Guild Wars 2

In the past, I was able to run builds that may not have been meta, but could still do well on if I played well. Examples would include but are not limited to: Skullcracker on War, Static Discharge on Engi, or Interrupts on Mes. These builds could be used while still being effective so long as you played smart.

Today, it appears that either you are meta or ineffective. Even if you are running a non-meta build that works decently the chances are it isn’t really hard to play. Examples would include Rifle War or a Might Stack Flamethrower Engi.

I’m the type of scrub that wants to play builds that (reasonable) other players respect when they face it. Most meta builds aren’t that difficult to play and most of the time players just have a “lol meta” or “/sigh” reaction to facing it. If you play a build like one I mentioned in the paragraph above you’ll be met with “might spammer” or “lol gunflame.” Sure, there’s no pleasing some players (sometimes I fall under that category) but in the past where I got comments like “respect” or “cool build” is what made the game fun to be.

The PvP in GW2 is not taken seriously and therefore I don’t spend my time playing builds I find to be boring. If the meta was strong but hard to play, sure that’s fantastic, but for over a year (two?) this hasn’t been the case. Everything has devolved into “meta” or “cheese.” This really bums me out. I’m the type of person that wants to pander to the crowd doing cool stuff, not someone like Floyd Mayweather that plays purely to win. I don’t blame people for playing like that if they value winning over all else, but I don’t.

If any Dev reads this, please, consider adding more skillful attacks/traits into the game that make me feel rewarded for landing it because it’s not something everyone can do. I’m fine with easier options existing, but not being essentially the ONLY option.

I agree…

The leagues got a whole new lot of people interested and involved in PvP and introduced real incentives for winning. So you’ll have this population of people jumping in and wanting to win, so they learn builds that win and have continued playing them afterwards.

I think its probably a good thing, this mindset (PvP hasn’t had much to push you to win before), we just need more frequent shaves or balances to make sure there aren’t just a few dominant builds (but we’ve all been saying that for years).

This isn’t a problem of leagues or anything like that – it all boils down to power-creep. Previously, there was “meta” builds, and then off-meta builds existed that were a reasonable step in effectiveness lower. However, as power has crept up, builds are based more and more on increasingly strong trait combos, leaving the old, unbuffed stuff in the dust. This is why power-creep is so dangerous – you either leave a large portion of your content useless or else constantly strive to update it to keep up with the creep.

At this point, it is basically hopeless. Power levels are still a runaway train with no attempt to hit the breaks in sight. Even the recent adjustment to ele/chronomancer, bringing those classes down closer to pre-HoT power levels will not be permanent. They aren’t going to keep nerfing everyone. They will probably drag their feet for a while then just buff these guys back up to high heaven again.

Tell me more about these cheesy meta builds please. Can’t win a pvp match to save my life.

Crysto.7089:

Tell me more about these cheesy meta builds please. Can’t win a pvp match to save my life.

No build will be able to carry you if you don’t know how to rotate.

But what do I do when there is another player on the point? I just die

When I returned to GW2 a little after the Heart of Thorns release and re-entered PvP after my 2 year break, I tried out my old Elementalist build for a few rounds, and it didn’t really work. This wasn’t surprsing. But then when I concocted a Tempest build and tried it out… it was the most faceroll thing I had ever played. And I don’t mean power level, but rather the sheer ease of playing the class.

After HOT, i feel like it doesn’t take skill to play or out play. It’s sad ….

geekilo.8512:

After HOT, i feel like it doesn’t take skill to play or out play. It’s sad ….

That was definitely true in the last meta with bunker mesmer and condi rev.

We still need to see what will be meta. People are still trying new specs at this point.

Crysto.7089:

Tell me more about these cheesy meta builds please. Can’t win a pvp match to save my life.

try condi necro with staff and scepter the key to facerolling with those is to enable snap cast to target on your settings and have the Unblockable marks trait this makes it so that your aoe skills automatically land on your target at all times and since they unblockable your enemy wont counter

use an amulet like Mercenary to completely anihilate your foes on shroud form with the 50% crit gainwhile in shroud passive

sounds great ty

You do realize there currently is no meta? And second, no one is forcing you to play Meta builds. Like me for example, I played a Thief during the Bunker Meta, and not your regular D/P thief, I played a staff thief build that I came up with. Believe or not, I made it to Legendary Division x2 using only my thief even tho people said Thief was practically “dead” in that Meta. So my advice to you is to just experiment with builds that are fun to you but add reasoable adjustments to make your build viable. And lastly, git good.

OP, some still work but you are definitely not as effective as pure metabattle.com builds.
To this points I still run power P/S engi and to see the look on their faces when I crit people for 6k is amazing.

come play ventari rev w me and feel swaggy af.

micro like a good for that perma protection an 3k heals.

come play ventari rev. it’s hardcore micro and feels hella rewarding.

perma AOE protection and great heals. yeah bby, gosh darn swaggy.

Crysto.7089:

Tell me more about these cheesy meta builds please. Can’t win a pvp match to save my life.

This guy shows an easy way to own face, it also helps explain “why I never feel skilled anymore”:

This continued mindset is quite perplexing. Honestly, if you aren’t competing at the highest level of premade team vs team then you can run a lot of various builds (including core) and do well. In the current state of how the queue system works, it isn’t mandatory that you run meta builds.

Pyriall.1683:

This continued mindset is quite perplexing. Honestly, if you aren’t competing at the highest level of premade team vs team then you can run a lot of various builds (including core) and do well. In the current state of how the queue system works, it isn’t mandatory that you run meta builds.

Feel free to list these builds by all means then. Personally, I’m finding that most non meta builds are flat out weaker than meta, when before there were builds that could counter the meta, they were just harder to play and therefore saw less use.

I don’t want to play inferior builds, I want to play skill builds.

its always has been the same kittening stupid way you have simply forgotten already

BurrTheKing.8571:

Pyriall.1683:

This continued mindset is quite perplexing. Honestly, if you aren’t competing at the highest level of premade team vs team then you can run a lot of various builds (including core) and do well. In the current state of how the queue system works, it isn’t mandatory that you run meta builds.

Feel free to list these builds by all means then. Personally, I’m finding that most non meta builds are flat out weaker than meta, when before there were builds that could counter the meta, they were just harder to play and therefore saw less use.

I don’t want to play inferior builds, I want to play skill builds.

His point still stands, though. Yes, in a vacuum, non-meta builds are weaker (I’m saying vacuum because I refer to a situation with two equally skilled players). With ranked queue gone, the skill difference between players is even bigger – it continously makes builds less relevant. Also skill doesn’t necessarily reflect build viability, take S/F ele for example.

@BurrTheKing

A couple things here… Basically;
Meta=Easy
Anti-Meta=Hard

If you want a go-to build that you know you will be able to compete with, go meta. The downside of meta is everyone will know what you’re going to do and be able to predict how to counter you.

If you want to be unpredictable and creative and raise a hate flag against meta-builds then experiment! It may take awhile before you find a build that is your own and you feel strong competing with, but these builds are always out there to be found, and often like @Shovel Face mentioned earlier in this thread, these are some of the best players.

That being said, to be successful with a build that isn’t meta or hybrid of the current meta, you really need to know that class inside and out as well as the mechanics of pvp. But i strongly disagree with you and i believe it’s possible, just not as easy as we’d all like it to be – but i personally like it like that.

Side note:
Engi flamethrower might stack is awesome

Stop playing gunflame warr, its boring as ffffff. Get a double melee weapon set and have fun. Spamming gunflames takes a toll on your conscience trust me, you end up feeling like a scrub because of how monotonous the gameplay is since it pretty much only revolves around gunflame. Still, that’s just my opinion though.

Classes or builds that bring less success than meta builds do not necessarily take more skill or are harder to play.

Especally warrior mainplayers tend to claim that you would need a lot of “skill” to play warrior nowadays – I actually main warrior myself and I completly disagree with those kind of statements. Warrior has still one of the easiest mechanics ingame and does not automatically take more skill than other classes only because it’s bad now.

Simple example:
play without weapons and reckless dodge only. You will never have success against anything but it still doesn’t take any skill ( except pressing “v”)

Yasha.5963:

Crysto.7089:

Tell me more about these cheesy meta builds please. Can’t win a pvp match to save my life.

This guy shows an easy way to own face, it also helps explain “why I never feel skilled anymore”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0JWZ8t08TY

You mean that you can spawn camp someone in a hot join and spam aoe for kills?!?!?!?!?!?! No WAY !!!!

Yasha.5963:

Crysto.7089:

Tell me more about these cheesy meta builds please. Can’t win a pvp match to save my life.

This guy shows an easy way to own face, it also helps explain “why I never feel skilled anymore”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0JWZ8t08TY

Gonna be laughing at that all day now. It’s a good example of how easy it is to play on some classes/ builds than others though.

For that, Anet needs to update old utilities, or add stuff to skillsets. For now, most classes have 1 healing skill superior to the others and is spammed. Some utilities are permanently benched because they serve no purpose. Some traits are absolutely terrible (Inscription, Conjurer, Serrated Stones…)

Yasha.5963:

Crysto.7089:

Tell me more about these cheesy meta builds please. Can’t win a pvp match to save my life.

This guy shows an easy way to own face, it also helps explain “why I never feel skilled anymore”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0JWZ8t08TY

What I am seeing is how low the necromancer dps after spamming all the aoe spells on a stationary target.

The meta is always low-skill : high-reward for the most part. Too many passive procs and unskillful mechanics in GW2 and not enough effort in balancing diverse combinations paired with a game mode featuring defensive play and balancing efforts for PvE/Raid content.

The mass amounts of AoE, CC, invulns (less now though with diamond skin and well of precog nerfed) and passive nonsense ruined that feeling completely, The game is getting farther and farther away from “active combat” with each patch.

Soon we will have the same combat as any WoW clone, where we just use basic attacks on braindead rotations while passives proc and do the work for us.

I miss those days when a 1.5 sec stun was considered “over the top”.
I wish ANET would just revert that whole June 23rd patch, that was the start of the end for me: insane power creep and the obliteration of build diversity, add elite specs and it’s gg, RIP gw2.

DoingDaMinimum.4530:

Yasha.5963:

Crysto.7089:

Tell me more about these cheesy meta builds please. Can’t win a pvp match to save my life.

This guy shows an easy way to own face, it also helps explain “why I never feel skilled anymore”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0JWZ8t08TY

Gonna be laughing at that all day now. It’s a good example of how easy it is to play on some classes/ builds than others though.

Hahahah I know right bro like necro easiest class to play, been meta for 3 years every team has had at least 4 necros per team since the beginning amirite?

I’m gonna go make a video of every kittening class in hotjoins doing the same thing, you all do realize how much footage he probably had to get to win fights even in hotjoin like that, not to mention half the video his team is outnumbering the opponents and they are spawn camping them…

THAT VIDEO IS A JOKE VIDEO IT’S NOT MEANT TO SHOW THAT NECRO IS OP, IT’S MEANT TO SHOW THAT SNAP TARGETING MAKES THE GAME IDIOT PROOF.

NeXeD.3042:

DoingDaMinimum.4530:

Yasha.5963:

Crysto.7089:

Tell me more about these cheesy meta builds please. Can’t win a pvp match to save my life.

This guy shows an easy way to own face, it also helps explain “why I never feel skilled anymore”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0JWZ8t08TY

Gonna be laughing at that all day now. It’s a good example of how easy it is to play on some classes/ builds than others though.

Hahahah I know right bro like necro easiest class to play, been meta for 3 years every team has had at least 4 necros per team since the beginning amirite?

I’m gonna go make a video of every kittening class in hotjoins doing the same thing, you all do realize how much footage he probably had to get to win fights even in hotjoin like that, not to mention half the video his team is outnumbering the opponents and they are spawn camping them…

THAT VIDEO IS A JOKE VIDEO IT’S NOT MEANT TO SHOW THAT NECRO IS OP, IT’S MEANT TO SHOW THAT SNAP TARGETING MAKES THE GAME IDIOT PROOF.

please make it for thief, i think it would be hilarious to watch
(i am genuinely interested)

NeXeD.3042:

DoingDaMinimum.4530:

Yasha.5963:

Crysto.7089:

Tell me more about these cheesy meta builds please. Can’t win a pvp match to save my life.

This guy shows an easy way to own face, it also helps explain “why I never feel skilled anymore”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0JWZ8t08TY

Gonna be laughing at that all day now. It’s a good example of how easy it is to play on some classes/ builds than others though.

Hahahah I know right bro like necro easiest class to play, been meta for 3 years every team has had at least 4 necros per team since the beginning amirite?

I’m gonna go make a video of every kittening class in hotjoins doing the same thing, you all do realize how much footage he probably had to get to win fights even in hotjoin like that, not to mention half the video his team is outnumbering the opponents and they are spawn camping them…

THAT VIDEO IS A JOKE VIDEO IT’S NOT MEANT TO SHOW THAT NECRO IS OP, IT’S MEANT TO SHOW THAT SNAP TARGETING MAKES THE GAME IDIOT PROOF.

Haven’t posted long on this forum so I’m sure you can check back and see that nowhere have I said that necros was OP. I did post something about there being too much aoe spam in game and that guys video just adds proof if you ask me.

Due to passives, ease of rotations, no positioning requirements and just baked in damage buffs; I still say some classes/builds are easier to play than others.

No I can see your a theif and so is cynz. All theives think their class is the hardest to play because spamming is almost 100% Garunteed to get you killed. Necro easier to play than theif in low tier, but that changes the higher up you go. Not that theif becomes easier to play in higher tiers it’s just that in higher tiers necros need skill, spamming their skills will get you killed just like on a theif.

I look at it like this

Low tier Necro>thief
Mid tier theif>necro
Low tier necro=theif