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Not really enjoying PvP anymore


Zexanima.7851

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TL;DR Going to be giving PvP a break until further changes. Not finding the current meta at all enjoyable.

This isn't a "Boohoo I'm quitting this dumb game" post but just trying to give a personal account around my experience in PvP lately and why I'm putting it on the back burner for now. Usually I spend about 95% of my time in the game doing PvP (or wvw) but as the changes are settling and a meta starts to form I'm not really having any fun in PvP now days. At first I was really excited for the big patch to shake things up. The first week or so was great. Lots of people trying wacky builds and having to adapt on the fly to what's being played. By now though people have started to narrow down what's strongest and a meta has started to form. Anet has not been moving as fast on the initial updates as I would have hoped either so it seems like things are going to be this way for a while.

So what have I been seeing?

  1. Some of the professions that were the strongest picks before are still the strongest after the patch, even if the builds are different. Firebrand and revenant mainly are still top tier. There are a few that moved up and down though.
  2. It looks like we're moving into a CC heavy meta which is probably the worst meta focus I could think of. CC takes away player agency and is about the most un-fun mechanic to deal with. Firebrands, revs, scrappers, tempest, and condi druids stacked together make for a ridiculous amount of CC. You can lock down a target(s) for more than enough time to get a kill and straight up prevent them from casting any skills.
  3. Condi is more prevalent after the patch. While power may still technically be "better" it's much easier to get value out of condi now too. Not to mention condi allows you to build tanky while still doing respectable damage which leads me to my next point.
  4. There are lots of builds surfacing that are much too tanky(cough core necro *cough). I think this one of the reasons people are building with large amounts of CC, to lock down these bunker builds so they can actually kill them.

These are things I've been experiencing in both 2s and 5s and multiple different professions. When going against comps running heavy CC, heavy condi with bunker builds the best option is just to mirror it and try to outplay them. The disparity between what is best and everything else still feels pretty big and this really narrows the field in your options for 'adapting' to these situations. The best builds and comps showing up are not just a hands width better than everything else but leaps and bounds more effective. We can see Anet is working hard and rolling out patches faster than usual. I don't claim to have the solutions either but I just hope Anet will start more patches rolling soon and/ora) Constantly keep the meta in flux and changingb) Close the gap between what is best and everything else.

Until then I'll just be keep on eye on PvP from a distance hoping for more interesting stuff to happen. Right now it's just not enjoyable for me.

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Well ... not that wrong this opinion. Though somewhat it is possible to still get a bit fun by clicking the correct queue button. (Hint: This time it is the left one. ;) Other one only leading to boring 2 vs. 2 with even the least boring map removed atm. Don't forget to only check the conquest checkbox otherwise boring stronghold might pop up in unranked.)

Personally I find the unkillable builds annoying. (Likea the ones that can deal no damage but run around ... which is okay when I CC them out of the area to cap and they can't uncap but some team members tend to try killing them and then it's 3 vs. 1 trying to kill him and of course he stays at 90 percent and the other guys of own team get outnumbered. elsewhere. :D)

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@"Zexanima.7851" said:TL;DR Going to be giving PvP a break until further changes. Not finding the current meta at all enjoyable.

This isn't a "Boohoo I'm quitting this dumb game" post but just trying to give a personal account around my experience in PvP lately and why I'm putting it on the back burner for now. Usually I spend about 95% of my time in the game doing PvP (or wvw) but as the changes are settling and a meta starts to form I'm not really having any fun in PvP now days. At first I was really excited for the big patch to shake things up. The first week or so was great. Lots of people trying wacky builds and having to adapt on the fly to what's being played. By now though people have started to narrow down what's strongest and a meta has started to form. Anet has not been moving as fast on the initial updates as I would have hoped either so it seems like things are going to be this way for a while.

So what have I been seeing?

  1. Some of the professions that were the strongest picks before are still the strongest after the patch, even if the builds are different. Firebrand and revenant mainly are still top tier. There are a few that moved up and down though.
  2. It looks like we're moving into a CC heavy meta which is probably the worst meta focus I could think of. CC takes away player agency and is about the most un-fun mechanic to deal with. Firebrands, revs, scrappers, tempest, and condi druids stacked together make for a ridiculous amount of CC. You can lock down a target(s) for more than enough time to get a kill and straight up prevent them from casting any skills.
  3. Condi is more prevalent after the patch. While power may still technically be "better" it's much easier to get value out of condi now too. Not to mention condi allows you to build tanky while still doing respectable damage which leads me to my next point.
  4. There are lots of builds surfacing that are much too tanky(cough core necro *cough). I think this one of the reasons people are building with large amounts of CC, to lock down these bunker builds so they can actually kill them.

These are things I've been experiencing in both 2s and 5s and multiple different professions. When going against comps running heavy CC, heavy condi with bunker builds the best option is just to mirror it and try to outplay them. The disparity between what is best and everything else still feels pretty big and this really narrows the field in your options for 'adapting' to these situations. The best builds and comps showing up are not just a hands width better than everything else but leaps and bounds more effective. We can see Anet is working hard and rolling out patches faster than usual. I don't claim to have the solutions either but I just hope Anet will start more patches rolling soon and/ora) Constantly keep the meta in flux and changingb) Close the gap between what is best and everything else.

Until then I'll just be keep on eye on PvP from a distance hoping for more interesting stuff to happen. Right now it's just not enjoyable for me.

Same. After a long pause I gave pvp a try again, tried several builds... but its just too unfun. Gonna wait for further changes, the matches I played were so heavily bunker-cc-lockdown focused... felt like playing season1 over again shudder

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Same, still waiting for the conquest season to see how ot plays out.

Fighring against necros in v2s is painful and boring, since you cant exploit their low mobility

I still feel fb and rev have too much of everything

And I have a bad feeling about thief in tje upcoming season, it'll be the necro of conquest if you know what I mean, especially cuz now they can get away with zerker amulet

I hope anet manage to adress those classes, cuz that small patch post patch haven't done much specially to fb

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@Khalisto.5780 said:Same, still waiting for the conquest season to see how ot plays out.

Fighring against necros in v2s is painful and boring, since you cant exploit their low mobility

I still feel fb and necro have too much of everything

And I have a bad feeling about thief in tje upcoming season, it'll be the necro of conquest if you know what I mean, especially cuz now they can get away with zerker amulet

I hope anet manage to adress those classes, cuz that small patch post patch haven't done much specially to fb

It's not even that core necro ( I specify core because reaper and scourge are not nearly as bad) has everything, just too much of one thing, lf generation.

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I feel the same way about the meta. It's boring for a lot of people because the style of nerf they're doing isn't very creative or exciting. Just multiplicative damage nerfs and CD increases. ?

That might feel great to some people. Clearly it does, but just like every other balance patch before it, it still puts people at odds.

I still play though, for dailies and the sparkling conversation with map chat in the lobby.

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@Zexanima.7851 said:

@Khalisto.5780 said:Same, still waiting for the conquest season to see how ot plays out.

Fighring against necros in v2s is painful and boring, since you cant exploit their low mobility

I still feel fb and necro have too much of everything

And I have a bad feeling about thief in tje upcoming season, it'll be the necro of conquest if you know what I mean, especially cuz now they can get away with zerker amulet

I hope anet manage to adress those classes, cuz that small patch post patch haven't done much specially to fb

It's not even that core necro ( I specify core because reaper and scourge are not nearly as bad) has everything, just too much of one thing, lf generation.

i meant rev, not necro

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Being cc chained from 100 to 0 isnt fun. Higher tiers are running cc heavy power comps from what I've seen. It's pretty easy to lock down a player. It can make matches pretty one sided when there is no chance to counter 3 enemies ccing you for 5 seconds. Not trying to complain but the meta isnt healthy as it is. You can argue that it requires skill to coordinate cc with a team but honestly it's not that hard

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@Zexanima.7851 said:

@Elmo Benchwarmer.3025 said:And I still love it.

Well, thats good? What do you enjoy about it?

Context:

I have almost entirely played 5v5 unranked since the 25th February 2020. Right now I play a Berserker amulet core Engineer. I play an hour or two a day. I was a GW and GW2 fan boy since the first beta events of both games. But since the release of HoT and up until the February 2020 reset patch I did not PvP that much because I strongly disliked the game play.

Why:

Here is, from the top of my head and in no particular order, why I like the game much, much better now:

Thanks to the overall lower damage, I can finally play my favourite profession and build again without being a free kill. The reduction is so great I in fact can myself run a very squishy DPS amulet.

The gap between the FOTM builds and other builds is smaller than before. This is an incredibly refreshing change.

CC dealing no damage is great. Now bursts require a modicum of setting up. CC needs to be followed up by damage if you want to make something out of it. Pressing one button isn't enough anymore.

Abilities that had damage, CC and avoidance of incoming damage all rolled in one are gone. That alone is one of the healthiest changes I can think of.

AAs that took out big chunks of players' health pools are gone. Autoattacking shouldn't be a way to seriously pressure an opponent.

There isn't one be-all and end-all combo anymore. Before the 25th the same rotation applied to almost any situation. That's in my book extremely boring game play. There is a very interesting and rather old video of 2 great Revenant players highlighting this point. I'll link it if I manage to find it.

The longer CDs are great. Using an ability at the wrong time is more punishing. Patience is key.

The game play feels far more reactive. Since you're not forced to chain abilities together anymore only to survive (and often at the same time deal big damage and CC) you can now adjust to what your opponent is doing. Outsmarting another player and then being one shotted by an unavoidable combo (that also made your opponent invulnerable in one way or another) was extremely frustrating. I'm so happy that is all gone.

You actually have to work for your kills. Wait out the opponent's CDs, use your CC at an opportune time, follow up with damage, etc. Firing a hugely damaging and low CD ability through layers of defence in hopes it connects isn't good enough anymore.

Actual team play is required. There are no more portable nukes that pop other players in a second or two. The difference between players working together and players doing their thing only is bigger than ever.

Corpse play matters. The downed state used to be central to GW PvP before the expansions destroyed that mini game. Stomping, launching downed players, interrupting a player resurrecting his ally, applying poison, AoE CC and cleave on a downed opponent, etc. Those small plays all have use again and add another layer to the game.

All good?

No. Stuff needs more nerfing. Just to name the one ability I'm abusing ATM: Explosive Entrance. That ability and the associated traits feel like they were designed before the 25th paradigm change. They all need to be lowered in efficiency.

Ending words

Anyone who wants to dismiss my opinion because I'm a scrub I'm saving you some time: yes, like I said, I have only PvPed sporadically since HoT because I believed and I still believe that the game play had changed for the worse with both expansions.

Peace out and have fun. Or don't.

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While I agree that the situation is not perfect, for me it’s still very much preferable to what we had before patch. I can get away playing different things since the game isn’t powercreeeped to shit anymore.

As for CC, I don’t really understand your point. There is the same amount of cc as before and it doesn’t do damage as it used to + the damage overall is toned down. Really any situation where you get footballed and then die is when you’re single targeted in a team fight but that’s really how things should be.

I think CmC said in a stream that they are thinking of removing some cc on skills and replace them with direct damage. We’ll see.

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I was angry at first. Naturally, I was expecting a clear and immediate improvement and was disappointed that we hadn't achieved Utopia overnight. But once I got used to the new feel of my favored class, I guess I would say that I am just as comfortable with the current meta as I was with the previous one. The names and faces have changed, but I'm enjoying PvP just as I did before.

I'm not sure if that's good or bad for the game? I guess attention paid to PvP is better than the alternative! So, all in all, I'm good! Keep it coming!

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@"Ysmir.4986" said:While I agree that the situation is not perfect, for me it’s still very much preferable to what we had before patch. I can get away playing different things since the game isn’t powercreeeped to kitten anymore.

Some stuff is defiantly better. I do prefer the lower power scaling overall as it did open up some more builds for general play. Even though more builds are playable they still don't stand a chance against what's best. Go up against something like a double condi rev, FB, tempest comp and you're just a hacky sack that's full of condi. Before I would get burst down and be done. Now I get to franticly mash buttons and hope that I can get a skill off between stuns and maybe live another 2 seconds.

As for CC, I don’t really understand your point. There is the same amount of cc as before and it doesn’t do damage as it used to + the damage overall is toned down. Really any situation where you get footballed and then die is when you’re single targeted in a team fight but that’s really how things should be.

CC is more impactful overall now with sources of stab being reduced and stun break cooldowns being increased. CC might not deal any damage but it's easier to make CC "stick" now. The strong part off CC has always been the CC part, even if it did good damage. You're right though that if you get focused by the enemy team you're gonna get clapped. That's how it has been and always will be. The difference, to me at least, is before you were more able to get a stun break/stab off in an attempt to reposition and sustain after the focused started. Now once the CC starts rolling in you might as well take a sip of tea and wait to die because it doesn't stop till you're dead. Does this happen every fight? No, it mostly just happens when I'm up against higher tier players and pre-mades but that's where the strongest stuff is played.

I think CmC said in a stream that they are thinking of removing some cc on skills and replace them with direct damage. We’ll see.

That's good to hear, didn't know that.

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@"AliamRationem.5172" said:I was angry at first. Naturally, I was expecting a clear and immediate improvement and was disappointed that we hadn't achieved Utopia overnight. But once I got used to the new feel of my favored class, I guess I would say that I am just as comfortable with the current meta as I was with the previous one. The names and faces have changed, but I'm enjoying PvP just as I did before.

I'm not sure if that's good or bad for the game? I guess attention paid to PvP is better than the alternative! So, all in all, I'm good! Keep it coming!

I was the opposite. I was really pleased with it starting out and found it fun. As things start to settle though I'm becoming less impressed. I do hope they keep rolling out changes though. It's more important that they keep the changes frequent than trying to make things "perfect" by dropping big changes every now and then.

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Well, thats good? What do you enjoy about it?

Context:

I have almost entirely played 5v5 unranked since the 25th February 2020. Right now I play a Berserker amulet core Engineer. I play an hour or two a day. I was a GW and GW2 fan boy since the first beta events of both games. But since the release of HoT and up until the February 2020 reset patch I did not PvP that much because I strongly disliked the game play.

Why:

Here is, from the top of my head and in no particular order, why I like the game much, much better now:

Thanks to the overall lower damage, I can finally play my favourite profession and build again without being a free kill. The reduction is so great I in fact can myself run a very squishy DPS amulet.

The gap between the FOTM builds and other builds is smaller than before. This is an incredibly refreshing change.

CC dealing no damage is great. Now bursts require a modicum of setting up. CC needs to be followed up by damage if you want to make something out of it. Pressing one button isn't enough anymore.

Abilities that had damage, CC and avoidance of incoming damage all rolled in one are gone. That alone is one of the healthiest changes I can think of.

AAs that took out big chunks of players' health pools are gone. Autoattacking shouldn't be a way to seriously pressure an opponent.

There isn't one be-all and end-all combo anymore. Before the 25th the same rotation applied to almost any situation. That's in my book extremely boring game play. There is a very interesting and rather old video of 2 great Revenant players highlighting this point. I'll link it if I manage to find it.

The longer CDs are great. Using an ability at the wrong time is more punishing. Patience is key.

The game play feels far more reactive. Since you're not forced to chain abilities together anymore only to survive (and often at the same time deal big damage and CC) you can now adjust to what your opponent is doing. Outsmarting another player and then being one shotted by an unavoidable combo (that also made your opponent invulnerable in one way or another) was extremely frustrating. I'm so happy that is all gone.

You actually have to work for your kills. Wait out the opponent's CDs, use your CC at an opportune time, follow up with damage, etc. Firing a hugely damaging and low CD ability through layers of defence in hopes it connects isn't good enough anymore.

Actual team play is required. There are no more portable nukes that pop other players in a second or two. The difference between players working together and players doing their thing only is bigger than ever.

Corpse play matters. The downed state used to be central to GW PvP before the expansions destroyed that mini game. Stomping, launching downed players, interrupting a player resurrecting his ally, applying poison, AoE CC and cleave on a downed opponent, etc. Those small plays all have use again and add another layer to the game.

All good?

No. Stuff needs more nerfing. Just to name the one ability I'm abusing ATM: Explosive Entrance. That ability and the associated traits feel like they were designed before the 25th paradigm change. They all need to be lowered in efficiency.

Ending words

Anyone who wants to dismiss my opinion because I'm a scrub I'm saving you some time: yes, like I said, I have only PvPed sporadically since HoT because I believed and I still believe that the game play had changed for the worse with both expansions.

Peace out and have fun. Or don't.

Thanks for the feedback! It's the whole point of having a good forum discussion. I was hoping to get some other people's opinions on here who are enjoying things. The reason we might have such radically different views too is due to the different environments we play in. I'm not a "top" player but a bit above average with several thousand hours in PvP so the stuff I run into and notice is probably different from what you run into and notice. Its good to have the different perspectives though.

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