Guild Wars 2

Genuinely interested to hear people’s opinions on this. For a long time I’ve felt like the GW2 metas tend to be too strong. It’s not just a determiner of what’s good, it’s a determiner of what you can and cannot play. There are always builds that fall into the middle ground, but for the most part the off-meta builds are so weak compared to the meta that playing them is suicide. Which, is terrible when one or more of your favorite builds have been deemed unusable until the next major patch shake up.
Does anyone else agree? Do you feel the meta balance is comparable to that of other mmos or is there more of an extreme swing here?

Imo the meta for the last 2 years has always been polarizing to the point the game resembles a moba where every class has exactly 1 build with (very) small variations akin to item builds in mobas.
This is terrible for the game and it shows, every season the queue time increases and we always see the same kittening builds all the time even during off season where it literally does not matter if you win or loose.
Also the mentality of ‘shaking things up’ is stupid, that is not what patches should be. They should not nerf or buff kitten just to shake things up, again to call on the moba allegory it reminds me of the hero rotations where one weak you have a certain roster of characters that then changes. This is not how balance patches are suppose to work in an mmo, rotating what is the one thing everyone plays. This is the reason why when you see a class you know exactly what traits and skills adn everything else he has.

Tldr: they need to treat the game like a mmo and patch things more often and push for true build diversity and not patch things so that there is 1 clear build for each class. Otherwise the game will slowly die off at least in the pvp scene.

In the PvE realm, virtually any build will fly. The raiders are a sub group that requires specific builds but I think they will always be a small faction.

So, build diversity does work in PvE.

I honestly think ANET has been pushing toward moba style in PvP. They haven’t convinced me that they are able to balance mmo builds in a PvP/WvW setting.

The diversity in role this game has I think the meta is actually rather forgiving compared to what it could be.

I mean sure games like WoW and SWTOR have lower power differences between specs, but those games also homogenize classes to the extreme.

I’m seeing a pretty strong trend to homogenize classes in GW2. Most classes can do most everything with a slight repackaging.

That trend does not bode well for the game in my opinion.

Yes, the meta is too meta. Since HoT at least.

Ithilwen.1529:

I’m seeing a pretty strong trend to homogenize classes in GW2. Most classes can do most everything with a slight repackaging.

That’s not what I meant by homogenization. I mean was how in SWTOR every single class has a 4 sec hard CC regardless of build, and every single class has a dedicated stunbreak regardless of build.
In WoW and SWTOR if you can play one build you can play them all because there isn’t much difference.

my anger at all of the useless/under powered traits/skills has faded away into hopelessness. feelssobadman.

Crinn.7864:

Ithilwen.1529:

I’m seeing a pretty strong trend to homogenize classes in GW2. Most classes can do most everything with a slight repackaging.

That’s not what I meant by homogenization. I mean was how in SWTOR every single class has a 4 sec hard CC regardless of build, and every single class has a dedicated stunbreak regardless of build.
In WoW and SWTOR if you can play one build you can play them all because there isn’t much difference.

Sorry to say but this is a bit of an overstatement.

Sure, WoW/SWTOR classes have stun breakers, stuns (instant or cast), and yes they are based on similar mechanics for each class. However, for example in SWTOR if you will play sniper in the same way as marauder then you will perform really, really badly – there are many other examples which I will spare you.

What I’m getting at is that PVP in WoW/SWTOR is completely different that the one in GW2 – it is like comparing apples and oranges.
I would even argue that classes in SWTOR differentiate between each other much more than classes in GW2 – but then again, the above games should not be compared.

Thanks.

They could fix it in one foul swoop by getting rid of the amulet system for stats. Give us 3000 points to implement where we want to and you now have so much flexibility.

charchar.2149:

They could fix it in one foul swoop by getting rid of the amulet system for stats. Give us 3000 points to implement where we want to and you now have so much flexibility.

This system is essentially much more logical, but won’t be used in this game. I would love to see something like it, but I won’t.

I understand anet has been trying to shake things up with the balance patches, and supposedly the metas should shift with that…unfortunately in practice they’ve had the opposite effect. They’ve just reinforced existing meta-builds. Most classes have a secondary build that’s ok in some situations, but for a vast majority of games the meta is the way to go. Question becomes how can you change up the meta builds to make other builds viable without deconstructing each class individually… then balancing it against the other classes again. It’s like being stuck in a pit. Many skills just are not useful in PvP and WvW, and many trait lines are just… wonky and fit together like a circle peg in a square hole. Personally I think it’d be great if we had more variety in the trait lines… rather than picking one in each of three columns, it’d be nice to be able to pick any of the 3 of the 9 available traits, or some variation of that idea.

charchar.2149:

one foul swoop

lol its fell swoop

Dneemit.2514:

Crinn.7864:

Ithilwen.1529:

I’m seeing a pretty strong trend to homogenize classes in GW2. Most classes can do most everything with a slight repackaging.

That’s not what I meant by homogenization. I mean was how in SWTOR every single class has a 4 sec hard CC regardless of build, and every single class has a dedicated stunbreak regardless of build.
In WoW and SWTOR if you can play one build you can play them all because there isn’t much difference.

Sorry to say but this is a bit of an overstatement.

Sure, WoW/SWTOR classes have stun breakers, stuns (instant or cast), and yes they are based on similar mechanics for each class. However, for example in SWTOR if you will play sniper in the same way as marauder then you will perform really, really badly – there are many other examples which I will spare you.

What I’m getting at is that PVP in WoW/SWTOR is completely different that the one in GW2 – it is like comparing apples and oranges.
I would even argue that classes in SWTOR differentiate between each other much more than classes in GW2 – but then again, the above games should not be compared.

Thanks.

Those fantasy, MMORPG games are within the same genre and are very comparable. It’s not like i’m comparing GW2 to a Moba game…That would be like comparing NASCAR to the NFL.

I quit WoW nearly 8 years ago (whos counting?) because they demolished build diversity. Then later I hear it turned a lot more homogenized just like how Crinn put it but that’s not the reason why I stopped paying monthly bills for that billion $$$ game.

“Oh wait, our cc + burst didn’t work again, lets run around this pillar until we get our cd’s up and try the same combo again.”

GW2 PvP mechanic wise is eons better than WoW.
GW2 Balancing… Skill changes… HoT direction.. and overall Matchmaking quality… has been horrendous.

Oops lol lol lol ty