Guild Wars 2

One thing got me wondering. I’m at work, kinda bored, and reading the GW2 forums. I personally play an elementalist as a main, and like to read the elementalist forums. I do read other classes forums too, but mostly general discussion one and the elementalist one. The thing I’ve noticed, there are a lot of players who leave their characters behind if those are not the top notch classes at the moment.

For example – if I knew elemetalist was such a fun class to play, I would never role a different one. I play a fast paced, dagger-dagger one, and it’s so much fun. I’m not that worried about the numbers. It’s fun to see big numbers though. Just the other day, I had a nice 8,000 crit on churning earth. Was su nice to see, but I would play my elementalist even if half of that was the maximum I could achieve. Keep in mind my whole set is not completely done, so I can expect higher numbers, but that’s not the point.

The point is, I see a lot of players who ditch a certain class (their main at that moment) just because it got nerfed or some other class is potentially stronger. Some would leave elementalist mains and role a new character just because it got nerfed or a warior is better at the moment. Better at what really? Pure numbers? One skill can do more damage?

Do YOU play that way? If you have a “main” and you like to play him, would you leave him behind if he got nerfed or is not that strong anymore, compared to some class/classes. For example, if your warior was nerfed, and thief got a nice buff, would you reroll or play an alt just because of that?

I know I wouldn’t. I enjoy the playstyle of the class more than just the high numbers or how fast I can clear COF1 (6 or 7 minutes) in a speed run.

I play an elementalist, cause its fun to play, for me at least. Do you play your class because it’s on the top of the ladder or because you like it? Will you reroll if you get nerfed?

When they changed the gw1 dervish, my fav char in any mmo i couldnt ever return to him. It wasnt a nerf, more of a change to an unrecognisable class for me. Re learning him after so long being instinctive to his play style, was something i was never able to do.

A nerf wouldnt kill a class for me – i play whichever suits me the most. Atm that means a warrior (altho loving thief as well atm). It would take a major overhaul of the warrior class for me to ditch him, not just a few nerfs here and there.

I think it depends on how committed to skills and builds you are. Casual players prob forgive nerfs a lot more than those heavily reliant on specific builds for specific set ups. In that way, I can see how a negative change to a profession would kill that class for a player.

I have one of each profession but my main that I started with in the headstart weekend (Sylvari Necro) is still my main. I usually play my alt’s then if an event or something happens I switch to my Necro.

No not really.       

I’ve managed to land 15k-ish with Churning Earth – while not necessarily the best for sustain, it’s so fun to see big numbers Which is also why I’m running that Thor-esque lightning hammer build that DnT showed off. Hilarious.

The only class I can’t play right now is Ranger – I feel too useless in dungeons (we always go for speedy runs in our guild groups). Warrior, Guardian, Thief, Ele and Mesmer are fair game though.

Been mainly a warrior and guardian since the 25th of August, don’t see that changing anytime soon.

But yeah, after those two my third 80 was my elementalist, so much fun.

Depends. If something gets a big buff or someone announces an interesting build I’ll try it out (if I have an 80 in that class). But invariably I return to my two mains.

My Sylvare Engineer is my main and she is the one I do all new content with first.
But I do love playing my Guardian alot and she is the one I use at the moment “grinding” the Holos with since she is best choice for that. Though my Engineer was best at the Southsun living story… I guess I go with the one suited best for the situation but my Engineer is the one who have 100% map and full Exotic Ascended and I save for my legendary for my Engineer, my playtime is topped to my Engineer and well when it all comes to if I had to chose one to play with I would play with my Engineer even though my Guardian seems better.

I play whatever I feel like it at the moment. Sometimes that is what’s “hot”, sometimes it isn’t.

That said, characters are tools. If a certain class gets nerfed to the point where they can no longer perform their role effectively, or if another class is buffed to the point where they become better at a certain role than another, previously better, class, then I’ll change to that class whenever I’m looking to fulfill that role.

For example, despite loving Necro, they are quite flawed, to the point where lately I just don’t bother. I have other classes doing similar roles with less issues, so why not?

My main was a Ranger, I no longer play it, for me I stopped when I was trying to kill something and I seen a Guardian running in and wrecking the same enemy in like 5 seconds, the Ranger was so vastly underpowered it wasn’t funny, ( im sure changes have been made since, but it got ignored for to long, I lost interest in it )

Then Guardian became my primary char, but as Anet continued to nerf zone after zone, and FotM became boring with no loot etc, I moved towards WvW, I then noticed in there that Mesmers where destroying the place, so I thought I don’t have a Mesmer so ill roll one, about 3 weeks later, anet hit mesmers with the confusion NERF, ( wasn’t really needed but hey ) but I didn’t change out, I would say now my Mesmer is my primary char,

All in all I think its good to play different chars etc as they each bring a different play style to the same battle.

My two mains are Ranger and Necromancer. I rarely play my other alts, though they are slowly (or have already) attaining level 80. I couldn’t care less about ‘Flavor of the Month’, as my purpose in playing this game is to have fun, and these two characters afford me just that. Fun. =)

Not at all. I play my own game.

i started at release with elementalist and kept it as ONLY profession.
i’ll rewrite it in short.

Is it fun to have evasive arcana reduced?
Is it fun to have rtl (class defining skill) nerfed to more than 150%?
Is it fun to have more risk and less rewards than most other professions (pve)?
Is it fun the mistform nerf in pve?

The answer is NO ele WAS fun.
PvP Patches made sure that it’s not only “adamantly uneffective” (cit by dev) but also boring as hell….

So why on earth knewing the class struggled in PvE they nerfed it anyway?

Ele curretnly is extremely unfun for me they killed the class i used as only profession since release….

I switched to mesmer being the other magic user profession but i hope they will stop their pvp non sensical balance…..

P.S. and fun Wyse i hope they understand that if i wanted to use few warrior skills on a hammer or a GS i would ve rolled a warrior that is insanely OP nowaday and getting buff after buff
as possibly 90% of pve population already did.

LordByron.8369:

i started at release with elementalist and kept it as ONLY profession.
i’ll rewrite it in short.

Is it fun to have evasive arcana reduced?
Is it fun to have rtl (class defining skill) nerfed to more than 150%?
Is it fun to have more risk and less rewards than most other professions (pve)?
Is it fun the mistform nerf in pve?

The answer is NO ele WAS fun.
PvP Patches made sure that it’s not only “adamantly uneffective” (cit by dev) but also boring as hell….

So why on earth knewing the class struggled in PvE they nerfed it anyway?

Ele curretnly is extremely unfun for me they killed the class i used as only profession since release….

I switched to mesmer being the other magic user profession but i hope they will stop their pvp non sensical balance…..

P.S. and fun Wyse i hope they understand that if i wanted to use few warrior skills on a hammer or a GS i would ve rolled a warrior that is insanely OP nowaday and getting buff after buff
as possibly 90% of pve population already did.

But, basically what you’er saying is that some skills got nerfed (some would state they were rather overpowered to be honest) and you are not having more fun with that class. Because, lets say, you are now not so strong. You’re mentioning RTL, so probably dagger-dagger specced. I did read a lot and D/D speccs were rather overpowered and almost unkillable. Watched a video were a guy was running from 10 people all the time, trolling them, they did not manage to kill him. Mist form heals etc.

So, you’re class got nerfed, you ditch it for a new one. Flavour of the month player. Wouldnt you say?

Vayne.8563:

Not at all. I play my own game.

Didn’t expect anything different from you.

Nope even when the engi class was extremely bad I was still playing it 28 grenades per mob and all.

Not one to bounce around.

tigirius.9014:

Nope even when the engi class was extremely bad I was still playing it 28 grenades per mob and all.

Not one to bounce around.

Ye, thats the spirit.

Ok I Did It.2854:

My main was a Ranger, I no longer play it, for me I stopped when I was trying to kill something and I seen a Guardian running in and wrecking the same enemy in like 5 seconds, the Ranger was so vastly underpowered it wasn’t funny, ( im sure changes have been made since, but it got ignored for to long, I lost interest in it )

Then Guardian became my primary char, but as Anet continued to nerf zone after zone, and FotM became boring with no loot etc, I moved towards WvW, I then noticed in there that Mesmers where destroying the place, so I thought I don’t have a Mesmer so ill roll one, about 3 weeks later, anet hit mesmers with the confusion NERF, ( wasn’t really needed but hey ) but I didn’t change out, I would say now my Mesmer is my primary char,

All in all I think its good to play different chars etc as they each bring a different play style to the same battle.

So, if something can kill something faster, or is more powerfull in some aspect of the game, you’ll play that?

For the argument sake, if Rangers would dominate, lets say WvW, you’ll ditch your Mesmer and play them?

Spiderwick.1879:

Vayne.8563:

Not at all. I play my own game.

Didn’t expect anything different from you.

Yep. I’m nothing if not predictable. lol

Spiderwick.1879:

Do YOU play that way? If you have a “main” and you like to play him, would you leave him behind if he got nerfed or is not that strong anymore, compared to some class/classes.

Already have … My main, since launch, use to be a ranger …

I left the ranger because the class has been systematically destroyed and was no longer fun to play. It became worse and worse after each so called ‘balance’ patch with the quickness nerf being the last straw for me. I could no longer run dungeons without gimping the entire party.

In Jan/Feb I leveled a guardian, so had that to fall back on. The guardian is my main now. I use the ranger only for easy PvE stuff, some dailies and the like. If not for having 100% world on the ranger, I would have deleted it by now.

Spiderwick.1879:

But, basically what you’er saying is that some skills got nerfed (some would state they were rather overpowered to be honest)
and you are not having more fun with that class. Because, lets say, you are now not so strong. You’re mentioning RTL, so probably dagger-dagger specced. I did read a lot and D/D speccs were rather overpowered and almost unkillable. Watched a video were a guy was running from 10 people all the time, trolling them, they did not manage to kill him. Mist form heals etc.

So, you’re class got nerfed, you ditch it for a new one. Flavour of the month player. Wouldnt you say?

I wrote PvE every 2 lines….should i add more

lets try
PvEPvEPvEPvEPvEPvEPvEPvEPvEPvEPvEPvEPvE where D/D is mostly NON viable…..in too many situations.

:D

And no Ele was OP sorta only in PvP….that is not MY opinion was the prenerf interview state of thegame.

Dev said:
Adamantly uneffective in PvE
bleeding in WWW correctly (it possibly meant fine)
OP in PvP

Yet they nerfed all 3.

also…
On ele forum has already being discussed a lot the difference between fun and effective.

to make it easy:

RTL nerf doesn t impact PvE ele effectiveness that much
RTL nerf does make the class extremely BORING.

Mistform nerf was instead a necessity for PvE and took away both effectiveness and fun.

D/D is the most fun (now kitten ring) and the less effective weaponset for most dungeons. (there are various opinions on that but for sure its not even strong).

P.S. watching vids is overrated….you have to see what s happening…..“surviving” against 10 ppl (often clueless and upleveled) in www is quite useless…(and infact you can see similar vids for every class but thieves…that instead KILL several people).
In PvP is OP.

I tried with one char. My mes. Made him a full zerk after hearing all the halubaloo about zerk mes. Got him to 80 fast, but don’t play him as often as my guard now. =/

I stick by my necromancer. I don’t re-trait and re-equip for build of the month either, just when I get bored with a play style

My main is an Engi, so does that mean I’m a “Neglected of the Month” player?

My first character was a pre-release Human D/D Elementalist. I leveled her to max within 24 hours, had exotics within a week. Aside from random “test builds” I never changed my spec from 0/0/30/20/20. I adored the fluid in and out motions, the particle spectacle I would see each combo and the synergy between perfect attunement swaps.

I started branching out after 6 months in and played the other characters I maxed. Thief, Ranger, Elementalist, Guardian and always found myself returning to Elementalist. At first the nerfs were small, but consistent.

Playing the ele for so long, I knew the class inside and out. Simply put Scepter was good for PVE, not for PVP/WVW. Focus was only useful for countersieging and was nerfed. X/D was needed for the mobility, but was nerfed, FAR more than needed. Healing foods were nerfed, condition removals were nerfed, EA was nerfed, and mistform was nerfed.

I admit, mistform nerf was necessary. Way too powerful in conjuncture with Ether Renewal, however all these things together destroyed the class as a whole. Now it feels slow and clunky, there’s a decidedly obvious lack of flow to your skills, and they nerfed unique builds. The reason D/D was so popular is because S/X and X/F just were NOT viable for wvw. Sure there’s the spike dmg S/D as a gimmick, but that was nerfed with the X/D.

Afterwords I reverted to my thief, which was then hit with the nerfbat when mug was “reworked”. I swapped to my mesmer and stayed there. Now, however, the class feels hollow. I used to enjoy mesmer but I feel as though I was funneled into the class due to poor planning and balance. I’m by no means yelling witchcraft at ANET, but I’m having a hard time understanding their direction.

More and more often I find people being funneled into classes they don’t like simply due to the fact that they can’t play their class the way they want to anymore. Instead of the consistant nerfs ANET has been throwing out the last few months, I would honest to god like to see a portion of them reverted and instead, buff non-viable weapon sets/traits. Last I remember they removed subclassing to focus more on balancing properly, yet that goal seems to elude them. If something becomes popular it’s because that’s probably the most effective way to play. Some may be overpowered such as ether/mist and crit mug, but instead of destroying it I would instead like to see them work on making other things viable.

Summoned weapons for example. I love the concept, but outside of very situational instances, there’s no need for them and they’re fairly discouraged. Hell, even the change to my old Confusion-Bow build felt extremely unwarranted. A bit of a rant, but I do really like this game. I just feel as though I’m being forced into playing classes I have no interest in and it’s annoying.

I play a S/P Thief, in a duo/group roam setting in WvW, in full zerker and no access to stealth except through blast finishers, which we make use of quite often for surprise attacks.

I am the very opposite of FOTM, but I love how my character plays and I can dish out pretty decent damage.

Most of the time i dont care about FotM or try to avoid them.

My main is and will always be necro, but at the moment i stopped playing him cause of the downed-bug and other issues. I guess i will play him more if some good fixes come next week.
My 2nd (and currently most played) char is my S/D-thief, which then became FotM a while ago and i really dont like all that attention S/D got now, cause it’s likely that Anet overnerfs the weaponset or nerfs the wrong aspects of it.

Often the reason why people switch isn’t because they’re chasing the FOTM, it’s because something the devs have done has nerfed a build that they worked on for a long time. That can be discouraging and offputting, so it’s understandable that they’ll switch to another class.

Never. I play what’s most fun with respect to playstyle. Often in MMOs, I find that I’m playing the least played profession. I main an Engi here for example. Mained an enhancement shaman in WoW from the start (TBC).

When he plays GW2, he becomes the flavor of the month.

He is… the most interesting Asura in Tyria.

Ele (Launch) = Wizard
-Nerf to 5 targets damage-
Ele (Sept) = Cleric
-Nerf to 5 target heals, Glyph of Renewal-
Ele (Nov) = Defensive Support
-Nerf to Swirling Winds, Condition Removal-
Ele (Feb) = Defensive
-Nerf to RTL, Mist Form, Signet of Restoration-
Ele (June) = ?????????

I try to play whatever is going to be the least popular of builds or anti-FotM
Especially when it means being underpowered and having more challenge.

Like when everyone was Sin-waying the Shards_of_Orr… I was running a shouts VOS dervish instead for it :p … Currently I’m running an Anti-Zerk Ranger in Dungeons (only when the rest of the team ‘Lets me’), which may technically be even worse, lol.

Speaking of which, I need to work on my Engineer! .. Hrrrngggh…

I try to avoid the flavor of the month.

I play pretty much all the classes, I log onto whichever one suits my mood or desire at the time and simply play.

I see skill adjustments as a challenge generally. ‘Ok they changed this, how does it affect me? I can I work it into my build? I can I play off of it?’ etc etc

As such, I don’t speed clear and try to avoid the ‘gimmick’ builds as much as humanly possible. Just how I prefer to play…au naturel.

If anything I’m the complete opposite. I’ve been playing RPGs for about 20 years and slowly adapting my playstyle through pretty much all that time.

I knew from reading the website before the game came out (and from playing one in GW1) that I most likely wanted to play a ranger, confirmed it in the betas and she’s been my main since day 1.

I also have an elementalist, engineer, thief and guardian and I like them all but I don’t play them as much.

I play the class i want with the builds i made myself.

If i ditch a character it’s because they pretty much destroyed the main aspects of the character that i liked (i’m not going to lie the recent teleport changes featuring rng makes me consider ditching my thief it in favor of necro, depends on next patch)

I’m not.
I have played a Mesmer since the betas and in the beginning it was quite a rough ride.

My mesmer is my main and for a very long time I could not play any other class because I was so in love with the mechanic.

Then I made an Engi and it was love at first sight again- she was just so much fun from level 1- She is now my second main

I alternate them according to my mood

I have one of each profession and I’m not going to abandon any of them. Sure some are weaker, some are stronger, but I like a class not because they’re weak or because they are strong, but simply because I like the mechanics.

If anything, I’m the opposite. My character on the BWEs was a warrior but after seeing so many around I went with Guardian on release. Got that to 80 and noticed there were a lot of guardians around so rolled a mesmer (and later an ele). Though I haven’t gone as far as to make an engi or necro yet.

Also after my experience with the Dervish in GW1 I wouldn’t immediately stop playing a profession even if they did completely change it.

When they did the big Dervish update which added flash enchantments and made a lot of other changes it completely wiped out my build – it was literally unusable. Because I always used custom builds instead of copying them from websites this had never happened to me before, all the other updates had just been minor changes before.

But I decided to see what I could “salvage from the wreckage”, removed all my attribute points, took all the skills off my bar and started from scratch. It took me most of the morning but I ended up with a workable new build that within a week I decided I liked even more than my old one.

The only problem was trying to explain to other people that a point-blank AoE build is ANY build that primarily uses (or relies on) skills that do PBAoE damage, even if it doesn’t have the one skill everyone else used.

I’ve played mesmer almost exclusively since beta and live and breath mastering the class. My non-adherence to “flavour of the month” builds is such that I’ve been accused of being a “noob” because I was using skills and weapons regarded as “inferior” even though the players doing the accusing’s knowledge of the class was typically flawed or limited to pre-fab builds.

Amusing anecdotes including being told I was a scrub for not being able to blink through a wall and shortcut a part of a dungeon (I eventually figured out the exploit he was trying to force me to do; but it didn’t involve using blink at all – the guy wouldn’t accept that blink could not pass through walls), or being told to stop using scepter/pistol on a boss fight because scepter was a “noob weapon” and GS is better. (When actually scepter/pistol does far better DPS for ranging single targets, and packs built in defences, as any sPvP’r will tell you).

…and let’s not forget the sheer number of times I’ve been accused of rolling mesmer because it’s flavour of the month or the easy option…

Yes I am, but I am still waiting for my month to occur.

I’m not going to say I’m outright opposite, but I choose to play against flavor of the month curves, and oddly enough it’s happened in a lot of the games I have played.

At the very start, I had a Thief, I got it to around 50, then deleted it because at that point I wanted one of each class, and my character design and name didn’t appeal to me no longer, and after that I set out leveling each class enough to get a feel for how they played and how much i liked them. Mesmer was my first to 80 after the previous endeavor, quickly followed by Ranger and Warrior, but it seemed each time I had moved on to my next project, the rest of the playerbase was playing these classes in abundance.

Necromancer was my 4th 80, and at the point of getting it to 80, was probably at it’s lowest point, the minion/vampiric fixes hit about a month after she got to 80, maybe I’ll pick her up again after next tuesday but it’s doubtful thanks to my current in progress character.

Engineer is my most recent 80, and I had pretty much started it in it’s rise of finding builds that worked for it, yet I never played a single one of them, it’s still in it’s Zerker-esque build which to my knowledge is quite dissimilar to all of the current and previous ‘flavor of the month’ builds.

Finally I’ve started leveling all three of the low HP classes, with the Thief leading the charge at 52, again, it’s not in a flavor of the month build and it’s recently seen people drop it in favor of the Mesmer thanks to the Shadowstep nerf and I yet I have intentions of making her my next fully geared character. The Guardian and Elementalist are in low level hell with not a lot of the fuel to start the fires but I have a few interesting build ideas for both which at least for now are against the most optimal curves.

The problem I have with Flavor of the Month builds and classes is that they are more likely to be hard countered by the player base or be ‘nerfed’ by the developers, by keeping away from them I won’t encounter and like the powerful builds and be sad when they are gone, yet experience new life in the class and builds where other haven’t.

‘Sort of’ would be my answer. I like playing all the classes. I have three mains and I love them all.

My Ele is my main, main and I use him for everything except WvW.
My Ranger is my dailies toon. She has a great Magic Find armor and I usually am happy with the loot she gets every day.
My Guardian is my main Dungeon and WvW toon. I use my Ele in dungeons too but I really like my Guardians resiliency an and support functions in dungeons.

No, I play what I enjoy. My main is a Ranger, my other two 80s are Mesmer and Thief. My lower level Engineer and Warrior are enjoyable, but don’t get much time because I still love my ‘big 3’ so much. Minor changes to the classes probably aren’t going to change that for me. A redefinition of the class, like Randulf’s example of the Dervish, could change my mind, I suppose. So could the introduction of a new class that I enjoy even more than these three. But until one or both those things happen, I’m happy with my little krewe.

this is why people always switch to the golden 4 or the 2 shining stars.

theives
warriors
guardians
mesmers

makes just those 4 classes and your set for life since anet will never kill the class to slightly nerf 1 build of the class.
guardian and mesmers if you want a class thats the best in pvp and pve mesmers for time warp and portals.

and i main a ele thats not the cookie cutter bunker build, its funny how they had to fix a class with the lowest hp and armor being able to get away is more important than the perma stealth exploit, and general trollishness of thieves which everybody hates.

You can go to any class forum and find people complaining about nerfs and how under-powered their class is. Heck, even here there are different people saying how they played a certain class (which other people are calling OP) and then switched after they thought their class was nerfed.

MMO players are just sad. I guess that is why we play MMOs. Real life is to hard.