The current state of the meta has never been worse than it is now, I have been having a very big problem getting a grasp on what Arena Net was thinking when this patch went live. I have been a very big advocate of Arena Net, but I can’t hold my tongue any longer when I see balancing taken into such a direction.
I however do understand the thought process behind what Arena Net is trying to do, I just believe they are taking things into a very bad direction.
Let us discuss what this game has come to.
Firstly I would like to talk about Necro, I do understand that this subject has been discussed a lot on the forums, but it still blows my mind that after stating many many times before that Arena Net doesn’t wish to do knee jerk balancing they decide to make Necros into a moving nuclear reactor of conditions.
There has been a lot of feedback on the forums regarding how Necro should be balanced and what they were missing, and that was survival and ability to disengage; a lot of necro players felt that this is what they needed, but instead of taking that approach Arena Net just threw more damage at them, effectively giving them every condition in the game and in abundance although they already had their own unique condition “Terror”.
The problem doesn’t only stop their but coupled with the improvements made to “Weakness” and “Blind”, this elevated Necro into being an unstoppable force.
Had Arena Net buffed blind, given Necro more ways to gain death shroud or a disengage it would have been perfectly fine, I think that most Necros would agree to that.
Instead Necro was given, Burn on crit, Torment on a new death shroud ability that also immobilizes the target as an aoe and with the new “Weakness” and “Blind”, it just made no sense, in fact if anything it just blew my mind, how a balancing team thought that this would be in anyway balanced.
If you thought that not giving them a disengage and increased survival, but piling on more damage would solve the problem, then your sorely mistaken, but because that sort of approach to balancing has made this game close to unplayable.
Let’s look at another example, thieves, previously thieves main issue was being able to sustain themselves in a fight, and remaining effective through out of the fight; instead of being one shot wonders that fell off after their combo was down.
Take a look at thieves in the current meta, s/d thieves have access to an astounding amount of evades and teleports, that the class its self has become mindless there is no repercussions for diving and little regard to coordination because they can port back at any time, if the thief is very well played it is extremely difficult to punish it.
It just doesn’t promote good play, when you know that you always have an out at the click of a button, and that it takes your opponent ten times more effort to take you down, then it did you just recklessly doing what you want.
Stealth, is another issue in this game and plays right into the same category, it’s just so difficult to punish, and there is no real other counter for stealth than another stealth, there is no intelligent play behind; it’s just a free “do what I want” card.
If there was a reveal mechanic or a way to counter it, then you would see a lot more intelligent play and thought process put behind stealthing, but at the current state of the game there just isn’t.
The current meta is for lack of better words complete and utter crap, the game has never been more un-enjoyable to play then it has been in the past 3 weeks .
Supporting team mates and actual intelligent play has been completely thrown out the window, and things have been degraded down to a condi spam meta, that doesn’t promote any sort of skill or team play.
Damage is so out of control currently, that by supporting a team mate you kitten yourself because regardless of your support, damage is so high he is going to go down anyway.
I miss the days when there was a thought process behind what you had to do, instead now it is a stealth insta gib condition infested meta, that is both un-enjoyable to play as it is to watch.
I hope that Arena Net listens to its players and looks at the current thread and remedies the current problems, because if it keeps going like this, I doubt there will be anyone left playing this game after Pax, because honestly I find no reason to continue playing a game that is meant to be a five vs five game, that promotes no kind of team play or team support.
I understand that a lot of people might disagree with what I have said here, but this is strictly how I view the problems in the game, I have personally discussed this with a lot of players and they feel the same way, I just hope that we can get some input regarding this matter from Arena Net, because this game has been on the decline.
Thank you.
By denying tools, you create choices for the players. We sometimes do a poor job of this, sorry. But overall, we try to make it so that all classes have choices, and teams have choices in which classes they bring.