Guild Wars 2 PvP has had the same problem for years now, specific BUILDS being OP, not classes. You can have a team of all one class and they can each be fulfilling a different role. For example you could have: Power DPS Warrior, Condi Warrior, Shout Heals Warrior, CC Focused Warrior, and some weird hybrid Warrior. Now, these builds might not be the best at doing that specific role, but that doesn’t mean players shouldn’t be allowed to run them.
The root of the issue is that every class right now has one build that simply outclasses all other options. Certain builds are Jack-of-all-trades-master-of-all, there’s a complete lack of actual specialization. Builds with good damage should not also have great sustain. There’s needs to be more tradeoffs if there’s ever going to be a semblance of balance. There will always be a meta, but there needs to be more viable builds that are at least playable and maybe even counter the meta.
Now, I’m no game dev, but I feel that there’s only one way to solve this problem. *We need another Specialization patch-sized class rework. I think we’ve all seen that every change to PvP so far have just been treating the symptoms and not the disease. I think the specialization system is a good idea, but every tree is so self contained that we ended up with MASSIVE powercreep across all classes. In GW2’s case, I think less is more. Too many traits have multiple powerful effects. At launch, you had much less power overall because most traits did ONE thing. The old system had its own problems as well, but I for one preferred the slower pace the stressed the importance of landing your key skills. The challenge behind this redesign is keeping it simple enough to be feasible, we’re not replacing the Specialization system, but still bring dedicated roles back. This won’t be by any means easy, but if you design it around the idea of “you need these traits to be the most effective at this role” it would be easier to balance down the line.
My suggested solution would be this: have each Specialization be focused on a specific role, but have traits that dramatically effect its effectiveness in other Specializations. Now, this will slightly reduce player creativity, but can you really say we have any with the current system either? We have a ton of traits that never see any use. If those traits can be replaced with viable options we could have players fulfilling a specific role, with little twists here and there. It would also be
There are two other keys changes I think would also need to happen. The first is that weapon skills should be done away with, being forced to take a spec just to make your weapon better isn’t fun. Those traits could be made to be more general. For example, Warrior’s Forceful Greatsword could have make landing a critical give might no matter what weapon, but with a new ICD to compensate. The second change would be to make “must have” traits become baseline like we saw with Mesmer. If a trait is almost universally picked, then you’re better off just making it a part of the class. Now, this is a kind of power creep, but if the power of other traits gets reduced that should more than make up for it. On a side not, this would open up the possibility down the line of making a matchmaking system that can detect what kind of build you have and team you up accordingly.
Class stacking is not the problem! Everything comes down to the builds themselves and the fact that right now there are builds with no major weaknesses. This removes class diversity even though at launch it’s clear the idea was that any class can fulfill a role, but in a slightly different way. I want that kind of gameplay, where timing and skill is more important than memorizing a skill rotation.