Guild Wars 2

I’ve been thinking lately about class balance and such with the new elites and Revenant and realized that every class has a ton of access to things other only certain classes used to be able to do.

Some examples: Engi’s can now perma stealth, most classes have access to almost all boons (especially stability now compared to GW2 original launch), almost all classes have some type of mitigation technique on their weapons (evade/reflect/block/etc), every class has a lot more variety of CC than they used to have (e.g. Engi’s used to be the king of CC and now pretty much every class can CC as much/more than Engi/ or Mesmer Gravity Well is a good example too) and some more things.

Is it good that all classes can perform the same roles (mostly with some exceptions like thief) or that all classes have things now that used to make other classes have their “flair”?

What does everyone else think?

Arimas.3492:

Is it good that all classes can perform the same roles (mostly with some exceptions like thief) or that all classes have things now that used to make other classes have their “flair”?

What does everyone else think?

I think, uniformity is doing more harm than many other things.

In my opinion, the next expansion shouldn’t even download if there’s no thief or necro in your group… ok, I’m exxaggerating, but you get my point.

I myself think that the uniformity isn’t a good thing either. If classes had their flair like they did at launch, content could be much more interesting. Like needing an engi for CC heavy fights or thief for a lot of stealth or guardian for the boons.

At original launch classes could do things others could but with decreased effectiveness which is good (Engi could still stealth with blast finisher combos but not as much as thief, let alone permanent). And group comps had much more diversity than now.

I absolutely also think that uniformity completely ruins, if not already ruined, the game.

It destroys in my opinion the uniqueness of every class.
Anet should have never begun for example with giving Stealth to any other Class than the Thief.
Stealth is the absolute trademark gameplay mechanic besides of Steal from the Thief and in my opinion this should have stayed so with maximum as only Stealth Alternative being there the Mesmer…

But instead we have now this BS of Scrappers running around with Perma Stealth, Ranger Trappers with nearly perma Stealth… to even ridiculously overpowered DH trappers that are nearly all of the time stealthed and any other class or ES in the future that might get traps will follow … what is the reason for why I’m saying, that anet needs to stop looking always only on Class Skills and Traits into consideration for their balance changes, but they need to get to look finaly also on all the other general game mechanics that they kind of kept ignoring most of the tiem so far for mostly 3 years!!

Game Balancing is not only changing Skill and Trait Effects only.
Game balancing requires also to have a look on all the other game mechanics that can have an effect on the Combat System and to this belong naturally also all the Upgrades in the Game, the Base Health Values, the Damage Formulas for Conditions and especially the Efficiency of our Attributes.

Every Class was at launch unique, felt different.
Base Classes and the ES need serious rebalancing and in certain cases changes of their Skilsl/Traits to bring all Classes back to the point, where each class feels unique and different in gameplay without that any class crosses the borderline of gameplay mechanics too hard of any other class in the way that they obviously outperform with their skilsl or traits or both in combination an other class that is supposed to be the true master at something.

No other class should be better in Stealth, than the Thief, they are the true masters of stealth, as Stealth is their essence of their whole gameplay design!
I could accept it, if an other Class can be able to get maybe longer lasting Stealths, than a Thief, when being traited and skilled for that.
But regardless of the Build that a Non Thief-Player uses, the Stealth of a Thief should always stay the most effective, even if not beign the longest lastign one, it should still have the best effectsin regard of providing group support so that people usually want to have when it comes to stealth always first a Thief and then after them Mesmers/rest

Same thing for Poison. Thieves are the true masters of Posion, they are even the only class, that directly uses deadly venoms as part of their gameplay design . So when they poison enemies, their Poisons should always be the most effective ones. maybe not the longest lasting ones. But if a Thief Posions you, you should see directly a significant difference in it as when for example a Ranger or a Necromancer poisons you…

Based on your complain, how must they be adjusted in order to sell the next elite specs?
Elite spec do everything core do, just better: QQ p2w confirmed power creep qq
Elite spec offer an alternative and refreshing play style: QQ other class can stealth/tank/dps now qq
Such kittens.

Hakuryuu.8634:

Based on your complain, how must they be adjusted in order to sell the next elite specs?
Elite spec do everything core do, just better: QQ p2w confirmed power creep qq
Elite spec offer an alternative and refreshing play style: QQ other class can stealth/tank/dps now qq
Such kittens.

Well there will always be some classes that can be better at one thing than others, but classes now compared to launch are closing the gap on that with new changes. From the start classes should have branched out more in there own respects rather than getting things other classes have too (like Engi’s stealth now compared to thief’s).

Example: Engi used to be amazing at CC and versatility, they should have kept that going with the new stuff like hammer. Hammer would have been the perfect CC utility weapon for Engineers but instead its like a sword/dagger ranger with the mobility and evade, with added reflect/block, and it only has 1 CC on it which is a short stun.