Guild Wars 2

After tons of ranting, crying, cursing and even more of other stuff I will not utter here, i discovered that the meta development makes 100% sense.

In Betas everyone and their dogs ran glasscanon builds, damage was insanely high and the game was extremely fast. This was because of the game being new, in fact beta, and people liking to see huge numbers when first entering a game.

After release we had the bunker meta. Every team ran 1-2 bunkers and a more or less balanced mix of condition and power based damage.

Then, a long while after, came the condition meta. People discovered a necromancer was able to easily disassemble the, at this stage, very boon reliant bunkers.

Now the control meta is coming up, featuring super condition resistant CC builds. This is an result to the condition meta, which didnt feature a plenty of stunbreakers because the majority of skills was reserved for cleanses and more conditions.

Now, lets look at this in relation to patches, I will just reduce the previously mentioned metagames to short terms and add the (in my opinion relevant) patches in between.

Glass Meta

Over the BWEs and at launch damage is reduced a lot. I know this especially about thief and elementalist.

Support meta

Bunker elementalists get nerfed. Guardian remains firm in his spot.

“Balanced” meta (1 bunker, not too glassy rest)

The Dhuumfire patch. Dhuumfire gets introduced, some where around this torment is added as well. Necromancers gain the ability to take down targets with conditions just as fast as a glasscanon might be able to.
Ranger pet damage nerf, weakening the previously popular beastmaster bunker builds.
Spirit rangers got buffed (I think)
Warriors are buffed.
I am not sure if it was now, but somewhere close the thiefs Sword dagger set was introduced. From this day on mesmers and elementalists are borderline unviable.

Condition meta.

Necromancers get a change, Dhuumfire is slightly tones down and mark average size is increased. Greater marks moved to master tier.
Warriors are buffed.

PAX (nothing happens) a warrior demonstrates his ability to hardcounter spirit builds. The entire event is an disaster. Spirit rangers everywhere.

(joke)Arenanet introduces the term “petting zoo” as an official term for spirit ranger- (end_joke)

Spirit rangers get changed. Cooldowns reduced and cooldown begins at spirit death.
This sounds like a nerf, but for me it seems more like a buff. Spirit rangers could presummon their spirits and instantly resummon them before this patch, but if both “waves” were killed there was a 60 second downtime.
Now the presummoning is no longer possible due to the inevadeable cooldown but in longer fights the ranger only has a very low downtime on spirits.

Control meta The continuous buffs on the warrior pile up and in combination with the demonstration of this professions power at pax it becomes the new meta profession.

What we know of the coming patch is, that conditions will be turned down and some warrior and elementalist staff skills will be buffed.

Well now, what does all this tell us?

The meta has an – in its own way healthy – development. The problem is that the patches always fight the previous meta game and do this by nerfing it and buffing the counter. Now, by design the counter would have worked out ok, but with the patches the previous metagame becomes obsolete.
With the control meta this power creep has reached a level, I believe, at which it can no longer be countered. Maybe glasscannons will be able to eradicate the controllers before the control kicks in, but it wont be a hardcounter like in the previous cases.

My prediction:
Warriors healing signet will be toned down
Paralysation sigills will be fixed/removed/toned down
Warrior mace F1 will be toned down.

Mesmer will be buffed.
Elementalist will not be touched. maybe some minor buffs and the (obligatory) nerf each patch.

This will clear the path to the next stage which I expect: The glasscanon meta. Teams will build for heavy damage, especially with mesmers and propably elementalists if sword dagger thief gets toned down.
A guardian will remain in the teams due to the massive CCs incoming and the stability they can provide.
Moa openers will find use, but instead of a guardian warriors will be taken down with it.

Elementalists will, if they become viable choice, will run earth triat VIII (I think this is it) which gives two seconds of stability to the team on earth atunement.

Some weird kitten , me, will attempt countering the control meta with a 4 ele 1 x team, with elementalists running boonduration runes, 30 in arcana and said earth trait for permanent stability in teamfights and massive mightstacking/heal.

What can we/ArenaNet do to improve the current situation? Simple: There was a point in spring, where balance worked out quite well. I called it “Balanced” meta because people were running conditions, control and all sorts of things at that time.

We need to get back to that point and start fixing profession related problems. The way the meta is working now is, that a meta will be “overkillpatched” meaning there are reasonable nerfs which would fix the issues, and reasonable buffs to the counter.

Together it looks like whack a mole balance because the difference becomes too large.

Also professions, like elementalist and mesmer at the moment which belong to one meta, but not to the following ones are left behind. They get this huge nerf but in all the other phases of the meta they just lie there.

I hope this helps understanding whats going on in this game, and i hope even more that some important people read this and think about what I have said.

You have to keep in mind that players in competitive formats will generally gravitate to what they feel is the strongest overall build, hence defining the meta. This means even if the game is “balanced” to provide a good spread of build archetypes you’ll still only see a few of them present.

Personally I feel the meta isn’t as bad as people make it out to be, but if you aren’t willing to adapt to it (ie, removal heavy team for condition heavy meta), you’re gonna have a bad time.

That isn’t to say that there isn’t room for the improvement of build diversity.

Buffing the mesmer is a bad idea;

Unless you buff the Greatsword/Scepter/torch/focus
which at this point are pretty meh..

If mesmers lose sigil of Paralysis though that’ll be a nerf… pretty big one at that..
So maybe it will balance out?

You forgot, guardians, we have remained the same pretty much since beta. Sure recently there were a few healing buffs, but as a power/toughness based guardian, I dont use mace or staff for anything.

Not every guardian plays to support, or should feel forced to play support.

Of cause I forgot guards, nothing happened with them.

Buffing mesmers is a bad idea, but the most likely behavior.

Paralysis sigill has to go. Either that or nerf warrior stuns directly, which would pidgeonhold them into using the sigills.

If everyone goes for the strongest build thats ok. As long as there is a not just THAT good one which counters the strongest by mechanic.

I am not talking forcing someone to play some way. I am talking of the development of the meta, which will very likely keep the guardian as a pointholder, this does not forbid that guardians can be viable offensively, just that they will keep their place as good bunker.

The meta is bad for elementalists and mesmers currently. And tell me one single comp which can cleanse only half the condispam around at the moment. Also I am talking about adaption all the time.
Thats my core point. People adapt, the meta rotates. Thats good. Classes get exclosed from certain phases of the meta -> cry on the forums. Counter gets buffed, meta gets nerfed and imbalance occurs.
Some balancing is necessary, but people are also interpreting stages of this rotation as imbalances, which is strongly related to one meta countering the other.
Now, the meta rotates slowly and it looks like a imbalance for a long time. Devs “fix” it and create a real imbalance, forcing people into the next meta.

The current rotation is

Glass
Bunker
Balanced
Condition
Control
Back

If the devs however had not overdone the necro balance we would not have this rotation, but active countering. " Oh, they are running a heavy condition setup" -> “Lets switch to control”
Balanced teams will have ok chances, extreme teams will have good matches against each other, will steamroll the setups they counter and be steamrolled by their counter setup.

The devs now started this rotation. And because of the imbalance occurring when they alter one meta they have to alter the next.

By this they keep the wheel turning. In a balanced game it would not matter if one setup is stronger then others, because countering > power of the setup.
Rock – Paper -Scissors.

The most stable chances are when you build for a mix. Having a counter for every setup, but also elements weak to the same setups.
On the otherhand counter switching chars can also be a valid strategy.

Saw this coming a month ago, but all the warriors were like (at that point in time) we’re not even viable in tPvP! Find me any warriors on top tPvP teams! (which at the point in time there weren’t any admittedly) and that healing signet is no good for tPvP since it is supposedly “hard countered” by poison (even though practically every warrior uses that now)

Look what we have here, with no changes to warrior in a month. Yea you’re viable for tPvP, you’re TOO viable, you’re the meta now.

@LittleFeather; that is probably the most fallacious statement on these forums; Changes to the guardian in the past Month; I couldn’t copy paste everything from the next month because 5000 character limit.

Protector’s Strike: This skill will now trigger if an attack is blocked while the guardian is in midair.
Sword of Justice—Command: Fixed an issue that caused the Command skill to go on full recharge without activating properly when used without a target.
Healer’s Retribution: Fixed a bug that caused this trait to provide more retaliation than intended with Healing Breeze.
Virtue of Courage: Updated the aegis skill fact to display the proper duration.
Tome of Courage/Wrath: Using these elite skills will now drop the player’s currently equipped bundle instead of destroying it.
Leap of Faith: Fixed a bug that caused a longer than intended blind when hitting multiple targets.
Sword of Justice—Command: Removed the range indicator for this skill, as it was unnecessary.
Monk’s Focus: This trait now scales 40% with healing power, up from 10%.
Merciful Intervention: This skill’s recharge has been lowered from 80 seconds to 50 seconds. Base healing for this skill has been increased by 48%. Scaling with healing power has been increased to 60% effectiveness, up from 20%.
Symbol of Judgment: Increased the spell effect and AoE rings to match the actual radius of this skill for both the base and when traited with Writ of Exaltation.
Symbol of Wrath: When traited with Writ of Exaltation, this skill now applies retaliation to the correct radius. Increased the spell effect and AoE rings to match the actual radius of this skill for both the base and when traited with Writ of Exaltation.
Symbol of Protection: Increased the spell effect and AoE rings to match the actual radius of this skill for both the base and when traited with Writ of Exaltation.
Symbol of Faith: Fixed a bug that caused this skill to hit 3 targets instead of 5 when traited with Writ of Exaltation. Increased the base radius to 180 and a 240 radius when traited with Writ of Exaltation. Increased the spell effect and AoE rings to match the actual radius of this skill for both the base and when traited with Writ of Exaltation.
Symbol of Swiftness: Increased the base radius to 180 and a 240 radius when traited with Writ of Exaltation. Increased the spell effect and AoE rings to match the actual radius of this skill for both the base and when traited with Writ of Exaltation.
Writ of the Merciful: Fixed a bug so that the healing area provided from this trait will correctly scale its radius with the Writ of Exaltation trait.
Orb of Wrath: Increased the projectile speed of this skill by 30%.
Wrathful Strike: Increased the might duration from 3 seconds to 5 seconds.
Signet of Judgment: This ability now breaks stuns. Increased the cooldown to 30 seconds.
Shield of the Avenger: Command: This ability now breaks stuns.
Chains of Light: This ability now deals a small amount of damage.
Signet of Mercy: Reduced the cooldown to 150 seconds.
Bane Signet: Reduced the cooldown to 40 seconds.
Refraction: Decreased the cast time from 1.3 seconds to .5 seconds.
Tome of Wrath: Smiter’s Boon: This trait now applies to the caster as well.
Sanctuary: Fixed an issue where Consecrated Ground was also reducing the cast time of this skill.
Virtue of Justice: Updated the skill fact to correctly display the actual burning duration when the skill is activated.
Tome of Courage: Protective Spirit: This trait now applies to the caster as well.
Tome of Courage: Pacifism: Daze duration has been increased to the 3 seconds listed in the tooltip.
Pure of Heart: This trait now heals for its base amount +25% benefit from healing power, up from 10%.
Blind Exposure: Vulnerability caused by this trait has been increased from 5 seconds to 10 seconds.
Radiant Fire: This trait now grants a 20% bonus to burning duration, in addition to reducing the torch skill recharge by 20%. Fixed the description text to indicate the accurate recharge reduction.

You are right Blimm, the Meta does make sense if you look at patch history and what spec counters what. However, and I think most would agree, understanding how we got to this meta does not make it fun to play.

That is due to the imbalance occurring due to FALSE dev intervention. Look at my last post, ive edited a kittenload there.
The metas not being fun to play is a matter of skill floor/ceiling.
An other matter.
I never said the sense was good, it just makes sense.
There is a pattern.

a pattern of bad balancing nothing more. game started unbalanced so devs whaka-mole the fotm and buffing over the top unused professions..

Dude, be constructive. Ive bitten off ALL my fingernails writing this stuff WITHOUT trashing someone.
The unused professions are not buffed because of nothing, but because they are the counter to the meta at hand. Or they were unused before the meta reached the next stage, where those professions became the new counter.

Blimm.5028:

Dude, be constructive. Ive bitten off ALL my fingernails writing this stuff WITHOUT trashing someone.
The unused professions are not buffed because of nothing, but because they are the counter to the meta at hand. Or they were unused before the meta reached the next stage, where those professions became the new counter.

im constructive. not my problem u write so much. u search a reason behind bad balancing where no higher reason is. thats all. whaka-mole and the outcome. its nothing more.. pushed that over the top and after realizing “oh kitten it was too much but i cant remove it now” they push other things that maybe counter them. but cause the pushed the first class to far the push to the counter is to far and the next balanced is a rinse-repeat..

not a higher reason created that circle, the balance at gamestart did it. if conditions would be op atm u would see another circle. only the player has somehow influenced slighlty that patching-circle by adopting to the gametype.

Never said its a higher reason.
Its a pattern, a cycle of death coming from the dhuumfire patch.

What I did was I analyzed this pattern and explained how it SHOULD be.

Blimm.5028:

Never said its a higher reason.
Its a pattern, a cycle of death coming from the dhuumfire patch.

What I did was I analyzed this pattern and explained how it SHOULD be.

balancing is reactive and should be proactive.

i did it too with less words

You didnt analyze^^ You didn´t look at the larger sense.
Still gg :P

so there is no higher reason but a larger sense?
isnt that the same?

Reason has to do with sanity, logic, doing stuff with an intention and a clear idea behind it.

Good luck finding that in our devs heads.

Sense however is just…. well, sense. Stuff makes SENSE when you see a pattern behind it. But that is not a REASON to kitten up the game I love u.u

i think it means the same regardless of done by intention or not. its how i said: balancing is reactive and should be proactive.. the same analyze u did but much less words.

Blimm.5028:

What can we/ArenaNet do to improve the current situation? Simple: There was a point in spring, where balance worked out quite well. I called it “Balanced” meta because people were running conditions, control and all sorts of things at that time.

We need to get back to that point and start fixing profession related problems. The way the meta is working now is, that a meta will be “overkillpatched” meaning there are reasonable nerfs which would fix the issues, and reasonable buffs to the counter.

Together it looks like whack a mole balance because the difference becomes too large.

Also professions, like elementalist and mesmer at the moment which belong to one meta, but not to the following ones are left behind. They get this huge nerf but in all the other phases of the meta they just lie there.

I hope this helps understanding whats going on in this game, and i hope even more that some important people read this and think about what I have said.

Best essay on GW2 metagame history to date. I think one of the applications we can draw from this is that being too vocal/demanding for fast balance changes is not a good thing. We seem to create our own monsters sometimes. It’s better to be patient and creative and try to exhaust every possible option for creating a counter before demanding huge buffs/nerfs.

I love this thread. I don’t have any meaningful statement to contribute but I would just like to say that the discussion here somehow does make sense. When the next meta shifts back to burst, it will finally complete one full cycle.

I also noticed that the QQ against certain professions are cyclical. I’m guessing the next prof to be called out as OP will be mesmer or ele once again. :P

Forever alone engineer, represent

This is such a great thread. You speak the truth!

That’s truly nice reading, great post Blimm.

I would just add that adapting to new meta, as some ppl saying, is whole wrong attitude from the root. First of all there shouldn’t be meta changing every patch. There should be just one which is balance all across the field. As for the current state there, so far, was always meta of specific area, as mentioned above, and with that, meta of specific classes so we get team full of necros durring condi meta, warriors durring control meta etc. and this is just all wrong. We need teams with balanced composition of classes and builds.

I find this to be an attempt to define meaning into something that we at the present can’t. It is completely natural though.

i dont care about meta, leave my guardian and ele alone, they have had enough nerfs, and to top it off everyone has over powercreeped on top of them, now the only way for a guardian to play is to go PVT just to be able to get past all the condition AoE, the CC, be able to get to melee, and there is where the problems start again, no real way to sticking to anyone since you have to burn 1-2 condition cleansing spells just to not die.

Basically you are pretty much forced to playing support since you cant go ful glasscannon or you blow before you get to your target, and if you do get, 9/10 times everyone can outrun you…. I remember back in the days where we had an hp matching that of someone who has to get melee, it still baffles me how a mesmer get to have more health than us when we only have a couple of blinds and potentially 2 aegis on command….. mesmers have stealth clones more stealth more clones even more stealth and even more clones, and bam, they are gone, then BAM we are dead because our swiftness sucks balls :C

Of course it isnt all that bad and Im slightly exaggerating, but as a non-PVT damage dealer it is pretty much impossible for you to be effective….

Blimm.5028:

After tons of ranting, crying, cursing and even more of other stuff I will not utter here, i discovered that the meta development makes 100% sense.

This is kind of a meaningless statement. Meta development inherently makes sense because it’s basically players gravitating towards numerically superior builds. What doesn’t always make sense are the changes that lead up to it, i.e. adding Dhuumfire/Torment to a game that was already moving into a condi meta after burst builds were nerfed.

These Meta discussions are some of the most boring ever. This game was supposed to be run something reasonable and be competitve. Classes were supposed to be versatile and capable of fulfilling many different roles. So the fact that we have these lame narrow metas to be begin with shows you how fail a lot of this game is.

We all know the meta is kitten ever since arenanet started counter buffing+nerfing viable specs.

But saying it sucks doesn´t help arenanet fix it.
If they don´t… it will most likely be glasscannon or balanced meta until december, so then I will be able to play ele and mesmer again with out being insulted for the profession I´m good at (before the game even started…)

If the condi meta is a result of burst/bunker nerfs, why can’t we keep condi the same and increase burst/bunker builds?

Un-nerf the ele bunker (RTL, Cleansing, Healing, etc) and burst (BWE nerfs)
Un-nerf the thief burst (CnD, DD, HS, etc)
etc, etc….

Because condition was buffed significantly WHILE bunkers and burst were nerfed.

I think the following will explain how the game works

Condi > Burst > CC > Condi

When you build for Condi you’re gonna be strong vs. Burst because you can stack defensive attributes and offensive attributes simultaneously. That lets you extend the fight, which is catastrophic for teams that want to kill fast. Ele and Mesmer were taken out of the meta because of this.

CC counters Condi though, because Engineers, Rangers, and Necros that want maximum pressure are going to sacrifice stun breaks to do so. You beat them by taking control of their character away from them. This is why Warrior is so prevalent, as well as Halting Strike Mesmer, Warhorn on Necro, Focus on Ele, etc.

Burst, however, obliterates a CC comp because the timing you need is disrupted by Ele, Mesmer, and Thief’s blinks, immunity, stealth, range, etc. Necros and Engis are easy targets for CC because their protections are all temporary and their positioning is limited. Those classes do not have that problem. You’re chasing as CC against this team and they have so much damage that you’re not likely to survive getting to the CC.

This is the Rock, Paper, Scissors of GW2 now. Is that good for the game?

I’d say it’s a lot better than the dominance of any one of them alone. Power Meta created the Necro and Warrior irrelevance. Condi Meta created the Ele and Mesmer irrelevance. Control Meta is showing how all the classes can be effective against opportune matchups.