Guild Wars 2

I thought it’d be interesting to see what everyone thought about where each profession stands in regards to how “complete” it feels. I’m not looking for a tier list of best to worst, or anything along those lines, but rather a sense of which professions just don’t feel like they’re quite what they’re supposed to be yet.

I’m absolutely not an expert, but from my observations so far, it seems like Guardian, Warrior, Thief, and Elementalist are in the best shape, and Mesmer players seem to be the least happy all around. Beyond that, I’m not sure where the other professions lie.

ranger should be first up,
too many mandatory traits that need merging together, (eagle eye, read the wind)
too many traits that should just be passives without the need for traiting, (30% pet speed) (arrows pierce) etc.
pets need to scale with gear or they should revert the damage nerf from back-in-the-day.

Ranger mesmer necromancer (more pvewise)

/end thread

from a wvw standpoint

ranger/engineer>mesmer>thief>necro/ele>warrior/guardian

On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest (imho)

Warrior: 6. Too forgiving, very thoughtless defenses.

Guardian: 2. Pretty well but a good chunk of kitten traits/skills/weapons.

Ranger: 9. It might as well be 10 but they’ve made progress over the 2 years (it just needs a lot more). They went from pretty awesome in gw1 to pathetic in almost every way in here. I’m heart broken

Engineer: 5. Has weaknesses but their sustain and condition application is a little up atm. Their cc application is also pretty insane (as are a few others).

Thief: 4. They receive numerous nerfs without compensation while also being forced down certain builds due to the how the class works best. Needs more options and also a rework to numerous traits and skills.

Mesmer: 6. Between the Mesmer players and the people who still dislike Mesmer for what its capable of, its pretty much a war. I don’t believe Mesmer is at all excluded from high leveled play, just that they’re demoralized from the nerfs (welcome to the thief world). Anet needs to make some changes to better their roles in what they do but also tone down the things they get to get away with like hidden stun breaks in unison with skills not working in numerous situations (illusionary leap, temp curtain, etc).

Necromancer: 3. Kind of up on some builds (terror mancer, some power necro spec’s, etc). Not too bad to deal with but certainly has a lot of sustain even when not entirely focused on it.

Elementalist: 4. They have received a large number of nerfs which indirectly ruined other builds. The changes towards them need more thought not in just how it effects a specific build but how it affects the profession as a whole. This is true for most professions sadly.

NinjaEd.3946:

On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest (imho)

Necromancer: 3. Kind of up on some builds (terror mancer, some power necro spec’s, etc). Not too bad to deal with but certainly has a lot of sustain even when not entirely focused on it.

Elementalist: 4. They have received a large number of nerfs which indirectly ruined other builds. The changes towards them need more thought not in just how it effects a specific build but how it affects the profession as a whole. This is true for most professions sadly.

These are the only two points I don’t fully agree with.

Necromancers need the must work for PvE because they have no prescenece in speed clears and pugs go on necro kicking sprees (along with rangers). In WvW, they are in a perfect place. In pvp, condition builds just need more life force generation, since its a bit weak on the scepter and staff (without soul marks). Other than they they’re mostly fine imo as long as their team can help negate focus fire for them.

Eles had a lot of old nerfs reverted in April, and together with PF and Fresh Air I think they’re in a mostly great spot across the board, but are slightly underpowered in spvp due to their reliance of might stacking to deal damage.

Warrior: Less passives, more sacrifice. It is incredibly forgiving and boring.

Guardian: A few traits could use another looking at but they are in a pretty good spot.

Ranger: Everyone needs to get off their kitten bearbows and attack. After getting help from a ranger theorycrafter I found that GS and offhands are WAY more fun and useful than shooting everything. And the Skirmishing traitline… amg I love it! But aside from that the AI and UI could use a rework to turn the Ranger into a real pet-based class.

Necro: Havn’t played it enough to have much of an opinion on this.

Engineer: See Necro.

Thief: Alot of the traits are lackluster and are rarely chosen because of it. Venoms and traps (save a select few) suck. The QQ it draws is OP too. As of now players are finding reasons to nerf it even though there are none.

Mesmer: Very fun! Messing around with builds currently but I love using mantras. Would like to change the color of the butterflies though. :c

Ele: See Necro

Ranger/mesmer a trait that boosts their damage substantially when they have no pets/dead pet so they aren’t so hindered by AI/long ramp up. Ranger another melee mainhand weapon with good damage.

Necro… a lot.

Necromancer needs a ton of work, but not large changes. The profession is so close to being the most diverse and well balanced profession out there, there are dozens of builds that are just below viable in PvP.

Death Shroud actively working against entire sets of our traits
Siphoning traits being undertuned
Multiple traits being absolutely worthless (renewing blast) due to bugs or weird issues
Lack of finishers
Needing slightly better sustain and less burst damage
Better ways to deal with CC
New weapons to open up support/bunker builds
New utilities and traits that offer unique team utility
Maybe some other stuff

Rangers and Mesmers also need a lot of help, followed by Engineers.

Ranking from most to least:
Ranger – Not really wanted in pve, pretty crappy in wvw, and slightly subpar in spvp, most of the buffs needed are to pet handling, longbow and GS power playstyle.

Engineer – Needs a niche in WvW zerg fighting and PVE, also borderline OP in low-mid level spvp. Everything not condition-build related should be looked at.

Mesmer – Like Engineer, needs more variety in zergs, mostly fine in PVE, needs a better role in spvp. Anet really needs to be careful not to make them even more ridiculous in 1v1 pvp situations though, PU Mesmers definitely do not need to be made stronger.

Warrior – Fine in PVE, borderline OP in spvp and wvw. Too much access to min-maxing its intended weaknesses, and the sustain buff they got should have been accompanied by a mobility nerf.

Necromancer – Necromancer’s PVE gameplay primarily needs to be looked at, it needs somekind of cleaving power.

Thief – Mostly minor issues. There still isn’t a viable P/P spec. S/d might be a little too strong in spvp, slightly more counters to stealth might be needed, otherwise fine.

Elementalist – Have a strong role in every aspect of the game, would be nice to see RtL unnerfed a little though. Celestial eles might be a little too strong, would be nice to see conjured weapons looked at more.

Guardian – Strong everywhere, like Eles. Would be nice to see a viable condition build out of them, getting closer. Would be nice to see more escape options for non-zerging in wvw (something like Necros flesh wurm utility-wise).

nearlight.3064:

NinjaEd.3946:

On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest (imho)

Necromancer: 3. Kind of up on some builds (terror mancer, some power necro spec’s, etc). Not too bad to deal with but certainly has a lot of sustain even when not entirely focused on it.

Elementalist: 4. They have received a large number of nerfs which indirectly ruined other builds. The changes towards them need more thought not in just how it effects a specific build but how it affects the profession as a whole. This is true for most professions sadly.

These are the only two points I don’t fully agree with.

Necromancers need the must work for PvE because they have no prescenece in speed clears and pugs go on necro kicking sprees (along with rangers). In WvW, they are in a perfect place. In pvp, condition builds just need more life force generation, since its a bit weak on the scepter and staff (without soul marks). Other than they they’re mostly fine imo as long as their team can help negate focus fire for them.

Eles had a lot of old nerfs reverted in April, and together with PF and Fresh Air I think they’re in a mostly great spot across the board, but are slightly underpowered in spvp due to their reliance of might stacking to deal damage.

That was my point for ele, they are in a pretty strong spot but at the same time it’s not like they have all the windows in the world opened up. Also suggesting a nerf to them would seem unfair (although I entirely think some spec’s of theirs deserve it) because they did spend a long time of suffering. Necromancer could use some pve love but it’s not like they can’t do dungeons well, they just aren’t visible with the tunnel vision mentality that the elitists wear all the time.

NinjaEd.3946:

nearlight.3064:

NinjaEd.3946:

On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest (imho)

Necromancer: 3. Kind of up on some builds (terror mancer, some power necro spec’s, etc). Not too bad to deal with but certainly has a lot of sustain even when not entirely focused on it.

Elementalist: 4. They have received a large number of nerfs which indirectly ruined other builds. The changes towards them need more thought not in just how it effects a specific build but how it affects the profession as a whole. This is true for most professions sadly.

These are the only two points I don’t fully agree with.

Necromancers need the must work for PvE because they have no prescenece in speed clears and pugs go on necro kicking sprees (along with rangers). In WvW, they are in a perfect place. In pvp, condition builds just need more life force generation, since its a bit weak on the scepter and staff (without soul marks). Other than they they’re mostly fine imo as long as their team can help negate focus fire for them.

Eles had a lot of old nerfs reverted in April, and together with PF and Fresh Air I think they’re in a mostly great spot across the board, but are slightly underpowered in spvp due to their reliance of might stacking to deal damage.

That was my point for ele, they are in a pretty strong spot but at the same time it’s not like they have all the windows in the world opened up. Also suggesting a nerf to them would seem unfair (although I entirely think some spec’s of theirs deserve it) because they did spend a long time of suffering. Necromancer could use some pve love but it’s not like they can’t do dungeons well, they just aren’t visible with the tunnel vision mentality that the elitists wear all the time.

Yeah exactly! Like ele should not be nerfed at all since they really are in a good place for the most part, and any imbalance regarding them is more relegated to strength runes or celestial stats as a whole, which isn’t too significant. After playing ele enough I can counter them on necro and mesmer, since you really just have to soak/avoid their main might stacking burst rotation and keep the boon removal pressure up.

Yeah and the necro hate is a big reason why I’ve been quitting dungeons for the most part, and have just been doing pvp/wvw while flipping to make money.

As for other classes, like thieves for example, I think thieves are fine in themselves, but some of the classes they have a clear complete superiority against, like glassy light armor classes (fresh air ele and shatter mesmer) could stand to be buffed in some aspects to counter thieves a tad better while still being able to play a burst spec. But thats just my opinion, as I die in like 2 hits if I play a non condition mesmer against a thief.

Regarding Mesmer, it’s basically a lot of bug fixes and various trait merges/buffs needed. Anet need to push more Mesmers to high level play (away from tanky PU) by increasing damage delivery methods and rewards from interrupt traits (lol Disruptor’s Sustainment lol) whilst also revitalising Glamour builds and shatter specs. Mesmer probably needs a little bit more help against Thieves, but that’s mostly for sPvP.

Rangers without a doubt need the most work.

- Spirits need a rework so they’re useful across the board.
- The pet AI needs a massive rework so they’re as good as those enemy bandits in Lornar’s Pass (they actively dodge, CC you, and use every advantage they have)
- The ranger to pet damage ratio needs to be adjusted so the Ranger starts off doing 85-90% of the damage (with the pet doing around 50% of your damage if you’re fully into beastmastery)
- The actives of Signets need to effect the Ranger off the bat, and the Grandmaster trait associated with this needs to change to enhance the power of the signets and their actives.
- Need better/more ACTIVE condition removal

The list goes on. Basically the entire class has to be reworked just to be useful in everything.

Ranger, then mesmer, probably, for professions needing balancing the most. Rangers are almost useless in large-scale WvW. In all areas of the game, their pet mechanics need serious tweaking to make them something other than cannon fodder.

Mesmers are only useful in large-scale WvW for 3 utility skills and an elite – otherwise they’re there to stand on the sidelines and look pretty while coughing up purple butterflies. There’s so many bugs for the class, and in PvE, so many non-reflectable attacks (for the reflects that aren’t bugged for us…) that mesmers are starting to fall behind in usability. Except for porting people to JPs. Woo, utility.

Guardian, warrior, ele, are definitely the classes least in need of re-balancing.

Not really.
Balancing is a total mess.
Some profession are completely unviable or pigeonholed in few roles that shouldn t even exist.

Discussing balance will be useless until we will have balance patch clearly aimed at WWW and PvE rather than the common excuses:

WWW is unbalanced by nature and PvE is easy.

Really they have 99% of players stop with the excuses.
If anet wants to balance for PvP they should SPLIT any pvp change they want to do, and not curse WWW and PvE players with silly changes that impact capture point.

I don t even ask for splitting all skills… but only when they comes up with their brilliant PvP balance changes.

Liewec.2896:

ranger should be first up,
too many mandatory traits that need merging together, (eagle eye, read the wind)
too many traits that should just be passives without the need for traiting, (30% pet speed) (arrows pierce) etc.
pets need to scale with gear or they should revert the damage nerf from back-in-the-day.

Yeah, I think this is the #1 problem with rangers currently. If/when anet decides to look at rangers fully, they should start with the traits. The Beastmastery line is an absolute mess of traits intended for the OLD pet system (BWE) and frankly really bad traits. I’d argue (perhaps wrongly) that it’s the worst traitline in the game right now.

Rangers probably still won’t be great in, say, wvw or large world events even if the utilities and weapons are made to be less trait dependent, but I don’t think we can even work on that until the traits/utilities are examined.

roamzero.9486:

Ranking from most to least:
Ranger – Not really wanted in pve.

L2P.
A ranger that knows what he/she is doing is a valuable member in most pve content.

Lazze.9870:

roamzero.9486:

Ranking from most to least:
Ranger – Not really wanted in pve.

L2P.
A ranger that knows what he/she is doing is a valuable member in most pve content.

Unfortunately the game teaches rangers to play subpar

The name of the class (associated very strongly with archer – a staple class in most popular MMOs) coupled with the distance provided by the Longbow (used to be matched with the shortbow, but now has no competition) and the tankiness of the never-dying and aggro-pulling (due to high toughness) of the bear family provides new players the path of least resistance and greatest reward by playing a selfish bearbow.

Uninformed players aren’t picking this set up because they -want- to suck. In fact, they’re picking it for quite the opposite reason.

((Not directed at you specifically. It’s just that, the reason rangers need to ‘l2p’ is because what they learned through leveling doesn’t represent end game, and that’s a pretty big problem for the class and makes it seem flawed by outsides for untrue reasons.))

roamzero.9486:

Ranking from most to least:
Ranger – Not really wanted in pve, pretty crappy in wvw, and slightly subpar in spvp, most of the buffs needed are to pet handling, longbow and GS power playstyle.

Engineer – Needs a niche in WvW zerg fighting and PVE, also borderline OP in low-mid level spvp. Everything not condition-build related should be looked at.

Mesmer – Like Engineer, needs more variety in zergs, mostly fine in PVE, needs a better role in spvp. Anet really needs to be careful not to make them even more ridiculous in 1v1 pvp situations though, PU Mesmers definitely do not need to be made stronger.

Warrior – Fine in PVE, borderline OP in spvp and wvw. Too much access to min-maxing its intended weaknesses, and the sustain buff they got should have been accompanied by a mobility nerf.

Necromancer – Necromancer’s PVE gameplay primarily needs to be looked at, it needs somekind of cleaving power.

Thief – Mostly minor issues. There still isn’t a viable P/P spec. S/d might be a little too strong in spvp, slightly more counters to stealth might be needed, otherwise fine.

Elementalist – Have a strong role in every aspect of the game, would be nice to see RtL unnerfed a little though. Celestial eles might be a little too strong, would be nice to see conjured weapons looked at more.

Guardian – Strong everywhere, like Eles. Would be nice to see a viable condition build out of them, getting closer. Would be nice to see more escape options for non-zerging in wvw (something like Necros flesh wurm utility-wise).

I had to come here just to say how much I agree here. You really nailed it. Even if I might not agree with your particular order, everything you’ve said about the professions’ respective strengths and weaknesses is true.

These kinds of conversations are always frustrating for me because I see many people championing their profession of choice and never abandoning that lens when evaluating the others. Part of it is just personal advocacy, but I think that kind of thinking is also reinforced by the current balanced state of the game. That is, right now and barring a few outliers, the professions are actually pretty well-balanced across all game modes.

The problem is that the strengths and weaknesses don’t tend to be reciprocal: Necros are strong in zerg WvW, decent in structured PVP, and sub-par in dungeon PVE. On the other hand, thieves are great at structured PVP and solo or small group WVW, good at PVE, but lousy at zerg WVW. So which class needs more work?

Well they both need work, but they need it in different areas, and it’s very difficult to actually compare them as whole classes. PVE players say necros desperately need buffs (and they do, in PVE), while people on the receiving end of the necro menace in WVW decry any hint of necro improvements. The professions at the bottom of the list, not surprisingly, are thus the ones that are good all around (Ele and Guard), but the difference between Ele and War DPS in a speed-running group is pretty minimal, and as roamzero rightly notes, Engineers are an absolute nuisance in PVP, especially anywhere other than organized high level play.

The important thing I hope people take away from this exercise is that this is not a ranking of least OP to most OP, but an effort to organize classes so that ANet has a good idea of what the community’s experiences and collective data represent. We want all professions to be like guardians and elementalists: good at everything. That doesn’t mean that nobody needs nerfs or everything should be homogenized.

But it does mean that if we want to see parity across professions, we have to abandon the perfectly natural dread that comes with the suggestion that one’s nemesis class is going to see buffs.

Depends on what you’re target of balance is. If your target is to just get current classes near each other then the above stuff is probably pretty accurate. However, if you’re balancing for what classes could be, all the classes need a ton of work. I mean look at thief traps, near useless same goes for thief on hit heals and necro siphoning. There are TONS of skills/traits in this game that don’t get used at all because they are underpowered or lackluster. So if we are trying to bring all skills, traits, sigils, etc to the same level there is tons of work on every class to be done.