Guild Wars 2

Sorry, but when I left the game 8 months ago, Warriors and Guardians were the only classes that were really in demand for dungeons, maybe the token Mesmer for their utility. Back then, I was told over and over on my thief or my necro, we dont need you, we need heavy dps.

I come back now, and start trying to run dungeons again and the same crap is happening… Nothing has been done to balance the classes in PvE.

Warrior still has the best dps, with the best survivability, and also has the option to play an amazing support role… Guardian still does great damage, has amazing support, and amazing survival skills. Elementalists still have amazing damage, great support, and can survive usually if the player is extra skilled, which is fine. Mesmer dps is pretty crappy still, or so I hear, but their skills make them wanted. Ok, I can deal with that, at least they have a role.

But what about the other professions? I was told today: “Necro will slow us down”

I am not condition specced, I am in full zerker gear with proper spec, runes,. etc. I feel that my damage is at least 90% of a warrior, but maybe I am wrong.

I know thieves can deal respectable damage, and thats great. But what do they bring that a warrior/guardian doesnt? Group stealth is very handy for certain dungeons, but is that enough?

Rangers are laughed at, Necros bring dps only and even that doesnt match the dps of warrior who also brings buffs and survival cooldowns, I dont know much about Engineers so I wont comment on them.

The point is, why has nothing been balanced? Why are some professions blatantly better in every catagory for PvE, for over a year now?

I just want to play my class, while contributing to my group, without being a burden to the Warriors/Guardians/Eles.

K

I am relatively new at running dungeons. I am only at fractal level 10. And I still need at least 9 paths to finish dungeon master.

I am just tired of how the different classes are treated, and how nothing has changed to balance it a year later. If what you mean is that Anet just doesnt care, then I guess I understand.

I agree that more balance in PvE (bring kittenty ones UP, not good ones down, though) is needed, but I do wonder where all this entitlement to “MY CLASS” comes from among GW2 players.

You are not a Necromancer in real life. Some classes will always be able to do things that others can’t. There will always be an optimal composition, and then there’s everything else. If you want to achieve optimisation, don’t feel beholden to any certain class and play what works best.

Like, seriously.
Who are these people?

I hear people say they’ve felt some form of class discrimination at one time or another on forums. But in the actual game proper, I have never had anyone say anything disparaging about my class choices. Not once. As a Ranger main. In a year.

You’re agonizing over things most normal people don’t give two actual kittens about.

Necros can mass spam blinds and chills, if PvE was better designed they would be pretty bloody useful.

Broadicea.8294:

I agree that more balance in PvE (bring kittenty ones UP, not good ones down, though) is needed, but I do wonder where all this entitlement to “MY CLASS” comes from among GW2 players.

You are not a Necromancer in real life. Some classes will always be able to do things that others can’t. There will always be an optimal composition, and then there’s everything else. If you want to achieve optimisation, don’t feel beholden to any certain class and play what works best.

Wait, you find it odd that players choose a class and then want to play it? I don’t want to reroll to a class I don’t like.. (I usually never play the holy warrior archetype, or any plate dps).

And my point is.. this isnt really a case of the golden classes doing something better than mine… its a case of— there is literally nothing that my class is needed for in dungeons other than damage, and the golden classes do that better too! Thats what I am getting at, and I find it a little astonishing its been this way for so long.

Vox Hollow.2736:

Like, seriously.
Who are these people?

I hear people say they’ve felt some form of class discrimination at one time or another on forums. But in the actual game proper, I have never had anyone say anything disparaging about my class choices. Not once. As a Ranger main. In a year.

You’re agonizing over things most normal people don’t give two actual kittens about.

Okay, even if you disregard things people say and the class discrimination(which does exist, and its not all that rare), there is still the facts on performance. Why is it allowed that Warrior can dps with the best, have the best passive survival(maybe guards are better), and also have great survival cooldowns, while ALSO have one of the best support specs. Necro cant support, it has no survival cooldowns other than a larger health pool, and its damage isnt higher than a warrior so…. yeah. That is just one example.

Player Character.9467:

Necros can mass spam blinds and chills, if PvE was better designed they would be pretty bloody useful.

If conditions in PvE were better overall Necros would be pretty useful…

Stx.4857:

Player Character.9467:

Necros can mass spam blinds and chills, if PvE was better designed they would be pretty bloody useful.

If conditions in PvE were better overall Necros would be pretty useful…

Hell if dredge were blindable they would be so useful in that fractal.

All classes can do about the same damage. It’s a matter of what classes bring useful utilities in the situation you are going to be in.

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

All classes can do about the same damage. It’s a matter of what classes bring useful utilities in the situation you are going to be in.

Survivability is a factor as well is it not? Thief can dps just as good as a warrior, but he has less armor and like 65% of the warriors HP. Not to mention the warrior can heal 400+ per second, where a thief relies on striking a foe to heal for like 50 lol.

Thieves are great for blinding trash packs, and stealthing groups if they want to skip something, but is that worth bringing one over a warrior, or a guardian who can match the dps and also buff everyone around him and contribute healing at the same time?

Player Character.9467:

Stx.4857:

Player Character.9467:

Necros can mass spam blinds and chills, if PvE was better designed they would be pretty bloody useful.

If conditions in PvE were better overall Necros would be pretty useful…

Hell if dredge were blindable they would be so useful in that fractal.

Elementalists have already got that covered with their repeating blind field

There are two professions I refuse to PuG with, Ranger and Necro. After that I judge Engies and Thieves on their AP, too low and they get kicked, too high and they obviously only farm APs so kick too. Seriously I swear the player skill to AP ratio drops off at either end of the scale.

Stx.4857:

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

All classes can do about the same damage. It’s a matter of what classes bring useful utilities in the situation you are going to be in.

Survivability is a factor as well is it not? Thief can dps just as good as a warrior, but he has less armor and like 65% of the warriors HP. Not to mention the warrior can heal 400+ per second, where a thief relies on striking a foe to heal for like 50 lol.

Thieves are great for blinding trash packs, and stealthing groups if they want to skip something, but is that worth bringing one over a warrior, or a guardian who can match the dps and also buff everyone around him and contribute healing at the same time?

Thieves are better DPS than a warrior, but you won’t ever convince PUGs that. I guess Thieves earned a bad rep from bad players, since they’re the #1 class at eating dirt if you aren’t any good at it.

Pretty much all professions (other than necro, for the most part) are received well by the people on this forum, or the people who have actually done their homework. ‘PUG’ community is just usually months behind, takes them a while to learn.

I agree. I just hope they dont nerf the OP classes, but rather bring up the mediocre professions to the same level of the good ones. (I don’t play a warrior or any of the OP classes, so I’m not trying to save my own skin)

The biggest problem is that Anet’s philosophy on class design is “PVP only, PVE is easy enough that everyone can do it”. And that is true to a certain extent, but when you get into all of the other little factors, such as the shiny-oriented mindset that most players have, things start to fall apart.

Personally, I’ve only encountered the whole clkittene thing once. Most of what I see is build hate and player hate, so as a whole I don’t think classes have much of an issue.

The ironic thing is, sPVP is the one that is falling apart due to viability issues.

I’m going to be honest with you, Stx.

There are more positions in chess than there are atoms in the universe, and far more possibilities of execution in GW2 than kittens anyone has ever given something people play an hour at night to unwind.

What the Meta explores isn’t the actual truth of how something will pan out in practical play, but the potential of what you have to work with on a strictly mechanical level as far as people currently know. The reason it does this is because creating an actual mathematical model including all those messy human factors isn’t something a group of people can do. These things that you feel you know so well, is the very noble very human effort of fans to use the power of collective intelligence to try to organize literally unfathomable possibility space.

Additionally, skill is not some unified lump that gets filled like a progress bar the more you play a game, but rather learning to apply a collection of smaller skills like reflexes and multitasking that different mechanics can favor or not use at all. You have all these things in certain proficiencies with leg-ups due to factors you never put any effort towards like natural disposition, and hard caps you can never overcome due to totally unfair factors like age.

So here’s your choices.
You either get on board and take this common consensus summary of potential to heart, and use it to create a sense of certainty in your actions dealing with the criticism it entails. Or quit looking to mutually accepted hypothesis for your sense of self worth and put way more time and effort than most people find rationally investable in a videogame discovering what works best for you.

Or you can screw both those things and just play the game, as the vast majority of people have opted to do.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The biggest problem is that Anet’s philosophy on class design is “PVP only, PVE is easy enough that everyone can do it”. And that is true to a certain extent, but when you get into all of the other little factors, such as the shiny-oriented mindset that most players have, things start to fall apart.

Personally, I’ve only encountered the whole clkittene thing once. Most of what I see is build hate and player hate, so as a whole I don’t think classes have much of an issue.

The ironic thing is, sPVP is the one that is falling apart due to viability issues.

Thank you for a helpful reply. I feel that it really does have to do with classes, in this very thread which isnt very big, there are already two examples of how certain classes are thought of as inferior.

Stx.4857:

If what you mean is that Anet just doesnt care, then I guess I understand.

heh, understatement of the year

ilr.9675:

Stx.4857:

If what you mean is that Anet just doesnt care, then I guess I understand.

heh, understatement of the year

roflmao. Oh god, Post of the night.

Anet knows their PvE kitten is balanced enough that it just doesn’t matter.

Hell, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. I figured it out and my job description doesn’t have anything remotely resembling “game design” or even “basic math” in it.

Also, I want to get the facts straight.

Ive heard now that thieves deal more damage than a warrior, which I thought was not true, I thought they were equal. Ive heard that all classes are capable of the same damage, which I dont believe but I could be wrong.

If this class discrimination is just due to warrior/guardian being easier to play, and therefore more effective, then obviously this post isnt warranted,(sometimes public perception is far from accurate). However, I believe the obvious truth is that warrior, guardian, and ele are just set up to be much more effective in a group. They bring high damage, buffs, the heavy’s have great passive survival and cooldowns, and they all have strong support. It simply isnt balanced when you compare them to the ‘lower’ tier classes like ranger, necro, etc.

Stx.4857:

Also, I want to get the facts straight.

Ive heard now that thieves deal more damage than a warrior, which I thought was not true, I thought they were equal. Ive heard that all classes are capable of the same damage, which I dont believe but I could be wrong.

If this class discrimination is just due to warrior/guardian being easier to play, and therefore more effective, then obviously this post isnt warranted,(sometimes public perception is far from accurate). However, I believe the obvious truth is that warrior, guardian, and ele are just set up to be much more effective in a group. =

You’re not wrong. It takes a whole lot less effort to achieve a lot with 3W/1M/1G, than it does with something like 1Eng/1R/1W/1G/1T. Both compositions are (probably) really good, and have equal potential. But you have to have a lot more coordination, or put in more effort to make the most of the 2nd team composition.

People are using different classes that those from 2012 meta but it’s an exploit. Pugs don’t want to be banned and that’s why they’re sticking to good ol’ meta.

Stx.4857:

Also, I want to get the facts straight.

Ive heard now that thieves deal more damage than a warrior, which I thought was not true, I thought they were equal. Ive heard that all classes are capable of the same damage, which I dont believe but I could be wrong.

If this class discrimination is just due to warrior/guardian being easier to play, and therefore more effective, then obviously this post isnt warranted,(sometimes public perception is far from accurate). However, I believe the obvious truth is that warrior, guardian, and ele are just set up to be much more effective in a group. They bring high damage, buffs, the heavy’s have great passive survival and cooldowns, and they all have strong support. It simply isnt balanced when you compare them to the ‘lower’ tier classes like ranger, necro, etc.

Ranger:
http://youtu.be/5Bjq1vcnhpQ
http://youtu.be/PWQ-39_C8LI
http://youtu.be/mGJylZBKmos
http://youtu.be/qLJg3VarKm4

Ranger is a lot better than you may think. Thief’s single target damage is also way beyond anything else in the game (aside from Fiery Rush or Skritt Technology). Dagger Necro is fine, it just lacks group utility aside from Blinds really. When you hit 30k+ backstabs on a Thief, you’ll start to see and feel their potential.

Hmm, so in reality.. damage is reasonably balanced? I would expect thief to deal a little more damage than other melee because of how squishy he is, like a trade off.

Maybe its not as bad as I thought, its probably just the public’s perception on the classes, and that warrior/guardian is just the ‘easy’ way to faceroll dungeons.

My original point stands though… if my necro deals the same damage as a warrior, yet the warrior brings group might, fury, swift etc, or other group cleanses/heals, why bring a necro? The utility should be balanced better…

Maybe this post was over dramatic and unwarranted, I just got fed up with two seperate pugs today that were lead by experience dungeon runners(one was ele, one was warrior), and they both had the state of mind that necro is useless and i might slow them down.

Stx.4857:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The biggest problem is that Anet’s philosophy on class design is “PVP only, PVE is easy enough that everyone can do it”. And that is true to a certain extent, but when you get into all of the other little factors, such as the shiny-oriented mindset that most players have, things start to fall apart.

Personally, I’ve only encountered the whole clkittene thing once. Most of what I see is build hate and player hate, so as a whole I don’t think classes have much of an issue.

The ironic thing is, sPVP is the one that is falling apart due to viability issues.

Thank you for a helpful reply. I feel that it really does have to do with classes, in this very thread which isnt very big, there are already two examples of how certain classes are thought of as inferior.

I do think necromancers are inferior as well. I’ve played an engineer, thief, and necro in dungeons, and the necro always feels like it is just dragging along ,despite going for full berserker. The thing is, you can take 5 apothecary gear necros and complete nearly every path of every dungeon, hence Anets reluctance to give a darn about the issue. All that said, there are still times I want to play a necromancer. I hate the feeling of inferiority I have while doing so.

Don’t take the dungeon forums as a representative sample. The people here aren’t like in the game, and frankly aren’t like the other forums either.

Stx.4857:

Hmm, so in reality.. damage is reasonably balanced? I would expect thief to deal a little more damage than other melee because of how squishy he is, like a trade off.

Maybe its not as bad as I thought, its probably just the public’s perception on the classes, and that warrior/guardian is just the ‘easy’ way to faceroll dungeons.

My original point stands though… if my necro deals the same damage as a warrior, yet the warrior brings group might, fury, swift etc, or other group cleanses/heals, why bring a necro? The utility should be balanced better…

Maybe this post was over dramatic and unwarranted, I just got fed up with two seperate pugs today that were lead by experience dungeon runners(one was ele, one was warrior), and they both had the state of mind that necro is useless and i might slow them down.

Perception of classes and pugs are inconsistent and mostly wrong. Necromancer’s Blinds are pretty strong, but that’s it really. Also, Necromancer:

http://youtu.be/U0ZMhoetn1c

The best part is when they spend minutes telling you how your Potent Slaying Potion is slowing them down. And then proceed to wipe multiples times.

Point is, don’t try to find any logic from pugs.

Wethospu.6437:

The best part is when they spend minutes telling you how your Potent Slaying Potion is slowing them down. And then proceed to wipe multiples times.

Point is, don’t try to find any logic from pugs.

I second this. There’s a big difference between being skilled and having obsessive compulsive personality disorder.

Stx.4857:

Hmm, so in reality.. damage is reasonably balanced? I would expect thief to deal a little more damage than other melee because of how squishy he is, like a trade off.

Try to play an ele without using conjures. No damage, no survivability.

It’s not the classes it’s the dungeons design, they favor such style. And Warriors/Guardians/Mesmers/Ele can bring more easily Might/Fury to the whole party = great damage.

Many well designed bosses don’t even care what class You are and what gear – like SE of CoF story last bosses, IMO fantastic design, they look good and feel like bosses and not another bag with milion HP just to be nuke down.

If You had the chance (and You will have in this year) to play the Aetherblade Retreat “mini-dungeon” (future fractal) than You will have a chance to experience a more interesting fights.

I still hope the dungeons will be revamped in the future and new mechanics will be brought to bosses – maybe the “meta” will change a bit, but not for now.

And to add about Necromancer: http://youtu.be/1ckhmyUfC2Q?t=2m29s

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

The biggest problem is that Anet’s philosophy on class design is “PVP only, PVE is easy enough that everyone can do it”. And that is true to a certain extent, but when you get into all of the other little factors, such as the shiny-oriented mindset that most players have, things start to fall apart.

Personally, I’ve only encountered the whole clkittene thing once. Most of what I see is build hate and player hate, so as a whole I don’t think classes have much of an issue.

The ironic thing is, sPVP is the one that is falling apart due to viability issues.

Yes, Anet supposedly attempts to balance for sPvP, disregards PvE balance, fails at both. What’s worse is their “balance” patches are few and far between even when there are glaring issues. For example, it took them over half a year to realize ranger projectile speeds were too slow for PvP and everyone could just sidestep to avoid most (if not all) of it. For PvE, they haven’t separated players’ condition stacks because it would require more resources then they’re willing to allot to it, even though it means two player’s conditions will be competing for spots in the stack.

Then there’s the fact that no matter what they do, someone’s always gonna be upset about something. They can focus 100% of their attention on balancing right now and the class forums will still be full of complaints.

This is why Living Story gets all the attention. GW2 looks like it’s getting tons of new content even though most of it is garbage, Anet gets more money because people want to experience the new content, players still play because the new content is easy and profitable, and if they don’t participate they’ll be left behind.

haviz.1340:

Stx.4857:

Hmm, so in reality.. damage is reasonably balanced? I would expect thief to deal a little more damage than other melee because of how squishy he is, like a trade off.

Try to play an ele without using conjures. No damage, no survivability.

try to play an ele with conjured.
2 choices:
11111111111111111111111111111
Or
2………4……….2……….4………2……….4………2……..4

its for people who cares only about rewards :/ (or that can t find a party unless they do that….)

LordByron.8369:

haviz.1340:

Stx.4857:

Hmm, so in reality.. damage is reasonably balanced? I would expect thief to deal a little more damage than other melee because of how squishy he is, like a trade off.

Try to play an ele without using conjures. No damage, no survivability.

try to play an ele with conjured.
2 choices:
11111111111111111111111111111
Or
2………4……….2……….4………2……….4………2……..4

Don’t oversimplify it. Sometimes Lightning flash is required.

Actually compared to 6 months ago – Mes+Guard+War or gtfo – now every class have a build of two for “speedrunning”.

The problem is that
-pugs have usually a 3+ months delay in learning new stuff
-some classes are arguably easier to get working

For example, a LH ele does supreme DPS, on par – if not more most of the time – of the average warrior. But ppl will rarely get a LH ele in pugs party, compared to a zerk warrior. Why? Cause Warrior can be played by a blinded slowpoke and yet prove somewhat useful in terms of DPS (press 2 on GS, swap in Axe auto, repeat endless). That’s a bad warrior, yet for so little effort there is already a decent DPS.
A LH ele if you’re not good/careful enough will be flattened to the ground at the first error.

AndrewSX.3794:

Actually compared to 6 months ago – Mes+Guard+War or gtfo – now every class have a build of two for “speedrunning”.

The problem is that
-pugs have usually a 3+ months delay in learning new stuff
-some classes are arguably easier to get working

For example, a LH ele does supreme DPS, on par – if not more most of the time – of the average warrior. But ppl will rarely get a LH ele in pugs party, compared to a zerk warrior. Why? Cause Warrior can be played by a blinded slowpoke and yet prove somewhat useful in terms of DPS (press 2 on GS, swap in Axe auto, repeat endless). That’s a bad warrior, yet for so little effort there is already a decent DPS.
A LH ele if you’re not good/careful enough will be flattened to the ground at the first error.

Not only pugs have a delay.

mehcetylene.2376:

LordByron.8369:

haviz.1340:

Stx.4857:

Hmm, so in reality.. damage is reasonably balanced? I would expect thief to deal a little more damage than other melee because of how squishy he is, like a trade off.

Try to play an ele without using conjures. No damage, no survivability.

try to play an ele with conjured.
2 choices:
11111111111111111111111111111
Or
2………4……….2……….4………2……….4………2……..4

Don’t oversimplify it. Sometimes Lightning flash is required.

It’s more like 8111111111111111f111111111111111
or 0(2)4351341313453 etc. which contains use of much more buttons than most other classes.

Dolan.3071:

Player Character.9467:

Stx.4857:

Player Character.9467:

Necros can mass spam blinds and chills, if PvE was better designed they would be pretty bloody useful.

If conditions in PvE were better overall Necros would be pretty useful…

Hell if dredge were blindable they would be so useful in that fractal.

Elementalists have already got that covered with their repeating blind field

There are two professions I refuse to PuG with, Ranger and Necro. After that I judge Engies and Thieves on their AP, too low and they get kicked, too high and they obviously only farm APs so kick too. Seriously I swear the player skill to AP ratio drops off at either end of the scale.

Dunno bout you but on those 20+ mob pulls I would rather see a FGS into the corner than a LH. Necro blind also half the cooldown.

In some cases, it’s:

skill click, skill click, skill click, skill click….

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

In some cases, it’s:

skill click, skill click, skill click, skill click….

You forgot about placement of aoe. It’s skill click, hover the mouse onto area, click, skill click, hover the mouse onto area, click…

haviz.1340:

TheMaskedParadigm.3629:

In some cases, it’s:

skill click, skill click, skill click, skill click….

You forgot about placement of aoe. It’s skill click, hover the mouse onto area, click, skill click, hover the mouse onto area, click…

This is true. I didn’t think of that!

Stx.4857:

Hmm, so in reality.. damage is reasonably balanced? I would expect thief to deal a little more damage than other melee because of how squishy he is, like a trade off.

Maybe its not as bad as I thought, its probably just the public’s perception on the classes, and that warrior/guardian is just the ‘easy’ way to faceroll dungeons.

My original point stands though… if my necro deals the same damage as a warrior, yet the warrior brings group might, fury, swift etc, or other group cleanses/heals, why bring a necro? The utility should be balanced better…

Maybe this post was over dramatic and unwarranted, I just got fed up with two seperate pugs today that were lead by experience dungeon runners(one was ele, one was warrior), and they both had the state of mind that necro is useless and i might slow them down.

You’ve pretty much got it down, but pugs are just always stupid. They’re not totally incorrect about necro not having the best utilities, because really the most you can do is blinds for trash mobs and some ok vuln stacking. But what feeds pugs’ perception a lot is the performance of other players, and some classes attract bad players more than others. Not that every player who uses ranger, necro, or engie is bad, it’s just a better bet that that player doesn’t know much about the game and will not be running an optimized dps setup.

It’s like…go back to the old old old versions of fighting games like SF2 or Mortal Kombat. There were those kittenty characters like Zangief or Kano that you would hardly ever see used by the best players. If someone picked them it was a safe bet they didn’t know what they were doing. But occasionally there would be a savant who could paint his opponents red with those guys because they understood the game inside and out. But, the existence of that person doesn’t change the average performance of all the other players.

From this interview with Colin Johanson -

“How do you feel about the dungeons right now?” I ask slowly, glancing at the sprawling Reddit thread that came up earlier that day. “With the speed runs, the full berserker sets, people breaking the system and, well, y’know.”

“No matter what we do, there will always be a group of players who try to min-max any game that’s ever made and they try to find the fastest, most rewarding way to play it with the best composition of skills and party members that they can possibly get to acquire the most rewards possible.”

The shrug is almost physical. “And I don’t think you really can ever do anything to do that. It’s just the inherent nature of certain players in the game.”

Anet balances for pvp, and sometimes will arbitrarily assign a change to be pvp only. Consider that their most popular living story update is a mini game in which all of your class and weapon skills are removed – they just don’t know how to make pve interesting.

rfdarko.4639:

From this interview with Colin Johanson -

“How do you feel about the dungeons right now?” I ask slowly, glancing at the sprawling Reddit thread that came up earlier that day. “With the speed runs, the full berserker sets, people breaking the system and, well, y’know.”

“No matter what we do, there will always be a group of players who try to min-max any game that’s ever made and they try to find the fastest, most rewarding way to play it with the best composition of skills and party members that they can possibly get to acquire the most rewards possible.”

The shrug is almost physical. “And I don’t think you really can ever do anything to do that. It’s just the inherent nature of certain players in the game.”

Anet balances for pvp, and sometimes will arbitrarily assign a change to be pvp only. Consider that their most popular living story update is a mini game in which all of your class and weapon skills are removed – they just don’t know how to make pve interesting.

CJ sounds like a BHB and a super casual.

Stx.4857:

Maybe its not as bad as I thought, its probably just the public’s perception on the classes, and that warrior/guardian is just the ‘easy’ way to faceroll dungeons.

ding ding ding

rfdarko.4639:

From this interview with Colin Johanson -

“How do you feel about the dungeons right now?” I ask slowly, glancing at the sprawling Reddit thread that came up earlier that day. “With the speed runs, the full berserker sets, people breaking the system and, well, y’know.”

“No matter what we do, there will always be a group of players who try to min-max any game that’s ever made and they try to find the fastest, most rewarding way to play it with the best composition of skills and party members that they can possibly get to acquire the most rewards possible.”

The shrug is almost physical. “And I don’t think you really can ever do anything to do that. It’s just the inherent nature of certain players in the game.”

Anet balances for pvp, and sometimes will arbitrarily assign a change to be pvp only. Consider that their most popular living story update is a mini game in which all of your class and weapon skills are removed – they just don’t know how to make pve interesting.

It’s actually quite funny that I’ve been saying that for years (since GW1). The people that are the best at end-game PvE are almost always going to be the best at end-game PvE, no matter what.

Kind of reassuring.

Broadicea.8294:

Stx.4857:

Hmm, so in reality.. damage is reasonably balanced? I would expect thief to deal a little more damage than other melee because of how squishy he is, like a trade off.

Maybe its not as bad as I thought, its probably just the public’s perception on the classes, and that warrior/guardian is just the ‘easy’ way to faceroll dungeons.

My original point stands though… if my necro deals the same damage as a warrior, yet the warrior brings group might, fury, swift etc, or other group cleanses/heals, why bring a necro? The utility should be balanced better…

Maybe this post was over dramatic and unwarranted, I just got fed up with two seperate pugs today that were lead by experience dungeon runners(one was ele, one was warrior), and they both had the state of mind that necro is useless and i might slow them down.

You’ve pretty much got it down, but pugs are just always stupid. They’re not totally incorrect about necro not having the best utilities, because really the most you can do is blinds for trash mobs and some ok vuln stacking. But what feeds pugs’ perception a lot is the performance of other players, and some classes attract bad players more than others. Not that every player who uses ranger, necro, or engie is bad, it’s just a better bet that that player doesn’t know much about the game and will not be running an optimized dps setup.

It’s like…go back to the old old old versions of fighting games like SF2 or Mortal Kombat. There were those kittenty characters like Zangief or Kano that you would hardly ever see used by the best players. If someone picked them it was a safe bet they didn’t know what they were doing. But occasionally there would be a savant who could paint his opponents red with those guys because they understood the game inside and out. But, the existence of that person doesn’t change the average performance of all the other players.

Zangief dominates casuasls because bads don’t know how to deal with throws. You don’t even have to be good with him to do it, you just need to know how to buffer a standing 720. Doesn’t mean you will ever win a serious tourney with him, though.

To clarify OP’s question, some classes do deal more than others, it’s just not big enough of a difference to really affect the so-called meta. If we say that as a baseline warriors deal a consistent, difficult-to-screw-up 10k/s under all buffs, a guardian hits 11k/s under the same buffs and an elementalist hits about 13k. A mesmer with all phantasms up gets about 14k. On the lowest end, an engineer will get about 9k. That means that the biggest difference in damage you will see between the lowest and highest DPS classes is about an extra 50% in raw damage output, but:

- Engineers have the lowest group damage output but the best support buffs. That means they will not only deal huge damage solo, everyone else’s damage will go up.
- Ele and guardian damage is reliant on getting buffs from the rest of the party, either in the form of fields or straight-up boons.
- Mesmer damage is reliant on keeping phantasms up at all times. They also deal very bad AOE damage and give very little in the way of offensive boons.
- Both mesmers and guardians have insanely good defensive buffs that can just allow you to stack on a boss and AFK him down. Engineers have stupidly good blindspam which helps for LOS-stacking down trash pulls.

And so on. So it’s not always just HURR STACK THE ONE THAT HAS THE BIGGEST NUMBER like everyone thought it was a few months ago. And the funny thing is warrior doesn’t even give the biggest numbers.

I honestly don’t think it’s the classes which are the problem, the problem is the liberal use of defiance in order to prevent cc spamming that trivialize boss fights.

My personal opinion is that defiant absolutely has it’s place in open world fights where any number of players with any type of build can show up and join in. But in a setting with a 5 man composition, surely there has got to be a way to tailor each individual boss with it’s own spec of immunities and weaknesses to make every fight require a different skill set.

But with the way things stand right now, dps is king. It’s no wonder people are insisting on dps meta builds.

In all fairness, if none of the bosses had Defiant, we could just spiky fruit every encounter.

Oh Bjarl.

colesy.8490:

In all fairness, if none of the bosses had Defiant, we could just spiky fruit every encounter.

Oh Bjarl.

No idea what spikey fruit means but I want to point out that I was calling for tailored immunities for each boss. What would work for one wouldn’t work for another.