Guild Wars 2

Arguably the most unique/best aspect of the Guild Wars 1 was destroyed/dumbed down in order to achieve more balance (or at least they claimed so), but as you know, current GW2 meta isn’t balanced at all, and it has hardly ever been.

No build variations*, no theorycrafting, no fun builds, all sacrificed for what? Easier gameplay?

My opinion.
What about your? Was it worth it?

They made a new game that caters to a different audience. Less about builds, less about pvp, less about strategy, more about action, more about spam, more about exploration (this is 1 of good things).

And at the end of the day, their goal of balance is nowhere in sight.

I blame lack of defined roles. When there are roles you can design certain classes to have certain significant advantages and certain weaknesses that are complemented by others in your team. But when you mash all together it becomes too simple.

They do have build variations but it’s mostly through the trait lines and it’s more of a fine-tuning than an obvious thing. I don’t care for it. I’m not sitting there with my stats calculator figuring out all the numbers, I just want to play a fun game with a variety of obviously skills and skill effects to use.

You can use a nice variety of weapons just fine, but the skills that utilize those weapons are too limited.

Utility skills are a nice idea but over half of the skills are useless in practical application.

The great thing about GW1’s cross-class skill system was that you could combine the base concept of two different classes into a unique build and character. Effectiveness aside, Warrior-Necro had a completely different approach than Warrior-Ranger or Warrior-Elementalist for example. Some builds were obviously more effective than others, but a lot of people like to play the game for fun and while something might not be as effective it could still do the job. I recall using my Ritualist as a Rit/Necro at the end of Factions to fill in a last spot for the final mission and it worked great.

Some builds can be fun but they’re not going to be viable in any real form for other than just messing around.

Build variation is very limited compared to gw1. But lets face it build variation kind of went the way of the dodo in gw1 when people realized that the cookie cutter builds were used because they were very very strong. Granted some builds had 1/2 optional slots and they were usually used to fill a gap in the build but gave it more versatility.

Balance in gw2 is lacking to say the least. I’ve got nothing really good to say about it other than warrior is quite strong for the traits and skills and ele is rather lackluster with the latest changes.

I’d say the fact that they dumbed down the options for your weapon skills from being able to choose your own 8 skills to having the option to only choose 5 skills.

While the concept of the system in GW1 was good, and I really liked the multi-classing, it did have it’s problems. For one thing, because there was so many skills in the end, players could make builds that we very subpar compared to min-maxed builds. There were a handful of super effective builds and thousands of rubbish ones. Another problem is that after a while content became trivialized due to gimmick builds and certain skill combinations (55 Monk for example).

While the new system in GW2 has it’s problems (subpar utility skills & traits) I do feel it is overall a better system. You CAN create builds designed for specific roles (DPS, Tank, Support), the problem is that not every profession can do so effectively, but I am sure this will improve over time. Also, although there are subpar builds, there are no where near as many as there was in GW1, though to be fair, that’s mainly because there were a heck of a lot more builds in GW1, but there are a lot more effective builds available in GW2. Even builds that are not min-maxed can still perform well and help the team.

I also really like the relationship between skills and traits and it allows you to add extra flavour to your build. The only thing I wish they would change is the ability to respec your traits & stats anywhere (while out of combat). One of the great things about the GW1 system was that you could very easily change your builds. This is not done so easily in GW2. With stats linked to costly gear (requiring multiple armour sets for different builds) and the requirement of an NPC to retrait, it can be very inconvenient to change builds. While I understand Anet wants to emphasis the importance of a chosen build, I feel player choice and flexibility is far more important. If a player makes a build that they really like, it will be important to them, there is no need to force this ideal.

Anyway, while I did like the GW1 system, I feel GW2’s is much better and will improve as the game matures. I just hope Anet do not make the same mistake they made with GW1 and add too many skills.

No, it wasn’t worth it. But hey, they’re adding new skills! It should make balance easier amirite?

Lysander Freeman.4186:

They do have build variations but it’s mostly through the trait lines and it’s more of a fine-tuning than an obvious thing. I don’t care for it. I’m not sitting there with my stats calculator figuring out all the numbers, I just want to play a fun game with a variety of obviously skills and skill effects to use.

You can use a nice variety of weapons just fine, but the skills that utilize those weapons are too limited.

Utility skills are a nice idea but over half of the skills are useless in practical application.

The great thing about GW1’s cross-class skill system was that you could combine the base concept of two different classes into a unique build and character. Effectiveness aside, Warrior-Necro had a completely different approach than Warrior-Ranger or Warrior-Elementalist for example. Some builds were obviously more effective than others, but a lot of people like to play the game for fun and while something might not be as effective it could still do the job. I recall using my Ritualist as a Rit/Necro at the end of Factions to fill in a last spot for the final mission and it worked great.

This sums up my sentiment about GW vs. GW2. The skill variety, the build freedom, & the template saving from GW were amazing.

And, while we technically have more skills on our bars than we did with GW, many of them have limited functionality. I abandoned my Mesmer around lvl 50 because my utilities were so situational and rarely used. I abandoned warrior because most of the utilities are passive/banners. I main Engi specifically because I use my whole skill bar and not just swap my 2 weapons and occasionally pop a stun break or reflect wall.

Seras.5702:

I abandoned my Mesmer around lvl 50 because my utilities were so situational and rarely used. I abandoned warrior because most of the utilities are passive/banners. I main Engi specifically because I use my whole skill bar and not just swap my 2 weapons and occasionally pop a stun break or reflect wall.

Combat in GW2 is situational yes, and that is what makes it so good. Because combat in GW2 is a bit more skill based (I say a bit because your build plays a big part in your success) and not designed around one rotation, like most of the strong builds in GW1, you have a lot more flexibility available to you.

Sure you had more build options available in GW1, but once you made your build all you needed to do was learn one or two rotations. There was not much else you could do with your build. Sure, you could make builds designed for various situations, but they lacked massively compared to the focused builds. And if that rotation was broken there was often little recovery. In GW2, while you have fewer overall skills, you can equip more tools to use in various situations and therefore can survive better if things don’t go to plan. And while you still get focused builds in GW2, they still have the ability to be adaptable to a certain extent, certain more so than they were in GW1.

I love that fact that your entire skill bar in GW2 is not built for one rotation or one purpose, and that you can do many things with it. So what if you cannot use all the skills on your bar in every fight. It’s that ability to change the flow of a fight and react to different situations that makes combat in GW2 so much better imo. I would rather have fewer skills with more adaptable combat than lots of skills and focused rigid builds that offer you limited options in combat.

I’m not saying GW2 has got it right, it hasn’t. It needs to be improved. But I feel it is definitely a step in the right direction and they have done a great job so far. They just need to refine it. If they can make all our skills and traits useful and equally effective, we will have the best of both worlds. We will never (I hope) have the same quantity of builds that were available in GW1, but providing we have enough to keep people happy I think quality is a much better thing to strive for.

Edited by Moderator

Seras.5702:

This sums up my sentiment about GW vs. GW2. The skill variety, the build freedom, & the template saving from GW were amazing.

Yup.

Rin.1046:

I’m not saying GW2 has got it right, it hasn’t. It needs to be improved. But I feel it is definitely a step in the right direction and they have done a great job so far. They just need to refine it. If they can make all our skills and traits useful and equally effective, we will have the best of both worlds. We will never (I hope) have the same quantity of builds that were available in GW1, but providing we have enough to keep people happy I think quality is a much better thing to strive for.

Your approach to playing the game is different than my own (and that of Seras, I believe). You’re looking at efficiency and quality of builds while we’re looking at overall enjoyment of the gameplay.

Personally, I want to have fun and decide what is a quality build for myself instead of having my options being limited. I did everything in GW1 using both my own and cookie-cutter builds – the reason they were so popular is because they worked. Not problem with that. However, they got old fast and having that ability to experiment kept the gameplay fresh. GW1 did a much better job at getting parties to synchronize their skill bars as well and the cross-class system allowed for many dynamic team bars. GW2 is a lot more chaotic and in larger events you wonder why you even bother trying.

What I don’t like is the elimination of the freedom and options that were available with GW1. What good is having a “quality” build if you have few options?

What would you think about someone giving you a choice of broccoli, rice, potatoes, and fish for dinner when you really want a meat-lovers pizza. Oh, wait, the pizza isn’t good for you so we’re going to take it away now…

Less options = Boring and lacks replayability. More options = more fun.

I agree builds in GW2 are more closely tied to the armor specs you have and it’s costly to have enough multiple sets of armor with the different stats. Had the same issues with GW1 though. I had multiple armor sets for different builds then too so it’s not that big of a change.

In GW2, it’s a pain in the kitten to make dramatic changes to builds. This is due primarily to stats on gear. I’ve pretty much settled on finding one stat allocation for each character. Once I’ve done that, build variety comes through:

• Changing weapon loads (but only if the stat allocation makes using a different weapon make sense — my warrior, geared Berserker, has nine weapons, but shield is not one of them)
• Changing Adept/Master/Grandmaster traits (usually done with weapon swap or rarely, for specific circumstances)
• Changing utilities (the most frequent change I make; always done situationally — although even here, some skills I always slot, such as condition removal and stun break)

In GW, changing a build completely consisted (for me) of: changing attributes; loading the eight skills: maybe changing equipped weapons — though that was rare: and changing my headpiece. Once the “Save Skill Template” feature (and the “Save Gear Template” for PvP) was added, the process became even simpler.

In GW, macro-scale changes to one’s build were possible at will. As a Necro, I could run a Spiteful Spirit hexer, Health siphoning blood mage, minion master, PBAoE death magic, Icy Veins spike, and many other builds, all different from each other.

In GW2, once I settle on gear, my build changes occur only on the micro-scale. While I could make more substantial changes by maintaining multiple gear sets, GW2 does not make this process convenient. The plus is that I can change skills and traits in a dungeon — which was not possible in GW.

So, the differences to me are in the scale of the changes (GW allowed for more substantive changes to how the character played), and in the ease with which changes can be made (GW made larger-scale changes more convenient, GW2 made micro-changes possible within instances).

For me, the trade-off was not worth it.

More like less skills and less balance. Despite having a fraction of the skills and a mindless, restrictive system, every profession has some useless traits, healing skills, utility skills, elites, and weapons. Yes…. there are entire traitlines, weapons, and stat nomenclatures that go unused because of poor design.

Please bring back the selection and the depth of GW1’s fantastic skill system.

I’m on the same page as Lysander and Indigo. Gameplay enjoyment for a prolonged period of time requires variety (for me anyway). I’ve been playing GW2 since BWE and I’m still playing because I have 8 different characters.

In GW, I could spend hours on a single character because I had such freedom with secondary professions, huge skill libraries, and templates. I could seamlessly switch builds as situations required. Join a party BP group in Tombs with my necro and I could easily fill the MM or Orders role with a couple quick button clicks. Didn’t even need to change armor except maybe a single piece with a Sup Rune and maybe my weapon. But those could have been common blues that cost almost nothing.

GW2’s gear acquisition system makes that kind of on-the-fly change impossible. Instead, it’s costly and time-consuming. A whole new set of exotic armor isn’t too bad, but if you’ve got something like Traveler runes, it’s pricey for a 2nd set. Don’t even get me started on Ascendeds. As Indigo said, you choose your armor and then you alter your builds based on what’s possible with that single armor choice. God forbid you want a couple alts. Now you need multiple full armor sets for multiple characters…that means either a lot of gold or endless dungeon grinding.

That’s the quantity aspect. As for Rin’s quality topic, I think everyone agrees that all of the classes could use some work. Nothing is fundamentally broken in GW2, but things like turrets, pets, warrior heal sig, elementalist traits, etc need some love. I disagree however, with the narrow view of the 8 skills GW offered at a time. Unless I was running a gimmick build (SS necro, 55 monk, etc), I never ever felt like I was stuck in a rotation.

Nick.6972:

No build variations*

I think if you’re going to asterisk something, include the footnote in the end.

I love the freedom in GW1 to make your build any way you like. I can see how this made developers lives a bit more complicated however. Attempts at balancing that system ultimately failed. Combating the 600/smite build and the various shadowform speed clears cost the company plenty of time that could have been routed elsewhere.
I can understand how moving to a dumbed down skill system can make balance much easier. That said, the current skill system in GW2 is somehow still very imbalanced in my opinion. If the relative lack of freedom in builds could be offset by more exciting gameplay mechanics, I think that would be fine. Dodging and jumping are great, but that does not compensate for the lack of creative freedom in my opinion. I would LOVE to see secondary classes, more build diversity, and by extension, more immersion. I also know why I’ll never see it. No, it wasn’t worth it.

I think their mistake is not removing more classes.

If this game only have 3~4 classes, it would have been balanced.

I mean, they reduced almost everything, so why not classes as well? When you do things half way… it never turn out well.

To be fair, by removing dual class, they reduced number of classes by alot; however imo, it should have just been melee class, range class, magic class. That’s if I really want to “simplify” the game.

They’re just terrible at balancing. They need to hire more people.. preferably the top players (PvP, PvE both) to help them.

Wheels.8451:

Combating the 600/smite build and the various shadowform speed clears cost the company plenty of time that could have been routed elsewhere.

Shadowform was the most stupid skill ever introduced into that game. You could read the description and know it was going to cause grief, but whatever. It’s true they didn’t really know what to do with SF, but in general they weren’t looking to remove farms and speedclears, they were probably more interested in these things not being too easy and too fast.

Shadow Form is funny, they could have easily fixed it adding longer CD or additional effects, but I guess they couldn’t figure out how for years, kinda says something about their balance team, if they have/had one.

But you know, UWsc/FoWsc farming required more skill than the current “spam auto attack and watch TV on second screen” Frostgorge Farm.

And of course there were cookie cutter builds, however, PvX Wikia always had tens of different builds listed as “Great Working” for every professions, well, except Paragon.

Nick.6972:

And of course there were cookie cutter builds, however, PvX Wikia always had tens of different builds listed as “Great Working” for every professions, well, except Paragon.

The gw1 team for a long time had wanted to do a skill update for paragon (and smite monks) like they had done for dervish and ele recently. My main was a paragon and I always tried new builds out constantly, even for heroes (some surprisingly good), but nothing was ever better than imbagon or some other class. That they never got around to the para skill update still today makes me sad.

The balance team has done a decent job of keeping the game balanced at the one aspect it focuses on, 3v3 sPvP combat. In this very small window, I would say the classes are balanced or as close to balanced as they could be.

Now the rest of the game, obviously there are deficiencies. The one lesson to be learnt is that you can’t balance pve, spvp, and wvw together. You need to treat all 3 like their own separate entity and balance around them seperately. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ll ever see this done.

Even pvp has been suffering from severe balancing issues since the june patch. Especially due to the fact that anything that can and be spammed is way too effective. Anything. Stealth, clones, aoe, conditions, pets, passive procs, strong auto-attacks, particle effects, thieves, Asuras.

And then we have pve, where the lack of defined roles did more wrong than good. It ruined a sturdy team playing formula that even worked with pugs, and it degenerated the entire combat system to dps spam. And I’m not saying a game needs to have a trinity to be good, mind you. But you can’t remove one of the most important concepts in an mmo without replacing it with any alternative, and expect a miracle.

So we have two massive balancing problems here. The spam, which is mostly a consequence of the lack of a GW1-style energy system, and the zerker pve meta, which is the consequence of removing two roles out of the three-role-trinity and expecting a miraculous diversity of builds to suddenly surge.

I don’t want to be a negative nancy, and many suggestions have been made already to fix it. The biggest problem that killed this game’s balance, in the end, was innovation. Anet wanted to do way too many new things at once, without being prepared for the unpredictable consequences they could bring out. And then, there was a sudden flood of negative consequences when the playerbase started to “break” the game’s systems. And this wouldn’t probably even be that big of a problem, if many systems in GW2 had not been designed with balance as a higher priority than fun. Which itself is not a bad thing, except in a situation like this, where balance itself can’t be acchieved.

While the concept of the system in GW1 was good, and I really liked the multi-classing, it did have it’s problems. For one thing, because there was so many skills in the end, players could make builds that we very subpar compared to min-maxed builds. There were a handful of super effective builds and thousands of rubbish ones.

This already happens in GW2. How many players realize that 90% of the stats are almost meaningless, and that almost any defensive support-oriented or crowd control-oriented weapon, utiliy or trait is not going to do much to make you more effective in pve?

I think there is a way to keep the current system but improve it has well all at the same time. This would require 4 elements but for what i heard (rumors) the first one seems to be worked on as you read this ( well i hope).

- Weapons for all classes; that right there would open up the customizations a bit. Now much to say here you get the idea, new skills for all new weapons and all classes so pretty straight forward, moving on!.

- Weapon skill swap, this one might be a little more subtle but will have a huge role to play as you keep on reading. Warrior greasword skill number 2 " hundred blades", simply having the ability swap it to slot 3, 4 and 5. On its own its not a huge thing but it is more customization in a way if you choose to use it.

- Bring back the hybrid class system, this is not a such a big deal really. Talk to and NPC in a city, choose your secondary class class and TADA! More options. Like in GW each classes had a attribute or now a trait line that is specific to a class and is linked to that class own mechanic ( necro soul reaping/ death shroud, guardian virtue line/ 3 vistues skills and so on). Going hybrid would unlock all these non specific trait lines, but would allow you to expend your options; Warrior necro could still be a dps power house but investing a bit in the blood line would turn you into a vampiric warrior or you have your escort of minions with death, this is just an example but i let you guy think of what you could do. Those who wish to remain single class oriented could still do it but opening up by having 2 just seems right, at least it would follow the tradition with the first game. Fusing wouldn’t change your class own mechanic but it would unlock the healing skill and utilities to swap them at will.
N.B. I know that stats related to trait line could cause a problem by over boosting certain attributes, biggest concern would be critical damage but some stats could benefit from it like healing power and boon duration, this would require some tweaking.

- Last but not least , pretty sure some of you figured it out by now is the class weapon skill swap. Since skill 1 is the auto attack you would be only able to choose between your current class and the secondary. Ex, War/Guard with greatsword would have the choice between applying vulnerability on attacks or getting might on every third blow. Now for the crispy part, skill 2 could either be hundred blades or whirlwind wrath, if you like both, the swap skills system we spoke of earlier would come in by allowing you to keep both skills on the condition to replace another one for it on slot 3, 4 or 5. This way you have at least to customize your weapon skill bar, build and if you want a really focused build you can have more liberty synchronizing the your skill set for it.

All in all these 4 elements would allow us to customize our hero the way we want, have build for specific uses or pure jack of all trades. This is my great hops for the game and as soon they are done unlocking all weapons for all classes it would be so easy to do; weapon skill swap, weapon class swap and allow 2 trait trees per toon. TADA! Countless people with nose bleed because they spend a week without sleep crunching numbers for their new build.

So after this book of a post, what do you guys think?

Less skills may have made things easier to balance, but then they made many of the skills multi-use.

Take engineer shield for instance. Each of the two skills have multiple uses. #4 is a projectile reflect, a knock back, and a blast finisher. #5 is a block, a piercing boomerang projectile stun, and a 100% projectile finisher.

End result is that to balance these skills they have to take each of the uses into account, never mind how they may interact with other skills.

there will be no build variation as long as there is transmutation stones.

Baclavaman.9054:

- Weapon skill swap, this one might be a little more subtle but will have a huge role to play as you keep on reading. Warrior greasword skill number 2 " hundred blades", simply having the ability swap it to slot 3, 4 and 5. On its own its not a huge thing but it is more customization in a way if you choose to use it.

Not going to happen. I suspect ANet took player agility and reflexes into account when they designed the skill layouts for the weapons. Heck they moved some of the guardian GS or hammer skills around soon after launch, because people could just hit keys in sequence and get of a complete combo.

I guess it is their idea of “promoting skill”.

What may be a more probable option would be for each weapon skill to have variants. Meaning that you could bring up a menu for each skill, and select between variants of the skill with various parameters changed (knockback turned into knockdown and so on).

If you have too many skills players will find only a few actual viable ones.

Look at GW1. Tons of skills, but there was really only 3 builds that were viable for each profession. Ritualist only had one IMO, SoS spirit spam. Monks? 55 monk…. Ranger? splinter barrage.

Lots of skills is just an illusion. You can only play one build at a time , and you will definitely be finding one single build that fits all content.

Gw2 tries to find that sweet spot in number of skills to choose from. There are probably some builds out there that have not been discovered only because the community doesn’t try to anymore. They just look on a build website for the best build whether it be for PvP , WvW, or PvE.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

If you have too many skills players will find only a few actual viable ones.

Look at GW1. Tons of skills, but there was really only 3 builds that were viable for each profession. Ritualist only had one IMO, SoS spirit spam. Monks? 55 monk…. Ranger? splinter barrage.

Lots of skills is just an illusion. You can only play one build at a time , and you will definitely be finding one single build that fits all content.

Are you joking? Monk – HB , UA, WoH Infuse, RC, ZB, 600hp/ 55hp, and tons of various builds for different missions/instances.
There wasn’t just ONE build that worked everywhere.

Yeah they dumb gw2 down to attract more players. :/ Cant really hold a grudge as every company is looking to make a game like CoD. It does make it hilarious to see people facetank to their death aginst Fe and shaman a year 1/2 later XD.

Gw1 wasn’t perfect, no game ever will be, but it had it right. All classes required energy to perform attacks as well as cooldowns. none of this spam the same key stuff. Combos in gw1 were very specific, interrupting 1 skill could stop a spike. Gw2… spam that kitten, if you get interrupted wait 4 secs and then do it again.

Professions in gw1 mostly balanced them selves out. hexers beat casters and physical but were countered by healers and hex removal, healers could could lessen the blow of a spike as well as prolong the teams sustain at the cost that they werent able to do much damage. phyiscals did heavy damage to casters but were vulnerable to hexers/conditions.

LOL only 3 viable builds per a profession in gw 1 whattt? did you even play gw1???
http://gwpvx.gamepedia.com/Category:All_working_general_builds
Thats just general pve.

Chewablesleeptablet.3185:

There are probably some builds out there that have not been discovered only because the community doesn’t try to anymore.

BWHAHAHAH best quote ever, the purpose to making builds is to do/kill something faster.
Because there are soooo many options with fewer skills I surely wouldnt be able to predict with pretty good accuracy that your next match against:
Warrior – Greatsword / hammer (wvw) longbow/hammer ( pvp)
Necro – scpter/dagger – staff terrormancer
Thief – d/p
phantasm mesmer
longbow ranger
s/d fresh air ele
2 kit switch engi
guardian is a wildcard for the most part being dps now or bunker.

If and when I quit gw2, it will be for this reason.

PetricaKerempuh.7958:

there will be no build variation as long as there is transmutation stones.

What in the world do transmutation stones have to do with build variety?

Considering many have complimented Snowball Mayhem as being the best PvP in the game, I’d say there’s something to having less skills. As Snowball Mayhem is distilled down to 3 only professions/roles with 5 skills each. It’s certainly better balanced and a lot of fun.

Anet is terrible at balancing in general. They need to pay some top level players to help them out.

It doesn’t help that they decided to make things really complicated with the whole trait system. We see a lot of skill balance decisions made because of the existence of certain traits. I wouldn’t be surprised if traits + skills has probably made GW2 as hard to balance as GW1!

The whole thing’s a huge mess.

I don’t like the fact that weapons only have one set of skills available. If the skills of the weapon don’t suit your needs, you only have two options, use a different weapon, or play another class, which kind of sucks if you’re the type that collects weapon skins, and would like to use them, among other issues.

Like say for example someone is playing a ranger, and would like to use the warhorn.

They have two main hand weapon options, the sword, and the axe.

If this person is not skilled enough to use the sword, that automatically cancels that out as an option.

So they are left with the axe, which is not that great of a weapon unless you’re running a build specifically tailored for it, or fight in an area where the utility the axe brings is very important.

Whenever someone suggest a change to one of these weapon sets, there will always be those who disagree, because the weapon skills fit their exact needs. Would be a lot easier imo if you could just switch skills.

I want to bring something to everyones attention. It may not seem like it but each class in gw2 has around the same amount of skills as each class in gw prophecies (not including the ability to use secondary profession skills nor expansions).

The difference is that instead of being able to freely choose what skills are on the hot bar, Anet decided make optimal builds and just call them weapon sets. If there was the ability to freely choose every skill then it wouldn’t be much different from the original gw1.

I guess you can say that the amount of skills are still there, except they are now structured instead of being open.

I dont think having less skills is creating a more balanced game. In fact some of the balance issues probably could be resolved by having more skills/swappable weapon skills. There are many times where they have to have 1 skill do too much, just so the weapon set can actually function in multiple situations/builds.

Hopefully they add some skills soon

I DO believe GW2 is more balanced than GW1… not because Guild Wars 2 is a paragon of balance, but because balance in Guild Wars was a myth. It didn’t exist period.

Let’s be perfectly blunt, the overwhelming majority of players didn’t play around with their builds in GW1. They just didn’t. They went to PvXWiki, found the overpowered flavor of the month build until it was eventually nerfed. Rinse, lather repeat.

Is there something inherently wrong with that? I dunno. I didn’t particularly think so, but I DO see where Arena.net is coming from on this. All those skills were hell for a developer to try and manage any semblance of fair play on, and was rife with overpowered builds that could nigh entirely trivialize content (yes, I’m looking at you, Sabway).

I don’t necessarily AGREE with the tack Arena.net is taking with the rigid skill bars, but I CAN understand it.

The PvX mentality removed choice in some regards, and created it in others.

Because I could build a nearly self-sustaining hero team, it freed me to play subuptimal builds. I finished all four campaigns as a Ritualist PC, who had one of the worst PvE passives in the game. I have no regrets, I liked their armor. It mattered not if I was a poor candidate for any speed clear team, I could do tons of content without their approval.

I never thought of GW1 as a game of balance. More like, a game of Magic cards, where certain cards are clearly superior, or become superior through synergy, but you can make do with other cards until you get them. Since GW1 didn’t have nearly the buy-in that it took to get an optimal deck in MTG, I never QQed about the lack of balance.