Guild Wars 2

Jski.6180:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Jski.6180:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

morrolan.9608:

IndigoSundown.5419:

The problem with game balance is multifaceted, but the root of it is in the philosophies behind each of the classes. Warriors are seen as a dps class. Engineers are seen as a versatility class which sacrifices damage for that versatility. Necromancers are seen as an attrition class.

There’s nothing wrong with class design philosophies, but roles are muddied in GW2. All classes can to some extent fulfill any role, and big damage spec characters can provide enough of the other roles in certain circumstances to get by.

Thats correct but the game rewards are based on one thing only, kills.

Unless you count having fun as a game reward. I have more fun on just about any character other than my warrior. I play games to have fun. Fun rewards me.

If you play for in game rewards and nothing else, what you say is true.

Some players don’t care about maximum efficiency. Many do. Most complaints about game balance occur because players compare the results achieved by one class to those achieved by another and find one wanting. Usually, those complaints come from the players who do care. Saying, “Some players care more about viability than parity” does not mean that there are no balance issues.

GW2 class design is based on philosophies of diversification rooted in other MMO’s. Those other MMO’s offer diverse classes and specs, and enforce trinity play. They also provide content balanced around needing that diversity. GW2 primarily offers content that minimizes the impact of diversity.

MMO effectiveness is all about winning fights. This means keeping your side up while taking the other side down. Many of the tools to negate damage in GW2 are available to all classes. High DPS is not. The class design philosophies are responsible for this disparity.

I’m not saying that people who want balance are wrong for wanting balance. I’m staying that when someone says “this is wrong and this is bad” well yeah…for some people. The people who care about it. Many don’t.

It’ll get fixed in time…but fixes take time. I’ve played so many MMOs so much more out of balance than this, it’s not funny. Sure there are problems…but the depth of those problems is greatly exaagerated, because other professions CAN do the content.

That’s just it. I don’t think it will get fixed, unless the devs adapt their design philosophies or make radical changes to the content — neither of which I think is in the cards. The current set-up, and tweaks to it based on the philosophies in place, is about all we can expect. If I’m right, there will always be gross imbalances in damage potential.

Well i do not think ppl should specialized in dmg out put tankly and supporting in effect ppl are trying to still play the game as if there is a 3 class type system and still running into the same problem. Take a thf as a class you can land a free stun drop in a burst dmg during that stun then pull out Sbow and start to help control the mob. Thf start to play all 3 rolls by doing this mixing burst dmg with the ability to control the mobs movement. You can run zerk war but if the mob live longer then 20 sec you will die as such a way and losing a lot of your dmg out put. Vs any real pve event that is more then just a dps rush this build is comply worthless.

I’m not debating how people should build their characters. I’m debating whether there should be a large damage output difference between two characters who have similar damage stats. Your post supports what I’m saying, because it highlights how a high-burst class can offer something other than damage, while other classes damage is kitten supposedly because they offer those options.

Build is a different matter than class. However, the fact that an all-out Berserker build generates numbers that are easily 3-4 times what a more balanced build can generate on the same class/weapon also magnifies the gap between classes. The other reason differences get magnified is critical chance + damage percentage.

But it becomes that way when your talking about dmg out put in PvE. If we have ppl who are going for more of a balance build and there an all in dmg type in the pt that all in dmg type will seemingly be better then the balanced build but that only purely for boss fights. When it comes to more then dmg the all in dmg types become unless and some times a liability.

OK, I’ll give it to you again. I’m not posting about whether Berserker builds are better or worse than others, I’m posting about why some classes do way more damage than other classes given identical stats in Power, Precision, Crit Damage.

IndigoSundown.5419:

OK, I’ll give it to you again. I’m not posting about whether Berserker builds are better or worse than others, I’m posting about why some classes do way more damage than other classes given identical stats in Power, Precision, Crit Damage.

I am telling you in pve that not important beyond the speed run events.

Jski.6180:

IndigoSundown.5419:

OK, I’ll give it to you again. I’m not posting about whether Berserker builds are better or worse than others, I’m posting about why some classes do way more damage than other classes given identical stats in Power, Precision, Crit Damage.

I am telling you in pve that not important beyond the speed run events.

Good grief. Content design that is accessible to any class, no matter that class’s relative strengths and weaknesses, does not mean that the classes are balanced.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Jski.6180:

IndigoSundown.5419:

OK, I’ll give it to you again. I’m not posting about whether Berserker builds are better or worse than others, I’m posting about why some classes do way more damage than other classes given identical stats in Power, Precision, Crit Damage.

I am telling you in pve that not important beyond the speed run events.

Good grief. Content design that is accessible to any class, no matter that class’s relative strengths and weaknesses, does not mean that the classes are balanced.

Your right that dose not mean they are balanced but they are never going to be truly balanced there no game out there that is every truly balanced that a gaming designee for all games. You must find the class that you feel is what you have the most fun then you build it the way you want to play. There a reason this game has no means of looking at other ppl gear nor can you read healing / dps metros.

Jski.6180:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Jski.6180:

IndigoSundown.5419:

OK, I’ll give it to you again. I’m not posting about whether Berserker builds are better or worse than others, I’m posting about why some classes do way more damage than other classes given identical stats in Power, Precision, Crit Damage.

I am telling you in pve that not important beyond the speed run events.

Good grief. Content design that is accessible to any class, no matter that class’s relative strengths and weaknesses, does not mean that the classes are balanced.

Your right that dose not mean they are balanced but they are never going to be truly balanced there no game out there that is every truly balanced that a gaming designee for all games. You must find the class that you feel is what you have the most fun then you build it the way you want to play. There a reason this game has no means of looking at other ppl gear nor can you read healing / dps metros.

I said back on page 1 that they will never balance the classes. Personally, I’d settle for a nerf to the synergy between power/precision/critical, but that is not likely to happen either.

Fenrir.3609:

Berzerker gear stats just need to be nerfed. Warrior and thief damage in pve needs to be brought in line with other classes — the problem is warriors and thieves burst and sustain too well and it makes boss fights extremely short.

Warriors are the lame duck in pvp, if you nerf their damage down in pve (which is pretty much all they have), then you are going to have to significantly buff their non burst specs first.

The damage split nerf comes for PvE. Done.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

morrolan.9608:

IndigoSundown.5419:

The problem with game balance is multifaceted, but the root of it is in the philosophies behind each of the classes. Warriors are seen as a dps class. Engineers are seen as a versatility class which sacrifices damage for that versatility. Necromancers are seen as an attrition class.

There’s nothing wrong with class design philosophies, but roles are muddied in GW2. All classes can to some extent fulfill any role, and big damage spec characters can provide enough of the other roles in certain circumstances to get by.

Thats correct but the game rewards are based on one thing only, kills.

Unless you count having fun as a game reward. I have more fun on just about any character other than my warrior. I play games to have fun. Fun rewards me.

If you play for in game rewards and nothing else, what you say is true.

Some players don’t care about maximum efficiency. Many do. Most complaints about game balance occur because players compare the results achieved by one class to those achieved by another and find one wanting. Usually, those complaints come from the players who do care. Saying, “Some players care more about viability than parity” does not mean that there are no balance issues.

GW2 class design is based on philosophies of diversification rooted in other MMO’s. Those other MMO’s offer diverse classes and specs, and enforce trinity play. They also provide content balanced around needing that diversity. GW2 primarily offers content that minimizes the impact of diversity.

MMO effectiveness is all about winning fights. This means keeping your side up while taking the other side down. Many of the tools to negate damage in GW2 are available to all classes. High DPS is not. The class design philosophies are responsible for this disparity.

I’m not saying that people who want balance are wrong for wanting balance. I’m staying that when someone says “this is wrong and this is bad” well yeah…for some people. The people who care about it. Many don’t.

It’ll get fixed in time…but fixes take time. I’ve played so many MMOs so much more out of balance than this, it’s not funny. Sure there are problems…but the depth of those problems is greatly exaagerated, because other professions CAN do the content.

That’s just it. I don’t think it will get fixed, unless the devs adapt their design philosophies or make radical changes to the content — neither of which I think is in the cards. The current set-up, and tweaks to it based on the philosophies in place, is about all we can expect. If I’m right, there will always be gross imbalances in damage potential.

I think it will get fixed. The reason why it’s not fixed, is because other changes are being implemented and they don’t want to change too much at a time. For example, they talked about necros getting a new condition, which could make them interesting. They talked about other changes as well.

But they won’t make them all at once because that would be a disaster.

And it will never get fixed perfectly because no matter what you do, there’ll always be a “most powerful” profession, or a few of them that are more desirable. It’s like this in all MMORPGs.

Considering the game was more balanced during beta than it is now is not a reassuring sign that the developers care to fix any balance issues. Even worse, their demeanor in the sPvP interviews shows their disdain for balance related issues, especially as it pertains to specific classes.

Not to troll, but since when can rouges or Robe classes tank? Especially without a dedicated healer class healing them. I realize you all thought that becasue ANET said there was no dedicated roles in this game and that any profession can fill any roll that you ate that up and believed it.

The truth in the matter that the only profession missing from the holy trinity is a dedicated healer. There are heavy armor classes designed for taking damage, and doing melee combat, and there are Robes that ideally do ranged attacks. Then there is a bunch of rouge/hunter variants. All that is good and Fine but without dedicated healers Rouges shouldn’t be trying to tank at all. Now I know a lot of thiefs out there want to go full glass cannon builds becasue the whole premise is you have low HP and defense so you need to do big damage and kill whatever you need to do before it kills you. This isnt a build for dungeons. Even on my warrior I do not go into dungeons with glass cannon builds its just foolish.

Part of the balance issues is in other games there is a difference between magic damage and physical damage. Thats how they balance PVE for mages. So mages can do good damge to mobs with little defense. In this game damage is damage. Then in PVP what they do is nerf everyone stats so the magic damage isnt too high aginst heavys.

ANET wants to be different. But they are slowly realizing now that the reason why people do the things the way they did becasue they thought about anets ideas and they don’t work.

The only way they can truely balance this game is a complete split between PVP and WVW and PVE.

Jski.6180:

IndigoSundown.5419:

OK, I’ll give it to you again. I’m not posting about whether Berserker builds are better or worse than others, I’m posting about why some classes do way more damage than other classes given identical stats in Power, Precision, Crit Damage.

I am telling you in pve that not important beyond the speed run events.

But it is in terms of rewards.

Galtrix.7369:

I’m going purely off of Perfect World’s other games for my opinion on Neverwinter. If they know how to balance classes in 15 games, then I think they can do it one more time.

I haven’t been following Neverwinter, but as a long-time tabletop D&D player I’m intrigued by this claim. I say this because D&D has a long-standing tradition of having HORRENDOUSLY imbalanced classes. You have a few classes that are decent (Barbarian, Ranger), classes that are underpowered but still fun for their roles (Rogue, Bard), and classes that become Gods-of-the-Multiverse once they reach high enough level (Wizard, 3.X Cleric, and Fighters if specced properly).

there is not much to say.

The sad truth is PvP balance completely destroyed PvE balance (really i would be ashamed of state of the game if i was in charge of PvE…its an insult to pve players) and damaged a lot WWW.

Zenith.7301:

Fenrir.3609:

Berzerker gear stats just need to be nerfed. Warrior and thief damage in pve needs to be brought in line with other classes — the problem is warriors and thieves burst and sustain too well and it makes boss fights extremely short.

Warriors are the lame duck in pvp, if you nerf their damage down in pve (which is pretty much all they have), then you are going to have to significantly buff their non burst specs first.

The damage split nerf comes for PvE. Done.

You mean warrior would then be done and by done I mean finished.

If warriors put out the same damage as every other class, why would someone take a warrior over another class which does equivalent damage and can also provide greater range, or greater utility, or greater cleansing, or greater support or greater mobility?

Again, warriors have to deal the short end of the stick in pvp. Now people are suggesting nerfing them in pve without buffing their other specs?

The correct way to go about balancing this game is to greatly split up the skills and traits between pve/wvw and spvp (not simply tweaking numbers, having different actual skill set ups). Combined with buffing the currently non viable specs for each class.

You clearly don’t nerf the only viable spec of a class and then do nothing about the fact that said class has zero other competitive/viable specs.

@LordByron – The funny thing is, there is no pvp balance whatsoever.

Fenrir.3609:

Zenith.7301:

Fenrir.3609:

Berzerker gear stats just need to be nerfed. Warrior and thief damage in pve needs to be brought in line with other classes — the problem is warriors and thieves burst and sustain too well and it makes boss fights extremely short.

Warriors are the lame duck in pvp, if you nerf their damage down in pve (which is pretty much all they have), then you are going to have to significantly buff their non burst specs first.

The damage split nerf comes for PvE. Done.

You mean warrior would then be done and by done I mean finished.

If warriors put out the same damage as every other class, why would someone take a warrior over another class which does equivalent damage and can also provide greater range, or greater utility, or greater cleansing, or greater support or greater mobility?

i’ll just stop here.

Wich class aside guardian has better support/range/utility than warrior?

I don t see any
Warrior has everything in PvE excluding reflect…..
Banners are over the top.

Its not only DPS that makes warrior god mode….there is a long list that makes them ridiculous…..
Aside the fact they have not only the best burst but also the best sustained damage.
And they don t even have to spec for that.

That kills everything BUT ZERKER warriors

Long ago people asked only warriors…
Now the situation got worse and people started to ask the average 100B damage to get you in their party…

Can the situation get worse?
Its already a joke….

Arena.net wanted to be cool, innovative, sweet. Let’s remove the trinity, let’s build the mmo paradise, u don’t need to heal, u don’t need to tank, u don’t even need to specialize.

So in the end, we have have only one thing needed for parties, we have dpser’s that need to survive by themselves (no tank, no healer) and that’s it.

The funny thing, is that in pvp there is a sort of tank/healer, and dpser’s, and tank/roamer, and dps/finisher. There is specialization, u can’t win by playing what u want.

LordByron.8369 wrote – i’ll just stop here.

If only you had.

D/D ele is a powerful support role, along with conditions and constant pressure. The patch didn’t affect it enough to really kitten that build. Staff eles aren’t nearly as supportive, most of the heals take too long to cast and have silly CD’s. Healing rain is useless IMO. Staff is great for staying out of the fray, dropping aoe.

I’m confused. I really am. Must be I play differently or something, as I don’t have issues with my thief going ‘splat’ when I melee with her. I play 1 of 2 ways – I lead with pistol/pistol and roll into dagger/dagger when the foes get within range OR if its just a single foe, I shadowstep in and kick his kitten I don’t have the ‘splat’ issue.

As for rangers….again, not seeing the issue. My pet and I can roll through just about everything solo, with the exception of dungeons. I actually require people for those.

I don’t often WvW or sPvP, and when I do, it’s not generally on those professions, so I can’t speak to those aspects. However, for general PvE, they seem to work just fine.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

I’m confused. I really am. Must be I play differently or something, as I don’t have issues with my thief going ‘splat’ when I melee with her. I play 1 of 2 ways – I lead with pistol/pistol and roll into dagger/dagger when the foes get within range OR if its just a single foe, I shadowstep in and kick his kitten I don’t have the ‘splat’ issue.

As for rangers….again, not seeing the issue. My pet and I can roll through just about everything solo, with the exception of dungeons. I actually require people for those.

I don’t often WvW or sPvP, and when I do, it’s not generally on those professions, so I can’t speak to those aspects. However, for general PvE, they seem to work just fine.

Same. My thief rolls with sword / pistol & dagger / dagger, traited for a bit of toughness and I have no problems as long as I keep moving. And, I’m not even an especially good thief.

6 level 80’s that I mostly solo’d in pve except the ele & necro who I leveled in WvW.

Only classes I “have trouble” with are the warrior and my mesmer…both of with reside in level 40’s cause I think they are boring.

Uruz Six.6594:

Galtrix.7369:

I’m going purely off of Perfect World’s other games for my opinion on Neverwinter. If they know how to balance classes in 15 games, then I think they can do it one more time.

As an off/on STO and CO player, I really want to post this to those games’ forums and see how much of a laugh I’d get.

Maybe you’ve been playing the wrong class in those game.

I think if there’s one thing ANet has been excellent at, it’s been balance.

I’ve had my butt kicked by (and kicked the butts of) rangers, eles, thieves, warriors, guardians, OK, just insert ALL of the classes here.

You can become very skilled and effective at any class and romp most players of other classes with your specialty.

Baldric.6781:

Arena.net wanted to be cool, innovative, sweet. Let’s remove the trinity, let’s build the mmo paradise, u don’t need to heal, u don’t need to tank, u don’t even need to specialize.

So in the end, we have have only one thing needed for parties, we have dpser’s that need to survive by themselves (no tank, no healer) and that’s it.

The funny thing, is that in pvp there is a sort of tank/healer, and dpser’s, and tank/roamer, and dps/finisher. There is specialization, u can’t win by playing what u want.

Yeah, they definitely went in the wrong direction for removing the tinity. I don’t mean, removing it is wrong, but rather that they did it in a fashion that was wrong.

They basically took the dps and gave everyone self healing and tankability. Tankability and healing come together to form survivability (evading falls under tankability as avoiding damage is one way to reduce the damage you take and healing includes boon applicating and condition removal). Now you can spec towards more survivability at the cost of dps or spec toward dps at the cost of survivability. Dps covers applying conditions to the enemy.

If you try to take the middle ground, you will just end up lacking in either department.

Heal other, or otherwise stripping conditions and adding boons to team mates seems more of a side effect to doing it to yourself.

What they should’ve done to break away from the usual trinity is to allow each class become any one of the classical trinity. Take the ele, with the right setup, should be able to be a tank or be dps or be the party healer. Ranger is same thing. Beast master bunker makes a good tank. Or they can focus on power, precision and bm to dish out good dps. Nature magic should provide them with the ability to heal party members, remove conditions from them and bring them back from down/dead.

Actually come to think of it, ranger can sorta do that.

But honestly we should still be seeing in chat “group looking for healer” or “group looking for tank” but in this case, it should not be a specific profession they need but rather someone with the right build regardless of what their profession is.

I don’t think there’s a problem with the class design philosophies, just with some of the execution.

In particular, there is not an adequate tradeoff for poor defense, which is why warriors and guardians are the best dungeon classes. What I’d like to see is some simple ‘baked-in’ advantages for lower armor wearers like increased endurance regeneration and cooldown bonuses.

All the balance issues stem from Anet’s hangup about GW2 becoming a valid e-sport. It seems they don’t care how badly they break the game for everyone else, so long as the S/TPvP is “balanced”.

This is why classes that should be ranged (ele/ranger) do pitiful damage at range, and it’s why every effective build is becoming a bunker build (thieves, mesmers and warriors aside). If melee range is all that’s left, and your class has crap HP or armour, you go bunker.

I think it all really comes down to PvE content. While the most profitably content in PvE, CoF path 1, require just pure DPS anything that isn’t pure DPS will be looked down on.

SO first thing that really needs to be done is look at rewards, if other Dungeons/Paths had their rewards adjusted so they compared more favorably time/reward to CoF Path 1 then I could see more PvE classes shine.

Secondly they need more content that requires diverse skill sets. It’s already partially seen in Fractals, having Stealth is good for certain bits, Reflects for other bits, Pulls, Cripples come into it, blindness. These kind of encounters almost need to be ramped up so they put more pressure on teams that run full DPS rather than a mix of professions with varied skills. The new dungeon showed an interesting thing with Stress, a pesistant dot which meant that you couldn’t get Out Of Combat in a section. Imagine that ramped up so that dot did more damage, having classes like Ele, Guard and Engineer that can put out decent constant healing would become more preferable to pure DPS Warriors. As you couldn’t rely on killing fast and then using OOC to heal you back up.

Thirdly: Multiple trait builds, if you are going to have content that is more engaging, you may need to allow people to purchase a second trait set they can swap to, like swapping armor for certain bits of a dungeon. At the moment what makes condition builds less viable in dungeons is you can never be sure if your PUG will have another 2 condition users so you cap out and waste a lot of DPS. Being able on the fly to swap to your Power build and swap in your power armor makes it much easier to run with 3 Necros in a group as you can have a Chillomancer, Tanky Healer and Conditionmancer ,that don’t cancel each others advantages out, much easier if people can swap their build on the fly. Similar goes for Guardians, have you ever been in a group with 3 fully healing speced Guardians, it’s painfully slow, but if you had multiple traitlines 1 could swap to Boonway or DPS and it’s all fine. I know A-Net doesn’t want a Trinity, but unless everything boils down to a samey molasses, you are going to have people that trait to be specialised. This suggestion allows them to do this without removing the ability to do any Dungeon with any group of people.

its not that fractals are too easy.

Its that when trash mobs and bosses, hits for 10-50.000 healing, toughness and vitality suddenly becomes useless.

You just want to ouright negate damage.

That ends up in using those 2-3 seconds invulnerabilities.

Being that short you need to clear the ore threats possible in the shortest time, and in case of being downed, you need a chance to rally.
Thus DPS is all that matters in dungeons/fotms.

Then there are 2 classes that can contribute for that for way more than 2X any class and even boost Whole party instead of only them.

That is the reason why its not even only DPS but guardian and warriors.

Take a guardian…he has access to defense skills and awesome utilities.
Take warriors have dps and banners can instaress

Wich other class can compete? even specced for ONLY a task, a bunker ele is less effective than a DPS guardian, where a support warrior is more effective than any DPS professions.

The Whole design is compoletely wrong in PvE and PvP balance killed it completely

Forth: Make the effects of traiting non-DPS more effective. I feel that part of the issue at the moment is that a lot of an abilities effect comes from the effect not the traits or the stats. A Wall of Reflection is just about as effective on a toon running full P/P/C as it is on one using P/V/T, or running full DPS traits. If the downtime was longer non traited it would make traiting far more important. In other words you lose far too little support going DPS, compared to the amount you gain going full Support.

Be happy you didn’t roll an Engineer.

JoxerNL.3752:

Be happy you didn’t roll an Engineer.

I love my Engineer in Dungeons, especially FotM. I have all 8 professions and my Engi has an awful lot going for it relative to a lot of the other classes. I will openly admit it takes a bit more knowledge of the class to get everything it can do out of it, but once you know the class inside and out, it’s good. High single target and AOE DPS (since it can stack 25 vulnerability fast) Able to Rez people from under mobs feet, and heal better than a lot of classes while DPS specced. Not to mention the ability to stealth a group for 12+ secs when needed, buff they entire team with a decent number of stacks of might, put up walls of Smoke/Reflection to fill in gaps if you only have 1 Guardian.

It’s a very capable dungeon runner in the hands of the right player.

(It can also survive the Maws agony at 48 if used right, and probably bring a few mates along with it.)

Ratty.5176:

JoxerNL.3752:

Be happy you didn’t roll an Engineer.

I love my Engineer in Dungeons, especially FotM. I have all 8 professions and my Engi has an awful lot going for it relative to a lot of the other classes. I will openly admit it takes a bit more knowledge of the class to get everything it can do out of it, but once you know the class inside and out, it’s good. High single target and AOE DPS (since it can stack 25 vulnerability fast) Able to Rez people from under mobs feet, and heal better than a lot of classes while DPS specced. Not to mention the ability to stealth a group for 12+ secs when needed, buff they entire team with a decent number of stacks of might, put up walls of Smoke/Reflection to fill in gaps if you only have 1 Guardian.

It’s a very capable dungeon runner in the hands of the right player.

(It can also survive the Maws agony at 48 if used right, and probably bring a few mates along with it.)

My response was towards the OP, nowhere in my post did I quote you.

JoxerNL.3752:

My response was towards the OP, nowhere in my post did I quote you.

And your point is? Are people not allowed to comment on other posts in the thread?

Your post suggested that Engineer are bad in PvE. My opinion is the opposite, that they are very useful in PvE, but that a lot of people don’t use them to their full potential. This is my opinion on the state of balance for the Engineer and is just as valid and as pertinent to the discussion of Class balance in PvE as your “Be happy you didn’t roll an Engineer.” In fact I would argue it is more pertinent as I gave reasons for my belief rather then dismiss an entire class in 7 words.