Every profession should have a meta spec..we all paid the same money

Call me what you want..but screw it really, we all paid the same money for the expansion , we all showed the same level of commitment towards that or the other class and yet...here we are, some professions : Elementalist and Revenant don't even have a working build in the "great" range, I am not even talking about meta level, I am talking about decent builds that take into consideration the effort=reward ratio of all other specs.

This is the right time for me to speak, there can't be anymore unscrupulous "whiteknighting" because now I have Mesmer which has a meta spec in every game mode where it can cover different roles and here I am not asking for any nerf on mesmer, on the contrary I am happy that players ,who enjoy the concept of mesmer , get t enjoy the profession fully regardless of them being pvers or pvepers.

The question is now why Players who like the ele and rev concept must be treated differently? We paid the same money as mesmer/guardians/warrior etc etc and yet here we are, many of us forced to reroll .....or quit

Why can't all professions be like Mesmer with a meta spec in every game mode? If anybody, if a dev got an answer to this question, I'd love to read about it

I am personally waiting to see how this Saturday's monthly goes before I break out the pitchfork since maybe the balance patch did a bit more than is immediately obvious.

While I agree with you, I don't think that money should be part of any argumentation here.

I think a huge part of the problem is the community (though there's plenty of poor game design on Anet's part, especially as it pertains to PvP).

ArenaNet does not publish a list of "meta" builds. The community has created their own handcuffs in this regard. I played MMOs for the last 18 years or so (mostly EQ then WoW, with all the others sprinkled in there) and never have a seen such an obsession with "meta" than I do with GW2. Which is ironic, because GW2 was supposed to be the most casual-friendly, laidback, do-what's-fun AAA MMO ever created.

Who is imposing this idea of what is meta and what is not? In WoW, the closest we came to this absurd notion was gear score (and linking achievements) to prove you were worthy for a group. But I never once felt pressured to be some sort of "meta" build or GTFO. In WoW, which was a WAY more competitive PvE scene, only the top 4 or 5 guilds competing for World's Firsts cared about what was "meta" (also, a terrible term, to be frank). We played what we want and we succeeded just fine.

Every single profession can succeed in any raid. There is not one profession that will cause wipe after wipe after wipe just because it is in the group. Some are better than others during balancing cycles, but that's true of every MMO. If the community would get their heads out of their butts and just play this game like any other MMO and... you know, have fun... there would be no more mention of "meta." It's getting quite dull.

p.s. now there are plenty of systems and design choices that Anet has (confusingly) made that feed into this "meta" delusion, but WE are to blame for where we are now.

@"pah.4931" said:I think a huge part of the problem is the community (though there's plenty of poor game design on Anet's part, especially as it pertains to PvP).

ArenaNet does not publish a list of "meta" builds. The community has created their own handcuffs in this regard. I played MMOs for the last 18 years or so (mostly EQ then WoW, with all the others sprinkled in there) and never have a seen such an obsession with "meta" than I do with GW2. Which is ironic, because GW2 was supposed to be the most casual-friendly, laidback, do-what's-fun AAA MMO ever created.

Who is imposing this idea of what is meta and what is not? In WoW, the closest we came to this absurd notion was gear score (and linking achievements) to prove you were worthy for a group. But I never once felt pressured to be some sort of "meta" build or GTFO. In WoW, which was a WAY more competitive PvE scene, only the top 4 or 5 guilds competing for World's Firsts cared about what was "meta" (also, a terrible term, to be frank). We played what we want and we succeeded just fine.

Every single profession can succeed in any raid. There is not one profession that will cause wipe after wipe after wipe just because it is in the group. Some are better than others during balancing cycles, but that's true of every MMO. If the community would get their heads out of their butts and just play this game like any other MMO and... you know, have fun... there would be no more mention of "meta." It's getting quite dull.

p.s. now there are plenty of systems and design choices that Anet has (confusingly) made that feed into this "meta" delusion, but WE are to blame for where we are now.

it's simple tho coz in gw2 , even tho the system is simple enough it still has much more room to go wrong with builds .and players take far less effort to wear equal gear for pve / pvp . ofc people will make new barrier out of build or personal skill . people simply want others show the effort they put into content .

@"pah.4931" said:I think a huge part of the problem is the community (though there's plenty of poor game design on Anet's part, especially as it pertains to PvP).

ArenaNet does not publish a list of "meta" builds. The community has created their own handcuffs in this regard. I played MMOs for the last 18 years or so (mostly EQ then WoW, with all the others sprinkled in there) and never have a seen such an obsession with "meta" than I do with GW2. Which is ironic, because GW2 was supposed to be the most casual-friendly, laidback, do-what's-fun AAA MMO ever created.

Who is imposing this idea of what is meta and what is not? In WoW, the closest we came to this absurd notion was gear score (and linking achievements) to prove you were worthy for a group. But I never once felt pressured to be some sort of "meta" build or GTFO. In WoW, which was a WAY more competitive PvE scene, only the top 4 or 5 guilds competing for World's Firsts cared about what was "meta" (also, a terrible term, to be frank). We played what we want and we succeeded just fine.

Every single profession can succeed in any raid. There is not one profession that will cause wipe after wipe after wipe just because it is in the group. Some are better than others during balancing cycles, but that's true of every MMO. If the community would get their heads out of their butts and just play this game like any other MMO and... you know, have fun... there would be no more mention of "meta." It's getting quite dull.

p.s. now there are plenty of systems and design choices that Anet has (confusingly) made that feed into this "meta" delusion, but WE are to blame for where we are now.

Jesus Christ, thank you very much for this!Unless you're playing in legendary tier knowledge of your class is WAY more important than what's "meta".

Meta isn’t actually what is definitively “best” in all cases.

Meta means a build can work for a particular role (support, bruiser, damage, mobility or some combination). There are many builds that can work but only a few get put into “meta” because:

1) The build is easy to play. The easier a build is the more likely it will be meta because there is an effort to effectiveness ratio. People want the most gain for the least effort.

2) The build has a lot of synergy with other meta builds. This is a secondary choice where team combo of two builds is highly effective so the second profession becomes a must have as well.

3) The build becomes popular because a popular streamer uses it. S/D condi thief didn’t exist before poison on immobilize was added to Deadly Arts specialization like. Most of the damage on S/D condi didn’t rely on that change at all. Suddenly, people were crying for a nerf and S/D thieves were everywhere all because a few people tried out a new playstyle after a minor buff.

The point is that viability and what is recognized as meta is not the same thing. Top players don’t run meta builds half the time because they know how to play off meta builds which fit their playstyle and can be effective. Often, those builds are harder with high skill ceilings that a person picking up a build from a website won’t be able to just pick up and play.

That’s why people can’t generally just pick the same build as a top player and win. It’s why I share my build freely because I know even if I give away every detail the experience playing it puts me at a huge advantage.

I do think that every class currently has one sPvP optimal build (ele probably the only class that is the lower end of viability). The problem is only Mesmer and maybe guardian have more than one. There should be minimum 1 power, 1 condi and 1 support strong builds for every class. Also every elite line should have at least one strong build. We are way far from this. For 9 classes we should somewhere around 40 optimal sPvP builds. We have like 8-10 meta builds?

Sadly, end of HoT had really good diversity. But the combination of PoF release, recent balance changes and dev complisansy leaves us with barely one strong build per class.

This is my issue.I have never seen such a chokehold on builds like this in any mmo ever.There are builds obviously better than others, some things synergize better than others.

But when I see a Paladin, spellbreaker with hammer CC a team or a Reaper 2v1ing and people not killing him, I wonder why should we actually keep shoving ourselves in a pidgeonhold.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm bored with the builds. Builds that spit out DPS constantly bores me. And the fact people always try to gut bunker/support builds annoy the fuck out of me. I'm more impressed with the one that can 2v1 or even 3v1 either through kiting or well-timed dodges, use of skills etc. I don't care about the alpha complex cuck that can kill three people because big numbers.

Woohoo I guess? I can list out three other people that are just like that. When the community learns that you need things like tanks and support, instead of simply massive damage specs then I'll take this more seriously.

Until then I can putz around and just continue to casually PVp because trying to try hard every single season to plat and then watching people spew salt from their orficed because they don't understand that this is a game, or they don't understand basic human interaction is simply not worth it.

@"pah.4931" said:I think a huge part of the problem is the community (though there's plenty of poor game design on Anet's part, especially as it pertains to PvP).

ArenaNet does not publish a list of "meta" builds. The community has created their own handcuffs in this regard. I played MMOs for the last 18 years or so (mostly EQ then WoW, with all the others sprinkled in there) and never have a seen such an obsession with "meta" than I do with GW2. Which is ironic, because GW2 was supposed to be the most casual-friendly, laidback, do-what's-fun AAA MMO ever created.

Who is imposing this idea of what is meta and what is not? In WoW, the closest we came to this absurd notion was gear score (and linking achievements) to prove you were worthy for a group. But I never once felt pressured to be some sort of "meta" build or GTFO. In WoW, which was a WAY more competitive PvE scene, only the top 4 or 5 guilds competing for World's Firsts cared about what was "meta" (also, a terrible term, to be frank). We played what we want and we succeeded just fine.

Every single profession can succeed in any raid. There is not one profession that will cause wipe after wipe after wipe just because it is in the group. Some are better than others during balancing cycles, but that's true of every MMO. If the community would get their heads out of their butts and just play this game like any other MMO and... you know, have fun... there would be no more mention of "meta." It's getting quite dull.

p.s. now there are plenty of systems and design choices that Anet has (confusingly) made that feed into this "meta" delusion, but WE are to blame for where we are now.

In Guild Wars 2, meta builds are just the builds that can perform at a decent level.

There are many builds in this game that have essentially been useless for years at a time, simply because they were never designed well in the first place, or received unnecessary nerfs, or never buffed to an appropriate level.

Take a look at Trapper Ranger for example. This build actually saw use until Arenanet removed the ability to throw traps. By doing so, they completely removed Trapper Ranger's viability in every single gamemode. As a ranger main since release, I haven't actually played with traps since they nerfed them (and this was years ago).

Not to mention, ranger traps were designed for core guild wars 2. The new elite specializations are all completely overtuned compared to the options we had in vanilla, thus our one dimension traps are extremely lackluster and weak in comparison.

Basically, Arenanet focuses on tweaking and balancing only one or two builds for every class every few months. Thus, the ones that received balance changes over time ended up being meta because they kept being re-evaluated as the game progressed. The ones that have been ignored, aren't meta.

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@"pah.4931" said:I think a huge part of the problem is the community (though there's plenty of poor game design on Anet's part, especially as it pertains to PvP).

ArenaNet does not publish a list of "meta" builds. The community has created their own handcuffs in this regard. I played MMOs for the last 18 years or so (mostly EQ then WoW, with all the others sprinkled in there) and never have a seen such an obsession with "meta" than I do with GW2. Which is ironic, because GW2 was supposed to be the most casual-friendly, laidback, do-what's-fun AAA MMO ever created.

Who is imposing this idea of what is meta and what is not? In WoW, the closest we came to this absurd notion was gear score (and linking achievements) to prove you were worthy for a group. But I never once felt pressured to be some sort of "meta" build or GTFO. In WoW, which was a WAY more competitive PvE scene, only the top 4 or 5 guilds competing for World's Firsts cared about what was "meta" (also, a terrible term, to be frank). We played what we want and we succeeded just fine.

Every single profession can succeed in any raid. There is not one profession that will cause wipe after wipe after wipe just because it is in the group. Some are better than others during balancing cycles, but that's true of every MMO. If the community would get their heads out of their butts and just play this game like any other MMO and... you know, have fun... there would be no more mention of "meta." It's getting quite dull.

p.s. now there are plenty of systems and design choices that Anet has (confusingly) made that feed into this "meta" delusion, but WE are to blame for where we are now.

But you already have conflicting definitions of what "meta" means here, which illustrates how terrible a phrase it is. I think most players would disagree with your definition of what "meta" means. So you are talking about builds that were completely left behind due to power creep or straight up neglect... not the "meta game" (which is what meta is short for). That's a different concept completely.

But the fact remains... if you wanted to play a trap ranger you could and you could succeed in almost all gamemodes (pvp is a different beast that Anet has made a lot of poor decisions with). It's just not the best option available. Not every build is going to be equal through five years of a game's life ... especially when there are TONS of possible builds.

The OP said every profession should have one "meta spec" for EVERY game made. So even if we use your definition, then that has already been achieved. There is not ONE single profession that can't "perform at a decent level" in each and every game mode. They aren't THE BEST, but they can perform.

@pah.4931 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@pah.4931 said:I think a huge part of the problem is the community (though there's plenty of poor game design on Anet's part, especially as it pertains to PvP).

ArenaNet does not publish a list of "meta" builds. The community has created their own handcuffs in this regard. I played MMOs for the last 18 years or so (mostly EQ then WoW, with all the others sprinkled in there) and never have a seen such an obsession with "meta" than I do with GW2. Which is ironic, because GW2 was supposed to be the most casual-friendly, laidback, do-what's-fun AAA MMO ever created.

Who is imposing this idea of what is meta and what is not? In WoW, the closest we came to this absurd notion was gear score (and linking achievements) to prove you were worthy for a group. But I never once felt pressured to be some sort of "meta" build or GTFO. In WoW, which was a WAY more competitive PvE scene, only the top 4 or 5 guilds competing for World's Firsts cared about what was "meta" (also, a terrible term, to be frank). We played what we want and we succeeded just fine.

Every single profession can succeed in any raid. There is not one profession that will cause wipe after wipe after wipe just because it is in the group. Some are better than others during balancing cycles, but that's true of every MMO. If the community would get their heads out of their butts and just play this game like any other MMO and... you know, have fun... there would be no more mention of "meta." It's getting quite dull.

p.s. now there are plenty of systems and design choices that Anet has (confusingly) made that feed into this "meta" delusion, but WE are to blame for where we are now.

I only PvP so that's where my perspective is coming from. My point of view is that the meta builds are the builds that don't suck when compared to other builds.

Out of all the possible build combinations and types of utilities, why are so few actually usable in PvP? Every build could be equal if balance patches were released at a much faster rate. I don't understand how it take months to slightly tweak the same skills over and over again.

An example of this is the last patch that still left mesmer completely broken. How the clone change wasn't immediately recognized as extremely strong when Anet was working on it is beyond me.

If these tweaks were made every 2 weeks, the game would be in a much better place than it is now.

But even though I'm coming from a PvP standpoint, I don't believe Trapper Ranger is viable in PvE or WvW either. The build simply doesn't do enough to stand on its own.

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@pah.4931 said:

@shadowpass.4236 said:

@pah.4931 said:I think a huge part of the problem is the community (though there's plenty of poor game design on Anet's part, especially as it pertains to PvP).

ArenaNet does not publish a list of "meta" builds. The community has created their own handcuffs in this regard. I played MMOs for the last 18 years or so (mostly EQ then WoW, with all the others sprinkled in there) and never have a seen such an obsession with "meta" than I do with GW2. Which is ironic, because GW2 was supposed to be the most casual-friendly, laidback, do-what's-fun AAA MMO ever created.

Who is imposing this idea of what is meta and what is not? In WoW, the closest we came to this absurd notion was gear score (and linking achievements) to prove you were worthy for a group. But I never once felt pressured to be some sort of "meta" build or GTFO. In WoW, which was a WAY more competitive PvE scene, only the top 4 or 5 guilds competing for World's Firsts cared about what was "meta" (also, a terrible term, to be frank). We played what we want and we succeeded just fine.

Every single profession can succeed in any raid. There is not one profession that will cause wipe after wipe after wipe just because it is in the group. Some are better than others during balancing cycles, but that's true of every MMO. If the community would get their heads out of their butts and just play this game like any other MMO and... you know, have fun... there would be no more mention of "meta." It's getting quite dull.

p.s. now there are plenty of systems and design choices that Anet has (confusingly) made that feed into this "meta" delusion, but WE are to blame for where we are now.

Unfortunately, I believe the PvP does not touch any professions or abilities. They request changes and hope for the best... it's a bummer. And I agree quicker balance patches would be amazing.

BUT, every profession can succeed in PvP currently (unless you count core and elites as separate professions from each other). Eles and Revs might not do quite as well currently ... but that also has to do with Conquest-only maps (such an odd design choice).

I just find problems mixing my skills and traits up and having them perform well. Classes are almost designed around specific traits that really bring the class together as a whole and there isn't much room for change or replacement for these things. Every build almost looks identical besides trinkets, runes, and armor and stuff like that. But seriously, if you're taking trait line X, 2 out of the 3 traits you take are basically predetermined due to how much more effective they are. Maybe you get a weird scenerio where you can swap around grandmaster traits because they are either all useful or all really bad but other than that there isn't room to give up some specific traits or skills. Like ele's water trait line, which is almost mandatory. I have been playing builds without it lately in pvp but it comes at a huge disadvantage. And when taking that trait line you're almost always going to take soothing ice and cleansing wave. then for the grandmaster your taking cleansing water, unless your a tempest and then you take powerful aura. It's that kinda stuff that limits effective build diversity and creates such a powerful meta of only a handful of effective builds. I will give the PoF specs some credit though, their traits are more swapable which is a nice change.

this is result of the current trait system. maybe they should revamp trait system once again. already have 5 core specialization and 2 elite specs per each profession and still some professions don't have decent build on certain gamemodes. some people can achieve better on sub-optimal builds; but what's the point of it, where you can perform well with optimal builds without spending that much effort.

@Alatar.7364 said:While I agree with you, I don't think that money should be part of any argumentation here.

Agreed. There balance issues and it definitely would be awesome for all professions to have a meta spec in all modes. But the argument in the thread title doesn’t make sense. We all paid the same money (for those who bought all expansions) and we also all have access to the same professions and specs. So money-wise we are all equal.

Professions not being balanced is a separate issue.

Every class cycles through their usefulness and everyone goes through a "replaceable in slot" phase for every part of this game.

You use mesmers as an example but you can't pretend that over the years there haven't been times where it's only use was moa and portal.

I hear your plight though and I agree, everyone should have a viable spec of each role and of each damage type per that role, but I have doubt it'll ever happen to that extent.

I'll admit I've mostly been siting out this season for a number of reasons the major one probably being that I'm to busy and I don't care.(I got t2/t3 plat in the last few seasons and other than getting more ascended items there is little incentive to force myself since I don't actually enjoy conquest)So my background information and context might be a little off, but aren't there eles who have been bunking on point fairly well in plat games? Rip rev sure, but ele seems to have a role that is viable for the game type.Also back to what I was saying before to cycling in and out of usefulness there have been metas where stacking ele was optimal even if they are out now.Most get their time in the sun.

It shouldn't be that way, but the argument of "we all pay the same" well we all get treated the same at some point.

@ArthurDent.9538 said:I am personally waiting to see how this Saturday's monthly goes

5 mesmers

I like that fact you actually have to be a decent player to make Elementalist viable.

Feels like being Goku, constantly getting thrashed but always coming out stronger than you were before until eventually you over come it.