Guild Wars 2

Reduce powercreep => more fun => more people => shorter ques => mm working.

Gonna bet all my gold that won’t happen

If anything, the next patch will tell us a lot about the direction the balance is going. If they introduce new nerfs to current elite specs, this means Anet wants to reduce powercreep. If they don’t introduce nerfs, this means we will be stuck with powercreep forever.
Why am I saying this? Because this meta is the most stable we have had since HoT release and I don’t think Anet has the balls to risk breaking it, even if this meant making the game more fun by reducing powercreep.

Well i’m pretty sure that if they don’t do something about it next season then the pvp playerbase will completely disappear (because grinding to legendary 4 times will not keep players playing the game). Anet needs to keep in mind that people play for fun, and sure, balance is a part of that, but if a person who’s played 1000 games on a class is as good as a person who’s played 100 because the spec carries, then there is a problem.

Tomiyou.3790:

Why am I saying this? Because this meta is the most stable we have had since HoT release and I don’t think Anet has the balls to risk breaking it, even if this meant making the game more fun by reducing powercreep.

Good point. The problem with them getting to a balanced meta is that they only patch once every 3 months or so. They could easily get to a fair meta within a month or two if they abandoned this policy of actually doing something every 3 months and patched every 2 weeks or so.

Tomiyou.3790:

If anything, the next patch will tell us a lot about the direction the balance is going. .

Actually, that was last patch, and they just slightly nerfed some skills and traits. It’s clear that the powercreep will stay, maybe even worsen with next expansion. It’s a shame, really. Gw2 has great combat and graphics.

But you cant’t blame Anet for all of it and here’s why

1) Mans gotta eat. Game went “f2p” and if gemstore sales dont cut it, they need this backup pay 2 win thing.
2) Nerfing all specs equally is harder than it looks. But if 3 months of imbalance will bring about a less passive, more active and more fun meta, so be it. As long as they balance every month and listen to constructive feedback. Unlike pro beta testers that bestowed upon us this creep of power. “Omg rev so useless I have no energy” …

akaCryptic.2389:

Tomiyou.3790:

If anything, the next patch will tell us a lot about the direction the balance is going. .

Actually, that was last patch, and they just slightly nerfed some skills and traits. It’s clear that the powercreep will stay, maybe even worsen with next expansion.

Anet decided to balance by “shaving” classes. This means reducing/increasing their power little by little. Before this patch, the meta was wildly unbalanced and the current patch brought it in line. It will bi interesting what happens next, as only the next patch will truly show what they intend to do with balance.
Tho I don’t know if Anet understands that simply balance number won’t save anything. Some core issues must be attended to first (pigeonholing into traitlines, conditions do too many things at once, …)

Balance feels good right now imo… it can be better for sure but compared to what it was, at least I can enjoy pvp now instead of ragequitting after 1 or 2 matches from the cancer.

All I want is less spammable boons & condis. It is pretty crazy right now. especially on top of all the passive.

I wish all of our passiveness were baked into our weapon abilities and/or utilities. The one ‘passive’ I do enjoy is the thief evade traits though as its actually an active ability of sorts. We should have plenty more traits like these that actually compliment gameplay diversity instead of boring stuff like invulns/cleanse/boons/damage increase.

Those things are not fun at all, sure they are helpful, but they don’t make gameplay any more fun or thought provoking. It definitely isn’t fun to watch, either. Which is probably why our esport scene is a joke.

Rukia.9860:

All I want is less spammable boons & condis. It is pretty crazy right now. especially on top of all the passive.

Part of the power creep. I mean, part of the reason we never see shout guards anymore is because tempest can do that and heal for 2k with one button, and rev can do everything shout guards can (and more) just by standing there. None of this promotes skilled gameplay and is unhealthy in the long term.

Balance is not so bad actually, the big problem is the static meta. 3 Seasons in a row with the same builds (except for the RiP bunker mesmer), same weapon etc make PvP boring.
The meta is static since Arenanet does not want to break the PvE balance because of PvP, and we all know balance in MMO is there to create unbalance and healthy movement in the meta.

Silverthorn.8576:

Balance is not so bad actually, the big problem is the static meta. 3 Seasons in a row with the same builds (except for the RiP bunker mesmer), same weapon etc make PvP boring.
The meta is static since Arenanet does not want to break the PvE balance because of PvP, and we all know balance in MMO is there to create unbalance and healthy movement in the meta.

Balance is fine right now (except for dragonhunter, but even that isn’t too far behind). I definitely agree with your analysis of the “static” meta, but the powercreep in the game has pushed build diversity out of the picture. I was watching the WTS in Beijing the other day, and I noticed that OE ran pistol / shield and Five G ran rifle. Shield got pushed out of the meta because it had a reflect on a 30s cd (hammer has that on 6s and does damage) and a single target stun on a 40s cd. If powercreep weren’t a thing, we would see more engis running shield.

Another thing I noticed watching the WTS is that they both used supply crate (120s cd) and the elementalists ran FGS, a 180 second cd. Now if a skill has a cd over 50-60s it probably won’t see any gameplay, which should never be the case. Most skills in the game need to see some play for the game to be healthy, but that can’t happen if Thunderclap (scrapper hammer 5) does the same thing supply crate did but on a 30s cd.

@Silverthorn

I would argue that the deliberate breaking of balance to “shake up the meta” has been one of the major problems for quite some time. That’s partly because some classes have been favored more often than others.

An unbalanced class, hambow warrior for example, doesn’t create a new mix of play styles. It creates a mad rush to band waggon on the latest OP spec. Well do I remember 5 hambow teams rolling over everything else.. and 5 man ranger teams for that matter.

OP is correct.

The current balance is full of suck. If everyone could one-shot everyone, then it’s balanced – but not fun at all. Fun needs to happen before balance.

I agree 100%. It feels like I wasted my money

Agree with OP and refer to my signature…

Nerf the duck out of everything, lower damage, raise cooldown timers, lower condititon application, lower boon application, remove most of the trait damage modifiers, and make most (if not all) traitlines useful for either pvp or pve as many are useless for both.

Allison The Strange.4519:

Agree with OP and refer to my signature…

Nerf the duck out of everything, lower damage, raise cooldown timers, lower condititon application, lower boon application, remove most of the trait damage modifiers, and make most (if not all) traitlines useful for either pvp or pve as many are useless for both.

Let me add to all the wonderful things you have just mentioned: They need to reduce condition application and overkill condition removal.

Does anyone really believe things will get better?

Zelulose.8695:

Allison The Strange.4519:

Agree with OP and refer to my signature…

Nerf the duck out of everything, lower damage, raise cooldown timers, lower condititon application, lower boon application, remove most of the trait damage modifiers, and make most (if not all) traitlines useful for either pvp or pve as many are useless for both.

Let me add to all the wonderful things you have just mentioned: They need to reduce condition application and overkill condition removal.

I agree with that, but I honestly meant nerf EVERYTHING including the stuff I didn’t mention such as the stupid, insane, no skill, low cooldown, passive stuns and cc’s.

Allison The Strange.4519:

Zelulose.8695:

Allison The Strange.4519:

Agree with OP and refer to my signature…

Nerf the duck out of everything, lower damage, raise cooldown timers, lower condititon application, lower boon application, remove most of the trait damage modifiers, and make most (if not all) traitlines useful for either pvp or pve as many are useless for both.

Let me add to all the wonderful things you have just mentioned: They need to reduce condition application and overkill condition removal.

I agree with that, but I honestly meant nerf EVERYTHING including the stuff I didn’t mention such as the stupid, insane, no skill, low cooldown, passive stuns and cc’s.

Ya I noted that skills like pulmonary shot were going to destroy the game. They need to give it a ICD like 20 seconds or so. It is not op it is just annoying and kind of troll to face headshot spam.

Entire thread, and people aren’t even in agreement of if the current meta is balanced or not.

It will indeed be interesting what Arenanet does with the next patch. Suffice to say, one crowd will be displeased. It’s never a win for the devs I guess…

Cyninja.2954:

Entire thread, and people aren’t even in agreement of if the current meta is balanced or not.

It’s balanced and it’s not. That’s because there’s two different definitions of “balance” being used.

The first view looks at whether there is roughly equal representation among professions/builds. In season3, most professions have one build which is deemed to be viable. This is a relative balance.

But there are flaws in relative balance. If every profession had an ability to one-shot every other profession, it’s balanced by the first view. But generally, that’s not fun. Look no further than season1, where multiple builds could live forever. By the first view of balance, it was pretty good. But it wasn’t fun at all.

The second view of balance, which the OP is using, finds a somewhat absolute point which is good and fun. It then compares all professions/builds to that point in addition to each other. This view sees power creep and a lack of fun because every viable build is capable of performing with a minimum forethought of skill use.

The current meta is not balanced no game can ever be balanced if left untouched. Relative balance is only achieved by patching every 2 weeks to keep up with the changes. GW2 has never ever been balanced only better or worse in terms of balance. I think most players would agree that class equality never existed.