Does Anet Know How to Properly Balance a Metagame?

I am unsure how much you GvG but Rit meta where developed. As much as the core 6? Of course not. That would impossible considering the core are at least 1 year old of retail and months of public beta testing. Not to mention that after the nerf is when Rits where actually considered to be more than spirit spamming. It is after the nerf and buff that Rits where able to be incorporated to a build while not being just a Rit Lord spammer.

But expecting people to sit through broken and imbalance meta, is just not possible. Mechanics and balance is the utmost importance in PvP.

And this 'why not just adapt' crap is unfounded. Even the lowest level of GvG guilds have extensive discussion on builds. Look at iQ's and QQs forum. Hell look at this forum. Look at the endless discussion how good or bad a skill is. And this does not even count the in game talk (Vent/TS) and guild's own forums. Which in my experience is where the overwhelming majority of build discussion happen.
Where is the PvE discussion about builds?


So people crying about 'PvP should learn to adapt' are people who seems to have no experience in serious GvG/PvP. If anything they are the most active people who discuss and evaluate these skills.

PvErs seem barely able to tolerate 1 week of post nerf SR, and hell has....

PvPers sits through months of broken and imbalance skills and mechanics.

Seriously, where do you base this idea of "not enough time to develop the meta" argument?
How much time is needed?

Less time is needed instead of the strong nerfs the Buffs should've came

Change skills to have a spirit affect

Change Shroud of Silence and Vow of Silence.....To actually mean SIlence

No shouts,no spells, no echos.

Having played Magic the Gathering competitively for 10 years I think I know a thing or two about the Meta game. Guild Wars is no different in term of selecting skills for builds. The above post was the perfect example.

Yes in a Meta game you will have a dominant build until the next pack or expansion comes out. Yes if you only focus on balance builds you will ultimately find unbalance in destruction as Gimmick can almost always beat balance. This is true in modern warfare, magic the Gathering and in Guild Wars.

Once everyone is playing the Abusive build of the month weather it be IWAY or Land Destruction in Magic the Gathering a counter always emerges. Usually in the form of another Gimmick build to rue the day.

I think you take PvP too seriously if your afraid to loose. Obviously somebody beat the spirit spammers as everyone did it in GvG pre Nightfall. OH? You mean you did not evolve and use Ritual Lords your selves? You did not adapt? Overcome? Improvise? Warfare suddenly became imbalanced because someone used Guns instead of Bows and Arrows? People used Airplanes for Air domination and your asking why can't we all just use infantry?

If you loose you loose that is what happens in Rock Paper Scissors games like Guild Wars, Magic the Gathering and other games that must focus on build selections before entering combat. There is not guarantee to win and if the other player beats you because of a Gimmick good for him he adapeted to the nature of the beast in combat. That person understood the game. That team of players adapted to the Meta game and left you in the dust. If a single Gimmick such as the Ritual Lord becomes the norm for all encounters then my build choice is easy. Its counter Gimmick time with another Gimmick that will evolve over time. That is the evolution of the Meta Game.

So yes I do understand a thing or two about the Meta Game and its evolution. Be it MtG or GW or real modern Warfare.

Gimmick beats balance almost every time and there is no guarantee of winning.

Actually, no. My peers and I were the ones who defined the meta, outplayed scrubs on rits, and then realized it was imba and convinced Izzy with logic and experience. My peers being the tiny group of consistent top 20 guild members. Of course, your alleged experience in MTG is probably much more indicative of skill in GW than actual excellence in GW, but hey, who's keeping score.

Anyhow, you were about to show me how you can counter the meta in game, as opposed to talking about your experience in MTG on the forums. Don't tell me about how easy it is, prove it, as no one else has managed to do so.

Chop chop.

Thus you just explained why GW PvP loses a lot of skilled players and is not taken seriously by some.
PvP is largely supposed to be about skills - like any typical PvP game.

And gimmicks dont require for you to 'understand' the game. Ob mode, cut and paste, mash buttons. These is the mechanic when the meta at its worse (ranger spike, Rit spam, hexway, rit spike, etc).

Trying to compare guns and arrows illustrates people misunderstanding of the mechanics. We do not have the power to evolve our tools. Just how we use it and even that is limited. Trying to compare it to an arms race is is false.

Rock Paper Scissors is the worse meta for a PvP game like GW GvG.
And playing the build wars is absurd since your win:lose ratio will not actually be representative of your skill. Why even have a tournament? To find who has the best lucky charm?

Bottom line is, if you want GW RPS meta, then the game's PVP will die and attract less serious PvPers. GW PvP will never be taken seriously along other good PvP when it has a potential to be.

Now you all know why. Certain people dictating the balancer so their favorite builds will be untouched. Bias at its finest.

GG?

Yes and? What’s your point if they wanted to do a serious PvP game try Counter Strike. You take this game too seriously when there are better options for PvP. GW is a trading card game. Tell me what happens if you choose to not take a res signet? You have the choice not to but wisdom tells you to take one. What happens when you run into Ritual lord after Ritual Lord. Simple you begin changing your build to compensate. Even if it’s a simple Banishing Strike or Mesmer Signet. You adapt you Overcome and you Improvise.




Sniping is a skill. Using the terrain for tactics is a skill GW is no real skill. Heck I used to think maintaining 14 bonds was a skill until I did it on a regular basis and realized GW requires very little skill at all. Tried DoA? Hardest area in the game of GW and NO SKILL REQUIRED just an ability to push buttons in order follow directions then rinse and repeat.



Really what is there to understand? A win is a win you don’t have to “understand” to win. You just win and if you loose you loose. Everyone has accsess to the same skills so its therefore an even playing field. That is the nature of PvP in any game. You should play my son Stratiego he complains all of the time that Marshals are too powerful since they kill everything but a spy, you sound just like him. Guild Wars is not a religion that requires theology of understanding to play, you seem to speak as if you need it. You say I don’t understand? Well after playing since prophecies beta yes I do understand GW. It is a push buttons and follow instructions game. And that goes for the best build you can make in GW.

As for nerfing an entire line of skills in an attribute, there were other options than nerfing an entire attribute into near oblivion like ANET did to Communing. OR nerfing a particular skill until it become completely unusable like “There on Fire” or “Incoming” or nerfing the energy management skills for a Mesmer then increasing the casting times of almost all of the dominant Mesmer skills because someone found a good meta game way to use them. Please understand that yes I do understand the game however GW PvP can never be balanced as it is. All you end up doing is creating another dominant PvP build rinse reapeat. Seriously when does the madness stop.


You don’t have to evolve your tools just level the playing field and make all skills a viable option without killing both skills and attribute to do so. As it is you have destroyed many skill options by over nerfing and not allowing the counters to flourish more. It is you who do not understand the mechanics of PvP game play. Arrows and Gun was a good illustration because technically both have access. BUT if you choose to bring arrows to a gun fight who’s fault is it.



You see there you go with skill again thinking skill has something to do with pushing buttons in GW. Where skill comes in is knowing when to push that button and understanding what counters what and when to use it. You plan for the worst and hope for the best like a good football game. It’s skill when you can follow orders of a good leader or recognize when and when not to disenchant. Etc. Etc If you want skill to matter more then I challenge you take a balanced build into DoA and win not using any Gimmicks.

As for tournaments Ill find them interesting when tournament rules say you can’t use secondary professions and you must have one player for each class in the current GW PvP game. Then and only then will "skill" be important in GW PvP because Gimmicks will be forced out of play. Meanwhile I’ll stick to real PvP games like Counter Strike until GW realizes they are killing the game by not allowing a meta game to exist with some class skill options better than others. Until that happens Gimmicks will rue the day.


As it is you are loosing PvP players because of the same “we can’t loose or else” attitude that permeates the top 20 guilds. As long as they control the meta game more PvP will die and then only then will you realize I was right.

A good build and a little luck is what makes GW PvP competitive and fun to play. You on the other hand want to remove that “luck” factor simply because your afraid to loose.

I could not have said it better... and we wonder why? just why? sometimes.

Someone here on this forum thought of a self-balancing GW, where if certain skills were used to often an engine would "balance-itself" and change the stats of the skill. Maybe that would solve the problems of everyone playing 1 cookie cutter build, but I don't know the details of how it would work.

Hmmm... that is interesting considering a lot of the top players hates the way Izzy does the balance....
Not to mention that the variety of builds in top guilds...

So you have dozens of people with varying interest what they think should be nerfed/buffed-- what does that lead to?

Your whole argumentis conflicted I do not even know where to begin to address it.

You want luck, yet you want people to "learn and adapt" and yet you argue there is nothing to 'understand' (aka learn).

And the whole skill thing not existing? Wow. Do you really believe that or you have not played at the level where there is skill involved?
If you want 'sniping skills' I'm sure you can DShot 3/4 spells 90% of the time. If you do, there are about 100 dozen guilds waiting to recruit you.
If there are no skills involved, I'm sure your guild must be doing really well in the top 20?


Afraid to lose? Really this is vague. It is not about fearing as it is following the basic underlying concepts that rule most succesful PvP games.

You need a more consistent argument because it is heavily conflicted and inconsistent.

I'm in yer alphas....frenzying on your Izzayz...

One of the main reasons I barely PvP is because this game has too much emphasis on button-bashing instead of actual skill (contrary to the back of the boxes).

Rangers are the worst whether they're thumping, touching or spamming bow interrupts. "Bash your buttons and win" is a more suitable motto. Yes I know there are counters but counters don't make balance.

Consider a new Fire Magic spell which deals 1,000 unconditional, armour ignoring damage. Is it imbalanced? Prot Spirit, Shelter, interrupts, KD all exist to counter it.

On a second note, we all know the so-called 'metagame' and flavour of the month but that doesn't mean everyone is using it. Taking counters on the assumption that you'll be facing one build can leave you with useless skills if the opponent has something else.

I've said it once and I'll always say it: Build Wars: Google Your Build and Win™

No offence to this poster in particular but why the hell is there all this talk about Izzy? Good poster, neat ideas and I can agree and disagree with some. I am not a top player either but this kinda stupid how we have to bring particular people into how balance is done (besides ANet).

Primarily the M:TG example is gold, pure gold.

This is what I find interesting though, ANet's attempt to find balance is by reducing the effectiveness of used skills and not enhancing unused skills.

Seems very degenerative to me.

Because he is the one that heads the game balancing department.

You are wrong for the most part.
The game involves tremendous amount of skill. Button mashing and copy and paste can only take you so far. Not like Evil or WM's build is secret... :/

NEvertheless, there is a large part of the game that is vulnerable to non skill based play style.

I'm glad you brought up Magic the Gathering for the sake of this discussion. I have been playing it for a while also, and I can tell you that it is far more balanced that Guild Wars.

Look at it this way...the Magic metagame has shifted a lot through cycles, but usually there are many different decks that are viable. Now look at a few past metagames...such as the necropotence metagame. In that meta, necro was the dominant deck that nearly every pro played because everything else was inferior. That was a BAD metagame.

Now there have been a bunch of other bad metagames in MTG where one deck dominated the field. MTG has a lot of guys working on card balancing and set balancing. If that group of guys can create bad metas on accident, lets look at Guild Wars. Guild Wars...one guy does all the balancing. To say that Guild Wars metagame is balanced is absurd.

And people want skill over build. In ideal Magic metagames (such as some of the previous extended metas), as many as 10 different decks were competitive, and the best players usually won. Now back to Guild Wars...look at the ladder. Near the top are a bunch of guilds who got there via rit spike and soul reaping and other OP builds. To say that they are skilled enough to be up there is crazy.

In Magic, if I see guys at the top of the rankings, I know they are good and did not just abuse a deck all the way to the top. Theres a big difference there.

Okay, first of all, thank you to everyone who has been keeping this great discussion going.


I'd like to place some emphasis on some current skill balances by Anet which have solidified, in my mind, that they often don't really know how it will affect the metagame.

Cases in Point are Mind Blast and the Conjure enchantments. During the April 10th update, Mind Blast was reduced in damage duration (it currently does less damage than Flare at any level of Fire Magic), immediately after receiving a significant damage buff on April 5th.

When people started using Mind Blast in conjunction with Mark of Rodgort for a near-Searing Flames effect, Mind Blast was reduced significantly in damage. Mind Blast, as stated before, does less damage than Flare, with the only boon being the minimal energy gain you get from spamming the skill (If you're an Elementalist using this skill for energy management, there are much better elite options available). There is now no point whatsoever to use this skill.

The common justification for the nerfing of this skill is that it became degenerate with Mark of Rodgort. However, I fail to see how this is even NEARLY as broken as Searing Flames used to be.

Now, Searing Flames is a skill I truly considered to be broken; it is clearly less so after the nerf, but it still retains a high degree of power.

Therefore I fail to see the comparison made beetween Searing Flames, which spreads AOE burning and massive AOE damage to all enemies on fire when spammed, and Mind Blast + Mark of Rodgort, which causes burning when the hexed targets are struck with fire damage. Sure, it gains you energy, but does no AOE damage whatsoever.

Do you honestly call something as inane as Mind Blast + Mark of Rodgort degenerate? Maybe in RA, and even that's a stretch. Hell, Searing Flames + Mark of Rodgort is twice as degerate as Mind Blast could ever hope to be, at least that keeps a constant stream of damage on the target, with sporadic AOE burning/damage to nearby foes.

Lets look at the possible non-nerf options we can use to counter this "broken" skill combination:

1. Pick a hex removal.
They all work to mitigate the burning caused by Mark of Rodgort.

2. Pressure the Elementalist.
If an ele is getting his ass beaten, he's not casting spells.

3. Pick an Interrupt.
Distracting Shot anyone?

4. Spread out.
Don't get AOE hexed by Mark of Rodgort. This also works against Searing Flames.

5. Diversion.
Quintessential spam stuffer.


If your team build is incapable of doing any of these things, you deserve to lose to Mind Blast + Mark of Rodgort.



However, I'm being longwinded. The point of bringing up Mind Blast is that Anet immediately nerfed it after people started using it. The point of buffing its original damage was to make it more appealing to the community, but once the skill was picked up, it was deemed "broken." As I've shown, it is clearly not. The community was not given appropriate time to react to the buffing of Mind Blast, figure out how to counter it without crying, and then move on. Instead, the skill gets axed into oblivion; unless the energy gaining part of this skill becomes incredibly good, you should never, ever use a Fire Magic Elite that does less damage than Flare: Its just bad form.


As for the Conjure enchantments (as well as Brutal Weapon), their damage was also buffed during the April 5th update, but as of today, they now do less damage and have a longer recharge. Previous to April 5th, any melee character who seriously used the Conjure spells immediately lost all credibility on the battlefield. The damage was insignificantly more and the spells themselves were generally considered useless.

However, with the damage buff, the Conjure spells saw some serious use, both in GvG and HA. While the subsequent nerf to their damage was relatively minor, the recharge hit is relatively significant, and it leaves me wondering what the exact reasoning behind the update was...

Now that people actually considered using Conjure spells, Anet suddenly decided that the spells were degenerate enough to warrant a nerf; especially when the extra damage from the Conjure spells is mitigated not only by anything that normally hinders melee/ranged physical attacks, but also by enchantment removal! One piece of enchantment removal instantly turns every Conjure skill on a warrior's bar into a dead slot.

How is that broken?





Previously, the matters of combating a Ritualist dominated metagame have been discussed, and while Ritualists were annoying as hell when they were at the zenith of their power, counters did exist which were not all that uncommon to be using in a build anyway!

When defensive Ritual Lords were dominating the metagame, a number of common tactics could be employed to fight them.

1. Rushing
A good team was almost always capable of putting enough immediate pressure on a Ritualist to quickly drop him before any spirits came up. This usually involved massive tactical overextension, but was generally a viable strategy if your team knew what they were doing.

2. Knockdowns
I remember that a great deal of Knockdowns were prevalent in the Factions metagame, which forced a lot of Ritualists to go Rt/W for balanced stance. However, knockdowns were still great against the rest of the enemy team, and also effectively put the Ritualist on a timer, during which he could safely cast spirits.

3. Cripshot Rangers
Cripshots were still seeing a great deal of play at this time, and interrupts could render a ritualist completely ineffective.

4. Mesmer-Based Counters
A mesmer packing enchantment removal and Cry of Frustration (again, at the time, these were extremely common options), was heavy leverage against an enemy ritualist. Being able to strip their Boon and use ranged interrupts killed their strategy.

5. Splitting
If anything hurt a Ritualist more than any of the above tactics, it was splitting. By forcing a Ritualist to stay on the move, his spirits become useless. Good split tactics annihilated Ritualist based defenses.


A versatile, balanced, team could pull off any of these tactics in GVG, and stand a good fighting chance against Ritualists. While Ritualist Spirits were indeed overpowered, as the game had never been exposed to a passive defense of that magnitude, a good team could still outplay a Ritualist based defense. A strategic nerfing of the spirit's health would have limited their all-encompassing power to a bearable level, but instead Anet attacked all angles of Ritualist Strategy. Hell, even nerfing Ritual Lord a bit harder would have fixed the situation; but instead the spirits became incredibly overcosted and Boon of Creation became useless.




Guild Wars should never get to the state where an experienced and talented team regularly loses to teams of inferior quality simply because of skillbar choice and preference. Strategy should play a larger part in the outcome of the match and allow the stronger team to win. Gimmick builds will always arise, but they need not dominate the metagame when you include a character or two to counter them, especially when these characters are also capable of countering a great deal of other builds.

Thankfully, this is a lot easier to do in Guildwars than it is in Magic.

Interrupt Rangers and Domination Mesmers are great answers to spammy gimmick characters or builds prevalent in the metagame, but you can't expect to win a match just because you're playing a certain character. The trick is to be prepared for the metagame by using skills that won't be useless against other types of builds.

You have to play the character to the full extent of its power.

But with the skill balances as frequent as they are, I'm afraid that people are always going to be scrambling towards a gimmick build rather than playing something that takes true skill to play.

If you're losing to a particular build or strategy, crying foul at the skills used against you is a measure that should only be taken after a careful evaluation of your team's ability and strategic implementation. The skills themselves can be blamed if they are truly degenerate and still manage to beat you after every countermeasure has been exhausted.

That, in my opinion, is the definition of a degenerate metagame.

Maybe they do know. But they don't seem to be doing it.

They seem to want the balance to shift to people buying more editions, not necessarily playing the game better and in more varied and fun ways[1]. Searing Flames = NF. Mark of Rodgort, Meteor Shower = Prophecies.

Keep in mind with their current business model, they don't get money if people don't buy new editions/expansions.

[1] By the way, I thought running was a fun (emergent?) phenomena in Prophecies. But Anet sure clamped down on it in Factions. I've proposed that they create a challenge mission that involves running real low level human players, but I guess they don't like running- dunno why - after all they claim the game isn't about grinding.

I used to be a runner when I was building up cash in Prophecies. However, I did think that being able to bypass entire areas of the game, just by running, was kind of broken.

But not being able to run anywhere, as in Factions... is really annoying.

A metagame is a game within a game that has little to nothing to do with the existing game as it was designed.

Metagames in GW include;

Roleplaying,
Naked dances,
Congo lines,
Inflation Racketeering of market,
Spamming chat needlessly and inappropriately,
Random Arena Leavers just to annoy others (Some people just get off on this),
Custom Quests (not in game but posted on web with rewards in guilds),
Running taxi services,
Rock, Paper, Scissors,
Roll Die,
Pet fighting/betting.

those kinds of thing...


PvP and PvE in general are considered the primary purpose of the game.
Missions,
Quests,
Chests,
Exploring,
Skill acquisition,
Equipment acquisition / improvement,
PvP Competition,
Attaining Favor and Faction,
Alliance competition,
GvG competition and ladder advancement.
Personal improvement (Titles)...

as to the Skill balance nerfs, well yea they are frustrating, but in many ways it makes it clear that its not about the build, its about what you can do with your class and skills in a ever changing system. I personally think that keeps things fresh, and FORCES players to deviate on occasion from a build they have been misusing or over using for months, in favor of trying something new... If they don't they get owned for not evolving!!!

I'm sure "metagame" can be applied to any of those situation, but here... and pretty much anywhere else, the context refers to the current state of affairs in the pvp environment.

First, give me a more well-understood reference. Magic the Gathering is quite possably the largest and most well known game in existance outside of sports, and has been for nearly 15 years.
Further, you do not need to understand the meaning of what is said to be able to understand it's context.

Em... you really do need to understand the meaning, otherwise the context just doesnt exist.

You referenced characters and storylines. How am I meant to make a comparison if I dont know who they are, or how they relate to one another?

I read that reference more then once, and it made no sense to me. Just beacuse a game has existed for nearly 15 years doesnt mean everyone in the world who plays an MMO knows about it.

GWs was my first walk into an MMO, and although i've played other RPGish games, I've never seen MTG being played.

Magic the Gathering is a "trading card game" and was used as a reference because like in GW you select your cards "Skills in GW" in advance before you enter play or the arena. So you can't change your "build" during the match only before the match. Also just like in GW there is a certain amount of "luck" involved. So you select your build the best you can then run with it. BTW all games involve an amount of "luck" just some more than others.

Facts
1) In over 15 years and 10 years of competitive play in MtG I have yet to see an unbeatable deck.

2) In playing GW since beta I have also yet to see an unbeatable team build in PvP HA or GvG and this includes pre nerfed Ritual Lord or Paragonway. People need to change their thinking more not entire skill attribute lines as they did to Communing and Motivation. It only creates another "Gimmick" that players will complain about then need another nerf to counter it because they can't come up with something original themselves.

IMHO we have a lot of people in game who are just afraid to lose a match or lose status and also want to control all aspects of Guild Wars while screwing the experience of Guild Wars when the majority of skills and builds are and were fine to begin with. The emphasis on over competitiveness has ruined some very fun aspects of the game.

Balance a metagame.... no

Shift a metagame to the next most powerful thing that comes along... absolutely

Sorry, didn't bother reading past about the first two paragraphs. Anet does not know how to balance a metagame or balance skills instead of completely obliterating their usefulness. This also should've been posted in the PvP section.

Wow, and I thought nerfing Energy Drain so that it scales slower than Energy Tap was sad.

And nerfing the Conjures just days after people started experimenting with them... wow... that's just pitiful.

Am I the only one who honestly believes that if they continue to go down this path, GW2 will never even see release due to an exodus of players?

-Sol

Just because there isn't an unbeatable deck or build doesn't mean the metagame is balanced. Of course every build is beatable, but that doesn't mean its not overpowered.

You mentioned paragonway. Well that thing was pretty damn near unbeatable in HA when it came out. Did people beat it? Yes. But it was still grossly overpowered to the point of the game sucking horribly. That is what we are talking about here. Anet needs to balance the game where no build is clearly overpowered and many builds are viable. That isn't what we have today (and haven't had for a very long time).

Same thing happens in Magic. In the old days, Necropotence was pretty damn near unbeatable. Almost everybody ran it. You COULD beat the deck (if you brought a counter build and got lucky), but it was clearly overpowered. Today, Magic has teams of guys working on set balance to try and avoid this stuff (and they still let some problem cards through). Guild Wars has 1 guy. A problem I see.

I think Anet does the best job it can. Is the game perfect ? No it isn't but neither are the players who play the game. Far too many whiners about what they feel should be nerfed or not. If people feel they can do a better job then by all means they should be applying for work at gaming companies to balance everyone's skills. More people should be concerned with playing the game they like and having fun with it, not whining every day about what should be nerfed or not.

Although I agree with your first two comments this belongs in a discussion area that involves all people not just PvP. The effects of over nerfs has created a factor for selecting class roles for people enjoying PvE as much as PvP especially when doing missions and enhancing the overall game experience for class options that are not Warrior Monk Elementalist or Necromancer.

I have been playing for 2 years now. I have never ever thought about quitting over some skill changes. It keeps me thinking of new builds to use. This game has over 1000 skills and is impossible to have a perfect balance. Anet I know is doing their best to do the best balancing possible. Sure there have been nerfs and buffs that many people do not agree with. And Anet listens to these people and in many cases change these skills again to better accomidate the players. It has been stated the main problems with balancing issues is due to the fact of each chapter that was added had new skills. Yes of course Anet checked these new skills for balancing issue. But the fact there are soo many skills it would be difficult to find balancing problems. Also due to the fact there are people out there that come up with a build that is too far overpowered that alpha testers did not dream of. I believe that Anet has done its best to do what they have done. No other game out there I have ever played or heard of gets this much attention from their developers. Expect more balancing in the future.

For those unfamiliar with Magic: The Gathering, I highly advise reading the following article:

When Good Cards Go Bad

It's probably the best thing Mark Rosewater has ever written. I'm aware that Guildwars has over a thousand skills, and the difficulty involved in balancing them, but consider how many of these skills ever get used in competitive play.

Two hundred?

One Hundred?


I know I'm disregarding the argument with respect to PVE here, but skills are generally more viable in PVE than they are in PVP. Just face it, the PVE in guildwars is not that difficult.

But the point is, with respect to PVP, only a select few of the entire skill library ever sees play, and this is with just reason: these skills represent the cream of the crop. Every profession and every attribute line has crappy skills, some more than others (Look at the Curses, Communing, Smiting lines...).

However, a game needs skills like these, for reasons mentioned best in that article. The problem that Anet has introduced is that they continue to nerf skills, somtimes into complete and utter oblivion, while buffing skills that were previously considered inneffectual.

This may seem like a good way to keep the game diverse with a "rotation" of skills, but it simply goes too fast!

If they buff a skill, they should also buff the counters to that skill, instead of just moving to the next big thing. Furthermore, just because a skill sees a lot of play is not a reason to nerf it. Look at the resurgence of Aegis chains in current PvP; Anet's buff of Mirror of Disenchantment has largely been a failure in stopping Aegis, but lots of people are now using Power Block to stop not only Aegis, but to also shut down the prot line of monks running it.

This is an example of a player based metagame balancing itself out! No intervention by Anet was necessary. Aegis will see a decline until Power Block fades away, at which time most teams will either be smarter about using it, or switch to other methods of melee defense.

A player based metagame carefully overseen by the devs would be the ideal conditions for a healthy game environment.

With the last 2 nerfs done Ive really begone to question A Nets logic on how to properly deal with a meta.

The farther back one has left a horrid gimik on the entire necro class which to me is upsetting when you basically, for once had both the PVE community and PVP community on the same page on a proper method to let us try out being the spirit death/removal =0% SR. Instead we got the migrane inducing 5 second rule. Im vaguely reminded of the childish thing we had with food touching the ground with this. its "still good" but when you get down to it its downright gross.

Now im looking at a swift nerfing of all but the earth conjures? I think this was a horrid move at best. So the meta was playing with some harmless skills and I say harmless cause there was many current skills that could of become an easy thorn in the metas side.

A constant nerfing of the meta IS NOT an answer to balancing the game. Hell nerfing the conjures in fear of the fire groups that were begining to form down right disapoints me. This meta wouldnthave harmed the balance nearly as bad as some other metas, yet this move seems to suggest for the most part A net FEARS the meta an has grown to think the only viable solution is to dilute and nerf skills.

A need to nerf the fire meta.. Please. Mantra of Flame and Winter are 2 skills that come to mind that would of given this meta a hard time. And naturally theres plenty more skills those ones just came to my head in a second kind of deal.

People need to understand.

A COUNTER SKILL DOES NOT MEAN A SKILL IS BALANCED!

Got that?
If Eviscerate did 400 damage points + Deep Wound would it be balance because you can bring Aegis?

Mantra of Flame is a horrible skill for PvP. It is one dimensional. And in a game where you only have 8 skills to bring, and half are already set for the basics (res, energy management, generals buffs and/or survival like stances and healing, etc) a ONE dimensional skill is utterly dumb. Only in rare and extreme exceptions that they are brought.

Winter vs Fire eles? Its called meteor shower, its called gale, etc. One spirit is not going to counter an entire build. That is like NR is enough for hexes and/or heavy enchantment builds.

Last night in ob mode - 2 top 50 guilds played. One was using Eurohex (Migraine + Reapers Mark + Interupt ranger + 2 wars + 2 monk Aegis). The other was spec'd TOTALLY against it.
Divert Hex + Expel + LoD + NR.

Who won? Hexway did. 2 guilds about the same rank (top 50), but one rolled the other team in about 10 mins.
That is a DIRECT counter but it still failed.
Given this is a anecdotal proof, I think it gets the point across


A COUNTER SKILL DOES NOT MEAN A SKILL IS BALANCED!

Never has NEVER WILL.


People keeps complaining about nerfing is bad for balanced yet they have not offered a viable alternative!

Yes Winter can counter an entire fire build.

Winter + Mantra of Frost, Rangers +15 v. Cold damage armor Ele's with +10 v Ele +10 vs cold damage etc. etc.

That is one example of a counter to a build that focus's on countering the build of the month (Mark of Rodgort based builds in this case) and allows for some balance as well. After all how do people start to burn when hexed with Mark of Rodgort when all elemental damage is cold damage? It’s an old build for PvP and GvG but it would evolve again against the MoR Metagame over time.

Here is what you fail to understand about the Metagame. If 90% of the groups are playing a popular almost unbeatable build, then you by virtue of being in the 10% change your build to a pure counter build, then you have a stronger chance of winning 90% of the matches. There are no guaranteed chances to win.

I strongly disagree on offering an alternative as many in this and other forums have offered alternatives for many of the skill changes. Anguished was Lingwah instead of the Blood Song move was one very popular suggestion made by many people and would prove to be a stronger spirit for the channeling line overall without compromising communing line of skills in any way. That suggestion was completely ignored by ANET even though there was a very strong argument for alternative. For some odd reason even though the PvP and PvE crowd were in agreement ANET ignored the suggestion.

In the example you gave player skill overcame another good counter that does not mean the counter should not have been played or that the counter was ineffective. Not all players are created equal just like teams builds. Question what would happen if both teams ran the same build?

I remember when I won the county MtG tournament 8 years ago using a simple Black Land destruction build. The players I was up against were veterans using something that was popular and very powerful at the time and they were quite upset that I won considering I did not use or have any rare cards or expensive cards in my hand. In that instance player skill overcame a far more powerful deck. Heck I even beat a guy who knew I was going to play Land Destruction and he had the counter deck to my set of cards. Once again player skill overcame a good deck design. So your win / lose example does not mean you’re correct. You see this all the time in sports as well. ever watch football. Sometimes the better team loses because of one reason or another. That does not mean they should have run a different play pattern or played any different then they normally should.

What I still see are a bunch of players who by virtue of having gone through the pain of building a team build over time, unwilling to adjust their paradigm for the sake of allowing the game to evolve. How selfish is that?

And here is where you fail at understanding GW GvG meta and HA mechanics.

An imba build is only about half of you game.
Even if you address that half, your build is already gimped for the other half.

In HA, even if you spec for 90% of the meta, the 10% will likely to beat you and it only takes one defeat to not win hall and start over.




Yes, that is why even the winning guild admitted that their build is in balance.
They did not 'overcome' them - they ROLLLED them.

A 'good' counter is understating it by a huge margin.

You also need to address that the counter guild has now a gimped build vs pretty much everything else - like warrior heavy, ranger spike, ele spike, ele AoE, condition heavy build, split build, etc.

A typical meta build can account for half of your matches every night. When you can't even win all of the matches you are supposed to - how is that 'balanced'??


I don't know. But how does that address the balance issue at hand? It does not.

Again, this is popular comment by inexperienced PvPers.
Where did you base this comment?

In fact, if anything, one build wonder guilds should be complaining about nerfs. Because they are the most susceptible to losing.

This argument is based on assumptions. And my example above already proved you wrong. A guild totally embraced the very thing you guys think should work and it does not. And the imbalanced guild even admitted that the other team should have beaten them.

And how long should one wait to evolve?

SR imba is one year old.
Euro-Hexway are months old (pretty much since NF release)


Really evolve? PvPers evolve faster (metas are usually change once a season) than PvE and PvErs are the one asking to 'evolve'?

Eurohex is a very good build, but I don't think its unbeatable.

Its a very, very fast paced pressure build, and if you have good hexers backing up your team, its an uphill battle for the entire enemy team the whole way.

However, the reason it wins so much is that people play it on guild halls designed to force 8v8.

Before Nightfall was released, split builds were all the rage, but they've been seeing a large decline in recent months.

If you dissect the build, you'll see that the only real melee defense is the Aegis Chain and spammable offensive hexes provided by the Necro. Eurohex relies on the pressure from Migraine, overall degen, and stompy warriors to just overrun monks.

So really, the way you beat it is to disrupt the aegis chain and mitigate the offensive hexes. Spiking out the Migraine mesmer is top priority, then you go for the monks. If you can outlast the pressure of this build, it will fold; it has very little game at VoD.

This is why Power Block is seeing play. Most Eurohex builds either run a Power Block mesmer with Signet of Humility or the Burning Arrow to help them deal with splits.

Another great tactic against Eurohex is to force a split, because the build is designed to fight 8v8. Forcing them to split disrupts their hexing power and allows you to carry the match to VoD, where you have a greater chance of winning.



If two top 50 teams were running this build and its counter, and the counter lost, then I'd first blame the players. If the players were doing everything in their power to stop the other team, and still lost, then you have legitimate ground to blame the build.

But a few days ago, my guild was running a balanced build with a weapon rit

W/A Axe
W/E Hammer
E/Mo Blinding Surge with Aegis (This is what I played that night)
E/Me Icy Prison/Mirror of Disenchantment
Rt/Mo Splinter Weapon/Weapon of Warding/Nightmare Weapon
Mo/E LoD / Infuse / Deny Hexes
Mo/E RC Prot / Aegis
E/Rt Water Trident Runner

We took a guild running Eurohex to VoD on Jade Isle (I think it was Clan Fear, I will verify this), and lost due to player error at a crucial moment. The match was extremely well played on both sides, but they outplayed us at the end.

However, what I do know is that the same guild we faced ended up rolling Team Quitter that same night, with the same build as they did when they played us, within the first ten minutes.

Is my guild better than QQ? Probably not. Did we play well against that particular team, that particular night? You bet we did.



Nothing is completely, 100% ironclad and unbeatable. 1/4 of a victory is creating builds that can compete against the metagame and work well. The other 3/4 are player skill. If the build has the right tools to beat an opponent, you cannot blame the build.

You have more experience than I at analyzing the metagame, so just to further my education I'd like to ask something. What do you think the appeal for ANet to immediately nerf skills is? Is that the easiest path?

Thanks!
TabascoSauce

To achieve a more balanced game -> boost confidence in the player base -> word of mouth spreads -> friends buy the game -> $$$

I see what you are saying, but what you are suggesting is not a balanced metagame. If one build is being played 90% of the time, the metagame is inbalanced, even if that build is beatable.

Here is the problem with the Guild Wars metagame...it can't change until Anet does something, because the metagame builds currently are so strong that there is not much point in playing anything else. Even the direct counter builds have a difficult time beating this hex build going around. That is a problem. Guild Wars has had a similar problem with different builds for a while now. At least in all of the recent Magic metagames, many different decks were seen winning tournaments.

I agree that player skill is key. Looking at recent Guild Wars tournaments, the best guilds are usually at the top. These guilds, along with being the best teams however, are also the best at abusing current builds. Just because skill is winning doesn't mean the metagame is balanced. Actually, many of these players in said guilds have been complaining about the Guild Wars meta for a while now. When the top competition says something is wrong about the game, chances are they are right because they have the most experience...even more so than Anet.

This happens in Magic as well. I look back to the affinity deck from a few years back. That deck was ridiculous, and Wizards banned it. I think if Guild Wars has a problem, it needs to be fixed ASAP. Anet even has a better way to fix their meta (they can change skills at will), while Wizards has to ban a card outright.

I don't know

That's what I'm trying to figure out

Also, who's the idiot?