GW2 class distribution is a reflection of poor balance, awful class design and biased management

[draxynnic.3719]

If you weren't there for the first few months of Prophecies, then with all due respect, you don't know. Some of the missions were nerfed. Henchmen were terrible - their builds, AI, and the ability of players to exercise some control over what they did were improved a lot over the course of the game. Powercreep was notable even over the course of the first year. And, of course, with bad henchmen and no heroes back then, getting through content meant forming groups, and if you didn't have a guild that could form those groups, that meant PUGs that could be a crapshoot from a well oiled machine to a party of Ruriks.

People found a party setup that was considered to be foolproof, and some groups were very... conservative about who they'd accept. Was that group necessary? Nah. A good group of players that know their professions well could get through anything. But PUG leaders didn't know the quality of the players they were accepting. To say that there wasn't a meta is a load of taurus excretus.

19 hours ago, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

Thats why I don’t buy this “warrior/elementalist/monk” meta argument being had here. Most classes in the game could do the same damage (numbers was not really different across skills) and some classes that obviously weren’t these three had lots of benefits and I remember mesmers and necromancers being much more meta than elementalist. Necromancers for instance stacking minions was highly sought after in the same way that ritualistic spirit spammers are sought after. 

Dude. The GW2 meta hasn't exactly been the same from 2012 to 2024. Neither did the GW1 meta stay static from 2005 to 2012. Some of it was people becoming less conservative and accepting other builds, but some of it was the result of changes in the game. The W/E/Mo holy trinity was in the early stages of the game, when elementalist could do substantially more damage and CC to grouped-up foes than anyone else.

A few things changed over time. One was that, particularly after the PvE/PvP skill split was introduced, ArenaNet started substantially increasing the damage of the other ranged DPS professions, and even the melee DPS professions, so they caught up. And then Hard Mode was introduced. One of the major effects this had on balance came about because most elemental damage skills could be resisted by armour, while most of the damage from mesmers, necromancers, and at least some physical builds went straight through armour. Hard Mode enemies had higher levels than had mostly been seen in the game before and with that came higher armour levels, so elementalist started feeling like a bit of a wet noodle in Hard Mode (I think there was some adjustment made to attempt to even that playing field, but it came pretty late). A profession being bad at one stage in the game's lifespan does not mean it couldn't be dominant in another. Something else we've seen a few times in GW2 - a dominant profession gets nerfed (directly or indirectly), an underpowered profession gets buffed, and at some point the positions are swapped.

The meta shifted over time. The game run for years, after all. Heck, for a long time after EotN the real meta - outside of unkillable tank builds like permasin - was often "who can abuse broken PvE skills the most". But anyone who claims that GW1 didn't have a meta either wasn't paying attention or is huffing the nostalgium.

One could say that there were a wider variety of builds you could put together that had meta-level performance, and that with the lack of sites like Snowcrows finding the current meta wasn't always as accessible, but it absolutely did exist. If you knew where to look, there was pretty much always some party setup that was the one that the sweatiest players knew resulted in the quickest and smoothest runs. Did you need to use those party setups to succeed? No. But the same is true for most of GW2 as well... including powercreep and the occasional encounter nerf turning content that used to be dangerous into easy farming.

Edited Wednesday at 01:21 PM by draxynnic.3719

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

1 hour ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

But anyone who claims that GW1 didn't have a meta either wasn't paying attention or is huffing the nostalgium.

You are misinterpreting this line that i stated...or really just misread it all together.

I said this :

"They obviously can’t name “the meta” because it was always changing and never really had a single one."

single meaning there wasn't just ONE meta...there were MANY builds all of which you could consider meta. there wasn't just "one meta" in this game, and then i name the exception which was SHADOW FORM which was in fact the one meta the game actually had (and how problematic that was)

Seriously dude...did you not understand why I even started talking about shadow-form?

14 year shadowform meta > 3 month W/E/Mo holy trinity...if that even existed

Edited Wednesday at 03:07 PM by JusticeRetroHunter.7684

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

Man with brains explains basic concept of Guild Wars 1 :

https://i.imgur.com/gtwu7SC.png

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Insert Elrond I was there meme here.

I played GW1 at release, yeah the OG was harder at first, but there were some amazing combos you could pull off.

There were pve metas then for sure. Even PvP metas.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

58 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Even PvP metas.

Like Justice said, it was not that simple, there were tons of team comps in a single "meta", GW2 is much more restrictive in that sense.

I would say nothing will ever beat the adrenaline and fun one had playing GvG, it was so engaging, fun, tactical, nothing in GW2 comes even close, well, playing a balanced comp. Blood Spike for example was just about 3 2 1 spike over and over.

[draxynnic.3719]

On 10/3/2024 at 12:55 AM, JusticeRetroHunter.7684 said:

You are misinterpreting this line that i stated...or really just misread it all together.

I said this :

"They obviously can’t name “the meta” because it was always changing and never really had a single one."

single meaning there wasn't just ONE meta...there were MANY builds all of which you could consider meta. there wasn't just "one meta" in this game, and then i name the exception which was SHADOW FORM which was in fact the one meta the game actually had (and how problematic that was)

Seriously dude...did you not understand why I even started talking about shadow-form?

14 year shadowform meta > 3 month W/E/Mo holy trinity...if that even existed

Dude, the same is true of GW2. We're not running four warriors and one mesmer for Time Warp and Feedback any more. Chronojail is no longer a thing. Firebrigade came and went, as did mechanist stacking. I don't follow it closely enough to say what the meta is exactly right now, but I'm pretty sure it involves quickheralds and virtuosos.

Just because metas shift over time doesn't mean that there isn't a meta. In fact, metas shift over time almost by definition. And if anything, your highlighting of shadow form just shows our point that the OP's claim that GW1 was better due to how the meta behaves is incorrect since shadow form meta lasted longer than any GW2 meta (although at least SF didn't work everywhere and wasn't a must have, it just made certain things easier).

The OP also claimed that every profession always had meta builds and contrasted that with GW2 where some professions have been pretty much completely excluded from the meta during certain periods. We've given counterexamples that demonstrate otherwise. The "holy trinity" meta (which was longer than three months, even if it was before your time) excluded everything else. We've also discussed how hard mode effectively excluded elementalist, a problem that was only resolved by the Hard Mode rework in early 2012 (Hard Mode was introduced in 2007, so for people who switched to GW2, this means that elementalist was effectively excluded from much of GW1's top-end PvE for more than half of the life of the game*).

While GW2 has had problems with professions being excluded due to the meta, claims that GW1 didn't is looking back with goggles so rose-tinted that they're practically opaque.

*Yes, I know there are people still playing GW1 even now, so it's not exactly dead... but it's certainly not thriving as it was before GW2 released either.

[JusticeRetroHunter.7684]

4 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Just because metas shift over time doesn't mean that there isn't a meta.

Guild wars 2 has a meta (singular) shifting over time. Guild wars 1 had many metas (plural) at any given time…in the triple digits…with the exception of shadow-form (ignoring the 30 or more variants of that build). 

This line you stated

(although at least SF didn't work everywhere and wasn't a must have, it just made certain things easier).

I dont know why this is so difficult for you to grasp. SF actually did work everywhere (in its original god mode form, you couldn't be targeted by spells, and all attacks against you missed and this could be perma'd = absolutely busted skill) but you didn’t have to run it anywhere other than the speed clearing endgame content which was only because people obviously forced you to do so… you could have run UW without being a 30 minute SC nerd…in fact UW was way easier playing it as intended it just took a long time because you weren’t multitasking the dungeon (soloing each zone)…hence; guild wars was fine with almost any logically put together build —

i said that earlier in the first comment…

— shadow-form was busted…like taking away mounts after being put them into a game…it’s a busted form of travel to fly and ignore all the content of the game…but it was so convient nobody actually wants to go back to “the way things were” and for shadow-form that was the farming economy.

Now this:

Hard Mode was introduced in 2007, so for people who switched to GW2, this means that elementalist was effectively excluded from much of GW1's top-end PvE for more than half of the life of the game*

This is just more disinformation… Ele had many kind of builds…invoke spike (armor ignoring and didn't break mobs up), blinding bot and healer we’re such builds (Emo Bonder was the meta of UWSC), not to mention Elementalist was very well represented in pvp.

It’s almost like you didn’t play the game and just sitting here making stuff up…wild.

Edited 1 hour ago by JusticeRetroHunter.7684