Guild Wars 2

No skills, utilities, elites or traits. Just the class mechanic. What do you guys think is the best mechanic and what are the pros/cons of each?

IMO
1. Necro DS
2. Thief initiative
3. Mesmer clones/ele 20 skills

There are a few cool ones, but I have always looked enviously at Engineers. They just straight up get an extra utility bar, and sure you can make the argument it’s because they have an odd situation of having kits and whatnot, I still think it’s such a straight forward and powerful class mechanic, how could you not want it.

IMO the ones which work really well are Engineer and Elementalist. They truly give you the feeling of raw flexibility and mass of skills on the Elementalist. Engineers also have a lot of varied utility.

I think DS has to be the worst… but then I agree with the attitude that necros are a worthless leech class that should be kicked from all groups.

1. Initiative
2. Shatter
3. Ele attunments
4. warrior rage
5. engineer’s toolbelt (isn’t the greatest, to complicated at times, but it works)

6. guards are meh, for me, I just can’t get into actively using the virtues
7. ranger pets, they drag the whole class down, a flying pet with a ranged attack would fix most of the problems I think.

8. necro (are we still in beta?) the whole class is just trash, it’s slow to stack conditions, condition capped bosses, lacks access to major conditions (fire, torment, confusion) no aoe direct damage skills, lousy group utility, and pets that still only attack 70% of the time.. some days they won’t attack anything at all….

…but since they get deathshroud, it’s all working as intended.

dumbfire, need I say more?

Ezeriel.9574:

I think DS has to be the worst… but then I agree with the attitude that necros are a worthless leech class that should be kicked from all groups.

1. Initiative
2. Shatter
3. Ele attunments
4. warrior rage
5. engineer’s toolbelt (isn’t the greatest, to complicated at times, but it works)

6. guards are meh, for me, I just can’t get into actively using the virtues
7. ranger pets, they drag the whole class down, a flying pet with a ranged attack would fix most of the problems I think.

8. necro (are we still in beta?) the whole class is just trash, it’s slow to stack conditions, condition capped bosses, lacks access to major conditions (fire, torment, confusion) no aoe direct damage skills, lousy group utility, and pets that still only attack 70% of the time.. some days they won’t attack anything at all….

…but since they get deathshroud, it’s all working as intended.

dumbfire, need I say more?

Heyheyhey, you’re talking to a necromancer here…. What is not great about another lifebar with 3k+ auto (when power).

What could be better than pressing F1?

Warrior is the best due to simplicity.
KISS methodology, keep it simple stupid
Necro second….F1 oh crap button
Engi/Ele third for versatility.

Worst mechanic is the ranger coz pets are crap in wvw, spvp and in serious pve.
Second worst is Guardian due to high cooldown on F3 and the useless F2

Gotta say;
Engi Toolbelt
Guardian Virtues (undervalued but strong)
Ele Attunement (although, im kinda not sure this one is actually that good, to avoid making a lengthy post why, ill just leave it at that)
Ranger pets – Sure they are clunky, but the freedom of utility they give you, not to mention DPS, CC and other functions are simply too good to pass up.

I feel Elemental Attuning is the best mechainc.

Holl.3109:

No skills, utilities, elites or traits. Just the class mechanic. What do you guys think is the best mechanic and what are the pros/cons of each?

IMO
1. Necro DS
2. Thief initiative
3. Mesmer clones/ele 20 skills

You placed the worst mechanic at the top? The mechanic that locks you out of all your skills? The mechanic you can’t even heal in? The mechanic in which you can’t res? The mechanic that doesn’t even work with life stealing traits?

You should go sit in the corner now darling. For shame.

I think Death Shroud has to be one of the strongest profession mechanics when you look solely at profession mechanics. Having base 29k HP (and a lot higher when you consider how LF actually works) is absolutely massive, with some amazing skills to back it up. There are faults with this – the issues with healing, a few bugs, some QoL things, and the balance decisions made around it – but overall I think it has the highest impact of any profession mechanic.

Next would be Thief initiative imo, the ability to have no CD on weapon skills is amazing (although also a curse at times), and Mesmer with one of the most fun and well integrated mechanics.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

You placed the worst mechanic at the top? The mechanic that locks you out of all your skills? The mechanic you can’t even heal in? The mechanic in which you can’t res? The mechanic that doesn’t even work with life stealing traits?

It’s actually working pretty well, even if you may ofc argue about the balance.
It’s theme works well, it makes a Necromancer comparatively durable, it provides varied bonuses and it feels like a significant change of gameplay as a result of having it.

It works much better than say Shatter as a class mechanic, but I don’t think I’d put it at the top (Attunements and Toolbelt work better). Would probably be number 3 for me, maybe number 4 (Initiative).

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

Holl.3109:

No skills, utilities, elites or traits. Just the class mechanic. What do you guys think is the best mechanic and what are the pros/cons of each?

IMO
1. Necro DS
2. Thief initiative
3. Mesmer clones/ele 20 skills

You placed the worst mechanic at the top? The mechanic that locks you out of all your skills? The mechanic you can’t even heal in? The mechanic in which you can’t res? The mechanic that doesn’t even work with life stealing traits?

You should go sit in the corner now darling. For shame.

I said In my opinion, not ‘OMG everybody should think this is the best mechanic it’s sponsored by red bull and is the best lololol’ ….nah.

Yes it locks you out of your skills but you get another 5 goodish skills. 3k auto, teleport with chill and bleed, 1 1/2 or 2 1/2 instant fear, AOE 4k+ life transfer and torment immob (<with my power build at least) yes DS has problems (like not being able to heal in it and not seeing your skills) but just because of that it isn’t horribad.

AND if you played necro (which you probably don’t) you would know you CAN commune, stomp, res and do others things in, WHILE soaking up dmg.

i dunno since i only play warrior mostly nowadays.
what is warrior’s profession mechanic by the way?
adrenaline?

Initiative hands down.

What makes it so strong is it’s ability to regenerate so quickly, meaning hardly any cooldown on strong abilities and no need to swap over weapon sets in fights. Between that and stealth is what makes thieves such a strong class. No 40 second cooldown for you!!

Ranger’s pet. Probably only one that doesn’t leave you face to ground when you get downed, or operate something. In those situations you can still command your pet which is a life saver.

Bhawb.7408:

I think Death Shroud has to be one of the strongest profession mechanics when you look solely at profession mechanics. Having base 29k HP (and a lot higher when you consider how LF actually works) is absolutely massive, with some amazing skills to back it up. There are faults with this – the issues with healing, a few bugs, some QoL things, and the balance decisions made around it – but overall I think it has the highest impact of any profession mechanic.

I agree with that but the issues you mentioned are things that defintely should be addressed. Especially the no healing parts since it makes the bloodmagic tree kinda useless half the time and some other traits like the first spite minor. Ds is in my opinion also the most interesting of all profession mechanics.

I also agree that initative is one of the stronger profession mechanics and the pet of the ranger could be too, if some changes would be made (better ai, better aoe resistence etc.)

But i think it is ok that some professions have stronger/more intersting profession mechanics then others if the professions them self are balanced properly.

Hmmmm….

I would have to say:

1.) Initiative – EASILY the best and most powerful class mechanic as it bypasses the cooldowns every other class has on their skills. Since cooldown times are part of the overall balance of skills, this means there can NEVER be a true balance on skills that use initiative versus skills that do not.

2. Attunements/Tool-Belt – Having access to almost double the amount of skills that other professions have simply HAS to be one of the better profession mechanics in the game. Are you waiting for some of your fifteen skills to come off of cooldown? No problem! Engineers and Elementalists still have access to another ten skills you do not to carry on the beatdown while you wait for your cooldowns to process. The only reason I did not put their mechanics at first is due to the high skill ceiling they have in managing all their skills. Not quite as good as just spamming all your skills like initiative allows, but still quite good.

3.) Adrenaline – As pointed out above, keeping it simple makes this one a great profession mechanic. The Warrior suffers no penalties for using their profession mechanic. Even if they miss, they still get to keep their adrenaline and attempt another burst with it. Easy to acquire, easy to manage, WAY easy to use. No drawbacks to their profession mechanic at all.

4.) Ranger’s Pet – I know the Ranger Pet gets a lot of hate on the forums, but let’s face it – fighting two things is almost always harder than fighting one. A constant companion that adds to your survival and DPS while also bringing other abilities for you to use is just darn good to have. Not to mention the ability to have them resurrect you from a downed state. And you don’t get just one pet, you can swap between two different ones for even more variety. I realize the AI on them adds some downside to them, but overall a really good mechanic to have.

5.) Mesmer shatter – Another good mechanic and I place it towards the bottom of the list due to it having downsides (as do the two at the bottom of the list). Like the Guardian and the Necromancer, the Mesmer has to give up something (in their case it’s their clones and therefore a good amount of their offense/defense) in order to use their shatter mechanic. This also means they have to use their mechanic wisely and cannot spam it like the Warrior can. A really good mechanic, just has a downside.

6.) Guardian Virtues/Necromancer Death Shroud – I have to put these two at the bottom of the list simply due to the downsides that both professions have in using them. While both of them are good mechanics in my opinion, both the Necromancer and the Guardian have to give up something in order to use them. The Necromancer has to give up access to their utility skills (cannot even see their cooldowns while in Death Shroud), access to healing, and cannot interact with their environment. Guardians have to give up access to the passive effects of their virtues to use them. After using all three of them, they simply become a much lesser Warrior with no burst and no health. Since both of these mechanics come with huge expenses to the profession for using them, they have to be at the bottom of the list even though they are actually powerful mechanics to use.

Just my thoughts.

Thanks.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

i dunno since i only play warrior mostly nowadays.
what is warrior’s profession mechanic by the way?
adrenaline?

Why are you even posting in this thread if you don’t know what a class mechanic is?

Are you talking about best as in “best designed” or “most powerful”?

As Best Designed I would put Elemental Attunements even if they require quite a bit of skill to master. They just add so much to the gameplay.

Most Powerful (also the worst designed) would have to be Initiative. This is all kinds of broken and nearly impossible to balance allowing you to focus on using only your best skills without any real cooldown. It breaks the game.

I can say which is the worst for sure… cough ranger * cough*

Neko.9021:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

i dunno since i only play warrior mostly nowadays.
what is warrior’s profession mechanic by the way?
adrenaline?

Why are you even posting in this thread if you don’t know what a class mechanic is?

I think you did’t quite catch the ball, sir.

Chokolata.1870:

I can say which is the worst for sure… cough ranger * cough*

The ranger class mechanic is so-so. I’m not sure I’d call it the worst versus the conceptual misfire which Mesmer Shatter is. But it depends on perspective. Bug-wise, Rangers fare worst due to the reliance on AI which has pathing / fighting issues. Concept-wise, little is worse implemented than Shatter. Power-wise, I suspect Necro will take the cup because they’re overreliant on disabling their own skills.

Above I tried to judge them by concept , which I think leaves Ele and Engi for best class mechanics and Mesmer for far worst.

Well the ranger mechanic is the worst because:

1) the character itself is punished damage wise because you always have a pet, which you dont as it dies a lot

2) the AI is really really really bad, and you do not have full control over all of the abilities because its too hard

Michaeas Magister.1589:

Hmmmm….

I would have to say:

1.) Initiative – EASILY the best and most powerful class mechanic as it bypasses the cooldowns every other class has on their skills. Since cooldown times are part of the overall balance of skills, this means there can NEVER be a true balance on skills that use initiative versus skills that do not.

Yes, thieves have no cooldown because our initiative, just as our stealth, is infinite.
In all seriousness, I find cooldown management much easier than handling Initiative. 2 or 3 skill at best per 10 second is not much, people just don’t see that cooldown classes classes dish out many more skills in the same time.

I’d have said mesmer has the best (most original), ranger/ele have the worst (least imaginative)

scerevisiae.1972:

I’d have said mesmer has the best (most original), ranger/ele have the worst (least imaginative)

The problem with the Mesmer one is that it doesn’t work well as an universal system. Shatter isn’t used by some builds, and runs opposed to what they’re trying to do.
Worse, it’s dependent on another set of class skills.

In retrospect, our class mechanic should have been clone/phantasm generation. And shatter skills should have been on the weapons. That makes sense, that way the class skills have no prerequisite, but some of the skills depend on the class mechanic.

Factoring in traits, I’d say that my favorites are:

Thief: Initiative is incredible and completely unique compared to the rest of the game, and steal when traited with Mug and Sleight of Hand is an incredible tool that feels very much like an “ace up your sleeve option.”

Warrior: When specced all the way up to Burst Mastery, Warriors are weapon swapping, damage dealing machines. Due to the nature of how different weaponsets operate, Warriors can shift momentum at an almost alarming fast rate, which keeps people on their toes and never really leaves a dull moment in edgewise.

Elementalist: Attunement dancing is incredibly fun as well as it is rewarding. Nothing quite compares to the feeling of properly landing a solid skill rotation, and elementalists are all about their rotations, which again never leaves a dull moment.

Necromancer: Absolutely, stunningly effective for what it is. Nobody is arguing that it isn’t a little buggy at times, but it’s an entire health and utility bar that you can use virtually on demand. It deserves to be listed by people even if for only being thematically appropriate. Uniqueness is also a factor too, and it definitely competes in that category as well.

Guardian: Virtues are simple but elegant. They add so much to combat both passively and actively. Sure, they might not be on demand fire element applications or instantaneous teleports to mug people and smack them with what you take, but Virtues work. The theme works, the effects work, the traits work, and it really overall comes together to make for a very solid class.

Engineer: Well, the toolbelt is… thematically appropriate I suppose. I mean, more utility isn’t a bad thing. I’d have to factor in kits as part of a mechanic (please don’t burn me at the stake engi community, I know it’s a sore topic) before I even considered it interesting. That being said, if I were to factor in kits, ummm, bombs, grenades, and flamethrowers? Yes please. This class has a tool for everything it seems (on the surface). Besides, I think everybody has somebody in mind irl that they would just love to smack with a wrench.

Mesmer: Oh boy. Shatters are fun. The AI is no walk in the park though. It’s actually quite frustrating. But hey, at least you can kill that frustrating AI to create beneficial combat effects. Oh, and animation effects. The mesmer is overall a well put together and extremely fun class, especially on a shatter build. The content might not always render the mechanic as effective as people wish it would be, but hey, at least you aren’t the next class to be listed.

Ranger: Oh boy you mesmers have it lucky, you can shatter your useless AI! (cough) I mean, useful, definitely useful, and not in anyway crippled by mechanics hellbound to annihilate any sort of AI mechanic that can’t avoid the pain train. Look at the brightside though, Sir Hurrdurr Gimpmeister is here to save the day! Eventually…. With some extra AI damage output that makes me as a player sacrifice my personal damage output because I’m stuck with Dumb and Dumber the sometimes-use-my pet-F2-skill-when-you-want-me-to-even-after-miniscule-pet-improvements wonder pet whom I can’t just slaughter over the fire to the gods or the dragons or the quaggans to get some god forsaken decent power scaling. (sigh) Well, on the brightside, I can name my pet whatever ANet deems is an appropriate name for an arguably social misfit that nobody would even associate with irl with fear of lowering their IQ. On the other brightside, there is no lore telling us that ranger pets can reproduce. So that’s a positive. Oh, and hey, all that gets made up for by rangers being amazing with bows and having amazing bow skills!!!!!!
What!? Wait a minute here!!! Son of a…! (/deskflip)

Soooooo yeah. I hope people are as entertained and informed by this evaluation as I was writing it (believe it or not, a portion of the write up was extremely cathartic).

Well I find Mesmer shatters, Engineer tool belt and Elementalist attunements to be the most interesting professions mechanics.

I’ve always found The Steal mechanic of Thief and Adrenaline mechanic of Warrior to be the most disappointing.

Yes, i was asking most powerfull/usefull mechanic

So thief: steal and initiative
Necro: DS and DS skills
Warrior: adrenaline and burst skill
Ele: attunements
Engi: tool belt skills
Guardians: passive an active virtues
Ranger: pet and pet skills
Mesmer: CLONES (<don’t forget) and shatter skills

Rangers clearly must be the best. In my year+ of playing this game I can’t recall the last time I saw anyone complain about it! The pet is absolutely amazing! ANet should be proud of themselves for making the best pet class in MMO history.

Engineer without a doubt has the best. They get an extra 4 abilities for use whenever they want, and actually make racial skills better!

Atherakhia.4086:

Rangers clearly must be the best. In my year+ of playing this game I can’t recall the last time I saw anyone complain about it! The pet is absolutely amazing! ANet should be proud of themselves for making the best pet class in MMO history.

Lol I was about to post that I’m not sure I can name just one as the best but I sure can name the worst.

MarauderShields.6830:

Michaeas Magister.1589:

Hmmmm….

I would have to say:

1.) Initiative – EASILY the best and most powerful class mechanic as it bypasses the cooldowns every other class has on their skills. Since cooldown times are part of the overall balance of skills, this means there can NEVER be a true balance on skills that use initiative versus skills that do not.

Yes, thieves have no cooldown because our initiative, just as our stealth, is infinite.
In all seriousness, I find cooldown management much easier than handling Initiative. 2 or 3 skill at best per 10 second is not much, people just don’t see that cooldown classes classes dish out many more skills in the same time.

Thieves are not as resource starved as you might think. With 12 initiative points (15 traited) that regenerate at one per second plus 9 different traits that restore or increase the gain of initiative, you would have to really work hard at depleting the resource. Even then, by the time you DO deplete it, you have still managed to use more skills than a weapon skill on a 10 second cooldown.

Why Arenanet didn’t just use the system they had from GW1 and make the Thief the master of combination attacks like the Assassin is beyond me. The initiative system is far more powerful and Thieves simply have way too many options to restore initiative to make the resource management a balance to the mechanic.

I have watched literally hundreds of Thieves play in sPVP in an effort to try and learn how to actually kill one and I have yet to see one “resource starved” by the initiative system. Even when they Heartseeker across the map, they always seem to have enough initiative to dispatch their opponent in record time when they arrive.

The ability to use your skills when you want and as quickly as you want to is simply more powerful than using skills on cooldowns. Perhaps if Thieves had fewer ways to restore initiative and had to worry about resource management, it might balance out but at the current state they have just as many ways to restore initiative as they have to use it.

Thanks.

jcbroe.4329:

Factoring in traits, I’d say that my favorites are:

Thief: Initiative is incredible and completely unique compared to the rest of the game, and steal when traited with Mug and Sleight of Hand is an incredible tool that feels very much like an “ace up your sleeve option.”

Warrior: When specced all the way up to Burst Mastery, Warriors are weapon swapping, damage dealing machines. Due to the nature of how different weaponsets operate, Warriors can shift momentum at an almost alarming fast rate, which keeps people on their toes and never really leaves a dull moment in edgewise.

Elementalist: Attunement dancing is incredibly fun as well as it is rewarding. Nothing quite compares to the feeling of properly landing a solid skill rotation, and elementalists are all about their rotations, which again never leaves a dull moment.

Necromancer: Absolutely, stunningly effective for what it is. Nobody is arguing that it isn’t a little buggy at times, but it’s an entire health and utility bar that you can use virtually on demand. It deserves to be listed by people even if for only being thematically appropriate. Uniqueness is also a factor too, and it definitely competes in that category as well.

Guardian: Virtues are simple but elegant. They add so much to combat both passively and actively. Sure, they might not be on demand fire element applications or instantaneous teleports to mug people and smack them with what you take, but Virtues work. The theme works, the effects work, the traits work, and it really overall comes together to make for a very solid class.

Engineer: Well, the toolbelt is… thematically appropriate I suppose. I mean, more utility isn’t a bad thing. I’d have to factor in kits as part of a mechanic (please don’t burn me at the stake engi community, I know it’s a sore topic) before I even considered it interesting. That being said, if I were to factor in kits, ummm, bombs, grenades, and flamethrowers? Yes please. This class has a tool for everything it seems (on the surface). Besides, I think everybody has somebody in mind irl that they would just love to smack with a wrench.

Mesmer: Oh boy. Shatters are fun. The AI is no walk in the park though. It’s actually quite frustrating. But hey, at least you can kill that frustrating AI to create beneficial combat effects. Oh, and animation effects. The mesmer is overall a well put together and extremely fun class, especially on a shatter build. The content might not always render the mechanic as effective as people wish it would be, but hey, at least you aren’t the next class to be listed.

Ranger: Oh boy you mesmers have it lucky, you can shatter your useless AI! (cough) I mean, useful, definitely useful, and not in anyway crippled by mechanics hellbound to annihilate any sort of AI mechanic that can’t avoid the pain train. Look at the brightside though, Sir Hurrdurr Gimpmeister is here to save the day! Eventually…. With some extra AI damage output that makes me as a player sacrifice my personal damage output because I’m stuck with Dumb and Dumber the sometimes-use-my pet-F2-skill-when-you-want-me-to-even-after-miniscule-pet-improvements wonder pet whom I can’t just slaughter over the fire to the gods or the dragons or the quaggans to get some god forsaken decent power scaling. (sigh) Well, on the brightside, I can name my pet whatever ANet deems is an appropriate name for an arguably social misfit that nobody would even associate with irl with fear of lowering their IQ. On the other brightside, there is no lore telling us that ranger pets can reproduce. So that’s a positive. Oh, and hey, all that gets made up for by rangers being amazing with bows and having amazing bow skills!!!!!!
What!? Wait a minute here!!! Son of a…! (/deskflip)

Soooooo yeah. I hope people are as entertained and informed by this evaluation as I was writing it (believe it or not, a portion of the write up was extremely cathartic).

okies now this is the best post in this topic for me.
thanks for sharing!

Mesmer clones! Oh wait I thought they actually did something other than being a resource?

Ok Changing my answer to Initiative

Michaeas Magister.1589:

Why Arenanet didn’t just use the system they had from GW1 and make the Thief the master of combination attacks like the Assassin is beyond me. The initiative system is far more powerful and Thieves simply have way too many options to restore initiative to make the resource management a balance to the mechanic.

It is generally accepted that the Assassin is the worst designed profession of GW1. Low auto attack damage combined with skills that can be used only in succession had the result that all you needed to play it as to press 12345 every 25-35 seconds.
You really don’t want to have a profession designed like the GW1 Assassin in any game ever again.

DesertRose.2031:

Michaeas Magister.1589:

Why Arenanet didn’t just use the system they had from GW1 and make the Thief the master of combination attacks like the Assassin is beyond me. The initiative system is far more powerful and Thieves simply have way too many options to restore initiative to make the resource management a balance to the mechanic.

It is generally accepted that the Assassin is the worst designed profession of GW1. Low auto attack damage combined with skills that can be used only in succession had the result that all you needed to play it as to press 12345 every 25-35 seconds.
You really don’t want to have a profession designed like the GW1 Assassin in any game ever again.

Really? Generally accepted by whom? From what I have read, several people thought it was quite superior to the initiative system and “Dat 2 Spam” that are the core mechanics of the Thief class. A system of combination attacks might be just as spammable as the current initiative system but at least it could have been balanced better.

However the initiative system is superior to a system of combination attacks because of the lack of cooldowns and the spammability of it and as the OP was asking about the best profession mechanic I would have to say it is better than the GW1 Assassin.

Thanks.

DesertRose.2031:

Michaeas Magister.1589:

Why Arenanet didn’t just use the system they had from GW1 and make the Thief the master of combination attacks like the Assassin is beyond me. The initiative system is far more powerful and Thieves simply have way too many options to restore initiative to make the resource management a balance to the mechanic.

It is generally accepted that the Assassin is the worst designed profession of GW1. Low auto attack damage combined with skills that can be used only in succession had the result that all you needed to play it as to press 12345 every 25-35 seconds.
You really don’t want to have a profession designed like the GW1 Assassin in any game ever again.

You are right, spamming 2 is a much better design.

Never played GW1 but that kind of class design sounds like the Valewalker in DAoC. Was a hell of a fun class to play.

Atherakhia.4086:

Never played GW1 but that kind of class design sounds like the Valewalker in DAoC. Was a hell of a fun class to play.

My VW was awesome! Though I preferred my main (Mind Mastery Mentalist, was fun to heal stuff with the worst spec in the game), VWs could dish out sooooo much damage.

Best?

Initiative and Adrenaline, by far.

Most fun/interesting?
Illusions/shatters, engi tool kits, ele attunements.

Each class is unique by it’s own way, but I’d say Enginneers. Elementalist right after. Unlike other classes (maybe a little beside thieves, tho it relies on what I’m about to say) there’s always something other to click than autoattack.

Curunen.8729:

Best?

Initiative and Adrenaline, by far.

Most fun/interesting?
Illusions/shatters, engi tool kits, ele attunements.

Curunen is right on the money. Initiative and Adrenaline are the most powerful. Illusions/engie tools and kits and ele attunements are the most fun.