Guild Wars 2

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The problem isn’t the existence of a meta. The problem is that the current meta has several facets that is undesireable to players. In particular, players want to be both useful while also being tanks and healers. Even if the LFGs change to “LF1M Cleric Druid or Kick”, the advantage is that players who want to heal now can play cleric druid and be welcome to parties.

But the disadvantage is that a guardian who doesn’t want to do that will have little room in the new content since that build is very necessary.
I mean sure – you could spread out the healing over multiple classes but why would you bother when you could force your guardian to play Cleric’s or replace him with one that will.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Cyninja.2954:

And all the TC is saying is, that while 1 problem is addressed, a new even bigger one is created. The bottleneck that is tanks and healers is no mythical pony. It’s something that is very real and has been a problem in the past in other games.

Well, the OP says a lot more than that, but everything else you say here is true. My main issue isn’t that the new “tank/heal/3dps” meta will be better. I think it won’t. My issue is that the line “there will always be a meta” is a caricature used to insult and dismiss anyone who disagrees with the zerker meta. There’s a certain point in the OP where I just stopped reading and started skimming, and it was right here:

Canakun.8031:

The reason there are some detractors from this meta (which is fine, the game very clearly allows for Play How I Want groups to clear content) is because not everyone can grasp the pre-buffing, the rotations, the correct time to dodge, etc. Whether this is due to latency, age, ability or otherwise is none of my business.

I’ve been around the sun a couple dozen times, and I’ve seen this kind of superiority fueled analytic BS before. Every time somebody goes on a stint explaining why other people disagree with their one true way I die a little inside, for my faith in the human race gets knocked another notch. Take this quote and remove the kid gloves, and you get this message:

“Other people (the PHIW) don’t want to play the way the rest of us play because they’re not competent enough to do it right. For whatever reason. I don’t care why.”

Which is ridiculous. It should be self evident that preference in play and competence in play are two unrelated qualities. I shouldn’t have to explain that one doesn’t lead to the other.

Don’t let the passive wording fool you. It is just fancy dressing on top of an elitist diatribe.

No – what you don’t get is that from an elitist point of view it does not matter why you are not playing the meta build – it doesn’t matter that you don’t play it because you’re not skilled enough or because you dislike it.
To an elite player and a farmer another player is a resource – an NPC – a bot – something that gets something done – I for example have absolutely no interest in why people who don’t run meta builds don’t run them.

If I want people with meta builds and you don’t have one – I will not play with you – your personal motivations and choices are entirely your own and have absolutely no value to me.

So ultimately whether you can’t play meta builds because of skill or won’t play meta builds because of choice is entirely irrelevant – you still don’t meet the required criteria and thus are not of interest.

Harper.4173:

But the disadvantage is that a guardian who doesn’t want to do that will have little room in the new content since that build is very necessary.
I mean sure – you could spread out the healing over multiple classes but why would you bother when you could force your guardian to play Cleric’s or replace him with one that will.

Not necessarily. For the ambiguous “that” to be true, a guardian would have to both inept at other roles but skilled at healing. If a guard is capable of both healing and damage, then both a healing guard and a damage guard could be in the same party.

The problem with this complaint is that it is far more specific, and thus it applies to far fewer people. There is a big difference between “I want to play a certain role” and “I want to play a certain role on a certain class”. The difference being the latter just changes classes, where the former just stops playing the game.

Harper.4173:

No – what you don’t get is that from an elitist point of view it does not matter why you are not playing the meta build – it doesn’t matter that you don’t play it because you’re not skilled enough or because you dislike it.

If it didn’t matter, then elitists wouldn’t spend time trying to come up with theories to explain someone else’s opinions are illegitimate.

EDIT: Fixed code

I am with PopeUrban on whole meta stuff.

And if you want to PUG raids then good luck for you (you will really need it). I am looking for raids like something more like Triple Trouble. Not hard by itself, but requiring knowledge of your role, and communication…

Also… On your position zerker levers, I wouldn’t be so scared. The way how whole game is designed. It promotes damage heavy builds. So even with changes I don’t think there will be reqirement like more than 1 healer (or even healer dps → zealot equipped) and tank (maybe even some sort of off-tank), and maybe something additional one person who invested in survival gear.

Well… META is the most optimal (group)build for running any given content.

This is how it was stated in the forums before. Some people think WE NEED these builds or we’ll be useless, or without chance, NO…

Meta suggests It will be the optimal build IF people follow the rotations, have the excact builds, teh same food, teh same group build and on and on and on.

If you ever pugged you should be aware most (experienced) pug groups can do all content as fast as most guild groups now, likewise most raids will be runnable, with PUGS, within a couple of weeks , maybe 1-2 months, after the content was released. WHY? cause people will have seen it, and done it and will make groups cause they need other players. The “It’s impossible with PUGs” is an illusion.

I have 18 characters running from Glass Meta dungeon builds to semi durable WvW scouts and tankier melee’s

I think I should have some characters whcih are durable enough for grup content even with a lot of pressure. I have several heal specs,
ele (water staff (zealot/Clerics),
guard (nomad/clerics or zealot/Clerics)
just made a “druid armor (zealot, will add clerics trinkets.)”
I even have a necro healing spec (Zealot/Clerics)…
and if this wouldn’t be enough I could fall back on my
shout heal warrior… (Zealot/Clerics.)

I think when we are used to Glass we could expect some changes in the meta, but I think we are very aware we are capable of dodging and negating/reflecting/ blocking/ mitigating/ incapacitating… to a point where we should be able to get a pug group through very, very soon.

Meta for lvl 1-50 fractals will remain the same, as will dungeons and WvW on the present avaialble proffesions. On the new specialisations some new meta will evolve. We’ll see it when it gets here.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Harper.4173:

But the disadvantage is that a guardian who doesn’t want to do that will have little room in the new content since that build is very necessary.
I mean sure – you could spread out the healing over multiple classes but why would you bother when you could force your guardian to play Cleric’s or replace him with one that will.

Not necessarily. For the ambiguous “that” to be true, a guardian would have to both inept at other roles but skilled at healing. If a guard is capable of both healing and damage, then both a healing guard and a damage guard could be in the same party.

The problem with this complaint is that it is far more specific, and thus it applies to far fewer people. There is a big difference between “I want to play a certain role” and “I want to play a certain role on a certain class”. The difference being the latter just changes classes, where the former just stops playing the game.

Harper.4173:

No – what you don’t get is that from an elitist point of view it does not matter why you are not playing the meta build – it doesn’t matter that you don’t play it because you’re not skilled enough or because you dislike it.

If it didn’t matter, then elitists wouldn’t spend time trying to come up with theories to explain someone else’s opinions are illegitimate.

EDIT: Fixed code

Let me try to explain things again – if certain roles are needed for raids then the classes that best perform those roles will be forced into them – you won’t be playing a “dps guardian” if you’re a guardian and your best role is “healer cleric” you’ll be doing that while the party looks for a “dps ele” or whatever else is needed.

The whole situation then becomes – if I’m in a raid and want to play a certain role l will now have to play that specific class that does the role best which will limit your options even more as I see it.

Regarding elitists – I can’t speak for anyone else but the things I wrote in my post are true for me – I will explain to people why playing a meta build is better but ultimately if they choose not to the reason is irrelevant.

Of course I will still attempt to explain to them why running meta builds is better and to attempt to convince them to be meta players – it is in my best interest since the more meta players there are the bigger the pool of people I can select teammates from.
I’m not going to force them and I’m not going to push it down their throats – I will suggest it and if they do not comply I am going to kick and not play with them.

For a meta player the spread and promotion of the meta is always beneficial – since it ensures a steady supply of standardized teammates.

As for why other people’s opinions are illegitimate? well I suppose the only true reason people (both elitist and non-elitist) have really ever needed is that it isn’t THEIR opinion.

Harper.4173:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Cyninja.2954:

And all the TC is saying is, that while 1 problem is addressed, a new even bigger one is created. The bottleneck that is tanks and healers is no mythical pony. It’s something that is very real and has been a problem in the past in other games.

Well, the OP says a lot more than that, but everything else you say here is true. My main issue isn’t that the new “tank/heal/3dps” meta will be better. I think it won’t. My issue is that the line “there will always be a meta” is a caricature used to insult and dismiss anyone who disagrees with the zerker meta. There’s a certain point in the OP where I just stopped reading and started skimming, and it was right here:

Canakun.8031:

The reason there are some detractors from this meta (which is fine, the game very clearly allows for Play How I Want groups to clear content) is because not everyone can grasp the pre-buffing, the rotations, the correct time to dodge, etc. Whether this is due to latency, age, ability or otherwise is none of my business.

I’ve been around the sun a couple dozen times, and I’ve seen this kind of superiority fueled analytic BS before. Every time somebody goes on a stint explaining why other people disagree with their one true way I die a little inside, for my faith in the human race gets knocked another notch. Take this quote and remove the kid gloves, and you get this message:

“Other people (the PHIW) don’t want to play the way the rest of us play because they’re not competent enough to do it right. For whatever reason. I don’t care why.”

Which is ridiculous. It should be self evident that preference in play and competence in play are two unrelated qualities. I shouldn’t have to explain that one doesn’t lead to the other.

Don’t let the passive wording fool you. It is just fancy dressing on top of an elitist diatribe.

No – what you don’t get is that from an elitist point of view it does not matter why you are not playing the meta build – it doesn’t matter that you don’t play it because you’re not skilled enough or because you dislike it.
To an elite player and a farmer another player is a resource – an NPC – a bot – something that gets something done – I for example have absolutely no interest in why people who don’t run meta builds don’t run them.

If I want people with meta builds and you don’t have one – I will not play with you – your personal motivations and choices are entirely your own and have absolutely no value to me.

So ultimately whether you can’t play meta builds because of skill or won’t play meta builds because of choice is entirely irrelevant – you still don’t meet the required criteria and thus are not of interest.

This kind of behaviour and mindset is exactly the reason why I always avoid groups looking specificlly for meta build. I hate to burst your bubble, kid, but META is not the only way to do the content in this game, and it will not be the only way to do content in HOT. People complain right and left, that there’s so little diversity in builds without realising the reason for this is that they ALL run a meta build. There’s so much build variaty in this game, which still does a decent job, but the majority of people (especially the kinds like you) don’t even bother look at them, nevermind try any of them, because you see “They’are NOT META, you see, so you can’t do any content if you dont run META, and if you don’t run meta i dont want you in my pt”.
I call complete BS on that one. Have you EVER, you personally, tried running different build, then the one set as META? I highly doubt so, but in the same time you’re too fast to reject ALL and ANY other builds out there. Have you ever heard of hybrid build? No? The druid have a potencial to become very powerful hybrid build with high healing output and surviability while putting out a decent damage – not a high damage, but decent enough, so it may not be called “healbot”, and it may not be needed for the sole purpose of his healing alone.

Good luck playing your meta build, I will keep staying clean of your type of groups. Just don’t come around here and complain that there’s not any variaty in builds. There is many. The fact that you’re too ignorant and blind to see them, doesn’t mean they’re not there.

Since I joined this game I never played with specific meta build. Oh surprise, surprise.
I didn’t have any trouble finding groups to do any content – dungeons/fractals, you name it. How did I do this? Did I pulled some mysterious magic out of my sleeve or something? No. Nothing like this This simply shows, from my experience and and my point of view, that there are ways to run specific content, even if you don’t have the “holly meta build”.

Also what i find very funny is, how many already decided what the raids will look like, how they will run and what they will need a month before they are even released and anyone actually TRY to run them. Some people should really stop expressing their assumptions and expectations as solid facts. That’s just another complete BS.

Interesting problem saying you want META for raids. META for raids could be full celestial even… Or Condi only for some paths…Or maybe only build around sustain, not even remotely touching DPS

Understand META could be completely different for -ALL PATHS-…
Saying you want meta only could mean you only can run it when having 3 or 4 diferent armors with different runes… and 3 or 4 sets of trinkets and weapons, Or only legendary sets.

This because -META is the optimal build for the given content- Not neccesarily the fastest, maybe it will be then tankiest, or the builds most focussed on condi removes, or negation….

META is not yet established , not for the first leg , nor for all the other legs. Saying you want meta only is a problem when there is no clue whatsoever what the META would be…or could be…. or what problems arise and which solutions and synergies are needed to complete the content…

We’ll see… But we do know the present all out DPS META will probably not be sufficient to complete the content, or the developers are not adept enough in using it to it’s dullest potential… (which would be a big problem and cause serious problems when creating the ultimate challenging content)

On 18 characters I only run 3 Zerk Meta’s… 3 and often they are modded in run to create for me/my party optimalised variants on the META, leaving them Off-meta and just ZERK builds, this as I ignore zerk meta groups as 90% only is able to do content using exploits and shortcuts…. I really think working to play with PUGS will improve my capacity for ‘being creative’ and improve my ways and thougths to think outside the box….
The small little box only focussed on STACK, BUFF,REFELECT, DODGE 2.5 secs after the telegraph and continue…
Which only gives a minor understanding of all possible utility ingame…
Ignoring fields other then fire lightning and water and thinking you mastered the games potential…
The little box…. of horrors….

Harper.4173:

Let me try to explain things again – if certain roles are needed for raids then the classes that best perform those roles will be forced into them – you won’t be playing a “dps guardian” if you’re a guardian and your best role is “healer cleric” you’ll be doing that while the party looks for a “dps ele” or whatever else is needed.

The whole situation then becomes – if I’m in a raid and want to play a certain role l will now have to play that specific class that does the role best which will limit your options even more as I see it.

The thing is, this isn’t necessarily true, either. Counter example: a soft-role in the game is projectile stopper. It is necessary for many things, such as the high level grawl fractal. This “role” is fulfilled by many classes, particularly guardians, mesmers, elementalists, soon revenants, and possibly engineer, too. I’m not too keen on current engi builds. Anyway, the best projectile stopper out of them all is the mesmer, and yet guards and eles are more than sufficient at stopping the lava elementals at each wave. If you are in a party without one of the above 4, you’re in for a world of hurt, but so long as you have one it is doable.

Similar thing here. The “best” class at any role only becomes a necessity if content is designed assuming the “best” role. The traditional trinity system built encounters in this exact way: calculate maximum effective HP and healing of the optimum tank + healer combo, then give enemies just under that amount of damage. In other games, this forced people to build for the maximum in any role. If GW2 doesn’t balance this way, then the “healer” role can be fulfilled by many classes.

That said, this is a legitimate concern, and it is the first one I had seeing how much healing the druid outputs. I’m hopeful that Anet is just underestimating how much a quick change in tactics of engagement can mitigate damage, and if not I’m hopeful that Anet is wise enough to not make only the best possible healer a requirement.

MirrorOfNature.4279:

I hate to burst your bubble, kid, but META is not the only way to do the content in this game, and it will not be the only way to do content in HOT.

I didn’t say it will be the only way to do content – I said it’s the only way to do content that has value to me and other meta players – you can do content any way you want but personally I have a choice whether or not to play with someone based on his way of playing the game.
Also – is “kid” supposed to be an insult? Get over yourself.

MirrorOfNature.4279:

eople complain right and left, that there’s so little diversity in builds without realising the reason for this is that they ALL run a meta build. There’s so much build variaty in this game, which still does a decent job, but the majority of people (especially the kinds like you) don’t even bother look at them, nevermind try any of them, because you see “They’are NOT META, you see, so you can’t do any content if you dont run META, and if you don’t run meta i dont want you in my pt”.

I’ve never complained about the lack of build diversity because I do not care about build diversity. What I care about is getting rewards fast and easy.

MirrorOfNature.4279:

I call complete BS on that one. Have you EVER, you personally, tried running different build, then the one set as META? I highly doubt so, but in the same time you’re too fast to reject ALL and ANY other builds out there. Have you ever heard of hybrid build? No? The druid have a potencial to become very powerful hybrid build with high healing output and surviability while putting out a decent damage – not a high damage, but decent enough, so it may not be called “healbot”, and it may not be needed for the sole purpose of his healing alone.

Why would I try something when there’s already something else that does the job better? What would the purpose of that be?
I did try a lot of builds at the start of the game before we had a meta – and ultimately understand why having a meta is better – it provides the optimal tools for your problems and necessities.

MirrorOfNature.4279:

ood luck playing your meta build, I will keep staying clean of your type of groups. Just don’t come around here and complain that there’s not any variaty in builds. There is many. The fact that you’re too ignorant and blind to see them, doesn’t mean they’re not there.

Once again – you may go over my posting history (all 62 pages of it) and conclude that I haven’t complained about a lack of build diversity. I have never cared for such a concept nor will I probably ever care about it.

MirrorOfNature.4279:

ce I joined this game I never played with specific meta build. Oh surprise, surprise.
I didn’t have any trouble finding groups to do any content – dungeons/fractals, you name it. How did I do this? Did I pulled some mysterious magic out of my sleeve or something? No. Nothing like this This simply shows, from my experience and and my point of view, that there are ways to run specific content, even if you don’t have the “holly meta build”.

Great – enjoy the game the way you like it – I have no problems with you as long as we never actually end up in the same party together.

MirrorOfNature.4279:

Also what i find very funny is, how many already decided what the raids will look like, how they will run and what they will need a month before they are even released and anyone actually TRY to run them. Some people should really stop expressing their assumptions and expectations as solid facts. That’s just another complete BS.

It doesn’t matter what they look like -what matters is that they will be hard – and experiences teach us this : the harder the content the stricter the meta and the more elitist the people doing said content are.

If raids are hard my expectations will be correct -only very good players with very strict party comps will succeed consistently.

If raids are easy then Anet has failed once again to provide actual difficult content and we’ll have Dungeons “metazerk” 2.0 in a short time.

PaxTheGreatOne.9472:

Interesting problem saying you want META for raids. META for raids could be full celestial even… Or Condi only for some paths…Or maybe only build around sustain, not even remotely touching DPS

Understand META could be completely different for -ALL PATHS-…
Saying you want meta only could mean you only can run it when having 3 or 4 diferent armors with different runes… and 3 or 4 sets of trinkets and weapons, Or only legendary sets.

This because -META is the optimal build for the given content- Not neccesarily the fastest, maybe it will be then tankiest, or the builds most focussed on condi removes, or negation….

META is not yet established , not for the first leg , nor for all the other legs. Saying you want meta only is a problem when there is no clue whatsoever what the META would be…or could be…. or what problems arise and which solutions and synergies are needed to complete the content…

We’ll see… But we do know the present all out DPS META will probably not be sufficient to complete the content, or the developers are not adept enough in using it to it’s dullest potential… (which would be a big problem and cause serious problems when creating the ultimate challenging content)

On 18 characters I only run 3 Zerk Meta’s… 3 and often they are modded in run to create for me/my party optimalised variants on the META, leaving them Off-meta and just ZERK builds, this as I ignore zerk meta groups as 90% only is able to do content using exploits and shortcuts…. I really think working to play with PUGS will improve my capacity for ‘being creative’ and improve my ways and thougths to think outside the box….
The small little box only focussed on STACK, BUFF,REFELECT, DODGE 2.5 secs after the telegraph and continue…
Which only gives a minor understanding of all possible utility ingame…
Ignoring fields other then fire lightning and water and thinking you mastered the games potential…
The little box…. of horrors….

I can easily make as many gear sets and weapons with whatever runes are needed since I’ve been stocking up on gold way before the expansion was announced. So yes – meta only is fine by me – I can run that and I can afford the expenses – I hardly doubt we’ll need more than 10 different stat sets.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Harper.4173:

Let me try to explain things again – if certain roles are needed for raids then the classes that best perform those roles will be forced into them – you won’t be playing a “dps guardian” if you’re a guardian and your best role is “healer cleric” you’ll be doing that while the party looks for a “dps ele” or whatever else is needed.

The whole situation then becomes – if I’m in a raid and want to play a certain role l will now have to play that specific class that does the role best which will limit your options even more as I see it.

The thing is, this isn’t necessarily true, either. Counter example: a soft-role in the game is projectile stopper. It is necessary for many things, such as the high level grawl fractal. This “role” is fulfilled by many classes, particularly guardians, mesmers, elementalists, soon revenants, and possibly engineer, too. I’m not too keen on current engi builds. Anyway, the best projectile stopper out of them all is the mesmer, and yet guards and eles are more than sufficient at stopping the lava elementals at each wave. If you are in a party without one of the above 4, you’re in for a world of hurt, but so long as you have one it is doable.

Similar thing here. The “best” class at any role only becomes a necessity if content is designed assuming the “best” role. The traditional trinity system built encounters in this exact way: calculate maximum effective HP and healing of the optimum tank + healer combo, then give enemies just under that amount of damage. In other games, this forced people to build for the maximum in any role. If GW2 doesn’t balance this way, then the “healer” role can be fulfilled by many classes.

That said, this is a legitimate concern, and it is the first one I had seeing how much healing the druid outputs. I’m hopeful that Anet is just underestimating how much a quick change in tactics of engagement can mitigate damage, and if not I’m hopeful that Anet is wise enough to not make only the best possible healer a requirement.

You make a fair point – but this doesn’t fix the problem.
If mesmer is best at reflecting but ele brings enough reflects for the raid while bringing let’s say superior dps then there’s never any reason to bring mesmer over ele. Because even if he’s strongest at reflecting it isn’t needed.

Simlarly we might see a requirement for the class that does “good enough of role X as needed to progress while adding as much to the party as possible” – in this case engineers, eles and guardians might fare very well with other more niche-classes being left aside.

Personally I think they won’t make it a “requirement” but I think the community will – because if you need let’s say 10k healing over 5 seconds – you can have one guy provide it all or you can have 3-4 guys coordinating and each pitching in 2-3-4k heals in order to do it.
Overall the strain is greater on 3-4 people and the need for coordination is also a hindrance – that’s why this requirement will most likely be outsourced to a single person: the group healer.

I actually had great hopes for HoT raid content but if Druid healing capacity is any indicator – things don’t look so great.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The thing is, this isn’t necessarily true, either. Counter example: a soft-role in the game is projectile stopper. It is necessary for many things, such as the high level grawl fractal. This “role” is fulfilled by many classes, particularly guardians, mesmers, elementalists, soon revenants, and possibly engineer, too. I’m not too keen on current engi builds. Anyway, the best projectile stopper out of them all is the mesmer, and yet guards and eles are more than sufficient at stopping the lava elementals at each wave. If you are in a party without one of the above 4, you’re in for a world of hurt, but so long as you have one it is doable.

An ele has projectile defense only on weapon skills (which he cannot swap) so in reality he has to sacrifice superior staff weapon for focus. At the same time, mesmer can do it while slotting one utility skill.

Harper.4173:

Personally I think they won’t make it a “requirement” but I think the community will – because if you need let’s say 10k healing over 5 seconds – you can have one guy provide it all or you can have 3-4 guys coordinating and each pitching in 2-3-4k heals in order to do it.
Overall the strain is greater on 3-4 people and the need for coordination is also a hindrance – that’s why this requirement will most likely be outsourced to a single person: the group healer.

I actually had great hopes for HoT raid content but if Druid healing capacity is any indicator – things don’t look so great.

I wouldn’t expect random pugs completing raids at the launch. I’d recommend to find 9 friends and try different tactics instead of playing with strangers who will give up after a first failure and won’t ever think about adapting.

rotten.9753:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The thing is, this isn’t necessarily true, either. Counter example: a soft-role in the game is projectile stopper. It is necessary for many things, such as the high level grawl fractal. This “role” is fulfilled by many classes, particularly guardians, mesmers, elementalists, soon revenants, and possibly engineer, too. I’m not too keen on current engi builds. Anyway, the best projectile stopper out of them all is the mesmer, and yet guards and eles are more than sufficient at stopping the lava elementals at each wave. If you are in a party without one of the above 4, you’re in for a world of hurt, but so long as you have one it is doable.

An ele has projectile defense only on weapon skills (which he cannot swap) so in reality he has to sacrifice superior staff weapon for focus. At the same time, mesmer can do it while slotting one utility skill.

Or… as is already their most prominent meta build, they take the powerful auras trait (Because they take water anyway for its early traits, and powerful auras is competing with two healing traits) and share the staff’s magnetic aura, which not only blocks, but actually reflects projectiles.

Eponet.4829:

Or… as is already their most prominent meta build, they take the powerful auras trait ans share the staff’s magnetic aura.

That’s 16,67% uptime of reflections. Do you believe it would be enough for fractals 80+?

rotten.9753:

Eponet.4829:

Or… as is already their most prominent meta build, they take the powerful auras trait ans share the staff’s magnetic aura.

That’s 16,67% uptime of reflections. Do you believe it would be enough for fractals 80+?

Given that 2-3 elementalists and a thief tend to be included, yes, that is probably enough for most encounters.

Canakun.8031:

PopeUrban.2578:

Canakun.8031:

Rashagar.8349:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I really enjoy it when people talk about “ending the meta”. But as stated, once one meta dies, another is born. The anti-meta becomes the meta. It’s Metaception!

Well the only reason it will never go away is because there will always be people who believe it’s the only way to play. If people stopped caring about it it would never come back.

I don’t believe it will ever go away, but that’s only because the people who push it will never stop pushing.

A meta isn’t about being the “only way to play,” it’s about being the most optimal, most efficient way to play. Some people like efficiency, especially when they’re grinding content multiple times.

This is true. The meta is only a problem when a meta comp is, as it is now, not just more efficient, but so much more efficient that it can complete a run in literally half the time based solely on build rather than player skill

Take a look back at GW1, take something like the SS necro meta. It was more efficient, but in the end, if you took another well designed group that wasn’t running it, your clear times were at least 90% as efficient. Might stacking zerk meta is able to literally remove 40% of the party and have the same clear times as a balanced non-meta comp.

Nobody wants content to be faceroll, but what people do want is to bring in characters they actually like to play, make some adjustments to traits, weapons, and armor, and still feel like they’re being decently efficient.

It’s not based solely on build.
You still need to know what you’re doing, and have the skills to complete content at half the intended speed.

I’m not going to be one of those people that says “zerk is faceroll” I’ve done it. It isn’t. It requires just as much coordination, not more, than running a balanced build. You blast fire, pop reflects and aegis at the right time, and position yourself well. It’s the same thing any non-meta group composition does. It just happens to pay out stupidly faster clear times for it.

That is totally based upon build alone. Take the same players, hand them a more balanced group, and see if they can even come close to half the same clear time. They can’t. It isn’t because the people playing the might stack meta are good and the balanced group with a condi necro, full prot guard, and random assorted non-warrior DPS is bad. It’s because they picked the build that, through a quirk of game design, is capable of running the content twice as fast or faster, assuming both groups play their toons and their party correctly.

The possibility of completing it that much faster is all about build, class, and skill design and has nothing to do with player skill at all. When discussing balance you don’t balance player skill. You can’t balance player skill. You balance around best case scenarios, assuming the people playing the game are playing their characters with equal degrees of skill in terms of hitting the proper positioning, reactions, and skill rotations.

Canakun.8031:

I want to preface this by stating that every game, and every game type within that game, will always have a most viable way of doing things. There will always be a best way to do damage, a best way to survive, and a most efficent way to do both simultaneously.

For most MMO’s this is a set amount of players dealing damage, with 1 or 2 or sometimes 3 players actively holding threat, and a couple of backliners keeping every body alive, either through mitigation or straight healing. This works well for other games, and it’s a type of play that GW2 sought to remove itself from.

This isn’t to say that the Druid will completely destroy the game or anything, however I have noticed people on the forums, and ofcourse developers themselves, say things that completely… baffle me.

The current state of GW2’s meta is that the best way to kill enemies is to kill them, and the best way to not take damage is to not take damage. That’s how you play the game, that’s how the game teaches you how to play the game, and a meta that focuses on a maximised offence is what was born from it. I see big names like Nike and Brazil mention it all the time that the faster you take down an enemy the less time that enemy has to potentially deal damage to you.

The reason there are some detractors from this meta (which is fine, the game very clearly allows for Play How I Want groups to clear content) is because not everyone can grasp the pre-buffing, the rotations, the correct time to dodge, etc. Whether this is due to latency, age, ability or otherwise is none of my business.

What we’ve heard today is that the Devs are supporting a shift away from the damage/dodging meta that gets content cleared quickly. This is likely because of the constant complains from people that their particular class or their particular build isn’t welcome in a meta environment.

What nobody seems to be accounting for is that by creating content that needs a healer to heal, the developers are casuing the following (assuming raid content is exactly as they want it to be).

- A new meta that is much stricter than the previous meta. It will no longer be a “LF1M zerk” situtation but a “LF1M druid CLERICS OR KICK” situation.
- For this reason, the people who complained about the zerk meta will eventually complain about the druid meta. This is just my subjective anecdotal experience, but the majority of PHIW complainers are ranger mains who like their bear and their bow a little too much. Guys, you’re going to be pigeon holed so much more now that you’re the only class that can fulfill the role as dedicated healer. You have EVEN LESS BUILD DIVERSITY now.

- 2 years down the line, there will be a STRICTER set of viable ways to clear content. There will be more people complaining.

- This MAY REQUIRE THE NEED FOR AN INSPECT OPTION. This is a really important one in my opinion. Now that specific sets of gear are needed for specific builds on specific classes, there will actually be a need for an inspect feature. Raid leaders who are making pug groups will need a solid way of ensuring that the players who’ve signed up for a certain role are actually fulfilling that role. Because there will still be PHIW people detracting from the new meta (did i mention the new meta will be stricter than the zerk meta?) This will also warrant a gear lock-in system for raids.

I thought I’d be able to word this a lot more eloquently than I did but this is about all I have to say.
To summarise.
- New meta will be stricter.
- Will be complained about just as much, if not more than zerk meta 2 years down the line.
- Creates the need for additional features such as inspection and gear locking.

There it is guys. You ended the super strict super elitist zerk meta, and in doing so created what could potentially be twice as strict and twice as elitist. Just because someone kicked you for running clerics.

That was as eloquent as it needed to be. I might end up buying HoT just to witness the in game whining and group kicking first hand…just so I say some “I told you so’s” lol.

Altair.8402:

Yeah, I don’t understand the mindset of people who think “oh, now the zerk meta is dead, I can join any group and run whatever I want!”

The same people who were kicking people for not running zerkers will now kick the people not running whatever the new meta is.

Exactly, so you just still have the exact same problem. All these resources spent only to shift the meta to slight one group vs another. You still have the net result of unhappy players on one camp or another. You still have players not able to truly play how they want. You still have approximately the same level of complaints and unhappiness. Now you will have players unhappy about trinity style game play…and legitimately so since the game was advertised as the opposite upon purchase. Now you will have players unhappy they are dependent on some other player to keep them alive…versus being able to manage that by themselves. Now you are going to have some rangers upset that they are being expected to heal…when maybe they don’t enjoy being a healer. These are likely the same rangers who screamed for a change and didn’t know what they were getting themselves into. Now, not only can they not use their beloved bear-bow builds, but they are going to have to heal instead. At least before, you were already outside of the meta…so people had minimal expectations of you to begin with. Now, you are the meta, but its for something you probably never wanted to do in the first place…and you have mandatory expectations to live up to this meta.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Cyninja.2954:

And all the TC is saying is, that while 1 problem is addressed, a new even bigger one is created. The bottleneck that is tanks and healers is no mythical pony. It’s something that is very real and has been a problem in the past in other games.

Well, the OP says a lot more than that, but everything else you say here is true. My main issue isn’t that the new “tank/heal/3dps” meta will be better. I think it won’t. My issue is that the line “there will always be a meta” is a caricature used to insult and dismiss anyone who disagrees with the zerker meta. There’s a certain point in the OP where I just stopped reading and started skimming, and it was right here:

Canakun.8031:

The reason there are some detractors from this meta (which is fine, the game very clearly allows for Play How I Want groups to clear content) is because not everyone can grasp the pre-buffing, the rotations, the correct time to dodge, etc. Whether this is due to latency, age, ability or otherwise is none of my business.

I’ve been around the sun a couple dozen times, and I’ve seen this kind of superiority fueled analytic BS before. Every time somebody goes on a stint explaining why other people disagree with their one true way I die a little inside, for my faith in the human race gets knocked another notch. Take this quote and remove the kid gloves, and you get this message:

“Other people (the PHIW) don’t want to play the way the rest of us play because they’re not competent enough to do it right. For whatever reason. I don’t care why.”

Which is ridiculous. It should be self evident that preference in play and competence in play are two unrelated qualities. I shouldn’t have to explain that one doesn’t lead to the other.

Don’t let the passive wording fool you. It is just fancy dressing on top of an elitist diatribe.

I’m sorry, but that was a complete internalization of your own issues…brought to life in electronic print. He said nothing that hasn’t been openly admitted by many phiw players on these same forums. He did not target anyone specifically…especially not you. The fact that there will always be a meta….is just that a fact. A meta is just a consensus, constructed by players, of what the best/most efficient way to do a certain type of content is. How can that not always exist? Saying that it will always exist has no bias or intent…just stating a fact. It can’t be helped that those who have been so vehement against the “zerker meta” will feel personally targeted by any statements alluding to the fact that all of their complaints have lead to something that will be arguably worse and not even accomplish what they wanted.

There have been many instances on these forums where people have outright admitted that they are against twitch game play (the essence of the zerker meta) because they are unable to meet the reactionary requirements or just don’t want to meet those requirements. Him saying that, again, is not targeting anyone to insult them…its just acknowledging real issues. Its not like he says anything negative about them. He even goes along to say its none of his business why they can’t or don’t want to meet these type of requirements. What more can you ask from the guy, to not be confrontational or elitist?

The closest thing I see to what you are describing in his OP is that he says that dealing damage and not taking damage are the ways to play the game. He could have possibly worded it slightly different by one single word….by including the word “optimal”. That is a far stretch from him being elitist or exhibiting any type of superiority. Honestly your extreme reaction to, what amounts to an omission of a single adjective, is telling. You go on to twist and reword what he said into what you want to think he said. I think the reaction to the OP was a bit over the top is all.

First of all, to go back to an old point, let’s not humor it by raising it to a dignity of a ‘meta’. There’s no meaningful competitive drive behind these build optimizations, it’s a misappropriation of the term.

Second, the existence of preferred builds is really a construct of the player base. Efficiency varies, sure, but even ‘hard’ content is designed to be completed by a very wide variety of comps, there’s no (or barely any) game enforcement of it, it’s just a player preference for efficiency that’s been given this holy status.

~~~

The flip side of that is that there will always be a preference because the human mind is wired that way. It just won’t be super meaningful.

PopeUrban.2578:

Gav.1425:

Why do you think that a random team should be comparable to a team specifically designed for content?

It’s the stated balance goal of the game. Literally “every class can fill any role”

It’s not a matter of random teams. It’s a matter of taking a random assortment of classes and ensuring that if each player in the comp makes build adjustments so that it results in a balanced comp of heavy DPS, support builds, and damage soak builds that the content is actually completable within a reasonable time frame compared to all other group compositions with the intended mix of roles.

As of right now, there is one, and only one role that has any value in PvE, and that role is damage. You can run that role on any class. The problem is that by function of class design one specific comp is not just more efficient, but so much more efficient that it makes it a waste of time to run anything else

Do you really think arenanet intended that all content be completable by nothing but damage builds with a bare minimum of support? It is obvious they view this as a problem, and it’s not the fault of the players, but the fault of how classes, skills, and content is designed.

all damage builds should be a no-go as much as running all bunker builds or all support builds as if your content doesn’t require people to bring a balanced party with a mix of roles, why would you bother designing those roles, or providing gear for those roles?

You should have to make sure you have a good group comp for content. As of right now there are plenty of good comps, but they’re all overshadowed by a single group comp that is 20 times more efficient

That’s a problem, and one Anet seems to intend to fix. When your design goal is that class roles are flexible, and players should have the ability to take any selection of classes and choose builds that make it work, it breaks the entire system when one specific option is not just slightly better (there will always be a comp that is more efficient than others) but so much better that it makes all other options effectively pointless in comparison

Zerk is just as bad as if the meta was “all healers” or “all tanks” or “All engineers” etc. etc.

Healthy balance means not just giving people the option of running multiple roles, but ensuring that in order to complete content those roles are required, otherwise you end up in the situation we are in right now. There is one role, everybody does it, and it severely hampers build options and trivializes content. That’s just bad for the health of the game.

I think you two are getting crossed up in word choices. I think you are really talking about the same thing and are probably largely in agreement with each other. When i read the word “comparable” in the quoted text…I’m thinking he was specifically talking about performance level and efficiency, not that the random group couldn’t complete the content with relative ease. I think he was just saying there should be a difference in performance of a hand picked group…tailor made to the situations…versus random pugs trying to coordinate.

There is not only one build that can complete content. That was why ANET’s design was a success. All builds are able to complete content. That being said, it is more difficult for some builds due to them being allowed to refuse key aspects in their build…in attempts to go for maximum survival or role play aspects. A full nomad group can clear content…it just takes much longer. There is also no such thing as an all damage or an all bunker build. The professions are designed well enough where there are a minimum of support and control aspects built into the base professions. Any typical build will have to come across and accept a few of these traits and weapon skills no matter what. Damage builds in particular, need these more than survival builds.

The real problem came in with allowing these alternate gear sets to begin with in PvE upon launch of the game. This game players the impression that they would be able to be tanks or healers. Once they made that mistake, it has been a huge snowball ever since. They didn’t want to bite the bullet and pull them from PvE early on…so now we are dealing with the inevitable consequences. Without the stat combination differences, everything could have been all about traits and utilities….especially since they pulled the stats off of the trait lines…for very similar reasons. In the absence of huge stat combination inequities, all three roles would have truly been viable simultaneously on every profession and balance would have been much simpler.

Pretty decent point really. I think back to GW1. Gear stats weren’t really a thing outside of skill runes. You basically chose between more HP or more points in a skill.

However, they went the more traditional ‘stats that do stuff’ route for GW2, so it follows that, if you’re designing gear “for tanks” or gear “for healers” etc. then it follows that your content needs to encourage people, somehow, to actually play those roles.

I think anet has a pretty long histroy of being overly optimistic about player action in stead of taking the measured approach that players are the enemy of balance and will mercilessly exploit any weakness in your system

The current situation likely doesn’t align with anet’s intent for the combat systems, but until now they’re have higher priorities than creating challenging and meaningful PvE combat as the studio has been largely focused on esports and living story narrative, both of which have radically different balance concerns.

PvP actually uses stats that are wasted in PvE, and the LS releases, being largely solo endeavors favor self sufficient damage -wth-a-dash-of-sustain builds which are the overall “damage meta” in the first place.

only now do we see them sitting down and going “okay, maybe we should have more builds than damage with a little support in our game, and the only way to make that happen is to make it as efficient as what people run now”

PopeUrban.2578:

Pretty decent point really. I think back to GW1. Gear stats weren’t really a thing outside of skill runes. You basically chose between more HP or more points in a skill.

However, they went the more traditional ‘stats that do stuff’ route for GW2, so it follows that, if you’re designing gear “for tanks” or gear “for healers” etc. then it follows that your content needs to encourage people, somehow, to actually play those roles.

I think anet has a pretty long histroy of being overly optimistic about player action in stead of taking the measured approach that players are the enemy of balance and will mercilessly exploit any weakness in your system

The current situation likely doesn’t align with anet’s intent for the combat systems, but until now they’re have higher priorities than creating challenging and meaningful PvE combat as the studio has been largely focused on esports and living story narrative, both of which have radically different balance concerns.

PvP actually uses stats that are wasted in PvE, and the LS releases, being largely solo endeavors favor self sufficient damage -wth-a-dash-of-sustain builds which are the overall “damage meta” in the first place.

only now do we see them sitting down and going “okay, maybe we should have more builds than damage with a little support in our game, and the only way to make that happen is to make it as efficient as what people run now”

Plenty of players do use those other gears and enjoy them. It’s not for me or you or OBD or my friend Seth to tell them not to do it or that the gear and style they like is a waste.

Even if it’s not optimal it allows some fun contrast and differences and styles, and I’m all for that (as we all should be).

Saying they’re ‘wasted’ because they’re not optimal isn’t really right, imo. People use them. -especially as you note across the different primary and secondary game modes.

The player action isn’t so onesided outside of these forum discussions and a particular faction in dungeon LFGs

PopeUrban.2578:

Canakun.8031:

Rashagar.8349:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I really enjoy it when people talk about “ending the meta”. But as stated, once one meta dies, another is born. The anti-meta becomes the meta. It’s Metaception!

Well the only reason it will never go away is because there will always be people who believe it’s the only way to play. If people stopped caring about it it would never come back.

I don’t believe it will ever go away, but that’s only because the people who push it will never stop pushing.

A meta isn’t about being the “only way to play,” it’s about being the most optimal, most efficient way to play. Some people like efficiency, especially when they’re grinding content multiple times.

This is true. The meta is only a problem when a meta comp is, as it is now, not just more efficient, but so much more efficient that it can complete a run in literally half the time based solely on build rather than player skill

Take a look back at GW1, take something like the SS necro meta. It was more efficient, but in the end, if you took another well designed group that wasn’t running it, your clear times were at least 90% as efficient. Might stacking zerk meta is able to literally remove 40% of the party and have the same clear times as a balanced non-meta comp.

Nobody wants content to be faceroll, but what people do want is to bring in characters they actually like to play, make some adjustments to traits, weapons, and armor, and still feel like they’re being decently efficient.

You keep making these abolute statements that are just not really true. The there is no build that can make you clear content faster solely based on build. There are plenty of players in full zerk setup that fail miserably, repeatedly…and as a result…they take much longer than a non zerk setup. I pug literally 100% of the time and I see this all the time. Players who are trying to play zerk and use no supportive utilities…or run the most selfish things possible. The first choke point they reach…the group implodes.

Yes, a given group can complete the content without multiple teammates contributing…that is pretty much carrying dead weight. What’s the alternative? Auto fail because you have fails in your group? That would pretty much mean the end of carrying fails. A swift boot would ensue if that were to be the new standard.

ODB, keep reading posts past that one, I addressed this point specifically a few posts up

Windsagio.1340:

Plenty of players do use those other gears and enjoy them. It’s not for me or you or OBD or my friend Seth to tell them not to do it or that the gear and style they like is a waste.

Even if it’s not optimal it allows some fun contrast and differences and styles, and I’m all for that (as we all should be).

Saying they’re ‘wasted’ because they’re not optimal isn’t really right, imo. People use them. -especially as you note across the different primary and secondary game modes.

The player action isn’t so onesided outside of these forum discussions and a particular faction in dungeon LFGs

Don’t get me wrong, I think it was definitely a mistake for them to include gear that makes players think tanking and healing were supposed to be viable options in PvE, but I know the ship has sailed on this issue…especially with the announcement of an expansion supporting dedicated healing in PvE less than a month away. I’m just pointing out the real issue that caused all of this back peddling on the original game design advertisement. I’m definitely irritated on the back peddling part, but if they really want to go the route of semi trinity…GW2 style….then I’m warming up to it…so long as they provide the proper tools. If I’m going to play trinity style game play, I want meters, inspect, and role checks. Fractals are one thing….where you encounter so many terrible parties and you can just bail out and find a new group within minutes. Raiding, I imagine, will be a different story altogether. The logistics of getting enough people together…for what I assume are going to be much longer and much more demanding encounters…are not something I would want to fail from unprepared or unqualified raid members. A common thing I see people say on these forums about how they just lie to get into fractal groups, is something I think raiding should have a way of dealing with.

PopeUrban.2578:

ODB, keep reading posts past that one, I addressed this point specifically a few posts up

sorry about that.

Harper.4173:

MirrorOfNature.4279:

I hate to burst your bubble, kid, but META is not the only way to do the content in this game, and it will not be the only way to do content in HOT.

I didn’t say it will be the only way to do content – I said it’s the only way to do content that has value to me and other meta players – you can do content any way you want but personally I have a choice whether or not to play with someone based on his way of playing the game.
Also – is “kid” supposed to be an insult? Get over yourself.

MirrorOfNature.4279:

eople complain right and left, that there’s so little diversity in builds without realising the reason for this is that they ALL run a meta build. There’s so much build variaty in this game, which still does a decent job, but the majority of people (especially the kinds like you) don’t even bother look at them, nevermind try any of them, because you see “They’are NOT META, you see, so you can’t do any content if you dont run META, and if you don’t run meta i dont want you in my pt”.

I’ve never complained about the lack of build diversity because I do not care about build diversity. What I care about is getting rewards fast and easy.

MirrorOfNature.4279:

I call complete BS on that one. Have you EVER, you personally, tried running different build, then the one set as META? I highly doubt so, but in the same time you’re too fast to reject ALL and ANY other builds out there. Have you ever heard of hybrid build? No? The druid have a potencial to become very powerful hybrid build with high healing output and surviability while putting out a decent damage – not a high damage, but decent enough, so it may not be called “healbot”, and it may not be needed for the sole purpose of his healing alone.

Why would I try something when there’s already something else that does the job better? What would the purpose of that be?
I did try a lot of builds at the start of the game before we had a meta – and ultimately understand why having a meta is better – it provides the optimal tools for your problems and necessities.

MirrorOfNature.4279:

ood luck playing your meta build, I will keep staying clean of your type of groups. Just don’t come around here and complain that there’s not any variaty in builds. There is many. The fact that you’re too ignorant and blind to see them, doesn’t mean they’re not there.

Once again – you may go over my posting history (all 62 pages of it) and conclude that I haven’t complained about a lack of build diversity. I have never cared for such a concept nor will I probably ever care about it.

MirrorOfNature.4279:

ce I joined this game I never played with specific meta build. Oh surprise, surprise.
I didn’t have any trouble finding groups to do any content – dungeons/fractals, you name it. How did I do this? Did I pulled some mysterious magic out of my sleeve or something? No. Nothing like this This simply shows, from my experience and and my point of view, that there are ways to run specific content, even if you don’t have the “holly meta build”.

Great – enjoy the game the way you like it – I have no problems with you as long as we never actually end up in the same party together.

MirrorOfNature.4279:

Also what i find very funny is, how many already decided what the raids will look like, how they will run and what they will need a month before they are even released and anyone actually TRY to run them. Some people should really stop expressing their assumptions and expectations as solid facts. That’s just another complete BS.

It doesn’t matter what they look like -what matters is that they will be hard – and experiences teach us this : the harder the content the stricter the meta and the more elitist the people doing said content are.

If raids are hard my expectations will be correct -only very good players with very strict party comps will succeed consistently.

If raids are easy then Anet has failed once again to provide actual difficult content and we’ll have Dungeons “metazerk” 2.0 in a short time.

nicely handled without stooping to the level of that post full of insults and attacks lol

ODB.6891:

Windsagio.1340:

Plenty of players do use those other gears and enjoy them. It’s not for me or you or OBD or my friend Seth to tell them not to do it or that the gear and style they like is a waste.

Even if it’s not optimal it allows some fun contrast and differences and styles, and I’m all for that (as we all should be).

Saying they’re ‘wasted’ because they’re not optimal isn’t really right, imo. People use them. -especially as you note across the different primary and secondary game modes.

The player action isn’t so onesided outside of these forum discussions and a particular faction in dungeon LFGs

Don’t get me wrong, I think it was definitely a mistake for them to include gear that makes players think tanking and healing were supposed to be viable options in PvE, but I know the ship has sailed on this issue…especially with the announcement of an expansion supporting dedicated healing in PvE less than a month away. I’m just pointing out the real issue that caused all of this back peddling on the original game design advertisement. I’m definitely irritated on the back peddling part, but if they really want to go the route of semi trinity…GW2 style….then I’m warming up to it…so long as they provide the proper tools. If I’m going to play trinity style game play, I want meters, inspect, and role checks. Fractals are one thing….where you encounter so many terrible parties and you can just bail out and find a new group within minutes. Raiding, I imagine, will be a different story altogether. The logistics of getting enough people together…for what I assume are going to be much longer and much more demanding encounters…are not something I would want to fail from unprepared or unqualified raid members. A common thing I see people say on these forums about how they just lie to get into fractal groups, is something I think raiding should have a way of dealing with.

It’s an interesting thought experiment, the whole “how would you fix balance if you could start from zero”

Personally I never had a problem with the lack of hard roles as much as I had a problem with the lack of inherent teamwork. Stat spreads for “tank” and “healer” roles do sort of necessitate at some point that those roles are valuable, which is how we got to where we are now: force people to build these roles to complete content.

If I were to redesign it from zero I think I’d be right there with you, toss out role-focused stat spreads. I’d have made the combo system the focal point for teamwork. I’d have prevented players from self-combos and in stead made certain that combo interactions provided a lion’s share of active mitigation and sustain.

Blasting water is, IMO, a cool interaction because it’s immediate. Someone has to see the water field and go “I gotta get there, and I gotta use my blast finisher on it.” But it takes some of the teamwork element out when the guy making the field is also the guy blasting it.

I don’t find blasting fire as cool of an interaction as it’s just a more convoluted way of saying “gather for buffs”

Going on down the chain, you see this kind of pattern in a lot of the combo interactions. Many of them aren’t super useful, and the ones that are promote self combos much more than combos with the team.

In my ideal world the difference between what a necro, thief, and a guardian bring to the group would be less measured in core stats and specific utility abilities and more in the combo fields they bring to the table. So you would still have this system in which its most imperative that everyone be rather self sufficient, but the majority of that self sufficiency would rely on how you utilize the effects of the people around you rather than relying on the people around to to hit a button and provide aegis, heals, blinds, or whatever.

So a team comp would be a lot more about adjusting your individual play toward the strengths of allies rather than the other way around.

Alas, that ship has sailed. maybe I’ll win the lottery and make an MMO one day, lol.

ODB.6891:

Windsagio.1340:

Plenty of players do use those other gears and enjoy them. It’s not for me or you or OBD or my friend Seth to tell them not to do it or that the gear and style they like is a waste.

Even if it’s not optimal it allows some fun contrast and differences and styles, and I’m all for that (as we all should be).

Saying they’re ‘wasted’ because they’re not optimal isn’t really right, imo. People use them. -especially as you note across the different primary and secondary game modes.

The player action isn’t so onesided outside of these forum discussions and a particular faction in dungeon LFGs

Don’t get me wrong, I think it was definitely a mistake for them to include gear that makes players think tanking and healing were supposed to be viable options in PvE, but I know the ship has sailed on this issue…especially with the announcement of an expansion supporting dedicated healing in PvE less than a month away. I’m just pointing out the real issue that caused all of this back peddling on the original game design advertisement. I’m definitely irritated on the back peddling part, but if they really want to go the route of semi trinity…GW2 style….then I’m warming up to it…so long as they provide the proper tools. If I’m going to play trinity style game play, I want meters, inspect, and role checks. Fractals are one thing….where you encounter so many terrible parties and you can just bail out and find a new group within minutes. Raiding, I imagine, will be a different story altogether. The logistics of getting enough people together…for what I assume are going to be much longer and much more demanding encounters…are not something I would want to fail from unprepared or unqualified raid members. A common thing I see people say on these forums about how they just lie to get into fractal groups, is something I think raiding should have a way of dealing with.

I guess my response would be is that there always has been room for ‘soft’ tanks and ‘soft’ healers in PVE, just in most cases it’s so much faster and safer to just kill the enemy quickly enough that defensive concerns don’t matter.

It does work, although not with 100% predictable efficiency.

For raiding, leaving aside my skepticism about how actually hard they’ll be beyond the logistical part, it’ll be quite a while before they’re puggable anyways, and by the time they are the encounters will be known enough that the grouping requirements will be about as necessary as they currently are in fractals.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Harper.4173:

But the disadvantage is that a guardian who doesn’t want to do that will have little room in the new content since that build is very necessary.
I mean sure – you could spread out the healing over multiple classes but why would you bother when you could force your guardian to play Cleric’s or replace him with one that will.

Not necessarily. For the ambiguous “that” to be true, a guardian would have to both inept at other roles but skilled at healing. If a guard is capable of both healing and damage, then both a healing guard and a damage guard could be in the same party.

The problem with this complaint is that it is far more specific, and thus it applies to far fewer people. There is a big difference between “I want to play a certain role” and “I want to play a certain role on a certain class”. The difference being the latter just changes classes, where the former just stops playing the game.

Harper.4173:

No – what you don’t get is that from an elitist point of view it does not matter why you are not playing the meta build – it doesn’t matter that you don’t play it because you’re not skilled enough or because you dislike it.

If it didn’t matter, then elitists wouldn’t spend time trying to come up with theories to explain someone else’s opinions are illegitimate.

EDIT: Fixed code

Mate, you’re the only one struggling to prove your opinion is the legitimate one.
What I’m saying is the new meta is stricter than the previous meta, which comfortably allowed for people to play whatever they wanted.

MirrorOfNature.4279:

This kind of behaviour and mindset is exactly the reason why I always avoid groups looking specificlly for meta build. I hate to burst your bubble, kid, but META is not the only way to do the content in this game, and it will not be the only way to do content in HOT.

What is wrong with you that you need to make this strawman? The guy you’re replying to literally said there were multiple ways to do content, but there will always be a best way.
At least argue our points instead of this made up fantasy you have about zerk players.

Nobody is saying Meta is the only way to do content. It is simply the most optimal way to do content.
Gods be good this conversations is painful.

PopeUrban.2578:

Canakun.8031:

PopeUrban.2578:

Canakun.8031:

Rashagar.8349:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I really enjoy it when people talk about “ending the meta”. But as stated, once one meta dies, another is born. The anti-meta becomes the meta. It’s Metaception!

Well the only reason it will never go away is because there will always be people who believe it’s the only way to play. If people stopped caring about it it would never come back.

I don’t believe it will ever go away, but that’s only because the people who push it will never stop pushing.

A meta isn’t about being the “only way to play,” it’s about being the most optimal, most efficient way to play. Some people like efficiency, especially when they’re grinding content multiple times.

This is true. The meta is only a problem when a meta comp is, as it is now, not just more efficient, but so much more efficient that it can complete a run in literally half the time based solely on build rather than player skill

Take a look back at GW1, take something like the SS necro meta. It was more efficient, but in the end, if you took another well designed group that wasn’t running it, your clear times were at least 90% as efficient. Might stacking zerk meta is able to literally remove 40% of the party and have the same clear times as a balanced non-meta comp.

Nobody wants content to be faceroll, but what people do want is to bring in characters they actually like to play, make some adjustments to traits, weapons, and armor, and still feel like they’re being decently efficient.

It’s not based solely on build.
You still need to know what you’re doing, and have the skills to complete content at half the intended speed.

I’m not going to be one of those people that says “zerk is faceroll” I’ve done it. It isn’t. It requires just as much coordination, not more, than running a balanced build. You blast fire, pop reflects and aegis at the right time, and position yourself well. It’s the same thing any non-meta group composition does. It just happens to pay out stupidly faster clear times for it.

That is totally based upon build alone. Take the same players, hand them a more balanced group, and see if they can even come close to half the same clear time. They can’t. It isn’t because the people playing the might stack meta are good and the balanced group with a condi necro, full prot guard, and random assorted non-warrior DPS is bad. It’s because they picked the build that, through a quirk of game design, is capable of running the content twice as fast or faster, assuming both groups play their toons and their party correctly.

The possibility of completing it that much faster is all about build, class, and skill design and has nothing to do with player skill at all. When discussing balance you don’t balance player skill. You can’t balance player skill. You balance around best case scenarios, assuming the people playing the game are playing their characters with equal degrees of skill in terms of hitting the proper positioning, reactions, and skill rotations.

Didn’t DnT do a full clerics run of Arah path 4 and get it done in under 20 minutes?

Canakun.8031:

PopeUrban.2578:

Canakun.8031:

PopeUrban.2578:

Canakun.8031:

Rashagar.8349:

Smooth Penguin.5294:

I really enjoy it when people talk about “ending the meta”. But as stated, once one meta dies, another is born. The anti-meta becomes the meta. It’s Metaception!

Well the only reason it will never go away is because there will always be people who believe it’s the only way to play. If people stopped caring about it it would never come back.

I don’t believe it will ever go away, but that’s only because the people who push it will never stop pushing.

A meta isn’t about being the “only way to play,” it’s about being the most optimal, most efficient way to play. Some people like efficiency, especially when they’re grinding content multiple times.

This is true. The meta is only a problem when a meta comp is, as it is now, not just more efficient, but so much more efficient that it can complete a run in literally half the time based solely on build rather than player skill

Take a look back at GW1, take something like the SS necro meta. It was more efficient, but in the end, if you took another well designed group that wasn’t running it, your clear times were at least 90% as efficient. Might stacking zerk meta is able to literally remove 40% of the party and have the same clear times as a balanced non-meta comp.

Nobody wants content to be faceroll, but what people do want is to bring in characters they actually like to play, make some adjustments to traits, weapons, and armor, and still feel like they’re being decently efficient.

It’s not based solely on build.
You still need to know what you’re doing, and have the skills to complete content at half the intended speed.

I’m not going to be one of those people that says “zerk is faceroll” I’ve done it. It isn’t. It requires just as much coordination, not more, than running a balanced build. You blast fire, pop reflects and aegis at the right time, and position yourself well. It’s the same thing any non-meta group composition does. It just happens to pay out stupidly faster clear times for it.

That is totally based upon build alone. Take the same players, hand them a more balanced group, and see if they can even come close to half the same clear time. They can’t. It isn’t because the people playing the might stack meta are good and the balanced group with a condi necro, full prot guard, and random assorted non-warrior DPS is bad. It’s because they picked the build that, through a quirk of game design, is capable of running the content twice as fast or faster, assuming both groups play their toons and their party correctly.

The possibility of completing it that much faster is all about build, class, and skill design and has nothing to do with player skill at all. When discussing balance you don’t balance player skill. You can’t balance player skill. You balance around best case scenarios, assuming the people playing the game are playing their characters with equal degrees of skill in terms of hitting the proper positioning, reactions, and skill rotations.

Didn’t DnT do a full clerics run of Arah path 4 and get it done in under 20 minutes?

For real? This I gotta see. I’ll eat my hat.

Canakun.8031:

I want to preface this by stating that every game, and every game type within that game, will always have a most viable way of doing things. There will always be a best way to do damage, a best way to survive, and a most efficent way to do both simultaneously.

For most MMO’s this is a set amount of players dealing damage, with 1 or 2 or sometimes 3 players actively holding threat, and a couple of backliners keeping every body alive, either through mitigation or straight healing. This works well for other games, and it’s a type of play that GW2 sought to remove itself from.

This isn’t to say that the Druid will completely destroy the game or anything, however I have noticed people on the forums, and ofcourse developers themselves, say things that completely… baffle me.

The current state of GW2’s meta is that the best way to kill enemies is to kill them, and the best way to not take damage is to not take damage. That’s how you play the game, that’s how the game teaches you how to play the game, and a meta that focuses on a maximised offence is what was born from it. I see big names like Nike and Brazil mention it all the time that the faster you take down an enemy the less time that enemy has to potentially deal damage to you.

The reason there are some detractors from this meta (which is fine, the game very clearly allows for Play How I Want groups to clear content) is because not everyone can grasp the pre-buffing, the rotations, the correct time to dodge, etc. Whether this is due to latency, age, ability or otherwise is none of my business.

What we’ve heard today is that the Devs are supporting a shift away from the damage/dodging meta that gets content cleared quickly. This is likely because of the constant complains from people that their particular class or their particular build isn’t welcome in a meta environment.

What nobody seems to be accounting for is that by creating content that needs a healer to heal, the developers are casuing the following (assuming raid content is exactly as they want it to be).

- A new meta that is much stricter than the previous meta. It will no longer be a “LF1M zerk” situtation but a “LF1M druid CLERICS OR KICK” situation.
- For this reason, the people who complained about the zerk meta will eventually complain about the druid meta. This is just my subjective anecdotal experience, but the majority of PHIW complainers are ranger mains who like their bear and their bow a little too much. Guys, you’re going to be pigeon holed so much more now that you’re the only class that can fulfill the role as dedicated healer. You have EVEN LESS BUILD DIVERSITY now.

- 2 years down the line, there will be a STRICTER set of viable ways to clear content. There will be more people complaining.

- This MAY REQUIRE THE NEED FOR AN INSPECT OPTION. This is a really important one in my opinion. Now that specific sets of gear are needed for specific builds on specific classes, there will actually be a need for an inspect feature. Raid leaders who are making pug groups will need a solid way of ensuring that the players who’ve signed up for a certain role are actually fulfilling that role. Because there will still be PHIW people detracting from the new meta (did i mention the new meta will be stricter than the zerk meta?) This will also warrant a gear lock-in system for raids.

I thought I’d be able to word this a lot more eloquently than I did but this is about all I have to say.
To summarise.
- New meta will be stricter.
- Will be complained about just as much, if not more than zerk meta 2 years down the line.
- Creates the need for additional features such as inspection and gear locking.

There it is guys. You ended the super strict super elitist zerk meta, and in doing so created what could potentially be twice as strict and twice as elitist. Just because someone kicked you for running clerics.

This indeed. It’s basically what I was implying in a post in raids topic.

I’m curious though, how difficult will the raids be. Because so far, Anet seems a bit weird about their statements.

On one hand, they just cheerefully announced the “death of the zerk meta”… which is just one more instance where devs prove they don’t really understand what that is, and just joined in the intense and bizarre whining on the forums from people who, similarly don’t understand it. So raids will be designed in a way that will require tanking and healing… Just like op said, this will just make the new meta even more strict. It’s basic logic really. The more complex an encounter is, the more strict the group comp and player skill requirements are. And if that doesn’t seem logical, one only needs to look and analyze for a moment a plethora of other mmos out there, mmos with really, REALLY difficult content, to see how strict a meta can be.

On the other hand, they say all classes (which are called professions in GW2 -.-" ) will be able to play and do stuff… And then here comes druid… So, which is it? Is druid, which clearly outheals any other prof a requirement or they just added it for giggles and the raid encounters will be “chill”? So, how exactly are raids going to balance these 2 basically opposite statements? Are specific “roles” now required? Or as before, any prof can do anything (dps, heal, tank)?

But yeah, like many commented, I look forward to see the people whining about the evil zerk meta now, whining even more if raids turn out to be as difficult as Anet seems to be advertising them to be (again when they’re not contradicting themselves).

Addressing nonsensical comments from “zerk meta hating” people is pointless. Arguments such as “people who run zerk meta only clear stuff faster because that build causes some kind of glitch in the matrix…” (not an exact quote but close, “matrix”= the game lol) are laughable at best, scary stupid at worst. Some people are simply either too unintelligent to get it or they refuse to accept. (I rememeber one time, in a fractal 50, a ranger with 22k+ ap – who constantly broke stack by stepping outside and pew pew-ing the mobs, which ofc meant mobs would stop moving and ranging her, and since most mobs have even basic attacks with splash damage, the whole party was in constant danger of wipe because of her – who told me, after I pointed out the stacking thing, that she “is using a bow… people use it to shoot from distance” and yes, that’s almost an exact quote… so yeah)

Anywho. A lot of the discussions here depend on how difficult the raids will really be. If it will be triple wurm level of difficulty, then yes, no biggy, most people will be able to finish after failing 1 million times and a few will use the brain and figure it out in a few tries. If they make the raids as difficult as most mmo have raids be… well… I can’t wait for the drama! The whining! The tears!!! Oh… I want to see the tears ^^

Eponet.4829:

Given that 2-3 elementalists and a thief tend to be included, yes, that is probably enough for most encounters.

I wouldn’t count on 3 zerker eles being able to survive in high scales fractal. With enough instabilities and pressure from mobs it may not be that simple as bringing enough damage but survivability as well.

Harper.4173:

You make a fair point – but this doesn’t fix the problem.
If mesmer is best at reflecting but ele brings enough reflects for the raid while bringing let’s say superior dps then there’s never any reason to bring mesmer over ele. Because even if he’s strongest at reflecting it isn’t needed.

Simlarly we might see a requirement for the class that does “good enough of role X as needed to progress while adding as much to the party as possible” – in this case engineers, eles and guardians might fare very well with other more niche-classes being left aside.

Got to be honest: I’m not even sure what you mean by “problem” anymore.
A)The meta being theoretically more oppressive because of required roles?
B)Classes being restricted to particular roles that suit them best?
C)The insistence of players to take a “best class” for that role?
D)The insistence of players to have optimum class composition?
E)The best class for a role not being the most focused?

To someone who wants to play as a healer, the exact level of discrimination between classes isn’t as important. Whether one class is better at being a healer for non-healer properties, that’s more of an issue of class balance then it is role balance. Class viability is a different topic that exists regardless of role viability in optimum builds. It is a legitimate problem, but not the problem pro-tank/healer players have with the meta.

There are advantages to having role be balanced in such a way that there is a wide margin between what is best and what is necessary. Particularly, it is more tolerant to pugging and randoms. It is a lot like the system we have now, except tank and healing roles will be enforced. Having the same variability but additional encourages roles, some would call that a win.

So long as you don’t mind the wait times.

Canakun.8031:

Mate, you’re the only one struggling to prove your opinion is the legitimate one.
What I’m saying is the new meta is stricter than the previous meta, which comfortably allowed for people to play whatever they wanted.

You have a very strange definition of struggling. You also have a very strange definition of opinion. We aren’t talking opinions here. We’re discussing predictions over facts.

And in those predictions, it is very possible for you to be wrong.

ODB.6891:

I’m sorry, but that was a complete internalization of your own issues…brought to life in electronic print. He said nothing that hasn’t been openly admitted by many phiw players on these same forums.

You agree with his prejudices, and similarly feel them justified, so you are just echoing how right you think he is. And in doing so, you’ve already gotten several things wrong.

#1: He did name someone. Calls them PHIW. Detractors. You call them PHIW, too. And by giving them a name you’ve generalized a group of “others” who’s thoughts and feelings don’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you don’t say a specific name, it is still a recognizable group.
#2: The meta isn’t a consensus. It is an idea invented by a few that gets forced onto other players with such oppressive pervasiveness that others assume it true.
#3: The problem isn’t the existence of a meta. The problem is that the current meta has several facets that is undesireable to players. In particular, players want to be both useful while also being tanks and healers. This whole caricature of PHIW not wanting a meta is false, and yet it persists so much that elitists keep bringing it up over and over again. Like you just did.
#4: There were no room for exception or other people in that quote. He said that the reason (ONE reason, singular) that there were some “detractors” from the meta, is because they can’t “grasp” (understand, comprehend, to get a hold of mentally) how to play properly. Clearly labeling them as the minority, declaring them mentally incapable, and not giving any allowance for exceptions or legitimacy in difference of opinion. The implication here is that, if these people weren’t so mentally incapable, then everyone would be on board with the zerker meta. Ergo, disagree = stupid.

Either the OP is needs to learn how to write better, or the OP is an elitist who’s trying (and failing) to hide his discriminatory position. And since I just quoted the OP going out of his way to pronounce how much he is winning the argument, I’m going to go with the latter.

Conclusion would be:

You have as many meta’s asd there are wishes of team coimposition. |With DPS no longer being the sole requirement the balance of meta becomes a second question and the balance will be between DOT/DPS/HEAL/Tankyness , CC, cleansing and buffing will be all positives for builds but just add on.

Zero Day.2594:

“There will always be a meta”….

Well….

This.

/omgwtfbbqx15

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Canakun.8031:

Mate, you’re the only one struggling to prove your opinion is the legitimate one.
What I’m saying is the new meta is stricter than the previous meta, which comfortably allowed for people to play whatever they wanted.

You have a very strange definition of struggling. You also have a very strange definition of opinion. We aren’t talking opinions here. We’re discussing predictions over facts.

And in those predictions, it is very possible for you to be wrong.

ODB.6891:

I’m sorry, but that was a complete internalization of your own issues…brought to life in electronic print. He said nothing that hasn’t been openly admitted by many phiw players on these same forums.

You agree with his prejudices, and similarly feel them justified, so you are just echoing how right you think he is. And in doing so, you’ve already gotten several things wrong.

#1: He did name someone. Calls them PHIW. Detractors. You call them PHIW, too. And by giving them a name you’ve generalized a group of “others” who’s thoughts and feelings don’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you don’t say a specific name, it is still a recognizable group.

This seems like projection. I was talking about people who detract from the strictness of the meta do so because they want to play how they want. It was necessary to label the group in order to make a point involving the group.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

#2: The meta isn’t a consensus. It is an idea invented by a few that gets forced onto other players with such oppressive pervasiveness that others assume it true.

Err, no. ‘The meta’ in this instance is the most optimal way to do things. It isn’t ‘created’ by a few people, it’s eventually worked towards and found out by many people, over a long period of time.
And nobody has forced you to do anything – and I’d love for you to stop using the term oppressive. Your victim complex is your business, but please respect that this is an inappropriate use of the word.

#3: The problem isn’t the existence of a meta. The problem is that the current meta has several facets that is undesireable to players. In particular, players want to be both useful while also being tanks and healers. This whole caricature of PHIW not wanting a meta is false, and yet it persists so much that elitists keep bringing it up over and over again. Like you just did.

PHIW mightn’t be against the existence of ‘a meta,’ but the PHIW crowd in this game have refused to acknowledge the freedom they’ve had for the past three years to play the game however they darn well want to and instead just complain about people who clear content faster than them.
Even with a ‘new meta,’ there will be people who want to play how they want, and how they want may not necessarily fit in the meta, and they may be removed from a meta group, and they may moan about it on the forums, again.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

#4: There were no room for exception or other people in that quote. He said that the reason (ONE reason, singular) that there were some “detractors” from the meta, is because they can’t “grasp” (understand, comprehend, to get a hold of mentally) how to play properly. Clearly labeling them as the minority, declaring them mentally incapable, and not giving any allowance for exceptions or legitimacy in difference of opinion. The implication here is that, if these people weren’t so mentally incapable, then everyone would be on board with the zerker meta. Ergo, disagree = stupid.

You’ve developed this idea of me and my opinions in your head and you will stop at nothing to prove that I’m that way.

For the sake of argument, here’s the definition of the word grasp:
comprehend fully.
“the press failed to grasp the significance of what had happened”
synonyms: understand, comprehend, follow, take in, realize, perceive, see, apprehend, assimilate

Now, I said:
“The reason there are some detractors from this meta (which is fine, the game very clearly allows for Play How I Want groups to clear content) is because not everyone can grasp (i.e. understand, take in, etc.) the pre-buffing, the rotations, the correct time to dodge, etc. Whether this is due to latency, age, ability or otherwise is none of my business.”

What I said in this passage is so much more harmless than you’re willing to accept.
I stated that some of the players who do not like to participate in zerk meta content, are as such because they’ve had difficulty grasping the fundamental aspects of that meta – and this is often due to latency, age, ability, or otherwise.
This is not a matter of saying “if you can’t play this content you’re mentally incapable.” In fact, I think you definitely need to reflect on what you consider to be mentally incapable.

The issue YOU’RE having is that you’re so used to being a part of incendiary conversations that you haven’t even allowed for the possibility of innocence.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Either the OP is needs to learn how to write better, or the OP is an elitist who’s trying (and failing) to hide his discriminatory position. And since I just quoted the OP going out of his way to pronounce how much he is winning the argument, I’m going to go with the latter.

I certainly could do with better writing skills, and you can consider me an elitist all you want.
I like to think of myself as more of a realist, though.

Canakun.8031:

This seems like projection. I was talking about people who detract from the strictness of the meta do so because they want to play how they want. It was necessary to label the group in order to make a point involving the group.

This thinking is backwards. The meta isn’t the norm. It is imposed by an outside force. A person doesn’t detract from the meta. They have to willingly adhere to it.

Canakun.8031:

Err, no. ‘The meta’ in this instance is the most optimal way to do things. It isn’t ‘created’ by a few people, it’s eventually worked towards and found out by many people, over a long period of time.

History lesson: while the meta was being worked out, there was a contradiction of evidence that had to be worked around, which is why the theoretical best meta wasn’t working the best. You may remember this as the “heavies” issue. Basically, 4 warriors 1 mesmer or 5 warriors were outpreforming any theoretically optimal composition. The hypotheses for this were many, and all were true to some degree:

1)People had more practice on warriors from CoH1 farming.
2)Warrior’s inherent bulk allowed a large amount of leeway for mistakes.
3)The playstyle for the warrior was simple to pick up.
4)The ability to constantly rez allies made wipes much rarer.

Basically, the theoretical best composition only worked assuming perfect play. In real circumstances, the factors that people weren’t considering (bulk, ease of use, newb friendliness, allowances for mistakes) were overpowering the mathematical advantages that theoretical comps had.

This is still true today. The theoretical best performance doesn’t always match the actual best performance, both on a personal level and a global level. Not all factors are accounted for. The meta as you know it is an elaborate work of fiction that people have chosen to believe is true.

Canakun.8031:

And nobody has forced you to do anything – and I’d love for you to stop using the term oppressive. Your victim complex is your business, but please respect that this is an inappropriate use of the word.

You have already demonstrated that the meta is so ingrained in your head that you see it as the default orientation of all players. Given the unwavering devotion, along with the readiness at which “detractors” are categorized and treated with hostility, along with the subtle non-intellectual prevalence over the population as a whole, then I’d have to say that oppressive is the perfect word.

Canakun.8031:

PHIW mightn’t be against the existence of ‘a meta,’ but the PHIW crowd in this game have refused to acknowledge the freedom they’ve had for the past three years to play the game however they darn well want to and instead just complain about people who clear content faster than them.
Even with a ‘new meta,’ there will be people who want to play how they want, and how they want may not necessarily fit in the meta, and they may be removed from a meta group, and they may moan about it on the forums, again.

“To clear content faster than them?”? First, superiority complex. The fact that players want to play as tanks and healers is self-evident. It is not dependent on them being contrarian, inferior, or envious. Second, for the sake of reward balancing it is a legitimate concern. Third, it is freedom only in the sense that there is no physical limitation that prevents a player from doing it. The societal pressure of the meta is much more severe than you’d think. There have been many threads on the forums of players sharing their experiences where their casual parties get ruined by other players who wanted to metazerk.

The problem with the zerker meta is more complicated than you think. The zerker meta has an inherent (and relatively unique) problem in that common roles aren’t enforced. If that is changed and tank/healer are enforced, then everything else just becomes class balance issues.

Canakun.8031:

You’ve developed this idea of me and my opinions in your head and you will stop at nothing to prove that I’m that way.

The biggest problem is, you’ve done nothing but reaffirm this assumption. You’ve demonstrated that the meta is so ingrained in your head that you think it the default. You’ve demonstrated both your superiority complex and how readily you’ll categorize demonize players who disagree with you. You already went out of your way to announce that you are winning the argument, which itself is just barbaric posturing translated into language. You’ve already started this thread with the bad caricature aimed at anyone who criticizes the zerker meta. So, what evidence is there to the contrary?

I already quoted the appropriate definition of grasp in parenthesis. You’re also using the ambiguity of “some” to change the meaning. If you wanted to express the variability of reasons, you would’ve pluralized reasons. In a singular reason, “some” expresses degree or scale, not an unknown proportion of non-implied variability. BTW, “difficulty grasping or understanding” means “mentally incapable”.

Canakun.8031:

I certainly could do with better writing skills, and you can consider me an elitist all you want.
I like to think of myself as more of a realist, though.

I feel the necessity to quote myself on this: I’ve never met someone who didn’t justify their prejudices in experience. That’s why bigotry is so pervasive: no bigot thinks they’re a bigot. They just think they’re “right”.

You are a particularly difficult individual, I’ll give you that much.

First of all, no.
You’re wrong.

The metagame in any MMO is the most mathematically optimal way of clearing content that develops after many hours, of many days of many weeks of many months of testing and developing builds until there is no further way to optimize your play.
That is literally all that it is.
That’s what the term means. You can’t place a new meaning onto this term, base your assumptions and accusations around that meaning and expect it to be taken seriously.
Sorry.
That’s not how words work.
It’s not something made up – it’s an optimized form of play that has been mathematically proven to be the best (read: fastest, most efficient) way of repeatedly clearing content.
It exists, and it will change… and those of us who care to, will adapt and continue to enjoy optimizing our play.

Secondly, while you’re absolutely correct in what you said, which is essentially that player skill contributes to performance just as much as statistical optimization, you fail to realize how irrelevant that is.
The meta is the mathematical optimization. The meta gets played out through user performance, and they intersect. That was my point in the opening paragraph. That players who cannot master the user performance necessary to make the most use out of the mathematically optimal statistics, tend to drift away from them.

Thirdly, whether the meta should be considered the default form of play or not is entirely irrelevant and just an attempt for you to, yet again, characterize me as an elitist. It’s boring.
Because the meta is the most efficient way to clear content – and this isn’t just GW2, but all MMORPG’s, ever – it is generally understood to be the standard form of play, as most players will generally aim to find the most efficient way to do the content they want to do. There is nothing wrong with detracting from that if someone wants to, nor is there anything wrong with acknowledging the existence of detractors.

Next point.
It is entirely your issue if you see faster as meaning better. Personally, for me, I DO find faster to be better, but that’s my subjective experience and as I’ve mentioned previously I understand there are people who don’t want to rush through their content. There’s nothing even remotely close to a superiority complex going on here.
I’m really concerned about the types of human reactions you’ve had to have such negative reaction to literally everything somebody says to you.

You mention that the meta provides a societal pressure. That’s true, and that will always exist because the majority of players, and this is factual accuracy not what you will inevitably label my “superiority complex”, wish to play their game in the most time efficient way.
The ironic thing, though, is that the current state of Guild Wars 2 actually very comfortably allows players do play whatever they Gods kitten ed wish to play. It’s as simple as putting “PHIW” into the party finder.
Very bizarre that people still find this difficult.

You remind me of a quote I read earlier:
I’ve never met someone who didn’t justify their prejudices in experience. That’s why bigotry is so pervasive: no bigot thinks they’re a bigot. They just think they’re “right”.

It applies to you pretty well.

I’m gonna finalise this discussion with this final point.

When the new meta develops, I’m going to adapt to it. I’m going to play it, whether that means playing full zerk like I have been, or changing to clerics, or sentinels, or whatever the meta requires because that’s how I want to play. Efficiency is an important part of the way I play my games, and that’s all there is to it.

And here’s the kicker – I know you’re gonna love this – there will still be people who refuse to play the meta.
The fun part is, this new content is going to be harder, more challenging, and a lot stricter.

Call me elitist all you want, it means absolutely nothing to me, but I think I’m going to enjoy playing the game a lot more than you.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Harper.4173:

You make a fair point – but this doesn’t fix the problem.
If mesmer is best at reflecting but ele brings enough reflects for the raid while bringing let’s say superior dps then there’s never any reason to bring mesmer over ele. Because even if he’s strongest at reflecting it isn’t needed.

Simlarly we might see a requirement for the class that does “good enough of role X as needed to progress while adding as much to the party as possible” – in this case engineers, eles and guardians might fare very well with other more niche-classes being left aside.

Got to be honest: I’m not even sure what you mean by “problem” anymore.
A)The meta being theoretically more oppressive because of required roles?
B)Classes being restricted to particular roles that suit them best?
C)The insistence of players to take a “best class” for that role?
D)The insistence of players to have optimum class composition?
E)The best class for a role not being the most focused?

To someone who wants to play as a healer, the exact level of discrimination between classes isn’t as important. Whether one class is better at being a healer for non-healer properties, that’s more of an issue of class balance then it is role balance. Class viability is a different topic that exists regardless of role viability in optimum builds. It is a legitimate problem, but not the problem pro-tank/healer players have with the meta.

There are advantages to having role be balanced in such a way that there is a wide margin between what is best and what is necessary. Particularly, it is more tolerant to pugging and randoms. It is a lot like the system we have now, except tank and healing roles will be enforced. Having the same variability but additional encourages roles, some would call that a win.

So long as you don’t mind the wait times.

The problem is a combination of what you described under A B and C – the problem is that non-meta players have asked for a change in order for them to better fit in the game and be taken along in parties and Anet has delivered a “solution” that will most likely have the opposite effect.

Non-meta players are non-meta for a reason – there’s enough reason to believe that if a player was part of the non-meta group at the height of the “zerker meta” that player will continue to be non-meta after the “post-raid HOT-meta” emerges.
So in a sense what Anet has done is replaced one meta with another one -but has not fixed the core issue : people’s complaints for lack of inclusion.

From what I’ve seen PHIW players overlap very heavily with non-meta players. I truly believe a meta-abiding player that also wanted to play a tank or healer is a rarity.

Yes – we might have enforced tanks and healers with HoT and thus we’ll need to take some tank and healer loving people along but if those people don’t abide by the meta and run “meta tank builds” and “meta healer builds” then those people will be excluded just as before.

The core aspect I believe is that the “exclusion” people complain about does not stem from roles or lack of roles but from mindset and goals – meta players exclude non-meta players.
That won’t change with HoT and it won’t change if the meta changes. As long as “PHIW” players continue to “play how they want” and refuse to adhere to a standardized optimal way of doing things there’s no reason for meta players to take them along.

#1: He did name someone. Calls them PHIW. Detractors. You call them PHIW, too. And by giving them a name you’ve generalized a group of “others” who’s thoughts and feelings don’t matter. It doesn’t matter if you don’t say a specific name, it is still a recognizable group.

What’s wrong about grouping people? The line for me is simple : people who play like me and in a standardized way and everybody else.
Of course people that don’t play like me matter less (or at all) since I rely on them as effective teammates.

#2: The meta isn’t a consensus. It is an idea invented by a few that gets forced onto other players with such oppressive pervasiveness that others assume it true.

Because it has been proven – and because at some point you’ll have to take some things “for granted” – have you personally bothered to check every fact you’ve been told and use on a day-to-day basis?

The problem is that the current meta has several facets that is undesireable to players. In particular, players want to be both useful while also being tanks and healers. This whole caricature of PHIW not wanting a meta is false, and yet it persists so much that elitists keep bringing it up over and over again. Like you just did.

Because this makes no sense – if you’re PHIW you can’t be meta – because if you’re playing *any other build then you are not playing a meta build.
And if you want to play meta builds then why weren’t you playing a meta build way before HoT?

Canakun.8031:

When the new meta develops, I’m going to adapt to it. I’m going to play it, whether that means playing full zerk like I have been, or changing to clerics, or sentinels, or whatever the meta requires because that’s how I want to play. Efficiency is an important part of the way I play my games, and that’s all there is to it.

And here’s the kicker – I know you’re gonna love this – there will still be people who refuse to play the meta.
The fun part is, this new content is going to be harder, more challenging, and a lot stricter.

Call me elitist all you want, it means absolutely nothing to me, but I think I’m going to enjoy playing the game a lot more than you.

That’s the funny part. Players playing to the meta for whatever reason adapt to it. There have been lots of disscussions on the boards lately about healer viability and so forth. I just don’t see it as a rewarding experience with GW2 skill and combat system (woodenpotatoes made a very good video on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRnw05Boi8I). Granted this is about healing power under our current system, still worth a watch because many of these factors do NOT change in HoT.

There are so many aspects that work against tank and healer combo, but w/e. If Arenanet implements it, if it works, and if it’s fun, I’ll play it. It’s not even about cost for many players. Right now ascended armor/weapon boxes are starting to collect, so whiping up a new set is a piece of cake for most regular fractal runners.

What most people seem to not understand, any type of restrictions placed on party creation will make the viable and playable build compositions get reduced, and the ones suffering from this will be casual players who do not have the time to whip up multiple sets of gear, let alone the will to do so.

As is right now, you can do almost anything in any type of gear. No one will notice unless they demand gear be pinged (and why would you ever want to join such a group? I just finished my daily 40 and 50 fractal and the group I joined filled up almost immediately, while gear ping groups were still looking for people when mossman was at 50%). Normal groups fill up very fast, that’s why only “gear ping” or “zerker wanted” remain in the lfg tool.

All this will change once certain specs are actually required and it will be very noticable if you are in druid spec as ranger or not simply by looking at your class icon. Not to mention once your first heals land people will be able to tell if you are running +healing gear or not.

Canakun.8031:

PHIW mightn’t be against the existence of ‘a meta,’ but the PHIW crowd in this game have refused to acknowledge the freedom they’ve had for the past three years to play the game however they darn well want to and instead just complain about people who clear content faster than them.

Hahaha! Yes, it’s all jealousy on their part, that must be it. =P

As an aside, if PHIW is meant to be “Play How I Want” and being used to categorise a certain play style, if you really want to coin a phrase for that style of play then I feel a more accurate representation of that player group’s mind set would be shown with “PHYW”, Play How You Want.

The people interested in perpetuating a specific meta are the ones insisting that other players should conform for optimisation purposes, everyone else is more welcoming and inclusive of alternative play styles.

Just a semantics thing, but it’s little touches like that that do betray a certain prejudice in the OP’s writing. “Play How I Want” makes it sound like that player’s primary motivation is selfishness, ruining meta-runners gold gains per minute or some other such foolishness, whereas “Play How You Want” is much closer to the reality of being motivated by inclusiveness and friendliness.

Harper.4173:

To an elite player and a farmer another player is a resource – an NPC – a bot – something that gets something done – I for example have absolutely no interest in why people who don’t run meta builds don’t run them.

Harper, that’s not the hallmarks of an “elite” player, that’s the hallmarks of a psychopath.

Rashagar.8349:

Canakun.8031:

PHIW mightn’t be against the existence of ‘a meta,’ but the PHIW crowd in this game have refused to acknowledge the freedom they’ve had for the past three years to play the game however they darn well want to and instead just complain about people who clear content faster than them.

Hahaha! Yes, it’s all jealousy on their part, that must be it. =P

As an aside, if PHIW is meant to be “Play How I Want” and being used to categorise a certain play style, if you really want to coin a phrase for that style of play then I feel a more accurate representation of that player group’s mind set would be shown with “PHYW”, Play How You Want.

The people interested in perpetuating a specific meta are the ones insisting that other players should conform for optimisation purposes, everyone else is more welcoming and inclusive of alternative play styles.

Just a semantics thing, but it’s little touches like that that do betray a certain prejudice in the OP’s writing. “Play How I Want” makes it sound like that player’s primary motivation is selfishness, ruining meta-runners gold gains per minute or some other such foolishness, whereas “Play How You Want” is much closer to the reality of being motivated by inclusiveness and friendliness.

Harper.4173:

To an elite player and a farmer another player is a resource – an NPC – a bot – something that gets something done – I for example have absolutely no interest in why people who don’t run meta builds don’t run them.

Harper, that’s not the hallmarks of an “elite” player, that’s the hallmarks of a psychopath.

Oh no, I think PHIW fits the crowd and the mentality just fine. Especially with the semantics you just mentioned.

I think you’re somehow under the impression that current end game PvE – Fractals and the like, is actually hard and that’s why people don’t like it or can’t get into it. That’s BS – prebuffing and active mitigation isn’t hard at all, but currently the end game stuff is fully broken. Anyone who does Fractals frequently will tell you that lvl 50 fractals are the easiest level because everyone who joins knows what they’re doing. That’s what makes people dislike it and keeps them from getting into it – they just have to learn a few basic mechanics and then it’s easy – the learning curve is steep but VERY short, and people are always disappointed in the end. A meta group doesn’t need any skill to win, they just push icebow 4. Most bosses can be killed in less than 30 seconds. If they ever want to have rewarding challenging content then we can’t have fights that short. Anybody can focus on dodging and their rotation for 30 seconds – fewer can for 10mins, and then healing becomes necessary to right any slip ups.