Guild Wars 2

The meta from the June patch was the most fun/fast pace meta ever. After the xpac, we descended to a boring/slow bunker meta where people poke each other with Minstrel amulet. I’m glad they removed it. ANet really need to shift the meta to be more DPS oriented.

Tenets for a fun/not boring to watch games:

• A 1v1 should never last more than 3 minutes
• A 1v2 should never last for more than 1 minute
• A 1v3 should die as soon as invul/block wear off.
• A burst should never kill another class in less than 5s.

To achieve that we need:

• Sustain damage needs to be buff
• Burst damage keeps the same, or shave a bit for high bursts
• Sustain defense needs a nerf

That’s the general direction. How to work out the numbers is up to ANet. But I really wish they can shift PvP into a fun to play mode again.

A more DPS oriented meta will also place the focus higher on rotation and team movements, since you don’t want to be caught 1v2. Right now people don’t care much about rotation if they slap on a bunker build.

i disagree. conquest is a point holding game mode. to hold points you need to be able to tank damage. i wouldn’t mind dps if it was a tdm but this is conquest.. people should accept this already. on launch we had a dps meta and it was disgusting. i hope we never go back to that.

best meta was pre specialisations (3 traitlines).

Jekkt.6045:

i disagree. conquest is a point holding game mode. to hold points you need to be able to tank damage. i wouldn’t mind dps if it was a tdm but this is conquest.. people should accept this already. on launch we had a dps meta and it was disgusting. i hope we never go back to that.

best meta was pre specialisations (3 traitlines).

You need good rotation, not tank damage. If you design a game mode where 1 person can hold 2 other people on a point, then the 2 people fighting will feel it’s pointless, and start doing bunker too. In the end, all you will have is a bunker poking game.

Especially in Conquest, rotation should be the higher focus, not bunkering.

The disgusting DPS meta was that Thief/Mesmer could down people from stealth in less than 1 second. In my post I already suggested we nerf some very high burst (convert it to more sustain damage). Both extreme bursty and extreme bunker are bad for the game.

no, stealth thief/mes was not what i meant. back then you had dps classes with stuns and quickness, quickness was 100% then, and you basically 100-0 somebody if you got your combo off. it was most of the time 1 tank (bunker guardian, one of the oldest specs they just killed again) and 4 dps, s/p thief, bullscharge gs warrior, power necro etc etc.

full dps is very bad for the game and full bruiser is very bad for the game.

they removed minstrel, an amulet that opened up the possibilities to run 2 support 3 dps. now we can go back to 3-4 bruisers and 1-2 dps.
just because some people tried to run too many tanky builds doesn’t mean that this was the way to go. another thing people always forget is that, and you will laugh now, decap engi is the counter to a full tank/bruiser setup.

Jekkt.6045:

no, stealth thief/mes was not what i meant. back then you had dps classes with stuns and quickness, quickness was 100% then, and you basically 100-0 somebody if you got your combo off. it was most of the time 1 tank (bunker guardian, one of the oldest specs they just killed again) and 4 dps, s/p thief, bullscharge gs warrior, power necro etc etc.

full dps is very bad for the game and full bruiser is very bad for the game.

they removed minstrel, an amulet that opened up the possibilities to run 2 support 3 dps. now we can go back to 3-4 bruisers and 1-2 dps.
just because some people tried to run too many tanky builds doesn’t mean that this was the way to go. another thing people always forget is that, and you will laugh now, decap engi is the counter to a full tank/bruiser setup.

And decap engi was not fun either. I’m not advocating for full DPS, and that’s a straw man.

I’m advocating for shifting the meta back to be more DPS oriented. The zerker 100b warriors you said didn’t fit my “can’t burst people in 5s” tenet above either. I want a balanced, not an extreme burst or extreme bunker game. Shave the 2 extremes and PvP will be much more fun to play/watch.

I second this:

“Tenets for a fun/not boring to watch games:
A 1v1 should never last more than 3 minutes
A 1v2 should never last for more than 1 minute
A 1v3 should die as soon as invul/block wear off.
A burst should never kill another class in less than 5s.”

Esp. Long fights. It is extremely unsatisfying to play when people heal up in 3 seconds.

you can’t have a a “sustained” burst meta without having supports. how do you want to keep your dps alive? the closest we had to this was pre specs when we had 2 bruiser and hammer guard thief + last dps. with a real combo you more or less oneshot people, that’s not what you want. on the other hand the power creep has come to gw2 and you can’t run something like this anymore because 2 celestial supports are not enough.

Jekkt.6045:

you can’t have a a “sustained” burst meta without having supports. how do you want to keep your dps alive? the closest we had to this was pre specs when we had 2 bruiser and hammer guard thief + last dps. with a real combo you more or less oneshot people, that’s not what you want. on the other hand the power creep has come to gw2 and you can’t run something like this anymore because 2 celestial supports are not enough.

Yes you can. This game has self heal.

A full Zerker Mesmer can heal for 7.5k every 20s. Almost every class has a good heal. You can have a dedicated support, but you don’t need to. A dedicate support may help you rez/stomp/heal you through the burst so you can counter attack. But in a 4v4 big team battles, people must go down quickly. If a 4v4 teamfight last for more than 1 minute and no one is down yet, something is seriously wrong.

PvP should be about positioning/rotation/teamwork/chain CC/communication. PvP shouldn’t be about putting on a heavy bunker build and poke each other for decades.

We need to shift the meta according to the above tenets.

Sunshine, you’re simply wrong.
Conquest just needs an overhaul, e.g. you should be able to cap point without killing enemies if you outnumber them, so tanking for sake of tanking won’t be a problem…

Morwath.9817:

Sunshine, you’re simply wrong.
Conquest just needs an overhaul, e.g. you should be able to cap point without killing enemies if you outnumber them, so tanking for sake of tanking won’t be a problem…

I’m sorry, no offense intended, but you may need to read the title again. This is not about just Conquest. It’s about PvP and fun overall.

Yes, your “fix” will make it balance for a bunker meta. But what you will get is 5 bunkers rotating around trying to have more people standing on a point than the other team. No one will be able to kill each other, so they would just stand on a point and dance, waiting for another teammate to come so they have more people on a point and start capping.

In short, your fix will work for your goal “fixing conquest”, but it won’t work for the bigger goal “fix PvP fun”.

yeah, a full zerk mesmer can heal 7.5k every 20s. now take class X whose auto attack deals 2k/s and you see that the mesmer’s heal is nowhere near enough. ofc as a mesmer you won’t get hit nonstop but it’s a fact that you will take damage, no matter what you do.

if you play without supports you or the enemy team won’t live long which is a bad thing for conquest. matches would be extremely snowbally and frustrating, just as frustrating as when nothing dies at all.

Sunshine.5014:

Morwath.9817:

Sunshine, you’re simply wrong.
Conquest just needs an overhaul, e.g. you should be able to cap point without killing enemies if you outnumber them, so tanking for sake of tanking won’t be a problem…

I’m sorry, no offense intended, but you may need to read the title again. This is not about just Conquest. It’s about PvP and fun overall.

Yes, your “fix” will make it balance for a bunker meta. But what you will get is 5 bunkers rotating around trying to have more people standing on a point than the other team. No one will be able to kill each other, so they would just stand on a point and dance, waiting for another teammate to come so they have more people on a point and start capping.

In short, your fix will work for your goal “fixing conquest”, but it won’t work for the bigger goal “fix PvP fun”.

Let me quote myself from a different, while discussing about Minstrel (which is actualy the sme topic as this one):

Morwath.9817:

Exedore.6320:

Minstrel amulet spent all its stat points in defensive stats. It would be similar to adding Nomad to PvP. Tanky builds could stay alive forever and stalemate matches. That’s why it was removed.

So? Thats not any problem, there are few solutions:
-> Give much more points for kills.
-> Give more points for additional objectives.
-> Let node be capped even when defender is alive if you outnumber him.
-> Reduce timer.

Stalmate won’t happen if there are no reason to stack “bunkers” or “supports” no matter how you call them. If there are objectives and stuff that require different builds, people will have different builds in teams to accomplish different tasks.

In CQ you got two tasks usualy:
1) Don’t die.
2) Cap or prevent enemies from capping.
So problem aren’t “bunkers” who do 1) and 2) and only that perfectly, if you would need to contribute to something else and you couldn’t with such build then probably teams wouldn’t want more than one of such “bunker”.

Stronghold is good proof for my thesis, since “bunkers” are barely useful there.
E.g. Druid is nice, but only if your team can kill enemies on their own, there are no points you can hold by not dying and prevent enemies from winning just by not dying.

Jekkt.6045:

yeah, a full zerk mesmer can heal 7.5k every 20s. now take class X whose auto attack deals 2k/s and you see that the mesmer’s heal is nowhere near enough. ofc as a mesmer you won’t get hit nonstop but it’s a fact that you will take damage, no matter what you do.

if you play without supports you or the enemy team won’t live long which is a bad thing for conquest. matches would be extremely snowbally and frustrating, just as frustrating as when nothing dies at all.

Can’t heal enough? Isn’t that a good thing? Or do you want an immortal fight where people keep healing to full every now and then? People need to die in a fight. PvP flights that last forever are boring fights.

Next, it will only be a snowball if your team is much worse than the other one. They have 5 people, same as you. Rotate/map awareness are the things that make you win. Rotate 2 into a point that only has 1 defender? Great, you can kill them much faster now (assuming they nerfed extreme bunker). It’s the bunker that makes the match snowball, since as soon as you lose a point, it’s extremely hard to take it back.

You put out another straw man that I want people to play without support. Support has its merits, and should be a strategic pick based on the opponent playstyle. It shouldn’t be about slapping on a build, be invincible, go 1v2 and can’t die.

That’s very boring to watch, boring to play, boring to play against (proof is people dance in matches like that). We need to start getting together and ask ourselves. Where is the fun?

This it s a good idea..when you get into 3vs3 4vs4 fight there are so many animations flying around that you have no idea what skill to dodge and what to do..when you watch all it s like a zergfest.

Sunshine.5014:

Jekkt.6045:

yeah, a full zerk mesmer can heal 7.5k every 20s. now take class X whose auto attack deals 2k/s and you see that the mesmer’s heal is nowhere near enough. ofc as a mesmer you won’t get hit nonstop but it’s a fact that you will take damage, no matter what you do.

if you play without supports you or the enemy team won’t live long which is a bad thing for conquest. matches would be extremely snowbally and frustrating, just as frustrating as when nothing dies at all.

Can’t heal enough? Isn’t that a good thing? Or do you want an immortal fight where people keep healing to full every now and then? People need to die in a fight. PvP flights that last forever are boring fights.

Next, it will only be a snowball if your team is much worse than the other one. They have 5 people, same as you. Rotate/map awareness are the things that make you win. Rotate 2 into a point that only has 1 defender? Great, you can kill them much faster now (assuming they nerfed extreme bunker). It’s the bunker that makes the match snowball, since as soon as you lose a point, it’s extremely hard to take it back.

You put out another straw man that I want people to play without support. Support has its merits, and should be a strategic pick based on the opponent playstyle. It shouldn’t be about slapping on a build, be invincible, go 1v2 and can’t die.

That’s very boring to watch, boring to play, boring to play against (proof is people dance in matches like that). We need to start getting together and ask ourselves. Where is the fun?

No build is invincible, most achievable self regen is like 2k health per second worth of healing by Scrapper bunker, zerkers can basic attack for more than that. Any other bunker can’t even reach 1.5k any reasonably besides Reaper if you count life force but they lack blocks/evades/invulnerability but have insane ally healing.

glaphen.5230:

Sunshine.5014:

Jekkt.6045:

yeah, a full zerk mesmer can heal 7.5k every 20s. now take class X whose auto attack deals 2k/s and you see that the mesmer’s heal is nowhere near enough. ofc as a mesmer you won’t get hit nonstop but it’s a fact that you will take damage, no matter what you do.

if you play without supports you or the enemy team won’t live long which is a bad thing for conquest. matches would be extremely snowbally and frustrating, just as frustrating as when nothing dies at all.

Can’t heal enough? Isn’t that a good thing? Or do you want an immortal fight where people keep healing to full every now and then? People need to die in a fight. PvP flights that last forever are boring fights.

Next, it will only be a snowball if your team is much worse than the other one. They have 5 people, same as you. Rotate/map awareness are the things that make you win. Rotate 2 into a point that only has 1 defender? Great, you can kill them much faster now (assuming they nerfed extreme bunker). It’s the bunker that makes the match snowball, since as soon as you lose a point, it’s extremely hard to take it back.

You put out another straw man that I want people to play without support. Support has its merits, and should be a strategic pick based on the opponent playstyle. It shouldn’t be about slapping on a build, be invincible, go 1v2 and can’t die.

That’s very boring to watch, boring to play, boring to play against (proof is people dance in matches like that). We need to start getting together and ask ourselves. Where is the fun?

No build is invincible, most achievable self regen is like 2k health per second worth of healing by Scrapper bunker, zerkers can basic attack for more than that. Any other bunker can’t even reach 1.5k any reasonably besides Reaper if you count life force but they lack blocks/evades/invulnerability but have insane ally healing.

Protection is 33%, that means the zerker needs to deal 3k dps to overcome that. A dodge gives you 1s invul, so you basically has 3k extra “heal” per 10s without vigor. That’s another 3k heal the zerker needs to overcome. Then block/condi cleanses. The zerker can’t even have 100% dps up time either because they will need to dodge/heal avoid AoE.

Which zerker build you’re using that can kill a bunker Scrapper in 5 minutes?

Sunshine.5014:

That’s very boring to watch, boring to play, boring to play against (proof is people dance in matches like that). We need to start getting together and ask ourselves. Where is the fun?

If this is a community effort, I’d rather ask “What is fun?”. Some people might find different things fun. I’m not refering to certain specs but more general things such as support, damage, outplays, conditions, etc…

On the play part, I think that Conquest has a “flaw”: DPS and Sustain are and will be king, there are no “niche” builds. Less build variation and less identity players can feel when theorycrafting.

I agree, though, that matches are much fun to play if insane bunkers aren’t around, that can tank a 1vs2 for a long time, as well as a meta with more DPS is more enjoyable. However, that’s not too easy to balance, as if people feel that tank-y classes are not as efficient/fun to play as DPS ones, people might switch from a sustain meta to a totally oriented DPS meta. It doesn’t have to occur this way, of course, but it’s some random thoughts.

On the watch part, I think that what makes people have fun watching the game is not a 1vs1 in a point, but rather teamfights/skirmishies (3vs3 or so) and players +1ing a 1vs1. It’s not the fights, but the decisions teams take into the match to balance them into their favor.

There’s no fun in watching, for example, a Druid vs a bunker guard in a point. That is boring to play, boring to watch and possibly displays a lack of communication within one of those teams and this last one is not solved by balancing or anything that ANet can do. How a team wants to play the match might be boring and lose, but hey, they made it boring.

As a last note, if a meta evolves into heavy DPS (not what you suggested, I know) it can be equally bad and matches drag too long (because teams can’t cap points, because there are always fights/deaths, etc…) as it happens on a sustain meta. This is simply a matter of class balancing in the case of Conquest, sometimes we will have a sustain meta, other times it will be a pure DPS meta or it can be a perfect mix of both.

Anyways, sorry if I’m not exactly clear, I still don’t have my mind set in this topic, there are many things to take into account. It’s easy to propose, but the results may very well be completely different. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t suggest how to improve sPvP!

P.S.: Between a pure DPS meta and a sustain meta I prefer a sustain one. I’m a little baddie and I prefer not to stay in respawn half the match!

Sunshine.5014:

glaphen.5230:

Sunshine.5014:

Jekkt.6045:

yeah, a full zerk mesmer can heal 7.5k every 20s. now take class X whose auto attack deals 2k/s and you see that the mesmer’s heal is nowhere near enough. ofc as a mesmer you won’t get hit nonstop but it’s a fact that you will take damage, no matter what you do.

if you play without supports you or the enemy team won’t live long which is a bad thing for conquest. matches would be extremely snowbally and frustrating, just as frustrating as when nothing dies at all.

Can’t heal enough? Isn’t that a good thing? Or do you want an immortal fight where people keep healing to full every now and then? People need to die in a fight. PvP flights that last forever are boring fights.

Next, it will only be a snowball if your team is much worse than the other one. They have 5 people, same as you. Rotate/map awareness are the things that make you win. Rotate 2 into a point that only has 1 defender? Great, you can kill them much faster now (assuming they nerfed extreme bunker). It’s the bunker that makes the match snowball, since as soon as you lose a point, it’s extremely hard to take it back.

You put out another straw man that I want people to play without support. Support has its merits, and should be a strategic pick based on the opponent playstyle. It shouldn’t be about slapping on a build, be invincible, go 1v2 and can’t die.

That’s very boring to watch, boring to play, boring to play against (proof is people dance in matches like that). We need to start getting together and ask ourselves. Where is the fun?

No build is invincible, most achievable self regen is like 2k health per second worth of healing by Scrapper bunker, zerkers can basic attack for more than that. Any other bunker can’t even reach 1.5k any reasonably besides Reaper if you count life force but they lack blocks/evades/invulnerability but have insane ally healing.

Protection is 33%, that means the zerker needs to deal 3k dps to overcome that. A dodge gives you 1s invul, so you basically has 3k extra “heal” per 10s without vigor. That’s another 3k heal the zerker needs to overcome. Then block/condi cleanses. The zerker can’t even have 100% dps up time either because they will need to dodge/heal avoid AoE.

Which zerker build you’re using that can kill a bunker Scrapper in 5 minutes?

The classes with protection besides Scrapper and Reaper can barely manage 1k HPS. You shouldn’t 1 vs 1 a bunker in the first place, should be the player focused down after you killed his allies, then he is useless once the point is taken since he doesn’t do damage and most of Scrapper healing is self. Either way people only try Guardian bunker for it’s revive bubble and shout spam.

Too many people disagree in this thread and
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/What-will-we-bandwagon-QQ-about-next/first#post5736376

I hope now that you witnessed how extreme bunkers can destroy the fun of gw2 PvP, you will change your mind?

Sunshine.5014:

Too many people disagree in this thread and
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/What-will-we-bandwagon-QQ-about-next/first#post5736376

I hope now that you witnessed how extreme bunkers can destroy the fun of gw2 PvP, you will change your mind?

Can you work at Anet’s pvp department? Thank you.

cakeonroof.7385:

Sunshine.5014:

Too many people disagree in this thread and
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/What-will-we-bandwagon-QQ-about-next/first#post5736376

I hope now that you witnessed how extreme bunkers can destroy the fun of gw2 PvP, you will change your mind?

Can you work at Anet’s pvp department? Thank you.

I was a game developer before, but not anymore. Anyway, I enjoy gw2, and I truly hope that it could be improved more. This game combat system has too much unrealized potential to be ignored