Guild Wars 2

[Insert Class Here] sucks/needs a buff

This phrase is one I see on every class forum somewhere on the front page. The post will often complain about XYZ other class being better or overpowered and needing a nerf, and/or will bemoan the class in question, how it’s underpowered and needs a buff. Sometimes the post will even go into what seems like some well thought out reasoning behind it as well.

I can draw from this one of two conclusions;
One answer is that these posts are correct, based on facts and data, resulting in the conclusion that every single class in this game is simultaneously underpowered and needing a buff but also OP and needing a nerf…
Alternatively, everyone believes the class that they main is lacklustre, jaded and boring to them. They feel that the grass is greener on the other side. Every other class has it made but theirs sucks.

I’m not crazy am I? Every forum is full of people moaning about the state of their favourite class, this can’t be right though. Either one of them is categorically the best and one the worst, or they are all much of a muchness and some people just think that they see a bias?

If I go into one of the class forums I would be led to believe that that class is the worst in the game and some other class is the best, but if I go to that class forum, I get the opposite opinion.

I’d love to hear other peoples thoughts on this, even if only as an observation of the human condition.

If it’s a PvP/WvW related post, then absolutely, the grass will always be greener..and it will never be. Like Schrodinger’s Cat, it is both and neither. This game is designed so that every class has a counter, even the meta builds have effective counters that can bring an experienced player to downstate, provided the opponent is experienced as well (or lucky in their combos). Because of this, you’ll see kneejerk posts which often go up right after a match, or after a long WvW session, decrying how X build is OP and needs to be nerfed—the poster is mostly venting their frustrations, and while they may have some really good points about a specific build, it’s more likely that they simply met a skilled opponent who understood proper counters and used them effectively.

Players often get angry at thief groups in WvW because they will whittle you down slowly, stealthing away when you hit them hard and then returning before you can get out-of-combat and heal to repeat their annoyances. These players might not have their builds set up to counter stealth and if so, they’re gonna have a bad time. That example can be extrapolated to just about every other good build available—there is an effective counter, but you have to be traited for it or otherwise aware of what your opponent is trying to do so you can outsmart or outplay them. Sometimes outplaying an opponent is as simple as running away from the fight because you know you aren’t set up to correctly combat them.

Similarly, the same type of thing can be said for someone complaining that the class they are using is underpowered and needs to be buffed. More likely, they are either trying a build that isn’t balanced very well and thus is only really effective in a specific type of encounter, or they are facing off against opponents who understand what build they are using and know how to counter it. It’s just the way the game works.

I do think it’s fair to say that there are a few very specific instances in which one build can (or has) actually become a bit overpowered (or underpowered), but generally speaking these situations are rare and usually patched out relatively quickly. In my opinion, ANet does a great job of balancing all classes across the board. It’s up to the players to find out what works and what doesn’t.

tl;dr: you have to take all “X is OP!” threads with a grain of salt.

People often treat their own weaknesses and inabilities as faults of the game. Having said that, there is no way that a game can balance pvp that has classes with vastly different types of abilities. In the end there is no way of balancing stealth for example. Not because it’s stealth but because of its implementation. As described above someone with stealth has a specific advantage. Now if you make some sort of anti stealth build you could counter that but I don’t know the classes well enough yet that I could say that you really can make a build that does this reliable and consistently.

The main problem with stealth in most MMOs (and the same might apply here) is when people can stealth out of combat, in combination with perma-stealth or at least long enough to get well away from the enemy, heal back and start over again. It’s something that makes pvp in many games really annoying and there’s nothing these games offer that can really counter it unless you can do things like stun-lock which are also no fun.

So really pvp in MMOs should never be taken seriously as far as class balancing is concerned. I don’t actually believe that if you have classes with stealth, heals, stuns etc. that you can actually really achieve a balance. So it’s about dealing with the imbalances the best way you can.

The thing is though that in pvp the people who are really pvp focused will always win against other players simply because they are better at it. No class balance can fix that and it’s the reason why WvW is ok cause you can zerg around as a group and actual pvp will always have a limited group of players because the down side of real pvp is that some people will just always be better at it and it’s hard to do that casually unless you are ok with losing a lot. Anet does do what they can by measuring skill of players but that also has it limits.

My advice: don’t take gaming too seriously unless you wanna go pro, which is not in the cards for the vast majority of players.