Guild Wars 2

This isn’t a complain about balance post. It really doesn’t matter whether the common builds are strong or weak or whatever. The fact of the matter is pretty much everything that you fight is just not enjoyable to fight against.

The combat in this game gives itself to fast moving counterplay. You have lots of dodges and block and stuff that allow you to outposition and outplay opponents. That doesn’t matter anymore. You’re losing PvPers not because balance is bad, but because the meta gets very stale very fast and nobody is making any attempt to fix that. There can’t be more than like two actual PvP teams that are left anymore.

Dear ANet,
Nobody likes to fight against the following builds: any engineer, any warrior, power necro, staff ele, d/d ele (to a lesser extent), s/d acro thief, minionmancer, spirit ranger, etc.
Whether or not they are balanced is not the question. But if I have to fight against another turret engineer on a point I’m seriously going to freak out. I don’t need advice on how to fight one, but if I wanted to fight inanimate objects I would play another game or perhaps just bang my head against a wall. Who thought this was a good idea to make this build a thing in the office anyway? I want to beat somebody because I’m better than them, can read their moves, and react accordingly.

Basically everything in this game needs to be nerfed and AI builds need to be removed (not nerfed, completely removed). I mean everything, every class can use one. You are rewarded now for fighting to not lose instead of fighting to win. It’s a disgrace that you can’t look back and realize (and fix) the mistakes you made. But I digress…

The combat system in this game is one of the best, if not the best, I’ve seen in an MMO. It’s a shame PvP just went down the toilet.

Please ANet, bring back the fun. I’ve been playing this game a long time and recently broke top 100 on the ladderboards (probably do to most of the better people leaving, but whatever I’m content). You have the potential for amazing PvP. I doubt you guys will really read this because most of these forums are really horrible, but hopefully you realize what’s happening to your best players.

Wow, honestly, complain about d/d ele…

It looks like, in your opinion basically all the builds are not enjoyable. Let me ask you a different question then:
What are other builds that are enjoyable to fight against, from your point of view?

d/d ele is really only strong because celestial and strength runes, so it’s not really the class itself but the surrounding factors. Also d/d contributes to the bunker meta which is totally lame. I play d/d and enjoy it but fighting an ele + another bunker (guard or warrior) you just get stalemates.

And to answer the other question, there’s a bunch of stuff out there that’s fun. d/d ele before the changes was one. I enjoy fighting some mesmers (not pu obviously), both for the same reason: their strong abilities have counterplay. If longbow on warrior was tuned down a bit, hammer might be decent to fight. Necros would be fun if they removed spinal shivers from the traitline. Thieves are always going to be annoying but I don’t really mind them (played one for like 1.5k hours so at least I know how to play against them), but I can imagine they’ll always be annoying to others. Also I love fighting DPS guards even though I think they’re super strong, they’re just not tanky enough to fit into the game. At least they’re interesting.

There’s a lot out there that has potential.

So, from your answer, it’s only non PU mesmers (including phantasms mesmers) and DPS guardians. Is that correct? (because other builds you listed are either non-existent, or with a big “if” attached).

If GW2 was a game of chess, what you are desiring is for all players, all classes, and all builds to devolve into pawns. Pawns for everyone. You’re a pawn, I’m a pawn, let’s all be pawns.

That. Sounds. So. Fun.

but op is right

combat system is ok in this game but it is most annoying thing ever to figth most enemy classes/builds

all this ai stuff in this game – on all maps are more ai mobs than palyer and this in a game where you have to look on animations to get your info

this game lacks very hard to provide the info you need to fight your enemy cause arenanet wanna reinvent the wheel on everything
all games show castbars + buff/debuff icons and have a combatlog where you can see what you did wrong or what you could do better

but no – gw2 dont need this – arenanet know it better -you look on animations – cause they know this is more fun

We are in this state for 8 months now. Skill-ceilling of classes are non-existant, which makes this game unfunny, stale and boring. Powercreep paired with spammable abilities don’t create any class-depth. Classes today are too independent and prevent good teamplay and coordination from happening.

This game and its potential was completely wasted. I doubt PvP will ever recover from those 2 years, where literally nothing has changed. Still unfinished and in beta.

I kinda see what you you’re trying to say. Certain aspects of this game have been nerfed, nerfed again, and nerfed once more for good form. Yet these same builds still get played. They lost no power because everyone else’s meta build also got nerfed, so the status quo exists. While certain builds/weapons did need adjusting, all other off meta weapons received nothing. I have never faced a duel mace warrior, and never will with the state mace is in. I do face some duel pistol thieves..and they’re playing out the condi card 100%. 99% of necro’s are terrormancer or minion..low chance of dagger, but never hybrid or off meta condi. Guardians either tank or meditation great sword.
I appreciate a-net added new skills. Some of them are pretty sweet in PvE, but in PvP the continued course of nerf hammer, nerf longbow, nerf thief sword, adjust passive skills, nerf hammer, nerf longbow, nerf thief sword with no buff this, or change that completely has resulted in 99% of encounters are the exact same ones you had yesterday and the day before that only with different names and places. There is no real “surprise” factor to engagements.
-I don’t see minions, they must be terrormancer..yup, they’re terror.
-Are they turret or decap?..they’re decap
-warrior coming..hambow or duel sword?..it’s a hambow
-Phantasm mesmer?..nope, there is the torch, they’re PU
-Ranger coming? spirit or traps?..either, that explains why they got owned so quick.
- what’s the guard up to?..wait, they’re meditation 100%
ele..wait, block..ride the lightning fail

It has become very predictable currently. Not blaming anyone, but predictable is the word I would use.

Op point is not about the game being unfun but mostly about not having players to form teams and tryhard enough to overcome the meta, that is settled on the easiest faceroll professions ( semi- bunkers with high dmg output, acro-trickery S/D thieves, turret engies).

No one wishes to develop a better meta or a “counter” because no one is interested in tryharding enough to do so, and often you end up against worse teams with the right comp and lose badly.

This goes back to the thing there’s nothing to play for: without incentives there’s no reason to tryhard.

We need incentives

Soon we will have to leave this game. It’s not meant for us. They changed their mind.

Personally, I think this is one of the better metas we’ve seen.

I like seeing Eles around, even when they are tough to beat since they put up a much more diverse fight than something like a spirit ranger of hambow war.

I agree with Dahkeus, This meta is the best yet in my opinion.

Yes I play a turret engi and have done so since the game launched. I remember the good times and the bad times. I see a vast diversity of engi’s running around. Turrets to bombs and even grenades. Everyone screams that we are this op class but let me tell you we are not. Managing those turrets is more difficult then you think. I could go into details but that could take some time.

What I really wanted to say is instead of being frustrated with the current meta lets brain storm some ideas on how to make what we currently have. Everyone is quick to complain but few ever sit back and provide constructive feedback that the dev team can use. Sure there are a lot of other posts that outline things everyone wants but want and need for this games meta are two completely different things.

So I ask if you have only 2 things to fix the current meta and they can’t involve removing a current meta build what would it be?

I don’t find managing turrets hard what so ever. Managing 3 kits and all of their cooldowns to be able to properly combo fields at the right time is what I’m used to on my eng though. Turret eng is to eng as minion necro is to necro.

AI and passives have been buffed, actives have been nerfed. This has lead to very poor balancing in terms of skill. It’s boring and bad game design.

Aberrant.6749:

I don’t find managing turrets hard what so ever. Managing 3 kits and all of their cooldowns to be able to properly combo fields at the right time is what I’m used to on my eng though. Turret eng is to eng as minion necro is to necro.

AI and passives have been buffed, actives have been nerfed. This has lead to very poor balancing in terms of skill. Boring.

I dont agree, Turrets like minions are AI dumb. They have delays and pathing is always an issue. I use the word AI dumb because there are times where I die because my turrets didn’t respond like they should. Turrets and minions have cool downs as well that effect you in many different situations. Trust me I own my fair share of fellow turret engi’s because the play like you suggest. If you stand there and pray your turrets and minions take care of the situation for you then you have no skill and trust me you will die to most all the come at you. If you manage your turrets by picking them up when needed and destroying them when the situation calls or planning a head and setting off the overcharges you will dominate. That can be said of every class in this game for the most part.

They aren’t set it and forget it, but I would still put them on par with minion master necro. You have an ability to activate and you can pop them for a knockback if traited. That’s very similar to a necro minion. You can pop some of them for an immediate effect, others you have an ability to activate (a turret can do both of these, but close enough). Yes you can pick up turrets, but I don’t find that to warrant a claim of much of a skill difference between the two.

while I generally disaggree with the op, I aggree at one point AI builds are too much and too rewarding sometimes, I mean this is PVP not PVAI.
Sometimes AI does such insane damage.

Here’s the thing about AI. You still need to manage them. There is very little difference between dodging and managing minions. At the end of the day you are pushing buttons to equal a result. If all you have to do is sit on point or run around with AI and do nothing, then yes it’s over powered.

I have already seen people correct their play style to deal with the meta. However to the OP, this is not about meta but about lower tiered players who want easy builds so they can advance on tracks. With this influx, there are more of the same builds while at the same time less competition because there is no reward for being better other than the speed in witch you complete a track. No one is getting rewards for being the best which is the same as WvW.

In theory, people who play PvP for the sport will apply for the tournaments but to the people who just play normal pvp or wvw then there is no real reward for maintaining their position (even with seasons in wvw). Until such time as being the best has an impact on rewards, there’s no reason to go outside the meta.

On a side note, I don’t get the rewards issue though. When I look at games like Call of Duty, even with diverse maps, I don’t see how the rewards are any different than GW2. How exactly is the reward system in GW2 less than other PVP games?

…a lot more goes into seeing a specific important attack and properly timing a dodge vs some ai continuously and automatically doing something with some minor management involved…

Go play a 3x kit eng and then play a turret eng… or shatter vs phant mes… or minion vs. non-minion necro. There is a big difference. It’s not the same just because you’re pushing a button in both cases.

As far as PvP rewards… I feel they are fine right now. You can get exotic dung weapons (which are used as skins in PvP) far faster in PvP Vs. PvE. You can’t get finishers in PvE outside of farming gold and buying them from the gem shop. Other rewards you can get faster in PvE from champ/node/mob farming. This seems balanced to me… other than hotjoin rewarding anything what so ever as it’s not really pvp (always a 4v5 match).