Guild Wars 2

About when was it? What class was your main? What was your build? What is one of the best plays you made at that time?

Personally my favorite time was right before the trait overhaul and removing stats from the traitlines. I was a condi survival ranger and I loved it more than anything else I had played in any game.

The play I best remember was back when we had the TDM map in rotation (I don’t remember the name). I was playing a spirit ranger and was caught away from team in a 3v1. I used my elite spirit and used its’ ability right before I went into downstate, it picked me up and one of the three ran away leaving me in a 2v1. I was soon brought back into downstate and the two enemies cleaved down my spirit which caused it to cast its ability bringing me back up yet again. Once again one of the enemies left the fight and I was left with a 1v1. I quickly downed and stomped out the remaining player and went to aid my team. Soon after regrouping with my team we wiped them and won the game by only a single kill.

Edit: I wasn’t very specific with the time, it was before the summer patches of 2015.

pretty much before this new trait system was introduced

thief was masterclass back then

when condi wasnt so bursty

babayum.1895:

pretty much before this new trait system was introduced

thief was masterclass back then

And everyone holding a point danced around like they were busting to pee incase there was a thief around.

When the game first came out and elementalists weren’t the game’s angel of mercy.
S/D was possible. Condi wasn’t the dominating factor. I personally find condis way out of balance since toughness has 0 effect against it.

katniss.6735:

When the game first came out and elementalists weren’t the game’s angel of mercy.
S/D was possible. Condi wasn’t the dominating factor. I personally find condis way out of balance since toughness has 0 effect against it.

Yeah I’m not too keen on the condi bomb meta. It’s just explosions of conditions flying around all over the place.

A lot of the PvP just feels messy.

Yup before trait line rebalance (and removal of trait line stat bonuses)
Also they went overboard with condi burst. I think prior they were probably a bit too weak but now they are too strong. Needs a bit of a nerf.

Anet pretty much butchered PvP after they began to fiddle with Conditions…

Back then (before ruining Condi damage) all tho Ele were pretty dominant…

I certainly had the most fun playing Warrior, Good ol’ Times when you could almost two-shot anyone with Rush and Whirlwind crits.
I even had ~60ish % win rate over ~200 games…

But look at them now…

Please try to stay a bit on topic, I want to hear about your experiences, what you played, how you played, and how much you enjoyed it… I know many people (myself included) don’t like the way metas have gone since the trait changes.

Allison The Strange.4519:

Please try to stay a bit on topic, I want to hear about your experiences, what you played, how you played, and how much you enjoyed it… I know many people (myself included) don’t like the way metas have gone since the trait changes.

OK
Warrior was my main for PVP prior to HOT, loved GS/Ham, Hambow, Shoutbow.
Did a lot more WvW than PvP though.

Now im DH, Rev, Scrapper. I dont enjoy pvp as much even though its still 99% of my GW2 playing time. I guess its due to the crappy MatchMaking system. Im winning blow out games or losing blow out games. Very few close matches in ranked compared to before leagues. for the time being im on the good side of MMR Hell (won 14 of my last 18 matches) but they are not exactly fun since they are 500/150 type scores.

Pre-heart of thorns. Minus ele being a little strong i feel it was the most balanced the game every was.

When you, and your team manage to pull of a miracle on a non legacy map despite being down by 100 points.

For me the time right before they changed the Trait system and the conditions. I played Celestial Rifle Engineer with a 6/0/0/4/4 Build with Grenate-Kit.
I dont remember one specific moment. But i remember that i had some really nice fights against D/D Ele on the Sidepoints. The Build was so much fun and for me the best time i had in pvp. Now i still play but dont enjoy it that much anymore. Condi CC Meta is not fun in general. Just AoE Condi Spam and passive Procs.

My favorite time had to be when all the new Grandmasters came out in that feature pack… Last summer?? The chaos that was pvp was so much fun! Everyone was experimenting and I had the meta within minutes of the release that I had theory crafted with the exception of 1 sigil and 1 minor trait. Watching all the zerks drop to 5k burn ticks made me laugh.

Other than that my other favorite thing was back when Capricorn and PVP lockers were a thing. I still have all my old skins that can’t be unlocked anymore, which is fun explaining what and how I got them to the newer players. PVP locker gave us a way to show off how much we played!

Favorite play had to be back when revealed wasn’t a thing, or either not as powerful as it is now… Pretty much when the game first started. I was on legacy on my thief on a Yolo backstab build and I went to waterfall to decap and dragged 3 with me. Cloak and Dagger and backstabbed all 3 of them down with 10k+ backstabs within about 5 seconds and killed them all. Pure bliss!

When they introduce Temple of the Silent Storm (Febuary or March 2013???).

The balance of the CORE classes was great.

A lot of people where trying different build and was somewhat viable.

Queue time reduced a lot, because they got rid of the auto-tourney feature to make only spam 1 game and not 3 games in a row.

The reward system was better, way more interesting to CRAFT skins than opening endless bag of bags that only give pve stuff with skins you already have.

With runes setup that could be chose like you want, (ie. 2x monk, 2x sanctuary, 2x …) you could stack some nice effect over different kind of build. (boon duration in that case on a DPS guard with symbols, it was a blast to play)

With Jewels that give you some edge to make more fine-tuning of your attributes.

With trait lines that gave attributes points…

We had choices and choices and many more choice that I didn’t write in, for great build diversity and HEALTHY gameplay.

It was before Celestial was OP.

When I could kittening kill something with ele and not being forced in a healbot to accomplish anything

Seriously..I won’t touch any other product made by anet not even with a mile long pole, after made it to legend, I barely log in once every 3-4 days..soon with few games coming out, I won’t log in at all

The period just before the trait system rework was my favorite. Most classes had multiple builds that were viable in high-tier, which was fun.

^ditto, right before the trait rework
next expansion idea: gw2 pre-HoT

Way back when you had three game tournaments and could make pvp armor way better days then now.

Before I started playing ranked pvp °cries in corner°

rip cele engi ;_;

Before new op skill line came in, every class had several different builds. Now without traiting in to new skill line you can just go and play maybe pve. And as well, when there was not such a crazy amount of necros with condi builds around. It have become so booooring these days

Celestial Meta with offguard after wts2

Before people started using 5 skills per second.

Just before June 23 change. We had:

Panic Strike D/P Thief
Cele Shoutbow Warrior
Cele D/D Ele
Cele Rifle Engi
Hammer Meditation Guardian

Sure, some classes were left out. But we were in a far better and balanced state than we are now.

ANYTIME before HoT. I’ll take it! Even without soloq.

Best was just before Dhumbfire patch. But I would gladly take anything pre-HoT.

Before the June 23rd patch. This is a defining moment because it changed the game so significantly. Each of the metas before that all had builds that were a bit over the top, but the overall gameplay was much more enjoyable.

Right now. (excluding OP scrappers, druids, revenants, thiefs)

Regon Phoenix.8215:

Right now. (excluding OP scrappers, druids, revenants, thiefs)

How do thieves even belong in the same group as the other 3…

Back when not everyone played mesmers and necros.

I really enjoy pvp right now, although before HoT I just played whatever class I wanted with whatever weapons I thought would be fun and just picked random traits because I had no clue how to make and effective build and didn’t know about metabattle, lol. This makes it so I am having probably the best time I ever have in pvp right now.

The meta right now is a lot of fun and has much more dps builds than the old meta of last season, meaning that a lot more skill is needed to survive. I am having fun and I am able to make good plays and win fights for my team which I never was able to do before. Watching the pro league helps me with my decision making of where/when to rotate and when to leave a fight/+1 another fight.
I play druid so I have done lots of awesome search and rescue plays but I have to say that the best play (or at least the one I found the funniest) was on forest of Niflhel and I went to the henge point which was being guarded by a thief. I burst the thief and he blows up in about 3 seconds so I stay on point to cap it. Before I am finished, an ele moves onto the point so I hold that 1v1 for a while until the thief I killed comes back to +1 the fight from respawn. He enters the fight, making it a 2v1 against me so I burst the the thief and again he blows up in about 3 seconds even with an ele in the fight with him. The thief then complained about how rangers are op, which they are against thieves but I found it hilarious. It was one of the few moments I have had in game that made me laugh irl.

hmmm. during launch of GW2 when there is no metabattle. when people still have no clue what is more OP.
- back when power mesmer doesnt really shatter their clones.
- when elementalist can use other utility skills while mistform.
- when hambow (before u can move while using hammer skills) warrior was using physical utility and mostly just a bunch of CC. when warrior just bull rush and 100b u to death lol
- warrior before shoutbow was famous (cleric, settler), people often message me asking what build i use ( metabattle just starting to be a thing ) i remember the like of toker and some ESL players back then saying i use crappy fear build LOL then they buff celestial amulet and every ESL team has shoutbow war.
- back when the fastest way to farm glory/rank points is to play hotjoin.
- the 10v10 at capricorn map where i just mindless tag everyone with plague necro and end up with 450 points per game.
- ahhh the nostalgia. ( now pvp forums is just pure QQ )

suffish.4150:

I really enjoy pvp right now, although before HoT I just played whatever class I wanted with whatever weapons I thought would be fun and just picked random traits because I had no clue how to make and effective build and didn’t know about metabattle, lol. This makes it so I am having probably the best time I ever have in pvp right now.

The meta right now is a lot of fun and has much more dps builds than the old meta of last season, meaning that a lot more skill is needed to survive. I am having fun and I am able to make good plays and win fights for my team which I never was able to do before. Watching the pro league helps me with my decision making of where/when to rotate and when to leave a fight/+1 another fight.
I play druid so I have done lots of awesome search and rescue plays but I have to say that the best play (or at least the one I found the funniest) was on forest of Niflhel and I went to the henge point which was being guarded by a thief. I burst the thief and he blows up in about 3 seconds so I stay on point to cap it. Before I am finished, an ele moves onto the point so I hold that 1v1 for a while until the thief I killed comes back to +1 the fight from respawn. He enters the fight, making it a 2v1 against me so I burst the the thief and again he blows up in about 3 seconds even with an ele in the fight with him. The thief then complained about how rangers are op, which they are against thieves but I found it hilarious. It was one of the few moments I have had in game that made me laugh irl.

Im actually going to echo this post alot.

A lot of us old school players suffered through the d/d ele valkyrie amulet ,the condi meta and its “petting zoo” of 2 spirit rangers+dhumfire necro , and the cele meta. There was a long time where virtually all of the competitive scene was community run as Anet hadnt put in the infrastructure we have now. Grouch, GuildWars2Guru, Mistpedia, Blu, Sireph, vVv, Team Paradigm were all community names that kept the scene alive while we waited for Anet to pull the trigger on fully supporting pvp. Guys like Olrun dont get enough credit for what they did during that time period either. Dont even get me started on the false hope that was Mistleague, it still has me a little disappointed

SO having just returned to the competitive scene as a player after running events with DPS for 2 years, I have to tell ya, Im enjoying this time period a lot.

If I were to pick a second favorite time, itd be the haste meta right at launch. Hundred blades warrior, bunker guards, backstab and pistol whip theives, mesmer with their illusion of life rezzes plus their time warp. You had to have that stun break/block/invuln ready at all times. Course back then ya had to wait 15-30 mins for a game but it was a fun time for me personally.

It was the shoudbow/ dd ele/ cele rifle meta. I played GS/bow or hambow warrior.

This I feel was the most balanced meta, and the most fun with a good variety of viable builds.

Most fun Ive ever had was after the specilizations trait overhaul and the PU buff.
I played PU Mantra mesmer, won 1v4’s. My god that was so broken. GS / ST Shatter <3

The meta right before the specialization patch was fun. Would have been perfect if Ele wasn’t so broken, and necro/rangers were buffed a bit.

The metas before power scaling in Lich Form was removed was the best. Because of lichwells. I’d say this current meta is among the better ones though as far as balance is concerned.

Worst meta was hands down the travesty we had before HoT where a 5 Ele/4 Ele 1 Thief team actually was successful at tournaments. In general the whole Cele meta we had going for a good while with D/D Ele, Shoutbow and Cele Rifle Engi was the most boring period in the game’s history.

Decap engy meta was the best. 15 minutes of knocking people on and off points and ending the game with < 200 score was the bestttttt!!!!!!f

I really liked it right before Hot came out. The worst would have to be the current season

Lord Hammer Hand.4815:

hmmm. during launch of GW2 when there is no metabattle. when people still have no clue what is more OP.
- back when power mesmer doesnt really shatter their clones.
- when elementalist can use other utility skills while mistform.
- when hambow (before u can move while using hammer skills) warrior was using physical utility and mostly just a bunch of CC. when warrior just bull rush and 100b u to death lol
- warrior before shoutbow was famous (cleric, settler), people often message me asking what build i use ( metabattle just starting to be a thing ) i remember the like of toker and some ESL players back then saying i use crappy fear build LOL then they buff celestial amulet and every ESL team has shoutbow war.
- back when the fastest way to farm glory/rank points is to play hotjoin.
- the 10v10 at capricorn map where i just mindless tag everyone with plague necro and end up with 450 points per game.
- ahhh the nostalgia. ( now pvp forums is just pure QQ )

heh 10v10 those were good old days! I played tons of games on capricorn!

Allison The Strange.4519:

About when was it? What class was your main? What was your build? What is one of the best plays you made at that time?

Personally my favorite time was right before the trait overhaul and removing stats from the traitlines. I was a condi survival ranger and I loved it more than anything else I had played in any game.

The play I best remember was back when we had the TDM map in rotation (I don’t remember the name). I was playing a spirit ranger and was caught away from team in a 3v1. I used my elite spirit and used its’ ability right before I went into downstate, it picked me up and one of the three ran away leaving me in a 2v1. I was soon brought back into downstate and the two enemies cleaved down my spirit which caused it to cast its ability bringing me back up yet again. Once again one of the enemies left the fight and I was left with a 1v1. I quickly downed and stomped out the remaining player and went to aid my team. Soon after regrouping with my team we wiped them and won the game by only a single kill.

Edit: I wasn’t very specific with the time, it was before the summer patches of 2015.

- hambow meta – back then powerful skills had long CDs or high opportunity costs, classes/builds weren’t overbudgeted etc.; YOU COULD SOLO OTHER CLASSES ON THIEF BACK THEN OMG (if you played well that is)
- thief ofc
- dp da/cs/tr i think
- idk what was best play but i remember pretty good how we faced 4 warrior + something else and those 4 wars kept going home where i soloed each of them easily due to how dp countered wars (was before bp got nerfed); i think i had 30? kills at the end of the match… still don’t know why those guys kept going to point with a thief instead of going somewhere else

- Part of me misses the chaos that was 10v10 in hotjoins.
- Playing a zerk gs/sword+pistol mesmer and absolutely wrecking so many people within seconds.
- Cele D/D ele . I know it was cancerous and everyone and their mom ran it, but it was a legit fun dps build to play.

HAMBOW META. I played an engie, ele, thief during that timeframe and had lots of fun with each. Engie was all about flexibility, and switching up skills during warmup. Ele was just solid as always, but I think I played scepter/dagger burst back then. And Thief had both d/p and s/d as viable, and a lot came down to careful timings. I think the state of things now is my third, following cele meta (pre patch).

Loving reading all of your posts, and I do read ALL of them… keep em coming!

Mine is in the future, the day our Guild Hall no longer needs the potions for upgrades, then I can quit going over there lol……

Between Sept. 29 and Oct. 23rd of 2015. The month leading up to HoT was the best for me, and I had fun playing power necro, condi ranger, and medi guard. All 3 of these builds are beyond trash now, of course.

When we still had 6 active trait lines, and most conditions weren’t stackable, and there weren’t overpowered elite specs with crazy mechanics.

Short answer: before 23 June 2015

(Period 2013-2015 was great)

Guild wars 1 Nightfall release.

10 professions.
1320 skills.
Multiple elites for each professions.
Build templates baked into HuD.
Fully customized HuDs.

Alliancee battles.
Hall of heroes.
Heroes ascent.
Team arena
Random arena.
Hero arena.
Guild vs Guild.

PvP rewards were equal to farmers income.

Not to mention the earliest decider of skill; when you had a team, you kept that team. If you won 10 consecutive matches, you got a point. After 20 points you got your first low level title.

A.I builds were viable. I.E minion masters just won’t thrive in most PvP area’s.

Whatever you unlocked in PvE you could use in PvP. Whatever you unlocked in PvP you could use in PvE.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Guild wars 1 Nightfall release.

10 professions.
1320 skills.
Multiple elites for each professions.
Build templates baked into HuD.
Fully customized HuDs.

Alliancee battles.
Hall of heroes.
Heroes ascent.
Team arena
Random arena.
Hero arena.
Guild vs Guild.

PvP rewards were equal to farmers income.

Not to mention the earliest decider of skill; when you had a team, you kept that team. If you won 10 consecutive matches, you got a point. After 20 points you got your first low level title.

A.I builds were viable. I.E minion masters just won’t thrive in most PvP area’s.

Whatever you unlocked in PvE you could use in PvP. Whatever you unlocked in PvP you could use in PvE.

haha even the A.I has value! Love it! Gw1 was just masterfully woven in its combat/skill system. You can see the back-and-forth counterplay in each game. It was designed beautifully.

I like gw2’s active combat system, but gw1 was something special.