no we don't, I came back after 3 years and I was suprised at how everyone is running the same 5 or so sets on all specs/classes.

Eh, there are plenty of PVP builds that are not meta that are quite effective. I'm running one now.

I love hybridization, it allows me to slot whatever abilities I want, not what the devs have allocated to Stamina.

Not playing much PvP right now, but I see quite a bit of diversity on PC EU. To some degree, I think that may be due to people not moving on from their old setups. I see magsorcs with conventional playstyles that include Streak, Meteor and shielding. I see pure stamsorcs. I see hybrids using Crushing Shock on more stamsorc-like setups. I've talked to a nightblade doing fine with old sets, e.g. New Moon, Clever, Balorgh, Markyn. I've seen other (bow) nightblades with poison setups and Kjalnar.

Of the sets you mentioned, I find it hard to get away from Rallying Cry as a solo player, but I fail to see the reasoning around Sea Serpent that people use to justify that set's OPness. How many actually use it? Movement means a lot to me. People say you can claw back movement with Swift, CP, and so on, but IMO the average PvPer is not sitting at 0% movement buff. You're competing with players that have +10% to +30% as standard (in combat, in CP) before we even get to the outliers. I find this noticeable on melee templar, for example. If I can't at least match the movement speed of my target, they can and will frequently outrange me. I think Sea Serpent may be meta for people who are already used to a slow playstyle, perhaps a DK who lets people come to them and leaps to execute, or even a nightblade that relies more on Shadow Image than speed, but it's not for everyone.

Wretched is a good set, but one I can take or leave. There are other options. Mara, even just on the back bar. Trickery. Clever, for some. Even sets you may have never heard of in meta circles, such as Steadfast's Mettle. The latter helps create medium armor builds that have both low dodge roll cost and can turtle with low block cost.

To Balorgh and Bloodspawn I would add Selene and Zoal at the very least. Selene, because I see it. Zoal, because I love it myself. In terms of mythics, I think Markyn and Wild Hunt are still obvious options. I know what I'm saying doesn't add huge variety and most of it is meta, but these are examples I would personally use.

I like playing around with off-meta stuff, though. Maybe that doesn't make me a typical player, or at least not a competitive one (I am not). On the other hand there are IMO two components that need to come together, before something becomes meta: It has to be (marginally) OP or universally useful (Markyn, Rallying Cry) and it has to be promoted by someone with sufficient clout or otherwise go viral in the community. The two of those things do not necessarily go hand in hand. If you buildcraft yourself you may do well with off-meta setups. Not everyone talks about what they run. Perhaps more importantly people form habits. What works for them is usually coloured by their playstyle. Some diversity at least comes from that.

There’s a lot of build diversity that is possible but most people find it easier to follow the crowd and play whatever everyone else is playing.

There are 2 aspects of build diversity: skill diversity and set diversity. Hybridization may have slightly hurt skill diversity - some morphs are just better than others on all builds, and if both morphs scale the same then why not use the "better morph"? However, I think Hybridization helped set diversity. For example, I'm running Unleashed Ritualist this patch. The set has 3 lines of max magicka, meaning to be stack the most damage I need to put points into mag. However, I'm also running bombard. Because of Hybridization, i can run bombard with a max mag set like Ritualist and still have plenty of damage on stam abilities like Bombard.

In terms of skills, I would say that there's not much diversity within the classes. More than half of skill lines and morphs are ineffective, therefore not used. Leading to the majority of players using the same spammables and buff skills.

Considering how many sets are in the game that are unused because you can't just slap on whatever without hours of farming, testing, and gold to make them effective, I would say diversity is not all that high. Sure, people can find ways to incorporate sets that are "off meta", but that's usually in conjunction with sets and items that are. Is having to include certain items (*cough* mythics) a way of bringing diversification into the game? IMO not really.

Metas are also partially dictated by the most effective way of playing, and at the moment mitigation and healing are overly effective. You squash diversity when you make countering playstyles significantly more difficult to come by and less impactful, despite what you sacrifice to achieve them. So when it comes to different playstyles, which leads to build diversity, the game is lacking in that as well.

Hybridisation and mythics were a mistake.

ATomiX69 wrote: »

Hybridisation and mythics were a mistake.

Agree. Why bother with separate stamina and magicka attributes? Why not just simplify into health and energy (combining stamina and magicka).