Well I must admit that I’ve been shadowing GW 2’s class balance situation for quite some time now. I haven’t played that much in the last half a year, but then again I don’t need to play to grasp theoretical build ideas and balance. These are my impressions:
Warrior: He is fairly balanced and does everything he is designed to do. But, I do think that he is a bit too tough right now. What’s the remedy? Scale him back a bit towards the state he was at launch by FINE Tuning his Defense abilities. If 0% was the launch state and 100% the current one, he should be scaled down to about 70-80 of current Defense. Not that much and it would put back the Risk in the ____ and the reward at warrior’s, therefore requiring a bit more skill. Not nearly as much as at launch mind you!
Guardian: Is almost perfectly balanced around his theme. Various synchronisations and such are in order, but I’d prefer if they didn’t touch him for as long as possible. He’s literally in such a good position balance wise.
Engineer: with perma vigour gone(not actually, but it is gone in the easy mode of yore), the skill reqs for playing Engi are going up. I don’t necessarily like that, seeing how playing Engi can be like playing a piano sometimes. But easy mode specs should definitely go. With that said I feel like you can play most specs right now save for the Turrets. Which, naturally, means that ANet can focus solely on them come next year. And the remaining synchronisations/bug fixes etc. They should focus on Turrets.
Ranger: With the upcoming patch I feel like most things should be playable. Some pets need buffs in order to be viable and sword’s 1 should receive a quality of Life fix. After next patch the Rangers are going to be in a pretty good shape.
Thief: They are taking away vigour, focusing thieves on swiftness instead and increasing Base initiative regen. Suits me! If you ask me, it’s merely a roundabout method of achieving mobility. Will it be a Buff or a nerf? Who knows those things? I like how the resource management could actually become a skill amongst Thief players. Is ok.
Necro: I just don’t know what to think of him. Giving him a burn was a mistake(he is not a bloody Ritualist so you can fall back to the good old spirit burn explanation!) that doesn’t even become him, but I think that ANet’s finally getting the hang of Necro. A static, durable, DoT/Debuff machine. Everything else is merely an extra! As long as they keep this as the Main intended playstyle of Necros, everything’s gonna be A-ok.
Mesmer-don’t play him too much sorry! But I intend to in the future because I LOVED that bloody class in the GW 1. I owe him that much(at least a playthrough)…
Elementalist: I still feel they are too fragile. The updates they have in store are all fine and dandy(I love how they accentuate other trait lines besides Water and Arcane{is not like I need anything more personally-well maybe Water/Earth would be better
}), but I feel like they are not really tackling the issue why everyone is taking 30 in Water in the first place. 3k hp is a lot on such a squishy char. That’s why. Maybe if ANet lowered the recharge on some key Defensive Traits? On some key Defensive skills? Not both mind you! That would only create the penultimate bunker char. We don’t need those. Damage wise I feel like they are ok. Dagger/Dagger is about concentrated bursts and mobility(they do that just fine), Sceptre/Focus is about support dmg with a lot of Auras and Fields(done, done and done) and staff is about t3h artillery effect. Fire is about AoE DoTs and DD(done), Air about various spikes and mobility and hard cc(done), earth about Soft CC and debuffs and dots(done, done and done) and water about Healing, Soft CC and various support oriented stuff(vulnerability, chill, those kind of things. Oh and done!).
I feel like there is not that much to be done about GW 2’s balance Save for various synchronisations and fine tunes. That leaves the ANet the freedom to tackle the issue of Engineer’s Turrets and Elementalist’s squishyness head on. Which in turn means that they are aware of the problem(well they should be lol!) and that in turn means that already the 50% of work is done(identifying the problem). Manual labor is all that stands between us and balanced Eles/Turrets.
All imho ofc!
Leave in Asuryan’s peace…
. Anyhow, they are rather problematic because of one specific mechanic they have(I HATE from the bottoms of my being the guy who invented no-check stealth): the stealth. It then turns into you one shotting them or them one shotting you. Too binary right? This thing happens everywhere where the stealthers are present(MMOs, MOBAs, take your pick). Stealth should have an anti stealth check and more than one btw(am referring to Rangers getting anti stealth skill).. Right now it’s too cheesy(not just in GW 2 mind you! There was a reason why Izzy was deathly afraid of giving Sins the Real stealth in GW 1…).
? Imrik perhaps