I think the most important thing when it comes to meta vs fun is setting expectations. if a group specifically says they are looking for people for something like "speed kills" or "meta builds", etc. then anyone who joins without what is considered a meta build would be in the wrong. but if they are just "looking for dps" or whatever in the group finder, and the dude is playing a dps build that isn't optimal because they find it more fun, then the group would be in the wrong if they kick him for it (provided the person was still playing their best with the build) I heard this a few years ago, so I sadly don't remember who said it, but they basically said "it's not an issue of meta or fun, it's an issue of finding like minded players to play with, and the game giving you the ability to find those players" and I think that's pretty accurate.
When we need some DPS to fill up, I usually put "know mechanics or ask" in there. I sometimes get annoyed when people obviously don't know but don't ask. Depening on their reaction I have no problems kicking someone.
I think saying "is doing their best with their DPS build" is a bit shaky. If the content you are trying to clear has a DPS check or minimum requirement to beat the enrage timer (such as Dhuum, a very easy boss to wipe on), you can't be bringing someone using a core 15k max DPS build, because that core 15k max build can very easy cause you to miss the enrage timer, due to DPS needing to be pulled for greens, bombs, or other mechanics. Another example example where that's really, REALLY bad for the group, Twin Largos. The high mobility of the two bosses and the near requirement for condi (power can't keep up due to the boss mobility but they rarely cleanse). Sure, you could carry someone who's build maximum is 15k, but it'd be significantly harder since you already have to DPS the two bosses separately, and it will be unrealistic to expect to be able to blast through one side and then the other. Guild Wars 2, for better or for worse, is an INCREDIBLY casual game. This means that casual players will play casually, not caring about their DPS or boon output or whatever. In most instances (open world), this is fine- GW2 has the ability to be played pretty much solo for most of its non-instanced content. However, the moment you bring something bad (even if it's fun) to a scenario where it's expected that you perform at a specific level, that's on you, not on the group. The group set the expectation by being in the experienced tab (if not even more by having a specific LFG description), and if that person isn't performing to that expectation, it's OK for the group to remove them. You shouldn't be toxic about it when removing someone or being removed yourself, but there's inherent requirements that need to be followed if you're joining someone else's group. Now, if you set the expectation to X and someone gets mad that another person is performing at X instead of their Y, there's a different problem there.
It's a game, there are a ton of people who just play for fun during their free time. I'd say, unless it's a turnament, an irl event, or something official where you have to know what it is to join, you should not expect people you don't know to use meta gear or tactics.
@@mustachecrab9669 If I put it under the Experienced category in raids LFG, I do. Or they should at least have a very good reason for not doing meta and communicate it. The exception being if the squad is trying something different but that should be part of the LFG message.
It’s especially painful when people don’t realize some of the meta builds require near perfection to get those last 1-2% out of, whereas if you just tweak it a little bit it’s easier and you reliably hit good dps.
This was a facinating and much needed discussion video. I wish it could be longer. If possible, I would love to see more of these kind of MMO/GW2 discussion videos from you Muk. Your views and reasons are always on point and have a reasonable explanation behind them. Maybe a GW2 content creator get-together to discuss about more stuff like this? Keep up the great work Muk!
I remember playing heal scrapper in fractals with a friend. I was keeping the whole group alive and healthy, reviving and giving superspeed, the whole package. Yet, 1 in every 3 parties we had a guy complaining that i needed to be a HB for the job. Even if the heal scrap worked completly fine, the fact that i wasnt HB was enough to make them upset. I understand there is a buff HB's give and Heal scrappers don't but my god... and don't get me started on how they reacted whenever i hit them with the "well this is more fun for me", it was rough 😂
I had a similar experience in fractal but I'm HB, every so often there'll be one dude who is not dodge a single mechanic and standing in toxic field and complain about not enough healing when he's a DPS who doing 8K whith full boons which make me avoid any group that label as "LF HB" in fractal NM daily because you don't need HB to finish the daily unless there's a knockback boss there which is understandable. About the "fun" part if you join a pug group and expect everyone to have to same "fun" as you do without communication. I'm sorry but people are different. If you want the same people to have the same playstyle as you do what you want is static group not pug.
I'm still better at keeping my group alive in WvW zerg fights as Heal Scrapper than most of the guild Firebrands despite everyone there considering Scrapper to been nerfed into ground. Though often open-tag commanders will kick me out, at which point I just return with my half-geared Firebrand and get in without questions despite my skill on it being random button mashing and self-preservation. A reputation that something works is much more important in general than it actually working.
While he said one thing he expressed another, namely, "I need the best source of Stab to do anything!" This is really just a matter of him expresing that he's bad :p
@@sirdocc6735 You'll find this in nearly any of the same genre of game. Don't get driven off a good game cause some people are just.. insufferable. Been trying to find the perfect community for too long. It doesn't exist. Unless you want to play Deep Rock Galactic forever lol
After 10 years playing this game it's amazing how it all comes full circle again. It wasn't that long ago another GW2 UA-camr by the name of "nemesis" was trying to have this very same conversation so much so he created a 3 part video explaining the "truth" about the meta and after a few years everyone just forgot about it and nothing was learned cause a large portion of the community place value in there ego rather then facts and fun. If you can find it muk I would highly recommend it, the UA-camr was call "nemesis" or " I am the one I am legion" and he haven't uploaded for many years cause he left GW2 to pursue better health and travel. I hope for what it worth it can shed some light on when and we're it all when wrong. Thank you
I've always been a thorough advocate for what I've called "Safety Net" compositions. There have been multiple dozens of times where I played heal tempest in my old raid group (back before they had alacrity), and I would single handedly carry raids to completion because I would be able to res our squad members from nearly any distance away back to 100% HP (Glyph of Renewal in Water is OP as hell) I take massive issues with people who have basically accepted SnowCrows builds as the Gw2 Bible, and is the only way the game should be played. Sure they will give you a good idea of what is best in slot, but ultimately, those builds are for going FAST, not for being CONSISTENT, which is what most people need to know.
Sounds like you've enjoyed your tempest for the same reason I've enjoyed scourge and druid. The ability to often make raids with mistakes still 1 shot a boss.
@@MuklukUA-cam I only had so much time (and patience) in a day back then, so it was nice to have near-guaranteed wins all the time. Like you said in the video, I would rather spend 6 minutes on a boss 1 time than 5 minutes on a boss 3 times. It ultimately felt better to win more often, and it saved time (and my sanity)
@@jason1131000 I'm leading two (somewhat) beginner raids currently. I prefer the risky strats so that people have to learn mechanics and if we fail then we fail. But if I'd be farming LI or KP then for sure, go the consistant way.
scourge is considered by word of mouth to be one of the weaker healer options but I had a newbie group doing Boneskinner that was able to clear immediately when the healers swapped to their scourges and we brute forced it with their rezzes
@@mimimalloc Scourge is considered weak because less access to some boons and less healing capability. OTOH Scourge is often considered a crutch because barriers and incredible revives (before the recent nerfs).
In GW2, I never got behind dps benchmarks. Yes, more dmg = less time fighting the boss = less time to screw up. But you know how to also screw up? Failing mechanics and not having a safety net. In pug's, there is always someone who messes up something. And I really prefer having an additional shield, aegis, heal or rez, in orde rto get that guy fighting again, because that means more dps than being one man down. And let's be real: Most of GW2's content really does not require top dps benchmarks.
I always think it's kinda funny how people say the way you play is wrong even though you have the receipt that it's working. I 100% agree with what you said as long as you communicate with what you wanna do/try and have the forbidden f word (fun) ... who cares?! If it's working I'm 100% okay with it.
I'm a big fan of diversity in builds. I love the 10 scourge run, I saw that and absolutely fell in love with that style of gameplay. 10/10! Teapot's celestial run was something my own raid group tried and we all had so much fun! The dps were laughing because they felt unstoppable. The healers were overjoyed because they were pulling out some OK-ish damage numbers! TLDR: Cele is king stat, change my mind. Scourge is still busted.
Would also love to do that but its so difficult to find people/ a guild that actually is willing to do something fun instead of just meta all the time.
"The meta" is unfortunately usually set by people looking at top-tier speedrunners, since the fundamental unit of value in an MMO is time. Realistically it should bias toward consistency and ease, because the real time loss is having to do encounters over again, but it's rare to see that in my experience. The sudden proliferation of rifle mechs is about the only case I'm aware of where that organically happened.
Yeah the problem is that people are looking at the builds that speedclear guilds use (most prominently snowcrows) and then interpreting that as the best possible build, completely disregarding the fact that to play those builds at the level where they are undoubtedly the best builds in the game, you need to know the class, rotation and encounters inside out. In reality, the best possible build on a player is the one they can deal the most damage while surviving, which theoretically needs to adjust to each individual's ability.
@@theNightDice Yeah. Taking 10% of the max performance off while making it 40% easier to play (e.g. more consistent) is a hell of a good trade and Snowcrows doesn't even consider such things to my knowledge.
Heal alacrity Specter...... 2023🎉! On a more serious note, I would have to agree a game is designed to be fun and yes, there are rules of engagement. Also, some people as a group have certain expectations and I feel as long as they express said expectations and people mutually agreed to those expectations then how you get there shouldn't really matter. Since I came back 3 years ago, the meta has dramatically changed. What is meta today might not be meta tomorrow. I remember last year when I was first exposed to Heal Alacrity specter, at first it was really hard to get into strike content because it wasn't meta. So eventually I started building my own groups and practicing and bringing other classes that could supplement areas of weakness and it worked out really well for me. It taught me how to lead every strike and it helped teach me about every single build variant for other classes and what they brought to the table. If I was stuck playing the traditional meta support build, I wouldn't have learned that on my own or as fast. I had many people kicked me from their group. Many people whisper me and say that that's not an appropriate build(with much harsher undertones). "You should try something else" but I didn't let that discourage me. As I became better and started to fine tune my build and navigate certain environments even in low level raid wings, I would have people whisper me for copies of my build, weapon selection, and how I overcome certain obstacles. 😊 This my friend is how innovation is created.
Heal alac specter was the first build I dedicated myself to learning when EoD came out. I hated playing thief before because I personally found it boring, but then specter happened and my magic-obsessed self LOVED it.
See here is the thing you my friend are doing what the actually top top people do they don't play Meta they figure out stuff that becomes Meta first those that scream and chase Meta are mediocre players trying to pull others down to their level
Preaaaaach! I will say, having also played MMOs for 20, something I've consistently observed is that people will hide toxicity behind terms like "elitism" or "I just want people to pull their weight". There's also an element of people feeling like putting others down will make them look better. This perpetuates the cycle because one streamer will come out and say "this build sucks" and then some players are afraid of looking bad and they'll pile on and say "anyone who uses this sucks". It's a thing. Saying other people are bad makes people feel more competent.
Too often tryhards also forget that meta builds and tactics for group content only work when EVERYONE is 100% geared and capabled of performing like people that define the meta in the first place. If you gear up full berserker and runes of scholar, you better know how to AVOID damage almost perfectly or you're wasting your healer's time, your scholar rune bonus (remember, you need 90% or more hp for it to work) and probably dragging the fight out a little bit (since your dps is lower because your rune is not working all the time).
Maybe the most important message within this video: Communication is important. If the whole group agrees upon having some fun and not run the most effective meta stuff, all is fine. Sadly there are also some "wannabe hardcore experts" that can't get behind that idea of playing something else at all and set up ridiculously high requirements even for pretty easy stuff. Maybe their motivation might be to clear the most content (and make most profit) in the least possible time, which is absolutely valid - but not the only way you can play the game or certain content.
The worst is actually when a player plays something "meta" but doesn't undersand it. I train for HT CM (biggest fight in Gw2 for those who don't know) and for a long time, the vindicator was bugged with its dodge. So one people who I train with did dodges and tried to use the bug so he could do bigger DPS (that didn't worked btw) The thing is, when the bug was fixed, the player didn't do dodges anymore. For those who don't know, vindicator DPS has a dodge that send him in the air and crash on the ground, doing DPS AND giving the player a damage buff. So the player I train with was doing so little DPS because he wasn't dodging at all. The same player, some weeks after, hear of another class that is doing really great in DPS (reaper) and he asks someone who is playing it how hard it is. The fact that these players don't understand their class but play them because it's "meta", I don't like it... Play what you like, Gw2 is easy enough to play what you want and what you like...
Thanks for sharing Mukluk. That's actually one of the reasons I've not taken the dive into GW2 raids. I worry I can't get it done and cannot find a group if I run anything off meta. But that does make a lot of sense. I believe I would want a safer run that is slower than risk taking a few wipes and group morale taking hits due to group wipes.
Thanks for this video Mukluk. Sorry you’ve been getting hate mail from some players. I won’t do PvP, or PUG Raids, so I’ve been able to avoid toxic players in GW2 for the most part. I wish more players would realize that knowing how to play your character is more important than having a meta build, as long as you have a reasonable build.
Great topic. Personally I don't do alot of group content because I like to play gw2 for me. I play and enjoy the game for myself. Meta builds are ok but for me meta is not always fun. I have had some people try and tell me to change my build but I do not believe a person should have to change what they like to make others Happy, have fun y'all thank you Muk
I feel like the less a player actually understand the game, the more toxic and annoying they get if they insist on using Meta stuff. They don't understand WHY something is Meta but they do understand it's Meta so if something isn't working, all they can do is blame the non-meta thing. Better players usually understand the nuances that let you bring other stuff in certain situations which may be a better choice then the current PuG Meta.
I have to partially disagree with you here. I was part of a raid semi hardcore speeclear static. We were not aiming for world record but we wanted to always be as fast as we can and improve. Like many other statics we occasionally need a replacement for one or more of our players due to circumstances. So we have to rely on randoms to fill in. We expect those randoms (as requested in the LFG message) to be experienced and put out decent damage (we made it so we never have to replace a support class. all of us can play any support so we just demand dps from randoms) Then teapot and mukluk started to put out those low intensity builds. In general i think they are great to make casual players perform better. We noticed an increase of people who join with those low intensity builds and it was getting really annoying. Their damage wasnt terrible but still consistently on the bottom of the dps ranking. We want high damage and if your build is not meta and underperforms, we dont want you. It has nothing to do with not understanding nuances. It is just our requirement for our specific goal.
@@einherjar4902 As a semi hardcore speedclear player myself (at least in the past) I think you should lower your expectations when you are pulling pugs into your group. When you want high performance, you should start building a backlog of backup players, that you can ask, if they help you out in case you need replacements. There you can set your high expectations. In our static we never set the goal to improve, unless our whole static is present or we have enough backups to compensate. As soon as you pull anyone in that is not in a controlled group, those expectations should go out of the window. You can still increase your support performance (lower toughness, healing power to increase support dmg, optimize mitigation execution with specific mechanics...) but if you replace dps players, then is is all out of your hand. As long as you don't have people that are pretty much grieving, i would just go with the flow. You either get those people with LI builds fast and do your clears or you wait forever for someone that plays on the same level as you want it to be and take forever getting to clear anything. My advice: When you invite pugs and see that they perform well, get into contact with them and ask them if they would be open to backup if needed. Do this during your pug adventures. After you got like 5-10 people where you know how they perform, just stay away from LFG if you are not ok with the performance most players will bring. It saves you the headache and time to find someone to fill and saves the pug from joining a group, where they are actually not wanted.
Great discussion point I have had this topic with many guild members over the years, I always lean to, I play an MMO escape the stresses of life, so I much rather we all have fun than try to be a performance group. Performance groups can be fun if everyone on the same page but often cracks appear and becomes unfun quickly.
I used to play instance-based MMOs where you queue into an instance dungeon (if random people queue roughly the same time, they will be put in the same instance). You're expected to clear the content solo but more people would make thing easier. Not every playthrough is easy, sometimes you fail, and you might fail multiple times, but nobody seems to mind because their attitude is more in line with "it's good enough I get to queue with other people", "at least there're still people trying this map", "would have been much harder if I have to do it on my own", contrast to people attitude today that seems entitled to smooth grind (it's called grind because it's easy and predictable). Nowadays some people have too much times on their hands to be proficient at using meta builds and too used to get things done easy, so a single instance of mistake would immediately get them start on cycle of misery (whine-cry-spin-blame, as we used to call it, nitpicking like Karen manager) ruined the experiences for new players. Three tries, three win would be boring. Three tries, two loses, one win is what makes a game fun. Or if you win zero, just try again tomorrow. Stop the entitlement and appreciate challenging circumstances, fellas
This is something I wish people understood more and why casuals and invested but not diehard hardcore players get pissed when balance changes cause meta builds to become a nightmare to play. No matter your play style, you are always pressured towards meta. The majority of the player base is not ultra hardcore but they will be building toward the goal of having a meta build they know how to play well. So when changes happen like with Druid, that took the build from something pretty accessible and fun while still being meta viable into something where you saw the rotation and even hardcore were like "WTF kind of carpal tunnel simulator is this?", it causes this big outrage because you can say, "You can play something else" but honestly you really can't, if you don't have a bunch of friends that play, going off-meta is like asking for stress and toxicity a lot of the time. And it's especially bad in games where players are locked into a class or even a spec since if you don't have legendaries, it's a huge pain to change builds as well. It sucks, it's an issue with online games in general, but my thing is, it is a game at the end of the day. If the content doesn't have a super tight enrage that forces meta, it really should not be what it's like now. Like the expectation is perfect Speedrun instead of "I'm here with strangers, it might take longer as a result, but there's no enrage so let's just work together a clear".
Fun Topic presented in this video. I myself did actualy quit GW2 a few months ago just because of how toxic groups for daily activities like strike missions are. My main is an Ele and I love playing either heal alac or celestial catalist with boons such as might/quickness/fury/prot. Every time i joined a group I communicated to them "hey, iam playing offmeta heal tempest or boon catalist", and most times i just got kicked immediatly without any word, or even worse, they let me stay, we cleard the contend with no issue what so ever, but than get messages afterwards with "your dmg was totally trash, you should uninstall". I dont get it at all, whats the problem, when you have no issues in clearing the content, but take maybe 2-3 mins longer. Its so sad to see the absolut necessity of meta even for easy content. Maybe this view changes when more voices of people like muk or teapot speak up. i just hope for the best and want to return to GW2, one of my favorite games of all time.
I stopped playing it a few years ago, but when I played a small mmo called Realm of the Mad God the thing we called raids was heavily run by a handful of discord servers. The discord servers were actually a pretty good experience because they very clearly listed out the minimum requirements and expectations for joining groups. The discords had a general raiding section with low requirements and a veteran raiding section which was your super sweaty groups with both groups having separate but clear expectations. In the general raiding section, if you fell below the minimum requirements the group organizer would usually explain to you (without screaming at you) what you did wrong and then asked you to leave the group and come back when you meet the minimum requirements. Because the requirements were clearly stated and any infractions were handled in a civil manner, things went smoothly. The requirements for the veteran sections were also very clear that it was for very experienced players and had a list of what was banned and allowed. And again, because the requirements were so clear there were rarely any problems. Setting very clear expectations for your group helps prevent a lot of frustration.
Thank you for talking about this issue! I've never played raids and only rarely strikes, when a friend invited me and lead the squad. I don't have the time or nerves to farm for gold and material to get new armor or even attempt full legendary gear and then learn rotations that change regularly. So, I just want to play with something I'm comfortable with, be it the stat combination or the weapon choices. That's why I've got marshall stats on my ele for years, every other character has marodeur gear and I only visit Metabattle if I dare to play some ranked PvP - which also happens just once or twice a year. And this topic is one major reason why I struggle to take part in group content, like raids, WvW and higher-level fractals. PS: I was that weaver who said "Greetings from Germany" in the PvP lobby recently and I really liked that tea party we had there ;-)
In FFXIV, addons are (technically) prohibited, so most players don't even see a DPS meter In light of this, a big part of the community adopted a viewpoint that "if you cleared the content - you did enough damage". The amount of damage someone contributed, how much DPS one class can do compared to others - doesn't matter except for the highest of the high end content I think communities of other MMOs could learn from that
I use Snowcrows and Metabattle for reference points some. But what I notice about most of those "meta" builds is that they're very optimized. As in, expecting you to be able to consistently hit the same series of buttons in the right order. They don't seem to deal with mechanics or moving or player ability. So it's really hard to see how they're all that great for anything but beating on test golems. So I am always at least tweaking a build to be easier for me to play. Or something more "inspired by" a meta build or two. I find I'm going to be a lot more effective with a build I can actually play, actually stay alive and do mechanics and such. Using actual meta builds would decrease my effectiveness and dps for being too hard to play.
I highly doubt that happened, no one ever gets kicked because they're doing 2k dps less than desired. You probably were doing 14k and typed this comment so you can feel better about your performance. Anyone who actually ever raided in GW2 knows your story is sus af.
@@MoreImbaThanYou yeah, I've done raids many times and is not a big of a deal if you are around 20k dps, we've got ppl doing even less than that But there's always that weird people around
This was a very interesting video. I fully agree with all points made, especially the 'play with like minded people' point. I DO want your take on the argument that 'if the boss dies faster we have less mechanics to do and thus its safer.' I don't know how it stacks up against 'having better defense means just being able to survive the mechanics much easier, so it doesn't matter if you have to do more.'
There is definitely a line. For example on gorseval if you do enough damage to skip the gliding phases it is much easier. And that is made easier by your dps being higher than a certain margin. On the flipside in other cases, doing more damage to make the fight 30 seconds shorter might not be easier than having a 3rd healer, and upping the total raid healing by 50%. I think it is situational.
I remember the gearscore days back in WotLK, it was often times difficult for a casual raider like me to get into an LFG run. It was so inefficient because it could never measure a persons individual skill level and knowledge. A lot of people hated when Blizzard added the LFR system, but I loved it
Great take on this! The first time I raided was with you (even though I threw myself of the edge) and we cleared it. Thanks for putting this out as sooo many people use this meta as a basis to play the game. Quite bored of it to be honest hence why I took a short break. Will be back with the new weapons :D Great vid as always! See you soon in game.
totally agree! you nailed it. I'm a big cele fan for the reasons you point out in your examples. thanks for your excellent explanation and I hope it somehow improves the community attitude toward non-meta builds
I raided with highly meta-focused guild back when PoF wasn't even announced yet. Since I mained mesmer, I was instantly coerced into chronomancer tank-support during Signet of Inspiration rage. It was egregious. After few weeks with them I started marking in my calendar when they are organizing a raid, just to not play GW2 that day. After every raid I got berated for what felt like ages (was 15 minutes according to my wife) for not hitting top of the metrics. "You need to train", "You need to practice", "That wasn't 100% uptime" etc. They weren't good themselves, could only clear like three to five bosses and unless I was on they had to wait for chronomancer because none of them wanted to play it. And that was my first experience with raiding at all, and so far the only because god damn I'm not risking it again. Get in guild, get hardest role to fill, get berated weekly for not being good enough. Welcome to GW2, game with nicest most casual community out there.
I had a raid leader (this was a mostly training group at first) who insisted on training and practicing and everyone having to be close(r) to the top. I just literally can't hit anywhere near those numbers with my preferred class (oh yeah I did get that too, why am I playing that), absolutely no matter how much I memorise my rotation, how much I practice, how spot on my gear is. Doesn't matter, I'm not reaching those numbers. Lots and lots of "feedback" that I need to get better. However, after becoming familiar with a fight I stay alive and don't fumble mechanics pretty well. Certainly beats having to scrape someone off the floor every 5 seconds. But that didn't matter, numbers didn't go brrr enough. I remember spending absolute ages on getting through w1-4 initially. Maybe them numbers weren't so... effective after all. Years later we had another guy do raid training and then regular raid evenings in the same guild, one who considered the fun side of it much more than the numbers. Somehow we with then like 7 new raiders cleared the 4 HoT wings not in a span of months, but a few weeks, even with long explanations of the particular fights between each one. Maybe power creep. Maybe just some safer builds or better support from support. But we had a ton of fun. And soon after we would often one-shot entire wings. Sure, I did get recommendations to get my numbers higher, but nowhere as... emphatically as before.
@@Ralesk If you plan for things to maybe go wrong/bad, you have a safety net. If the healer revives 50 people but you do the boss in one go, is that worse then wiping five times before clearing the boss kinda thing. Edit: Also reminds me years ago when somebody blasted me for playing "Condi necro" when some other condi class did more overall damage. Zero consideration for what I found fun, just numbers.
I totally agree with what you said. I have been running a revenant in full celestial gear and I have been doing really good with it in all story chapters. But once I get into a raid, 1 out of 3 times, I am not kicked before completion. And usually nothing is said to me, just kicked.
THANK YOU! This is an opinion that caused problems amongst me and my guildies. They are all about meta while i just want to play what is fun. It ended up with me dragging down the morale of the entire group for playing my favorite class the heal scrapper in fractal CMs. Was it meta? no. Was it working? ABSOLUTELY. I even got the DWD achievment with the scrapper. But of course all that hate and push towards a class i didnt like to play turned into massive burnout and i havent played fractals (or gw2 consistently) since! I dont talk to these guildies anymore. And they found groups where they have plenty of meta to run with. I stick to training Raids and such because teaching players raids is 1000 times more enjoyable than running with meta slaves.
That is why I do not raid. I do not want to worry about what specific buff I bring to a group just to “optimize” for a fight people have had on farm for years.
I was afraid to do T4 fractals again after the recent Scourge nerf and when I got back in, this one guy asked me why I wasn’t playing condi reaper? It was an easy 20k damage. So I had a great sword and switched traits between fractals runs. And he was so confused that I was only doing 3k damage. He was saying to change chill to bleeds. Dude could not comprehend that I didn’t have legendary armor to switch stats, no legendary runes to go from nightmare to w/e the build was, and no reading of skills/traits because I didn’t have time. I switched back to the Scourge build I was familiar with and easily got back to 8-10k damage. Sometimes to do the meta, you have to understand the build
I think the points of Communication being key as well as just knowing what the group is doing vs what you're expecting were very well put here, thanks. So many times, yeah the top %/meta/FotM build isn't actually needed even if it's perceived that way by Srs Bsnss groups. But at the same time, if you're walking into a group that's trying to push hard progression content and you're testing out a "fun" build... maybe there's a mismatch there. I used to play The Secret World, and my Cabal (guild) had some players who really pushed progression content, some who were one step behind but still doing hard content (me included), and some who played casually for the fun and story. One week, our Progression crew was down their normal healer and asked me to fill in, but to use their healer's build rather than the build I normally ran. While I was far less familiar and comfortable with their regular healer's AR/Blood build, their group play and strategy was based in part around the long range leeching heals and the barriers that that build provided for them rather than the HoTs and buffs I was used to rolling. So yeah, you're dang right I matched my build to the situation rather than digging in my heals. And we dang near got a clear (they got the last few % the next week when their regular healer was back). In the group I normally ran with, we played our fun but effective builds, because that was understood as how our group played so long as we were still getting things done. We had some really wild builds in and out of that group. And it highlighted that there is a time and place for both approaches, you can't just say "Meta is bad always" or "Meta is always the answer".
@@Zuraneve I feel like there's lots of misinformation about Raids in General, not every group is toxic, rude or expect perfect boons, dps and usually wont' care what spec you play. For Squad based content i suggest finding a Guild or start doing in with a group of Friends, thats how i started doing Raids it's now my favorite content in the game.
I've been playing MMO's since Everquest Beta, 1997. My 10 year old son talked me into it and I wanted to know, for his safety, what 'it' was, Lol. Before that we were a Nintendo playing family. Been playing RPGs online ever since
I think its important to note as well that GW2 isn't really difficult enough to NEED meta builds to clear it's content. Like you said around the cele raid Teapot ran, they were nowhere near the enrage timer. In other games, the damage checks are that tight that you need to run the most effective build to give your group the best chance of clearing the content so running a non-meta build sabotage's the group. Gamers are obsessed with "most effective/efficient" tactics these days, every game is essentially reverse engineered and UA-cam guides are released on day 1 listing the most efficient builds/tactics. It also take the fun out of games, discovering things you enjoy and trying new stuff. I've had to train myself not to look up guides when playing a new game because I'd find myself looking up most effective builds/tactics before I'd even start playing and that was the case across FPS, MMOs, pretty much every genre.
All true and totally agree with you. You should check out Folding Ideas video "Why It's Rude to Suck at Warcraft" for a deeper dive explainer of why the try-hards are angry.
I've been playing MMOs for 20+ years now, and in the beginning, I tried my best to follow the meta. As I've gotten older, I've been more focused on fun instead. Life's too short to stress out about whether you're playing the most effective way. I usually make a build I find fun, then check the meta and make tweaks to bring it closer to the meta, and then never touch that build again unless a patch really changes things. I'd rather things take a little longer with no stress than to speed run through everything, getting angry with every little mistake, and I think GW2 handles that mindset pretty well (even if there's a small subset of players who don't).
One of the builds I play is a heal-alacrity Renegade, and the amount of times I've had people in groups ask who the subgroup's healer is so funny to me xD I've only ever seen one other person in the wild playing heal-ren, but it's a class I've really enjoyed a lot! It doesn't give as many boons as say Herald, but I enjoy it and it's been my fractal main for ages! That said - I'm always so hesitant to join groups I don't make myself out of fear of getting booted for not being a firebrand. I do wish people were a little more willing to give something other than the stock-standard a go, I know it works, but sometimes people wanna try something else and like was said here, most content in gw2 is plenty forgiving enough for it even if you're not playing the most up-to-date snowcrows approved builds.
Some of the most fun I've had in MMOs has been finding ways to clear content 1. with a non-meta setup and 2. not as the developers intended (but not to the degree of flat-out cheating). Example of the second would be some of the stuff I've done in FFXIV, where I've either been the solo tank (allowing us to bring another dps) or one of my raid buddies would be the solo healer...or in rare cases we've been able to pull off both in the same fight (Emerald Weapon extreme back in Shadowbringers) My hijinks in that game pale in comparison to things like TankCob, where 8 tanks were able to clear the Unending Coil of Bahamut (one of XIV's ultimate raids). Granted, the folks who did that were all veteran players who had cleared the fight dozens if not hundreds of times each, but it's fun with folks who are good at a game find ways to "beat" said game that are a bit out of the ordinary
I think the best word that can describe meta builds is efficiency and by that i mean the time needed to clear an event/boss, so its safe to say that some people have fun while achieving fast clears, others can have fun playing their favorite spec/class and not too worried about time efficiency , it goes both ways.
When I first started playing end-game content, I pretty heavily played meta builds on my engi. And when I play new classes, I tend to start with the meta builds. But often, I'm doing that because I don't know the class well enough. It took me a long time to learn the engi traits and their synergies. I know what I'm losing and what I gain now when I switch traits and utilities around on the class. As a side effect, I'm generally am not playing the meta builds now on engi, because I know the tradeoffs for the features I really like. I don't know the other classes like that though, and the tradeoffs in guild wars can be huge due to how hidden those synergies can be. If I try and mess with things on my rev or on warrior, I lose like 10-15k dps because I don't know them well. I think the dramatic tradeoffs you see in guild wars 2 are why there's such an emphasis on meta.
Great vid. I do get why some people can be selective about gear and such with pugs. When you form a pug, you don’t have all day to quiz every player on their experience, knowledge and preparedness before deciding you want them in your group. Having players show their gear as it matches to the meta or proof of kills, etc. can be a short hand for this. Problems often occur when people don’t realize this. Leaders treat meta gear/kill proofs as law or pugs get indignant for some stranger not just trusting them at face value as being competent when they don’t have the conventional signifiers. But as you say: Communication is important. Agreed 100%
Man that Sloth video made me remember this. I did a Spirit Vale/Bastion of the Penitent run a little while ago with a combination of pugs and people from my usual static. We did 10 engineers. We had a good mix of each elite spec (no it wasn't all Mechanists), and one of the pugs was a core engi. A *core* engi. I can't even remember the last time I saw one of those. It went off without a hitch and was a blast. I think we wiped once or maybe twice, and at least one was a chosen gg because the person we wanted to tank didn't actually have the highest toughness of the group (nobody remembered to check lol).
For my part I always played my "fun builds". But! The first "Meta" build I ever got, showed me the possibilities of my champ and had me looking more into gears and builds in general.
I find it really comes down to yltime for some people. They go in with the mindset that we need to beat this in the shortest amount of time, so that we are the most optimal. But like you said, sacrificing a little power from Berserker for more health from marauders or dragon; can save you so much time on not having to reset, cause the glass cannons got killed when they slipped up once.
I feel like the closest "meta" ever gets to being required in GW2 is Q2 pylon kiting. There are only a few builds even capable of performing the role, but even then, there's usually variation.
even that could be done by off meta classes, we had a raid like 2 weeks back where 1 of our pylons dc'ed 20 seconds into the fight. our qscrapper took that pylon job upon himself. he just stood there attached. not able to effectively attack or apply boons. our healer had to heal him a few times but we cleared it. so it can be done without the "meta" pylon classes although it would be a little strange.
my first clear of qadim2 was with a guy running hammer revenant and running to the ball. he wasn't doing a ton of damage but it worked. also we were a training group so we didn't have a, bunch of people with 10 other characters all geared for raiding
@@westcoastwarriorsarchive7929 What's great about this is that would surprisingly work, hammer 3 technically moves your character so you could easily cast it at the pylon and get more time to run back and forth to catch the orb. Clever!
One of the main reasons i don't try to do any raiding (Other than not having the actual time to be doing it). A lot of 'meta' builds tend to suck the 'fun' out of the game or all the 'unique' builds out of the game. Reminds me back when the game first launched and lots of players wore runes or sigils to increase magic find ( back then you had to sacrifice stats in order to boost your MF) in order to get good drops or a precursor weapon. If you didn't run any MF on your gear you were considered wasting time running dungeons or the like. And before anyone says 'you never had to equip MF to gear' they changed it from that system to the current a year release. but to the subject at hand, I believe the 'toxcitiy' derives from the min/max culture that is prevalent in MMO's in general.
I think because GW2 has such a big difference in player skill (or rather effectiveness), content needs to be relatively easier, which is why good players can do things like naked or cele clears. It is however also the reason why most ppl want "meta" in their squads; Random strangers have a relatively high chance of not being that good in GW2, so you want their build to be able to carry them should it be needed. (That said, I've never kicked ppl until after they've proven to be a problem.)
I was explaining this to a new raider the other day. Speedrunners care about time, pugs care about clears. When something goes wrong in a speedrun, they wipe and try again. When something goes wrong in a pug run, most people would prefer to recover and keep going if they can. Having a safety net is more important than doing the most dps possible. Whenever you look up a snowcrows build and see that it doesn't have a stunbreak, you should recognize immediately that this is not a realistic build for most people. Also since you mentioned the no-slubs slothasor, I wanted to talk about meta strategies as well. This particularly applies to raids. The common strategy for some encounters is to nullify or ignore the mechanics. Ignoring greens at VG, phasing Gorseval, ignoring a pylon in W6 Qadim, and ignoring the elementals in Sabir are the ones I see regularly. I think a lot of people haven't made the connection in their brains that these strategies actively make the encounters harder or more risky. Doing stuff like this raises the bar for individual performance and it's completely unnecessary in my opinion. I've noticed a pattern of trying to role-squish as much as possible. There's 10 people in a raid group but often there'll be less than half that in charge of doing mechanics. There are 4 cannons in Sabetha so you could easily run 1 person for each one. That would mean you could even use the spare bombs to handle missed cannons without needing to worry about messing up the debuff timing. But no, groups run the bare minimum number of people doing mechanics, even if it makes the encounters harder and riskier.
And the worst part is the really meta/max damage people I've noticed tend to end up flipping the table after a wipe, (one to three) and accusing everybody of not knowing the fight "Is this a training run?! We asked for experienced!" and then ragequit. Because they can't handle the reset.
I wouldn't say killing the elementals on Sabir necessarily makes the fight easier/more reliable. The person going out and killing them is at substantial risk. It really depends on what the group is good at. If you have enough missile protection and are doing decent dps then I find that more reliable than sending someone out. For Gorseval the group dps right now is so high that phasing him is usually no problem but when I lead, I keep an eye on his HP and group dps just in case we better take the third updraft. I guess for Sabetha people just prefer 2 cannon runners because it's easier to coordinate and there are some classes that are better suited for it than others. Having a teleport for example is very nice to have. IMHO the wing that is most "anti role-squishing" is 2 because many of the mechanics are entirely random so anyone can get them.
I've recently returned to GW2 after a long hiatus in FF14, but you see similar behaviour there. There are cases where a certain class has a balancing issue and isn't be able to clear top-end content the first week it's out, and for months, PUGs will exclude that class, some to the point of extremely toxic comments, despite people being much better geared after the first couple of weeks. I think understanding the meta is important since it gives you an idea of what can be done, but adhering to it just because "it's the meta" isn't always necessary. Overall, like you said in the video, it just comes down to communicating what you want from a group, and respectfully parting ways with players who want different things.
I did Fractal CM's + dailies with a group of 5 Mechanists with the celestial Lord Hizen build with some variations (some had mine for boon removal for example) in about an hour and 10 minutes compared to the 45/60 minutes of the meta compositions and it was really easy
I play whatever made up build on whatever class I want on GW2 for fun. The only time I'm remotely serious is if I want an achievement, but I still do pug groups for that achievement and say "be whatever/bring whatever, we'll give it a try!" I'll explain mechanics like "have to use this [thing] to debuff boss so we can hit it" but then just have fun with it.
I go with what the group needs. If it's a chill group that allows experimentation then i go with non-meta builds that i wanna try out. If it's a group that is pressed for time, then just run meta.
I think this is a very important topic and I'm glad you scratched on that Muk. Meta is fine and dandy, if ppl wanna play it, do it. When it's necessary, ok, but 99% of the time it isn't. It's a game, it's supposed to make fun, and if someone doesn't have fun because he can't try-hard grind his weekly Raid-Bosses in 5min, then somethings wrong. I don't think it's bad to try better yourself at what you're doing, even in a game. But don't force those ideologies on others. Who cares if the boss lives 2min. longer, but is a safe-kill? The rewards aint better if you kill them faster. (Only in IBS-Strikes, but hell, those strikes are so goddamn easy once you understand them, there really is no reason to push Meta)
What's a little upsetting about the community's insistence/obsession with meta and benchmarks, is that the same philosophy has seemed to extend to the devs. EOD elites marked a massive downgrade in interesting or creative utilities, and much of each elite spec has been reduced down to "we expect you to press specific buttons, in a specific order, and if that's producing too much damage, then we'll nerf the whole thing." I've had conversations with people over whether a class or build was fun, and I always, ALWAYS hear "I mean the rotation isn't so bad." These players didn't design the rotation, they don't understand the nuance of the rotation, they just plug and play whatever high-ranking guilds who do the math and crunch the numbers tell them to, and never question it.
I feel like I need to say this, even if I haven't played Gw2 for over 18 months at this point. First of all, META stands for "most effective tactics available" which is a legit thing and what the "peak" is. Now, something that is important to keep in mind is, not everyone can play those "peak performance". Just looking at other game like League of Legends for example. Not everyone would be able to play the champions that are played in pro play, or at the challenger rank which is like 0,01%. Same with Gw2, idk what the top snowcrows number would be, but if weaver was top meta at the moment, I doubt I'd see most casuals playing it because of how complex the class is. Now, that being said, something that is really important to take note in Gw2, and you did show several example in this video - The power creep is really high for every class at the moment. This is why you have naked group that are able to kill bosses. And this power creep is what makes Gw2 PVE content breathable in it's creativity of builds and group diversification. Everyone can play what they want kind of.. and if you join a group, just express what you do/bring to do group. Top tier raider in GW2 swears by the META like the holy grail, but shouldn't because of this power creep. What these people should do is look at who is failing mechanics instead of chasing top numbers. GW2 isnt meant to be a hard MMO in it's end game content either, so these people that are gating the content are just toxic for the game. If the low DPS would mean that the boss would wipe the group, then yes it would be an issue.. but here, it is not. So in this case, it's totally okay to go and play whatever you feel like. This year, I've played FF14 and did all the story, and end content just to see how it is, even from a pure "group finder" perspective, and I could see the game is extremely well balanced. The only class that is potentially on the lower priority is Red mage which, again, I see top raider using for it's battle rez. And when a group was wiping, it wasn't because of DPS, it was because of a mechanic that was failed. I can say the same about WoW which I'm currently playing, the game is a lot more balanced than it used to be back in the days, and the balance patch are quite frequent as well. There is more kicking from a group in this game, on one side because addons such as DPS meter are allowed, but also a community that was driven by top meta slave for a very long time. I would say that today, it's better than it used to be, especially in LFR (looking for raid/group) content. It's the 1st tier of difficulty of raiding and dungeons and people are usually okay with whatever you play as long as the DPS isnt on an atrocious level, and you don't die too much. I havent played ESO in some time, and havent played much endgame so I cant really compare with that one. So I dont know why top raider in GW2 has to be gatekeeper to an objectively easier endgame in this game, this is something that I will never understand and need to change someday. There's enough breathing room to bring fun/meme build in raids, Strikes and even Fractal in this game and altho it is good to know what the META is, no one should expect you to follow it like a slave , be on any MMO, League of Legends, Overwatch or any game really. Don't troll or grief on purpose a group you don't know, and for the rest... just have fun. Games are MEANT to be for fun, it's not a second job.
I'm actually gonna give people a bit of a bitter pill to swallow Meta is in 99% of games not actually the best tactics it's actually only the most effective thing people on average can perform in fact the best of the best usually are the ones that don't play Meta but rather those who through their own experimentation and work define what becomes Meta so chasing the Meta will never make you the best it will just make you average
"Most Effective Tactics Available" is a backronym and not what "meta" actually means. "meta" is short for "metagame" or "the common strategies of a gameplay environment." This may or may not be based in effectiveness. For example, in Magic, the Gathering, virtually every format has a burn deck that's effective. It's not top-tier in any of them, but it's always an effective contender. This is part of the meta. It's also important in most formats because burn decks are among the cheapest ones to assemble, allowing people an easier path into each format.
If you are playing group content it definitely helps everyone out to communicate and have the same goals. Some people only count a win if it's the fastest win possible, other people call any win a win. If someone cares either way they should know what the group their playing with is aiming for. Ideally as people discover others who share their perspective they should guild up, and the problem of miscommunication should lessen as "hardcore" guilds and "fun" guilds give everyone a group to play with.
I'm sure the Meta is fun to some people, winning is fun after all. But learning the Meta for a game that you can complete 90% of the content with non-meta strats and builds for, feels like doing homework on your fun. I have a Condi/Quick Harbinger specced with full Ascended, Ritualists, ~130 AR, ready to go when my friends get back to Fractals, but in the mean time... I'm playing Bonksmith Scrapper for open world and story progression.
@@thegrayfox881given that most raids these days are just burst and ignore all mechanics you can that actually leads to far worse understanding of the content
@@thegrayfox881 @mgsgrayfox881 And an elephant gun is more effective then a 308 in killing a deer doesn't meant the 308 won't get the job done just fine also teaching work around and the current fastest way to do mechanics actually offers someone no understanding because you have no baseline to reference from also just as a side thing min max building is usually fairly boring and not engaging for most people and in a game like GW2 frankly it's overkill for the majority so long as they are doing well enough it doesn't fucking matter
I've played gw2 for maybe a year now, but even without knowing everything in the game and without doing everything or having the experience, I agree with this. You can copy any build you want but you can also make any build you want and play at your own pace and in your own way, and I feel like alot of players have forgotten about this experience due to many variety of groups that are struggling with content due to using stats to up their advantage. Which that's fine but others may not need that and may be able to use other skills because of this or just simply don't want to frustrate themselves over something they could do now with the build familiarity they have now than to make a whole new build that they have no idea what they're doing just because it's meta
As you said, "It's a game it's meant to be fun", anything else just makes it a "Job" at that point. I ONLY start looking into 'Meta builds' if my own build isn't preforming as much as I'd like it to. Even then if I look up a build, I tend to tweak it and alter it enough so it mostly fits my playstyle first and foremost. How I see it is, why use a build that someone else made that doesn't fit your playstyle. To me it makes me feel like someone else is playing my game for me, and takes a lot of the fun out of it and just makes it a job at that point. Plus playing ONLY the Meta in games can make the game itself stale because you already know what it feels like 10 to 100 hrs of using it. Life it stressful enough as it is, I play games to be immersed and have fun!
I played survival hunter in WoW when it was not meta and considered the worst spec because I figured out a way to keep two mobs trapped continually for quite a while before the cooldowns didn't line up. Did less damage, but it made some difficult fights way easier. I got a lot of hate for that, and almost always had to explain myself several times to even get invited to groups. Very fun. Very effective. Very niche.
Great video! I totally agree. I have been playing very casual sinds GW1 and i have fun. I probably have an awful build but hey, i'm having fun for a couple of hours a week. The reason i dont play in groups is because everything has to be perfect and i cannot do that. Thanks Muk! 👍🏼
thank you soo muuch for the viode Muk, I always had issues playing fun builds or of meta for some content in GW2, I give up RAIDs cause of this, is really good see ppl that think different and play for fun. Thank you again ^^
Couldn't agree more! I mostly play SPvP in GW2 and find that the element of surprise counts for a lot. Sure a better player than me with a meta build will be a tougher opponent. But I managed to dominate using my own builds more than occasionally. Players don't know how to deal with the unknown. Can't wait for SOTO and new weapons. Let the chaos ensue!
I've always gravitated toward hybrid classes, most notably feral druid in WoW. The character fantasy was being able to carry my weight in one role, but save the day of things went sideways- using the druid example, coming in feral, tank drops, shift out, brez, tranquility, then go bear, offtaunt while the tank is stabilized, then back to cat to finish the fight. Running the game as a simple maximization equation never appealed at all- hats off to those who enjoy it, but I'd rather a messy fun run with people drinking and laughing than MORE DOTS screaming any day of the week.
I think this meta/try hard mentality is what keeps a lot of people away from group content (me included), specially when you don't have a group of friends to play with and you have to rely on strangers. I'm curious to try fractals, strikes and raids, but appart from some T1 fractals and and easy strikes I don't do nothing else, and it's super rare to do those. The LFG alone has like it's own language that gatekeeps new people. Sometimes I open LFG and I have no idea what they are asking for, so I don't join any group to avoid the drama and go back to open world and wvw.
It's fun how well every single dps build still works well with celestial gear, with a overall dps loss of 15 - 20%, if so. Power Reaper looses only around 9%, and still can cap at 28k dps with a very forgiving rotation, it's insane.
Something a lot of people ignore about this when pugging, is that meta build does not automatically mean meta performance. One example could be weaver who - at times - has pulled ridiculous numbers IN THEORY but virtually nobody was able to perform at that level in actual fights. In wow I often ran into trouble for healing as a holy priest, because at the time everyone was considering resto druid the meta healer. However: While holy priest was worse then resto druid if played by the top 1% mythic raiders, most druids in dungeon pugs were abysmally bad at their class and could easily be outperformed by any other healing specc if said player actually knew what they were doing.
To everyone who is afraid of the endgame content like Raids Frac CMs and Strikes... My biggest Tip as someone who has done Raids for a long time now is to ether Join a Guild that does Raid Trainings or a group of friends and try to clear everything together, i guarantee that you will have much more fun and learn much more. Also i'v been a Leader of a Guild for 3 years now, we'v done many Raid Trainings and regular Monday clears(even a lot of CMs) and i'v never seen anyone complain or pick on anyone just because of what spec/build they were playing, i ran with a Raiding Guild for a while as well... same thing, if you did your job no issues. Are there Toxic and Rude People in Raids... oh yes, when i was getting into Raids( had 25ish Li) i tried to join some pug groups with my main which is a Scourge and there were some groups where people clearly didn't want me to play Scourge. But that's why i completly ignore pug groups and just raid with my guild and only lfg when we are missing someone(not to say that all pugs are bad but there a reason why i dislike pugs). Again find a Guild or group of friends, if they "shit" on you for playing a specific build... leave them and try to find another, i PROMISE you that there is nice Raiding Groups out there and its sad to see many people being afraid of getting into Raids because of this. Sorry if this came out unclear or messy(english is not my first language) but i wanted to say something.
Inspired by your video, I ran Wing 1 with core specs only, and it was fun! There were no issues with damage or healing, the fights just took a little bit longer.
Ah, this reminded me that back in WotLK most Priests in raid were still just playing holy, and discipline despise the rework was only played mostly in PVP. Disc at the time didn't do huge heals, but there was a way to make it do a lot of healing over time and mitigate damage. Took me a while, but eventually I found a group of people to clear ICC10 with, and they were super happy because now instead of bringing 2 or 3 fully dedicated healers they only needed one plus me, who could still put out some damage and made sure the other healer didn't have any stress since most of the large damage a boss would put out on a tank or raid could now be avoided EDIT: Forgot to add. I finally cleared all GW2 raids and made my full legendary armor last year. Both pugging and with a dedicated group. I will say I still have mixed feelings about that experience. In trainings, some people don't mind wasting 2 hours of a group time to explain mechanics you won't even see due to current DPS. And in other more experience groups there was a lot of speed running happening. The raids are so old by now that some of the people who still do it, just want to get it over as quick as possible and feel like they are just stuck on a loop of content they don't want to do anymore but are still there for some reason
There is a term for this. It's called social contract, an oft unspoken but generally understood set of rules around an activity. Unfortunately the default social contract w/ MMOs revolves around the meta. If you don't like the terms of that social contract find a group that plays the way you want to play. That can take effort, but it's definitely achievable.
In my experience, the default social contract is "give it a shot, be nice, and ask if you don't know". 98% of my PvE and WvW groups are like this. PvP is incredibly varied, but even then people are either nice or silent in about 80% of the games I play. That being said, I don't Raid very often, and I haven't touched Strikes yet. When I do Raid, I create my own LRLE (low expectations, low requirements) groups, typically for first timers going in blind, and even then, 95%+ are really nice. But on the forums and Reddit? Man, I've been told that if you even consider playing qdps pzerk then you're actively griefing your team. That is serious wtf.
@@SponTen Don't lisen to what people say on teh forums and definently not Reddit, find a guild or create a group of friends and do Raids and Strikes together, not every group is toxic and wont care if your not playing the most optimal spec.
I feel like Meta is a double edged sword. On the one hand, it gives a guy like me a way to play the game effectively even when I don’t have the knowledge or experience to do so. I remember being grouped with people in GW1 (my first MMO and online game) and they left because apparently you weren’t supposed to put points in everything and instead focus on one or two groups. That night I had gotten two reactions: one was the typical “hurr duurr uninstall the game. The other dude was nice enough to show me what I was doing wrong and gave me an example build. On the other hand, having people experiment and try new things outside the Meta shows a passionate community who want to continue playing the game in new and interesting ways. One of the things I like about GW2 is that you can have an effective low intensity option for people new to a profession, but also have other options for when you understand fights and how to play. I started playing low intensity Reaper (thanks Muk), but have recently tried going to snow crows to find higher damage builds. Still don’t understand why staff gets you more damage than just staying in Reaper shroud for maximum time, but I am learning.
From what Kitty's been raiding for 6 years in GW2 and recently playing FF14 a good bit, gotta say that GW2 endgame community has weird obsession with meta though good part of it comes from the good ol' "kill it before it kills you"-philosophy (aka. "DPS it down before any mechs happen). It doesn't necessarily even come as much from simply clearing faster but from people simply refusing to do the mechanics correctly (with Boneskinner being the extreme example). "Less mechanics happening = less chance for wipe", they say. Guess it's either laziness about doing the mechs or, more likely from Kitty's experience, simple refusal on learning how to execute the mechanics smoothly. And people have focused on that philosophy so much that they've been mostly blind to the other approach: mitigate the consequences of assumed failure. (Outhealing VG's greens and stabbing Cairn's greens being the rare examples of actually doing that, though even that's for more DPS). It doesn't usually even require a massive DPS trade-off to turn 10% chance of recovery into 90% by some skill change. And to be honest, DPS checks in GW2 are mostly a joke (aside from a couple CMs). For example probably purest DPS check is Xera's mid-strat (75% before lazor) which requires squad to do 141k DPS total (that's about 20k per DPS) and that's less than half of what optimized metabuilds are currently capable of. With proper gears (exotic with suitable stats) and traits, you can do that much with most weapons on a DPS build, even including many meme ones. Largos CM requires about 48k subsquad DPS which means about 13-15k per DPS through the mechanics which is kinda strict on Nikare side due to dashes but even then, most builds with some range/movement skills should be able to keep that up rather easily if not eating bubbles like cereal. As long as you do the mechanics properly and the basic stuffs of the build are setup correctly, it's harder to find a build that can't get the job done than build that can. (At most bosses) As basic rule Kitty has for herself: if it can do over 25k at golem, it's good enough for pug raids. 30k+ for fractal CMs. E: Also not surprised at all by hatemail. Doing something differently-yet-successfully is one of the worst crimes you can do in this community.
In my personal opinion, I find it the most intriguing and enjoyable when Mukluk plays a spec that ISN'T "meta" but rather can still be considered self-sufficient and fun. I hate meta-classes, not because of the classes, but because they're an example of when balancing from the team tilts unfavorably to one side and the playerbase locks you out from content you're well within your means of playing because you don't play like they do. But I digress. If it gets to that point, then PUGs need to be formed and held in your own hands so that YOU get to decide on bringing non-meta classes or not. And this is coming from a DH Guardian (Dragon+) that uses a Longbow because that's fun for me 🤣
I think the sloth example was perfect. They did not live because they had barrier. They lived bc they have condi cleanse AND some barrier baked into a dps build.
I once joined a group that was listed "All EoD strikes experienced players only." I think we cleared Atherblade hideout in 5 minutes and the commander started spamming the group chat with vile things the second it was cleared (he of course instantly left the when he was done hating on us). To put it nicely, he said no one was doing even half the damage he was, and we're all illiterate children. No one died, and we all obviously knew the mechanics, but turns out he meant "meta" when he said "experienced." Honestly was pretty disheartening, especially since this was the first time I'd played Vindicator in instanced PVE (Had plenty of open world experience, but I usually swapped to my Ranger for strikes since I've got multiple Druid and Soulbeast loadouts). I knew he was just raging, and you shouldn't take stuff like this to heart, but it got to me and I had to take a break from the game. The thing that got me though was this dude didn't even ask what roles or loadout everyone was running. Once we had 10 people, he just ran in and started the fight. He expected a pug to have perfect coordination with no communication. Btw muk, I love your arrow cart build! It's the most fun I've had in WvW zergs
The first MMO I played I'd get kicked from groups on regular for not playing one spec out of a dozen kinds of builds you could run, made leveling annoying. I'd rather take a player who has handcrafted their build and knows everything about it rather than someone who just put together a meta build going off a guide and knows nothing of how to play it.
Recently, I decided to play through all the story and maps on a core Guardian, and for whatever reason, have stuck to playing Hammer; THE most vilified, anti-meta weapon if the forums and discord are to be trusted. I took around a couple weeks to fine-tune the mechanics - upping Quickness and maximising on sigil damage. While I'm not doing Reaper levels of DPS, I still manage around 13k WITH CLERIC and KNIGHT gear. Consistently top 3 in most pug groups, and it is most importantly, a fun and relaxing way to play. Note that I am also building towards a Celestial support Firebrand in the meantime to provide raid/frac groups with utility and healing. Fuck metas, but be aware of them i guess.
It's a long video, but you might enjoy this video by a channel called Folding Ideas called "Why It's Rude to Suck at Warcraft" - basically goes into expectations and how much of a role access to information in a game etc comes into play to the kind of "meta must be played" stuff.
Also, it seems extremely weird to me that people are so hard-up for meta in GW2. The raids are extremely easy (as you know) and they're yyyyyyyears old content at this point. Unfortunately, them being years old content also leads to altered expectations (also addressed in that video above).
I think it's actually quite simple: If you make the group, you can decide the requirements for the group. Sometimes, people have fun being more competitive or playing a specific composition. In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with having your own standards and making a group in alignment with those standards. Are those standards required to kill the boss? Absolutely not. But, again, some people have fun doing these types of challenges and/or playing at a higher level. Do I agree with someone requiring 1000 LI to do a strike boss? No, so I probably just wouldn't join that group. Do I prefer to play holosmith over soulbeast at KC? Yes, so if a group required soulbeast I just wouldn't play with that group. I'd make my own group. The issue resides with the systems that force people to join other people's groups -- not having a commander tag -- and the culture that surrounding finding progression groups. The squad / party systems + the LFG need an overhaul.
I once saw a condi staff weaver build that did “good numbers on the benchmark.” I honestly didn’t care, it looks like so much fun and it kills things and clears content! I’m building it one day
Sounds interesting. I personally want to try experimenting with ele supports that are not tempest. Particularly heal catalyst, but I’m really scared asking ppl from my guild (who are super chill and host a lot of trainings) to accommodate my curiosity.
The real crux of it is knowledge curve, combined with difficulty curve. Playing meta is the easiest starting point because it's the most effective. The builds are tried, tested and refined to the point where they have become the most efficient option available. So as players are newer to the game, when their knowledge and skill level are the lowest, it's best to start with meta builds for two reasons. First, the builds and gear are mapped out for you, and often the rotation as well, so you can quickly pick up the build and it creates a relatively low floor. Second, playing a meta build allows you to learn WHY the build is meta and what makes it good so you're understanding of the game and tactics get better. This bring us to the big initial hurdle: game knowledge. The greater a player's understanding of the game, the more they are able to diverge from meta. Since their knowledge has grown to where they know why a meta build has become meta, they can craft off-meta builds for themselves that make sense as either alternatives to a meta build or one that provides a unique approach to a mechanic/fight, or is able to fill a niche role within a comp. To be able to play off-meta to it's fullest and not handicap the group, it requires you to understand the meta in the first place. Now, the other half is difficulty curve. In easy content, repeat farm fights, playing solo, memes with the guild, it's more than fine to play whatever you want. But in difficult content, meta shines because it is meta, it's been refined for this content. So if you're at the tipping point where there are hard stops, enrage timers not being met, people failing mechanics, not making heal checks, threat problems, then the group is at a point where every bit counts and playing off-meta could be a handicap that is holding the group back. If the group is ok with that, then cool, soldier on. But if that's not ok with the group then you are being actively detrimental to the group's success rate and that's not cool. At that point you either need to be playing meta to help the group, or have enough game knowledge that the off-meta build isn't what's holding the group back. "But I have way more fun with my off-meta build!" Great. But if it's actively stopping the group from achieving the goal then you have now decided that your fun is more important than the rest of the people in the group's fun, which is in fact a dick move. Ultimately it is all down to communication, organizing and talking group goals and expectations is important for the fun of everyone and the easiest way to sort things out. I'll also add a large point here because no matter how many times I say it, no matter where I say it, people still don't get it: NOT EVERY GROUP IS FOR EVERYONE If someone makes a group and wants to full sweaty try-hard grind out the most difficult content and wants only meta comps and 110% from everyone? That's fine and totally allowed. If you don't like that, that's also fine but that group is NOT FOR YOU. Don't bitch at them, don't whine on the forums, don't write a manifesto about "elitist raiders wah wah wah"... just go find another group that aligns with your goals and expectations, it's that easy. Conversely, if you want to play hardcore and go full effort blast it all on meta that's also ok. Just don't join a group that's labeled "chill off-meta farm run" and flame everyone, that group is NOT FOR YOU.
Having fun in something that you do for entertainment, like a video game? What an outrageous concept. In all seriousness, I always ask two questions: Did we clear the content? Did we have a great time? And here's the controversial part: you don't (always) have to say "yes" to the first question to also say "yes" to the second.
Whenever I 'command' a squad, I ask the roles at lfg as 'any' cuz I don't care what you play and how you play as long as you do your job and the content is cleared. Everyone is happy.
This is what i love about gw2, as long as u know mechanics everything else is optional. as long as u bring whats needed for mechanics, like handkite in w4
So I've had inner monologues about this exact thing going on for a while but it's a bit hard to vocalize since even I'm not the best player myself. I've had friends join into GW2 after I've been playing for years. I've never been one to really question meta builds as, from experience, they tend to just make the game easier to get into and play at higher levels since someone's already done the math that I can't do in my head. I usually recommend new recruits try out the tried and tested stuff before crafting their own builds since it's the difference between walking a path well traveled and a jungle of traits, weapons, stats, runes, sigils, and tons more. It's been a bit tough though on a few friends that joined since they opted not to lean towards these builds and instead tried their own... and then found themselves floundering and just not having fun with the game, which hurt some to be honest since I just wanted them to enjoy it. The issue for me was that I didn't want to sound like a broken record, or that I was complaining about their choices or forcing a meta on them, but at the same time I feel it's pretty easy to make a bad build as a newbie in guild wars, and even harder to learn the reason why it's bad until much later into the game. As experience is gained however, branching out and playing offshoots or working builds that aren't as common should be more normalized. If there's no creativity within the community, no options will ever be discovered.
I have all but completely given up on trying to find groups for Raid/Strike Mission content, I simply haven't completed a full instance of anything due to my experiences with the community surrounding this content, starting from when it released in Heart of Thorns. Now I have a complex understanding of the game and how classes work, I have 40 characters with my favourite thing being theory crafting effective different builds for each one. Now originally around when it first released, even if I was currently running a meta build, in particular the old boon support/dps herald, I wouldn't be allowed in simply for not having ascended gear. Over the years I've had attempts at raiding with groups, but things never pull through, be it pug groups that overall cannot pull the weight needed/don't know the fight and keep dying, groups requiring I present 'kill proof' to join along (obviously can't), joined guilds and discords for learning the fights and they don't commit, groups not allowing entry due to not being EXACTLY meta, or most recently this year, other guilds both new and old I have tried to join for learning this content among others, I join their discords everything's all cool, hunky-dory and we're all excited, and go to bed for the night, only to find in the morning I've been shadow banned, now the case of one I have no idea as I couldn't establish any kind of communication afterwards, but two of them essentially removed me for being trans, because that's in my discord bio. The excuses I was given were "not wanting to get involved with the woke crowd" and outright "we're not interested in playing with lgbt people" Now honestly yeah I think those to be the minority of the community as I believe pretty much most of the community is lgbt+ supportive if not already part of it, but the fact I keep finding the minority lately is very off putting. I do also feel like the need for the meta has become looser due to the extra expansions releasing more variable elite specs, and obviously the power creep that's come with them over the years, and I am of a similar mind set that in group content, a player's build should not be gate kept when they are simply having fun, and it is still viable to clear content. Unless the groups are farming and trying to be as efficient as possible, that's their deal, and they need a full group willing to do the same, but when it comes to simply learning and clearing content with no need to be hardcore and efficient, builds and playstyles should not be gate kept unless it is actively what is stopping the content from being cleared, and if it's someone new, help them learn. But for myself personally, I'm not sure if I'm up for continuing to try and put myself out there for that content if I keep running into those kinds of people.
SO I don't know what's been happening in your mail but in general the issue with off meta strats like the full cele or ten scourges both can be done and when pulled off by skilled players can seem very affective if I took a full set of new players set them in cele and went to samrog we would hit enrage(note I have gone to enrage before on that fight). yes you can clear raids in full cele, yes ten of any class can clear raids, and yes you can use a single healer and 4 boondps, in this case its mostly not done because people don't want to look for 5 roles instead of 4 but in groups where not everyone is as experienced this means you can have some one show up say they can 10manheal and you have to guess if they are gunna mess up and die or if you just want to take 2 boon healers and even if one dies the other can still finish the fight they are options but they require comping but this is just my in expert opinion P.S. sorry for my awful grammar
![Why do people play MMO's solo? [MMOPINION]](/img/n.gif)
I think the most important thing when it comes to meta vs fun is setting expectations. if a group specifically says they are looking for people for something like "speed kills" or "meta builds", etc. then anyone who joins without what is considered a meta build would be in the wrong.
but if they are just "looking for dps" or whatever in the group finder, and the dude is playing a dps build that isn't optimal because they find it more fun, then the group would be in the wrong if they kick him for it (provided the person was still playing their best with the build)
I heard this a few years ago, so I sadly don't remember who said it, but they basically said "it's not an issue of meta or fun, it's an issue of finding like minded players to play with, and the game giving you the ability to find those players" and I think that's pretty accurate.
When we need some DPS to fill up, I usually put "know mechanics or ask" in there. I sometimes get annoyed when people obviously don't know but don't ask.
Depening on their reaction I have no problems kicking someone.
I think saying "is doing their best with their DPS build" is a bit shaky.
If the content you are trying to clear has a DPS check or minimum requirement to beat the enrage timer (such as Dhuum, a very easy boss to wipe on), you can't be bringing someone using a core 15k max DPS build, because that core 15k max build can very easy cause you to miss the enrage timer, due to DPS needing to be pulled for greens, bombs, or other mechanics.
Another example example where that's really, REALLY bad for the group, Twin Largos. The high mobility of the two bosses and the near requirement for condi (power can't keep up due to the boss mobility but they rarely cleanse). Sure, you could carry someone who's build maximum is 15k, but it'd be significantly harder since you already have to DPS the two bosses separately, and it will be unrealistic to expect to be able to blast through one side and then the other.
Guild Wars 2, for better or for worse, is an INCREDIBLY casual game. This means that casual players will play casually, not caring about their DPS or boon output or whatever.
In most instances (open world), this is fine- GW2 has the ability to be played pretty much solo for most of its non-instanced content. However, the moment you bring something bad (even if it's fun) to a scenario where it's expected that you perform at a specific level, that's on you, not on the group.
The group set the expectation by being in the experienced tab (if not even more by having a specific LFG description), and if that person isn't performing to that expectation, it's OK for the group to remove them. You shouldn't be toxic about it when removing someone or being removed yourself, but there's inherent requirements that need to be followed if you're joining someone else's group.
Now, if you set the expectation to X and someone gets mad that another person is performing at X instead of their Y, there's a different problem there.
This theory works fine until you find yourself in a group where some members have different expectations than others....
It's a game, there are a ton of people who just play for fun during their free time. I'd say, unless it's a turnament, an irl event, or something official where you have to know what it is to join, you should not expect people you don't know to use meta gear or tactics.
@@mustachecrab9669 If I put it under the Experienced category in raids LFG, I do. Or they should at least have a very good reason for not doing meta and communicate it. The exception being if the squad is trying something different but that should be part of the LFG message.
It’s especially painful when people don’t realize some of the meta builds require near perfection to get those last 1-2% out of, whereas if you just tweak it a little bit it’s easier and you reliably hit good dps.
This was a facinating and much needed discussion video. I wish it could be longer. If possible, I would love to see more of these kind of MMO/GW2 discussion videos from you Muk. Your views and reasons are always on point and have a reasonable explanation behind them. Maybe a GW2 content creator get-together to discuss about more stuff like this?
Keep up the great work Muk!
Teatime with Mukluk?
@@chester1882 I drink more coke than tea but if I called it coke-time I think people would get the wrong idea.
@@MuklukUA-cam Or is it the right idea? Let it snow. ;-) Or heat your oven. Or did you mean the carbonized coloured sugar water?
@@MuklukUA-cam Yes but coke-time would be like the UA-cam version of a meta, lol.
I remember playing heal scrapper in fractals with a friend. I was keeping the whole group alive and healthy, reviving and giving superspeed, the whole package.
Yet, 1 in every 3 parties we had a guy complaining that i needed to be a HB for the job. Even if the heal scrap worked completly fine, the fact that i wasnt HB was enough to make them upset. I understand there is a buff HB's give and Heal scrappers don't but my god... and don't get me started on how they reacted whenever i hit them with the "well this is more fun for me", it was rough 😂
I had a similar experience in fractal but I'm HB, every so often there'll be one dude who is not dodge a single mechanic and standing in toxic field and complain about not enough healing when he's a DPS who doing 8K whith full boons which make me avoid any group that label as "LF HB" in fractal NM daily because you don't need HB to finish the daily unless there's a knockback boss there which is understandable.
About the "fun" part if you join a pug group and expect everyone to have to same "fun" as you do without communication. I'm sorry but people are different. If you want the same people to have the same playstyle as you do what you want is static group not pug.
I'm still better at keeping my group alive in WvW zerg fights as Heal Scrapper than most of the guild Firebrands despite everyone there considering Scrapper to been nerfed into ground. Though often open-tag commanders will kick me out, at which point I just return with my half-geared Firebrand and get in without questions despite my skill on it being random button mashing and self-preservation.
A reputation that something works is much more important in general than it actually working.
i feel you so much. i had the exact same experience and it literally drove me off the entire game because I was so done with the people
While he said one thing he expressed another, namely, "I need the best source of Stab to do anything!" This is really just a matter of him expresing that he's bad :p
@@sirdocc6735 You'll find this in nearly any of the same genre of game. Don't get driven off a good game cause some people are just.. insufferable. Been trying to find the perfect community for too long. It doesn't exist. Unless you want to play Deep Rock Galactic forever lol
After 10 years playing this game it's amazing how it all comes full circle again. It wasn't that long ago another GW2 UA-camr by the name of "nemesis" was trying to have this very same conversation so much so he created a 3 part video explaining the "truth" about the meta and after a few years everyone just forgot about it and nothing was learned cause a large portion of the community place value in there ego rather then facts and fun. If you can find it muk I would highly recommend it, the UA-camr was call "nemesis" or " I am the one I am legion" and he haven't uploaded for many years cause he left GW2 to pursue better health and travel. I hope for what it worth it can shed some light on when and we're it all when wrong. Thank you
It was actually very long ago 🧓
I've always been a thorough advocate for what I've called "Safety Net" compositions. There have been multiple dozens of times where I played heal tempest in my old raid group (back before they had alacrity), and I would single handedly carry raids to completion because I would be able to res our squad members from nearly any distance away back to 100% HP (Glyph of Renewal in Water is OP as hell)
I take massive issues with people who have basically accepted SnowCrows builds as the Gw2 Bible, and is the only way the game should be played. Sure they will give you a good idea of what is best in slot, but ultimately, those builds are for going FAST, not for being CONSISTENT, which is what most people need to know.
Sounds like you've enjoyed your tempest for the same reason I've enjoyed scourge and druid. The ability to often make raids with mistakes still 1 shot a boss.
@@MuklukUA-cam I only had so much time (and patience) in a day back then, so it was nice to have near-guaranteed wins all the time. Like you said in the video, I would rather spend 6 minutes on a boss 1 time than 5 minutes on a boss 3 times. It ultimately felt better to win more often, and it saved time (and my sanity)
@@jason1131000 I'm leading two (somewhat) beginner raids currently. I prefer the risky strats so that people have to learn mechanics and if we fail then we fail.
But if I'd be farming LI or KP then for sure, go the consistant way.
scourge is considered by word of mouth to be one of the weaker healer options but I had a newbie group doing Boneskinner that was able to clear immediately when the healers swapped to their scourges and we brute forced it with their rezzes
@@mimimalloc Scourge is considered weak because less access to some boons and less healing capability. OTOH Scourge is often considered a crutch because barriers and incredible revives (before the recent nerfs).
In GW2, I never got behind dps benchmarks. Yes, more dmg = less time fighting the boss = less time to screw up. But you know how to also screw up? Failing mechanics and not having a safety net. In pug's, there is always someone who messes up something. And I really prefer having an additional shield, aegis, heal or rez, in orde rto get that guy fighting again, because that means more dps than being one man down.
And let's be real: Most of GW2's content really does not require top dps benchmarks.
Another thing is benchmarks are done on a golem, which doesn't attack or move. So it's like "In perfect conditions, you do this. But in reality..."
Most? I think you mean all. As evidenced by several groups intentionally doing raids sub optimally to prove that point.
I always think it's kinda funny how people say the way you play is wrong even though you have the receipt that it's working.
I 100% agree with what you said as long as you communicate with what you wanna do/try and have the forbidden f word (fun) ... who cares?! If it's working I'm 100% okay with it.
I'm a big fan of diversity in builds. I love the 10 scourge run, I saw that and absolutely fell in love with that style of gameplay. 10/10! Teapot's celestial run was something my own raid group tried and we all had so much fun! The dps were laughing because they felt unstoppable. The healers were overjoyed because they were pulling out some OK-ish damage numbers!
TLDR: Cele is king stat, change my mind. Scourge is still busted.
Would also love to do that but its so difficult to find people/ a guild that actually is willing to do something fun instead of just meta all the time.
Cele is my fave, for sure. I just change runes and weapons. :)
"The meta" is unfortunately usually set by people looking at top-tier speedrunners, since the fundamental unit of value in an MMO is time. Realistically it should bias toward consistency and ease, because the real time loss is having to do encounters over again, but it's rare to see that in my experience. The sudden proliferation of rifle mechs is about the only case I'm aware of where that organically happened.
Yeah the problem is that people are looking at the builds that speedclear guilds use (most prominently snowcrows) and then interpreting that as the best possible build, completely disregarding the fact that to play those builds at the level where they are undoubtedly the best builds in the game, you need to know the class, rotation and encounters inside out.
In reality, the best possible build on a player is the one they can deal the most damage while surviving, which theoretically needs to adjust to each individual's ability.
@@theNightDice Yeah. Taking 10% of the max performance off while making it 40% easier to play (e.g. more consistent) is a hell of a good trade and Snowcrows doesn't even consider such things to my knowledge.
Heal alacrity Specter...... 2023🎉! On a more serious note, I would have to agree a game is designed to be fun and yes, there are rules of engagement. Also, some people as a group have certain expectations and I feel as long as they express said expectations and people mutually agreed to those expectations then how you get there shouldn't really matter. Since I came back 3 years ago, the meta has dramatically changed. What is meta today might not be meta tomorrow. I remember last year when I was first exposed to Heal Alacrity specter, at first it was really hard to get into strike content because it wasn't meta. So eventually I started building my own groups and practicing and bringing other classes that could supplement areas of weakness and it worked out really well for me. It taught me how to lead every strike and it helped teach me about every single build variant for other classes and what they brought to the table. If I was stuck playing the traditional meta support build, I wouldn't have learned that on my own or as fast. I had many people kicked me from their group. Many people whisper me and say that that's not an appropriate build(with much harsher undertones). "You should try something else" but I didn't let that discourage me. As I became better and started to fine tune my build and navigate certain environments even in low level raid wings, I would have people whisper me for copies of my build, weapon selection, and how I overcome certain obstacles. 😊 This my friend is how innovation is created.
Heal alac specter was the first build I dedicated myself to learning when EoD came out. I hated playing thief before because I personally found it boring, but then specter happened and my magic-obsessed self LOVED it.
See here is the thing you my friend are doing what the actually top top people do they don't play Meta they figure out stuff that becomes Meta first those that scream and chase Meta are mediocre players trying to pull others down to their level
Preaaaaach!
I will say, having also played MMOs for 20, something I've consistently observed is that people will hide toxicity behind terms like "elitism" or "I just want people to pull their weight".
There's also an element of people feeling like putting others down will make them look better.
This perpetuates the cycle because one streamer will come out and say "this build sucks" and then some players are afraid of looking bad and they'll pile on and say "anyone who uses this sucks". It's a thing. Saying other people are bad makes people feel more competent.
Too often tryhards also forget that meta builds and tactics for group content only work when EVERYONE is 100% geared and capabled of performing like people that define the meta in the first place. If you gear up full berserker and runes of scholar, you better know how to AVOID damage almost perfectly or you're wasting your healer's time, your scholar rune bonus (remember, you need 90% or more hp for it to work) and probably dragging the fight out a little bit (since your dps is lower because your rune is not working all the time).
Maybe the most important message within this video: Communication is important. If the whole group agrees upon having some fun and not run the most effective meta stuff, all is fine. Sadly there are also some "wannabe hardcore experts" that can't get behind that idea of playing something else at all and set up ridiculously high requirements even for pretty easy stuff. Maybe their motivation might be to clear the most content (and make most profit) in the least possible time, which is absolutely valid - but not the only way you can play the game or certain content.
The worst is actually when a player plays something "meta" but doesn't undersand it. I train for HT CM (biggest fight in Gw2 for those who don't know) and for a long time, the vindicator was bugged with its dodge. So one people who I train with did dodges and tried to use the bug so he could do bigger DPS (that didn't worked btw)
The thing is, when the bug was fixed, the player didn't do dodges anymore. For those who don't know, vindicator DPS has a dodge that send him in the air and crash on the ground, doing DPS AND giving the player a damage buff. So the player I train with was doing so little DPS because he wasn't dodging at all.
The same player, some weeks after, hear of another class that is doing really great in DPS (reaper) and he asks someone who is playing it how hard it is.
The fact that these players don't understand their class but play them because it's "meta", I don't like it... Play what you like, Gw2 is easy enough to play what you want and what you like...
Thanks for sharing Mukluk.
That's actually one of the reasons I've not taken the dive into GW2 raids. I worry I can't get it done and cannot find a group if I run anything off meta.
But that does make a lot of sense. I believe I would want a safer run that is slower than risk taking a few wipes and group morale taking hits due to group wipes.
Thanks for this video Mukluk. Sorry you’ve been getting hate mail from some players. I won’t do PvP, or PUG Raids, so I’ve been able to avoid toxic players in GW2 for the most part. I wish more players would realize that knowing how to play your character is more important than having a meta build, as long as you have a reasonable build.
Great topic. Personally I don't do alot of group content because I like to play gw2 for me. I play and enjoy the game for myself. Meta builds are ok but for me meta is not always fun. I have had some people try and tell me to change my build but I do not believe a person should have to change what they like to make others Happy, have fun y'all thank you Muk
I feel like the less a player actually understand the game, the more toxic and annoying they get if they insist on using Meta stuff. They don't understand WHY something is Meta but they do understand it's Meta so if something isn't working, all they can do is blame the non-meta thing.
Better players usually understand the nuances that let you bring other stuff in certain situations which may be a better choice then the current PuG Meta.
I have to partially disagree with you here.
I was part of a raid semi hardcore speeclear static. We were not aiming for world record but we wanted to always be as fast as we can and improve.
Like many other statics we occasionally need a replacement for one or more of our players due to circumstances.
So we have to rely on randoms to fill in. We expect those randoms (as requested in the LFG message) to be experienced and put out decent damage (we made it so we never have to replace a support class. all of us can play any support so we just demand dps from randoms)
Then teapot and mukluk started to put out those low intensity builds. In general i think they are great to make casual players perform better.
We noticed an increase of people who join with those low intensity builds and it was getting really annoying. Their damage wasnt terrible but still consistently on the bottom of the dps ranking.
We want high damage and if your build is not meta and underperforms, we dont want you. It has nothing to do with not understanding nuances. It is just our requirement for our specific goal.
@@einherjar4902 And were times so awfully increased that it hurt you? Or Just put out that you want high DPS players in LFG.
@@daefaron we do that. But those people still join. And they use the same arguments over and over again.
@@einherjar4902 As a semi hardcore speedclear player myself (at least in the past) I think you should lower your expectations when you are pulling pugs into your group. When you want high performance, you should start building a backlog of backup players, that you can ask, if they help you out in case you need replacements. There you can set your high expectations.
In our static we never set the goal to improve, unless our whole static is present or we have enough backups to compensate. As soon as you pull anyone in that is not in a controlled group, those expectations should go out of the window. You can still increase your support performance (lower toughness, healing power to increase support dmg, optimize mitigation execution with specific mechanics...) but if you replace dps players, then is is all out of your hand. As long as you don't have people that are pretty much grieving, i would just go with the flow. You either get those people with LI builds fast and do your clears or you wait forever for someone that plays on the same level as you want it to be and take forever getting to clear anything.
My advice: When you invite pugs and see that they perform well, get into contact with them and ask them if they would be open to backup if needed. Do this during your pug adventures. After you got like 5-10 people where you know how they perform, just stay away from LFG if you are not ok with the performance most players will bring. It saves you the headache and time to find someone to fill and saves the pug from joining a group, where they are actually not wanted.
@@einherjar4902this is so sad 😢😢😂
Great discussion point I have had this topic with many guild members over the years, I always lean to, I play an MMO escape the stresses of life, so I much rather we all have fun than try to be a performance group. Performance groups can be fun if everyone on the same page but often cracks appear and becomes unfun quickly.
I used to play instance-based MMOs where you queue into an instance dungeon (if random people queue roughly the same time, they will be put in the same instance). You're expected to clear the content solo but more people would make thing easier. Not every playthrough is easy, sometimes you fail, and you might fail multiple times, but nobody seems to mind because their attitude is more in line with "it's good enough I get to queue with other people", "at least there're still people trying this map", "would have been much harder if I have to do it on my own", contrast to people attitude today that seems entitled to smooth grind (it's called grind because it's easy and predictable). Nowadays some people have too much times on their hands to be proficient at using meta builds and too used to get things done easy, so a single instance of mistake would immediately get them start on cycle of misery (whine-cry-spin-blame, as we used to call it, nitpicking like Karen manager) ruined the experiences for new players. Three tries, three win would be boring. Three tries, two loses, one win is what makes a game fun. Or if you win zero, just try again tomorrow. Stop the entitlement and appreciate challenging circumstances, fellas
This is something I wish people understood more and why casuals and invested but not diehard hardcore players get pissed when balance changes cause meta builds to become a nightmare to play. No matter your play style, you are always pressured towards meta. The majority of the player base is not ultra hardcore but they will be building toward the goal of having a meta build they know how to play well. So when changes happen like with Druid, that took the build from something pretty accessible and fun while still being meta viable into something where you saw the rotation and even hardcore were like "WTF kind of carpal tunnel simulator is this?", it causes this big outrage because you can say, "You can play something else" but honestly you really can't, if you don't have a bunch of friends that play, going off-meta is like asking for stress and toxicity a lot of the time. And it's especially bad in games where players are locked into a class or even a spec since if you don't have legendaries, it's a huge pain to change builds as well.
It sucks, it's an issue with online games in general, but my thing is, it is a game at the end of the day. If the content doesn't have a super tight enrage that forces meta, it really should not be what it's like now. Like the expectation is perfect Speedrun instead of "I'm here with strangers, it might take longer as a result, but there's no enrage so let's just work together a clear".
Fun Topic presented in this video.
I myself did actualy quit GW2 a few months ago just because of how toxic groups for daily activities like strike missions are.
My main is an Ele and I love playing either heal alac or celestial catalist with boons such as might/quickness/fury/prot.
Every time i joined a group I communicated to them "hey, iam playing offmeta heal tempest or boon catalist", and most times i just got kicked immediatly without any word,
or even worse, they let me stay, we cleard the contend with no issue what so ever, but than get messages afterwards with "your dmg was totally trash, you should uninstall".
I dont get it at all, whats the problem, when you have no issues in clearing the content, but take maybe 2-3 mins longer. Its so sad to see the absolut necessity of meta even for easy content.
Maybe this view changes when more voices of people like muk or teapot speak up. i just hope for the best and want to return to GW2, one of my favorite games of all time.
I stopped playing it a few years ago, but when I played a small mmo called Realm of the Mad God the thing we called raids was heavily run by a handful of discord servers. The discord servers were actually a pretty good experience because they very clearly listed out the minimum requirements and expectations for joining groups. The discords had a general raiding section with low requirements and a veteran raiding section which was your super sweaty groups with both groups having separate but clear expectations. In the general raiding section, if you fell below the minimum requirements the group organizer would usually explain to you (without screaming at you) what you did wrong and then asked you to leave the group and come back when you meet the minimum requirements. Because the requirements were clearly stated and any infractions were handled in a civil manner, things went smoothly. The requirements for the veteran sections were also very clear that it was for very experienced players and had a list of what was banned and allowed. And again, because the requirements were so clear there were rarely any problems. Setting very clear expectations for your group helps prevent a lot of frustration.
It's BillyBob's fault again
Dainget Billybob
Billy Bob and his fricking knight gear and dolyak runes
Thank you for talking about this issue!
I've never played raids and only rarely strikes, when a friend invited me and lead the squad. I don't have the time or nerves to farm for gold and material to get new armor or even attempt full legendary gear and then learn rotations that change regularly. So, I just want to play with something I'm comfortable with, be it the stat combination or the weapon choices.
That's why I've got marshall stats on my ele for years, every other character has marodeur gear and I only visit Metabattle if I dare to play some ranked PvP - which also happens just once or twice a year. And this topic is one major reason why I struggle to take part in group content, like raids, WvW and higher-level fractals.
PS: I was that weaver who said "Greetings from Germany" in the PvP lobby recently and I really liked that tea party we had there ;-)
In FFXIV, addons are (technically) prohibited, so most players don't even see a DPS meter
In light of this, a big part of the community adopted a viewpoint that "if you cleared the content - you did enough damage". The amount of damage someone contributed, how much DPS one class can do compared to others - doesn't matter except for the highest of the high end content
I think communities of other MMOs could learn from that
I use Snowcrows and Metabattle for reference points some. But what I notice about most of those "meta" builds is that they're very optimized. As in, expecting you to be able to consistently hit the same series of buttons in the right order. They don't seem to deal with mechanics or moving or player ability. So it's really hard to see how they're all that great for anything but beating on test golems.
So I am always at least tweaking a build to be easier for me to play. Or something more "inspired by" a meta build or two. I find I'm going to be a lot more effective with a build I can actually play, actually stay alive and do mechanics and such. Using actual meta builds would decrease my effectiveness and dps for being too hard to play.
"How dare you? Having fun? You think this is a game?"
-The guy that kicked me out of wing 4 for doing 28k dps and not 30k
kek, definition of tryhard. if all dps in wing 1-4 do 20k dmg, things are usually very fine.
I highly doubt that happened, no one ever gets kicked because they're doing 2k dps less than desired. You probably were doing 14k and typed this comment so you can feel better about your performance. Anyone who actually ever raided in GW2 knows your story is sus af.
@@MoreImbaThanYou yeah, I've done raids many times and is not a big of a deal if you are around 20k dps, we've got ppl doing even less than that
But there's always that weird people around
This was a very interesting video. I fully agree with all points made, especially the 'play with like minded people' point.
I DO want your take on the argument that 'if the boss dies faster we have less mechanics to do and thus its safer.' I don't know how it stacks up against 'having better defense means just being able to survive the mechanics much easier, so it doesn't matter if you have to do more.'
There is definitely a line. For example on gorseval if you do enough damage to skip the gliding phases it is much easier. And that is made easier by your dps being higher than a certain margin.
On the flipside in other cases, doing more damage to make the fight 30 seconds shorter might not be easier than having a 3rd healer, and upping the total raid healing by 50%. I think it is situational.
I remember the gearscore days back in WotLK, it was often times difficult for a casual raider like me to get into an LFG run. It was so inefficient because it could never measure a persons individual skill level and knowledge. A lot of people hated when Blizzard added the LFR system, but I loved it
Great take on this! The first time I raided was with you (even though I threw myself of the edge) and we cleared it. Thanks for putting this out as sooo many people use this meta as a basis to play the game. Quite bored of it to be honest hence why I took a short break.
Will be back with the new weapons :D
Great vid as always! See you soon in game.
totally agree! you nailed it. I'm a big cele fan for the reasons you point out in your examples. thanks for your excellent explanation and I hope it somehow improves the community attitude toward non-meta builds
I raided with highly meta-focused guild back when PoF wasn't even announced yet. Since I mained mesmer, I was instantly coerced into chronomancer tank-support during Signet of Inspiration rage.
It was egregious. After few weeks with them I started marking in my calendar when they are organizing a raid, just to not play GW2 that day. After every raid I got berated for what felt like ages (was 15 minutes according to my wife) for not hitting top of the metrics. "You need to train", "You need to practice", "That wasn't 100% uptime" etc.
They weren't good themselves, could only clear like three to five bosses and unless I was on they had to wait for chronomancer because none of them wanted to play it.
And that was my first experience with raiding at all, and so far the only because god damn I'm not risking it again. Get in guild, get hardest role to fill, get berated weekly for not being good enough. Welcome to GW2, game with nicest most casual community out there.
I had a raid leader (this was a mostly training group at first) who insisted on training and practicing and everyone having to be close(r) to the top. I just literally can't hit anywhere near those numbers with my preferred class (oh yeah I did get that too, why am I playing that), absolutely no matter how much I memorise my rotation, how much I practice, how spot on my gear is. Doesn't matter, I'm not reaching those numbers. Lots and lots of "feedback" that I need to get better. However, after becoming familiar with a fight I stay alive and don't fumble mechanics pretty well. Certainly beats having to scrape someone off the floor every 5 seconds. But that didn't matter, numbers didn't go brrr enough.
I remember spending absolute ages on getting through w1-4 initially. Maybe them numbers weren't so... effective after all.
Years later we had another guy do raid training and then regular raid evenings in the same guild, one who considered the fun side of it much more than the numbers. Somehow we with then like 7 new raiders cleared the 4 HoT wings not in a span of months, but a few weeks, even with long explanations of the particular fights between each one. Maybe power creep. Maybe just some safer builds or better support from support. But we had a ton of fun. And soon after we would often one-shot entire wings. Sure, I did get recommendations to get my numbers higher, but nowhere as... emphatically as before.
@@Ralesk If you plan for things to maybe go wrong/bad, you have a safety net. If the healer revives 50 people but you do the boss in one go, is that worse then wiping five times before clearing the boss kinda thing.
Edit: Also reminds me years ago when somebody blasted me for playing "Condi necro" when some other condi class did more overall damage. Zero consideration for what I found fun, just numbers.
I totally agree with what you said. I have been running a revenant in full celestial gear and I have been doing really good with it in all story chapters. But once I get into a raid, 1 out of 3 times, I am not kicked before completion. And usually nothing is said to me, just kicked.
THANK YOU! This is an opinion that caused problems amongst me and my guildies. They are all about meta while i just want to play what is fun. It ended up with me dragging down the morale of the entire group for playing my favorite class the heal scrapper in fractal CMs. Was it meta? no. Was it working? ABSOLUTELY. I even got the DWD achievment with the scrapper. But of course all that hate and push towards a class i didnt like to play turned into massive burnout and i havent played fractals (or gw2 consistently) since! I dont talk to these guildies anymore. And they found groups where they have plenty of meta to run with. I stick to training Raids and such because teaching players raids is 1000 times more enjoyable than running with meta slaves.
That is why I do not raid. I do not want to worry about what specific buff I bring to a group just to “optimize” for a fight people have had on farm for years.
I was afraid to do T4 fractals again after the recent Scourge nerf and when I got back in, this one guy asked me why I wasn’t playing condi reaper? It was an easy 20k damage. So I had a great sword and switched traits between fractals runs. And he was so confused that I was only doing 3k damage. He was saying to change chill to bleeds. Dude could not comprehend that I didn’t have legendary armor to switch stats, no legendary runes to go from nightmare to w/e the build was, and no reading of skills/traits because I didn’t have time. I switched back to the Scourge build I was familiar with and easily got back to 8-10k damage. Sometimes to do the meta, you have to understand the build
I think the points of Communication being key as well as just knowing what the group is doing vs what you're expecting were very well put here, thanks. So many times, yeah the top %/meta/FotM build isn't actually needed even if it's perceived that way by Srs Bsnss groups. But at the same time, if you're walking into a group that's trying to push hard progression content and you're testing out a "fun" build... maybe there's a mismatch there.
I used to play The Secret World, and my Cabal (guild) had some players who really pushed progression content, some who were one step behind but still doing hard content (me included), and some who played casually for the fun and story. One week, our Progression crew was down their normal healer and asked me to fill in, but to use their healer's build rather than the build I normally ran. While I was far less familiar and comfortable with their regular healer's AR/Blood build, their group play and strategy was based in part around the long range leeching heals and the barriers that that build provided for them rather than the HoTs and buffs I was used to rolling. So yeah, you're dang right I matched my build to the situation rather than digging in my heals. And we dang near got a clear (they got the last few % the next week when their regular healer was back).
In the group I normally ran with, we played our fun but effective builds, because that was understood as how our group played so long as we were still getting things done. We had some really wild builds in and out of that group. And it highlighted that there is a time and place for both approaches, you can't just say "Meta is bad always" or "Meta is always the answer".
WOW Muk you could not have said it better. I have played GW2 since launch and have not touched raids because of this. The meta craze
Same. Life's too short to be stressed by raiding perfectly.
@@Zuraneve
I feel like there's lots of misinformation about Raids in General, not every group is toxic, rude or expect perfect boons, dps and usually wont' care what spec you play.
For Squad based content i suggest finding a Guild or start doing in with a group of Friends, thats how i started doing Raids it's now my favorite content in the game.
I've been playing MMO's since Everquest Beta, 1997. My 10 year old son talked me into it and I wanted to know, for his safety, what 'it' was, Lol. Before that we were a Nintendo playing family.
Been playing RPGs online ever since
I think its important to note as well that GW2 isn't really difficult enough to NEED meta builds to clear it's content. Like you said around the cele raid Teapot ran, they were nowhere near the enrage timer. In other games, the damage checks are that tight that you need to run the most effective build to give your group the best chance of clearing the content so running a non-meta build sabotage's the group.
Gamers are obsessed with "most effective/efficient" tactics these days, every game is essentially reverse engineered and UA-cam guides are released on day 1 listing the most efficient builds/tactics. It also take the fun out of games, discovering things you enjoy and trying new stuff. I've had to train myself not to look up guides when playing a new game because I'd find myself looking up most effective builds/tactics before I'd even start playing and that was the case across FPS, MMOs, pretty much every genre.
All true and totally agree with you. You should check out Folding Ideas video "Why It's Rude to Suck at Warcraft" for a deeper dive explainer of why the try-hards are angry.
I've been playing MMOs for 20+ years now, and in the beginning, I tried my best to follow the meta. As I've gotten older, I've been more focused on fun instead. Life's too short to stress out about whether you're playing the most effective way. I usually make a build I find fun, then check the meta and make tweaks to bring it closer to the meta, and then never touch that build again unless a patch really changes things. I'd rather things take a little longer with no stress than to speed run through everything, getting angry with every little mistake, and I think GW2 handles that mindset pretty well (even if there's a small subset of players who don't).
One of the builds I play is a heal-alacrity Renegade, and the amount of times I've had people in groups ask who the subgroup's healer is so funny to me xD
I've only ever seen one other person in the wild playing heal-ren, but it's a class I've really enjoyed a lot! It doesn't give as many boons as say Herald, but I enjoy it and it's been my fractal main for ages! That said - I'm always so hesitant to join groups I don't make myself out of fear of getting booted for not being a firebrand. I do wish people were a little more willing to give something other than the stock-standard a go, I know it works, but sometimes people wanna try something else and like was said here, most content in gw2 is plenty forgiving enough for it even if you're not playing the most up-to-date snowcrows approved builds.
Some of the most fun I've had in MMOs has been finding ways to clear content 1. with a non-meta setup and 2. not as the developers intended (but not to the degree of flat-out cheating). Example of the second would be some of the stuff I've done in FFXIV, where I've either been the solo tank (allowing us to bring another dps) or one of my raid buddies would be the solo healer...or in rare cases we've been able to pull off both in the same fight (Emerald Weapon extreme back in Shadowbringers)
My hijinks in that game pale in comparison to things like TankCob, where 8 tanks were able to clear the Unending Coil of Bahamut (one of XIV's ultimate raids). Granted, the folks who did that were all veteran players who had cleared the fight dozens if not hundreds of times each, but it's fun with folks who are good at a game find ways to "beat" said game that are a bit out of the ordinary
I think the best word that can describe meta builds is efficiency and by that i mean the time needed to clear an event/boss, so its safe to say that some people have fun while achieving fast clears, others can have fun playing their favorite spec/class and not too worried about time efficiency , it goes both ways.
When I first started playing end-game content, I pretty heavily played meta builds on my engi. And when I play new classes, I tend to start with the meta builds.
But often, I'm doing that because I don't know the class well enough. It took me a long time to learn the engi traits and their synergies. I know what I'm losing and what I gain now when I switch traits and utilities around on the class. As a side effect, I'm generally am not playing the meta builds now on engi, because I know the tradeoffs for the features I really like.
I don't know the other classes like that though, and the tradeoffs in guild wars can be huge due to how hidden those synergies can be. If I try and mess with things on my rev or on warrior, I lose like 10-15k dps because I don't know them well. I think the dramatic tradeoffs you see in guild wars 2 are why there's such an emphasis on meta.
Great vid. I do get why some people can be selective about gear and such with pugs. When you form a pug, you don’t have all day to quiz every player on their experience, knowledge and preparedness before deciding you want them in your group. Having players show their gear as it matches to the meta or proof of kills, etc. can be a short hand for this. Problems often occur when people don’t realize this. Leaders treat meta gear/kill proofs as law or pugs get indignant for some stranger not just trusting them at face value as being competent when they don’t have the conventional signifiers.
But as you say: Communication is important. Agreed 100%
Man that Sloth video made me remember this. I did a Spirit Vale/Bastion of the Penitent run a little while ago with a combination of pugs and people from my usual static. We did 10 engineers. We had a good mix of each elite spec (no it wasn't all Mechanists), and one of the pugs was a core engi. A *core* engi. I can't even remember the last time I saw one of those.
It went off without a hitch and was a blast. I think we wiped once or maybe twice, and at least one was a chosen gg because the person we wanted to tank didn't actually have the highest toughness of the group (nobody remembered to check lol).
For my part I always played my "fun builds". But! The first "Meta" build I ever got, showed me the possibilities of my champ and had me looking more into gears and builds in general.
I find it really comes down to yltime for some people. They go in with the mindset that we need to beat this in the shortest amount of time, so that we are the most optimal.
But like you said, sacrificing a little power from Berserker for more health from marauders or dragon; can save you so much time on not having to reset, cause the glass cannons got killed when they slipped up once.
I feel like the closest "meta" ever gets to being required in GW2 is Q2 pylon kiting. There are only a few builds even capable of performing the role, but even then, there's usually variation.
even that could be done by off meta classes, we had a raid like 2 weeks back where 1 of our pylons dc'ed 20 seconds into the fight. our qscrapper took that pylon job upon himself. he just stood there attached. not able to effectively attack or apply boons. our healer had to heal him a few times but we cleared it. so it can be done without the "meta" pylon classes although it would be a little strange.
my first clear of qadim2 was with a guy running hammer revenant and running to the ball. he wasn't doing a ton of damage but it worked. also we were a training group so we didn't have a, bunch of people with 10 other characters all geared for raiding
Even QTP Pylon Kiting has 4 Options, Scourge, Deadeye, Mirage(its hard but you can i think) and Virtouso ^^
@@westcoastwarriorsarchive7929 What's great about this is that would surprisingly work, hammer 3 technically moves your character so you could easily cast it at the pylon and get more time to run back and forth to catch the orb. Clever!
I don't even think that only having 1 guy on each pylon is the intended way of doing it. It just boiled down to that strat as time went on.
This whole problem is so easy to adress.
there are 2 mayor things expectations and communications.
You need to meet these 2.
One of the main reasons i don't try to do any raiding (Other than not having the actual time to be doing it). A lot of 'meta' builds tend to suck the 'fun' out of the game or all the 'unique' builds out of the game. Reminds me back when the game first launched and lots of players wore runes or sigils to increase magic find ( back then you had to sacrifice stats in order to boost your MF) in order to get good drops or a precursor weapon. If you didn't run any MF on your gear you were considered wasting time running dungeons or the like. And before anyone says 'you never had to equip MF to gear' they changed it from that system to the current a year release. but to the subject at hand, I believe the 'toxcitiy' derives from the min/max culture that is prevalent in MMO's in general.
I think because GW2 has such a big difference in player skill (or rather effectiveness), content needs to be relatively easier, which is why good players can do things like naked or cele clears.
It is however also the reason why most ppl want "meta" in their squads; Random strangers have a relatively high chance of not being that good in GW2, so you want their build to be able to carry them should it be needed. (That said, I've never kicked ppl until after they've proven to be a problem.)
But celestial gear would carry most bad/beginner players better than highly specialized meta builds.
I was explaining this to a new raider the other day. Speedrunners care about time, pugs care about clears. When something goes wrong in a speedrun, they wipe and try again. When something goes wrong in a pug run, most people would prefer to recover and keep going if they can. Having a safety net is more important than doing the most dps possible. Whenever you look up a snowcrows build and see that it doesn't have a stunbreak, you should recognize immediately that this is not a realistic build for most people.
Also since you mentioned the no-slubs slothasor, I wanted to talk about meta strategies as well. This particularly applies to raids. The common strategy for some encounters is to nullify or ignore the mechanics. Ignoring greens at VG, phasing Gorseval, ignoring a pylon in W6 Qadim, and ignoring the elementals in Sabir are the ones I see regularly. I think a lot of people haven't made the connection in their brains that these strategies actively make the encounters harder or more risky. Doing stuff like this raises the bar for individual performance and it's completely unnecessary in my opinion. I've noticed a pattern of trying to role-squish as much as possible. There's 10 people in a raid group but often there'll be less than half that in charge of doing mechanics. There are 4 cannons in Sabetha so you could easily run 1 person for each one. That would mean you could even use the spare bombs to handle missed cannons without needing to worry about messing up the debuff timing. But no, groups run the bare minimum number of people doing mechanics, even if it makes the encounters harder and riskier.
And the worst part is the really meta/max damage people I've noticed tend to end up flipping the table after a wipe, (one to three) and accusing everybody of not knowing the fight "Is this a training run?! We asked for experienced!" and then ragequit. Because they can't handle the reset.
I wouldn't say killing the elementals on Sabir necessarily makes the fight easier/more reliable. The person going out and killing them is at substantial risk.
It really depends on what the group is good at. If you have enough missile protection and are doing decent dps then I find that more reliable than sending someone out.
For Gorseval the group dps right now is so high that phasing him is usually no problem but when I lead, I keep an eye on his HP and group dps just in case we better take the third updraft.
I guess for Sabetha people just prefer 2 cannon runners because it's easier to coordinate and there are some classes that are better suited for it than others. Having a teleport for example is very nice to have.
IMHO the wing that is most "anti role-squishing" is 2 because many of the mechanics are entirely random so anyone can get them.
I've recently returned to GW2 after a long hiatus in FF14, but you see similar behaviour there. There are cases where a certain class has a balancing issue and isn't be able to clear top-end content the first week it's out, and for months, PUGs will exclude that class, some to the point of extremely toxic comments, despite people being much better geared after the first couple of weeks.
I think understanding the meta is important since it gives you an idea of what can be done, but adhering to it just because "it's the meta" isn't always necessary.
Overall, like you said in the video, it just comes down to communicating what you want from a group, and respectfully parting ways with players who want different things.
thank you for this video, you managed to sum up what i felt like for years
I did Fractal CM's + dailies with a group of 5 Mechanists with the celestial Lord Hizen build with some variations (some had mine for boon removal for example) in about an hour and 10 minutes compared to the 45/60 minutes of the meta compositions and it was really easy
I play whatever made up build on whatever class I want on GW2 for fun. The only time I'm remotely serious is if I want an achievement, but I still do pug groups for that achievement and say "be whatever/bring whatever, we'll give it a try!" I'll explain mechanics like "have to use this [thing] to debuff boss so we can hit it" but then just have fun with it.
I go with what the group needs. If it's a chill group that allows experimentation then i go with non-meta builds that i wanna try out. If it's a group that is pressed for time, then just run meta.
I think this is a very important topic and I'm glad you scratched on that Muk.
Meta is fine and dandy, if ppl wanna play it, do it. When it's necessary, ok, but 99% of the time it isn't.
It's a game, it's supposed to make fun, and if someone doesn't have fun because he can't try-hard grind his weekly Raid-Bosses in 5min, then somethings wrong.
I don't think it's bad to try better yourself at what you're doing, even in a game. But don't force those ideologies on others.
Who cares if the boss lives 2min. longer, but is a safe-kill? The rewards aint better if you kill them faster. (Only in IBS-Strikes, but hell, those strikes are so goddamn easy once you understand them, there really is no reason to push Meta)
What's a little upsetting about the community's insistence/obsession with meta and benchmarks, is that the same philosophy has seemed to extend to the devs. EOD elites marked a massive downgrade in interesting or creative utilities, and much of each elite spec has been reduced down to "we expect you to press specific buttons, in a specific order, and if that's producing too much damage, then we'll nerf the whole thing."
I've had conversations with people over whether a class or build was fun, and I always, ALWAYS hear "I mean the rotation isn't so bad." These players didn't design the rotation, they don't understand the nuance of the rotation, they just plug and play whatever high-ranking guilds who do the math and crunch the numbers tell them to, and never question it.
I feel like I need to say this, even if I haven't played Gw2 for over 18 months at this point.
First of all, META stands for "most effective tactics available" which is a legit thing and what the "peak" is. Now, something that is important to keep in mind is, not everyone can play those "peak performance". Just looking at other game like League of Legends for example. Not everyone would be able to play the champions that are played in pro play, or at the challenger rank which is like 0,01%. Same with Gw2, idk what the top snowcrows number would be, but if weaver was top meta at the moment, I doubt I'd see most casuals playing it because of how complex the class is.
Now, that being said, something that is really important to take note in Gw2, and you did show several example in this video - The power creep is really high for every class at the moment. This is why you have naked group that are able to kill bosses. And this power creep is what makes Gw2 PVE content breathable in it's creativity of builds and group diversification. Everyone can play what they want kind of.. and if you join a group, just express what you do/bring to do group.
Top tier raider in GW2 swears by the META like the holy grail, but shouldn't because of this power creep. What these people should do is look at who is failing mechanics instead of chasing top numbers. GW2 isnt meant to be a hard MMO in it's end game content either, so these people that are gating the content are just toxic for the game. If the low DPS would mean that the boss would wipe the group, then yes it would be an issue.. but here, it is not. So in this case, it's totally okay to go and play whatever you feel like.
This year, I've played FF14 and did all the story, and end content just to see how it is, even from a pure "group finder" perspective, and I could see the game is extremely well balanced. The only class that is potentially on the lower priority is Red mage which, again, I see top raider using for it's battle rez. And when a group was wiping, it wasn't because of DPS, it was because of a mechanic that was failed.
I can say the same about WoW which I'm currently playing, the game is a lot more balanced than it used to be back in the days, and the balance patch are quite frequent as well. There is more kicking from a group in this game, on one side because addons such as DPS meter are allowed, but also a community that was driven by top meta slave for a very long time. I would say that today, it's better than it used to be, especially in LFR (looking for raid/group) content. It's the 1st tier of difficulty of raiding and dungeons and people are usually okay with whatever you play as long as the DPS isnt on an atrocious level, and you don't die too much.
I havent played ESO in some time, and havent played much endgame so I cant really compare with that one.
So I dont know why top raider in GW2 has to be gatekeeper to an objectively easier endgame in this game, this is something that I will never understand and need to change someday. There's enough breathing room to bring fun/meme build in raids, Strikes and even Fractal in this game and altho it is good to know what the META is, no one should expect you to follow it like a slave , be on any MMO, League of Legends, Overwatch or any game really. Don't troll or grief on purpose a group you don't know, and for the rest... just have fun. Games are MEANT to be for fun, it's not a second job.
I'm actually gonna give people a bit of a bitter pill to swallow Meta is in 99% of games not actually the best tactics it's actually only the most effective thing people on average can perform in fact the best of the best usually are the ones that don't play Meta but rather those who through their own experimentation and work define what becomes Meta so chasing the Meta will never make you the best it will just make you average
"Most Effective Tactics Available" is a backronym and not what "meta" actually means. "meta" is short for "metagame" or "the common strategies of a gameplay environment." This may or may not be based in effectiveness.
For example, in Magic, the Gathering, virtually every format has a burn deck that's effective. It's not top-tier in any of them, but it's always an effective contender. This is part of the meta. It's also important in most formats because burn decks are among the cheapest ones to assemble, allowing people an easier path into each format.
@@michaelkeha To be fair: the worst players are also not playing meta
The problem is when META setup players don't allow or really look at exploration of setups with every balance patch as things tweak and change.
@@zir1010011010 sure odds are they are still probably having more fun and don't really give much of a shit if their build isn't meta
If you are playing group content it definitely helps everyone out to communicate and have the same goals. Some people only count a win if it's the fastest win possible, other people call any win a win. If someone cares either way they should know what the group their playing with is aiming for.
Ideally as people discover others who share their perspective they should guild up, and the problem of miscommunication should lessen as "hardcore" guilds and "fun" guilds give everyone a group to play with.
I'm sure the Meta is fun to some people, winning is fun after all.
But learning the Meta for a game that you can complete 90% of the content with non-meta strats and builds for, feels like doing homework on your fun.
I have a Condi/Quick Harbinger specced with full Ascended, Ritualists, ~130 AR, ready to go when my friends get back to Fractals, but in the mean time... I'm playing Bonksmith Scrapper for open world and story progression.
@@thegrayfox881given that most raids these days are just burst and ignore all mechanics you can that actually leads to far worse understanding of the content
@@thegrayfox881 @mgsgrayfox881 And an elephant gun is more effective then a 308 in killing a deer doesn't meant the 308 won't get the job done just fine also teaching work around and the current fastest way to do mechanics actually offers someone no understanding because you have no baseline to reference from also just as a side thing min max building is usually fairly boring and not engaging for most people and in a game like GW2 frankly it's overkill for the majority so long as they are doing well enough it doesn't fucking matter
I've played gw2 for maybe a year now, but even without knowing everything in the game and without doing everything or having the experience, I agree with this. You can copy any build you want but you can also make any build you want and play at your own pace and in your own way, and I feel like alot of players have forgotten about this experience due to many variety of groups that are struggling with content due to using stats to up their advantage. Which that's fine but others may not need that and may be able to use other skills because of this or just simply don't want to frustrate themselves over something they could do now with the build familiarity they have now than to make a whole new build that they have no idea what they're doing just because it's meta
As you said, "It's a game it's meant to be fun", anything else just makes it a "Job" at that point. I ONLY start looking into 'Meta builds' if my own build isn't preforming as much as I'd like it to. Even then if I look up a build, I tend to tweak it and alter it enough so it mostly fits my playstyle first and foremost.
How I see it is, why use a build that someone else made that doesn't fit your playstyle. To me it makes me feel like someone else is playing my game for me, and takes a lot of the fun out of it and just makes it a job at that point. Plus playing ONLY the Meta in games can make the game itself stale because you already know what it feels like 10 to 100 hrs of using it.
Life it stressful enough as it is, I play games to be immersed and have fun!
I played survival hunter in WoW when it was not meta and considered the worst spec because I figured out a way to keep two mobs trapped continually for quite a while before the cooldowns didn't line up. Did less damage, but it made some difficult fights way easier. I got a lot of hate for that, and almost always had to explain myself several times to even get invited to groups. Very fun. Very effective. Very niche.
Great video! I totally agree. I have been playing very casual sinds GW1 and i have fun. I probably have an awful build but hey, i'm having fun for a couple of hours a week. The reason i dont play in groups is because everything has to be perfect and i cannot do that. Thanks Muk! 👍🏼
thank you soo muuch for the viode Muk, I always had issues playing fun builds or of meta for some content in GW2, I give up RAIDs cause of this, is really good see ppl that think different and play for fun. Thank you again ^^
Couldn't agree more! I mostly play SPvP in GW2 and find that the element of surprise counts for a lot. Sure a better player than me with a meta build will be a tougher opponent. But I managed to dominate using my own builds more than occasionally. Players don't know how to deal with the unknown. Can't wait for SOTO and new weapons. Let the chaos ensue!
I've always gravitated toward hybrid classes, most notably feral druid in WoW. The character fantasy was being able to carry my weight in one role, but save the day of things went sideways- using the druid example, coming in feral, tank drops, shift out, brez, tranquility, then go bear, offtaunt while the tank is stabilized, then back to cat to finish the fight. Running the game as a simple maximization equation never appealed at all- hats off to those who enjoy it, but I'd rather a messy fun run with people drinking and laughing than MORE DOTS screaming any day of the week.
I think this meta/try hard mentality is what keeps a lot of people away from group content (me included), specially when you don't have a group of friends to play with and you have to rely on strangers. I'm curious to try fractals, strikes and raids, but appart from some T1 fractals and and easy strikes I don't do nothing else, and it's super rare to do those. The LFG alone has like it's own language that gatekeeps new people. Sometimes I open LFG and I have no idea what they are asking for, so I don't join any group to avoid the drama and go back to open world and wvw.
It's fun how well every single dps build still works well with celestial gear, with a overall dps loss of 15 - 20%, if so. Power Reaper looses only around 9%, and still can cap at 28k dps with a very forgiving rotation, it's insane.
Something a lot of people ignore about this when pugging, is that meta build does not automatically mean meta performance. One example could be weaver who - at times - has pulled ridiculous numbers IN THEORY but virtually nobody was able to perform at that level in actual fights.
In wow I often ran into trouble for healing as a holy priest, because at the time everyone was considering resto druid the meta healer. However: While holy priest was worse then resto druid if played by the top 1% mythic raiders, most druids in dungeon pugs were abysmally bad at their class and could easily be outperformed by any other healing specc if said player actually knew what they were doing.
To everyone who is afraid of the endgame content like Raids Frac CMs and Strikes...
My biggest Tip as someone who has done Raids for a long time now is to ether Join a Guild that does Raid Trainings or a group of friends and try to clear everything together, i guarantee that you will have much more fun and learn much more.
Also i'v been a Leader of a Guild for 3 years now, we'v done many Raid Trainings and regular Monday clears(even a lot of CMs) and i'v never seen anyone complain or pick on anyone just because of what spec/build they were playing, i ran with a Raiding Guild for a while as well... same thing, if you did your job no issues.
Are there Toxic and Rude People in Raids... oh yes, when i was getting into Raids( had 25ish Li) i tried to join some pug groups with my main which is a Scourge and there were some groups where people clearly didn't want me to play Scourge.
But that's why i completly ignore pug groups and just raid with my guild and only lfg when we are missing someone(not to say that all pugs are bad but there a reason why i dislike pugs).
Again find a Guild or group of friends, if they "shit" on you for playing a specific build... leave them and try to find another, i PROMISE you that there is nice Raiding Groups out there and its sad to see many people being afraid of getting into Raids because of this.
Sorry if this came out unclear or messy(english is not my first language) but i wanted to say something.
Inspired by your video, I ran Wing 1 with core specs only, and it was fun! There were no issues with damage or healing, the fights just took a little bit longer.
Ah, this reminded me that back in WotLK most Priests in raid were still just playing holy, and discipline despise the rework was only played mostly in PVP. Disc at the time didn't do huge heals, but there was a way to make it do a lot of healing over time and mitigate damage. Took me a while, but eventually I found a group of people to clear ICC10 with, and they were super happy because now instead of bringing 2 or 3 fully dedicated healers they only needed one plus me, who could still put out some damage and made sure the other healer didn't have any stress since most of the large damage a boss would put out on a tank or raid could now be avoided
EDIT: Forgot to add. I finally cleared all GW2 raids and made my full legendary armor last year. Both pugging and with a dedicated group. I will say I still have mixed feelings about that experience. In trainings, some people don't mind wasting 2 hours of a group time to explain mechanics you won't even see due to current DPS. And in other more experience groups there was a lot of speed running happening. The raids are so old by now that some of the people who still do it, just want to get it over as quick as possible and feel like they are just stuck on a loop of content they don't want to do anymore but are still there for some reason
There is a term for this. It's called social contract, an oft unspoken but generally understood set of rules around an activity. Unfortunately the default social contract w/ MMOs revolves around the meta. If you don't like the terms of that social contract find a group that plays the way you want to play. That can take effort, but it's definitely achievable.
In my experience, the default social contract is "give it a shot, be nice, and ask if you don't know". 98% of my PvE and WvW groups are like this. PvP is incredibly varied, but even then people are either nice or silent in about 80% of the games I play.
That being said, I don't Raid very often, and I haven't touched Strikes yet. When I do Raid, I create my own LRLE (low expectations, low requirements) groups, typically for first timers going in blind, and even then, 95%+ are really nice.
But on the forums and Reddit? Man, I've been told that if you even consider playing qdps pzerk then you're actively griefing your team. That is serious wtf.
@@SponTen Don't lisen to what people say on teh forums and definently not Reddit, find a guild or create a group of friends and do Raids and Strikes together, not every group is toxic and wont care if your not playing the most optimal spec.
I feel like Meta is a double edged sword. On the one hand, it gives a guy like me a way to play the game effectively even when I don’t have the knowledge or experience to do so. I remember being grouped with people in GW1 (my first MMO and online game) and they left because apparently you weren’t supposed to put points in everything and instead focus on one or two groups. That night I had gotten two reactions: one was the typical “hurr duurr uninstall the game. The other dude was nice enough to show me what I was doing wrong and gave me an example build.
On the other hand, having people experiment and try new things outside the Meta shows a passionate community who want to continue playing the game in new and interesting ways. One of the things I like about GW2 is that you can have an effective low intensity option for people new to a profession, but also have other options for when you understand fights and how to play. I started playing low intensity Reaper (thanks Muk), but have recently tried going to snow crows to find higher damage builds. Still don’t understand why staff gets you more damage than just staying in Reaper shroud for maximum time, but I am learning.
From what Kitty's been raiding for 6 years in GW2 and recently playing FF14 a good bit, gotta say that GW2 endgame community has weird obsession with meta though good part of it comes from the good ol' "kill it before it kills you"-philosophy (aka. "DPS it down before any mechs happen). It doesn't necessarily even come as much from simply clearing faster but from people simply refusing to do the mechanics correctly (with Boneskinner being the extreme example). "Less mechanics happening = less chance for wipe", they say. Guess it's either laziness about doing the mechs or, more likely from Kitty's experience, simple refusal on learning how to execute the mechanics smoothly.
And people have focused on that philosophy so much that they've been mostly blind to the other approach: mitigate the consequences of assumed failure. (Outhealing VG's greens and stabbing Cairn's greens being the rare examples of actually doing that, though even that's for more DPS). It doesn't usually even require a massive DPS trade-off to turn 10% chance of recovery into 90% by some skill change.
And to be honest, DPS checks in GW2 are mostly a joke (aside from a couple CMs). For example probably purest DPS check is Xera's mid-strat (75% before lazor) which requires squad to do 141k DPS total (that's about 20k per DPS) and that's less than half of what optimized metabuilds are currently capable of. With proper gears (exotic with suitable stats) and traits, you can do that much with most weapons on a DPS build, even including many meme ones. Largos CM requires about 48k subsquad DPS which means about 13-15k per DPS through the mechanics which is kinda strict on Nikare side due to dashes but even then, most builds with some range/movement skills should be able to keep that up rather easily if not eating bubbles like cereal.
As long as you do the mechanics properly and the basic stuffs of the build are setup correctly, it's harder to find a build that can't get the job done than build that can. (At most bosses)
As basic rule Kitty has for herself: if it can do over 25k at golem, it's good enough for pug raids. 30k+ for fractal CMs.
E: Also not surprised at all by hatemail. Doing something differently-yet-successfully is one of the worst crimes you can do in this community.
In my personal opinion, I find it the most intriguing and enjoyable when Mukluk plays a spec that ISN'T "meta" but rather can still be considered self-sufficient and fun. I hate meta-classes, not because of the classes, but because they're an example of when balancing from the team tilts unfavorably to one side and the playerbase locks you out from content you're well within your means of playing because you don't play like they do.
But I digress. If it gets to that point, then PUGs need to be formed and held in your own hands so that YOU get to decide on bringing non-meta classes or not. And this is coming from a DH Guardian (Dragon+) that uses a Longbow because that's fun for me 🤣
I think the sloth example was perfect. They did not live because they had barrier. They lived bc they have condi cleanse AND some barrier baked into a dps build.
I once joined a group that was listed "All EoD strikes experienced players only." I think we cleared Atherblade hideout in 5 minutes and the commander started spamming the group chat with vile things the second it was cleared (he of course instantly left the when he was done hating on us). To put it nicely, he said no one was doing even half the damage he was, and we're all illiterate children. No one died, and we all obviously knew the mechanics, but turns out he meant "meta" when he said "experienced." Honestly was pretty disheartening, especially since this was the first time I'd played Vindicator in instanced PVE (Had plenty of open world experience, but I usually swapped to my Ranger for strikes since I've got multiple Druid and Soulbeast loadouts). I knew he was just raging, and you shouldn't take stuff like this to heart, but it got to me and I had to take a break from the game. The thing that got me though was this dude didn't even ask what roles or loadout everyone was running. Once we had 10 people, he just ran in and started the fight. He expected a pug to have perfect coordination with no communication.
Btw muk, I love your arrow cart build! It's the most fun I've had in WvW zergs
This is a really interesting discussion and i really like how you frame it
The first MMO I played I'd get kicked from groups on regular for not playing one spec out of a dozen kinds of builds you could run, made leveling annoying. I'd rather take a player who has handcrafted their build and knows everything about it rather than someone who just put together a meta build going off a guide and knows nothing of how to play it.
Recently, I decided to play through all the story and maps on a core Guardian, and for whatever reason, have stuck to playing Hammer; THE most vilified, anti-meta weapon if the forums and discord are to be trusted.
I took around a couple weeks to fine-tune the mechanics - upping Quickness and maximising on sigil damage. While I'm not doing Reaper levels of DPS, I still manage around 13k WITH CLERIC and KNIGHT gear. Consistently top 3 in most pug groups, and it is most importantly, a fun and relaxing way to play.
Note that I am also building towards a Celestial support Firebrand in the meantime to provide raid/frac groups with utility and healing. Fuck metas, but be aware of them i guess.
Yeah imagine having fun in a game and trying to experience all aspects of gameplay. Great vid BTW, totally agree... 100%
It's a long video, but you might enjoy this video by a channel called Folding Ideas called "Why It's Rude to Suck at Warcraft" - basically goes into expectations and how much of a role access to information in a game etc comes into play to the kind of "meta must be played" stuff.
Also, it seems extremely weird to me that people are so hard-up for meta in GW2. The raids are extremely easy (as you know) and they're yyyyyyyears old content at this point. Unfortunately, them being years old content also leads to altered expectations (also addressed in that video above).
I think it's actually quite simple:
If you make the group, you can decide the requirements for the group. Sometimes, people have fun being more competitive or playing a specific composition. In my opinion, there's nothing wrong with having your own standards and making a group in alignment with those standards.
Are those standards required to kill the boss? Absolutely not. But, again, some people have fun doing these types of challenges and/or playing at a higher level.
Do I agree with someone requiring 1000 LI to do a strike boss? No, so I probably just wouldn't join that group.
Do I prefer to play holosmith over soulbeast at KC? Yes, so if a group required soulbeast I just wouldn't play with that group. I'd make my own group.
The issue resides with the systems that force people to join other people's groups -- not having a commander tag -- and the culture that surrounding finding progression groups.
The squad / party systems + the LFG need an overhaul.
I once saw a condi staff weaver build that did “good numbers on the benchmark.” I honestly didn’t care, it looks like so much fun and it kills things and clears content! I’m building it one day
Sounds interesting.
I personally want to try experimenting with ele supports that are not tempest. Particularly heal catalyst, but I’m really scared asking ppl from my guild (who are super chill and host a lot of trainings) to accommodate my curiosity.
The real crux of it is knowledge curve, combined with difficulty curve.
Playing meta is the easiest starting point because it's the most effective. The builds are tried, tested and refined to the point where they have become the most efficient option available. So as players are newer to the game, when their knowledge and skill level are the lowest, it's best to start with meta builds for two reasons. First, the builds and gear are mapped out for you, and often the rotation as well, so you can quickly pick up the build and it creates a relatively low floor. Second, playing a meta build allows you to learn WHY the build is meta and what makes it good so you're understanding of the game and tactics get better.
This bring us to the big initial hurdle: game knowledge. The greater a player's understanding of the game, the more they are able to diverge from meta. Since their knowledge has grown to where they know why a meta build has become meta, they can craft off-meta builds for themselves that make sense as either alternatives to a meta build or one that provides a unique approach to a mechanic/fight, or is able to fill a niche role within a comp. To be able to play off-meta to it's fullest and not handicap the group, it requires you to understand the meta in the first place.
Now, the other half is difficulty curve. In easy content, repeat farm fights, playing solo, memes with the guild, it's more than fine to play whatever you want. But in difficult content, meta shines because it is meta, it's been refined for this content. So if you're at the tipping point where there are hard stops, enrage timers not being met, people failing mechanics, not making heal checks, threat problems, then the group is at a point where every bit counts and playing off-meta could be a handicap that is holding the group back. If the group is ok with that, then cool, soldier on. But if that's not ok with the group then you are being actively detrimental to the group's success rate and that's not cool. At that point you either need to be playing meta to help the group, or have enough game knowledge that the off-meta build isn't what's holding the group back. "But I have way more fun with my off-meta build!" Great. But if it's actively stopping the group from achieving the goal then you have now decided that your fun is more important than the rest of the people in the group's fun, which is in fact a dick move.
Ultimately it is all down to communication, organizing and talking group goals and expectations is important for the fun of everyone and the easiest way to sort things out. I'll also add a large point here because no matter how many times I say it, no matter where I say it, people still don't get it:
NOT EVERY GROUP IS FOR EVERYONE
If someone makes a group and wants to full sweaty try-hard grind out the most difficult content and wants only meta comps and 110% from everyone? That's fine and totally allowed. If you don't like that, that's also fine but that group is NOT FOR YOU. Don't bitch at them, don't whine on the forums, don't write a manifesto about "elitist raiders wah wah wah"... just go find another group that aligns with your goals and expectations, it's that easy. Conversely, if you want to play hardcore and go full effort blast it all on meta that's also ok. Just don't join a group that's labeled "chill off-meta farm run" and flame everyone, that group is NOT FOR YOU.
Having fun in something that you do for entertainment, like a video game? What an outrageous concept.
In all seriousness, I always ask two questions: Did we clear the content? Did we have a great time? And here's the controversial part: you don't (always) have to say "yes" to the first question to also say "yes" to the second.
Whenever I 'command' a squad, I ask the roles at lfg as 'any' cuz I don't care what you play and how you play as long as you do your job and the content is cleared. Everyone is happy.
This is what i love about gw2, as long as u know mechanics everything else is optional. as long as u bring whats needed for mechanics, like handkite in w4
So I've had inner monologues about this exact thing going on for a while but it's a bit hard to vocalize since even I'm not the best player myself. I've had friends join into GW2 after I've been playing for years. I've never been one to really question meta builds as, from experience, they tend to just make the game easier to get into and play at higher levels since someone's already done the math that I can't do in my head. I usually recommend new recruits try out the tried and tested stuff before crafting their own builds since it's the difference between walking a path well traveled and a jungle of traits, weapons, stats, runes, sigils, and tons more.
It's been a bit tough though on a few friends that joined since they opted not to lean towards these builds and instead tried their own... and then found themselves floundering and just not having fun with the game, which hurt some to be honest since I just wanted them to enjoy it. The issue for me was that I didn't want to sound like a broken record, or that I was complaining about their choices or forcing a meta on them, but at the same time I feel it's pretty easy to make a bad build as a newbie in guild wars, and even harder to learn the reason why it's bad until much later into the game.
As experience is gained however, branching out and playing offshoots or working builds that aren't as common should be more normalized. If there's no creativity within the community, no options will ever be discovered.
I have all but completely given up on trying to find groups for Raid/Strike Mission content, I simply haven't completed a full instance of anything due to my experiences with the community surrounding this content, starting from when it released in Heart of Thorns. Now I have a complex understanding of the game and how classes work, I have 40 characters with my favourite thing being theory crafting effective different builds for each one. Now originally around when it first released, even if I was currently running a meta build, in particular the old boon support/dps herald, I wouldn't be allowed in simply for not having ascended gear. Over the years I've had attempts at raiding with groups, but things never pull through, be it pug groups that overall cannot pull the weight needed/don't know the fight and keep dying, groups requiring I present 'kill proof' to join along (obviously can't), joined guilds and discords for learning the fights and they don't commit, groups not allowing entry due to not being EXACTLY meta, or most recently this year, other guilds both new and old I have tried to join for learning this content among others, I join their discords everything's all cool, hunky-dory and we're all excited, and go to bed for the night, only to find in the morning I've been shadow banned, now the case of one I have no idea as I couldn't establish any kind of communication afterwards, but two of them essentially removed me for being trans, because that's in my discord bio. The excuses I was given were "not wanting to get involved with the woke crowd" and outright "we're not interested in playing with lgbt people" Now honestly yeah I think those to be the minority of the community as I believe pretty much most of the community is lgbt+ supportive if not already part of it, but the fact I keep finding the minority lately is very off putting.
I do also feel like the need for the meta has become looser due to the extra expansions releasing more variable elite specs, and obviously the power creep that's come with them over the years, and I am of a similar mind set that in group content, a player's build should not be gate kept when they are simply having fun, and it is still viable to clear content. Unless the groups are farming and trying to be as efficient as possible, that's their deal, and they need a full group willing to do the same, but when it comes to simply learning and clearing content with no need to be hardcore and efficient, builds and playstyles should not be gate kept unless it is actively what is stopping the content from being cleared, and if it's someone new, help them learn.
But for myself personally, I'm not sure if I'm up for continuing to try and put myself out there for that content if I keep running into those kinds of people.
Don't give up, i promise you there's good groups out there where you CAN play what you want and people dont care about the meta.
SO I don't know what's been happening in your mail but in general the issue with off meta strats like the full cele or ten scourges both can be done and when pulled off by skilled players can seem very affective if I took a full set of new players set them in cele and went to samrog we would hit enrage(note I have gone to enrage before on that fight). yes you can clear raids in full cele, yes ten of any class can clear raids, and yes you can use a single healer and 4 boondps, in this case its mostly not done because people don't want to look for 5 roles instead of 4 but in groups where not everyone is as experienced this means you can have some one show up say they can 10manheal and you have to guess if they are gunna mess up and die or if you just want to take 2 boon healers and even if one dies the other can still finish the fight
they are options but they require comping but this is just my in expert opinion
P.S. sorry for my awful grammar