Guild Wars 2

Is this post premature? Absolutely. However, given that the point of a beta test is to provide feedback on the available content, I am seriously concerned about Profession demands in the current raid, based on group comps for guilds that have cleared it.

So far, there is heavy demand for Engineer (4 Engies in the first clear group), Revenant (Herald), Warrior (base), Ranger (Druid), Mesmer (Chronomancer), Necromancer (Reaper). None of the groups who have cleared the raid thus far have included a Thief or an Elementalist. In fact, the fight seems to discourage bringing either Profession.

Raid mechanics that exclude an entire class are a terrible idea, ANet.

…obligatory inb4 “QQ Eles had their time to rule, I’m glad they’re gone” salt from the peanut gallery.

The comp that we used was what worked for us, we still had 1:10 left on timer, Im pretty sure a staff ele could be extremely good as well, even a thief could be nice, problem is, glint on revenant is just too good to pass, having a passive 25 might, fury, swiftness, protection without having to do anything was extremely useful.

Include those on your raid group? I am more frustrated that i could not even try raids yet =(

… Is this post based on anything other than 2 or 3 videos you’ve watched, pretty much entirely with incidental comps?

If not, then I can’t take you seriously. Have you ever heard of a thing called sample size?

Remind you this is just the first raid boss… but I am a little weary of ele/thief use.

Ele’s I could see still being useful…

Thieves? not a chance. Boon stripping/breaking bar is already taken care of…

High uptime for stealth is not needed and even if it was, scrapper can do it now…

Sure thieves can get in there for DPS/blinding purposes…. but honestly, i’d rather have another heavy like a rev/warrior….

Thieves are just outclassed right now….

It is way too premature for these kind of things. Keep in mind that build theory crafting is at its earliest stage, and nobody knows how the meta will evolve. Heck we don’t even know what other bosses have in store for us. These kills that you see in these early stages are far from optimized. People haven’t had enough time to explore all specializations yet, let alone the specific raid mechanics. Give it time, let’s see some optimized kills before judging what class is desirable and what is not. After all, don’t forget there was a time in the early dungeon meta where ele was excluded in favour of stacking more warriors in groups until people learned its true potential. Give it some time, ele will be back.

Also, obligatory the meta is changing at an alarming rate. :^)

Yea, it’s premature, but I believe there’s something in here worth thinking about.

Eles, I believe will be fine. They could easily fulfill a healer role with the right setup if a group doesn’t have a druid and even outside of that, they’re still awesome to have in any group due to their high dps and AoE. They’re also really good at blinding with sandstorm due to the range of cast and large radius.

Thieves however…I think are in danger. Their strengths are easily performed by other professions and in some cases are done even better by other professions.

For example, I think that engis with mortar kit and eles with sandstorm can often do better blinds since they have a much larger radius and ranged cast for their blind fields. Thieves can keep up a blind field for longer, but this doesn’t appear to be much of an advantage anywhere yet.

Boon stripping also has been very easy from what I’ve seen in the raid so far in that even an engi with throw mine can take care of this task.

Now, these reasons in and of themself aren’t necessarily what put thief in danger, but since thieves are so squishy and can often be replaced by professions that bring a wider variety of strengths, it’s hard to see them as anything more than barely acceptable in a group at best.

I would say the one potentially saving grace for a thief in a raid would be for their mobility to become useful. If there’s a mechanic somewhere where an item needs to be carried to a spot quickly or if a switch needs to be hit by someone, then a thief may be ideal.

It’s not like they are removing dungeons. Eles and theivs will still be good there.

Chaos.5072:

It’s not like they are removing dungeons. Eles and theivs will still be good there.

Removing them? No, but they’re also not updating them, so it’s not far off.

Dahkeus.8243:

Chaos.5072:

It’s not like they are removing dungeons. Eles and theivs will still be good there.

Removing them? No, but they’re also not updating them, so it’s not far off.

Fractals still exist, Thief are just incredibly useful because of Dredge fractal and Mai Trin, Ele also has good might stack and general purposes.

So last night I did a raid in NA with a couple of PvP friends. In fact, only me in the group is a tryhard PvE hero. We were able to down the Raid boss to 33% with some 2minutes left. We had a Tempest (me) and a Daredevil while the rest is a mixture of a Guardian, Berserker/Warriors, Chrono, Revenant/Heralds, Engi/Scrappers. Somehow, I got the aggro almost 100% of the time. I feel that with the chaos of the fight, playing staff is really taxing on top of having to kite the boss around. There are very few times I was able to pull out a couple of AoE burst. On the other hand, Tempest feels far more mobile. I played with Rabid gears, a bit of toughness really goes a long way for sustain the collision against the Seeker. Besides Tempest traits/utils have good synergy with the condi/tanky role: plenty of damage reduction, high boon uptime, a lot of dodge, Rebound as AED or Elemental for extra damage, plenty of blast on top of engi water field. I was able to consistently pull 5k Burn/3k Bleed per tick while kiting and up to 10k/5k Bleed Burn when bursting on top of Boon share and generally being quite healthy without the need of dedicated healer.

Looking back, we only have 1 ventari healer, 2 condi classes and a bunch of hybrids or glassy zerker specs in Vamp runes. We splitted 3 at Red, 3 at Blue and 4 at Green and always managed to kill three of them at the same time. We could have made some serious progress if it wasn’t like 3-4 am for some of us and fatigue started kicking in.

The split bosses requires some CC to bring them down after their HP reaches zero. I can see thief/Daredevil can make a short work of them.

Elementalist should always be fine in PvE, especially comes to circumstances like bursting large wave of trash mobs or hitting a large hitbox low armor boss.

I have trouble seeing Thief being used in raids. You can easily replace thief with any of the soldier classes. As condi damage most went with Sin. Engi. Unless stealth is really needed, but stealth mechanics aren’t unique anymore, Scrapper has it.

I’m still saying that I feel thief will have a role in the mobility thing at some point in raids.

sicsempertyrannis.3510:

Raid mechanics that exclude an entire class are a terrible idea, ANet

Maybe this is how Necros always felt trying to join dungeon groups but always seeing “Sorry, no Necros.” Just saying. ; P

By the end of the first week, you’ll be able to go in with 10 necros and faceroll it lol

Ele doesn’t really have much of a use for any of the current raid mechanics. I’m pretty sure if any boss has a large hitbox, you’ll always want an ele.

Thief? I dunno, pretty much no reason to take one for raids unless tons of stealthing on demand without being able to blast is needed for whatever reason or you need to make use of its high mobility for something.

That said, this is just speculation. Eles have been having everything taken away from them in the past year with nothing given to them, they’re in kind of a slump tbh. They’re not a terrible class, they never will be, but they aren’t nearly as valuable anymore.

Purple Miku.7032:

That said, this is just speculation. Eles have been having everything taken away from them in the past year with nothing given to them, they’re in kind of a slump tbh. They’re not a terrible class, they never will be, but they aren’t nearly as valuable anymore.

Tempest was the one chance to give something back to the class; to offer something new and to break the poor design choices of the base class. Unfortunately, with Karl at the helm, we were guaranteed a stillborn elite specialization. Three beta weekends have passed and the fundamental, nonsensical flaws of Tempest remain untouched.

thief is probably the best “tank” you can take

Something like the green boss is the best dummy for a high single target damage dealer like thief to be honest.

The thing with eles was that everyone seemed to think they would always be top tier meta because there were normally 2 of them in record runs. However the thing always was that they simply had the best dps. As soon as they lost that top dps they would be replaced with whatever beat them. This is right now sinister engi which it certainly doesn’t help the ele that engi is much more durable and can make a few mistakes without imploding. They will never be as bad as necro (well, it might be ok in raids) but they definitly did not have the most secure spot in the meta despite being the most represented.

And the fact that once bosses are more mobile than dummies staff dps plummets. Not to mention the fact that you can’t even cripple bosses with breakbar.

I will just take random 8 people into raid and do it without a care of class or so. If we fail oh well, it the fun that matter to me
Edit: forgot, to mention, i have a partner i play with, so she my 9th.

Ele will always have their place in raid, they provide enough support to be always welcome and their DPS have never been bad. The Ele weapon in the first encounter are :
- Water, fire field/blast (always useful)
- aura/overload
- Mobility
- DPS

Thieves are in a similar place except that it’s area is more centered around sheer DPS, controle and mobility. Its main weapon are :
- blast finisher
- mobility
- heavy controle
- DD damage
- Condition burst

I think the main reason you haven’t seen a lot of thieves/ele in raid is that at first you need to learn the mechanisms and peeps think of these profession as “squishy”. Beside devs scared everyone saying things like “It will be the end of the metazerk” or “You’ll need passive defense” while in fact you need as much dps as possible and your best defense lie in being quick to rally the lightning aoe.

NB: people were also eager to use some profession with a new flavor like druid/reaper while tempest/daredevil are really close to their core profession.

With the amount of running around to stand in circles in that fight I would think Elementalists would be pretty useful – they still do pretty good DPS (not Revenant / Engineer levels but better than the rest) and do so at range, so they should be competitive while doing to mobile tasks.

Thief? I see no reason to take a thief into a raid as currently constructed.

Ensign.2189:

With the amount of running around to stand in circles in that fight I would think Elementalists would be pretty useful – they still do pretty good DPS (not Revenant / Engineer levels but better than the rest) and do so at range, so they should be competitive while doing to mobile tasks.

Thief? I see no reason to take a thief into a raid as currently constructed.

The mobile tasks require some level of durability though, which could prove troublesome for Ele.

I tanked the boss without issue as a earth campi g Tempest. Stationary most of the time. Pumping our 3 to 4k bleed ticks sustained. Tempest is single handedly the best raw damage soaker to keep the boss as still as possible for melee dpsers and can kite the mob to still be in range of the ranged squad members who position for the lighting aoe. 40% Protection with 100% uptime and 10% Frost Aura and cannot be crit while in earth. While maintaining solid condi dps. Easily will become the meta tank

SkiTz.4590:

Thieves? not a chance. Boon stripping/breaking bar is already taken care of…

Well, they can target buffs for thieves on an encounter by encounter basis by adding in particularly useful steal skills when stealing from a particular boss.

Swiftwynd.1685:

I tanked the boss without issue as a earth campi g Tempest. Stationary most of the time. Pumping our 3 to 4k bleed ticks sustained. Tempest is single handedly the best raw damage soaker to keep the boss as still as possible for melee dpsers and can kite the mob to still be in range of the ranged squad members who position for the lighting aoe. 40% Protection with 100% uptime and 10% Frost Aura and cannot be crit while in earth. While maintaining solid condi dps. Easily will become the meta tank

Does stone heart even matter though? Most mobs in this game have extremely low crit rates, might be different for raids, but not sure.

ArthurDent.9538:

Swiftwynd.1685:

I tanked the boss without issue as a earth campi g Tempest. Stationary most of the time. Pumping our 3 to 4k bleed ticks sustained. Tempest is single handedly the best raw damage soaker to keep the boss as still as possible for melee dpsers and can kite the mob to still be in range of the ranged squad members who position for the lighting aoe. 40% Protection with 100% uptime and 10% Frost Aura and cannot be crit while in earth. While maintaining solid condi dps. Easily will become the meta tank

Does stone heart even matter though? Most mobs in this game have extremely low crit rates, might be different for raids, but not sure.

Wethospu mentioned about monster’s critical attack some weeks ago. Apparently, champion and legendary rate bosses don’t crit. If you have screenshot evident stating otherwise, please kindly submit it to him for his research.

Regarding Ele/Tempest, I value Signet of Restoration too much to pass on Written in Stone – which also has good synergy with Signet of Fire and Burning Precision.

I wasnt sure to be honest but i noticed i took way more damage when switching out of earth so it certainly felt like i was being crit.

Point remains, i was able to keep it highly statio ary while i hear other tanks had to kite more frequently. This would allow the higher damage, stationary damage options to work better in raids such as staff ele.

From the top dps class to the tank role.

Amineo.8951:

Dahkeus.8243:

Chaos.5072:

It’s not like they are removing dungeons. Eles and theivs will still be good there.

Removing them? No, but they’re also not updating them, so it’s not far off.

Fractals still exist, Thief are just incredibly useful because of Dredge fractal and Mai Trin, Ele also has good might stack and general purposes.

Dredge is a joke now. The only place they are useful is Mai and harpy skipping. They really are losing their niche big time.

There is too much focus on what is “meta” (i.e., optimal) and not with what it “good enough”. There will always be a “meta” until that meta is upended by a different discovery. It does not mean that the raids will require the meta. The ideal situation is that the raid is balanced to be challenging enough, but not so challenging that it requires the precision of specific class combinations in specific gear. That would be horrible for Arena Net’s stated goals of bringing more attention to the soft-trinity and build diversity.

Isn’t it ironic how the trinity-guys got what htey wanted (the trinity) and now whine because it takes away diversity and makes teamcomps more rigid with demanding encounters?
Oh-ho, don’t you say.
Boo-kittening-hoo.

The real joke is that nobody is calling for an Engineer nerf, even though we’re going to see 3-4 of them in a 10 man raid. They have the highest PvE DPS (yes, highest, Sinister Engineer beats out Elementalist), yet we don’t have developers dropping microphones telling us that they’re overtuned and need to be adjusted. Why? Because people don’t cry on the forums about them non-stop.

What we have here is proof that a) ANet takes forum balance crying too seriously, and b) the nerfs to the classes frequently whined about (Thief, Elementalist) over the years are now going to nudge them out of the meta for new content.

sicsempertyrannis.3510:

The real joke is that nobody is calling for an Engineer nerf, even though we’re going to see 3-4 of them in a 10 man raid. They have the highest PvE DPS (yes, highest, Sinister Engineer beats out Elementalist), yet we don’t have developers dropping microphones telling us that they’re overtuned and need to be adjusted. Why? Because people don’t cry on the forums about them non-stop.

What we have here is proof that a) ANet takes forum balance crying too seriously, and b) the nerfs to the classes frequently whined about (Thief, Elementalist) over the years are now going to nudge them out of the meta for new content.

I’ve seen like 4 nerf engi posts today Don’t worry they’re happening.

Thing is I can’t help but feel that people are being tricked by the theoretical damages. They see the 20k thrown around and don’t realize what that takes and the ramp up time and all that comes with it. They just take it at face value.

The reason Engi will be so desired in raids is not just because of high DPS, but because it’s high Condi dps which we know is required, as well as plenty of utility (mortar water field + orbital on a lightning field, yeah I saw that dommmm, nice job). Condi DPS needs balancing, I hope they bring some other professions up to Engi level for condi DPS. Condi = low burst but good sustain, Power = great burst but lower sustain. That’d be ideal IMO.

As i said in the other thread, IMO if you want to make a “nerf Engi” post, pull off the full condi rotation in a video.

Jerus.4350:

As i said in the other thread, IMO if you want to make a “nerf Engi” post, pull off the full condi rotation in a video.

But it’s too hard for most people, that means it’s balanced!

sicsempertyrannis.3510:

Jerus.4350:

As i said in the other thread, IMO if you want to make a “nerf Engi” post, pull off the full condi rotation in a video.

But it’s too hard for most people, that means it’s balanced!

We have a video of Ele pulling 30k through Lupi’s first phase solo. Got anything like that for Condi Engi? I think that’s where the difference is.

sicsempertyrannis.3510:

Jerus.4350:

As i said in the other thread, IMO if you want to make a “nerf Engi” post, pull off the full condi rotation in a video.

But it’s too hard for most people, that means it’s balanced!

Basically no one can pull off the rotation, not to mention with alacrity and quickness coming. Let’s go nerf it so that even those few people who do manage to do a near perfect rotation don’t get rewarded for the extra skill! And the people who didn’t manage to do a perfect rotation now do even less DPS than before!

sicsempertyrannis.3510:

The real joke is that nobody is calling for an Engineer nerf, even though we’re going to see 3-4 of them in a 10 man raid. They have the highest PvE DPS (yes, highest, Sinister Engineer beats out Elementalist), yet we don’t have developers dropping microphones telling us that they’re overtuned and need to be adjusted. Why? Because people don’t cry on the forums about them non-stop.

What we have here is proof that a) ANet takes forum balance crying too seriously, and b) the nerfs to the classes frequently whined about (Thief, Elementalist) over the years are now going to nudge them out of the meta for new content.

Ele nerfs were entirely due to pvp and 4 ele groups winning tournaments. If you want to cry about poor balancing cry about the fact that balance STILL isnt split between the different game modes, even though theyre like playing entirely different mmos.

Besides 4 engies isnt that bad for balance, people ran 2 warriors in every dungeon run forever, then 2 eles in every run. Everyone knows balance will only be bad if people start running 5 per raid. Then you can grab your pitchforks and start booking flights to anets HQ.

Sizer.3987:

sicsempertyrannis.3510:

The real joke is that nobody is calling for an Engineer nerf, even though we’re going to see 3-4 of them in a 10 man raid. They have the highest PvE DPS (yes, highest, Sinister Engineer beats out Elementalist), yet we don’t have developers dropping microphones telling us that they’re overtuned and need to be adjusted. Why? Because people don’t cry on the forums about them non-stop.

What we have here is proof that a) ANet takes forum balance crying too seriously, and b) the nerfs to the classes frequently whined about (Thief, Elementalist) over the years are now going to nudge them out of the meta for new content.

Ele nerfs were entirely due to pvp and 4 ele groups winning tournaments. If you want to cry about poor balancing cry about the fact that balance STILL isnt split between the different game modes, even though theyre like playing entirely different mmos.

Besides 4 engies isnt that bad for balance, people ran 2 warriors in every dungeon run forever, then 2 eles in every run. Everyone knows balance will only be bad if people start running 5 per raid. Then you can grab your pitchforks and start booking flights to anets HQ.

The big problem with this statement is that pve ele and pvp ele share almost nothing in common. Between the two builds they both generally ran water and fire, but within those two lines they literally only shared one major trait. From there they are even more different, different weapons, completely different utilities, different heal skill, different stat choices.

And the recent nerf was aimed at the PvP ele. Nerf to Cantrip? Burning Ash? PvE Ele don’t care!

Iris Ng.9845:

And the recent nerf was aimed at the PvP ele. Nerf to Cantrip? Burning Ash? PvE Ele don’t care!

PVE ele care about icebow.

Ele is pretty unfulfilling now with ice bow out of the rotation most of the time, ngl. I wish tempest wasn’t rubbish so that there’d be something new to use on the class, but it’s just a lot more bland comparatively to how it used to feel months ago whereas other classes are becoming more and more fun.

I think I enjoyed elementalist the most before the specializations update where we had to worry about maintaining arcane lightning in addition to having ice bow in our rotations. We also had the most trait variations for staff builds too.

Why should ele be knocked out of top tier dps and sinister engi be #1 I play both and the amount of mistakes I can make on sinister engi is just stupid, it’s so easy to play with braindead 100% chill uptime 3 second block, easy 25 might upkeep, easy 25 vuln upkeep, shield reflect, shield block, longest reflect wall in the game, more blinds than ele, the best heal in the game and access to stealth. Ele is the only class in pve at least where I feel like surviving is actually a task, if I get breathed on too hard my 10k hp won’t be enough, these nerfs are unjustified. All of the conjures deserve a complete rework not a pitiful 50% ‘nerf’ beyond usability, nerf is the completely wrong word for the balance changes as of late it’s more like what would fanservice our players the most and let’s do that.

Evapor.6849:

Why should ele be knocked out of top tier dps and sinister engi be #1 I play both and the amount of mistakes I can make on sinister engi is just stupid, it’s so easy to play with braindead 100% chill uptime 3 second block, easy 25 might upkeep, easy 25 vuln upkeep, shield reflect, shield block, longest reflect wall in the game, more blinds than ele, the best heal in the game and access to stealth. Ele is the only class in pve at least where I feel like surviving is actually a task, if I get breathed on too hard my 10k hp won’t be enough, these nerfs are unjustified. All of the conjures deserve a complete rework not a pitiful 50% ‘nerf’ beyond usability, nerf is the completely wrong word for the balance changes as of late it’s more like what would fanservice our players the most and let’s do that.

The amount of exaggeration in this is quite extreme. I do agree with a conjure rework, and do agree that when they address something it should be with thought and precision through reworking things not just “hmm. lets kill this, and lets kill that” whack-a-mole game they seem to play with it.

15 seconds wall of reflection that gives 6 seconds of quickness and 7 stacks of might and cures two conditions is kittening broken, 100% chill uptime without deviating from normal dps build/utilities is broken, the insane survivability of toolkit and shield is fine. I don’t think sinister engi should be doing marginally more damage than everything in the game even it’s other zerker build which is so much harder to play with a rotation that can’t be learned within the first 10 minutes of playing.

Ele should always be top tier dps, it has kittening 10k hp, unless they decide to give the class competitive survivability options, which won’t happen because esports. They’ll never rebalance cantrips even though they are all garbage in pve. I’m genuinely curious as to why people think elementalist even deserved a nerf when it’s like miles ahead of other classes in terms of being mechanically challenging and actually having to think about staying alive unlike engi where the most insane survivability options come from the main dps build lmao.

Aside from the exaggerations I agree with Evapor that ele deserves to be capable of producing the highest damage output. However, I don’t feel like enough effort had to be put into it in order to achieve it prior to the ice bow nerf. I want more than just a conjure rework.

Purple Miku.7032:

Aside from the exaggerations I agree with Evapor that ele deserves to be capable of producing the highest damage output. However, I don’t feel like enough effort had to be put into it in order to achieve it prior to the ice bow nerf. I want more than just a conjure rework.

This I can agree with, the squishiness certainly warrants being strong DPS.

Purple Miku.7032:

Aside from the exaggerations I agree with Evapor that ele deserves to be capable of producing the highest damage output. However, I don’t feel like enough effort had to be put into it in order to achieve it prior to the ice bow nerf. I want more than just a conjure rework.

If dagger focus could finally beat out staff I would be so happy.