Guild Wars 2

I’m probably going to get a lot of flak for this but this is by no means a “troll” post. I’ve played the game since launch, experienced all content (WvW, PvE, and sPvP. ) This tier list is a compilation of several factors, including perceived strength as discussed in numerous forum threads which I have read or skimmed. Even though I have played sPvP I do not have enough experience in the matter to rate certain classes, therefore, and I am going to bold this, these ratings do not take into account strength perceived or otherwise in sPvP!

S Tier
Guardian – A Tier strength in WvW, A Tier strength in PvE.
Elementalist – A Tier strength in WvW, A Tier strength in PvE.

A Tier
Thief – A Tier strength in WvW, B Tier strength in PvE.
Warrior – B Tier strength in WvW, A Tier strength in PvE.
Mesmer – A Tier strength in WvW, B Tier strength in PvE.

B Tier
Necromancer – B Tier strength in WvW, C Tier strength in PvE.
Ranger – B Tier strength in WvW, C Tier strength in PvE.

C Tier
Engineer – C Tier strength in WvW, C Tier strength in PvE.

Reasoning Behind the Rankings:
Although one class might shine above all others in WvW and appears to be more useful than most, there strength rating, perceived or otherwise, in PvE might notch them down a ranking. This is why you see the Guardian and Elementalist so high up in the Tier list. What they bring to WvW and PvE is too much to ignore. I truly believe that in fractals and dungeons no one groans a little when another Guardian or Elemenatlist joins. The wealth of powerful options they bring to WvW outclasses all other professions. We all know the amount of support and useful utilities a Guardian and Elementalist bring to WvW (swirling winds, meteor shower, hallowed ground, stand your ground, etc.).

The three A tier classes were placed in these brackets because while they might shine or even overpower a S tier class in WvW they fall slightly behind in PvE, or vice versa. The thief is the most talked about and polarizing class in WvW, numerous videos are posted daily of a lone thief completing insurmountable tasks (soloing towers, soloing roaming groups, guaranteed Yak assassination, etc.). There perceived strength on the forums is nothing short of godlike, however they do lack slightly in the PvE department. I have grouped with many good thieves in PvE, however when compared to the A Tier PvE classes (warrior, elementalist, guardian) they are moderately outclassed. The mesmer falls into the same bracket, as they are also amazingly useful in WvW (Portal, Timewarp, Veil, etc) yet while they are supremely useful in PvE (Timewarp) they are also outclassed by the warrior, elementalist and guardian in that regard. Finally we have the Warrior. While certainly a true behemoth in PvE (they can solo dungeons…) and they are amazing in WvW (watch a top guild like Red Guard utilizing a warrior in WvW) they bring less group support to the table than the other A Tier WvW professions and do not have as much nifty tricks as the thief.

The two respective B Tier classes are placed in such bracket as although they have many useful abilities in WvW and PvE the divide between them and S or A tier classes is more apparent. The ranger is B Tier in WvW due to their easy access to an amazing Water Field in zerg vs zerg, coupled with Muddy Terrain in addition to their ability to “snipe” siege with pets and the “sick em” ability. They are also one of the premiere camp soloing professions which should not be overlooked. However, due to their reliance on their pet in PvE, and the rapid pace in which it dies to agony (level 20+ fractals) force me to rate them at C Tier for PvE. The Necromancer can certainly be a Juggernaut in WvW and with Epidemic and a Mesmer can apply heavy confusion stacks to a zerg and bring it to their knees, however their lack of group support is well evident coupled with their almost complete inability to roam successfully in regards to an A tier WvW profession. They also suffer the same problems as a ranger in PvE as while they can hold their own they will never bring the same amount of support, field generation, or DPS as an A Tier PvE class.

Last we have the lowly Engineer. It certainly pains me to say this as I main an Engineer myself and hold my own in both PvE and WvW, but the gap between them and other professions is wildly apparent in both game and on the forums. They can bring DPS to the table but not as much as the Warrior, they can bring support to the table but it is a poor shell in comparison to the Guardian, they can certainly generate combo fields yet at a clunkier pace in comparison to the Elementalist. In WvW they fill very niche rolls and must sacrifice all versatility in other aspects to merely compete with other professions. The “Tankcat” Engineer sacrifices almost all damage and group support, the “100” nades or static discharge burst build sacrifices all survivability for a semblance of burst. Their are hybrids out there, but toe to toe they are outclassed by a similar skilled player controlling any other profession.

The opinions presented in this thread are my own. I am not saying you should disregard “rolling” another profession due to this list, but you should certainly take it into account. This list was created after seeing the steady decline in Necromancer and Ranger players and the rapid decline in Engineer players in both WvW and PvE.

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Seriously though, I feel like this is a pretty accurate representation of player opinions of the current state of classes. Balance needs work, and this will take time, but it can be said rather plainly that although players may perceive things this way, balance is a lot closer in GW2 than some of its contemporaries, wherin the “low tier” classes aren’t just less optimal, but largely useless. At least in GW2 a lower tier player with a hefty helping of player skill can close that gap pretty easily.

Interesting read, but I find my Ranger is not quite THAT weak in PvE.

I’d switch Mesmer and Ele, also move Warrior up. Other then that, I agree.

My main is a ranger. Have made around 13 builds till i found the right one. Have used 5 different armor set builds till i found the right one corresponding with my build. I use, actively every single ranger weapons in different situations. Ive solod every class in wvw and won so far. Ive not once felt fractals or any dungeon exporable challrnging unless my team isnt too familiar with the dungeon. This class of all the classes Ive played (if you play your cards right), one of the most overpowered class but you have to be smart and willing to experiment a lot with Ur gold. What i just wrote here is aplicable to any class in reality if you put the effort. Excuse some of my poor sentences Im typing on my phone with ma fat fingers!

Necro, C in PvE? What in the world

Desamos.1836:

My main is a ranger. Have made around 13 builds till i found the right one. Have used 5 different armor set builds till i found the right one corresponding with my build. I use, actively every single ranger weapons in different situations. Ive solod every class in wvw and won so far. Ive not once felt fractals or any dungeon exporable challrnging unless my team isnt too familiar with the dungeon. This class of all the classes Ive played (if you play your cards right), one of the most overpowered class but you have to be smart and willing to experiment a lot with Ur gold. What i just wrote here is aplicable to any class in reality if you put the effort. Excuse some of my poor sentences Im typing on my phone with ma fat fingers!

I find that there are some situations where the Ranger doesn’t work as ideal. If you absolutely, positively need to melee something? Rangers are not what you want. If you want ranged AoE? We’re only slightly okay at that.

However, I have found so far that we can be very good at chokepoints in some events where you have to defend a spot due to traps and other options. Underwater, we’re not too bad at range with a speargun. Due to having an insane range on a longbow with the one trait perk we can pull things rather well and drop a Barrage to cripple them.

Downsides? Get a massive amount of melee-focused enemies and we’re going to fold quickly. Our pets tend to be very glassy if they’re left to be the sole melee option (and there’s few ways to revive them other than “wait it out”). A lot of our skills lack definitive impact but can be used to do some interesting things.

As such, I’d rate us a B- on PvE – it takes some skill or just some persistence to get somewhere.

Sarrs.4831:

Necro, C in PvE? What in the world

He’s gone mad ik. Necros are amazing in pve if Ur really knowledgable to how you play the class. RANGERS A in wvw, A in pve and A+ in school

Desamos.1836:

Sarrs.4831:

Necro, C in PvE? What in the world

He’s gone mad ik. Necros are amazing in pve if Ur really knowledgable to how you play the class. RANGERS A in wvw, A in pve and A+ in school

I play a ranger and I wouldn’t go that far. Any class can excel with a skilled player, and rangers need some finesse. They can’t drop damage like other classes, but then I’m used to that from GW1 (wherein Rangers seriously were not built for DPS either). I’ll say this, though, I’ve been surprised by just how viciously damage-over-time conditions can stack with a Ranger working it. Bleed, Poison, and Burning are easily put down and kept applied.

Theif should be s tier do you have any clue how easy it is for a theif to kill a guardian/elementalist? guardian lack ranged so they can just use crippling dagger then weaken them from range and make them waist all cooldowns and further attack until health go low then just jump in and burst them down. elementalist is pretty much the same but there you wanna use range because they jump all over the place a lot then heart seek them down once their vulnerable.

OP you kinda need to distinguish beetween roaming solo pve (levelling, DE etc) and dungeons.
Ranger for example is A tier in the first, C tier in the last
The opposite is true for mesmers

Honestly, the usefulness of such ranking lists is only very limited as they are overgeneralizing and highly subjective. I have played 7/8 professions to level 80 and working on the last (elementalist). I would never even dare to make such a list, cause you need to play the professions extensively before making a good judgement call on their strengths and weaknesses. I don’t think many people will have that kind of experience yet (I certainly haven’t), especially in both WvW and PVE. Getting to know all the skills and all the trait builds just takes a huge amount of time.

On top of that, in PVE (dungeons) it is much more about synergy between professions rather than the individual professions by themselves. In a group context with other professions present, you may find that some of your strengths or weaknesses are already covered by others. Therefore, bringing 5 guardians (your top tier profession) will be less effective than bringing a mixed team for sure. Even though some combinations will be more successful than others (for example, bringing multiple condition-builds hurts the party), you cannot simply say that one profession outshines the others in every regard.

In conclusion, it would be much better to discuss specific strengths and weaknesses of the professions rather than making rank lists. I do agree, however, that some professions have very strong (maybe even too strong) mechanics and that some can pull them off more easily than others. However, such discussions would be better suited on the respective profession forums in my opinion.

Adorable. Adorably misguided, but a commendable effort nonetheless.

First of all, this is an extremely biased view. You’re not providing much to back up your statements, and honestly this kind of thing is so incredibly subjective and vague, even for games more suitable for this kind of tier system, such as fighting games. This is representative of your personal view of the classes, and is in no way representative of any kind of objective means of comparison.

Second of all, your “tiers” are too far from representative of the intricacies, of the finer aspects, of both PvE or WvW. There’s just too much you haven’t accounted for. For example:

• Your build greatly influences how good your character is at different aspects of the game. Different builds of the exact same profession have different strengths and weaknesses. For example, your typical cheese cutter GS “Berserker’s of the Berserker’s” Warrior is one of the best things for most open-world PvE. It’s also one of the most pathetic things for any form of PvP. Single-target spike builds tend to be excellent for roaming in WvW, but hardly the most suited for most of PvE… etc, etc.

• Even within PvE and PvP, there are different areas that emphasize different aspects, thus favoring different builds. For example, consistent DPS is much more valuable than spike DPS in most dungeons full of high health bosses. Specifically, single target consistent DPS is much more valuable in those situations than lower AoE, since you need to kill one high-health boss target, instead of many low health zerglings (a situation more common in open world PvE). Conversely, in WvW, whether you want to run around raiding camps solo, with small groups, or attacking in large numbers, also affects which aspects of your build matter more.

• You’re also not accounting for synergies and objectives. Sure, a defensive Guardian is a powerful thing indeed in a dungeon run, but if you have 5 defensive Guardians you’ll probably be done with it by the time a more balanced party has finished theirs, had lunch and then made a documentary about it. The same is true for PvP. I love picking up my Necro (which is a Power/Condition damage hybrid) and running alongside my friend’s Guardian in WvW. We’re a frightening force to be reckoned with because our two classes and builds have a very strong synergy. We’re stronger than just 2 random characters and builds mashed together.

• You’re also not accounting for match ups. Different builds and classes have different pros and cons. For example, your typical glass cannon, burst, dagger build thief is amazing at taking down individual low defense targets. His build guarantees he has the initiative, and his burst is generally enough to guarantee the other glass cannon doesn’t have time to even the playing field. However, the same build will have serious issues against more defensive characters. They have roughly 0 odds of killing a bunker Guardian or Necro, and trying to kill either with other enemies around is roughly best translated as suicidal tendencies.

etc, etc, etc…

I.e.: There are simply too many variables for you to “tier” classes like such.

i did not made my eng lvl 80 yet but i find it decent in pve, not at warrior’s lvl but the permanent regeneration and high duration boons+aoe burst.
Same goes with wvwvw, he is strong in groups, and he can providetons of aoe damage and utility for its team.

Thief A in WvW? I disagree.

WvW is not about small scale ganking its about Zerg vs Zerg which the Thief is lackluster in. It’s definetly the best ganking class but again, thats not what WvW is about.

OK guys time to stop bashing this guy, with your specific examples of how you own your class haha.

Because when you look at the list in this light, there isn’t much to disagree with: “in this tier, most every player who picks up the profession puts forward the same general play.”

What I mean by this is that every player who plays a guardian, just by virtue of playing that class will have an easier time say in wvw than an engineer would. Sure, there are better engineers who have mastered the class, but over all guardians can be good in the hand of non elite players while some of the lower tiers take better players to get a similar amount of effectiveness.

By no means am I in love with my guardian, warrior, or mesmer..quite the opposite. My main is a ranger, and I’ve got an 80 engineer, necro, ele,and thief, with 3 of those in the bottom 3 places and I don’t even have a heavy armor class. I just know that when you face a class like mesmer, no matter who plays it they have an advantage with clones, and their downed state, whereas a class like ranger has no persistent tricks to gain an edge

actually seeing a list that ends with engineer as weakest profession everywhere, written by an eng players is enough to make me wonder if the thread has any second purpose.

When i read that elementalist are good as warriors and guardians in pve those suspect becomes even more reliable.

P.S. thief isn t good in WWW? never heard of thief+mesmer? ._. thief in www is S++++
Mesmer at least has few disadvantages like lack of movement.

LordByron.8369:

actually seeing a list that ends with engineer as weakest profession everywhere, written by an eng players is enough to make me wonder if the thread has any second purpose.

My thoughts exactly… a lot of the comments on other classes sound like an echo of the forum. For example, Necros bad at PvE? Not really true but there’s a lot of whining. Mesmers bad at support? Not really true, but people only really talk about time warp when the question comes up why we have pure warrior/mesmer party runs. Etc.

I do agree with engineer rating though, the class just doesn’t feel finished.

you could be interested in this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Engineer-burst

you can find that most players just cry of OP things when they meet counterbuilds…..

For example, all this complaints about bunkers comes from a wrong way to calculate points in PvP imho…not to classes that have little to no offence capabilities.
(i.e. they can kill only FEW glass cannons beng their couterbuild……but some players do not accept they have counterbuilds…).

Let me take a guess OP and say you play an Engineer with a warrior alt. That is the only way I can figure out your rankings. Obviously you want engineer to be buffed since you play one, but you also wanted to be careful not to point out how ridiculously over powered Warrior is so your alt doesn’t get nerfed like it should.

Warrior should be in the S++++ category by itself. I’d move thief up to S with guardian and ele. Mesmer is probably a C in DE PvE, but it closer to an A in dungeon PvE so that one is tricky. Necro isn’t bad, it just doesn’t have as many viable builds and they don’t work well together, but 1 necro is great. I also don’t think Rangers are as bad off as you say, but certain builds could probably use help.

ProxyDamage.9826:

Adorable. Adorably misguided, but a commendable effort nonetheless.

I.e.: There are simply too many variables for you to “tier” classes like such.

There’s also the variable of “Terrible player” problem.

Rangers sorry to say suffer massively from this variable. The class mechanics when played solo promote terrible group play. Especially in Fractals. I ALWAYS cringe when a ranger joins.

Things like autotargeting with their large range pulling extra enemies. Standing at the WAAAAAAY back of the group in situations like ascalon where they have all the npc with them and when you try to bring the enemies to the npc mob, the ranger uses the jump back skill and dodges backwards because they want max range thus keeping the npc mob out of the fight entirely…

Necromancers suffer in dungeons due to the boss mechanic of reduced condition durations. When that’s their main source of damage, it can be an amplified problem. Especially for DPS required fights such as Simin.

Sadly the opposite is also a problem. A terrible guardian for example simply because of the group support dynamic of the class can be a better choice than even a decent ranger. Even a terrible guardian can provide group virtue bonuses, condition removal with shouts, reflection of projectiles and so on. Which is one of the reasons that many groups seek out guardians so heavily but you will never see “Group looking for Ranger!”

So yeah, a tier list is skewed.

My personal list for kittens and giggles: (Note, Heavily biased and partially filled with sarcasm.)

PvE (Dungeons. Nothing else really matters as it’s all soloable or zerged.)

Guardian (Mostly due to fractals and the insane benefit of guardian abilities there.)
Warrior (DPS is always good, and high health pool makes them a much better option than glass thieves.)
Mesmer (Portals and Time Warp? Yes please.)
Elementalist (Great damage. Why aren’t there any bunker D/D eles doing fractals?!? Would be higher if the bunkers played PvE.)
Thief (Walls, stealth all good stuff. When they don’t die when looked at sideways.)
Engineer (They are more useful than they appear, but such a stigmata of low DPS.)
Necromancer (While at the low end due to boss mechanics, they are still better than a Ranger.)
Mini Rytlock (Because anything is better than a Ranger for me. Too many bad Rangers. Too many…)
Pet Rock (Because yeah. I really don’t enjoy Rangers…)
Ranger (Because of Search and Rescue for the glass cannon thieves.)

Had to cut out the wvwvw/pvp section due to character limit =(

At this point I’m going to wind up retiring my ranger and never touching him again. The love for rangers, it’s so touching (sniff). If I wasn’t used to it by now with almost certainly every other game out there I’d really be actually saddened and not just sarcastically sad.

You’re list seem wonky.

Elementalist are only A+A if the player is skilled. At which point the enginner actually also ends up as A+A. Guardian is spot on, even a mediocre player can do great with them and not be one trick ponies. They also have a wide vareity of traits that fits whatever playstyle you want.

Mesmer is another class that should be A+A honestly. Even when specced for all out damage they still have great staying power, debuffs and control. It’s also a class that takes semi skill to play well.

Ranger and Necro in B? But warrior in A? Personally I think they all fit in A, but its all a player to player thing. I’ve had the easiest kitten runs in game with 4 rangers and my engi. Necro damage and debuffs in PvE is just top notch, except vs structures, which luckily doesnt matter. Downside is, more than 1 necro is a waste, since they can keep more than 50% of the stack limit up on bleeds solo.

If I were to play an elementalist for instance, it would not be a S-class, it would more likely be a C-class.

When I played with my friend the other day on our engi’s we got a fractal group together. First thing the warrior in our group mentions was “Wow… 2 engineers, never seen that before”. Still, no one in the group had to bother with rezzing us, but on the otherhand, the warrior died several times due to being stubborn and face tanking things he couldnt.

In the end it all comes down to tweaking your spec, knowing your class and picking the right gear to function at optimal preformance. I recently ditched a bunch of berserk gear on my engi to pick up P/V/T gear, losing a whole 13% crit damage 5% crit chance while gaining alot of health and toughness. Damage is close to the same and the burst is still there when needed, which is only in WvW vs solo glasscannons. They still die just as fast, no need to overkill when you can kill them with the same round of burst. In dungeons survivability means better staying power, better staying power means more sustained damage. Losing a little dps isnt the whole work when you are assure to not go down at all. Maximum dps does nothing when you are dead or downed.

I’ve tweaked most of my classes into a more survival oriented spec, without giving up much damage.

All classes can be A+A in the hands of the right person.

I dunno about dungeons and fractals because I don’t do those, but in terms of general PvE leveling ease from 1-80 I’d put mesmer last. Also, ranger is very strong in general PvE.

SneakyErvin.3056:

You’re list seem wonky.

Elementalist are only A+A if the player is skilled. At which point the enginner actually also ends up as A+A. Guardian is spot on, even a mediocre player can do great with them and not be one trick ponies. They also have a wide vareity of traits that fits whatever playstyle you want.

Mesmer is another class that should be A+A honestly. Even when specced for all out damage they still have great staying power, debuffs and control. It’s also a class that takes semi skill to play well.

Ranger and Necro in B? But warrior in A? Personally I think they all fit in A, but its all a player to player thing. I’ve had the easiest kitten runs in game with 4 rangers and my engi. Necro damage and debuffs in PvE is just top notch, except vs structures, which luckily doesnt matter. Downside is, more than 1 necro is a waste, since they can keep more than 50% of the stack limit up on bleeds solo.

If I were to play an elementalist for instance, it would not be a S-class, it would more likely be a C-class.

When I played with my friend the other day on our engi’s we got a fractal group together. First thing the warrior in our group mentions was “Wow… 2 engineers, never seen that before”. Still, no one in the group had to bother with rezzing us, but on the otherhand, the warrior died several times due to being stubborn and face tanking things he couldnt.

In the end it all comes down to tweaking your spec, knowing your class and picking the right gear to function at optimal preformance. I recently ditched a bunch of berserk gear on my engi to pick up P/V/T gear, losing a whole 13% crit damage 5% crit chance while gaining alot of health and toughness. Damage is close to the same and the burst is still there when needed, which is only in WvW vs solo glasscannons. They still die just as fast, no need to overkill when you can kill them with the same round of burst. In dungeons survivability means better staying power, better staying power means more sustained damage. Losing a little dps isnt the whole work when you are assure to not go down at all. Maximum dps does nothing when you are dead or downed.

I’ve tweaked most of my classes into a more survival oriented spec, without giving up much damage.

All classes can be A+A in the hands of the right person.

Just a note: The warrior might not be dying a lot simply because of face tanking. Another issue that I see quite a lot is when there is an abundance of ranged/squishies the plate classes get focused a WHOLE lot harder since mobs look at toughness as one of the agro factors.

Not saying that is definitely the case, but with 2 engineers in the group already, chances are good he was high on the list of agro targets.

Especially the grawl boss. Man does he love me when the rest of my group is cloth/leather…

Kumu Honua.2751:

Elementalist (Great damage. Why aren’t there any bunker D/D eles doing fractals?!? Would be higher if the bunkers played PvE.)

maybe because they doesn t have “great damage” but also they get oneshot too easily?
In dungeons, enemies are not balanced like players…..

D/D ele is a difficult to master bad guardian actually with much less support.

I play D/D ele in dungeons way before the build got famous….its so good seeing dps warrior survive mistakes that get your balanced build oneshot……

And its easier more funny when you see most dungeon parts are designed against mobility….

See uncategorized fractal for example…..your D/D bunker get almost oneshot by harpies, a warrior does not

D/D is just lot of fun, but most classes can do better with mnudh less effort…..(yes i use also other classes infact :|).

TLDR:
Bunker D/D ele is bad for dungeon and ele in general would need some buffs in PvE…..
Most experienced D/D ele change their build to a more DPS one:

When you get oneshot by anything having healing capabilities is quite worthless….that is the difference with PvE and PvP.

Disagree with the S tier.
Ele is S just due to D/D broken which will be fixed then he’s back to A.
Guardian is S why?

Everything else seems spot on; Engi needs a major buff, Necro/Ranger need a buff.

LordByron.8369:

TLDR:
Bunker D/D ele is bad for dungeon and ele in general would need some buffs in PvE…..
Most experienced D/D ele change their build to a more DPS one:

When you get oneshot by anything having healing capabilities is quite worthless….that is the difference with PvE and PvP.

I suppose that’s true. My only experience with D/D ele’s is in pvp and they certainly aren’t squishy there. But PvE mobs, dungeons specifically are another matter entirely.

i’m also tired of people talking about mesmer and only noticing time warps or portal.
i use portals only in jumping puzzle.
a staff mesmer is a good conditioner and almost immortal. my focus skills can reflect projectiles and every single phantasm i create regenerate allies health. i didn’t put any point in power. i’m slower than my ranger in single target pve damage, but i can solo everywhere but dungeon.
mesmer skills in general can reflect projectiles, stun, daze, create confusion, apply random conditions, remove conditions, applay boon, tranfer boon, steal boon end transfer conditions, can teleport, apply regeneration to self etc etc. and still people only thinks mesmer are portaler, speed giver and focused on power traits.

Kumu Honua.2751:

LordByron.8369:

TLDR:
Bunker D/D ele is bad for dungeon and ele in general would need some buffs in PvE…..
Most experienced D/D ele change their build to a more DPS one:

When you get oneshot by anything having healing capabilities is quite worthless….that is the difference with PvE and PvP.

I suppose that’s true. My only experience with D/D ele’s is in pvp and they certainly aren’t squishy there. But PvE mobs, dungeons specifically are another matter entirely.

they aren t squishy but for sure they don t deal much damage having their most powerful spell dish 4000 dmg at full melee with high % of missing.

Or having a long channel spell being easily avoidable with timing (4 seconds channeling, if you roll inside aoe you don t take dmg and stuns are much shorter than 4 seconds).

They are walls on legs that can run……if castle walls were a playable class they would be OP in PvP (that makes me think that bunkers are not the problem).

Amadan.9451:

i’m also tired of people talking about mesmer and only noticing time warps or portal.
i use portals only in jumping puzzle.
a staff mesmer is a good conditioner and almost immortal. my focus skills can reflect projectiles and every single phantasm i create regenerate allies health. i didn’t put any point in power. i’m slower than my ranger in single target pve damage, but i can solo everywhere but dungeon.
mesmer skills in general can reflect projectiles, stun, daze, create confusion, apply random conditions, remove conditions, applay boon, tranfer boon, steal boon end transfer conditions, can teleport, apply regeneration to self etc etc. and still people only thinks mesmer are portaler, speed giver and focused on power traits.

Maybe, just maybe because others classes can also do everything you said but portals and time warps…

Mobs don’t roll though =/

fishergrip.4082:

I dunno about dungeons and fractals because I don’t do those, but in terms of general PvE leveling ease from 1-80 I’d put mesmer last. Also, ranger is very strong in general PvE.

I’ll echo those thoughts. Getting from 1 to 80 with my Mesmer was a horrible experience for me; I crafted the last 20 levels out of disgust. Since getting to 80 however, he’s become one of my favourite characters. He just needed all of the traits and gear to really shine.

And Ranger in open-world PvE is fun, engaging and easy. After playing my Warrior, my Ranger was a lot simpler. Sure, some of this was probably down to familiarity with the content, but the fact I keep going back to her, to the point where she’s probably taken over as my main, is telling.
She’s even fun to play in WvW, although a little weak if caught on her own.

I agree with the tiers, except for Ranger and Necromancer. In my experience Ranger is B WvW-A PvE, and Necromancer is C WvW-C PvE.

LordByron.8369:

you could be interested in this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/Engineer-burst

you can find that most players just cry of OP things when they meet counterbuilds…..

For example, all this complaints about bunkers comes from a wrong way to calculate points in PvP imho…not to classes that have little to no offence capabilities.
(i.e. they can kill only FEW glass cannons beng their couterbuild……but some players do not accept they have counterbuilds…).

Interesting thread, in that it highlights how PVP focused the game mechanics are.

burst is king, because health pools in general are shallow and toons can quickly chain mechanics. This also makes retaliation a viable counter because all those quick hits mean that the attacker is also being hit quickly.

But PVE is a grind, because the mobs have much higher health pools. And because they attack maybe once a second, but hit harder pr hit, retaliation becomes much less effective as a counter.

And you observation about PVP scoring and bunkering is interesting. Do wonder if changing the scoring structure would allow for passive defenses to be more viable in PVE by reducing the complaints about PVP bunkering.

Mungrul.9358:

fishergrip.4082:

I dunno about dungeons and fractals because I don’t do those, but in terms of general PvE leveling ease from 1-80 I’d put mesmer last. Also, ranger is very strong in general PvE.

I’ll echo those thoughts. Getting from 1 to 80 with my Mesmer was a horrible experience for me; I crafted the last 20 levels out of disgust. Since getting to 80 however, he’s become one of my favourite characters. He just needed all of the traits and gear to really shine.

I suspect this is a unforeseen side effect of a late beta change to traits. Before the change you could pick any 12 traits in all slots, but afterwards, because of PVP cherry picking, it was changed to the tired structure we have right now.

All well and good for SPVP where you start as level 80 out of the gate, but for PVE it distorts the experience of the professions in subtle ways as most of the survivability traits are hiding out on the upper tier. This likely because everyone in the SPVP betas were trying to grab as many of them as possible via the cherry picking. End result is that many professions feel more squishy leveling up than they really are once you have all your options open to you. And this then affects the way people end up playing the professions.

So this is a personal tier list based on your anecdotal experience? Tier lists are a pretty time honored tradition in adversarial or class based games. So it’s neat to see someone tried to do it with GW…

But those lists are also backed up with empirical data using universal controls. Things like frame data of normals, reach of normals, and dmg spread for each class, traited for maximum efficiency with Berserker and Carrion gear sets. Then you can have tiers based on vanilla offensive potential with actual data to back it up. Burst can be a whole different battery of tests.

You also need to do defensive. And then support. Which would mean traiting and comparing the like utilities of each profession with consideration to recharge and…well utility. For example, how would you rank smoke-screen, feedback, and Wall of reflection on a numerical scale?

Now set your brackets, average the offensive and defensive potential of each profession and break them in to tiers.

Sure, people will still disagree. People have been disagreeing with tiers since Street Fighter 2. But at least you have some physical, verifiable, reproducible metrics that can be discussed instead of “so ive played a lot and I think…”.

Someone should do this. Not me. It’s way too much work.

Hmm as far as PVE goes I don’t agree at all. I main engi and bring a lot of damage and support to the table. It’s a versatile profession but has a very high skill curve.

Mesmer/warrior are S-class in very specific builds, mainly for speedruns. Discarding speedrun builds and elitist play, all professions are equal in PVE. Only possible exception might be ranger which is quite low on damage due to pet that can’t be considered viable. Solo play ranger rules though. There’s a reason bots use it that often.

Can’t comment on PVP.

Can’t argue with the rankings. They pretty much mirror my own. The only professions I don’t have at 80 are necro and engi. I enjoyed both and believe they can be viable but they felt noticeably weaker than the others leveling up to the 40’s. If I were charged with class design, I’d be focused on bringing ranger, necro, and engi up to the standard of the more successful professions. And, I wouldn’t go about it by making the more successful professions less successful.

Kumu Honua.2751:

Just a note: The warrior might not be dying a lot simply because of face tanking. Another issue that I see quite a lot is when there is an abundance of ranged/squishies the plate classes get focused a WHOLE lot harder since mobs look at toughness as one of the agro factors.

Not saying that is definitely the case, but with 2 engineers in the group already, chances are good he was high on the list of agro targets.

Especially the grawl boss. Man does he love me when the rest of my group is cloth/leather…

It’s true to a point, but seeing as it was a warrior with dual axes, his damage was high, that added with being in the face of the enemy leads to easy aggro. Since its 2 of the top criteria for the aggro mechanic. His toughness didnt do much since he was most likely in full zerk gear and my engi is in balanced gear. P/V/T armor, some T traits, 3250attack, 47%crit chance, 94%critdmg. Both toughness and armor being higher than a fully geared dps warrior.

At that point the warrior should have adapted to the group. We had a guardian in group too, but he didnt have survival issues. The warrior should have used his gun or LB and hung back with the rest of us. So in the end it was the warriors lack of knowledge that killed him, since he didnt work with the group composition.

If you are in a group with ranged as a melee and you dont have gear that allows you to take hits you dont want to stand toe to toe with the champs and boss mobs.

Aggro criteria:

1. closest target to them
2. who is dealing damage
3. top damage dealers
4. who is using a shield / has more toughness and overall armor

So given the criteria, even if the rest did competative damage, point 1, 2 and 3 would still make him a prime target due to his stubborness of staying in the mobs face. Since we all know, most if not all melee attacks have a higher damage than their ranged counterparts. Point 3 is easy to achieve as melee in a range heavy group, especially for a dual axe or GS warrior.

Assuming that this is solely PvE
I don’t see how warriors lose to elementalists.
D/D ele isn’t that good in PvE, Scepter is subpar and staff is mehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

With a warrior you can practically tag everything with just a axe main hand or a bow o.O in dynamic events. For the more popular dungeons GS is kitten over powered.

Engineers are in the right place though, they can’t accomplish anything that any other class can’t do better. (I practically only play engineer now.)
Being fun =/= Being effective

tom.7468:

Theif should be s tier do you have any clue how easy it is for a theif to kill a guardian/elementalist? guardian lack ranged so they can just use crippling dagger then weaken them from range and make them waist all cooldowns and further attack until health go low then just jump in and burst them down. elementalist is pretty much the same but there you wanna use range because they jump all over the place a lot then heart seek them down once their vulnerable.

agreed. thieves are in a class all their own in wvw. takes multiple players to kill one.

There are many opinions in this thread, and that is fantastic. Like I said, this is solely my opinion and in no way say that any given profession is bad, which is why I do not list professions with a negative moniker such as “trash” tier or “garbage” tier.

I am merely stating my findings over months of playing GW2. I do not claim to understand why there is a decline in Necro/Ranger/Engineer population; but it is most likely due to the myriad strengths, perceived or otherwise, of the other five professions.

There will always be people who say, “you just suck at your class,” and while that may be true (I might be the worst player in the game!) what is also true is that making such wild claims casts your hand over a wide array of players. In all MMO’s the weakest classes see the steepest population declines (look at the early WoW druid, mages at launch in Rift, Magus’ and Engineers in WAR) while the strongest professions experience rapid growth (WoW Rogue, Rift Warrior, WAR Bright Wizard).

It is up to arena.net to look at this data and decide to make adjustments accordingly or leave things the same; I am not one to tell them how to run their balance department.

S tier ppl who can roll
C tier ppl who cant roll
This game is just not the way you are trying to put it.

Columba.9730:

tom.7468:

Theif should be s tier do you have any clue how easy it is for a theif to kill a guardian/elementalist? guardian lack ranged so they can just use crippling dagger then weaken them from range and make them waist all cooldowns and further attack until health go low then just jump in and burst them down. elementalist is pretty much the same but there you wanna use range because they jump all over the place a lot then heart seek them down once their vulnerable.

agreed. thieves are in a class all their own in wvw. takes multiple players to kill one.

I do rank Thieves extremely high in WvW. They are A Tier because of their drop off in PvE performance compared to a Guardian, Warrior, or Elementalist. This list takes into account both PvE and WvW.

i play a bunker ele in dungeons and I never die while giving lots of buffs and decent damage to the party

Nothing wrong with it, though I do change utilities almost every fight.

Seems pretty fair…

The only changes id say is Ele in PvE is far from S…and Ranger PvE is an A in my opinion…

Engineer is almost a D in everything to me (but that’s my personal dislike for the over the top nerfs..)

The rest is fine, i own ever class..

Engi sucks period. No way to kill 5 enemies at once. i only have her to wear T 3 when I can put it on her for sexy (and possibly embarrissing and hilarious) RP situations.

Shizzlenit.7648:

Thief A in WvW? I disagree.

WvW is not about small scale ganking its about Zerg vs Zerg which the Thief is lackluster in. It’s definetly the best ganking class but again, thats not what WvW is about.

Thief is incredibly strong vs a zerg.

Step 1: Get into the middle of a zerg
Step 2: Drop a smoke combo field (e.g. pistol 5)
Step 3: Use dagger storm (which does tons of damage, reflects projectiles and blinds everyone around you when you stand in your smoke field)
Step 4: As soon as it is over use stealth and get out.
Step 5: Profit