Guild Wars 2

Hi there, I’m have only recently started completing story & exp modes of most dungeons over the last few weeks. I play an Elementalist.

One thing I have noticed right away when looking for groups is that stacking the “heavy” classes (Warrior or Guardian) seems to have no downsides and only benefits, while stacking light classes usually becomes a big problem especially when trying to speed-clear.
In fact there seem to be entire Warrior-only groups clearing dungeons in full berzerker gear, it’s crazy. While I can do extremely high damage (especially into walls/corners), it comes at the cost of getting 1-shotted by virtually anything that looks at me funny and spending a lot of time in downed state.
I’ve also seen Guardians and Warriors do amazing things like mass-pull groups of enemies and just tank all that damage, if I tried to do something like that I would die instantly.

Am I missing something here? How is the heavy vs light balance at higher level dungeons (e.g. Fractals)?

Wintel.4873:

Hi there, I’m have only recently started completing story & exp modes of most dungeons over the last few weeks. I play an Elementalist.

One thing I have noticed right away when looking for groups is that stacking the “heavy” classes (Warrior or Guardian) seems to have no downsides and only benefits, while stacking light classes usually becomes a big problem especially when trying to speed-clear.
In fact there seem to be entire Warrior-only groups clearing dungeons in full berzerker gear, it’s crazy. While I can do extremely high damage (especially into walls/corners), it comes at the cost of getting 1-shotted by virtually anything that looks at me funny and spending a lot of time in downed state.
I’ve also seen Guardians and Warriors do amazing things like mass-pull groups of enemies and just tank all that damage, if I tried to do something like that I would die instantly.

Am I missing something here? How is the heavy vs light balance at higher level dungeons (e.g. Fractals)?

Here’s the current state of the PvE ele:
We deal by far the highest damage in an ideal situation out of all classes. However, with the spec that allows that damage, we do not have nearly enough passive damage resistance to survive on our own. In order to achieve this maximum DPS, we need one, and sometimes even two, classes that can support us and make sure we don’t die, and a lot of group effort too.

So how it ends up is that elementalists are technically better n a perfect group, but heavies are a lot easier to use and thus end up being more desirable usually.

It isn’t balanced.

They failed with the entire class balance system in this game. Since there is no trinity and every class can dps, damage output needs to be fairly balanced, and for the most part, this is true. But then they gave certain classes high base survival skills, and others need to gear/trait for it.

In PvP, the classes with lower base survival make up for it with either class mechanics like stealth, or a higher number of defensive weapon skills/heals like ele and engi.

However in PvE, these class skills are not effective for survival, because they either dont work, or cripple your dps.

So in the end, heavies just bring it all, while softies just bring offense. They are also much easier to play, so that makes the issue even worse.

Heavy is favored in pugs because pugs don’t understand how damage mitigation work and assume that heavy armor = more survivability. The tankiest classes (engineer and mesmer) are actually medium and light armor, respectively, but people don’t understand that. There’s also a pretty common misconception that warriors deal more damage than other classes and that guardians are needed for tanking.

So put all that together and you have your average casual player going “I want a good party so I should get the highest DPS plus one tank so that’s 4 warriors and a guardian”. Then he scrapes through a “hard” dungeon and attributes it to the classes being good rather than persistence, exploits, or just dumb luck pulling him through.

I’ve joined a couple of the “heavy only” pugs for kicks and they tend to be the absolute worst groups. Even worse than the casual RP all-levels-welcome comps.

Wintel.4873:

Am I missing something here? How is the heavy vs light balance at higher level dungeons (e.g. Fractals)?

Yeah. It’s called using the right tool for the job. I’m not going to use my monitor to put a nail into wood, I"m going to use a hammer. It just makes sense. It’s dumb to think that a light armored toon can “tank” like a heavy armored toon.

Thread is unbalanced.

thefantasticg.3984:

Wintel.4873:

Am I missing something here? How is the heavy vs light balance at higher level dungeons (e.g. Fractals)?

Yeah. It’s called using the right tool for the job. I’m not going to use my monitor to put a nail into wood, I"m going to use a hammer. It just makes sense. It’s dumb to think that a light armored toon can “tank” like a heavy armored toon.

A heavy class can do roughly the same amount of damage as a light class while having significantly more survivability, assuming both wear full zerker gear. If that doesn’t look unbalanced to you then I don’t know what to say.

Do you really expect them to touch warrior and guardian balance?

Look at what they did with ferocity… 2 profession causing issues they nerfed other professions mostly leaving the issue as it is while ruining www in the meantime.

Armor class doesn’t matter. It’s all about traits, skills and lifepool.

The difference between a light armor class and heavy armor class is about 400 armor. Or in other words about a 12-15% damage reduction.

The difference between a full zerk Ele and a Full zerk warrior is about 6000-7000 life. So if an ele gets hit for 1k they lose about 7% of their total life pool. Same damage for a warrior it gets reduced to about 870 because of heavy armor and would take about 3-4% of a warrior’s total life pool. Same damage to a full zerker guardian would take about 6% of total life pool.

So what I am saying is that on Armor and Health alone and Ele can take just as much abuse as a guardian. However guardians have a lot more surviveability built into their skills and traits. Elementalists do not.

Point is armor is not why a guardian or warrior outsurvive an ele.

You guys are going waaaaay over the top with this. Armor value difference on light vs heavy isn’t really big, and your defence is sum of that and toughness which is not favouring heavies. Simple protection boon on light character makes it far more tanky then heavy one without.

They key here is that warriors got natural 18k+ hp on lvl 80 ,with really big hp regen from healing signet, while eles squishy 10k+. You should look more at guards – they got just as bad hp as ele, but live thanks to lots of healing, protection, blinds and projectile deflection/absorption, and easy vigor. Asides blind maybe all of those are areas where ele can do just as well (for himself at least) if not better in some (healing).

yeah warrriors and guardians have maybe for lore, skills that outperform any other professions….

But also armor and vit often makes the difference between 1shot and 2 shot in pve and such difference is quite significant.

I would rather say it is due of their utilities, rather than the armor and hp (even if those help, too). Especially since a warrior can get quite an high sustain without any healing power, thus can wear full zerk and still have some good mitigation. Even if someone gets downed, they just have to use the elite banner.
Regarding guardians…projectile reflection, blocks, protection and a full party heal…

For what ever reason, they chose to give the heavy armor classes also insane access to boons, vigor and HP.

Any reasonable game designer would give light armor classes more mobility and vigor, and high armor classes less mobility and vigor (they ARE wearing heavy armor after all). But for some reason they did it exactly in reverse. So it is no surprise to anyone that you see people calling for guardians in PVE. They are the new monks now.

Wintel.4873:

Hi there, I’m have only recently started completing story & exp modes of most dungeons over the last few weeks. I play an Elementalist.

One thing I have noticed right away when looking for groups is that stacking the “heavy” classes (Warrior or Guardian) seems to have no downsides and only benefits, while stacking light classes usually becomes a big problem especially when trying to speed-clear.
In fact there seem to be entire Warrior-only groups clearing dungeons in full berzerker gear, it’s crazy. While I can do extremely high damage (especially into walls/corners), it comes at the cost of getting 1-shotted by virtually anything that looks at me funny and spending a lot of time in downed state.
I’ve also seen Guardians and Warriors do amazing things like mass-pull groups of enemies and just tank all that damage, if I tried to do something like that I would die instantly.

Am I missing something here? How is the heavy vs light balance at higher level dungeons (e.g. Fractals)?

Simple : you take an ele and you deal amazing amount of damage. You take heavies and you deal moderate damage.
If you want to play an ele in high-end PVE you better be good – and if you are – insane damage for you and your party and awesome speed clear times will be your reward.

PUGs who ask for heavy only don’t know what they’re doing. it’s probably best not to join them. heavies aren’t always tankier – for example, guardian (heavy class with pathetic hp pool) has much less passive defence than most of the other classes (mesmer, ranger, engie). they go down quickly under sustained fire once their aegis and invulns are exhausted. warriors have all of the great passive defence and many ways of endurance regen, which is one of the reasons why they’re probably the top PUG class, but far from most effective.

as an ele you’re probably bottom of the barrel in terms of survivability, but the monster DPS that you can output in a good party is worth it. it’s probably best for you to try and start running with more organised groups that can maximise the potential of the ele, rather than PUGs.

Harper.4173:

Wintel.4873:

Hi there, I’m have only recently started completing story & exp modes of most dungeons over the last few weeks. I play an Elementalist.

One thing I have noticed right away when looking for groups is that stacking the “heavy” classes (Warrior or Guardian) seems to have no downsides and only benefits, while stacking light classes usually becomes a big problem especially when trying to speed-clear.
In fact there seem to be entire Warrior-only groups clearing dungeons in full berzerker gear, it’s crazy. While I can do extremely high damage (especially into walls/corners), it comes at the cost of getting 1-shotted by virtually anything that looks at me funny and spending a lot of time in downed state.
I’ve also seen Guardians and Warriors do amazing things like mass-pull groups of enemies and just tank all that damage, if I tried to do something like that I would die instantly.

Am I missing something here? How is the heavy vs light balance at higher level dungeons (e.g. Fractals)?

Simple : you take an ele and you deal amazing amount of damage. You take heavies and you deal moderate damage.
If you want to play an ele in high-end PVE you better be good – and if you are – insane damage for you and your party and awesome speed clear times will be your reward.

take a D/D ele (the DPS weapon) and try to do the Amazing amount of damage if you can….

the just found some silly builds to do lot of damage after few random traits and conjuured skill buffs…
They weren t an issue in PvP so they were left untouched.

The day they will fix fgs and few other skills ele will again be the usual low dps as it Always used to be.

Also as i say from months….you can t be good while many skills animations are so long you can t really do nothing….
Reason why you don t see many dps ele in fractals.

Elementalist doesn’t have a dps weapon set by design, you could only discuss about dps attunements.