone who spends 20 hours min-maxing.

For you this is likely true.

For others it is not.

You are not wrong.

and neither are they.

 

[kharmin.7683]

> @"mindcircus.1506" said:

> > @"Rouien.5234" said:

> > IDK, I see GW2 as a really casual game where if you're having fun doing overworld content in nothing but rare gear every other month you feel like logging on, your time and experience is just as valid as someone who spends 20 hours min-maxing.

> For you this is likely true.

> For others it is not.

> You are not wrong.

> and neither are they.

>

 

I agree. To me, the problem lies with Anet trying to equally cater to all of the diverse play preferences, which gives the users a sub-optimal experience.

[Tharan.9085]

Endgame is Fashion Wars, don't let someone tell you something different

[Mortifera.6138]

> @"Tharan.9085" said:

> Endgame is Fashion Wars, don't let someone tell you something different

 

What do you do when you're satisfied with your toon's "fashion"?