Guild Wars 2

I know i’m not the only one who thinks this, but it has to be said: Elite spec ruined spvp. To be able to perform relatively well in pvp now, you have to use elite specs otherwise you are going to get stomped. Not only are they abilities that are really strong, the elite specs are way overloaded. Because of this, anybody with a build that doesn’t have an elite spec will get stomped. Its disgusting…. I used to be able to make up any build in my head, jump into a game and still do okay. Now, Everyone is forced to be a meta slave. I used to pretty much only play pvp, but I now avoid it like the plague. I Know im not the greatest player, but there are obvious problems in pvp right now, and to me the biggest one is elite spec balance. If anet revolves the game around elite specs again…. I doubt ill be back to play this game. If I ever bring this up in chat, people always say : go back to WoW! I dont want to make this about wow, but it has much better balancing. Obviously, there are issues (item level difference isnt one anymore), but wow had an aspect of counter play and if you didn’t completely suck, you couldn’t get one shotted. The whole counterplay thing is a WHOLE different issue.

Elite specs are overloaded and are too strong. Yeah it’s fun to give thieves infinite evades, but playing versus one isnt fun. The Anet dev’s mentality on pvp is brutal. Look at League of legends for example. Their philosophy is that they make champions that are fun AND fun to play against. Gw2 does not do that. Just look at guardians, their ability cooldowns are so low for a lot of weapons. If i fight a guardian with an elite spec build as a ranger or necro, not only do guardians have a lot of utility (which they should since they are supposed to buff and help allies), but they also have a lot of burst, and movement. As a necro, my weapons are mostly for dps. That’s alright, but how it is imbalance is that one can do so much more than the other. Im just using necro as an example here, but its the same for rangers (from what ive experienced). Weapon utility, plus trait utility, plus elite specs make up for some overloaded classes.

Yes, I understand most people play Pve content and it makes sense that class balance should be primarily tuned for Pve, but the devs should try harder next time. If the anet’s only selling point are BRAND NEW OVERPOWERED ELITE SPECS, then the game itself is definitely not worth getting in my opinion.
I used to pretty much only play pvp. I remember exactly when it turned to kitten, it was during the summer when they introduced the new trait system into the game before the release of Hots.

If you’re going to reply to this post in any way, try to make it only about league or WoW. It was just make a comparison with popular games that a lot of people have played before.

Well, you’re actually right. Some do have “viable” core builds, but unless you have the opponents “not playing meta” you’ll be just consciously gimping yourself. But hey, people paid for their elites, so it would be unfair if f2p accounts would be on par in any way.

I tried with thief….I’m sorry for all the teammates, made me hate the thief so much even with Daredevil I’m honestly disgusted of that prof.

I Have never checked these sites for meta builds and always had fun creating these new and fun builds until now. Elite specs really ruin the game. I jumped on to my ranger and check the last druid trait slot. Theres a trait that does a 5 sec root on a 10 sec cooldown, with bleeds!!! I loled at that one. All you have to do to proc it with any kind of hard cc. This is what an overloaded trait looks like. You look at any other none elite specialisation and its rare to see any kind of traits that are that strong. Just look at engies…. now thats an overloaded kit.

Not to mention that there’s so much stability and protection, as well as projectile reflects now. The amount of aoe clutter makes it difficult to understand what’s happening, therefore not very viewer esports friendly. The elite specs are also defensive, that’s why they had to remove the bunker amulets, this problem didn’t exist pre-HoT. Overall, I’d give this expansion a 2/10 in regards to PvP. Hopefully the devs can do much better in the upcoming expansion.

Good work McGuire. Finally someone said it.

Its true that meta builds are so strong that non meta builds are just pathetically bad.

That doesn’t mean that the spvp is garbage. You just sound like a salty player who is bored of the game so he looks to non meta builds (currently almost all core builds) and sees they suck (which they do). But spvp doesn’t suck cause of that. I’d say it’s one of the best season so far, pretty much all classes viable, with the exception of rev, where you really need to be good at it to work. But if you are good, it carries. Hard.

It seems to me that anet has been trying to balance it by buffing core and nerfing HoT. I’m pretty sure they said somewhere that their intention is to make it balanced. The problem is the elite specs needed to be wanted in order to sell the expansion. Now they are toning it down slowly, and bringing up core (which is tough to do without buffing elites).

Moonsinn.5382:

It seems to me that anet has been trying to balance it by buffing core and nerfing HoT. I’m pretty sure they said somewhere that their intention is to make it balanced. The problem is the elite specs needed to be wanted in order to sell the expansion. Now they are toning it down slowly, and bringing up core (which is tough to do without buffing elites).

I’m not going to lie the only reason I brought HoT. Was for the elite specs. If Elite Specs was not brokenly over powered, I would have never brought HoT. Had to have a Scrapper, Druid, and Chronomancer.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Its true that meta builds are so strong that non meta builds are just pathetically bad.

And that needs to be changed. Meta only exists when there’s trinity classes, which means that ArenaNet pushed the game in that direction, contradicting their own philosophy. You see now, people think that elementalists are only viable as a support ele, so if they see an ele on their team using a staff or scepter they slash and bash you mercilessly.
That was the point of HoT, that is, to introduce the elite specs as a way to add the class trinity to the game, and people loves it!

HoT turned spvp in an invulnerability CD chicken game, get used to it.

VoidNard.7206:

I know i’m not the only one who thinks this, but it has to be said: Elite spec ruined spvp. To be able to perform relatively well in pvp now, you have to use elite specs otherwise you are going to get stomped. Not only are they abilities that are really strong, the elite specs are way overloaded. Because of this, anybody with a build that doesn’t have an elite spec will get stomped. Its disgusting…. I used to be able to make up any build in my head, jump into a game and still do okay. Now, Everyone is forced to be a meta slave. I used to pretty much only play pvp, but I now avoid it like the plague. I Know im not the greatest player, but there are obvious problems in pvp right now, and to me the biggest one is elite spec balance. If anet revolves the game around elite specs again…. I doubt ill be back to play this game. If I ever bring this up in chat, people always say : go back to WoW! I dont want to make this about wow, but it has much better balancing. Obviously, there are issues (item level difference isnt one anymore), but wow had an aspect of counter play and if you didn’t completely suck, you couldn’t get one shotted. The whole counterplay thing is a WHOLE different issue.

Elite specs are overloaded and are too strong. Yeah it’s fun to give thieves infinite evades, but playing versus one isnt fun. The Anet dev’s mentality on pvp is brutal. Look at League of legends for example. Their philosophy is that they make champions that are fun AND fun to play against. Gw2 does not do that. Just look at guardians, their ability cooldowns are so low for a lot of weapons. If i fight a guardian with an elite spec build as a ranger or necro, not only do guardians have a lot of utility (which they should since they are supposed to buff and help allies), but they also have a lot of burst, and movement. As a necro, my weapons are mostly for dps. That’s alright, but how it is imbalance is that one can do so much more than the other. Im just using necro as an example here, but its the same for rangers (from what ive experienced). Weapon utility, plus trait utility, plus elite specs make up for some overloaded classes.

Yes, I understand most people play Pve content and it makes sense that class balance should be primarily tuned for Pve, but the devs should try harder next time. If the anet’s only selling point are BRAND NEW OVERPOWERED ELITE SPECS, then the game itself is definitely not worth getting in my opinion.
I used to pretty much only play pvp. I remember exactly when it turned to kitten, it was during the summer when they introduced the new trait system into the game before the release of Hots.

If you’re going to reply to this post in any way, try to make it only about league or WoW. It was just make a comparison with popular games that a lot of people have played before.

While I am all for build variety, you have to remember they are called “Elite” specializations for a reason. Also, if the Elite specializations were underpowered and they were at the same level as core specializations then new players trying out the core game would just run builds that they would craft without every buying the expansions that Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns offers hurting the revenue of the game. So you saying sPvP is garbage because of Elite’s is honestly pretty stupid.

You have to remember, the Elite Specializations (and so was the revenant class) were the reason why Heart of Thorns was able to sell, so of course ArenaNet had to make the Elite Specializations well, Elite. Does it suck that you can barely run anymore Vanilla builds in sPvP without getting destroyed? Yeah it does as I was part of the pvp scene since launch and I do miss the vanilla game balance, but every game goes through changes. Yes, Elite specializations need balance, but the game also has to evolve so that new players can enter and veteran PvP’ers aren’t just stuck in the same scenario of the same core specializations without anything new.

I mean….. why am I forced to play a healing/support class to be viable in pvp. When it.comes to pve, anything is possible. For pvp I’m stuck with a healing I don’t want to play. Unless I’m in a group of 5 other players and everything is coordinated, it’s freaking boring to heal….. but I have to because elite spec is much much stronger than core builds. Honestly, screw you Anet. Also, Im not bored out of my mind with this game and trying new build. I’m kittened that I’m stuck playing only one viable build until the next expansion. I don’t play pvp for this reason.

VoidNard.7206:

I mean….. why am I forced to play a healing/support class to be viable in pvp. When it.comes to pve, anything is possible. For pvp I’m stuck with a healing I don’t want to play. Unless I’m in a group of 5 other players and everything is coordinated, it’s freaking boring to heal….. but I have to because elite spec is much much stronger than core builds. Honestly, screw you Anet. Also, Im not bored out of my mind with this game and trying new build. I’m kittened that I’m stuck playing only one viable build until the next expansion. I don’t play pvp for this reason.

There is a thing called other classes you know. Just saying, don’t wanna sound mean but that is a thing these days. Also, you’re not forced by ANYONE to play this or that kind of build to be viable in PvP, you can always create a new one. (just make sure it actually works) You saying “screw Anet” for making Elite specializations much more powerful than Core specializations isn’t going to change anything. If Elite specializations were underpowered, no one would buy the expansion (if they are mainly a pvp player) meaning ArenaNet loses money.

Nah it was just a metashift. Before hots you could get a 70% winrate on ele just spamming your spells in order.

The ‘meta’ isn’t based much on reality. Just public opinion. I’ve seen non-elite spec builds rock it hard. All comes down to how you play in my opinion.

Non-meta is viable but you have to be able to fight the meta builds to pull it off. That involves just being a good player and understanding the other classes as well.

There are viable non-HoT warrior, Mesmer, thief, necro, engineer, etc builds.

Part of the issue is some classes had serious deficits prior to HoT that were solved with the elite spec. So of course the elite spec is necessary in those cases. But there are non HoT builds available where the survival and damage output weren’t overly changed by HoT elite specs. This depends on the build of course, even within classes that can avoid HoT some builds will be better with elites than not.

Thief used to have a condi cleanse issue. Now it has escapists absolution and dd is the better choice.

Guys, this thread is 2 months old and was beating a dead horse even then.

Do you mean the recent balance patch… didn’t balance the game?! I blame McLain

Right on the mark, OP.

The next expansion needs to shake up pvp. Big time. I’m talking combat rework, skill rework, balance, elite specs, everything. Dare I say, go in gw1’s direction. Just funnel more resources into actually fixing pvp, not just funnel pve players and rewards to prop it up.

I don’t give a fudge what anyone says, elite specs are OP and it’s not good for this game. Period. There’s a reason there’s been a massive exodus since HoT. The new trait system was the beginning of the end. Elite specs took a lot of skill out of this game the way they were brought out. PvP’s been dumbed down and casualized thanks to them.

However, I don’t see this happening. The next expansion will most likely focus on PvE, as always.

Apolo.5942:

HoT turned spvp in an invulnerability CD chicken game, get used to it.

Get my upvote kind sir, that’s the game we play (or stopped playing).

VoidNard.7206:

I know i’m not the only one who thinks this, but it has to be said: Elite spec ruined spvp. … snip …

Anet removal of features, removal of choices, did kill spvp.

When you alienate groups like those interested in something other then holding little circles so they play stronghold. That’s one issue because then they also instead of making sure those who are in groups only face group and solos fight solos. They force people down to duo groups, why not ban 4 man and allow 2 3 and 5 so you can make match making a bit simpler.

When i used to pvp for years ( before the failure of season 5 ) i would mostly solo but now and then want a group. Anet stop trying to force people to play a certain way because your “competitive” pvp is a joke right now. I’ve had 90% ish ratio win seasons with playing stronghold but yet you want me to play pug conq lol hell no not worth the time playing to win but forced to lose with sucky pugs.

Ziggityzog.7389:

When you alienate groups like those interested in something other then holding little circles so they play stronghold. That’s one issue because then they also instead of making sure those who are in groups only face group and solos fight solos. They force people down to duo groups, why not ban 4 man and allow 2 3 and 5 so you can make match making a bit simpler.

When i used to pvp for years ( before the failure of season 5 ) i would mostly solo but now and then want a group. Anet stop trying to force people to play a certain way because your “competitive” pvp is a joke right now. I’ve had 90% ish ratio win seasons by killing NPCs but yet you want me to actually pvp lol hell no not worth the time playing to win but forced to lose with sucky pugs.

fix’d

Cynz lol its ok circle J boy you can run around those all you want and use a treb like wvw on kyloh or play kill forest and foefire to kill npcs for a win.

Poor lil nublet can’t make up any real excuse for his horrible ratio so it’s because sh has “npcs” that i had a good ratio. Ill take my “npc” and strategy wins that got me to 102 – 12 over sitting in a circle all game with others “Fighting” on conq maps because being in a circle J all game while one teef runs around doing work is your “Actual pvp” lol 1v1 ez win against you i bet since your probably a teef.