Guild Wars 2

Just had a couple people tell me that the professions in this game are completely balanced. What are your thoughts in the manner? Personally i think it is not even near balanced and will never be so.

define: balanced

i think necros are p balanced

Troll.4237:

Just had a couple people tell me that the professions in this game are completely balanced. What are your thoughts in the manner? Personally i think it is not even near balanced and will never be so.

I dunno. On average, I think Weaponsmith is stronger because you need those sharpening stones more than you need the oils or … actually, going by that, Chef is OP.

Nerf chef!

a t s e.9614:

The game is quite balanced. Some classes need to be buffed a little bit like mesmer and power ranger but I don’t think there’s OP stuff that needs a massive nerf just a tweak.

You need to specify which game mode. PvP, WvW, PvE?

In PvP, the game is definitely not balanced. Certain specs rule the game.
In WvW, it is in a decent spot with the exception of a ranger which is horrible
In PvE, things are still dominated by warriors, guards, and eles (in groups, not solo).

Troll.4237:

Just had a couple people tell me that the professions in this game are completely balanced. What are your thoughts in the manner? Personally i think it is not even near balanced and will never be so.

That’s a really creative account name. How did you think of it?

a t s e.9614:

The game is quite balanced. Some classes need to be buffed a little bit like mesmer and power ranger but I don’t think there’s OP stuff that needs a massive nerf just a tweak.

I think one problem is that many forum feedback givers don’t actually differentiate “degree” if imbalance in any way.

Because really, the class-imbalance is overall minor. Yes, it exists, plenty of it. Yes it should be balanced. But in the grand picture it’s not such a big deal, compared to more overarching issues like:

• The amount of unusable or dubious-value traits/skills/weapons. One upside of GW2 is the sheer diversity of it’s class setup, but it really drops the ball on making you want to use more than half or so of them.
• General PvE-design. The PvP-side of GW2 is pretty smart. Both modes feature a combat system which on a microscopic level is all about player performance and reading and avoiding and interrupting enemy motions, while on a macroscopic level being about fighting dirty and outpacing the enemy on a strategic even if you lose the tactical engagement. The PvE-side however doesn’t hold up. The Toxic mobs are a step in the right directly (a huge one, at that, including their bosses), but it’d help the game if most of it works on a more PvP-like manner, introducing players to the main combat system in a more acceptable manner.
• The issue of power-scaling with Ascended, small as it is, is still untouched. Especially the overall strategic implications behind it.
• Guild support is still kinda wonky. There’s no way to read guild chats you’re not representing (which is terrible if you’re a leader in one guild but also sometimes represent another, say, TxS), no officer-chat, no guild alliances (with alliance and alliance-officer chat), no way to force all guildmates into the same megaserver instance in a hard-wired fashion, etc.

I mean, I understand that PvP-balance is dear to a lot of players. But many of the issues which see a lot of complaints aren’t that big. They’re big if you focus entirely on PvP balance, but I think that’s secondary to game-wide issues.

Now, the important bit would be this: We should convey our feedback in moderation. That is, we shouldn’t list everything as “OMG CHANGE THIS NAO!”. That just ramps up the signal-to-noise ratio big time.
Rather, I think balance issues such as “Thieves stealth too much” are less important that “Ugh, conditions are so bleh. So strong in roaming, so useless in anything else.” is less important than “Defence is impossible and unrewarding in WvW and it’s all about offensive flipping”. Etc. We should have some structure, if nothing else entirely because we want the devs to very clearly see which large-scale issues are really problematic to the game.