Guild Wars 2

OK, so we all know GW2 isn’t built with the trinity in mind and that all characters have to be able to deal damage, support and heal, etc.

But my question is, and especially considering the upcoming expansion and elite specs, what exactly is the point of having 9 professions with 2 elite specs each if they all do the same thing?

Traditionally, as an example, your mage would be a ranged AoE, your rogue/thief would be a single target DPS, and your warrior would be a tank and PBAoE. Assuming all three have to heal and support themselves, that pretty much covers the range of possible interactions you’d have in a game world like GW2.

It seems an odd thing to have a fully ascended Guardian JUST for doling out Stability in WvW, or a Mesmer as a Portal-bot.

Don’t get me wrong, I like variation and choice, but it seems that the design of GW2 is an illusion of choice, due to every profession essentially needing to do the same thing, just with a different aesthetic and color palette.

I main an Elementalist, and think it’s rather odd that the new Weaver as an example is described as a “melee bruiser” when a D/x spec has been doing that since launch. I would very much prefer a balance pass over each profession that allows me to pick a sub-role within each profession, example:

Core Ele – high mobility and toughness bunker
Tempest – Power damage glass cannon at any range (typical mage)
Weaver – Condition damage PBAoE spec that relies on active evasion/barrier

If we go by design intent- its to have a wide array of play styles, varying skill caps within a role, and the ability for nearly any class to slot competently into a given role for things like Raids. Because we only have 1 Espec on the roster for each class, its pretty easy to determine ‘best in slot" from a small pool of options. As that list grows, more options open up, as does opportunity for situational relevance.
For instance… HOT raids are all about DPS and counter mechanics. For PoF, theres been hinting that boonstrip and barrier will have emphasis for at least some of the newer raids. They’re also rotating each class between Raid, PvP and WvW with the especs….. and you’ll notice, a pattern.

Mesmer – PvP WvW Utility \ Chrono Raid Support \ Mirage Raid PvP DPS
Necro- Condi Tank \ Reaper DPS \ Scourge Support
Warrior- PvP WvW Control Support \ Berserker Raid DPS \ Spell Breaker PvP shutdown
Engineer- WvW Utility Support \ Scrapper PvP Control \ Holosmith Raid DPS
You kind of get the idea.

In your next statement, you confuse “Meta”, which is a player prerogative, with Dev design intent. Guardians are NOT explicitly designed to simply dish out Stab in WvW…. player Meta developed that, because the demand is for mobile, on-demand stability- to which Guardian’s shout has easy access to, and has a rune set that also synergies to AOE remove conditions. Rev has Inspiring Reinforcement for Stab, and Pain Absorption for condition control, but can’t fire them off at the same time, and limits mobility in how their deployed.
Every Class has access to Stun Breaks, Stability, and Condition clear……. but Guardians can manage that on a group level, and more skills to help sustain it, in a way that Rev can’t even come close to. But at the same time, Rev has easy access to AOE Resistance boons (which ignore conditions completely), which Guardians do not. Mesmers can share Stab through Signet of Inspiration, and multiple AOE stun breaks, while the Guardian has only 1 that it has to trait for.

Its not just filling a role, but how each class can excel in certain situations concerning the exact same job. Its more a failure of encounter design to not leverage that fact in various areas of the game….. with WvW being the most chaotic, since you’re faced with all possible vectors of attack at the same time. So naturally, the Meta looks for the most efficient builds and tries to forcibly narrow the number of situations down as much as possible for PvE, runs counter metas in WvW, and broad counters to over used builds in PvP. The Stagnation occurs when the players refuse to change the meta, because they dislike change….. and have to be forced into it by outside pressure.

For instance…. Pirate ship meta was big in WvW for the longest time. When condi got stronger, they changed to Condi bombs, and adopted Front line Lock down to keep them in the fields. In response to that, Dive Comp become popular to cut through the condi bombs and maintain mobility. In response to that, a lot of servers are starting to Driver snipe again, since killing the Driver (commander) shuts down the whole zerg.
With PoF coming up, Deadeyes are going to be insanely popular, as are flankers looking for tunnel visioned Deadeyes for easy kills.

Change one skill, and the whole meta can reshuffle because of it…… like when Facet of Nature Boon duration bonus was cut from 50 to 33.

I think there is definitely a real choice to it.

In MMO, or RPG in general I like to play the warrior type, close range melee fighter. By your argument I should pick warrior and be done with it.

But over the years I find myself playing warrior, ele, eng, guard, and rev. I play a close range melee spec for all of them, and each with decent success in pvp, wvw, and pve. I really enjoy each of them. This is why I still playing GW2 since release. Every single class I pickup, I can play my favor spec, but at the same time feel completely different.

Yea but your thief can be either close combat dps elite spec daredevil, or long range dps deadeye.

Next maybe next elite will be a stealth healer/buffer.

Kaleban.9834:

OK, so we all know GW2 isn’t built with the trinity in mind and that all characters have to be able to deal damage, support and heal, etc.

But my question is, and especially considering the upcoming expansion and elite specs, what exactly is the point of having 9 professions with 2 elite specs each if they all do the same thing?
…

Games with the trinity in their design usually have more than 3 classes, so what’s the point in that? The answer is the same as the answer to your overall question: the nuances, flavor and style of each class/build.

idk about you but i feel a huge difference between playing guard and thief in wvw…. ther’s no way they’re both the same or “illusion of choice”.

with my thief, i can basically run away from anything and chase down anything. with my guard i cannot do that.

i play all 9 classes, so i know how different they are to one another. when i play ranger in wvw, i can cc enemy players better than any other classes.

you really have to know all the classes inside out to be able to know how different they are from one another, and each of their strengths and weaknesses.

i wasn’t going to play all 9 but ever since raid was introduced in HoT, i geared all 9 classes because i was afraid i wouldn’t be able to find a group lol, i learned each class so much that i mastered them all.

Kaleban.9834:

But my question is, and especially considering the upcoming expansion and elite specs, what exactly is the point of having 9 professions with 2 elite specs each if they all do the same thing?

Different gameplay. Finding better immersion, better match for your own fantasy. Specializing the elite lines takes that away, as it binds together function and specific playstyle. It always has some of this, of course. For instance Tempest doesn’t quite have the “attunement dancing” style of core ele. But you still get more choices than you would if it was solely specialized in a single role.

Its like this:

There is no hard trinity, but there are still ROLES to play.

So you can have a team comp of pretty much any class combo (assuming all players are very good at playing what they know) and each can choose a kind of role to play (whether that roll be DPS power or condi, support through buffs heals, AoE control, etc.) After that, if they work as a team, they can more of less hold their own all while playing more or less the way they like.

Now sure some classes excel more at the DPS thing or the healing/support thing. I’m not looking for a thief to pump out heals for instance, but they can either be a big damage dealer or condi monkey or venom share support. And my warrior can either be a kind of tank to eat damage or even a healer support. Its that flexibility that really allows GW2 to shine when others stagnate.

The classes in this game are designed around theme more than mechanics, which is how I prefer it and why I’ve stuck with GW2 for so long. Therefore, the choice you make is primarily a thematic one, and only secondarily a mechanical one. Some classes are better at some roles than others, but it’s due more to versatility than it is to straight-out power.

An example of this is warriors doing ranged combat. They’re competent at it, but most of their ranged skills are situational and they definitely specialize more in melee, so if you want to do a lot of ranged physical combat, you’d probably want to pick a ranger, or, with PoF, a thief.