Guild Wars 2

Before last Tuesday,every single class had a viable build to play at all tiers of competition.It seems that because of the narrow minded forum goers who described the meta as stale and boring(tho it was the fastest paced meta since HoT)Anet had effectively removed 3 or 4 classes from top tier competitive play.Why.

Last meta you could theory craft around teamfight comps or fast paced 3 point squishy comps etc,but regardless every profession could be substituted In someway with the exclusion of ele which was present in all team comps.
Before the patch the balance changes needed to tune down a few things and buff the classes who were getting slightly outshines by others.
For example:
Guardian:needed slight buffs in order to compete and adding the reveal on pull and leaving it as is would’ve been enough to see it be a potential pick.
Warrior:Was almost perfect as outplaying a warrior was fairly simple and the only thing that was needed for was a slight cast time nerf to headbhtt and a great sword f1 hangs which would reduce the range to around 200-240.
Druid was getting outshined by engi and only needed a slight. Uff such as giving it back unblockable on activation of signet of the wild and it would’ve been perfect.
Engi needed sustain nerfs to bunker down and prot injection like what they got.
Thief:simply needed icd on pulmonary impact (2 or 3) seconds.
Mesmer:clone production nerf was fine and should’ve been left alone.
Ele:left alone
Necro:left alone
Rev:left alone
Very minor changes is all what was needed in order to create a competitive atmosphere for all professions and to create a variety of different team comps and play styles to choose from.
Post patch there is 1 maybe 2 comps left which has 3 or 4 mandatory picks.
You cannot compete without Ele/engi/necro/thief right now and the 5th slot can only be a rev or a Mesmer. Guardian/warrior/Druid were all completely removed from competitive play.Was this the right choice?Or have they completely lost touch with the pvp community?

Obviously I didn’t address all the buffs and nerfs and only hit the main points of the problems of the latest patch,but regarding the harsh reaction from everyone I know whos left of the community,you need address the problems and communicate with the player base.

Fix this

Pretty sure we will see every class in so called “top competitive play” (does this even exist lol?). If anything elites need to see more nerfs so core could become “meta” and we would have more variety.

Now that i look at your class “analysis”, i don’t think you are actually serious.

As far as premade 5v5 team play?No absolutely not,ask anybody who’s relevant to the scene.

Skittledness.5106:

As far as premade 5v5 team play?No absolutely not,ask anybody who’s relevant to the scene.

There is a scene lol?

Cynz.9437:

Skittledness.5106:

As far as premade 5v5 team play?No absolutely not,ask anybody who’s relevant to the scene.

There is a scene lol?

Yes jebros hosting a tournament which has over 1k now In community funded prize money which brought back a lot of former pro players .

Skittledness.5106:

Cynz.9437:

Skittledness.5106:

As far as premade 5v5 team play?No absolutely not,ask anybody who’s relevant to the scene.

There is a scene lol?

Yes jebros hosting a tournament which has over 1k now In community funded prize money which brought back a lot of former pro players .

That is not a scene…. that is just one tourney.

Cynz.9437:

Skittledness.5106:

Cynz.9437:

Skittledness.5106:

As far as premade 5v5 team play?No absolutely not,ask anybody who’s relevant to the scene.

There is a scene lol?

Yes jebros hosting a tournament which has over 1k now In community funded prize money which brought back a lot of former pro players .

That is not a scene…. that is just one tourney.

But it was at least a start!
And btw can we keep the discussion balance related and not just trolls trying to delegitimizate what this thread was created for .

You clearly don’t understand. What players need is change. Doesn’t matter if you achieve better balance or not. Players have been tired of seeing warrior/DHs plaguing ranked queue and need a breath of fresh air.

Also analysis is vague. There is no such thing as competitive meta until the first real competitive tournament happens.

Hey Skittled I think we need to consider the nerfs in context with the removal of all on crit sigils as well. playing the game feels a little cleaner? if that makes any sense? looking outside of team composition and individual profession skills, we are facing a general shift in gameplay with this patch than anything else, which i for one am somewhat excited about. we always think in terms of nerf, buff, but it’s pretty apparent that the object of this patch was more overreaching, to the general state of play? but maybe I’m just overthinking it X)

Skittledness.5106:

Cynz.9437:

Skittledness.5106:

Cynz.9437:

Skittledness.5106:

As far as premade 5v5 team play?No absolutely not,ask anybody who’s relevant to the scene.

There is a scene lol?

Yes jebros hosting a tournament which has over 1k now In community funded prize money which brought back a lot of former pro players .

That is not a scene…. that is just one tourney.

But it was at least a start!
And btw can we keep the discussion balance related and not just trolls trying to delegitimizate what this thread was created for .

You brought it up. In your view only opinion of people that wintraded/farmed bronzies at 5 am for top spots matters and what happens in pvp every day is irrelevant, apparently. Sry to break it down for you, but 99.99% of pvp consists of pugs doing ranked and i think it matters more than handful of players minimaxing their comps so they can take part on some tourney 2 times a year. I still remain by my opinion that nerfing all elites was a step in good direction and we will see all of these classes in matches. If anything i think the balance is way better than it ever was since HoT launch. Even revs get some play now after heavy nerfs.

Exciton.8942:

You clearly don’t understand. What players need is change. Doesn’t matter if you achieve better balance or not. Players have been tired of seeing warrior/DHs plaguing ranked queue and need a breath of fresh air.

Also analysis is vague. There is no such thing as competitive meta until the first real competitive tournament happens.

Change comes from players too, in that players should get better to understand that DH/warrior was not a problem at high levels of game play.

You don’t see any other game being balanced around the masses, they’re always balanced around the top. Just because Ryu is the most played Street Fighter character doesn’t mean that Capcom nerfs him every balance patch.

The reason why DH/warrior were so popular were because they tend to be fairly self-sufficient characters. But they have limited synergy in team play, which, last I checked, GW2 PvP was a 5v5 team game.

And because of that, people played them. Also I would argue that heavy melee classes tend to be the most popular anyway.

In top tier 5v5 play, DH was barely viable. Now it’s just straight up useless. What the patch needed to do was maybe tune down warrior a bit, and some light tweaking here and there.

Instead, the patch blew up the balance entirely, which took 2 years after HOT to achieve.

I don’t disagree that certain aspects of the patch were good — like making the game less reliant on passive skills, but overall this was an entire failure fabricated by designers who clearly either have no idea what they’re doing or clearly don’t care about the game.

With respect to your last tournament, there was a competitive tournament right around the corner and many teams had a variety of team compositions. And now we won’t know how it would have played out.

Animism.9803:

Exciton.8942:

You clearly don’t understand. What players need is change. Doesn’t matter if you achieve better balance or not. Players have been tired of seeing warrior/DHs plaguing ranked queue and need a breath of fresh air.

Also analysis is vague. There is no such thing as competitive meta until the first real competitive tournament happens.

Change comes from players too, in that players should get better to understand that DH/warrior was not a problem at high levels of game play.

You don’t see any other game being balanced around the masses, they’re always balanced around the top. Just because Ryu is the most played Street Fighter character doesn’t mean that Capcom nerfs him every balance patch.

The reason why DH/warrior were so popular were because they tend to be fairly self-sufficient characters. But they have limited synergy in team play, which, last I checked, GW2 PvP was a 5v5 team game.

And because of that, people played them. Also I would argue that heavy melee classes tend to be the most popular anyway.

In top tier 5v5 play, DH was barely viable. Now it’s just straight up useless. What the patch needed to do was maybe tune down warrior a bit, and some light tweaking here and there.

Instead, the patch blew up the balance entirely, which took 2 years after HOT to achieve.

I don’t disagree that certain aspects of the patch were good — like making the game less reliant on passive skills, but overall this was an entire failure fabricated by designers who clearly either have no idea what they’re doing or clearly don’t care about the game.

With respect to your last tournament, there was a competitive tournament right around the corner and many teams had a variety of team compositions. And now we won’t know how it would have played out.

There is currently NO top tier 5v5 play so you can’t say anything about profession viability there.

For top tier ranked queue, there was plenty of DH/warrior there and that is all I care about. What matters to players is their day-to-day gameplay not some non-existent high level 5v5 play.

Exciton.8942:

There is currently NO top tier 5v5 play so you can’t say anything about profession viability there.

For top tier ranked queue, there is plenty of DH/warrior there and that is all I care about. What matters to players is there day-to-day gameplay not some non-existent high level 5v5 play.

Sorry, but this is just an ignorant statement.

There is plenty of top tier 5v5 play after the announcement of Jebro’s tournament.

You’re saying that what should matter is day-to-day gameplay, except that’s basically saying the game is catering casuals and not meant for competitive play.

Which game actually does that? Why even have competitive game modes if it’s not made to be competitive?

Animism.9803:

Exciton.8942:

There is currently NO top tier 5v5 play so you can’t say anything about profession viability there.

For top tier ranked queue, there is plenty of DH/warrior there and that is all I care about. What matters to players is there day-to-day gameplay not some non-existent high level 5v5 play.

Sorry, but this is just an ignorant statement.

There is plenty of top tier 5v5 play after the announcement of Jebro’s tournament.

You’re saying that what should matter is day-to-day gameplay, except that’s basically saying the game is catering casuals and not meant for competitive play.

Which game actually does that? Why even have competitive game modes if it’s not made to be competitive?

Like wat? There is no competitive tournament exposure at all. Behind-the-scene practise =/= competitve 5v5 gameplay. At least some players should stream it? Just like every other competitive pvp game out there?

I follow SC2 competitve scene very actively and I know what an active competitive scene looks like. I don’t see that in gw2.

One last thing about competitive play.

There is nothing prevent you from running what you consider the best composition. You do not need diversity to achieve balance. Whether warrior is good enough or not does not prevent you from playing competitively.

After all, it is 5v5. You only gotta choose 5 professions out of 9 and some composition will provide the best synergy that everyone tends to gravitate to.

Exciton.8942:

After all, it is 5v5. You only gotta choose 5 professions out of 9 and some composition will provide the best synergy that everyone tends to gravitate to.

So, in line with your StarCraft analogy, all the best players should just play one race because it’s optimal right?

Animism.9803:

Exciton.8942:

After all, it is 5v5. You only gotta choose 5 professions out of 9 and some composition will provide the best synergy that everyone tends to gravitate to.

So, in line with your StarCraft analogy, all the best players should just play one race because it’s optimal right?

This is not the correct comparison. SC2 is a 1v1 game while gw2 is 5v5.

The analogy in SC2 is that everyone will gravitate to the optimal strategy, unit composition needed for a certain matchup.

Crying about warrior can’t be played should be compared to crying about not being able to use your favorite units against something clearly counters you.

what if we opened a poll regarding whether or not to reverse the patch :thinkingface:

Maybe let things settle down first before we start discussing a “new meta”.

Some professions received nerfs, so they are currently out of the meta, but they will come back once new builds are discovered. Some professions will never be back because their design is just horrible. For example, ele might drop out because there’s no other build that’ll be as good as Auramancer, and that build was nerfed again. DH is already out because its design will never work at high tiers without being insanely OP at low tiers. Druids now have to actually play well in order to survive, instead of just popping SotP, healing/stealthing a bunch and letting their pet do the damage.

But guess what? Guardians, rangers and eles are going to find new builds, and if none of those make it into the meta, Anet will buff them into oblivion again and the cycle of awful balancing will continue. Look what happened to rev? Condi was nerfed a while ago, and power was nerfed later. Rev was out of the meta, but it was still powerful. Now they buffed condi and it’s absolutely going to be meta again. The more condi is buffed, the more necessary bringing as many cleanses as possible will be. And then players will adapt and start running power builds again because Anet will buff cleanses instead of nerfing conditions. It’s an endless cycle of powercreep.

There was not a viable build for every class last season. Viable to me means successful against people your own skill level. For example playing a necro or revenant last season you would not have done as well against people your own skill level as you would have on a Warrior, DH, or Thief. They hardly changed some kind of awesome balance. This game has contantly had roughly half the classes lagging behind on the power curve. That doesn’t mean they were totally worthless just not the best. There is always whats best and its alway only a portion of the available classes.

Balance doesnt matter. They need fun and build diversity. So what if previously every class had an op build so it was balanced. It wasnt balanced around anything but a single lame op spec on each class.

Op has alot to learn

Skittledness.5106:

Cynz.9437:

Skittledness.5106:

Cynz.9437:

Skittledness.5106:

As far as premade 5v5 team play?No absolutely not,ask anybody who’s relevant to the scene.

There is a scene lol?

Yes jebros hosting a tournament which has over 1k now In community funded prize money which brought back a lot of former pro players .

That is not a scene…. that is just one tourney.

But it was at least a start!
And btw can we keep the discussion balance related and not just trolls trying to delegitimizate what this thread was created for .

Why balance around a bunch of try hards. We finally got rid of esports and now you want them to balance around it again? This is what killed the game before. They prioritised balance and not fun/variety for way way too long. As a result this game is deader than dead.

Balance doesnt matter. They need fun and build diversity.

Think of this, it´s more important then any e-sports balance.
Just be aware that build diversity comes from balance. Evrything that falls behind, especially if it has no purpose to counter something or is outclassed, also doesn´t matter for diversity.

While I don’t agree with all the changes in the patch I do agree with the idea of doing something to change how people play. This is a game being actively developed and supported by the development team, they can’t have 6-12 months where the same classes have the same builds just because it’s balanced.

I do agree with some things you put like warriors needed the range on GS changing and increase in headbutt CD (nerf the damage a bit too). However some things I don’t agree with like guardian and druid needing a buff.

I’ve fought some Warriors today. Their animations hardly got nerfed. Headbutt is still fairly unseeable unless my rxn time is simply awful, the mace CC spam is real, I guess the only thing really affected was GS.

Now to Druid and Guardian. I still see Dragonhunters everywhere, but less Druids. I would say Druids have taken Revenant’s place vice versa.

Everything Jeff said was on point.
99% of the players in this game are low-mid tier casuals, so I can understand why Anet nerfed DH,warrior and druid to appease them but what I don’t get is how they can knowingly delete the only viable build for a class, without buffing another aspect of it. That just shows how incompetent and lazy the balance team is. This game only has 9 classes, and the fact that some pro players can’t compete because their profession got absolutely deleted is disappointing. I wish they learned from their past mistakes and stopped this cycle of RNG class deletion every balance patch. This is a new record though, every balance patch they usually manage to kill one class, and break another but this time they’ve killed 3, and right before a community tourny.

Skittledness.5106:

Cynz.9437:

Skittledness.5106:

As far as premade 5v5 team play?No absolutely not,ask anybody who’s relevant to the scene.

There is a scene lol?

Yes jebros hosting a tournament which has over 1k now In community funded prize money which brought back a lot of former pro players .

Why would this bring back pro players? From my understanding, prior ESL players are not allowed to compete in this tournament. Also, sure they’ve raised almost $1000 but right now there is 1 registered team, 3 pending teams, and 7 free agents. It doesn’t really seem like some huge scene is developing.

steelheart.7386:

There was not a viable build for every class last season. Viable to me means successful against people your own skill level. For example playing a necro or revenant last season you would not have done as well against people your own skill level as you would have on a Warrior, DH, or Thief. They hardly changed some kind of awesome balance. This game has contantly had roughly half the classes lagging behind on the power curve. That doesn’t mean they were totally worthless just not the best. There is always whats best and its alway only a portion of the available classes.

So because viable to you has that definition, you prioritize your own skill level more than others?

I see the argument that balance should be made around the masses and quite simply, that’s just ludicrous. Like I said, NO OTHER GAME balances around anything but the top 1%. Doing otherwise promotes people to be lazy and not try to be better at the game. You want balance, then improve your play. Or go back to playing PvE and not a competitive mode. But hey, it’s ArenaNet’s decision to cater to casual play (Heaven knows why), so whatever.

Your example is the perfect example of how unpracticed the average PvPer is. A necro was basically a requirement for team fights. Revs fit in the same category. If you ran around trying to push far 1v1 as a necro versus a warrior, DH, or thief, then the problem was with your play, NOT with the power of your class. Instead of adjusting for your own errors, you instead complain about how “overpowered” any class can beat you 1v1 is and expect the game adjusts the power levels for you.

Having a power curve, by nature, means that half the classes will be under and half the classes will be over. But based on what definition? Just because, in comparing it to DH/warrior/druid, you’re comparing to the best 1v1 classes, doesn’t mean that something like necro or rev isn’t top tier for a group fight. The problem now is if you nerf what DH/warrior/druid were best at without giving anything back to compensate, their role doesn’t change — they just become irrelevant.

Prior to the patch, there wasn’t a “portion of the available classes” which were “the best” like you assert. You assume this because of your own shortsightedness at analyzing the game because you only consider one aspect of it: can X kill Y? Yet, you don’t provide a context for that fight and only consider the 1v1 approach. Prior to the patch, all classes had a set of unique strengths/weaknesses. Now, there is zero reason to take DH/warrior/druid at all in a group setting.

In short, the patch basically made classes that were on the fringe of being optimal for a 5v5 less optimal. You overnerfed, ArenaNet.

For the guy who previously made the StarCraft analogy, you can’t analogize it to one thing and not to another. You can’t pick and choose how games relate besides the general concept behind gaming competitiveness — else you are just providing a logical fallacy.

Shaogin.2679:

Skittledness.5106:

Cynz.9437:

Skittledness.5106:

As far as premade 5v5 team play?No absolutely not,ask anybody who’s relevant to the scene.

There is a scene lol?

Yes jebros hosting a tournament which has over 1k now In community funded prize money which brought back a lot of former pro players .

Why would this bring back pro players? From my understanding, prior ESL players are not allowed to compete in this tournament. Also, sure they’ve raised almost $1000 but right now there is 1 registered team, 3 pending teams, and 7 free agents. It doesn’t really seem like some huge scene is developing.

Pretty sure there are ESL teams/players competing.

And no one signs up for these things until the very last day because people are lazy.

But now if no teams sign up because the patch killed all motivation, you can pretty much just chalk up your conclusion to confirmation bias.

It wasn’t an ESL scale tournament sure,but considering we haven’t had a tournament in almost 8 months people have been waiting for a opportunity to make a team and compete.Now for plenty of the people who don’t multiclass they’ve been essentially left out a new developing scene.

Exciton.8942:

Crying about warrior can’t be played should be compared to crying about not being able to use your favorite units against something clearly counters you.

I really need to just address this statement because the more I read it, the more asinine the argument is.

Take this shell, which is what you created: crying that X can’t be played is like crying about not being able to use X against Y because Y clearly counters you.

That’s the exact same justification that people use to complain that warrior and DH were overpowered. Because people. Try. To. 1v1. Push. The. Two. Best. Dueling. Classes.

Just because you and your team did not rotate to optimize the match-up does not mean that certain classes are overpowered. Because SC2 is the 1v1 game, and GW2 is 5v5, like you said.

Clearly, you are misapplying your own analogy and argument, because the logical conclusion is actually that the nerfs don’t make any sense.

Skittledness.5106:

It wasn’t an ESL scale tournament sure,but considering we haven’t had a tournament in almost 8 months people have been waiting for a opportunity to make a team and compete.Now for plenty of the people who don’t multiclass they’ve been essentially left out a new developing scene.

Is this really a problem? People who want to play on a team should all multiclass to some degree.

IRL example: some of my friends have a soccer team and invite me to play a pickup game with them.

Scene opens in the school’s cafeteria

Friends: Hey want to play with us? We’re looking for a defender.
Me: I only play striker.
Friends: You won’t play defender though?
Me: I can, but I don’t want to.
Friends: Well dedicated strikers got nerfed, we only have defenders, midfielders, and of course a keeper.
Me: I ain’t playin wichu

Curtains drop

Things change and that’s part of what keeps this game engaging. I guess it’s an issue of personality but I don’t understand people who value stability (the concept not the boon) over novelty in a videogame.

I feel like it is a bit too early to say certain classes are completely left out of the scene. We haven’t even started the PvP season yet, Unranked is just full of people trying random crap, it all feels like a big exaggeration.

And it’s kinda funny too. Cause last season they had a very minimal balance batch and everyone was complaining that the meta was stale and boring, that more needed to be done, that they wanted all this power creep to be nerfed and so on. So then Anet decides to roll out these nerfs on all the meta builds and buff some underused areas in an attempt to give the players exactly what they asked for, and now everyone is praising how great last season’s balance was and talking about how this patch has just ruined everything. Now Anet has to sift through all this nonsense in an attempt to find any legitimate constructive feedback amongst all the “the sky is falling” posts. It’s madness really.

I may be the odd one here though, sure. I play around gold 3, I normally play builds that metabattle would suggest are sub par to the meta builds cause I just happen to enjoy how that build plays, and I’m trying to make a class work even if it isn’t meta simply because I like the style of that class.

Towards the end of last season I gave Guardian/DH a try for the first time and fell in love with it and made it my new main. Simple reason was, I enjoyed the play style and my favorite color is blue. The build I played was Symbolic Maurauder because I enjoyed it the most and I didn’t like the feel of the Medi Trapper. Now next season, even if DH is supposed trash, I will still play Symbolic Maurauder DH, with a few tweaks of course.

Point is, if you enjoy a class then play that class. I highly doubt it is unplayable now. Not sure how people can enjoy a game when they are constantly bandwagoning on to whatever is best and getting upset when it gets nerfed before inevitably moving on to the next bandwagon.

Huskyboy.1053:

Balance patches are 100% about changing things in a way that interests us, not about making the game more balanced.

LOL statement of the week.

For someone criticizing another’s criticism of terribly thought-out arguments, this is really a step in the wrong direction.

You just took the literal meaning of a word and completely redefined it. Who made you the end-all be-all lexicographer?

Also, you do realize that the two aren’t mutually exclusive, right? They could have made the meta more interesting without disrupting the previously established balance by buffing skills/traits that were not commonly used.

Animism.9803:

Huskyboy.1053:

Balance patches are 100% about changing things in a way that interests us, not about making the game more balanced.

LOL statement of the week.

For someone criticizing another’s criticism of terribly thought-out arguments, this is really a step in the wrong direction.

You just took the literal meaning of a word and completely redefined it. Who made you the end-all be-all lexicographer?

Also, you do realize that the two aren’t mutually exclusive, right? They could have made the meta more interesting without disrupting the previously established balance by buffing skills/traits that were not commonly used.

I didn’t come up with the phrase “balance patch.” I would definitely call this most recent patch an imbalance patch if I wanted to be facetious. And yeah you’re right that they could’ve changed things differently. But would not shaking up the meta have been as interesting? Would yet another patch that barely changes anything be causing people to shake up their tournament comp as much as this one did? Drastic changes fits Anet’s needs better than minimal ones so long as they don’t chase a large portion if the playerbase away.

Huskyboy.1053:

But would not shaking up the meta have been as interesting? Would yet another patch that barely changes anything be causing people to shake up their tournament comp as much as this one did?

They didn’t shake up the meta. DH/warrior/druid were on the fringe in a 5v5 team comp in the first place. Now they are just completely out.

If anything, the patch just reaffirmed the meta while make some changes which were good but otherwise screwing things up.

Animism.9803:

Huskyboy.1053:

But would not shaking up the meta have been as interesting? Would yet another patch that barely changes anything be causing people to shake up their tournament comp as much as this one did?

They didn’t shake up the meta. DH/warrior/druid were on the fringe in a 5v5 team comp in the first place. Now they are just completely out.

If anything, the patch just reaffirmed the meta while make some changes which were good but otherwise screwing things up.

Which meta are you referring to, 5v5 comp or solo/duo queue comp? DH was not fringe at all in the top 250, Thermite made it into the top 10 with his symbolic build. Meditrapper was very popular and now maybe not so much. Mace GS burst was also very popular and now is decisively much worse. S7 meta will definitely be different. As for tournament comp nobody really knows yet, considering only one team has signed up and probably even they haven’t decided what their comp is yet.

Also: druid isn’t tournament meta? I’m surprised to hear that. Ele/necro/engi/thief is meta and has been for a whilr, what do you think the 5th is?

We are taking about a tournament 5v5 team play perspective btw peeps

Problem is that when something is to strong or to weak it gets changed to the opposite . Current state of classes reflects this up and down for example with warrior weak and revenant strong now. Thats the opposite of pre patch.
As for really strong traits/builds a common pattern seems to be to modify them in a way so that nobody takes it anymore – turret engineer comes in mind but there are other prominent samples. I guess anet balancing goals are different as somebody would
expect from “balance”.

Huskyboy.1053:

Which meta are you referring to, 5v5 comp or solo/duo queue comp? DH was not fringe at all in the top 250, Thermite made it into the top 10 with his symbolic build. Meditrapper was very popular and now maybe not so much. Mace GS burst was also very popular and now is decisively much worse. S7 meta will definitely be different. As for tournament comp nobody really knows yet, considering only one team has signed up and probably even they haven’t decided what their comp is yet.

Also: druid isn’t tournament meta? I’m surprised to hear that. Ele/necro/engi/thief is meta and has been for a whilr, what do you think the 5th is?

I’m referring to 5v5 meta because this is a 5v5 competitive game mode. Team comp has been determined.

Thermite climbed high for a variety of reasons, most of which were because of the general ineptitude of players to counter his far push.

Animism.9803:

Huskyboy.1053:

Which meta are you referring to, 5v5 comp or solo/duo queue comp? DH was not fringe at all in the top 250, Thermite made it into the top 10 with his symbolic build. Meditrapper was very popular and now maybe not so much. Mace GS burst was also very popular and now is decisively much worse. S7 meta will definitely be different. As for tournament comp nobody really knows yet, considering only one team has signed up and probably even they haven’t decided what their comp is yet.

Also: druid isn’t tournament meta? I’m surprised to hear that. Ele/necro/engi/thief is meta and has been for a whilr, what do you think the 5th is?

I’m referring to 5v5 meta because this is a 5v5 competitive game mode. Team comp has been determined.

Thermite climbed high for a variety of reasons, most of which were because of the general ineptitude of players to counter his far push.

What 5v5 comp? You can’t get any of the Yolo queue heros to coordinate much less build a comp, and to say it’s a “competitive” game mode is laughable at best.

Yes 5 players per team but that’s not a “comp” a comp would be a premade or coordinated team.

Animism.9803:

Huskyboy.1053:

Which meta are you referring to, 5v5 comp or solo/duo queue comp? DH was not fringe at all in the top 250, Thermite made it into the top 10 with his symbolic build. Meditrapper was very popular and now maybe not so much. Mace GS burst was also very popular and now is decisively much worse. S7 meta will definitely be different. As for tournament comp nobody really knows yet, considering only one team has signed up and probably even they haven’t decided what their comp is yet.

Also: druid isn’t tournament meta? I’m surprised to hear that. Ele/necro/engi/thief is meta and has been for a whilr, what do you think the 5th is?

I’m referring to 5v5 meta because this is a 5v5 competitive game mode. Team comp has been determined.

Thermite climbed high for a variety of reasons, most of which were because of the general ineptitude of players to counter his far push.

… and because his DH build supported his strategy. Off the top of my head, Saiyan was in the top 30 at one point at least, Luck Slayer finished at around 60, idk how far he climbed. There are undoubtedly others, Thermite was only one example. Man tatas probably finished high-ranked too.

There’s nothing wrong with caring about 5v5 comp but that’s not really what Anet “balances” around since Esports is officially over. Their revenue model is dependent on people’s continual engagement in the ranked seasons, which is why we saw the overhaul that came with S5. If they’re maintaining interest/outrage in playing ranked during the season then in their eyes the patches are working as planned.

Skittledness.5106:

We are taking about a tournament 5v5 team play perspective btw peeps

But there is no in game tournaments or 5v5 team play. Why would Anet balance around something that doesn’t exist in their game? And before you mention Jebro’s tournament, you must realize that Anet is not going to make balance considerations around a community organized tournament with only a handful of players.

Been playing this game since beginning, just made new account as I gave mine away. About game now:

PVE: enough fun, I enjoy it even that it shouldn’t be my main activity.
PVP: absolute crap. If you would be a student in university and develop pvp system like this, you wouldn’t pass exams. It looks like developers have no idea how to balance classes so they make condi builds as main. Yes, you can play mainstream builds like others, spam condis or take trapper and go afk…but since when it’s a balance? Balance patch? Anet should be taken to court for lies like this. Absolute disaster, probably the worst pvp system in top 20 MMOs, have no words to express how crap it’s.

WvW: never been alive, by trying to improve they just breaking it.

Conclusion: yes, I bought HoT for a second time, yes I spent a lot of £££ for my first account development, NO, Anet won’t get a single penny from my pocket until drastic changes will be made. They are like politicians, populists, they just talk but do nothing, they will promise mountains of great stuff in new expansion, but reality after you buy it…meh, better have a pint of beer, Anet haven’t deserved your hard earned money

I agree with Shaogin.

People are overreacting…and the warrior/guardian sustain was based on a reliance on passive traits. They needed to go.

That means that when you are fighting an opponent, you aren’t actually fighting them…you are fighting the games mechanics.

The fact that it was even possible to have 8 seconds of damage immunity, nearly 20 or so seconds of pulsing condition immunity, and passive 1.5k heals per second? Where is the skill in using any of that? absolutely none… You had to literally wait out all that stuff before being able to kill them…given that you could survive long enough. Where is the counterplay?

As for guardians, they at least had to activate skills in order to sustain themselves, some of which you could interrupt.

The heals and block duration were excessive (x2, 6 second traited SOC, 3 second invuln, medi heals, condi clears on block, trap heal and WOR… holy kitten, ohh and don’t forget the x2 invuln-bubble dome thing on revive and on 25% HP) All of that on maurader amulet? Ya it deserved a nerf.

Thieves also got nerfed with the endurance nerfs. Although i don’t agree with exactly how they’ve done it, something needed to be done.

Being able to sustain and do damage is just not good. If you have sustain, it means you should give up your damage…if you have damage it means you should give up sustain. Zerker amulet wars sustaining in 2v1’s was kittening imba…now get over the nerf please thanks.

Cynz.9437:

Skittledness.5106:

As far as premade 5v5 team play?No absolutely not,ask anybody who’s relevant to the scene.

There is a scene lol?

Same question I was asking myself lmao!

JTGuevara.9018:

Cynz.9437:

Skittledness.5106:

As far as premade 5v5 team play?No absolutely not,ask anybody who’s relevant to the scene.

There is a scene lol?

Same question I was asking myself lmao!

It’s funny people act like this game is competitive when the majority of the competitive player’s left a while ago

wanna know what happened? bad players still linger and cant adapt lol. They probably been playing as long as the previous meta and no idea wtf to do now like headless chicken.

I agree almost entirely with the OP. Balance was very close to perfection before the patch and now this has been a huge step backwards in balance.

I do not even think we needed as much as what was suggested in the OP. The only thing we needed was slight buffs to DH and then absolutely everything was 100% viable at top level play (we were very close to that anyway).

Honestly, I would have been happy if there was never another balance patch for pvp again until the next expansion because we had as close to perfection as we ever had and now this patch has moved us away from that.

And no, I am not saying this because my class got nerfed. I don’t even feel the changes to druid, lol.

Abelisk.4527:

I’ve fought some Warriors today. Their animations hardly got nerfed. Headbutt is still fairly unseeable unless my rxn time is simply awful, the mace CC spam is real, I guess the only thing really affected was GS.

Now to Druid and Guardian. I still see Dragonhunters everywhere, but less Druids. I would say Druids have taken Revenant’s place vice versa.

I’ve dodged most headbutts pre-patch… I don’t see what’s so hard… just don’t waste all your dodges so early. :|