Guild Wars 2

Just a public opinion thread. Since the question is vague, I’ll split it into three lists.

a) List the professions from 1-8 from strongest<1> in its role to weakest<8> in its role.

b) List the professions from 1-8 from requiring the most skill<1> to the least skill<8> to play.

c) List the professions from 1-8 being the most broken, imbalanced, or otherwise<1> to the least broken, most balanced, and overall “okay”<8>. For this one, perhaps give a reason, or even just whether it is imbalanced in the “OP” fashion or broken in the “UP” way of things.

Try to keep it civil, also, even though this topic will provoke a lot of arguing.

Well here we go, this should be fun.

a)
1) Warrior (very strong at most things)
2) Guardian (Have strong support, dps, and control builds, also to people saying meditation guard doesn’t have very much survivability, realize it still has more than half the other classes)
3) Thief (strong condition, sustained damage, and direct damage builds and basically kick all other glass builds out of the meta)
4)Engineer (good builds all around)
5)Elementalist (This class is difficult to play, but quite strong in most environments)
6)Necromancer (This is me trying not to be biased for my main class)
7)Mesmer (They don’t have good tanky builds, and don’t offer anything dps wise a thief can’t do more safely)
8)Ranger (Useless in WvW, and PVE, barely useful in PVP)

b)
1)Engineer (At high level very difficult to play)
2) Elementalist (keeping track of everything while playing is hard)
3) Mesmer (shattering properly, and using distortion/portal/tw at the right times makes this class difficult)
4) Necromancer (Managing terrible sustain, also require the best positioning to stay alive in pvp)
5) Ranger (Never played it can’t comment)
6) Thief (I never understood why people thought this class was even remotely difficult, not saying I’m the best thief player, but having low health doesn’t mean you are a hard class to play, very easy to teleport away then stealth and survive in almost any situation, and the weapon coefficients to do damage are absurdly high)
7) Guardian (The amount of innate survivability tools is absurd, combine that with decent weapon damage and insane group buffs just by pressing a button and you can understand why this class is easy to play)
8) Warrior (Since almost all of warrior’s sustain is through passive effects you literally only have to focus on doing damage. This class is stupidly passive and easy)

c)
1) Warrior (Very high reward for very little skill, not really fair when other classes have to work real hard to get good damage, or sustain and warriors can afk sustain and do good damage on most of their attacks)
2)Thief (Stealth is very cheap because you can do nothing proactively against a stealthed player. You have to react to them which gives thieves a massive advantage because their reaction is generally shadowstep away and shadow refuge, which is casually easy).
3) Necromancer (This class is very broken because they try to balance it’s sustain through death shroud by comparing it to dodges, blocks, and invulns. These are completely different mechanics and until Anet sees this Necros will have a very hard time being balanced. Also, I’ve never seen more useless or underpowered traits on a class.)
4) Ranger (Can’t believe they made a class that is dependent on a pet that can barely heal itself. Seriously, they need to let rangers succeed without the pet)
5) Mesmer (Bugs, and clones which are similar to the ranger pet as described above).
6) Guardian (They should have their group buffs toned down slightly so that other classes could potentially fill their role, and we could see some diversity at midpoint)
7) Engineer (The classes aoe right now is a lot, but nothing is innately op about this class).
8) Elementalist (They don’t have enough survivability right now, but they are really well designed otherwise.)

Wow… this thread is a pretty blatant attempt to incite class warfare.

Without doing a deep dive on your lists, which would be far too much typing, I’ll say this:

Warrior stands as the “Best” class in the game because so much about it “just works”. They have good weaponskills, great utility skills, trait choices that synergize well, and the dramatic advantage of both the highest base armor and health. This isn’t to say that they are overpowered! They are just the best-designed class in the game at the moment and really are a complete package that has very few glaring weaknesses.

Rangers, on the other hand, stand in juxtaposition to Warriors as an example of a class that has very little that works correctly. They are dependent on an AI entity for a significant portion of the DPS, their traits are lackluster, many of their utility skills are situational, and despite all of these drawbacks they don’t bring a lot of solid on-demand utility to their parties.

Tiresias.6473:

Wow… this thread is a pretty blatant attempt to incite class warfare.

Well, partially, yes, but I also want to know how everyone(forum people) stand on each profession right now and find such conversations interesting and thought it would be interesting if people could try to quantify their beliefs.

On that note:

a)
1. Warrior
2. Guardian
3. Thief
4. Elementalist
5. Engineer
5. Necromancer
5. Mesmer
8. Ranger

I couldn’t decide the order between Engi, Mes, and Necro. They’re all within the same place towards their roles, I think.

b)
1. Elementalist
2. Mesmer
2. Engineer
4. Necromancer
4. Ranger
6. Thief
7. Guardian
8. Warrior

Admittedly, some engineer builds are very strong with little skill. I know this because I tried a cheese build with an engineer for a single day, never before playing it, and I won consistently. However, ignoring that one build, I find the single weapon set that engis and eles have to be hard to deal with and am very bad with the attunements and kits. While I accept ele as the single most annoying thing I’ve tried to play with, I find engineer is more around the mesmer(what I main) level of skill.

c) …Don’t know. One of the reasons I’m asking.

a) List the professions from 1-8 from strongest<1> in its role to weakest<8> in its role.
1 Guardian
2 Warrior
3 Thief
4 Elementalist
5 Engineer
6 Mesmer
7 Necromancer
8 Ranger

b) List the professions from 1-8 from requiring the most skill<1> to the least skill<8> to play.
1 Mesmer
2 Thief
3 Engineer
4 Necromancer
5 Elementalist
6 Ranger
7 Warrior
8 Guardian

c) List the professions from 1-8 being the most broken, imbalanced, or otherwise<1> to the least broken, most balanced, and overall “okay”<8>. For this one, perhaps give a reason, or even just whether it is imbalanced in the “OP” fashion or broken in the “UP” way of things.

1 Thief – in conquest having a teleport with no cd is ridiculous and thus thief will be used regardless of viability in team fights.
2 Guardian – required to have a good team
3 Warrior – in order to deal with condis, your team must have at least 1 warrior to succeed
4 Engineer – turrets
5 Elementalist – faceroll win every 1v1
6 Necromancer – having lich that just reks fights is stupid as hell and really shouldnt be possible. most good teams will never wipe to one but still its stupid.
7 Ranger – spirits still stupid spam 1 to win, insta rez on 20s cd if spirit doesnt die
8- Mesmer – nothing wrong with it, portal can be cheesy but it is completely fair

a)
1. Warrior
2. Thief
3-4-5 Guardian/engi/elem in any order. (They are balanced, they might be slightly too strong here and there, but overall, I feel they are what every professions should be at)
6. Necromancer
7-8 Mesmer/ranger.

b)
1) Elem
2) Engi
3) Thief
4) Mesmer
5) Ranger
6) Necromancer
7) Guardian
8) Warrior (Come on, that class take 1 hour to master…)

PvE is what my list is based off.

Strong to weak,
1.Warrior
2.Guadian
3.Ele

These top three offer lots of damage at cost of no utility loss really. A conjure ele brings damage, gimmick breaking need to break a thing like burrows/tree bosses? lol icebow. FGS/lightning hammer not even counting FGS corner abuse, both have really high dps.

Heavy classes cleanse/buff/ignore damage/do damage just plain to well.

4.Engineer
5.Theif
6.Ranger

These classes offer a unique strength that helps them go into parties. Engi has hi vuln stacking and is also generally “I can fill any role” I main one, and stealth skip for my group, and vuln spam, and might stack, and dps all in the same build.

Theif trash skip with less set up then engi for longer durations. This combined with good dps/perma blinds on trash make them fill a needed niche for clearing quickly and efficiently.

Ranger has spotter/Frost spirit, free crit chance and a unique total damage mod. I think they are good personally, bad ones sour people though.

7.Necro
8.Mesmer

These two are in unforunate positions due to content lacking what they bring. An enemy with like 3x the normal armor would make condition necro shine since well they ignore armor! Boon based enemies will hate both necro and mesmer. Necro lacks useful utility that does something unique/well. Their dps is REALLY good though, and that alone makes them useable.

Mesmer is a poor soul right now, they kinda have these abilities that let them do stuff but nothing that is godly. They got reflects, but its less reliable then guardians. they have the boon/condition curing field, cd too long, clashes with guard again. Quickness nerf was unforunate, but it DOES work well still imo.

if the game shifts, these two I can see making HUGE comebacks.

As for another list, most fun to play

1.Engi
2.Ranger
3.Necro
4.ele
5.Thief
6.Mesmer
Heavies.

I dislike teh heavies, they are toooooo straight forward for me. My ranger I left alone for so long, but I recently picked up again and am having so much fun, its a fun change from engi, its simple but is complex in its own right. The skullfear build is actually so strong in pve its kinda silly. I love it.

Engi my fave though, because of all the kits and the subtle hard work that goes into being sucessful is rewarding for me.

Necro is just fun as kitten cause BRUTE FORCE EVERYTHING but its thematic is wonderful.

all the others are varying degrees of boring for me.

a t s e.9614:

And necro , they lack sustain only in team fights so if you mean its hard to survive in a zerg fest full of hambows, then yes maybe. But in 1v1 necro is by far one of the most faceroll classes out there. Terror necro= chain fear while spamming stuff off cool down.

Cool, so necros are useless in teamfights where they get focused, you agree then. Seriously though, if a class is only strong in a 1vs1, but useless in anything higher than that they are extremely weak. I’d argue that necros are actually weak in 1vs1s and strong in teamfights assuming they don’t get cc chained, but that is a discussion for another time.

a) List the professions from 1-8 from strongest<1> in its role to weakest<8> in its role.
1. Necromancer
2. Thief
3. Elementalist
4. Mesmer
5. Guardian
6. Warrior
7. Engineer
8. Ranger

b) List the professions from 1-8 from requiring the most skill<1> to the least skill<8> to play.
1. Guardian
2. Mesmer
3. Elementalist
4. Engineer
5. Ranger
6. Warrior
7. Necromancer
8. Thief

c) List the professions from 1-8 being the most broken, imbalanced, or otherwise<1> to the least broken, most balanced, and overall “okay”<8>.
1. Warrior – The only reason people say this is balanced is because its “good in PVE”
2. Thief – The day I can win GW2 using only the #2 button will be the best day of my life…Oh, wait.
3. Mesmer – Needs a huge, huge damage or defensive boost. At the moment it just feels like team-filler, at the moment, when I play Mesmer, I feel like a support class.
4. Engineer – Grenade kit needs it’s radius increasing to be useful. Bomb kit is useless, Flamethrower is a “troll build”.
5. Ranger – This profession needs some love, like, fast, before it kills itself from depression. Its nice at doing support and utility-things, but it hits for 0s, and dies as soon as I brush past it with a remotely edged object.
6. Guardian – Balanced, but I feel like the Virtues are useless. Their effects are so minuscule, they have never made a difference to me. They’ve never even saved my life, let alone supported my team.
7. Elementalist – Pretty balanced.
8. Necromancer – Ive played Necro since beta. I have used every “mainstream” build that exists. This is not OP, despite the whining of people who have never played Necro.

i mostly wvw so this will be a wvw list! :>

a)
1. Guardian (support, more support, and support! all the other classes really just revolve around the guard… central to any group from small scale to zerg v zerg)
2. Warrior (the best class for melee cc, 1st or 2nd in regards to mobility, high potential burst, highest hp/highest armor, also provides essential support (banners yay!) although warriors cannot have it all in a single build, they can be high performing in a variety of areas at the same time if built correctly.
3. Elementalist (high ranged dps, cc spamming left and right, boons for everyone!, essential water fields)
4. Necromancer (high ranged dps, devastating condi builds in small scale, AOE boon stripping [give me all your stabs!!], AOE blinding and overall omnomnoming people)
5. Mesmer (portal bombing! stealth for the whole zerg! pulling people off of walls! very nice roaming builds but weak at aoe dpsness)
6. Engineer / Thief (Think they are pretty much even in wvw. both are not very good in large groups although the thief can be more useful taking out the squishies in the back, roaming wise, thief has much higher mobility but many engin builds have better sustained condiness which is very very strong atm)
7. Ranger (… sorry! there are a few very strong builds, they can be very good in small scale but feels like they lack the utilities or have too many bugs to be consistently good)

b) really depends on the build but i think overall…
1. Mesmer (slow and squishy… positioning of skills, be at the right place at the right time, sounds like a headache :P asides from condi tank builds at least…)
2. Thief (survivability is completely dependent on the player, dps is also completely dependent on the player [using the right skills at the right time, ini management]. it’s very easy to get a lucky burst off sometimes when things go your way, very hard to do consistently. a lsides from condi tanks builds ateast… :P!)
3. Elementalist (using the wrong skill at the wrong time is virtually useless. Survivability is also dependent completely on the player.)
4. Necro (positioning positioning positioning! :P)
5. Guardians (they do what they do well but it’s not very hard to do.. :P even the burst builds seems very combo based)
6. Warrior (stun then burst… short cooldowns overall, high armor, health, mobility and personal healing… lets people get away with alot of mistakes and then some)

(dun know enough about playing engins and rangers… :x)

c)
1. Warrior (very high performing in all areas… can roam with the best of them, can blob like a champ [not at the same time obviously :P]. literally the best in many areas, at least the 2nd best in the rest. just the fact that the very first thing you need to learn to be at all useful in wvw is the warrior animations regardless of your own class… if you dun know how to react to them… :x)
2. Guardian (the class scales much too well. the more of them you have… well… you always want more guardians x.x)
3. Condi Engins, Mesmers, Necros, Warriors and Thieves (They simply out compete anything else in roaming and small scale. they would also out compete everything else in zerging if not for the fact that almost everyone builds to be as anti condi as possible to even play… aka aoe cleansing)
4. Thieves (stealth and evade spamming – very hard to fight unless you know how to exploit the weaknesses in order to win. But if you do… very easy to fight. not sure what can be done about that x.x)

Dondagora.9645:

Just a public opinion thread. Since the question is vague, I’ll split it into three lists.

a) List the professions from 1-8 from strongest<1> in its role to weakest<8> in its role.

b) List the professions from 1-8 from requiring the most skill<1> to the least skill<8> to play.

c) List the professions from 1-8 being the most broken, imbalanced, or otherwise<1> to the least broken, most balanced, and overall “okay”<8>. For this one, perhaps give a reason, or even just whether it is imbalanced in the “OP” fashion or broken in the “UP” way of things.

In small-scale WvW roaming;

the a-list:

1. Thief
2. Elementalist
3. Mesmer
4. Engineer
5. Warrior
6. Ranger
7. Guardian
8. Necromancer

The b-list is impossible to create with any value to it without specifying builds. Shatter Mesmer can be very skill-demanding, whereas PU is pretty much the easiest thing to play in this game (way easier then any warrior spec, for instance).

c-list (same problem as b-list, but here goes):

Imbalanced (skill required vs reward);

1. PU mesmer
2. P/D thief
3. Condi Engineer

On the Edge (of uselessness);

4. Warrior (one or two nerfs away from turning ‘adequate’ back into insta-lootbag)
5. Other thieves (always getting nerfed, just because stealth is so incredible in the right hands)

Weak;

6. Guardian (little mobility, other then that they are still top of the foodchain)
7. Ranger (staying power, but not enough damage for roaming)
8. Necromancer (mobility and incredible weak to cc)

“OK”;

Elementalist (IMO on of the strongest classes in roaming that is not cheese-mode-faceroll-ez, I put thief above because of stealth. But Elementalist requires enough skill that I am fine with the output, all be it a bit too much in 1v1)

Argon.1563:

6. Guardian – Balanced, but I feel like the Virtues are useless. Their effects are so minuscule, they have never made a difference to me. They’ve never even saved my life, let alone supported my team.

clearly doing it wrong

Kody.3289:

Argon.1563:

6. Guardian – Balanced, but I feel like the Virtues are useless. Their effects are so minuscule, they have never made a difference to me. They’ve never even saved my life, let alone supported my team.

clearly doing it wrong

You need at least 1 point in Virtues to make them worthwhile to activate, and passive wise VoJ is okay, VoR is really low regen without healing power, meaning without barely any healing power is about 81-100 HPS, VoC passive has saved me some times in duels from a stun and what not but is purely random in actual fights. If you want to make them good support tools you have to invest at least 4 points in virtues, for things like "Indominable courage, and Absolute Resolution. They are not good by themselves.

This thread doenst really work because builds, people say ele requires alot skill in pvp but d/d is so easy right now, but when u play scepter/x its does require a lot of skill. Same goes for mesmers, play easymode PU or shatter whih requires more skill. Man, this even counts for wriors, going full glass ishigh risk but high reward while your typical hambow doesnt require much skill. In team fights thieves might be hard to kill, sure, but its very hard for them to be effective while still surviving and dealing good damage.

hey people. I have a ranger build that is able to wipe any other profession with ease, just like any of the other professions sometimes wipes me with ease. Then i tought “why is it that i die to them??!?”
I realized at that moment, that there must be some invisible force that differentiate me from the others in that split moment, i do not know if this force has been discovered before, so i decided to give it a name. I called it “Skill”.
I will return to you folks later on with a deeper study into what “skill” is. For now, i am trying to devise a way of measuring it in some numerical or statistical value.