I’ll freely admit that I’m fairly worried about the status of Guild Wars 2’s structured PvP. Having watched the last tournament matches on Twitch it’s not only frighteningly dull to watch but the current Meta is having an enormous impact on the fun of the game mode and the fun of being a spectator to it.

One of things that made the original Guild Wars so enjoyable to spectate was the fact that a death meant a great deal and although there were builds that were capable of withstanding high levels of punishment, certainly the matches I watched rarely met a stalemate to the degree we’re seeing in Guild Wars 2. Yes there would be nervousness, poking and retreats but there was an excitement to it. As it stands in Guild Wars 2, its reached the point where there’s so little threat of death and with builds so heavily bunkered that matches are stale, repetitive and lacking in excitement.

I’ve watched with interest the reaction to Tarcis’ post about the current Meta and his displeasure of it and yet it baffles that many players continue to ignore the elephant in the room. Yes there are skills in Guild Wars 2 that are too strong and certain Amulet’s need tweaking but the inherent problem isn’t a bunch of traits or skills but the over abundance of boons.

There was once a time when a boon in Guild Wars 2 was designed to be a strategic buff that you activated during a particularly challenging moment. Need to mitigate damage for this incoming damage? Pop protection. Need to avoid being knocked back? Use Stability. Unfortunately and as the game has progressed, the prevalence of boons has reached the point where certain professions can quite comfortably maintain almost all of them that it skews not only their damage potential but also their survivability to such a degree that they’re near unkillable. Combined with a variety of skills that mitigate or block all incoming damage, it’s a recipe for disaster and one that's finally come to fruition thanks to the strength of elite specializations.

Although boons by themselves are strong (especially when stacking nearly all of them) it’s the fact that too few methods of reliable boon removal have been added to the game as a direct counter to their abundance. When you can quite comfortably apply and maintain 20 stacks of might, swiftness, vigor, protection and regeneration within seconds, but removal of boons is limited to only a handful of skills and traits, on a couple of professions (notably the Necromancer and Revenant). Something, somewhere, has gone drastically wrong with 'counter' distribution.

As one example, even if a Necromancer does remove a large quantity of boons thanks to Corrupt boon (even though no Reaper runs Corrupt Boon) you know full well that they cannot do it again for another 40 seconds. Mere seconds later you can freely apply all your boons and carry on as if nothing has happened. Even the remaining skills that boon strip, only two are used in the current Meta and they remove so few their impact is negligible (Mind Stab and Banish Enchantment).

So what’s the solution to the abundance of boons without adding boon removal to every single skill?

1. Most importantly, boons in PvP needed to be treated vastly differently to PvE (just as more skills should be).

2. There needs to be a time limit on individual boons, irrespective of the stack. Each time limit should be specific to the strength of the boon. For example, protection would be 3 seconds, whilst might could be 8.

3. Boon re-application should be limited, based on previously received boons. For example, if you’ve received protection for 3 seconds you shouldn’t be able to instantly apply it once it fades. There should be a hangover post-boon application so that permanent reapplication isn’t possible.

In addition to all this, there has to be a better set of sigils to boon strip because the current crop, offering removal of one on a 60% chance, with a heavy internal cooldown, is absolutely pointless.

Until boons are rectified, Guild Wars 2’s structured PvP will always revolve around sustain through boons and no amount of skill tweaking will rectify the underlying problem. Unfortunately and with the addition of the Herald, I think we're well past seeing a fix.