Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

I’d like to play a little game. Lets look at some of the popular/meta builds that you see commonly in sPvP and figured out common themes. Maybe if we do this, it could help the developers figure out what is needed to bring those “bad” skills and traits up to par/proper usage.

My personal thoughts-

I see three themes that are very common.

1. AoE usage
2. Full Damage Negators
3. Large Mobility

1. AoE Usage- Builds will try to maximize their AoE damage and support without sacrificing too much in the way of survivability. While it is true that some classes will have a harder time achieving this, many run a lot of AoE. Engineer and their bombs/nades, necros and aoe condi application, rangers and their traps and aoe support through spirits, warriors and their aoe damage, mesmers and their limited but useful aoe support/ shatters, etc.

2. Full damage negators- These skills will fully negate damage. Invurnability, blocks, evades, and stealthing. Stealthing is a percieved full damage negator because to the unskilled player it would appear to him you aren’t doing damage. Even though you could be doing damage, you dont know that you are. So skills like Elixir S, stances, stealths, etc.

3. High Mobility skills- These skills offer you to go long distances in the shortest amount of time. Charges, teleports, leaps, etc.

To me, many builds will take these 3 factors and maximize them each to the highest degree in their builds. Traits and skills that compliment these factors and make them easier/more accessible will be chosen most of the time. I believe that if Anet wishes to make these less used skills more used, they need to some how contribute to one of these three points. As an engineer main, one of the main reasons I dont use turrets or gadgets in serious play is because they don’t offer enough of these three points to allow myself to survive in fights.

1. skills to punish those on nodes
2. skills to stay standing on a node
3. skills to move between nodes

Because of the nature of the game mode, skills that do one of the above will always be highly valuable in sPvP.

1. Damage
2. Downed state control/support
3. CC

That’s about it, really. There are actually not very many builds that use invulnerabilities or quasi-invulns like endure pain (just guardian and warrior, and mesmer has distortion of course). Mobility isn’t that big of a deal to anyone except thieves. Point holding takes a distant second to being a tangible help to your team, which is why guardians are important. AoE damage is pretty big but that’s because most skills in the game can hit multiple targets. It’s also necessary to chew through minion/illusion/spirit armies.

Actually, it’s very close to the original damage/support/control vision.

1; Highest amout of damage with the least amount of input
2; Survivability whilst doing damage
3; Lengthy CC chains

Other trends include; Conditions.

“Ridiculous rewards for minimal effort so people terrible at the game can still own veterans”

Aka “Cheese”

Aoe heavy specs to spam on points because the current meta is so clusterkittened that the only way to play is spam the point

Jzaku.9765:

“Ridiculous rewards for minimal effort so people terrible at the game can still own veterans”

Aka “Cheese”

This wins my vote