Guild Wars 2

So a discussion was started in another thread that was way off topic. So I am continuing that discussion here.

The main premise revolves are the meta builds. Specially shoutbow warrior. The argument is that the warrior shoutbow isn’t really what a warrior is about, and even though it’s the meta, it’s a boring OP spec.

My thoughts are just because it’s “meta” doesn’t mean that it’s the only way to play. This goes for every class. People tend to forget where and why a meta was created. They tend to blame the game mechanics, and that said mechanics forces people to use the current meta. And if you aren’t doing so you are subpar and not playing to your full potential. I feel that this is bunk.
Although the meta may be the best, it’s certainly doesn’t limit anyone or force them to use it. One can be effective with a variety of builds, in a variety of ways, without ever getting close to the meta. It’s all in how you want to play your class.

What are your thoughts on the meta, and do the metas accurately reflect what a particular class is “all about”?

That is how the meta is. Some people actually love to win so they play the best builds available to their class, which I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. You can play any other build you want but it is going to affect your team no matter what because another class can probably fill the job you’re doing, only better.

There is nothing wrong in playing this game for just for fun btw.

Meta, is not as straightforward as it seems. Meta is a build that is popular. It is usually popular because it embodies the following items.

A. Easy to understand rotations
B. Good damage, not always the highest but when combined with other skills it gives good efficiency of dispatching foes.
C. Easy to run, doesn’t take much practice or timing. Most people can learn these builds in a short amount of time.

Now, there are many that play Meta’s expertly well, this is not to say that everyone plays a Meta build is unskilled. However it is a mass build. A build that is popular with the masses due to its small input = great output.

There are builds that are often times better, or worse then the Meta. The abilities of someone to run any build are probably the biggest factor. The builds that are not Meta that are run well all have the potential to become the next meta or to just continue to be run by that person in obscurity.

It is important to note that running non meta builds is absolutely necessary as they are what drives the Meta, when someone shows up with a build to counteract a Meta it can often cause the Meta to shift or change to adjust. Often times these are builds that show up in the tournaments that slightly sway peoples understandings and directions in which they take.

For example, the berserker necro meta was challenged by the MEdi guard meta in the last WTS. This caused alot of Medi guards to arrive on the scene.

The shoutbow Warrior is a counter meta to the current highly popular Cele/Beserk builds in general.

Meta is basically “effective.” that’s all it is.

Whether the meta is easy to play or not, is another story, but you can trust the community to find a build that is easy to play, and incredibly strong.

and by the way, shout bow is balanced, not overpowered.

Shoutbow is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with Guild Warts balance! Here we have a super tanky bunker that can deal extraordinary damage for its bulk, has absolutely insane mobility and is one of the only classes that has access to permanent vigor, and has single handedly rendered condi builds worthless! #balance

Wahoo! Bye frands!

Meta does no mean it’s the only way to play and it never did. It’s the most effective to win you can play. Some people play builds that are out of meta because they either don’t care or think they can make it meta.

The game is about winning for lots people, hence why they use those meta builds. Do they enjoy it? Who knows, they probably enjoy winning.

What we have at the moment is probably as balanced as gw2 ever been. Sadly, HoT will probably affect the balance a lot. On the other hand, we’re getting a change. The question is if the change is good.

Nightshade summed up my thoughts pretty well, but I’ll hit the key points again.

“Meta” is simply a term used to highlight what is currently most common on the scene. I don’t think it is a good or bad thing, it’s just a description. If something is “meta”, it’s just what the majority of people are doing. That means it is effective, but it doesn’t mean nothing else is effective.

Only the sheep will exclusively play meta. I say “sheep” in the sense that they flock to what is popular. The irony here is that these people, from my experience, often look down on those who aren’t actively playing the meta, without realizing that it takes someone willing to experiment to make new discoveries and shift the very meta that they follow zealously.

My favorite example is watching someone on the Warrior boards make several videos and arguments for Hammer/Longbow way back in the day, and everyone laughed at him, saying it was terrible, only bad players would be beaten by that, etc. I took a hiatus, came back to the game, and “Hambow” was this godly build, easy-mode, skillless, super effective, etc. I honestly don’t remember what all little changes might have gone into that switch, but the complete reversal still makes me smile.

And as builds rise to the forefront, other builds developed by experimentalists will rise behind them to counter their dynasty. If nothing rises, then it’s probably an indication that there’s a balance issue on-hand. If anyone ever wonders why balance changes take so long, my guess is that ANet is trying to wait for the meta to plateau to indicate an actual problem. I’m not saying that’s the correct way to go about things, but it hypothetically isn’t that bad of an idea of you care about balance. Especially in an MMO, where people are invested in their character/class.

Meta = Easy and Effective. Some of what people saw in tournaments are an exception to this rule. W/e the majority is playing, it is easy and effective.

I.E Shoutbow, D/D Ele, Cele Engi, Guardian, etc.

I personally never cared for the meta. When I play pvp with my friends, we generally play to have fun, and not rank on some leader board. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, but overall we have a good time. Ive looked at the meta specs, but the never really looked interesting to me. I often change my build frequently between matches to better fit my play style.

But right now I’m looking at building a group condi cleanse bunker/support guardian. It sounds fun

Metas are builds for groups tournaments. They live on group synergies. They work very well there,

but have no function in

- Solo PVP in all modes
- Hot Join

and little function

- Outside VOIP Premades

Some Metas funtion halfways well even solo, but that’s just a coincidence.

For me, the saddest thing is to see what’s happened to the guardian. He we have someone who’s primary function is literally in his to – to “guard”. And I come back to PvP only to find that he’s now a pure DPS burst build!

The necro, for whom conditions must come naturally, has now given way to necros running power with a dagger.

The Mesmer, who’s idea was deception has now lost its “clone death” conditions, negating the whole idea of the class. The other idea of phantasms has been nerfed into the ground as well. Now mesmers only play shatter.

Maybe the only classes that have stayed true to their philosophy are the engineers, thiefs, and eles.

But even for these, the build variety is sadly lacking. People say “experiment”! But we’ve already done that. There were lots of builds that were actively taken away and hit by nerfs. It’s as if the developers only want one type of playstyle for each class..

The reason they give is “we don’t want the class to be played like that”. Well, who cares what you want? Stop slotting people into playstyles of your choice!

IMO its tournaments that make the meta and rightfully so. When a team is able to win a tournament usually everyone tries to emulate their builds because they had the most success in the highest form of competitive play.

Experimentation isn’t something you do once and then say “Welp, already did it, nothing left to do.” Iterative improvement and innovation are never-ending processes. When builds are taken away, find new ones.

Adapt. Survive. This is what those who are defining the meta are doing constantly.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Only the sheep will exclusively play meta. I say “sheep” in the sense that they flock to what is popular. The irony here is that these people, from my experience, often look down on those who aren’t actively playing the meta, without realizing that it takes someone willing to experiment to make new discoveries and shift the very meta that they follow zealously.

My favorite example is watching someone on the Warrior boards make several videos and arguments for Hammer/Longbow way back in the day, and everyone laughed at him, saying it was terrible, only bad players would be beaten by that, etc. I took a hiatus, came back to the game, and “Hambow” was this godly build, easy-mode, skillless, super effective, etc. I honestly don’t remember what all little changes might have gone into that switch, but the complete reversal still makes me smile.

These are interesting paragraphs. The problem comes when there are too many people only " caring " for the meta. Typically, when you see 80% of one class is running exactly the same build, using skills in same order.. What happens then is that, if you’re doing good, it’s ok. But anytime you’re going to make a fail, there’s someone to notice it..

Actually, i do not mind much " meta addicts", they are in every game and it’s also good to have reference builds to practice. The problem is however when failure tends to be too rewarded.

I argued about it yesterday, but the " save my life " skills aren’t fair. People aren’t even watching the field in order to dodge key skills, they get kded and then use the skill to get out of the spike.

I’ve been speculating lately is meta effective at all. Many solid builds with huge potential are rendered out of it only because they’re looked upon as individual builds and how they implement in the current meta. What if the entire team setup changes? We have powerful lich necroes, power rangers, fresh air elementalists, very interesting warrior builds (not shoutbow of course), shatter mesmers being played in ranked but none of those are considered for competitive play only because they don’t implement in the already set up team composition. Let’s change the composition then? It feels more and more ineffective. A good example would be Helseth where he runs his shatter mesmer perfectly and still manages to pull it off. Every single team, new or old, keeps running the same kitten over and over again. Where’s the creativity from GW1? People keep comparing devs work GW1 and GW2 wise but I don’t see the community from GW1. People always pushed for different builds in GW1, without doing all the kitten math on what is more effective in numbers.

BakiSaN.9281:

I’ve been speculating lately is meta effective at all. Many solid builds with huge potential are rendered out of it only because they’re looked upon as individual builds and how they implement in the current meta. What if the entire team setup changes? We have powerful lich necroes, power rangers, fresh air elementalists, very interesting warrior builds (not shoutbow of course), shatter mesmers being played in ranked but none of those are considered for competitive play only because they don’t implement in the already set up team composition. Let’s change the composition then? It feels more and more ineffective. A good example would be Helseth where he runs his shatter mesmer perfectly and still manages to pull it off. Every single team, new or old, keeps running the same kitten over and over again. Where’s the creativity from GW1? People keep comparing devs work GW1 and GW2 wise but I don’t see the community from GW1. People always pushed for different builds in GW1, without doing all the kitten math on what is more effective in numbers.

You got the reason for these builds not being used wrong. I would argue no one runs power necros, especially on NA there are a few of them. Then again teams on EU run more mesmers. Fresh air ele is not used in tournaments and team compositions because it’s just not that good. If fresh air ele is out of cooldown, it’s basically dead and those cooldowns are very long, therefore the ele can’t keep up with thieves and also mesmers. People have tried to make it viable, but I don’t really think it can be. It’s just too easy to focus once out of cooldowns and doesn’t bring as much utility to team as thieves for example. It has no boon hate, no stealth, no insane mobility. The same goes for rangers along with being too easy and I suppose quite boring too just from the nature of the spec. Why would you take power ranger over a thief, eventually mesmer?

It’s not like people haven’t tried to make certain specs viable, but sometimes it’s just not possible and you get outcomped rather than outplayed. Then the teams go back to pick up their meta builds, that’s why it’s meta.

Laraley.7695:

BakiSaN.9281:

I’ve been speculating lately is meta effective at all. Many solid builds with huge potential are rendered out of it only because they’re looked upon as individual builds and how they implement in the current meta. What if the entire team setup changes? We have powerful lich necroes, power rangers, fresh air elementalists, very interesting warrior builds (not shoutbow of course), shatter mesmers being played in ranked but none of those are considered for competitive play only because they don’t implement in the already set up team composition. Let’s change the composition then? It feels more and more ineffective. A good example would be Helseth where he runs his shatter mesmer perfectly and still manages to pull it off. Every single team, new or old, keeps running the same kitten over and over again. Where’s the creativity from GW1? People keep comparing devs work GW1 and GW2 wise but I don’t see the community from GW1. People always pushed for different builds in GW1, without doing all the kitten math on what is more effective in numbers.

You got the reason for these builds not being used wrong. I would argue no one runs power necros, especially on NA there are a few of them. Then again teams on EU run more mesmers. Fresh air ele is not used in tournaments and team compositions because it’s just not that good. If fresh air ele is out of cooldown, it’s basically dead and those cooldowns are very long, therefore the ele can’t keep up with thieves and also mesmers. People have tried to make it viable, but I don’t really think it can be. It’s just too easy to focus once out of cooldowns and doesn’t bring as much utility to team as thieves for example. It has no boon hate, no stealth, no insane mobility. The same goes for rangers along with being too easy and I suppose quite boring too just from the nature of the spec. Why would you take power ranger over a thief, eventually mesmer?

It’s not like people haven’t tried to make certain specs viable, but sometimes it’s just not possible and you get outcomped rather than outplayed. Then the teams go back to pick up their meta builds, that’s why it’s meta.

Thank you for putting your thought in but I could argue a few facts myself. It’s true that a fresh air ele is a dead body once out of cooldowns and it sure looks like that when not played right. Though after playing more than 3k games on fresh air alone (ranked of course, and a lot of those in full team premades) I can tell you that with enough skill, this fact shifts around a lot. Even without all my cooldowns, outplaying is more than possible and that’s once you are out of cooldowns. And I rarely am. It’s about using your cooldowns optimally, and that’s the nature of an elementalist. When used optimally, (in theory) you can’t run out of them since one complements another. Anyways, the problem with these builds is that they require a LOT more skill and practice than the current meta and the results are these assumptions such as yours.

ArrDee.2573:

Shoutbow is the embodiment of everything that is wrong with Guild Warts balance! Here we have a super tanky bunker that can deal extraordinary damage for its bulk, has absolutely insane mobility and is one of the only classes that has access to permanent vigor, and has single handedly rendered condi builds worthless! #balance

Wahoo! Bye frands!

you didnt give us your usual intro. im a bit disappointed

Meta just means what most are running. People develop counters to the meta which then becomes the new meta. Rinse and repeat.

What you run should depend on what your team is running and what you should expect from the other teams. If you are soloQ you should probably run a more selfish build as you likely won’t match up well with your teammates.

Meta builds are just well thought out builds. They are not necessarily “easy” builds either. If you don’t know why they are using certain traits, sigils and utilities; you will not be able to utilize them properly.

All the traits and utilities used in the “engie” builds for example, are picked for obvious reasons. There is a good chance any experienced player would come out with a similar build without checking the meta.

I always use the meta when I start a class because I don’t have all the traits unlocked and I haven’t gotten familiar enough with all the utilities to use them in a pvp environment yet. It is easier for me to read why these builds are what they are and try to play them as intended while changing aspects of the build to suit my play style once I’ve gotten more familiar with the class.