Guild Wars 2

Ok so many of my guild mates have already called it in. They play the new living story, run threw the new map once or twice then run off to another game.

So today the patch came in and i was gonna jump into the story but habits kick in and i go for daily PvP.

And here is why i will join my guild mates. We had a necro, a power rev and myself and another ranger are playing power rangers. I believe our 5th was a burn guard.

The other team had a necro, a condi engy, a condi mesmer, a condi warrior and a meta ele.

Match making aside, balance is straight gone. There was nothing our team could do to win team fights of any size. 1 vs 1 i got a couple wins and i saw a few others too. But 2 vs 2 and especially with the ele. The biggest kicker is we all died nearly instantly, team fights were 10-20 sec long. The score was about 280-500 so maybe Anet looks at it as a good match. This is unranked and there is alot of chasing and we clearly had better mobility.

But this is horrible, they were running 3 meta builds with the mesmer, warrior and ele. Potentially for necro but i dont know. We were running maybe 1 build with our rev. Its clear that there builds some what work with each other with the stuns, dazes, gyros etc etc.

Our team didnt simply because build diversity is shot. I say this all the time but Pre HOT wasnt like this.

Solo que in unranked is not fun anymore either. Pre HOT i could run hammer, s/s. mace/axe, and rifle on warrior and i could perform really well. It didnt matter if it was meta or not. I could always bring something to the table.

I was trying beserker amulet with longbow and greatsword on ranger. I think MIAZ does builds like this and im no where near that skill level. But this mesmer shielded, distorted, blink and dropped a portal and came back from the portal and started again.

I wish i took a pic but at one point i had like 10 condi on me and it was like 12 confusion, 10 bleeds, 8 torment, chill, blind, cripple etc etc etc.

So after i finish the story later i will wait for the next update to log back in.

Good Luck everyone in PvP

Well, to my opinion, it’s more likely the necro and warrior ruining all the diversity on zerker builds.
These 2 aren’t really fair and are breaking the average/low ranks :
- you’re about to down the necro, he does on second form and puts 500 conditions
- warrior following on the whole map with no real risk, and still able to kill most builds

It’s not hard to beat these builds, but it’s too easy to fail and a combinaison of 2 necros 2 guards 1 warrior is a real pain..

You had a bad team comp and lost. Imagine that.

Oh gee….1 bad game….Matchmaking definitely has to be broken. In all honest, I can’t hear this kitten any more. If you are so easily frustrated, then I guess leaving PvP probably is the right choice.

BikeIsGone.8675:

Oh gee….1 bad game….Matchmaking definitely has to be broken. In all honest, I can’t hear this kitten any more. If you are so easily frustrated, then I guess leaving PvP probably is the right choice.

It’s not a match making problem and that’s not what he was suggesting. Someone who can’t read imagine that.

“Match making aside, balance is straight gone.” <—-How did you not read this before smashing your keyboard!?

I can confirm that many people that I know, and me included, don’t play very much pvp anymore for the exact same reason.

kin korn karn.9023:

You had a bad team comp and lost. Imagine that.

Yes, he lost because they had a bad comp. However, what OP is saying is “why the hell is everything a bad comp thats not part of a very small selection of build picks?” Anet did a great job with “extrinsic” balance or making sure that the best builds from every class are competitive with each other in the pvp game setting. However, since HoT, they still did an absolutely horrible job with “intrinsic” balance or making sure there are a wide array of “competitive” builds, or at least somewhat competitive builds, to choose from for each class. How many different builds from each class did you see in the most recent pvp world championship? Yes, “intrinsic” balance will never be perfect and there will always be a best build. However, kitten, they could do a lot better job than this. Of course, I’m sure many people that still play a lot of pvp don’t have quite as big of a problem with this, hence why they are still playing a lot of pvp and on the forums. However, just because you don’t think its a problem doesn’t mean that others don’t as well and that it hasn’t been affecting the active pvp population or what the active pvp population could be.

BikeIsGone.8675:

Oh gee….1 bad game….Matchmaking definitely has to be broken.

Stop talking down to others just because you don’t agree. Not only is everyone entitled to their opinion, but — most importantly — the OP has a valid point there.

The fact that PvP is mainly unbalanced due to a completely awful team balance (i.e., the 100% random constallation of teams) cannot be denied, and that leads to people losing (interest, especially with the puny rewards this season).

You are basically forced to train every profession in PvP so that you can switch to another character when you see the match is doomed for your team before it has even started. This is a joke, and I am not laughing. As the screenshot shows, one Necro and one Engineer should have been swapped and we would have had a perfectly balanced match with the better coordinated team winning.

With this imbalance plus the crippled new reward system, most casual PvP players have quit playing or only poke their nose in every once in a while, which has also resulted in longer waiting times.

Ashantara.8731:

Stop talking down to others just because you don’t agree. Not only is everyone entitled to their opinion, but — most importantly — the OP has a valid point there.

The fact that PvP is mainly unbalanced due to a completely awful team balance (i.e., the 100% random constallation of teams) cannot be denied, and that leads to people losing (interest, especially with the puny rewards this season).

How is that unbalanced? A match shouldn’t be balanced around participating classes but around player skill. Did it for instance ever occur to you, that swapping one engi and one necro just wasn’t an option because it would have destroyed skill balance?

Also OP said that he (and 3 other people on his team) weren’t playing meta-builds but some gimmicky, sub-optimal builds….so OF COURSE they would be on a disadvantage.

Call me an advocate of meta-builds (because I actually am), but those builds are considered OPTIMAL because they play into the respective classes’ strengths.

You can play your support guard, but it wont be as good as a meta ele.
You can play your condi ranger, but it wont be as good as a meta mesmer.
You can play your thief as a 1v1er, but it still wont be as good as a meta warrior.

Meta builds exist, because they outperform any OTHER Class when it comes to a certain aspect of the game…or at least be flexible enought to perform “good enough” in multiple scenarios. Even when they just are a tiny bit better than another build….those are the OPTIMAL builds to play.

Also…that screenshot you posted. Comp-wise that game actually wasn’t that badly balanced….if anything I’d have given the advantage to red.

So….. You had a 5 stack with no dedicated clear class. You had 2 rangers….. not druids…… A class that was subpar before HOT… I mean its sustained damage was bottom tier in PVE and in PVP it was a noob stomper that relied on 1 button and people to not use reflects…..
a power rev which Isn’t inherently bad just requires perfect play to really pull their own weight
a necro…. a class that is well known for being a walking target but no rez bot or healer to protect them
and a burn guard….. another noob stomper that relies on other classes to be useful do to the lack of cover condis….. I mean when I play power rev I can easily out cleanse a burn guard…. Now dont get me wrong there are a lot of issues with PVP atm… but this wasn’t a balance issue….. you just had what might be the single most imbalanced 5 stack comp I have ever seen( I mean 5 thieves would outperform that) against a condi heavy comp….
Condis heavy teams tear apart a lack of coordination…. but falls off against coordinated teams that have a dedicated condi cleanser… i mean with that comp I could have killed you all alone as a condi mesmer just by condi bombing you and then sitting on the high ground while I watch you desperately fight against the condi pressure I put out…..

Simply put you had a comp of 5 pure offense DPS builds against a decent comp. They had a mesmer so they beat you on mobility and 1v1 potential,
they had condi war so they beat you on sustain and battles of attrition,
they had a necro and an ele so their team fight carry could reliably last long enough to systematically tear your team apart.
and they had a condi engie so they beat your entire team combined in terms of reliable burst.

I mean what do you expect to happen if you run 5 glass builds 3 of which are awful?

On top of that im not saying you need to run meta….. I mean condi engie is anything but meta but if your team works with you it can produce a ton of pressure and has good ganking potential.

If you’re going to run a 5 stack in unranked it will put you against another 5 stack or something like it…. if you run a comp and builds that make zero sense alone much less together it only takes on good player to pick you apart

Ashantara.8731:

BikeIsGone.8675:

Oh gee….1 bad game….Matchmaking definitely has to be broken.

Stop talking down to others just because you don’t agree. Not only is everyone entitled to their opinion, but — most importantly — the OP has a valid point there.

The fact that PvP is mainly unbalanced due to a completely awful team balance (i.e., the 100% random constallation of teams) cannot be denied, and that leads to people losing (interest, especially with the puny rewards this season).

You are basically forced to train every profession in PvP so that you can switch to another character when you see the match is doomed for your team before it has even started. This is a joke, and I am not laughing. As the screenshot shows, one Necro and one Engineer should have been swapped and we would have had a perfectly balanced match with the better coordinated team winning.

With this imbalance plus the crippled new reward system, most casual PvP players have quit playing or only poke their nose in every once in a while, which has also resulted in longer waiting times.

Simply put class stacking makes any form of real matchmaking impossible currently. If you don’t want to play 2 engies vs 2 necros you can still swap before matches like everyone else when they have your hard counter stacked…. but at the end of that day the player base is currently to low to implement such a change with out bleeding out playerbase even further,

If you actually care about winning, choose a strong build and get good at it. There are a lot of strong builds!

If you just want to play random build and have fun, then go ahead but don’t take win/loss srsly.

BikeIsGone.8675:

Oh gee….1 bad game….Matchmaking definitely has to be broken. In all honest, I can’t hear this kitten any more. If you are so easily frustrated, then I guess leaving PvP probably is the right choice.

Leaving PvP is the right choice.

If i may add for everyones comments.

When did having the meta team comp become the necessity to winning?

Prior to HOT I could run any wacky build and be competitive and in most cases better then the opposing players that i was better then. I can understand if you come to the forum alot and see all the negative posts and say No i disagree with it because your having fun.

For me Build Diversity is the worse its ever been as well as team comp potential. In the match i was talking about I and 1 other player were winning the 1 vs 1 but could not win any team fights.

Its not about skilled play or even a unique build set up that you have to think about. If i was running hammer/mace-shield with the power trait line on warrior using condi. You would notice that any stuns/ knock downs/ cc would be the way he applies damage.

There is none of that, HOT specs are so OP compared to vanilla builds. And meta builds are so OP compared to other HOT builds. I truly dont know how anyone can defend GW2 PvP at this point, maybe i hit the breaking point.

Exciton.8942:

If you actually care about winning, choose a strong build and get good at it. There are a lot of strong builds!

If you just want to play random build and have fun, then go ahead but don’t take win/loss srsly.

You wrote there is alot of strong builds.

The whole point of my posts is saying no there is not.

The whole point of PvP is to try and think of some build someone else hasnt tried or isnt playing because its not meta and make that work. Thats a huge fun aspect of theory crafting in PvP.

When 1 build gives the most boons, most condi cleanses, stun breaks, cc and healing- damage output ratio .

Thats a serious problem when Anet put 4 players on 1 team running those builds on 1 team. And 1 on the other and they are so superior that potentially the team with 1 meta build were actually the better players but because of the poor balance in PvP.

Its better in your suggestion to not care.

The state of PvP (as WvW) reflects anet’s focus on other things. Only end game content they seem to develop further are raids. Anything else goes into the next expansion (if you see LS as part of it). Sad to see that anet let competitive content dry out.

I would say ranked during season is the best time to play, even though its still pretty hit or miss. seems like to me though at least people mostly run meta.

off season I wouldn’t bother. some pve but mostly wvw is where I am. might I suggest joining a small team that gvgs other small guilds.

kdaddy.5431:

When did having the meta team comp become the necessity to winning?

It’s not. Heck the team you lost to wasn’t even running meta. (condi engi is a core build and is submeta by general public understanding)

You lost because your comp made no sense. None of your team synergized at any level with any other of your team. You lacked multiple roles such as a roamer and support.

Expecting a nonsensical random comp to be competitive against a balanced one is absurd. This is PvP not Queensdale.

my general thoughts when I touch this game
kitten pvp
kitten pve

revive my wvw fun

kdaddy.5431:

BikeIsGone.8675:

Oh gee….1 bad game….Matchmaking definitely has to be broken. In all honest, I can’t hear this kitten any more. If you are so easily frustrated, then I guess leaving PvP probably is the right choice.

Leaving PvP is the right choice.

If i may add for everyones comments.

When did having the meta team comp become the necessity to winning?

Prior to HOT I could run any wacky build and be competitive and in most cases better then the opposing players that i was better then. I can understand if you come to the forum alot and see all the negative posts and say No i disagree with it because your having fun.

For me Build Diversity is the worse its ever been as well as team comp potential. In the match i was talking about I and 1 other player were winning the 1 vs 1 but could not win any team fights.

Its not about skilled play or even a unique build set up that you have to think about. If i was running hammer/mace-shield with the power trait line on warrior using condi. You would notice that any stuns/ knock downs/ cc would be the way he applies damage.

There is none of that, HOT specs are so OP compared to vanilla builds. And meta builds are so OP compared to other HOT builds. I truly dont know how anyone can defend GW2 PvP at this point, maybe i hit the breaking point.

At what point has anyone used the term meta? There is a difference between meta and just plain stupid…… If you run a 5 stack with no support you will need to play insanely well to make up for the lack of it. This is even more true when the enemy team has a support…

If you enter a dungeon in another MMO with 4 DPS and a tank…… That dungeon is going to go realllllllly badly……. The result of ANETS open builded system is that you need to change your build to meet requirements not just play what ever and then complain it goes badly….

You dont need to play meta…. I often turn off reaper and play standard power necro….. I also duel better then most DHs with vanilla power medi guard (my main alt pre HOT) Hot made a lot of things unviable but unless youre at the highest level of play there is a LOT of things still plenty useful in the right hands….. but if you dont have a single healer…… You are creating the issue for yourself.

if you seriously assembled that team as a 5 stack… well my god what do i say. honestly you’re running a composition that’s designed to lose.

5 stack w no ele or druid is stupid.

choovanski.5462:

if you seriously assembled that team as a 5 stack… well my god what do i say. honestly you’re running a composition that’s designed to lose.

5 stack w no ele or druid is stupid.

Agreed…. Wasnt joking that 5 thieves would be better then that… at least then you can out rotate them

Necro, Rev, Ranger, Ranger, Guard
Vs
Ele, Mesmer, Necro, War, Condi Engi

You realize your comp was doomed from the very beginning right?

My condi guard can 1v3 yalls Rev/Ranger/Ranger. It’s not because I run a good condi build; it’s gimmicky, but it’s because Condi > those classes… and they had 4 Condi classes…

• Your team had 0 support for the Necro.
• Your team had 0 support vs Condi.
• Your Guard should have gone Symbolic bunker for the little support y’all had.
• One Ranger should have swapped.

We had a Yes/No Vote a while back.
A “Yes” meant we’d get class specific queueing and class specific MMR.
A “No” meant we wanted to swap classes before a game starts but it won’t be class specific MMR.
(Anet even stated they had matchmaking authority to alter how they wanted specific classes on a team, but people still voted No)

The “No” vote won by 7%, saying a comp like yours should have swapped classes… That’s what Anet and the GW2 community wants you to do… btw I was a Yes vote above.

Saiyan.1704:

Necro, Rev, Ranger, Ranger, Guard
Vs
Ele, Mesmer, Necro, War, Condi Engi

You realize your comp was doomed from the very beginning right?

My condi guard can 1v3 yalls Rev/Ranger/Ranger. It’s not because I run a good condi build; it’s gimmicky, but it’s because Condi > those classes… and they had 4 Condi classes…

• Your team had 0 support for the Necro.
• Your team had 0 support vs Condi.
• Your Guard should have gone Symbolic bunker for the little support y’all had.
• One Ranger should have swapped.

We had a Yes/No Vote a while back.
A “Yes” meant we’d get class specific queueing and class specific MMR.
A “No” meant we wanted to swap classes before a game starts but it won’t be class specific MMR.
(Anet even stated they had matchmaking authority to alter how they wanted specific classes on a team, but people still voted No)

The “No” vote won by 7%, saying a comp like yours should have swapped classes… That’s what Anet and the GW2 community wants you to do… btw I was a Yes vote above.

A good power rev should win against a burn guard due to the fact that meta rev has 3 condi cleanses on a short CD, Guardian only has 1 condi. Its one of the only 1v1s I will take as a rev. That being said if he was on a team with that comp chances are he wasnt a good rev….. and there are very few left.

kdaddy.5431:

Thats a serious problem when Anet put 4 players on 1 team running those builds on 1 team. And 1 on the other and they are so superior that potentially the team with 1 meta build were actually the better players but because of the poor balance in PvP.

Its better in your suggestion to not care.

You do realize, that its practically (!) impossible for Anet to tackle this issue.
They would have to rate EVERY single build based on strengths and weaknesses for EVERY player Qing at the moment and then miraculously come up with a fair matchup. Such a system is straight up impossible to implement.

This is also the reason, why I for instance voted ‘No’ in the class locking poll. Creating a matchup based on classes alone does absolutely nothing in terms of “fairness” when people have the ability to run multiple random builds, which all do different things. Unless of course you would prefer to have 10 people hectically adjust their respective build in ~1 min.

Ive read the comments and im still pointing to how is this ok?

Most of you are writing ohhh no support. This was solo que and hear is my issue again, this was never the case pre hot and its the case now because a lack of build diversity and decent builds.

Pre HOT you didnt need to have a support to win (especially in unranked) and there are many of us who won with 3-5 thief teams and 3-5 mesmer teams etc etc. You would even see pre HOT variations like ohh im P/P venom thief and im sword thief and other things.

Playing a meta build only gave the user a advantage if they were good with it.

Now in HOT meta builds are so much better its not very fun. If you dont have the right roles on a team its not very fun. This was not the case Pre HOT.

A long time ago Five Gauge talked another team because in ESL he said they would run boring comps. 3-4 Bunker/support classes with 1 thief. The Abjured would win but it was a process to deal with.

@Menmaro.4607 also you do realize that is a problem in PvE right? Lol this is what people are talking about. The inability to play certain things in raids such as necro and rev. I myself have cleared raids on necro and rev early on and can not do raids since people do not want a necro or rev.

Also my friend ran sword for W1 on his thief and since W1 is pretty easy we went 3 out of 4 back in the day, 1 slip on the gors. That right there shows that even raids has better build diversity then PvP.

Heck i have a friend who is in a raid guild who can still 7 man all the bosses and sell the raid instances. They do alot of these with 2 thieves!!!!!!!!!

Yet you will find alot of people who dont like raids because of a class they choose to run.

My point overall about your comment, PvP should be better balanced then raids. What kind of comment is comparing a whole section of a game to a side game just introduced?

We have had multiple tournaments with prize money, gems rewards, tournaments hosted by the community itself.

Why do you think there are many walking away from the game right now even from PvE? Alot of PvE players want story mode for the raids just so they can experience it, alot of PvE players dont understand why legendary armor is tied to raids.

Tea Time on youtube talks about this.

So i just wanted to end my comments with this.

I finished the Tea Time GW2 PvP talk on youtube. ( my god they are long)

At the 1 hour 45 min mark Helseth and Jebro really started letting there feeling be known and shared some interesting things such as Colin really supported PvP.

That Grouch pushed for PvP finding the sponsors to do these tournaments. Jebro even said something like the money from the PvP tournaments was nothing.

That Grouch fought for the bunker meta in S1 from HOT to be changed. Could you imagine being in a room where S1 of GW2 PvP finished and there were people like “that went well”.

There is so many little things that need worked on in PvP on top of big things.

Which is why im so amazed at some of the comments. You have players saying ohhhh x-x-x-x-x classes are > to x-x-x-x-x-x class group you should lose. You have another comment about X build being meta and it should win vs trash builds.

Thats fine if they were of the same skill level which was another big point in main comment.

I reached Plat 2 and ended in plat 1 S5. I was Gold 3 in S6 but didnt play nearly enough games and had i with that rating would of been in the top 175 i believe.

I was in a game running a unique different build and i could win some 1 vs 1.

I clearly was one of the better players in this match but imo it means nothing when the games build diversity and skill levels of builds are just so bad.

PvP will not get better and if you like it currently thats great for you but there is a reason that so many Pro’s left and there is a reason nothing happened to PvP in the last patch.

No one at Anet cares about PvP and like Mike O said if you play WvW or PvP you play PvE.

Nickzor.2453:

Saiyan.1704:

Necro, Rev, Ranger, Ranger, Guard
Vs
Ele, Mesmer, Necro, War, Condi Engi

You realize your comp was doomed from the very beginning right?

My condi guard can 1v3 yalls Rev/Ranger/Ranger. It’s not because I run a good condi build; it’s gimmicky, but it’s because Condi > those classes… and they had 4 Condi classes…

• Your team had 0 support for the Necro.
• Your team had 0 support vs Condi.
• Your Guard should have gone Symbolic bunker for the little support y’all had.
• One Ranger should have swapped.

We had a Yes/No Vote a while back.
A “Yes” meant we’d get class specific queueing and class specific MMR.
A “No” meant we wanted to swap classes before a game starts but it won’t be class specific MMR.
(Anet even stated they had matchmaking authority to alter how they wanted specific classes on a team, but people still voted No)

The “No” vote won by 7%, saying a comp like yours should have swapped classes… That’s what Anet and the GW2 community wants you to do… btw I was a Yes vote above.

A good power rev should win against a burn guard due to the fact that meta rev has 3 condi cleanses on a short CD, Guardian only has 1 condi.

Core Guardian has 1 condi not counting sigils but DH Burn has 2 other condi in addition to burns and sigils. Cripple and Invulnerability procs when F1 burn on hit activates, except it’s added after the burn stack, so anything less than a 3 condi cleanse tool will not remove the burns. Top it off with sigils and that’s just enough condi coverage throughout a fight vs darn near any class with the exception of Power War and DH Guardian.

I haven’t had any issues with any power revs on point ;)

Saiyan.1704:

Nickzor.2453:

Saiyan.1704:

Necro, Rev, Ranger, Ranger, Guard
Vs
Ele, Mesmer, Necro, War, Condi Engi

You realize your comp was doomed from the very beginning right?

My condi guard can 1v3 yalls Rev/Ranger/Ranger. It’s not because I run a good condi build; it’s gimmicky, but it’s because Condi > those classes… and they had 4 Condi classes…

• Your team had 0 support for the Necro.
• Your team had 0 support vs Condi.
• Your Guard should have gone Symbolic bunker for the little support y’all had.
• One Ranger should have swapped.

We had a Yes/No Vote a while back.
A “Yes” meant we’d get class specific queueing and class specific MMR.
A “No” meant we wanted to swap classes before a game starts but it won’t be class specific MMR.
(Anet even stated they had matchmaking authority to alter how they wanted specific classes on a team, but people still voted No)

The “No” vote won by 7%, saying a comp like yours should have swapped classes… That’s what Anet and the GW2 community wants you to do… btw I was a Yes vote above.

A good power rev should win against a burn guard due to the fact that meta rev has 3 condi cleanses on a short CD, Guardian only has 1 condi.

Core Guardian has 1 condi not counting sigils but DH Burn has 2 other condi in addition to burns and sigils. Cripple and Invulnerability procs when F1 burn on hit activates, except it’s added after the burn stack, so anything less than a 3 condi cleanse tool will not remove the burns. Top it off with sigils and that’s just enough condi coverage throughout a fight vs darn near any class with the exception of Power War and DH Guardian.

I haven’t had any issues with any power revs on point

That comes back to whole being good issue. I have commented many times on other threads about peoples over zealous use of cleanses. and yes a rev can cleanse 3 condis at once but they also have the whole glint heal going on and enough evasion to handle your applications. So in other words they can cleanse 3 condis at once. glint heal your next burn burst and then cleanse 3 condis again.

The average rev swaps their legend on impulse and doesn’t take it in to account the multiple passives it triggers. I mean most revs currently don’t even know how to trigger an equilibrium burst… Much less use it to cleanse and heal.

I mean I kill meta DHs on my condi mesmer it doesn’t mean I should but the average player even in high plat is so much worse then they were just last season that its insane….. also Condi mes should be added to the list of classes who can out cleanse your burns along with druid, ele, Scrapper… Necro… oh wait…. pretty much every class. I mean when im on my necro burn guards are a real treat….. Good necros already stomped DH but burn DH is like candy…. you kill yourself faster then you kill us.

Burn DH is a condi build that thinks its a zerker. Just because you apply 2 short term non damaging condis doesn’t really change much especially since burn DH is reliant on their throw which any good player should be playing defensively until its on CD The main issue with burn DH/Guard is that it relies on stacking a single condi to a high amount by spamming through multiple CDs quickly creating a burst that is similar to zerker damage. Issue is that once you are spent you are pretty much a free kill. A normal DH functions on the same general concept but in terms of defensive CDs.

A rev especially can reliably bait and dodge your throw but it comes back to the average player is just bad now… Also just an FYI burn DH is vastly weaker then burn Guard at this current point in time due to the buffs to the base virtue.