Guild Wars 2

A lot of us had great expectations from “The Lost Shores” patch. We mostly expected a lot of fixes and some profession changes. Some got something, some got disappointed so I’d like to get a general “feel” of how the community feels about the professions ATM.
__________________________________________________________________

We’d like answers from lvl 80 experience (so no I have a lvl 4 thief and he is…).

Vote your 80’s under this categories:

- Style (That means animations, effects, etc)
- Strength (The general performance of the profession in everyday gaming life)
- Variability (How does the profession cope with different environments (PvE/PvP))
- Feel (General “feel” of the profession, does it need a lot of changes, etc)

The scoring should be from 1-10.

I’l sum up the votes and post them here.
__________________________________________________________________

Elementalist
Engineer
Guardian
Mesmer
Necromancer
Ranger
Thief
Warrior

Lost shore was a PvP balance patch. Hope they split traits/skill between PvE / PvP soon, and rebalance PvE classes soon. Have doon a little PvP and WvW, but mostly just the PvE. 3 level 80’s.

Elementalist
Style: 10 (funnest skills in the game by far)
Strength: 4 (does solid burst damage – very good survivablity )
Variablity: 8 (great @ surviving every situation – but slowly)
Feels: Like your pigeon holed into condition ranged damaged. That you sacrified alot of damage/vitality/toughness because they gave you some extra heals and the ability increase damage to just to the average by making your own combos fields/finishers. 1st level 80 class but has most sits unused now.

Guardian
-style: 8 (very well done skills – great traiting options)
-Strength: 8 (great survivability – very solid damage)
-Variability: 9 (best team player – does all situation very well)
-Feels: Best designed class in the game.

Warrior:
-Style: 4 (Skills aren’t that fun – traits are boring)
-Strength: 10 (this is godmode – best survivability – biggest damage)
-Variability: 10 Add nothing to group play – but tanking is most important role.
-Feel: It’s fun lays in its ability to face rolls all content. Mindless/effortless fun.

Elementalist
Style: 10 (Great looking armor sets, good skill sets)
Strength 3 (It doesn’t HAVE burst damage…low damage, low survivability unless spec’d)
Variability 5 (Class needs a rebalance, some skills can bug especially with scepters)
Feels: Too weak, not enough damage and if you spec into glass cannon you have 0 survivability where as other classes can have both

Warrior
Style: 8 (Heavy armor looks decent, skill sets are balanced)
Strength 10 (Best Burst DPS in the game, moderate survivability even with glass builds)
Variability 3 (GS/Rifle builds everywhere)
Feels: Great class overall, highly balanced unfortuntely other classes don’t perform half as good as the warrior class does, does it need a nerf? No, other classes need buffs badly.

Ranger
Style: 7 (Pets…Pets..Pets ~ Medium armor is kinder bland, Ranger skill sets are bad)
Strength 5 (DPS needs buffing, survivability is pretty good with a tanking pet)
Variability 10 (Each ranger tends to use different pets, so its a more or less unique class)
Feels: Ranged weapons and burst don’t pack enough punch compared to other classes, pet skills range from useless to powerful, mostly on the useless side.

Engineer
Style: 10 (Flame Thrower looks cool, kits add flair and turrets add uniqueness)
Strength 1 (Weakest DPS class in the game, entire class needs to be revamped)
Variability 5 (Many different types of Engs using various builds)
Feels: The entire Engineer class needs revamping, it needs buffs in many areas especially damage, kits need to be able to take advanced of stats instead of having flat rate damage. General survivability is average, uses medium armor which is just mediocre at best.

Mesmer
Style: 8 (Skills are PRO level, takes some practice and skill to use the mesmer)
Strength 3 (Damage is on the low side, survivability is low – best utility class)
Variability: 7 (Phants add another unique element to the class, good utility spells)
Feels: Was the king of WvW matches, the nerfs hurt the class greatly – its still a highly useful class though. Would benefit from a few buffs – Would be a better class if Phants didn’t disappear after the target mob is dead.

Guardian
Style: 8 (good balanced skills, heavy armor which looks good)
Strength 8 (Best tanking class in the game (obviously) with good damage)
Variability 6 (Hammer and Mace are underused)
Feels: Probably the 2nd best class in the game right now – probably one of the best classes for solo champions

- Style: 6, It’s hard armored and does magic but the magic feels bland and underwhelming compared to other spell casters.
- Strength: 8.5, facerolls everything any anything I need.
- Variability: 8.5 A guardian can do just about anything I want it to.
- Feels: A lot of guardian attacks feel slow and underwhelming even if the skills themselves are actually very powerful. Then there is their incredible defense which is so strong, I can take some champions if I had the attention span to do so. Overall, I’d say a guardian feels like an underwhelming profession until you try another and then realize how powerful it really is.

only 1 80:

Elementalist
Style: 8, nice animations and effects in general, ranged dps role is surprising weak.
Strength: 5, d/d is generally great, staff is too pidgeonholed into support role, sceptre has issues with consistently applying damage (dragon’s tooth, bugged RTL), focus has no mobility and some very weak skills.
Variability: 4, multiple PVE specs but realistically have to spec tanky in PVP if staff or sceptre or fall in a heap. Trait selection is underwhelming due to numerous weak/underperforming traits. 19/20 skills on staff for example are AOE (why?) and easily avoided.
Feels: Overly nerfed. D/D is superb but staff/sceptre/focus feel clunky and unrefined, with some skills being difficult to use for no good reason.

Mesmer
- Style 10 (butterflies & bubbles everywhere, profanity level over 9000)
- Strength 10 (Highest survival, moderate damage, best frontline reviver award in wvw and dungeons alike)
- Variability 10 (dungeon beasts, wvw trolls, puzzle ruiners, 1v1 gods – tie or die style)
- Feel (good overall, if you are ok with spending a lot of time underground and stuck inside textures. also some abilities and traits are bugged – therefore useless, limiting possible builds)

Ritualist
-Style 10: Awesome body movement while casting spells. Used the force because the character was always blindfolded.
-Strength 7: Play style is support by providing buffs to weapons, spamming spirits, and healing.
-Variability 9: Gave party support via weapon buffs and heals. Direct damage to foes, or more support to team, via spirits
-Feel: Well thought out and innovative play style. Very fun to play with many different ways to play.

Warrior:

Style – 3, picked a random low number here, all the animations are just boring and basic. I also hate the triple chop animation.
Strength – 10, anything that can be beaten, can be beaten by a warrior
Variability – 10, warrior is useful anywhere
Feel – 6, it seems to be the all rounder class, which is fine, but they could have made it less boring

Great answers for now. keep going.

I have a mesmer that i enjoy, and would give him 7’s or 8’s across the board.

I haven’t played him much since the patch, as my time has been limited, so i’m hoping things aren’t in as bad a shape as some seem to think.

I do however have a real problem with my alts. I really can’t stay interested in any other classes in this game, they really seem sort of boring.

Its probably just me. I was really looking forward to losing the trinity, but it really seems as though the classes are all so similiar to me. That part is very difficult for me to explain i guess, because obviously an engineer does not play like a warrior.

I think part of my problem is i really like to play support, perhaps more than i thought before purchasing, and in a game where it seems dps is boss, i am really having a difficult time finding enjoyment. There are support characters of course, but dropping a banner then moving on to dps (as one example) isn’t really drawing me in.

Ranger:

Style: 5. Not a lot going on in terms of animations, at least the way I use him. The pets are cool though.

Strength: 7. Great for soloing because of the pets, even if you don’t spec for them specifically. I’m generally not worried when I run around with him. I think a slight DPS buff couldn’t hurt, though.

Variability: 5. I’m not terribly experienced with sPvP, but the Rangers’ abilities don’t seem to work all that well in sPvP. Also, whenever I see a Ranger in sPvP (on a different character), I guiltily look forward to the fight because chances are I’ll win. A good player could probably do great with a Ranger, but personally I don’t use him in sPvP. He’s all right in WvW, and great for PvE.

Feel: 8. Could use some PvP adjustments, but otherwise I’m very happy with the class.

Thief

- Style 11 ( Very well done, considering that opponent can’t even seen you out of stealth )
- Strength 12 ( A whole scale developed to assign fivefold number despite your emofiliac condition )
- Variability 11 ( It cope like an invisible train in both’s (PvE/PvP) )
- Feel ( There no real consequence, to be “pro” u don’t even need to think about what you actually doing. If something goes wrong; just disguise your self as your opponent class and proceed to cry more nerf on the forum.. and ops, almost forgot: bring some firends on your “constructive thread” ).

Elementalist

- Style 8 ( U’ll better to keep moving instead of watching our own animation )
- Strength 9 ( Very situational, just remember to make that situation happen )
- Variability 7 ( You can deploy same tatics on both’s (PvE/PvP))
- Feel 6 ( Can create havoc if played tight, altho not so rewarding for baked build )

Mesmer pre 11-15 patch

- Style 8 ( Keep’em coming )
- Strength 7 ( It’s strengh is proportional to the confusion of the enemies )
- Variability 10 ( Very simple to learn, difficult to master (PvE/PvP))
- Feel 9 ( Smooth gameplay, also, almost unkillable if mastered )

Mesmer – post patch

- Style 4 ( Butterfly )
- Strength 2 ( It’s has no strenght )
- Variability 6 ( Impossible to master, core mechanic broken. If you feel taking conditioning damage as main stat’s you should roll a necro in power build (PvE/PvP))
- Feel 3 ( Boorked gameplay )

Warrior

- Style 6 ( Just bring it on )
- Strength 9 ( The real question is: can u land it? )
- Variability 6 ( Unless you’re talented and thus crowd controlling, it doesn’t really matter you will die. Also, this is the perfect job.. if you like to farm (PvE/PvP))
- Feel 6 ( Not so rewarding mechanic )

Necromancer
- Style 8 ( A dead pet army plus their master )
- Strength 9 ( If you got it right, conditioning can drop dead almost anything in few thick legendary NPC excluded. )
- Variability 7 ( Hard to learn, unkillable if mastered (PvE/PvP))
- Feel 6 ( Tricky like Orr )

Ranger
- Style 2 ( A pet and his best friend )
- Strength 6 ( 11111111 )
- Variability 2 ( what?11111111 (PvE/PvP))
- Feel 8 ( 11111111 )