Guild Wars 2

Hello guys, i’m one of those returning players.. I use to play back during beta,
then came back and went away a couple of times.

during beta you could use all 5 specialization at a time but never use them fully if you did, selectable traits had no tiers. I guess it was near impossible to balance so something had to give..

but as it stands now?
Every class has one specialization that overshadows the others, that’s right i’m looking at you HoT. So what you end up with that every class is locked into 1 of the 3 specializations, so you end up with only 2 specializations left to pick from..

Is there anyone else that noticed this and feels unhappy about it?
Maybe they could add in cross trait lines from diffrent professions/weapons/utilities..

Discuss to your hearts content.
~
Unavailable Hero

I think there’s plenty of build diversity, but one must define ‘viable’ and ‘optimal’ first. I personally use meta builds during dungeons and fractals, and a fun, personalized one when I roam in PvE doing map completion. It’s nowhere near optimal, but it’s viable as all get out.

I agree that the new specializations are far superior to their old counterparts. They promised us horizontal progression with HoT, and then they stepped back a bit with the specializations.

I think they should add dual class options like in the first game. It’d be a nightmare to balance, but it’d be ten times more fun and rewarding if you ask me.

Lack of build diversity is a thing in the meta of whatever game mode your poison is. That’s always been the case, and it always will be the case. Yes, the Elite Specs are the Flavor of the XPac right now, and that may change next XPac as new Elites are unveiled — or with balance patches. For instance, Necromancers apparently lost their place in the harder instanced content PvE meta due to one nerf.

Build diversity still exists outside the various metas, just as it always has. To me, all that ever changes within a meta is which builds are on the top, profession x game mode x role in that meta.

As to the 5 trait lines v. 3 trait lines thing… that was changed to allow for Elite Specs. Going forward, players will only be able to choose one Elite Spec at a time, not multiple Elite lines. Placing traits in Adept/Master/Grandmaster Tiers happened before launch.

While I am sure that the current iteration of traits is not perfect, I am not sure it’s bad. In fact, I prefer it to the older iterations. Given that they’ve already spent huge amounts of developer time on trait system iterations, I think spending still more, at the expense of a lot of other things, would be a non-starter for me. There are times that the perfect is the enemy of the good.

MrWubzy.3587:

I think there’s plenty of build diversity, but one must define ‘viable’ and ‘optimal’ first. I personally use meta builds during dungeons and fractals, and a fun, personalized one when I roam in PvE doing map completion. It’s nowhere near optimal, but it’s viable as all get out.

I agree that the new specializations are far superior to their old counterparts. They promised us horizontal progression with HoT, and then they stepped back a bit with the specializations.

Exactly as you said above.
The current formula for builds since HoT was released has always been centered around Elite Specialization and the synergies between it and the vanilla traits are normally 1 based on the desired stat (Power or Condition Damage and in some cases supportive stats like boon durations and/or healing).

The issue with the absence of play style diversity and being limited to 1 build per stat/Elite Spec, is not only the limited synergies between traits but also the core system of combining 3 set of traits. The current situation concerning builds is the bi-product of these 2 which clearly as they are now are not being successful. Either lose the core system and think of a different way to set masteries (am thinking Path of Exile skills and talents window) or rework/add new effects for vanilla traits.

Diversity is impossible. This game boils down to one basic thing; killing stuff. When you have different ways to do that, no matter how much you nerf the strong things, or buff the weaker builds, ultimately, there’s always one way that’s the best. “The meta” requires you to run that. I’m not saying you have to run it, but if you want to do it the best way possible, there’s only one way to go.

(talking purely from pve perspective).

LunarStrikes.2753:

Diversity is impossible. This game boils down to one basic thing; killing stuff. When you have different ways to do that, no matter how much you nerf the strong things, or buff the weaker builds, ultimately, there’s always one way that’s the best. “The meta” requires you to run that. I’m not saying you have to run it, but if you want to do it the best way possible, there’s only one way to go.

(talking purely from pve perspective).

I agree other than saying ‘impossible’. There is a difference between “you need to be using this build to kill anything” and “you need to be using this build to kill everything the best” not including raids where best tends to be necessary. Some builds will always be better, that doesnt mean no others are possible.

Build diversity is such a big thing in retaining players, I often wonder why it is in such a sorry state.

I don’t even know if Anet has staff dedicated to making changes that promote build diversity, or if instead it comes from some of the staff focusing on it once in a while in their off-time.

Traits and upgrade components need to be seriously re-evaluted at some point. It gets really stale waiting on the rare skill update patches. Hoping that changes are made to create a new way to play a class that can compete.

Cyril.7294:

Hello guys, i’m one of those returning players.. I use to play back during beta,
then came back and went away a couple of times.

during beta you could use all 5 specialization at a time but never use them fully if you did, selectable traits had no tiers. I guess it was near impossible to balance so something had to give..

but as it stands now?
Every class has one specialization that overshadows the others, that’s right i’m looking at you HoT. So what you end up with that every class is locked into 1 of the 3 specializations, so you end up with only 2 specializations left to pick from..

Is there anyone else that noticed this and feels unhappy about it?
Maybe they could add in cross trait lines from diffrent professions/weapons/utilities..

Discuss to your hearts content.
~
Unavailable Hero

I would be very surprised if they didn’t have more elite specializations in the works. If, for instance, you had three mutually exclusive elite specializations to choose from, it would create a minimum of 3 distinctive playstyles per class, plus variants based upon the other two normal specialization choices.

However, I agree that build diversity takes a hit when you have only one choice to make. The deck is heavily stacked in favor of taking the elite spec. You gain a set of utility skills, a weapon set, and the traits themselves tend to be noticeably more powerful as well.

When you look at what’s the most effective for the least efforts, you can see that it’s roughly the same for every classes : hit hard and fast.

In PvE, you can roughly play whatever style suits you ; it’ll only take more time to get the foe down. In WvW, it’s critical and leads to trends and meta that end up being toxic. I’m not talking about PvP, being unfamiliar with it.

Specifically for PvE, there’s a huge need for utilities and traits rework so that the gap between “what works” and “what I enjoy” becomes the narrowest with any playstyle.
WvW additionnaly needs an increase of base HP in every professions so that fights would last longer, hence allowing profession mechanics to start and work. If the fight finishes at first strike, then it only favors “hit hard and run” tactics.

Meh … there is no diversity without balance. A million permutations with one obvious good one is not more diverse than 100 permutations with one obvious good one.

ThomasC.1056:

When you look at what’s the most effective for the least efforts, you can see that it’s roughly the same for every classes : hit hard and fast.

In PvE, you can roughly play whatever style suits you ; it’ll only take more time to get the foe down. In WvW, it’s critical and leads to trends and meta that end up being toxic. I’m not talking about PvP, being unfamiliar with it.

Specifically for PvE, there’s a huge need for utilities and traits rework so that the gap between “what works” and “what I enjoy” becomes the narrowest with any playstyle.
WvW additionnaly needs an increase of base HP in every professions so that fights would last longer, hence allowing profession mechanics to start and work. If the fight finishes at first strike, then it only favors “hit hard and run” tactics.

The cooldown on some of the utilities is just way too long. I remember using Glyph of Storm on my ele and thinking “I like this skill but I can only use it every other fight”. Many of the elite spec utilities have much shorter cooldowns. Some might even be too short.

Cyril.7294:

Hello guys, i’m one of those returning players.. I use to play back during beta,
then came back and went away a couple of times.

during beta you could use all 5 specialization at a time but never use them fully if you did, selectable traits had no tiers. I guess it was near impossible to balance so something had to give..

but as it stands now?
Every class has one specialization that overshadows the others, that’s right i’m looking at you HoT. So what you end up with that every class is locked into 1 of the 3 specializations, so you end up with only 2 specializations left to pick from..

Is there anyone else that noticed this and feels unhappy about it?
Maybe they could add in cross trait lines from diffrent professions/weapons/utilities..

Discuss to your hearts content.
~
Unavailable Hero

On the level that it was at for launch or even the years surrounding it, diversity is DEAD. The pug dungeon community cried too much about berserker gear being the most efficient at speed clearing one-dimensional PvE content, so HoT catered to the audience to appease and enforce certain styles of play while blatantly disregarding the integrity of the game’s combat mechanics and existing stats. Play meta, play cheese (most of HoT/elites), or find another game. WvW had the most fluidity in balance before the expansion, and now it has the least, because absolutely nothing was done to consider balancing for it. Honestly, it’s not worth coming back to if you’ve been able to find other things to occupy your time. I cannot in any good faith recommend staying/playing aside from community reasons.

From the competitive perspective, the game is absolutely by far in the worst shape it’s ever been from an interesting gameplay perspective. Almost everything about combat now is just blatantly un-fun. Better-suited is to rename the game to Build Wars 2.

I still think that having so few skill and build options is a huge reason why a lot of people think GW1 was a better game. I’m not sure when game designers will realize that you can’t railroad players for the sake of balance and expect it to turn out well. Balance will never be perfect.

Einlanzer.1627:

I still think that having so few skill and build options is a huge reason why a lot of people think GW1 was a better game. I’m not sure when game designers will realize that you can’t railroad players for the sake of balance and expect it to turn out well. Balance will never be perfect.

More meaningfully is that the disparity between “good” builds that may be relatively balanced among each other and “sub-par” builds that may also be balanced among each other is absolutely tremendous in this game. There are certain builds which mathematically cannot do as well in every area than others by tremendous margins. These builds objectively suck by design. And nothing has been done to improve them on the design-level.

Most of the decisions made have been insubstantial because they attack only symptoms rather than causes. Broken dynamics since release are still around because nobody is seemingly willing to actually fix them.

AliamRationem.5172:

Cyril.7294:

Hello guys, i’m one of those returning players.. I use to play back during beta,
then came back and went away a couple of times.

during beta you could use all 5 specialization at a time but never use them fully if you did, selectable traits had no tiers. I guess it was near impossible to balance so something had to give..

but as it stands now?
Every class has one specialization that overshadows the others, that’s right i’m looking at you HoT. So what you end up with that every class is locked into 1 of the 3 specializations, so you end up with only 2 specializations left to pick from..

Is there anyone else that noticed this and feels unhappy about it?
Maybe they could add in cross trait lines from diffrent professions/weapons/utilities..

Discuss to your hearts content.
~
Unavailable Hero

I would be very surprised if they didn’t have more elite specializations in the works. If, for instance, you had three mutually exclusive elite specializations to choose from, it would create a minimum of 3 distinctive playstyles per class, plus variants based upon the other two normal specialization choices.

Hello,
Having 3 mutually exclusive Elite Specializations would not help at all if they would follow the HoT concept; where each Elite Spec has a specific meta/role/choice of stats.

Each of what we received with HoT as named Elite Specs, have their own limitations within. Most of these metas were created for specific game styles and for specific stats: like for example Druids for supportive (healing/boons) playing, Herald for supportive (boons), Tempest for offensive dps or supportive (boons), etc. If one could mix 3 supportive conceptualized elite specs, to obtain an improved supportive spec, then yes, Gawd please! However we are missing synergies or options for combining Elite Traits with vanilla traits and that’s what’s killing build diversity.

When we’re talking about build diversity we should refer to having the choice of selecting the Elite Spec and whatever stat we want, with proper cons and offsets to reflect balance. If we do not want balance for PvE and wish to create a system that allows full customization in regards to builds even better! Embrace this mentally and give players in PvE a real reason to group up with others, interact in-game and socially use the chat as well; the lone supporter will require the glass canon and the defensive oriented characters. Think of map metas failing because you don’t have any supporters in your area. Give a real reason for players to group up in PvE from a gameplay aspect!

Then again this title has never been about what the players want or what the players are suggesting on the forums.

The elite specs have already been confirmed as mutually-exclusive because they’d be too overpowered/dominant otherwise. I mean… they’ve already invalidated every core build except for a few niche purposes.

Most elites provide more than the functionality of two core trait lines on top of the additional class mechanics. The only outlier I really see here is Reaper.

Originally, one could dabbled into all of the trait lines, but you only had 14-traits’-worth of options, so you needed to make your decisions well. Needless to say, there was a ton of diversity.

Simplifying trait selection into three enforced lines was a horrible idea, as was adding extra GM options, and the elites themselves are almost all objectively poorly-designed.

DeceiverX.8361:

Originally, one could dabbled into all of the trait lines, but you only had 14-traits’-worth of options, so you needed to make your decisions well. Needless to say, there was a ton of diversity.

That is an overly polite way of saying “wow the master and grandmaster traits in this trait line are so terrible let me see where I can find a minor adept trait that is better”.

Khisanth.2948:

DeceiverX.8361:

Originally, one could dabbled into all of the trait lines, but you only had 14-traits’-worth of options, so you needed to make your decisions well. Needless to say, there was a ton of diversity.

That is an overly polite way of saying “wow the master and grandmaster traits in this trait line are so terrible let me see where I can find a minor adept trait that is better”.

Not at all. There were plenty of builds that ran odd numbers because some of the minor traits or adept ones were just really good to have.

For example, most thieves never put more than 3 points into Trickery, because it got them Preparedness and that was enough.

I personally didn’t spec for Executioner in DA because of it, because the sacrifice made for 10% more damage overall wasn’t worth it to me, but many people with the same weapon set went 6/6/0/0/2 or commonly 0/6/6/0/2 or 3/6/3/0/2. Every build performed fundamentally different, and all of them worked about as well as each other in PvP environments.

What makes for good build diversity is when big sacrifices need to be made. Currently, especially with elite specs, nothing is compromised for the meta builds.

and many of the master and grandmaster were just that crappy.

Some of them still are.

Build diversity will be improved greatly when we get a second, and hopefully third, elite spec to choose from. No matter what ANet says, elite specs were clearly designed to be more powerful than core traitlines, and they are now slowly being refined into true specializations (eg chronomancer is all about party support, druid is primarily a healing spec with some support in the form of GotL) instead of jack of all trades traitlines.

So, when we get more elite specs, we will be able to choose a more powerful traitline that defines how the class plays, and build diversity will be increased so much.

Of course there are other problems with build diversity right now. Poor balance being one of them, but I think adding more elite specs is absolutely crucial in achieving build diversity because our current traitsystem is setup around us picking an elite.

OriOri.8724:

Build diversity will be improved greatly when we get a second, and hopefully third, elite spec to choose from. No matter what ANet says, elite specs were clearly designed to be more powerful than core traitlines, and they are now slowly being refined into true specializations (eg chronomancer is all about party support, druid is primarily a healing spec with some support in the form of GotL) instead of jack of all trades traitlines.

So, when we get more elite specs, we will be able to choose a more powerful traitline that defines how the class plays, and build diversity will be increased so much.

Of course there are other problems with build diversity right now. Poor balance being one of them, but I think adding more elite specs is absolutely crucial in achieving build diversity because our current traitsystem is setup around us picking an elite.

This is a good point. The Elite Specs were “supposed” to be alternatives — horizontal progression rather than a power increase. However, they were seemingly designed around the idea of generating more of a specialist than the core specs do. Ideally, specialization “should” be better at what that specialty does than a more general build does. The sad part is that in order to have enough different specializations available to afford true profession-based diversity is likely to take years due to the apparent “Elite Specs are only available in XPac’s” content design.