Guild Wars 2

Just writing down 10th december patch notes and people already went crazy.

Played some games in solo q ( note, high end solo q) and all i see is bunkerish builds ( guard-war-engi-spirit ranger) with a necro here and there.

And they’re nerf hammering the thief LOL.

just sayin’

The problem are condition bunkers.

Most Zzzzzzzzz meta i’ve seen in a while -__-

<3

Every single queue at least 5 warriors, gg.

Mrbig.8019:

Just writing down 10th december patch notes and people already went crazy.

Played some games in solo q ( note, high end solo q) and all i see is bunkerish builds ( guard-war-engi-spirit ranger) with a necro here and there.

And they’re nerf hammering the thief LOL.

just sayin’

i noticed that too. guardians appear. and mesmers too.

interestingly guardians are effective in my experience. may be they were around all these time, just needed a war cry (as in upcoming patch news)?

even warriors i see are all sword condition bunker now…can’t even see a single hammer in soloq..

beware of thieves!!!! they are so nasty that anet had to nerf that little survivability they had LOL

on more seriour note: i wonder how they would nerf bunker builds if people start to abuse too much

They would nerf toughess I assume

Scarlett.1549:

They would nerf toughess I assume

then ppl will start to stack vitality since scaling is same for all classes, wouldn’t they?

I’ve said it again and again.
The game is built around extremes.
It is always and forever burst verse condi verse bunker.

If it leans towards burst, allot of casuals get frustrated.
If the meta leans towards condi, everyone suffers.
If it leans towards bunker, everyone leaves.

It is a ‘lose’ – ‘lose worse’ – ‘lose them all’ scenario and Anet does not really even seem to notice…
Kinda have to fix the forced structure around extremes before the game will ever have a chance of having a respectable meta, one that isn’t kicked around like a stray dog after patches, one that people can actually talk about and be happy…

garethh.3518:

I’ve said it again and again.
The game is built around extremes.
It is always and forever burst verse condi verse bunker.

If it leans towards burst, allot of casuals get frustrated.
If the meta leans towards condi, everyone suffers.
If it leans towards bunker, everyone leaves.

It is a ‘lose’ – ‘lose worse’ – ‘lose them all’ scenario and Anet does not really even seem to notice…
Kinda have to fix the forced structure around extremes before the game will ever have a chance of having a respectable meta, one that isn’t kicked around like a stray dog after patches, one that people can actually talk about and be happy…

i’m not talking about pure bunkers. The point is that there are “bunkerish” builds capable to do such ridicolous damage ( engies and hambow wars are just the high end of this, with spirit ranger following) that playing right now it’s nonsensical.

I had 4 matches with team full of this crap where we, as a balanced comp, could really do nothing but to sit there with the point contested for years.

The game feels so slow that it’s boring, and playing as a mesmer it feels still useless when you get countered by a simple BANNER dropped by a RANDOM BUNKER WAR, boosting health for the whole, already bunkerish, team.

It’s just boring., matches end by the timer more than by points, and when you end by points, the match lasts for 12+ minutes.

C’mon, what is this.

That’s funny because I just played about five top 50 NA solo matches and here it’s nearly all dps, war/thief/mesmer/ele/engi/power necro/dps guard.

I predict that by February the forums will be talking about the stale burst meta.

Also, people really need to stop spreading rumors about how PvP revolves around “holding points.” PvP revolves around winning fights across the map. The biggest mistake I see newer players making right now isn’t fighting off points, it’s sitting on home unnecessarily. Lost a match in which a spirit ranger literally never moved off home point and was never engaged.

tl;dr these forums need a serious reality check. It’s gotten so bad that our qq has actually promoted bad playing.

NevirSayDie.6235:

That’s funny because I just played about five top 50 NA solo matches and here it’s nearly all dps, war/thief/mesmer/ele/engi/power necro/dps guard.

I predict that by February the forums will be talking about the stale burst meta.

Also, people really need to stop spreading rumors about how PvP revolves around “holding points.” PvP revolves around winning fights across the map. The biggest mistake I see newer players making right now isn’t fighting off points, it’s sitting on home unnecessarily. Lost a match in which a spirit ranger literally never moved off home point and was never engaged.

tl;dr these forums need a serious reality check. It’s gotten so bad that our qq has actually promoted bad playing.

Lol in EU it’s totally different. If you take a look at EU’s ACTIVE solo players, you’ll notive that in top 200 they’re basically ALL wars-engies-guards-rangers with some random necro here and there.

And, just sayin, standard triple stance hambow build is bunkerish.

That’s exactly one of the most broken things in this meta ( thanks god it will be nerfed).

Old ele meta was about neuts, current meta is about neuts, basically there’s no difference aside now there’re at least 4-5 classes capable to stand on a point without dying 1v1 in a reasonable amount of time.

Mesmer is kinda like one of the best counters to wars, still it takes very long time to kill him, especially those ones with endure pain.

Once you get against a team with 2 spirit rangers, 2 wars ( bunker-hambow) and a guard there’s very little you can do aside resigning, because this is exactly that kind of team you can’t beat without being extremely coordinated ( something quite unachieveble in solo queue, even in top ranks).

That’s basically what the game has become.

Mrbig.8019:

Lol in EU it’s totally different. If you take a look at EU’s ACTIVE solo players, you’ll notive that in top 200 they’re basically ALL wars-engies-guards-rangers with some random necro here and there.

And, just sayin, standard triple stance hambow build is bunkerish.

That’s exactly one of the most broken things in this meta ( thanks god it will be nerfed).

Old ele meta was about neuts, current meta is about neuts, basically there’s no difference aside now there’re at least 4-5 classes capable to stand on a point without dying 1v1 in a reasonable amount of time.

Mesmer is kinda like one of the best counters to wars, still it takes very long time to kill him, especially those ones with endure pain.

Once you get against a team with 2 spirit rangers, 2 wars ( bunker-hambow) and a guard there’s very little you can do aside resigning, because this is exactly that kind of team you can’t beat without being extremely coordinated ( something quite unachieveble in solo queue, even in top ranks).

That’s basically what the game has become.

Hmm, not sure what to suggest. It’s certainly harder to kill the 2 spirit/2 war/guard comp than it is to play it, but people are figuring out what it takes to properly deal with a low-dps, low-mobility team. Even in solos.

Of course, it’s possible that EU is so much better than NA that we just haven’t caught up yet. I agree that hambow and spirit ranger both need nerfs, and I’m glad that NA players have become slightly less prone to just roll the current FOTM constantly. I’m still willing to stand by my prediction that when the dust from the dec. patch clears, no one will be talking about a “bunker meta.”

Lighter.5631:

even warriors i see are all sword condition bunker now…can’t even see a single hammer in soloq..

“bunkers” with carrion I suspect. Warriors have zerker and carrion. They should be glass cannons but they arent due to alot of immunities, heavy armour, high health pool, boons (lyssa) and healing signet.

For the love of god, nerf these godkitten ed bunker builds. I am sick of ppl running in circles blocking and outhealing all the dmg. You should force ppl to show some skill in pvp.

Full bunker build (cleric, apothecary) = trolling in my opinion. I mean no offence to people who intend to use it in honesty. But things is, with these builds is superior easy to hold a point 1 vs 1, and even 1 vs 2 aint to hard. And after 30 secs of ‘troll tanking’ (doing the impossible with minimal skill cap), your friends come and slash the contesters. It happens all the time. And it’s boring. This is not how pvp should be.

Bunker trolls, uses tank skills/passive healing.
Enemies use burst skills
Bunker still is alive, trolling all to well
Enemies can’t make progress (their health doenst drop to much, but neither does bunker).
Suddenly poof, bunker gets help, enemies fall down like rats without a chance.

Result? the team owning the ‘troll bunker’, just got 10 ‘kill’ points, and holded a point all that time ’(probably worth 30 points).

Result? Troll bunker just made 40 point difference in matchup with low skill cap build. Hence why i call it trolling. Using a low skill cap build to unbalance a matchup easely.

The problem is not bunkers per se but the bunker builds that allow for a steady out put of damage on top of being extremely hard to kill. Its too much. Its condition bunker. A-net seems oblivious to this however. As far all the guards people are seeing thats the fotm trash that was playing Warriors. Someone told them somewhere that Guardians were god mode.

bunkers are fine, but healers and teamplay is not rigth?

I try playing burst builds, when I dump my full burst rotation on player and there health doesn’t go below 50-60% and they immediately start regenerating health, turn and around and promptly smash 10 bells of kitten out of by paper thin Mesmer when they are in fact a “tank”. I say if you can’t beat them, join them. Respec to PU condition bunker, roll my face across the keyboard to win (it’s so easy it’s not even funny, it literally is bunker wars 2), get bored and log off.

A lot of players are forced to play bunkers or bunker hybrids because of this current meta and to be frank, Warriors. aNet created a build that gave people sustain, decent survivability, good condition removal, CC and burst via CC all in ONE package (Johnathan Sharp said so himself), people don’t like getting smashed by Hammer Warriors/Hambow variants and respond in kind by bunkering up. Then it’s a ripple effect…that was the catalyst for this ridiculous meta and it doesn’t look like this will be shifting anytime soon…

I’ve explained this a 1000 times now…

Bunkers exist because some classes in this game can instantly kill you from 100 to 0 in 1 second….

If you’re not one of these classes….You go Bunker…

There is a reason you don’t see classes like Ranger go Glass Cannon

There is a reason D/D Ele was popular.

Its not because Glass Cannon can’t be done….Its because if you do it, Other Glass Cannons in this game will instantly kill you.

TTK is way too Low in this game as it is.. they need to curb the extremes.. nerf bunkers a little and remove one shot builds from the game.

Edit; ttk High = Low

Darnis.4056:

TTK is way too high in this game as it is.. they need to curb the extremes.. nerf bunkers a little and remove one shot builds from the game.

Shall i remind that reign of low TTK (aka glass mesmers/thieves and in less extent – wars) was a period that started the rapid decline in the sPvP population? It’s literally killed interest in majority of PvErs to even try to begin sPvP, bias that holds even nowadays. “Lol n00bs, l2dodge shatter, l2dodge backstab combo, l2dodge bullrush+frenzy+HB… oh wait, why nobody wants to play with us anymore?”

Rednik.3809:

Darnis.4056:

TTK is way too high in this game as it is.. they need to curb the extremes.. nerf bunkers a little and remove one shot builds from the game.

Shall i remind that reign of low TTK (aka glass mesmers/thieves and in less extent – wars) was a period that started the rapid decline in the sPvP population? It’s literally killed interest in majority of PvErs to even try to begin sPvP, bias that holds even nowadays. “Lol n00bs, l2dodge shatter, l2dodge backstab combo, l2dodge bullrush+frenzy+HB… oh wait, why nobody wants to play with us anymore?”

Do you mean the first, totally skill based, meta ?

The one where you needed to be good at the game in order to succeed ?

Of course it turns off PvErs, there’s a reason why they play PvE.

The game should atract PvPers first of all, PvEers should come as a side effect.

Nerf bunkers and nerf glass cannon max dmg.

Mrbig.8019:

Do you mean the first, totally skill based, meta ?

The one where you needed to be good at the game in order to succeed ?

Of course it turns off PvErs, there’s a reason why they play PvE.

The game should atract PvPers first of all, PvEers should come as a side effect.

PvP game should have skill pyramid and smooth learning curve. It shall be friendly for beginners, easy to understand basics, if you want to see any decent population ever. If newbie gets instagibbed in his first matches – he will quit. I already see pleas on forum to “force people to play soloQ and tPvP”, lol. If you can’t cater your beginners properly, you’ll never get decent numbers of middle and high-skilled players.

Rednik.3809:

Mrbig.8019:

Do you mean the first, totally skill based, meta ?

The one where you needed to be good at the game in order to succeed ?

Of course it turns off PvErs, there’s a reason why they play PvE.

The game should atract PvPers first of all, PvEers should come as a side effect.

PvP game should have skill pyramid and smooth learning curve. It shall be friendly for beginners, easy to understand basics, if you want to see any decent population ever. If newbie gets instagibbed in his first matches – he will quit. I already see pleas on forum to “force people to play soloQ and tPvP”, lol. If you can’t cater your beginners properly, you’ll never get decent numbers of middle and high-skilled players.

That’s why there should be guides IN GAME to teach new player. Jumping into hotjoin to get zerged is in no way able to teach you the basics of how to play.

Still no real reason to have a game full of bunkerish builds.

Game type has a whole lot to do with it though. As mentioned, most bunker/bunkerish specs are fairly forgiving, but it wouldn’t make so much of a difference if the game type didn’t also reward players for just being able to stand on a point to keep people from getting it.

The game needs to be looked at from a more generalized “esports” perspective. We currently only have respawn game modes but there is a wide array of ways to build which can extremely alter the time to kill depending on how you’re built versus how the opponent is built. How do you manage to turn something like that competitive?

Make the objective a more fast paced objective, or an objective the requires more coordination (like bring guild wars 1 GvG to this game). Maybe introduce a respawn penalty.

My favorite suggestion so far is to have a game type similar to a rotating king of the hill that when captured only adds 1 point to the score tally (out of like, 10 let’s say) and then the hill moves immediately so it doesn’t reward players for just holding a player of the map. Then, introduce a death penalty so that dead players don’t respawn until the active point is captured by one of the teams.

You would still see bunkers, but as long as bunker specs have their agility adjusted, a team with agile roamers would be able to get to objectives and take them faster than a team of bunkers would be able to traverse across the map. The suggested death penalty also introduces something important for viewership; immediately understandable clutch plays. For a casual guild wars 2 viewer right now, it is really hard to watch a match and realize what big plays are without having some prior game knowledge, and even then, right now it is just bunkers slowly bunkering each other to death.

So in summation, yes, the bunker meta is terrible, but it is as much the fault of balance is it is the game mode.

Mrbig.8019:

That’s why there should be guides IN GAME to teach new player. Jumping into hotjoin to get zerged is in no way able to teach you the basics of how to play.

Still no real reason to have a game full of bunkerish builds.

We need more reliable anti-bunker options and builds, not total bunker nerfs across the board, and definitely not switch back to total zerker domination.

Condition engis, condition wars, settler’s guardians with hammers and so on…if anet can’t understand that is way too easy going for cheesy cond dmg while running tanky specs compared to sacrifices needed tu run a power crit next meta is going to be condition bunker’s one…many already said it and we’re getting closer every day..

There are a few of us thieves still being competitive, but yes we are the vast minority in a bunker/condi meta.

I never thought I’d see the day when people were sad to see thieves get nerfed.

Condi-bunker meta is really strong because:
If I don’t have berserker’s stance off cooldown I won’t even engage an engineer. Cleansing Ire is not strong enough to deal with all the conditions especially because they get instantly reapplied. With berserker’s stance up I have the full duration of the stance to win the fight. As soon as it’s down I’ll start to have to play extremely defensively against a bunker class! My burst on the other hand is not enough on a zerk hambow warrior to take a decent engi down in a 1v1. If they dodge the 2 right skills they already won. Almost the same goes for necros. If my zerk stance is down I won’t even bother 1v1. In team fights my build is just way too strong although once we lost a 3v3 team fight with 2 warriors and an ele on our side and 2 guardians and a power necro that got downed almost instantly on the enemy side. The damage log showed 14k retaliation damage. Later when I checked the recording all they did was spam gs symbol and syg with empower chained for 100% uptime of protection, regen and retaliation. I think that’s a nice example of bunker meta.

DanyK.3842:

Condi-bunker meta is really strong because:
If I don’t have berserker’s stance off cooldown I won’t even engage an engineer. Cleansing Ire is not strong enough to deal with all the conditions especially because they get instantly reapplied. With berserker’s stance up I have the full duration of the stance to win the fight. As soon as it’s down I’ll start to have to play extremely defensively against a bunker class! My burst on the other hand is not enough on a zerk hambow warrior to take a decent engi down in a 1v1. If they dodge the 2 right skills they already won. Almost the same goes for necros. If my zerk stance is down I won’t even bother 1v1. In team fights my build is just way too strong although once we lost a 3v3 team fight with 2 warriors and an ele on our side and 2 guardians and a power necro that got downed almost instantly on the enemy side. The damage log showed 14k retaliation damage. Later when I checked the recording all they did was spam gs symbol and syg with empower chained for 100% uptime of protection, regen and retaliation. I think that’s a nice example of bunker meta.

This.

And now imagine what it’s like to be an Ele, Guard, Mesmer or Thief against these builds.

The Necro, Engineer and Ranger builds that have the survivability of a bunker but significant damage output due to condition stacking plus all the soft cc that comes with conditions need to be toned down.

This game is overflowing with conditions.
4 damage conditions, one also reduces healing.
3 movement impeding conditions.
2 damage reducing conditions.
1 punishing condition for skill use.
1 damage increasing condition.
1 crowd control condition which can also be made into a damaging condition, bringing the total damaging stack to 5 (during which the target would also be CC’d).

Necro Marks need to be looked at, they should be colour coded to be clearer, they need a travel time or an activation time.
0 travel time instant unblockable AoE activation at 1200 range is crazy, especially when you have good damage + Chill, Poison, Bleed, Fear and condition transfer.

The amount of conditions in the game need to be reduced but ArenaNet keep digging themselves into a hole here so it probably won’t happen.

So instead the amount of conditions on auto-attack need to be reduced so that conditions can be tactical instead of spammy and instantly reapplied after they are cleansed.

Conditions need to use 3 stats to do serious damage the same way Power does.

Condition Damage is far more powerful than Power which leads to build imbalances when you can take 2 defensive 1 offensive Amulets like Settlers and become a bunker that can 1v1 most others.

Lux.7169:

There are a few of us thieves still being competitive, but yes we are the vast minority in a bunker/condi meta.

I never thought I’d see the day when people were sad to see thieves get nerfed.

I’m still “fairly” competitive, altough not having time to play right now coz IRL issues, but i found out that those classes i enjoy the most ( thief-mezma) are vastly subpar as soon as teams are “bunkers stacking” and the “glassest” prof brought is a necro ( lol wtf).

There’s an enormous gap between “glass builds” and “sustained DPS -pseudo-bunkers”, they outheal bursts and have MORE DPS than glass builds.

In the attempt to make the game “easy for newbies” there’s no more the damage needed to bring down “non glass” builds ( whose are the meta).

As a thief i really don’t think we have other options, personally i’m waiting (hoping) for the Pistol whip patch.

Isn’t another fairly large chunk of the problem the amount of stat investment power builds require versus the amount of stat investment condition builds require?

Only having to rely on one or two stats for damage is a huge factor (condition damage/power or condition damage/precision) and allows the third stat to be a defensive stat. Power builds are basically forced into a zerker setup, only gaining the little bit of vitality from the amulet that it gives.

Condition builds shouldn’t be bursting conditions for damage that is so strong that it competes with zerker setups.

jcbroe.4329:

Isn’t another fairly large chunk of the problem the amount of stat investment power builds require versus the amount of stat investment condition builds require?

Only having to rely on one or two stats for damage is a huge factor (condition damage/power or condition damage/precision) and allows the third stat to be a defensive stat. Power builds are basically forced into a zerker setup, only gaining the little bit of vitality from the amulet that it gives.

Condition builds shouldn’t be bursting conditions for damage that is so strong that it competes with zerker setups.

The issue is more complicated than this.

A rabid necro is a decent “prey” for high DD classes, the issue is that now those proffs have too much counterpressure.

Hambow wars are ridicolously strong on top of having very high damage mititgations ( high armor, high stability uptime, zerk stance and endure pain, Healing signet)

Bunker wars-condi wars are the same, with more armor and more HPS. So even worse.

Necros have better DS gaining right now on top of high pressure from condi ( sustained and burst).

Spirit rangers with forge runes have perma protection on, plus good pressure, support and damage mitigation tools.

Engies are the best PvP profession by far, capable of filling any role aside burst damage ( which is not needed in this meta anyway) and countered only by good necros.

We all know about guards. Now there’re also DPS guards which have basically all the pros listed above

Of course i’m referring to meta-cheese builds. Those builds offer very good damage while not having the minus of being glass, an issue thieves and mesmers suffer A LOT when teams stack bunkers.

If there’re 2-3 of them a thief-mesmer can be useful.

If all 5 of them are bunkerish, you’re wasting a team slot, bring something else.

And then matches end at 1:00 thanks to a random kill with all points contested.

TTK is too slow, it’s boring.

Mrbig.8019:

…

Engies are the best PvP profession by far, capable of filling any role aside burst damage ( which is not needed in this meta anyway) and countered only by good necros.

…

And then matches end at 1:00 thanks to a random kill with all points contested.

…

I feel like we’re not playing the same game. There are seriously no burst engies in EU?

In my experience, condi necro does hard-counter condi engi, but that doesn’t appear to be what you’re saying.

And do matches really last until 1:00? Are we talking team queues or solo queues here? I have had a solo queue last almost the entire fifteen minutes in NA, but just once, and that was back when people inexplicably thought bunker warriors were cool. I can’t even begin to imagine that a respectable team would take five pure bunks into a team queue. If they did, I can’t imagine that a second team would do the same thing, in the same match.

NevirSayDie.6235:

Mrbig.8019:

…

Engies are the best PvP profession by far, capable of filling any role aside burst damage ( which is not needed in this meta anyway) and countered only by good necros.

…

And then matches end at 1:00 thanks to a random kill with all points contested.

…

I feel like we’re not playing the same game. There are seriously no burst engies in EU?

In my experience, condi necro does hard-counter condi engi, but that doesn’t appear to be what you’re saying.

And do matches really last until 1:00? Are we talking team queues or solo queues here? I have had a solo queue last almost the entire fifteen minutes in NA, but just once, and that was back when people inexplicably thought bunker warriors were cool. I can’t even begin to imagine that a respectable team would take five pure bunks into a team queue. If they did, I can’t imagine that a second team would do the same thing, in the same match.

Of course i’m talking about solo queue. In team queue the bunker issue can be overcome with teamplay and coordinated spikes, but trying to do the same in solo queue is impossible.

This is however a symptom of the issue.

Again, in top 200 EU all active players are on bunkerish proffs, the only mesmers that i see ( saw) consistently are misha and Saruwoman ( which is bunker lol) and thieves are almost nonexistant aside 3-4 thieves ( me included).

I’ll probably play again today since decay is kicking me down lol.

@Mrbig;

I think that’s ultimately what I was thinking in my head, that overall, there are too many specs that do too many things, which seems like a result of tanky specs being able to do decent damage, or damage specs being able to be decently tanky.

I used to think the TTK in Guild Wars 1 could be fairly long (around 8-10s on my Warriors builds if I recall).

Being different games aside, I do miss actually being able to kill something before a match is over (for those trolls out there, obviously an exaggeration and not a L2P issue).

playing right now, the only thing i see is bunkerish builds.

Had a match with 3 engies, 1 ranger and bunker guard.

Right now it’s totally cheese, really hope the nerf hammer everything

With only one game type, with the whole premise on defending, there will always be builds taking advantage of the whole mechanic surrounding defending.

Everyone would like to see more game mode diversity, just look at the game modes topic.. let’s just hope it wasn’t all for nothing.

Lighter.5631:

even warriors i see are all sword condition bunker now…can’t even see a single hammer in soloq..

Because hammer are good only when backbreaker is available?

All we already knows that next QQ will be sword cond bunker :/
Then Anet will come and nerf another thing at the point of the class come back to easy kill.

Xsorus.2507:

I’ve explained this a 1000 times now…

Bunkers exist because some classes in this game can instantly kill you from 100 to 0 in 1 second….

If you’re not one of these classes….You go Bunker…

There is a reason you don’t see classes like Ranger go Glass Cannon

There is a reason D/D Ele was popular.

Its not because Glass Cannon can’t be done….Its because if you do it, Other Glass Cannons in this game will instantly kill you.

There’s some truth to this.

The fact that Thieves as glass cannons have an inherent advantage over other glass cannons has basically forced every non-Thief into a somewhat survivable build.

Now you can argue if that’s a good thing or not, but if it wasn’t for Thieves I’m sure we’d see more offensive builds being popular.

OKay, guys lets settle something, bad player will play bunkerish builc/cheezy build because of the passive cap and less skill requirement.. But that wont change and will always always be there..

And what you see from the top tier is mostly a dps composition, where people will be able to call spike and bring better play.

Its always been a race between dps vs condition spam, and if you place your burst good enough you would be surprise of how fun it is to play and how strong it is.

people play bunkerish cause of condimeta and its nothing new
everyone goes for max condiremove and alot vita or get facerolled

it has nothing to do with thiefs and has nothing to do with bad player goes bunker – seriously

people would die in seconds every fight – nerf necro and the AOE spam (necro + hammerwarrior) and everything will be back to normal + makes mesmer op^^

Fact is that condition cheese specs shouldn’t be so effective as they are atm…playing cond bunkers because you’re bad should lead to you being less effective than someone playing let’s say an high risk/reward d/p thief…but in this meta we’re nowere near to this, most easy to play specs are also the most effective ones giving bads the chance to play at the same level of someone with way more skills but without a fotm spec..this casual friendly mentality is leading pvp to doom more at every patch coming out…pvp must reward skills not specs..skilless builds must sit in the up tier otherwise bads will still match up vs good players and “good” players (Well those high ranks who just ride fotm can’t be called good after all) running braindead builds will be almost immortal vs other specs

Romek.4201:

people play bunkerish cause of condimeta and its nothing new
everyone goes for max condiremove and alot vita or get facerolled

it has nothing to do with thiefs and has nothing to do with bad player goes bunker – seriously

people would die in seconds every fight – nerf necro and the AOE spam (necro + hammerwarrior) and everything will be back to normal + makes mesmer op^^

How to fight Thieves, Ranger, Mesmer and Minion Spamers without AoE or CC?

Archaon.6245:

Fact is that condition cheese specs shouldn’t be so effective as they are atm…playing cond bunkers because you’re bad should lead to you being less effective than someone playing let’s say an high risk/reward d/p thief…but in this meta we’re nowere near to this, most easy to play specs are also the most effective ones giving bads the chance to play at the same level of someone with way more skills but without a fotm spec..this casual friendly mentality is leading pvp to doom more at every patch coming out…pvp must reward skills not specs..skilless builds must sit in the up tier otherwise bads will still match up vs good players and “good” players (Well those high ranks who just ride fotm can’t be called good after all) running braindead builds will be almost immortal vs other specs

I have to disagree with you strongly on what you think bad/good player is made of. You see, you can’t assume that someone is bad player, just because he runs over-the-top spec. You know what is the difference between good and great player? Imo good player will try not to play fotm builds, will try to find one on his own, one that suits his playstyle, one that is a challenge to play. Good player will try to be innovative and fresh, will steer away from cheesy and cheap builds – I think some ppl even think of them as not honourable. It’s ok, nothing wrong with that. Now the great player, do you know what he thinks about what I just wrote above? Trust me, it’s something like “haha, kitten you, scrub!”, then he finds most op, cheap, cheesy build out there and abuse it mercilessly, cause he plays to win. You see, this game DOES NOT reward players for playing uber-complicated, innovative builds. It DOES NOT reward honourable and friendly playstyle. What it DOES reward is, killing other players (5 pts) the quicker the better, de/capping points (10 pts), holding points (1-3 pts/2 sec). That’s all. So you can’t call ppl bad players, just because they do whatever they can to win, it’s a main goal of this game to WIN. No reward for losers (except for trick and treat bags^^).
TL;DR
If you don’t play highest possible spec or most op build available, you’re doing it wrong. This is however only my opinion, I respect you and didn’t mean any offense. Have a good day!

bunkers in solo queue is just silly…-_-