meta vs anti meta

Hello guys this is a general curiosity,

There is always a META in almost every game you play however NORMALLY there is a anti meta

why is it Guildwars is one of the only games I've ever played where anti meta isn't a thing? it seems its almost meta or not for Gw2 I get that some people can make Non meta work but its not like your entire team can go non meta and you win is what im getting at. it seems you either play a META comp or a META class in competitive or you don't really have a good chance at all. curious of peoples thoughts on if Gw2 should attempt to secure a meta/anti meta partnership like most games do :) it also seems that a comp that knows exactly what to do with there class can still get beat by a meta comp that is mediocre at there job. this is purely observation looking for some insight :) thanks guys.

Meta means the most efficient and effective builds. So I really don't get your point.

Ive taken a team of non-Meta and beat a team of meta on a few occasions. Helps when you are organized.

@sinsrock.1702 said:Hello guys this is a general curiosity,

There is always a META in almost every game you play however NORMALLY there is a anti meta

why is it Guildwars is one of the only games I've ever played where anti meta isn't a thing? it seems its almost meta or not for Gw2 I get that some people can make Non meta work but its not like your entire team can go non meta and you win is what im getting at. it seems you either play a META comp or a META class in competitive or you don't really have a good chance at all. curious of peoples thoughts on if Gw2 should attempt to secure a meta/anti meta partnership like most games do :) it also seems that a comp that knows exactly what to do with there class can still get beat by a meta comp that is mediocre at there job. this is purely observation looking for some insight :) thanks guys.

Meta in this game is a bit different than somewhere like Overwatch.Meta means the most all-around effective build.Meta team comp is a bit more subjective, and there's atleast 3 meta team comps currently.

There is an anti-meta, technically. By definition, since META means Most Effective Tactic Availible, wouldn't anti-META be the least effective tactic availible?

As in, the worst build availible for any profession.

Sometimes there are a few counterpicks. Like S/D condi thief was never meta but it was capable of oneshotting meta mirage/holo.

Conquest is kind of the problem. If you're only good at countering one thing, you're still kind of useless because it's a 5v5 team game spread across multiple capture points. You have to adapt to the situation, and if there's only 1 favorable outcome for you then you're borderline useless.

Meta is short term for "current popular copy paste build".

They aren't the best just the currently most popular and effective builds.

Find a build that works with you and you can take on people 1v1 or 1v2 and it doesn't matter what it is.

On a team level, your whole team has to be 100% committed to the anti meta strategy of choice or else everything crashes down.

For example an alternative strategy and a counter of sorts to the fb/scourge teamfight meta is to run a roamer comp.

5 extremely mobile burtsy classes. Your team will have to disengage every single fight with the fb scourge and use their mobility to win side points in 2v1s and 3v1s faster than the fb scourge can chase.

However one single player who isn't on board and engages the fb scourge will sink this team. You're left with 1v1s on sides vs tanky builds you can't kill alone with no +1 on the way. With uncommitted teammates, it's better to just spec some meta 1v1 build and outskill opponents in 1v1s and troll 1v2s than try to play anti meta.

In short, you can run anti meta, but it requires exceptional coordination and specific comps that can't develop outside of persistent teams. Given the state of the competitive scene, its hard enough to hold together 5 players for 2 weeks, let alone spend the time to develop the skills necessary to outplay the meta.

@"Ryan.9387" said:On a team level, your whole team has to be 100% committed to the anti meta strategy of choice or else everything crashes down.

For example an alternative strategy and a counter of sorts to the fb/scourge teamfight meta is to run a roamer comp.

5 extremely mobile burtsy classes. Your team will have to disengage every single fight with the fb scourge and use their mobility to win side points in 2v1s and 3v1s faster than the fb scourge can chase.

However one single player who isn't on board and engages the fb scourge will sink this team. You're left with 1v1s on sides vs tanky builds you can't kill alone with no +1 on the way. With uncommitted teammates, it's better to just spec some meta 1v1 build and outskill opponents in 1v1s and troll 1v2s than try to play anti meta.

In short, you can run anti meta, but it requires exceptional coordination and specific comps that can't develop outside of persistent teams. Given the state of the competitive scene, its hard enough to hold together 5 players for 2 weeks, let alone spend the time to develop the skills necessary to outplay the meta.

I think this answers my question best :) I used to play Yugioh competitively so this is the best way I can explain my question a little more to those who didnt understand my question, there was a deck of cards that focused on bringing things from the grave, it beat literally anything in the game except 1 deck or a couple different cards, that deck stopped monsters from coming back from the grave this deck was the anti-meta it was the 1 thing to counter what the meta was yugioh isn't a team game necessarily so I do understand how trying to play anti meta doesn't entirely workbut I do like the if the meta is firebrand/scourge for example the "anti-meta" would be high mobile burst classes this makes much more sense to me :) thank you for this comment

and to those who where confused on what I meant I was looking more for what exactly counters the meta we have today, which seems to be coordination and mobility, obviously if you have mobility but no coordination you lose which is usually the case when trying to run anti-meta :)

The reason is two-fold: First this is a team game so even if you have a build that pretty much perfectly counters one of the opponent's builds, the rest of the team will destroy you while you look for your ideal opponent. Second, in the current state of this game, builds that are meta are largely so because of their adaptability. Their sustain is designed to be effective in 1vx scenarios, they can close the distance to you and can disengage without much trouble, they have enough defenses built-in to be able to revive allies so long as they aren't being focused by more than one player, they have copious amounts of crowd control which is incredibly useful in any kind of fight, and if they aren't full support then they have the ability to apply heavy burst damage to any foe. I may be leaving out one, but these are the reasons meta builds are the way they are.

you can run some anti meta builds if your team can handle the extra load, or the other team is just bad.zerk staff ele is a perfect example. it will destroy the enemy team in any team fight provided you can survive long enough and your team can handle the extra pressure of not having an extra body on point.

This existed years ago when you could employ very different comps and styles to A World Tournament Series level (pre-HoT).

Early 2015 Example:

Bruiser meta (The Abjured) would be countered by a teamfight meta if ever committing to mid. Ie: (Orange Logo).

Roamer meta (The Civilized Gentleman) using rotational portal plays constantly was a very unique strategy that completed the rock-paper-scissor anti-meta which struggled against bruiser duelist comps.

As the OP says, there's no anti-meta, and there did used to be one.

@Chaith.8256 said:This existed years ago when you could employ very different comps and styles to A World Tournament Series level (pre-HoT).

Early 2015 Example:

Bruiser meta (The Abjured) would be countered by a teamfight meta if ever committing to mid. Ie: (Orange Logo).

Roamer meta (The Civilized Gentleman) using rotational portal plays constantly was a very unique strategy that completed the rock-paper-scissor anti-meta which struggled against bruiser duelist comps.

As the OP says, there's no anti-meta, and there did used to be one.

If we go back to gw1, a lot of the reason we don’t see an anti meta is because of the lack of diversity.

In gw1 there were 100’s of viable meta comps and in turn, lots of anti meta alternatives. In gw2...there’s like 3 or 4 team meta comps max..all roughly the same, with only slight variation between them.

Off meta builds require more effort to play to be just as successful as META builds.. Can even have fun setting up purely to counter certain META builds.

I think the definition of " meta " is the point here. If we're taking the Guild Wars 1 example, blood spike was meta, though had defense issues. Iway/spiritway was meta, but heavily dependent on the spirit player. Some compos having zero healing neither were meta from time to time, but had no defense so you could know how to build to try and counter it. Anti-meta is what should be countering, or let's more likely say " trying to " counter 1 meta build.

I think what the OP refers to here is that most OP setups and builds( scourges, mirages and firebrands i.e) have no true counters. The latter is these setups are unlikely going to lose 500-100 even if played terribly awfully.

In a working rock paper scissors system (which GW2 claims to be) there does not exist a meta. Otherwise it would not be a rock paper scissors system (and it isn't because the game has poor balancing).

What the OP tries to call anti-meta is just the paper comp to a rock comp.

i do find it funny that in almost every post Gw1 comes up, it is crazy that they had not the best system, not a flawless system, but a system that allowed for someone to change up there play style and change a team comp to still be viable no matter the case, they had another form of "meta battle" called PvX builds this website had THOUSANDS of builds on it that people could use ranging from "meta" to "working" and of the meta each class had near at 15 choices to pick from that was still considered meta its odd how GW2 set up a system like it is now, im not going to complain because no matter how we think the gameplay in gw2 is very fluent its almost like water apposed to gw1 where you pretty much only had control of your skills attributes and player skill however I think that Gw2 is much less diverse and suffers in the PvP community because Anet doesnt take the time to branch out, it wouldn't be hard to incorporate similar game modes from Gw1 this would easily give more builds a chance to thrive, I PERSONALLY also think the reason that the Meta is the way it is, is because few players branch out and actually try to make something more competitive besides just a meme build here and there, you don't see many Theory crafters and people actually testing these theories out to see if it worked now days which I understand why, Anets balancing tactics arnt the greatest they never really have been and since they narrowed the balances to such a small skill amount its really hard to actually make something that didn't work before work now. thanks for all the posts I really loved reading each and every one of your reasons and look forward to seeing more :)

If there was more map variety, we would have seen 9987873453 more viable builds. But since Anet decided very bullheadedly to only make one type of PvP match with slight (negligible) variations... we see this idea of META.

(I should also say that if they created the environment where RANKED was team-only and UNRANKED was solo-q or team... and both rewarded you well for your time (with more/better rewards in ranked) then you would see a lot more fun builds as well)

I agree with you for sure, I mean they do reward you especially playing ranked however they need to think of the actual competitive people who are looking to REALLY be rewarded for there play because in reality the stuff you get in pvp is the same stuff you can get in pve they need to switch it up and make it different pvp exclusives Etc

I actually really like the concept of WvW and would like to see more variety in maps, etc I like the Desert as well its so different small valleys to hide in makes for fun gameplay they need more maps like this for sure :) more game modes more to do really, especially in WvW its like take keeps, kill guards, kill vet and take camps that's legit the entire WvW in a nutshell more content for your competitive people please xD

Your concept of anti-meta is taken account in our meta to some degree.

Problem is conquest, where sure; we have counter matchups. However, you can’t abandon your role, placement, or rotation on a whim simply to counter a roam without coordination with your team.

@Abazigal.3679 said:I think what the OP refers to here is that most OP setups and builds( scourges, mirages and firebrands i.e) have no true counters.they have counters but the builds in question are not viable cuz anet cant design more then 1-2 working builds for each class.

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@Abazigal.3679 said:I think what the OP refers to here is that most OP setups and builds( scourges, mirages and firebrands i.e) have no true counters.they have counters but the builds in question are not viable cuz anet cant design more then 1-2 working builds for each class.

Yea setting up just to deal with Mirage will leave you vulnerable to just about everything else on most classes.

It probably doesn't make much of a difference unless you are playing at a high level. Functionally, the game that really good players/premades play is a totally different game than the one average pugs play. The metas are built for the elite players and the builds often rely on another elite player playing a meta that compliments (or fills some gap of) your meta. But this is only relevant for the really good player(s). It takes enormous time and dedication and maybe even talent to truly excel at this game and most average players overestimate their skill and underestimate their shortcomings. I enjoy playing thief, but the current meta thief builds struggle unless (or even when) paired with a complimentary team of metas. I think it would be better for the average thief player to become a little more self sufficient and a little less mobile in their builds when playing with non elite players.

My advice would be to just play this game and have fun. Don't take is seriously unless you are willing to put in hours and hours and hours studying and playing. And if that is something you are willing to do then it might be worth stepping back and asking why you are choosing to do so in this game and not one built for pvp.

@"tacoclaw.8251" said:And if that is something you are willing to do then it might be worth stepping back and asking why you are choosing to do so in this game and not one built for pvp.

it used to be a good pvp game back in 1 D: "cries" why not 2 "cries some more" you make a good point sadly there are not really many MMO's you can really be competitive in lol actually I don't think there are really any. :P