Guild Wars 2

Hey folks, I havent played in over a year (about a month after HOT dropped) and I was wondering which classes/builds were doing well, and which have been nerfed into the ground?

I main engi, but also have a warrior, revenant and thief with decent enough gear.

Also which maps/events are profitable/popular these days?

Thanks in advance

Edit: I play PVE only

Hey, welcome back! That are very good questions and you sure are the first person in this entire forum who asks this*.

There has not been much of a good change to the engineer, a few minor nerfs and a few joke-boosts like a slight damage increase for the rocket-boots and a damage swap for the jump shot (launch <-> landing). If you play meta and want equality to other classes, you will be disappointed. Engineers received one purity-of-purpose update, which removed the stun ability from exploding gyros.

Warrior, revenant and thief are still powerful and doing well. Phalanx strength is still vital and facet of nature are somehow still essential for certain game types.

Guardian was boosted a little, making it one of the easier classes atm. Tempest received a nerf, which pushed it from the throne of max-dps. The landing was pretty rough and some of the players have not recovered until today. Balancing is always a pain. There is no way to satisfy everyone. So ANet did some pvp-only adjustments recently.

If you enjoy meta/zerk play, there is a website that provides you with further information called metabattle.com. If not, stick with the engineer, it is still fun to play.

At the moment, the Tarir meta event is a good way to farm money, just search the forums for “multiloot” but it will be nerfed in a few days. Silverwastes farming still is a thing. The new LS maps work with a new currency, unbound magic, which can be traded for lootbags, materials can be sold for good prices. That method was already drastically nerfed, but still works ok. Fractals are still a thing and Raids ofcourse.

Hi and welcome back.

Since i dont know which part of the game we are talking about ill just run a short description of all classes and how they go in all aspects of the game.

But first to answer your map question.
(these are placed in no particular order)

1) Fractals: They can be very profitable, there are a few new ones that you probably missed as well and should try them out, they are very awesome and can get you prepared for raids as well.

2) Dungeons: Yes they nerfed liquid gold income, but then they buffed it up ( a little bit) however they buffed token rewards quite a bit as well. If you take token->gold into consideration dungeons can be a daily thing to do to earn some fast gold

3) Specific map rewards: Doing events in maps rewards you with extra items. They rotate between different “loot tables” every week. I remember frostgorge sound being a awesome place to do events (namely champ bag trains ,they are all events now) and you can get tons of charged lodestones, powerfull blood, giants eyes ect.

4) Silverwaste: Yep, its still profitable, weather you do a chest run or skip from map to map for meta events and labyrinth it gives nice gold.

5) Season 3 living world maps: Each has its own currency that you can gather and spend on otherwise expensive items. The latest bitterfrost map offers winterberries that you can trade in for ascended trinkets and backpacks, even an ascended aquabreather

6) Any HoT map: They are still very active troughout the day (check the LFG) they reward you with tons of loot, greens can be MF for rares, rares an be sold on tp, almagated stones are worth quite a bit and you get lots of tokens to spend on whatever you like. People should really start using tokens.

Now for the profession part, ill start with your characters and move on with others:

1) Engineer: Engie got buffed with scrapper for sure in pve as well as pvp. They are in a good spot however i believe in raids vanilla condi engineer are prefered than scrappers.

2) Warriors: They are also buffed with berserker. They are probably in the best spot from all professions Fast mobility, heavy dmg for pve, phalanx strenght is always welcome specially in raids. They are commonly seen in PvP as well nowdays as these strong condi juggernauts as well as burst damaging tanks.

3) Revenants: Revs are a mix nowdays, and cause of casual people blindly following the meta people have mixed feelings about it. In PvE they are versatile, but when focusing on 1 part they have huge modifiers such as 70% dmg increase,40% crit from perma fury, 100+healing modifiers. They are welcome in dungeons and fractals but lately they have been replacing them in raids with mesmers /warriors. In PvP they have been nerfed by reducing their staff 5 damage…but then again we did see quite a few great revenants participating troughout the latest PvP tournament, including 2 of them in the finals.

4) Thief: tons of buffs, anet gave them more and more dmg. With daredevil you can play a “traditional” hit and run burst damage now (in pvp) , pve you just melt everything around you and even tho you are super squishy you do have lots of dodges and blocks to dompensate.

5) Ranger: They deal great raw dmg, even more condi dmg, druids were “nerfed” in a way that you actually need SOME healing power (about 800-900) in order to heal the same way as you did pre nerf with your celestial form. Always wanted in raids. Oh and pets got 90% dmg reduction from dmg that didnt target them specifically (such as aoes)

6) Guardians: DH buffed their damage significantly, they are in a very nice position, somewhat used in raids. PvP is full of them (mostly in solo/duo queue, not very common in high end tier tournaments tho)

7) Elementalists; buffed for sure, they can do anything you want. condi burns, tons of aoe dmg, buffing, aura sharing, sustained/burst aoe healing, supporting, ice bowing everything

8) Mesmer: Buffed with more utility. Alacrity is amazing, more quickness is amazing, a must have in raids. PvP also very good with portal plays, shattering and moa

9) Necromancers: a mix. They were originally buffed in a way where one could “exploit” certain minion skills with a healer in order to summon tons of minions that bleed on hit, making necros dps go up as high as 40k+dps… They nerfed so that minions die in 25 s regardless of healing and so necromancers got replaced by something else in raids.
Dungeons and fractals they are good. high end fractals they can still be used as condi dpsers ,very good. PvP they are commonly found,even in tournaments. Reaper power bulds are excelent if you are self sufficient, but you dont offer much to the team soooo..self buff but team oriented nerf?

Thanks for the informative responses, this awesome community is the reason I keep coming back to this game

Sounds like my p/p condi engi is a safe choice. I’m glad to hear the HoT maps are still active so I can finish up the elite specs on my alts, and maybe start up an elementalist or mesmer depending on how much this game hooks me back in this time