Guild Wars 2

Heh, reading through the various class subforums, it’s easy to walk away with the assumption that profession X (insert profession of subforum) is the most ignored by ANet, overnerfed, buggy, and terrible class EVAR.

So let’s have it out in neutral territory. Taking the game as a whole, PVE, PVP, WvW – which profession is the most downtrodden, ignored by ANet, misunderstood and overnerfed by ANet, underpowered, etc etc?

(while we’re at it, which profession is the most blessed, overpowered, beloved by ANet?)

I wonder if PVP/WvW players visit general discussion or do they mostly keep to their own subforums?

The consensus on the Elementalist forums is that Arenanet deliberately wants them to be outclassed by everything.

PvP warriors are shaking their heads at every other profession who thinks they’re in a bad state.

^^^^
Thankfully nobody except ANet cares about sPvP.

Vayne.8563:

ESKan.6782:

The consensus on the Elementalist forums is that Arenanet deliberately wants them to be outclassed by everything.

Rangers and engies would like a word with you.

Yep. Currently I’d say Rangers got it the worst. Engineers at least got SOME fixes last patch.

Mesmer. ANET has given it no role to actually play and every time a good build is devised, they nerf it in to oblivion. It’s the one class that always seems to suffer some form of nerf every patch, which seems to come off the backs of everybody who complains about it on the forum.

Kind of a tough one but i’d still vote warriors till they get better ways to sustain.

Ranger!

On no other class (and I have all 8 at 80 and properly equipped with multiple equips and play at least 4 of them regularly) than the Ranger I often get so mad with the shortcomings of the class that I log to another class within 10 minutes of playing it because I get completly frustratet. (This applies to WvW, Spvp and Dungeons).

The only area that I can stand the Ranger is if i go solo around in the open world for jumping puzzles and aesthetically.

Imho there are professions anet can t seem to balance…and other professions that balancing devs wants deliberately to be subpar.

Its the worst thing a balancing team could do….but its also clear in interviews…they just care for some professions and hate some Others…..

Its not the final result make professions they love better and the one they hate worse, but for sure they try everything they can to make it happen.

According to every subforum their particular profession is the worst off in the game :/

The profession you are using.

wouw.5837:

The profession you are using.

unfortunately people get tired and switch professions….
That proves the stuff about “the profession u use is underpowered” completely wrong.

aspirine.6852:

According to every subforum their particular profession is the worst off in the game :/

This.
Since I have stopped reading the profession forums they all seem fine to me :P

Out of the classes I play, the Engineer is always the one that keeps getting hit the hardest. Sure, we get some buffs to skills that no one uses because frankly no one cares, but time and time again we end up getting hit with a nerf that strikes us at the heart of where we were powerful before. It happened twice in this most recent patch:

Elixir R, our best stun breaker, was nerfed into oblivion. It is now useless as anything but a delayed toolbelt rez.
Static Shield lost the ability to counterattack while defending and reduced its stun, making the shield nothing more than an ineffective stall tactic and yet another temporary block, which the engineer already has a few of.

And before that, we had Elixir S nerfed so we lost access to all of our utilities in that period of time. Before that, we lost in-game effectiveness from the proliferation of boon hate. Before that, we had our condition damage nerfed with a new change to incendiary powder that made it less effective. Before that, we had Kit Refinement nerfed into the ground, killing our most effective build at that time. Before that, our grenade direct damage was nerfed after the introduction of sigils on to our kits (finally). Note: these events may not necessarily be in order.

Playing as an engineer has been a continual up-hill battle. It is almost guaranteed that the strategies that you used are going to end up nerfed into the ground with every new patch, and along with that some skills are going to receive nigh meaningless buffs. The balancing strategy Arenanet has employed for engineers has basically been “Nerf the top tier engineer builds, buff useless stuff no one uses, let people figure out some new strategy for engineers that works, then nerf that, too”. Couple that with debilitating bugs that crop up in every patch, and we engineers end up dreading patch day each month. All because their design philosophy in the game is that Engineers shouldn’t do damage, even though damage is king in the game.

I can’t speak for Elemementalists and Rangers because I don’t play them. But I can speak for Engineers, and the fact that we have to stack 25 might in order to play at the effectiveness that other classes play at is a clear indicator of how messed up we are.

Morrigan.2809:

aspirine.6852:

According to every subforum their particular profession is the worst off in the game :/

This.
Since I have stopped reading the profession forums they all seem fine to me :P

And its why I’ve never set an e-foot in that section in the six months I’ve been playing. Too much experience with that sort of stuff.

definitely not guardians.

the other classes i can say something about:
-necros still have many issues. 2 of our traitlines and a LOT of our minor traits are kitten. we still lack the sustain to be an attrition class. instead, we got more burst in the last update (why???) and a couple of stealth nerfs. but overall i think necs are in an ok spot. not good, but definitely not terrible.
-thieves: it’s still too easy to escape fights as a thief. thieves can still permastealth. pistolMH needs some love/rework; some dualskills too. other than that, i think thieves are fine.
-rangers: pets got nerfed. to make longbow more viable, shortbow got nerfed; because kitten logic. Pet-AI and -behavior is, in my opinion, still awful.
-warriors: i only play mine in WvW-groups and it is awesome.

i cant say much about the other classes, so i wont.

—> from what i’ve played, the worst class is in my opinion the ranger, mostly due to the pet-AI. necro might come close again, depending on the next update.

Rangers definitely have the absolute worst reputations preceding them…

Sil.4560:

PvP warriors are shaking their heads at every other profession who thinks they’re in a bad state.

Some of us Non-Warriors know that….

But considering you’re in a format that’s already a ghost town, it’s hard to care.
Ele’s had a similar problem in Codex… Guess how many people cared.

To be fair though… for WvW atleast, their Kill shots were definitely over-nerfed in Beta.
Enough snipers up on a Wall should be something a Zerg fears… not just a heavy armor Decoration they’re allowed to get close enough towards to ping their stupid Nuke circles over

Anyone saying elementalist or mesmer is clearly playing blindly.

RANGER is by far the most down-trodden class in the game.

Haha, this is why each profession has their own subforum.

I’ve played them all. I like them all. Some excel in WvW, some in PvE, some I’m sure in PvP (don’t play it), and all of that differs depending on which build.

I think it’s not correct to say things like “ANet clearly hates” or “clearly prefers” X or X profession.

But then, I also struggle with the Guardian, so what do I know?

Definitely Ranger.

Our damage is pathetic (even with 25 stacks of might on a JAGUAR!), our 1h sword is bugged (cannot dodge), spirits are frail with poor effects, and our RANGED options kinda suck…

Elementalist

I have 2 lvl 80 characters in full ascended, an ele and a ranger. With the exception of zerging in WvW, the ranger is better at everything.

Anyone who complains about ranger DPS has never played an ele. Yes, ranger dps is incredibly low in comparison to the 3 melee classes but the ele auto attack doesn’t even hit for 300. The most damaging spell an ele has ’Fire Grab’ barely clears 1k damage unless you spec full glass at which point everything 1 shots you.

I think the Ritualist is the most downtrodden profession. It’s so downtrodden it doesn’t even exist anymore. People will try to tell you that engineers are essentially the same thing, with their turrets and kits and elixirs, but if you buy that then there’s a really nice bridge in Brooklyn you should have a look at.

The Monk is a close second, followed by Dervish and Paragon.

Then again, I believe we can all agree that the Commando was just a joke.

Pictured below:

1. Ritualist being AWESOME.
2. Commando being a joke.

aspirine.6852:

According to every subforum their particular profession is the worst off in the game :/

Definitely not true. I’d point you in the right directions, but i don’t want to give anyone a reason for any nerfs

I’d say thet ele and engi are currently the worst professions in PvE, with rangers slightly better off – but that’s because rangers started from much higher position and haven’t managed to fall to the rock bottom yet. If the current trend of buffs and nerfs holds, however, they will definitely reach that last place eventually.

So, while eles and engis may be worse off currently, ranger is getting the worst treatment.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Out of the classes I play, the Engineer is always the one that keeps getting hit the hardest. Sure, we get some buffs to skills that no one uses because frankly no one cares, but time and time again we end up getting hit with a nerf that strikes us at the heart of where we were powerful before. It happened twice in this most recent patch:

Elixir R, our best stun breaker, was nerfed into oblivion. It is now useless as anything but a delayed toolbelt rez.
Static Shield lost the ability to counterattack while defending and reduced its stun, making the shield nothing more than an ineffective stall tactic and yet another temporary block, which the engineer already has a few of.

And before that, we had Elixir S nerfed so we lost access to all of our utilities in that period of time. Before that, we lost in-game effectiveness from the proliferation of boon hate. Before that, we had our condition damage nerfed with a new change to incendiary powder that made it less effective. Before that, we had Kit Refinement nerfed into the ground, killing our most effective build at that time. Before that, our grenade direct damage was nerfed after the introduction of sigils on to our kits (finally). Note: these events may not necessarily be in order.

Playing as an engineer has been a continual up-hill battle. It is almost guaranteed that the strategies that you used are going to end up nerfed into the ground with every new patch, and along with that some skills are going to receive nigh meaningless buffs. The balancing strategy Arenanet has employed for engineers has basically been “Nerf the top tier engineer builds, buff useless stuff no one uses, let people figure out some new strategy for engineers that works, then nerf that, too”. Couple that with debilitating bugs that crop up in every patch, and we engineers end up dreading patch day each month. All because their design philosophy in the game is that Engineers shouldn’t do damage, even though damage is king in the game.

I can’t speak for Elemementalists and Rangers because I don’t play them. But I can speak for Engineers, and the fact that we have to stack 25 might in order to play at the effectiveness that other classes play at is a clear indicator of how messed up we are.

Ranger says: “You guys can stack might??”

@AstralPoring

Ranger is actually worst off currently. There have been nothing but nerfs for the ranger since release.

Amongst the issues:

- Pet damage nerfed by 50%, crit chance nerfed by 75%. This alone reduced the ranger’s overall damage output by at least 15%.

- According to the wiki rangers are supposed to be the most proficient ranged combat profession, yet the shortbow got a range nerf from 1200 to 900, and the longbow is still pathetic.

- PETS STILL CAN’T HIT MOVING TARGETS. And this isn’t just when the target is dodging, either. It’s when they’re simply moving. This is a major problem in PvE and especially WvW; a pet counts, on average, as 30% of a ranger’s total damage output. Each time that pet misses an attack because the target is moving is a third of our potential damage gone.

Edit: don’t mistake this post as saying that other professions are fine: i know there are still many issues across the board (except for guardians – they have no sympathy from me :p ) but having played over 100 hours on my 80 mesmer and ele, IMO rangers have it worst.

I play an Engie.

And I must admit, the Ranger is currently worse off than us. I think we Engies might be second place, but Rangers hold the prize right now.

A major balance patch for the Engies and they don’t really touch the broken turrets just tells me that they don’t even know the current state of this class or how broken turrets are. End Rant

Objectively, based on the forums overall, the answer usually is given by describing the bottom tier in the game: Ranger, Engineer, and Necromancer. My condition damage Necro is pretty happy with the last patch, but, because of the general problem with condition damage (stacks on mob rather than damage by player), he really hasn’t moved out of the bottom tier.

Guardians are pretty happy with their state.

Ranger. Far and away worst off. Complete dependence on their pets and they were recently nerfed hard. Not to mention the shoddy pet AI and inability to hit moving targets and necessary micromanagement.

ESKan.6782:

The consensus on the Elementalist forums is that Arenanet deliberately wants them to be outclassed by everything.

The consensus on the insert name of ANY class here forums is that Arenanet deliberately wants them to be outclassed by everything.

• Warrior: OMG Arenanet hates us, we can’t PvP.
• Guardian: OMG Arenanet hates us, scepter is too slow.
• Ranger: OMG Arenanet hates us, they buffed our bows and gave us 150 bonus precision for self and the whole group that brings us and now I iz confuzeled.
• Thief: OMG Arenanet hates us, we can’t perma-stealth if we attack.
• Engineer: OMG Arenanet hates us, we can’t… um… (what? They can do everything).
• Elementalist: OMG Arenanet hates us, we can’t weapon swap in combat.
• Necromancer: OMG Arenanet hates us, we can’t sustain in PvP.
• Mesmer: OMG Arenanet hates us, we can’t use torment at will and shatter takes a millisecond longer now.

Kichwas.7152:

• Guardian: OMG Arenanet hates us, scepter is too slow.

Nah, since they fixed that we’re generally okay.

Kichwas.7152:

• Guardian: OMG Arenanet hates us, we need more deeps when going full berserker

Kichwas.7152:

ESKan.6782:

The consensus on the Elementalist forums is that Arenanet deliberately wants them to be outclassed by everything.

• Ranger: OMG Arenanet hates us, they buffed our bows and gave us 150 bonus precision for self and the whole group that brings us and now I iz confuzeled.

150 precision actually doesnt fit in with most ranger builds, so this trait is neither here nor there unless running full zerker, which is unlikely as a ranger.

Buffed bows? Are you kidding? The shortbow had a range nerf from 1200 to 900, and they thought they could make up for it by giving a damage increase of 15% to the shortbow skills that nobody uses ever.

As for the longbow – they added a bit of reduced aftercast time. There is next to no noticeable difference in longbow gameplay. It’s still as pathetic as ever.

Yes buffed bows. 15% damage boost – anyone who was not fool enough to sit there and spam autoattack now does a LOT more damage. The range change is a buff IMO – get closer in to the action where you can be of more use in positioning and where Spotter can be within range of your teammates so they get its bonus as well.

The class got a HUGE laundry lists of buffs… but the Hunters got nerfed, so they whine… While the rest of enjoy our now more potent rangers.

Kichwas.7152:

The class got a HUGE laundry lists of buffs… but the Hunters got nerfed, so they whine… While the rest of enjoy our now more potent rangers.

Confirmed for troll. Either that or clearly never played ranger.

I don’t think this is an “opinion” thing. There are right answers and wrong answers on this one.

The right answer is “rangers”. The wrong answer is anything else.

There is really no contest. Previously you could argue Necros and Warriors, but even them at least had a better place in PvE (particularly Warriors). As off the last patch even Warriors are much better off, while Rangers are the worst they’ve ever been and are amongst the lowest tiers in everything. PvP, PvE, WvW, Dungeons….

Peetee.9406:

Elementalist

I have 2 lvl 80 characters in full ascended, an ele and a ranger. With the exception of zerging in WvW, the ranger is better at everything.

Anyone who complains about ranger DPS has never played an ele. Yes, ranger dps is incredibly low in comparison to the 3 melee classes but the ele auto attack doesn’t even hit for 300. The most damaging spell an ele has ‘Fire Grab’ barely clears 1k damage unless you spec full glass at which point everything 1 shots you.

Maybe if you played better you could spec for more damage instead of playing the quintessential auto attack spamming class that is rangers. When I think of rangers I will always remember the bear pet auto attack bots from launch. I have never been impressed by a player ranger except during the clearly broken period that ended 6/25/13, and that was mostly from the npc ai following them around.

Ele players are the loudest whiners on the forums but since it gets us some attention I don’t often call them out on it. Most just play the same old boring bunker set and then complain that theres no damage or they die too easy when they’re throwing their dodges away for a blast finisher.

Peetee.9406:

Elementalist

I have 2 lvl 80 characters in full ascended, an ele and a ranger. With the exception of zerging in WvW, the ranger is better at everything.

Anyone who complains about ranger DPS has never played an ele. Yes, ranger dps is incredibly low in comparison to the 3 melee classes but the ele auto attack doesn’t even hit for 300. The most damaging spell an ele has ‘Fire Grab’ barely clears 1k damage unless you spec full glass at which point everything 1 shots you.

…How?

I have a lvl 80 Elementalist. It dwarves Ranger DPS. What gear are you using? Cause if you’re not just outright lying there has to be something wrong with your account, cause my elementalist seems to outdamage yours since she was lvl 50, and she’s not even using berserker gear. In full berserker gear (which is what you should wear for PvE, no reason not to), elementalists absolutely destroy ranger DPS. Especially in a party, where they don’t need to tank and can just go full staff AoE DPS… They also bring a LOT more utility to the table.

So yeah, no idea what game you’re playing.

Khenzy.9348:

Guardians are pretty happy with their state.

That’s a fact. But, counter intuitively, success is viewed as a problem in this game. I wouldn’t blow the trumpet too loudly if you desire to continue celebrating the success of this profession.

Bryzy.2719:

Kichwas.7152:

The class got a HUGE laundry lists of buffs… but the Hunters got nerfed, so they whine… While the rest of enjoy our now more potent rangers.

Confirmed for troll. Either that or clearly never played ranger.

He also said that a reduction in the range of a weapon was a “buff”. Maybe a troll, but could be a new gamer. And, nothing wrong with being new to gaming if that’s the case.

Either ranger or engineer. Necro used to be on this list, but they got a nice buff last patch. I’m assuming they will get nerfed again this coming patch, and once again be awful, though.

Ranger of course

Solo.9027:

Peetee.9406:

Elementalist

I have 2 lvl 80 characters in full ascended, an ele and a ranger. With the exception of zerging in WvW, the ranger is better at everything.

Anyone who complains about ranger DPS has never played an ele. Yes, ranger dps is incredibly low in comparison to the 3 melee classes but the ele auto attack doesn’t even hit for 300. The most damaging spell an ele has ‘Fire Grab’ barely clears 1k damage unless you spec full glass at which point everything 1 shots you.

Maybe if you played better you could spec for more damage instead of playing the quintessential auto attack spamming class that is rangers. When I think of rangers I will always remember the bear pet auto attack bots from launch. I have never been impressed by a player ranger except during the clearly broken period that ended 6/25/13, and that was mostly from the npc ai following them around.

Ele players are the loudest whiners on the forums but since it gets us some attention I don’t often call them out on it. Most just play the same old boring bunker set and then complain that theres no damage or they die too easy when they’re throwing their dodges away for a blast finisher.

Pay no attention to the guy that says his Ranger does more dps than his Elementalist. My DPS on my Elementalist outshines my Ranger’s DPS any day of the week. Even when I switch to scepter/focus, which I’m not specced for at all, I STILL do more damage than my full glass cannon Ranger. And if you’re barely hitting for 1k damage… you seriously need to find a better build. I hit for 5k regularly on my Elementalist. And there’s no possible way your Ranger does everything better than an Elementalist. My Elementalist survives far more encounters with enemies, he can do a ton more damage to way more enemies in a shorter amount of time, and he can just glance at an enemy and it falls down. I do agree that players that play an Elementalist are the loudest whiners on the forums, but their complaints are baseless and I can’t see where they’d possibly see that Elementalists need improvement. This is the situation, and the only situation, where I say “Learn to play”.

rangers, rangers, rangers. They’re unwanted in dungeons due to the pet that they can’t stow, their damage output is the lowest and they’re the hardest profession to force to do decent damage.

Raine.1394:

Objectively, based on the forums overall, the answer usually is given by describing the bottom tier in the game: Ranger, Engineer, and Necromancer. My condition damage Necro is pretty happy with the last patch, but, because of the general problem with condition damage (stacks on mob rather than damage by player), he really hasn’t moved out of the bottom tier.

I actually cheer for Necros in Spvp when they down me, because I know that because they’re stronger my necro is stronger too. That new black tick thing so effective against moving PVE bosses and players like me in Spvp that are running away and don’t see that the tick was put on them. So yeah, yay for necros being stronger

Raine.1394:

Khenzy.9348:

Guardians are pretty happy with their state.

That’s a fact. But, counter intuitively, success is viewed as a problem in this game. I wouldn’t blow the trumpet too loudly if you desire to continue celebrating the success of this profession.

For some is, IMO its not, only good(or excellent) guardian build is based on high precision and crit with meditations, that is a build of kill fast or be killed, while any other role people try to invent for the class can be killed without any effort.

Guardians were my first target on WvW dispite the class im playing.

Fake bulkiness becouse that not exist in this mechanics.

I have 8 level 80s (yeah I know everyone has)
depending on what I play I take another class….

Right now I use Ranger for… well… storing things I guess…
and thats a shame because he was my main and is the best equipped of all my chars.
After last patch my vote goes to Ranger
Ranged combat sucks on Rangers (isn´t that a shame)
Pets are more then useless (even our “special” F2 ability takes 2 to 6 secs to proc sometimes (if it works at all)

(love the Necro after last patch though… well done on that class Anet)

I cannot speak to PvP and WvW, but for PvE I would say that Thieves have it worst.

I also only have Thief, Ele, Mesmer, Ranger and Warrior at 80. However, I have no desire to play my ele or thief, because the mesmer, ranger and warrior outclass them in PvE.

Engis !! woot woot cuz of this

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Out of the classes I play, the Engineer is always the one that keeps getting hit the hardest. Sure, we get some buffs to skills that no one uses because frankly no one cares, but time and time again we end up getting hit with a nerf that strikes us at the heart of where we were powerful before. It happened twice in this most recent patch:

Elixir R, our best stun breaker, was nerfed into oblivion. It is now useless as anything but a delayed toolbelt rez.
Static Shield lost the ability to counterattack while defending and reduced its stun, making the shield nothing more than an ineffective stall tactic and yet another temporary block, which the engineer already has a few of.

And before that, we had Elixir S nerfed so we lost access to all of our utilities in that period of time. Before that, we lost in-game effectiveness from the proliferation of boon hate. Before that, we had our condition damage nerfed with a new change to incendiary powder that made it less effective. Before that, we had Kit Refinement nerfed into the ground, killing our most effective build at that time. Before that, our grenade direct damage was nerfed after the introduction of sigils on to our kits (finally). Note: these events may not necessarily be in order.

Playing as an engineer has been a continual up-hill battle. It is almost guaranteed that the strategies that you used are going to end up nerfed into the ground with every new patch, and along with that some skills are going to receive nigh meaningless buffs. The balancing strategy Arenanet has employed for engineers has basically been “Nerf the top tier engineer builds, buff useless stuff no one uses, let people figure out some new strategy for engineers that works, then nerf that, too”. Couple that with debilitating bugs that crop up in every patch, and we engineers end up dreading patch day each month. All because their design philosophy in the game is that Engineers shouldn’t do damage, even though damage is king in the game.

I can’t speak for Elemementalists and Rangers because I don’t play them. But I can speak for Engineers, and the fact that we have to stack 25 might in order to play at the effectiveness that other classes play at is a clear indicator of how messed up we are.

as well as we are the only class thats has visual nerf block " ohhh you got a cool looking bp skin? here have a hobo sack to cover it". and anet likes to nerf us even when they are swinging their nerf bats in our direction

Ranger is by far, considered the perfomance in the 3 main modes (PvE Spvp WvW), the worst prof out of there.

Onorable mentions needs to be done tho.
-warriors, while being totally viable in WvW and GodTier in PvE, are garbage in Spvp/Tpvp/roaming.

-mesmers are still good in all the 3 modes, but so far (since release…heck, since BWE1) they’re getting nerfed across all mode over and over, due to pvp qq’s. Last patch has been a real hit. Also, more than nerfs is the nearly complete lack of any meaningful “compensative buff” that hurts. If the trend keep going on, i have some gloomy feeling for mesmer in few months.

-eles is a bit a strange topic. manly, the approach to their balancing is mental – since they started their nerfs the target has always been the D/D tank build. Which is the only build still viable? D/D tank build. Pick one of the 2: either they have no idea what are they doing and keeps touching wrong things, or they haven’t provided any meaningful alternative so far. Manly, balancing with a certain build in mind is wrong. They take away stuff thinking “they can heal/cleanse a lot so it’s ok” forgetting that a ele heal/cleanse a lot cause dumps 60 trait points and most of his dmg for it. Yet, regardless of the (in some topics valid) crying, ele is valid in PvE (as long as you’re not speedrunning – there are builds for it but i’m not expert about it so i’ll pass), decent in PvP and extremely wanted in WvW, so…

-thieves still trade the ability to gank single/bad players for any meaningful utility in group fights. aka: in wvw big clashes they’re useless to say the least.

-engi (even more than ele prolly) are still the class that you have to work the most, and get still underwhelming results. buffed necros took their place as top condition pressure in pvp… which is the best mode for engi perfomance. In PvE they suffer of same issues of ele – “jack of all trades master of none” that means “outclassed by other profs in single tasks” – and they’re not popular in wvw.

In SPvP: Warriors.
In PvE: Rangers.
In WvW: Rangers/Warriors.
In Open World: It’s faceroll for all.