Guild Wars: State of the Game: April 2, 2007

This week's State of the Game written by Harold Chow discusses the need to counter metagamers in PvP play:

When designing a new build or retooling an old one, players must consider prevalent trends in the current metagame. This process begins a game within the game of trying to play a build opponents won't expect and, therefore, won't be prepared for. Deciding whether to use a narrow skill to counter a specific threat or to handle opponents in a more general manner depends on how important it is that you diffuse the threat, the frequency with which you expect to encounter the threat, the effectiveness of your narrow solution, and the synergy of that solution with the rest of your build.

And finally:

Despite the availability of hard counters to just about any skill that could become prevalent in the metagame, the mechanics of the game still favors player skill to the skills on that player's bar. A balanced team with more general solutions should perform well against a gimmick build but can still go toe-to-toe against other teams. Players should use skill selection as a countermeasure sparingly, hedging against only those popular builds the team finds too difficult to counter normally or when facing a known opponent who will most likely run a certain build.