"Build diversity" do NOT exist

[Axelteas.7192]

1 hour ago, Ashen.2907 said:

You hold up Reaper and Dragon Hunter as paragons when they qualify for the term mediocre that you use as a pejorative. Mesmer outclasses both of them for DPS, as does Warrior. I don't play thief except in open world and story but it does very well there.

Every class in the game is viable.

 

Yes, a warrior with soldier stats and a mace/shield is also viable, but you'll die of boredom trying to kill a champ while a condi firebrand will burn it in an instant. What i mean is feeling powerful, yet people doesnt seems to understant the concept.

I know there are classes that outperform reaper or Dh, but take time to ramp up the snowball, and in open world, dungeons, or pvp you dont have time to do this.

[Funky.4861]

So what exactly are you looking for? You seem to want to experiment yet do not practice enough with it to become proficient. Then you dump that build and move on to another off-meta build which also doesn't meet your expectations. Feeling disappointed, you come to the forums to vent a bit (understandable) but also don't seem to account for your own skill level and lack of familiarity with how the new builds synergise.

So you've had a bad time with some sub-optimal builds but seem reluctant to come out of your corner; might i suggest that you meet us half-way and tell us which parts of the builds you've tried have let you down and maybe admit that you could just need more time/practice?

[Ashen.2907]

2 hours ago, Axelteas.7192 said:

Yes, a warrior with soldier stats and a mace/shield is also viable, but you'll die of boredom trying to kill a champ while a condi firebrand will burn it in an instant. What i mean is feeling powerful, yet people doesnt seems to understant the concept.

I know there are classes that outperform reaper or Dh, but take time to ramp up the snowball, and in open world, dungeons, or pvp you dont have time to do this.

Yes, if you choose to handicap your character, try playing without armor sometime, you may have difficulty killing champions solo quickly. That has nothing to do with whether or not classes are viable though. You brought up viability, you are mistaken in your application of the term.

Yes you do have time to ramp up your damage in those game modes even if not on a Reaper or DH. Easily. If one is struggling with class viability in open world the issue is not the classes.

Edited November 28, 2022 by Ashen.2907

[Astralporing.1957]

6 hours ago, Axelteas.7192 said:

Your mind made the mistake to assume that I was referring to reaper and DH when I was talking at first about Guardian or Necro being privileged by Anet in general, this was one topic.

Well, there's no "guardian privilege" either. Firebrand itself is quite good and can do a lot of things, but that's one espec out of 3. DH is mediocre at power dps and absolutely tragic at everything else. And "Necro privilege" is a joke that had probably made quite a number of Necros sad.

6 hours ago, Axelteas.7192 said:

The DH and reaper was another topic, in the end, about excessive burst direct damage that other classes are'nt event capable to dream.

Yeah, definitely. DH indeed had that burst, but that was like 2 years ago, and there were some nerfs on the way. Reaper burst is as mediocre as its longterm DPS however. And comparing it with the "oppressed by the system" warrior when Bladesworn is basically the iconic definition of massive burst build nowadays shows clearly you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

If you are basing your knowledge on some internet info, it's good to first verify quality of that source (because it can vary a lot), and also check if it didn't become outdated long ago. And if you are going to support it with your own experiments with builds, you'd better be kitten sure you know what you are doing, because buildcraft in GW2 is hard, and (if you lack that knowledge) builds you will come up with on your own are extremely likely to be trash level regardless of what profession you play on.

3 hours ago, Axelteas.7192 said:

Yes, a warrior with soldier stats and a mace/shield is also viable, but you'll die of boredom trying to kill a champ while a condi firebrand will burn it in an instant. What i mean is feeling powerful, yet people doesnt seems to understant the concept.

Trust me, soldier stats mace/shield guardian (of any spec) will be even worse if you compare it to, say, power dps zerk bladesworn. It's not a profession you have issues with.

3 hours ago, Axelteas.7192 said:

I know there are classes that outperform reaper or Dh, but take time to ramp up the snowball, and in open world, dungeons, or pvp you dont have time to do this.

There's a ton of similar builds out there that are actually better. But if you want absolutely no ramp up time at all, just go with power mech engi...

 

[Dr Meta.3158]

OP got a bunch of people drawn to nonsense by saying the word racism. He should run a news tabloid and make bank.

[AliamRationem.5172]

10 hours ago, Axelteas.7192 said:

Playing since 2012 beta nonstop is hard to not get bored. So the only thing that keeps me interested in the game is trying new different/weird builds.

Every weekend I spend all my resources anbd gold to try a different build, and in the sunday afternoon I got a depression from so much disapointment.

Before imaginig things about me stop,wait and read: I'm not inventing stupids builds like a fool, no. Before implementing an idea I search and read the forums and users who attempted before this rare builds, and their feedback. I only invest gear and gold to builds that other users said were viable.

Two weeks ago a troll said cele herald was overpowered at roaming wvw, so I geared a full celestial toon and it was so mediocre and disapointing.

The other week the same happened with a open world druid with cele/plaguedoctor gear.

The last weekend i tried the warrior berserker spec, replacing the classic Viper+rene runes +sword    by   Griever+flame legion runes+axe. The damage of axe was way better than the sword, but the burn was pathetic.

Every time I try something outside the Meta determined by Anet I end up frustrated.

I'm so tired of the situation. Because i'ts like systemic racism in the USA but in this case is about professions and the system is Anet: Guardian and Necro have privileges, thief, warrior and mesmer are the oppressed by the system and the rest are just middle class.

 

So my only option if I want to do pure damage is stick to the turbo-blenders Reaper and Dragonhunter and when I get bored quit to another game.

 

 

What a weird take!  Bonus points for equating your first-world video game problems with systemic racism! 👏 Classy!

[AzureTerra.1642]

Plenty of choice, just most people cant look past what does X best with Y choices.

When I last played I was told I had to play with a Elite spec because its what expected, I drew the line at actually playing the one that people wanted me to play (Firebland) and did everything Dragonhunter which was average at best. Coming back and starting afresh im playing with none of them because they don't appeal to me more than the core choices and my preferred gearsets. I'm iffy about getting EoD till I'm actually up to it in story because IMO half the classes suck, half are reasonable and one Im undecided on.

Play what works for you not anyone else and possibly set expectations lower than perfect because it rarely works out.

 

 

[MikSki.9481]

If you didn't spend gold on some bizzare builds, you probably could have got legendary gear which would allow you to go crazy with your creativity. And as for any build, you need time to practice it and find its strength and weaknesses, it's hard to find a build that does well in any scenario, and if there is one, it's most likely already found and labeled as meta. But if you really want to play some fun off meta builds, go on youtube, there's a lot of content creators making off meta builds that work well, and from there, modify it to suit your playstyle. The diversity is honestly at all time high and it's only going to get better seeing CMC as skills and balance lead. 

[Nephalem.8921]

19 hours ago, Axelteas.7192 said:

So my only option if I want to do pure damage is stick to the turbo-blenders Reaper and Dragonhunter and when I get bored quit to another game.

 

 

Both are low dps and reaper is the absolute worst dps in the game. its so bad that its behind multiple support builds.

[Dithnir.4593]

I run a spearmarshal's druid as I have the same interest as the OP in finding something a bit different for open world.

However, I wonder if the OP has given enough time to it. I tried Seraph and Plaguedoctor's, but realised I just don't need that much concentration and vit for open world.

 

Spearmarshal I thought would allow me to load on some more damage but the big healing means if I go into CA I can do some good numbers on any allies while doing, say, metas, or indeed it gives me good sustain. I play with some very casual players in a regular group and so I thought it was nice for when things get a little out of hand to be able to keep us up.

 

However, I'm still conscious that I haven't yet got a rotation down, so solo I'm doing around 3-5k dps just mashing buttons. I still have work to do defining a rotation which means testing it on a golem and practising.

I'll bet I also haven't yet made optimal loadout choices - http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POwEU6MssB2CDh9xOxSXqtlXy3aC-zRJYuRNfZUaGURJ4+0YivNA-e

 

I won't get silly numbers either way, but the OP has to recognise that when you try something out, finding out how good it is takes time.

EDIT: For example, with the above build, someone responded to me regarding feedback on an earlier Seraph build noting the synergy between the runes and Protective Ward. I had no idea. It may still not be as strong as other runes but it was great to learn that subtle synergy and how it could boost my sustain while giving me Might.

Edited November 29, 2022 by Dithnir.4593

[xChris.8904]

23 hours ago, Axelteas.7192 said:

Playing since 2012 beta nonstop is hard to not get bored. So the only thing that keeps me interested in the game is trying new different/weird builds.

Every weekend I spend all my resources anbd gold to try a different build, and in the sunday afternoon I got a depression from so much disapointment.

Before imaginig things about me stop,wait and read: I'm not inventing stupids builds like a fool, no. Before implementing an idea I search and read the forums and users who attempted before this rare builds, and their feedback. I only invest gear and gold to builds that other users said were viable.

Two weeks ago a troll said cele herald was overpowered at roaming wvw, so I geared a full celestial toon and it was so mediocre and disapointing.

The other week the same happened with a open world druid with cele/plaguedoctor gear.

The last weekend i tried the warrior berserker spec, replacing the classic Viper+rene runes +sword    by   Griever+flame legion runes+axe. The damage of axe was way better than the sword, but the burn was pathetic.

Every time I try something outside the Meta determined by Anet I end up frustrated.

I'm so tired of the situation. Because i'ts like systemic racism in the USA but in this case is about professions and the system is Anet: Guardian and Necro have privileges, thief, warrior and mesmer are the oppressed by the system and the rest are just middle class.

 

So my only option if I want to do pure damage is stick to the turbo-blenders Reaper and Dragonhunter and when I get bored quit to another game.

 

 

Have you thought that maybe it is a personal skill level issue? Some people can make something work that you might not be able to. I don't play pvp/wvw but when it comes to pve builds at least, there is a specific setup to follow and a specific rotation. You can also find online footage of people using these builds and see their potential in actual encounters. Anyway your problem doesn't sound like it has to do with build diversity, not being able to find something that satisfys you doesn't mean the game is limited when it comes to builds. 

[Juan.6124]

He actually said racsim!

[Natanoid.9648]

This is the dumbest and the funniest thing ive read on this forum ever, thank you for making me laugh so hard buddy.

Also, if this is not a bait, go touch some grass and find a doctor, you really need it.

[Arnox.5128]

On 11/28/2022 at 12:07 PM, Machineuzi.5604 said:

Imagine comparing class balance to systematic racism

 

Delete this post and touch not just some grass but an entire forest please

I mean... I would like to move to Alaska...

[LadyKitty.6120]

On 11/28/2022 at 11:16 PM, Axelteas.7192 said:

Yes, a warrior with soldier stats and a mace/shield is also viable, but you'll die of boredom trying to kill a champ while a condi firebrand will burn it in an instant. What i mean is feeling powerful, yet people doesnt seems to understant the concept.

I know there are classes that outperform reaper or Dh, but take time to ramp up the snowball, and in open world, dungeons, or pvp you dont have time to do this.

Congratulations, you successfully managed to call perhaps the weakest PVE build in the game as "viable"! (Sorry but Kitty just couldn't help it.)

To elaborate, warrior's mace is currently the weapon with worst damage output now that they've boosted warrior's hammer from worst into a good option.(Which is why Kitty's asked for warr's maces to be boosted for a good while now) And Soldier's lacks both damage (no crit rate nor crit damage to boost the power damage) to kill enemies fast and self-healing to fill the big health pool faster than you take damage. (Even biggest pool becomes empty if it leaks faster than you can fill.) Even with optimized traits, utility skills and runes it still does 10% of damage of a meta build at very best, much worse if you also make poor trait and utility skill choices.

And how Kitty knows this? She understands the build system fully, having actually tested how well hundreds of builds perform and as personal challenge, she's RNG'd her build of the day for a while now and once she got soldier's mace+shield spellbreaker as chosen by RNG. Even though spellbreaker has Full Counter to help a bit with damage, even optimized it was the most painful day Kitty's ever had in GW2.

But so, on a serious and constructive note, Kitty would recommend better source critique and getting familiar with some metabuilds and how they work as learning and understanding why they have certain choices and how parts in them interact with each other gives a good basis on how to build an effective off-meta build.

As others have already mentioned, GW2's build system is anything but simple due to how extremely versatile it is and most buildcrafters actually figure things out on GW2skills-build calculator and math to make sure that the builds have enough stats to cover what they need for what they're made for and that everything actually works together. One basic mistake people do is using condi weapon on power build or viceversa and using support-specialized weapon on dps build. "Purity of purpose" is a good starting point.

And also, now that legendary armory is a thing and material prices have dropped, do yourself a favor and try to farm legendary armors, trinkets and runes if you're into testing builds that aren't 100% guaranteed to work. Makes testing a lot faster, easier and cheaper in the long run. Kitty said.

Edited November 30, 2022 by LadyKitty.6120
Fixed a typo

[Axelteas.7192]

11 hours ago, LadyKitty.6120 said:

Congratulations, you successfully managed to call perhaps the weakest PVE build in the game as "viable"! (Sorry but Kitty just couldn't help it.)

To elaborate, warrior's mace is currently the weapon with worst damage output now that they've boosted warrior's hammer from worst into a good option.(Which is why Kitty's asked for warr's maces to be boosted for a good while now) And Soldier's lacks both damage (no crit rate nor crit damage to boost the power damage) to kill enemies fast and self-healing to fill the big health pool faster than you take damage. (Even biggest pool becomes empty if it leaks faster than you can fill.) Even with optimized traits, utility skills and runes it still does 10% of damage of a meta build at very best, much worse if you also make poor trait and utility skill choices.

And how Kitty knows this? She understands the build system fully, having actually tested how well hundreds of builds perform and as personal challenge, she's RNG'd her build of the day for a while now and once she got soldier's mace+shield spellbreaker as chosen by RNG. Even though spellbreaker has Full Counter to help a bit with damage, even optimized it was the most painful day Kitty's ever had in GW2.

But so, on a serious and constructive note, Kitty would recommend better source critique and getting familiar with some metabuilds and how they work as learning and understanding why they have certain choices and how parts in them interact with each other gives a good basis on how to build an effective off-meta build.

As others have already mentioned, GW2's build system is anything but simple due to how extremely versatile it is and most buildcrafters actually figure things out on GW2skills-build calculator and math to make sure that the builds have enough stats to cover what they need for what they're made for and that everything actually works together. One basic mistake people do is using condi weapon on power build or viceversa and using support-specialized weapon on dps build. "Purity of purpose" is a good starting point.

And also, now that legendary armory is a thing and material prices have dropped, do yourself a favor and try to farm legendary armors, trinkets and runes if you're into testing builds that aren't 100% guaranteed to work. Makes testing a lot faster, easier and cheaper in the long run. Kitty said.

OMG. I put the example of mace soldier warrior to point that in open world everything can kill champs, one thing is viable and other thing is efficient. Instead of understanding the point you made a huge text about how mace warrior needs a boost...

In this forum when I point to the moon, people keeps watching to the finger.

Edited November 30, 2022 by Axelteas.7192

[Bladestrom.6425]

RO pening post

 

'Two weeks ago a troll said cele herald was overpowered at roaming wvw, so I geared a full celestial toon and it was so mediocre and disapointing.'  

 

Is a giveaway, you are conflating meta and build diversity. 

 

I've played thousands of hours with many off meta builds and the only place i'm not competitive is in highly tuned PVE content and top tier PVP.  I'm over 50% wins in PVP and can hold my own in both 1v1 and 1vx against weaker players, and my dps is middle range in PVE which basically destroys everything bar boss meat shields. So with the exception of these use cases you can in fact have many many builds, the trick is to develop your OWN build that suits your own playstyle and is therefore enjoyable rather than trying to fit your round peg (you) into a square hole (meta/a build someone else recommends)  certainly start with a meta if it appeals, but be prepared to change it to suit your playstyle.

 

In other words if you are not playing the top 5% of the game, stop worrying about having an optimal build and create your own build - its much much more satisfying when you end up in a place where your build sings because its tailored to you.

 

Edited November 30, 2022 by vesica tempestas.1563

[Astralporing.1957]

1 hour ago, Axelteas.7192 said:

OMG. I put the example of mace soldier warrior to point that in open world everything can kill champs, one thing is viable and other thing is efficient.

No, you used it to "illustrate" your point that "warrior bad, guardian good". Which of course it was, because you compared bad warrior build with a good guardian one. Hint: if you have to stack the odds so much to make an argument, it usually means that your argument is just plain bad.

[SuavePuppy.2809]

6 hours ago, Axelteas.7192 said:

OMG. I put the example of mace soldier warrior to point that in open world everything can kill champs, one thing is viable and other thing is efficient.

You used it as a ridiculous example and combined with this: 

 

On 11/28/2022 at 4:16 PM, Axelteas.7192 said:

I know there are classes that outperform reaper or Dh, but take time to ramp up the snowball

You have shown that you have no idea what you're talking about. And then she proceeded to tell you how to improve instead of blaming the game. Venting out of frustration happens, but don't be wrong while you do it.

[Urud.4925]

The balance philosophy changed over the last 2 years, so the fact that you find less good options within the same profession is intended. While ArenaNet tried to balance the different elite specs in the past, adding trade-offs, they recently shared their new balance philosophy saying: "At the same time, we want to ensure that there are builds for every profession that require less mastery to be effective. These builds should allow players to succeed in parties and clear content, while still having room for them to improve their mastery over the combat system and increase their effectiveness."

We had better options/builds also in the past (core builds were generally worse also before), but now it's an intended choice. The fact that builds with easy rotations sometimes deal more damage than more difficult ones... it's another topic.

Edited December 1, 2022 by Urud.4925

[Lord of the Fire.6870]

 

Simply said yes Arena.NET does limit the build options on purpose there is no way to deny it .

The whole thing binding the skills to the weapons on the start of GW2 was already a move to do so but however the devs were relative in its own balanced what they did until they made with HoT the elite specs a "must" but this was more or less accepted.

 

With PoF they did again to move backwards with it actually this was the best time for the game balance but after a year into it they started to overdo it . Skills with 0.5 sec boon duration, 300s CDs , or important skills gut completely gutted like SoI and big dps nerfs in sPvP which resulted into big boost for condi and summons and this is only the start of it . Personally 2 of my public builds got deleted on purpose from Arena.NET. Yes I know Arena.NET tried to move backwards into better balance this year a bit late

 

For me in retrospect the frustrating part is how little the community reacted to it and left the whole topic at least here in the form to the trolls.

 

Okay you could argue that meta builds are only for the top 5-10% . Actually no when you play endcontent you need them yes it was so when I started the game but close the start of EoD it was the other way around  90% doing endcontent and only 10% doing map events or story.

 

Also what to choose as an meta build became more and more split in GW2 when I started it was only metabattle now every type of endcontent has at least one site . When I  look at how metabattle does it it kinda explains how it ended up like this:

1.The builds a dedicated in the sense they are put in by the admin

2. There are little to no votes on the builds

From my experience I also know votes get deleted when the admin don't like it.

 

Maybe metabattle should take a look how other games do it =>Overframe

 

Okay the problem with this is not all builds are as good as shown not only in metabattle but also in the wvw/sPvP counter parts which then results in team, Wvw zerg leaders to push for builds which are sup optimal or the devs getting crazy ideas like power Tempest being meta in cm fractals.