Guild Wars 2

Been gone for 5 months and didnt pvp for 3 months before that

don’t think we have one of those any longer. all profs are well represented. half as celestial builds unfortunately, other half zerker.

Almost the same, except ele is falling out of meta, replaced by shoutbow due to the might nerf and breath burning duration nerf.

what the truck my beloved ele doesnt have the biggest D anymore? Hrmm hows Thief and Necro if you dont mind me asking

Thief is almost mandatory and necro is situational.

Power necros are everywhere in casual play atm.

celestial (ele/war/engi)
zerker thief/mes
everything else

http://www.metabattle.com

Thief Guard Engi Warrior
v
Ele
v
Mesmer
v
Ranger = Necro

Is what we see in top play atm

mistsim.2748:

don’t think we have one of those any longer. all profs are well represented. half as celestial builds unfortunately, other half zerker.

I think one could make a strong argument that compared to other classes and builds, Necro and Ranger are underrepresented…. In general, I think condition-only builds are bottom-tier, independant of which class you’re using. You almost never see Rabid-, Carrion- or Settler-Amu’s.

Also, Ele’s are slowly but surely getting pushed out of the meta.

Quadox.7834:

Thief Guard Engi Warrior
v
Ele
v
Mesmer
v
Ranger = Necro

Is what we see in top play atm

Pretty much my opinion as well, though I would put Mesmer above Ele, cuz at least he has Portal, with Ele, most of what he does can be accomplished better by other classes in the current meta.

Everything seems to be well represented, casual play is heavily affected by the class-bound dailies where you often get 3 players using the same class.

In casual play you also see that Necro’s and Rangers are actually pretty well represented as oposed to anything pre-made.

Like the rest said, we’re facing a point where ele’s get represented less and less. They’re still good though! They’re not in that boat with the Rangers where “they’re not bad, the rest is just better” quite yet (luckily!).

You could take a look at the ESL videos on twitch for general top-tier team compositions: http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/profile/past_broadcasts

Vornollo.5182:

In casual play you also see that Necro’s and Rangers are actually pretty well represented as oposed to anything pre-made.

Casual play doesn’t really represent the balance of the game very well though… At the top-level, player have a higher understanding of the game and winning becomes more important than sth like playing with the builds you like. If we see only very very few rangers and necros at the top-level (and basically only power-builds) and almost no condition-builds in general (only celestial hybrids that have a ton of power as well, either through stats or mightstacking), sth isn’t quite right with the meta.

Also, 90% of the top-teams (weekly and monthly ESL-Go4GW2 cups) are running at least 1 shoutbow, 1 Cele-Engi, 1 D/P-thief, rest is either made up by more of those builds or mediguards, cele-ele’s, Shatter-Mesmer and the occasional powernecro, staff-ele or sth.

I’m not too concerned with unviable or a bit stronger builds, but mainly of the fact that one whole set of builds (condi-only) is ruled out by tons of mindless, boring and easy to use AoE-cleanses (shouts, warhorn, staff-ele, guardians absolute resolution) and that spiked DPS (almost always together with stealth-openers) just deals way too much dmg too quick with tons of almost unavoidable procs and skills. It just dictates the playstyle and heavily favours certain builds.