Guild Wars 2

It’s not uncommon for almost any build that becomes the meta to instantly be branded as “unskillful” or “faceroll.” Whether it be Backstab Thief, Control Warrior, or Spirit Ranger, according to some none of these builds require skill and should be weaker as a result.

But what is “skill?” In my opinion not a single class or build in this game requires all that much skill to play. While Ele and Engi may take a bit of getting used to, once you adjust they aren’t particularity difficult. This isn’t Tribes where hitting a guy mid air with a projectile weapon consistently is something not everyone can do. Nor is it Star Craft where only a small percentage of players can play at a highly competitive level. It also isn’t Street Fighter where a you have to spend a decent amount of time learning combos. At the end of the day this is hotbar based MMO combat. You can pick up any class and have it figured out in a few days, if that.

Does this make the game unskillful? Of course not. This is a team game – just because you have a team full of meta builds does not guarantee victory. What decided who wins and who loses all depends on how your team melds together and works together. That is where the skill comes in, it doesn’t matter how easy to play a build is – but how well you utilize that build.

Making “hard to play” builds stronger than easy to play builds will not work in a game like this. Easier to play builds also server as a good way to bring in new players to PvP. If players come in and find themselves fighting their builds they’ll often get frustrated and quit. However, if there are a few easy to understand builds those new players will experience just enough success that they stay interested and enjoy themselves.

Right now, Warrior and Necromancer are the two classes that the forum population are brandishing their pitchforks at. If you ask me, the devs have done a good job of bringing two highly under-preforming classes and made them some of the strongest. In the case of Warrior they currently have the greatest number of viable builds in the game. Some may be more popular than others but I attribute that to the fact that we have seen few players in Hotjoin and SoloQ attempt to counter them and continue to run the same builds they have for months.

I’ve seen Necromancers, Mesmers, and even Thieves in TPvP that have very little to fear from Warriors because they run different builds than what you see at lower levels. Is there anything stopping players from using these same builds? No, only themselves. I don’t take this as being a L2P issue, more that players would rather see something strong nerfed instead of trying to counter it. I for one love it when something strong presents itself because it means that I just to change my tactics to beat it – but as I said, I see no reason to do so when chances are I’ll encounter a free kill Spirit Ranger or Necro in SoloQ.

Adding specific counters allows builds to remain powerful but not unbeatable. You also avoid power creep because you aren’t just flat out making the class better, you’re making them better against just one playstyle.

I’d like to see the players here stop judging builds in terms of “skill” and how it preforms in 1v1 situations and start thinking about what it does in a team.

This question has come up several times and I think it’s actually pretty simple to make a straightforward, working definition.

There are three main factors:
1. Rate of actions (does your build have a high apm?)
2. Rate of decisions (do you have to make quick decisions based on your situation or does the same approach usually work?)
3. Level of forgiveness (how many mistakes can you make before you die?)

There may be other factors, but I think these are the main ones. I’m glad that Anet designed some professions to have simpler mechanics than others, but huge complexity gaps create imbalance at casual levels.

playing a well put together build isn’t the part that requires skill. playing your well put together build better than your opponent is the skillful part.

I have no issue with ‘easy’ builds. I do have an issue with builds that are successful because of denying counter-play though.

there is a big difference.

First of all, I agree with pretty much everything you said in the first paragraph regarding skill.
But, if we’re just going to accept that GW2 won’t ever have any skillful gameplay except for team-coordination, it will never reach a state that is even remotely competitive.
While team-coordination is definitely one of the most important aspects of a competitive-game, there simply has to be individual skill.
Team coordination is very often in the details and even sometimes boils down to what is being said on VOIP. It is in other words not very spectator-friendly, especially not to beginners. Sure, there might be some team-coordination that is easy to spot, which could be comboing skills and or supporting/saving your allies (think MOBA).
The problem with GW2 is that neither this kind of team-play is required, and is almost impossible to do because of the way skills work. The last instance is that it’s simply way too easy to do, and here I am referring to the new immobilize-stacking. So basically the only form of skill that is required in GW2 is team-rotation and map-awareness, which a competitive scene cannot be built upon.
The problem with GW2 does not lie with a few classes being unbalanced, but with the more general meta and a few game ruining mechanics (like effect-clutter).
In the past there have been a lot of great threads with excellent suggestions for how to change the meta (and the game), but lately they have been buried by people wanting PvE-rewards and new gamemodes.
GW2 is NOT in a state where tweaking numbers is going to fix anything, a few unbalanced professions are the least of our problems.

I agree there is no 1 build that rules them all for any class the problem is the condition meta rules the power meta… there is not enough risk/reward balance between the 2… that does not mean the power builds in teams cant compete, but why choose a team composition (conditions) that allow you to make countless errors and still win vs a (power) team composition that almost has to be flawless to win.