Guild Wars 2

I’m not sure if this discussion belongs here, but I’m posting it here because it’s relevant to almost every gameplay aspect of GW2.

In all of the class forums, there are numerous topics about builds: traits, armor, weapons, etc. What’s the strongest build, what’s an OP build, videos on builds, etc. Definitely, trying out different builds is fun and it’s interesting to try different approaches. But at the same time, the focus on builds brings to light the fact that builds, not skill, more greatly determine playstyle.

Issues that stem from this are the gold sink—how much money you can grind-farm to buy expensive runes/armor; and also overpowered class builds (spirit rangers, glamor mesmers, permastealth thieves, bunker eles, etc.). It’s hard to feel a sense of accomplishment because the gameplay relies too much on passive attributes and button mashing abilites rather than actual skill-based improvement.

Dodge rolling and abilities that provide evasion are definitely positive attributes GW2’s gameplay because they require insight that the player can improve upon. Also terrain obstruction and terrain levels are another positive aspect. Focus less on traits/armor/weapons, and more on active components like these that require a keen sense of one’s surroundings, and the gameplay experience will be less cosmetic/superficial and more rewarding.

Creating a good build and knowing how to use it properly requires skill. It’s a different kind of skill to that required for things like dodging effectively but it is still a skill. You need to understand the mechanics and how they work together to be able to make a good build.

Yes you can copy a build someone else has made, but unless you know how and why it works you’re never going to be able to use it as well as someone who does. And more importantly you won’t be able to adapt it to new situations, you’ll be confined to what you’ve seen/heard other people doing with it.

Having said that though I wouldn’t assume there’s a direct correlation between how much time is spent discussing one aspect of gameplay and how important it is. There’s not a huge amount you can say about dodging or evade skills unless you’re talking to someone who is new to GW2 and has no idea how they work.

Look at the topics on the Gauntlet for example. There dodging is hugely important, more so than your build in some fights. But discussing it is pretty much limited to ‘save your dodges for X attack’.

You can’t really say much more about it. Maybe let people know how long the telegraph lasts before the attack actually hits (for example some people say to count to 2 between Liadri’s AoE circles appearing and hitting dodge) but ultimately it’s a matter of each person practicing the timing themselves. You can’t debate how to go about doing that like you can with making builds.

Good players use good builds. Good builds (for dungeons) = no useless stats = no toughness/vitality/healing power.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Good players use good builds. Good builds (for dungeons) = no useless stats = no toughness/vitality/healing power.

Now let’s wait for someone to take the bait.

False. It takes skill to make a build work. Builds are not auto-pilot.

Granted, there are builds which are basically holding your hand like Spirit Rangers but when you get a skilled player running it, it becomes a lot more powerful.

Yih.4950:

It’s hard to feel a sense of accomplishment because the gameplay relies too much on passive attributes and button mashing abilites rather than actual skill-based improvement.

Outside of GW2, I occasionally see ex-GW2 players complaining about the simple abilities or lack of them and how you just go 1-2-3-4-5. If you’re just mashing your skills, you’ve already failed.

When I was farming Deadeye on my warrior, I had another warrior ask me how I was dodging kill shot while having the no dodge gambit on. We were both using greatswords. The skill/knowledge of some players is incredibly sad. I’ve even seen level 80s that don’t know how to rally, which I guess is the result of always dying alone or always zerging.

Adding on to features like dodging allowing for skill based gameplay, I like what Wildstar is doing. Blind actually blinds your screen and doesn’t affect your abilities while disarm knocks your weapon to the ground and you have to find it. They also have counters to control skills, where for example, if stunned, you can spam a key to shrug it off or dodge roll out of a knockdown. Personally, I wish GW2 would have gone with more of an action oriented combat style like this, rather than the hybrid it is.

Healix.5819:

Yih.4950:

It’s hard to feel a sense of accomplishment because the gameplay relies too much on passive attributes and button mashing abilites rather than actual skill-based improvement.

Outside of GW2, I occasionally see ex-GW2 players complaining about the simple abilities or lack of them and how you just go 1-2-3-4-5. If you’re just mashing your skills, you’ve already failed.

For one thing unless you’re playing a thief you’re better off going 5-4-3-2-1 because the cooldown times are generally longer on higher numbered skills.

I think part of the problem is that a lot of people misunderstand or try to oversimplify particular builds. For example they might read this topic, notice several people mentioning spirit rangers are good. So they swap their utilities for 3 spirits and start calling it a spirit build and expect to be able to do everything.

Or, as I mentioned earlier, they do read and copy a full build but they don’t understand it so they don’t know how to use it outside of the situations they’ve been shown. This was very common in GW1 – there were people who could flawlessly speed-clear UW all day long, but take them out of that and they were hopeless. They had no idea how to adapt their build to other situations because they didn’t really know how it worked. They just knew they went to this point, used this skill, used this attack on this enemy, stood here and pressed this key etc.

It happens in all games with customisable characters to some extent. Pokemon is probably the worst I’ve seen (even when limiting it to adult players). They hear a particular pokemon is good so they catch it, grind it up to level 100 (or worse use rare candies) and expect to be able to win everything. Then claim their opponent cheated when they don’t.

(Slightly off-topic but it seems I’m a bit behind the times, last I heard spirit rangers were useless.)

Good builds indeed require foresight and skill; however, skill involved in creating a build largely contributes to a passive component in the gameplay i.e. increased condition/precision/etc. Even traits are largely of that passive nature. The game promotes the situation where a player/monster is beat by a player/monster more-so because of the build/class and less because of active skill (which there is little of outside of dodge rolling/terrain obstruction/line-of-sight). A slow car is beat by a fast car…because it’s slower. Rather than emulating chess, GW2’s gameplay emulates rock, paper, scissors—and certain class builds can be all three of them.

CoF dungeon groups requiring berserker warriors, high level fractals requiring guardians, PvP games cluttered with spirit rangers and necromancers. People who play these classes can indeed know them very well and therefore use their build to its full effectiveness; however, the fact that there are trends is suggestive of a focus on achievements/cosmetics/wealth/dominance rather than playing the game to get better. I am not blaming anyone for choosing a berserker warrior for CoF because it’s faster to farm gold, or blaming a spirit ranger/necromancer in PvP because they want a higher rank. The goal of these decisions is rarely a victory for successfully completing the dungeon or outsmarting the other team, which I am attributing to a lack of the opportunity for active intuitive skill.

Healix: I haven’t looked into Wildstar except for the trailer, but it seems like that game provides the missing pieces that I want in GW2.

Iplaytokill.1674:

False. It takes skill to make a build work. Builds are not auto-pilot.

Granted, there are builds which are basically holding your hand like Spirit Rangers but when you get a skilled player running it, it becomes a lot more powerful.

in 99% situation is not so.
Your build IS autopilot.

Build + “tactic” = win

Skill is not needed and tactic is something you can see on youtube once and reproduce with no effort.

Suboptimal builds and not using tactics to negate mechanics, takes skill :/ and skill is not even enough often.

LordByron.8369:

Iplaytokill.1674:

False. It takes skill to make a build work. Builds are not auto-pilot.

Granted, there are builds which are basically holding your hand like Spirit Rangers but when you get a skilled player running it, it becomes a lot more powerful.

in 99% situation is not so.
Your build IS autopilot.

Build + “tactic” = win

Skill is not needed and tactic is something you can see on youtube once and reproduce with no effort.

Suboptimal builds and not using tactics to negate mechanics, takes skill :/ and skill is not even enough often.

I beg to differ. A build won’t automatically interrupt a heal skill, it won’t tell you where the invisible thief will pop up. It won’t win the battle for you by healing you without you knowing when to heal, and how to avoid getting the heal interrupted.

A build gives you a set of tools to complete a certain objective. Be it roamer, bunker, cc, etc. It’s up to the player to use the tools with skill and actually complete the objective.

and it takes more skill for builds that require you to stay in melee range, and those builds usually reward you with more damage.

LordByron.8369:

in 99% situation is not so.
Your build IS autopilot.

Build + “tactic” = win

So that explains why I see lots of rangers QQ about their zerker setup that isn’t working at all?
(although I’m using the exact same build and I have no issues whatsoever)

Tribio.8531:

LordByron.8369:

in 99% situation is not so.
Your build IS autopilot.

Build + “tactic” = win

So that explains why I see lots of rangers QQ about their zerker setup that isn’t working at all?
(although I’m using the exact same build and I have no issues whatsoever)

He did say 99%, too be fair. Ranger Sword AA is a pretty unique example of having to learn how to auto attack.

Iplaytokill.1674:

LordByron.8369:

Iplaytokill.1674:

False. It takes skill to make a build work. Builds are not auto-pilot.

Granted, there are builds which are basically holding your hand like Spirit Rangers but when you get a skilled player running it, it becomes a lot more powerful.

in 99% situation is not so.
Your build IS autopilot.

Build + “tactic” = win

Skill is not needed and tactic is something you can see on youtube once and reproduce with no effort.

Suboptimal builds and not using tactics to negate mechanics, takes skill :/ and skill is not even enough often.

I beg to differ. A build won’t automatically interrupt a heal skill, it won’t tell you where the invisible thief will pop up. It won’t win the battle for you by healing you without you knowing when to heal, and how to avoid getting the heal interrupted.

A build gives you a set of tools to complete a certain objective. Be it roamer, bunker, cc, etc. It’s up to the player to use the tools with skill and actually complete the objective.

Stealth is unreactable by definition….discussing it in such term is wrong.

There is a reason why people complain about it and why many games put huge limits to stealth skills

You can start by Learning the difference between reaction and prediction.

EX many players think they can interrupt a healing skill in www.
They can t.
They just GUESSED right and were lucky.
Expecially when it comes to interrupt a 1 second channeling skill with a 0,5 sec channeling skill with all reaction time and latence involved (there are lot of data on human reactions time in VIDEOGAMES that has nothing to do with 0.1-0.2 of online reaction tests…..).

By the way I was talking about PvE…where you can use skill almost only when “tactic” fails if you run optimized builds.

PvE? PvE doesn’t take skill to begin with. And fyi, healing skills are very easy to interrupt because of their animations. If you learn them. This is why the common complaint of Asuran size being an advantage since they are so small, it’s sometimes hard to tell what they’re about to do.

I dunno how it is for other classes, but I tried about 30 different builds for the elementalist, wondering why all of them felt so weak, and then I realized – it’s way more about play style and skill than the build. Since investing the time and learning how to play certain skill combos etc, I can run pretty much any ‘popular’ build and still do well.

So one isn’t more important than the other, they’re actually equally important and dependent on the other.

Iplaytokill.1674:

PvE? PvE doesn’t take skill to begin with. And fyi, healing skills are very easy to interrupt because of their animations. If you learn them. This is why the common complaint of Asuran size being an advantage since they are so small, it’s sometimes hard to tell what they’re about to do.

And this proves you are speaking of stuff you don t know of nor can comprehend since i explained when and why you are wrong.

Take few seconds to read my post and you will get better.
And try to avoid wrong cliches like PvE doesn t take skill….
For sure doesn t give the impression of a competent player.

Healix.5819:

I like what Wildstar is doing. Blind actually blinds your screen and doesn’t affect your abilities while disarm knocks your weapon to the ground and you have to find it. They also have counters to control skills, where for example, if stunned, you can spam a key to shrug it off or dodge roll out of a knockdown. Personally, I wish GW2 would have gone with more of an action oriented combat style like this, rather than the hybrid it is.

I must admit I’m really excited by that CC wildstar video. I particularly love confusion being sudden reversal of direction controls! It makes sooo much sense to have CC be something that skill of one kind or another can shorten.

LordByron.8369:

Iplaytokill.1674:

PvE? PvE doesn’t take skill to begin with. And fyi, healing skills are very easy to interrupt because of their animations. If you learn them. This is why the common complaint of Asuran size being an advantage since they are so small, it’s sometimes hard to tell what they’re about to do.

And this proves you are speaking of stuff you don t know of nor can comprehend since i explained when and why you are wrong.

Take few seconds to read my post and you will get better.
And try to avoid wrong cliches like PvE doesn t take skill….
For sure doesn t give the impression of a competent player.

Your post where you don’t even to refer to pve, but wvw? Which is basically PVP? Also, pve doesn’t take skill, that’s not a cliche, it’s just true. At least in this game where open world is a faceroll, dungeons are tedious but not difficult, ‘events’ are farmed for loot, and with the only challenging content being the Gauntlet.

Oh and on the stealth bit, once you learn the mechanics of a Thief, and how they play, it’s very easy to predict when and where they will appear to attempt a backstab.

Iplaytokill.1674:

PvE? PvE doesn’t take skill to begin with.

It doesn’t require skill to complete, you’re right. You also don’t have to be any good at PvP to win a match. You can have skill in PvE and complete content more quickly and efficiently, and you can have skill in PvP and win more games/duels. I always love when people who consider themselves PvP players try to belittle PvE players for having a lack of skill, because they more often than not run terrible tank gear and roll through dungeons at snails pace.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Iplaytokill.1674:

PvE? PvE doesn’t take skill to begin with.

It doesn’t require skill to complete, you’re right. You also don’t have to be any good at PvP to win a match. You can have skill in PvE and complete content more quickly and efficiently, and you can have skill in PvP and win more games/duels. I always love when people who consider themselves PvP players try to belittle PvE players for having a lack of skill, because they more often than not run terrible tank gear and roll through dungeons at snails pace.

In hotjoin maybe. If you play TPVP, you need to be good at pvp otherwise you let your team down and you lose. I don’t belittle pve players. I’ve played every aspect of the game, but with WvW being the ever-dull ZvZ, SPVP is the only part of the pvp aspect of the game where I can still have fun.

PVE recently has become even more dull than WvW thanks to the lame invasion events where it’s just zerg, zerg, zerg, loot, loot, loot, repeat. I used to run dungeons a lot, and when I did I ran w/e the hell I wanted because it was usually with guildmates and we don’t give a rat’s kitten for going fast. And if we did, I would run full Zerk.

Iplaytokill.1674:

In hotjoin maybe. If you play TPVP, you need to be good at pvp otherwise you let your team down and you lose.

Even in tPvP. All it takes is a few strong players to carry a few weak players. PvP in this game isn’t hard to win, if you are a competent player you can carry your team. The same is seen in MOBA’s such as League of Legends. If you’re good, you’ll climb. If you’re bad, you won’t go far. That doesn’t mean that weak(er) players can’t climb due to being carried. This is also seen in PvE. PVT players get carried by good zerk players, because they put in more work and contribute more.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Iplaytokill.1674:

In hotjoin maybe. If you play TPVP, you need to be good at pvp otherwise you let your team down and you lose.

Even in tPvP. All it takes is a few strong players to carry a few weak players. PvP in this game isn’t hard to win, if you are a competent player you can carry your team. The same is seen in MOBA’s such as League of Legends. If you’re good, you’ll climb. If you’re bad, you won’t go far. That doesn’t mean that weak(er) players can’t climb due to being carried. This is also seen in PvE. PVT players get carried by good zerk players, because they put in more work and contribute more.

Except in pvp, you don’t always meet the same level of difficulty. Different team line ups, builds, weapons, sigils, maps, runes. Some games are harder than others. You get utter stomps, and you get close matches. You don’t always get carried.

In 5v5 games, where every player is crucial, you can’t afford to be carried. It’s just not going to work.

Iplaytokill.1674:

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Iplaytokill.1674:

In hotjoin maybe. If you play TPVP, you need to be good at pvp otherwise you let your team down and you lose.

Even in tPvP. All it takes is a few strong players to carry a few weak players. PvP in this game isn’t hard to win, if you are a competent player you can carry your team. The same is seen in MOBA’s such as League of Legends. If you’re good, you’ll climb. If you’re bad, you won’t go far. That doesn’t mean that weak(er) players can’t climb due to being carried. This is also seen in PvE. PVT players get carried by good zerk players, because they put in more work and contribute more.

Except in pvp, you don’t always meet the same level of difficulty. Different team line ups, builds, weapons, sigils, maps, runes. Some games are harder than others. You get utter stomps, and you get close matches. You don’t always get carried.

In 5v5 games, where every player is crucial, you can’t afford to be carried. It’s just not going to work.

If you think I’m arguing that PvE requires more skill than PvP, I’m not. I accept and understand that PvP has a higher skill ceiling than PvE. I’m simply stating that bad players can appear to do well in both formats, while in reality they’re getting carried and they suck.

I’m not sure I agree with the OP that build being more important than “Skill” is a bad thing.

Back in my MTG days my friends and I had a saying, “Deck building is 90% of the game” And it was true. Making a well built deck was more important than playing the deck well in a tournament. and because of that, a person with only the most basic knowledge could pick up a well built deck and not only do well, but win.

A decade ago in MMO’s this was true as well. Building your character well was as important, often more so than playing your character well, and took a lot of skill. But nowadays though players trade their builds easily and freely, and developers deliberately try to limit how much damage a player can do to themselves with a bad build. (GW2 weapon systems vs GW skill system is a great example of that) and the build you have, has more effect on your ability, than your ability to use it. This makes a situation where builds are still the most important thing to your character’s development, but builds themselves are incredibly easy to get right.

However I cant help but wonder if because so many people are using the same if not similar builds (at high end play) doesn’t that mean that your skill playing that build is more important than the build itself? If every ABC class is running around with XYZ build and you happen to be the best or worst of them. Is that not a clear indication of skill at that point?

What about research, taking the time to learn, calculate, and hypothesize builds or at least read up those things from another. Does that count as a skill now? I wonder if it should, because we all still run into people that have no idea what is going on with their class, abilities, or how a boss fight, PvP map, or whatever else works.

Farzo.8410:

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Good players use good builds. Good builds (for dungeons) = no useless stats = no toughness/vitality/healing power.

Now let’s wait for someone to take the bait.

I hear there’s lots more bait to watch if you step into TA and go forward and up…

Be sure to bring a max range LB … and a bear…

1) There is a level of skill required to fully use a build. Many of the better-performing builds out there require a deeper understanding of the game than “roll face on keyboard.”

2) PvP in particular requires skill. You need to learn your class, but you also need to learn your opponent’s class. I am currently build to demolish anyone melee without stability (Mostly thieves and some warriors) but anyone with good stability demolishes me. However, I have counterplay to stability, and those without stability have various mechanics (dodges, clones, stealth) to counter my CC. With one build, I fight a thief differently from a greatsword warrior differently from a mace guardian, and I have to quickly recognize what type of enemy I’m facing and how to best defeat them. If I treat a ranger the same as a thief, no matter how bad the ranger is, I’ll likely lose the fight.

3) Building and counter-building takes some skill. Sure, you can copy someone else’s build, but that doesn’t mean you’ll understand it. I don’t run the HGH-Nades build that gives Engineers their maximum obtainable DPS, because it doesn’t fit my playstyle and I wouldn’t be effective with it. Instead, I run a mobile, hit-and-run specializing grenades build. Its similar enough that most other nades users could pick it up relatively quickly, but that would be because of their experience with grenades. If I just gave it to a random joe, he wouldn’t do too well because he wouldn’t understand how to make it effective. Furthermore, even if they could use it properly in 1v1 situations, they wouldn’t know how to best use it in a team setting. There are specific maps, team compositions, and strategies it excels on/in, and others in which it’s worse than subpar.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Good players use good builds. Good builds (for dungeons) = no useless stats = no toughness/vitality/healing power.

Bad players use good builds. Good players use w/e they want and still make it work.

Zacchary.6183:

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Good players use good builds. Good builds (for dungeons) = no useless stats = no toughness/vitality/healing power.

Bad players use good builds. Good players use w/e they want and still make it work.

No. Good players use good builds because they know what is optimal and what isn’t. Bad players play whatever they feel like, or in a best case scenario try to copy what the good players are using.

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Zacchary.6183:

The Mexican Cookie.3690:

Good players use good builds. Good builds (for dungeons) = no useless stats = no toughness/vitality/healing power.

Bad players use good builds. Good players use w/e they want and still make it work.

No. Good players use good builds because they know what is optimal and what isn’t. Bad players play whatever they feel like, or in a best case scenario try to copy what the good players are using.

Good players don’t need optimal builds to do well in anything. A good player knows the strengths and weaknesses of their class(es) enough to take builds into w/e situation and perform better than average.

Average players take flavour of the month builds and do well but then take other builds and suck with them.

Bad players use the flavour of the month well enough to get by. Lord forbid if they even TOUCH something else.

Zacchary.6183:

Good players don’t need optimal builds to do well in anything. A good player knows the strengths and weaknesses of their class(es) enough to take builds into w/e situation and perform better than average.

Average players take flavour of the month builds and do well but then take other builds and suck with them.

Bad players use the flavour of the month well enough to get by. Lord forbid if they even TOUCH something else.

There is no reason to deliberately run something that you know isn’t as good as it could be. I won’t contest that a good player will do better than a bad player, if both are using a sub-par build, but I would argue that it is illogical for a good player to knowingly, and willingly run a build that isn’t as good as they know it could be.

And so I will state it again. A good player will run a good build, and they will get the most potential out of it. I agree with you on your note about average/bad players. If you use a bad build, you are bad. If you suck at using a good build, you are also bad.