B2P vs P2W and the nature of GW2's "skill progression"

[Sahne.6950]

28 minutes ago, Albi.7250 said:

Did you know if you want to play football you have to pay for a Ball. Only conclusion: football is pay to win!
A Gaming mouse with extra buttons does Make any MMO(or any game with many skills) easier to play. So by the definition proposed in this threat every game that has 10+ Abilities is pay to win. No exceptions.

Did you write that with a keyboard!?!?! 😮

PAY TO WIN! 😡

Edited June 14, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Gw2 pvp would be P2W if you had to buy things like amulets and gear in the gem store and they kept releasing better ones. You can still do fine with some core classes.

[Swagg.9236]

On 6/13/2022 at 10:01 PM, DoomNexus.5324 said:

Support Guardian Build (PvP) - Hardstuck
Power Shatter Build (PvP) - Hardstuck
Core Necromancer Build (PvP) - Hardstuck
Core Ranger Build (PvP) - Hardstuck
I've tried running condi pistol thief (without offhand) and worked also pretty well too.

Those are just some builds I found links to on hardstuck. A lot of streamers on twitch link a couple builds (I can't promise everybody offers a core build tho), metabattle, etc also have some. Or just talk to some people in pvp if you can't come up with a good one. Just because it's not linked somewhere doesn't mean you can't perform well with it either.

A couple years ago I've been playing a p/p deadeye build people considered to be unviable. It was nowhere near considered meta or good, not even viable. In fact, people - who had no idea - thought it was so bad that it sometimes happened that one mate flat out threw the game once they noticed my build (even if we were already clearly in the lead and could've easily won).
I was in the top100 during that season btw.

It really comes down to understanding conquest in general as well as your own role, your team mate's roles, game knowledge in general and of course your mechanical skill.

No, I don't mean what core builds people play (of which those ranger and mesmer builds--even core necro now--are HARD sells lmao), but what is the core GW2 game as a product?  What are people playing when they're just doing F2P?  People paid for it at one point.  Nobody got compensated for that, so what is that product then?  And what does that make the current dynamic in which core is effectively classed out of end-game or competitive content?  Seriously, the list of """viable""" core builds you presented was more anemic than the PvE meta when this game launched lmao.

[Morwath.9817]

Imagine being forced to buy PC to play GW2, thats true P2W.