Guild Wars 2

Lately I have been running boon stripping/converting on my necro and chewing up the currently viewed as OP eles, guardians, and sometimes mesmers. This really got me thinking about how much a build effects how I view other classes. Thieves were a pain till I went into aoe and fears to counter them too. But what if I was a power necro? All these things wouldn’t be in my build and those classes with there builds would feel really OP. Right now rangers are kicking my kitten and I hear a power burst build helps with that. The whole thing makes me wonder how much of the QQ is build related.Also how much of it would go away if classes had more viable builds.Right now even the most complete classes only have a couple viable builds and its just not enough.

It is true that if you want to run as a counter to something specific. You currently have to switch class, you cant switch spec.

If your playing Necro, switching to power wont give you much at all. You can either run Conditions or Hybrid.

I agree, but it can be a slippery slope. Many people run one build because it’s the “best”(or most agreed upon as the best). A large majority of top tier players know what certain builds work and what certain builds are seriously lacking. It’s not just a skill problem but rather a problem of inferiority in comparison to X class or Y build. Warriors run greatsword in all viable builds because it’s the best. Engis don’t run turrets because they’re kitten.

But to actually bring other builds on classes up to par with different roles/utilities/weapon sets could either lead to it being overpowered or still underpowered.

I think what they did with the engi is a perfect example of what to do right with regards to making weaker builds better. In the process of a few months (way too long IMO) they made build after build viable via simple things like minor buffs to the toolkit, a fix to a grenade barrage bug, a buff to nades damage, a buff to HGH and most importantly sigils on kits.

Now I have a good 6-8 viable TPvP builds when I’m playing my engi, some of them are even OP IMO. Even still I have one completely worthless tree and a dozen worthless utilities and all of my builds use nades. If they actually got to work on fixing the game then the sheer number of builds people could run would be awesome to see.

kailin.4905:

Lately I have been running boon stripping/converting on my necro and chewing up the currently viewed as OP eles, guardians, and sometimes mesmers. This really got me thinking about how much a build effects how I view other classes. Thieves were a pain till I went into aoe and fears to counter them too. But what if I was a power necro? All these things wouldn’t be in my build and those classes with there builds would feel really OP. Right now rangers are kicking my kitten and I hear a power burst build helps with that. The whole thing makes me wonder how much of the QQ is build related.Also how much of it would go away if classes had more viable builds.Right now even the most complete classes only have a couple viable builds and its just not enough.

Incredible..a ray of hope in the darkness….a player who understand what’s going on and what PvP in a MMO is about….
A real shame but you represent just the 1% of the GW2 community, nice post but what you ask will never come as Anet will cater to the remaining 99%

Bravo OP. You thought out you weaknesses… made necessary changes…. changed your build and playstyle… and have overcome.

That is exactly how it is suppose to work.

There will always be something that kills you/gives you a hard time. You can’t be the best at everything. People need to just keep striving to improve and not be afraid of trying a different spec. I definitely believe a lot of the QQ is out of refusal to think, fear of change, and lack of persistence.

IF those builds offer something worthwhile, yes. Most people just pick whats easy unfortunatly, things arn’t moving forward for balance without addressing these current builds ppl run. Worst part is, soo many people run glass builds and the only true counter to them is, not glass. So if things keep going this way everyone will just run full defence builds and have a starring competition over who should get that point. Stun breaks go a good distance in 1v1 but in group fights? your just a ragdoll who must live through the abuse or your going to see that respawn timer.

This is fun, lets all keep pretending there is actually potential to make more than 2 viable builds per class.

Homogenization of class roles yayyyyy!

Dont coppy that floppy.

Yeah, but assessment is still needed on individual specs, don’t want to have build wars again.

Its already build wars. Just with builds that have no viable build to counter them. To me thats what seems to be the biggest issue with classes seeming op and individuals who like pvp gravitating towards only playing certain classes. To me counter buolds act as a regulator of these seemingly strong builds. Ie. DD ele starts dominating pvp. If everyone has a reasonable spec to counter and starts running it then the op-ness of the build is negated and its held in check.Problem is right now most classes are so forced into builds that you cant viably spec to counter things and these builds run rampant with every power team or glory farmer jumping on the bandwagon.

I also think it all practically comes down to builds countering builds. This is how a balanced game should work. And yea, most QQs on certain specs of certain classes as being OP don’t even think that maybe their build is getting owned by that specific build because it is a counter to their builds and maybe coming up with a counter build to that build that beat them might be the solution to their QQ.

But sadly, somes build meant to counter the currently dominating builds of some classes still needs improvement IMHO for them to become competitive. And it is definitely better if each class have multiple EFFECTIVE viable builds available to them.

Imagine if traps on thief actually did something worthwhile O.o

Or if warrior could go mobile instead of only being able to play brutes O.o

The possibilities….

Yes, currently most popular builds ignore 70% of the traits available and maybe half of the possible utilities.

Taking a Thief as an example, both Venoms and Traps are highly, highly situational (read: crap). There is almost no build that can make proper use of them and even then if it would be highly gimmeky.

Compare that to abilities like Shadow Refuge and Shadowstep and there’s really no surprise why 90% of Thieves run with those.

Part of the problem of lack of builds is just lack of useful traits/utilities. Have you guys seen that OP gadget/turret Engineer build?

Choops.3710:

Part of the problem of lack of builds is just lack of useful traits/utilities. Have you guys seen that OP gadget/turret Engineer build?

Good point. I know personally I have 3 lvl 80 characters atm. A necromancer(my main), and engineer, and a guardian. On my necro and engineer I probably don’t use half or more of my utilities because they are either broken, ineffective, or just too situation often with long cooldowns. Traits to me aren’t quite as bad but it does bother me that there are some that are completely useless while others are essentially mandatory. Don’t create a lot of diversity… One of the things I was looking forward to most in gw2 was a more open experience and right now that is really lacking. Especially in PVP where if you dont use the flavor of the month weapons, build, and traits then you are basically gonna get told “your doing it wrong”. For the old gw1 players I shall from this point on refer to this effect as the shield and spear phenomenon.