I’ve been playing this game since release and I like to do PvP occasionally, I can’t help but feel like there is too much of a lot of things in the meta.
1. Too much AoE. Seems like every class, their main damage sources are either AoE or cleaves. Necros, Engineers, Eles, somewhat mesmers if you consider their AoE shatters, etc. Most battles take part on points, this means that players must stay on those points to keep them from losing point, this creates quite an annoying gameplay style where you’re just seeing a abundant of AoE animations covering a point none stop through battles.
2. Too much CC. I remember yesterday I went up against a team where it was 3 necros and 2 engineers. They would focus someone and they’d baiscally be locked down for 10+ seconds at a time. This means classes with lots of stability, blocks (since not too many unblockable skills are in the meta right not, except for necormancers warhorn), and invulnerabilities usually do great. What makes it worse is a lot of these CC’s are AoE or Cones. There is noting more annoying then popping a stun breaker, dodging two more CCs, then getting CC’ed for another 8 seconds while you run against or wall or take a nap on the ground.
3. Too much burst. This game doesn’t have a direct support role. This means high burst damage is only negatable by defensive damage negators (invurnabilities, stealths, blocks, etc). This coupled with the high amount of CC, the game quickly becomes way too fast paced to really be interesting in fights.
4. Too much Condi application- There are a few classes who can apply a lot of condi really fast, most notably necromancer and engineer. This coupled with the large amount of CC, AoE, and burst damage it becomes quickly annoying.
I just feel like you’re asking way too much from players. Since each class can do a lot, when they focus someone on the team it is very hard for that player getting focus to counter it. So you use your dodge to escape that 8k heartseeker? Well now you dont have a dodge and that necromancer just applied every condi to you. Oh you used your dodge to escapes the eles CC so you don’t nap on the ground while you get pummeled with damage? Well that engineer just knocked you down. Oh your just dodge that high hitting AoE from the engineer? Have an ele’s high damage hitter.
You wonder why Mesmers, guardians, and thieves are popular? You wonder why necromancers want stability, blocks, or something besides high damage and deathsrhoud? It is because of the high spammablility of this game’s combat mechanics and no direct support role to help negate that damage in fights, those are the only ways to counter them.
Even if you tune down the particle animations, I promise you it wont fix the problem. There is so much that each class can do and how big of a difference everything a class can do in a battle, it’s often feeling like a big spam fest on top of a small point location.
If you introduce more game modes will this change? Maybe. I honestly feel like a lot needs to be reworked in terms of pvp game mechanics. This gameplay style is ok for WvW and open world PvE, but I feel it’s lacking in PvP.
This is of course my opinion and I could be wrong.
Edit: Someone Mentioned AI, totally forgot about this. You have so many summons in this game. Spirits now, clones/phantasms, minions, turrets, guardian summons (last 3 aren’t really in the meta), but it is still a lot. When designing summons, keep in mind that players must not only watch the players in the battles animations (which is a hassle as is) but now also the summons animations. You give those people with summons strong weapon slot abilities and it quickly becomes very annoying.
(edited by Deified.7520)