Guild Wars 2

Obtena.7952:

Being hard to avoid is the trade off for having a relatively long time to react to the damage you get from it. I have YET to play an MMO where DoT damage didn’t have that trade off. The primary people I see complaining about DoT’s are burst power twitch guys and to be honest, I think it’s rather stupid for an PVP MMO to have that kind of PVP model.

and thats the problem, its bursty now, you dont have a long time to react, and you have little counterplay after popping your clears.

its not DOT any more its easier safer stronger burst.

phys.7689:

Obtena.7952:

Being hard to avoid is the trade off for having a relatively long time to react to the damage you get from it. I have YET to play an MMO where DoT damage didn’t have that trade off. The primary people I see complaining about DoT’s are burst power twitch guys and to be honest, I think it’s rather stupid for an PVP MMO to have that kind of PVP model.

and thats the problem, its bursty now, you dont have a long time to react, and you have little counterplay after popping your clears.

its not DOT any more its easier safer stronger burst.

with arcdps offering EVTC logs, which can be parsed to determine damage sources, etc, it might be interesting for you to link to some stats based on those logs, showing just how much this is the case now.

It’d certainly be much harder to argue that you were mistaken when you show logs that have high burst from dots all over the place.

SlippyCheeze.5483:

phys.7689:

Obtena.7952:

Being hard to avoid is the trade off for having a relatively long time to react to the damage you get from it. I have YET to play an MMO where DoT damage didn’t have that trade off. The primary people I see complaining about DoT’s are burst power twitch guys and to be honest, I think it’s rather stupid for an PVP MMO to have that kind of PVP model.

and thats the problem, its bursty now, you dont have a long time to react, and you have little counterplay after popping your clears.

its not DOT any more its easier safer stronger burst.

with arcdps offering EVTC logs, which can be parsed to determine damage sources, etc, it might be interesting for you to link to some stats based on those logs, showing just how much this is the case now.

It’d certainly be much harder to argue that you were mistaken when you show logs that have high burst from dots all over the place.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vRAQNAW7Ync0A10gVbCmbC0biliBjaIMFKCRBgvVBIeHOETiA-TVSAQBA4IA4hDCwHuAAIc/BUp+jFeAAKS3QNVCWSlfkCYRpRA-w

Go run that in WvW and then tell me what exactly are you giving up to get so much damage.

phys.7689:

Obtena.7952:

Being hard to avoid is the trade off for having a relatively long time to react to the damage you get from it. I have YET to play an MMO where DoT damage didn’t have that trade off. The primary people I see complaining about DoT’s are burst power twitch guys and to be honest, I think it’s rather stupid for an PVP MMO to have that kind of PVP model.

and thats the problem, its bursty now, you dont have a long time to react, and you have little counterplay after popping your clears.

its not DOT any more its easier safer stronger burst.

I STILL don’t see that as a problem … I would rather be burst by a DoT than direct damage. You’re not going to tell me that the DoT isn’t easier to deal with, even as a burst, than direct damage would be.

Obtena.7952:

phys.7689:

Obtena.7952:

Being hard to avoid is the trade off for having a relatively long time to react to the damage you get from it. I have YET to play an MMO where DoT damage didn’t have that trade off. The primary people I see complaining about DoT’s are burst power twitch guys and to be honest, I think it’s rather stupid for an PVP MMO to have that kind of PVP model.

and thats the problem, its bursty now, you dont have a long time to react, and you have little counterplay after popping your clears.

its not DOT any more its easier safer stronger burst.

I STILL don’t see that as a problem … I would rather be burst by a DoT than direct damage. You’re not going to tell me that the DoT isn’t easier to deal with, even as a burst, than direct damage would be.

The point is condition damage being so called “DoT” isn’t acting like DoT, it’d acting like burst damage which it shouldn’t do. Conditions getting so much buff has moved themy from DoT to burst damage. Power cleaves can be from somewhere between 2-10k maybe but conditions are doing 4k-insta down some one which is highly unbalanced.

I like how you just decided what things should and shouldn’t do. That’s a convincing argument. I won’t argue you’re numbers, other than to say that your comparisons aren’t very meaningful. It’s amusing that acknowledging power cleaves in the 10K range doesn’t seem to bother you at all … in fact you say it like that’s just normal play … but 4K conditions … how ruinous.

Obtena.7952:

I like how you just decided what things should and shouldn’t do. That’s a convincing argument. I won’t argue you’re numbers, other than to say that your comparisons aren’t very meaningful. It’s amusing that acknowledging power cleaves in the 10K range doesn’t seem to bother you at all … in fact you say it like that’s just normal play … but 4K conditions … how ruinous.

You sound really ignorant right there. I said power dps builds do burst dps from 2k-10k your every hit isnt a 10k. Power damage scales depending on how much armor, vitality and healing power based your enemy is. If you against a minstrel ele with power build you are not killing it.

Then I also said condition damage do dps 4k to insta down someone and conditions do 4k+ per tick. It doesn’t take much to keep reapplying conditions on your target.

What you did was, you took 4k from conditions and 10k from power while ignoring everything else I said and tried to prove that power is still superior. No it isn’t with the continuous buffs to condition dps power is lacking in every single way.

If you don’t understand how the game plays don’t comment on it

CrimeMaker.8612:

Obtena.7952:

I like how you just decided what things should and shouldn’t do. That’s a convincing argument. I won’t argue you’re numbers, other than to say that your comparisons aren’t very meaningful. It’s amusing that acknowledging power cleaves in the 10K range doesn’t seem to bother you at all … in fact you say it like that’s just normal play … but 4K conditions … how ruinous.

You sound really ignorant right there. I said power dps builds do burst dps from 2k-10k your every hit isnt a 10k. Power damage scales depending on how much armor, vitality and healing power based your enemy is. If you against a minstrel ele with power build you are not killing it.

Then I also said condition damage do dps 4k to insta down someone and conditions do 4k+ per tick. It doesn’t take much to keep reapplying conditions on your target.

What you did was, you took 4k from conditions and 10k from power while ignoring everything else I said and tried to prove that power is still superior. No it isn’t with the continuous buffs to condition dps power is lacking in every single way.

If you don’t understand how the game plays don’t comment on it

There also a lot of verily in the skills it self. Short power dmg skill tend to do much less dmg and scale worst with power where slower skills and longer cd skill tend to hit harder. Condis do the same dmg even if the skill is on a low cd or long short cast time or long and bleed is still a bleed.

In a lot of way condis kills different types of attks because if your just applying a condi at the end of the attk then all the wind up hit boxes etc.. mean next to nothing when it doing the same effect as say a 1 spam. That the problem with condis they water down all the skills in the game to an auto attk if your auto attk is not doing most of your condi then your not playing your condi class right or the class is not that good at condis.

Look at burn ele for raids it sits in fire and spams all of its skills the sec they come off of cd. Every thing on the burn ele is effectually an auto attk. Now take a power dmg ele (even in raid) the ele now needs to relay think about its rotation and it must swap atuments to get the most out of it effect.

CrimeMaker.8612:

You sound really ignorant right there. I said power dps builds do burst dps from 2k-10k your every hit isnt a 10k. Power damage scales depending on how much armor, vitality and healing power based your enemy is. If you against a minstrel ele with power build you are not killing it.

To be honest, against minstrel ele, condi builds won’t be all that succesful either.

CrimeMaker.8612:

Then I also said condition damage do dps 4k to insta down someone and conditions do 4k+ per tick.

You can’t instadown someone with 4k damage.

CrimeMaker.8612:

It doesn’t take much to keep reapplying conditions on your target.

About the same as keeping to apply power damage, i’d say.

CrimeMaker.8612:

If you don’t understand how the game plays don’t comment on it

Funny you say that.

Astralporing.1957:

CrimeMaker.8612:

Then I also said condition damage do dps 4k to insta down someone and conditions do 4k+ per tick.

You can’t instadown someone with 4k damage.

I believe he’s referring to a damage range with 4K at the low end and “insta-down” on the other. I question whether that’s happening, though. If it is, it’s a product of a zerg dropping tons of AoE on another zerg and the defending zerg lacking Resistance for whatever reason. The other possibility is of course defending a keep and standing too close to the lord and getting the plague from him.

CrimeMaker.8612:

Obtena.7952:

I like how you just decided what things should and shouldn’t do. That’s a convincing argument. I won’t argue you’re numbers, other than to say that your comparisons aren’t very meaningful. It’s amusing that acknowledging power cleaves in the 10K range doesn’t seem to bother you at all … in fact you say it like that’s just normal play … but 4K conditions … how ruinous.

You sound really ignorant right there. I said power dps builds do burst dps from 2k-10k your every hit isnt a 10k. Power damage scales depending on how much armor, vitality and healing power based your enemy is. If you against a minstrel ele with power build you are not killing it.

Then I also said condition damage do dps 4k to insta down someone and conditions do 4k+ per tick. It doesn’t take much to keep reapplying conditions on your target.

What you did was, you took 4k from conditions and 10k from power while ignoring everything else I said and tried to prove that power is still superior. No it isn’t with the continuous buffs to condition dps power is lacking in every single way.

If you don’t understand how the game plays don’t comment on it

There is no ignorance. I’ve played plenty of MMO’s to know that a condition (DoT) focused damage philosophy is not a problem and GW2 would be no exception. As for you simply spouting off numbers to try to be convincing, I will let the regular populace correct you on that stuff, that you can see is already happening.

CrimeMaker.8612:

Obtena.7952:

I like how you just decided what things should and shouldn’t do. That’s a convincing argument. I won’t argue you’re numbers, other than to say that your comparisons aren’t very meaningful. It’s amusing that acknowledging power cleaves in the 10K range doesn’t seem to bother you at all … in fact you say it like that’s just normal play … but 4K conditions … how ruinous.

You sound really ignorant right there. I said power dps builds do burst dps from 2k-10k your every hit isnt a 10k. Power damage scales depending on how much armor, vitality and healing power based your enemy is. If you against a minstrel ele with power build you are not killing it.

Then I also said condition damage do dps 4k to insta down someone and conditions do 4k+ per tick. It doesn’t take much to keep reapplying conditions on your target.

What you did was, you took 4k from conditions and 10k from power while ignoring everything else I said and tried to prove that power is still superior. No it isn’t with the continuous buffs to condition dps power is lacking in every single way.

If you don’t understand how the game plays don’t comment on it

Show me a youtube clip were 1 condition from 1 player do 4k a tick from the first second its applied.

If your comparing 1 power build against a zerg of condition spewing players then sure its fair since your 1 against many.

I find the conditions somewhat manageable at times in wvw, I don’t run condi builds anymore because I did indeed find them to be a bit brain dead and boring. Some builds you can click two skills and stand there in tank mode with your dire gear=autowin.

My biggest issue is the passives…passives..passives. Just too much. Anet should be relying on the player to know their class and skills, not give them so many passives in their build they can go autopilot.

Esports failed and I can’t name one person (been here since launch) that I know who does the raids. PVE is expected to get attention. I don’t know what the hell they are doing anymore…..but buffing condi isn’t wise. Your game becomes vanilla and they seem just fine with that. MMO players want the chocolate cake, gw2 isn’t offering it.

The problem is: every class in GW2 basically the same.

There is a lack of character variation because game companies try so hard to balance all characters to be exactly the same. It is even worse in Guild Wars 2 because there are no dedicated healers or tanks or dps. Every in-game character is all of those things which make them all basically the same.

Ages ago, when I played other mmo’s, there was a lot more distinction from one class to the next:
[]A Cleric/Priest was ‘only’ good at healing and sucked at dps and tanking was out of the question.
[]A Warrior/Fighter was tough as stones but had very little dps and had no magic at all in order to cast healing spells.
[]A Rogue/Thief excelled only at dps and could typically one-shot an unsuspecting player or mob. The thief was very fragile though and great care and cunning was required to play one.

So, I think you get the point.

The point being, every class in GW2 is basically ‘exactly’ the same.
Everyone can cast magic spells.
Everyone has the capacity to do tons of dps.
And even some non-traditional classes are able to tank a boss…not that ‘tanks’ actually exist in this game, because they don’t.

There is one class in GW2…it is the DPS/Healer.

If anyone reading this has ever played vanilla wow then you know exactly where I am coming from. Back then, if a rogue in stealth would one-shot me, I expected that to happen. It was part of the game. However, a rogue could never heal a dungeon party or raid. There were definitive ‘positives and negatives’ to every class.

Unless classes get some real distinction from one another, this game is going to always feel very bland and boring.

Here is the condition meta rearing its head again. This has been brought up so many times and every time the condition users troll the OP. The fact is that this meta is boring and needs to be nerfed. Not only conditions but the boon share meta too. If conditions were made half way between what they were and what they are now they’d be balanced. But as it goes for every game and every player, those that haven’t taken the time to learn the game will always go for the easy builds i.e. metabattle and there will always be those players that strive to do nothing but make the game unenjoyable for others out of spite, anger or whatever.
So there will always be those the will exploit the most overpowered skills, classes, builds, etc.

Condition heavy builds should win fights through attrition, and not overwhelming ticks. I’ve seen 6k to 8k burn ticks off of burn-guardians/dhs, with nearly every if not every condi-build focusing on the high-end conditions, or ones that have no stack-cap. It just breeds this whole, “Hands off”, playstyle.

Now sure, you can condi-clear/cleanse, but that’s just so often, even if you use them wisely and only clear the big ones from big attacks, you’re still going to be bogged down by new stacks, it takes the effort out of everything, when you don’t need to worry about hitting consistently because your conditions are still ticking away.

A power build should always be able to out-burst a condi build, but a condi build should be able to maintain/sustain it’s dps better, through the constant application of conditions.

Someday Anet will create a level playing field, because right now, it’s adapt or die.

I think that kind of thinking doesn’t make sense in a game where attrition doesn’t make sense; there is no holy trinity, so you can’t just ‘out-attrition’ someone with heals or massive, constant damage reduction that other MMO’s typically gives healers/tanks. There are minor direction shifts with stats, and that’s about it, but we all know that the game mechanics don’t favour that.

Honestly, I think the whole PVP scene in this game sucked because it was so linear; at least it sucks less with different avenues.

Obtena.7952:

I think that kind of thinking doesn’t make sense in a game where attrition doesn’t make sense; there is no holy trinity, so you can’t just ‘out-attrition’ someone with heals or massive, constant damage reduction that other MMO’s typically gives healers/tanks. There are minor direction shifts with stats, and that’s about it, but we all know that the game mechanics don’t favour that.

Honestly, I think the whole PVP scene in this game sucked because it was so linear; at least it sucks less with different avenues.

Attrition is the breaking down of an enemy over time, just because there isn’t a trinity, which bringing that up doesn’t make any sense, doesn’t mean that winning a fight because you where able to stay in a fight longer while whittling down someone hp, isn’t possible. Breaking someone down over time with conditions, is what I am talking about.

A tick of condi-dmg, should not equate to 20% or more of someones total health, all this does is breed super-glass builds that’s goal is to 100% to 0% someone asap, before their, “Hands-off” build does it for them, over time.

Now I can burn through my clears when stacks are too high, but, with the way that they are applied, durations are increased, and all the passive ways they can be put on, sure does take the wind out of your sails, knowing you need to try far harder than easy-mode builds.

Not saying it’s not possible, but the game isn’t made that way and we know it. It reflects just as much in PVP as it does in PVE. If you’re going to make a valid comparison to attrition in PVP, then we ARE talking about the significant differences between how a Healer/tank PVP’s against DPS classes in other games; GW2 comes no where CLOSE to that level of difference.

I just don’t get that mentality; a condi-damage can’t equate to a certain amount of a person’s HP … but if that’s a burst from a power build, no one has any problem with that. It makes no sense; condi damage gives you options to react, yet people don’t seem to want that opportunity. OK, I guess you just want to compete with twitch players and QQ your class sucks … I dunno.

Regardless, this game has never rested on any particular ‘state’; it seems sensitive to even minor changes. So the fact that people are complaining about game mechanics evolving AGAIN is pretty amusing to me, especially the guy that was complaining that he didn’t like stagnant mechanics!

Odokuro.5049:

Attrition is the breaking down of an enemy over time

Not really possible in the current combat paradigm. If you can’t kill your enemy before their skills go back off cooldown, then the fight practically resets. You have to either have dps greater than their healing capability (which can be really high for any defensive build), or be capable of a fast high-damage burst. Slowly chipping off their hp simply doesn’t work. It’s just a recipe for losing the fight.

Obtena.7952:

I just don’t get that mentality; a condi-damage can’t equate to a certain amount of a person’s HP … but if that’s a burst from a power build, no one has any problem with that.

That may be one of the biggest unclear thing about the whole DPS scene. I’d add : “there’s not enough clears to cleanse the condi application”. That’s true. There also isn’t “enough clears to cleans the CC application from power builds”. Yet, the stunlock issue doesn’t pop every week as condi does.

ThomasC.1056:

Obtena.7952:

I just don’t get that mentality; a condi-damage can’t equate to a certain amount of a person’s HP … but if that’s a burst from a power build, no one has any problem with that.

That may be one of the biggest unclear thing about the whole DPS scene. I’d add : “there’s not enough clears to cleanse the condi application”. That’s true. There also isn’t “enough clears to cleans the CC application from power builds”. Yet, the stunlock issue doesn’t pop every week as condi does.

power builds and cc builds are not one and the same, cc access seems to be more tied to class than damage type.

phys.7689:

ThomasC.1056:

Obtena.7952:

I just don’t get that mentality; a condi-damage can’t equate to a certain amount of a person’s HP … but if that’s a burst from a power build, no one has any problem with that.

That may be one of the biggest unclear thing about the whole DPS scene. I’d add : “there’s not enough clears to cleanse the condi application”. That’s true. There also isn’t “enough clears to cleans the CC application from power builds”. Yet, the stunlock issue doesn’t pop every week as condi does.

power builds and cc builds are not one and the same, cc access seems to be more tied to class than damage type.

True about the class thing. Yet, you can consider power mesmer, berserker, daredevil, and even dragonhunter to a certain extent : all these rely a lot on CC application to correctly land their rotation without too much disruption from the dummy in front of them…

One can say that condi builds are braindead, but not as much as power builds consisting in handcuffing the opponent behind his chair to burst him without interference.

Astralporing.1957:

Odokuro.5049:

Attrition is the breaking down of an enemy over time

Not really possible in the current combat paradigm. If you can’t kill your enemy before their skills go back off cooldown, then the fight practically resets. You have to either have dps greater than their healing capability (which can be really high for any defensive build), or be capable of a fast high-damage burst. Slowly chipping off their hp simply doesn’t work. It’s just a recipe for losing the fight.

attrition mechanics are still possible, but yes, it is rarer. Im glad people can agree that condi is basically similar burst now.

the problem is condi is similar burst, but its way easier to do usually, and its more likely to always be effective. (due to armor toughness considerations)

the design choices they made basically means they needed much more condi applications, and condi needs high fast dps, to be considered an attrition battle. They basically either need some abilities that dont cleanse or a buff that ramps up their abilities the more succesful they are.

the other problem is that pve and pvp have two different goals in balancing. high end pve needs all dps types to be able to attain similar dps over a long fight.

pvp needs to balance not only long term dps, but also difficulty, reactability, short term dps, etc.

ThomasC.1056:

phys.7689:

ThomasC.1056:

Obtena.7952:

I just don’t get that mentality; a condi-damage can’t equate to a certain amount of a person’s HP … but if that’s a burst from a power build, no one has any problem with that.

That may be one of the biggest unclear thing about the whole DPS scene. I’d add : “there’s not enough clears to cleanse the condi application”. That’s true. There also isn’t “enough clears to cleans the CC application from power builds”. Yet, the stunlock issue doesn’t pop every week as condi does.

power builds and cc builds are not one and the same, cc access seems to be more tied to class than damage type.

True about the class thing. Yet, you can consider power mesmer, berserker, daredevil, and even dragonhunter to a certain extent : all these rely a lot on CC application to correctly land their rotation without too much disruption from the dummy in front of them…

One can say that condi builds are braindead, but not as much as power builds consisting in handcuffing the opponent behind his chair to burst him without interference.

cc isnt really power burst style in this game, you generally give up burst to get cc skills. that said, in order to do damage for melee, they either need to have great chase, or lockdown opponents, so they usually give up some burst.

that said, locking down an opponent isnt easy for melee in this game, and dif classes have access to different types.

mesmer gets a decent amount of daze, but that doesnt lock you down, you still have access to movement and dodges. most of the skills that daze can be avoided, one needs to have a succesful counter first.

basically yeah, they need to lock you down first, but that in and of itself is generally more difficult to achieve, it makes it like a 3 step process, get close, land cc, dps.

where as most conditions are ranged, so need less cc, so its just, dps.

Jinath.1298:

The problem is: every class in GW2 basically the same.

There is a lack of character variation because game companies try so hard to balance all characters to be exactly the same. It is even worse in Guild Wars 2 because there are no dedicated healers or tanks or dps. Every in-game character is all of those things which make them all basically the same.

Ages ago, when I played other mmo’s, there was a lot more distinction from one class to the next:
[]A Cleric/Priest was ‘only’ good at healing and sucked at dps and tanking was out of the question.
[]A Warrior/Fighter was tough as stones but had very little dps and had no magic at all in order to cast healing spells.
[]A Rogue/Thief excelled only at dps and could typically one-shot an unsuspecting player or mob. The thief was very fragile though and great care and cunning was required to play one.

So, I think you get the point.

The point being, every class in GW2 is basically ‘exactly’ the same.
Everyone can cast magic spells.
Everyone has the capacity to do tons of dps.
And even some non-traditional classes are able to tank a boss…not that ‘tanks’ actually exist in this game, because they don’t.

There is one class in GW2…it is the DPS/Healer.

If anyone reading this has ever played vanilla wow then you know exactly where I am coming from. Back then, if a rogue in stealth would one-shot me, I expected that to happen. It was part of the game. However, a rogue could never heal a dungeon party or raid. There were definitive ‘positives and negatives’ to every class.

Unless classes get some real distinction from one another, this game is going to always feel very bland and boring.

Except you can build for that but yes older mmorpgs had more uniqueness to a class.

Jinath.1298:

The problem is: every class in GW2 basically the same.

There is a lack of character variation because game companies try so hard to balance all characters to be exactly the same. It is even worse in Guild Wars 2 because there are no dedicated healers or tanks or dps. Every in-game character is all of those things which make them all basically the same.

Ages ago, when I played other mmo’s, there was a lot more distinction from one class to the next:
[]A Cleric/Priest was ‘only’ good at healing and sucked at dps and tanking was out of the question.
[]A Warrior/Fighter was tough as stones but had very little dps and had no magic at all in order to cast healing spells.
[]A Rogue/Thief excelled only at dps and could typically one-shot an unsuspecting player or mob. The thief was very fragile though and great care and cunning was required to play one.

So, I think you get the point.

The point being, every class in GW2 is basically ‘exactly’ the same.
Everyone can cast magic spells.
Everyone has the capacity to do tons of dps.
And even some non-traditional classes are able to tank a boss…not that ‘tanks’ actually exist in this game, because they don’t.

There is one class in GW2…it is the DPS/Healer.

If anyone reading this has ever played vanilla wow then you know exactly where I am coming from. Back then, if a rogue in stealth would one-shot me, I expected that to happen. It was part of the game. However, a rogue could never heal a dungeon party or raid. There were definitive ‘positives and negatives’ to every class.

Unless classes get some real distinction from one another, this game is going to always feel very bland and boring.

its true that those games had more defined roles, but there is nothing to suggest that more defined roles = more enjoyment in gameplay. I certainly don’t enjoy being forced to take unavoidable damage, so that healers serve a purpose, and having virtually no interaction with enemy behavior and attacks so that tanks serve a purpose.

but that is subjective, some do enjoy it.

what i can say, is i dont see the need for this specific game to be based on those old roles.

GW2 specifically is designed to avoid the trinity as much as possible. That said, there are classes which heal, tank, or DPS better than others but most classes do have some access to DPS and sustain (or evade-mobility).

Conditions have to do a lot of damage in short time frames because people kept asking for more and more cleanse. The more cleanse the more conditions need to kill between cleanses to stay viable.

If your goal is that conditions should no longer be viable then that will never happen. You’re not going to change a nearly five year old mmo’s core design.

If your goal is to increase cleanse it won’t solve your issue. What you want is for no cleanse and a rebalancing of conditions around this. Then conditions won’t have to burst to deal damage.

But be careful what you ask for. Inevitable death is no more pleasant than being bursted down between cleanses. And you would lower the skill floor for condi users by a lot. Right now I need to know a lot about my opponent’s cleanse to time my attacks. Get rid of cleanse/rebalance and…welcome to the true condition meta.

saerni.2584:

If your goal is to increase cleanse it won’t solve your issue. What you want is for no cleanse and a rebalancing of conditions around this. Then conditions won’t have to burst to deal damage.

Pretty much this.

Also, conditions need to be a part of class design and intent. Meaning that some classes just happen to deal more in DoTs while others deal more in DDs.

And DoTs would simply be effects which are cast every 12, 18, 21 or so seconds, dealing superior damage-per-cast-time for inferior damage-per-second. Now some classes just have one such DoT for some background damage while doing other things, while others have 6-7 DoTs to constantly rotate recasting, being virtually fully a DoT-class when specced for damage.

But hey, am I going to far and implying that specs would be a better as a dropdown of 3-5 “roles/intents” instead of these 84533423426 possible combinations of which only 4-5 are truly viable anyhow? Oh, shame on me…

Jinath.1298:

The problem is: every class in GW2 basically the same.

There is a lack of character variation because game companies try so hard to balance all characters to be exactly the same. It is even worse in Guild Wars 2 because there are no dedicated healers or tanks or dps. Every in-game character is all of those things which make them all basically the same.

Ages ago, when I played other mmo’s, there was a lot more distinction from one class to the next:
[]A Cleric/Priest was ‘only’ good at healing and sucked at dps and tanking was out of the question.
[]A Warrior/Fighter was tough as stones but had very little dps and had no magic at all in order to cast healing spells.
[]A Rogue/Thief excelled only at dps and could typically one-shot an unsuspecting player or mob. The thief was very fragile though and great care and cunning was required to play one.

So, I think you get the point.

The point being, every class in GW2 is basically ‘exactly’ the same.
Everyone can cast magic spells.
Everyone has the capacity to do tons of dps.
And even some non-traditional classes are able to tank a boss…not that ‘tanks’ actually exist in this game, because they don’t.

There is one class in GW2…it is the DPS/Healer.

If anyone reading this has ever played vanilla wow then you know exactly where I am coming from. Back then, if a rogue in stealth would one-shot me, I expected that to happen. It was part of the game. However, a rogue could never heal a dungeon party or raid. There were definitive ‘positives and negatives’ to every class.

Unless classes get some real distinction from one another, this game is going to always feel very bland and boring.

This is only true if you’ve only played WoW, and not any real games. Every class plays differently. Every class also has multiple builds.

Saying there’s only one class in GW2 is like saying there’s only one gun in Doom, because they all just kill things. And yet, the Rocket Launcher, Plasma Gun, Chaingun, and shotgun all feel different and have different strengths and styles while still killing the enemy at roughly the same speeds (If you know how to use them).