Guild Wars 2

The class based forums here are a bit confusing. I like to come here and read around while I get some downtime at work and I have so far played around with a Mesmer, Necromancer, and a Guardian. I’ve enjoyed playing them all, especially my latest with the Guardian.

However, I must say that these forums at first discouraged me from playing my Necro and re-rolling mainly due to a massive amount of negative posts on the class. Stuff like there only being 1 viable build that is not as good as other classes anyway (conditionmancer), then I noticed there was complaints on Mesmer’s damage and taking much longer to take on mobs, so I tried a Guardian.

Suddenly I noticed a pattern. According to these forums, every class sucks. Necro’s only have 1 viable build and aren’t good at that, Guardian’s are kittened with no range and thus can’t compete in WvW and PvP because they can just be trolled and kited, Elementalists are weak and can be 1 hit, etc… it just goes on and on.

What the kitten guys? This doesn’t help.

Let’s spin the conversation on its head. What are you guys playing, and what do you find great about that class? What works, why do you like it?

Every class has its issues. That doesn’t mean they’re all equally big issues.

I play six different classes, and I’d say the necro needs the most help. Yet, that doesn’t mean anyone should quit playing it, if they’re enjoying it. I still play it, myself..

I’m playing a Staff/Sword-Focus Mesmer atm.

While at first I played the class and thought to myself: These spells suck, 1 second of ‘daze’, per illusion? Why would I bother with that, mind wrack all the way, eventually i realized how to play properly.

I still don’t use the other three shatters, but PVP as a Mesmer is very very easy, and PVE is decent as well.

Well Necro’s and Elementalists definately have room to complain.

However, as someone who’s been playing both, and sticking to Necro now. If you like the class, just stick with it, bug fixes and coming eventually, and they’re still playable.

Besides bugs, Necro’s really don’t have that many interesting builds atm. But that’s an issue with traits really.

Elementalists just take alot of effort (attunement dancing) to get stuff done, if done well they can do fine and do have quite a bit of flexibility. Can do decent tanky builds, condition builds, power builds, and support builds.

If you like Guardian, play it, they are fantastic and IMO the “no ranged” thing isn’t a good argument. Most classes bring something good to WvW, you can spam Sceptre Autos and that little aoe on people constantly, amazing support/utilities, wall offs, reflects, etc.

Even on my Necro I can find some useful things to do, Wells/combo fields, Spamming Staff marks on people, heal with Life Transfer, pull people from 1200 range with Spectral Grasp, and of course “Epidemic”.

I play a Guardian. Greatsword/Staff, I love both. Greatsword is good for single-target combat, but amazing for multi-target combat, and their pull skill is one of the strongest control skills easily. Yank five guys next to you, put down your symbol, bust out three strikes from auto-attack at 1, and smack Whirling Wrath while someone else rains AoE over it all, and get a big smile on your face as you watch the corpses of even strong enemies fall down next to you.

As far as staff, what we lack in range, we make up for in multi-target combat. The wave hits up to five enemies, does some decent damage, but it’s a back seat to our support and control abilities. You’d be shocked how much damage a party can do loaded up on might, and the orb has some pretty good healing/damage when firing it into a big melee fight and detonating it.

I like all of this. I like being a guy who mows down enemies at one moment, then being the guy that helps my team mow down enemies the next.

I notice complaining in every profession forum, though some forums seem to have more discussion of different types (“hey, warhorns are awesome!”, “which ranged weapon should I pick?”, etc) mixed in than others. No profession is perfect of course, but IMHO there are ones that really need tweaks and/or bug fixes a lot more than others do.

That said, I really like my Ranger. Sure, the pet AI isn’t perfect, but gosh I love having pets. I love animals/pets IRL, so it just tickles me to have animal battle companions. On my first character, as I traveled around, I’d see juvenile mobs and think, “if I was a Ranger, I could just take that with me!” So I made a Ranger, and now I can.

Forums tend to be hit or miss when looking for information. If you ask the forum, every class is the worst class, every dungeon is the worst dungeon, and every bug/bot/gold seller is a simple problem that shouldn’t take anymore than 5 minutes to fix.

Sprinkle in a few decent discussions and you have a game forum.

DeadeyeMouse.8206:

The class based forums here are a bit confusing. I like to come here and read around while I get some downtime at work and I have so far played around with a Mesmer, Necromancer, and a Guardian. I’ve enjoyed playing them all, especially my latest with the Guardian.

However, I must say that these forums at first discouraged me from playing my Necro and re-rolling mainly due to a massive amount of negative posts on the class. Stuff like there only being 1 viable build that is not as good as other classes anyway (conditionmancer), then I noticed there was complaints on Mesmer’s damage and taking much longer to take on mobs, so I tried a Guardian.

Suddenly I noticed a pattern. According to these forums, every class sucks. Necro’s only have 1 viable build and aren’t good at that, Guardian’s are kittened with no range and thus can’t compete in WvW and PvP because they can just be trolled and kited, Elementalists are weak and can be 1 hit, etc… it just goes on and on.

What the kitten guys? This doesn’t help.

Let’s spin the conversation on its head. What are you guys playing, and what do you find great about that class? What works, why do you like it?

This is not true. You can look in any class forum and find posts about people who love every class.

I think it’s wrong to not try something just because people here say stuff. Maybe you are new to these types of games, but quite a few people are negative about everything. Or almost everything. People have bad days in RL and take it out on the forums. Like a frustration outlet.

I think every class is really great and viable. I’ve played some more than others, but they are all really solid. Go by your own gut, instead of listening to voices on the internet. These people are a small minority and can’t be hold as a liability of what the majority of people feel, who are not posting but playing the game. It makes no sense to conclude, or even ask such a question as “does every class suck or?”

It would be like making a topic “does video games suck or?” because you heard from multiple sources that people disliked video games. It’s not a valid form of generalization I think.

If you need to test classes, it’s easy to create one, do the tutorial (5 min.) and then go to heart of the mists to try all skills and weapons, and see if there is anything you fancy. that can be a quick way to get a feel of the playstyle, just testing builds on dummies and the hostile npcs. peace:)=

As a general rule of game forums – if there’s a class forum that ISN’T full of people complaining how the class sucks, then that class is horribly overpowered and genuinely does need a nerf. Forums are always full of guys trying to get themselves an edge by persuading the developers to buff their class for them, and quite a few will resort to exaggeration, misrepresentation or flat-out lying, as well as just whining incessantly on the assumption that the squeaky wheel gets the oil. In other words, things are never as bad as people claim on the forums (and never as good as the guys on the OTHER class forums say you have it, either).

Personally, I’m playing an Engineer as my main and I love the versatility. The class plays very differently depending on whether you use turrets, weapon kits, elixirs or gadgets. It’s not the highest DPS class out there, but you have a huge range of different tricks available to you to do damage, support your allies or control the fight. That, and you can have a flamethrower. There’s nothing quite as SATISFYING as fanning a flamethrower over a horde of zombies.

Ranger. 80 + 30ish.

It’s OP and therefore boring.

I’m trying others, but they (so far) seem sluggish and less interesting.

It’s a tough balance. I’d hate to be developer with customers like me.

It’s not that everything ‘sucks’, it’s just that everything has ‘problems’,

lol

As a general rule, people who are unhappy with something are on the forums complaining about it (or, less frequently, offering fair and constructive criticism of it).

People who are happy with something are busy playing it

It depends what you play too. PvPers are pickier, with good reason; stuff that works fine for me in PvE might be easily shut down in WvW. PvPer also tend to blame anything except their own skills though – the class is broken, it couldn’t possibly just be me!

(Not saying all PvPer critiques are invalid by any means, it’s just hard to separate them)

I think what everybody tends to forget is that this game isn’t about playing alone. The game encourages group play, and any build is more powerful when you’re with another person or more people. Also every play style is viable just not all the time. A good portion of any classes skills are situation, the key is knowing what situation to use them in.

The thing about these classes is ArenaNet wanted to make them balanced by making them a little bit of everything, that’s why all classes have at least one ranged weapon option and skills that heal themselves and allies. The problem is by getting away from the holy trinity of healer/dps/tank (which I remind you has been successful and even desired in other games) the professions lose purpose. What’s the point of a guardian if defense is useless? Why bother playing a Necromancer if they don’t have the damage output of everyone else? Why bother playing a Mesmer if all mobs seem to group together? By making all the classes a jack-of-trades (good at everything, a master at nothing) they’ve become too balanced in everything. No one can effectively survive a hit from bosses, no one can heal damage well enough, no one can dish out massive damage. I find it mind boggling that anyone would get away from the holy trinity when all other games- the successful ones, mind you- were based around that. It gave us strategy, purpose. If I wanted to be full defense in exchange for little power I still had a purpose as the guy who made sure everyone else stayed alive. If I do that here, I end up being a third wheel- defense is useless and my damage is a joke.

What’s hilarious is even though people try to defend the lack of class purpose by saying now people won’t be looking for a specific kind of person in order to start a dungeon run, as though they were required, people still are looking for specific characters. I was in a dungeon run that had asked for a defense-based guardian or a support elementalist. They even asked me beforehand how I was specced to make sure I wasn’t some knock off of a warrior. And I still died, despite being nothing but toughness and vitality. As far as I can tell, the only class that hasn’t suffered is rangers- not only do they get their own personal tank but they just wail on the enemies without worry. At least a Necromancer has to attack before their minions fight, potentially drawing aggro.

Look, bottom line is classes tend to suck because the holy trinity isn’t being used. There is no set healer class, no true tank, no true dps. And it’s ironic that in a game that totes you can be whatever you want with each of the classes people end up using very specific builds.

It’s all about your build honestly.

I hear a lot of “Ele is a mage and thus squishy and weak”.
Then I see my gf running with water attunement and lighting hammer tanking 5 mobs and melt them like flies in seconds while barely getting to half health.

Any character can become completely different depending on how you build it, this game is not profession based, it’s build based.
Some people will probably never get to understand this, especially those new to the GW system.

It’s not like Anet hasn’t done a lot of effort to let everyone know this, though.

The issue is that while you can take a player out of WoW, you can’t take WoW out of the player.
Many are playing GW2 like a standard MMO and having all sorts of issues, but it’s really just a lack of understanding on their part.

they’ve become too balanced

Well now I’ve heard it all…

Aramanth.1546:

The thing about these classes is ArenaNet wanted to make them balanced by making them a little bit of everything, that’s why all classes have at least one ranged weapon option and skills that heal themselves and allies. The problem is by getting away from the holy trinity of healer/dps/tank (which I remind you has been successful and even desired in other games) the professions lose purpose. What’s the point of a guardian if defense is useless? Why bother playing a Necromancer if they don’t have the damage output of everyone else? Why bother playing a Mesmer if all mobs seem to group together? By making all the classes a jack-of-trades (good at everything, a master at nothing) they’ve become too balanced in everything. No one can effectively survive a hit from bosses, no one can heal damage well enough, no one can dish out massive damage. I find it mind boggling that anyone would get away from the holy trinity when all other games- the successful ones, mind you- were based around that. It gave us strategy, purpose. If I wanted to be full defense in exchange for little power I still had a purpose as the guy who made sure everyone else stayed alive. If I do that here, I end up being a third wheel- defense is useless and my damage is a joke.

What’s hilarious is even though people try to defend the lack of class purpose by saying now people won’t be looking for a specific kind of person in order to start a dungeon run, as though they were required, people still are looking for specific characters. I was in a dungeon run that had asked for a defense-based guardian or a support elementalist. They even asked me beforehand how I was specced to make sure I wasn’t some knock off of a warrior. And I still died, despite being nothing but toughness and vitality. As far as I can tell, the only class that hasn’t suffered is rangers- not only do they get their own personal tank but they just wail on the enemies without worry. At least a Necromancer has to attack before their minions fight, potentially drawing aggro.

Look, bottom line is classes tend to suck because the holy trinity isn’t being used. There is no set healer class, no true tank, no true dps. And it’s ironic that in a game that totes you can be whatever you want with each of the classes people end up using very specific builds.

I want to +1 you but I just can’t.

I’ve done probably 50 pug groups and not once has anyone asked about someone else’s build. That’s not statistically relevant, but it’s interesting to me since I have been a victim of the LFG tools in other games.

Still, finding a group is hard. In my opinion unnecessarily hard. And the reason seems be because a LFG tool forces the “trinity” concept; it doesn’t just allow it.

Solution: I have no idea. But what’s here isn’t revolutionary. It’s just a changed dynamic floundering around for solutions.

so, back to the original question: does every class suck?

Yes. At some things. But they are all decent at most things. And that’s part of why those who are unhappy are unhappy.

We don’t matter. We’re replaceable with pretty much anyone else.

We’re cogs in a machine, not engineers guiding it.

I’ve made this point a dozen times, and … well, I guess I’ll make it a few more times. Maybe some day it’ll catch on.

Did anyone REALLY expect anything different? All they did was take out the classic vertical progression grind….and replaced it with w/e grind they have now…which is much worse and players are getting bored of much quicker. Especially since most of the end game grind is broken.

Don’t even get me started on this whole “Our game will eliminate cookie cutter builds” garbage. It seems like each class has issues with their best builds and are settling for the least worst.

The devs really need to hurry up on class balance and bug fixes if they are going to keep peoples attention.

We’re cogs in a machine, not engineers guiding it.

Interesting, because I feel exactly the opposite. I hate the idea of being a cog in a trinity-based machine, having one job, and focusing on just one thing for a whole instance. That’s mechanical thinking to me – specialisation, classic assembly line stuff. Sure, you’d be great at your one thing, but doesn’t it get dull? And doesn’t it leave you completely dependent on everyone else doing their one thing right, with nothing you can do if, say, the healer drops the ball?

And while I am not ruling anything out yet (it’s too early to say anything definitive in my opinion), I’m not surprised that people still request characters with role specialisation, and the meta-gamers are already declaring the One True Build for the various classes. It’s a mindset. People would be doing that whether or not GW2 really worked differently. Like Aramanth, they think that because every online game they’ve played worked that way, it’s the only way they could possibly work.

Balance is just horrid right now, I’m sure all proffs have issues, some more than others. I would even go so far as to say pvp in Cataclysm was far better than this, and, I can’t emphasize this enough, that REALLY is saying something coming from a 2400+ 3v3 pvper that played resto druid and was essentially getting killed in openers by rogues when legendary daggers and vial came out with over 4k resilience. The same crap happens in GW2 pvp it’s ridiculous, not fun at all. At least people could CC targets for more than 1-2 seconds in that game…

Don’t get me started on 1 hit deaths in pve.

“Does Every Class Suck”

No. Every class does have sucky players though. The sucky players blame the class.

Derpinator.2894:

I want to +1 you but I just can’t.

I’ve done probably 50 pug groups and not once has anyone asked about someone else’s build. That’s not statistically relevant, but it’s interesting to me since I have been a victim of the LFG tools in other games.

Still, finding a group is hard. In my opinion unnecessarily hard. And the reason seems be because a LFG tool forces the “trinity” concept; it doesn’t just allow it.

Solution: I have no idea. But what’s here isn’t revolutionary. It’s just a changed dynamic floundering around for solutions.

so, back to the original question: does every class suck?

Yes. At some things. But they are all decent at most things. And that’s part of why those who are unhappy are unhappy.

We don’t matter. We’re replaceable with pretty much anyone else.

We’re cogs in a machine, not engineers guiding it.

I’ve made this point a dozen times, and … well, I guess I’ll make it a few more times. Maybe some day it’ll catch on.

I know exactly how to fix this. Make builds more effective at what they were intended to do. This means bringing the trinity back of course, but I don’t get why that was looked down on in the first place. Give a guardian with a mace/focus set up the ability to become really bulky, or a thief with dual daggers incredible DPS. The downside to each one would be the guardian’s lackluster damage makes it slower going while the thief’s dps makes him easier to kill. Against field trash it’s nothing, but in a dungeon where they’d play their roles anyway the two work together very well. One holds the attention of the enemy while the other deals out damage. This doesn’t mean players are forced into roles either- since we can change builds relatively easily if I decide to go DPS on my guardian I can. If you need someone to support the party I could switch over to a more supportive role and keep everyone alive. We wouldn’t have to wait for a class who’s only purpose is to be a healer, we’d only wait for someone specced that way on any class, giving us the same amount of variety we had before while incorporating the trinity in such a way that works. Above all though we have to make sure any build is a viable strategy. If I want to go pure defense/hp and just heal off damage done to me, that should be as effective as a necromancer who specializes in stacking conditions and DoT, which should be as effective as a warrior going full power/crit and AOE attacks. The problem is see right now is because the trinity is looked down on, a single dominate strategy is starting to rise- power. What’s the point of defense if you’re going to get killed in two to three hits anyway? Why bother trying to heal when even the best builds aren’t very effective? Why bother doing anything else if using power gets the best results? It creates this dominate strategy that power is the best way to go in any situation, and eventually it’ll come down to who has the bigger numbers. Granted, with defense it was about numbers, but it was also about when to use what skills and how. I’d save my counter for the boss’ big attack and my blocks for his lesser hits. But with power you’ll eventually get so strong that just hitting the enemy is all the strategy you’ll need, making it more about who can hit harder than who has better skill or builds. I hope this is curbed before it’s too late, but who knows.

Edit: And to answer someone else’s question of being only one class and having only one purpose getting boring- no. I’ve played a tank in every game I’ve tried, and I love it. I’m wanted in every party, I’m vital to the group, and I have to make sure to keep everyone safe. It’s up to me to make sure no one else gets hurt, and to do just that is the most fun I can think of. A friend of mine always does a damage dealing mage and he loves it. He loves raining the fires of the underworld down on enemies, watching them scream in pain as their bodies melt into a pile of blood and filth, hearing him cackle the entire time as he hits for so much damage a normal mob might as well shoot itself in the face with a blunt object to save him the MP. Being one thing throughout the entire game isn’t boring if it’s done well. In most cases it’s not done well ,so it does get boring, but at the same time being only so-so in everything in Guild Wars 2 gets boring because I’m not good at any one thing.

I love trinity, hate me. It’s not bad, it works and what sucks in games is that not every class has access to dps/heal/tank but if every class had access to all 3 what’s to complain about? I would kill to tank/heal/dps all on one character that I love to play.

Plus, I’ve seen way more team work in a game with tank/heal/dps trinity than you will ever see in GW2. Unfortunately… sad but true.

I feel the same way op, every time I tread in the Engineer forums I feel a bit discouraged and I try to change her.

Then I forget that I built the engineer to work for me and I usually change back or modify what I’ve learned into the way I play. Even though I’m still experimenting, I’m loving my Grenadier Support build, keeps me on my toes and let me be somewhat useful!

Okay I just hve to say this.

I HATE the trinity. Is there any way to capitalise it more than that? Because I HATE it. Hate hate hate. I hate being a tank and waiting 4 hours for a healer to show up. I hate when devs try and defend it by saying they’re adding dual specs and flexible roles so anyone can be a healer, while missing the fundamental problem that no-one wants to be a healer. I hate the way that combat becomes insanely homogonous, get all the aggro, get all the aggro. There’s no dynamism to it, no flavour or strategy. You just do the samekittenthing every fight. I hate the way that people think its the only way you can develop class roles.

This is all off-topic of course because the Trinity has nothing to do with why people complain about their classes. I’m not even going to dignify that claim with a rebuttal. But I can’t let a topic stand as “people are clamouring for the Trinity”

while there are definetly some balance issues – which is not surprising at all for a game roughly out a month – these forums are allways the same. Someone got beaten, which is of cause not possible because he is so awesome, hence something must be wrong with the system. If every class sucked, well, then none would And please, no change towards trinity, teamwork is fine in the game.

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I know exactly how to fix this. Make builds more effective at what they were intended to do. This means bringing the trinity back of course, but I don’t get why that was looked down on in the first place. Give a guardian with a mace/focus set up the ability to become really bulky, or a thief with dual daggers incredible DPS. The downside to each one would be the guardian’s lackluster damage makes it slower going while the thief’s dps makes him easier to kill. Against field trash it’s nothing, but in a dungeon where they’d play their roles anyway the two work together very well. One holds the attention of the enemy while the other deals out damage. This doesn’t mean players are forced into roles either- since we can change builds relatively easily if I decide to go DPS on my guardian I can. If you need someone to support the party I could switch over to a more supportive role and keep everyone alive. We wouldn’t have to wait for a class who’s only purpose is to be a healer, we’d only wait for someone specced that way on any class, giving us the same amount of variety we had before while incorporating the trinity in such a way that works. Above all though we have to make sure any build is a viable strategy. If I want to go pure defense/hp and just heal off damage done to me, that should be as effective as a necromancer who specializes in stacking conditions and DoT, which should be as effective as a warrior going full power/crit and AOE attacks.

“intended to do” I’m not following? the most effective builds have a “theme” but can do as much as possible, whilst I understand how easy it is to mistake this as bad design, when you do adapt, you’ll hopefully agree that it’s insanely fun and it’s those that are forcing the dynamic and play-styles of the holy trinity type that are causing issues in dungeons.

A mace/focus guardian CAN be bulky, he just won’t be able to taunt however if he’s up in the faces of the enemies then clearly that will help him peel, using a shield will enhance his toughness too and that will increase the rate at which he draws attention, but to stand there without using a skill and tank via a passive block mechanic on each hit, which will eventually reduce his role to capping his combat table coverage and then rotating defensive cooldowns will become the core of his gameplay, and that’s something GW2 promised to change, and they did.

I can, on a thief be supportive, and dps orientated, should I so choose, you just have to expand your definitions of what that support is, in fact if we simply look at an interesting dynamic with the thief, their blind debuff.
And take one ideal “prevention, is the best cure” they’re in fact viable HEALERS in the sense that they restore health via skills and traits to allies, but prevent damage dealt to them AND can stealth them thus controlling aggro and causing them to take less damage. thus a support orientated thief is fantastic

In fact, if we look at a comment that i think was posted here “you can take the wow out of the player etc” it’s kinda true, how many double dagger thieves do you see? has anyone actually looked at what that offers a group? it’s kinda a crap set of weapons, but it’s EXPECTED to be used, it’s what we EXPECT to use on the “rogue” sorry “thief” but the way you can look at a thief is they’re a class with a lot of mobility, and a huge grab bag of utilities and tricks as well as the most stealth mechanics in the game

Guardians might be a bit more straight laced. But that doesn’t mean they can’t do multiple things, such as instead of tanking and peeling which is old mechanics. we have AREA control via shielding and warding, ward a doorway and BAM everything is getting damaged at range and aside from bugs (the games sill new remember) nothing is getting through, or at least at a greatly reduced rate. So a paladin for example would stand face to face with a huge vastly more powerful monster and hold it’s attention while staying alive, a Guardian could easily trap the monster in warding magic and allow his allies to rain death on them. which sounds smarter and more interesting?

:

The problem is see right now is because the trinity is looked down on, a single dominate strategy is starting to rise- power. What’s the point of defense if you’re going to get killed in two to three hits anyway? Why bother trying to heal when even the best builds aren’t very effective? Why bother doing anything else if using power gets the best results? It creates this dominate strategy that power is the best way to go in any situation, and eventually it’ll come down to who has the bigger numbers. Granted, with defense it was about numbers, but it was also about when to use what skills and how. I’d save my counter for the boss’ big attack and my blocks for his lesser hits. But with power you’ll eventually get so strong that just hitting the enemy is all the strategy you’ll need, making it more about who can hit harder than who has better skill or builds. I hope this is curbed before it’s too late, but who knows.

See, I can’t blame you thinking this, cos at one point I did as well, but have you not noticed that hp pools are MASSIVE, even the trash mobs seem to have an insanely good healthcare program?

There are several aspects working in tandem here

1. There is no real taunt, or completely predictable aggro but there is a table and high damage, high toughness and close proximity is a recipe for “I’d like you to kill me now”
2. DPS utilities are kinda lackluster, they’re good mind you but not insanely good, between weapon swapping you have enough combo’s there and some internal ones using fields you generate and finish to deal sustained dps very well without having a HUGE stack of power in your traits. the utilities are only really awesome in the group sense when you look at the ones that offer control or support.
3. monsters have a lot of AOE, skillshots that hurt like heck but can even be sidestepped, and some huge damage telegraphed attacks, lets ignore tuning and balancing here for a moment for the sake of argument though and say “you are encouraged to not stand still” which is known as how most dps would prefer to be, low movement and a lot of APS. Especially during dps cooldowns.

All of this brings us to a sort of impression that the traditional defined preference of dps is not going to get you very far at all, standing still will get you killed, setting all your utilities to dps ones won’t help you if your team hits a rough patch and you’re the one who is left to help them recover, stacking tons of toughness to try and be “clever” and take more hits safely will mean you’ll end up with more aggro even if you’re not in close proximity, but having no toughness will create a situation where you’ll have issues peeling if needs be and as an added bonus to that you’ll take more damage from regular hits. so you’d stack vitality and damage right? well that could mean missing out on some great traits that are REALLY good, and so you’re gonna be made to make hard decisions now,

And thus, if you’re like me in any sense after you start to really watch the system, you’ll chop and change and fuss and preen your traits til you realise, a nice balanced layout with what you will possibly need and prefer by choice is what works best for you overall and covering bases means you’re fitting in with the “responsible for yourself” style of GW2 but also ensuring that the same things that make you great at sustaining yourself, also makes you amazing at sustaining your teammates through tough times in a pinch.

As a rule of thumb also, if bursting something down can’t be achieved by stacking dps out the wazoo in every aspect, which it can’t cos of hp pools even on trash, then doing that even in multiples of 5 is going to be much harder due to the fact you’ll run out of steam fast once your zerg timers run out

DeadeyeMouse.8206:

The class based forums here are a bit confusing. I like to come here and read around while I get some downtime at work and I have so far played around with a Mesmer, Necromancer, and a Guardian. I’ve enjoyed playing them all, especially my latest with the Guardian.

However, I must say that these forums at first discouraged me from playing my Necro and re-rolling mainly due to a massive amount of negative posts on the class. Stuff like there only being 1 viable build that is not as good as other classes anyway (conditionmancer), then I noticed there was complaints on Mesmer’s damage and taking much longer to take on mobs, so I tried a Guardian.

Suddenly I noticed a pattern. According to these forums, every class sucks. Necro’s only have 1 viable build and aren’t good at that, Guardian’s are kittened with no range and thus can’t compete in WvW and PvP because they can just be trolled and kited, Elementalists are weak and can be 1 hit, etc… it just goes on and on.

What the kitten guys? This doesn’t help.

Let’s spin the conversation on its head. What are you guys playing, and what do you find great about that class? What works, why do you like it?

People think they know their class, and assume because they aren’t good with it, that it must suck.

Why has this become a discussion about the trinity in a game that has advertised for YEARS that it wont have a trinity. Deal with it. Personally I hate the trinity and thats why I love this game.

If you want a trinity play WOW or Lotro or any one of the games that does have it. Otherwise stop complaining about it and look at getting your build sorted.

And just because guild wars 2 is not about the trinity does not mean its not about builds, thats the most important part, as in guild wars 1.

I love that my warrior can do ranged AoE (longbow), and do crowd control (hammer/mace), or go for AoE condition damage (Swords, I love swords), all in the same dungeon and theres lots more combos. And at the same time I can heal with my shouts which ALSO provide fury and condition removal etc. So for the OP thats what I love playing just now.

Also the hammer has the most satisfying noise in the game.

Of course this build does have to fit in with your group which is why I would like to be able to see peoples builds, link them or something like you could in GW1. Then you could build a group properly and cover all the bases, it could be done with different classes/methods each time but you do need to cover them all.

Also I hate when people try to use a trinity that doesnt work. I laughed a lot when our ‘tank’ died 15 times in a storymode dungeon last night when the rest of use (ele’s included) died about twice. Why wont people leanr you cant just stand infront of a mob and soak up damage? It just doesn’t work.

Learn and adapt.

(breathe)

No one ever posts in a class forum to say “you know what, my class is fine” so those that do think the class is ok are not posting. The only people that post are those that have issues with the class. Just find one you enjoy playing and you’ll be fine.

As with all class based games—you’re going to get some classes that are good/bad against another class. But beyond anything, you’re going to run into some kind of support class. If you’re one of those, stick close to someone else, and watch as the world crumbles beneath your collective paws.

There are two different conversations going on here and two different answers.

My engineer is strong in pve. I kite a lot.

My engineer is okay in pvp as long as I am in a group. I do feel that I don’t contribute as much as other classes.

Don’t listen to these people. If i payed too much attention to them i would never get my engineer to 80. I have died countless time and yet i am glad i did it.

According to the players who come into the Thief forums with tear stained cheeks, all the classes suck and/or are underpowered compared to the thief. Sooooo… yeaahhh…

As for an actual response, I main an 80 thief, I find him quite fun, deadly, and versatile. I recently started an engineer alt and really felt it was underwhelming for a bit. Then I got a grasp, or better understanding, of the class’ abilities and I’m much more pleased with my ability to kite things and make the world explode around me.

This happens on every mmo forum, if you believe all the posters then every class sucks and every class is OP. It’s a bit annoying but you just have to fish around and find the genuine information.

I’m enjoying dungeon runs on my ranger, even though the forum says that warriors are better at everything a ranger is supposed to do and that pets are worthless and dead 99% of the time. I find with a bit of micro my pet is actually hardly ever dead.

I can’t wait to play some of the other classes, love the warrior but its fairly straightforward, I want to try out some of the more unusual class mechanics.

“Does Every Class Suck”
Yep
when you get to Orr and deal with the overpopulated totally overpowered Risen

Didn’t read all comments, but for the OP:

I started as warrior and then “noticed” that elementalists were outdamaging me. This was up to the point where I’d get no loot and mobs died before I got there.

I’m not the type that complains about things being OP before fully investigating. I made an ele to see what the class feels like so I’d have a better understanding of why I was being beaten.
Turns out that ele has this entire attunement stuff making it all complicated, no weaponswaps, are squishy and weren’t outdamaging me. I simply hit the antifarm or I didn’t have enough swiftness to get to mobs fast enough.

The game has been out for a month. The amount of people who can without a doubt say that one class is strong than the other is very close to zero. You need to have played and 80’d those classes to be able to make a good comparison.

For example, rangers, I thought they were good at aoe tagging with that barrage skill until I rolled a ranger and noticed the recharge/recycle, the low damage (it’s like hundred blades, the damage adds up to a total, not high individual hits) and that they were getting their tags from traps instead. I also learned that due to condition builds, they make good 1 target farmers, dropping enemies quite fast so during event downtimes, I find one of the shortbow rangers and kill stuff with her/him.

Judging from looking at the forums, nearly everybody thinks nearly everybody else is more powerful.

There are legitimate complaints though, for the bugged traits and whatnot. I believe the casters were hit hard by that but those things get fixed.

The legitimate complaints are the ones about traits/abilities not working as intended.

The complaints from people who say, “Th15 cl4ss is br0k3n cus i cnt ki11 <insert mob name here>” are idiots who want to be spoonfed everything. Imagine, a game where you actually have to think to kill a mob. Insane, isn’t it? /rolls eyes.

First off every person who plays a class and gets beat by another class derives 2 things

1 their class sucks and is underpowered
2 the class that beat them is underpowered

We all have heard it all. It is just again a product of the wow generation player

Right now of all of the classes (and I am speaking in terms of all aspects of the game WvW, PvE (inc dungeons) and SPvP you are pretty much looking at ranger being #1
After that you pretty much have a clump of classes.
Some traits are messed up on some classes, some skills are inconsistant with tool tips on certain classes.

But there are no broken classes and most of the posts are from people who just simply arent good at their class or do not know how to build their character correctly

So when reading any class forums you have to realize the majority of the people just aren’t good at their classes, so they think the class is bad, and, in turn, think that other classes are op

I play 5 classes…Ranger, Guardian, Engineer, Warrior and Thief. I have fun with all of them. I’ve rolled and deleted the casters…but thats mostly because I prefer melee / ranged to magic users in all games. I’ll probably get around to re-rolling them though when I get around to buying some more slots.

That said…I don’t think any of the classes are “broken”. They just all have advantages and disadvantages when compared to each other.

And I don’t compare any of these classes to the various classes I’ve played in other games…cause this is GW2..NOT those other games. I honestly, do not want class balance. Each class shines differently…its up to us as players to maximise those abilities as we learn the class.

First rule of MMO forums: Everything I play is total kitten, and everything you play is OP and for casuals.

I would say most problems amount to an issue of preferred play style vs class design. For instance someone doesn’t like Warrior play style because they don’t like the setup of synergizing your traits/skills with 2 weapon sets they you will swap between while in combat.

This however is not the same as not liking your class as the abilities are bugged (from my understanding this is the main problem with Necro’s), but liking you classes play style.

So far I tried Warrior (which I loved from the start and still love), Engineer (once I gave up on FTK and focused on Rifle + Turrets I loved), and Elementalist (I am still up in the air about as my favorite weapons abilities are from septer and off hand dagger but they don’t synergize well at my level).

I think necros are particularly unhappy atm because their main damage type, condition, has all sorts of issues (like condition caps and linear scaling of dmg) that just doesn’t match up with the dps a direct-damage dealer can dish out.

Most of the hollow complains bears down to: “I face rolled this profession and it doesn’t play as I want it to, so therefor it sucks”. If people would just take their time to look for a solution in their build first, or ask advise from other players, we could save ourselves a lot of reading here. But it’s much easier to complain about something, then it is to try and find a solution yourself. Or to except that what you’re complaining about is actually a flaw done on purpose, in order to balance your profession.

Edit: Just for the record; The Guardian has two skills on the scepter, one skill on the torch, and three skills on the staff, that each has a range of 1200, which is the same range that a longbow has. So please stop saying the Guardian doesn’t have any range skills.

DeadeyeMouse.8206:

What the kitten guys? This doesn’t help.

Let’s spin the conversation on its head. What are you guys playing, and what do you find great about that class? What works, why do you like it?

I dont play FOTM class/professions, and i dont chase FOTM specs after every nerf/buff. I dont let other people dictate how i play the game. I figure out on my own what class/professions i like based on my preferred playstyle…and i make it work.

The only professions i dont really like is the necro and elementalist. I havent found a weapon combo i like on my necro and i got bored of my elem. Now my mesmer was my most hated prof up until 2 days ago when i tried out scepter/sword. I usually play tank classes or melee dps in other MMO’s and the mesmer didnt seem to fit that description. However scepter has a block and sword has a block, so i’m playing mesmers kinda like a tank. Once i started doing that, i started enjoying mesmers a lot.

Every MMO I’ve ever played where there are class forums, the consensus on every class forum is that their class sucks and some other class is OP.

Sometimes it’s true, but very rarely; mostly it’s just whining from people who picked the wrong class for their playstyle, or need to L2P.

Having played most of the Professions a bit, I am pretty sure that they’re actually fairly well balanced. Really, none of them are drastically UP or OP. Each Profession excels at something, and each has its Kryptonite in another Profession.

every class is good in this game. the people that post are just frustrated about the bugs, but even as a necromancer, arguably the buggiest class, i still have a great time. i feel that my class is strong, and will only get better as i learn more about it.

for the most part, the classes are pretty balanced and effective if you play them right.