Guild Wars 2

Im sorry if this is an odd topic, but it is based on PvP, However I couldn’t see if fitting in any class forum or the two Player v Player subforums.

Lately from switching classes and leveling new classes, Ive started to found many very interesting playstyles that are very enjoyable when I was dueling and fighting multiples in WvW, but lately ive been wondering something; How is the counterplay in this game?

Its hard to explain exactly what counterplay is, and this video by Penny arcade’s Extra credit is the best i could find: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/counter-play .

I guess one way to describe it which is paraphrase from that video is “an interesting mechanic that increases the meaningful choices for the player using it and the player it is being used on.”

Do you feel there are aspects in this game where this is evident? is there certain situations, skills or classes that you feel does not actually fit into the idea of counterplay?

If I could put an example for the latter question I would say Thief infiltrator’s strike on the sword. While the skill I find is interesting in its initial mechanic, It only seems to be something that adds and interesting choice for the thief himself and maybe mesmers as the hidden range for it is well over 1200 and doesn’t really offer much chance to counter or use it to your advantage in duels.

edit: if anyone was wondering what was the class I was playing that brought this into question, it was Mesmer. I was wondering this after playing with Staff untraited.

Well, I’d say pretty words and definitions aside – it’s not like every skill should have a meaningful counterplay option right away. Taking LoL as example, there isn’t much of a counterplay options for a player on the receiving end of Malzahar’s Nether Grasp.

I think there is plenty of counterplay options open in the game overall, even some annoying mechanics like stealth actually do have counters. A skill being fun for both the user and the target is surely a noble goal, but the skill user should have a natural advantage using that skill in the first place and the options to counter it in particular because of it’s mechanics should be few (unless it is hideously powerful, like Hundred Blades, for example), otherwise it will be frustrating to the user when his own skills do more harm than good on a constant basis.

So going back to your Infiltrator’s Strike example – is there much direct counterplay for that? Not really. However, on the other hand it also means that the said thief has no access to Backstab and Heartseeker, which is a heavy price to pay for having Infiltrator’s Strike.

I’d say it is a self-inflicted counterplay here – you get to enjoy mobility benefits, while the target is glad it is not getting huge crits in his face from dagger.

Besides that, I’d say GW2 has plenty of built in mechanics to make use of enemy skills, reflection, retaliation, blinding, confusion, boon corruption/stealing and that is in addition to the classic CC and counter-CC options and plenty of skills having a particular counter due to their mechanic – obvious one is Hundred Blades, but there is a lot more of those.

Overall though, you should not bother much with that idea, because while people may claim a lot of counterplay option per given skillset in let’s say LoL if we continue with Riot Gaming franchise, their forums don’t seem to be filled with people happy about certain skills being used on them

So I’d say the vision is nice, but the execution is much harder and the outcome is pretty distant from the vision there.