Guild Wars 2

Hello all,

I have recently been thinking that it might be interesting if during pvp tournament matches, players would be allowed to swap their build and utilities, but ONLY when inside their starting area/base.

In other words, you can tweak yourself in-match after you die (applicable only to soloQ/teamQ). This would give the same effect some players achieve by swapping characters on-death, but in a more official (and less cumbersome) way.

On one-hand, it could make a match evolve and become more dynamic, as players swap the roles they can fulfill in-response to the opposing team’s strategy. It would also allow players to refit themselves when there is a particularly bad situation they are finding themselves often (like a zerker getting trained by a thief). If a team is all-bunkers and you don’t know before the match, maybe you can respec to zerker staff ele, or decap engie to counteract their tankiness.

On the other hand, perhaps there are ways to abuse this, like secure a 2-cap and then bunker-up to the max. Perhaps some would feel this takes away the importance of build prematch and makes the game into build-wars. I would argue the opposite, as it allows you to spec for specific roles and strategies rather than gravitate towards “do it all builds” (a la celes. ele/warr/engie), while still swapping up if your are caught in a match and found useless.

Please discuss and share your opinion on whether you think this would be a good or bad idea.

This might be cool if we had build templates and could just insta swap a build.

TBH, you shouldn’t be able to swap characters without punishment either.

In a tourny setting, this should not happen.

Eurantien.4632:

This might be cool if we had build templates and could just insta swap a build.

Even without build templates, I think it is interesting as it balances the “penalty” of switching a build and missing out on time to be able to re-equip more optimally for a fight or strategy.

Zietlogik.6208:

TBH, you shouldn’t be able to swap characters without punishment either.

In a tourny setting, this should not happen.

Might be hard as getting stuck in the wall/with the wrong weapon sucks

First team fight: condi necro. Second team fight: OH kitten IT’S A MOTHERkittenING LICH. No warning. You shouldn’t be able to win like that. I veto this.

@OP:

Good idea, but that’s too much strategy for the people in this game to handle. Heck, most people can’t even react to the same class beating them up 10 times in a row. With changing utilities/skill points, you’ll just end up with a bunch of people complaining.

style.6173:

@OP:

Good idea, but that’s too much strategy for the people in this game to handle. Heck, most people can’t even react to the same class beating them up 10 times in a row. With changing utilities/skill points, you’ll just end up with a bunch of people complaining.

You obviously weren’t here for the first number of months the game came out. Players would counter comp you as you reached a point, kitten was funny but utterly ridiculous. The whole match was swapping the entire time to counter counters of the counter that countered you a few minutes ago. No thanks, I don’t feel like running with my character screen up the whole time again.

DoYourBestBear.6810:

style.6173:

@OP:

Good idea, but that’s too much strategy for the people in this game to handle. Heck, most people can’t even react to the same class beating them up 10 times in a row. With changing utilities/skill points, you’ll just end up with a bunch of people complaining.

You obviously weren’t here for the first number of months the game came out. Players would counter comp you as you reached a point, kitten was funny but utterly ridiculous. The whole match was swapping the entire time to counter counters of the counter that countered you a few minutes ago. No thanks, I don’t feel like running with my character screen up the whole time again.

But Bear!? Don’t you remember!? It added so much depth and skill to the game! That pesky necro that was spamming condi’s on me! I would use my pro-l33t-ski11z to swap in a bunch of condi clear and teach that scrub what what! I had to show him how HxC I was and how balanced builds were for scrubs! All aboard the counter-train y’all!!!

Character swapping needs to be removed, lets face it if a team wanted top 5 leader board it wouldn’t be hard. Make 2-3 of each profession with high cd skills like time warp, lich or supply crate. Even worse is this strategy highly benefits people with expensive computers as on kitten drive loading screen can be 5 seconds. (far less time than spawn)

It would be a cool idea if ANet didn’t balance their game around hard counters in a true rock/paper/scissors fashion. There’s already so much emphasis being placed on builds and their corresponding match ups that most of coordinated team play revolves around getting the right personnel into the right match ups simply due to the severity at which builds can counter one another and it’s effect on fight outcomes.

It’s ironic though that ANet’s slow balancing cycles and desire for a player propagated meta actually warrant build templates and more opportunities to change said builds, yet their balance philosophy works against that notion entirely by placing so much emphasis on the builds and their ability to hard counter one another that it has to be restricted just to keep matches going.

not sure how much improvement we can expect on this front as long as ANet’s balancing philosophy and policy are on separate pages from different books.

BlackBeard.2873:

Hello all,

I have recently been thinking that it might be interesting if during pvp tournament matches, players would be allowed to swap their build and utilities, but ONLY when inside their starting area/base.

In other words, you can tweak yourself in-match after you die (applicable only to soloQ/teamQ). This would give the same effect some players achieve by swapping characters on-death, but in a more official (and less cumbersome) way.

On one-hand, it could make a match evolve and become more dynamic, as players swap the roles they can fulfill in-response to the opposing team’s strategy. It would also allow players to refit themselves when there is a particularly bad situation they are finding themselves often (like a zerker getting trained by a thief). If a team is all-bunkers and you don’t know before the match, maybe you can respec to zerker staff ele, or decap engie to counteract their tankiness.

On the other hand, perhaps there are ways to abuse this, like secure a 2-cap and then bunker-up to the max. Perhaps some would feel this takes away the importance of build prematch and makes the game into build-wars. I would argue the opposite, as it allows you to spec for specific roles and strategies rather than gravitate towards “do it all builds” (a la celes. ele/warr/engie), while still swapping up if your are caught in a match and found useless.

Please discuss and share your opinion on whether you think this would be a good or bad idea.

I HAMBOW DONT GET IT!

Being able to change builds mid match actually reduces “build wars”, because your chances of victory are less dependent on the RNG of whether your build matches up against the opponent.

It becomes less about throwing the dice and more about adapting during the match.

It also encourages breadth of knowledge about the game – players who can master many classes/builds will have an advantage over people who specialize.