Guild Wars 2

The current damage reduction and melee running more than 3k armor with condi bomb is boring and takes no skills. I miss the days when melee only ran 2.8k to 3k armor with all power builds, those days were fun and it took skills to play those power builds.
Current Guardian Builds:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVUQJASWl8AhWhYpQwZIwPEHJEFeDChUIPD/XAeX2A4AA-TlhXABpoJwBlg1q+DAK/Ed/hS1BQKgMXGB-w
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVUQJASWl8AhWhYpQwZIwPEHJEFeDChU4usBwBknh/LAB-TlxRABAs/AQaC4VHQJKBZW9nLU+RKgMXGB-w

These are you basic guardian builds now days that every group runs. Some actually run more tank than that. First build is with durability and second one is with mercy runes.
Guardian builds Pre-HoT
Hammer/GS http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVUQJAcSlsAhWhY1QwZIwPEHJEVe/+vAEvBPXKcX2A4CA-TFSQwAbUi0RJkHlBcUa0TXwKlgA2fIr6PkCgJlRA-w
Staff/GS http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVUQJAcWlsAhWhYtQwXIwPEHJEFeDChUIvf/XAeX2A4AA-TFSQwAA2fonuAOKN6oEyjygsq/sSJ4GlIkCgJlRA-w

Bois remember when we ran wall of reflect??? but now everyone and their mother has to run purging flames amd because condition spam is so cancerous.

Current Revent Build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlUQJASmn3geNSuQvJRfoJlsR0jS4G6SJ4EtrkFNFSdG34H2DchRstAB4BA-TlhXABAocAW1fcQJII6CGQJno7PQKgMXGB-w But some groups run Dwarf stance beside glint because that EXTRA 50% DAMAGE REDUCTION still waiting for it to be nerfed to 33%. Then you also have backline power revenants which took over power necros… Backline power Rev: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAS8un3guNSuQ7JRboVlsP0rS4IaWJ4EdskFNFyegJshshJNtptABoBA-TVROAByoEkIdDVr+DA7PMiyPSBMwyI-w lol yeah how op this class can be? Fury gives you 20% extra precision but with one of the rev traits you get 40% and then you also 2% extra dps per boon on the enemy and guess what this meta is about? boon duration and then you also get extra 20-40% more damage because revenant. Nice. Revenants traits need nerfs i could care less about skills.

Revenant builds Pre-HoT: WTF IS REVENANT??? WE HAD WARRIORS BABY “HAMMER EFFING STUN”.

Warriors literally made the game mode and the old meta way more fun. Warriors yelling hammer stun in your comms brought some sort of synergy between players that just doesnt happen anymore… Currently condition damage is kittened every group is running frontlime revenants because that resistance spam from mallyx back in the day you only needed sword warhorn shout heal warriors to cleanse conditions and with one or two guards with purging flames. Currently condition damage is kittened every frontline melee comp have to run revenants for mallyx but even if they do nerf condis and mallyx isnt viable anymore you still have dwarf stance which has rite of the great dwarf and it gives 50% damage reduction OP and that literally threw warrior out the meta well not completely groups still run full zerk destroyer warrior because it puts out nice dps and sustain is good if in a proper party but if left alone conditions will kill a destoryer warrior in seconds. I personally seriously miss shout heal warriors with banners because there wasnt any stack res meta that we have currently. Back in the day if you try stack res someone you would get punish really hard so people had to run warriors for banners and it forced people to be aware of their positioning and their moves because if they didnt then warriors would have to waste their banners on them. With current meta if you go down lel MERCY EFFING RUNE. 2014 meta made so much more sense than this current bs.

The new meta battle cry is…

STONE BRO!
STONE BRO!

A meta that practicaly excludes half the classes is bound to do that. And warriors being left out is definitely part of the equation. Revs have definitely eaten up the roles that others could have taken.

Hmm, it is kinda odd the progression is heading tankier because of all the damage reduction we have now. Going from 3000 to 3300 armor is just 10% less damage which is the affect of an additional frost armor. But if you have, say 40% damage reduction, your average 5k blow is going to go down to 3k. So 10% armor nets… 300 less damage? But I always thought full pvt was a thing too.

Of course, part of this is also due to the design of the guardian class itself. It’s always been stuck to Honor-Valor-Virtues forever because take one of those away and it falls apart like a jenga tower since the base HP is so low. It’s rarely a choice to say go to zeal or radiance in any context outside of pve and DH is kinda cool but even that has problems. It gets to the point where one is super edgy for changing to a single trait that improves damage.

Then you had power necros back in the days heart eyes i miss my baby. With current power necros are still good but most groups are running so much tank and damage reduction that people just gave up on power necro and straight up run condition corrupt boon necros because conditions dont care about armor they will still do a lot of damage because OP.
Current Condi necro build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAW7djc0Q3NWTDm3A/NWOGMqlwTYWF1z2WBg4c4PsIC-TVRTwAcV/xnuhjKBBs/wFlfkCYRpRA-w Thats your basic condi boon corrupt build that takes no skills to play whatsoever even if you do get out of position you will be fine because reaper had its own stab amd decent mobility on top of that you got 3k armor and almost 30k health. Take a lot of kitten skills to play this. Uggh.
Pre-Hot power necro: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAW3djc0QLNWTD+2AHOOwFKYbGAtwMLaiqgmGtxzC-TVROwAiV/Bw+DE1NITJ4IlfkCYglRA-w
This was fun to play. It took skills to play. If got caught out of position enemy will punish you real bad and you would also have to worry about enemy gank which just doesn’t happen anymore because in current meta WTF IS GANK??? EVERYTHING IS SO kitten TANKY THERE IS NO BACKLINE ITS ALL FRONTLINE EFFING TOILET BOWL. If a thief or mesmer or try to gank a full dire necro in group fights good luck killing it lel.

Then you have eles lol dont even get me started. Its funny how eles went from almost full zerk to full nomads heal bot.
Current basic ele build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAGW2AshHQA4C6mXDsFWiVQKoCA-TVhZABAo8LEdAtoEMV1f0c/BSBk5yI-w
Pre-Hot ele: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWhMMoyhdOw6B8RMAAAFCIA-TlROwAXVCKW9HSKxGp8goOAA7PQKgBWGB-w

Eles were so much more fun pre-hot. I think ice bow should get buff again I think it was nerfed for PvE and it was a unnecessary nerf for WvW. Ele was probably one of the most difficult class to play back in the day cuz not much health pool or armor and worrying about providing waters for groups and worrying anout position and not trying to get ganked.. It just doesnt happen anymore cuz ELES ARE FULL NOMADS NOW DAYS LOL.

At this point I feel like traits classes need a complete overhaul but then again Arena Net isnt gonna do it because who cares about WvW. I also think they should bring back the old trait system just for WvW and the reason being is that the old trait system allowed more diversity. I remember how back in the guilds kept their builds secret lol with current trait system everyone is literally running the same stuff now.. There is no counter meta to be had. With old trait system if a guild group ran a specific thing and beat you with that then you would try run a different thing that would counter their builds. THAT JUST DOESNT HAPPEN ANYMORE WITH CURRENT TRAIT SYSTEM EVERYTHING IS PALE AF.

CrimeMaker.8612:

I also think they should bring back the old trait system just for WvW and the reason being is that the old trait system allowed more diversity. I remember how back in the guilds kept their builds secret lol with current trait system everyone is literally running the same stuff now counter meta to be had.

Yea it was weird all the talk about how removing stats from traitlines was going to create more diversity. What happened instead is what I sort of expected, everyone simply runs the same gear now.

The lack of diversity is really boring. You have limited options, and some skills are “mandatory” for some professions. You can simply not run without them. Condi is really boring, boon share is abusive, and mobility for some professions are insane. I think there should be some changes but my advice would be to bring back glamour mesmer, give base rangers some kind of unblockable arrows, tune down condi and damage of some professions while adjusting the tankiness. And for the love of god, bring more frequent bug fixes and patches.

@ArchonWing guardians are fine its classes like frontline revenants which give out rite of the great dwarf. So thats like 50% damage reduction with food its like 10% damage reduction then another 33% with protection and then eles giving out frost aura which is another 10% on top of that you got constant healing from frontline ele.

@Baka Current trait system is too easy and simple and forces everyone to run the same thing its not bad for PvE because meta in PvE is not a big deal. Its literally Players vs Mob there is no counter meta to be played. Then you have PvP and WvW I think for both of these game modes the old trait system worked out much better because its Players vs Players and WvW is PvP but in large scale so with old trait system would work out so much more BECAUSE THERE IS COUNTER META TO BE PLAYED WITH CURRENT TRAIT SYSTEM THERE IS NO COUNTER META AND THAT IS PALE.

Honestly, I don’t think the problem is in the trait system but in how some trait lines became mandatory to certain professions in a way it feels everyone run the same. That without counting how Elite Specs are pretty much mandatory as well so you are stuck with a single trait line that may or may not change according to the player.

For exemple:

Warriors are always Berserker/Defense/somenthing. Have you ever tried play a warrior without Defense? You’ll just die. Plain simple.

Guardians are normally Valor/Honor/Virtue or the Dragonhunter variant. That one is old tho, cannot blame HoT for this one.

Elementalists are always Tempest/Water/somenthing because aura share healing with boon spam is too strong to pass.

Necros are always Reaper/Curses/somenthing because you need that boonhate or you’ll be plain useless.

Mesmers are always Chronomancer/Inspiration/Somenthing to be able to take part of the sustain fiesta or the full Jihad variant Domination/Dueling/Chonomancer for “do or die mode”.

Thieves are always Daredevil/Trickster/somenthing because Trickster was already mandatory pre-HoT and the only way a thief can compete now is beind Daredevil.

Engineers are always Scrapper/Alchemy/somenthing because every one and their mother wants that free 20% boon duration from alchemy coupled with a lot more of boon aids.

Rangers are always Druid/Beastmaster/somenthing so they can run their shout bunker bullkitten with buffed pets.

Revenants are problably the only ones that seen have more effective builds than 1 or 2 , but the ones I see most are either Shiro Bois (Herald/Invocation/Devastation) or Resistance Bots (Herald/Corruption/Retribution).

The only stats you got right were backline rev, rest is -_-….no wonder people 1 push on inc.

Jeknar.6184:

Honestly, I don’t think the problem is in the trait system but in how some trait lines became mandatory to certain professions in a way it feels everyone run the same. That without counting how Elite Specs are pretty much mandatory as well so you are stuck with a single trait line that may or may not change according to the player.

Rangers are always Druid/Beastmaster/somenthing so they can run their shout bunker bullkitten with buffed pets.

Rangers also run mm/ws. I also see a lot of skirmishing builds lately.

We actually have a lot of usefull stuff atm.

I think it’s the stats and food that are broken.

Like for example rangers power caps out at 2300 gear wise, well you might as well loose abit and gain all that in might stacking

Warriors, revs, and mesmers can now build to be tanky as kitten 3k armour and still do insane amount of damage. Plus the damage reduction food and ferocity based on toughness.

I think it’s mainly the stats that are broken. As for build variety we’ll probably see way more when the next expac comes.

The sad The thing with the elite specs is they all tried to plug holes into were classes were weak so ofc your going to take that.

These were the good ol’ days. When the best CC in the game came from activating skills instead of passive reflection and when thieves and other good anti-backline (even rangers and mesmers) could carry a ZvZ based on target prioritization/elimination. When numbers didn’t matter much and skill and group team play actually mattered.

WvW died with HoT, not just because of the destruction of guilds, the DBL’s, and the upgrade garbage, but just the raw gameplay itself via profession balance has been made quite frankly, terrible.

Too much offensive and defensive power creep in the game. Defenses skyrocketed and out of consequence the new elites run ridiculously crazy skill coefficients and low cooldowns on abilities compared to core, too, such that even reverting back to damage -based play would invalidate most of the game because it’s just numerically too weak. Condition play is seeing dominance because those defenses do not matter as much and can be played as full-tank as well like always via Dire and TB.

Not sure what your doing, but my static power on my ranger is well over 2500 without consumable buff and that isnt even with full berzerker gear.

Well it probably doesn’t take skill if enemy using some kitten builds and tactics, but nobody force them use bad builds. You can’t win serious fight just by smashing keyboard if enemy using good builds too and doesn’t just smash keyboard.

The meta was good when you could play zerk d/d ele in the middle of a blob and get out alive if you were skilled.

Now even if you’re the best player in the world only blob size matter, skills that are too easily spammable while making too much damage, overabundance of ccs and condi fest all have ruined the gameplay.

There is no more balance between risk/reward.

A shift in the meta would be nice to see Areanet.

Yes, the old system was very diverse and allowed a player to experiment with much more. Presently, HoT has shown very poor diversity in builds for not only wvw, but pve has been affected.

Another aspect is things got too fancy for my liking. There’s crap flying all over the screen and colors all over the kitten ed place. They made something so simple as combat into a laser light show of horribleness for what reasons I do not know. Upon that you get a nice giant screen message “BLACK GATE OWNS THE MAP MOTHER F….” never mind.

WvWers thirst for action/fights, diversity, community, guilds, and roaming challenges….something anet just can’t achieve in my insignificant opinion. It’s like they went backwards or they can’t dedicate resources to what the game needs for entertainment value.

I understand it’s been a rough last year plus for them, they’ve lost some key players to a certain competitor…and don’t infract me, it’s public information get over it. In addition, their quarterly reports don’t seem too healthy twice in a row. However, I believe their financial Q reports accountability falls on them.

It most likely has to do with all hands on deck for this new “faster expansion release” mentality. Seems like their time is dedicated to this philosophy while players fade from the game. Whatever it is, kinda sad to see because this is the first mmo I truly enjoyed for quite a long time and never felt so connected to a community in wvw. Appears to be all erased by some poor decision making and a HoT xpac that didn’t deliver.

Mokk.2397:

Not sure what your doing, but my static power on my ranger is well over 2500 without consumable buff and that isnt even with full berzerker gear.

Your Runes I run trooper for cleanse

I posted this on both his reddit post and his gw2wvw post, figure I should post it on the official forum because it’s generally a different crowd here and everybody should be aware that the meta is much more diverse than he is describing.

Neorick you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zR4FGVW5aT5rlvVlQvcVc9qNycrFrbcWjtGcIwEQBdk/edit?usp=sharing

This spreadsheet is significantly more indicative of the current state of the game than anything you’ve posted or discussed. If you scroll down on the spreadsheet you’ll see power necros listed, this is slightly out of date (a few weeks out of touch with EU) but there are plenty of guilds running plenty of damage oriented things.

Even look at EU results and guilds, somebody from EU correct me if I’m wrong but Vng and a few other guilds aren’t running mercy runes and have beaten guilds that are. Ash prior to their disband was running extremely high DPS and was beating most every guild extremely consistently.

Most guilds run mallyx/jalis, Jalis has already been nerfed and doesn’t stack additively with other damage reduction.
I don’t know why you typed out so much about warrior but warriors now run significantly more dps than prior to HoT where worker warrior was common, most guilds are running full dps warriors.

Honestly this post is extremely ill-informed, constructed, presented, and it’s an absolute negative impact on any WvW or GvG based community.
I’m really disappointed that you would make a post like this, Neo. I had a higher respect for you and your guild.

ArchonWing.9480:

A meta that practicaly excludes half the classes is bound to do that.

The meta has always been like that to one extent or another, look at ranger, engi, thief & mes over the course of this game, at best they have had bit parts (normally in focus parties), where they were still poorly represented when compared to guards, necros, etc at worst they have been completely surplus to requirements, class balance in WvW has always been a total joke.

re: any condi mentions

condition in zergs is only more prevalent because of mitigation’s impact on the game. This happens in 2 ways:

Glass squads just don’t deal enough damage when outnumbered. Previously, a lot of high skilled small squads (AoN and their ilk) with glass gear was the preference to bomb much larger zergs. That doesn’t work nearly as well as condi does now, because the Mitigation stacking is too real, so those players are much more likely to run condi in outmanned numbers (trex). (a side note, it’s also more successful because zergs completely rely on resistance in most cases and, contrary to what zerglings think, this does not counter condition bomb)

Condi squads used to be MUCH less viable because every (good) zerg balanced toughness with power/pre/fero so every member was contributing decent damage, and the melee bombs were really kittening deadly. You died in 1 second if you had a positioning mistake, and Necros… had positioning troubles running from a zerg. That’s not the case anymore – Necros got reaper form AND zergs do not do nearly as much damage because of mitigation stacking. You can often times just walk through the enemy zerg frontline and live these days.

If the balance of Mitigation vs Glass were restored, you’d see much less condition focus in zergs. Conditions in zergs is a symptom, and mitigation stacking is the cause.

another take on why condi is strong because of mitigation meta: amount of effort 1 single ele healer can nullify

5 glass: you try to bomb, popping a bunch of kitten to be able to get in melee range, their ele can undo your entire efforts with 2, maybe 3 buttons. Good luck killing the earth form ele with 5 glass. 1 trait nullifies all your precision and ferocity

5 condi: you try to bomb, can do it from ranged, 1 healer isn’t going to cure 5 good condition players. Multiple people you’re bombing need to devote multiple buttons to survive. It’s hard NOT to get kills, and easy to run from non-glass zergs