Guild Wars 2

Hi guys, i’d like to open a discussion about these builds, i think this is one of the worst problem for pvp, especially for spvp.

Why is it a problem?

Because:

1_ Too easy to play and too strong
2_ Very low skill floor
3_ Too much passive effect
3_ They create a big confusion in team fight (it’s not fun to play against and it’s not fun to watch a game where there are X pets involved in a fight).

How to manage these builds?

1_ Eliminate them from spvp
2_ Rework them to be effective only at an initial level and not at higher level. How to do this?
3_ Other suggestions

Let’s go!

Not much to say, 100% agree with this topic.

Disabling IA builds would be a huge 1 step improvement for spvp, for spectators and players at the same time.

Better meta (more skill involved), better game in general.

Only class that should really have AI is Mesmer by design. They are at the very least fragile and die from normal attacks.*

Ranger should only have it’s one pet. And necro 1 per utility.

*Now the problem is the builds that optimize the use of AI. Phant mes, spirit and BM Ranger, (to a lesser degree but more clutter than both) MM necro.

Are builds that are really effective and require little skill, almost to effective, hard
Force of point with just presence alone carried by the build. Even when out playing them you so 10x more work than they do.

Solution give these builds a harder draw back. Or at least suffer something for specing into it.

You can say team fight viability is a draw back but I don’t think that’s a proper draw back. It’s something determined by the meta not something inherent.

I don’t see the point why there is a trait that makes spirits move. Inb4 rage but this is the exact problem: it makes them AI pets that follow you and more or less randomly will run into enemies or dodge them. Even the spirit actives are much more random like that than if they were stationary how spirits always were supposed to be.

This is just a trait that makes something class specific (stationary boon donor with a local effect) into another generic AI pet and you have to trait so much for it that you will always want a full spirit build instead of mixing just 1 with other skills for example. It is plain bad design by Arenanet and despite people hating it the defend it so hard for all this time and even release MORE spirits…

You could say rangers didn’t like their one moving pet and arenanets answer was forcing them into builds where you have 4 of such pets.

I’m looking now at my engi – with which I really didn’t try going full turret build (which would be AI too), and my mesmer. My main was necro for really long time, but didn’t really like minion master.

I want to talk a bit about how it is playing these builds and how I see counters for them.

Engi with turrets.
Turrets deal moderate damage, are a bit buggy, still not many found their full potential. It’s mostly about utility – net turret and rocket turret, and healing – healing turret. They are easily killable, don’t give passive effects (other than regen). Summary – they’re not a real problem in pvp, because you’ve got to mix them with other utilities to be effective.

Minion master.
I often play against minion masters on pvp. Two thoughts – their attacks aren’t well telegraphed; Moa is ultimate minion master killer.
If I play against minion master, with phantasm mesmer, and have moa on my cooldown, I have lower chances to win. I was playing hgh engi before and killing all the minions and necro was really hard – maybe because of the traits.

Phantasm mesmer.
That’s a huge family of builds. There are full zerker phantasm mesmers, mesmers with phantasmal defender, and with many different weapon sets.
It’s close to balance, because if you want to be succesful phantasm mesmer you will have limited stun breaks. Mostly you won’t take any phantasm type utility. You stay with greatsword, focus, pistol, sometimes offhand sword. You won’t be using your shatter skills, so your abilities are more limited than those of shatter mesmer. You won’t be using most of skills than mitigate your damage, because you’ll be afraid of losing your precious phantasms. I don’t use pistol or offhand sword, because their skills are harder to avoid. Pistol phantasm should be a little more handicapped, because dodging it’s channeling may be super hard. Warden have huge damage, but when it’s starts it’s channeling your opponent have to stay in one place to get hit – so it often miss – good risk / reward. There are builds that have really high cleave dps, like guardians, who will make fun of any phantasm mesmer on small point. I think phantasms, with it’s limits, are not that easy to play with.