How long will it take for the meta builds to adjust to relics?

[Gibson.4036]

I am unabashedly not a theory-crafter. I don't enjoy searching out synergies or testing to see if skills and traits actually do what their tooltips say.

I visit Hardstuck, Metabattle and GuildJen. I check out Muk and Vallun. I find builds, pay close attention to their rotation advice, and learn how to use them maybe not optimally, but well.

Next Tuesday our 6th item bonuses will evaporate, and we will get our Relic chests to choose a replacement relic. We already know Relics won't be a 1:1 replacement for the sixth item bonuses we're used to, so it's going to take a bit for all those  theory-crafters to do their heroic work. People like me would be best served to keep those Relic chests unopened for a little while.

So how long would you predict I will be running around without my sixth-item bonus before the meta settles enough for the sites to be populated with really good builds?

[Ashen.2907]

Half an hour to adjust, tops. It may take longer for the new builds to be posted online though.

[ugrakarma.9416]

meta ppl like thief rune bonus effect, i don't remember why(something related to hit box i guess).

[ugrakarma.9416]

i will take look a rune of ogre(6rune is 4% damage bonus) +  some of these 7% or 5% damage.

[Acheron.1580]

23 minutes ago, ugrakarma.9416 said:

i will take look a rune of ogre(6rune is 4% damage bonus) +  some of these 7% or 5% damage.

That's assuming it wasn't changed or is even still going to be in. For the 100+ runes there is only 40 relics (base).

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

1.) Do not panic.

2.) Most of the meta-builds do not run with gimmick-runes. Which means they do not rely too much on the 6th bonus. When you play on patch-day, they will still function properly. You may experience some reduction in performance, but nothing life-threatening.

3.) The meta in GW2 consists of a handful of runes. For power-dps it is Scholar's, for condition-dps it is Nightmare/Krait, for healers it is Monk's. Those will be among the priority-relics, just because so many builds rely on them.

4.) The main-question for most of the meta-build-users will be: what relic should I use? That question is likely to be answered within the first 4-8 hours after launch. There are several content-creators involved, who are build-crafters as well. They will broadcast their discoveries rather quickly.

5.) The people who use customized builds that do not rely on the meta-design may have to wait a little longer. If the creator of the build is a content-creator (e. g. streamer), they are likely to update their builds as quickly as possible. They play games for a living = they have the time to test stuff on launch and provide solutions quickly.

6.) Builds designed by regular players who do the build-crafting as a hobby, may take a week or two. It depends on the creator's free-time.

Again. There is nothing to worry about. Even without the 6th bonus/relic, most of the builds should still be functional.

[Gibson.4036]

Totally not worried… just curious. But thanks for your thoughts!

Most builds are so strong, I don't think the loss will be a big deal, unless they've gone for an increase in difficulty for SotO.

And yes, different builds will be affected more than others.

Edited August 16, 2023 by Gibson.4036

[Omega.6801]

If only there was a legendary relic at launch...

I'd say wait a few days beffore selecting your laughable 3 relics, usually it takes the meta people a few days to come up with first drafts. We will see.

[idpersona.3810]

I think I'm planning on just waiting a few days to choose which relics to use on which characters. Probably after checking out various build pages and the forums. 

Not being able to play around with the various relic effects as freely as current legendaries really dissuades (me) from the idea of just playing around with them and seeing what works for each character. Even with 3 choices, it's not enough to just get to play around with each build just to see what feels best.

[Sobx.1758]

Similar time to what it always took after bigger rebalance patches. Using a relic closely corresponding to what our current builds use as a 6th tier bonus will easly be enough though.

Edited August 16, 2023 by Sobx.1758

[Alsandar.7420]

Some builds on metabattle still aren’t updated since the July 18 balance apocalypse. Just sayin, some builds might wait months to see new relics and weapons on metabattle/hardstuck etc

[Chyro.1462]

On 8/16/2023 at 8:16 PM, Omega.6801 said:

If only there was a legendary relic at launch...

I'd say wait a few days beffore selecting your laughable 3 relics, usually it takes the meta people a few days to come up with first drafts. We will see.

Wasn't the relic choice box thing 'per 60+ character' ? So whatever amount of relic core relic choice boxes we get, it's multiplied by the amount of lv60+ chars you have. Or do I misremember reading that part in the announcement?

[difens.1326]

Some build will go away completely. My DH trapper for example totally relies on 6th bonus of trapper runes. If there is no corresponding relic, sayonara...

[Vidit.7108]

On 8/16/2023 at 8:59 AM, Gibson.4036 said:

So how long would you predict I will be running around without my sixth-item bonus before the meta settles enough for the sites to be populated with really good builds?

I'm not an expert but going to guess Hours or probably minutes for PvE. Maybe a day or two for PvP/WvW.
The current sixth rune bonus is more build defining on healers than most other builds. Rotations are mostly unlikely to change unless new relic mechanics are better than potential damage bonuses. If rune of strength is a 1-1 replacement for the relic then it replaces the scholar equivalent relic on every power build probably. Several builds might take thief over scholar just because not being hp dependent is an improvement even though it's being nerfed. For most condition builds (even the boon support ones) whatever relic you take will probably be an improvement over what the current 6th rune bonuses are. 

What will probably slow down places like snowcrows and metabattle from updating pages is last minute balance changes, potential espec weapon nerfs, or replacing old weapons with new ones which probably means the old weapon is the same damage as before there is just a new best in slot. The expectation from the beta is that most builds using old weapons will be unaffected by the weapon expansion. Ranger and Warrior have a lot of power weapons that are all really close in damage, and so if like hammer soulbeast became the new best dps it wouldn't be like those other weapons stopped working. Going back relics, if rune of scholar 6th bonus was totally gone and power builds had nothing to replace it with they would all mostly lose an equal amount of damage compared to each other. So it wouldn't be like for power damage something suddenly surged past the others in damage just from relics, there would have to be something new mechanically to do that like a relic that made you hit twice every 3 hits or something. 

[Danikat.8537]

On 8/16/2023 at 7:11 PM, HnRkLnXqZ.1870 said:

2.) Most of the meta-builds do not run with gimmick-runes. Which means they do not rely too much on the 6th bonus. When you play on patch-day, they will still function properly. You may experience some reduction in performance, but nothing life-threatening.

This is what's been confusing me about a lot of this controversy. I understand the 6th bonus is the deciding factor between some runes because it's the only difference. For example the Reaper, Daredevil, Scrapper, Brawler and Cavalier runes all give the same 1-5 bonuses, it's only the 6th one that's different so that's the only reason to pick one of them over the others.

But my understanding is that for most builds it's the first 5 bonuses that are the most important because they have far more impact than the 6th, but if you're putting together an ideal build it makes sense that having picked the best 1-5 bonuses you then consider which of the available 6th slot bonuses is best as well. But I don't think any builds recommend runes with undesirable 1-5 bonuses because the 6th one is that good that it's worth losing out on the others. So it shouldn't have a big impact on how most recommended builds function. Which is why builds that recommend runes that can be hard to get often suggest one or more substitutes as well.

(Obviously it will be different for custom-made builds which could have been designed around a 6th slot bonus. I have a deadeye pirate build which has to be a power build because it uses Runes of the Privateer because the 6th slot lets you shout "Yaar!" and summon a parrot. But I've never claimed that was a good build.)