Guild Wars 2

By “imbalances” I mean the overall ability of a profession to cope with typical situations, not some hardcore PvP 1v1 comparison or something.

I’ve played every profession except the necromancer to about 25, and with the highest 45. I realize that’s hardly the level cap, but I am of the opinion that you ought to be able to feel the true flavor of a profession at around the time you unlock the vast majority of your slot skills and have partially complete trait lines.

What I’ve been wondering is, do some professions seem so much more overall capable than others to anyone else? For example, my Warrior does far more damage than my Elementalist, Mesmer, Engineer, or Thief, but at the same time is ALSO much better at surviving and succeeding in pear-shaped fights than any of them. (Though the Mesmer sure is good at running away, if you count that.) Shouldn’t I expect the Thief to hit single targets harder?

Also, some of the classes don’t seem to excel at anything in particular. The Mesmer and Engineer especially always feel like they’re trying to be several things at once. They’re still fun to play, but I always make a lot more level progress with fewer deaths and easier kills on the more focused classes (like Defender, Warrior, and Elementalist) than the others.

I’m humble enough to suggest that I may just be playing some of them wrong. It seems that the scholars should hit harder, and I may be missing something. Maybe solo PvW play isn’t a good way to judge, and I should be grouping up or doing more WvW to see the professions shine in new ways.

Any comments or suggestions? Level more and then come back and see how they are?

Because like you said, you have not gotten very high so you ain’t gotten skilled in any single profession, Warrior is just the easiest to play which is why you feel he’s ‘Better’ just because the skill cap is easier to get to.

It’s true, warrior is the best class, ele and necro are useless, the others are somewhere in the middle.

Those are pretty much opposite opinions, so it’s hard to know what the general feeling out there is…

Well there are a few problems you’re experiencing here.
1. You haven’t had enough time to master any/all class(es).
2. You haven’t taken into account that you are probably playing certain classes wrong. Whether it be that you’re trying to play them like another class or you’re trying to make each one fit your exact style of gaming.

For example, my bro plays warrior and I play Mesmer. I see his fast high damage and try to do the same thing in the exact same way. It doesn’t work, but not because the classes are imbalanced but rather that they are different. Warrior is extremely straight forward and thus Noob friendly. You find the “best” moves, stack power precision and critical damage and you’re good to go. Mesmer is more like a puzzle than a straight forward picture. There’s all these little things you can do and if you find the right combination you can achieve the same type of damage a warrior can.
So basically with every class it all depends on what weps, slot skills, and traits fit your build the best. So no imbalances really (outside of the glitches moves in certain classes anyways lol), just inexperienced players.

it’s because of armor-types (heavy, medium, light)
makes no sense if everyone can do range-dmg, heal, support and dodge
it just let heavy-armor classes appear stronger, while light-armor classes die quite fast

example:
mesmer got medium base vitality, low toughness, low damage compared to other classes AND light armor...worse combination for a mostly medium ranged class, also makes the use of melee weapons pointless...tho i like dual-swords-mesmers...
clones and stuns as well as alot stun-removers doesn’t help much when multiple mobs gang up on you

while the warrior got nice DPS, heavy armor, high toughness, medium vitality and can also wear ranged weapons...

if light/medium armor at least would give higher stat-boosts to balance the lack of defense out

@wauwi I had the same problems in the beginning with Mesmer. If you want to dps as Mesmer try sword/pistol & dual sword or sword/pistol & scepter/focus or sword/pistol & greatsword, or any mix up of those combinations. You’ll find it much easier to dps and stay alive with those combos.

Buff scissors because it doesn’t beat rock. Didn’t look at paper.

Engineer is all about field control. You kill quickly so long as you have the “imitative” on the battlefield. That’s things like knockdown, cripples etc. So long as you controlling the enemy in some way – your going to be on top… usually.

Everyone does everything a bit differently. If you are playing Thief like you would a Warrior, then of course you’re going to see it as less durable. However, spec Thief for all those awesome avoidance moves, and bonuses on dodging, and you’ll have someone who can survive better than a Warrior.

The Warrior seems the best because it’s base damage reduction is the highest in the game. With the highest armor and highest health, you can afford to make more mistakes than you can with other professions.

You’re saying that Mesmers can’t do damage, but you’re only looking at damage directly from the Mesmer, and not its phantasms as that is the main source of Mesmer damage. As I just said, everyone does things differently. If you play to everyone’s strength and stop trying to be another profession, you’ll understand what I’m trying to convey to you. Otherwise, keep on facetanking mobs on Thief and Elementalist.

If some classes are better at surviving, and others are better at control, while and others just do the most damage per second.. What stops this game from having a trinity? Just that there’s no content we’d need a trinity for?

Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought any class would be able to DPS, CC, or tank, somewhat equally, depending on spec, and which weapons we use. Instead, it’s more like, sure everyone can DPS. Just not necessarily very well, making it a weak way to spec, when you’d be better off just playing a class that’s good at it.

Some classes are definitely trickier. You need to learn how to use different utilities and consider synergies in how you spec.. but that’s just so you won’t be utter crap at it. Still doesn’t really close the gaping discrepancies.. least not in my experience.

I will share this.

There were 5 enemies chasing one of my allies in WvW. They were running toward where I was coming down one of the hills on the west side of the map. I saw them, popped out a couple clones and charged in after them.

They all turned and ran. They had a 5 on 2 advantage in WvW and ran away.

THAT is what a mesmer brings to the table in WvW.

Vzur.7123:

If some classes are better at surviving, and others are better at control, while and others just do the most damage per second.. What stops this game from having a trinity? Just that there’s no content we’d need a trinity for?

Maybe I misunderstood, but I thought any class would be able to DPS, CC, or tank, somewhat equally, depending on spec, and which weapons we use. Instead, it’s more like, sure everyone can DPS. Just not necessarily very well, making it a weak way to spec, when you’d be better off just playing a class that’s good at it.

Some classes are definitely trickier. You need to learn how to use different utilities and consider synergies in how you spec.. but that’s just so you won’t be utter crap at it. Still doesn’t really close the gaping discrepancies.. least not in my experience.

In my experience, everyone can survive just as well as anyone else, it’s just how they do it that is different. Warrior has the highest base hp/armor while Elementalist needs to swap into Water/Earth every so often. Necromancer has Death Shroud while Mesmers have Clones to take a shot or two. Engineers have CC while Thieves have dodging.