Guild Wars 2

Which is what defined the power structure: Heavy, medium, and light armors. This restriction is not needed anymore with a game without the 3 traditional roles yet it still remains in this game. How this worked in past MMOs was that light or cloth armor users would have the most crowd control and movement options since they would die the fastest from melee hits. (and typically have a high magic resistance) Medium or leather armor wearers would be in the middle in terms of survival versus melee hits and crowd control options, and heavy or plate armor users would be strongest against melee damage and weak against magic users utility but able to easily kill them if in range.

Since on of the main focuses in GW2 is to get away from this, why don’t all classes have the same amount of armor in the end? And can choose to wear which ever type they prefer visually?

At the rate they seem to be homogenizing the GW franchise, i wouldn’t be surprised if that happened. They gut one traditional system but they’re too shortsighted to fully compensate for it. In all honesty though, the trinity isn’t gone from this game and i’m speculative as to whether they will re-design guardian and reinstitute monk back into the game. It’s more of a traditional flavor thing that stuck because they didn’t realize the full effect that the homogenization of classes and mechanics would have on the gameplay and combat depth. Suffice to say, if anything it’s to prevent thieves or eles from having heavy armor and guardians or wars from having light.

I agree with OP, armor categories are an old and stupid concept

The armor problem has come up before… two words: “Mage Tanks”… everyone ends up playing wizards dressed as knights… why wouldn’t you?

It is a valid criticism that the OP has – why have different classes at all if they are all supposed to be self sufficient? A skill based system could do that better than a class based system. But then we’d be playing Skyrim Online I suppose.

I suspect that the devs may retool the game eventually towards a trinity-ish balance as far as that goes. Good point, OP.

“The armor problem has come up before… two words: “Mage Tanks”… everyone ends up playing wizards dressed as knights… why wouldn’t you?”
I don’t think it would be implemented as easily.
I can imagine there being a penalty for wearing something heavy while trying to cast. Or what about wearing something heavy while trying to be nimble?
I think Dragon Age handled this pretty well, for the mechanics that they had.

Ye well, warriors wear heavy armor and has the least survivability,so I don’t see why armor is making much of a deal right now.

If everyone has the same amount of armor, then everyone also has to have the same amount of escape mechanisms, same amount of cc and same amount of avoidance.

See the problem?

You ever notice how many thief skills have a dodge incorporated in them? Or how many ele skills have some sort of control aspect tied to some seriously damage-dealing capability?

Taking damage should really be a last resort in this game, especially if you’re wearing light or medium armor, and those classes have mitigation tools to compensate, arguably more so than warriors or even caster-health guardians. It’s all different playstyles to the same end.

I actually did tank a boss for the first time yesterday. The thief boss in AC explorable. I don’t know what it was that made him focus 98% of the time on me and that’s no exaggeration. But using sword and board I actually was able to take his hits.

I think this might be the future direction as groups become more skilled in their use of debuffs and buffs. Our guardian kept runes under my feet for buffs, the group constantly kept weakness up so hits weren’t that bad. I couldn’t just stand in one spot and take hits mind you, I’d be in trade blows a bit, hamstring duck out. Boss would hobble over to reach me while I regen/shout heal up and repeat the process over again.

Like I said that could end up being the direction things evolve to on their own.

Swagman.9013:

I actually did tank a boss for the first time yesterday. The thief boss in AC explorable. I don’t know what it was that made him focus 98% of the time on me and that’s no exaggeration. But using sword and board I actually was able to take his hits.

I think this might be the future direction as groups become more skilled in their use of debuffs and buffs. Our guardian kept runes under my feet for buffs, the group constantly kept weakness up so hits weren’t that bad. I couldn’t just stand in one spot and take hits mind you, I’d be in trade blows a bit, hamstring duck out. Boss would hobble over to reach me while I regen/shout heal up and repeat the process over again.

Like I said that could end up being the direction things evolve to on their own.

Effective use of support and control on everyone’s end that fight. /clap

I’ve found that a lot of enemies are fairly easy to kite around while taking minimal damage and with the amount of stuns and ccs you can fairly easily get away without a tank. However what is problematic is the lack of ability to get mobs focused on you and not someone else.

NBlitz.9083:

“The armor problem has come up before… two words: “Mage Tanks”… everyone ends up playing wizards dressed as knights… why wouldn’t you?”
I don’t think it would be implemented as easily.
I can imagine there being a penalty for wearing something heavy while trying to cast. Or what about wearing something heavy while trying to be nimble?
I think Dragon Age handled this pretty well, for the mechanics that they had.

They could always make it so toughness reduces the chance to be crit like the arena armor in BC era WoW.

Because one of the benefits of being a warrior is taking more hits. I’m pretty sure base stats (being lvl 80) mean the same exact numbers for all classes. While, lighter classes have more tools to dodge hits or w,e.

It’s a kind of old system, but the way they are using it isn’t all that pointless and stupid. Also, it would be really hard to tell classes apart from one another.

Scholar/Adventurer professions have subsidies that allows them to negate damage just as well as the Soldier professions. Thieves have dodging, Rangers have their pets, Engineers have their control, Elementalist have their Earth attunements, Mesmers have Clones, and Necromancers have Death Shroud.

Armor “class” actually means very little in this game.

Level 80 light armor: 920 defense total
Level 80 heavy armor: 1211 defense total

Sounds soso difference right? Except that the “armor” stat is the sum of your defense from armor, your base toughness, your toughness from traits, and toughness from gear.

Both elementalists and warriors have the same base toughness, 916 at level 80. Add in on top of that another 500-1000 based on gear and traits and the new total armor looks more like:

Elementalist: 2600 armor
Warrior: 2891 armor

Very little difference at all. The vast majority of difference in toughness comes from how you trait and how much you put on your gear.

Now the real difference between classes is base hp pool. Elemenalists (along with thieves and guardians) have ~10.8k. Warriors (and necros) have over 18k.

Every class has different ways of avoiding or mitigating damage. The last thing I want to see is a super homogenization similar to the direction Blizzard took with WoW as people kept complaining “waaah we aren’t equal in every possible way, it’s not baaaaaalanced!”

The armor really doesn’t matter because in most dungeons, you’ll be oneshot anyway.

undertow tell that to the eles in Spvp that have more toughness than a warrior and is less durable.

The difference is in hp, not armor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-udk3CEtc7E#t=153s

Look at that awesome warrior durability!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-udk3CEtc7E#t=228s

Warrior, Guardian… that heavy armor sure is making a huge difference…

As some one stated yesterday armor type is a form of TAXONOMY and ACHETYPE not a balance trinity.

@Undertow

Sure he can burst one Warrior\Guardian but he’s useless for the next 40 or so seconds and can be one shot as well since he has no survivability at all.

The three different armor types are really irrelevant to stats in this game, it’s all about traits. However appearance, which is arguably the drawing factors of armor in GW2, is the primary difference between the three armor types. Heavies get a wide range of armors from chainmail bikinis, gladiator outfits, fully covered suit of armor looks and Mediums get a great deal of buttcapes… While clothies get frilly pajamas (except for females who get very elaborate costumes *see winged crafted armor). I feel that heavy armor got a lot of attention while cloth armor only had design effort put into the females outfits and medium armor wearers just got completely shafted.

This wrong idea of armor types you guys have has to go.
There is only 200 armor rating difference between armors, that’s it.
200 armor is barely relevant, it’s how you build your character that defines everything.

200 armor hardly defines a role, an Ele can be as tanky as a Guardian with the proper setup.
Learn the mechanics before you make pointless threads.

ROFL, people complaining about armor types now? So GW2 got rid of classes and roles and everyone is the same, a self healing DPS class. Now you want to get rid of armor?

Why not make a MMORPG where everyone is identical, a white moving rectangle and you get a single button to press. At this rate, that is where we are headed. It’s funny how games are devolving… Maybe in ten years we will be back to pong.

The fact that anyone can stack vitality/toughness to become a brick wall makes your point moot.

Also, how much crowd control each class has is entirely irrelevant from armor class in this game if you’ve been paying attention to their class design.

Warriors + Guardians have really good CC abilities, the Warrior has both strong single target and AoE Stun/KDs and what not. The Guardian has knock backs, Wards, launches and all sorts of stuff.

Necromancers arguably have the worst CC options in the game. 1s Fear x2 (Thieves and Warriors can fear for 3s), a cone Daze on Warhorn if you pick that up, and that’s it. Spectral Grasp? Kinda buggy and has issues with terrain and is very unreliable. Not a mobile caster at all but far from being the squishy archetype we’ve all become accustomed to in other games.

If anythng ANet DID depart from traditional notion of classes in both the trinity aspect and their class design, it’s your mindset that hasn’t shifted and thus you haven’t been able to see it.

classes should have their goods and bads
archer got it’s range but low on defense, healer got it’s defensive and healing abilitys but low DPS…and so on – that’s what most players are familiar with

but in GW2:
any class can heal, CC, dps and (if aggro shift wouldn’t be random) tank
personally, i have no problem with that idea…it’s nice and fresh w/o holy trinity

but armor types in GW2 just let a few classes appear weaker than any other
some, like the necro, got enough vitality to balance out low toughness, tho
every class can also wear melee weapons and got nice melee attacks but die within a few hits which makes wearing melee gear pointless (i’d like to use mesmer with double-blades, but it’s almost unplayable)

warrior(heavy armor, mainly melee), elementalist(light armor, range, high DPS and defensive/healing spells) and ranger(medium armor, mainly range) seems to got it right

how about this:
heavy armor: high toughness – low stats
medium armor: medium toughness – medium stats
light armor: low toughness – high stats

A ele might be able to stack the same stats but will never be as durable as a heavy armor wearer. That’s a fact in PvE and PvP, My ele with 30 points in earth 20 in water I struggle against 2+ mobs with dodging and using utility my guardian and warrior can afk 1 spam 2 guys to death.

as it has allready been mentioned, the armor stats aren´t that different or relevant. Though it really doesn´t make sense that not everyone should be able to wear heavy armor. Here is an idea: Make armor a bit more relevant, make all kinds of armor available to all classes and make endurance tie into the armor concept, like -end for heavy armor or +end for light armor.

Well, if you think about it…the holy trinity of dps, tanking, and healing isn’t completely gone. Think carefully. An Elementalist is a hybrid class; perfectly capable of all 3 roles: Fire and Air Attunements for dps, Water for healing, and Earth for tanking. The holy trinity system is still there, but it’s just all lumped together within a single, given class – use the above as an example. Now, Mesmers, on the other hand, are all about control. Their attack skills usually “debuff” their enemies, as well as summoning illusions, for crowd control. Guardians are also a hybrid class; able to perform all 3 roles. Warriors can be used for tanking or dps. A Necromancer also uses crowd control, in the form of summoning her undead minions to attack for her. The only two classes that are solely used for damage, are the Ranger and the Thief. I hope you guys find my point of view to be an interesting outlook.

I would have liked it if armor restrictions didn’t exist. It would have been great if they had done something like balance armor vs. endurance regeneration and let any profession wear any piece of armor.

- Heavy armor gives a lot of protection and haves the user take an endurance regen hit.
- Medium armor gives average protection and normal endurance regen.
- Light armor gives less protection and gives an endurance regen bonus.

It would be a really great way to let people create a character based around their play style. Some people like to be nimble and avoid damage, some people like to mitigate damage, why limit that to certain professions?

I now play 1 80 guardian, a 68 ranger, a 56 engineer, a 26 thief and an 16 necro. (I also played an elementalist to 30ish in BWE’s) Out of all of them, the only class that feels squishy is the thief and he runs in all self made armor with the best weapons he can have at his level. In other words, he’s my twink and he is still squishy, but can kill really well also. Oddly, the one class that feels really powerful to me is the engineer using just world drop blues that may or may not be level appropriate.

Armor doesn’t seem to be the real issue to me. It seems to be the skills available to mitigate damage through absorption, healing or avoidance.

For example, my engineer can run around in a small circle chucking grenades over his shoulder avoiding damage completely while dishing out a ton of his own. If he is hurt, he can swap to his med kit and give himself a swiftness buff and drop med packs in front of himself until healed and call for a supply drop with even more heals and then go back to carpet bombing. Veteran mobs? pshfft.

Thief on the other hand, stacks conditions until inititive is gone and then stands in front the mob like a naked warrior swinging for the fences in hopes of finishing them off, or I can stealth away and let them reset hoping to reactivate the combat before their health resets completely and try again to finish them. Veteran mobs solo are not a good idea. I have to say though, no other class I play can stack conditions and do so much raw damage as quickly as the thief. Then again, I am not looking forward to playing one in a dungeon, but I will do some research beforehand to see what is working, if anything. I just hope I don’t find that shortbow is the answer.

Ranger, has two pets plus themselves to mitigate damage plus heals that affect both the ranger and the pet and avoidance skills. Veteran mobs are easy.

Guardian, well duh! Equip mace and shield or mace and focus and stand in front of almost anything less than a world boss and solo it. Not because of heavy armor, but because of self healing and inflated toughness. I run a build that gives me 4 heals in the 6,7,8, and 9 skills plus the forementioned heals inherent to the mace 1,2 and focus 4 with mace 3 and focus 5 or mace 4,5 being damage mitigations. All that and I haven’t even toched my elite skill yet.

Finally, the necro in my limited experience seems to be able to stack an inordinant amount of conditions and then control the combat with pets and a multitude of self healing abilities, a second health bar in the form of death shroud, and fears.

Detahmaio.2014:

A ele might be able to stack the same stats but will never be as durable as a heavy armor wearer. That’s a fact in PvE and PvP, My ele with 30 points in earth 20 in water I struggle against 2+ mobs with dodging and using utility my guardian and warrior can afk 1 spam 2 guys to death.

And this is especially true when I also play the guardian and ranger. Both classes can take down mobs faster and take more hits than my ele is able to.

I understand that maybe there is suppose to be a trade-off but elementalist skills need to have longer CC duration or they need to do more dmg. Either that make their traits more synergistic because most of them seem useful only if you attune to one element at one time. If you are specialized in air, switching to fire does not confer you much bonuses and you are suppose to “stance dance” like the warrior in WoW to be effective.

No. I can kinda see where you’re coming from, but no. Heavy armor users have damage mitigation for survivability. Light armor users have dodge mechanics for survivability. Both should be able to “tank” (if the word must be used) just as well.

Mongo.2490:

No. I can kinda see where you’re coming from, but no. Heavy armor users have damage mitigation for survivability. Light armor users have dodge mechanics for survivability. Both should be able to “tank” (if the word must be used) just as well.

But they can’t tank an ele has to work 10x as hard as any profession to achieve the same goal be it damage or to survive. I’m not sure if armor is the issue but something has to be done about it.

Lancaeron.1524:

Well, if you think about it…the holy trinity of dps, tanking, and healing isn’t completely gone. Think carefully. An Elementalist is a hybrid class; perfectly capable of all 3 roles: Fire and Air Attunements for dps, Water for healing, and Earth for tanking. The holy trinity system is still there, but it’s just all lumped together within a single, given class – use the above as an example. Now, Mesmers, on the other hand, are all about control. Their attack skills usually “debuff” their enemies, as well as summoning illusions, for crowd control. Guardians are also a hybrid class; able to perform all 3 roles. Warriors can be used for tanking or dps. A Necromancer also uses crowd control, in the form of summoning her undead minions to attack for her. The only two classes that are solely used for damage, are the Ranger and the Thief. I hope you guys find my point of view to be an interesting outlook.

All callings can mitigate damage, support allies, control the enemy, and do respectable damage (Overtime or burst). It’s how you build your profession that matters, not predetermined roles given to you. How can you say Thieves are only damage when they have the most evades in the game? Ranger can also sick their tank pet on the mob, taking a couple hits for the team. Even Necromancers have a full health bar to fall back on via Death Shroud and a good number of their attacks siphon HP.

The simple solution is to divorce armor looks from variable armor stats and have each class have an inherent armor buff to keep the relative durability of each class archtype intact as there isn’t much of a difference between them.

Scholars get no bonus
Adventurers get some bonus
Soldiers get the most bonus

The solider bonus and difference in armor at L80 is something like 200 so it’s not a very big difference from a scholar at all. Soldiers would just add a % of that dependent on level to their defense and all armors would then have the same armor bonus and anyone could wear anything breathing life into a new and much wider variety of looks for everyone to explore.

Aristio.2784:

Lancaeron.1524:

Well, if you think about it…the holy trinity of dps, tanking, and healing isn’t completely gone. Think carefully. An Elementalist is a hybrid class; perfectly capable of all 3 roles: Fire and Air Attunements for dps, Water for healing, and Earth for tanking. The holy trinity system is still there, but it’s just all lumped together within a single, given class – use the above as an example. Now, Mesmers, on the other hand, are all about control. Their attack skills usually “debuff” their enemies, as well as summoning illusions, for crowd control. Guardians are also a hybrid class; able to perform all 3 roles. Warriors can be used for tanking or dps. A Necromancer also uses crowd control, in the form of summoning her undead minions to attack for her. The only two classes that are solely used for damage, are the Ranger and the Thief. I hope you guys find my point of view to be an interesting outlook.

All callings can mitigate damage, support allies, control the enemy, and do respectable damage (Overtime or burst). It’s how you build your profession that matters, not predetermined roles given to you. How can you say Thieves are only damage when they have the most evades in the game? Ranger can also sick their tank pet on the mob, taking a couple hits for the team. Even Necromancers have a full health bar to fall back on via Death Shroud and a good number of their attacks siphon HP.

Dude for necros it takes about 20-30 hits to siphon 1000+ hp that isn’t even a viable option. Also death should is so weak you are basically buying time for your enemy heal ability to come off CD assuming you even damage him enough for him to have to use it.

Like I said before eles have to work 10x harder than every profession to receive the same or less results and have the lowest health.