Guild Wars 2

What should the strengths and weaknesses of each profession be? What’s your profession’s kryptonite?

Elementalist:
Strengths should be
-Easy to swap damage type direct or condition depending on your enemies spec.
-Large amount of control conditions, should be capable of perm chill/blind/weakness builds and gain survivability not lose it. With lightning rod it is possible to make a weakness build but elementalist have a limited amount of interrupts (Make lighting rod a debuff that proc off of all allies interrupts for a period of time). Blinding ashes would be a great skill if it effected multiple targets for group play. Not enough access to chills outside of water for a chill build to be viable.
-High condition removals.
-Easy access to regen, fury, burn, chill and fire fields

Weakness should be
-Poison/Confusion
-Low health/armor
-High skill cap
-Few stun/disables

Krytonite
Thieves, poison/confusion.

Current Problems
-FG is very powerful in PvE content
-Due to our low health elementalist must use cantrips, 15water or 30 arcane for survival none of the other trait lines are give your reliable control skills.
-Some of our long cooldown skills have minor effects
-Fire shield 40s cd with 1s internal cooldown. It is easier to stack might with fire fields, so why the internal cooldown for it?
-No viable condition spec

Generally speaking….
Rangers are good at Single Target DPS, but suck at Single Target Conditions/Control.

Rangers are good at AoE Conditions/Control, but suck at AoE DPS.

Rangers are good at AoE Condition removal/Boon application, but suck at doing these things to themselves.

There are exceptions to the rule(such as Shortbow for single target conditions, Drake for AoE DPS, Grandmaster traits for self condition removal, and Rampage as One for Self boons), but investing in what we are weak at makes us weaker at what we are strong at. This Dynamic is something I like, but it means that depending on the situation we have 3 or 4 different colors of kryptonite instead of just one like other professions. (compare to a Warrior who can be good at 5 out of 6 of those things at the same time with the same trait/gear investment.)

Edit – (adding some stuff about the pet)
Our Kryptonite should be tied to our pets, in that we lose Survival and DPS when both die, and that while they are alive, it is considerably more difficult for opponents to kill us if they continue to ignore the pet, which is literally half of our profession.

The problem is that players can ignore the pet, and go straight to attacking the Ranger in a fight, because it is always easier to attack the Ranger first instead of the pet, no matter the situation. Any advantage there could have been by having a pet is immediately lost because the game world can largely ignore them. That is our current kryptonite and that needs to change. (My suggestion : by default or a trait, We take less damage if our pet is alive, and lose that bonus when the pet dies. This would make it a priority for players to kill the pet first in a 1v1 fight, and actually make Pets and Ranger more useful and threatening overall. It still doesn’t solve the problem with AoE damage everywhere, but it is a start in smaller scale fights)

Etienne.3049:

My opinion on what the strengths/weaknesses should be:

• Warrior:
  Strengths: high power damage (especially at melee), good survivability.
  Weaknesses: Low mobility.
• Guardian:
  Strengths: Great survivability, good support.
  Weaknesses: Only moderate damage without allies.
• Ranger:
  Strengths: Best ranged power damage, decent mobility.
  Weaknesses: Not so great when in melee range, only moderate armor/health.
• Engineer:
  Strengths: Versatility.
  Weaknesses: Not being great at anything.
• Thief:
  Strengths: Great melee burst damage.
  Weaknesses: Very low survivability (which would mean very little, if any, stealth or a rework of stealth (maybe only let it work out of combat)).
• Elementalist:
  Strengths: Great damage.
  Weaknesses: Very low survivability.
• Necromancer:
  Strengths: Great condition damage.
  Weaknesses: Barely any burst capability.
• Mesmer:
  Strengths: Clones, decent support.
  Weaknesses: Low survivability once the real mesmer gets attacked.

and another one throwing ranger to : range[ r ] , i enjoy ranger meele the most… sw/d / gs

Engineers biggest weaknes is is stability especialy in WvW and no toss elixir B is useless. Also we need something for group more than blasts.

Rozbuska.5263:

Engineers biggest weaknes is is stability especialy in WvW and no toss elixir B is useless. Also we need something for group more than blasts.

Could you please qualify your statement? How exactly is it useless?

How is a lack of stability a weakness per se? When the profession has plenty of applicable stun breakers?

dancingmonkey.4902:

Rozbuska.5263:

Engineers biggest weaknes is is stability especialy in WvW and no toss elixir B is useless. Also we need something for group more than blasts.

Could you please qualify your statement? How exactly is it useless?

How is a lack of stability a weakness per se? When the profession has plenty of applicable stun breakers?

most engineers only got slots for 1 or no stunbreakers in their build at all

and stability of the elixir is only taken in hgh builds

Mesmers, IMO, should be all about trickery and misdirection.

As such, strengths:

• Clones, which are really good at pretending to be the player.
• Abilities which simulate doing something.
• Abilities which simulate to the enemy that something they did didn’t work.
• Very strong burst if using shatter.

Weaknesses:

• Those simulation-abilities? They’re not real. I might have a skill to prevent all damage to a player for 5 seconds, but over the next 5 seconds she’ll take all the damage which was prevented.
• Vulnerable as few others once you find the real one.
• Shatter prevents realistic clones while any shatter skill is on CD. The clones generated act like the current ones (and in PvE cannot ever draw aggro, while the perfect ones usually do).

Kryptonite

• AEs. As they get all the clones + thesmer, they’re the antithesis to the Mesmer’s idea of hiding amongst equals.

Here is what I would like to see (just my opinion) on strengths (S), weaknesses (W) and kryptonite (K):

Warrior
S: Control; Passive damage resistance; best CCs in the game
W: Less Mobility (they shouldn’t be able to dodge as often as others due to heavy armor – mitigation should be accomplished through blocks and parries) and Healing (healing signet passive is still too powerful)
K: fewer dodges/ less mobility means they either use a shield (or sword for parry) or need to rely on other party members to help keep them alive in most sustained fights

Mesmer
S: CCs; Misdirection through stealth and clones; Punish opponents with confusion/torment/boon removal/reflects/interrupts; best “punisher” in the game
W: almost no passive damage resistance; weak long ranged attack
K: very squishy if caught without clones or stealth

Engineer:
S: Versatility; Point control (even in PVE), buffing/supporting party members; Best damage buffer (apply might, fury, quickness, etc) in the game
W: Long cooldowns on turrets and ground AOE buffs means moving costs the party boons
K: Lack of mobility

Necromancer:
S: Life Drains; Minions; Fear; best condition removals (party wide) in the game
W: Less damage mitigation other than dodge (no blocks or evades – relies on healing/dodges/DS to survive)
K: Long cooldowns on very powerful abilities

Thief:
S: Stealth; Dodges; Best evader (through dodges) in the game
W: Very Squishy; no real party buffs (thieves should be selfish)
K: Can be easily one shot if caught in the open with no dodges/evades

Elementalist
S: Versatility (attunements); Support (boons/heals); best non-damaging condition (chills, blinds, vulnerability, weakness, cripple, etc) applier in the game
W: Squishy in damage attunements (fire and air)
K: Very easily killed if not in earth or water attunement (gameplay should be based around attunements)

Ranger
S: Pets; Traps; Best terrain control (through pets and traps) in the game
W: Little damage mitigation other than evades; damage suffers significantly if pet is allowed to die (but it should require enemy focusing the pet down – not just spamming AOEs)
K: Heavily reliant on pet for buffs/damage

Guardian
S: Support; Best “protector” (aegis, regeneration, protection, swiftness, vigor, walls, etc) in the game
W: Heavy armor means fewer dodges – survival is heavily dependent upon spells; Damage should be heavily dependent upon boons
K: Very easy to kill when protection buffs are on cooldown; low damage if boons have been removed

kitten warrior haters.

if u take away warrior’s mobility, no matter how strong they will be in melee, they will never be able to hit anything if melee if you take away their mobility.

stop nerfing warriors already.
just kitten stop it.

When this is done please update the class overview page since some are misleading with the current state of balance in the game. Gives new players faulse hopes and causes frustration when class picking for them.

(from my personal experience)

Engineer´s kryptonite is clearly the lack of condi removal and stability\stunbreakers what can make it extremely difficult to fight necromancers and mesmers cause necros just love to overload you with conditions so much that you really struggle hard to get them off again while they easily can stack more on you, well its their “job” to do that but a little bit more condi cleaning would be nice to have. As for mesmers.. they got access to quite a lot of stun abilities and they easily can keep you in place to overwhelm you with their clones without giving you much room to counter cause you are stunned and only got one breaker, sure mesmer is all about controll but jesus…i had encounters where i wasnt even able to do anything cept throwing junk on the floor before the finisher. The only stunbreaker comes from the e-gun toolbelt ability and the only stability comes from the elixir-b toolbelt ability. Also the engineer´s flamethrower´s flame jet damage is really a cruel joke, specially for that close range you need to be to the enemie to even damage them, even with the juggernaut and deadly mixture trait the flamer is really sad to look at. Please buff dat thing and make it as epic as it should be.
The lack of a melee weapon is another “personal issue” i got with the engineer. The way i see the engineer is that this class is meant to be medium to short range what shows alone with the pistol and rifle skills (the short ranged ones are MUCH more effective and especially the rifle handles like a shotgun anyways), the reach of the flamethrower, the toolkit, and the bomb kit. The exception would be grenades but even they are better the closer you are to the enemie cause of the slow travel time what makes them pretty easy to avoid for the enemie.

Well alltogether engineer is in a good place like you said.. but yea it would be nice if the stunbreaker returns to elixir-r atleast, a bit more flamer power to make it a viable kit, a melee weapon or two (hammer, main hand mace) and while you are at it also something about the ugly hobosack issue that is since i think about 1 and a half year on the engineer´s forum page one with 63729 views and 814 replies (at the moment i write this) cause that could be also counted as kryptonite.. cause it ruins the visuals for many…MANY players.

Sigmoid.7082:

When this is done please update the class overview page since some are misleading with the current state of balance in the game. Gives new players faulse hopes and causes frustration when class picking for them.

Excellent choice of words there. Because the truth of the matter is, anet has sat on its hand and spent more time designing fancy looking skins and very lack luster Living Story than actually analysing the current state of affairs. The bugs/issues have been pilling on a daily basis. Truthfully if i was the guy that had to deal with 2 years of neglect. I would ask for a pay rise or haul my kitten out. Because it ain’t gonna happen any time soon.

Rangers… They don’t have a role in the WvW zerg (large group of 30+). Most classes have a nice balance/package of the following that makes them useful.

Support (AoE; healing, protection, stability, ability to rally an ally)
Damage (AoE condi + Nuke damage)
Defense (Ability to tank, and be on the front line)
Utility (AoE blind, AoE invisibility)

Please I would love to play my ranger in WvW (large group) and feel like i’m actually contributing.

I play Guardian.

Strengths:
They should be good at supporting players with boons and removing conditions. If needed they can bring some hard CC but have to give up some boons in return. But people shouldn’t be saying “we bring guardian because of his awesome CC”. More like “we really need some CC or we’re screwed”.
And they got a bit more stuff like Merciful Intervention. Porting to a teammate is soooo “guardian”

Weaknesses:
They only got okay damage and defensive. They are rather slow in terms of movement and bad at ranged combat. Chill and poison is ugly.

Kryptonite:
AoE. Forcing the guardian to use his support skills in a way, so that he can’t defend himself anymore if he gets focused.

In my opinion Guardians should be more balanced in terms of offensive and defensive. Their mobility should be weak but their support good.

in my opinion what the guardian should be best at is party support via buffs and condition removal ( which it is excellent at now and needn’t be bothered with.)

The guardian’s roll should be to do damage through his/her allies. via buffs like retaliation, protection, and might, while holding some aggro and protecting the squishies. i saw someone ask for an increased speed on the hammer auto attack, that’d be nice, but noticeable change would have a lot of repercussions with traits like AH and Empowering might that may cause a bigger change than intended.

my biggest kryptonite on my support guardian build is the way a symbol build is completely shut down when rezzing an ally, and it’s a really rough choice between party protection for the many and the life of the individual. also, my guardian’s made of lead and concrete and pulls really tight aggro, but it can somehow be easily superceded by an ele in the back.

The same applies to warriors, i think warrior’s heavy armor should grant them a bigger radar blip when the aggro table gets involved. they do some of the heaviest damage and wear heavy armor, and attack mostly from melee range, the only thing that should outrank that combo is a relatively stationary heavy class dolling out constant damage.

Things like Mesmer clones, ranger pets, necro minions, and elementals seem to have extraordinary aggro powers but are made of glass so they cause aggro to constantly randomize.

Josh Davis.6015:

We won’t be going over future changes we’re making, but rather discussing the ideas and philosophy that drive balance changes. We’ll also be discussing our vision of what purpose/role each profession serves in relation to another.

That’s awesome and will help us players understand future class developments a lot better. Although you are not going to discuss future changes, please don’t only discuss the vision you guys have for each class. Please also give some insights in how happy you are with those specific roles for each class. This should be doable without naming any specific changes.

Josh Davis.6015:

To get started, we’d like to ask a few open-ended questions to all of you. In your opinion, what should the strengths and weaknesses of each profession be? What’s your profession’s kryptonite? And remember, no single profession should be the best at everything!

A bit difficult to sum this up in 300 word. Especially since one question is hypothetical (strength/weaknesses) while the other one is practical (kryptonite). But I’ll give it a try.

I’ll shortly name how I feel the strength and weaknesses should be (but not necessarily are). I won’t mention any kryptonite since it is partly covered in the weaknesses. But I’ll discuss to what extent my expecations are met.

Mesmer

Strength

• Ranged Interrupt, e.g. Dazes (single and area)
• Ranged Lockdown, e.g. Dazes, Chills, Cripple, Confusion (single and area)
• Boon removal (single and area)
• Reflects (self and area)
• Stealth (group)
• In combat mobility

Weaknesses

• Low out of combat mobility
• Low recovery
• Conditions
• Reveal
• CC

Are those expectations met?

Sadly they are not. I think that the weaknesses Mesmers have are on a reasonable level. However, this only applies to the best available options (skills, traits). This inevidently means a lack of build diversity. When not running stealth heavy builds and utilities like Decoy and Blink the overall survivability is too low. When not going for Menders Purity with Mirror or MoRec or with MoRes the condition removal will not only be a weakness but a death sentence when hit. Quite obivously, this also affects the weakness towards CC. Ultimatively, it all results in a very small build diversity.

Regardless, there is one weakness which should not exist. Area damage. Illusions are the resource of the class mechanic and therefore an incremental part of most Mesmer builds. As long as there is no mechanic which limits the damage done to Illusions – personally I prefer a cap of x% of the total health per area hit – you won’t see any viable Mesmer builds for medium to large scale WvW or PvE.

When it comes to strength my expectations aren’t met either. Interrupt builds work quite well in small scale fights due to the awesome traits Mesmers have. Lockdown builds don’t because Mesmers lack access to Cripple, Chill and Dazes with a sufficient duration. Confusion lost its usefulness when Glamours were nerfed. Mesmers therefore also lack access to (efficient) CC area effects. Furthermore, interrupt and lockdowns centered builds simply don’t work in PvE. When it comes to boon removal Mesmers are ontop in comparison to other classes. However, they still fall short because the boon removal can’t keep up with the speed boons are reapplied. When it comes to reflects Guardians just outperform Mesmers. Engineers only can’t live up to their potential because their reflects are tied to their turrets which suffer from the area damage issue Illusions face. Group stealth should actually be something Mesmers should be better at than Thieves when leaving Smokefield + Blast combos aside. But they aren’t (Shadow Refuge with potentially Shadows Resilience vs. MI and Veil). This leaves Mesmers in a bad spot because those aspects of their class which make them unique don’t perform well.

Elementalist sPvP.

Strengths: Overpowered Runes of strength and Celestial amulet. If you inevitably decide to nerf those two things, you probably do some buffs.

Weakness: Conditions, extremely low Hp. Over reliance on cantrips and a minimum of 20 points in arcane and water (most cases). Most forms of active defense hidden behind long CD, while other classes have better and more effective active defense.

Hard counters: Thieves

Greatest issues: High Attunement recharges forces players to go into arcane.
Low HP with few active defense hidden behind Long CDs forces players to waste trait points in water or take a lot of cantrips.

Conjured weapons serve to weaken the class rather than help.

Necros need a way to stay on enemy targets or a less awful way to pull targets to them. The spectral skill that pulls is a slow moving projectile that is easily dodged.
A skill like a thief’s infiltrator’s strike would be good, or something that ‘marks’ a target, and teleports them to you would be good. It’s really annoying that a warrior, who already has the highest armor and HP in the game and can hit fairly hard and sustain well can say “oh, I’m losing this fight, let me just use my greatsword and sword skills to leap away and never die”. They also shouldn’t have to sacrifice a utility skill to be able to do this.

Warrior mobility needs to be nerfed. They already can sustain pretty well and hit hard. Why doesn’t the ranger have more mobility?

I kind of wish shadow refuge stealth worked like this: you dont see the nametag, and you see a shimmering outline like the predator. So if you are really paying attention to the thief, you can ground target AOE him and chase him. If you are swinging your camera wildly around you might not notice him right away, so if uses blinks and stealth, he can still juke you. If he stands still, you don’t see him. Separate short invis (or a mesmer veil) into perfect invis, and long invis into predator invis (somewhat seen while moving).

Ranger damage should get buffed. Option to remove pet to buff all stats (or have the pet ‘sit on your shoulder’ or something, to give the same effect.

Ranger: sword – free up movement so the character doesnt auto move toward enemy the during the ‘kick’ and ‘leap’. Less cast time on monarch’s leap both away and towards.
serpent’s strike: short range blink behind the foe, poison them, instead of the weird tracking.

The sword should feel quick. It currently feels slow and clunky, taking control away from the user

Ranger: should have short duration, short cooldown immobilize option.

Ele – Fire Focus needs better skills.

Josh Davis.6015:

In your opinion, what should the strengths and weaknesses of each profession be? What’s your profession’s kryptonite?

Elementalist:

• Strength: High damage attacks and versatility.
• Weakness: Frailty (.. to burst damage, as they are now).

“What they lack in physical toughness, they make up in versatility and the ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack” – Arenanet.

Engineer:

• Strength: Diversity with gadgets and crowd control.
• Weakness: Low mobility (no Rocket Boots, little access to Swiftness etc.).

Guardian:

• Strength: Support and self/team survivability.
• Weakness: Boon reliant, weak to chill and poison.

Mesmer:

• Strength: Interrupts, clones damage and boon removal (boon removal trait that injures opponents?).
• Weakness: Poor condition removal.

Necromancer:

• Strength: Condition damage and high health (DS).
• Weakness: Easy to interrupt (due to channeling skills).

Ranger:

• Strength: Ranged damage, traps and mobility.
• Weakness: Poor melee damage (within 300 units).

Thief:

• Strength: Single target damage and self/group invisibility.
• Weakness: Frailty (..to burst, but mainly condition damage).

Warrior:

• Strength: Tough, strong/fast melee attacks.
• Weakness: Poor long range attacks and limited gap closers/mobility.

Ele’s current kryptonite is burst damage and chill.

Oh, no necromancer talk lately? I guess Il throw in my argument on how I feel the class is and should be. I split everything in sections so that Its both easier for me to fix later and mostly because you may just want to read a specific section.

Initial talk: Right now, necromancer as a whole is a very odd class in terms of design. It is built to take advantage of conditions and their overall play on the battlefield via giving them to others or dishing out a large variety of them. However, they also are supposed to be able to use blood magic and Death shroud in an attrition type fighting style.

Current Strength:
-Very good at dealing massive damage after a bit of time has went by
-Innately tanky due to high HP and death shroud
-Very good traits in terms of Condition application and overall spectral gameplay
-Elites that, while strong, give meaningful tradeoff
-Scale very well in situations where they can get 100% death shroud
-Minions do pretty good damage
-Terror
-Lots of ways to apply conditions via spreading, transfering some off of them or dishing them out themselves.

Current Weakness
-While tanky, they lose this tankiness feel rather quickly because of lack of invulns, mobility, vigor/endurance gain, blocks or necessary boons such as Stability. Effectively killing the attrition type playstyle
-very little meaningful choices given to support allies in a unique even though they are supposed to be able to (No damage buffs/very little worth using heals due to either bad scaling, long CDs, field type or the trait simply isnt strong enough)
- Blood tree rendered very much useless since the main mechanic of it, siphoning and healing power, is counteracted by their own mechanic of Death shroud, diminishing the worth of the these siphon traits with the given numbers/coeficcients
-While Conditions are always bad in PvE, necromancer also suffer from having very little weapons that have ‘splash’ or ‘AOE’, causing PvE play to be less optimal for them due since their best AOE weapons are also traditional condition weapons.
- Life force in certain situations is so scarce that the necromancer is too vulnerable, causing various class mechanics to sometimes be unavailable for long periods of time.

Strengths should be:
-various use of both Life Siphoning, healing and death shroud to actually be able to sustain in a fight. These mechanics need to be able to function together, not just via a trait with regeneration values deep within grandmaster traits of a line.
-Decent damage for sustain gameplay
- Staying power via good protection uptime, condi cleanses/transfers and stability at selective times via utilities or traits
-Ability to assist allies in both DPS and healing via marks similar to the active effect of signet of vampirism and auras (similar to maybe Spotter, but instead give them ability to share Ferocity/ Condition damage)
-Agression centric gameplay (needs to be able to stick onto target decently via chills, pulls, cripple, etc)

Weaknesses should Be
- Very little Mobility unless traited/take certain utilities with decent cooldowns (Flesh Wurm with a high Cooldown but instant cast)
- No mass amount of vigor
-succeptible to burst damage (Spec armor good example of a defense to this that still can be gotten around)
- Still rather vulnerable without death shroud
- Very little actual boons that can be shared to allies. (only prot , regen and maybe retail)

Overall: Right now, the class basically is a decent idea but very bad in certain game types/situations to the point that it isnt worth playing due to their ability to sustain or offer cleave/assistance to allies. It is a rather selfish profession throughout that can be CCd to death, rendering other parts they excel at to be diminished rather fast. The class basically right now is more of a cannon of sorts; Very little movement, pretty easy to stick onto (as it should), but also easily pushed over and rendered inoperable.

There needs to be some fix to the blood magic and death shroud interaction also because of this as it could provide the sustain that is needed, but outside leveling up the Health of necromancer cannot be manipulated while in death shroud via heal effects. this causes clunky feel to the class and makes some people not even able to help you either. While I dont think you should get a full effect of a heal while in death shroud, you should be able to get atleast 50-66% of it.

I feel that while it should not be some teleporting mad man, having flesh wurm on a higher CD but be instant would alleviate some things and offer choice for some choice similar to what warriors have with zerker stance. This combined with stability could indeed help also. However, I feel that outside that, most things should stay the same; they should still have rather slow missle speed, decent 1s cast times across the abilities they do, and so forth. Outside axe, most weapons arent in horrible places (this weapon needs damage buff, cleave, etc).

Kryptonite: This should still be burst damage that knocks out Death shroud fast so i am partial to passive regeneration and very little to no mobility/invulnerability, but if they give PvP players 20% every match and the sustain they need, I think that would solve some parts of that gametype.

trait proposal: this area is not as serious as the others, but maybe there should be more altering traits for necromancer such as Cast speed/ attack speed increase after entering death shroud for 3s on a 10-15s CD as a grandmaster or when wielding a dagger/Axe mainhand.

i like how literally this entire thread is a bunch of pvp heroes and theres like zero pve balance discussion

maha.7902:

i like how literally this entire thread is a bunch of pvp heroes and theres like zero pve balance discussion

All classes can spam 1 equally as effective in the zerg clusterkitten of their living world releases. So no problems there.

Ranger
Strengths:
- Longest! range with longbow
- High dmg against singel targets
- Evade in close combat
- Immobilize&Cripple
- Projectile weapons with high combo chance
- Combo attacks with pet

Weaknesses:
- High malus if the pet is dead
- Medium dps
- Medium armor/health
- Weak AoE attacks
- Weak against heavy Armor

Kryptonite:
- Range: Condition clean
- Meele: Stuned

maha.7902:

i like how literally this entire thread is a bunch of pvp heroes and theres like zero pve balance discussion

I like it too, it’s another indicator that people aren’t okay with the state of PVP. Give them enough indications that the players are seeing problems, then maybe they’ll look and find some valid things to address.

#seesthesarcasm
#spinsitconstructively

And the suggestion list is where all of this breaks down.
Unfortunately, with current combat paradigm (which is unlikely to change in any foreseeable future), every class needs to be equally good at two things – damage (either sustained or burst, likely both), and some kind of support (either defensive, offensive, or what you dubbed as Control Enemy Agency to Act). Any class that is weaker in one of those points than other classes will drop out of PvE meta (and while there are differences for pvp and wvw, pve does remain the most played aspect of this game).

The devs vision for the class balance needs to account for that

A fair point.
I’m kind of operating under the assumption we’re talking about Strengths, Weaknesses and Kryptonite more in the Team Fortress 2 Class Matchup sense than the strict and unforgiving Rock, Paper, Scissors sense.

(Like, when I played an Engi in TF2; I knew to fear Spies and Snipers…but that didn’t mean I wasn’t trounching them left and right. This sort of a Predator/Prey system is more about making how and if you engage enemies an interesting decision by giving you the ability to analyze risk at a glance, and less about actually determining the outcome of a fight.)

So, yeah, I’m not supporting the creation of paradigm shifting rigidity that damages the the ability of a class to support/control/damage at a baseline. I just think, on top of that, there should be clear and simple class identities established through meaningful combat differences.

That said, I’m not trying to brush aside your PvE concerns.
But, I tend to think my griefs with that format are more Structural than Class Balance. Like; Defiant, AI, ‘junk’ conditions, etc…

maha.7902:

i like how literally this entire thread is a bunch of pvp heroes and theres like zero pve balance discussion

You could be the first?

maha.7902:

i like how literally this entire thread is a bunch of pvp heroes and theres like zero pve balance discussion

Why do you need balance in PvE? Really who cares if somehow someone made a build that could take down lupicus is 2 hits. its PvE. Its matter not. But balance is a BIG issue when your enemy is not a brain dead ai.

AsmallChicken.9634:

maha.7902:

i like how literally this entire thread is a bunch of pvp heroes and theres like zero pve balance discussion

All classes can spam 1 equally as effective in the zerg clusterkitten of their living world releases. So no problems there.

i’m on about dungeons.

we currently have six solid classes out of eight – engineers need some sort of passive buff equivalent to something like empower allies, and necromancers just need team utility full stop. ranger sword auto needs to be fixed to not lock you in place for pve – and if anet sort this out then it’ll cut down a lot on class discrimination.

it would also be nice to get their opinion on the state of skills with large AOE like meteor shower, ice bow 4 – these two skills, especially the bow have massively scaled up damage against large bosses – and then there’s fiery greatsword which desperately needs to be forced to have a target for the fiery rush.

Why do you need balance in PvE? Really who cares if someone made a build that could take down lupicus is 2 hits. its PvE. You are not fighting monster that WANT to kill you. Unlike other gameplays such as WvW and PvP.

because not all classes bring something unique to instances and so there’s a lot of discrimination. ANet need to give engineers and necros something unique to make them worth taking.

I’m glad numerous posters also have an issue with the hard countering rock paper scissors existing.

I feel like action combat and rock paper scissors should be mutually exclusive as it undermines the fun factor in action combat.

Shockwave.1230:

I’m glad numerous posters also have an issue with the hard countering rock paper scissors existing.

I feel like action combat and rock paper scissors should be mutually exclusive as it undermines the fun factor in action combat.

I agree. However one should have different strengths and weaknesses, in order to make each profession unique in some way. You’re bound to fight someone that brings a gun to a knife fight, but you shouldn’t be guaranteed to lose to that person, only be at a disadvantage if not utilizing your strengths properly.

Mesmer: I like how the Mesmer (at least my built) is strong against single targets but is having just a limited amout of AoE.
I guess it’s hard to implement but another strenght of the mesmer should be confusing people. And not with conditions. They should confuse the player more. For example that the shown HP in the enemy’s interface is lower then the real HP. (Trick them into running away, healing themselfs, etc.) Maybe something like a clone in downed state. This way the enemy will stomp him and waste some time.
Therefore a strength: To make the foe panic and trick them into making the wrong choices.
Or somehow manipulate the cognition of the enemy.
I also like the boon removal because it does not damage the enemy directly.

A weakness should be: Once the enemy doesn’t “panic” the mesmer does have it much harder.

Not sure if weakness or strength: In group fights the mesmer is not in the frontline. Not even in the backline. More like a support role where the oponents gruop doesnÄt realy notice him/her.

Krytpomyte: Every class the mesmer doesn’t see comming (and therefor can not manipulate right from the start).
Also other mesmer/experienced player, who know the tricks a mesmer can use.

Shockwave.1230:

I’m glad numerous posters also have an issue with the hard countering rock paper scissors existing.

I feel like action combat and rock paper scissors should be mutually exclusive as it undermines the fun factor in action combat.

Hard counters are pretty lame. Nothing is more frustrating that being an engineer/necromancer on the receiving end of necromancer/Hammer warrior and feeling as if even if you do everything correctly you still are very much f’d.

maha.7902:

i like how literally this entire thread is a bunch of pvp heroes and theres like zero pve balance discussion

PvE I feel needs help also, and I pretty much gave my idea for Necromancer changes for it (Ferocity Aura/ Vampiric Aura, Cleave on Axe + Damage buff and I dont mean the bad vampiric mark we have now. Also, Deathly matyr is crap with only one condi and one person taken each time).

I still dislike the basic HP/armor attributes that seem like major principles of the game and will never change. For eles, the justification for the lowest HP and lowest armor in the game was healing: I feel warrior healing signet can do a better job. However, if I compare it to guardians, they too have the lowest HP in the game, but they also have the best armor. And they have far better healing.

Only recently eles were given some worthwhile defense options, Diamond Skin being kind of OP, but tricky because that’s 6 points in earth, and you’ll likely need 6 points in water as well or it will be useless. And it simply has no place in pve, meaning eles still have not much defense options there.

I really feel bad talking about balance for this class before making the base HP for all classes the same, or making it so the highest HP classes like warriors can’t possibly put out as much damage as they do currently. Armor differences are bad enough.

maha.7902:

because not all classes bring something unique to instances and so there’s a lot of discrimination. ANet need to give engineers and necros something unique to make them worth taking.

Oh i see the issue. Its a fair call as well. The overall scale of this balance issue, is massive. It pretty much impacts every part of the game and the gamers experience. Lets see how anet weasels its way out of this one…..I hear Season 2 is about to start…..

I see a lot of people saying the strength of a ranger should be range and kiting. While having extremely poor melee damage. Just want to say that ranger=/=archer. we may be the profession with the best archery but there is more to ranging that being proficent with bows.

Rangers strength should be survival and lock down/ environment control
Weakness should be control abilities and soft cc
Kryptonit should be lack of stability and hard cc

Somehow because of this strong, weakness, outright death thing we have been asked as players to come up with…anyone else feel abet will balance things to have more of a rock paper scissors feel so that in any bit of content as well as PvP all classes will be needed somewhere.

Thieves currently don’t seem to be too bad except some traits and skills need a rework.
Primarily making traps useful, and by traps add more effects.

For example the Shadow Trap needs a timer icon much like Portal Entre has on the mesmer and like the Shadowstep skill( and return) on thief as a notifier of when we must use it/prepare to lose a stunbreaker / get out of the fight. [This suggestion has been floating around forever and nothing has been done about it]

Thieves aside from 2 traits (Thrill of the Crime + Bountiful Theft) are really selfish as opposed to being a DPS class/stealth reviving. Hopefully something could be added aside from being just the guy with combo blasts from SB. Maybe add something along the lines of “Steal an item with F1 and grant it to 5 nearby allies in the used position” (meaning if you steal an ecto, they get the effect and cannot hold onto it") or something along those lines.

The other “non selfish trait” Venom share still isnt seeing alot of love. Aside from the fact that, yeah you can share your venoms….but what good is it going to do besides becoming a low damage/low duration cover condition unless the person you apply it to is built for condition type. If I apply my venoms to some guy built for physical damage such as a warrior with a hambow build…what good is it going to do? It’s not as effective when you don’t put it to its best. The suggestion for this is during the charges you apply to allies(venoms you apply) via sharing with Venomous Aura, should give YOUR condition specs(if not outmatched by who you apply it to) to the allies applied UP TO the ammount of charges are given. For example, if I give you 5 charges of Spider Venom, then you have 5 attacks that are using MY condition damage on you, from which deplete, return to your normal condition stats. This should work much like having an elementalist’s Conjure weapon, which boosts your stats in a specific line.

warriors can have shouts to effect allies and banners
Elementalists have enough water and auras to share as well as conjure weapons
Necromancers …well they have wells etc.
Guardians…Duh, boons and condition removals like nuts
Mesmers have a few boon fields and null fields to debuff enemies and some boon sharing,
Engineer have boons and fields and blasts…
Rangers have some condition removal and fields for healz and their pets have some ally effects

Thieves…we stealth to revive, hardly have anything team oriented and have 3 traits which are hardly as effective….yes we are selfish, but its a game which we play our own way….why cant i be that one thief that helps!?
Yes with initiative we can remove defiance, have a few fields that block projectiles/skip content…but what fun is that?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Shared-Venom-Spec-Suggestion/first

Mesmer:

Strength
Situational combat
Punishment
Cc

Weakness
Distance mobility
Bringing the wrong set up
Sustained damage

Current kryptonite
Los
Stealth
Conditions
Sustained damage
Ai dependency
Boone spam
Aoe

Edit bugs

Tychondus.4821:

maha.7902:

because not all classes bring something unique to instances and so there’s a lot of discrimination. ANet need to give engineers and necros something unique to make them worth taking.

Oh i see the issue. Its a fair call as well. The overall scale of this balance issue, is massive. It pretty much impacts every part of the game and the gamers experience. Lets see how anet weasels its way out of this one…..I hear Season 2 is about to start…..

It impacts people who want to do instances with those classes but either realise they aren’t as good and feel bad taking them, or still want to take them but get kicked from groups.

PvE balance is honestly mostly in a good place, but there’s outliers like this, ice bow and fiery greatsword which need to be remedied.

PvP, I honestly feel like most of the “imbalanced” things are just overly prideful people crying because they got trash canned by someone better than them and just want things nerfed – but overall, the balance is in a pretty decent place. Also, asura need to be removed or some way to make them show a human model.

The real problem in PVE is the foe design. Behaviour (AI: flee, attack, call reinforcements, damage, conditions). As long as it will be physiscal damage there will always be physical damage professions played. Since when do you really want to face the condition damage problem? And this is as old as the game.

So go ahead discuss or tell how you want the professions to be. You already posted it here in the forms.

I choose professions by their effectivness. And so do many. At least in PVE. Sure you can say those professions are in a balance/or used overall. What if you add the played time to the professions. I bet warrior and guardian win.

Just one point or a question to that philosophy. What do you developers see as a weakness a warrior is having in PVE. And if you find one how crucial is or are those weaknesses.

i just repost my post from another thread so there might be some formatting errors and the responses might seem to be irrelevant!

this is all refering to the thief

just my 2 cents to several posts so far.

1. why am i (are we) playing thief?

someone mentioned he wants to play against players who wants to fight them fair and square. that’s not what the thief is about! simple as that. a thief is a pain in the a**, a sneaky fighter that demoralise the enemy, fighting unfair and dirty and thats what i (we) like about that profession. we don’t care to fight 1v1 in honor we want to be the most possible nuisense/thread to our enemy and to kill him, mind games are our go to. otherwise i wouldn’t have picked the thief as my profession in the first place.

2. spamming the same abilities over and over.

yeah that can happen if the situation is rewarding you for it why shouldn’t you?
but mostly that’s the difference between mediocre and good players.
i think there are enough posts/threads about this so far so my advise too all those anti-thief guys: play a thief yourself in spvp for a month. after that i guess 90% won’t argue anymore….

but i agree that some weapon skills and their synergy doesn’t feel right atm and could need a rework

3. INVIS OP!!!!

i have to say invis in GW2 is broken, but far away from OP.
most stealth skills have with traited shadow arts 4 seconds of invis. during this 4 sec the thief is most likly going to hit on you seems very predictable isnt it? and to a decent player it’s also manageable to dodge, block etc. the incoming attack.

whats broken about it tho?…. it doesn’t serve it’s original propose:

insteat of making the thief unpredictable for an amount of time it makes him pretty predictable during stealth.
stealth is way too short to actually be used to find an opening to engage a “prey” you can’t make any real distance with it (excl. SR) and too short to disengage the fight if you want so. therefore it is “spammable” or let’s say more precise it’s useable quite often during the fight, and here is the real problem in my eyes.

Neither our enemy wants us to get invis every 3 seconds for 3 secs nor we want to use this over and over again till we finally are able to land with enough DMG.

make invis/stealth an out of combat mechanic only. i think the best system regarding stealth is the system Blizzard uses in WoW.
invis should be to engage (no cd, but only outofcombat) and to disengage (usable during combat, but with decent cd).

the moment you decide to engage you can’t disengage and reengage 5 seconds later and than again and again and again untill you feel like finishing your enemy.
you completly rule the pace of the fight and that’s what the QQ’ers are hating on.

stealth should’t be in your skillrotation. it should be your initiate and your last resort to escape. with the option to play mindgames and use the “retreat invis” to reengage again once!

you either choose wisly and you are able to finish your enemys off > reg > keep going onto the next “prey” or you choose poorly and you lose the fight. you still have the ability to disengage with your infight invis, but than you have to risk not having it the next time you make a go or wait long enough to get it from cd again. so it is more about decision making which increases the skillcap to be more effective/effecient with stealth and it reduces the need of counterplay to it.

just a possible change to the skills regarding above:

-Hide in the shadows: instead of making you invis, it grants you the same state as mistform for 3 secs.
-CnD: gives you the abillity to use the stealthskill without being invis for 3 secs.
-Smokebomb: this could be the CD infight invis i mentioned above.
-Shadow refuge: instead of giving invis to you and your allies give them boons (protection and reg f.e.) and add a condition cleanse to it.
-Shadowtrap: i think this can stay that way, even if it makes you invis.

the smoke combo field needs a rework than but i think Anet can think of solutions by themseves if they would consider it as a possible change to stealth.

4. Balancing weapons

the main problem to make all weapons on tjief viable is that dagger aswell as pistol offhand doesn’t synergize well with the same weapon in the main hand.

examples: when you go for plain non-conditional damage with daggers the 3rd skill is useless, than dancing daggers are ok because you can cripple the target you are chasing but the pistol in offhand gives you a real gapcloser (with blind on top!) as 3rd skill which is way superior at least imo. CnD is nice but more useful in PvE than PvP in any kind because you need to hit your target and the debuff will tell good enemys that a BS is incomming. meanwhile the blackpowder gives you the abilty to go invis even without hitting any enemy and also blinds them which is more important in close combat.
And not to mention with headshot you got an interrupt which is the only one you can have as a thief (without traits) afaik.

But on the other way round those advantages pistol has with a dagger in mainhand the same disadvantages it has with a pistol in mainhand…why you might ask now?

First when you go for pistol in your mainhand you are mostly specialized on conditiondamage so unload (3rd P/P) is useless like deathblossom above (3rd D/D),while the 3rd P/D skill is nice to create space to your opponent which is something you need and it applies a damagedealing condition. now dancing dagger makes also much more sense in this build because it is a way better defensive skill to slow mutiple enemys and retreat than a chasing ability! Also blackpowder can’t make you invis because you lack a jumpingskill while CnD can and because your invismove fires mutiple shots even a block ability on the enemys won’t counter it completly.

In my Opinion Anet has to rethink and rework the synergy between the weapons regarding the above mentioned issues because it really minimizes the possibilities of uncommon builds.
Anyway i agree that dagger offhand could use a little buff.

But the real problems are the 3rd skills at D/D and P/P because they are completly out of synergy compared to the rest in the weaponsets.

Please, please, please, balance the necromancer for PVE. Sort out the condition madness in PVE first please. Please stop balancing classes from a pvp island.

Since Ranger became my main class I’ve noticed a lot of the same ‘improvement opportunities’ that have been pointed out here, and which could turn rangers into what they really should be.

I totally agree with Frost’s statement below that point a weakness and a strength at same time:

Frostfang.5109:

The pet should be that extra thing that ranger can offer. […]

For those not liking the pet, make it permanently stowable and add some extra buff so that thay get better use of spirits or traps.[…]

It feels like we are forced to play with out pets, when it actually should be only that extra thing made to players who enjoys that ‘playstyle’. And for those who don’t, we just wished to have the choice to really disable it without affecting our effectiveness against other players/classes.

Maybe it could be a ‘simple’ passive state “If playing without pet +XX% damage etc” or new traits/utilities options for whose not using the pet.

Frostfang.5109:

[…]Longbow should be the rangers most feared weapon. […]

That’s also something that I would like to be enhanced, maybe something similar to the Warrior with longbows, an adrenaline bar that could be activated when pet is disabled (or always active) giving us more variety to engage/attack.

Well… I’ve always heard complains about the ‘Ranger’ and it has been almost 2 years since game was released so I’m pretty positive (I hope!!) that you guys will add something to your “Ready up” tomorrow about this and other suggestions.

Thank you!

I don’t really think that every class should have a “kryptonite” because that defeats the purpose of a skilled match for example there can be this very hard trained mesmer that is in the top 200 rating and then there comes a rank 1 necro along pressing 1-2-3-4-5 and defeats the mesmer without even thinking about it.
it’s like Tyrions Brother: Thump-Thump-Thump…

the mesmer should be able to counter that necro by playing better/smarter.

A balance that makes risk vs reward would be better for example if I use this huge cannon skill it would give myself a disatvantige putting me in a defensless position.

like all dodge-evade-invun skills could use up 1/4 of the endurance bar this way it can’t be spammed and your taking a risk using it at the wrong time.

Or a skill like Endure pain would lower your movement by 50% so you would be taking the risk of getting knocked offpoint and having problems getting back on.
Now it’s just a skill that gives the free slam time for pressing a button with no risk at all.

I am getting the feeling you guys want to take the “kryptonite” of a certain class more to the front and this scares me.
I know if I am playing mesmer that thief will be a hard target but I still try it because maybe I can outplay him.. but then you would just say dam a thief let’s get out of hes sight.

and because you guys made it so that you can now switch characters mid match (no slightest idea why you guys did that) it would be possible to completely counter the other team just because you switched to another class:D where is the competitive nature in that?

Dear developers of Arenanet, I´ve been playing your game since the release, and
today I think is one of the best MMORPG of the market. But in my opinion there are
several things you should change:

1.- The healing signet of the warrior. I have many warriors and the problem is the
escalation that has the healing signet relative to healing power. A DPS warrior
without healing power heals 376, and with the maximum healing power heals 422. So
that´s an example of how bad works the healing power. Besides other healing skills,
which are usually every 30 seconds, heals an average of 6000, compared with 11000
of this DPS.

2.- The health pool of three professions (Guardian, Thief and Elementalist). The
DPS of this professions isn´t as high compared to others who have more health
(Warrior and Necromancer, for example).

3.- The support guardian, I know you think it’s okay, and it´s true that in all
competitive teams there is one (in fact in tournament I play guardian), but to show
that I’m not complaining for my own benefit, compare the typical build of guardian
(0/1/6/6/1) with a build that I made myself of a warrior (2/0/6/6/0), both with
cleric amulet.

That warrior holds more, has stability 58 seconds every 90 seconds, and with
banners heals 5660 every 20 seconds. The warrior removes more conditions that the
guardian (with soldier runes) because of his traits, and he can choose other runes.

4.- The decap engineer with turrets. It´s a destructive build that can hold a
point, support team and make CC. All this makes him better than other professions,
and if you wish that someday GW2 is an e-sport, you have to fix it.

5.- Intelligence signet. If you make a build with this signet, you allow some professions with more than 3000 armor, deals a DPS of 8000 every 7 seconds, for example.

6.- (Only possible if the intelligence signet disappears). There are optimal amulets for direct damage, condition damage, etc… why there isn´t one optimal for support team (healing power, toughness and vitality?

More frequent balancing, and less skill fact balancing!

Problems:
1) Guardians are in a good place. We are so sick of hearing you say this. So just skip over the class instead since that’s really all you are doing.
2) “Shave” the stupid god mode builds: Condi PU mesmer, D/D ele, P/D condi thief, Settler’s Condi Warrior, Conditions builds in general (everyone and their mother is running conditions in PvP for a reason.
3) Fix the OPness of Strength Runes! They are way over the top. Classes that can stack might easily (eles, warrior, engis) are benefiting from this runeset so much and it is causing big time imbalance. Just look at the price of them on the TP, or how many people use them in PvP if you need evidence.

Above all, please don’t wait so long in between balance patches. It’s better to have a constantly changing meta than a stale one.

eleshazar.6902:

More frequent balancing, and less skill fact balancing!

Problems:
1) Guardians are in a good place. We are so sick of hearing you say this. So just skip over the class instead since that’s really all you are doing.
2) “Shave” the stupid god mode builds: Condi PU mesmer, D/D ele, P/D condi thief, Settler’s Condi Warrior, Conditions builds in general (everyone and their mother is running conditions in PvP for a reason.
3) Fix the OPness of Strength Runes! They are way over the top. Classes that can stack might easily (eles, warrior, engis) are benefiting from this runeset so much and it is causing big time imbalance. Just look at the price of them on the TP, or how many people use them in PvP if you need evidence.

Above all, please don’t wait so long in between balance patches. It’s better to have a constantly changing meta than a stale one.

Seconded, the WORST PART is the crazy slow balance updates. One balance update every six months is just inexcusable for a game company that once prided itself on its pvp. GW2 meta gets stale so fast because nothing changes.

Something simple, to me, that would open up the game in an infinitely amazing way, would be to make it so that support gets loot. Currently, if a player does not do a significant amount of damage on a foe, they get no reward. So, where is the reward for healing/buffing/helping players? If there were a way to engage a mechanic where anyone that does either direct damage, or helps a player that does direct damage, could get the same reward as said players they are helping, it would open up the builds.

Even CC is pretty useless outside a dungeon or WvW, because it often does not offer loot except in small, one-on-one or one-on-a few situations. Yes, if you are using CC so you are not in the middle of a massive mob of enemies, it works. If you are in a group/zerg (the world bosses, for example, or any champ), you get nada as a rule. UNLESS you do a good portion of direct damage. Which is why in zergs and large groups, there are so many lfg’s. The more in your party, the better the chance for loot.

And if the group is big enough, you often get no loot at all. Because if you are not one of those heavy-hitters, you don’t do enough damage to rate. And places like the Jungle Wurm in Caledon, the Avatars of Blight often drop nothing. Because so many hit, that you can be a Guard or Warrior, pounding on it from the start, and you still did not do enough dps to count.

So if you want balance, balance the reward system for different playstyles besides “Moar deeps is better”.

eleshazar.6902:

More frequent balancing, and less skill fact balancing!

Problems:
1) Guardians are in a good place. We are so sick of hearing you say this. So just skip over the class instead since that’s really all you are doing.
2) “Shave” the stupid god mode builds: Condi PU mesmer, D/D ele, P/D condi thief, Settler’s Condi Warrior, Conditions builds in general (everyone and their mother is running conditions in PvP for a reason.
3) Fix the OPness of Strength Runes! They are way over the top. Classes that can stack might easily (eles, warrior, engis) are benefiting from this runeset so much and it is causing big time imbalance. Just look at the price of them on the TP, or how many people use them in PvP if you need evidence.

Above all, please don’t wait so long in between balance patches. It’s better to have a constantly changing meta than a stale one.

I think you are tributing the OPness of Runes of Strength and amulet of celestial the strength to the elementalist shows a lack of understanding.

Also it sees you are just picking classes you have issue with.