Guild Wars 2

Hello

There have been a lot of talk about the so called power creep from (most of) the new specializations that came with HoT. But I dont really see much talk about the “old” weapons, traits and utilities that were not seeing much use even before HoT. I am not gonna go into detail since that would be futile

I play most classes except warrior and rev, and in testing different builds for various game modes it got me thinking of how little I use, or more accurately dont use, certain setups. This is not something new but it has gotten even more obvious since HoT that there is alot of “Dead” stuff on most classes.

I am perfectly fine with there being certain setups that works better for certain game modes, for example X trait lines/weaps/util is better for pvp while Y and Z is better for pve and wvw etc.. In a perfect world there would be several choices of the above ofc.

But why do we have so many utilities and traits that dont see the light of day in any game mode? And even some weapons on certain classes.
Now this is just a view from my little world in testing stuff out myself, chatting with friends looking at what other players are using etc.. And i get that the so called meta is changing every know and then (though very slowly in gw2) but i can literally look at whole utility groups and a lot of traits and say that has not been used for over 1 year to any great effect.

I would think that Anet has some sort of way to gather information about what is and what is not being used for the various game modes?

Anyway just abit of rambling, gonna go see if I can make a rifle scrapper decapper work in pvp

Did you want to offer up some specific examples? I’m sure in some cases, you’re right: skills or traits that hardly see any use in pvp, wvw, or pve. However, in some cases, I bet there’s more people making use of certain builds than either of us would expect.

What i was trying to get at was that any average to high end player, not meant in the sense of and elitist, but a player with a decent understanding on how the different game modes work can quickly look/test certain traits/util and conclude there worth/synergi in any given build.

That actually does sound a bit elitist sorry cuz I really dont think of myself as that, but there is a fine line between min/maxing for maksimum gain with the least amount of effort too building something that can be effective but requires more work(fun)/skill?
——> too picking certain traits/util/weapons that have almost no impact or are impractical in most game modes. And its my personal view that there are too many of those “dead” things in the game now.

I did not want to get into specific traits/util/weapons since that’s probably best left for the class forums. But just wanted to ask if there was any1 else who felt like this and if Anet actually have metrics that keeps track of this, any1 know? And also just rambling

Personally i like running some weird combo’s at times. Also have to admit that I do check out metabattle every now and then to see if i missed some weird synergi but i never copy/paste builds from there on purpose

Probably because the idea of Elementalist vending machines/Squires wasn’t as cool in action as it was on paper.

I kind of agree Mohagi that this game could be much improved by buffing/reworking set-ups that currently seem subpar. I have always thought that the charm of GW2 is the diversity of the combat, and I love experimenting with new things and trying to make them work. There are many many utilities, weapons that fall out of the meta-boat, and as you say that’s okay, but they should at least be an option!

As for examples, there are plenty:

• Consider elementalist conjured weapons – earth shield and lava axe rarely see any use
• Consider engineer gadgets: except rocket boots there’s always some utility better than them so it would be a waste to equip them
• Guardian spirit weapons, same thing except some niche uses (fractal lava elemental makes shield useful). Consecrations aswell, you can’t run full consecration builds because then you lose too much compared to meditations, and if you trait for one consecration you lose other useful traits.
• Consider weapons like mace mainhand and even more so mace offhand on warrior, pistol offhand on engineer, sword mainhand on guardian (still as broken as ever), shield on guardian, sword on ranger (used for running away and that’s about it), …

If anything it would be fun if we could use these and actually be (from a PvP/WvW point of view) competitive.

I imagine the lack of talk is mostly from the lack of usage. Balance between classes is a big thing. But within-class balance really isn’t. At that level, it is more about the sum of parts, rather than specific parts. For example, the post-June Guardian removed every meaningful benefit to using the Sword over the Mace. But this wasn’t a big deal, because “Guardians” themselves didn’t lose out because of this fact.

Second,when it comes to class balance, what is overpowered is far more important than what is underpowered. It is more about balancing what is used, rather than fixing what isn’t.

Personally, I’m all for fixing dead traits. The June update, in attempts to streamline the traits, actually introduced a lot of the most random and useless crap in an attempt to be novel. Some things are just tacked on, others poorly thought out. There are so many examples, it is hard to decide where to start.

As an example, take Elementalists Fire Specialization. Going down the line:

Adept Tier: Conjurer is never used. Fire Auras are sub-par and involve getting smacked around to be of any use. Random application of Fire Auras to allies is also nigh unpredictable and contributes very little to anything ever. Conjures are bad, and extra charges don’t make Conjures good.

Master Tier: One with Fire is terrible. The problem with buffing fire auras are that fire auras are bad. You’d end up having to run bad tactics and traits to make use of the fire aura, when you’d rather do something better.

Power Overwhelming is also bad. It seems like it would be good at first, but when compared Pyromancer’s Training, the extra damage doesn’t compare to the reduced recharge in fire skills. Condi or Power Build, you’re going with Pyromancer’s Training.

Another example: Thief Acrobatics. I actually made an entire thread dedicated to talking about just this trait line.

Some of these problems can be solved via logic (I.E. Power Overwhelming). But for problems that can’t be solved via logic, any trait that basically no one uses should receive at least a generalized buff every balance patch.

It’s really the nature of online games in general. There is always a bunch of crap out there that is overshadowed by other things in the same class whether it’s skills, abilities, traits, talents, specializations, masteries, or what not. There are always a few things overshadowed by the optimal things.

Should work be done in the area to make some of these things viable? Probably, but I doubt it’ll ever be near perfect. I don’t really have that expectation. They even have some push to not balance those things due to balance between other classes, in case they overpower something.

I’d like to mention this thing as well:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Guardian-hammer-Feedback/page/4#post5894564

kinda like axe on necromancer… a weapon for upkeep of vulnerability, that’s easy to have at 25 stacks with other classes, and they don’t even try to apply it in the first place!
i get the medium dmg since it’s a medium range weapon, but the vulnerability could maybe be replaced with weakness or something. that’s a condition you rarely see applied by necros (and it kinda fits the necromancer theme too)

Dancing Dagger
Body Shot
Choking Gas
Aimed Shot
Crushing Blow
Tremor
All of ranger shortbow
Hunter’s Call
Illusionary Riposte
Magic Bullet

@Fransson

Running power reaper with axe/x and dagger/x myself, i’d say axe is very usefull in certain setups and situations. Axe 2 builds up my life force very good and does decent damage and lets me stay out of melee range of certain bosses/champs until i can go into reaper’s shroud.
The whole purpose of axe for me is exactly getting it into a rotation to build up LF. So yeh, axe useless ? i don’t think so.

(In addition to most/all of the preceding suggestions. The ones listed can be argued against, just like everything else, but the ones i plan to list were singled out based on “underwhelming’ness” and/or plain old out-competition)

Ranger Skirmishing Major Adept trait: Sharpened Edges
Ranger util: Sharpening Stone
Ranger util and traits concerning Nature Spirits
Ranger Nature Magic Major Master trait: Windbourne Notes
Ranger BM GM trait: Honed Axes

Thief P/P builds, no trait support or direct synergy
Thief traps
Tricks
Much of Acrobatics traits

Guard consecration
(Radiance) traits concerning retaliation

Warrior traits neglected due to the need for Defense and Discipline. This is a core issue with Warrior as a class, not just traits

And a lot of traits/weapon skills that concern “(chance to) apply bleeding” when the duration is a mere 3-6 seconds. All/most bleeding durations need an appropriate increase ever since that update that allowed burn and poison to stack

traits are too scattered to create a build with good synergy. This happens with multiple professions.

Edit: Added bleeding comment

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I imagine the lack of talk is mostly from the lack of usage. Balance between classes is a big thing. But within-class balance really isn’t. At that level, it is more about the sum of parts, rather than specific parts. For example, the post-June Guardian removed every meaningful benefit to using the Sword over the Mace. But this wasn’t a big deal, because “Guardians” themselves didn’t lose out because of this fact.

Second,when it comes to class balance, what is overpowered is far more important than what is underpowered. It is more about balancing what is used, rather than fixing what isn’t.

Personally, I’m all for fixing dead traits. The June update, in attempts to streamline the traits, actually introduced a lot of the most random and useless crap in an attempt to be novel. Some things are just tacked on, others poorly thought out. There are so many examples, it is hard to decide where to start.

Good points. Just kinda sad really to see so many setups vanish and not really talked about.

Whatever is in the specific traitlines, players will always find the near ‘ideal’ setup for a given situation.

Some traits and weapons are “underwhelming” to say the least, and players don’t really find or see a real use for them. You can hardly expect ppl to switch traits and weapons for every single mob as well.

An example are the husks in SW. They are susceptible to conditions and tougher for melee, but no one will just for that mob equip a different trait or weapon or even gear or trinkets.

Players stick to what they know that works 95% of the time. Which is more then enough to face most encounters. Being limited in the number of utilities you can use at the same time doesn’t help either.