Guild Wars 2

I disagree with the OP. I find there are a lot of worthwhile builds, for anyone who is not attempting to speed clear. I would change my builds regularly, if it was easier to swap.

There are at least 3-4 builds per profession that I like for each game mode. The only reason I don’t use more than one each most of the time is that I really hate the UI; it’s just too tedious.

That said, the existing skills and traits could stand improvement: there are some that I never hear about being used and some that seem always to be in use. In some cases, I think a small tweak to a trait or two might go a long way towards putting certain weapons in play again (e.g. guardian focus is a better ‘shield’ most of the time than guardian shield).

I am curious about ANet’s metrics on each trait, utility, and weapon. Are there some skills that get used a lot that aren’t part of the meta? Are there traits that literally no one uses after full trait unlock?

Shiyo.3578:

VodCom.6924:

• Buffing or reworking traits : Which ones and (again) in order to fulfil what goal ?

Venoms and traps for thief, especially venoms not basilisk, extremely weak and not worth using. 1s of chill x3? 1s of vuln x3? Remove venom share and rebalance venoms around only the thief having them applied, shadow arts is already the most bloated tree in existence, no reason for it to have SO many good traits while a tree like acrobatics doesn’t have anything past 3 points.

I run trap thief in wvw with Runes of Trapper it’s effective , if it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t have noticed traps were here, it took a rune to create synergy between them and SA it’s just wow.

Shiyo.3578:

VodCom.6924:

• Buffing or reworking traits : Which ones and (again) in order to fulfil what goal ?

Venoms and traps for thief, especially venoms not basilisk, extremely weak and not worth using. 1s of chill x3? 1s of vuln x3? Remove venom share and rebalance venoms around only the thief having them applied, shadow arts is already the most bloated tree in existence, no reason for it to have SO many good traits while a tree like acrobatics doesn’t have anything past 3 points.

Now we’re talking.

About acrobatics : I’m no PvP player by any mean but I understand that some builds have 6 points in acrobatics.
In PvE it is barely useful, but again, who invests a lot in a defensive line ?

About venoms. Yeah I get it, same problem as the rangers signets not so long ago.
However, I’m in favour of replacing the venomous aura trait with something completely new and have the sharing component of venoms made permanent.

It has no use in PVP too. Acrobatics doesn’t have a single usable grandmaster trait, and vigorous recovery is the only good major trait in the entire tree. 3 points in acrobatics is all you need to get everything good in the tree.

I feel like venom share is what’s holding venoms back entirely, they’re balanced around that trait so without giving them to 4 other people they’re extremely weak. I want venom share to not be a thing at all honestly.

Shiyo.3578:

Venoms and traps for thief

venoms on thief really effective against healing warrs in Spvp.

Shiyo.3578:

I feel like venom share is what’s holding venoms back entirely, they’re balanced around that trait so without giving them to 4 other people they’re extremely weak. I want venom share to not be a thing at all honestly.

In this case venoms would compete with signets in the category of self buffs/utilities.

Venoms naturally shared could open up more support options for the thief who is currently lacking in this regard.

VodCom.6924:

Shiyo.3578:

I feel like venom share is what’s holding venoms back entirely, they’re balanced around that trait so without giving them to 4 other people they’re extremely weak. I want venom share to not be a thing at all honestly.

In this case venoms would compete with signets in the category of self buffs/utilities.

Venoms naturally shared could open up more support options for the thief who is currently lacking in this regard.

I see what you’re saying, yeah that’d be a lot nicer. The healing venom trait(leeching venoms) should be moved to acrobatics or deadly arts as well.

Most builds are “usable” because of the skill-based dodging system.

If you can dodge/heal all the attacks a foe throws your way it does not matter how much damage you are doing because you will kill your foe before you die.

How fast you are able to kill your foes is the only limiting factor assuming you are able to dodge properly.

You can dodge all the attacks regardless of which build you are running… and as long as the foe dies before you do it is considered “usable” but its definitely not viable to deal little damage, since building tankyness in pve is useless unless you don’t know how to blind/reflect/evade.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Most builds are “usable” because of the skill-based dodging system.

If you can dodge/heal all the attacks a foe throws your way it does not matter how much damage you are doing because you will kill your foe before you die.

How fast you are able to kill your foes is the only limiting factor assuming you are able to dodge properly.

You can dodge all the attacks regardless of which build you are running… and as long as the foe dies before you do it is considered “usable” but its definitely not viable to deal little damage, since building tankyness in pve is useless unless you don’t know how to blind/reflect/evade.

Just felt the need to mention, that the last paragraph is only up to a point. Some professions have a “dodge heavy” build as a variation to the meta for PVE, IE 56030 for thief, 66020 for engi, or simply grabbing vigor trait on Guard.

Jerus.4350:

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Most builds are “usable” because of the skill-based dodging system.

If you can dodge/heal all the attacks a foe throws your way it does not matter how much damage you are doing because you will kill your foe before you die.

How fast you are able to kill your foes is the only limiting factor assuming you are able to dodge properly.

You can dodge all the attacks regardless of which build you are running… and as long as the foe dies before you do it is considered “usable” but its definitely not viable to deal little damage, since building tankyness in pve is useless unless you don’t know how to blind/reflect/evade.

Just felt the need to mention, that the last paragraph is only up to a point. Some professions have a “dodge heavy” build as a variation to the meta for PVE, IE 56030 for thief, 66020 for engi, or simply grabbing vigor trait on Guard.

I should have said you can “avoid all attacks”

Shiyo.3578:

I’m not exactly sure what MMO’s you were playing because this isn’t the case at all, outside of PVE GW2 has more viable builds than any other MMO.

And in PvE it’s ~exactly equal to any other MMO. You have 1 optimal build (assuming the MMO has power-altering builds, WoW tried to abolish this concept with their talent-triplets which was a great idea but fell way flat), spec it or be suboptimal.

Bloodstealer.5978:

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

depending on your goal, much more might be possible then you think

Power is only 1 of the ways you can use to buff your damage potential, and a lot of people ignore conditional (when target has condition/below x health) or weapons based bonusses, +5%, +10%…. even though they stack multiplicatively, also might is often forgotten as an efficient way to boost dmg for solo play.

Most builds are very viable, but most people just want 1, 2 maybe 3 main builds for pure DPS, if you look at WvW you’ll notice the variety of builds is much higher, people actually use condition builds for solo or small group play.

Not so though in PvE as the majority of people has been led to beleive zerk -meta- is the only way to play. This makes healing builds, boon/buff builds an unwanted stain on the set of people who are led to believe conditions have no function (while they depend on vulnerability, blinds, chill, stuns, dazes and weakness to stay alive.)

The difference between a zerk- meta and a speedrun group is the actual knowledge of conditions and applying them. DPS is partly gained by your build, but most is gained by efficiently supporting eachother.

OK lets tell the other 150+ players beating down on a boss to please work their conditions efficiently.
Sorry but I disagree with you.. the build diversity in GW2 is amongst the worst I have ever come across in an MMO in over 10+ yrs.
There simply is no need for Ferocity, Precision is more than enough. Healing Power sucks donkey and conditions builds are completely inefficient in PvE when Jo Bloggs the zerk warrior can make my necro conditions count for nowt.
Every class has the ability to push out a number of conditions whilst performing the tasks their actual build is meant for thus creating ineffective condi builds – simply put GW2 has inherently awful game mechanics when it comes to conditions.
The game is centred around zerk build 99% of the time, even much of the content is eered to this safe thinking to the point that bosses now have large condition invulnerability modes built into them (kicking condi builds in the face that little bit harder).
So yes I actually agree with the OP and others here.. the whole build diversity in GW2 (PvE) is a pile of Quaggan poop and needs a thorough rework by people that actually have a clue on what diversity does for an MMO…

I do want to say:

You do not seem to have read what I posted now did you. You saw conditions and are completely focussed on DOT not being usable. I never said It was. I just said people do not think about conditions. You proved my point.

The conditions I mentioned were chill, weakness, vulknerability, blinds,and CC’s, and poison as a healing inhibitor.

Where in my whole post did you read bleeding , burning, torment, or poison for the DOT?

Just for the simple explanation, weakness destroys the ability to do crits, 50% of all other hits will fumble, meaning 50% of dmg, effectively cutting enemy dps in half , blinds cause misses iwhich deal no dmg, vulnerability causes additional dmg, 25 stacks of vulnerability will cause more dmg to target 25% to be precise, CC’s will interupt and make enemy not able to perform their skills (as long as defiant isn’t a problem) and poison will reduce healing by 33%, chill will add 66% to cooldowns…

This is what I tried to explain. I didn’t say you should go rabid or dire in PvE…. builds are more then DPS or CONDI….

And just to really say it once:
EVEN THOUGH CONDITION DMG SUCKS AT ZERG EVENTS, IT IS VIABLE FOR ALL SOLO AND SMALL GROUP PLAY. (Sinister can be very interesting if you are bored with zerker, zerker, zerker.) A sinister mesmer AND (warrior or) necro can be an asset for a dungeon run… as long as you do not have people in group who trigger bleeds on crit (engineers, rangers, warriors) and you can get your bleeds up and do a sustained 4k bleed/tick with 1 warrior, excluding burning and torment, a classic terror necro build can do even more DOT as well as impeding heals… and the torment/confusion based mesmer will NOT overwrite your warrior’s or necro’s conditions or other way round. A fully buffed condition mesmer can run as much as 2800+ condition dmg or 10+k dmg on skill use when he gets up 17 stacks of confusion or burning for 1.1k/tick, torment will do ~4000 dmg /tick as well… Only interference will come from guardians who will (in the end) benefit from 100% burning uptime and it will be seen in dps in the end, also the fact most guards will be able to spam F1 directlky when possible will add good might to the party as well. Flame away.

But I do know a lot of people couldn’t care. Zerk is very nice… but far from the only option. And builds are FAR more then gear choice alone.

Basically they have to rework precision to offer a smaller increase in crit, and ferocity to offer a significantly smaller increase in crit damage. Basically precision should have soft caps for your crit percentage so it’s seen as not worth you’re effort if you have any traits that increase your crit.

Healing needs to be buffed majorly, to actually give it a point to using it. Also boons and condition system needs an overhaul. All damage condition should stack, burn poison not just bleed. So to make other conditions worth using and not just bleed being the only good condi to use.

The core condition/boon system is partially why power builds are meta. If you’re a condi player it’s common occurrence for your dots to drop off and be replaced by a power user with no plus to condition.

However, I think they’re doing good steps in eliminating the meta. If you look at it, meta is only meta on paper. In reality nobody really uses zerker gear all the time. Bosses like Teq can’t be crit at all and thus make zerker gear completely useless.

Carighan.6758:

Shiyo.3578:

I’m not exactly sure what MMO’s you were playing because this isn’t the case at all, outside of PVE GW2 has more viable builds than any other MMO.

And in PvE it’s ~exactly equal to any other MMO. You have 1 optimal build (assuming the MMO has power-altering builds, WoW tried to abolish this concept with their talent-triplets which was a great idea but fell way flat), spec it or be suboptimal.

Actually the belief here is pretty much false. There is an opinion of one optimal build, but reality is that “optimal” build is only optimal in a very specific situation with a very specific group comp. People don’t realize how often top players will swap things around. Even in PvE instances, you’ll swap things around for trash and bosses and changes things to fit the situation. You can be just find with a more balanced build and not swap things around and save some time by not swapping.

There isn’t one single optimal build that is the standard setting build here. It’s widely up to interpretation and speculation. Where as other MMO’s, like wow, you have damage meters and have tanks and healers and dedicated jobs to cover you. So you have a set measurement. Here we don’t have that. Until the taunt changes go in with HoT we don’t have any form of ability to tank. And even with that change it’s not going to cause a sudden need for tanks as survivability and healing are still not here.

heartless.6803:

Basically they have to rework precision to offer a smaller increase in crit, and ferocity to offer a significantly smaller increase in crit damage. Basically precision should have soft caps for your crit percentage so it’s seen as not worth you’re effort if you have any traits that increase your crit.

Healing needs to be buffed majorly, to actually give it a point to using it. Also boons and condition system needs an overhaul. All damage condition should stack, burn poison not just bleed. So to make other conditions worth using and not just bleed being the only good condi to use.

The core condition/boon system is partially why power builds are meta. If you’re a condi player it’s common occurrence for your dots to drop off and be replaced by a power user with no plus to condition.

However, I think they’re doing good steps in eliminating the meta. If you look at it, meta is only meta on paper. In reality nobody really uses zerker gear all the time. Bosses like Teq can’t be crit at all and thus make zerker gear completely useless.

Buffing healing wouldn’t really make it useful. The fact is that healing isn’t really needed. You can survive most fights without healing once.

Eliminating the “meta” isn’t really a thing that can be done. The Meta will always be the Meta, what the Meta consists of will change, but there will always be an optimal way to do something and people will always do it and others will always complain about it. On a side note, I wear my zerker gear at Teq because I don’t get hit and the extra health/toughness isn’t worth carrying an extra set of armor to me.

Also yes, Conditions would be a good alternative if the condition system wasn’t fundamentally flawed with its limited stack system and overall inferior damage.

heartless.6803:

In reality nobody really uses zerker gear all the time. Bosses like Teq can’t be crit at all and thus make zerker gear completely useless.

I use Zerker gear all the time in dungeons. I use Soldiers on Teq usually, but I’ve run it in Zerker a few times forgetting to change. No big deal. Slight DPS loss thanks to less of a buff from Sharpening Stones, but it’s marginal.

It’s hilarious how few people can dodge the wave, by the way.

Still, and this never seems to get through to people, GEAR IS ONLY PART OF BUILD. Gear has relatively little impact on play style: weapon choices and traits really affect quite a bit more. sigh.

This is one of those discussion threads that has popped up ad nauseam throughout the 2+ years that this game has been out, and I can see it’s now slowly spiraling into the same flame war that these threads always do, so I’m going to be bowing out now.

I simply wanted to take a moment to apologize that my comments seem to have caused so much distress. I simply happen to hold the belief that if people are going to (continue the year long) debate “build diversity and Profession Balance,” that there should be some responsibility to have knowledge of those Professions, what issues they face, and the struggles their communities have been debating/dealing with since… well, the very beginning (all of which is available in the archives, and all of which can, as I said, be found with just a cursory skimming of the Proffession Forums).

And I linked the strawman fallacy at you because you quoted me specifically, then said, “none of my skills are useless” (paraphrasing), implying I said there are useless skills and abilities which (regardless of what I may or may not think) I never said. I’m sure you can sympathize how one does not like having words placed in one’s mouth.

Here is an interesting post that includes an interesting back and forth between the Necromancer community and the Developers: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Dec-10th-Balance-Preview-Necromancer/page/8#post3164512. Several other “back and forths” also occur in that thread, and make for interesting examples if you find yourself so inclined to skim the thread.

I picked this post because it illustrates both 1) a trait that is excessively niche, and 2) how far back debates about literal vs practical “use” of abilities actually reaches.

At least for PvE the issue fall completely on content/game design the entire game is balanced around small scale encounters, and against the limited stat available to players while the PvE design does not follow the basics in which they built the game on. So while certain traits/skills work in one mode (if that) they may not function well in the game as a whole i.e. too situational in design/limited in effect.

It kind of remind me of the issue that they brought up when the “animation fix” reduced the rate of fire on the ranger shortbow, they sited that just hitting one is not engaging, but when looking that the other skills they cause a loss of damage when used in the proper situation that the skill was designed to used for and pointless to use just for the sake of doing something other than an autoattack.

My primary argument is that Build Diversity is currently hampered by the fact there are numerous abilities that are simply outclassed— as another example Guardians have a wide number of abilities to deal with projectiles: Wall of Reflection, Shield of the Avenger, Sanctuary, and Shield of Absorption

• Wall of Reflection is considered one of the Guardian’s main staples, to the point where they are almost always expected to be both traited for, and carrying this utility at all times.
• Shield of the Avenger is a skill that is extraordinarily useful in encounters where long term projectile defense is necessary (see: “niche usage”), particularly because it’s long duration allows for a fruitful WoR -> SotA -> WoR cycle. However it’s long cooldown, awkwardly placed traits, and fragility of the Shield (just for those unfamiliar with the skill Shield of the Avenger is a spirit weapon) prevents it from being an equal choice to the vastly more reliable Wall of Reflection.
• Because of its knockback component, Shield of Absorption sees some usage in the competitive modes of Guild Wars 2 (WvW, EotM, and PvP), however even after it’s recent buff, the fact that it’s a weapon skill (and thus takes up a slot) puts it in stiff competition the Guardian’s Focus skills, which provide superior defense in the form of a bouncing attack that inflicts Blind, and a skill that is a blast finisher and blocks up to three attacks (or deals significant damage if you have remaining charges when the duration runs out). When you factor in that 1) the knockback distance is short and only occurs on activation (hope you knocked your opponent off a cliff, otherwise they’re just going to be right on top of you again), 2) the skill roots you in place, leaving you quite vulnerable to follow up attacks, and 3) the duration of the skill’s projectile absorption is currently bugged (too short), even Torch is currently a preffered choice over Shield, meaning Shield of Absorption is the niche of the niche.
• And finally Sanctuary is basically considered garbage by a significant portion of the Guardian Community. On paper this sounds like a powerful skill— it provides healing, projectile absorption and prevents foes from entering its area. However this skill’s functionality is absolutely shredded by several significant flaws: 1) It’s duration is a scant 8 seconds when traited with a cooldown of 96 seconds when traited, makes this skill an immensely shallow payout that leaves you vulnerable for long periods of time. 2) While the skill is meant for defense, the radius is so small that it has been noted multiple times that opponents can reach you with AoEs, meaing your “Sanctuary” becomes a “I will sit here peacefully while you unload on me.” And finally 3) It is countered by stability and/or defiance, which means there is a significant likelyhood in any game type that the enemy you’re trying to protect yourself from is simply going to walk up and hit you anyway.

And just so you do not have to take my word for it, here are two threads in which the relative functionality of these skills is discussed: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Why-Wall-of-Reflection-is-your-friend-1 and https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Sanctuary-I-want-to-love-it-but. Again, please note the age of these threads as an illustration of how slowly balance passes have been made throughout the history of the game.

The words “optimal” and “viable” or “useable” have been thrown around this thread. Forgive me if I’ve misunderstood you, but it seems that your argument is, “if I can do something with it, then this skill is okay, therefore build diversity is okay.”
My argument is, in essence, “Build diversity will remain stagnant so long as we are being asked to choose between better and passable.”

So there you have it. I have apologized to you for having a differing opinion, I have responded to your desire for examples with multiple ones from two different proffessions (and I even chose two that are at opposite ends of the “how much does this class need help” spectrum), and I have included links for you so you can follow up on them for yourself.

With all that complete I will now take me leave. I hope that this puts an end to any potentially escalating personal attacks, and that all the participants in this thread can enjoy a healthy debate regardless of wether or not they posses differing opinions.

Lifestealer.4910:

Alot of the builds are usable actually, it just depends on the situation.

Then those builds are situational, rather than viable.

In which case they’re still not usable.

timmyf.1490:

heartless.6803:

In reality nobody really uses zerker gear all the time. Bosses like Teq can’t be crit at all and thus make zerker gear completely useless.

I use Zerker gear all the time in dungeons. I use Soldiers on Teq usually, but I’ve run it in Zerker a few times forgetting to change. No big deal. Slight DPS loss thanks to less of a buff from Sharpening Stones, but it’s marginal.

It’s hilarious how few people can dodge the wave, by the way.

Still, and this never seems to get through to people, GEAR IS ONLY PART OF BUILD. Gear has relatively little impact on play style: weapon choices and traits really affect quite a bit more. sigh.

True but it does vary pretty extensively on the class as well. Some classes don’t work very well in open world in zerker gear. I don’t wear it on my guardian and favor soldiers, I also don’t have very good reaction time and need a handicap.

Problem with traits, is the new trait system blows chunks. Like completely blows chunks. So new players don’t even have anything unlocked to use a proper build. Let alone any idea how to go about doing that. Build design is a bit complex to be truthful and without any way to remember or save builds most times people will look up a meta build because nothing is saved.

Having preset builds will do wonders for build design.

heartless.6803:

Until the taunt changes go in with HoT we don’t have any form of ability to tank. And even with that change it’s not going to cause a sudden need for tanks as survivability and healing are still not here.

Why do people still think taunt = tank and ignores defiant?

On the reflection I can hope they are learning from the mistake that mechanic is. Could you imagine if retaliation worked in a similar manner (I know in some encounters it is fairly bad as creatures within the game generally have inflated stats)? Reflection probably should have been based on the stat of the user not of the attacker that was reflected. As is complete negating the projectiles is already a strong effect.

Shiyo.3578:

heartless.6803:

Until the taunt changes go in with HoT we don’t have any form of ability to tank. And even with that change it’s not going to cause a sudden need for tanks as survivability and healing are still not here.

Why do people still think taunt = tank and ignores defiant?

With no viable threat system in place there can’t be a “tank” per say, but with a taunt brings about a form of threat management. However it’s limited in usage but still brings the ability. However, it largely depends on what weapons they get attached to. With the new changes and break out bar we’ll have to see how viable taunts will have. They’ll certainly have their place but again they won’t be a tank. It’s only attributed to that because taunts is a core mechanic of tanks. So yes, in every other game and literally everywhere else having a taunt usually means you are or have the capacity to tank.

heartless.6803:

So yes, in every other game and literally everywhere else having a taunt usually means you are or have the capacity to tank.

Hearts are not quests. Rangers are not Hunters. Elementalists are not Mages. Guild Wars 2 is not “every other game.”

Taunt won’t make tanking a thing, though it will make less informed players think it’s a think.

Krestfallen.8025:

The words “optimal” and “viable” or “useable” have been thrown around this thread. Forgive me if I’ve misunderstood you, but it seems that your argument is, “if I can do something with it, then this skill is okay, therefore build diversity is okay.”
My argument is, in essence, “Build diversity will remain stagnant so long as we are being asked to choose between better and passable.”

Actually, the “I can do something with it so it’s balanced” argument is used mostly by fanboys who are trying to defend ArenaNet with the argument that, “The game is perfect” ergo “Everything is perfectly balanced” ergo “There’s no useless trait” ergo “Someone somewhere must be able to do something with any given trait, and that’s evidence that everything is balanced”. It’s an argument not worth debating simply because it’s based on a wrong premise – the zealous belief that the game is perfect.

The true issue is that GW2 is balanced more due to PvP than PvE (regardless of how small the PvP community is when compared to the PvE or the WvW communities), and it’s easier to balance stuff for PvP if you keep a lot of things underpowered (and thus out of the way), while you focus on balancing the few things that actually matter.

Plus, ArenaNet likes to balance the game by making a few small changes, and seeing what happens. That’s not a bad thing, but the very slow frequency of those changes means that, in order for anything to significantly change at all, it will take months, if not years.

Which means, the current status quo will likely remain in place for a long time. Worse, with the introduction of new traits and skills with HoT, ArenaNet will likely use a lot of resources balancing the new additions to the game, ignoring everything that is currently there. Expect the currently underpowered skills and traits to remain so for a very, VERY long time.

Because PvE encounters are made in a certain way which favor certain builds over other builds.

Does anybody think it’s realistic to balance 80 traits so that they are all useful but never game-breaking across three very different game modes? I think if you get 20 to be useful, you’re doing pretty well.

timmyf.1490:

heartless.6803:

So yes, in every other game and literally everywhere else having a taunt usually means you are or have the capacity to tank.

Hearts are not quests. Rangers are not Hunters. Elementalists are not Mages. Guild Wars 2 is not “every other game.”

Taunt won’t make tanking a thing, though it will make less informed players think it’s a think.

Sigh, seriously get off the high horse.

In literally everything imaginable in existence in this genre having a taunt was given to things with the ability or potential to tank. So making that connection is extremely expected, and elementalists are mages with a different name. They portray the same thing with only minor differences depending on what game/novel.

Again….like I said, being given a taunt doesn’t imply that tanking is possible. In a round about way I’m sure people will try to make it work. Wear Nomad’s or Sentinels gear, spec very defensive and use a sword/shield or mace/focus or other defense weapons. The only issue is we don’t know what abilities will get taunts or where they’re going.

Breakout mechanic, old defiant mechanic, prevents it on major bosses but still the method would still work to lesser creatures.

For a lot of players, like myself, I rarely if ever do instances and don’t do a heck of a lot of events so these quirky builds are something I enjoy fiddling around with.

timmyf.1490:

Does anybody think it’s realistic to balance 80 traits so that they are all useful but never game-breaking across three very different game modes? I think if you get 20 to be useful, you’re doing pretty well.

If that is the case then numerous traits should probably be trimmed merged with others or made baseline as they are a waste of space at best and an illusion of choice at worst.

timmyf.1490:

Does anybody think it’s realistic to balance 80 traits so that they are all useful but never game-breaking across three very different game modes? I think if you get 20 to be useful, you’re doing pretty well.

This is why are some MMOs (WoW, SWTOR) moving away from old concept of talents or completly change way of how they work (ESO).

Bran.7425:

timmyf.1490:

Does anybody think it’s realistic to balance 80 traits so that they are all useful but never game-breaking across three very different game modes? I think if you get 20 to be useful, you’re doing pretty well.

If that is the case then numerous traits should probably be trimmed merged with others or made baseline as they are a waste of space at best and an illusion of choice at worst.

But a lot of them are fun! I like having the choices, even if I don’t ever plan to run them in coordinated group content.

heartless.6803:

timmyf.1490:

heartless.6803:

So yes, in every other game and literally everywhere else having a taunt usually means you are or have the capacity to tank.

Hearts are not quests. Rangers are not Hunters. Elementalists are not Mages. Guild Wars 2 is not “every other game.”

Taunt won’t make tanking a thing, though it will make less informed players think it’s a think.

Sigh, seriously get off the high horse.

In literally everything imaginable in existence in this genre having a taunt was given to things with the ability or potential to tank. So making that connection is extremely expected, and elementalists are mages with a different name. They portray the same thing with only minor differences depending on what game/novel.

The problem is that people bring preconceived notions of how these archetypes work and then wonder why things don’t go as planned. “Why would I bring a sword on my Hunter?”

Guild Wars 2 is my first MMO, so I guess I’m lucky to come in with a fresh perspective.

Sorry about the high horse. I’d fire back with some sort of witty metaphor, but to my knowledge, one doesn’t exist for “players who keep trying to turn Guild Wars 2 into some other game instead of playing it for what it is.”

timmyf.1490:

heartless.6803:

timmyf.1490:

heartless.6803:

So yes, in every other game and literally everywhere else having a taunt usually means you are or have the capacity to tank.

Hearts are not quests. Rangers are not Hunters. Elementalists are not Mages. Guild Wars 2 is not “every other game.”

Taunt won’t make tanking a thing, though it will make less informed players think it’s a think.

Sigh, seriously get off the high horse.

In literally everything imaginable in existence in this genre having a taunt was given to things with the ability or potential to tank. So making that connection is extremely expected, and elementalists are mages with a different name. They portray the same thing with only minor differences depending on what game/novel.

The problem is that people bring preconceived notions of how these archetypes work and then wonder why things don’t go as planned. “Why would I bring a sword on my Hunter?”

Guild Wars 2 is my first MMO, so I guess I’m lucky to come in with a fresh perspective.

Sorry about the high horse. I’d fire back with some sort of witty metaphor, but to my knowledge, one doesn’t exist for “players who keep trying to turn Guild Wars 2 into some other game instead of playing it for what it is.”

Historically, hunters are limited to only range and rangers had both ranged and melee with both being viable. However, rangers never historically had pets that was a hunter/beast master thing.

Most of these archetypes all come from Dungeons and Dragons, and really they haven’t changed much if at all. Even Guild Wars keeps pretty true to the old archetypes.

It was admirable that guild wars has tried to get rid of the holy trinity, tank healer dps, that has always been in place with roleplaying games. However, that lack leaves them without a lot of options. Which is why gw2’s pve instances leaves a lot to be desired. With no reliable way of keeping mobs attention and no real threat system it leaves you with kill them before they kill you. Hence the zerker meta, it’s highest damage. We basically have an instance of only dps with no tank or healer. So adding some sort of semi viable tank or healer esque thing will do wonders for lesser skilled players. As a large complaint with them is the inability to dodge things because of poor reaction time, which is me poor reaction time.

However, we’ll have to see where specializations are going. As we know literally next to nothing about them. They seem like they could be slowly moving more to the trinity side to allow build diversity without making it required to have one.

heartless.6803:

timmyf.1490:

heartless.6803:

timmyf.1490:

heartless.6803:

So yes, in every other game and literally everywhere else having a taunt usually means you are or have the capacity to tank.

Hearts are not quests. Rangers are not Hunters. Elementalists are not Mages. Guild Wars 2 is not “every other game.”

Taunt won’t make tanking a thing, though it will make less informed players think it’s a think.

Sigh, seriously get off the high horse.

In literally everything imaginable in existence in this genre having a taunt was given to things with the ability or potential to tank. So making that connection is extremely expected, and elementalists are mages with a different name. They portray the same thing with only minor differences depending on what game/novel.

The problem is that people bring preconceived notions of how these archetypes work and then wonder why things don’t go as planned. “Why would I bring a sword on my Hunter?”

Guild Wars 2 is my first MMO, so I guess I’m lucky to come in with a fresh perspective.

Sorry about the high horse. I’d fire back with some sort of witty metaphor, but to my knowledge, one doesn’t exist for “players who keep trying to turn Guild Wars 2 into some other game instead of playing it for what it is.”

Historically, hunters are limited to only range and rangers had both ranged and melee with both being viable. However, rangers never historically had pets that was a hunter/beast master thing.

Most of these archetypes all come from Dungeons and Dragons, and really they haven’t changed much if at all. Even Guild Wars keeps pretty true to the old archetypes.

It was admirable that guild wars has tried to get rid of the holy trinity, tank healer dps, that has always been in place with roleplaying games. However, that lack leaves them without a lot of options. Which is why gw2’s pve instances leaves a lot to be desired. With no reliable way of keeping mobs attention and no real threat system it leaves you with kill them before they kill you. Hence the zerker meta, it’s highest damage. We basically have an instance of only dps with no tank or healer. So adding some sort of semi viable tank or healer esque thing will do wonders for lesser skilled players. As a large complaint with them is the inability to dodge things because of poor reaction time, which is me poor reaction time.

However, we’ll have to see where specializations are going. As we know literally next to nothing about them. They seem like they could be slowly moving more to the trinity side to allow build diversity without making it required to have one.

The only effect taunt will have on bosses with the break bar (which would be pretty much every boss) would be reducing the bar, without the effects of the CC. And trash mobs die so easily that there isn’t really much of a point.

Test.8734:

Actually, the “I can do something with it so it’s balanced” argument is used mostly by fanboys who are trying to defend ArenaNet with the argument that, “The game is perfect” ergo “Everything is perfectly balanced” ergo “There’s no useless trait” ergo “Someone somewhere must be able to do something with any given trait, and that’s evidence that everything is balanced”. It’s an argument not worth debating simply because it’s based on a wrong premise – the zealous belief that the game is perfect.

How about, there are other builds besides Zerker and people that are Elite, but not Elitists, tend to run those? Healing has its place and is quite powerful, toughness and conditions have their place. Venom based thieves are far more annoying than heartseeker thieves and if you stick your head out of cof build diversity is quite diverse.

Test.8734:

The true issue is that GW2 is balanced more due to PvP than PvE (regardless of how small the PvP community is when compared to the PvE or the WvW communities)

where are you getting stats from? I know quite a few MMOs that died for catering only to PVE and leaving PvP broken. PvP is just as big of a part of this game as PVE is.

Lazaar.9123:

heartless.6803:

timmyf.1490:

heartless.6803:

timmyf.1490:

heartless.6803:

So yes, in every other game and literally everywhere else having a taunt usually means you are or have the capacity to tank.

Hearts are not quests. Rangers are not Hunters. Elementalists are not Mages. Guild Wars 2 is not “every other game.”

Taunt won’t make tanking a thing, though it will make less informed players think it’s a think.

Sigh, seriously get off the high horse.

In literally everything imaginable in existence in this genre having a taunt was given to things with the ability or potential to tank. So making that connection is extremely expected, and elementalists are mages with a different name. They portray the same thing with only minor differences depending on what game/novel.

The problem is that people bring preconceived notions of how these archetypes work and then wonder why things don’t go as planned. “Why would I bring a sword on my Hunter?”

Guild Wars 2 is my first MMO, so I guess I’m lucky to come in with a fresh perspective.

Sorry about the high horse. I’d fire back with some sort of witty metaphor, but to my knowledge, one doesn’t exist for “players who keep trying to turn Guild Wars 2 into some other game instead of playing it for what it is.”

Historically, hunters are limited to only range and rangers had both ranged and melee with both being viable. However, rangers never historically had pets that was a hunter/beast master thing.

Most of these archetypes all come from Dungeons and Dragons, and really they haven’t changed much if at all. Even Guild Wars keeps pretty true to the old archetypes.

It was admirable that guild wars has tried to get rid of the holy trinity, tank healer dps, that has always been in place with roleplaying games. However, that lack leaves them without a lot of options. Which is why gw2’s pve instances leaves a lot to be desired. With no reliable way of keeping mobs attention and no real threat system it leaves you with kill them before they kill you. Hence the zerker meta, it’s highest damage. We basically have an instance of only dps with no tank or healer. So adding some sort of semi viable tank or healer esque thing will do wonders for lesser skilled players. As a large complaint with them is the inability to dodge things because of poor reaction time, which is me poor reaction time.

However, we’ll have to see where specializations are going. As we know literally next to nothing about them. They seem like they could be slowly moving more to the trinity side to allow build diversity without making it required to have one.

The only effect taunt will have on bosses with the break bar (which would be pretty much every boss) would be reducing the bar, without the effects of the CC. And trash mobs die so easily that there isn’t really much of a point.

Depends, I can see taunts being used for positioning during burst moments. Break the bar and then taunt him to a key area for environmental damage. But that would be one encounters mechanic and not a widespread thing.

heartless.6803:

Lazaar.9123:

heartless.6803:

timmyf.1490:

heartless.6803:

timmyf.1490:

heartless.6803:

So yes, in every other game and literally everywhere else having a taunt usually means you are or have the capacity to tank.

Hearts are not quests. Rangers are not Hunters. Elementalists are not Mages. Guild Wars 2 is not “every other game.”

Taunt won’t make tanking a thing, though it will make less informed players think it’s a think.

Sigh, seriously get off the high horse.

In literally everything imaginable in existence in this genre having a taunt was given to things with the ability or potential to tank. So making that connection is extremely expected, and elementalists are mages with a different name. They portray the same thing with only minor differences depending on what game/novel.

The problem is that people bring preconceived notions of how these archetypes work and then wonder why things don’t go as planned. “Why would I bring a sword on my Hunter?”

Guild Wars 2 is my first MMO, so I guess I’m lucky to come in with a fresh perspective.

Sorry about the high horse. I’d fire back with some sort of witty metaphor, but to my knowledge, one doesn’t exist for “players who keep trying to turn Guild Wars 2 into some other game instead of playing it for what it is.”

Historically, hunters are limited to only range and rangers had both ranged and melee with both being viable. However, rangers never historically had pets that was a hunter/beast master thing.

Most of these archetypes all come from Dungeons and Dragons, and really they haven’t changed much if at all. Even Guild Wars keeps pretty true to the old archetypes.

It was admirable that guild wars has tried to get rid of the holy trinity, tank healer dps, that has always been in place with roleplaying games. However, that lack leaves them without a lot of options. Which is why gw2’s pve instances leaves a lot to be desired. With no reliable way of keeping mobs attention and no real threat system it leaves you with kill them before they kill you. Hence the zerker meta, it’s highest damage. We basically have an instance of only dps with no tank or healer. So adding some sort of semi viable tank or healer esque thing will do wonders for lesser skilled players. As a large complaint with them is the inability to dodge things because of poor reaction time, which is me poor reaction time.

However, we’ll have to see where specializations are going. As we know literally next to nothing about them. They seem like they could be slowly moving more to the trinity side to allow build diversity without making it required to have one.

The only effect taunt will have on bosses with the break bar (which would be pretty much every boss) would be reducing the bar, without the effects of the CC. And trash mobs die so easily that there isn’t really much of a point.

Depends, I can see taunts being used for positioning during burst moments. Break the bar and then taunt him to a key area for environmental damage. But that would be one encounters mechanic and not a widespread thing.

Actually, when the break bar is broken, they are completely immune to CC while something specific happens, one of the things shown so far is the boss being stunned and taking a lot more damage.

We are getting taunts and new stability system maybe we will get a challenging stuff that you cant just zerk

Rising Dusk.2408:

You’re mistaken, OP. All builds are usable, but only a select few builds are optimal. That goes without saying, though; no matter what you do some builds will be more useful for certain content than others, and that’s okay. You just have to decide if you want to play optimally or not, and make sure to set your expectations both for groups and for your personal speed based on that.

Good player considers that optimal build = usable build.

vpchelko.4261:

Good player considers that optimal build = usable build.

good player experiments instead of blindly going for the meta.

Mirta.5029:

vpchelko.4261:

Good player considers that optimal build = usable build.

good player experiments instead of blindly going for the meta.

Good player recognizes that the meta comes about through the collective experience of thousands of players and hundreds of thousands of hours and has enough humility to recognize his own experience pales in comparison.

timmyf.1490:

Good player recognizes that the meta comes about through the collective experience of thousands of players and hundreds of thousands of hours and has enough humility to recognize his own experience pales in comparison.

the current meta is beserker. From what I’ve seen it’s not the most fun, not the most useful and at least 70% of useless raging pugs follow it, so in general it’s not great. It’s not what’s the best period, but rather what is the most widespread.

Mirta.5029:

timmyf.1490:

Good player recognizes that the meta comes about through the collective experience of thousands of players and hundreds of thousands of hours and has enough humility to recognize his own experience pales in comparison.

the current meta is beserker. From what I’ve seen it’s not the most fun, not the most useful and at least 70% of useless raging pugs follow it, so in general it’s not great. It’s not what’s the best period, but rather what is the most widespread.

Zerker is the stat meta. That’s only part of it.

If somebody can do better, we have a thing called YouTube. They can prove it.

There’s a DnT tournament coming up as well. If the meta isn’t the best, GO WIN SOME EASY PRIZES!

timmyf.1490:

Zerker is the stat meta. That’s only part of it.

If somebody can do better, we have a thing called YouTube. They can prove it.

There’s a DnT tournament coming up as well. If the meta isn’t the best, GO WIN SOME EASY PRIZES!

I don’t think that you’ll see that much dungeon runner typical zerkers in a tournament. Normally you see quite complex group compositions.

Mirta.5029:

timmyf.1490:

Zerker is the stat meta. That’s only part of it.

If somebody can do better, we have a thing called YouTube. They can prove it.

There’s a DnT tournament coming up as well. If the meta isn’t the best, GO WIN SOME EASY PRIZES!

I don’t think that you’ll see that much dungeon runner typical zerkers in a tournament. Normally you see quite complex group compositions.

Honest question: where do you think the dungeon meta comes from?

The Meta comes from good guilds like DnT testing out many different combinations in Dungeons/WvW/TPvP/Open World and posting what they feel is the most EFFICIENT team combinations on YouTube and various forums. After that it’s lazy players that find those builds and decide that these builds are the ONLY way to play and everything else is inferior.

Galphar.3901:

The Meta comes from good guilds like DnT testing out many different combinations in Dungeons/WvW/TPvP/Open World and posting what they feel is the most EFFICIENT team combinations on YouTube and various forums. After that it’s lazy players that find those builds and decide that these builds are the ONLY way to play and everything else is inferior.

All them Zerglings fallowing the Hive masters ha.

Mirta.5029:

timmyf.1490:

Good player recognizes that the meta comes about through the collective experience of thousands of players and hundreds of thousands of hours and has enough humility to recognize his own experience pales in comparison.

the current meta is beserker. From what I’ve seen it’s not the most fun, not the most useful and at least 70% of useless raging pugs follow it, so in general it’s not great. It’s not what’s the best period, but rather what is the most widespread.

not that fun? since when did some random person’s opinion become such mandate that it could be used to claim that a meta “in general it’s not great”?

and no, the meta consists of a mixture of raw DPS and support DPS builds which happen to use berserker and/or assassin stats with some variation in runes and sigils. anyone who says “berserker is the meta” is either a clued up person being lazy and trying to shorthand or someone who doesn’t actually understand what the meta is and trying to pretend they know what they’re talking about.

speaking from an efficiency standpoint, the meta is the best, I don’t even know why you’re arguing against that – you might have had a point a year or so ago when we knew a lot less than we did now, but the meta is pretty set in stone at this point with all the research put in to it.

maha.7902:

not that fun? since when did some random person’s opinion become such mandate that it could be used to claim that a meta “in general it’s not great”?

and no, the meta consists of a mixture of raw DPS and support DPS builds which happen to use berserker and/or assassin stats with some variation in runes and sigils. anyone who says “berserker is the meta” is either a clued up person being lazy and trying to shorthand or someone who doesn’t actually understand what the meta is and trying to pretend they know what they’re talking about.

speaking from an efficiency standpoint, the meta is the best, I don’t even know why you’re arguing against that – you might have had a point a year or so ago when we knew a lot less than we did now, but the meta is pretty set in stone at this point with all the research put in to it.

meta is easy to follow, that’s about it, not to mention it does change from time to time. For example, 8 months ago Phallanx wasn’t set in stone as a requirement and greatsword was the warrior’s weapon of choice. While 100 blades is indeed the most damaging single ability in game, however you do better DPS by chaining many abilities rather than just spamming that one.
It kind of reminds me vanilla WoW days. Everyone ran the same, except for the very few that would well outperform the usual. The build diversity is there, however barely anyone takes time to look at it and build their own as they’re told to just run zerker. Rather barely anyone from the PVE crowd takes a look there. Spvp is pretty varied and WvW has its own standards.