Guild Wars 2

Okay so, loaded question:

If you had to drop, essentially delete one class from the game, considering all aspects, what would it be, and why?

And vise versa, possibly regarding the class you “deleted” from the game, what would you add, or like to see in this game, keep in mind all aspects of the game here.

Be as in depth as you can! This is a thought provoking topic, go crazy! And please give reasoning, not just; “drop thief cuz I cant beat it and they’re annoying.” No, that is their game mechanic, get over it.

No qqs please.

I simply can’t drop a class since they all fill a niche. Adding a class though I would go with what I consider a monk. Limited weapons but it would be the only class that had access to knuckle dusters. Utilities/traits would be tied into pure physical buffs like speed, toughness, healing, regeneration. Kinda like a guardian but without the party buffs. This would be considered a heavy class because of the physical traits. A heavy warrior that didn’t use armor – more like the scar/tattoo armor from GW1.

bloodletting wolf.2837:

I simply can’t drop a class since they all fill a niche. Adding a class though I would go with what I consider a monk. Limited weapons but it would be the only class that had access to knuckle dusters. Utilities/traits would be tied into pure physical buffs like speed, toughness, healing, regeneration. Kinda like a guardian but without the party buffs. This would be considered a heavy class because of the physical traits. A heavy warrior that didn’t use armor – more like the scar/tattoo armor from GW1.

This.

Add: Some kind of light/dark paradigmed fighter. Weapon and utility skills each have a lite and dark component, and light/dark stance swapping is profession skill (with various effects and cooldowns) that changes the skill to light or dark version. Each has advantages and disadvantages, and the fun of playing the profession is to know when to use each stance.

Eliminate: mesmer, unfortunately, even though it is the coolest and most unique profession anet has created. It’s just too buggy, lacks a real focus, and has the only profession skill that is useful only in a very limited number of engagements.

I was kinda hoping this would be a thread about being able to filter the LFG tool by specific professions. I’d really love to be able to block necromancers and rangers from pugs.

- Delete Ranger. Why?

• They can never be truly balanced. They are the only class that truly relies on AI to dish out damage. You can say mesmers are also tied to those mechanics, but that’s not true. Phantasms are more of a skill-attack than an AI. Rangers however, have their damage output shared with their pets. Why won’t it be ever balanced, you ask? If you buff the AI, people will complain about it being too easy to achieve good results, if you nerf it, then the Ranger won’t be much of a threat.

- Add Druid

• Basically you don’t have a pet anymore, but you can “call on the spirits” (much like Norn racial skills) and assume an animal form. If you don’t like this style, you can also go for the more traditional druid style, using nature spells against your foes. You’d lose the GS/Sword weapon sets but would gain Mace / Staff /and Dagger main hand

There’s a severely lacking role for a dervish type character. I vote for one. We need a character with faith in the old gods.

Drop engineer, then guns. I dislike the paradigm guns bring to this game.

Don’t drop dat durky durk eeee….

Delete Thief
Not because I don’t like how the class plays, but because back in WoW I argued that Stealth, nice as it is lore-wise, just doesn’t work well in a computer-based RPG. It’s balance is largely based on storytelling and lore in pen&paper games. And while GW2’s approach is very different, ultimately it runs into the same problems. I’d remove stealth as a mechanic entirely, and Thieves as a class. They are built around the binary type of balance stealth also embraces, and as such with a removal of the mechanic not really feasibly any more.

Add Swordmasters
Basically a re-tooled but substantially redesigned Thief which puts Mesmers to shame in how well they can duel. Their tools focus around engaging a single target, and shielding themselves (but also their target) from outside influence. The other half of their toolset is abilities which direct combat flow via encouraging or discouraging attacks on specific targets.
Their class mechanic would be to “Show off”. Their F1 ability triggers a fencing stance which slows you but adds a leap functionality to everything which tries to hit your target. Switching target ends the stance without any effect. While you’re fencing you cause 25% of normal damage but fill up a bar on yourself. Once it’s full F1 switches to “Killing Blow”, which finishes with a single strike dealing all the damage you haven’t done before + side effects depending on utility skills used while fencing.

delete ranger
add warden and marksman!

marksman is what you’d expect, the most similar to the current ranger focusing on damage with their pet and traps, they’d get the more physical skills of the ranger.
i won’t really go into marksman, because you probably get the idea

the warden gets the spirits and nature based skills of the ranger and would use scepter/focus staff type weapons with a very “natury” vibe.
they’d summon up healing springs and protective vine walls to aid their allies
and explosive seed pods and rooting vines to hinder the enemy.

they’d play very much like a shaman/witch doctor/druid role,
mostly support but with viable condi damage builds.

also note that originally ranger was going to be split into several professions,
with warden and marksman being 2 of them and a 3rd being beastmaster

Delete: Mesmer
Add: Mesmer

Why? Because the Mesmer as a Class should be based on control, hexes and interruption. It’s a profession that knows a reaction against everything. Not all in one build . that should be sure ^.^

Bring back the old gw1 mesmer and i’m happy =)
I’d rather ask for a rework^^

Add: Ritualist and Dervish

Delete: Engineer

Redesign: Mesmer

Most of the GW1 Ritualist mechanics live on the form of the engineer. Spirits – turrets and ashes-kits, stuff like that. But I personally don’t like the flavor that engineers have. Dervish should be added because they were kittening awesome. That’s basically it.

Mesmer’s should be changed to their GW1 version before they became a bugged, purple, pet class. Also I’d keep the ranger in, but maybe split them into a ranger and a beastmaster. The beastmaster gets the stupid pet and all the crappy bows and the ranger keeps spirits, swords, axes, everything else, can also use staff as a psuedo melee/support weapon with AoE in WvW and gets a new AoE DPS nature ritual mechanic to replace the pet!!!! ZUMA that would be perfect!!!!11111!!!!!1!

Me Games Ma.8426:

Delete: Mesmer
Add: Mesmer

Why? Because the Mesmer as a Class should be based on control, hexes and interruption. It’s a profession that knows a reaction against everything. Not all in one build . that should be sure ^.^

Bring back the old gw1 mesmer and i’m happy =)
I’d rather ask for a rework^^

this sooo much!!delete the clone ai wanna be thief squishy bugged useless class and bring back the real mesmer!

Delete Mesmer for sure – then I’ll finally be able to gtfo this sinking ship. :p
(that was a joke in case it wasn’t blindingly obvious – no class should be deleted)

Add – I like the monk idea – something that uses quarterstaff or different melee weapons. With ranger like acrobatic animations but no useless pet.

I don’t think I could drop any class, they’re all Guild Warsy, even Engineer.

I could see a Dervish type class (renamed to Enchanter or something)

The Dervish class could focus on Enchantments. It’s profession skills could be Vows

Vow of Strength: While commited to this Vow, you and nearby allies do 5% more damage

Zealous Vow: While commited to this Vow, you and nearby allies regenerate endurance 30% faster and gain 10% critical damage

Vow of Silence: While commited to this Vow, you and nearby allies take less damage from critical hits (or something, I’m just thinking on the spot here)

As for Enchantment skills, you would activate an Enchantment, gain a passive effect and it changes to another skill, which rips the enchantment, giving you and possible group members a more powerful effect.

Example: Mystic Regeneration. Heal skill. Activate, heal yourself for 700ish, gain the regeneration boon for 10 seconds, and heal 280 health each second. Changes to Pious Restoration. Heal skill. Rip your enchantment removing 2 conditions from you and nearby allies and heal yourself for 5K

Weapons to wield: Sword, Focus, Scythe, Greatsword, Longbow, Warhorn, Staff, possibly Shield

Drop Necros

…the class was never finished, pet AI is still broken, and will likely always be broken; it’s been two years!!! ….the flesh golem’s animations were never finished, it de-spawns if you step in a puddle.

…conditions are a train wreck. Besides the stacking caps, necros are a bad condition class. They’re just not anywhere near as powerful as the other classes, likely because of pets, but since pets don’t work, the class just feels weak.

Deathshroud is a failed mechanic (stolen from wow, and it was a failed mechanic there too) added at the last minute in the GW2’s development (I think I read it was added in the last month before release)…

…a condition class with a class mechanic that has nothing to do with conditions. …and it’s not like the class, with no escapes, can go glass canon/DS, so what is the point of it? why does it exist?

Add Warlock

Theme: crystal balls filled with unholy spirits

Class mechanic: Dark Attunements

Similar to an ele, you attune to fire to add fire damage to your normal attacks, poison for poison damage, bleeding for bleeds, and then one for leeching health with attacks.

man, that sounds sweet…

Ezeriel.9574:

Drop Necros

…the class was never finished, pet AI is still broken, and will likely always be broken; it’s been two years!!! ….the flesh golem’s animations were never finished, it de-spawns if you step in a puddle.

…conditions are a train wreck. Besides the stacking caps, necros are a bad condition class. They’re just not anywhere near as powerful as the other classes, likely because of pets, but since pets don’t work, the class just feels weak.

Deathshroud is a failed mechanic (stolen from wow, and it was a failed mechanic there too) added at the last minute in the GW2’s development (I think I read it was added in the last month before release)…

…a condition class with a class mechanic that has nothing to do with conditions. …and it’s not like the class, with no escapes, can go glass canon/DS, so what is the point of it? why does it exist?

Add Warlock

Theme: crystal balls filled with unholy spirits

Class mechanic: Dark Attunements

Similar to an ele, you attune to fire to add fire damage to your normal attacks, poison for poison damage, bleeding for bleeds, and then one for leeching health with attacks.

man, that sounds sweet…

If you ever play necro in organized WvW or GvG, you’d see that it offers SO much more than pets or conditions. And don’t copy world of wasting your moneycraft plz.

Interesting topic.

Redesign: Mesmer & Ranger, make them more like their GW1 counterparts.

Drop: Engineer
Add: Ritualist

No hate against Engineers, I just don’t like the style and Ritualists basically do the same thing. Item spells (urns) as replacement for engineer kits, Spirit summoning as replacement for turrets. On top of that, there’d be weapon spells for group support!

edit: Heh, someone already said that. +1 to your post, nearlight! xD

tetrodoxin.2134:

Interesting topic.

Redesign: Mesmer & Ranger, make them more like their GW1 counterparts.

Drop: Engineer
Add: Ritualist

No hate against Engineers, I just don’t like the style and Ritualists basically do the same thing. Item spells (urns) as replacement for engineer kits, Spirit summoning as replacement for turrets. On top of that, there’d be weapon spells for group support!

edit: Heh, someone already said that. +1 to your post, nearlight! xD

I miss GW1 so much. Every class I like in Gw2 was twice as good in that game.

drop: warrior

add: ritualist/dervish

Great topic.

I’m not sure any of the classes really need to be dropped. I consider 3 classes “broken by design”, but any of those could be fixed by redesign.

Thief – Stealth implementation is worse in GW2 than in any MMO to date. Switch to a perma stealth “mode” with only a single in combat restealth. Hitpoints and evasive abilities adjusted upward accordingly.

Warrior – Currently achieves damage levels of the highest burst dps classes without sacrificing any survivability. This is really just a fault of the GW2’s “starting stats” nonsense which really upsets the whole game (everybody does basically the same damage, but we’re going to give some of you much more health and much more armor cause we’re clueless). Everyone should have the same starting health and armor. If GW2 wants to give some people more of one or both, it should cost them hard in damage. You cant have warriors running around hitting 3k armor targets for 8-10k plus eviscerates on very short cd while having 3k armor themselves and 24k hp. Meanwhile, barely anyone else reaches those damage levels with all but the glassiest builds and the classes that do happen to have 10k starting hp and light/medium armor. Compare firegrabs damage and cooldown to eviscerate, then compare the survivability of the classes using those skills.

Ranger – Bows and Pet. Bows, while useful, are inferior to non-iconic weapons on this class and in general have been inferior to warrior ranged weapons for the majority of GW2. Shortbow still only has 900 range and needs a redesign. Pets completely hold this class back because they are non viable in dungeons unless guard spamming a ranged pet into a corner and are completely non viable in a zergs. Pets need a “spirit mode”, where they follow the ranger as an undamagable ghost and provide a large species specific stat boost to the ranger. Likewise, existing spirits should just be auras, not some horrible retake on Warcraft Shaman totems.

Raven.9603:

Great topic.

I’m not sure any of the classes really need to be dropped. I consider 3 classes “broken by design”, but any of those could be fixed by redesign.

Thief – Stealth implementation is worse in GW2 than in any MMO to date. Switch to a perma stealth “mode” with only a single in combat restealth. Hitpoints and evasive abilities adjusted upward accordingly.

Warrior – Currently achieves damage levels of the highest burst dps classes without sacrificing any survivability. This is really just a fault of the GW2’s “starting stats” nonsense which really upsets the whole game (everybody does basically the same damage, but we’re going to give some of you much more health and much more armor cause we’re clueless). Everyone should have the same starting health and armor. If GW2 wants to give some people more of one or both, it should cost them hard in damage. You cant have warriors running around hitting 3k armor targets for 8-10k plus eviscerates on very short cd while having 3k armor themselves and 24k hp. Meanwhile, barely anyone else reaches those damage levels with all but the glassiest builds and the classes that do happen to have 10k starting hp and light/medium armor. Compare firegrabs damage and cooldown to eviscerate, then compare the survivability of the classes using those skills.

Ranger – Bows and Pet. Bows, while useful, are inferior to non-iconic weapons on this class and in general have been inferior to warrior ranged weapons for the majority of GW2. Shortbow still only has 900 range and needs a redesign. Pets completely hold this class back because they are non viable in dungeons unless guard spamming a ranged pet into a corner and are completely non viable in a zergs. Pets need a “spirit mode”, where they follow the ranger as an undamagable ghost and provide a large species specific stat boost to the ranger. Likewise, existing spirits should just be auras, not some horrible retake on Warcraft Shaman totems.

Hey I agree with pretty much everything you said, especially in regards to warriors. Its kind of laughable how perfect they are for so much of the game.

And in regards to ranger, yeah the bows suck. Especailly shortbow, its just a pew pew weapon. And while longbow will be a bit better, I believe people will adapt to its changes and learn to counter it better. I greatly enjoy axes, swords and greatsword on the ranger instead of its arrow skills.

And archeage seems to have a much more broken stealth mechanic, or it did a few months ago anyway. You could have it up permanently out of combat and wreck someone if you got the drop on them, or just run away if someone got the drop on you.

I’d personally drop the Ranger. The class simply doesn’t ‘do’ anything in Gw2 and given the attention and improvements its seen over the past 2 years leads me to believe ANet simply doesn’t have any real goal or purpose for the class to fill. It’s almost like ANet decided they want a pet class in this game and have forced Rangers to fill that role but they have no idea how to pull it off or make it work.

In exchange I’d introduce a Marksman/Scout type class. The game is currently lacking a ranged, single target burst type role and the Ranger will never fill this role so long as it’s tied to a pet that remains 99.9% useless in WvW. A Marksman/Scout allows anet to remove the failed pet mechanic that has never (and will never) work and still retain much of the current Ranger class while giving it room to develop a more distinct ranged, melee, and scout type role.

I personally wouldn’t “drop” anything. However, I definitely support reworks for the following:

• Ranger – Pet AI. Sorry, ANet, but your guys are still trying to get this to work, 2 years in. Why not just go for a “pet optional” setup? You can still use the BM line, for those who don’t mind running around like a Pokemon Master.

• Mesmer – Needs a whopping buttload of bugfixing. Not to mention, at least some re-investment on its (arguable) specialty in “punishment” mechanics. Indeed, bring back some of the Mindgame aspect.

• Thief – Balance the class’ defensive abilities between Acrobatics and Stealth. Quit frontloading the lion’s share of Thief defense/condi cleansing into Shadow Arts. It might surprise you, but not everyone wants to roll with heavy SA … but the way things are coded now leans heavily towards doing exactly that. Also, rework Traps and Thief’s access to utilities underwater.

• General – Balance pass on class weaponry. NO weapon should be considered “unusable,” as opposed to simply not being the “optimal” choice for “Situation X.”
  Once that’s handles, then we can work on new weapons/class, and utilities or elites.
  Also, enough of trying to balance the game so heavily on PvP logic. This has obviously NOT worked out. You want a (potential) ESport so badly, then skill-split already.

Delete – Thief

Add – Space Marine