Guild Wars 2

This might be just me, but my thief can survive the tower better then my guardian can.

Devs hate guardians. Just saying.

As a guardian, lemme just say I go down plenty in the tower. The only “class-ism” I’ve felt in the game is from other players and their Warrior only groups. I’ve never felt rewarded for playing a Guardian. I can see why you’re frustrated, but if I get attacked I’ll still go down to those torments in a couple seconds. You’re overestimating the Guardian by a lot. Most of my DPS reduction comes from dodging.

@OP: I play fractals 38 and 48 with an elementalist. A class that is light armor (for some reason people think this is uber important) and with lowest base HP. With the upcoming changes you are complaining about I’ll be able to dish out more damage while maintaining same survivability, so I’ll be better off.

As far as LS’s go I play them with full zerker warrior with one condi cleanse… I also did the nightmare tower solo, with an untraited thief in zerker equipment, just for the lulz.

You don’t sound elitist, but learning how to evade/absorb 3 telegraphed attacks from a boss is a practice in memory, not in skill.
Vast majority of PvE mobs in this game use very crappy AI routines and I think that with the Tequatl, Tower of Nightmares and upcoming WvW map ANet is trying to introduce some advanced tactics for mobs (and players) to use in order to force average Joe to use his brain to go through “harder” content instead of muscle memory.

While guardians are powerful they are not really that good anymore. Like 90% of the changes to guardian since beta have been nerfs.

Anyone thinking ranger is weak has not been in a party that asks the ranger to “just die already so the rest of us can res”.

I expect devs will balance the content to be approximately equal to the existing levels.
//Portable Corpse

If you find that the heavy condition content is kitten your thief but not on Guardian/Warrior then you don’t play Guardian. Guardian, Thief and Elementalist would be affected, while Necromancer and Warrior would be the less affected, so your point is wrong.

Anyway, I did the Tower of Nightmare with my guardian and 2 friends with their thiefs with no problem.

Smh at “heavy classes” dealing with condis better than other classes. Conditions ignore toughness, so a natural armor bonus won’t help against condi spam. On the cc front thieves have insane mobility and evades out the kitten, so there’s no need to be face tanking those hits. Not to mention stealth to get out of a fight that’s going sour.

Don’t use the Tower content as a bench mark. It’s designed to be solo content. I soloed all 3 levels with a warrior. I find the guard builds are better when in a group. Not everyone plays them that way but the benefits of having a guard far out weigh using other classes when in a full party. I don’t think they are useless.

Heavy armor classes perform better in harder PVE content. Some of the living story content is harder (or without established tactics to make it easy) so the heavy armor classes have been looking better. All the content can be done with all classes but the heavy armor classes require a lot lower player skill to do it.

My main is an ele, i have also a war and a guard, in high lvl content i can play full zerk war i cant play full zerk ele, play full zerk war it s easyer then play dps/support ele… trash mobs hit too hard, the base hp of ele is ridicoulus, we have dodge and updraft from dagger, mesm for example, have alot of evade skill and 50% more base hp… anet need to rewrite mobs dmg otherwise war and guard will ever be better choise… i play 90% ele 5 war and 5 guard.. and i really dont underdtand why my full zerk war have more survivability than my ele…

Comparing Guardians to Warriors right now is a grievous insult to Warriors.

Use stealth and a sword, you can spam sword 2 to remove conditions. and shortbow to skip past blooms and enemies.

zerotwo.4731:

Don’t use the Tower content as a bench mark. It’s designed to be solo content. I soloed all 3 levels with a warrior. I find the guard builds are better when in a group. Not everyone plays them that way but the benefits of having a guard far out weigh using other classes when in a full party. I don’t think they are useless.

Uhhh warrior is extremely strong in pve

Lunar Sunset.8742:

Use stealth and a sword, you can spam sword 2 to remove conditions. and shortbow to skip past blooms and enemies.

Thief Sword #2 is going to take a heavy beating by the nerf bat come the December Patch

Lian Olsam.9541:

My main is an ele, i have also a war and a guard, in high lvl content i can play full zerk war i cant play full zerk ele, play full zerk war it s easyer then play dps/support ele… trash mobs hit too hard, the base hp of ele is ridicoulus, we have dodge and updraft from dagger, mesm for example, have alot of evade skill and 50% more base hp… anet need to rewrite mobs dmg otherwise war and guard will ever be better choise… i play 90% ele 5 war and 5 guard.. and i really dont underdtand why my full zerk war have more survivability than my ele…

Eles are the easiest profession to survive with in zerker, you can run a bunker trait set up and do moderate damage. I’m sorry but I laugh at anyone who says ele is too squishy. It’s not, dodge and switch attunements.

PS, reading the skill descriptions is helpful too.

What is a mesmer?

phys.7689:

zerotwo.4731:

Don’t use the Tower content as a bench mark. It’s designed to be solo content. I soloed all 3 levels with a warrior. I find the guard builds are better when in a group. Not everyone plays them that way but the benefits of having a guard far out weigh using other classes when in a full party. I don’t think they are useless.

Uhhh warrior is extremely strong in pve

My point is, utilize a better comparison. Fractals for instance. High level fractals can be done by any class. Guards are still a viable class. Yes, warriors are strong in pve, they just suck in pvp and wvw. No balance.

in high level fotm one hits no matter what so it really doesn’t matter what armor you got. That said guard is only class that got advantage because of ages and heals. It is not because of there armor

If you’re using the tower as the benchmark, then duh, heavy builds will be better. Half of the time you just run right through it, and the survivability of Guardians makes a world of difference. Of course, that’s just one instance. Those timed fights in the Crown Pavillion? I was PVT at the time, and mine and the bosses health stayed pretty high throughout the fight, and since it was timed I would fall to my death.

Lian Olsam.9541:

My main is an ele, i have also a war and a guard, in high lvl content i can play full zerk war i cant play full zerk ele, play full zerk war it s easyer then play dps/support ele… trash mobs hit too hard, the base hp of ele is ridicoulus, we have dodge and updraft from dagger, mesm for example, have alot of evade skill and 50% more base hp… anet need to rewrite mobs dmg otherwise war and guard will ever be better choise… i play 90% ele 5 war and 5 guard.. and i really dont underdtand why my full zerk war have more survivability than my ele…

You don’t understand why you’re zerk warrior has better suvivability than a zerk ele? Really?

Higher base hp and armor for the warrior than ele. It’s that simple.

Zanshin.5379:

Devs hate guardians. Just saying.

Devs love engineers. So roll a enginerd

Soloed the tower as a Necro, no issues what so ever. My thief also single handedly won in the aether dungeon by rezzing my entire party mid fight using well timed stealths.

As an elementalist, I get some Ether Renewal, a staff, mist form, arcane shield, a greater elemental, and I can run around the tower from chamber to chamber like a mountain goat jumping from rock to rock on a cliff .

Master Yi.6129:

What is a mesmer?

This:
http://wiki.guildwars.com/images/d/d0/Norgu_Thespian_armor.jpg

Heee heee heee….

zerotwo.4731:

phys.7689:

zerotwo.4731:

Don’t use the Tower content as a bench mark. It’s designed to be solo content. I soloed all 3 levels with a warrior. I find the guard builds are better when in a group. Not everyone plays them that way but the benefits of having a guard far out weigh using other classes when in a full party. I don’t think they are useless.

Uhhh warrior is extremely strong in pve

My point is, utilize a better comparison. Fractals for instance. High level fractals can be done by any class. Guards are still a viable class. Yes, warriors are strong in pve, they just suck in pvp and wvw. No balance.

not really warrior is op in wvw and pvp too

Excalibur.9748:

zerotwo.4731:

phys.7689:

zerotwo.4731:

Don’t use the Tower content as a bench mark. It’s designed to be solo content. I soloed all 3 levels with a warrior. I find the guard builds are better when in a group. Not everyone plays them that way but the benefits of having a guard far out weigh using other classes when in a full party. I don’t think they are useless.

Uhhh warrior is extremely strong in pve

My point is, utilize a better comparison. Fractals for instance. High level fractals can be done by any class. Guards are still a viable class. Yes, warriors are strong in pve, they just suck in pvp and wvw. No balance.

not really warrior is op in wvw and pvp too

Indeed. zerotwo clearly doesn’t play tpvp.

people really don’t read

i brought up tower as an example, this thread wasn’t made to discuss tower however, i didn’t say it is impossible to do it but it is way easier on heavy classes

my point is, i am all up for hard content but it shouldn’t be based on face tanking or reroll if you can’t do it

Care to share what those instabilities are?

Cynz.9437:

Am i wrong?

Yes, yes you are.

I feel the OP is being foolishly narrow in their outlook. I have entirely too much success on other professions to agree with the OPs point.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

It’s true that certain professions have an easier time simply dealing with soaking up damage with larger HP pools, but it’s arguable that this is clearly better than the damage avoidance or support mechanics of others. Regardless, adding enemies with endlessly increasing damage output and health isn’t really a very interesting way to add difficulty. That’s why we reduced the HP/Damage scaling in Fractals somewhat and started replacing it with the Mistlock Instabilities that you’ll find starting at level 31.

but you do realize how obnoxious aether mobs are with their endless confuse/stun spam?

i can only imagine the horror of scaled up version of those

i wasn’t talking about tanking dmg alone, i was talking more about condi spam from mobs; not every class can deal well with it and usually condis are not so easy to avoid

the reason why i brought up heavy classes is because they imo have easier times dealing with such condi/CC spam thanks to passive condi cleanise, stability, protection etc.

One point I have never understood about heavy vs medium/light armour debate.

Heavy classes get a small armour advantage, its a clear advantage that warriors/guardians get.

So what small advantage do the other 6 classes get to even this out?

No one has ever said AFAIK and I have never been able to figure any advantage with other classes skills/traits/stats that equal that small armour advantage out.

Thedenofsin.7340:

Care to share what those instabilities are?

Probably debuffs that last throughout the entire fractal.

Every class can do well at the “same” level, but you have to break keyboard/rip keys while playing some classes just to survive in hard situations or dungeons while you only press 1 1 1 2 6 on a warrior or guardian. Its about difficulty. As I say everytime, warrior and guardian are the game’s master classes, they suit everywhere well. And they are specially wanted in pve or wvw groups, not other classes. Other classes are not mandatory, they are optional and played only for fun. They are a loss of efficiency if they taken into a group instead of warrior or guardian. Elitist parties will always kick other classes from their party without taking “player skill” into account. This is general opinion in pve parties. These are sad truths about non guardian-warrior classes. Also wvw depends on guardians and warriors too because you need to spam ccs on enemy zerg to win while having guardians in your party to give aoe stability to counter hostile cc spammers. Gw2 means = ("G"uardian "W"arrior) “2” master classes. (Just a joke.)) Roll one if you don’t have any in your account.

That was the problem… And the solution is, seperating wvw, spvp and pve(wvw must be seperated too after spvp/pve) and making each class completely balanced in each of these modes. These balances must include difficulty to play/survive, dps balance, and survivability. Low hp/def classes are obviously harder to play in hard dungeons, utilities ccs etc. don’t really help against 10k+ mob damages, plus they generally have defiant buff. You may play as good as heavy classes with your skill this is a fact, but you have to deal so many difficulties while these 2 classes just play sleepy without real effort.

I really think part of the problem is the development team’s prefer the heavy classes. I really don’t think they do it on purpose, but I think they do enjoy working with heavy classes the most.

I have heard a lot of people say Guardian and Warrior’s get the most love in the game this is true.

GS and Hammer tend to have some extremely nice model’s and gs is the only legendary weapon type with 3 legendary skins.

Umut.5471:

snip

Agreed. Warrior and Guardian are very easy to play while others take a bit more to survive or deal sufficient damage. I feel that the things the non warrior or guardian classes suffer from are tedious mechanics that reduce the quality of life. Translation… non heavies seem to require more button mashing, are slow or have plain imbalance issues.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

It’s true that certain professions have an easier time simply dealing with soaking up damage with larger HP pools, but it’s arguable that this is clearly better than the damage avoidance or support mechanics of others. Regardless, adding enemies with endlessly increasing damage output and health isn’t really a very interesting way to add difficulty. That’s why we reduced the HP/Damage scaling in Fractals somewhat and started replacing it with the Mistlock Instabilities that you’ll find starting at level 31.

I wouldn’t say arguable, and I do highly recommend you guys to test content on other classes instead of Warriors, I never understood why you adopted the concept of heavy armored = highest hp pool, best defense AND best damage.

what are these Mistlock Instabilities im keep hearing? Are they sort of gambits just like in Queensdale arena?

Alukah.2063:

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

It’s true that certain professions have an easier time simply dealing with soaking up damage with larger HP pools, but it’s arguable that this is clearly better than the damage avoidance or support mechanics of others. Regardless, adding enemies with endlessly increasing damage output and health isn’t really a very interesting way to add difficulty. That’s why we reduced the HP/Damage scaling in Fractals somewhat and started replacing it with the Mistlock Instabilities that you’ll find starting at level 31.

I wouldn’t say arguable, and I do highly recommend you guys to test content on other classes instead of Warriors, I never understood why you adopted the concept of heavy armored = highest hp pool, best defense AND best damage.

Its not just the high HP pool but the fact you have such high HP that you have no reason to trait or gear for more HP, plus the higher base armor helps quite a bit to.

So you pretty much have everything you need and can go full zerk, dps spam like no tomorrow and dodge here and there some.

Play necro, we’re don’t have problem with conditions, we’re actually love them. (And we have high hp pool)

Flash.6912:

what are these Mistlock Instabilities im keep hearing? Are they sort of gambits just like in Queensdale arena?

Probably, but you can’t choose to have them and they’re random.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

enemies with endlessly increasing damage output and health isn’t really a very interesting way to add difficulty

whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa… then how about reverting the open world boss changes then, they aren’t challenging, they’re tedious. do we still need to AA maw for 5mins still?

I’ll just pop in – this is one of my bigger beefs with the game at the moment.

Certain classes in PvE are fundamentally easier than others. I’m not talking about having to use tricks to survive as an elementalist – I’m saying your tricks run out, go on long cooldowns, and then you die to what a warrior would soak easily without cooldowns. It’s extremely, extremely frustrating. I really get demotivated on my elementalist. I go survivability gear, survivability cooldowns, and get little return for really terrible damage.

Lheimroo.2947:

I’ll just pop in – this is one of my bigger beefs with the game at the moment.

Certain classes in PvE are fundamentally easier than others. I’m not talking about having to use tricks to survive as an elementalist – I’m saying your tricks run out, go on long cooldowns, and then you die to what a warrior would soak easily without cooldowns. It’s extremely, extremely frustrating. I really get demotivated on my elementalist. I go survivability gear, survivability cooldowns, and get little return for really terrible damage.

Do you feel if warrior and ele had the same base armor health and heal that warrior out shines ele in defense maneuverability and defensive utilities? Or that Elementalists outshine warriors in defensive movability and utilies etc?

Off the top of my head warrior has endure pain gs evade shield block.
Ele has shield block ( earth focus ) immune like endure pain ( mist form ) another block ( arcane shield )
Warriors use shouts to cleanse condis and heal….eles use water attunement every weapon has some sort of additional heal. You can even use lightning flash to position better and kite etc.

Yes its unfortunate that warriors if they make a mistake can facetank some damage that otherwise might kill that ele, but its an MMO every single MMO ever has balance issues thats a fact. But to me emphasis in pve is damage mitigation by avoidance by reading animations / tells not outtanking content. As such don’t complain until you are the best ele you can be. Not saying warriors aren’t imbalanced but don’t forget to look inwards at your own performance, every single player in this game can improve in some fashion. Elementalists have plenty of tools to avoid damage.

I’m not saying I’m a perfect elementalist, and I wouldn’t be a perfect warrior. But I do dodge quite well, and I slot arcane shield and mistform or armor of earth, and trait a lot of condi removal – and I do know when to use water healing skills. Nevertheless, the margins for error between the classes feel vastly different.

It’s a imbalance I’m tired of seeing in MMOs. Cloth equates to squishiness, fine.. but there are few games out there that actually provide the payoff for that tradeoff.

If mistlock instabilities are stuff like:

You can t heal or you can t dodge.

Its the perfect way to unbalace things even more.
Some profession (expecially light armored) needs all they have to stay alive…
They can t dish so much dps that foes drops before being able to be a threat that is the Whole poit of stacking and stuff like that.

i play lvl 48 fractals in a full zerk grenade engie and the only condi removal i use is what i have in my medkit skill.

i have no issue in fractals as i normally take atleast 1 support class for a well rounded balanced group. because lets face it u cant just stack in a corner and nuke the boss in 15 seconds in 48 + so might aswell build for a heavy duty tough as nails group.

the living story is not an issue. if it is zerg content u stay with the zerg and just go with the flow.

the aether blades and molten alliance fractals will be nice.

also perhaps the thief is not the right class for you OP, just because you play a class does not meen its right for you.

In addition to my message above, I also think that 100% buffs to utilities or damage negating skills etc. and some percent of buffs to dps (for pve only) can improve some light/medium classes’ survivability and make them on par with these heavy classes in dungeons/fractals. At least they wouldn’t get instant kicks from parties like now. They would be demanded much more than current situation. Currently elite parties only look for warriors or guardians, you have to change people’s opinion first by making them easier to survive while having good dps. This will be for pve only so nobody will cry about 1v1 duel or pvp imbalance.

I wouldn’t say it is for them being heavy classes.
Rather, guardians offer superior area support, projectile reflection and aegis. Both of the latter ones directly negate the damage, indipendently of how much it is – thus they work the same on higher levels as well.
And warriors have got a rather good damage both in melee and range, and burst damage on top of it (and as enemies hit more hard when levels increase, it is much preferred over sustained damage, who would put you at a constant risk).