Guild Wars 2

ANET isn’t going to reduce damage on the elite specs. That would lessen the gap between HoT and non HoT and thereby reduce the incentive to pay to have a usable PvP class.

On the other hand, survivability just took a gutting.

Where does that leave us? There will no longer be skilled gameplay. The winner will be the player who manages to get there burst combo off first. Rangers, here’s your big comeback.

Dust off that zerker gear Ladies and Gentlemen because that’s where we are going. With the level of damage, aoe and CC, removing bunkers means that what’s left is nuking the enemy before they nuke you.

bunker meta is boring, nuke meta sucks and conditions are evil – I think we get it

My point was that ANET has forcibly returned us to nuke / zerker meta unless there’s something “game changing” in the patch we haven’t seen yet.

Skilled gameplay is dead.

I’d rather be one shot’ed by warriors and thieves than die from boredom and frustration by watching bunker eles and bunker mesmers dance and jump around like immortal monkeys on point, thank you!

bring on the nukes! lets kill stuff!

now please return to your grave for the next 6 months

The problem is that this game is just too explosive.

We need a more linear damage model, where you have passive healing that matters but not enough to count all damage and in turn damage just is not enough to blow you up in a second but is enough to chip away at your health through you passive healing.

That way you have have fights that end, but not out of nowhere in a split second the winner will be the one that over the course of the fight manged to avoid and do the most damage.

In order for there to be healthy game play, there really needs to be a mix of viable (and desirable) builds to be played. Some bunker, some glass, some hybrid, with each role having its trade offs. We really don’t have that, never have. Maybe it’s different higher up, but from down here, its just saddening.

The nuke meta may be fun to watch in tournaments, but it is not fun to be on the end of it. Especially as there is no solo queue. It is horrible facing premades, being focused down in seconds. This only leads to casual or new players giving up on PVP.

Surely we want to encourage more players, not put people off PVP altogether……..

Silverwing.8750:

The nuke meta may be fun to watch in tournaments, but it is not fun to be on the end of it. Especially as there is no solo queue. It is horrible facing premades, being focused down in seconds. This only leads to casual or new players giving up on PVP.

Surely we want to encourage more players, not put people off PVP altogether……..

^^ This ^^

I am afraid the lack of proper solo queue + extreme burst meta + deletion of many amulets (and thus many builds) will lead to diminished player base.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Silverwing.8750:

The nuke meta may be fun to watch in tournaments, but it is not fun to be on the end of it. Especially as there is no solo queue. It is horrible facing premades, being focused down in seconds. This only leads to casual or new players giving up on PVP.

Surely we want to encourage more players, not put people off PVP altogether……..

^^ This ^^

I am afraid the lack of proper solo queue + extreme burst meta + deletion of many amulets (and thus many builds) will lead to diminished player base.

But those amulets aren’t available to the opposition either so it evens out in the end. They may even bring back a toned down version of celestial if its outright removal breaks things too much.

Deniara Devious.3948:

Silverwing.8750:

The nuke meta may be fun to watch in tournaments, but it is not fun to be on the end of it. Especially as there is no solo queue. It is horrible facing premades, being focused down in seconds. This only leads to casual or new players giving up on PVP.

Surely we want to encourage more players, not put people off PVP altogether……..

^^ This ^^

I am afraid the lack of proper solo queue + extreme burst meta + deletion of many amulets (and thus many builds) will lead to diminished player base.

New amulets are being introduced and the most commonly used, cele, is being removed meaning you should see a wider variety of amulets and builds not being used. Way i see it is you can no longer have a very tanky amulet yet still do very high damage due to traits and skills nor can you have a very bursty amulet and live forever via traits. Though the slider is closer to offense that defence but the pace as it is right now is so so slow. If things go to far the other way it will again be changed.

I don’t think that there will be no more bunker in the game.
Builds like chronobunker, bunker engi/scrapper and tempests can be bunkerous still without the celestial, just chosing another of the new or old amulets. Cleric, Settler, Magi, Crusader, Barbarian, Knight, they can still grant one or more defensive stats and combos. Expecially the first 3.

There will be more active game and more bunker variety.

Removing cele and the pure defensive amulets is a good thing, expecially adding good half-defensive amulets.

Sigmoid.7082:

New amulets are being introduced and the most commonly used, cele, is being removed meaning you should see a wider variety of amulets and builds not being used. Way i see it is you can no longer have a very tanky amulet yet still do very high damage due to traits and skills nor can you have a very bursty amulet and live forever via traits. Though the slider is closer to offense that defence but the pace as it is right now is so so slow. If things go to far the other way it will again be changed.

This assumes the player base has a very long patience. A good example is WvWvW. Several years of failed promises. Then HoT came replaced the Alpine borderlands with the abomination called Desert BL. Almost nobody plays there. The WvWvW player base clearly diminished to a fraction it used to be. Same thing might happen to spvp very soon after the leagues are over. This might be the last nail in the coffin and make people quit playing the game.

A lot of new games are coming.

I would say that removal of amulets is a very lazy way of “balancing” things. The problem is the amulets, but the power creep we have had with the 23rd June 2015 patch and HoT release. Damage, CC, immunities, blocking, evades, passives <— way too much of everything.

FYI: I don’t like too much bunker meta, but I also very might hate “who lands the burst first, wins”. This will be horrible for pure solo queue players like me as organized teams (even just having 2/3-player premade vs you) allows focus fire.

Sooooo, are we ignoring the medi-dire/soldier ammy? I mean, its not quite there but I do believe that will be the next meta amulet if it hits live in one piece…

Serious Thought.5394:

Sooooo, are we ignoring the medi-dire/soldier ammy? I mean, its not quite there but I do believe that will be the next meta amulet if it hits live in one piece…

Also knights/solider ammy as well .

I forgot those were a thing, you’re probably right. Maybe zealots?

Edit: Nevermind. I’m looking in wrong area. Vigilant might rise for eles?

Silverwing.8750:

The nuke meta may be fun to watch in tournaments, but it is not fun to be on the end of it. Especially as there is no solo queue. It is horrible facing premades, being focused down in seconds. This only leads to casual or new players giving up on PVP.

Surely we want to encourage more players, not put people off PVP altogether……..

This right here. This change is to keep the whole 1200 people watching the same 4 teams on twitch while kittening over the thousands.

And the claim that they have seen a growth in pvp over the last year and a half is true. But mainly because the lack of content in that same time span. PvP was the last area many people tried and with bunker builds it game them a chance to learn. But with the one shot meta coming they are leaving.

Silverwing.8750:

The nuke meta may be fun to watch in tournaments, but it is not fun to be on the end of it. Especially as there is no solo queue. It is horrible facing premades, being focused down in seconds. This only leads to casual or new players giving up on PVP.

Surely we want to encourage more players, not put people off PVP altogether……..

Nuke meta or not you lose if you don’t focus your damage.
There is team chat and call target button you know.
It wouldn’t be all nuke though, people would still find tough builds with new amulets, just not indestructible builds.

When the Trait rework patch was out everyone started with insane burst and then come the ele bunker meta.
When HoT is released everyone spammed insane damage everywhere, now half classes are using cele bunker.

There will be a time at the release of that patch where everyone will be able to inflict damage and the bunker builds decreases.
But I’m shure that there will be some other bunker/Hybrid meta after that moment.

Don’t be in pain, the bunker meta will always come!

I would just appreciate if people stopped calling this cele/ele bunker meta, because that’s not even close.

Mesmers were more prominent, they were using sentinel amulet mostly.

Watched two games of the last prolague – orng vs 55 and tcg vs vm. Result?
Two mesmers on each team – sentinel amulet
Two revenants on each team – viper/power
Either a druid – cele or scrapper – marauder

And it was still painful to watch. Bear in mind, there was always only ONE person using a celestial amulet. So no, this wasn’t caused by the amulet, but rather mechanics of the class.

There was no ele.

The problem lies somewhere else. Completely trashing ele and hurting mesmer a lot while leaving scrappers nearly untouched is not the way to fix the game, you’re just breaking it more. If it was only that, but also buffing thieves and reapers to the point they might just be gamebreaking? Just, why?

New amulets might save mesmer from being completely bad, but it sure as hell won’t save ele. Is removing classes from a game mode the way this game should be heading? Ofc not, you should be aiming at balancing classes so every single one has a role in the current metagame. Too hard, it seems. Nerfing some, buffing some? The only class that needed a buff was warrior.

ANET is kittening the kittens of the players who complained they needed a faster game. They are also probably trying to boost revenant to premier class.

After all, Rytlock Brimstone was the poster boy for HoT.

My Tai Chi instructor told me long ago; Doing something fast is a common way to cover a lack of skill.

I couldn’t agree more and the incoming meta will not be skill based. It will be burst based with fights won by the player that gets there burst combo off first.

Once you cant play while eating a burrito rather than paying attention what you are doing suddenly anet is ruining the game.

Teams full of thieves stealthing everyone and anyone so that the first to run out of stealth dies at the end of second team…
Just you wait!

If that’s the meta, I’m going to enjoy playing the jack-kitten scrapper build. Hi you beautiful Thief stealth spammers, prepare for Zero Counterplay death >:D

I was thinking there should be a balance between burst and bunkers. Aion does it pretty well > every class can basically outplay ( almost ) every other class given enough skill.

Maybe…keep the bunkers around but reduce all the invuln / increase CD and reduce duration / make it interruptable, punishable to be tanky, and limit burst damage to an acceptable rate?

I for one do not want a nuke meta where people skill spam to win. NERF EVERYTHING PLS

Blade and soul just released in west lets see what game becomes esport worthy first.

I will take a nuke meta over a Bunker meta.
I will take a nuke meta over a Condi meta.
I will take a nuke meta over a AI (turret engi, spirit ranger) meta.

Extreme.8350:

Blade and soul just released in west lets see what game becomes esport worthy first.

Who cares.

I want to play games, not watch them.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Extreme.8350:

Blade and soul just released in west lets see what game becomes esport worthy first.

Who cares.

I want to play games, not watch them.

For the authists Blade & Soul is new and interesting Gw2 is old with boring bunker pvp.

The decision to separate elite specs from the rest of the class is so kittened that there are just no words. Look at Path of Exile for christ sake, the new expansion, Ascendancy has class upgrades as layers (equivalent to GW2s elite specs) added ON TOP of the base classes as. Anet decided to create content that cannibalizes the base classes completely, why? Instead of focusing on creating new content and skills, they are now trying to increase functionality on some of the bases.

The elites should have been built into the classes and then a fourth traitline for improving them, not the craziness they designed.

We need protective spirit back

Extreme.8350:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Extreme.8350:

Blade and soul just released in west lets see what game becomes esport worthy first.

Who cares.

I want to play games, not watch them.

For the authists Blade & Soul is new and interesting Gw2 is old with boring bunker pvp.

Thousands of games out there and you’re allowed to play, or not play them as you like. All the drama you attach to that? That’s just a game in itself.

So long as you’re having fun I guess.