Guild Wars 2

Recap: In GW1 there was a profession “Paragon” which started out being a fairly balanced -under powered support/ranged profession, but was further nerfed until having one served absolutely no purpose.

Optimistically, this wont happen, however with the latest patch I started to wonder and fear anet will take one profession and make sure no player uses them.

My current bet is on Ranger:
I don’t normally use ranger, in fact it’s one of my least used classes because I always felt that it was CD or go home. That was until I discovered that if I sunk some points into my pet, I could get a good “bite” out of the enemy, at the cost of taking out some of my already non-existing damage.
That used to be the case. The new patch really really really…. really ruined my pet build. With pets having from 10-50% damage reduction, I don’t see a way for pets to be viable. What I thought then was that the character would be able to do more damage with out the pet, but I was wrong. Condition Damage became more viable though…. because it wasn’t already?

Another good contender is the Elementalist:
Some people liked the change, some people hated it, and I lean towards the hate. Yes they had more stun breakers than anyone else, except maybe the Guardian, but they also have the least armor and health. I always viewed the ele as a class that was amazing if you could pull it off, but slip up for a second and get pulvarized into oblivion kind of class. The ele did need some nerfing, but if they get nerfed again they get passed on the torch of carrying the paragon’s legacy.

TL,DR version: Which class, if any, is going to become useless first?

ranger already has become useless

God Of Fissures.8627:

ranger already has become useless

But is the ranger a paragon of uselessness?

I know not. I am but a hardcore casual and know little of the ways of the meta. However, my 9th character and first repeat profession is a ranger.

Engineer. They started out as an underdog, and got further reduced to a class even the underdogs wouldn’t play =D

That’s not true. Engineer got alot of love and attention. Engineer should apart from guardian your favourite choice for any team content apart from cof. If not, then it is definitly a l2p- problem.

Actually, after EOTN and the faction skills stuff, Paragon became quite useful.

My £0.02.

Yobculture.5786:

Actually, after EOTN and the faction skills stuff, Paragon became quite useful.

My £0.02.

So rangers just have to wait until the first expansion to become useful again. Good to know

Tolmos.8395:

Engineer. They started out as an underdog, and got further reduced to a class even the underdogs wouldn’t play =D

Yup, this.

Quarktastic.1027:

Yobculture.5786:

Actually, after EOTN and the faction skills stuff, Paragon became quite useful.

My £0.02.

So rangers just have to wait until the first expansion to become useful again. Good to know

Eventually you will become one of the most useful classes in the game, yeah.

Rangers are in a better position than warriors, so dont worry.

um the term imbagon comes from paragons being overpowered in gw1.
Jus saiyan.

Quick Mouse.7635:

um the term imbagon comes from paragons being overpowered in gw1.
Jus saiyan.

It should be specified that was one specific build, every other possible Paragon build fell short.

Quick Mouse.7635:

um the term imbagon comes from paragons being overpowered in gw1.
Jus saiyan.

Paragon had only one working buid, and that one was a PvE-only.

Celestina.2894:

Quick Mouse.7635:

um the term imbagon comes from paragons being overpowered in gw1.
Jus saiyan.

It should be specified that was one specific build, every other possible Paragon build fell short.

Paragons were also pretty popular in gvg for a while.

Most classes were pigeon-holed into the strongest builds for the given game type (eg. monk – pve: healer’s boon/ua, pvp: woh/rc)

Guild Wars 1 was quite a bit different than GW2 with the whole dual-class system. There were plenty of popular builds that used Paragon skills on other classes.

AlietteFaye.7316:

Guild Wars 1 was quite a bit different than GW2 with the whole dual-class system. There were plenty of popular builds that used Paragon skills on other classes.

Exactly, paragon was designed to be a support class, but because players could take up the needed support skills from paragons, the class became useless.

The ranger is a likely candidate to their PvE uselessness, but I’d say that the warrior could suddenly slip into being the most or one of the most useless professions with a significant damage nerf. Warriors are buried 6ft under the barrel in PvP and are only kept afloat in PvE by their exceptional damage.

Great thread OP!

And I agree that the Ranger, at least as of right now, is the best candidate for an obsolete class.

However, the Ranger class will never-ever be the least played.

There will always be a huge following for a class described as being outstanding Ranged fighters, not to mention the devoted following pet classes have in every single mmo. So there will always be a ton of Rangers in GW2 (especially among open-world casual players). What you will see however, are the more veteran and knowledgeable players opting to change their main from Ranger to one of their alts.

Imbagon says hi.
Scythegon says hi.
Daggergon with death blossom says hi.
Stunning Strike Daze-spam paragon says hi.

As a Paragon main, I’m confused! However, I imagine what you’re really trying to say is a class which starts underpowered, then slowly creeps into overpowered territory. In GW1 those were the Ritualist and Paragons, and in GW2 so far it seems to be the Engineer.

Gandarel.5091:

Quick Mouse.7635:

um the term imbagon comes from paragons being overpowered in gw1.
Jus saiyan.

Paragon had only one working buid, and that one was a PvE-only.

This obviously means the answer to this thread is Warrior.

Quick Mouse.7635:

um the term imbagon comes from paragons being overpowered in gw1.
Jus saiyan.

Wrong. The term “Imbagon” was the name of the one and only meta build they had in PvE. Not because Paragons in general were overpowered (they definitely weren’t).

With how things seem to be going, my guess would be on Ranger as well.

Hooglese.4860:

Recap: In GW1 there was a profession “Paragon” which started out being a fairly balanced -under powered support/ranged profession, but was further nerfed until having one served absolutely no purpose.

Paragon was never balanced. It kept oscillating between being useless and overpowered, depending on current skill nerfs/buffs, specific builds and situations. Basically, a class design that looked good on paper didn’t work out when put into the real game, and since the whole class was built around it, it made balancing it a huge problem.

Like, you know, Rangers and their pet mechanics.

Tolmos.8395:

Engineer. They started out as an underdog, and got further reduced to a class even the underdogs wouldn’t play =D

Actually Rangers have become that way too, but you are right both Classes have become insignificant, i do believe Engi has a very small niche area tho..