Guild Wars 2

TLDR; Can we expect any kind of core class balancing and fixes in Feb or March?

The baby steps are fine, but after 6 months I’m starting to wonder if it’ll only be baby steps.

If not, when can we expect more “major” class balancing and fixes? When I say “major”, I mean fixes/balancing that’ll majorly improve or effect Professions and their quality of life; such as Pets, Weapon buffs/nerfs, Trait fixes/improvements, etc.

I think everyone needs a little something, but some Professions need a lot more than others (*cough*EngineerRangerNecro*cough*)

I can’t be the only one who immediately scrolls to the Class section first thing when they read the patch notes lol.

Yea, they’ve really dropped the ball with the Engineer, Ranger, and Necromancer classes as a whole. While the other classes may not be much better because they also effectively have one working build or one working weapon set, it seems like the game as a whole is just working against the mechanics of Rangers, Engineers, and Necromancers.

And when you sit by patch after patch and see not a thing, and hear not a peep, about the state of these classes you’re left wondering just what’s going on. The only thing we know for certain is they’re looking into AEs. What this means is anyone’s guess and what it could do to certain classes (99.9% of the Elementalists attacks are AE’s) is astronimcal.

It’s about time we started seeing some long-term projections or at least class summaries come out where the team can explain where they feel the class stands, what their vison of the class is, and what they feel are some ways to go about improving it.

It doesn’t have to be that specific to the point where they’ll use the Blizzard patented ‘we don’t tell you because you’ll complain when we don’t live up to our promises’ tripe which 1.) probably isn’t true and 2.) certainly isn’t tested as no one releases monthly projections and instead use the same line every time it’s brought up.

Players understand that some things don’t work out. This isn’t an MMO with money on the line. Hoarding secrets until the day of a patch (and waiting till hours after the patch goes live to even give us a list of notes) isn’t suitable for a game like this. A patch note isn’t going to cause millions of paying subscribers to quit the game.

Atherakhia.4086:

snip

Yeah, I play a Ranger and a Necro. It was probably my mistake for leveling those classes, but I’m always so eager during patch day. Every single time I’m let down by across-the-board changes (ie: 25% Speed Signet), Aquatic updates or Tooltip error fixes. Nothing major that will improve my quality of life for my Ranger/Necro. Though I won’t deny the few baby steps they’ve made deserve credit.

I’m really curious on Anet’s stand and thought process on these things. To me, class balance/fixes are the most important and the most fragile part of MMOs. It’s the glue that holds PVP and PVE together and it’s obvious some classes and builds are strongly favored over others. That’s just my opinion anyways.

All I’ve seen is that bunker Ele is getting “adjusted downward.”. Just how hard and in what way remains to be seen. I hope Ele doesn’t become the new Engineer after the nerf, but my confidence in the dev team is not that strong right now.

Nothing is worse than an MMO company making huge sweeping changes all at once and in the process wrecking one class and making another OP. I like the baby steps.

I play an 80 necro/guard/elem/mesmer and I think they are quite balanced. I know eng and ranger need some fixing up but why make big changes all at once and chance breaking something else like all other mmo companies do.

Frustrating…..but I have to go for baby steps. I recently left a game where 2 classes were demolished by sweeping patches. They never were rectified, changes were made for pvp and they just ruined the classes for pve. few people play them anymore. Those who level capped these classes were left with moribund duds.

Simultaneously, another class was continually buffed. It was incomprehensible, but apparently not uncommon in mmos.

The game had other issues that really turned me off, but this was pretty bad.

Lets not mention the giant pink elephant in the room….. (Warriors). Seriously, how could you make a list of “under powered” classes and not have the Warrior on it?

With only one decent build available to them for PvP that can be killed by basically anyone that is decent with another other class.

I agree that Engineers need some love on their offensive builds, but the Warrior need nothing short of a miracle for their defenses.

The Ranger and Necromancer only have minor issues compared to the previous two mentioned.

Yes, you can complain about getting a “Bull’s Charge” in the back plus a frenzy, hundred blades combo, but it is slightly less effective than getting instantly downed by a thief’s backstab.

ArenaNet is not one to make knee-jerk changes.

They take their time and work out what they feel is the best course of action.
And that’s on top of updating all the crud they weren’t able to finish before launch.

They probably are looking into all the fixes you want, but don’t ever expect credible information until it’s ready for the next patch.
Talking about in-dev content is a big no-no for designers, because it just makes the player base that much more difficult to deal with.

Individually, we, the players, can be somewhat rationale, but as a whole…

We’re a whiny selfish horde of insatiable evil. >_>

DreamOfACure.4382:

ArenaNet is not one to make knee-jerk changes.

They take their time and work out what they feel is the best course of action.

Except during beta, when they made wide, sweeping changes to several classes, often because of a few bugs elevating them to higher than normal power. Two of those were Necro and Ranger, and look where they are now.

I really want them to work on bringing weapons and traits up to par and properly functioning for all classes. That doesn’t mean buffing and nerfing, either. That means making sure all traits and skills are working as intended, and are equally viable options for particular specs/playstyles. At that point, they can see where class balance is, and adjust accordingly.

New content is nice, but every time I play my Necro and see how useless life siphoning and minons are, or when I play my Ranger and see how pitiful Longbow damage and Spirit support is, I realise I would have preferred it of all that time and effort spent on developing content was redirected to dealing with class issues instead.

One can only be patient for so long. And really, 5 months after release, I would have expected most of this to be dealt with by now, or at least being worked on. Although, judging by the state of Paragons in GW1, I could be waiting a long, long time.

Hi everyone,

Regarding class balance, you might find this thread interesting. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Class-balances-on-Feb-26/first#post1481413. We are focusing all balance discussion in that thread so we can forward all your feedback to the team.

Please feel free to join in.
Thanks for your understanding.