Guild Wars 2

I come back to GW2 every once in awhile and rarely do I do anything besides PvP. It’s nice to know what the current meta state of the game is before jumping in and having my butt handed to me by the FOTM.

What’s currently happening in GW2 PvP that a new/returning player should have a head’s up on before jumping in?

Thanks.

This is the “celestial meta”, where strong celestial classes (ele, engi, warrior) replaced bunkers, make up the core of them team, and 1-3 roaming dps are used (thief, guard, ranger, mesmer, or necro).

Turret engi can be used as a side-point bunker in low tiers.

nothing but power necros and rangers everywhere and either hambow or shoutbow warriors as for engineers condi nadiers mesmers the usual clone spam thieves still running d/p or sword

basically the new meta is condition spam

Rezzet.3614:

basically the new meta is condition spam

I though it was boon spam…

Engi does not replace bunker! An Engi that stands on point is a dead Engi! The meta has been the same for years! Half your team builds to stand on point! The other half builds to explode people! The only difference is what classes do what! Right now Eles and Warriors stand on point and every other class can fill in the damage spots!

If you want a heads up, there’s this thing called profession win daily where you get achievement points and loots if you complete a PvP game with the given class! So be prepared for 3-4 same class teams because Anet is not so smart!

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Engineer, elementalist, and warrior excel with the celestial amulet, d/d ele being strongest 1v1 and brief 2v1s, engineer better for roaming due to CCs, and warrior bringing great group support with shout heals and warhorn cleanses.

Teams also bring 1+ DPS builds, typically thief, meditation guardian, or mesmer, power and condi necro or ranger are sometimes used as well.

Grab a celestial ammy.

Spam your kitten.

Profit.

Current Meta:

Classes that can use celestial amulet effectively and push other classes that can’t use it out of roles, ex. War/Ele/Engi.

Then 1 spot is usually for zerker thief.

Then if you’re really lucky you can fit in another class, unless you want another celestial.

Yay celestial.

/OldManRantStart

Warriors have been forced into their current Shoutbow role because everything else is just obsolete to another class. Want DPS? Better off with a MediGuard, S/D Teef, or Shatter Mes. Wanna play CC? Engi has better conquest oriented CC (pushes and pulls) and the ability to knock an entire area down and have great condi. How about condi? Sure, you can put out a TON of bleeds, but a Terrormancer will remove boons and apply chain Fear.

Builds like Hambow, Axebow, and Macebow are all decent, but aren’t as useful as a D/D Ele or Cele Rifle Engi. It’s no wonder Shoutbow is what they ended up in. No other class can do quite that much condi removal and team might stacking. It’s funny, this build was used in the past, but wasn’t nearly as good because Celestial wasn’t as good. All the other ammys required a sacrifice of either healing or damage (either power or condi). Cele doesn’t force that tradeoff, it’s good at everything.

Shoutbow also has decent adren gain due to shouts. Try running a Warrior build without at least several traits dedicated to adrenaline gain. If you don’t have both Cleansing Ire and Burst Mastery or CI + Inspiring Shouts, CI +…..Sharpened Axes or Berserker’s Might? You can somewhat manage, but then you lose what Warrior used to excel at, getting stronger as the fight goes on. I’m totally fine with Warrior having a good support option, but in the process of nerfing older metas like Hambow so many balanced builds were destroyed. Part of me likes the adrenaline change because it makes landing bursts more skillful, but the reward for landing anything that isn’t a bow burst is now barely worth it.

Cele is of course part of the problem, but there’s a lot of parts to this problem. There’s also sigil stacking (Fire/Air, Doom/Geo) and attacks scaling too well for too little investment.

/OldManRantEnd

Current meta?

- Lower tier; doesn’t matter… You see everything, from Clerics Thieves (Yes, had a guy angrily whispering me it is a good spec), Eternity Warriors and Double Incinerator Thieves…
Also, special mention for the heroes running Sword/Axe Warrior

- Mid tier; basically people who copy-pasted a build from Metabattle and think they are the bomb. Run a lot of Celestial, but got no clue how to maximize what their respective classes are capable off – result in one D/D Ele getting crushed by the other in but a few minutes, since one is capable of rotating their skills better than the other… Sadly, Celestial does hide too many flaws, so these people do not die that quickly when not pressured right.
Also, people running Lich Form a lot… Because of #1

Mid-High tier; People who know what is up, but are too lazy to form a team. Also the fiercest competitors I run into. Run a mix between Celestial and Zerk (or even Carrion) depending on the class

High Tier; Celestial and whatever you are good at.

Lots of boons, Poison everywhere (Sigil of Doom), Immobilize spam, Burning spam and a lot of particle effects…

2 necros 2 rangers 1 x
2 engis 2 warrior 1 x
1 necro 1 ranger 1 warrior 1 engi 1 thief
1 ele maybe cele or zerk 2 ranger 1 × 1 necro

Ah 2 ranger 3 x
2 necro 3 x
1/5 games there is a cele ele
1/5 games there is a cele warrior

I think its the power ranger and con necro meta

all ppl that say nerf cele are hopeless, nerf something thats not exists LOL
ah i play on eu server.

blubberblasen.3901:

2 necros 2 rangers 1 x
2 engis 2 warrior 1 x
1 necro 1 ranger 1 warrior 1 engi 1 thief
1 ele maybe cele or zerk 2 ranger 1 × 1 necro

Ah 2 ranger 3 x
2 necro 3 x
1/5 games there is a cele ele
1/5 games there is a cele warrior

I think its the power ranger and con necro meta

all ppl that say nerf cele are hopeless, nerf something thats not exists LOL
ah i play on eu server.

I feel like you must be playing in an alternate reality version of the game and somehow your post passed over into our dimension.

Three of the most popular builds utilize Cele: D/D Ele, Rifle Engi, and Shoutbow Warrior. Many successful teams run with any combination of 3 of them, one of the viable power builds such as MediGuard or S/D Teef. The last one will probably be a pure condi of some sort or maybe a turret Engi or LB ranger if it’s one of the more vertical maps.

There was a time where the NA and EU metas were fairly different, but these days cele is so strong it’s used everywhere.

I wished there were more cele in my games … its boring and annoying to fight against necros and rangers …
; (

The easiest way to see the current meta is to have a look on MetaBattle.com website.
The most efficient way to see the current meta is to have a look on World Tournament Series Youtube Channel for GW2.

blubberblasen.3901:

2 necros 2 rangers 1 x
2 engis 2 warrior 1 x
1 necro 1 ranger 1 warrior 1 engi 1 thief
1 ele maybe cele or zerk 2 ranger 1 × 1 necro

Ah 2 ranger 3 x
2 necro 3 x
1/5 games there is a cele ele
1/5 games there is a cele warrior

I think its the power ranger and con necro meta

all ppl that say nerf cele are hopeless, nerf something thats not exists LOL
ah i play on eu server.

I play on the EU servers as well, and the only Condi Necros I come across are Henry, Prototype and myself (hah) – there are a lot more (Bad) Power Necromancers about really…

As for Rangers, only when it is the daily I see more than one per match… I have seen tons and tons of Engineers, Eles and Med Guardians – Shoutbows to a lesser extend…

So yea, either alternative reality, or you are extremely selective as to what you state here

3 sustain class(dd ele, shout warrior, engi etc.) 1 thief, 1 dps class(necro, medi guard, mesmer etc).

People never die. When they die they get power rezzed or warbannered.
If the downed gets cleaved everything snowballs.

Abusing vertical range and calling it skill

Specially Ele and Guardian.

Let’s see… I had to summarize what I’m currently seeing in both my matches and streams…

Well… you see… I believe everything can be explained with a song. And I bet this is no exception. Just wait a second there… a quick pop culture search…

Aaand….

There you are.

GW2’s current estate of PvP explained with a song.

Edit: Found a better version.

Thanks all! This was helpful.

My main is engi so I think that’s where I’ll feel most comfortable (though I got used to PvPing with everything except melee classes).

The metabattle wiki was particularly helpful for looking at build. Unfortunately I hate toolkit and that seems to be meta for engi.

All tiers: most players are so gullible they actually believe in a “meta”, and when they end up falling for it, they get absolutely destroyed by anyone who is using a custom build.

Don’t be a fool. If you’ve so much as seen this game’s publicized competitive scene, then you already know better than to try and play like that. It’s just embarrassing.

Top three metas that work very effectively within these three ranges of MMR

Low Range MMR Meta:
~ Power Rangers
~ Power Necromancers
~ Turret Engineers

Mid Range MMR Meta:
~ Condi Rangers
~ D/P & S/D Thieves
~ Medi/Burst Guardians

High Range MMR Meta:
~ Cele/Rifle Engineer
~ D/D Cele Elementalist
~ Cele Shoutbow Warrior

Rangelost.4857:

All tiers: most players are so gullible they actually believe in a “meta”, and when they end up falling for it, they get absolutely destroyed by anyone who is using a custom build.

Oh my god this is the funniest post I’ve seen in a while. Please tell me more about the underground world of condi guardians and bunker thieves.

Rangelost.4857:

All tiers: most players are so gullible they actually believe in a “meta”, and when they end up falling for it, they get absolutely destroyed by anyone who is using a custom build.

I had a zerk engi (SD) saying the exact same thing at start while soloqing…

He got totally rekt in 3 secs flat by a soldier hambow (Not even “that much” meta)

So yeah…go on please…

Current meta: you press all your buttons and you maybe hit one of your abilities but you’re playing cele engy/ele or shout warrior so aiming doesn’t really matter and nothing you do has any consequences because sustain and doom sigil is gonna proc anyway.

Basically: a bunch of builds that get nothing done eventually cap a point in a year after a thief presses F1 or a necro presses corrupt.

I think I nailed it.

Rangelost.4857:

All tiers: most players are so gullible they actually believe in a “meta”, and when they end up falling for it, they get absolutely destroyed by anyone who is using a custom build.

Don’t be a fool. If you’ve so much as seen this game’s publicized competitive scene, then you already know better than to try and play like that. It’s just embarrassing.

You can try to form a team with all your meta-breaking underground builds and quickly realize people play the “gullible” builds because they beat you.