Guild Wars 2

This is what the Ranger pets should be like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU9H7zaD6zs

• no damage output
• control skills (knockdown, knockback, stun, daze, etc)
• conditions (cripple, immobilize, vulnerability, poison, etc)
• boons (regeneration, swiftness, protection, stability, etc)
• fields (fire, water, smoke, lightning, etc)
• finishers (blast, leap, projectile)
• boon removal
• condition cleanse
• movement skills (leap, teleport, rush/charge)
• self-preservation (invulnerability, reflect, block)

There is plenty of variation to make an endless amount of useful pets. Just get rid of the damage output.

Then, add a Grandmaster Beastmastery trait that takes 50% power, precision and ferocity away from the Ranger and gives it to the pet. The pet also gains passive health regeneration and 10000 max health.

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

The necromancer

-Will never be desired in dungeons, unless they receive a Cleave skill.
-Will never have any use for boon removal in PVE, unless boon removal actually becomes a thing in PVE. Right now it is irrelevant.
-Will never find a good use for conditions in PVE, unless PVE is changed to be not so anti-conditions. The condition cap has to go.
-Will never have a use for control skills in boss battles, unless Defiant/Unshakeable is changed. Right now control skills are rendered useless against bosses.
-Death Shroud will never work well, unless is changed so that it no longer is an obstruction to our class. We should be able to heal in DS (untraited) and we should be able to use our utility skills in DS.

Our class is fundamentally broken in PVE from the ground up. The entire design of PVE contradicts our class’ core features. And yet with any balance podcast, our class is quickly skipped as if it does not matter.

We necromancers feel like a neglected child.

There might be a light at the end of the tunnel. One of the guys in the stream mentioned offhand during the Ele part that their lack of boon removals will start becoming an issue with upcoming content, which makes me think the opposite is true, and professions with good boon removal will start seeing more demand for that part of their skill set in PvE.

Also, there are already monsters- namely the partially digested husks that appear in the Triple Trouble world boss in Bloodtide, that are nigh-invulnerable to direct damage, but melt to condition damage. While I agree that condi damage mechanics need to be tweaked to be more viable in content where direct damage currently dominates (and that Necros need a little help in doing direct damage on top of that), it is something of a start.

Foefaller.1082:

Mad Queen Malafide.7512:

The necromancer

-Will never be desired in dungeons, unless they receive a Cleave skill.
-Will never have any use for boon removal in PVE, unless boon removal actually becomes a thing in PVE. Right now it is irrelevant.
-Will never find a good use for conditions in PVE, unless PVE is changed to be not so anti-conditions. The condition cap has to go.
-Will never have a use for control skills in boss battles, unless Defiant/Unshakeable is changed. Right now control skills are rendered useless against bosses.
-Death Shroud will never work well, unless is changed so that it no longer is an obstruction to our class. We should be able to heal in DS (untraited) and we should be able to use our utility skills in DS.

Our class is fundamentally broken in PVE from the ground up. The entire design of PVE contradicts our class’ core features. And yet with any balance podcast, our class is quickly skipped as if it does not matter.

We necromancers feel like a neglected child.

There might be a light at the end of the tunnel. One of the guys in the stream mentioned offhand during the Ele part that their lack of boon removals will start becoming an issue with upcoming content, which makes me think the opposite is true, and professions with good boon removal will start seeing more demand for that part of their skill set in PvE.

Also, there are already monsters- namely the partially digested husks that appear in the Triple Trouble world boss in Bloodtide, that are nigh-invulnerable to direct damage, but melt to condition damage. While I agree that condi damage mechanics need to be tweaked to be more viable in content where direct damage currently dominates (and that Necros need a little help in doing direct damage on top of that), it is something of a start.

Glad someone else noticed this also. Regardless of whether you liked the storyline of LW so far, mechanically, the mobs they’ve created during it have been more interesting such as the husks that you mentioned or the toxic fighters which go into down state and then knock you back while you try to stomp them. They seemed to be getting excited about things they can’t talk about right now.

Let’s not forget that the gauntlet area scales in such a way that it punishes zerging. PvE looks like it’s going to get more interesting.

Engineer:

Strengths: Condition applications and CCs as well as okay sustain through blocks if using shield or Tool Kit. Pretty good at Single and AoE dmg.

Weakness: Countering stealth players unless using Nade/Bomb build since since Engi has no real melee to just swing around randomly except tool kit but that just isn’t viable when fighting a stealth player due to lackluster dps/range in TK. Poor Condition removal and not very group supportive.

Kryponite: Hammer Warrior and Stealthy Thief. I have Still never managed beat a Condition Thief or Condition Mesmer.

Bug/Fixes Elixir Gun Tool Tips for Elixirs would be awesome if they were affected by Elixir Traits. This would allow for more Condition removal for the Engineer (since the Automated Response nerf hurt our condition defense with nothing to make up for it yet). Fumigate could be traited to cleanse the Player as well and both Elixier F and Super Elixir could then be used as additional group cleansing support! This would be super awesome! Hobosack options would be valuable to end-game aesthetics. Static Discharge still really needs work on being more accurate…I have yet to find this to be at all reliable and worth using since it can’t ever seem to even hit the largest of Norn.

@Wiseman

Too late… They already went over everything on Friday.

You missed ur chance.

Dang it! Well I’ll put it in the Engi forum for them to find if the devs still care to hear from people that work and can’t check this every day hahaha

I think, before we speak of any strengths and weaknesses of classes, there are alot other more important things regarding of the overall game balance which should be looked at first, like:

• Conditions, the Condition Meta is just out of Control, Conditions need to be balanced more and also should be more interesting, than pumping the game just only full with tons of damage over time conditions that make it only faster to kill people in duel situations in a matter of seconds without having a chance to remove fast enough all the conditions on you, before you are lieing already dead in the ground

• Food & Nourishments, they belong finally banned out of WvW and should become finally PvE only Items, just like they were in GW1.

• Traits – Many classes have still tons of useless or way too weak traits, lots of traits that should get merged with some other traits to create space for new and better more interesting traits. Thieves are a good example, they have so much junk, that you could theoretically create space for 16 new traits and thats just them, other classes surely also have lots of stuff, that could get merged.

• Hackers – what the hell are you planning to do finally please against all those cheatign hackers in WvW, that totally ruin the fun of this game for everyone through their manipulations of the matches??

• Boons – Instead of just adding only always new Conditions, its time to add finalyl some more new boons I think, theres so much stuff missing basically, that would be very useful and could also significantly help in balancign the classes better.
  Make a counterpart to Might, one which increases toughness and healing power as example, or a Boon that increases the speed of weapon switch recharge times and lets utilities recharge faster when you get hit or so.

• Stat Distribution
  Classes could be alot more balanced, if our chosen Traits wouldn’t predestine, which Stats we get buffed, if the Stat Distribution would be just something, that players could do independently as they like with every level up and if we could raise and lower our stats, just like we were able to raise and lower attributes to our likings outside of combat, whenever we want.
  Players should just receive with every Level Up Stat points, that the player should distribute manually to the Stats as he/she wishes until a Stat reaches a pre given Max Value for the Level that the Character has.
  Remove Stats from Equipment and make Stats from Equipment Bonus Stats a Character receives by a chosen “Path” that your character follows
  Equipment needs to become a little bit less important and its also something, that just unneccessarely leads to the point of inventory blocking equipment, when you need to run around with like a couple of different equipment sets with you just to change outside of combat your stats significangl,y when you could be just enough to change outside of combat your chosen “Path of Believal” what would be alot more comfortable and quicker to change your builds ancd it would block <your inventory full will equipment sets just to have multiple different stat builds with you.
  Equipment could have far more interesting Side Effects to make the combat system more engaging, interesting, class role defined and balanced, than how it currently works.

Mesmer Breakdown for WvW – Zerg/GvG

Master of misdirection:
- In Theorically, YES but imo after thief or..
- In Practically/Theorically, No or not master, Because in wvw,

• unsustaining Illusions (where being master of misdirection is coming from)
• Conditions, Confusion? bah.. where has there is a large scale composition and every aoe cleanses can effect full cap it.. foods runes and already composition to take inimal condi effects organized grouping.. and we dont have any respected condi in terms of misdirection..
• Retal.. with low health pool? Health pool = armor x Health and moreoever low efficient tanking ability
• in term of CC, we dont have fear, or other delays as stun, kd skills or chills or poi or weakness

if misdirection means = let/pressure opponent to change/reorganize his moment movements/position or skills managments..
————————————————-
Anet: `CC mentioned, alot of `dazes` Crowd Control`

I am highly disagree that we dont have respected CC potential in wvw.. link
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Ready-Up-15-Balance-Philosophy-6-13-notes/4119870
————————————————-
Anet: Utility: u say veil feed back etc.. very strong..

(why u guys feel so un comfortable while discussing/critizing Mesmer, skiping topics, rushing to end it, undigestion? while not in others..? :S maybe i am wrong )..

Gw1 mesmer? will not write here again above link..
————————————————
Anet : weaknesses: Conditions.. hard deal with them as eng or thief cuz of utility stregth if u ve high offense we can not give high cleanse etc etc

:S if u say mes has pleanty CC however not have lacking cleanse.. ? bah.. mesmer have more cleanse potential than cc potential.. but challenge to make your build.. and having organized group, food, runes, who care cleanse as u highlight it..
———————————————————
Anet: Aoe, we talked about it internally, we definetly recognize it especially in wvw in pve situations, they are doing great job dealing with single target, shut it down, doing damage, keeping it confused, moving around, stealth when need to, evading, distort.. but when it comes to fight with larger the things become weaker..

pff just bored…
—————————————————-
Mesmer Future is the same = VEIL BOT in wvw = There is no seat in any competitive group except being veil/portal user

Josh Davis.6015:

Hey everybody,

This Friday on “Ready Up” I’ll be joined by Game Designer Karl McLain and Game Design Lead Jonathan “Chaplan” Sharp for a discussion on balance design philosophy. “What’s that, and why should I care?” you ask? Great question!

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.

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!

We’ll be reading through your thoughts over the next few days, and we’ll try to address as much as we can on Friday. Feel free to post your thoughts below, but try to keep your replies relatively short (I’d aim for under 300 words).

As a note, the previously announced “State of the Game” episode has been postponed, but rest assured – it will happen!

Thanks all! Let’s keep this constructive.

Ranger Kryptonite?

Every other character profession and build besides a Ranger.

Not sure why my conditions on my Warrior and Mesmer seem to do so much more damage than my better traited and geared Ranger.

Everything is Kryptonite when you are a Ranger in WvW.

Durzlla.6295:

Hey, at least we don’t have adrenaline! According to Anet that’s a big Achilles heel to Warrior!! Just think of the nightmare of a warrior that DOESNT use adrenaline for all their skills!

I suggest “Adrenaline Overdose” debuff. Having your adrenaline maxed debuffs you in an exponential manner by stat decreases and/or conditions, eventually leading to a Heart Attack where you reset adrenaline and enter a recovering-like state.

Deniara Devious.3948:

snip

1. The build in question is GS/Sw-Wh and all it can do is troll and run. It relies entirely on Flurry+100B to do it’s big damage. Only thing is you can’t run away from them, you have to force them to run away from you which most classes can do quit easily. You can’t really stop them either cause if they are good they will be saving their warhorn to cure chills, cripple, and Immo.

I agree that the mobility of the GS is ridiculous but I don’t think all our gap closers on all our weapons should be nerfed because of it. Especially when all of them are susceptible to movement impairment (cripples, chills) That’s why I say that it isn’t the skills that needs fixing. It is the OP Melandru, Dogged March, -Condi food combination that pushes our mobility over the top by making us almost immune to CC.

2. Only nubs die to 100b repeatedly. Don’t waste your stun breaks and blocks on small stuff. It leaves you wide open for a CC chained burst.

3. I would agree with this if all our burst skills weren’t so beautifully animate and blatantly obvious. it probably wouldn’t make a huge difference though. I can get all the adrenaline back for it is of CD most of the time anyway.

4. Warriors melt just as easy as anyone without points in toughness. They just do more damage in that time. it’s easy to look at the numbers a think that we are super survivable because of the extra stats but the fact is that stats are a very weak sustain mechanic. Proof: Warrior had all those same stats since launch, yet they were the laughing stock of PvP for an entire year Before Anet started giving them better methods of damage mitigation. Blinds, Protection, Teleports, Clones/Pets, Aegis are all much better then those extra stats.

5 Cleansing Ire is only OP when traited with burst mastery and a longbow. Making it so that it does’;t remove 3 condition by using only 2 bars of adrenaline would go a long way to make it balanced. Or give it an ICD so that you can’t chain bursts and remove 5 conditions in the span of a few seconds

6. The problem is not the class it’s the game mode. WvW is all kinds of messed up and severely unbalanced in 100 different ways. it just happens the zergging favors warriors and guardians. Warriors, are not the best roamers, they are not the best duelers, they are the best in larger groups cause they require the support from the rest of the classes to be the best. Warriors CC without the ele/necro pain train is pretty much a waste.

I used to defend warriors saying they’re not OP and telling ppl who said that to learn to dodge.

Well, that’s fine if u are extremely good at dodging, but even Vassangel gets hit every once and awhile.

Anyways, anyone who says warriors are completely not OP probably only plays a warrior.

Before u defend the class, hop on ranger and 1v1 a top tier warrior and see how u do. Since the f1 skills are so telegraphed anyways, you shouldn’t have a problem right?

Elementalist:
- Staff need buff for WvW or PvP.
- Anet is forcing player to use closer combat in wvw/pvp, but that’s not the style Elementalist are design for. (lowest health and you are forced to act like an assassin)

- Water attuntment need some rework! Water deal mediocre heal, if you wanna heal well you need to sacrifice a lot of thing.
- Suggestion: Buff or redesign Water, more damage… and most importantly MORE CHILL spells. Add chill or freeze % on water spells.
- Chill: Apply tormented condition, or give new condition such as frostbite or something… making chill more viable and useful.
- Ice Storm: Make this or create an ice/Water aoe spells (or Elite) to make up with no water dmg AoE.

I even suggest Elementalist should have the option to stay in one or two elements as our “major” or main elements. To do so, our spell become much stronger but at the same time disable other two elements where we don’t use. Having 4 attuntments doesn’t always mean better…. quality > quantity.

shadowpass.4236:

I used to defend warriors saying they’re not OP and telling ppl who said that to learn to dodge.

Well, that’s fine if u are extremely good at dodging, but even Vassangel gets hit every once and awhile.

Anyways, anyone who says warriors are completely not OP probably only plays a warrior.

Before u defend the class, hop on ranger and 1v1 a top tier warrior and see how u do. Since the f1 skills are so telegraphed anyways, you shouldn’t have a problem right?

I see rangers killing warriors in PvP all the time. I’ve lost to a few myself but I do agree that Rangers need help but nerfing Warriors is not going to help Rangers.

Julie Yann.5379:

shadowpass.4236:

I used to defend warriors saying they’re not OP and telling ppl who said that to learn to dodge.

Well, that’s fine if u are extremely good at dodging, but even Vassangel gets hit every once and awhile.

Anyways, anyone who says warriors are completely not OP probably only plays a warrior.

Before u defend the class, hop on ranger and 1v1 a top tier warrior and see how u do. Since the f1 skills are so telegraphed anyways, you shouldn’t have a problem right?

I see rangers killing warriors in PvP all the time. I’ve lost to a few myself but I do agree that Rangers need help but nerfing Warriors is not going to help Rangers.

I do see ranger not killing anyone. Well, could be tier difference. What I dislike about the warrior is the cheesyness with all that passive defense like I press two buttons and am imune for the next 10 seconds. However the (nonexsistant) strengths of rangers is the reason why the ranger suffers in PvP outside of some conditionbunker-type.

Julie Yann.5379:

shadowpass.4236:

I used to defend warriors saying they’re not OP and telling ppl who said that to learn to dodge.

Well, that’s fine if u are extremely good at dodging, but even Vassangel gets hit every once and awhile.

Anyways, anyone who says warriors are completely not OP probably only plays a warrior.

Before u defend the class, hop on ranger and 1v1 a top tier warrior and see how u do. Since the f1 skills are so telegraphed anyways, you shouldn’t have a problem right?

I see rangers killing warriors in PvP all the time. I’ve lost to a few myself but I do agree that Rangers need help but nerfing Warriors is not going to help Rangers.

The fact that you, (someone who is defending Warriors), typed the word OP at all in your previous posts kind of says otherwise.

Julie Yann.5379:

I see rangers killing warriors in PvP all the time. I’ve lost to a few myself but I do agree that Rangers need help but nerfing Warriors is not going to help Rangers.

1v1s are not a testament of constructive, objective game balance.

I said top tier warriors. I think you’re referring to the hotjoin noobs who have had the game for a week.

i just watched the stream and my mouth dropped open when i heard someone say warriors are weak to conditions. WTH? warriors deal with conditions better than any other class in the game. not just through stance, cleansing ire, dogged march, shake it off passive+active, but also through high passive regen.

I laughed. Are we playing the same game as them?

Thief – limited condition removal? Are they having a laugh?? Low sustain in fight? Oh really?? Low survivability??

Warriors – More options to escape combat..lol?? Overrun by conditions…haha.

Elementalists : Low base HP is an intentional design so we can give them more support..EH??? ..And they basically want eles to be spiked down and have no way of avoiding this…

Chrispy.5641:

Julie Yann.5379:

shadowpass.4236:

I used to defend warriors saying they’re not OP and telling ppl who said that to learn to dodge.

Well, that’s fine if u are extremely good at dodging, but even Vassangel gets hit every once and awhile.

Anyways, anyone who says warriors are completely not OP probably only plays a warrior.

Before u defend the class, hop on ranger and 1v1 a top tier warrior and see how u do. Since the f1 skills are so telegraphed anyways, you shouldn’t have a problem right?

I see rangers killing warriors in PvP all the time. I’ve lost to a few myself but I do agree that Rangers need help but nerfing Warriors is not going to help Rangers.

The fact that you, (someone who is defending Warriors), typed the word OP at all in your previous posts kind of says otherwise.

I’m saying the problem is not the warrior, it’s the runes and foods that fill in any weaknesses we might have or make our strengths OP. If it wasn’t for runes of strength our DPS wouldn’t so high in PvP. If it wasn;t for melandru and -condi food our mobility would not be over the top in WvW cause we would be susceptible to movement impairment.

I also hear a lot of “my profession doesn;t have a place in every game mode, please nerf warriors until they don;t have a place either. The way I won’t feel so left out.” I’ve read a lot of the suggested nerfs all that would do is make warriors what the use to be, free kills.

I do agree that there are things that need to be changed. Like the amount of mobility on the GS, Cleansing Ire and Burst Mastery combo. The braindead healing signet which is not really OP in terms of healing, the fact that it is fully passive makes it really lame to play and play against.

Harper.4173:

The moment a role is created players will enforce it if it is the optimal way of clearing content.

Guardians now can afford doing a dungeon without doing full support ( in the sense of tanky gear and healing that people seem to view support as) but if the meta changes because a few guardians want that to be their " role " then the majority of guardians will be forced into this role whether they want to or not.
Who’ll force them? The rest of the players who want maximum rewards with the least amount of time spent.

Also – lol at your party full of assassins. This is exactly the kind of issue that keeps people misinformed.
We have the same diversity today – you can run with a party of anything in any gear and still do content fairly easily – easier than your 8x assassins in GW1.

What you forgot to mention is that normally assassins were bad in PVE content. So bad that people shunned them and didn’t take them with the exception of one build – permasin.
The invincible -tank everything and never die permasin was the only “meta” build for assassins in PVE – and if you weren’t doing that you’d be forced into it or not taken along.

That was the diversity of GW1.

Same was with monks – while theoretically you could DPS as monk ( and even do a good job) if you wanted to do that 90% of parties would kick or tell you to get real and do prot/healing.

What you feel is sliding into your role naturally is forced for other players. You feel that’s your “natural” role because that’s what you want to play.
Consider this – the DPS oriented players that play GW2 have “naturally” slid into their roles in GW2 and feel comfortable with it.

What we have now is this : Allowing people to be relied upon but not enforcing it. – You can get through a dungeon without might stacking, reflects, stealth, healing, and mostly zero team play. You can do it with a team faster but it’s not enforced by the game.

You can finish any content faster if you work together with others, but you’re not forced to do it – that’s the current system.

What a total crock, how in what way are people relied upon? When you have a system in which anything goes, it plays to the lowest common denominator.
Sure you might avoid some of the problem with roles, but in doing so you throw out everything that is good as well. It’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Dungeons are boring as a sack of hammers, because it never really tests you or challenges you in any way, either as an individual or as a group. You might as well make them single player, since evidently you just want to put in your time and get you reward and not have to deal with thou’s annoying people.

I do find it odd how your only argument always comes back to dungeons, as if they are the end all and be all of play.

If you look at WvW you see what not really having any roles does, you get a big mindless zerg of people face rolling their keyboard, because your skill is irrelevant, all you need is numbers. The more people you have, the more damage your group does, and the quicker people die. Because there is next to nothing a player or smaller group can do to combat this, because tanking or healing, or otherwise prevent that damage is simply not possible.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

-
As a side note, the problem with Monks in GW1 not only that they were pigeonholed into healing, being clearly better in almost every instance, but because it was very difficult to do much of any content without that amount of healing. So they were the only mandatory class to have effectively. There were ways around it, but people are lazy.

As long as two or more professions are relatively equal when it comes to healing/support, but just do it in different ways, and most every other profession still has the option to heal itself and others, then that situation will not happen here even if healing and support were their own thing.
And because you can pretty much switch you build on the fly now, I don’t see that being a problem, since you can just change for that instance, then go back to doing whatever when your done.

It only becomes a problem when your made to do something you don’t want to do all the time, because you have not other option to do otherwise. Doing something different for 30 mins-1 hour isn’t going to kill you.

Josh Davis.6015:

• Weaknesses:
  • Little ability to deal with enemy boons
  • Reliant on adrenaline to use many abilities
  • Can become overwhelmed by conditions if their defenses expire

This I am sorry but I don’t get it.
Little ability to deal with enemy boons => does it mean they have poor boon removal ?
If yes isn’t it the case of all professions except mesmers necro & thief ?

Reliant on adrenaline to use many abilities => is there a profession not reliant on its core ability ?

Can become overwhelmed by conditions if their defenses expire => do you mean by taking too much, warrior can possibly die ? If yes isn’t it also the case on all classes ?

In the end are you saying that warrior weakness is that
-some profession may be stronger on boon removal than them.
-they have to do something to be successful (using their abilities)
-are not complete god mode that can possibly die sometimes if stars are well aligned ?

Half the professions cannot remove boons.
Adrenaline is a massive bonus.
Warriors are the kings of condition removal thanks to Cleansing Ire.

The devs were completely reaching when they created these fake weaknesses for warriors.

Axialbloom.8109:

Half the professions cannot remove boons.
Adrenaline is a massive bonus.
Warriors are the kings of condition removal thanks to Cleansing Ire.

The devs were completely reaching when they created these fake weaknesses for warriors.

I honestly think warriors are fine for the most part and the other classes have to brought up to their level. Stances have to be reworked somehow and things like endless CC chains (in general, not just warrior related) should be a nono.

I concur with others on the warrior, it is a little too strong.
I don’t really care one way or the other, but the problem with the warrior is that it has no weaknesses, at least not ones that matter.

So what if it can’t deal with boons, boons suck. It won’t stop a warrior from ripping your face off, so counting that as a weakness is kind of a joke.
Adrenaline has no weakness at all, so it’s dishonest to call it a weakness.
And lastly they seem perfectly capable of dealing with conditions, so how is that a weakness? It could be if they really did have problems with conditions, but they don’t.

They have a lot of strengths, and no real weaknesses. I think it’s fine to be good at certain things, but you need something to counter balance it, and currently there really isn’t anything doing that.

It’s why I consider the Guardian to be the most balanced profession, it has clear strengths and weaknesses, which matter, with not a lot of bugs or crap skills/traits, nor do you get pigeonholed into certain traits or skills because they are far better then the others. (cough, mesmer, cough)

Julie Yann.5379:

Deniara Devious.3948:

snip

3. I would agree with this if all our burst skills weren’t so beautifully animate and blatantly obvious. it probably wouldn’t make a huge difference though. I can get all the adrenaline back for it is of CD most of the time anyway.

Oh look the warrior is doing their burst ability.. let me interrupt it…. oh shoot auto stability. dead

Oh look the warrior is eviscerating… let me blink away from this location…. the warrior changes directions in mid-air and hits me. dead

Warrior has really good consistent DPS, so I have to use at least a decent portion of my cool downs to survive. Even If I do use a CD stop it often times it doesn’t work for the reasons stated above. Heck I’ve put a a tree between me and the warrior. His attack stops at the tree… but i still take the damage…. seems legit… right?

Oh and no I just can’t kite him around… their like a cheetah with the build of a polar bear: Really fast but some how lots of fat to protect them.

So, when is the next balance patch? It is ridiculous that it took 6 months for minimal changes.

I might as well briefly air my thoughts on all the other professions.

• As above, the Warrior is a little too strong. If it’s mobility wasn’t as insanely high as it is, and it had a little more difficultly with conditions, or rework boons so they weren’t a total joke, then maybe they would have legitimate weaknesses. Their strengths are fine, just give them something they are bad at…. that matters.

• Guardians are probably the most balanced, they have good offense and great defense, but suffer in the range and mobility department. The have a lot of boons/support and condition removal, but very few applications of conditions or boon removal. (not like the last part matters) They don’t really have any dead skills or trait, nor too many bugs, their just about right all round.

• The Engineer is a little odd. It tends to have couple of skills that dominate, which in turn informs their build. While they don’t have many skills that are just outright bad, it just Grenades and Bombs tend to be a little too good at both direct damage and condition spamming, which is one of their strengths. Maybe if the Flamethrower and Elixergun were brought up a bit this would be less of a problem, and of course their Turrets could always do with more work. Their just kind of all over the map.

• Rangers have seen some improvements, and I think they have some of the best weapon skills in the game. The utilities are a mixed bag of very good, and completely useless. Traits often times seem to have too much focus on their pets, which is a problem because even to this date they are still kind of broken. They can’t deal damage reliably, which undermines their intended purpose. They are far more of a drawback then a strength due to shoddy implementation. And this negatively impacts everything the Ranger does as a result.

• The Thief like the Warrior is a little too strong, just a tad thou. While the Thief has clear weaknesses, they can be rather easily offset with investment in Shadow Arts line. Because they can stealth at the drop of a hat they have complete control over the flow of a battle, and combined with extraordinary offensive abilities this makes them very deadly. However with both regeneration and fast condition removal while in stealth, they can heal up and reset the fight quicker then their opponents often. I think if Shadow’s Embrace were a Major train instead of an Adept, swapping places with Hidden Thief, and it’s intervals between condition removal was bumped up to 5 seconds from 3, then they would have to be much more careful around condition users. Currently their condition removal is a tad to strong for such a little investment.

• Elementalist are also fairly balanced, with clear strengths and weaknesses, only I think their weakness are more pronounced then say that of the Guardian. Since DPS is king, and you can’t exactly stop people from dealing their damage other then dodging and a handful of abilities, having less health just means your much more likely to die in any given fight, since range really makes little difference. If support was actually important and useful where you could actually protect people, then the more fragile professions wouldn’t be at a disadvantage. If it weren’t for the Ele’s mobility it would be in a very bad place. Atm is ok, but it’s not great either.

• The Mesmer has always been in a weird place, not usually that bad thou. It all work well enough, and it’s fairly strong 1-on-1, but it’s group play is horrible, well, more horrible then it already is. The problem I have with it is that your constantly pigeonholed into the same skills and traits with every build. Deceptive Evasion, Decoy, Blink. Without DE you simply don’t have the clone production to keep yourself alive for very long, let alone fuel certain builds, and there is no other trait that can regularly produce clones in any line, so you have no other options. Decoy and Blink on the other hand are just so powerful in keeping you alive, because if your caught with your pants down you die very quickly. Nothing else quite measures up to these to skills. Besides that, the Mesmer is a buggy horrible mess with probably the most bugs of any profession, so even if you did want to do something else, it doesn’t work half the time.

• Lastly the Necromancer, which I kind of hate with the passion of the thousand suns, but it is a little better then it used to be. It does tank well, and it has loads of conditions. Sadly, it has very little else other then that. Minions are a joke, and their direct damage and life stealing is kinda pathetic for the most part. They just don’t have a lot of other functional options. They do a couple things really well, and not much else. Their ability to manipulate boons is kind of a waste of time, life stealing is weak sauce, and minions are worthless. So if your not using mass conditions your better off elsewhere.

Julie Yann.5379:

Chrispy.5641:

The fact that you, (someone who is defending Warriors), typed the word OP at all in your previous posts kind of says otherwise.

I’m saying the problem is not the warrior, it’s the runes and foods that fill in any weaknesses we might have or make our strengths OP. If it wasn’t for runes of strength our DPS wouldn’t so high in PvP. If it wasn;t for melandru and -condi food our mobility would not be over the top in WvW cause we would be susceptible to movement impairment.

I also hear a lot of “my profession doesn;t have a place in every game mode, please nerf warriors until they don;t have a place either. The way I won’t feel so left out.” I’ve read a lot of the suggested nerfs all that would do is make warriors what the use to be, free kills.

I do agree that there are things that need to be changed. Like the amount of mobility on the GS, Cleansing Ire and Burst Mastery combo. The braindead healing signet which is not really OP in terms of healing, the fact that it is fully passive makes it really lame to play and play against.

So, because Melandru Runes are too Powerful on the Warrior, the Runes should be nerfed for everyone, making everyone else weaker? Stop blaming mechanics that affect everyone for you being too powerful.

I could also care less about just mobility. The Warrior’s Superior condition removal with certain builds is what’s too powerful.

The problem with the Warrior starts with Cleansing Ire, and gets compounded by Burst Mastery and the Discipline trait line, and ends with Anet saying that there is no problem with Warrior and that they are working as intended, despite Anet also saying that conditions should be a weakness of theirs, then retracting that statement by saying “only when their defenses run out”.

Lets look at what is wrong with the Warrior and conditions ::

• Cleansing Ire can remove up to 3 conditions.
• Burst Mastery allows you to use burst skills for 33% less cost.
• Getting Burst Mastery also means a full investment in Discipline, which means that Burst skills are on a 30% faster cool down (7 seconds).

Not even including the other two points on that short list which make Cleansing Ire even more powerful than it is, what other profession can remove 3 conditions every ten seconds for the cost of a master trait (and helps them get to that by letting them use their class mechanic more often by granting bonus adrenaline when hit)?

Chrispy.5641:

So, because Melandru Runes are too Powerful on the Warrior, the Runes should be nerfed for everyone, making everyone else weaker? Stop blaming mechanics that affect everyone for you being too powerful.

I could also care less about just mobility. The Warrior’s Superior condition removal with certain builds is what’s too powerful.

The problem with the Warrior starts with Cleansing Ire, and gets compounded by Burst Mastery and the Discipline trait line, and ends with Anet saying that there is no problem with Warrior and that they are working as intended, despite Anet also saying that conditions should be a weakness of theirs, then retracting that statement by saying “only when their defenses run out”.

Lets look at what is wrong with the Warrior and conditions ::

• Cleansing Ire can remove up to 3 conditions.
• Burst Mastery allows you to use burst skills for 33% less cost.
• Getting Burst Mastery also means a full investment in Discipline, which means that Burst skills are on a 30% faster cool down (7 seconds).

Not even including the other two points on that short list which make Cleansing Ire even more powerful than it is, what other profession can remove 3 conditions every ten seconds for the cost of a master trait (and helps them get to that by letting them use their class mechanic more often by granting bonus adrenaline when hit)?

I am saying the foods and oils should not be in WvW and if Anet is serious about balance they should remove them from there. That is what puts Melandru/DoggedMarch over the top. It’s what puts a ton of other builds on other professions over the top as well. Without food, that setup is pretty balanced and the runes don’t have to be touched. Nerfing every other warrior build that doesn’t use these runes because of food making it OP is not a good idea either. As for Strength runes, they make any power build OP in PvP and they should toned down.

As for Cleansing Ire, you can clear up to six condis in a 10 second period. I can burst and blast (clearing 3 condis with only 2 adrenaline spent) with long bow, swap (gain adrelanine) do a couple of attacks and burst again with the second set in 10 seconds. I probably can’t maintain that rate consistantly but even if just once or twice in a fight is way too strong. I am all for changing that.

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!

that’s funny, because i run an elementalist and its kryptonite is Everything

i’ll just answer the first part by saying Almost every person i have talked to since the launch of this game looks at the elementalist profession and sit there dumbfounded, while a miniscule amount of persons praise it as some sort of obscure treat that needs a preposterous amount of tending to attain fruition

Yeah, I think Cleansing Ire and Shadow’s Embrace have similar problems, as they offer very strong condition removal for such little investment, which is also not bound by any type of skill, but rather has a very wide and regular application.

Removing conditions via traits isn’t the problem when it requires a particular skill type, like how Mender’s Purity only works on your heal skill, so at best your getting 4 conditions removed every 10 seconds, with a three 3 cast time.
Or when Pure of Voice removes conditions of shouts.
But when it’s bound to your core mechanic, or skill functions that you can spam, then your effectively giving them near overwhelmingly strong condition removal for just one trait with no drawback whatsoever.

Esp since these two professions are so powerful to begin with, you just giving them strong condition immunity as well, it’s beyond the pale.

Julie Yann.5379:

Chrispy.5641:

So, because Melandru Runes are too Powerful on the Warrior, the Runes should be nerfed for everyone, making everyone else weaker? Stop blaming mechanics that affect everyone for you being too powerful.

I could also care less about just mobility. The Warrior’s Superior condition removal with certain builds is what’s too powerful.

The problem with the Warrior starts with Cleansing Ire, and gets compounded by Burst Mastery and the Discipline trait line, and ends with Anet saying that there is no problem with Warrior and that they are working as intended, despite Anet also saying that conditions should be a weakness of theirs, then retracting that statement by saying “only when their defenses run out”.

Lets look at what is wrong with the Warrior and conditions ::

• Cleansing Ire can remove up to 3 conditions.
• Burst Mastery allows you to use burst skills for 33% less cost.
• Getting Burst Mastery also means a full investment in Discipline, which means that Burst skills are on a 30% faster cool down (7 seconds).

Not even including the other two points on that short list which make Cleansing Ire even more powerful than it is, what other profession can remove 3 conditions every ten seconds for the cost of a master trait (and helps them get to that by letting them use their class mechanic more often by granting bonus adrenaline when hit)?

I am saying the foods and oils should not be in WvW and if Anet is serious about balance they should remove them from there. That is what puts Melandru/DoggedMarch over the top. It’s what puts a ton of other builds on other professions over the top as well. Without food, that setup is pretty balanced and the runes don’t have to be touched. Nerfing every other warrior build that doesn’t use these runes because of food making it OP is not a good idea either. As for Strength runes, they make any power build OP in PvP and they should toned down.

As for Cleansing Ire, you can clear up to six condis in a 10 second period. I can burst and blast (clearing 3 condis with only 2 adrenaline spent) with long bow, swap (gain adrelanine) do a couple of attacks and burst again with the second set in 10 seconds. I probably can’t maintain that rate consistantly but even if just once or twice in a fight is way too strong. I am all for changing that.

If Anet was serious about small scale balance in WvW, they would have never introduced Applied Strength/Fortitude. I think that’s why foods still exist in WvW, and they probably aren’t going way anytime soon, but if they are going to continue to exist in WvW, Anet needs to do a balance pass on all foods, and get rid of the +/- 40% duration stuff unless its for an individual condition(as opposed to all conditions), but that would require adding a lot of new foods, and reworking a lot of stuff, and I personally don’t believe that Anet is willing to do that (so just expect a future food nerf in general instead of balance)

On the Melandru/Dogged March combo, an added total duration of -58% is still kind of high (unless it is multiplicative, in which case -50% is still high), but manageable since the warrior is sacrificing a little of everything else for that reduction. But Anet said that Warriors shouldn’t have all that movement. When they fight, they should be fighting, not disengaging like a thief, so I guess we’ll see where this goes in the next balance patch.

And yeah, the last paragraph you typed, that’s kind of my point. With minimal investment, Cleansing Ire can cleanse faster than any other master trait in the game, even many grandmaster traits. With more investment (what you described) it becomes way, way, way too powerful.

Yoh.8469:

Yeah, I think Cleansing Ire and Shadow’s Embrace have similar problems, as they offer very strong condition removal for such little investment, which is also not bound by any type of skill, but rather has a very wide and regular application.

Removing conditions via traits isn’t the problem when it requires a particular skill type, like how Mender’s Purity only works on your heal skill, so at best your getting 4 conditions removed every 10 seconds, with a three 3 cast time.
Or when Pure of Voice removes conditions of shouts.
But when it’s bound to your core mechanic, or skill functions that you can spam, then your effectively giving them near overwhelmingly strong condition removal for just one trait with no drawback whatsoever.

Esp since these two professions are so powerful to begin with, you just giving them strong condition immunity as well, it’s beyond the pale.

Compare those traits that aren’t bound to any one skill type to a trait that is bound to something like dodges, like for example, Evasive Purity. This Ranger trait only cures two conditions every 10 seconds, and is a Master trait. But it requires something you don’t want to spam over and over (dodging), and it only cures certain conditions (Blind and Poison). Thieves have their ‘Fleet of Foot’ trait, and Elementalists have ‘Stop, Drop, and Roll’, all of which are the same but remove different conditions.

When compared to other traits that remove conditions on dodge, they are alright, but when compared to other forms of condition removal, these are all pathetically weak for master traits.

Chrispy.5641:

Yoh.8469:

Yeah, I think Cleansing Ire and Shadow’s Embrace have similar problems, as they offer very strong condition removal for such little investment, which is also not bound by any type of skill, but rather has a very wide and regular application.

Removing conditions via traits isn’t the problem when it requires a particular skill type, like how Mender’s Purity only works on your heal skill, so at best your getting 4 conditions removed every 10 seconds, with a three 3 cast time.
Or when Pure of Voice removes conditions of shouts.
But when it’s bound to your core mechanic, or skill functions that you can spam, then your effectively giving them near overwhelmingly strong condition removal for just one trait with no drawback whatsoever.

Esp since these two professions are so powerful to begin with, you just giving them strong condition immunity as well, it’s beyond the pale.

Compare those traits that aren’t bound to any one skill type to a trait that is bound to something like dodges, like for example, Evasive Purity. This Ranger trait only cures two conditions every 10 seconds, and is a Master trait. But it requires something you don’t want to spam over and over (dodging), and it only cures certain conditions (Blind and Poison). Thieves have their ‘Fleet of Foot’ trait, and Elementalists have ‘Stop, Drop, and Roll’, all of which are the same but remove different conditions.

When compared to other traits that remove conditions on dodge, they are alright, but when compared to other forms of condition removal, these are all pathetically weak for master traits.

Yeah, all the on dodge condition removals tend to be pretty underwhelming, given that dodges are limited and the conditions are specific. If they were all Adept traits across the board, then ok then. As is it has a lot to be desired.

But then you have a couple of traits like CI and SE that completely blow them out of the water, then you have to wonder what they were thinking.

Thief
1) Merge Traits/ give them new Traits in the created gaps
2) Make Venoms their F-Mechanic and let venoms have influence on the weapon skills.
Make Steals an automatic Feature getting Stealth, instead of Shadow Stepping.
3) Fill the gaps from the moved Utility Slots with new Utility Skills
Improve their Role as Boon Controlers, let them Steal Boons
4) Rework Shadow Steps, so that Thiefs become less reliant on Stealth!!!
5) Redesign all Underwater Skills, so that you actually want to fight as a thief under water
6) Raise back Shortbow Range to 1200!!! and raise their Base Health to the same level of the Ranger
7) Redesign their Stolen Skills and add more also to the list.

Necromancer
1)Lower their Base Health to where Thieves are now, but let Minions raise the Necros Base Health, so more Minionsyou summon.
2) Merge of Traits…
3) Give them as like the other classes new Weapons, the Necro needs a Cleave Weapon, like Greatswords that could be used as Power Weapon for a more melee oriented combat style with more mobility.
4) Remove the Wells, give them better Utilities and integrate the Wells into the Staff Skills as Traits.

Guardian
1) Give them a way to get +25% movement speed increase via Trait or Utility
2) Merge Traits…
3) Remove the Spirit Weapons and integrate them as automatic Summons when you activate your Virtues, give them better new utilities
4) Give them a new 4th virtue

Warriors
1) Nerf the Healing Signet either more, or finally remove Buff items out of WvW!!
2) Merge Traits…
3) Reduce significantly their Movement Range, make them slower.
4) Make their F-Skills better telegraphed
5) Make Warhorn and Shield better damaging skills. Both weapons extremely lack in good skills with that you can deal good damage.
6)Rework the physical utilities into traits/F-Skills and replace them with better utilities

Elementalist
1) Merge Traits…
2) Improve Staff Skills
3) Remove the Cantrips as additional attunement Side Effects as if traited and give them new more interestign environmental utilities, like Weather Effects as new utilities.
4) Put in a channeling time of say 2s between attunement changes, so that Eles can’t spam cycle so fast through their skills anymore.
5) Give Eles a Weapon Swap Function, but doing so, limitates the Ele to play with just only 1 Element and this boosts slightly the power of your chosen element as you become a specialized Pyromancer, Hydromancer, Geomancer or Aeromancer then.

Mesmer
1) Reduce the power of the Greatsword Phantasms, theay are way too OP
2) Merge Traits…
3) Rework their Shatter System into exchangeable Shatter Skills, so that some utility skilsl can be redesigned into exchangeable Shatter Skills.
4) Remove Polymorph and exchange it with a better Elite Skill, that actually does direct damage and that isn’t so extremely unbalanced that it basically works as "I win button! Remove Mass Invisibility and instead put in a better more useful Elite Condition/Boon Support Skill, like an improved version of Chaos Storm, > Chaos Sphere

Ranger
1) Merge Traits…
2) Improve the whole Pet Command System and allow us to manually control and commands, like in GW1. Integrate the shouts into the pet command system to make place for better utility skills
3) Integrate their traps into Traits/Weapon Skills to improve for exampel their Torch Skills, by lettign the Torch create Flame Traps… Again a way to give the ranger more useful utility skills
4) Enable rangers to play them with 2 pets at the same time as true Beast Masters
5) Make the damage of pets weaker and improve the power of ranger skilsl therefore slightly, the player should still be the main damage source.

Engineer
1) Merge Traits…
2) Turn the Flamethrower/Elixigun into environmental weapons, which can also be used by other players, just like conjured elemental weapons and make them engineer traits for rifles that just exchange the rifle with the kit weapon skills when you use the traits. The toolbelt skills become the the environmental weapons that can be picked up by allies. This creates some space for new utilities also.
3) Buff slightly the power of Grenades/Bombs, but reduce their condition effects.
4) engis need better melee options with maces, axes, hammers, torches

General points:
- Stop handling WvW like PvE, while it’s clearly some sort of PvP (but with different ’rules’)
- Stop nerfing everything that is not bad. Just buff some of the weaker/underused stuff.
- Balance updates should be done more often and in small steps (I’m tired of investing in things that get nerfed and become unusable, and redoing all my traits on my 6 level 80 chars because a patch erased ALL my traits AGAIN)

Warrior:
- feels too powerfull overall with almost no weakness
- Healing signet is seriously overpowered when compared to any other healing skill.

Guardian: (overall the best balanced class)
- Spirit Weapons are useless in pvp and wvw. (I don’t even see anyone using it in pve either)

Mesmer:
- In wvw they are only used for veil, portals and the occasional ’Null field’. In wvw these skill tend to be required when meeting other zergs (or at least on my server :p). Veil hides you from the enemy, portal bomb to them and use null field on them. Zergs don’t seem to need any other stuff that a mesmer can do and usually even demand they have at least veil on them at all times.
- No AoE damage

Ranger:
- No strengths at all. Whatever they (try to) do, other classes can do it better/faster and more powerfull. (On my server rangers are not even allowed in some zergs, because they are ’useless’ compared to other classes).
- Pet(s) have a habit to walk into AoE and die almost instantly.

Elementalist:
- They do good damage. But have almost no defense at all and even have the lowest toughness and health in the game. Any defense tends to come from the ’arcane’ traitline.
Elementelist are currently too ’fragile’ and need better (and more) access to some defensive stuff.
- If they want to be able to give decent heals, they need to trait for it (a.k.a. forcing them to give up some of the (too) much needed defensive traits). I suggest to rework the waterbased attack and buff the healing they do and change the affecting traits a bit.

Thiefs:
- Can jump in and out of combat easily. Problem is that whenever they start losing a battle they tend to stealth and run away.
- They can use their finisher to kill someone when stealthed, but when the necro uses DS he can’t use his finisher? Either prevent stealthed thiefs from using finisher or also allow it for necro’s in DS.

Necro:
- Minions are pretty bad. From my experience they are either not attacking at all or attacking the wrong enemy (especially true for the Flesh golem)
- MinionMancer have no underwater elite (minion) skill.
- MM needs to spend ALL traits into their pets but with the bad AI, they still easily die under any AoE.
- Since MM are traited for pets they end up having no defense at all for themself. (so AoE quickly kills pets AND the necro. But if you play an asura you may have the luck to be hard to find between all those pets :p)
- Overall defense relies too much on attacking while we don’t even have access to stability
- Burst capability, where is it?
- Depends a bit too much on DS to survive.
- Has a very hard time escaping from battles
- The only AoE they have is conditionbased.
- When the necro gets low on hp and the healing is on cooldown they all tend to go to DS, making the ’Blood magic’ traitline mostly useless when it could starts being usefull. It usually also means the necro is about to die (Necro can’t escape battles so tend to resort to DS as a last resort).
- DS is completly gone when the enemy does some burst damage (making DS useless most of the time)

Overall: Necros have good hp (and DS) and pets can be nice. They also have good access to condition and condition removal.
The problem is that the very bad AI makes pets mostly unusable especially since they tend to die easily under AoE leaving the necro weak and vulnerable a bit too easy.
It wouldn’t be the first time that I’m fighting (with my MM build) and that my minions are not attacking (especially true for flesh golem) and if they start to attack they tend to run towards the AoE stuff, killing them fast and easy.
Necros can only defend themself by attacking, but nothing else (yet, they have no stability). With no real defense and useless pets their hp (and DS) is being drained way too easily. They also need to have a look taken at the blood line working together with DS.

Holland.9351:

The Ranger pet is nothing but a complete handicap.

• Ranger has less damage
• 24 traits dedicated to the pet
• several utility skills dedicated to the pet (shouts & signets)
• pet keeps Ranger in combat

• worthless in WvW outside of capturing supply camps
• worthless in PvE against champion-level mobs

Get rid of the Ranger pet, it’s a worthless mechanic. I’d take any other class mechanic over it.

Yes please this! I only recently made a ranger and:
- In pvp it gets lost, wonders off, has to run up and down platforms most of the time leaving me on my own and in combat if I try to run..when I try to snipe people from a hight advantage the pets just sits next to me BEING TOTALLY USELESS or travels half a map to reach my target.

- In PVE (and all game modes) it’s a Mine-sweeper..just runs into all the red cyrcles and gets killed, eats all the bosses attacks and gets one-shotted or keeps me in combat when I don’t want to be.

- WvW mine-sweeper, yolo useless kamikaze in zergs.

And why can’t I pet Raptors!?!? The best pet in the game and I can’t tame it!!! No excuses..

Endofrant

How is HS still a problem? it’s already been nerfed. Do you want it to go back to the pre-buff days of 200 hp/s?
When we had no sustain?

Yoh.8469:

-stuff-

You rely on other party members to :

-Stack might
-Provide reflects
-Remove conditions ( via skills or combos)
-Take pressure off by disabling the boss
-Provide stealth
-Provide blocks
-Provide protection and stability

And on the list goes. You can complete content without doing this but if you do you will be rewarded with better clear times.

Dungeons are boring and easy because :

1)We’ve had the same ones for 2 years. Most players know them by heart.

2)Dungeons were intended to be difficult at their intended level with undergeared players – not at level 80 with full exotic/ascended.

3)Players have had 2 years almost to get good at their class, their build and the game’s mechanics in general.

And in those conditions ( at a lower level without good gear) dungeons are still a challenge especially if the player is new and inexperienced.

Were you here when the game launched? Did you do dungeons then?
I was in groups that did an AC explorable path in 1 hour or more – but that was because the circumstances were very different.

Regarding WvW – that was always going to be the case because regardless of roles there are other key issues:

1) There is nothing to prevent you from gathering in huge numbers and we all know that 10 people are better than 5.

2)The map size favors zergs because the maps are small enough for a zerg to be able to react quickly to almost any threat anywhere on the map – therefore there’s no incentive to have smaller groups stationed across the map when one huge zerg can traverse and clear threats in any location.

Also on the issue of bigger numbers winning – that’s how things are – even in reality.
Even if you had roles numbers would still matter since MORE enemies would have MORE DPS, MORE tanking and MORE healing.

And if you think healing isn’t a thing in WvW you probably haven’t played it. Water fields and blast finishers are a core aspect of any good zerg and without it your zerg will wipe.
Boons such as stability and protection are a core aspect of keeping your zerg alive.
Condition removal is a core aspect of keeping your zerg alive.

These things do matter but will never matter more than organization and numbers.

A well organized group of 10 will crush a poorly organized group of 13-14 players regardless of trinity or no trinity. A blob of 25-30 will crush that 10 man organized group regardless of trinity or no trinity.

The thing about builds is that the “play how you want” players don’t want to switch or be told what to do. That’s why you have them on the forums complaining in the first place.

Do you honestly think that if the meta changes so that you require “support” guardians will ever find a way to be taken on runs and be allowed to play anything else than support?
It’ll be " go anchor or go home" all over again.

Reading threads like this actually makes me appreciate why the Dev’s were hired to build the game and not the player base.

My only two gripes atm would be the traits, Diamond skin on Ele’s and the DD/DE/PU combo for Mesmer’s. Diamond skin should be condition reduction not outright immunity. For Mesmer, maybe have DE clones have an evaporation rate of 1sec or a leash range of 450 and then they go inert. Something to reduce a PU builds potency. It simply feels out of spec in this game.

Personally I feel this “Ranger has intentionally lower damage than other classes due to pet” has to change or the class will be forever considered a third-rate class.

You can’t give a class a permanent disadvantage based on the assumption that a non-permanent pet is always up. This flatout gurantees Rangers will never have good maximum efficiency uptime compared to other classes thanks to an A.I. that has been proven to be terribly ineffective; fragile, slow and have difficulty hitting targets.

I’m guessing there is something of a 70% : 30% ratio of Anet’s intended maximum damage of the class split between the Ranger and its pet. This is wrong, it should be something like 100% : 20%. If the Ranger player is skilled enough to make the pathetic pet A.I actually sucessfully work for him, the player should be rewarded with extra damage.

It seems what the balance team wants to do with Rangers is to make the pet synergise with the player as much as possible, and make sure players pay full attention to it. All those traits tied to pets, weapon skills, utilities…that’s fine. I love Rangers; I made two of them just for the heck of it and I’ve had some great pet/ranger skill combo moments that felt awesome. But such moments are so rare thanks to the barely functional mechanic, and the fact that I must jump through all those hoops just to reach the maximum efficiency built-in in every other class by default is disheartening and depressing. Even if I was some sort of god-tier ranger player and executed a perfect play, I would always know the results would have been better on another class.

In the stream they told rangers have the greatest ranged dps… Ele have 3 time more and its aoe. Scepter/dagger ele have 90k spikes and can rotate stuffs, staff eles have a little less, but with more range and radius + tons of fields on weapon skills

I’d really like to have a clear writeup of the intended design for each profession. Since release most of the information has been sloppy, contradictory, and occasionally out of line with what we see in game or in the patch notes.

Also a few other questions I feel need answered:

How is the ranger considered a sustained damage profession when most of its mechanics are about burst damage, not sustained? The greatsword has three burst damage skills. 2 of the signets support burst damage. Path of scars is burst damage. Opening strike is burst damage. Had the best quickness access before trait reorganization (still has decent). Moment of clarity is burst damage. And so on.

What exactly is your definition of sustained damage? If a thief can use repeat backstabs and heartseekers are those sustained or burst attacks? Hundred blades does many multiple hits without a very long cool-down, is this considered burst or sustained?

How does your profession design model fit into every area of the game? When you talk about the professions it seems like your doing so from a mostly PvP perspective, but how do you balance their strengths and weaknesses around a PvE environment when many balance factors are less important to non-existent?

DeWolfe.2174:

Reading threads like this actually makes me appreciate why the Dev’s were hired to build the game and not the player base.

My only two gripes atm would be the traits, Diamond skin on Ele’s and the DD/DE/PU combo for Mesmer’s. Diamond skin should be condition reduction not outright immunity. For Mesmer, maybe have DE clones have an evaporation rate of 1sec or a leash range of 450 and then they go inert. Something to reduce a PU builds potency. It simply feels out of spec in this game.

Anet were going to change DE to try and address the strength of PU builds. But it would have been too detrimental to other builds so they decided against it (with a little bit of help from the community). The best way to reduce the potency of PU is to nerf the trait itself. Stealth is already a great defensive mechanic, but also giving a Mesmer protection and Aegis (and regeneration that will further proc protection) is just too much.

As someone who has been playing non-PU, low stealth, clone death builds since release, I would hate to see my dps and survivability reduced just to compensate for one overpowered grandmaster trait that I have no interest in. In fact, by nerfing anything else other than PU, you’d probably end up with more Mesmers using it.

When a warrior has no stances he is a freekill for every profession. He is forced to play LB cause of CI. Heling Signet effect is blown away when he has 3 stacks of blood or fire on his kitten . Every class has sth. that equals to the Signet.
Fights:
warrior vs enge:
when zerkstance is down all time minimum of 5 stacks confu on warrior. Burning with 600-700 dmg all time on warr. if you wanna come in melee blown away. Fire and forget turrets. Oh enge heals all 15 sec for minimum 50% of his hp.

warrior vs necro:
warr uses balance stance. try to go to the nec. gets chilled, crippled. nec rips boons. fears the war all night long with contitionoverload on his kitten . zerk stance used by war, war hits nec. nec goes in Death Shroud tank warr attaks and deal great dmg btw.

warrior vs mes:
oh there are 4 of them. i get the right. where is he. illus die. kitten 5 confu, cripple, bleeding on warr. clean conditions. ah there is mes. o no again 4 of them. a there is the rigt one. omg again away. trying burning field to clean conditions. new illus die. oh no again conditions on me. a wild chaosstorm apears. a there is the mes with a aura on it.
hiting him. omg getting conditions overflow.

i can go on with this but i’m to lazy now. Most attaks of a war are predictible. And if you use dodge for normal attaks it’s your fault. Before you start to rage:
I play every class and all are on 80 with minimum exo gear. I only use war in pve and sometimes in wvw or pvp. Most of time i play in the competitive time of the game thief (D/D, D/P, P/D), guard(Shout or Meditation) or ranger (LB full zerker) and sometimes Mesmer. And 90% of the warriors are free kills.
I said that in another thread: If you’re not able to kill a warrior or make him run away from you, you should hardly deinstall the game.

PS: sry for my bad english.

In my own opinion, for gw2 when looked at classes in their most basic form…
Warrior:
pros- high survivability(health+toughness) and offensive skills
cons- long/predictable cast time of weapon skills.
Guardian:
pros- high survivability(toughness+boons) with high damage support skills
cons- boon ripping
Necromancer:
pros- medium survivability (F1 skill, death shroud?) with high damage conditions
cons- cannot fight prolonged battles due to the lack of F1 skill.
Ranger:
pros- medium damage with (currently not) enough utility to counter every class
cons- reactive gameplay, lack of boon ripping
Thief:
pros- medium survivability from stealth and medium~high damage skills
cons- low armour and require initiative management
Engineer:
pros- medium survivability and medium damage with range of unique utilities
cons- predictable utility

well, this what I feel, but should be at least a post up there giving great ideas and advice for gw3. what’s done is done, and currently from what I typed it feels like playing team fortress with unique hard counters. but I’d support gw rather than WoW any day. so.. you know, be unique. Not some[ ‘expensive, online version of rock-paper-scissors with a lot of pretty colors’ -Swagg.9236] which I agree fully

Bri.8354:

I’d really like to have a clear writeup of the intended design for each profession. Since release most of the information has been sloppy, contradictory, and occasionally out of line with what we see in game or in the patch notes.

Also a few other questions I feel need answered:

How is the ranger considered a sustained damage profession when most of its mechanics are about burst damage, not sustained? The greatsword has three burst damage skills. 2 of the signets support burst damage. Path of scars is burst damage. Opening strike is burst damage. Had the best quickness access before trait reorganization (still has decent). Moment of clarity is burst damage. And so on.

What exactly is your definition of sustained damage? If a thief can use repeat backstabs and heartseekers are those sustained or burst attacks? Hundred blades does many multiple hits without a very long cool-down, is this considered burst or sustained?

How does your profession design model fit into every area of the game? When you talk about the professions it seems like your doing so from a mostly PvP perspective, but how do you balance their strengths and weaknesses around a PvE environment when many balance factors are less important to non-existent?

They don’t balance PVE. Anyone can win in PVE. With anything.
The balance in that aspect of the game is very loose at best.