Guild Wars 2

Just my opinion. Who agrees?

I think Karl and Jon^2 have done a fantastic job with balance. It took a while but I really feel like you are never at much of a disadvantage due to the classes you bring.

Ranger, Guardian, Ele, Mesmer, engi are all pretty much even as powerful classes. Thief is strong now its the most mobile so it has new roles in decapping far. Necro I think is ok (I know alot of people think it sucks), it just needs rebalancing with respect to engis – but anet are giving it a new condition so thats going to make up for not having burning/confusion. Warrior is still up probably but its decent again. It can do a job unlike during the last patch.

I agree for the most part.

I don’t think it was too bad before, only problems were eles and warriors, and now only warrior are a problem (an UP problem) while everything else is okish. and okish is good because in an mmo there will always be something that are better than other in a period of time.

Balance is, and was fine. Small tweaks are good for the game and Anet is doing a great job in that regard.

PvP infrastructure still has a ways to go, but much improved over what we had in Jan.

Best balance yet by far between classes, but still tons of really bad skills/traits etc but that isn’t a huge deal.

I agree with balance being in a great situation right now, I thin it’s a good moment for devs to focus on build diversity.

PowerBottom.5796:

Best balance yet by far between classes, but still tons of really bad skills/traits etc but that isn’t a huge deal.

i think whats beeing said is: balance between decent builds is good, while the crap builds/weapon sets are still crap.

While overall good, there are a few glaring issues currently:
1) Warriors having no place in teams currently
2) Necros being the underdog of HGH engineers
3) BM rangers pets

And of course the already stated problem of no diversity.

Rangers and mesmers are still a bit above the “balance line”, rangers more than mesmers ofc. While warriors are still more than a bit below the line.

Shay.7534:

3) BM rangers pets

Powerful does not necessarily mean imbalanced. Powerful is good. We need more things that are powerful and work. People seem to forget what BM rangers are giving up for having a strong pet: They have no AoE; all single target damage. No team fight presence. Pets die from AoE = useless ranger in team fights.

Warriors don’t have enough defensive options to melee, and their ranged options are still weak. That’s all. Warriors will become viable when ArenaNet decides to make them viable by giving them defense options so they’re like every other class in the game.

Well it is hard to say :

Necro still is pretty bad
-Minions are still having problem with “state” chanching
-Still are worst mobility
-can survive focuse at all

Can’t speak for other classes, as there i can say smth wrong

zone.1073:

Powerful does not necessarily mean imbalanced. Powerful is good. We need more things that are powerful and work. People seem to forget what BM rangers are giving up for having a strong pet: They have no AoE; all single target damage. No team fight presence. Pets die from AoE = useless ranger in team fights.

Just remember…
Balance and well made aren’t one and the same.

A one use, but completely OP in it, spec that relies on a janky AI for near all its dmg is conceptually hogwash.
A person should get fired for insisting on something like that at a dev meeting.

LEAVE THE DEVS ALO…oh

-_-

carry on

I still think rangers are ridiculous.

Overall, i’ve seen much worse balance in other MMOs.

On the other hand:
-wouldn’t say “Balance is really good”.
-some balance decisions done across months which did more harm than good should be revised, at least partly.
-much more splits should be done (for example, revert all those nerfs Mesmers got in PvE due to pvp… but in PvE only. Phant CDs, Shattered Strenght, etc.).
-some builds/traits/skills still need a look.
-still to many bugs.
-still too many useless traits.

(imo)

cuasilk.6927:

I agree with balance being in a great situation right now, I thin it’s a good moment for devs to focus on build diversity.

Good point. Maybe buff useless utilities now would be cool

I think balance is in a really good spot at the moment.

Ranger and Mesmer would be better if tweaked (not nerfed necessarily) and Warrior could still use a little buff. Once they add another condition on Necro it will probably be pretty close to on par with HGH with better utility, so we shall see. All the other classes seem to be reasonably close.

balance is nonexistent. So far what I have read is testimonials that each class has one or 2 OP builds except warrior thus things are balanced. Just because engineer has HGH doesn’t mean the class is balanced. Just because thief has DP does not mean the class is balanced. Just because ranger has BM bunker does not mean it is balanced. In the vast number of builds only a few get to shine.

One OP build per class does not equal balance. Give it another 5 months and maybe we might have something remotely close.

The last patch was certainly great for balance, but there’s still a few tweaks to do:

1. Warriors aren’t still up there;
2. Mesmers need to be tweaked (both buffed and nerfed). Their utility options are currently too tight, which gives them massive weakness to conditions; but their dueling power is way too strong by itself (and will only become stornger the day they can bring cond. removal). Besides, the devs have tweak quickness to tone down the pace of combat, so the shatters are begging for a similar tweak.
3. Guardian’s bunkers are too strong in pug teams. It requires zerging or very good coordenation to kill guardian’s bunkers, which mostly means that the team with one has a higher chance to win than the other.
4. The fixes to RTL and Cleansing Water, for the elementalist, are spot on, but I feel RTL’s new functionality is a big clunky (needs some polish).

Necro are still in a very sad position:
1. No reliable access to a defensive mechanic excluding DS
2. Awful traits and trait distribution
3. Minions are brain-dead
4. Axe is still unviable
5. Vampiric traitline is still not worth spending traitpoints into
6. Burst, conditions and bunker builds are all underperforming compared to other professions

That’s all, for now. At least, warriors are good in PvE.

Phantasm Mes and BM ranger are kind of weird… Being no skill and OP 1v1 (unless completely inept) but being useless in team fights IMO kind of hurts the skill part of a “skill based” game even if I understand why they exist within this game type of 5v5 territories.

And necro and warrior clearly needing some love.

But other than those factors. Ele, mes, gaurdian, thief, engie feel pretty good. Engies can ruin your day but atleast you can clearly see where you needed to do better, and for the most part it doesn’t feel like an automatic win or loss vs any of these. Atleast for me. Not running a hearp dearp 1v1 builds.

1) Ranger is too strong right now
2) Now toggles for 5 seconds to a second skill, Larcenous Strike, if the attack hits an enemy. => It doesnt work… it’s like the first attack always hit.
3) Maybe 2 initiative will be good for larcenous strike.
4) The limit range of Shadow Return (1200) does not work.. It’s ridiculous, the thief can travel all the map with shadow return.
5) The game need more build diversity.

TheGuy.3568:

balance is nonexistent. So far what I have read is testimonials that each class has one or 2 OP builds except warrior thus things are balanced. Just because engineer has HGH doesn’t mean the class is balanced. Just because thief has DP does not mean the class is balanced. Just because ranger has BM bunker does not mean it is balanced. In the vast number of builds only a few get to shine.

One OP build per class does not equal balance. Give it another 5 months and maybe we might have something remotely close.

Pretty much this, except for the timeframe part. When I remember what changed during the last 5 months, and how team compositions changed…

Balance means that every class can take a spot in a 5v5 team. There shouldn’t be one class which is needed for high level play. Currently there are such classes/builds. Most spots in an organized team are basically used by either guardians, eles or mesmers.
If balance should look like that there are needed spots to be filled by specific classes with specific builds, then these class/build should be chosen on matchstart. Like a small selection screen, where you choose to be bunker guardian etc.
You then fill that particular teamslot with that players, and others cannot choose the bunker guardian.

A second way the concept of fairness comes into play is the notion of gameplay balance. This is the sense that your circumstances or your chosen means of playing the game are roughly equivalent to everyone else’s, in terms of giving you a fair shot at winning. Going back to chess, it’s generally accepted that white has a slight edge for having the first move, but only at advanced levels of play does that fact even become relevant. In most board games the first player does have a miniscule edge that evens out over the course of the game, but players aren’t typically placed in radically asymmetric or dissimilar positions. There’s really no reason to squabble over who gets the top hat or the dog in Monopoly. Not so in video games.

In many first-person shooters, your choice of team determines your weapons. In a real-time strategy game, it is your set of units and abilities that may depend on your faction. Fighting (“beat ’em up”) games lend themselves well to having numerous characters with different movesets. Diverse modes of gameplay are all well and good until you sense that your mode, which you picked just for the fun of it, is appallingly weak in comparison to what someone else chose. Regardless of how well you play, you’ll always be at a disadvantage. The game is unbalanced. Someone else already worked out what the most effective tactic is, and all the other options are just glitz and glitter to draw in the suckers. Without looking back, you discard your ill-deserved emotional attachment to your initial pick and go where the action is. Before too long, the winning strategy begins to spread virally, and everyone playing the game ends up using the same characters and options all the time, or gets decried as a newbie and soundly beaten. And the vast majority of the game’s content goes unused.

This scenario is neither ideal nor rare; even a polished gem of the gaming world like Starcraft, which did a remarkable job of balancing its factions, didn’t manage to get it right on the first try. It took years of patches and player feedback to tweak the rules to the point where everyone felt they had a fair chance with any of the widely varying options. And that’s where the notion of fairness comes in—not feeling like the option you initially picked and tried to master was just a dead end, and feeling secure that everything in the game is worth trying out and isn’t just a trap to sucker newbies.

http://www.strangehorizons.com/2009/20090309/newheiser-a.kittenml

Imo the balance is not as terrible as it used to be. Not perfect but also not awful.

There are 2 things I don’t like though:

• No build diversity. There are 1 or 2 builds per profession – warrior. That’s not a lot to balance and most likely the reason why Anet finally kind of made PvP balanced.

• Balancing = nerf. So far I haven’t really seen any buffs/reworks for more balance. That’s why a lot of players are frustrated and stop playing the game. Yes, there have been small buffs but in the end there are way more nerfs.

Anyway, the players who still play the game will most likely stay since PvP finally is a little more fun and the ones who left still have no reason to come back. But that’s just my opinion.

Speaking as an ele, if I don’t want to play the 0/10/0/30/30 or 0/0/20/20/30 bunker, I am less than useless, being only a handicap to my team. I don’t see this changing b/c the only survival method is to heal-heal-heal. Some people will say this is balance, but I think you have balance when you have a class like mesmer that can build and trait in quite a few ways and still bring something to the table. Some classes are going to get more freedom b/c of their built-in class mechanisms than others. I am not sure there is a fix to it, unless the devs are willing to bend on how innate and necessary class mechanics and current builds are.

Game is pretty balanced around top builds, but this is NOT balance.

This is very bad game design, in a game were it should be pretty easy to balance ( few skills, trait tiers, fixed amulets etc etc).

Balance in GW2 is a total failure if you see it from this perspective: a game that was DESIGNED to have good build diversity from its core thanks to strong restrictions ( aforementioned trait tiers, few skills etc ) fails in delivering said build diversity.

a good example is the thief: it has a good build ( that has become quite underperforming due to nerfs when compared to other classes) in D/P burst + shadow refuge-shadowstep-sin signet while EVERYTHING ELSE ( traits, other U-skills, weapons) are utterly trash.

I would never call this crap “balance”.

Mrbig.8019:

Game is pretty balanced around top builds, but this is NOT balance.

This is very bad game design, in a game were it should be pretty easy to balance ( few skills, trait tiers, fixed amulets etc etc).

Balance in GW2 is a total failure if you see it from this perspective: a game that was DESIGNED to have good build diversity from its core thanks to strong restrictions ( aforementioned trait tiers, few skills etc ) fails in delivering said build diversity.

a good example is the thief: it has a good build ( that has become quite underperforming due to nerfs when compared to other classes) in D/P burst + shadow refuge-shadowstep-sin signet while EVERYTHING ELSE ( traits, other U-skills, weapons) are utterly trash.

I would never call this crap “balance”.

^+1

weapons are incredibly easy to balance because – again – they are fixed, yet most are just completely subpar.

Balance is good imo, now we just need more build diversity without breaking the balance.

Mrbig.8019:

Game is pretty balanced around top builds, but this is NOT balance.

This is very bad game design, in a game were it should be pretty easy to balance ( few skills, trait tiers, fixed amulets etc etc).

Balance in GW2 is a total failure if you see it from this perspective: a game that was DESIGNED to have good build diversity from its core thanks to strong restrictions ( aforementioned trait tiers, few skills etc ) fails in delivering said build diversity.

a good example is the thief: it has a good build ( that has become quite underperforming due to nerfs when compared to other classes) in D/P burst + shadow refuge-shadowstep-sin signet while EVERYTHING ELSE ( traits, other U-skills, weapons) are utterly trash.

I would never call this crap “balance”.

Pretty much this.

Warrior is still outclassed. When I play my Mesmer I feel like I have god mode cheat activated, when I play on my warrior I feel like I have a huge handicap.

balance maybe build diversity is sooo low it makes me cry..
Mesmers win soac!! Nerf plss :P

What Mrbig.8019 said. +1

I only thought about that back in beta.

“Wait. Why am I not able to change my skills like in GW? Oh right. This makes it easier to balance but in the end we will have a lot of good builds!”

They made balancing pretty easy for them but in the end they still failed. Currently the best builds are kind of balanced but all the other builds are close to useless in comparison.

This is just sad.

Blackhat.4016:

What Mrbig.8019 said. +1

I only thought about that back in beta.

“Wait. Why am I not able to change my skills like in GW? Oh right. This makes it easier to balance but in the end we will have a lot of good builds!”

They made balancing pretty easy for them but in the end they still failed. Currently the best builds are kind of balanced but all the other builds are close to useless in comparison.

This is just sad.

Is this because of balance or because of the meta which determines the viability of builds?

yeah? what exactly have they done to rangers (just one class for example) that significantly improved our builds/weapons? In 8 months nothing happened. Since game was released a trapper and BM was good (better when SB was an UZI), almost 9 months later they’re the only options available… awesome balance.

Shay.7534:

While overall good, there are a few glaring issues currently:
1) Warriors having no place in teams currently
2) Necros being the underdog of HGH engineers
3) BM rangers pets

And of course the already stated problem of no diversity.

Inter-class balance has always been mostly fine, it’s intra-class balance that’s really bad.

That said, the recent sledgehammer nerfs to Ele have made it a lot less fun to play in other areas of the game.

Mesmers spiking like thieves, while eles are an unknown… I think their base HP should be swapped and you have a pretty good balance.

Eurantien.4632:

Blackhat.4016:

What Mrbig.8019 said. +1

I only thought about that back in beta.

“Wait. Why am I not able to change my skills like in GW? Oh right. This makes it easier to balance but in the end we will have a lot of good builds!”

They made balancing pretty easy for them but in the end they still failed. Currently the best builds are kind of balanced but all the other builds are close to useless in comparison.

This is just sad.

Is this because of balance or because of the meta which determines the viability of builds?

I would say it’s a combination of both.

Bad balancing within a profession leads to the lack of build diversity. The few good builds combined are the meta we are currently in. The meta defines which builds are viable now and once the meta changes (mainly because of nerfs/buffs to certain builds) which builds are viable then.

Good balancing would allow more builds to be viable which would lead to a better meta.

sorrow.2364:

Necro are still in a very sad position:
(…)
6. Burst, conditions and bunker builds are all underperforming compared to other professions

Agreed, balance is improving, but Necro needs some love next patch (new condition)!

I hope after all the tweaking, they will not break the meta by buffing underused skills for the sake of build diversity: S/D thief is a gimmick no one likes.

Eurantien.4632:

Blackhat.4016:

What Mrbig.8019 said. +1

I only thought about that back in beta.

“Wait. Why am I not able to change my skills like in GW? Oh right. This makes it easier to balance but in the end we will have a lot of good builds!”

They made balancing pretty easy for them but in the end they still failed. Currently the best builds are kind of balanced but all the other builds are close to useless in comparison.

This is just sad.

Is this because of balance or because of the meta which determines the viability of builds?

If you take a look at ele fire traitline, you can easily find the answer.

There’s so little sinergy between some traitlines and weaponsets ( usually these are the most unused ones), or sometimes they’re not even that bad but the trade off for giving up other, better designed, weapon sets is so big, there’s really no reason to pick them up.

Again, the thief ( one of the worse designed classes out there) is a good example.

Currently S/D is not THAT bad for competitive play, but lacks team utility, has even less sustained damage than D/P and far less burst, simply for bringing moar teleports and a boon stealing ( something you don’t need when you can coordinate spikes and kill a target in less than a sec, somethign extremely doable with a burst thief).

The trade off is poor.

Another example are traitlines: shadow arts rely on heavy stelath uptime, something totally uselessin a conquest type game; yet they focused all these traits AROUND THE THIEF instead of making it a huge “boons and buffs” traitline like ele is capable of with water and air. Moreover, this traitline has no sinergy with other traitlines, unlike Critical Strike and Deadly Arts.

The only half decent support build for that tree is venom share, a niche build with “odd” sinergies ( scaling with healing and power, pushing you toward valk or cleric amulet in order to maximize it, but leaving you with 10 k health since you need to spend 30 in DA and 30 in SA in order to make that build somehow effective; so you’re forced to pick soldier/berserk, losing the heal from venoms which, anyway, scales extremely poorly) which can be easily replaced by combining an engi+ ele with more efficacy.

Another example is regarding u-skills: WHY WOULD I EVER CHOOSE THESE TERRIBAD TRAPS ?

No persistent AoE.
NO AOE IN GENERAL ( lol traps for a single target)
No traits in order to improve them
Extremely poor trade off when compared with other utilities ( stunbreak is needed, Shadow refuge is too stronk since it allows for team stealth ambushes).
Clunkyness in some cases ( Shadow trap could be good if you could simply use it like mesmer portal: LOLWUT, enemy needs to step in it, screw its efficacy. Sometimes a single, too high, stone can block the teleport, with the skill actually doing nothin).

Why would i ever choose ROLL FOR INITIATIVE when Shadowstep gives me a double stunbreak+ juke possibility+ 3 condi removal ?!?!?!? IT DOESN’T MAKE ANY SENSE.

aNet needs to think about 2 solutions:

1) nerf to the ground OP stuff ( related to other stuff classes can offer) , stuff like cantrips, shadow refuge, shadowstep and similar

2) buff GREATLY underused stuff ( like they did with ranger signets, still with no real impact but it was a good step in the right direction).

And they should start doing it NOW that inter-class balance is in a good state, because we have been playing the same, OLD stuff for months with the only change being that currently it’s BALANCED while before it was IMBA ( super cheese like the double ranger-double ele meta with broken empathetic bond).

Balance is good.

Unless you play a warrior…

I saw more build diversity in gw1.
It was not restricted by this weapon system.
They said the weapon system would be easier to balance.
They’re doing poorly with it is how I feel.
If you don’t view weapons as important than balance is great.
If you do then it’s very poor.
I spend little time in-game now atm feeling very bored. This would be different if diversity wasn’t one of the main selling pts of the game as a MMO. If it was a different genre would certainly give a lot less of a dam but as it is, it is very disappointing.

Totally agree, we could use more build diversity, but from a caster standpoint everything is essentially perfect now with the exception of Warriors.

Top builds are better balanced now, but there is too a massive aoe damage on point that is not good for the game.

Engi hgh are the first in top list in this sense.

hahahaha balance is good? Unblockable Larcenous Strike??? Bye bye long duration boons!!! Balance is great!

Prefect balance, Warrior says.

From the title I assume you can also taste and smell in color.

As a relatively new player, this is my impression:

Overall I agree, the game is very well balanced currently. There is no class which I have an abnormal fear of, nor have I ever thought “oh, they have two blanks that’s an easy win.” People can complain all they want about builds not all being perfectly on par, however any logical build is most definitely viable from what I’ve seen. As a Memser (suddenly half of you hate my opinion, but I’m trying to be objective here) I know I have at least three great build options: shatter build, phantasm build, and condition build and all of these can be varied within themselves.

If the game’s balance was unchanged from here I would be completely content playing any class in PvP, and that is quite a feat. for an MMO which is also balancing for PvE. When the community complains too much such as some of you are doing is when developers frequently over-adjust and make for crappy balance. Yes, some minor tweaks would certainly help, as could the adjustment of some specific traits and weapon skills, however overall balance is more than satisfactory and I hope the devs take it slow from here.

I think now would be an excellent time for some adjustments within the PvP system itself. I also think those of you incredibly unhappy with the system need to just play the game how you want to and take some time away from the politics. It’s easy to be upset that you consistently lose to a certain class, but it’s more fun to find a way you can often beat them, and this game offers enough specifications that you will be able to find a way to beat at least a certain build of said class a majority of the time. Reading forums flooded with people complaining (as they always are, especially the pvp sections) will only amplify your irritability.

I agree with the OP. I think it is the most balanced the game has ever been. All classes are viable, even necro’s and warriors (just look at hman, he is amazing at warrior. Watch the VoD) I am glad and HOPE that anet doesn’t nerf or buff anything to much just yet. Like they said they put a lot of thought into the balance and we need more high level competitive play before we can make thoughtful conclusions.

And to people saying that only some classes have 1 good spec. In every MMO there will just be a build that kittens on every other build. There will always be that build where it is optimized more then any other builds out there, it’s just how it is. You can’t expect to throw ANY build together and hope that it will do well against other top tier builds, that just won’t happen and it never will happen. There are tons of viable builds for every class, even if it’s not the “best” it still is viable if you can make it work in your team.

More importantly anet should definitely not worry about balance right now and instead worry about where there game is heading. There is HARDLY any competitive players left and almost no sense of community. It is pretty sad. I love this game but the support is just not there. Hire more employers Anet!

hmmm I wonder why there are hardly any competitive players left and no sense of community? #balanceisgreat