Yet another post about " no challenge builds"

I know there are a lot of complains in this forum , a lot of dead posts and chit-chat abount the downstate but even the most quiet of men, everytime he die because it take 20k damage from a class in perma stealth, outrunned by clones, HOLO perma stun...EVERY. SINGLE.TIME. this happen, his rage explode because it is absurd and ridiculous at the same time.

I see this kind of build like a "no challenge build", because you win not because you're good to play, but because 90% of work is done by the build.And i'm SERIOUSLY thinking to drop the PvP/WvW, or at last play only in WvW in Group with a Commander and be a mainly support guy, because is litterally impossible, I repeat, IMPOSSIBILE...to play what you want in this state. You can't win if you not play that kind of class with that kind of equip. There's no story.

And I cannot understaand ANET. Because...I can understaand the money, but there's a limit even in that point of view. You CAN'T make a game where, in a PvP/WvW, of 27 classes (9 +18 elite specs ) and many kind of build, only 3 classes with one build can overkill the entire pvp scenario. This is sinonimus of bad managment of an RPG system and of a game, even if you use the excuse of "we prefere concentrate our team on PvE", it is equally stupid. Deal with it.

Anet should have stuck with their roots instead of the game as it is now. They alienated the player base that made GW1 great only to try to put them into a market where everybody is a clone of everybody else except a few differences. *Sigh. They should wrap up GW2, start with maybe GW3, and get back what the ORIGINAL Guild Wars was known for.

There were plenty of balance issues in GW1, also, and the game became a beast to manage as it chugged along.

Yes, there are some imbalanced builds, but nothing is unkillable AND a 1-hit-KO build. I'm not one of "those guys" but this sounds like you could benefit by playing the 1-hit-KO builds for a while and learning what you could do to fight them.

I occasionally get two-hit in WvW, but I just chuckle and move along. If need be, I find the thief and kill him by being more prepared at that time.

Try not playing full berserker builds and learning how to play what your enemies play the most, it helps a lot.

Non challenge builds only exist in the minds of those, that don’t know how to challenge themselves.

Have you tried maybe making YOUR build better?

Or understanding how THEIR builds work?

as much as it is an l2p issue at times there is some validity in what OP says some builds can pop Unblockable buffs or CC and dump 20k+ damage loads at an instant , some builds on the other far side of the spectrum are near immortal 1v1 vs some professions

@"Rezzet.3614" said:as much as it is an l2p issue at times there is some validity in what OP says some builds can pop Unblockable buffs or CC and dump 20k+ damage loads at an instant , some builds on the other far side of the spectrum are near immortal 1v1 vs some professions

While I get what you're saying and agree "somewhat" I see this kinda thing all over the place... "I can't beat X nurf that shit!" when it's just a L2P or a learn to maximize your OWN build issue.

People need stop throwing this "L2P" stuff around, you guys are hurting the game more then helping....I honestly believe that these days 60~70% of the what decides a win is your build...just today I was playing support FB with some folks and this Holosmith jumps on one of then and literally one shoot him...I think to myself "haha those dudes must be playing zerker builds" next thing i know the Holo is on me and hits me with 5K auto attacks....and I have 3.5K armor plus "perma" protection....if he only had big damage, it would be kind of okay, but then you have lots of CC, 2 times invul and you can also turn 180º and make your enemy eat dirt...this game needs a massive nerf across all professions.So yeah, you either play one of the top roamer professions or get used to have to play ten times better then your enemy to just maybe get a kill, he still might get away thanks to stealth/mobility.

I actually agree. The three most useless classes for WvW were given garbage gimmick builds for small group and warriors (see the name WARRIOR) was trashed then treated like a medium class. Interesting design choices.

I disagree. I feel that elite specs and new gearsets actually lowers the overall variance of builds out there. Everyone became more predictable. Thing is every profession, whether you like it or not, relies on a few gimmicks to both do damage and to survive. The trick is to identify these, and play around them. Holosmith is a great example, with all the defensive boons it has it can be a killing machine - but just like we all realised at some point with reaper, it's better to wait out their forgemode. Then they suddenly become "normal" engis, which are either terribly good or just terrible.

A few tips to handle builds you feel are overly strong:

• Wait for them to come to you (don't give them the upper hand by chasing)
• Use your evades and blocks to negate the big hitters (not random AA)
• If they run away to recover, do the same just in the opposite direction unless you are 100% certain you will catch them
• If you are having trouble landing your damage, CC is your friend (and immob)
• Sometimes your damage output is just too low to scare them, better get more maurauder trinkets
• Learn to anticipate bursts, this allows you f.ex negate it or place AoE's on yourself
• Most importantly avoid the opening burst, as this leaves you ready to attack instead of defensive recovery
• Let them waste their burst, so use range when shroud/forge/berserker stance is up

I think you guys forget that most of the players on these builds thrived during the zerker meta. Sure there weren't as many big hitters back then, but they still hurt a ton more. So they know their profession, and couple that with more defense and damage you have quite the opponent to fight. But as long as you have more damage than they have heals you can take them down - it's just a matter of patience and knowing when to land your burst, while at the same time avoiding the damage coming your way.

While I understand what you are saying (as does others), it does boil down as a L2P no matter how you look at it or no matter if you even agree with it. Yeah some builds are stronger than others for different reasons. Not every build will withstand every build and ppl need no tto complain, but put on their big boy undies and look at their own build/playstyle and think "with what I have access to, how can I improve my build/style?"

Many other people have accepted this and changed their build and learned/got better (like normal gamers do im MMOs). Those who complain are the ones slowing progress. If you can't balance yourself, how is Anet gonna balance the game?

Not really enough useful information in the OP to try to figure out what happened. Basically just another qq someone killed me post as it's written.

@rng.1024 said:I disagree. I feel that elite specs and new gearsets actually lowers the overall variance of builds out there. Everyone became more predictable. Thing is every profession, whether you like it or not, relies on a few gimmicks to both do damage and to survive. The trick is to identify these, and play around them.

But as long as you have more damage than they have heals you can take them down - it's just a matter of patience and knowing when to land your burst, while at the same time avoiding the damage coming your way.the variance of builds etc. would be right the way you put it if everyone would use their best gimmicks. but especially in WvW there are alot of people refusing to use some gimmicks because of 'skill' , they then complain about buildchoice instead of actually adapting, wich makes it boring to fight them. if you run on the other hand a suboptimal build to have better fights against those, then you will have like them no chance against someone with an optimized build who is able to utilize it.if you do not have enough gimmicks you will either lack the damage/means to apply it or you will lack options to avoid their burst so you will not be able to take them down. its pretty simply if 2 people of similar skill level but huge power gap in their builds face each other, allways the one with the better build will win, you might be able to win against bad players that run a stronger build, but you cant expect to be miles better then everyone else in this game..and thats exactly the issue many people have. they expect good players not to run strong builds, so they themselves dont have to either and feel offended when someone does, instead of adapting aswell.

Something to remember with holosmiths is that they need to hit something to get the stability from a traited Corona Burst. If that skill is avoided through being out of range or by dodging/evading, then the holosmith is fodder for your cc.

@MUDse.7623 said:

@"rng.1024" said:I disagree. I feel that elite specs and new gearsets actually lowers the overall variance of builds out there. Everyone became more predictable. Thing is every profession, whether you like it or not, relies on a few gimmicks to both do damage and to survive. The trick is to identify these, and play around them.

But as long as you have more damage than they have heals you can take them down - it's just a matter of patience and knowing when to land your burst, while at the same time avoiding the damage coming your way.the variance of builds etc. would be right the way you put it if everyone would use their best gimmicks. but especially in WvW there are alot of people refusing to use some gimmicks because of 'skill' , they then complain about buildchoice instead of actually adapting, wich makes it boring to fight them. if you run on the other hand a suboptimal build to have better fights against those, then you will have like them no chance against someone with an optimized build who is able to utilize it.if you do not have enough gimmicks you will either lack the damage/means to apply it or you will lack options to avoid their burst so you will not be able to take them down. its pretty simply if 2 people of similar skill level but huge power gap in their builds face each other, allways the one with the better build will win, you might be able to win against bad players that run a stronger build, but you cant expect to be miles better then everyone else in this game..and thats exactly the issue many people have. they expect good players not to run strong builds, so they themselves dont have to either and feel offended when someone does, instead of adapting aswell.

Indeed. The gap between how people want the combat to be and how it actually is, seems to be causing a lot of fustration. Just because you on paper have the best build, doesn't at all guarantee or make you entitled to a win against someone who knows how to utilize their profession and abilities.

Because since day one this game has been about adapting, and those who refuse to do so (because they want it "fair") will get left behind, in the dust. It's for the exact same reason your PvP build won't be optimal in WvW - you can either cry about and keep it, or do what is needed and actually start getting better. Whatever offset you end up with here has to be covered by skill, which is why to this day I still believe this game to reward those who actually put in the hours to get good at it.

You deciding to settle for a suboptimal build effectively keeps you out of the race, as you will get eaten by someone who does whatever it takes to win. This is easily seen amongst mesmers (buildt to kill) vs any zergling "comfy" build. Which in my opinion is totally fine if that's how you want to play, but then you don't get to complain about it, because all you really want to do is have your own little race you can win, despite not putting in the effort and making the sacrifices of those who actually deserve to be on top.

Either you join them or you lose. Or play your own subpar build with greater difficulty. Make your decision and stick with it. Learn from your mistakes and soon you will see whatever advantages their builds offer, you'll start to shorten the gap as you get better. It won't happen today. Or tomorrow. You most likely won't notice in a few years. This is what you are facing. I can already tell those of you from after, that this was true even before HoT and moreso because we didn't have as many defensive options.

When we say "get good" we do not mean "play as you like". It means do whatever it takes to come out on top. Once that is done, the only thing that separates you from the rest is pure skill. You have to earn it. The best players in the game have put in their 5000 hours. Have you?

I'd rather encounter another single player playing a build of his/her choice (even if it's ridiculous build) than encounter nothing but havoc squads and zergs.

When builds that players have studied, learned to use well and rely on to avoid or get away from the hordes continually get nerfed because some players perceive them as unfair, those players more and more start grouping up and ditch free will for mind hive play.

The level of self importance and entitlement in these threads is almost comical. Scourges and Firebrands are without a doubt oppressive in large scale WvW but the builds people mistake for "skillful" are only the flipside of the broken class balance we have to deal with since the 23.6.2015 patch. Easy access to ranged and melee burst damage, stealth, crowd control on short cool down, untelegraphed teleports, unblockable attacks, abundance of evade and invulnerability frames and abilities offering both offence and defence are just as opposite to "challenging" game play as the above mentioned specialisations.

@rng.1024 said:

@MUDse.7623 said:

@rng.1024 said:I disagree. I feel that elite specs and new gearsets actually lowers the overall variance of builds out there. Everyone became more predictable. Thing is every profession, whether you like it or not, relies on a few gimmicks to both do damage and to survive. The trick is to identify these, and play around them.

But as long as you have more damage than they have heals you can take them down - it's just a matter of patience and knowing when to land your burst, while at the same time avoiding the damage coming your way.the variance of builds etc. would be right the way you put it if everyone would use their best gimmicks. but especially in WvW there are alot of people refusing to use some gimmicks because of 'skill' , they then complain about buildchoice instead of actually adapting, wich makes it boring to fight them. if you run on the other hand a suboptimal build to have better fights against those, then you will have like them no chance against someone with an optimized build who is able to utilize it.if you do not have enough gimmicks you will either lack the damage/means to apply it or you will lack options to avoid their burst so you will not be able to take them down. its pretty simply if 2 people of similar skill level but huge power gap in their builds face each other, allways the one with the better build will win, you might be able to win against bad players that run a stronger build, but you cant expect to be miles better then everyone else in this game..and thats exactly the issue many people have. they expect good players not to run strong builds, so they themselves dont have to either and feel offended when someone does, instead of adapting aswell.

The difference is that people aren't usually complaining that they lost, but rather they can't win because of their build just not having the ability to win.

I've put in my 5k hours on a single build that used to be good enough for me to out-skill people with. Most of the people who've fought me will tell you I'm the best there is at it by a mile. I've made counterplay threads asking for help and fought people for hours on end to learn.

In more than one case, it's literally come down to math preventing my build being physically capable of winning or having the resources to win if my opponent is any good. And my stats are fully optimized.

That's a problem for me. I'm not interested in playing the FotM. I get no joy from it. Thus I'd rather just not play the game as a whole. Most of what's good just lacks counterplay. It isn't fun being unable to out-play people and being unable to punish their mistakes because their build lets them screw up without consequences.

It's one thing for slight imbalances to exist. What we have right now aside from only a few builds is very far from slight imbalances.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@rng.1024 said:

@MUDse.7623 said:

@rng.1024 said:I disagree. I feel that elite specs and new gearsets actually lowers the overall variance of builds out there. Everyone became more predictable. Thing is every profession, whether you like it or not, relies on a few gimmicks to both do damage and to survive. The trick is to identify these, and play around them.

But as long as you have more damage than they have heals you can take them down - it's just a matter of patience and knowing when to land your burst, while at the same time avoiding the damage coming your way.the variance of builds etc. would be right the way you put it if everyone would use their best gimmicks. but especially in WvW there are alot of people refusing to use some gimmicks because of 'skill' , they then complain about buildchoice instead of actually adapting, wich makes it boring to fight them. if you run on the other hand a suboptimal build to have better fights against those, then you will have like them no chance against someone with an optimized build who is able to utilize it.if you do not have enough gimmicks you will either lack the damage/means to apply it or you will lack options to avoid their burst so you will not be able to take them down. its pretty simply if 2 people of similar skill level but huge power gap in their builds face each other, allways the one with the better build will win, you might be able to win against bad players that run a stronger build, but you cant expect to be miles better then everyone else in this game..and thats exactly the issue many people have. they expect good players not to run strong builds, so they themselves dont have to either and feel offended when someone does, instead of adapting aswell.

I agree with you. This is a direct result of powercreep, with lower cd's, free damage, unblockables and more passive defenses. Then you get perma boon uptime after HoT, which without the ability to rip (4 professions currently can reliably) there just is no counterplay.

But more importantly this is about who can apply the most pressure and sustain the most, like every fight is decided. Also here I agree with you the e-specs have added to much of both with no sacrifice, while this was a major feature before the expansions. Naturally you could trait all defense and gear up for offense and still beat someone going all offense - but with the recent powercreep this is no longer the case. It's just not enough damage to kill.

What I'm saying is we all need to revise our builds to keep up, decide what can be changed and keep the things that are vital, and yes some professions will have to sacrifice more than others here, but gear can somewhat make up for that (since different health and armor class). All the way until we find that balance that allows us to win, even if we have to work harder for it.

Because the more expansions released the more this will be true, as the game is moving away from it's core philosophies putting more and more importance into e-specs balancing, they are the new profession mechanics and the other traitlines are now meant to only support that. They are no longer standalones as the e-specs outshines them with ease. The sooner you get on board with this, the sooner you can enjoy the game for what it is and start winning against those who already have.

This is the downside of being a veteran - sometimes we get stuck wishing things go back to the way they used to, instead of accepting the challenge and re-earn our place at the top. Which again is a reason I think for making e-specs "simple" - it rotates who gets to be the best. Unfortunately alot of people got put off by this feeling it was unfair, and left the game shortly after HoT. Even to this day alot of people complain about this "skill-less era" and refuse to conform, but each to their own. If you want to be the best, you can't afford to have preferences, you do what it takes. Just as true now as it was at release.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:The difference is that people aren't usually complaining that they lost, but rather they can't win because of their build just not having the ability to win.

I've put in my 5k hours on a single build that used to be good enough for me to out-skill people with. Most of the people who've fought me will tell you I'm the best there is at it by a mile. I've made counterplay threads asking for help and fought people for hours on end to learn.

In more than one case, it's literally come down to math preventing my build being physically capable of winning or having the resources to win if my opponent is any good. And my stats are fully optimized.

That's a problem for me. I'm not interested in playing the FotM. I get no joy from it. Thus I'd rather just not play the game as a whole. Most of what's good just lacks counterplay. It isn't fun being unable to out-play people and being unable to punish their mistakes because their build lets them screw up without consequences.

It's one thing for slight imbalances to exist. What we have right now aside from only a few builds is very far from slight imbalances.

depends on who you want to fight, you can play with whatever build you want.its just either your build has to carry your lack or skill or your skill has to carry your bad build. but if you want to fight good people running good builds, you have no other option then running a good build. it has been like that since ever.every build has a maximum potential lets give it a number. lets say your power d/d build you run has a potential of 50 and you can utilize all of it. my oneshot deadeye on the other hand has a potential of 250 , then i only need to play it to 21% of its potential to beat you. so if i am a good player then it is pretty impossible for you to win against me in 1 on 1 without suprise etc. you dont have to run a build as strong to beat me unless i can use all of its potential.it is so in every game. if you fight an opponent of equal skill the one with the better build will win. thats not something new to gw2. just as gw2 is now a few years old there are more and more players that can utilize a good portion of their builds potential. so ofc the build choice gets important. we are no longer all just noobs. granted there are some that play for thousands of hours with just minimal improvements. but with every year the ones playing close to maximum potential will get more.unless anet speeds up game more and more with more powercreep for everyone, you dont want that but it would increase the gap a little between the ones able to utilize the gimmicks and the ones that cannot :3if you allways want to feel like your THE BEST unreachable in an MMO, then you need to play new games in their first phase and abuse all you can out of every broken mechanic..oh wait were is the skill in that right?

People build their builds to suit their play style. I build all of mine for small scale and 1v1. So I'd suck in a zerg. And people that build their builds to run in a zerg are not optimized to take on solo people that ARE built for it. And also there is a total change in mindset between the two as well you have to want to fight in that situation and know HOW to fight in that situation. Once again, I don't do well in zergs, but I wreck 1v1 and small scale. So they (anet) doesn't need to change much, you need to adapt and overcome.
TLDR; It's a L2P issue and a lack of looking at the big picture but instead just looking at it from your singular perspective. (which is never healthy for productive conversations.)

@MUDse.7623 said:

@"DeceiverX.8361" said:The difference is that people aren't usually complaining that they lost, but rather they can't win because of their build just not having the ability to win.

I've put in my 5k hours on a single build that used to be good enough for me to out-skill people with. Most of the people who've fought me will tell you I'm the best there is at it by a mile. I've made counterplay threads asking for help and fought people for hours on end to learn.

In more than one case, it's literally come down to math preventing my build being physically capable of winning or having the resources to win if my opponent is any good. And my stats are fully optimized.

That's a problem for me. I'm not interested in playing the FotM. I get no joy from it. Thus I'd rather just not play the game as a whole. Most of what's good just lacks counterplay. It isn't fun being unable to out-play people and being unable to punish their mistakes because their build lets them screw up without consequences.

It's one thing for slight imbalances to exist. What we have right now aside from only a few builds is very far from slight imbalances.

The issue is more or less that magnitude of what you coined "potential."

Obviously this isn't an objective measure, but I'll take the notion.

Prior to the expansions, the highest builds may have been 75 at the most; 50% more "potential" at the pinnacle of skill for both. This number is much more workable, despite being far from ideal.

People take issue with it because getting to that point of full mastery on something with lower "potential" isn't similarly difficult as reaching the same value as a more powerful kit. It's not that the skill cap is higher; it's just easier to generate more results with less skill on what's new. And that de-values the effort put in previously to reach that cap, because it proves relatively meaningless.

@DeceiverX.8361 said:

@MUDse.7623 said:

@DeceiverX.8361 said:The difference is that people aren't usually complaining that they lost, but rather they can't win because of their build just not having the ability to win.

I've put in my 5k hours on a single build that used to be good enough for me to out-skill people with. Most of the people who've fought me will tell you I'm the best there is at it by a mile. I've made counterplay threads asking for help and fought people for hours on end to learn.

In more than one case, it's literally come down to math preventing my build being physically capable of winning or having the resources to win if my opponent is any good. And my stats are fully optimized.

That's a problem for me. I'm not interested in playing the FotM. I get no joy from it. Thus I'd rather just not play the game as a whole. Most of what's good just lacks counterplay. It isn't fun being unable to out-play people and being unable to punish their mistakes because their build lets them screw up without consequences.

It's one thing for slight imbalances to exist. What we have right now aside from only a few builds is very far from slight imbalances.

correct. but people also feel offended by other people running builds with higher potential pretty often, because they themselves think they deserve the win more for what ever reason and it is taken from them with 'no skill'. thats i think the main issue for most that they think they lost despite thinking themselves the better players, wich then ofc feels unfair. the question i have is why do people refuse to adapt and play builds with higher potential if they cant stand losing ? wouldnt you in such a case try to maximize your potential wich includes your build?