Guild Wars 2

How far from the meta builds can I stray from and still get into dungeon/fractal/raid content?

I’ve played this game casually off and on for maybe 4 years but never had any drive to want to push for said content, if I did start aiming for “end game” would I need to adhere to the meta to find groups/guilds?

-

Apologies if this is asked a lot, I’ve managed to never look at these forums except for pages that came up from specific searches.

You can run whatever dungeons and raids that you want so long as they don’t specify that they want meta builds or anything along those lines. I’d be careful about joining T4 fractal groups though. For raids, it’s generally expected to run meta builds.

If all else fails, just ask if it’s okay. People tend to be more accepting if you’re open and upfront rather than to hide it. That could just be me though as I have let people stay even though they weren’t exactly what I was asking for because they were honest.

Thanks! I’m glad that I have the option do still have fun with my builds as long as they’re not completely useless.

Meta is a guide… not a mandatory thing

If you are on ele and you notice the healing is scarce, you could drop from fire/lightning/tempest to fire/water?tempest and correct this. Most groups will only notice their sustain increased, not the loss of a bit of DPS.

In dungeons I sometimes revert my PS Berserker to the classic PS warrior, cause I can bring the +25% speed while carrying a melee weapon… and dual banner of course as you only have 1 warrior most of the times. this doesn’t need to be done with skill 3 of banner in mind, but tends to be usefull ingroups with all their own 25% boosts

Some dungeons have a stronger preference for power builds. because some objects still do not get affected by Condition dmg. Static bosses have been reworked however ( which was not the case for quite some time)

However in most cases DPS Meta builds will allow your party to facetank most bosses in all dungeons..,

In fractals this will be less interesting t4 generally has a semi fixed comp 4-5 necro’s (and a druid) or the 1×5 of the raid group comp..
It can be done without problems with other comps when using potions and food.. as long as you do not get a minstrel druid, an minstrel ele, a minstrel chrono and a (d)PS warrior and a trailblazer necro… unless you have 1 hour/ fractal

Raids tend to focus a lot on Meta comps, but as long as vulnerability, might, fury and quickness have been secured with preferably alacrity and GotL stacks you should be good.

This also means chrono, warior and druid are very popular, but guardians can provide fury and quickness, although not to 10 ppl.
Tempests can stack fury and might, some classes can be self sufficient.
Healing can be done with rev or auramancer…

Probelm is you’ll lose 320 power 170 condition dmg, 180 ferocity, 180 precision, 4-8% dmg from GotL, alacrity for the better part all because the syenergy of the 5 comp used presently in builds is so incredible.

Remember Highest DPS is only Highest DPS if you can stay alive to use it… else it’s 0

And you can only talk about DPS after you killed something…. If you died and needed to start over the time lost should be added to the calculation… cause 1 shotting something is better then 2 shotting somthing….and a double as high damage per time… cause you killed the healthpool only 1 time in the end.

Another good response, thank you! I’m starting to get a better grasp of how the meta works and what is expected for groups.