So I’ve been looking over the meta builds for the classes and I think I found how people figure out which builds are best.
Builds seem to revolve around their ability to take on multiple enemies and survive those multiple enemies.
I play an engineer and our most popular builds involve multiple kits and vigor/blinds for survival. Today I was messing around with a few different builds and I got involved in a few out numbered fights and it got me to realize some interesting things.
Not many classes/players have the ability to watch the animations/calls for all the skills. For example if you were up against a necro/thief. The player has to watch for the necromancers condi spam and either try to remove that or dodge it. The player must also watch the thief to dodge his attacks because they may do a large amount of damage. These things that plays must watch out for are not punishing if that player misues it. A thief misses a heartseeker? Do it again or wait for imitative. Necromancer miss a mark? Low enough CD or he just switches weapons. There is little punishment in a fight for misusing these skills. Another example is mesmer/ele. The player must watch the mesmers animations to make sure he doesn’t get stunned or burst, but also the clones to watch for the shatters/immobilize. There the player must watch a total of 4 models alone. Then you have the ele who you have to watch his attunements to try to predict his skills. If you dont he can do some massive CC or quite a lot of damage. All these things if a player doesn’t dodge/negate it, it could mean his death in a battle.
What does this cause?
The meta builds usually are composed of two things. AoE Damage/Very high single target burst, and defensive damage negators (evades/dodges, stealths, blocks, invurn).
Why?
The AoE damage allows players to hit multiple targets without actually actively paying attention to all the targets at once. This especially shines in out manned situations and teamfights. For very high single target damage, these is usually accompanied by a lot of defensive damage negators. The players must basically down a target very very fast by inflicting a ton of damage in one or two attacks, then run and wait for CD recharge (which isn’t that long).
The defensive damage negators allow players to basically negate damage from multiple sources without actively paying attention to them. IF a thief heartseekers me while I was dodging another attack from another player, I just negated 6k damage without actually paying attention. If I am blocking and a mesmer tries to do his shatters, I negate his shatters and then negate some more damage from other players.
Does this make for a good PvP meta?
Perhaps, it is a different style. I think the amount of players playing spvp will show how successful it is.
How to change it?
I would do these things personally
Reduce overall AoE damage in the game of all classes. Way too much and it does way too much damage. One of the reasons not a lot of AI are used. Rangers have low CD on their AI thanks to it starting when they summon them, mesmers are constantly shattering and summoning their AI.
Reduce overall burst damage. This could help steer the meta away from defensive damage negators being of such importance.
Increase Cooldown on hard hitting abilities. Honestly if any attack can deal 1/4 or more of a players HP (engineer in full soldiers armor taking 6-7k hits from a thief) should be on a cooldown to prevent spamming. One on One it is not as bad, but there is no official dueling and most fights have multiple models and players we have to watch.
Increase potency of conditions, but decrease classes access to them. This helps make them good, but it also prevents them from being spammed a ton. People should care about when to land a poison, bleed, flaming, or frozen. Not just spamming them in hopes of hitting them.