Guild Wars 2

Just wondering on the general feel from the patch were everyone think the classes stand as far as viable, easy to play, strong in pve, strong in pvp being ranked the best to worst in your opinion . my list would look like

1) Rangers – WVW stronger, spvp better a little more feared, viable, medium difficulty
2) Guardian – WVW still good, spvp is ok but not the best, viable, medium difficulty
3) Engineer – WVW really good, spvp average, viable, hard difficulty
4) Elementalist – WVW still good, spvp no much data but there ok, viable, hard difficulty
5) Mesmer – WVW Good a little different now, spvp a little weaker in some area, viable, medium difficulty
6) Warrior- WVW a little harder, spvp not much data not great, viable, was easy now medium difficulty
7) Thief – WVW not as easy to get the kill now, spvp same as WVW, less viable than before, easy difficulty
8) Necromancer – WVW nothing really changed, spvp weaker burst for some, not really viable, Medium difficulty

And there you have it what i think from this patch were the classes stand now, note I’m not really huge on pve so I don’t know to much right now on how much has changed for them.

I hate when ignorant people call thief an easy class, go play the meta DP spec, maybe it was easy back in december but months of power creep have left it worst class in game.

Ranger isnt medium difficulty its easier than warrior ever wkitten

ter mesmer is onr of the hardest specs in the game.

Elementalist isnt hard to play its faceroll.

Elitist.8701:

I hate when ignorant people call thief an easy class, go play the meta DP spec, maybe it was easy back in december but months of power creep have left it worst class in game.

Ranger isnt medium difficulty its easier than warrior ever wkittenter mesmer is onr of the hardest specs in the game.

Elementalist isnt hard to play its faceroll.

Skill floor varies on game mode.
In WWW roaming most beginners rolls thieves and they are effective…
Some of them try an ele and get back to their thief in few minutes

PU mesmer is all but hard to play…. i see that whatever you can counter is not a faceroll and fair
Even shatter is just extreely similar to DD ele….

Ranger atm is just ridiculous.
Pressing 2 every 8 seconds takes no skill.
But hey ……thief can counter it with stealth so its fine.

I wonder why you forgot to talk about engi…. i suppose its a faceroll.

LordByron.8369:

Elitist.8701:

I hate when ignorant people call thief an easy class, go play the meta DP spec, maybe it was easy back in december but months of power creep have left it worst class in game.

Ranger isnt medium difficulty its easier than warrior ever wkittenter mesmer is onr of the hardest specs in the game.

Elementalist isnt hard to play its faceroll.

Skill floor varies on game mode.
In WWW roaming most beginners rolls thieves and they are effective…
Some of them try an ele and get back to their thief in few minutes

PU mesmer is all but hard to play…. i see that whatever you can counter is not a faceroll and fair
Even shatter is just extreely similar to DD ele….

Ranger atm is just ridiculous.
Pressing 2 every 8 seconds takes no skill.
But hey ……thief can counter it with stealth so its fine.

I wonder why you forgot to talk about engi…. i suppose its a faceroll.

Nahh full Glass ranger could do the exact same before the Patch, it’s just that everybody and their mom are running this now. There was no LB ranger after patch i had any Problems with actually, not even in those “ridiculous” teamfights everybody is crying about, Those rangers were downed faster by our thief then they could say “Oh kitten”

Overall :

1) Warrior, WvW great in roaming and zerging, easy to master, PvP great.
2) Elementalist, WvW great roaming and zerging, medium difficulty, PvP great.
3) Guardian, WvW great zerging / good roaming, easy to master, PvP great.
4) Necro, WvW grat zerging and roaming, easy to master, PvP good
5) Mesmer, WvW good zerging / great roaming, medium difficulty, PvP good
6) Ranger, WvW mediocre zerging / great roaming, easy to master, PvP mediocre.
7) Engineer, WvW bad zerging / great roaming, medium difficulty, PvP good.
8) Thief, WvW bad zerging / great roaming, medium difficulty, PvP mediocre.

Warrior is still the best option, every profession is easy/medium in general, there are some spec that might be difficult to master like Shatter mesmer but I haven’t considered them.

I think Anet should improve Thief in general, and improve Engi/Ranger/Mesmer for WvW zerging.

1. Engi
2. Ele
3. Mesmer
4. Warrior
5. Ranger
6. Guardian
7. Necro
8. Thief

This is my opinion in sPvP. Though there was a thief build that I found hard to kill 1vs1, thought it was S/D.

<——-Pvp rank 52 necro. I really lold at this one. I’d put necro over, warrior, guardian, thief, ranger definitely and maybe ele, but lets just say below ele. Only engi and mesmer i would really consider over necro. Both in spvp and WvW.

Difficulty really depends on the person but i wil say it is hard not medium. Been playing it for 2 years and i still have to pay very close attention to my skills timing or im skrewed by thief especially.

Ragion.2831:

<——-Pvp rank 52 necro. I really lold at this one. I’d put necro over, warrior, guardian, thief, ranger definitely and maybe ele, but lets just say below ele. Only engi and mesmer i would really consider over necro. Both in spvp and WvW.

Difficulty really depends on the person but i wil say it is hard not medium. Been playing it for 2 years and i still have to pay very close attention to my skills timing or im skrewed by thief especially.

Depends on the situation ofc, but necro is at the bottom PvE-wise (which is included in the OP). Furthermore necro’s can be very decent in TeamQ but in SoloQ I’d rather chose a warrior or guardian over a necro, and yea, the choice between ranger and necro might be 50/50.

Hepatolith.6389:

Nahh full Glass ranger could do the exact same before the Patch, it’s just that everybody and their mom are running this now. There was no LB ranger after patch i had any Problems with actually, not even in those “ridiculous” teamfights everybody is crying about, Those rangers were downed faster by our thief then they could say “Oh kitten”

Can you please stop telling lies ?
Ranger was NOT the same before patch , absolutely not !
This trait has been replaced by Predator’s Onslaught. All effects from that trait have been rolled into the baseline signet abilities.
^^ They got a FREE GM Trait no if they chose to use a signet !!!!

Long Range Shot.png Long Range Shot:
Increased damage at the 0-500 range by 17%. Increased damage at the 500-1000 range by 7%.
^^ if you maange to get anywhere near to the ranger all of his damage with Longhow is between 7 and 17% higher….. sure not a big deal right … LOL

Rapid Fire:
Decreased casting time from 5 seconds to 2.5 seconds.
^^ yeah no big deal either, if you have to channel for 5 secs or for 2.5 does not make any difference i guess….

Swoop:
The ranger now evades during the attack portion of the skill.
^^ does not matter, cause noone was gonna imob or daze rager when he tried to get in or away ….

Hilt Bash:
Increased stun and daze durations to 1.5 seconds.
^^ well whatever, 1sec daze or 1.5 …. ignore that fact.

and before i forget it.

Read the Wind:
This trait now grants a 10% attack speed increase while wielding a longbow.
^^ yeah well only 10% who cares about this anyways.

Ok you see, nothing changed here for LB/GS ranger past 09.09 patch – really nothing they are exactly like they were before.

Ignorant ppl out there – do you even read the notes ?

LordByron.8369:

Elitist.8701:

I hate when ignorant people call thief an easy class, go play the meta DP spec, maybe it was easy back in december but months of power creep have left it worst class in game.

Ranger isnt medium difficulty its easier than warrior ever wkittenter mesmer is onr of the hardest specs in the game.

Elementalist isnt hard to play its faceroll.

Skill floor varies on game mode.
In WWW roaming most beginners rolls thieves and they are effective…
Some of them try an ele and get back to their thief in few minutes

PU mesmer is all but hard to play…. i see that whatever you can counter is not a faceroll and fair
Even shatter is just extreely similar to DD ele….

Ranger atm is just ridiculous.
Pressing 2 every 8 seconds takes no skill.
But hey ……thief can counter it with stealth so its fine.

I wonder why you forgot to talk about engi…. i suppose its a faceroll.

difficulty could depend on different builds .
“but Even shatter is just extreely similar to DD ele.”… i heard a lot of qq about d/d cele ele in pvp is faceroll i never hear anyone qq about shatter mesmer is faceroll in pvp . I might be wrong i guess.
Right now every class got their easy spec to play but in general thief isn’t easy at all (since their easy spec s/d got broken )
By the way usually people who says mesmer and thief are harder is considering skill cap . We could understand that instead of trying hard against each other(well forum works kinda like this way but we can be better human beings i guess)

LazyDeer.7063:

Just wondering on the general feel from the patch were everyone think the classes stand as far as viable, easy to play, strong in pve, strong in pvp being ranked the best to worst in your opinion . my list would look like

1) Rangers – WVW stronger, spvp better a little more feared, viable, medium difficulty
2) Guardian – WVW still good, spvp is ok but not the best, viable, medium difficulty
3) Engineer – WVW really good, spvp average, viable, hard difficulty
4) Elementalist – WVW still good, spvp no much data but there ok, viable, hard difficulty
5) Mesmer – WVW Good a little different now, spvp a little weaker in some area, viable, medium difficulty
6) Warrior- WVW a little harder, spvp not much data not great, viable, was easy now medium difficulty
7) Thief – WVW not as easy to get the kill now, spvp same as WVW, less viable than before, easy difficulty
8) Necromancer – WVW nothing really changed, spvp weaker burst for some, not really viable, Medium difficulty

I am disagreeing with this list.

When it comes to most organized fights of at least 5 players, the warrior changes were much smaller than it comes to spvp/tpvp or pve. Warriors and guardians still make up more than half of almost any WvWvW zerg. GWEN is still the meta and yes, Necromancer is part of it. The standard Hammer + sword/warhorn shout warrior is more or less before the patch, except the adrenaline depletes very fast outside combat. This should be at least changed in pve, to make adrenaline deplete 33% slower than the current crazy speed in pve.

Guardians actually got buffed, so this alone should put them into the very top of the food chain (#1 spot).

Rangers got excessive buffs to LB and got a GM signet related trait for free (= massive buff to signets). I love the new GS changes though. I have written a long post about this in another thread:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Rapid-Fire/page/2

The condi mesmers buffs were very unfortunate, just like the ranger, turning it into a faceroll profession in small scale and 1 vs 1 (in zergs condi builds tend to suck).

If engineer is “really good” in WvWvW, why it is the least played profession there? Unless you bring a lot of gap closers and blocks, the LB ranger + thief death squads will burst you down. This reduces build variety as playing a power engineer is like lottery in WvWvW, forcing almost all engies into condi spam semi bunkers or full bunkers. Condition removal has always been engineer’s big weakness and now it was somewhat addressed by a very minor change to drop antidote (removes immobilize) and toss elixirs, but let’s face it: very few use an elixir build for a good reason. WvWvW roaming is full of condi builds. The relaliation is still bugged and does unintended extra damage after the patch (I don’t know why Arenanet doesn’t fix this). This punishes the grenade kit users very hard, even more than the LB rangers.

I also disagree on the thief difficulty: condi P/D and perma stealth P/D thieves are the easy mode builds, but D/D thief is not among the most easy builds and S/D got hit pretty hard. P/D actually got a buff. Venom share could be really powerful to the point of being overpowered, luckily most thieves don’t realize this yet.

Elementalists are definitely in top in all game modes: the best utility and AoE dps class in WvWvW zergs, decent roaming as celestial D/D, used in top tpvp, dungeons (still even after the FGS nerf).

a t s e.9614:

In reality thief is the hardest to play in spvp due to the low sustain you only rely on dodge and blind to survive .

Shatter mesmer it is actually…

I dont usually respond to people who cant type because it hurts to decipher, but ill make an exception.

lvis.3824:

Can you please stop telling lies ?
Ranger was NOT the same before patch , absolutely not !
This trait has been replaced by Predator’s Onslaught. All effects from that trait have been rolled into the baseline signet abilities.
^^ They got a FREE GM Trait no if they chose to use a signet !!!!

Wow. Now our signets actually effect us, just like everyone elses always have. Man, how dare they. Unacceptable.

lvis.3824:

Long Range Shot.png Long Range Shot:
Increased damage at the 0-500 range by 17%. Increased damage at the 500-1000 range by 7%.
^^ if you maange to get anywhere near to the ranger all of his damage with Longhow is between 7 and 17% higher….. sure not a big deal right … LOL

You dont understand, this isnt bonus damage, its decreasing a handicap. If you get close to a longbow ranger his damage drops drastically, it just doesnt drop as drastically as it did before.

lvis.3824:

Rapid Fire:
Decreased casting time from 5 seconds to 2.5 seconds.
^^ yeah no big deal either, if you have to channel for 5 secs or for 2.5 does not make any difference i guess….

This skill previously did less damage than auto attacking.

lvis.3824:

Swoop:
The ranger now evades during the attack portion of the skill.
^^ does not matter, cause noone was gonna imob or daze rager when he tried to get in or away ….

Again, you dont seem to understand how ranger skills work. Evade on “the attack” means at “the very end of the skill.” That means if you try to immob or daze or chill or cripple or ANYTHING to a swooping ranger, it is going to hit him and prevent him from either getting in or out. The evade doesnt kick in until the ranger actually reaches his destination.

lvis.3824:

Ok you see, nothing changed here for LB/GS ranger past 09.09 patch – really nothing they are exactly like they were before.

Ignorant ppl out there – do you even read the notes ?

Its ignorant of you to read that guys post and not comprehend what he was saying. He didn’t mean that literally “nothing” had changed with the patch. Obviously the patch had improvements. What he meant was that everything rangers are capable of today, they were capable of pre-patch.

a t s e.9614:

LordByron.8369:

Elitist.8701:

I hate when ignorant people call thief an easy class, go play the meta DP spec, maybe it was easy back in december but months of power creep have left it worst class in game.

Ranger isnt medium difficulty its easier than warrior ever wkittenter mesmer is onr of the hardest specs in the game.

Elementalist isnt hard to play its faceroll.

Skill floor varies on game mode.
In WWW roaming most beginners rolls thieves and they are effective…
Some of them try an ele and get back to their thief in few minutes

PU mesmer is all but hard to play…. i see that whatever you can counter is not a faceroll and fair
Even shatter is just extreely similar to DD ele….

Ranger atm is just ridiculous.
Pressing 2 every 8 seconds takes no skill.
But hey ……thief can counter it with stealth so its fine.

I wonder why you forgot to talk about engi…. i suppose its a faceroll.

Thieves are called “easy” because of scrubs using shadow arts in WvW. The SA ttaitline should be completely deleted because of the bias towards the class.

In reality thief is the hardest to play in spvp due to the low sustain you only rely on dodge and blind to survive .

Anyway the OP also do sent know what his talking about, D/D ele is not hard its faceroll even easier than warrior now. They have a braindead rotation , 12345 swap attunement 12345. Its totally skill less and the sustain on Ele allows so many mistakes compared to thief.

If you play any profession long enough it becomes easy to you. I’m not sure how long you’ve played D/D ele, but I’m just saying. But I will say that any D/D Elementalist that does 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and swaps attunements is not a very good one. D/D ele is all about the skill combinations. I use Cleric’s gear on mine, not Celestial.

@Tom.8029

The fact that you use Cleric’s amulet shows how good you are at the class. D/D ele is completely faceroll even “at a high level” (not sure how you know what people do at a high level). All you do is DPS in fire air, CC and protection in earth and then healbot healbot healbot water. I used to main ele back when it wasnt so faceroll but quit cuz its a joke now. Clerics is even more faceroll than Cele. Its literally a full heal every water attunement…

Elitist.8701:

@Tom.8029

The fact that you use Cleric’s amulet shows how good you are at the class. D/D ele is completely faceroll even “at a high level” (not sure how you know what people do at a high level). All you do is DPS in fire air, CC and protection in earth and then healbot healbot healbot water. I used to main ele back when it wasnt so faceroll but quit cuz its a joke now. Clerics is even more faceroll than Cele. Its literally a full heal every water attunement…

Some builds have full damage, some builds have full healing, and some builds have a good mix. My build has a good mix. Just because I have a lot of healing doesn’t mean anything. I still need to time my heals properly and manage cooldowns. Being in Cleric’s gear causes me to be weak in the damage department, so it takes skill to be able to take people down, I would think.

How dare you talk to people like this. I bet you’re pretty pleased with yourself because you played Ele more when it was more difficult to play and stopped playing now that it has become easier to play. I’ve played ele for a long time too. No need to be a jerk over the anonymity of the internet. It just shows what type of person you are. And the answer is a terrible one.

Right now?
1.Warrior.Even with the nerfs,they are still capable of speccing for anything they want,while being very good at it.
2.Guardian.Same reasons,but almos has to spend 6 points in every build to heal extra in compensation for their low hp
3.engineer.Good at everything but handling condis.Still teamfight powerhouses.
4.Mesmer.Better aoe?check.Full of tricks?check
5.Ranger.Omfg.It’s viable now.It lives!It has purpose!Excellent snipers,formidable foes.
6.Thief.Having 3 viable builds,all of them 1 trick ponies (go backstab,go dodges,go condi…) it’s not being in a good spot.Good at what they do well,horrible at everything else
7.Elementalist.1 build to rule them all.1 build for doing damage,1 build for sustain,1 build,for everything.At least,they get good stuff done by being semi-korean starcraft 2 players…
8.Necromancer.The new rangers.No suppereffective moves,NU tier…
I mean,they either stun-condi lock you or they die.No sustain,no support,no real advantages over other classes but damage on fear

1) Warrior.
Broken OP , still causes afks to poeple with weak stomach.

2) Elementalist
Carried by celestial and good heals in pvp, wvw and pve is all about AoE anyway.

3) Guardian.
Their good builds most not recieve any further buffs (like the free meditation on elite skill)

4) Engieneer
Last 3rd of the celestial 1v1 gods trinity. Weapon mechanics allow these 3 to stack 9x might for free. Burning + Almost warrior puke like healing does the rest

5) Mesmer
Nothing new beside better GS+Staff , just stronger due to thief nerfs.

5.1) Thief
Lots of old evaders crying, while the good ones magicaly ramaing effective in their teams. In conquest, thief could be without armor, but mobilty would keep him viable. Though this means he must mostly lose 1v1 node encoutners… good/bad u decide

7) Necromancer
Waste of words to say same thing 100x times.

8) Ranger
Maybe 7th , longbow pewpew isnt seen to wrok in higher tournies. Youre deciding between the slow/weak necro or the same old spiritrezz.

Necro, thief, warrior/ele , recntly engie player perspective.

Im surprised Guardian isnt nr1 for most people.

The more competitive pvp gets the more Guardians you see, looking at high-end pvp its practically an unwritten rule that you need to bring atleast one Guardian. Some bring two, leading to absurdly high representation stats. ToL had Guardians clocked in at a more then 1 per team, average. Teams would sooner run two Guardians than no Guardians.

WvW has never known anything but a massive amount of Guardians. From day 1 untill now, every zerg needs their mass of Guardians. The current GWEN meta is over a year old. With at the core a kittenton of both Guardians and Warriors. The difference is, Warriors got nerfed and Guardians got buffed.

Terrahero.9358:

Im surprised Guardian isnt nr1 for most people.

The more competitive pvp gets the more Guardians you see, looking at high-end pvp its practically an unwritten rule that you need to bring atleast one Guardian. Some bring two, leading to absurdly high representation stats. ToL had Guardians clocked in at a more then 1 per team, average. Teams would sooner run two Guardians than no Guardians.

WvW has never known anything but a massive amount of Guardians. From day 1 untill now, every zerg needs their mass of Guardians. The current GWEN meta is over a year old. With at the core a kittenton of both Guardians and Warriors. The difference is, Warriors got nerfed and Guardians got buffed.

Guards always fly under the radar even though they are meta in every single game mode and have been for a long long time. They have been mandatory on every pvp team since launch without any nerfs to their support or buffs to other classes support to increase team options. Honestly when you think about, guards have it better than any class in this game, and, while their player base would certainly disagree with this to avoid nerfs, they are the only class that has been top tier in every game mode since release.

What’s even more ridiculous is that they just got buffs while necros still haven’t gotten any real buffs to their sustain, mobility, or good access to stability to prevent them from being a glorified ping pong ball in team fights. Anet might not realize it, but it really shows class bias when necros are still the worst class in pve SINCE LAUNCH without any real attempts to buff their damage or group utility. I realize it sounds like I’m asking for a lot, but the only thing necros have that guards don’t are condition builds. Meanwhile, guards have builds for group support, and damage that make them beastmode in every gametype.

I also don’t want people to think I want guards to get huge nerfs. I just want Anet to stop focusing on classes that are good in all gamemodes and start working on classes that suck in multiple gamemodes (AKA rangers, necros, and very possibly thieves afterpatch).

Terrahero.9358:

Im surprised Guardian isnt nr1 for most people.

The more competitive pvp gets the more Guardians you see, looking at high-end pvp its practically an unwritten rule that you need to bring atleast one Guardian. Some bring two, leading to absurdly high representation stats. ToL had Guardians clocked in at a more then 1 per team, average. Teams would sooner run two Guardians than no Guardians.

WvW has never known anything but a massive amount of Guardians. From day 1 untill now, every zerg needs their mass of Guardians. The current GWEN meta is over a year old. With at the core a kittenton of both Guardians and Warriors. The difference is, Warriors got nerfed and Guardians got buffed.

No Guardians were on the winning teams for ToL 2. They are not number 1 in high tier sPvP.

musu.9205:

LordByron.8369:

Elitist.8701:

I hate when ignorant people call thief an easy class, go play the meta DP spec, maybe it was easy back in december but months of power creep have left it worst class in game.

Ranger isnt medium difficulty its easier than warrior ever wkittenter mesmer is onr of the hardest specs in the game.

Elementalist isnt hard to play its faceroll.

Skill floor varies on game mode.
In WWW roaming most beginners rolls thieves and they are effective…
Some of them try an ele and get back to their thief in few minutes

PU mesmer is all but hard to play…. i see that whatever you can counter is not a faceroll and fair
Even shatter is just extreely similar to DD ele….

Ranger atm is just ridiculous.
Pressing 2 every 8 seconds takes no skill.
But hey ……thief can counter it with stealth so its fine.

I wonder why you forgot to talk about engi…. i suppose its a faceroll.

difficulty could depend on different builds .
“but Even shatter is just extreely similar to DD ele.”… i heard a lot of qq about d/d cele ele in pvp is faceroll i never hear anyone qq about shatter mesmer is faceroll in pvp . I might be wrong i guess.
Right now every class got their easy spec to play but in general thief isn’t easy at all (since their easy spec s/d got broken )
By the way usually people who says mesmer and thief are harder is considering skill cap . We could understand that instead of trying hard against each other(well forum works kinda like this way but we can be better human beings i guess)

If you hear someone crying about an ele in WWW he is not a www player.
DD ele in WWW is all but easy to play since you NEED dps since you can t prevent your target to flee.

And the fact most people lists have exacts similarities between PvP and WWW suggests they just play one and assume is the same for the other.

DD ele in WWW is as easy as playing berserker ele in PvP.
In WWW there is 33% more stats at least, and condition (control) reduction up to 80% or more maybe.

That means your full celestial 00266 ele will just kill doliaks at most, and die to any Group passing by.

(i have dps issues with 70% berserker 30% celestial 04046…just FYI… and i even go 64022 sometimes to stand a chance against some professions…and you should try to play those before even trying to say L2P since they are all but easy to play….).

While thief will be able to spam 2 buttons, disengage and reengage at will with rotations extremely easy.

You know that only in the weekend, i heard 2 thieves going back to their main class after trying other professions?

It happens so often that its hardly debatable.
Thief in WWW roaming is the most forgiving and beginner friendly profession.
Might have a high skill ceiling, but for sure the skill floor is the lowest in the game.

It has simply everything…even warrior can’t stand a chance compared to it.

Stop assuming WWW has anything in common with PvP… your suggestions ruined the game enough already.

Or try to count the roaming thieves opposed to eles you meet in WWW…..20 to 1 at least.

And most eles runs different builds (fresh air, aura share even condition and stuff like that mostly not because there is build diversity, but simply because noone is so good to be meta).

LordByron.8369:

musu.9205:

LordByron.8369:

Elitist.8701:

I hate when ignorant people call thief an easy class, go play the meta DP spec, maybe it was easy back in december but months of power creep have left it worst class in game.

Ranger isnt medium difficulty its easier than warrior ever wkittenter mesmer is onr of the hardest specs in the game.

Elementalist isnt hard to play its faceroll.

Skill floor varies on game mode.
In WWW roaming most beginners rolls thieves and they are effective…
Some of them try an ele and get back to their thief in few minutes

PU mesmer is all but hard to play…. i see that whatever you can counter is not a faceroll and fair
Even shatter is just extreely similar to DD ele….

Ranger atm is just ridiculous.
Pressing 2 every 8 seconds takes no skill.
But hey ……thief can counter it with stealth so its fine.

I wonder why you forgot to talk about engi…. i suppose its a faceroll.

difficulty could depend on different builds .
“but Even shatter is just extreely similar to DD ele.”… i heard a lot of qq about d/d cele ele in pvp is faceroll i never hear anyone qq about shatter mesmer is faceroll in pvp . I might be wrong i guess.
Right now every class got their easy spec to play but in general thief isn’t easy at all (since their easy spec s/d got broken )
By the way usually people who says mesmer and thief are harder is considering skill cap . We could understand that instead of trying hard against each other(well forum works kinda like this way but we can be better human beings i guess)

If you hear someone crying about an ele in WWW he is not a www player.
DD ele in WWW is all but easy to play since you NEED dps since you can t prevent your target to flee.

And the fact most people lists have exacts similarities between PvP and WWW suggests they just play one and assume is the same for the other.

DD ele in WWW is as easy as playing berserker ele in PvP.
In WWW there is 33% more stats at least, and condition (control) reduction up to 80% or more maybe.

That means your full celestial 00266 ele will just kill doliaks at most, and die to any Group passing by.

(i have dps issues with 70% berserker 30% celestial 04046…just FYI… and i even go 64022 sometimes to stand a chance against some professions…and you should try to play those before even trying to say L2P since they are all but easy to play….).

While thief will be able to spam 2 buttons, disengage and reengage at will with rotations extremely easy.

You know that only in the weekend, i heard 2 thieves going back to their main class after trying other professions?

It happens so often that its hardly debatable.
Thief in WWW roaming is the most forgiving and beginner friendly profession.
Might have a high skill ceiling, but for sure the skill floor is the lowest in the game.

It has simply everything…even warrior can’t stand a chance compared to it.

Stop assuming WWW has anything in common with PvP… your suggestions ruined the game enough already.

Or try to count the roaming thieves opposed to eles you meet in WWW…..20 to 1 at least.

And most eles runs different builds (fresh air, aura share even condition and stuff like that mostly not because there is build diversity, but simply because noone is so good to be meta).

Ouch, thieves are going to rage/whine endlessly at you for this lol.

But it’s true. Why do you think there are so many more thieves in WVW roaming than elementalists? I may have just been unlucky with finding all the roaming eles, but aside from my own ele, I’ve only seen 2 or 3 other eles in the past 3 weeks roaming in WVW. (only one of which was running d/d, the other 2 were both using a staff) I’ve seen countless thieves, mesmers, and warriors.

It’s just so much easier to zerker/condi bomb upleveleds and stealth or nike away than actually risk your life fighting more than one player as, say, a necromancer. :P

@LordByron – I would accually agree in terms of roaming as a thief – it is very easy (mained thief, now maining ele), because of that i swapped to ele. In other side i disagree with lack of dmg on ele – I use 0/2/2/4/6 full cele build with sigil of doom (sometimes bloodlust) to kill more sustainable targets and it works perfectly well. With this build i can fight and win quite often vs even 3 enemies.

As for balance I would say anet is in good way but way too slow – I mean build diversity (lastly running thief with traps – new rune of trapper and want to build an auramancer with radiance runes).

@rudy.,..

NOBODY but a stealth profession (i would argue only thief) can win a 1vs3..

If you meet 3 extremely bad players its possible.

But your 02246 (i used that a year ago), won t be able to kill a single DECENT thief, warrior or mesmer.

They can disengage at will and you have just updraft to slow them down (on a loong CD).
(You should know why i said only updraft ignoring other CC skills.)

and then you are left with abysmal cooldowns against them fresh as new.

I won t comment on anet balancing that seems lacking any guideline and just done with random attempts….

Totlally the opposite of what you see in real esport games.

People are actually saying that Guardians should be nr.1 now that one extra skill is considered a MEDITATION? Do these people even know what the hell they’re crying about?

@LordByron

I few times won 1 vs 4 and yes they were terribly bad, but 1 vs 3 is not that hard if you face zerg builds or mediocore rangers etc (not the roaming party). About killing thief – yes it is hard with this build but I try to provoke them to enagage again without utility – then I am fully stacked and can do lightning flash + burning speed combo for over 10k dmg + fire grasp. They die then. Warriors can only run from me, cause I’ve got sigil of doom to counter their regen. With mesmers I’ve got problems – with pu condi – they are hard to kill. But. Beeing while beeing more offensive I really cannot face more than 1-2 enemies like you said. Also when I roam on ele im taking camps mainly (often killing someone defending it) – killing ppl is effective but not as much as thief. Can I ask on what server do you play? Maybe there is different, but on Gunnars Hold my build works perfectly.

spvp/wvw perspective

1. Engi – not many recognize how powerful it is, but there is just so much you can do.
1. Warr – yeah, even after burst nerf
2. Guardian – just a really solid class
2. Ele – two great specs in Staff and d/d
2. Ranger – Rapid shot isn’t what makes you strong, pointblank + rapidshot does
3. Mesmer – nice buffs to condi and shatter
4. Necro – You’re not bad, other classes are just better.
5. Thief – yes, this is my class, but you took two viable builds and nerfed them in the wrong places. before I would have put thieves at #2.

1. Ranger / Engie
2. Guardian
3. Ele
4. Thief
5. Mesmer/ Warrior
6. Warrior/Necro

Can I ask on what server do you play? Maybe there is different, but on Gunnars Hold my build works perfectly.

Seafarer’s rest and i used your build but quit it year ago when anet buffed warriors and mesmers.

I can assure you on my server nobody can win a 1VS2 unless their opponents are total beginners (unless they use thieves).

And i myself kill lot of thieves.
Nothing to do with “skill” but with lack of it of my opponents.
When you meet a decent one, there is no chance you will kill it.

I also have a roaming party with 2 thieves when i want to be OP… it means you can instakill anyone from stealth.

(the opposite is true for any Group with 2+ thieves..stealth is a mechanic considered the apex of unbalance by some esport developers like namco for example….nuff said).

In WvW after feature path:

1) Guardian – the most important class for almost everything.
2) Warrior – high dps, high self-sustain. Put one next to a Guardian and lol.
3) Elementalist and Engineer – king and queen of AoE spam. Also amazing roamers.
4) Thief – squishy murderer, skipping facilitator, mild irritant. Can’t CnD walls
5) Mesmer – thieves with cooldowns. Herders of golems. Put veil here, now go away.
6) Ranger – pew pew pew, should donate weapon swap ability to Engineers.
7) Necromancer – sacrifices him/herself so everyone else can run. You lovely guys!

I’m just curious why most of you put mesmer at the bottom of the rankings. I mean, even if we take a look at tol winning team there is no engi. What is more in my opinion mesmer is more than viable at anything. But this is only my opinion, nothing to do with reality.

Hattoni.8597:

I’m just curious why most of you put mesmer at the bottom of the rankings. I mean, even if we take a look at tol winning team there is no engi. What is more in my opinion mesmer is more than viable at anything. But this is only my opinion, nothing to do with reality.

These kind of “lists” should be taken with a grain of salt. I noticed that many people often put their main profession at the very bottom of the list to manipulate others in a psychological way.

Engineers can be specced good at holding and contesting a point (spvp/tpvp), but WvWvW is a completely different beast. Most fights are far more mobile, the map is much bigger, the teams are much bigger, there are consumables and buffs unavailable in spvp/tpvp.

WvWvW is my main game mode. And there engineer is the rarest profession. Tells something about the game balance. Remember: majority of players always steer towards the easiest option for win. For example the 9/9 patch caused many warrior and thief players to switch to ranger: pew pew pew for win.

Engineer has never been part of WvWvW zerg meta. GWEN should actually be called GWENMT, where M stands for Mesmer and T for thieves. Mesmers are mandatory for the utilities they bring, mainly portals and veils, but you only need 1-3 mesmers in a zerg. Almost every single organized zerg also has dedicated snipers, who kill the enemy stragglers, flanks, do the stomps, scout ahead and so on. Thief fits this role the best, but mesmer, ranger or engi can also fill that role. In roaming the TOP3 most common professions have been: thief, mesmer and warrior (I used past tense, because I got a feeling ranger is now in that TOP3, thief still #1 though). They are more forgiving than the engineer, allowing easier ways to reset the fight and sustain focus fire. Yes, engineer has great sustained dps, good healing and ability to spam different conditions, but thief and warrior can be specced for much greater mobility = this really matters in roaming, ability to engage and especially disengage is crucial. For example necromancer can also do great dps and condition spam, but it kinda sucks in roaming, because it lacks mobility. The sheer amount of illusion spam mesmer can create easily mitigates most of the damage in many fights and mesmer has a very good access to stealth and teleports as well.

Guardian has always been more or less mandatory in top pvp teams and guardians typically make up about 25-30% organized zergs. Warriors are about as common.
Shout hammer + sword/warhorn or hammer+GS warrior is still overpowering good in WvWvW zergs. The amount of CC warrior hammer brings in is insane, considering that most professions have weak access to stability, stun breaks on a long cooldown and there is no diminishing returns in spamming hard CC. Elementalist and necro do the actual big damage, which the enemy is unable to avoid, while they are rooted, stunned, knocked down etc. And the meta has been the same already for 2 years. Sighs…

I am not saying guardian is an overpowered profession, but that is why I put #1 in my list. Extremely effective profession in every game mode, mandatory in WvWvW zergs (also most roaming teams of 3-5 have 1 guardian), mandatory in tpvp, very common in pve, low skill floor. The best group synergy with traits and skills (followed by elementalists and warriors). Guardian has for a long time had two common specs: shout support healer (either AH and/or PoV) and meditation burst. I do not understand why Arenanet keeps buffing these, but it seems they sense of game “balance” only revolves around a failed game mode (tpvp).

I don’t know why people keep complaining about guards, they got nothing but buffs from this patch yes, but they’re still in the same spot. A 2k heal on Renewed Focus when you trait for meditations is hardly broken as reduced CD. The main features of guardian buffs this patch was Glacial Heart ICD reduction, and Spirit Weapons usability. Spirit Weapons now aren’t required to invest 4 in Zeal just so you can use the command skill (Spirit Weapons used to die if you used the command skills without the trait). Guardian is balanced by the fact you sacrifice for what you want to do. If you want to bunker support you give up alot of offensive power. You want to be offensive you give up a lot of defensive power and group support( by going meditations). They also have glaring weakness of being really slow, kiteable , not having much soft CC, and hard controlling effects. So really i don’t understand how any of the changes really made Guardians over the top.

Lucentfir.7430:

I don’t know why people keep complaining about guards, they got nothing but buffs from this patch yes, but they’re still in the same spot. A 2k heal on Renewed Focus when you trait for meditations is hardly broken as reduced CD. The main features of guardian buffs this patch was Glacial Heart ICD reduction, and Spirit Weapons usability. Spirit Weapons now aren’t required to invest 4 in Zeal just so you can use the command skill (Spirit Weapons used to die if you used the command skills without the trait). Guardian is balanced by the fact you sacrifice for what you want to do. If you want to bunker support you give up alot of offensive power. You want to be offensive you give up a lot of defensive power and group support( by going meditations). They also have glaring weakness of being really slow, kiteable , not having much soft CC, and hard controlling effects. So really i don’t understand how any of the changes really made Guardians over the top.

Lol. Read ppl before telling. There were few posts having guard at the top but also told the meaning of it. Guard is the best support in the game in every aspect of the game, he’s not op. And if guard wants to make dmg, he’s not sacrificing much defence (blocks ,invul, heals, blinds).

As for my list I would make (from pvp/wvw experiance):
1)guardian – you need them to do anything in group
2)warrior – can be specced in different builds (pvp, zerg, roam), all viable (hambow abit op imho and roam too mobile with gs)
3)ele – my main (u see i’m not telling it is weak) – simmilar to guard (all game modes), best aoe dpser, nice support, decent roamer
4)engi – one man army, turrets…
5)thief – stealth, easymode roamer (idk if still good in pvp after nerfs)
6)mesmer – decent roamer, few useful utilities, most annoyinig class ;p
7)ranger – sniper, one trick pony
8)necro – I don’t wanna live anymore class xd, also one trick pony (would give him 6 for pvp)