Guild Wars 2

I keep hearing that X build “will never be meta” or “is not as good as meta”. What is this meta build? I like to experiment and create my own builds, but when I’m learning a class I like to learn with an effective build. Can someone link this build to try out?

Thanks,

“Meta” is a characteristic of builds that are most commonly used by players of the profession, and that have proven to yield good results. But what you need to know is that the “meta” is made to be infringed! It’s more like guidelines to help your benchmark your builds. Which game mode are you interested in?

Ah, well right now my wife and I are just duo’ing and leveling up in PvE. I know nothing about the other game modes yet but we have just hit 40 and will want to start doing dungeons for sure. We’ve played a lot of PvP in other games like ESO and DAoC, we like the RvR style play, don’t really like CTF or MOBA style. But if there’s anything like that in this game, or just the ability to roam around as a deadly duo, we will definitely want to PvP.

Thanks for the reply, I’ve seen your guide and it’s very helpful and very well written. I’m currently using D/F but after reading all the comments in this thread about D/F Fresh Air never becoming this “meta”, I decided that, as good as it is, I would like to try out whatever the meta builds are and see how they feel for my play style. My wife is a Warrior playing Sword & Board/Rifle for ranged and melee situations. She is building up PVT and I’ve been working on Power Prec and Ferocity, but I can change to conform to this meta and try something different for a bit.

Does that help?

Forget about “meta” and simply enjoy the game with your own experiments as long as you level up. It’s a term used for endgame builds at level 80 with exotic/ascended gear. If you want to learn about elementalist mechanics, d/d with arcana/water/air traits is a good build which was very fun for me to level with.

Meta is a weird thing. In theory it’s simple with the definition that Zelyhn gave you. But in reality, what is meta depend on what content you are doing, what is your team composition and for PvP, what is the opposite team.

In PvP you have so many variable that meta really only mean which build are more popular right now and work well within the conquest mode. Add to that pvp is so skill based that people will be better with the build they like the most. For exemple, my friend know that D/D Ele is in theory better than staff Ele, but she can’t really play D/D and like Staff so the best for her is to keep playing Staff.

For PvE, it’s a bit easier. You know what will be in front of you, what will be your enemies and what you will need to go through it. So meta there are much more developed and optimized. Some profession have a strict meta that is view as the most optimal way for a long time with limited change to it, very few variation are seem as worth it. Warrior is the best exemple. You can vary your build, but you know that you sacrifice efficiency for a build that you prefer to run yourself. But other profession have a lot of variety in their meta. Elementalist for exemple will have Staff build for most dps and S/X for might stacking. But even those build can vary greatly depending if your party need more burst, more vulnerability, more might, etc.

I’d say D/F can be a “meta” build with the right gear and party setup. Meta refers to either speed-running dungeons or Fractals. Like cursE said, it’s a level 80 thing. Don’t worry about it before then.

The only reason D/F is not being called meta by some is that Ele with the right setup can bring a CRAPTON of damage (usually with a staff). But you sacrifice all forms of defense save for dodging and rely on party members for the rest.

Personally, I had great fun with D/F, but the biggest issue was pulling off the full combo in pick-up groups. I’d start the combo…then mobs would immediately target me or group members wouldn’t do their job. I pulled it off once and it felt fantastic…but not a common thing outside of pre-organized groups.

Really, play what you want. Now that we can swap traits on the fly and we only need 5 weapons for every combo (2 daggers, 1 scepter, 1 focus, and 1 Staff), you can experiment a bit if you’re just running around the open world.

While I won’t go into detail on dungeons, I will advise that you also keep at least a set of PVT armor on you if you want to do world bosses. You can’t do critical strikes against most of them and the extra defense helps out. Those fights are more about surviving and doing non-crit damage so…this helps. (I’ve yet to do the worm in Bloodtide though)

Fade.1743:

While I won’t go into detail on dungeons, I will advise that you also keep at least a set of PVT armor on you if you want to do world bosses. You can’t do critical strikes against most of them and the extra defense helps out. Those fights are more about surviving and doing non-crit damage so…this helps. (I’ve yet to do the worm in Bloodtide though)

PVT armor for world boss are good, but for Triple Trouble wurm in bloodtide, it’s a bad idea. It’s ok for the first phase, but if too many ppl don’t have zerker in the second phase, it’s gonna fail. You can crit on the heads at 2nd phase and it’s a dps race before the time expire.

RegnorVex.4071:

I’m currently using D/F but after reading all the comments in this thread about D/F Fresh Air never becoming this “meta”, I decided that, as good as it is, I would like to try out whatever the meta builds are and see how they feel for my play style.

The thread about DF not being meta is about PvP. In PvE DF is definitely part of the meta. It is not the best for optimal speedruns, but it excels in everything else

As cursE explained, do not worry about the meta while you level up. Instead take this time to experiment a lot, and most importantly train to dodge perfectly. Have fun!

Meta:

Most Effective Tactic Available

that’s it…

So it is a short term for being the MOST effective…

Meta does not exist… Only situations and META builds for that particular situation…

People still confusing META with FotM (a.k.a. Flavour of the Month). If something is popular does not mean it’s the Most Effective Tactic Available.

So sometimes it is confusing whether the player using “meta” means the effectiveness or the popularity…

I’m pretty sure meta stands for metagame, “around the game”, that is everything that does not pertain to the domain of instantaneous decision making. It involves planning, optimizing, making strategies, anticipating the decisions of your foes. In fact it involves every decision you could make before effectively getting into the action.

As you make those decisions with a cool head they tend to be rational (as opposed to instantaneous decisions that can be quite intuitive). Since most humans are rational, we end up with the majority of the players with comparable experience making the same metagame decisions. There are variations, of course, but the core of the meta adopted by top players is almost always the same at a given time. It is very difficult for the common folks to be as good as the top players when it comes to instantaneous decision making, but it is easy to understand and assimilate their meta decisions. This is why there is such thing as “the” meta. It is the common core in all the cool-headed decisions that top players make. As such, “the meta” consists of what is perceived as the most effective decisions players could make before getting into action.

Edit: The meta evolves constantly. Knowing the meta of a given game mode at a given time ensures that you have the potential to perform well. But it is even better if you assimilate it and infringe it so that you take part in the process of discovering the new meta. Some experiments will give you an advantage over the people that stick to the old meta, some will be less efficient. Luckily for us the PvE environment barely ever changes, so we don’t have to scratch our heads so much as those who have the courage to compete in PvP

Example:

three different tasks:

1, cherrypicking
2, lawnmowing
3, truffle harvesting

Castings:

A: the Cherrypicker
B: the Lawnmower
C: the Harvester
D: the guy in a green T-Shirt

situ 1: the A uses ladder because this is the META for picking cherries. D asks some friends to lift him up. A gets more cherries but D is still happy.
situ 2: B gets it right away…. Mowmowmow, D has some fun with the friends picking up flowers and some kind of weed… A has some issues because of the ladder…
situ 3: C runs out with a few tamed dogs and pigs… TruffleTruffleTruffle!
A joins with a ladder… Well played..
D gets his friends again and they are digging in the mud…. No truffle? Still fun!

Aggrostemma.1703:

Example:

three different tasks:

1, cherrypicking
2, lawnmowing
3, truffle harvesting

Castings:

A: the Cherrypicker
B: the Lawnmower
C: the Harvester
D: the guy in a green T-Shirt

situ 1: the A uses ladder because this is the META for picking cherries. D asks some friends to lift him up. A gets more cherries but D is still happy.
situ 2: B gets it right away…. Mowmowmow, D has some fun with the friends picking up flowers and some kind of weed… A has some issues because of the ladder…
situ 3: C runs out with a few tamed dogs and pigs… TruffleTruffleTruffle!
A joins with a ladder… Well played..
D gets his friends again and they are digging in the mud…. No truffle? Still fun!

TruffleTruffleTruffle!

Sounds like you did a bit more than just harvesting them

Zelyhn: sorry to say but meta is META… what you wanna say is the FotM. FotM is changing constantly it keeps evolving but there is only one MOST effective tactic available… Most means there is only one…

Aggrostemma.1703:

Zelyhn: sorry to say but meta is META… what you wanna say is the FotM. FotM is changing constantly it keeps evolving but there is only one MOST effective tactic available… Most means there is only one…

… at any given time. And time flies!

Meta really does not stand for most effective tactic. I mean, it’s not even a tactic

The meta comes from the top players, the flavour of the month is just some weird concept adopted by casuals because they believe that one profession on its own is better than all others, which is a huge misconception.

But maybe this is all because of the truffletruffletruffles?

The meta builds are coming from the most experienced players at that particular game type. They built this because they found it the most effective in any situation. That’s why it’s called meta… META (most effective tactic available… you know)! OK I stop taking the kitten…

But I think what we talk about now is philosophy

I do know what you mean.

Ok, a lot of great replies. I get it, thee is no one “meta” build. The metagame is like a superset made up of the particular game worlds and the context in which they all operate. A “meta” build is just a phrase describing what the consensus is on the optimal build for that context. The most creative and successful players define the meta builds and they evolve with the game changes and as creative players discover new synergies. Makes sense.

So I’m playing this new (for me) profession, the Elementalist. I am having a hell of a hard time hitting all the various key combinations to effectively execute the kind of rotations that Zelyhn describes in his (great) guide. I can hit Burning Speed just fine, but having it land within Air attunement and then hit Arcane Wave while the field is still active, is a struggle. I know, a Razer mouse would help, all I have is my 3 button mouse and I like it just fine and have a hard time with side buttons (I’m all thumbs). So I’m probably not destined to write great guides on new combos I’ve discovered.

I’ll continue to experiment with different weapons and skills and just use what I like. I get the feeling that skill with what you have is at least as important as the particular set of tools you’re using.

Looks like we picked a good time to get into this game. By the time we are 80 and comfortably so, HoT will be coming up and we’ll be in a good position to evaluate all the new changes. Exciting times ahead.

Thanks, guys. Great community.

Generally speaking the term “Meta” in the context of MMOs means the way players have figured out to play a game with no hard rules in it.

For example, lets look at GW2 and Conditions. Conditions have many factors working against them in the game. For one is the 25 stack bleed cap. This means no matter how many players are there, only 25 bleeds can be on a target at one time. The other problem with stacking duration Conditions (Poison, Burn) is they largely deal their damage sequentially so if 5 targets apply Burn it’ll do 5 different burns one after another. These are both problematic because many conditions are applied inadvertantly such as Bleed on Crit or Guardian Burn auras. There are also a large number of encounters and mechanics in the game be it PvE (destroyable objects) or WvW/PvP (gates and doors) that are immune to conditions but not direct damage.

So Conditions have so many things working against them that the players have come to experience and figure out that over all it’s simply better to work with Power. All things are effected by Power. Therefore meta builds tend to be Power based rather than Conditions.

However this is also changed by the parts of the game environment you are in. For example in SPvP or Roaming WvW the aspects that make Conditions sub-par to Power builds aren’t present. Therefore in those kinds of activities you also see Condition based builds as part of Meta builds specifically to put pressure on builds that are weaker to Conditions. Sometimes these environments can have multiple Metas because there are multiple aspects to that game play. For example there’s Large scale Zerg Meta (aka: “GWEN”) and the previously mentioned Roamer Meta.

The critical part to understand about Meta is there’s nothing in game forcing players to play a particular way. There’s no reason why you can’t make a Condition based character and go play it in PvE dungeons. There’s literally nothing stopping you from going full tank and trying to do solo content. You’re not going to go to the Official game Wiki and there’ll be an Article there on the most efficient way to play a particular class because these are all things invented by the players. It sounds like you’re already on the right track with this, but always look at Meta as a guide and something to base finding a build that works for you.

The Developers in most games occasionally take action to disrupt the meta. For example recently they did a huge change to Stability which really altered how WvW is played. With Heart of Thorns they are removing the 25 Bleed Cap which could make Condition play not receive such a vitriolic response (too early to tell).

In this context, the term “meta” is shorthand for “metagame”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagaming

“In simple terms, it is the use of out-of-game information or resources to affect one’s in-game decisions.”

The term Metagame is used in several contexts. These are usually competitive in nature. For example, let’s pretend I play a game of chess against an opponent, and I know that they have a particular strategy they often like to use whenever they play. I may try to use my foreknowledge of that person’s strategy when I play against that particular opponent.

Another example would be picking and counter-picking in game formats where this is allowed. For example, in a MOBA, teams alternate in their choice of picks. Let’s say you’re on such a team, and the last player to pick, and you had some particular hero/champion that you wanted to play. However, you look at the other picks of your opponents’ team, and decide to play with a different hero/champion, knowing that your new choice counters the choices your opponents made. This is Metagaming at its core. You are using your knowledge of the matchups of various heroes/champions to decide what your next move should be, rather than simply picking your favorite hero/champion every time.

We can apply this concept, too, to games where many decisions are made beforehand. Take Magic: The Gathering. Let’s say I want to enter some tournament. A good strategy to start with, when choosing to enter an MTG tournament, is to go look up the “metagame” of that format (let’s pick Standard). I go look up the Standard Metagame of MTG, which means I look at the most popular decks for the Standard Format in Magic. This data of the most popular decks is called Magic’s “Metagame”. So I look at these decks, notice that many of them play a particular strategy, so I go ahead and build my deck to counter the choices of what is popular. Mind you, an even better Magic player will realize that other players are doing this exact same thing, and so they will attempt to go further, and try to counter the choices of the people who are trying to counter the Metagame as well! And so on.

So the question becomes, how on earth does this apply to a non-competitive thing like GW2 PvE? Honestly, it has to do with Guild Wars’ history. In Guild Wars 1, much of the harder content could not be done without specialized builds. This was because GW1 had highly creative and fine-tuned encounters, and players’ builds could also be highly tuned, complex, and creative. The content in high-end PvE in GW1 could be so difficult that it required that players research and theorycraft builds, just to overcome it. This is an example of Metagaming in a PvE enviornment.

Once GW2 came out, it actually turned out that no such content exists in PvE.
>_>

HOWEVER, much of the try-hard spirit of GW1 players remains, and so a mantra was largely started that one could not simply do a dungeon, they had to do the dungeon efficiently. And there is actually something to this. If you’ve done a dungeon path multiple times, you will soon grow weary of taking 30 minutes+ to do a single dungeon path, when you know that an efficient group can do it in 20, 15, 10, or even 5ish minutes. In fact, since GW2 has had the same dungeons now for over 2 years, many of the veteran players simply get bored running dungeons in an ‘inefficient’ manner. Therefore, what started out as the mantra of a few “elite” players gradually grew to become the widely-held belief of the general player base. Many players who still run dungeons don’t care to do them inefficiently, and want players to run the highest-damage, most efficient builds possible. This is how we ended up with a “Metagame” for a game that does not have truly challenging PvE content. Enjoyable but unchanging dungeon content over two years caused adjusted the community’s expectations to have “speedrunning” builds as the so-called “Meta”.

[Continued Below]

Now, I do take issue with this narrative to a certain degree. Having run dungeons in PUGs for a while, I actually don’t know if high-damage, Berserker builds are actually the most popular builds in dungeons, if you take the playerbase as a whole into account. In fact, I’d wager that many more players run less efficient or survival-oriented builds instead. I don’t have the data, of course, I’m just going off of my own feelings. However, strictly speaking, the “Meta” of dungeon running would actually be whatever the player base as a whole uses to complete dungeons, and I’m not entirely convinced that speedrunning builds actually are the most used ones.

However, this is a somewhat moot point, because the truth is, in the context of dungeons, and in the context of the way the community tends to use the word, the term “meta” in GW2 PvE actually refers to “whatever the speedrunning community has deemed to be good builds”. This is a somewhat warped definition of the term, “meta”, in my opinion, but that’s beside the point. That’s what it means. “Meta” builds in GW2 PvE are speedrun builds posted by skilled players who know how to run dungeons quickly.

Here are the so-called GW2 PvE Meta Builds:

Tier 1
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_Staff
The Staff Build is considered Tier 1 because it literally just does the most damage in the game. It also provides access to permanent fire fields, which you can blast finish in for more Might.

Tier 1.5
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_S/F_LH
The S/F LH Build is also supposed to be Tier 1, but I bump it down slightly because I rarely see people actually run this, since the Staff build does more damage, and running Lightning Hammer in a PUG can be frustrating at times. However, pairing Lightning Hammer’s constant Blast Finishers with Staff’s constant Fire Fields provides permanent Might and Fury for the group.

Tier 2
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_D/F
The D/F Build is considered Tier 2 because it does less damage than the builds above. It also does not provide perma fire fields like Staff, or constant Blast Finishers like Lightning Hammer. The advantage of this build is that the nature of the cleaving auto-attack combined with the various abilities on the Focus and the various attunements makes for a very “active” build with a lot of useful defensive utility. Basically, some players find the build more fun than the other two builds above, and some argue that it’s more survivable in some content because of the Focus’ utility.

That’s basically it. That’s what “meta” means, and only the last little bit is probably what you were actually looking for :P

Neko now you are stretching. You add classification and information on your own and pass them as widely used by the community. Just like Aggrostemma when he say that meta = most efficient tactic available. That’s the concept of meta, but that’s not where the word meta come from.

Nobody use tier in meta. Metabattle.com try to use Meta, Great, Good and it’s questionable at best. Meta is not that well organized, it’s messy and change a lot depending on who you are talking to. Some ppl consider that there is only one Meta, other consider that there is one meta per situation, other consider that there can be several meta for the same situation.

Well the meta battle classifications of “Meta” “Great” “Good” etc all probably came from the original GW1 website, PvXwiki , where most players went to go get builds and discuss builds in GW1. It’s likely the owner(s) of Meta Battle want to turn it into a similar site but you can see the original breaks down game activities much further.

I apologise…

I did know that the word “meta” has a lot of meanings but I wasn’t aware it has THAT much. A knew the “part of the game” and the “higher level of theorycrafting” meanings. I was pretty sure that it’s also an artificial acronym of MostEfficientTacticAvailable… In LoL I heard this a lot and I thought it’s a gamer slang…

Well…

The metagame or metabattle words can be translated to any of these without making a huge mistake.

I think…

#EDIT: can somebody explain me what meta means in the metabattle or metagame words please? What do you believe?

#EDIT2: I still think my explanation is far from the most accurate one but describes the builds fairly good…

Aggrostemma.1703:

I
#EDIT: can somebody explain me what meta means in the metabattle or metagame words please? What do you believe?

Scroll up a bit

@Neko: wonderful exposition, many thanks for the insights and historical context.

@fracture: my wife and I have always played tank and healer in traditional trinity-style MMOs (she tanks, I heal). She has MT’d raids and the highest tiered dungeons and I’ve always kept the party healed. GW2’s mantra that “the trinity is within you” is a new experience for us, so we started out with her playing a Guardian and I tried a Mesmer, thinking that was the closest thing to tank/support.

Since we primarily just duo, leveling up was a bit too slow and we decided to re-roll with more of a focus on DPS and just have some fun. So she went with Warrior and I chose Elementalist, thinking it was closest thing to the classic Direct Damage wizard archetype. I also tried out a Thief and that was fun, too, but I haven’t had as much experience with pure caster and thought this would be a good time to get familiar with one.

Yep, I can see that Ele is complex and I’ve had trouble keeping up with some of the fast attunement switching mechanics recommended by the guides I’ve read. But it is fun as hell and I like making things go boom. So we’ve stuck with these two characters are now in our mid 40’s, well on our way and enjoying the game a lot.

I’m trying out the staff build that Neko linked because it looks like fun and I do hope to do dungeons and want to start getting familiar now with the various support mechanics.

If anyone has any good suggestion for some good synergies between a Rifle/Sword Warrior and a Staff Ele, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks guys,

Since GW2 isn’t a trinity MMO, the idea is to instead build your character for the content, taking as much damage, support, and control as you need individually.

In general, GW2 PvE content is both “fair” and “easy” enough that it’s possible to load up entirely on a highly damage-oriented build, and then either just burst things down quickly, or use proactive damage-mitigating skills like Wall of Reflection and Blinding Powder.

Mind you, there are so many things to consider when deciding what to play. For example, if you’re leveling, then you generally want to prioritize Mobility and quick Direct Damage.

For leveling an an Ele, I’d suggest a Dagger/Dagger Ele. You have some nice burst mobility skills, and Lightning Whip does quick, fast, cleaving damage. Staff is also decent but you mainly want to try and sit there and land all ticks of your lava font, which in my opinion, is more trouble than it’s worth. For leveling in the open world, it’s probably a lot faster to just cleave things down with the Air Attunement Auto Attack (the #1 skill) on Mainhand Dagger.

For leveling a Warrior, you have a few choices. Mainhand Sword may not do the damage of Greatsword or Axe, but it has so much mobility with its leap that it is a very effective open-world leveling weapon. For your second set, I’d go with Greatsword, because of the gap closers with the #3 and #5 skill.

You can use skills such as the GS #3 and #5 for a Warrior, or the Dagger 4 Air Attunement skill to travel a short burst of distance for quicker mobility. However, you should turn off Auto-Targeting in the options if you want to be able to do this. While you’re there, you should also turn off Melee-Attack Assist, so you can move through mobs while fighting them.

Overall, my biggest suggestion right now is this: build for high damage and mobility. The Warrior should use Offhand Warhorn to provide Swiftness, and take Signet of Rage for more Swiftness. The Ele might want to take Air Signet and maybe even Lightning Flash for movement speed and mobility as well (note that movement speed buffs do not stack, however). Build for Power/Precision/Ferocity gear. Both of you. There’s really no need, in open world, to go tanky gear, since mobs will just die so fast if you just build for the most damage you can. Th Ele can get a lot of good sustained damage by using the Air Dagger Autoattack, and the War can get great damage by using GS skills. For the Warrior, traits like:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Slashing_Power
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Forceful_Greatsword
obviously go well with a Greatsword for a Warrior, while:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Bolt_to_the_Heart
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Air_Training
go well with a Dagger for an Ele.

If using Staff instead, you can max damage by going:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Internal_Fire
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pyromancer%27s_Alacrity
And just spam Lava Font off cooldown, as well as using the autoattack on Fire attunement for Staff as well.

These are all simply suggestions, so no need for people to get personally hurt if they disagree with these as someone always seems to. I promise I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. Anyway, these are some build tips I’d suggest for a fast and pleasant leveling experience. Feel free to message me if you want any help, in game!

Aggrostemma.1703:

I apologise…

I did know that the word “meta” has a lot of meanings but I wasn’t aware it has THAT much. A knew the “part of the game” and the “higher level of theorycrafting” meanings. I was pretty sure that it’s also an artificial acronym of MostEfficientTacticAvailable… In LoL I heard this a lot and I thought it’s a gamer slang…

Well…

The metagame or metabattle words can be translated to any of these without making a huge mistake.

I think…

#EDIT: can somebody explain me what meta means in the metabattle or metagame words please? What do you believe?

#EDIT2: I still think my explanation is far from the most accurate one but describes the builds fairly good…

My posts attempt to give a broad overview of the history of “meta”. I’d like to believe it’s fairly accurate. The term meta can indeed refer to “high level theorycrafting” as a shorthand, sure. It’s not quite accurate to its historical context, but the gist and feel is about right.

If you’re looking for a more precise answer, the term “meta” can mean something which refers to itself, about or of itself. This is a wholly confusing definition, so let me use some examples:
*Metadata is “Data About Data”
*Metadiscssion is “A discussion about discussions”
*Metadreaming is “Dreaming of dreaming”
*Metajoke is “A joke about jokes”

And finally:
*Metagaming is “Playing the game of a games”

Okay, I’ll admit that last one is still a little confusing, but it’s basically trying to take your outside knowledge of the game, and incorporate it into your gameplay. Let’s take the example of a tournament. You decide to play in a casual Magic: The Gathering tournament with your friends. You’ve played with all of your friends a lot before, and you know what their decks are like. So when you go to prepare for this tournament, you decide to build your deck to counter the decks of your friends. You’re playing a metagame. The tournament itself is a game which you are trying to win, and the tournament consists of several instances of playing Magic. The tournament is a metagame. You will use your knowledge of the tournament and of your friends’ decks in your decision-making process while playing each individual game of Magic. This is essentially what metagaming is.

[Continued Below]

So let’s try and apply the concept to GW2. First, let’s look at its PvP. In the last World Tournament Series for GW2, the top two teams were The Abjured from North America and oRNG from Europe. The Abjured are an incredible team with incredibly skilled players, and their team comp essentially helped define the meta (that is, what other players copied and used) of PvP at that point. The Abjured was considered the best team in the world. So when oRNG was to go up against them, and knowing that The Abjured are highly skilled players with the best builds in the game, they had to think, how can we win this tournament? You see, they were not simply trying to win one game against The Abjured. They wanted to win the tournament. They want to win the metagame of the tournament, which consisted of playing a bunch of PvP matches. So what did oRNG do? Knowing that The Abjured ran with 2 Celestial D/D Eles and a Celestial Engineer, and a Condi Necro, they countered the Abjured’s team! They ran a DPS Guardian and a Shoutbow Warrior. The DPS Guardian does a great job of wrecking the enemy team with Hammer, and the Shoutbow Warrior provided the necessary team support and sustain to keep them in the fight. The act of counter-comping is one of the fundamental aspects of metagaming. And it’s part of the reason why oRNG won that tournament against the “best” team in the game (also oRNG just had far tighter play from practicing way more, but the comp was important as well).

Now let’s try applying this to GW2 PvE. It’s a bit of a stretch, but try and go with me here. You load up GW2 and decide it’s time to run the same godkitten old boring dungeons that haven’t been added to in over a year, like what the heck, come on ANet some dungeons for some quick gold, and for whatever reason, you want to minimize the pain of doing the same thing over and over again maximize your efficiency and speed and doing a dungeon tour. So you go look at your build, and try to fit as much damage as you can possibly play well without dying. From this perspective, it’s not so much that you’re trying to complete a single dungeon as much as it is you’re trying to run dungeons efficiently, in general. This is your metagame. Now other players are trying to do the same thing, since lots of players run dungeons every day for the gold and challenge of it. So you take into account the build ideas and theorycrafitng of all of the players, and try to determine, what kind of build will I run? What kind of builds should my team run? Can we fit more damage? Maybe someone should take a few more defensive utilities like Glyph of Storms. Maybe the Warrior should take Phalanx Strength instead of a selfish DPS build to help buff the team’s damage if we can’t sustain enough Might. It’s still a metagame, even if running dungeons isn’t competitive per se.

Anyway, that’s basically what it is. Metagaming is playing the overall game, and trying to do well at it. And many players already naturally do this. After all, one of the most natural ways to start metagaming is to go to the forums/community, and ask people “what is the meta”. That’s what the OP did, and it’s perfectly natural if you think about it.

By the way, to append to what I said previously, if the idea of a “meta” for GW2 PvE seems like a stretch, it’s because it really is. GW2 PvE simply isn’t challenging enough for there to be a true “meta” in the way the term is used for other games. Add onto this the fact that many players don’t prioritize efficiency or gold per hour, and using the term “meta” to refer to the most efficient DPS builds does feel somewhat incorrect.

However, there are two points to keep in mind. First, for better or for worse, the term “meta” does now have that connotation in GW2, and the most important thing about language is the way real people use it. If people want to use the term meta to refer to speedrun builds, that’s their right. And if a large portion of the community agrees and understands that that’s what “meta” means, then… that’s what it comes to mean. Even if it is somewhat inaccurate.

The second thing to note is that the overall inferred concept of “meta” is still very useful, when referring to GW2 speedrun builds. By this I mean, if you go play some other competitive game like League of Legends or Magic: The Gathering, you will hear people use the term “meta” as a shorthand to refer to what is good or bad in that game’s current state. The term “meta”, while not entirely understood, is a large part of gamer language today, and the ability to go between games and use the same terminology is valuable. Thus, to someone new coming from some other game, if I call something the “meta”, then they will generally understand it to be “what the best builds/choices/strategies are”. In fact, that’s still a generally decent way to use the term, and so using it to refer to speedrunning builds is generally OK, even if I’ll always have my personal gripes about it.

What a lot of players may get upset about is the fact that since GW2 PvE can generally be overcome by basically anything, they point out that trying to bring competitive or “meta” concepts to something that is ultimately casual content can be a bit disheartening. Some people want to play their high-healing support builds or tank builds, even if they’re arguably not all that great if we look at how they help in completing the dungeon quickly and efficiently as the only metric. But you see, this is a game, and there’s more metrics to games than simple efficacy. Some people just wanna have fun, you know? And that’s why many players have a general distaste for every time they hear about the “meta” or how “the meta ruined the game”, etc. Since GW2 PvE isn’t competitive, you don’t need to use “meta” tactics, builds, or strategies to succeed. Compare this to a competitive game where, by their nature, you do need to understand and adapt to the meta of the game if you want to win. Some people just want to play their PvE to relax, not to be high-strung competitive.

I wish I could just quote that whole last paragraph and make it my signature.

Neko, Meta PVE builds are not just about DPS, instead it’s about shedding any unnecessary attributes. In a meta group/build you’ll take the things you’re strong at and drop the stuff that can be covered by teammates or are unneeded. Condition cleanse is a big one, Guardians are amazing at it with purging flames and absolute resolution, getting them isn’t a huge loss for them. Engi’s can do decently as well with a combination of Elixir Gun and Elixir C, however the loss for Engi is pretty high not just in losing a utility slot and the potential damage from that but also the long animation length on fumigate makes it not as good as well as a large damage loss especially compared to the instant use of Absolute resolution.

So your team will default to the guardian, maybe mesmer/ele/thief for condi cleanses and not expect the Engi to be using fumigate in battle unless everything else is blown.

And well, this is why the meta exists. People think about this stuff, they plan it. Having a set and accepted meta makes it nice and easy to know what each person is expected to handle. You know the guardian will drop that WoR→Shield→WoR rotation so you don’t need to drop a swirling winds till after the second WoR. You know the thief is gonna stealth through a skip so running ahead would be dumb. As a thief you know your Ele’s are smart and will swap in blasts as necessary to keep the stealth flowing as long as you drop black powder so there’s no need for SR unless pathing something. The thief will manage defiance with headshot so don’t tough it especially if it’s at 1 or 2 unless previously discussed. You know the team will be using Deep Freezes.

While you may not consider it to fit the definition of "meta’ you use, when you look at the origins of the term being spending time outside the game to perform better while playing… well it seems to fit perfectly /shrug.

So very well said, Neko. The fact that players as intelligent and articulate as you are in this game deep tells me I’ve come to the right place for some sophisticated and satisfying fun.

And then I read a post like Jerus’ which, while very excellently written, demonstrates how little I know and how much I have to learn! ;-)

Actually, i believe the term Meta REALLY originates from Megamind’s second cousin, once removed, METAMind. However, unlike his second cousin, once removed, Metamind wasn’t an evil genius. He was actually a janitor. and thus having a huge evil genius name didn’t work well, so he went with the nickname Meta.

He was really good at his job. Hence the connotation, “if you play a good spec, your playing as good as Meta.”

Meta is a combination of popularity and effectiveness. What the community as a whole considers “the best”.
There are plenty of alternatives to it.

For example in pve d/f isn’t meta because scepter LH builds deal more damage and most people just stack might and swap to staff these days.

In pvp it’s a viable anternative to d/d cele but it offers less heal, giving projectile mitigation and invuln as a tradeoff. it’s a viable choice nonetheless. There is also a zerker fresh air variant of it.

Meta is a Greek preposition with a number of meanings depending upon context. In gamer jargon, it means roughly better than normal.

Players throw the term around pretty loosely but they usually mean a build that works particularly well for some situation or game mode. It may also mean a particularly good team composition for a dungeon, WvW, or PvP. GWEN (Guardian, Warrior, Elementlist, Necromancer) is an example of WvW meta. Berserker is a sort of meta, too. It refers to stat allocation toward the highest damage output and experienced players familiar with an opponent’s attacks can minimize the damage they take allowing them to forego defensive stats.

Arenanet has been trying to balance professions and skills so that there are no truly exceptional builds or group compositions and will continue to do so. GW2 is supposed to do away with team roles as they were in older MMOs. Pick any profession and you can fill any role or several at once. That is the theory, anyway.

Warrior/Ele pair! How cute is that? I am going to list few things I recommend you 2 try out:

Toys:

As an ele you can summon weapons. Most intresting of these is the “Ice Bow”. You summon 2 bows, 1 for yourself and 1 for any ally to pick up. This bow has insane damage skill (4) and great single target CC for bosses (5). Drop these toys around for your wife to pick up and tell her to try skill 5→4→3 and drop the bow. Its really fun and part of dungeon clearing meta: ) (warrior also has some “toys” that you could try if you are brave enough

Might stacking:
This is really a big part of metagame. By doing a blast combo into a firefield, you give 3 stacks of might to nearby allies. Warrior and ele can sure stack some sweet might with this! For example you go Ring of Fire→Stone Stomp→Ice Burst and your warrior wife uses warhorn 5 or hammer blast into the field. Each blast gives a might stack and each might stack is very roughly 1% damage increase for 20s.

Healing:
Best healing from elementalist comes from allies who blast the waterfields dropped by ele. Each blast heals ~1k at lvl 80.

Meta is the build that if you use, you won’t be called “insert name calling”

yiksing: so true

I was wvw-zerging with a new commander and he asked me for my build. So I told him a few details. Traits, utilities, sigils and the basic tactic of the build. He started to question my choices… His final Q:

“Well I don’t know… It sounds strange. I don’t want you to bring a new build. Did you ever try this? Is this gonna work?”
“Sure! This is the build I got from the metabattle.com. I thought it’s OK…”
“Oh well, yes it is good, you can come…”

Hehe

EDIT: LightningRod ele if not clear for everyone.