Guild Wars 2

I think it is about time we saw some PVE balance patches to the classes instead of PVP balances. There are several classes that are in a bad spot for PVE due to many changes in their skills, traits and functionality that were made for PVP only reasons. On behalf of the necromancer community, we are extremely concerned where our class is going. Or better said, where it is not going. It has been eons since we’ve seen a developer comment in our sub forum, which is odd, since the community is outraged by several unbalanced changes to our class. It feels as if PVE balance is out the window at the moment, and I’m sure other classes are also affected by this apparent short-sightedness. I personally feel like there is a disinterest towards our class, as apparent in the way any skill patch to our class is quickly skipped over in any live stream, as if it does not matter.

I urge the developers to drop into the sub forums of the less popular classes, and discuss with players of these classes how PVE balance can be restored for their class.

For clarity sake, this is not about whether a class can function in PVE, it’s about an equal playing field.

(Also note that there is a giant hand pointing at the sentence above.)

As long as PVE and PVP balance are not separated this will not happen.
Because something that will make a class viable in PVE can completely break it in PVP and vice versa.

I assume from your bolded statement that you are indeed aware that every class in the game is capable of very similar damage, with elemetnalist being the highest DPS class. I say this in particular because of both, how damage is all that matters in PvE and also because of the extreme number of misinformed people claiming warriors are just 10x more DPS than anything, which is absolutely, positively wrong. That is a fact.

So you know that, but you still feel PvE is unbalanced, and I assume that’s because of the increased difficulty some classes have in play? Regardless of whether or not every class is capable of achieving similar damage, it doesn’t change the fact that some classes are more difficult to play properly than others.

I don’t see this is a problem. This always reminds me of TERA, and how they tell you upfront that some classes are far more difficult to play. Like, a warrior tank. At least when I played that game, a warrior was a class that could tank, but in order to do so effectively, you needed to be a very skilled player. I only knew of about 2 people that could do this well enough.

And this is how I see classes in GW2. I find the more difficult to play classes infinitely more fun and rewarding. So, please don’t make my elementalist a faceroll easy class like warriors are. I want a class that can continue to perform while also remaining challenging to play. With things as they are now, classes are very much balanced in terms of capability, but yes they are unbalanced in terms of difficulty. The only class that’s in somewhat of a bad place is the necromancer, which is awesome only in upper level fractals, not so much normal dungeons.

I agree with the Mad Queen.

Dog, you make a good point about the professions being close to each other in terms of dps. However this is not sufficient on its own to make them balanced. In particular:

• Those close dps rankings are for POWER builds only. Condition builds are in a parlous state for PVE. This is primarily due to the condition cap, but other factors also play a role, such as the speed with which a buffed full zerker group can kill a boss (not enough full dps vs ramp up time for conditions) and also boss design rendering the non-damaging conditions ineffective.

• Those close dps rankings also assume that each profession has the same buffs. However some classes are better at bringing those buffs. Necro has none. If all classes do the same dps fully buffed, but only some classes provide the necessary buffs, then the game is unbalanced for PVE. Why bring a no-support necro when you can bring a warrior buff-bot?

• It is both sad and justifiable that your post equates balance with dps. This a problem with encounter design which generally rewards max dps to the exclusion of most other things. However some of the classes do bring good defensive buffs, esp the guardian. Reflections are particularly important for fractals. If all classes do the same dps, but only some bring helpful utility, then the game is unbalanced.

• Risk v Reward is off for a lot of classes. Warrior and Guardian can do a lot more dps safely than thieves and eles (I was particularly disappointed to see vigour nerfed on thieves in the last patch but left for Guardians). This might not be such an issue for the small minority of very talented players, but it is a big issue for the majority. This does not need to be perfectly balanced, but right now the warrior seems to be significantly ahead in its efficiency in the hands of the average pugger. I also don’t want to see more complex classes nerfed. Ideally however, each class would allow easy and difficult playstyles, which the player could choose. If not, it would be good if the more difficult professions had some benefit to compensate, either via utility or a modest dps advantage (eg. 10%).

Some balances to the classes to address these issues would be welcome. However I think the wider issue is encounter design, not profession balance. If the encounters were designed to reward different skills and trait set ups, then a lot of the balance issues would be solved. For example if conditions were more effective (esp non-damaging ones), necros would be more effective in dungeons. So I think the real issue is the encounter design which encourages the full zerker style combat. Some classes are better at this, which means the game is unbalanced in their favour.

Harper.4173:

As long as PVE and PVP balance are not separated this will not happen.
Because something that will make a class viable in PVE can completely break it in PVP and vice versa.

QFT

It’s beyond me how they think they can balance both PvP and PvE without separating skills, that will never happen.

The issue with conditions has to do with the core mechanics of the game. That currently is not a class balance issue as conditions are simply not effective currently. Now, I never said I was against changing the status quo to one that favors condition builds. That would actually be a big help to PvE and make things considerably more interesting.

In order for this to happen though, several changes need to happen. The first and most obvious one is that global caps need to be removed. Each individual character needs to have their own stacking cap that does not interfere with another player. Secondly, mechanics need to be introduced where certain bosses or mobs are far more susceptible to conditions than raw damage. In other words, multiple types of resistance that make bosses extremely resistant to one thing or another, to a point where in order to be as effective as possible, it would be ideal to bring classes that can cover raw damage for one encounter and another class that can bring condition damage for the next.

Now, that may contradict one of the values that GW2 has, which is that players should not have to being a specific class/build in order to clear an encounter. They do not want people waiting for a healer or a tank or a specific type of DPS class for example. So to that end, complete immunity to one or another is out of the question, but I would like to see some encounters made tedious unless you bring a specific damage type.

All of this then leads way to whether or not classes would be balanced in terms of condition builds. As these builds are not currently effective, I have no idea if they are balanced, but I’m pretty sure they aren’t. This would then require some significant trait and skill changes to see to it that they are. Every class should have a condition build as viable as another.

All of this is off topic though, because this is still an issue with the game’s core mechanics. Whether or not conditions are balanced has no affect on the current state of PvE. And ultimately, all this ever comes down to is DPS, that is the same for every game. Now, in other games, people need to put more effort into finding a way to stay alive, but at the end of the day, optimizing always comes down to DPS.

In terms of other buffs, I feel that every class except for necromancer is mostly balanced here. As I said before, they aren’t the best. They are only great in upper level fractals because of how amazing weakness is there, and necros have the best weakness uptime. However, they simply do not provide any might stacking, power based builds have okay vulnerability stacking which to do costs them a significant amount of their own DPS making it irrelevant, and they drop darkness fields which straight up interfere with useful combo fields. Several things can be done to easily make the necro just as great as the rest of the classes. Give them a melee weapon that deals as much damage as a dagger that also cleaves, give them a better way to cause vulnerability possibly with that cleave weapon, give them at least some might stacking, enhance their skills/traits in a way that gives them something comparable to spotter/frost spirit/empowered allies/banners, give them a projectile reflect skill. I certainly don’t expect all of these things at once, but if some of these things did happen then a necromancer would easily be viable to bring instead of another class in any situation. There’s also a lot more creative ways I’m sure that can make a necromancer more useful.

I said mostly balanced before because there are some things that are just necessary. Every single optimized party will always bring a warrior because the banners are just necessary. Rangers also provide similar support with spotter and frost spirit, again making them uniquely relevant. Other classes simply cannot provide these things, and currently make up for it mostly in their ability to grant specific boons. Elementalists grant the most might and fury, engineers inflict the most vulnerability, guardians provide aegis and stability to prevent any interruption in damage, mesmers have the best reflects and can grant party wide quickness, thieves provide part stealth and can spam blast finishers for numerous combinations with other classes. This is where a necromancer mostly sits out. However, I still see a pretty nice balance with the other 7 classes. It’s not the best, but it’s pretty cool. Warriors and rangers may have the upper hand here with support that no one else can provide, but I don’t consider it to be that big of a deal really.

I still personally have no issue with some classes having highers risk for the same reward. As I said before, I like this and I think it makes classes unique.

As some of the above posters correctly pointed out, some of the classes bring superior support and great DPS and survivability in PVE. The warrior and guardian for example. So it’s not just a matter of raw numbers, you have to look at the big picture. A class that can easily stack tons of might, and provide it and other buffs for the team, is clearly at a much bigger advantage than a squishy class that relies on his team mates for the might.

Condition damage was already at a large disadvantage in PVE, but if you pay attention to the last couple of updates, there have been nothing but condition nerfs in a row just for PvP. This method of balancing is destroying PVE balance. Conditions were already sub par, and now they are even worse, and the next update they will be even worse than that. These problems stack up, while in PvP seemingly everything seems A-okay.

This is why I want the developers to let go of the PvP for just a few days, and bend their heads over the PVE balance problem. PvP is only a minor sub section of the game. And also, drop into the necromancer sub forum some more. Listen to the players that play the class. There’s some great suggestions in there to restore PVE balance, and to fix dead traits and skills.

Harper.4173:

As long as PVE and PVP balance are not separated this will not happen.
Because something that will make a class viable in PVE can completely break it in PVP and vice versa.

^this

Wow, there is a lot of good feedback in this thread. Several good points have been made, especially regarding encounter design flaws and the problematic pvp-centric balance passes. Good job, community.

I have mained Necro since I started playing in April, and I have enjoyed it tremendously. But as I learned more about GW2 and the Necro profession, it has become clear that Necromancer in particular is just getting screwed in PvE play for the sake of maintaining PvP balance.

And since we aren’t going to get a “features update” until end of March, early April, then we’re looking at a good 3 or 4 months before anything might be done to correct this.

So I’m abandoning my Necromancer. The problems are too numerous, and I haven’t seen developer communication to indicate that ANet is even aware of how badly the profession is broken, much less any intention of addressing the issues.

I have 6 other lvl 80 professions to play with, so for the next three months my Necromancer is going back in her box and I’ll be playing a Guardian or Elementalist instead. Or both.

For the record, I do want to point out that thieves and rangers also have problems in PVE. I just want to put that out there just to make sure that this thread does not get buried by a moderator in “that dark place that no dev ever visits”, aka the necro subforum. Plus, a lot of these issues are problems with PVE overall, and the PvP focused balancing. So it’s not a necro-only problem.

I think there needs to be a coherent plan for the roles of various classes in PVE. For example, if a warrior can do a really high damage output, and provide team support at the same time…. why would anyone take a squishy thief along? There has to be a sort of trade off. You can’t have a class that has great offense, AND has great defense AND provide a lot of team support. Because that leaves all the other classes in the dust.

It’s no wonder we see so many warriors and guardians in dungeons. It makes the most sense to bring these classes, because they pretty much have all you need. And I’m not calling for a nerf on either of these classes, but there has to be a trade off.

Balancing PvE is never going to happen, this topic has been around since the game’s release and arena.net doesn’t even have a team together to work on the issue. When PvE players talk about balance they’re really only talking about best damage and survivability. Not really survivability, but the ability to absorb the mindlessly most damage. Each individual class doesn’t need to be balanced.

The only fixes needed are reduced melee damage or increase range damage. AoE to hit more targets or melee to hit less targets. Condition damage to tick higher dps.
In PvP, mellee is hard to hit moving targets and closer proximity / danger to foes. In PvE foes are mostly harness and stand still for your 100 blades. In PvP, condition dps promote hit and run builds and make for less fun gameplay, hence zerker dps should be higher than condition damage.

Good luck – they haven’t bothered with PvE / WvW balance up until this point – i wouldn’t get your hopes up.

I agree with everything in this thread though.

I’ve also abandoned my Necro in PvE / WvW in favour of Mesmer / Warrior.

step1: delete necro
step2: make warrior
solved.

Harper.4173:

As long as PVE and PVP balance are not separated this will not happen.
Because something that will make a class viable in PVE can completely break it in PVP and vice versa.

I don’t think they care about PvE balance. I think the game is balanced for PvP.

When encounters contains slow hitting bosses most of the time and a lot of projectile attacks, which is totally mitigated by 2 classes (guardian, mesmer) and add in the stupidly high scaling of berserker builds, especially on a warrior with great and unique(!) offensive support with banners, PvE is trivialized.
Thief is great when you need to skip mobs, but thats another problem that you are able to skip part of the content without punishing (the new TA path is a nice change).
Ele has also high dps build with staff, stupidly big numbers in aoe and the crowd favorite Fiery greatsword, which is bugged. I hope Anet knows about the bug, because 200k dps shouldnt be intended.
Ranger can bring Frost spirit for increased party damage and Spotter for extra precision, but this class already has a really bad reputation and nobody wants them.
Engi, while being an awesome jack of all trades provide nothing unique, but their vuln stacking ability with granade spec is awesome. Sadly, a few other class can do it well enough.
And of course, the necro, the leeching, selfish profession which gives nothing to the group, while not providing superior dps. Since control is non-existant and support is more than enough with boons and reflects, necro is subpar in PvE. Necromaners should weaken their enemies to get the advantage and kill them slowly. I give an example why this is the problem. First of all, conditions are bad. Slow ramp up time, low damage, condi cap. Secondly, non-damaging conditions, except vulnerability are almost useless. Necro has (had?) the best weakness uptime, but as an offensive condition it has an aoe cap thus it defends you from 5 enemies and provides 25% damage reduction in theory. Actually its less than 25%. While Protection gives you 33% damage reduction from infinite amount of enemies. And guardian can maintain it with 100% uptime. While dealing great damage. While healing. While reflecting. While being awesome and shiny.
Necromancers need options, tools and design which isnt against exactly how the game actually works. And not balacing around non-existant situations which wont ever happen.

ps: Sorry for the wall of text.

A good start for necro would be to put Dagger cleaving damage.
Its just small daggers so it make sense they are single target but if they just did some more cleaving damage it would fix a lot of problems with necro.
DS should scale with you’re current health/armor like it used to.
Minions die too fast. Give them a little more hp 300% as much as they currently have.
Maybe a couple condition heavy areas which make necros particularly useful to cleanse conditions too? just an idea.

Alukah.2063:

Harper.4173:

As long as PVE and PVP balance are not separated this will not happen.
Because something that will make a class viable in PVE can completely break it in PVP and vice versa.

QFT

It’s beyond me how they think they can balance both PvP and PvE without separating skills, that will never happen.

Except they have if you’ve ever read patch notes. Several skills and I think some traits have less conditions/damage/recharge for pve/pvp stuff.

Warrior axe 5 had its damaged increased by 50% in pvp but not in PvE. Keep in mind that if they were to buff something for PvE it would effect WvW because WvW uses PvE skills not pvp. Unless they were to split stuff into pvp/pve/wvw which would require more time on balances.

Mark of blood for necro was nerfed to have 1 less stack of bleeding it applies in pvp on the 10th. So they’ve already split pvp/pve skill wise. GW1 show’s that they can already split skills to do different things.

So yeah….