Guild Wars 2

Solo.9027:

Ele players are the loudest whiners on the forums. Most just play the same old boring bunker set and then complain that there’s no damage or they die too easy when they’re throwing their dodges away for a blast finisher.

^SO MUCH TRUTH

• Rangers get kicked out of Dungeon and medium-high level Fractal parties, just by being Rangers (and not just speed-runners parties). And with a reason…
  * Rangers have no support build that is even close to what other classes can offer, except perhaps for the rezzes.
  * Rangers are outdamaged (in single shot, burst, AoE and over-time condition) by all other classes unless the pet is involved, but then.
  * Pets cannot dodge AoE, and most of them are to squishy for melee, so unless somebody else is tanking a boss, they are fried. OR
  * Pets just don’t know how to hit moving targets. A target moving from their original position will cause the pet to stop for more than a sec. PLUS
  * Pets got severely nerfed in damage. Only 2 pets were really OP (Scale Fish and Jelly Fish), the others… (they nerfed the MOAS).
  * Rangers in a zerg in WvW? I hope you really know how to play it.
  * Even balance devs acknoledge that Rangers need some attention.

All in all, outside sPvP (the root of all nerfing), I think the Rangers are the most downtrodden profession. It is the only class where you need skill to overcome all the limitations. Instead of “this combination will give me an edge”, Ranger say “this will compensate my lack of…”.

ESKan.6782:

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

Wait, what?! Hahaha!

Kichwas.7152:

• 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.

Wow… worst post in this thread so far. With the exception of Warrior, I don’t think any of those apply or even begin to constitute an understanding of their issues. There’s a fine art to Hyperbole. What you did was just throw the paint can at it.

AlietteFaye.7316:

In Open World: It’s faceroll for all.

YES, this is definitely something that needs to be separated as a Category from regular PvE b/c the only place it becomes a trial of any kind is in Orr. It should just be called solo-PvE or “Exploring” because it didn’t exist in Gw1 towards mid-game & late game unless ya had one of the broken classes that could just permanently ignore all Mob Spells while taking on groups intended for 6-8 players to be fighting at once. PvE has always been a Team activity, and when one class in particular is getting kicked out of the activities that require a Team… it’s pretty clear that it’s not Ele’s. Ele’s were never kicked out of PvE teams in GW1 either, they were just told to run Ether Renewel instead and be a Bond Monk :p

Rangers, deservedly so. I’d have more sympathy for Rangers, if they would just stop spamming their push skill. I don’t know why it is always Rangers as other professions have it too. But Rangers love to spam it at the worst possible time. At least twice in WvW, I had an opponent stunned/immobilized and ready to go down only to have a Ranger from my server push him away, which allowed him to escape. It’s even worse in PvE. Argh!

ESKan.6782:

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

Don’t have to ask us, it came straight from the mouth of a dev. Eles have been trampled on consistently even after falling out of the meta. The number of nerfs just adds insult to injury.

DaShi.1368:

Rangers, deservedly so. I’d have more sympathy for Rangers, if they would just stop spamming their push skill. I don’t know why it is always Rangers as other professions have it too. But Rangers love to spam it at the worst possible time. At least twice in WvW, I had an opponent stunned/immobilized and ready to go down only to have a Ranger from my server push him away, which allowed him to escape. It’s even worse in PvE. Argh!

In every game there seems to be a special mechanic that gives ranger and ranger type classes a bad rep. In this game its longbow #4. I put it down to the not-having-to-group-when-roaming habit people are in. They get in the habit of using it and then don’t think twice when in a GW2-style group situation.

Ranger because ANet couldn’t design good AI if their life depended on it.

Soronthar.7236:

• Rangers in a zerg in WvW? I hope you really know how to play it.

This is where the two most useless large scale WvW classes can come together and be useful: Ranger water field, Thief blast finisher.

While the Ranger waits for his healing skill cool down, he can be used as a bit of a damage sponge to help protect the more useful members of the zerg, such as underleveled and undergeared Guardians and Mesmers. Unfortunately when not blast finishing, the Thief can’t really protect any of those more valuable members of the zerg by body blocking.

Rangers by far in general except for open world. I’ll concede Warrior as worst for sPvP, but no one gives a kitten about sPvP anyway. Rangers need to have ~90% of the damage in their relationship with the pet, instead of this 60-40 nonsense we have now. Our damage scaling for every weapon we have is hilariously behind every other class in the game.

Clearly guardian. Callin’ it.

Rangers without a shadow of a doubt.

Rangers, I say this and I don’t even play one…. There are so many players who do play rangers and it makes it very very noticeable that the profession is a little neglected.
After that I would say Ele’s. Even spec’d into Earth and Water we die ridiculously easily. It’s pretty much ‘play D/D or go home’, and I don’t want to use daggers, daggers on a casting profession is ridiculous and shouldn’t be considered the most viable option.
Inb4 someone calls me out for being a whining Ele. Consider that with so many of us whining there might actually be a reason for it…

FlamingFoxx.1305:

Rangers, I say this and I don’t even play one…. There are so many players who do play rangers and it makes it very very noticeable that the profession is a little neglected.
After that I would say Ele’s. Even spec’d into Earth and Water we die ridiculously easily. It’s pretty much ‘play D/D or go home’, and I don’t want to use daggers, daggers on a casting profession is ridiculous and shouldn’t be considered the most viable option.
Inb4 someone calls me out for being a whining Ele. Consider that with so many of us whining there might actually be a reason for it…

I’m only slightly disagreeing with you on this one. D/D is not the ONLY viable build. It’s either staff, or D/D. I find it ridiculous as well that D/D is the most viable option for a casting class, but Ele’s have nearly no reason to complain. I play a staff Elementalist and consistently out-damage D/D Elementalists. All I have to do is stand way, way back and spam my AoE’s and watch the world burn before my might. Seriously though, I was critting for nearly 8k damage in CoF the other day. I really don’t see a reason for Elementalists to complain at all when I can dish out that kind of damage. On my Ranger? 1-2k crits. I can deal more damage by picking up stray branches and whacking away at monsters than by actually using my skills to damage them. Isn’t that a little weird to you? And what about Engineers? Their DPS is nearly similar to that of the Ranger’s, if not a little, very tiny, bit better.

aspirine.6852:

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

This thread really should have ended with that post.

Although the only community that is really content is guardian.

Galtrix.7369:

-snip-

Oh I agree with you there, I don’t have any problems with the damage dealt by Ele’s. I play a staff ele also and it is very easy to do more damage than a D/D ele, even when spec’d into Earth and Water. The issue comes from how quickly other races can down us (I’m looking at you mesmers and thieves, the scourge of my existence)

Every class I play needs a buff! Except when they are played by someone else. Then they all are overpowered and need a nerf.

Solo.9027:

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.

actually not….

You can find thieves complaining in EVERY SINGLE profession forum saying other professions are OP.

WHen they get nerfed they managed to have the nerf reverted prior to the release and changed with a minor one that was again reverted following patch.

They even complain to not be good in www just to say what whining does mean……(almost evey non thief players complain of the profession being god mode in www).

Ele on the other side is the most nerfed profession, and the one with more downsides

p.S. I Play mesmer since months…..because i was really tired of that.

LordByron.8369:

Solo.9027:

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.

actually not….

You can find thieves complaining in EVERY SINGLE profession forum saying other professions are OP.

WHen they get nerfed they managed to have the nerf reverted prior to the release and changed with a minor one that was again reverted following patch.

They even complain to not be good in www just to say what whining does mean……(almost evey non thief players complain of the profession being god mode in www).

Ele on the other side is the most nerfed profession, and the one with more downsides

p.S. I Play mesmer since months…..because i was really tired of that.

Thieves are only “god-mode” in 1v1 and small scale battles. They’re pretty awful in a Zerg, and attacking towers and keeps, especially now that they have no 1200 range attacks.

I’ll say Thieves are the most downtrodden just to put in this thread. They pretty much have no role in dungeons, or in big WvW battles.

LordByron.8369:

Solo.9027:

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.

actually not….

You can find thieves complaining in EVERY SINGLE profession forum saying other professions are OP.

WHen they get nerfed they managed to have the nerf reverted prior to the release and changed with a minor one that was again reverted following patch.

They even complain to not be good in www just to say what whining does mean……(almost evey non thief players complain of the profession being god mode in www).

Ele on the other side is the most nerfed profession, and the one with more downsides

p.S. I Play mesmer since months…..because i was really tired of that.

Two problems with that:

1.) We are too busy defending our class to kitten about other classes.
2.) Whatever information you pulled those assumptions from is false because:
– The people who complain about stealth (or the lack of survivability in thief) end up being scrubs .
-or-
– They are anti-thieves who never even touched a thief have no clue what they are talking about 95% of the time.

Coldin.2840:

Thieves are only “god-mode” in 1v1 and small scale battles. They’re pretty awful in a Zerg, and attacking towers and keeps, especially now that they have no 1200 range attacks.

I’ll say Thieves are the most downtrodden just to put in this thread. They pretty much have no role in dungeons, or in big WvW battles.

the last sentence just proves that thief has a HUGE l2p issue.

Despite is one of the STRONGEST and VERSATILE dungeon professions, 90% of his players still ignores it….

I can t understand why most thieves are so bad at PvE….(and this time is really a l2p issue) but when you play things like fotm 48 (and you meet those few really good thieves players) you see how the profession has really EVERYTHING.

Antiprojectile
Healing combo (can outheal maw agony)
Best resser in game
Long duration Stealth is more useful even than portal
One of the best AoE in the game
Perma blindness
Can bypass defiant with CC

Maybe that is due to the profession beiing too effective with low effort in www, thus not promoting a deeper exploration of the class.

P.S. to OP saying “who says stealth is OP is a scrub” is not much meaningful :/ and you can see 90% of threads about profession X is OP is started by a thief player….
Professions forums are not that far to not being able to check….

Rangers, by a long shot. Pun intended.

LordByron.8369:

Coldin.2840:

Thieves are only “god-mode” in 1v1 and small scale battles. They’re pretty awful in a Zerg, and attacking towers and keeps, especially now that they have no 1200 range attacks.

I’ll say Thieves are the most downtrodden just to put in this thread. They pretty much have no role in dungeons, or in big WvW battles.

the last sentence just proves that thief has a HUGE l2p issue.

Despite is one of the STRONGEST and VERSATILE dungeon professions, 90% of his players still ignores it….

I can t understand why most thieves are so bad at PvE….(and this time is really a l2p issue) but when you play things like fotm 48 you see how the profession has really EVERYTHING.

Antiprojectile
Healing combo (can outheal maw agony)
Best resser in game
Long duration Stealth is more useful even than portal
One of the best AoE in the game
Perma blindness
Can bypass defiant with CC

Maybe that is due to the profession beiing too effective with low skill in www, thus not promoting a deeper exploration of the class.

P.S. to OP saying “who says stealth is OP is a scrub” is not much meaningful :/ and you can see 90% of threads about profession X is OP is started by a thief player….
Forum professions are not that far to not being able to check….

There is a difference between playing a thief and maining a thief. A grand majority of the time, its a thief player vs. a thief mainer and unfortunately the thief player loses out.

Believe me, I do check when people start claiming thieves going into other forums. So far the only one I have seen was in Mesmers and that one was made right after I suggested this.

I see more “nerf stealth” threads made in suggestions and our forums than anywhere else. Most of them tend to be created by newbies or people who’ve never touched a thief in their lives. It’s easy to point them out because they have absolutely no clue of how stealth works.

But I will agree with you that this class has a low skill floor with stealth. What everyone forgets is that it also has a high skill ceiling when it comes to utility and timing. Our skills are utility-heavy and can be used as a tool rather than an attack. That’s one of the qualities that separates scrubby thieves from good ones.

Stealth also separates a good player from a bad one in both application and countering. That is what kitten es everyone off but that doesn’t justify the constant QQ, especially when the thief community will spill their guts to you.

Zacchary.6183:

But I will agree with you that this class has a low skill floor with stealth.

Aside professional QQers and nerfscalling on some things w/o sense, that’s the main concern of most ppl imo.

Thieves are meant to be the 1vs1 king. They are designed to be. Moaning cause they’re strong in that scenario is silly to say the least.

The issue is that as stealth works atm in this game, Thief have a incredibly high effectiveness for a incredibly low effort.
And Stealth is the key point.
It makes their attacks harder, if not impossible, to predict and counter (w/o even mentioning thing like that if your BS miss/get blocked you don’t get kicked out of stealth neither revealed and can keep hitting as long as you’re stealthed till it lands), it makes them able to get in, blow some CD’s to attack, and if target is decent to react/survive just pop stealth and disengage before retry, over and over until target makes the minimum mistake – and due to the high dmg thief can pump out, a single mistake can be enough to down you – while the attacking thief has a very large room for errors, due to this “safety net” that allows a safe/fast/uncounterable disengage thanks to stealth and unmatched mobility.

Mobility, High Burst Dmg and Stealth are the key points of Thieves, and it’s right to be so. But you shouldn’t be able to have all 3 of them at same time, it’s way too much. Thieves/stealth should be changed to make them have to drop 1 of them – if you want to have stealth and dmg you shouldn’t be able to outrun everybody, if you’re extremely mobile and stealthy to harass you should have little dmg, if you have mobility and dmg you should have to drop stealth cause mobility is enough to survive.
And give them more group play option as tradeoff.
Bam, balanced.

(^imo.)

^^^
No
I this game is about the lack of the trinity and stuff
Is about versatility etc….

I know the usual mantra about devs wanting thief to be the BEST at 1vs1, the BEST at DPS, the BEST at mobility and having stealth.

Its not wht they meant….officially because would be a declaration of bad design.

Having all professions at eighty and some substantial time behind all of them, I’d have to say that at the moment, Ranger is probably in the worst place. Not necessarily because of balance, but because of how active the play-style is.

What do I mean by that?

Well let’s define active.
To me, an active class is one that requires a lot of actions per minute and constant awareness of the environment and enemy to get the most out of it.

As an example, I’ll describe how I play my warrior:
I use Hammer & Longbow. My build is centered around generating Adrenaline very quickly and bursting every 5-6 seconds. I use shouts and Healing Surge to help keep adrenaline high. I’ll optimally start with Hammer, then swap to Longbow to get Adrenaline on swap as well as stacks of might from Sigil of Battle.
I’ll lay down a fire field with Combustive Shot, then immediately fire Arcing Shot into the fire field for an Area Might combo.
I’ll then swap back to Hammer, maybe using a shout or two to help refill Adrenaline if it isn’t maxed already, then immediately Earthshaker into Combustive Shot’s fire field for even more Area Might, a three second AoE stun and increased damage from the +50% crit chance Unsuspecting Foe gives thanks to Earthshaker. The pulses from Combustive Shot also benefit from this enhanced crit chance while the enemy is stunned.

That’s active gameplay. It’s fun and engaging. I’m constantly thinking about how to get all of the skills off when I need to, paying attention to blinds, ensuring I’ve got enough endurance to get out of trouble if needs be and removing troubling conditions as well as watching the enemy movement like a hawk to ensure I don’t fluff anything.

Almost all of the other professions can require the same degree of engagement from the player, and benefit from it. Mesmer, Thief, Elementalist, Guardian, Engineer and Necro all have rewarding gameplay if you want to play them actively and look for combos.

Yet Ranger increasingly feels like the auto-attack class.
Pet attacks aren’t immediate when activated, so feel sluggish and unresponsive. Main hand sword is horribly “Sticky”, making it incredibly hard to break out of combat, further reducing engagement. There’s some neat evade skills on sword, dagger and shortbow, but again they can feel a bit unresponsive.
And more often than not, Ranger feels like it’s contributing the most when it’s at range, where it really does come down to cycling through skills and auto-attacking most of the time while waiting for cooldowns.
Shortbow outclasses longbow thanks to the faster attack speed and generally feeling snappier, yet again encourages simply auto-attacking, as it’s akittens best when using flanking auto-attacks.
The end result is a profession that feels much more static and less engaging to play than most others.

Sure, it has interesting combo fields, but more so than any other profession, it feels like you’re just pumping them out and waiting for the cooldowns. You’re not being reactive, you’re just following a rotation.

Ranger needs a LOT of work.

Astralporing.1957:

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.

what? before patch an auramancer could pump out a ton of might and fury (arguably -because of banners- better offensive support than warrior)… after patch they can pump out even more for less trait points (dragon tooth+phoenix+EA dodge earth+earthquake+churning earth+arcane wave in a fire field is ridiculous) and lightning hammer works pretty well for overworld pve (the only place where ranger>ele… but overworld pve is easy on any class)… then we get into wvw… and ranger has pretty much no role at all

- how is ele worse off than ranger?

Linguistically Inept.6583:

Astralporing.1957:

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.

what? before patch an auramancer could pump out a ton of might and fury (arguably -because of banners- better offensive support than warrior)… after patch they can pump out even more for less trait points (dragon tooth+phoenix+EA dodge earth+earthquake+churning earth+arcane wave in a fire field is ridiculous) and lightning hammer works pretty well for overworld pve (the only place where ranger>ele… but overworld pve is easy on any class)… then we get into wvw… and ranger has pretty much no role at all

- how is ele worse off than ranger?

because …most professions max out might by themselves…

Mesmer warriors guardians and stuff do that with minimal effort and investment….ele has to waste CD on long situational combo that works only on paper mostly.
The time you maxed might the fight is already finished <.< if u have a dps profession instead of an ele.

Ele with 25 mights still is low dps

Conjured is a gimmick build for nothing more than CoE farm.

Yet ele at fotm or challenging content have some minor advantages making it SLIGHTLY better overall than ranger if the party is not optimal (see can carry players in FEW situations)…
Mostly because ranger pet is useful as Leroy Jenkins most of times….and has the opposite effect (can ruin tactics).

Zamiel.2130:

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.

agree with this, we used to be able to choose our playstyle. after the mega nerf of confusion, then retal, then all the changes, it makes it very hard to play the way u want. i like cc and conditions, but also interrupts, but anet fails with their changes. torment in wvw is a joke, most of our abilities are now 1v1 based and a lot of us play wvw. I am not a dps kinda player, that’s why i liked glamour /confusion so much as i dealt no dmg apart from confusion, but anet nerfed it into the ground of the grounds.

balancing wvw and spvp the same way is a huge mistake, not only for mesmers, but most of the other classes too. that’s where anet failed the most!

@ selan: while I don’t agree that mesmer is in a bad place at the moment (my 2 mesmers are still as effective as they’ve ever been), I heartily agree about the Confusion and Retaliation nerfs. These mechanisms were in place to punish the unobservant, mindless auto-attacker, and even in their original forms were a lot less punishing than the equivalent mechanics in the first game.
Anyone who died from Retaliation or Confusion deserved it as far as I’m concerned.

Nerfing these effects was just ArenaNet bowing to pressure.

Confusion was extremely OP in www.

Its not only triggered by players using skills…..NOT even triggered by players using triggered skills.

As you still see in PvE where some bosses gives you 25 stacks of confusion, its triggered too easily.

Example: i shatter,then i get confusion, the time clone get into shatter range i get damage.

Also was too easily spread to zergs…..giving unfair advantage to few professions (now the king is necro….)

The nerf didn t touch the thing it was supposed to…..and was bad, but as a mesmer player i saw it coming way before anyone started complaining on the forum.

It wasn’t overpowered, ArenaNet just didn’t give the userbase enough time to learn how it works. They bowed to community pressure and applied a knee-jerk fix.
It basically came down to people not understanding how they died and not willing to even find out how.

Mungrul.9358:

It wasn’t overpowered, ArenaNet just didn’t give the userbase enough time to learn how it works. They bowed to community pressure and applied a knee-jerk fix.
It basically came down to people not understanding how they died and not willing to even find out how.

Confusion was overpowered. It did too much damage given how easy to apply, restricting and long lasting it was.

Yes, you could deny confusion’s damage by not doing anything, which effectively made it a daze, leaving you completely helpless. Way too powerful for how easy to apply it was.

Or you could take one activation of its damage and use a condition remover to get rid of it.
Really, if you complain about how Confusion used to be, you cannot have played Guild Wars 1. Mesmers would have broken your mind in that game.

I could make it so an Elementalist would take thirty seconds to get the pre-cast off for Meteor Shower, then I’d interrupt them at the last second.

I could drop Panic on someone in the middle of a group, and whenever they activated a skill, it would interrupt all of their nearby buddies.

I could hit them with Diversion, and if they weren’t paying attention, the cooldown for their next used skill would be dramatically increased.

I could interrupt one skill and all other skills of the same type would be disabled for 12 seconds. That one in particular could stop entire builds from working and was a thing of beauty.

Confusion is peanuts by comparison and really is a case of punishing the stupid.

Mungrul.9358:

Or you could take one activation of its damage and use a condition remover to get rid of it.

Which would be ok if Confusion wasn’t as easy to reapply as it was/is. If Confusion had, say, the same availability as Dazes, then that would be reasonable. But it doesn’t. So it wasn’t. See the problem?

Mungrul.9358:

Really, if you complain about how Confusion used to be, you cannot have played Guild Wars 1.

Different game. Comparing the two is roughly as stupid as comparing Guild Wars to WoW… Or counter strike…

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.

Rangers and Engies are quite easily the worst off. Pets in particular are the worst designed pets in the history of any mmo right now. There are no traited options even for AOE resists or regen (the poor regen options for the turrets don’t count and that tiny bit of toughness didn’t do squat) not to mention turrets still have no mobile options.

There’s also the problem of targeting. In other games they knew that direct targeting would make it more difficult for most players in PVP to instantly destroy totems for example. So they made all totems require a direct click to target them, made them immune to AOE damage, and forced players to work hard to take these things out.

They need to do the same thing for pets in this game otherwise pet classes will always be at a disadvantage.

Also they haven’t done enough to boost the engineer to be on par with the other two burst DPS classes in the same classification. There are multiple trait options still to this day that prevent it from being as viable a burst DPS option that Thieves/Rangers enjoy without blinking. It’s dependence on the weakest damage type in the game, Conditions, makes it a weaker class by default.

Just FYI when I make comparisons to other games, it’s to illustrate that these problems in combat are universal themes and that solutions to those problems were already discovered and have worked for years. Combat is combat people.

Confusion was fine.

Only thing should have nurfed could have been the way to apply it – which were able to bypass the 5 target aoe limit.

But cause it would have required some brain cells to nerf it that way (the proper way), Anet just halved the dmg, essentially killing the dmg output of the class in zergs, which is plain dumb, because it was the only thing for outmanned side to break huge zergs, and to test players awareness.

Now the dmg it’s so pitiful that ppl just autoattack trough it, making the whole concept useless to say the least.

Engineer all day and twice on Sundays!

Some Engineer points of interest:

• We’ve only EVER HAD 900 range (not using kits). We didn’t have 1200 range that got nerfed to 900 but left us with a main hand weapon that could do 1200 (ala Longbow).
  An argument could be made for Grenades that has 1200 range, but your DPS will be next to 0 at that >1000 units with grenades.
  Also, we’re able to trait for 1200 range on Rifles… using up a trait that everyone else got a pass on with their built-in main hand range.
• Turrets (1/5th of our skills) are utterly useless for anything other than long range pot-shots at enemies. Add to this their ridiculous cool-down and bug that makes them ignore enemies and shoot into empty space and they are more than worthless.
• Elixirs (1/5th of our skills) are RANDOM! If, during a fight, you quaff an elixir you can expect EITHER protection OR regeneration, OR swiftness… One of our Elites is an Elixir, that if drunk, will EITHER turn you into the Hulk OR turn you into a tornado…
• Gadgets (1/5th of our skills) are so incoherent that no build can be made around them.
• Weapon Kits (we have 3) REPLACES your main hand and off hand weapons with a weapon that until recently didn’t proc weapon sigils. Toolkit (1/3) turns the Engineer (an adventurer class) into a melee class… Flamethrower turns us into a mid-range class (~400 range)… Elixir Gun takes away 70% of our damage in a game where less damage earns you silver or bronze rewards in events even though you healed/supported your kitten off.
• Our kits (or hobosack) are worn on our backs and thus hide any other back item. Our kits also replaces our main/off hand weapons which means our Legendary weapons are visible only in towns or in builds that uses NO kits.

In conclusion:
Engineer is a jack-of-all-trades;master-of-none in every sense of the word.
It feels as if ANet can’t make up their minds as to our role. EVERY other class (including Ranger) can handle their discipline better than the Engineer. They DPS better, they support better, they “tank” better, they evade better. Engineers just barely get along at the moment.

BUT
Engineer is still the most fun class to play BECAUSE of our limitations. No two Engineers will use the same cookie-cutter build.

Galtrix.7369:

I’m only slightly disagreeing with you on this one. D/D is not the ONLY viable build. It’s either staff, or D/D. I find it ridiculous as well that D/D is the most viable option for a casting class, but Ele’s have nearly no reason to complain.

Or scepter/ dagger. I play dagger/dagger, my friend plays scepter/dagger and he sort of wins against me. This is more of a preference thing, but S/D is most definitely a viable option.

repeat with me:
PvP is a minor aspect of the game…and is the least played.

Also for your joy here it comes the scepter nerf…

LordByron.8369:

Also for your joy here it comes the scepter nerf…

Notes:

Fresh Air: This trait now has its proper 5-second recharge instead of a 3-second recharge.
Shatterstone: This ability will no longer cancel when autoattack is engaged.

Fresh Air has always been said having a 5 sec CD. Bugfix.
Shatterstone: bugfix for a skill not firing.

Don’t complain when there’s nothing to QQ about, it just makes legit complains ingnored.

AndrewSX.3794:

Don’t complain when there’s nothing to QQ about, it just makes legit complains ingnored.
Shatterstone: bugfix for a skill not firing.

complain of what?
i m not using ele…..
9 months of nerfs were enough for me to switch a less hated profession…..

I just believe they just have strong preferences when it comes to professoins/gam emodes and those just impact their decisions too much than they should….

As infact this topic is discussing.

When i used to play ele i lived in costant fear of nerfs EVERY single patch EVEN when it was considered a free kill and was never disappointed….

So i m not complaining since i use 99% of my time a mesmer.

LordByron.8369:

So i m not complaining since i use 99% of my time a mesmer.

That just got hit by a Chaos Armor nerf.

Btw, enough of “i switched prof from ele because blablabla”, you’re repeating it in every single post you make about balance.

We understood.

AndrewSX.3794:

LordByron.8369:

So i m not complaining since i use 99% of my time a mesmer.

That just got hit by a Chaos Armor nerf.

Btw, enough of “i switched prof from ele because blablabla”, you’re repeating it in every single post you make about balance.

We understood.

Also you Always accuse people of whining

If you say Always the same thing expect to receive Always the same answer

i still don t see the same treatment for mesmer as for ele….luckily.
Also i don t like staff ….so i leave complaints to Others.

Btw what i say don t prove wrong the fact that they still ignore PvE balance.

jgrzar.3468:

Engineer all day and twice on Sundays!

Some Engineer points of interest:

• We’ve only EVER HAD 900 range (not using kits). We didn’t have 1200 range that got nerfed to 900 but left us with a main hand weapon that could do 1200 (ala Longbow).
  An argument could be made for Grenades that has 1200 range, but your DPS will be next to 0 at that >1000 units with grenades.
  Also, we’re able to trait for 1200 range on Rifles… using up a trait that everyone else got a pass on with their built-in main hand range.
• Turrets (1/5th of our skills) are utterly useless for anything other than long range pot-shots at enemies. Add to this their ridiculous cool-down and bug that makes them ignore enemies and shoot into empty space and they are more than worthless.
• Elixirs (1/5th of our skills) are RANDOM! If, during a fight, you quaff an elixir you can expect EITHER protection OR regeneration, OR swiftness… One of our Elites is an Elixir, that if drunk, will EITHER turn you into the Hulk OR turn you into a tornado…
• Gadgets (1/5th of our skills) are so incoherent that no build can be made around them.
• Weapon Kits (we have 3) REPLACES your main hand and off hand weapons with a weapon that until recently didn’t proc weapon sigils. Toolkit (1/3) turns the Engineer (an adventurer class) into a melee class… Flamethrower turns us into a mid-range class (~400 range)… Elixir Gun takes away 70% of our damage in a game where less damage earns you silver or bronze rewards in events even though you healed/supported your kitten off.
• Our kits (or hobosack) are worn on our backs and thus hide any other back item. Our kits also replaces our main/off hand weapons which means our Legendary weapons are visible only in towns or in builds that uses NO kits.

In conclusion:
Engineer is a jack-of-all-trades;master-of-none in every sense of the word.
It feels as if ANet can’t make up their minds as to our role. EVERY other class (including Ranger) can handle their discipline better than the Engineer. They DPS better, they support better, they “tank” better, they evade better. Engineers just barely get along at the moment.

BUT
Engineer is still the most fun class to play BECAUSE of our limitations. No two Engineers will use the same cookie-cutter build.

High condition-damage grenadiers destroy peeps in W3.

LordByron.8369:

Linguistically Inept.6583:

Astralporing.1957:

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.

what? before patch an auramancer could pump out a ton of might and fury (arguably -because of banners- better offensive support than warrior)… after patch they can pump out even more for less trait points (dragon tooth+phoenix+EA dodge earth+earthquake+churning earth+arcane wave in a fire field is ridiculous) and lightning hammer works pretty well for overworld pve (the only place where ranger>ele… but overworld pve is easy on any class)… then we get into wvw… and ranger has pretty much no role at all

- how is ele worse off than ranger?

because …most professions max out might by themselves…

Mesmer warriors guardians and stuff do that with minimal effort and investment….ele has to waste CD on long situational combo that works only on paper mostly.
The time you maxed might the fight is already finished <.< if u have a dps profession instead of an ele.

Ele with 25 mights still is low dps

Conjured is a gimmick build for nothing more than CoE farm.

Yet ele at fotm or challenging content have some minor advantages making it SLIGHTLY better overall than ranger if the party is not optimal (see can carry players in FEW situations)…
Mostly because ranger pet is useful as Leroy Jenkins most of times….and has the opposite effect (can ruin tactics).

eles can do good/decent damage; its just most people are scrubs running in non dps gear
no class can put out party wide might and fury like ele (sure a 4 warr 1 mes will have 25 easy; but ele is pug buffer of choice-if i join a group that has little might/fruy stacking abilities; i switch to my ele) – and anyway; i was asking how its worse than ranger… not the current meta

Linguistically Inept.6583:

eles can do good/decent damage; its just most people are scrubs running in non dps gear
no class can put out party wide might and fury like ele (sure a 4 warr 1 mes will have 25 easy; but ele is pug buffer of choice-if i join a group that has little might/fruy stacking abilities; i switch to my ele) – and anyway; i was asking how its worse than ranger… not the current meta

i dont think so:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/08-07-13-Skill-Data-Work-in-progress/first#post2374941

I’ve got 16 characters, two of each class, average level is currently 44. Current roster includes:

80 – Elementalist, Warrior, Guardian, Mesmer
60 – Engineer, Necromancer
50 – Guardian 2
44 – Ranger (was 80 at one point, but swapped races with the formerly-65-now-40 Thief)
40 – Thief (was 65 at one point, but swapped races with the formerly-80-now-44 Ranger)
30 – Warrior 2
25 – Necromancer 2
21 – Thief 2
16 – Elementalist 2
15 – Mesmer 2, Engineer 2
10 – Ranger 2

I do mainly Solo PvE and the occasional Dungeon with friends, and WvW for Legendary grinding only. I keep out of Fractals and Dungeon PUGs. I can count on the fingers of a Ninja Turtle’s hand the number of times I’ve stepped into SPvP.

All that said, I think right now Engineer and Ranger are in the most dire straits, and they’ve both been there for a long time. Necromancer has improved tremendously. Thief in PvE still frustrates me, but I’m pretty sure it’s my own lack of appropriate tactical instincts for the most evasion-heavy playstyle in the game, rather than a failing of the class itself. Elementalist (which I consider my “main”) could use some love, but is very playable. Warrior and Guardian are still very very strong. Mesmer has been knocked out of the three way tie for first, but not far.

Again, this is for mostly Solo PvE and Dungeons with friends. Your high-end fractal or SPvP experience will no doubt differ tremendously.

aspirine.6852:

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

Except Guardian.

On the Guardian forums I constantly see Guard players saying something along the lines of, “On the whole, Guardian is a very stable profession. I’d like ANet to fix X, Y and maybe tweak Z, but we’re very balanced at the moment.”

Ele. No other class even comes close to the amount and severity of the nerfs Ele has gotten since launch and even before.

D/D builds have been systematically destroyed from the beginning until now.