Non-meta/cheese builds are dead.

I've played this game for around 5 years now and the WvW is what always kept me coming back, but it just keeps getting worse and worse. There is no more room for "Different" builds. You run cheese and meta and that's it. you USED to be able to get away with builds that were a little more unconventional but played well to how YOU played. but now all you get is:

Firebrands that fart out 10000 boons with no effort and heal for 200k HPS uncontested.

Mirages will pop out 4-6 clones at a time, apply 15 of every known condi in the game on to you with 1 button, break target CONSTANTLY and just spam evade or stealth teleport away.

Warriors will run right into a group, down 2 people, stomp 1, and leave with 2/5 utility still up and 90% health with no way to really stop them.

Thieves will perma stealth or perma evade literally every ability in the game, then just dagger storm and port out.

Scourges will blob harder than an alien xenomorph hivemind and just mindlessly spam corrupt and barrier to anything that moves.

Holos just slam whatever they want into the ground, murder it, then run away, or chase you to the ends of the earth with their 10000 uptime mobility and full zerker because "Invulerability will save me".

Rangers.... Oh my god. Longbow 2. Unblockable. 349846734534987643 damage all the way from another country. Run away with GS and bird. Reset. Do it again.

Weavers summoning an actual meteor from heaven to crit your very soul into oblivion, evade, evade, evade, invulnerability, 100000000000 DPS in 2 hits, evade, evade, port, /laugh.

Revs merging your body into the ground with Thor's Hammer, fully protected by a billion firebrands. Put a paperweight on your keyboard for bags.

The ENTIRETY of all these builds needs to get slapped into the sun with the nerf bat. Reduce the roving hospital, boon-spam, zero punishment zerker, perma-steath, no-skill clone-spam, barrier stacking massively, invulnerability stacking. It has to happen. Roaming is all but dead for anything but 3-4 cheese builds, and zergs are just firebrands, scourges, and revs seeing who can break their keyboard first.

BUFF to ENCOURAGE different builds. What is something YOU as a player would like to see "buffed" to play more of even though it isn't "Cheese" or "meta"?

Some friendly advise: Go have a kit kat =)

And then when you're back.

Do you know why you think only meta/cheese builds work and that people have to use them to succeed?Because you are not driving yourself to become the meta.

Do you know why the Greats of this game like Ascii (Necro), Min Scherzo (Thief), Kiritsugu (Ranger), Zodin (Guardian), TorquiseKnite (Warrior), Lazerius (Elementalist), I am a Scrub Rev (Revenant), Shorts (Mesmer), Xan (Engineer) are called Greats?We don't call them greats because they happened to be using someone else's meta/cheese builds.We call them greats because they invent the meta, THEY ARE THE META.

Personally in my early years I learned and copied Ascii's build and play-style for a long while. He was my very first Necro 'Mentor' in that sense.His build and his play-style was the meta to me because HE himself was the meta.He plays with an elegance and grace that I've never seen in any other necros.His Necro dances and no, I'm not exaggerating.He rarely streams these days so for all Necros out there, if you get to see him 'live' on stream, its your good fortune.https://www.twitch.tv/asciigaming/videos

So what I am getting at is, if you want a non-meta build to succeed, then bring yourself to the level where YOU are the meta.And whatever your build/class is that people see you using will become the Meta.

Have you seen Hobo streaming as a hybrid Renegade in recent weeks? He is making it look so easy in his fights but it isn't.And because he is making it look so easy, I've been seeing a rise in Renegade roamers.He defined a new meta build for other Renegade players to follow because HE is the meta.

Edit: I checked your post history and saw that you inspired others with non-meta builds so whats the problem? XDYou're doing great! Keep up the good work.

What players consider skilled and cheese is highly subjective. But honestly if you don't want to focus on dueling, you can run about everything (if you have some sort of mobility). I've been doing some weird stuff with my classes lately and you can still catch players offguard, since they only expect metabuilds and don't know the matchup.

@beatthedown.2651 said:What players consider skilled and cheese is highly subjective. But honestly if you don't want to focus on dueling, you can run about everything (if you have some sort of mobility). I've been doing some weird stuff with my classes lately and you can still catch players offguard, since they only expect metabuilds and don't know the matchup.

True.Non-meta builds can be tricky to fight.

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" This guy has been beating condi mirages with his secret vanilla core revenant build. His build is only still non-meta because it is not widely known. But if you've seen him crush those pesky condi mirages...bois you'll be queuing up asking him for tips.

Almost sounds like OP isn't doing so hawt in WvW fights and needs to QQ.

Trust me when I say this....Its not just them, its you too. Let me shatter your though process for a minute

Yes there are some that prefer "ez mode" and run cheese builds (looking at you cancer mirage...-glare-), however blanketing absolutely everything like that is a super scrub thing to do. I have 18 characters. None are meta (as its veeeeeeeeeeerry rare I ever run meta) and all are build around my playstyle (i am a vet thoerycrafter, and build for fun first, then try to make it work). There are even some builds I made/used that became meta before meta was a thing.

If I had to guess (in my WvW tiers...typically t2/3), i'd say about 70%-80% are meta, and about 15%-20% is cheese. Not 100% as you claim are either meta or cheese.

My non meta DPS build (valk/marauder w/ traveler runes) does very well in WvW. None of my guild mates run meta and maybe 30-40% of my friends run meta.

That all being said, it appears (without any more information on your actual issue) that its a learn to play issue. If you post your build, Im sure there are people willing to help. If you are NA, heck ill even spar with ya to help ya. Just hit me up in game.

@Bigpapasmurf.5623 said:My non meta DPS build (valk/marauder w/ traveler runes) does very well in WvW. None of my guild mates run meta and maybe 30-40% of my friends run meta.Valkyrie/marauder isnt meta, lol?

Most are determined by the weapons, skills and traits.

Either way... Whats the complaint here? That every class has meta builds? That every class is strong?

Well yeah. Thats called balance.

Loved the OPs use of imagery. Would read again. +1

Meh, by reading the forum I already learned, that 80 % of its users got no idea what healthy gameplay is and they will just defend their easy way to play.Can't agree with op at all points, but yes, certainly all specs are overcreeped and needs to be tuned down

For me, personally, losing vs. such builds is not the problem, but its just unfun to play vs. such build.

There's no skill-based matchmaking in WvW, so one encounters all sorts of skill. There also isn't a limitation to the numbers in each roaming encounter, so even if one has found a 1 vs. 1, it might end up in a 2 vs. 5, or a 20 vs. 1 :o Consequently, one also has some wins vs. OP build + low skill, or vs. OP builds + outnumbered.

But theres simply not much fun to play vs. builds, that stack dodge/evade, or damage, or mobility, or stealth . . . And with "stack" I clearly do not mean 2 or 3 synergetic skills / traits :#

@Safandula.8723 said:Meh, by reading the forum I already learned, that 80 % of its users got no idea what healthy gameplay is and they will just defend their easy way to play.Can't agree with op at all points, but yes, certainly all specs are overcreeped and needs to be tuned down

I agree! The fact that people in this community actually defend the state that wvw is in right now makes me not only question the the state of the community as well as where the pvp modes as a whole will end up in the future considering it’s the community not just arenet that drives the meta. With that said OP u either have to just decide to not care and just play what u enjoy and have fun,outcome doesn’t matter if ur having a good time in the end OR as the saying goes if u cant beat them join them lol

@"enkidu.5937" said:For me, personally, losing vs. such builds is not the problem, but its just unfun to play vs. such build.

There's no skill-based matchmaking in WvW, so one encounters all sorts of skill. There also isn't a limitation to the numbers in each roaming encounter, so even if one has found a 1 vs. 1, it might end up in a 2 vs. 5, or a 20 vs. 1 :o Consequently, one also has some wins vs. OP build + low skill, or vs. OP builds + outnumbered.

But theres simply not much fun to play vs. builds, that stack dodge/evade, or damage, or mobility, or stealth . . . And with "stack" I clearly do not mean 2 or 3 synergetic skills / traits :#

If u don’t mind me asking what spec I roaming on?

I used to play with this guy who would play core engi no matter the "meta" no matter what we needed him to play. He did it so he could have the psychological win at the end of the day. If he lost he would just say "of course I lost I'm playing core engi." If he won he would say "wow this guy is trash he lost to a core engi." No matter what he had a way to make himself feel like he was the underdog, that the odds were against him. Sometimes he would lose a lot one day and complain about how op everything else was. I feel like this op could've been written by him.

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Bigpapasmurf.5623 said:My non meta DPS build (valk/marauder w/ traveler runes) does very well in WvW. None of my guild mates run meta and maybe 30-40% of my friends run meta.Valkyrie/marauder isnt meta, lol?

Last time I checked my build (or close to)...yeah...Im not meta. Was running Marauder/Knights for a while, however the extra VIT helped me more than the toughness.

@"Israel.7056" said:I used to play with this guy who would play core engi no matter the "meta" no matter what we needed him to play. He did it so he could have the psychological win at the end of the day. If he lost he would just say "of course I lost I'm playing core engi." If he won he would say "wow this guy is trash he lost to a core engi." No matter what he had a way to make himself feel like he was the underdog, that the odds were against him. Sometimes he would lose a lot one day and complain about how op everything else was. I feel like this op could've been written by him.

One one hand props to him for playing what he enjoyed and not what the meta dictates,on the other if he was in a organized group sometimes that comes with the responsibility to work with the group and fill the job that’s required even if it’s not what u like doing,but that comes with excepting a request to join a organized group. Complaining of losses aren’t helping anymore either lol I roam on dh and eat dirt big time a lot, not best Roamer but doesn’t have to be,it’s just fun lol

@"Trittium.9104" said:I've played this game for around 5 years now and the WvW is what always kept me coming back, but it just keeps getting worse and worse. There is no more room for "Different" builds. You run cheese and meta and that's it. you USED to be able to get away with builds that were a little more unconventional but played well to how YOU played. but now all you get is:

Firebrands that fart out 10000 boons with no effort and heal for 200k HPS uncontested.

Mirages will pop out 4-6 clones at a time, apply 15 of every known condi in the game on to you with 1 button, break target CONSTANTLY and just spam evade or stealth teleport away.

Warriors will run right into a group, down 2 people, stomp 1, and leave with 2/5 utility still up and 90% health with no way to really stop them.

Thieves will perma stealth or perma evade literally every ability in the game, then just dagger storm and port out.

Scourges will blob harder than an alien xenomorph hivemind and just mindlessly spam corrupt and barrier to anything that moves.

Holos just slam whatever they want into the ground, murder it, then run away, or chase you to the ends of the earth with their 10000 uptime mobility and full zerker because "Invulerability will save me".

Rangers.... Oh my god. Longbow 2. Unblockable. 349846734534987643 damage all the way from another country. Run away with GS and bird. Reset. Do it again.

Weavers summoning an actual meteor from heaven to crit your very soul into oblivion, evade, evade, evade, invulnerability, 100000000000 DPS in 2 hits, evade, evade, port, /laugh.

Revs merging your body into the ground with Thor's Hammer, fully protected by a billion firebrands. Put a paperweight on your keyboard for bags.

The ENTIRETY of all these builds needs to get slapped into the sun with the nerf bat. Reduce the roving hospital, boon-spam, zero punishment zerker, perma-steath, no-skill clone-spam, barrier stacking massively, invulnerability stacking. It has to happen. Roaming is all but dead for anything but 3-4 cheese builds, and zergs are just firebrands, scourges, and revs seeing who can break their keyboard first.

BUFF to ENCOURAGE different builds. What is something YOU as a player would like to see "buffed" to play more of even though it isn't "Cheese" or "meta"?

I would like Ele to get some decent buffs :)

@Mini Crinny.6190 said:

@"Trittium.9104" said:I've played this game for around 5 years now and the WvW is what always kept me coming back, but it just keeps getting worse and worse. There is no more room for "Different" builds. You run cheese and meta and that's it. you USED to be able to get away with builds that were a little more unconventional but played well to how YOU played. but now all you get is:

Firebrands that fart out 10000 boons with no effort and heal for 200k HPS uncontested.

Mirages will pop out 4-6 clones at a time, apply 15 of every known condi in the game on to you with 1 button, break target CONSTANTLY and just spam evade or stealth teleport away.

Warriors will run right into a group, down 2 people, stomp 1, and leave with 2/5 utility still up and 90% health with no way to really stop them.

Thieves will perma stealth or perma evade literally every ability in the game, then just dagger storm and port out.

Scourges will blob harder than an alien xenomorph hivemind and just mindlessly spam corrupt and barrier to anything that moves.

Holos just slam whatever they want into the ground, murder it, then run away, or chase you to the ends of the earth with their 10000 uptime mobility and full zerker because "Invulerability will save me".

Rangers.... Oh my god. Longbow 2. Unblockable. 349846734534987643 damage all the way from another country. Run away with GS and bird. Reset. Do it again.

Weavers summoning an actual meteor from heaven to crit your very soul into oblivion, evade, evade, evade, invulnerability, 100000000000 DPS in 2 hits, evade, evade, port, /laugh.

Revs merging your body into the ground with Thor's Hammer, fully protected by a billion firebrands. Put a paperweight on your keyboard for bags.

The ENTIRETY of all these builds needs to get slapped into the sun with the nerf bat. Reduce the roving hospital, boon-spam, zero punishment zerker, perma-steath, no-skill clone-spam, barrier stacking massively, invulnerability stacking. It has to happen. Roaming is all but dead for anything but 3-4 cheese builds, and zergs are just firebrands, scourges, and revs seeing who can break their keyboard first.

BUFF to ENCOURAGE different builds. What is something YOU as a player would like to see "buffed" to play more of even though it isn't "Cheese" or "meta"?

U didn't get the point. Ele shouldn't get buffs, but all other specs should get nerf

Thanks for all the replies guys. You lot are actually encouraging even in my salt-filled rage.

To address a few of the posts, what I'm proposing is that the power creep needs to be acknowledged and actually addressed by Anet, and that there are DEFINED builds that just benefit from this so highly that there's little downside to ever playing it, where a lot of other build/playstyles have just gone to trash thus reducing the chance for more diverse counter-play or group design.

Builds that used to bring a whole new perspective to roaming, zerging, and the whole experience have just been overrun by these cheese builds, and Anet also nerfing more and more specs into the ground (I.E. Berserker, Core elly). It's boring and frustrating at the same time. I don't want to play one of my many alts geared SPECIFICALLY to a build that should be working, even if it is under-performing a bit, as a cheese one-shot or hyper invulnerability boon spam, and I shouldn't have to. It's MY loss if it's underperforming a bit, but I shouldn't be debating never playing again because of HOW badly it's trashed into the ground.

Example: My Dagger/Dagger Spellbreaker which is THEIR initial design and promotion is just... It's just really bad how terrible it gets trashed, and it shouldn't from the gearing/build. i shouldn't have to re-roll all his gear, runes, and build to match every cut-and-paste greatsword spellbreaker out there just to feel like I can actually play.

@"Trittium.9104" said:Builds that used to bring a whole new perspective to roaming, zerging, and the whole experience have just been overrun by these cheese builds, and Anet also nerfing more and more specs into the ground (I.E. Berserker, Core elly). It's boring and frustrating at the same time. I don't want to play one of my many alts geared SPECIFICALLY to a build that should be working, even if it is under-performing a bit, as a cheese one-shot or hyper invulnerability boon spam, and I shouldn't have to. It's MY loss if it's underperforming a bit, but I shouldn't be debating never playing again because of HOW badly it's trashed into the ground.

Example: My Dagger/Dagger Spellbreaker which is THEIR initial design and promotion is just... It's just really bad how terrible it gets trashed, and it shouldn't from the gearing/build. i shouldn't have to re-roll all his gear, runes, and build to match every cut-and-paste greatsword spellbreaker out there just to feel like I can actually play.

Lot of moralizing. You shouldn't expect anything to ever work just because you think it's cool or because you got the gear for it or whatever. You shouldn't be so entitled as to turn your nose up at rerolling gear like come on dude most games don't even have gear rerolling. You shouldn't ever tie yourself mentally to any one build or class unless you're willing to play it through the not so great times.

I get that you're trying to use your "debating never playing again" as leverage to get what you want here but it just comes off as petulant to me.

Virtually all my time spent in GW2 is in WvW. Across umpteen toons 2 would be considered meta. The vast majority of my time is on non meta builds.

Just because I might lose a fight to another build it hardly means that build must be cheese or must be meta. Just because I win a fight aganst another build it does not mean I must be playing a cheese build or must be playing a meta build. Sometimes you get outplayed. Sometimes you outplay. It a cop out to blame the meta and to blame cheese everytime a fight lost and just because a fight lost does not mean I can not have fun playing what I like to play while losing that fight.

@Israel.7056 said:

@"Trittium.9104" said:Builds that used to bring a whole new perspective to roaming, zerging, and the whole experience have just been overrun by these cheese builds, and Anet also nerfing more and more specs into the ground (I.E. Berserker, Core elly). It's boring and frustrating at the same time. I don't want to play one of my many alts geared SPECIFICALLY to a build that

should

be working, even if it is under-performing a bit, as a cheese one-shot or hyper invulnerability boon spam, and I shouldn't have to. It's MY loss if it's underperforming a bit, but I shouldn't be debating never playing again because of HOW badly it's trashed into the ground.

Example: My Dagger/Dagger Spellbreaker which is THEIR initial design and promotion is just... It's just really bad how terrible it gets trashed, and it shouldn't from the gearing/build. i shouldn't have to re-roll all his gear, runes, and build to match every cut-and-paste greatsword spellbreaker out there just to feel like I can actually play.

That's not it at all. I actually am debating it due to the downfall that WvW is going through. It's been the ONLY game mode that has appealed to me about this game, and I t's basically all I do outside farm istan. That Spellbreaker isn't my only build, I have several that I play (Like condi soulbeast, power chrono, condi DE, full support scrapper, etc.). And that's also the thing; this game DOES have gear rerolling but I shouldn't have to stop playing dagger/dagger spellbreaker, or dagger/dagger soul beast and reroll all that time, gold, and effort into just playing LB power soulbeast, or roving tank spellbreaker. As far as tying myself to one-build of class... Yeah I never do that in any game. I'm partial to Necro in this game, but I'm generally only on that in PvE content.

I'm not trying to be Petulant in anyway, shape, or form. I literally don't want another MMO to go into a trash pile because the company stopped listening (Looking at you, Archeage, Aion, WoW, and Tera), but there's not much I can do except HOPE that I also inspire some of you to stop being so complacent in letting this just happen and say something as well.

Never mentionned, but outright Calling nerfs on anything that Seems meta (and is sometime the combination of interactions between several players, this is WvW after all) is a huge disservice to all those playing Non meta as well.

i can't disagree with this more. the group wvw meta is trash at the moment, but roaming and pugging around ebg is more flavourful than ever. I whipped up a shout firebrand build a couple weeks ago and I'm doing perfectly fine with it while learning how to push its limits.

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:If u don’t mind me asking what spec I roaming on?Me? I came back to the game some months ago and stick to DH as well, and SpB. Just because they somewhat counter that laughable burst damage madness, and are quite potent in outnumbered fight :# Its quite fun, and as I said, one can still win vs. OP build+low skill players.

@enkidu.5937 said:

@Psycoprophet.8107 said:If u don’t mind me asking what spec I roaming on?Me? I came back to the game some months ago and stick to DH as well, and SpB. Just because they somewhat counter that laughable burst damage madness, and are quite potent in outnumbered fight :# Its quite fun, and as I said, one can still win vs. OP build+low skill players.

Nice!

@Trittium.9104 said:

@Israel.7056 said:

@Trittium.9104 said:Builds that used to bring a whole new perspective to roaming, zerging, and the whole experience have just been overrun by these cheese builds, and Anet also nerfing more and more specs into the ground (I.E. Berserker, Core elly). It's boring and frustrating at the same time. I don't want to play one of my many alts geared SPECIFICALLY to a build that

should

be working, even if it is under-performing a bit, as a cheese one-shot or hyper invulnerability boon spam, and I shouldn't have to. It's MY loss if it's underperforming a bit, but I shouldn't be debating never playing again because of HOW badly it's trashed into the ground.

Example: My Dagger/Dagger Spellbreaker which is THEIR initial design and promotion is just... It's just really bad how terrible it gets trashed, and it shouldn't from the gearing/build. i shouldn't have to re-roll all his gear, runes, and build to match every cut-and-paste greatsword spellbreaker out there just to feel like I can actually play.

I would advise you to imagine yourself as a developer reading this sort of feedback.

"My build sucks this other build is too strong either nerf them or buff me or i quit."

What wisdom is there to be gleaned here?