Guild Wars 2

Hey,

I am Sam from Made in Meta. Some people may know me, I am playing since beta and played every meta in this game. I think I can say what’s wrong atm, and I hope you guys agree with me. I saw everythng a-net changed and I played after every patch again and again, but now I am tired. I know what you think (another crythread), but I don’t want to cry here. I want to bring you changes and things that need to change very drastically to not let this game die. I love this game, I really do and I were really sad if it ends now.

What I am talking about: This Game is unbalanced (yes I said it)

Start from the very top:

1. Celestial amulett

If you look closely every good team atm stacks celestial amulet in every team. You have the choise from celestial ele, celestial engi and celestial warrior. These are your current choices to play in a very good rating. Maybe some zerker thief, because he is mobile and can carry people or zerker dps guard that can survive for really long and burst something. Every comp needs this classes. Every Team that plays ranger, mesmer, necro has a disadvantage. It’s not that you can’t beat anything with it, but you have disadvantage.
The Celestial Amulett giving you a total 3033 Stats. A Zerker, Cleric or whatever amulett give you 2364 amulet. WHY!? Because kitten you that’s why!
Every class can do Condition Damage, Burst Damage, passive heal (yeay) and CC you a lot. So the opponents need Condition remove that cleanse you 5 Conditions every 10 seconds minimum and aswell need to outheal the 5-6k krits from rifle shots/ele hits per 10 seconds. And that’s only from 1 guy.
I loved the old meta (before the necro trololol patch comes) where you actual need to decide whether you go on power damage or conditions and you really needed to look what’s best for your team. In this celestial meta, it’s that you focus on yourself staying alive and beeing on the target. You don’t need to actual rotate good, because as celestial ele you are good in EVERY fight. A bunker Guardian needs to decide, “am I good in this fight?”" Can I protect someone?" And a celestial guy be like, “their is one guy missing? k lol”.
I am not saying that celestial is a no skill amulet. You still need skill to be on the high tiers, but you can kitten everything that’s not celestial even if you are not as good as your opponent and you don’t need to think so many things as before.

2. Instant Damage/Passive Procs

You are a thief. You are going on an engineer right now, you are at 50% life and the engineer is almost down. He has nothing ready, you know you got him and then it happens. He dodges, you instantly get the bombdamage (from the trait he leave a bomb when he dodges), get a 2k krit and and incendery powder trigger. You are dead and the engineer is running around with his 1% life, sit on your face and laugh. You did nothing wrong but you still die. You ask why? Well, he dodged, get a lucky krit and that’s life I think.
This game should be a high skill game. Where you actually outplay your opponents with dodges/blocks, a good mind read and some good skill rotations. BUT those instant skills that just appear, are really annoying. An elementalist can give you an instant 4sek stun and you can’t even see it. Because it just appeared after you and before you can react the skill will just kitten you in half.
A Necro has passive procs that just give you a 4 sek fear on hit and a 3sek fear on a stun. You see a necro and the FIRST THING that comes to your mind. Oh god I will eat a 4 second fear again, YEAY, because you can’t even do anything about it.
Geomancy + Doom is the most played sigill atm and ofc because it’s overpowered as hell. You are getting 3 stacks bleeding, 10 seconds by 10 seconds cooldown on weapon switch and 9 seconds on the sigill. It reduces your heal, it does like 3-4k UNDODGABLE Damage. Is that really fair? An engineer have a knockback on 15 seconds cooldown, instant ofc, where he can follow up with everything he want. Which lead me to the next point

3. Sigills and luckprocs

I don’t know what comes to your mind to actually get double sigills. Really I don’t get it, WHY do you think that Fire and air is good to work together? Why did you think allowing something like geomancy + doom would be really great? I don’t get it PLEASE explain me.
This was the worst change in Guild Wars History that I ever see, because you allowed more randomness with Fire and Air procs, you allowed wombo combo sigills and just decrease the amount of sigills used to a minimum.
Before the patch was live, I needed to choose. Do I pick Energy, instead of geomancy? And then go for 5 stacks power or whatever, that give me bonuses when I play good. Or do I want Poison instead of Bleeding? Why not pick both right?
NO it’s just really stupid to allow Fire and Air Sigill together. Now EVERY Class, can do a 5k Spike every 5 seconds with every skill. A Thief battle decides in 2 things. Hitting the steal and getting fire and air procs first. That’s the only things that matter, it doesn’t even matter if you are better then your opponent, it’s just this 2 things, that both random apply that decide your 1 v 1 and decide even matches.
The old system was perfect. You are getting one really good sigil, and one that’s not that good but good for your profession and don’t allow wombo combos. And instead of doing 50% on Fire, Air sigills, why are you not saying that your next krit (with a visible icon) is going to hit another 2k damage, instead of this random factor?

4. Might Stack and solo play

Every ele can stack might to 25 stacks, he don’t need anything special about it, or teamplay. The complete game is focusing on playing on your own, holding yourself up and winning your fights. You don’t care about your team anymore, because you don’t need anyone for anything. You have passive heals that do the healing work that your team needs to do, you can stack immo and stunchains on your own. You can even stack 25 might with so many classes, without any big effort, you don’t need anyone for that. I can do every condition on my own, even the burst damage is not missing. So why should I search for a team? Why should I actually do anything in a team. That’s a really hard question I ask me every time again. I feel pretty useless because you can’t do anything as guardian anymore. I was the one for stomps, stomps doesn’t exist anymore, you just cluster in the dead body and kill him. Stomps are not necessary and that’s really no joke! You can’t rezz anymore, because the cluster kitten is gonna kill you aswell. Cleansing conditions is useless aswell because every condition is applied again in a few seconds. I stayed their as guardian and seriously asked myself what I need to now and this brings me up to my next point.

5. AoE Damage

What you need to with a celestial comp is easy. Just spam so much AoE Damage on a point that the one that actually needs to hold it either die or leave the point for us. You can’t avoid the damage, because the point is as big as the AoE Damage and even if you dodge everything and be the best guardian on earth, you will still die or will loose the point to this. You don’t even need to focus a target down, you are just spaming every AoE Skill (You have much so doesn’t matter anyway) on the point, something will drop and you just AoE Damage on the dead Body. The team can’t get it up, will die aswell or will go in a 4 v 5. Not much skill needed, sadly. You have 2 Options. Make the points bigger, like foefire where you can actually avoid damage and do some great work, or you just reduce this amount of AoE cluster and reward rezzes more.

6. The amount of dodges is to kitten high!

This is a thing that I don’t understand in a high skill cap game aswell. With permanent vigor on almost every class, energy, dodge skills, blocks with low cooldown it’s almost impossible to see a very good player where you think: “Wow he dodges really well”, because you can dodge everything and just spam dodges to net get hit by anything. You don’t need to see the arcing arrow flying to you, you just random dodge everything and still win, because I don’t need to spare my dodges for certain skills, I can just dodge everyone of it. A S/D Dagger Thief is the best example for that. This thief is not really dodging on purpose, he is just dodging to get this 1 second invul, to not get hit by anything. He can do that 16 seconds without any stop. So why should I need to actually dodge good? If I can just roll over the map like a kitten.
You still need to be good and still need to dodge the best skills to be on a high skill cap. BUT even the high skill cap is dodging too much, why are you not making doding more rewardable as it is now. Reduce perma vigor and every boon to a boon that you need to use with brain, instead of just stacking it to 1min on so many classes. I mean you get 5 seconds vigor (most of the time because of boon duration 6-7 seconds) on critical hits by a cooldown of 5 seconds. You don’t need to think, ok now I need more dodges as before to dodge the real important stuff, NO you just get it for free. Why not just giving every class extra dodges and remove vigor completely. Wouldn’t be any difference.

I put my last hope in this Thread, sure I think it will not change anything, but at this point I am already leaving this great game, not because I want to, just because it ruined everything that I loved in this game and I don’t know anything to do anymore.
Sadly it killed Made in Meta, because we can’t stand such a meta and don’t want to play clasess and amulet we don’t enjoy. I know it’s a lot of work, I know their will still be haters that don’t like it, but you would make so many players happy and you would actually get other old good guilds in PvP again. After this, their is just TCG and Cheese Mode that’s playing EU Meta and I think it will be sad to just watch the celestial kitten over and over again. Please atleast try to change something and watch the community react to it instead of doing nothing productive.

P.S.: Sry for the long and double post and I know so many will not read it :O

Much regards

Sam

Well-thought-out post. I agree on all points., sadly it probably won’t change anything.

well written, lets hope anet will change something at least once :c

Nerf celestial and the classes that already can’t use it can’t even more.

XSamX.7182:

6. The amount of dodges is to kitten high!

This is a thing that I don’t understand in a high skill cap game aswell. With permanent vigor on almost every class, energy, dodge skills, blocks with low cooldown it’s almost impossible to see a very good player where you think: “Wow he dodges really well”, because you can dodge everything and just spam dodges to net get hit by anything. You don’t need to see the arcing arrow flying to you, you just random dodge everything and still win, because I don’t need to spare my dodges for certain skills, I can just dodge everyone of it. A S/D Dagger Thief is the best example for that. This thief is not really dodging on purpose, he is just dodging to get this 1 second invul, to not get hit by anything. He can do that 16 seconds without any stop. So why should I need to actually dodge good? If I can just roll over the map like a kitten.
You still need to be good and still need to dodge the best skills to be on a high skill cap. BUT even the high skill cap is dodging too much, why are you not making doding more rewardable as it is now. Reduce perma vigor and every boon to a boon that you need to use with brain, instead of just stacking it to 1min on so many classes. I mean you get 5 seconds vigor (most of the time because of boon duration 6-7 seconds) on critical hits by a cooldown of 5 seconds. You don’t need to think, ok now I need more dodges as before to dodge the real important stuff, NO you just get it for free. Why not just giving every class extra dodges and remove vigor completely. Wouldn’t be any difference.

I put my last hope in this Thread, sure I think it will not change anything, but at this point I am already leaving this great game, not because I want to, just because it ruined everything that I loved in this game and I don’t know anything to do anymore.
Sadly it killed Made in Meta, because we can’t stand such a meta and don’t want to play clasess and amulet we don’t enjoy. I know it’s a lot of work, I know their will still be haters that don’t like it, but you would make so many players happy and you would actually get other old good guilds in PvP again. After this, their is just TCG and Cheese Mode that’s playing EU Meta and I think it will be sad to just watch the celestial kitten over and over again. Please atleast try to change something and watch the community react to it instead of doing nothing productive.

P.S.: Sry for the long and double post and I know so many will not read it :O

Much regards

Sam

This part right here, if ANET would’ve just cut evades time frames by half or 1/3 from the start, the game wouldn’t have been so bad.

But it’s too late for this right now. Or maybe it isn’t so bad if they nerf evades by 1/6th of the frame if their system can even do that.

I’m so fed up with this passive gameplay bullkitten. The worst thing is, instead of beein smart and say that they clearly kittend up, they will say everything is fine and next PvP balance patch will be in 6 minths.

Till now kitten you all we don’t care. Thats how it looks like. Every e-sport tpvp match is so boring that you need to do everything to not fall asleep.

Srsly, cant wait for new MMOs, cuz apparently, Anet loves to kill their own game.

Havn’t read it all yet,but i certainly agree about the passive skills,cele amu and Aoe dmg..But surprised theres no real complaint about condi spamm tbh.

Kenmei.7138:

I’m so fed up with this passive gameplay bullkitten. The worst thing is, instead of beein smart and say that they clearly kittend up, they will say everything is fine and next PvP balance patch will be in 6 minths.

Till now kitten you all we don’t care. Thats how it looks like. Every e-sport tpvp match is so boring that you need to do everything to not fall asleep.

Srsly, cant wait for new MMOs, cuz apparently, Anet loves to kill their own game.

So your claiming they screwed up because it doesn’t fit your personal vision? That doesn’t make any sense. They made the game they wanted to make. Just because you do not like it, doesn’t make it a mistake.

Very good post. I agree with everything

This post, It brings so much feels.
Agree with every line in the post. even the necro sigil line (i can’t defend the class anymore since there is only one build sorta viable)

The meta is a monstrosity.

It has been like this since gw2 beta. The skill ceiling will always be low unless there’s a complete overhaul.

coglin.1867:

Kenmei.7138:

I’m so fed up with this passive gameplay bullkitten. The worst thing is, instead of beein smart and say that they clearly kittend up, they will say everything is fine and next PvP balance patch will be in 6 minths.

Till now kitten you all we don’t care. Thats how it looks like. Every e-sport tpvp match is so boring that you need to do everything to not fall asleep.

Srsly, cant wait for new MMOs, cuz apparently, Anet loves to kill their own game.

So your claiming they screwed up because it doesn’t fit your personal vision? That doesn’t make any sense. They made the game they wanted to make. Just because you do not like it, doesn’t make it a mistake.

I don’t want 2 argue with you. Idk if you did read entire topic or just pickin up posts. Every comment people are givin are subjective so I honestly don’t get why it’s not makin any sense 4 you.

I agree with nr.1 – 4.
What i dislike the most is nr1. People play forgiving builds that make team rotations as easy as possible. For me this is not fun to play nor is it fun to watch since it is a common thing to get outsustained rather than to get outplayed.
The most fun matchup right now is 2v2 vs shoutwarr ele. Gw2 at its best.

Anet tend to make one step forward and one step back with their two patches per year. They improove things and breake something else at the same time. Right now everything is broken. Team- and soloq merged, grind leaderboard, matchmaking, cele might stacking. imo the game was actually better before last patch.

Anet you need to do something soon™. Stop going backwards.

By instant damage you also mean steal?

Also increase cast time of S/D 3 and increase evasion time , just so people can actually make plays to it.

anet doesnt care, end of the story.

Sticky plz you got everything on my mind since a few patches ago.I noticed i can completely play a match up right cycle my heal to my maximum hp dodge all there gap closers / combo opener skills but i can still get completely randomed out by air/fire/geomancy/doom/intel sigils on specs that can stall the cd’s like dps guard, thief especially and a bit of mesmer .

I just agree with everything.
But i really haven´t much hope for this game anymore. ;(
A other point who hurts much is that they deleted the 3-Rounds PvP, it also hits my motivation for playing this game. But really first they really have to fix this points you written.

Pls A-Net, follow this review. He brought it on the point.

/agree
stick the post pls

well gentelmen based on past experience it is safe to assume that
1. we will see some changes in spring probably
2. they won’t change anything that would remotely nerf engis

Just logging in for this thread really…

I have to say, this is a lot of effort on pinpointing problems, all going to waste… This game is “casual” to it’s very core, where “hard decisions” are made redundant by “being too confusing”…

Depth and intricacy are missing, despite the solid combat system, and you nailed it right there with your post… Roles of the Classes are condensed into this “Master of all” thing, where some Classes are capable of nullifying certain aspects of the games’ combat…

This, however, goes back into a deeper discussion about Sigils and Runes being “Too Build Defining” – which I think was a discussion on the old Balance Thread as well… Well, this and of course the fact that we are looking at a single gamemode (Courtyard needs much work really)… There are literally no other roles “needed” since there are not more objectives…

This game is beautiful, but it lacks a deeper meaning to it – the updates don’t come as fast as you want them to be, which results in shallow and stale metas… Theorycrafting oftentimes results in the same stuff over and over again, and Role Diversity will never ever be created as long as there are no additional gamemodes in the near future…

Despite knowing your background in MiM very well, this game caters more to people like me – or just below me… It caters to those who like to play for like 3 times a week and have a laugh with it… Those in my league who are “somewhat competitive” can farm a nice rank on the Leaderboards and feel proud about their gear and Llamas…
It is rather clear that the intent is absolutely not in trying to actively achieve a healthy balance which opens up new roles for classes (and shaves down those who can have multiple) because the balance patches never came fast – so why should you try to keep up with it?

All I see is tears from people who prefer crying over trying to counterplay better & trying to adjust to the metagame and wish to be competitive but fail at doing so.

Udai.7805:

All I see is tears from people who prefer crying over trying to counterplay better & trying to adjust to the metagame and wish to be competitive but fail at doing so.

not everyone enjoys hybrid tank staring at hybrid tank for 15 min playstyle, punching dummy is probably more exciting than current gameplay… except meta forces you into that garbage

Cynz.9437:

not everyone enjoys hybrid tank staring at hybrid tank for 15 min playstyle, punching dummy is probably more exciting than current gameplay… except meta forces you into that garbage

T E A R S

This was a very good post, you did your work but i disagree with 2 things. parts 1-2 i disagree with. I beleive celestial ammy is abused because of might stacking as appose the stats. part 2 i feel again its because of might stacking. That 4k dmg wouldnt be 4k if they engineer couldnt get 20 stacks of might and sustain it. So those 2 things i dont agree with because i dont believe there the actual problem but the problem of something else thats right for the pvp field.

I completely agree with 3, i have no idea what that is. Why allow pure bunker characters with might stacking and fury be able to get double crit dmg. Wow that was so bad.

4-5 to me are things that just need reduced. I feel alot of the problems with points 4-5 is because there is so much dmg and the dmg is coming from bunker characters. So the question to me is how you fix it.

See what i would like is have base stats that are those stats and the boon stats being separate. Also get rid of the double sigil dmg on crit. That way people who have 6 to power do more dmg then the 0-0 ele that stacks 25 might. If we did that the dps of characters would balance out threw all the classes. I dont know what you think about that but i like to say thanks for posting cause you had some great points.

Cynz.9437:

Udai.7805:

All I see is tears from people who prefer crying over trying to counterplay better & trying to adjust to the metagame and wish to be competitive but fail at doing so.

not everyone enjoys hybrid tank staring at hybrid tank for 15 min playstyle, punching dummy is probably more exciting than current gameplay… except meta forces you into that garbage

Bruiser builds exist because this is a tab target game. Tab target means that there will ALWAYS be free white damage and auto tracking skills, which also means that there will be discrepancies between classes that can do large ranged damage vs those that can’t, classes that can break targeting vs those that don’t, ect.

VIRTUALLY EVERY TAB TARGET BASED GAME, THE PVP STAT IS A SURVIVABILITY STAT (WoW= resilience, SWOTR = Expertiese, Rift = pvp tree full of defense, Aion, LoTRO, ect.).

2,3,and 5 are very much what is broken.

2. Quite a few of the best burst combos in the game auto-face the character for you, gap close, and track (thief steal, mez shatter, ect.).

3. Int and battle sigils are the REAL backbone for the bruiser builds. Without those 2, no one is dying to 25% crit/1800 power/condi damage. I’m astounded that int sigil was actually BUFFED in the same patch as the sigil changes. No one’s complaining about these because they’re “fun”, and people are calling for a more offensive meta, but they’re the real problem.

5 needs little explanation at this point. The op nailed it.

Everyone is asking for a more bursty meta, but every offensive meta we’ve had so far have been broken as hell. Bruiser builds are a step in the right direction, and I feel that this would be made clear if they removes a lot of the procs/passive cheese from the game.

for one, boon removal is very limited. to make it balanced, any boon removed/stole/stripped would also be UNABLE to be re-applied for 5 seconds or something. stability would need to be an exception, it could still be re-applied.

i would like to see my enemy’s endurance bar along with their health bar. i would also think the endurance bar should be bigger, holding 3 total dodges, however vigor and other endurance boosts would be reduced. Instead of 50% maybe 25% (in the case of sigil of energy it would be 33% or still the equivalent of 1 dodge).

i think might shouldnt equally boost direct and condition damage. when it was designed I think the intention was classes would use 1 or the other, not really both equally. there are several ways to tweak this but the point is you should have to BUILD for damage if you want to do very much of it – and i dont mean just a sigil and a rune that also has other benefits. a sigil and rune providing good cond dmg OR direct damage would be balanced, but not providing BOTH equally. i think might should be split into 3 boons. might itself would give only +20 per stack to direct AND cond damage, with 2 separate new boons that give +35 per stack of EITHER cond or direct damage. Another alternative solution si make it not so kitten easy to stack might alone. Maybe make the skills that currently give only personal might into AoE might, but reduce all might stacks to 2 instead of 3 at a time, so in a team fight you still stack just as much might as normal (because ally sigils etc will also share to you) but in a 1v1 you can’t maintain 25 stacks.

AoE has always been an issue since there is no friendly fire or damage cap etc. the best solution I can think of would be a 5 or 10% damage reduction PER target hit by a skill. You hit 1 person it does full 100% damage, but if you hit 5 players it does 50-75% damage to each of them. certain skills could be left at 100% damage, but capped at 2-3 max people that it could hit.

I agree, i think the first meta was the best. 1-5 are near perfect as for #6 well that would be a long story.

I think you made some great points. Well thought out and constructively presented.

Passive play bothers me the most. This needs to be reduced.

this low meta is just one of the many steps to let this game die more and more <3

Your right passive plays suck so for every passive skill just make a way to activate it.

I would have to agree with most of what you say.

The problem though, is that changing only one of those things, would break the game even more. Every single one of these things would have to be addressed at the same time. But, yeah, there’s too much of this passive auto proc stuff.

I’ll play perfectly, then get hit out of the blue with a lighting strike autoproc for 4k or chained feared up my kitten for the second time.

not to say passive skills should be out of the game, but at this point its waayy to much.

This post literally describes everything wrong with this games pvp, not just the current meta we are in. Great post, hopefully it gets some attention.

I agree with everything in your post.

IMO, this is probably the tankiest, most passive meta we’ve ever seen where most of the meta builds are rolling with over 4k stats from amulet+ might stacking.

I honestly probably preferred hambow era, where you’d at least see warrior duels ending quickly when someone got outplayed instead of the endless stalemate 1v1 between the cele tanks.

Can we sticky this post, please?

Devs play engi/ele.

Nothing will change.

/thread

Lordrosicky.5813:

Devs play engi/ele.

Nothing will change.

/thread

Devs emotionally invested in their in-game characters?

Lordrosicky.5813:

Is that what I said?

Nah thought not. Once again you seem to be unable to actually read posts and discuss what is actually said.

(Edited, because an unsupported claim that Devs play only 2/8 professions should be taken seriously, and I don’t want to offend.)

Chaith.8256:

Lordrosicky.5813:

Devs play engi/ele.

Nothing will change.

/thread

Devs emotionally invested in their in-game characters?

Is that what I said?

Nah thought not. Once again you seem to be unable to actually read posts and discuss what is actually said.

Ask anyone who plays the game. Everyone views things from the perspective of the class they play/test.

So it is a matter of how you view a problem like balance. If it view it through the perspective of an engineer then you come to different conclusions than if you see it via a necro.

actually devs play all kind of classes hence why i don’t understand their posession with engis (based on patches for the past year or so)

back to thread, either passives/cele and co. need some nerf or boon stripping abilities need some buffing

infantrydiv.1620:

I agree with everything in your post.

IMO, this is probably the tankiest, most passive meta we’ve ever seen where most of the meta builds are rolling with over 4k stats from amulet+ might stacking.

I honestly probably preferred hambow era, where you’d at least see warrior duels ending quickly when someone got outplayed instead of the endless stalemate 1v1 between the cele tanks.

This is really wrong.

This is not the tankiest meta by any means, soldier hambow/spirit ranger meta was the tankiest.

Current cele meta is about uber damage everywhere, where a full tank ele can do a 6-7k crit with fire grab, where a full tank engi pry bars you for 5 k.

There’s no stalemate in this meta, if u play a sub par build ( aka: all builds) the cele ele/engi will destroy you in less than 30 secs.

Stalemates currently happen mostly cuz the ones you see dueling are indeed all uber OP proffs with ridicolous damage and sustain ( cele engi/war/ele)

whats with the engi hate lol seems like war guard element are all ways running the matches

celestial warriors and eles do not do a “ridiculous” amount of damage, UNLESS you are letting them land all their predictable, readable, dodge/blockable, high-damage skills.

but they all have low cooldowns, so that’s why you will eventually get rekt on most builds

caveman.5840:

Solstice.1097:

but they all have low cooldowns, so that’s why you will eventually get rekt on most builds

r u quoting me because i am speaking in general based on team make up not build make up

so i am not talking “most builds”…

i was adding to my post right before that. i should have just edited instead.

Solstice.1097:

celestial warriors and eles do not do a “ridiculous” amount of damage, UNLESS you are letting them land all their predictable, readable, dodge/blockable, high-damage skills.

Correct, Celestial D/D eles don’t even have to land their fire rotation on you to kill you. The majority of the damage will come from their burns and lightning whip auto at 25 might stacks.

Celestial Warrior is slightly better balanced in that it is very weak to spike burst and the main things to dodge are Pin Down/Sword 3, both of which are very easy to avoid.