Guild Wars 2

I mainly watch Gw2 twitch tournament streams to see how the meta changed and to change my build accordingly. Of course, I don’t run exactly what the top teams run all the time but I feel like the top teams adapt much faster than metabattle.

-Just use metabattle! It’s what they are running.
No the top players are almost never running what metabattle tells you is “meta”. Also, the EU and the NA meta is always slightly different.

-But they do cover the builds!
They go through the builds way too fast or they simply forget to cover the builds at all. For example, Jebro constantly fluffs up the stream with talk that doesn’t matter and forgets to go over the runes, sigils, and even the traits because he assumes that the viewers already know what the top players run. We don’t know what they run! Please cover them slower and please explain why you think they switched to X rune, X trait, X sigil compared to the last balance patch. If you don’t understand why, at least just SLOWLY cover the build for each player. Don’t rush into the matches until you properly cover the builds! Don’t just omit the builds because you covered their builds in their last match against a different team. It’s very likely that they switched their builds to counter the opposing team or to cover ground better in a specific map. In particular, Jebro never shows what sigils the players run and just assume that we either know what they run or we just don’t care. We care so just cover the builds better! Thanks.

GW2’s meta is so stale, and there is so little variability in builds that it is basically never worth going over them. After balance patches, shoutcasters tend to take a little more time discussing builds that changed significantly or are “newer” (like procmancer, for instance).

However, aside from those times, most of the “innovation” you will see is 1 trait swapped here or there. For instance, if you see an ele in a tourney, you know he is earth/water/tempest healbot, with the only variation whether he took aurashare or cleansing water and an extra shout. If you see a mesmer, you know are getting condi-spam. Due to the lack of diversity, its just not that interesting to see them list out specs.

Also using even one minute per build would already add 10 minutes of delay if you want to go through everything.

If they are in a rush, at least show it in a few secs so u can check it out after the stream. I know from where the complain is coming, and when the meta is changing, like now, its always nice to see whats being run.

BlackBeard.2873:

GW2’s meta is so stale, and there is so little variability in builds that it is basically never worth going over them. After balance patches, shoutcasters tend to take a little more time discussing builds that changed significantly or are “newer” (like procmancer, for instance).

However, aside from those times, most of the “innovation” you will see is 1 trait swapped here or there. For instance, if you see an ele in a tourney, you know he is earth/water/tempest healbot, with the only variation whether he took aurashare or cleansing water and an extra shout. If you see a mesmer, you know are getting condi-spam. Due to the lack of diversity, its just not that interesting to see them list out specs.

Its this right here, for instance on my ele ive been running 4 shouts dagger-warhorn since the HOT came out. I havent changed much on the build for over a year and its not because i dont want to but because its simply better then any other build and i dont want to struggle threw dailies.

Anet is changing the meta from season to season but when the pro players on ever team run the exact same comps and the exact same builds Anet didnt see a problem. Then teams like if you watch the last 2 tournaments run off the meta team comp. They get destroyed.

I mean for awhile there you saw revs using 2 different runes. The shout casters were like whooaaaaaa hes using rune of rage and this rev is using rune of strength!!!! What a epic change and lets see how this battle goes down!!!!!!!!

they can just call the link for metabattle page of each build that would be enough

Lexander.4579:

they can just call the link for metabattle page of each build that would be enough

That’s not how metabattle works. Many tourney builds aren’t on metabattle at the tournament time, and only get put up afterwards.

Proleague doesn’t copy metabattle. Metabattle copies the proleague.

As for the topic the casters do not have enough time to go into detail on all ten builds in each match. Simply clicking through the builds at the beginning so that we can SS them is enough.

They’d probably consider going over builds more in depth if they changed the system so that every gear piece had selectable stats and the trait system went back to pre specializations mode (Keep it so you can max 3 lines but now you can spread your points out where you want them to maximize build variety) This would allow for heavy diversity and therefore the shoutcasters would have reason to cover builds, they’d be able to show off all the cool customizations people have come up with.

Ario.8964:

They’d probably consider going over builds more in depth if they changed the system so that every gear piece had selectable stats and the trait system went back to pre specializations mode (Keep it so you can max 3 lines but now you can spread your points out where you want them to maximize build variety) This would allow for heavy diversity and therefore the shoutcasters would have reason to cover builds, they’d be able to show off all the cool customizations people have come up with.

Diversity isn’t related to # of options. Diversity is related to how the meta works.

Diversity is also self defeating.

Lots of diversity = more unpredictability in enemy comp.
More unpredictability = less risks I can take with my build.
less risks I can take = less build options I have.

For instance in the current game if I’m fighting a team that’s running guardians, revs, engis, and thieves. I can bet that they are all power and that I should prioritize power defense over condi defense. However if there is lots of diversity I can’t take that bet which means I’m forced to run mixed condi clear and power defense.

Of course this leads a equilibrium point on the # of viable builds at a given time.

Crinn.7864:

Lexander.4579:

they can just call the link for metabattle page of each build that would be enough

That’s not how metabattle works. Many tourney builds aren’t on metabattle at the tournament time, and only get put up afterwards.

Proleague doesn’t copy metabattle. Metabattle copies the proleague.

As for the topic the casters do not have enough time to go into detail on all ten builds in each match. Simply clicking through the builds at the beginning so that we can SS them is enough.

so? how does that stop them from calling the metabattle build page?

Lexander.4579:

so? how does that stop them from calling the metabattle build page?

Proleagers don’t post their builds to metabattle as that would ruin any surprise advantage they might get from a novelty build. This means that metabattle can only update it’s meta page until after the builds are used publicly. i.e after the tournament.

The shoutcasters can’t call up metabattle because there is a very good chance that metabattle won’t have the exact build.

Oh and pulling up unaffiliated third-party websites in a official video stream is bad form on a number of levels.

Crinn.7864:

The shoutcasters can’t call up metabattle because there is a very good chance that metabattle won’t have the exact build.

Oh and pulling up unaffiliated third-party websites in a official video stream is bad form on a number of levels.

Lol as if the meta wasn’t stale af xd Don’t pretend it’s changing a lot.

When was the last time the mesmer build changed at all? 8-9 months?

Crinn.7864:

Ario.8964:

They’d probably consider going over builds more in depth if they changed the system so that every gear piece had selectable stats and the trait system went back to pre specializations mode (Keep it so you can max 3 lines but now you can spread your points out where you want them to maximize build variety) This would allow for heavy diversity and therefore the shoutcasters would have reason to cover builds, they’d be able to show off all the cool customizations people have come up with.

Diversity isn’t related to # of options. Diversity is related to how the meta works.

Diversity is also self defeating.

Lots of diversity = more unpredictability in enemy comp.
More unpredictability = less risks I can take with my build.
less risks I can take = less build options I have.

For instance in the current game if I’m fighting a team that’s running guardians, revs, engis, and thieves. I can bet that they are all power and that I should prioritize power defense over condi defense. However if there is lots of diversity I can’t take that bet which means I’m forced to run mixed condi clear and power defense.

Of course this leads a equilibrium point on the # of viable builds at a given time.

Theoretically yes, however just because people aren’t running all types of builds doesn’t mean that everyone is running the same build. With the extra options I’ve listed there is room for people to even make small tweaks for preference in builds without changing the whole principle of the build. The issue with the system right now is that is way too restricted, you can’t change traits or stats without changing the entire build so everyone ends up running the same build because there’s no other way to do what they are trying to do.

Some builds become viable once a certain number of stats are available so you have those extra builds introduced as well so no matter what you run there is a build out there that will be able to take it down so there is no ideal spot to sit in with a build. Another massive issue we have run into with the game as it is is the fact that there is an ideal build for every class so there’s no room to change to benefit you otherwise the set of builds allowed by the limited stats we have will beat yours. The meta is the meta because there’s no better way to do a task with another build without being tunnel visioned into 1 role. A system like what I proposed will allow for small variances and deviations from standard setups so people will have a build that feels like it is truly customized for their use. As team comps and builds change people can tweak their builds more to fit new situations they find themselves in. Having the limited system we have now prevents people from experimenting because there is already 1 objectively best trait setup with 1 objectively best amulet. You need more options for diversity to build itself.

Summary in case this got too ranty or didn’t make sense:
Adding more options doesn’t automatically increase diversity but it lays the groundwork for people to build diversity out of their options. Our current system prevents creativity so it should be changed.