Guild Wars 2

Regardless of utilities, weapons or a difference in a single trait everyone runs the same builds. There is only 5 warrior builds for PVE and WvW. Its pretty simple. People like to argue for this weapon or that weapon or this rune or that sigil but everyone is running the same traits and builds.

There is no diversity there are no real creative or new ways to play. Everything that is possible has already been thought of tested, and either became a viable setup or failed. Anything that you can think of the maybe cool or differnt totally ends up either sucking or not being as good as what already works.

People seem to think builds in this game are really builds, they are so simplistic they are hardly anything more than trait point sinks to make people think they are really building something as it turns out most are worthless garbage everyone has to get to get the one trait that is useful. If people only had like 30 points max instead of 70 and all of the useful stuff was at 10 points people could play the game still and be effective.

In GW2 especially warriors you are not really building anything compared to other games that have deep building systems. Its not rocket science in this game most things are useless. There is always a best build for a certain game type and anything else you can run is sub optimal.

There are not many warrior traits that work together with each other. Every trait does its own thing and is totally linear. There are only a couple trait combos. Legspecialist+opportunist. No one plays this. Shouts and passive shake it off. Stance vigor + duration+ stance traits. Thats about it. and out of those 3 the only one that is hardly ever uses is the shout one and that build honestly is a wet noodle zerg noob build.

and is this a bad thing?

I still have not seen any warrior running my PvP build. I am still waiting. However the utilities are standard, it is only the weapon selection and traits that seem to go counter culture.

No, I have to dissagree on this one. I know plenty of very viable and strong builds. Maybe for sPvP, hambow is still the strongest. But that ain’t by much.

If we look at WvW, there are a big magnitude of builds available, all requiring different playstyles and they work. I actually think warrior is one of the classes with a good build diversity. Ye, some skills like endure pain are almost in every build. But that doesn’t make them the same.

MiLkZz.4789:

No, I have to dissagree on this one. I know plenty of very viable and strong builds. Maybe for sPvP, hambow is still the strongest. But that ain’t by much.

If we look at WvW, there are a big magnitude of builds available, all requiring different playstyles and they work. I actually think warrior is one of the classes with a good build diversity. Ye, some skills like endure pain are almost in every build. But that doesn’t make them the same.

Define build? Becasue build to me only means your traits. I am basically saying everyone picks the same traits regardless. For instance if you want to do shouts its 30 in compassion. You have 40 points left now Nearly everyone will pick up the majority of the same traits with the 40 points because its clear they will be stronger if they get dogged march, weapon swaping etc. Maybe somone may pick up on or 2 other differnt traits but a shout build is a shout build no mater how you try to define a build.

Other builds PVE people go with the meta build simply becasue any other build does less damage, and PVE is about doing damage and defeating stupid AI.

Lets look at SPVP hambow, Skull Crack, Condi.

Thats 5 builds now I mentioned. You can try to say well its more complex than that no its not because even if someone is running some different weapons or runes chances are thier traits match or or nearly identical to one of those builds with the difference being a single trait or max 2 but the trait lines are the same.

Why becasues it is clearly obvious some traits are better than others. People are welcome to pick up underpowered less effective traits if they want but most people will pick the traits that are obviously better regardless of playstyle. Why because warrior traits are simplistic and liniear. The better ones that everyone picks help just about any build. Things like weapon swaping will help every build people pick that. Dogged march? Not many other 10 point traits are that good will help any build everyone goes for it.

If you think there is actual build diversity you are wrong its only an illusion.

Its just how games work in the end there will always be a meta people will try to vary it but it’ll stay just about the same. I will kind of agree though since at the moment there is little variance even if you just want to screw around. Whats the solution? Anet needs to add some kitten utility skills to this game.

Often times Guild Wars 1 was explained as like a TCG of the MMO genre you get alot of skills but can only use a few as a time or “whats in your hand” that lead to amazing optimization for the meta players and amazing variation for casual players. But that didn’t come about immanently when GW1 was just prophecies those crazy SC’s weren’t a thing it was only after the expansions. that’s when they truly hit their height. So you want more variation? You want a better, more fulfilling meta? Get Anet to add same kitten skills.

its one thing for a game to have a simplistic build system and not so many options to chose from to make a build, but it is a different thing to have only a few “viable” builds that “work best”.

The reason for that is that gw2 has only a few aspects of the game, pve,spvp and wvw.

For pve roaming map completion anything works,doesnt matter.
For pve dungeons full zerk works best
For wvw ,something a bit more tanky and with more survivability is prefered if youre going in zerg runs.

As for spvp there are a few options here and there,but people lean toward one more than the other.

even if you have 30x more types of traits, and 100 more types of armor sets people will still use the same thing as they do now cause the mobs didnt change, the speed clear dungeon stacking hasnt changed, and the wvw zerking blob vs blob hasnt changed.

It is important for players to realise this, pick a aspect they think they will spend most their time in, pick a class they feel they will have most fun playing, and then get the gear that exceeds best in the aspect of the game you are about to play in.

With the new feature pack that allows us to switch between traits and gear on the fly anywhere any time, people will run around with 2-3 sets of weapons/armor/trinkets and be set for life in all aspects of the game.

Vukorep.3081:

its one thing for a game to have a simplistic build system and not so many options to chose from to make a build, but it is a different thing to have only a few “viable” builds that “work best”.

The reason for that is that gw2 has only a few aspects of the game, pve,spvp and wvw.

For pve roaming map completion anything works,doesnt matter.
For pve dungeons full zerk works best
For wvw ,something a bit more tanky and with more survivability is prefered if youre going in zerg runs.

As for spvp there are a few options here and there,but people lean toward one more than the other.

even if you have 30x more types of traits, and 100 more types of armor sets people will still use the same thing as they do now cause the mobs didnt change, the speed clear dungeon stacking hasnt changed, and the wvw zerking blob vs blob hasnt changed.

It is important for players to realise this, pick a aspect they think they will spend most their time in, pick a class they feel they will have most fun playing, and then get the gear that exceeds best in the aspect of the game you are about to play in.

With the new feature pack that allows us to switch between traits and gear on the fly anywhere any time, people will run around with 2-3 sets of weapons/armor/trinkets and be set for life in all aspects of the game.

Kinda true: no trait/skill system guarantees diversity by itself. MOBAs can have a lot of potential diversity even if there is no character building. This because the devs force diversity by making sure different playstyles in the same mode are viable.

Same should be done here.

I know its not a real fair comparison but look at Path of Exile for example. POE has the most insane skill tree I have ever seen. And tons of stat mods and uniques that allow for different and interesting builds. On top of that POE has way more skills than Gw2 and skills can effect other skills to make combos of skills. Gw2 system compared to POE for example is very shallow.

The purpose of that type of comparison is that Gw2 trys to be “action like” when compared to a real action based game like POE of D2 it falls short.

PvE
2 builds, I admit with only a slightly different trait set up

PvP
1 build, hambow
(more viable but they are very simular to some wvw builds)

WvW
1 support build (shouts or banners)
4 power roamer builds which I use a lot with different trait set ups and weapons
1 condi roam build
2 strong duel builds (they are niche, have to admit as roaming ain’t good on them)

And those are only the ones I know off and use on regular basis. There really are multiple choices available depending on the situation. But I think we definitely have a good build variety. Someone asked me few weeks ago how I could play my warrior for 3500 hours straight and I told him it was because of the variety of builds and possibilities. You get bored with one, you switch to another.

Ya I wouldn’t consider the PVE builds to be that differnt. People used to do dual axe with 30/10/0/0/30 but its not better than the meta. Id consider PVE to be one build now. Ofcourse people are welcome to run anything they want if they don’t care if they are effective.

WvW you listed 8 builds I’d be interested in seeing those sometime as far as I am aware it is only shout build, condi build, skullcrack, and a 0/0/30/10/30 build that people seem to use everything for these days. I have no interest in Niche builds, I am only interested in whats going to be viable in the given situation against most opponents. The skull crack build is a 30 arms build which is the same build that power sword/LB users use excpet they take differnt trait for 50% crit.

Some people run a PVE build in wvw I wouldn’t consider that a WvW build.

I don’t even want to get into rifles as a discussion weather rifles are viable or not. Maybe they will look more interesting for anything except kill shot after the long bow nerf.

If everybody just has one really good build per situation Id hardly call that anything that resembles diversity.

Another thing the traits for HamBow are pretty similar to other WvW builds just throwing that out there. To the point Id call them the same build but differnt weapons.

I found there is quite a few builds out there tailored to a certain weapon or attack style that helps create diverse builds. You got axe builds, GS builds, Hammer builds condition builds, tanky builds, zerker builds, even healing builds.

Is this a joke? War has the most viable builds by far, with so many good weapons to choose from, and sustainability built into the heal freeing trait points for other purposes. I honestly think you haven’t played other classes at all if you think war is not versatile. Even 5 builds as you claim is huge compared to many classes that have at most one viable build.

If you are claiming the game in general has a lack of builds… well I might be inclined to agree, but put the thread in the main spvp forum, because as far as builds go war is rich compared to the rest.

The problem comes in spvp. But it’s shared by ALL classes.

why do so many ppl say there are a variety of builds? It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that anet is making your builds.

What healing skill does EVERY war use? Healing sig.

Shouts and signets are almost identical in effects and vary very little. Run a shout/heal build or your sigs it matters very little.

It’s all the same. Hambows are your standard war build. There it is. Will most likely stay that way for a long time. You can use something less effective but thats on you.

WvW you just have your mobility builds. In zergs you’ll probably run something of a gs build maybe even banners. But who the hell cares about wvw its equivalent to ZergVZerg unless ur roaming so the previous (gs/ physical skills) build.

Idk maybe its just me but even if wars have a larger diversity of builds vs other classes its not by much.

Agree with OP very little diveristy.

At the moment, WvW (guild and solo) I am running 0/0/30/20/20 Axe/Warhorn & sword/shield, PVT and Cavalier mix with a few beserkers thrown in.

I’d like Stuns to taunt in PvE so hammer builds can have control over defiant monsters.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vIAQNAR3XjMdU5ZtHmhwJqAALw8YogK6ogKm0CSFKD-zEDBYOERzkfwUEJjKIQ5mFRjtypIasqFYqSRWXSI1fIY+EKqeBwAA-w

This is something that ive been playing around with. Yes its not your standard “build”. While there is SOME diversity, many people only run the meta because its the most effective, thus giving the illusion that there is no diversity. But in reality, you can do almost any combo and be “effective”. Youll just have to dramatically change your play style to accommodate it.

have to agree with this its almost common sense in all honesty. it also forces professions to excel at certain forms of combat while not at others.

i.e. i’d like to see some buffs to condtion warriors in the form of traits that favor them not just a few. (only major that comes to mind atm is deep cuts)

gaurds are getting kinda a very important and long over due condtion build buff.
although even after the coming buff will still be in need of some single target skills not pure support.

just my quick thought