Guild Wars 2

Part of the reason that Guildwars 2 has so many balance issues is because its spread too thin across various game types. Each game type has it own meta and flaws. By fixing individual classes and not looking at the game types as a whole, class balance in Gw2 is going to always suck.

PVE:

PvE is problematic because DPS is the gold source. Because of simplistic boss design (HP sponge bosses, speed run friendly dungeons with bad enemy AI) the only appreciated player build is maximum damage. Support and healing offers no benefit to the party unless it adds more damage. This is a problem because many classes that are not designed to maximize damage are locked out of the meta. Examples include the ranger (very defensive, based on bunker HP regen and pet support) and elementalist (full support class). Classes that excel in PvE are the warrior (high burst damage, high survival and sunstain). The more damage you bring to PvE, the more you tag, the faster you burn content, and the more rewards you get for your time spent.

This is not a class balance problem but a game design flaw that needs dire fixing. Game content needs to be designed to promote:

-Use of teamplay and combo fields
-Use of environmental weapons and mechanics
-Puzzle mechanics
-Healing
-Defensive Buffing
-Ranged DPS
-Many other non-boring mechanics that promote more than faceroll DPS.
-Condition damage over direct damage

Many classes are NOT FLAWED in PvE. They simply are not appreciated in PvE because their archetypes (aka, not being full damage) just don’t work.

In PvE damage is king and this needs to change.

WvW:

WvW is actually two game types combined into one. I will go over each one individually:

Type 1: Zerging

Classes that drop huge amounts of AoE stuns and that pack massive sustain and stability are king in WvW zerging because of the way that the rally system works. One “rally” bot player can rez the entire enemy zerg. As a result people play superbunker classes with massive CC (aka hammer train, well necro with fear). Rallying and mass CC is a huge problem in WvW zerging because classes with limited stability or survival are locked out of this meta.

This needs to change and can be fixed by balancing skills separately for WvW and adding new WvW specific skills.

(CONT)

Type 2: Roaming

Roaming gameplay is dominated by classes that have ultra high mobility and stealth. Stealth is inheritly broken in roaming fights because it allows players to instantly escape an encounter, allowing them to run very powerful builds that have 0 risk because they can just reset the fight at any point in time. Stealth is ONLY imbalanced in WvW roaming, which is the source of most of the kittening on the forums. In SPvP its not so much due to how constrained the arenas are and the inability to cap while stealthed.

The current stealth and mobility issue in roaming creates have and have nots. Classes that don’t have high mobility or reliable stealths/escapes cannot roam or can be constantly harassed by a stealth roamer who just resets the fight at any point in time that they have a disadvantage. I would lump warrior mobility in this because warriors have so many gap closers and leaps that they can close or run from just about anyone.

More mechanics that allow a player to entrap a roamer in a fight need to exist. Players should not be able to harass another player the entire match with zero threat to themselves.

This simply leads to trolling, where a roamer will just harass a player over and over until they die, which is something no one likes. This just drives people from the game because its not really any different than bullying.

These kinds of players are likely to single out player classes that they know don’t have defensive mechanics to counter them.

SPvP:

SPvP is a very limited game type that is dominated by capture points, which leads people to run very defensive builds (engi bunker, regen ranger, spirit ranger, hambow). These builds are ultra cheap because they can just camp a point and force the entire team to swarm one guy just to take back the point.

This leads to a meta where classes that can’t effectively bunker are locked out of the meta. Classes that can bunker become very powerful to the point of stupidity. Most SPVP matches just end in these horrible attrition battles of super bunkers just staring each other down or trying to kill each other with massive condition stacks (which is why everyone runs Lyssa Runes).

TL;DR

As you can see, all of the above game types have VERY different mechanics and metas. What is overpowered in one game type might not be in another. So you have different player communities kittening about completely different things when it comes to class balance.

ANET YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO FIX THIS kitten BY JUST USING ONE SET OF BALANCED SKILLS FOR ALL THREE GAME TYPES. YOU NEED TO START DIVIDING SKILLS BETWEEN GAME TYPES.

WVW AND SPVP HAVE DIFFERENT NEEDS AND NEED SEPERATE SKILL BALANCES. PVE NEEDS TO BE REDESIGNED BECAUSE ITS NOT THE CLASSES THAT ARE FLAWED, ITS THE PVE GAMETYPE THAT PROMOTES BRUTE FORCE PLAY.

A SINGLE SKILL BALANCE STRATEGY WILL NOT FIX THIS GAME.

Caps don’t make your argument more compelling. Also, compete separation creates issues with being able to go from pve to pvp to wvw and know what to expect. In the event they ever add in game spectating of tournament matches, a pve/wvw wouldn’t necessarily know what is going on with their own class depending on how disparate the modes are.

I get your argument, but it creates nontrivial overhead abs potentially impacts game mode accessibility. You might want to make that sacrifice, but I’m not sure I would.

Cogbyrn.7283:

Caps don’t make your argument more compelling. Also, compete separation creates issues with being able to go from pve to pvp to wvw and know what to expect. In the event they ever add in game spectating of tournament matches, a pve/wvw wouldn’t necessarily know what is going on with their own class depending on how disparate the modes are.

I get your argument, but it creates nontrivial overhead abs potentially impacts game mode accessibility. You might want to make that sacrifice, but I’m not sure I would.

As far as seperation issues go, SPVP should really have been a seperate game that should have grown apart from the standard Gw2 package. The game types have a huge disparity. I do not think this problem of balance will ever be solved with the current model and it is one of the largest issues with the game atm.

very much agree with op. wvw and spvp are very very different. for example in spvp mesmers can do quiet well as all the clones, shatters, phantasms work well and also all the trait are great for that. in wvw however, mes lacks all that as illusions die in seconds, shatters fail without ip trait, the lack of aoe skills turned us into veilbots which isnt fun.

same with rangers. in spvp they can be quiet a threat if played well, but in wvw they are part of the unwanted list for hardcore wvw guilds.

classes do need an option to spec for wvw. so the duel based classes like thieves, rangers, mesmers for example can trait for wvw zergplay.

in an other game u can develop each and every skill in 2 different ways. so if u wanna go more aoe, u can.

i dont mind that i dont have stability on my mesmer as ive learned how to work around this, i also dont mind that my condi cleanse is bad, i also dont care that my out of combat speed is horrendous, but please allow me at least to have viable aoe non ai build options!

the glamour nerf destroyed that option and we never gotten anything back, the new gm traits aint gonna change anything at all, neither for rangers in wvw nor for mesmers!

there used to be a clear split between spvp and wvw and i gotta say things were better balanced then eventhough some classes did need a few buffs and tweaks.